The Fest So Far

New York seems so far away at the moment, especially because my trip down here was not the straightforward affair it might have been. Knowing I was going to miss my old friends Pansy Division and the Avengers, who will be playing at New York's Knitting Factory on Saturday night, I made a side trip to Baltimore to catch them on Wednesday.

Baltimore looked better than I remembered it, perhaps helped by the fact that Matt from Dead Mechanical and the Sick, Sick Birds took me in hand and guided me to not one but two fine dining establishments, the first where we had an excellent Afghani meal. My review, apart from the very good food: "This place has tablecloths. I usually can't afford to eat at New York restaurants that have tablecloths."

We then had a second dinner with members of the bands (actually, just dessert for us) at the charmingly bizarre Zodiac Cafe and Bar, very close to the Lo-Fi Social Club, where the gig actually took place. It was a long and leisurely meal, full of scandalous sex and tour stories (I had none of my own to offer, but it was fun to listen) before we had to dash through the now-pouring rain for the show itself.

Which was good, but I'm in a hurry to finish this Fest post so I can get back to the Fest, so let's just cut to the following morning, when I caught a train to Washington DC's very impressive Union Station (never been there before; it puts New York's Penn Station to shame), where I had a few minutes to step outside and marvel at a few fancy buildings before hopping on the similarly impressive Washington Metro, which is just like San Francisco's BART (same builders, I believe) except that it's cheap and it works. Anybody connected with BART should be ashamed (if those vampires of public transit were capable of such an emotion) to see how much better Washington has done with its system. It took me to National Airport in 23 minutes for (I think) $1.45 (compared with 65 minutes, three separate trains, and almost $6 to get to SFO), and I got a plane to Tampa.

Tampa was the home of the much ballyhooed pre-Fest show, which turned out to be about a thousand drunken beardos, some of whom were actually quite nice, and about a hundred regular people milling around inside and outside a skate park on the edge of, if not right in the middle of one of Tampa's, shall we say, less affluent neighborhoods. All the bands sounded like Crimpshrine with beards, which could be either a good thing or a bad thing, depending, but I couldn't stick around too late (apparently the show went on till 4 am), so I left around 11 and drove to Gainesville, rested up, and on Friday afternoon met up with PPMB luminaries Chris Grivet, Chadd Derkins, Carla Monoxide and Chelsea Short Attention for an alligator hunt which proved fruitless, though we did turn up a whole slew of giant snapping turtles.

After that I explored a bit of Gainesville before the shows actually started, featuring yet more bearded Crimpshrines, but also the poppier sound of the Methadones and the now almost legendary SoCal veterans Toys That Kill. We stopped in for about 45 seconds of Naked Raygun before Grivet proclaimed, "Okay, it's history and I've seen it, let's go." I will say that the NR singer looked as though he hadn't aged a bit since I last saw them sometime in the 80s. That was impressive. The music, not so much.

Apart from that, most of the time was spent hanging out on the sidewalks of University Avenue, watching the freak and beard parade stroll and stumble by. Oh, and at the very first show of the night I found myself standing behind my onetime business partner and co-founder of Lookout Records, David Hayes, whom I hadn't seen or spoken to (apart from a couple email/internet exchanges) in at least 10 years, probably more. He was sporting - what else? - a beard, and seemed rather startled to see me at the Fest, as well he might be, since up until a year or so ago, I would have been startled to see myself here as well. Unfortunately he left before anyone turned up with a camera, but maybe today or tomorrow.

Okay, I'm off to see the Max Levine Ensemble, Delay, Vagina Sore, Jr., the Ringers, possibly Avail and American Steel, and about 10,000 other bands. Next time you hear from me it will probably be my birthday, which starts at midnight tonight and, thanks to the end of Daylight Savings Time, carries on for 25 rather than the usual 24 hours. Wish me well or not as the case may be; the fact remains that I'm at the Fest and you're not! Well, except for you sad Festgoers reading this on your Blackberries, of course...

The Last Night Of The Fest

I just sat down for the first time in what seems like about 16 hours. Upon more careful reflection I realize I'm probably engaging in hyperbole: I recall briefly parking myself in a chair in the upstairs bar somewhere around 7 pm, and of course I had to sit down to drive the car back here to the hotel, but apart from that I've been not just on my feet, but pretty constantly in motion for over 14 hours now.

