How I Spent My Summer
Vacation
It seems like
just yesterday I was packing up my sweaters
and waxing my bikini line and now, seemingly
in the space of one day, it's Fall. Time
flies when you don't know what's going on.
The Summer months passed too quickly while I
interviewed rock stars, travelled the West
coast and had lots of sex.
And while we
were made to suffer the tortures of the
damned during a 23 day Mercury Retrograde in
August (i.e. dog and cats laying together),
it's not quite time to lay down and die just
yet.
No sooner was
I echoing the sentiments of Winona Ryder in Dracula - "Take me away
from all this Death" - then up rode the
CMJ music marathon on a white horse to take
me away from my own personal Hell. The CMJ
agenda provided me with many reasons for
living. The week started off in high style
with a Pre-CMJ party given by and for, well,
CMJ music magazine. Tagged the "Size
Matters" Party, hipsters from around the
country gathered at the trendy Spy Bar in
Soho to celebrate CMJ's new, larger format,
eat, drink and be drunk.
Though cover
boy, Trent Reznor, was rumored to have RSPV'd
in the affirmative, he was nowhere in sight
when I split at the 10ish hour. I heard some
of Marilyn Manson's boys showed up later, but
who gives a shit.
The next night
I was back at Spy (figuring it will take a
guest list to get a nerd goddess like me in
that place) for Interview magazine's bash in
honor of the release of We will Fall: a
Tribute to Iggy Pop. Nada Surf (with a guest
appearance by Joey Ramone) warmed up the
crowd before Joan Jett, resplendent in her
rubber tank top and Billy Idol 'do, set that
club on fire. Joan performed all of her very
greatest hits including "I Hate Myself
for Loving You," "Crimson &
Clover," "Do you Wanna Touch
Me?," and the Runaway's-era classic,
"Cherry Bomb." No doubt about it,
She is the Queen of Rock & Roll. I would
pay good money to see her kick Alanis
Morrisette's ass.
The party
everyone who is anyone will be talking about
for weeks to come was NG Records and PopSmear
magazine's lower east side freak
extravaganza. Aside from maudlin
"entertainment" by Maggie Estep and
King Missile's John S. Hall, who recited
"poetry" consisting of repetitious
phrases like "Fuck Me"and "Up
my ass" (respectively) there were some
decent acts like the band, Butterflies, and
go-go dancing by "outlaw comic
artist" Mike Diana. Once suspected of
being an ax murderer in his home state of
Florida, Diana, author of the controversial
comic book, Boiled Angel, is currently living
in Brooklyn while he faces charges of
distributing pornography to minors. In
person, not only is he surprisingly shy and
quiet, but is unbelievably great looking
(imagine a cross between Patricia Arquette
and Trent Reznor). After spending some
quality time in his company, I was running
the phrase "Mrs. Mike Diana"
through my mind. The next day, I was normal
again.
The few bands
I managed to squeeze in between parties
served to maintain my faith that pop music is
alive and well or, at the very least,
breathing on its own. I sacrificed some
serious sleep to see Chicago's Verbow open
for current next-big-things, The Dandy
Warhols. Verbow, who stand out from the
alterna-pack if only for their rare addition
of a Cellist (Alison Chesley) have an
amazing, Bob Mould-produced debut,
Chronicles, on Sony/550 records that's way
worth checking out. The Dandy's (mark my
words now, these guys are the next Nirvana as
long as they can manage to not OD) began
their set at the ungodly (for a midweek show)
hour of 2:00 AM. I kept myself from nodding
out until, nearly an hour later, they began a
song that I knew to be over 15 minutes long.
When they're on the cover of both SPIN and
Rolling Stone in a few months (and you know
they will be) I'll be able to say I saw them
at The Knitting Factory with a girlfriend who
once put the entire band up at her house in
San Francisco for five days. It's these
personal memories that make the rock and roll
experience so special.
Friday night,
forsaking all others, I was on time for a set
by the Scottish band, Geneva, whose record
Further is my current favorite thing.
Geneva's lead singer, Andrew Montgomery
really takes me back to my youth with his
Freddie Mercury-esque vocals, and their song,
"Into The Blue" kinda chokes me up
since it reminds me of a certain beautiful
boy I used to love. Curiously, the headlining
band, Catherine Wheel, who blew me away when
I saw them a couple of years ago on their
Happy Days tour, absolutely blew chunks. I
must say they did not rock at all and I'd
like to add that if you're going to have
naked people in boxes on the stage, get a guy
who isn't balding with a hairy body. Yuck!
Wrapping up
the week, I made it to one panel discussion
on Industrial Music. My pal Michelle
Andersen, a publicist who specializes in the
genre, participated on this panel along with
folks like Chase of Reconstriction Records,
Athan Maroulis of Spahn Ranch and Cleopatra
Records and Genesis P. Orridge (who insisted
on being addressed as "Her
Majesty") a founding member of the
legendary performance-art group, Throbbing
Gristle, who coined the label
"Industrial" music when most of
today's Nine Inch Nails fans were still in
diapers.
Saturday
Afternoon, I bowled for the first time since
age 12 at a party thrown by Paradigm and
Silvertone records. Publicists take heed: if
you take a bunch of journalists bowling and
give them free beer, you can get a lot more
write-ups for your artists. For me, it was a
great opportunity to get drunk and flirt with
cute guys, like James from PopSmear (a Brad
Pitt clone) and JC who does the Chicago-based
zine Stop Smiling. I had fun and even managed
to knock some pins down.
Finally, it's
worth noting that on the last night of CMJ, I
was unable to gain entrance to any shows,
being turned away at the door of The Luna
Lounge, CBGB, Continental and Coney Island
High. New York City was at capacity...but
what a way to go.
Gail's Dating Tips
Lessons I
learned, so you don't have to:
1.
Relationships should be treated like
Pregnancies: It's safest not to talk about
them until you've passed the three month
mark.
2. The adage
that looks aren't everything goes both ways.
Just because a guy is good-looking doesn't
mean he's the sharpest pencil in the box.
Likewise, a guy who's not so easy-on-the-eye
could be surprisingly free of a conscience or
any sense of loyalty. There's just no
substitute for checking out the merchandise
before you decide to make the purchase.
3. Speaking
from the perspective of a spiritual person,
it's important to be careful what you wish
for, because you quite often get just that.
Remember to add phrases like "Not
married," "Sane," or
"Employed" to your Dream Guy Wish
List before you put it out there in the
universe. You'll be glad you did.