I remember at one point someone asking what time it was and how many more bands still had to play, and realizing that even though we'd already put in a pretty full day of rocking and rolling, that it was only 5 o'clock and there were still eight (in the end it turned out to be nine) more hours to go. "If this were a job," I said, "We'd already be collecting overtime." It wasn't a job of course, though right now I'm feeling like I just put in a double shift at the steel mill; what it was - and no hyperbole here either - was one of the best days of my life.

A bit over the top, you ask? I don't blame you; it sounds that way to me, too, and when the phrase first popped into my head around the time the Mr. T Experience tore into "I Fell For You," I thought I'd better check with a few other festgoers before dropping it on the public. But the first five people I asked instantly agreed that it was one of the best days of their lives as well, and Jackie O. unhesitatingly pronounced it THE best day of hers.

I pooh-poohed that notion at first on the ground that her life hadn't been much more than a third as long as mine, but then accepted that both of our opinions were quite valid. Still, I hadn't fallen in love or won the lottery, or even done much at all apart from watch bands, dance, and run around talking to a couple hundred people. So what made it so special then?

The only answer I can come up with is: everything. Every single blessed thing, even the minor and major annoyances like getting clumped in the head by the flailing feet of a couple stagedivers or the power going out last night and shutting down Friday's fest session about four hours early. The latter was a disaster that would have sent lesser men (like, say, yours truly) running for cover, but faced with the likes of Chris Thacker, Pat Termite and Mark Enoch, the disaster quickly turned into no more than in a minor hiccup. The power was back up and running this morning, and with a few quick adjustments to the schedule, it was possible for nearly every band to play, and because set times were shortened (in most cases) to half an hour (strictly enforced by Mr. Termite, one of the best stage managers in the business), the bands wound up turning in tighter shows and better thought out sets than we would have dared hope for if they'd had 45 minutes or an hour to screw around in.

One exception to the half hour rule was Ben Weasel. The organizers wanted him to play for an hour, at least twice as long as most Weasel extravaganzas I'd ever seen, and in this case they turned out to be correct. Backed by New Hampshire's Guts and opening with a trio of songs from My Brain Hurts, Ben then proceeded to whip through a selection of Riverdales, Ramones, and Ben Weasel tunes, topped with a Queers cover ("Love Love Love." Ben then came back as guest vocalist with the Steinways, who've been known to insert the odd Weasel cover into their set list. The look on Chris Grivet's face as he played drums behind the man who'd been a punk rock god to him for 13 or 14 years was priceless.

"Grivet, back when you were a kid listening to Screeching Weasel, did you ever think..."

"No! Not in a million years."

"...that you'd be sitting there staring at Ben Weasel's ass while you and he played some of the favorite songs of your life?"

But the day was full of priceless moments like that. In fact, I'm tempted to say that's all the day was: an unbroken string of priceless moments that people will still be talking about 20 years from now, the same way they still talk about Gilman Street in 1987, or the first time they saw Operation Ivy or Screeching Weasel or Green Day.

I know, I said something like that about last year's fest, and I don't take any of it back. The thing is, this year's fest was just like last year's except for being bigger, better and even more amazing. I couldn't even begin to list all the highlights, musical or otherwise, especially not tonight when I'm desperate to get a few hours sleep before an early morning wakeup call for the trip back to New York, but let me just mention the Ergs, who were about as sensational as I've ever seen them, the Methadones, with Dan Vapid singing sans guitar for the first time I've ever noticed and topping off their set with a blistering version of "What We Hate," which, sadly, Ben didn't get round to doing, and the Copyrights, one of last year's sensations who have clearly upped the ante since then.

Also upping the ante were the Parasites and the Beatnik Termites, who to be honest haven't always impressed me in the past, but who each turned in the set of their lives tonight. It was as though bands were feeding off the incredible energy of the crowd and sending it winging right back at them. That, coupled with the excellent sound system and an audience fully prepared to sing along with every line, meant that were to be no bad performances, at least not that i saw. The Guts were sensational, both backing Ben Weasel and maybe even more so on their own (not to mention when Wimpy joined them for a mini-set of classic Queers songs). Hell, I don't know anyone who wasn't sensational, to the point where I was worried whether enough of the crowd would still be on its feet by the time the Mr. T Experience took the stage in the very nearly wee hours to wrap up the fest.

I needn't have concerned myself. Despite having spent much of the earlier evening propping up the front bar and possibly attempting to drink it dry, Dr. Frank demonstrated once again why show business is his life, treating a frenzied audience to exactly what I hoped he would: a delicately balanced admixture of mid-90s pop-punk classics and more contemporary stuff that should be classic, even if it isn't yet. He even threw in MTX's big "hit" from the 1980s, "Danny Partridge Got Busted," which pleased the purists and completists no end, but seemed to leave the younger end of the audience looking a bit bewildered. Roach and Scampi from the recently defunct Groovie Ghoulies, jumped on stage to do a number with Frank and the boys, and when I saw him heading in that direction, I figured B-Face, himself a former Ghoulie, was going to get in on the action, too.

Sadly he didn't. I guess you can't have everything after all, though the one wish I wasn't granted was for MTX to finish up their set with "Dumb Little Band," the song that probably sums up as succinctly as it can be summed up the whole pop-punk experience of the past 10 or 20 years. But such was not to be the case, so... maybe next year.

And there will be a next year, probably twice as big again as this year's model, and they're also talking about taking the show on the road. Just in case there was any doubt about it, today's/this weekend's events proved pretty definitively that this pop-punk thing isn't going away any time soon.

But I am: geez, I really have to get some sleep. Don't worry, much more fest coverage is sure to come to your way soon, and if you have a spare week or two to read it all, hop on over to the PPMB for what's likely to be some of the most exhaustive and exhausting discussion ever. Just don't mention the donuts.

Monday Night At The Cake Shop

I'd heard about the Cake Shop before, quite a few times in fact, but I'd never gotten a firm grasp on exactly what it was or did. And now, having finally been there, I must admit that I still don't know; being so late for last night's show, I rushed through so quickly on my way to the downstairs venue that I failed to take proper notice of what was going on around me.

On my way out, I did observe that they had some actual cakes - cupcakes, anyway - for sale. Hallie Unlovable even bought one and transported it back to Brooklyn, and I must admit to looking a bit longingly at it as it lurked atop her suitcase of unsold merch. But what else? Apparently the Cake Shop is also a bar, and if its website is to be believed, a record shop. The upstairs is nicely lit, comfortable, and remarkably quiet considering the punk rock mayhem taking place one floor beneath. People seemed to be just sort of lounging about as it it were an extension of their living room, which is a nice quality in a city where most people can't afford living rooms of their own.

Downstairs nearly the entire PPMB crew was there to witness appearances by Defect Defect, For Science, hometown heroes the Unlovables, and touring bands the Copyrights and the Methadones. I missed the first two (people were raving about Defect Defect, but to be fair, they're always raving about something), and got there just in time for the Unlovables (or the Steinlovables, or Unloveaways, as Carla Monoxide put it, since they consisted of two Unlovables and two Steinways, Chris Grivet on drums and Grath McGrath on guitar). It was a good combination in any event, as the band has seldom sounded tighter.

The Copyrights, one of America's most exciting (relatively) new pop-punk bands, didn't disappoint, though if one wished to quibble, they could have done a few more songs from their classic Mutiny Pop album rather than concentrate on mostly new material. And the Methadones, fronted by the legendary Dan Vapid, were hampered by a sound mix that seemed to emphasize the bass guitar (which was outstandingly played, true, but still...) over the guitars and vocals. Great band nonetheless. Another odd thing: I'm so used to hearing the Methadones on my iPod "at the gym" mix that through most of their set I felt as though I should be lifting weights or rocking the cross trainers.

Apparently whoever's in charge of the Cake Shop had been reluctant to host this show or any like it because he's "not into pop-punk," but hopefully last night's crowd will change his mind, because it really was a sweet bunch of people, not an iota of trouble, and barely a smidgen of drunkenness even. Of course for an establishment that makes its money selling booze, an absence of drunkenness might not be the most favorable augury, but this bunch were putting the beer away at the sort of measured pace you might expect on a Monday night. There was no sign of the falling about antics that characterized the Friday night show, which made things all the more enjoyable for me. Plus you could talk to each other in between sets, unlike the Lit Lounge, where they seem to think everybody wants to have their brains rattled out of their sockets nonstop for five hours.

Near-universal verdict: the Cake Shop is a bit of all right, and would be an excellent venue to host future shows. All credit and honor to Frank Unlovable for setting this deal up and making it run smooth as silk all through the evening. Five bands, and we were still out the door in plenty of time for the working people to get home and get a decent night's sleep. Even the L train cooperated; we "only" had to wait about 15 minutes for a train, and though it was packed pretty tight, we still had a reasonably pleasant ride back to Brooklyn, we being myself, Hallie, her friend Samantha, and the aforementioned cupcake.