Friday, September 17th, 201o
Here's how it went down,
Inadvertently found myself having a day very much the golden last days of Boston. Beautiful sunny afternoon, nothing to do but walk all over the city and enjoy it, listen to headphones, think about things, think about how far, far, far from the event of the night I felt. How opposite and impossible the two things seemed to be. The impossibility of coexistence. I walked all over the place for about 5 hours, until the sun was setting and I could feel that familiar conversion theory coming on, the switchover, the change.
I decided that in honor of the occasion I would go full-out and dress up. It felt like coming home to Porter. I showered, put on the pre-pre game mix (lots of Xiu Xiu and AFI...) and got dressed, just like old times. It was nice to be dressed up, I do so little dressing up these days. It felt like being myself again in a way. Not that I don't always feel like myself, but what I'm saying is, it felt familiar and right. It felt like getting into a comfort zone. It was the classic Bri-Bri, the black button down and the black tie and the pink scarf. I calmly drank a beer, collected my material and walked out the door and into the night.
I planned on walking to Noni's to complete the old "Boston" cycle, as I would have been walking from Porter to Allston, though once I started I was more than ready to get a cab (which I failed to do). It tends to be much, much hotter in Atlanta than Boston, and wearing tight jeans and a long sleeve shirt and briskly walking really sort of compounds that heat. But, the night was beautiful and mysterious and it was worth it, regardless.
I walked into Noni's right at 10, it had been implied to me that I would be "going on" at 11. However, moments after I walked in whoever's iPod that was on ended and Tyler told me I might as well go ahead and go.
And off we went, this time without the sound system troubles of the last outing, "Sweet and Tender Hooligan" roaring ahead like a thunderstorm of ennui and dance frenzy
The long and the short of the rest is many, many beautiful friends and friends of friends showed up throughout the night and it was really exciting to see them all. I failed to make it to a couple of requests (sorry Jenn and Brent) but I promise to get to them next time.
The place ended up, uh, jumpin', jumpin' for lack of a better description, it filled up and the energy level filled up and I felt like I was firing on all cylinders finally. I will cautiously admit that I think what I played was going over well. There were lots of little moments of personal triumph with different individuals and their excitement for particular selections. A few of my favorite phrases of the night were "EPIC...", "you were killing it..." and at one point the owner of the bar informed me that I was "nailing it" so, yeah, I felt happy that I was doing an OK job.
Alas, as is sometimes the case, the night ended with me (and some others) being frighteningly drunk. The kind of drunk I swore to myself and others that I would never be again. It was accidental, for sure, but it still scared the living shit out of me the next day. I would like to take this post as an opportunity to re-avow to never, ever, ever, ever, go to that place again. I hate it and so does everyone else that cares about me. I will be forever more vigilant.
But anyway, enough of the bad part of the night, what were the organs in this body?
If memory serves:
Sweet And Tender Hooligan-The Smiths
Boys Don’t Cry-The Cure
Goin Underground-The Jam
Me And Mia-Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
Spanish Bombs-The Clash
Wave Of Mutilation-Pixies
Damaged Goods-Gang Of Four
How The Stars Got Crossed-Radio 4
Call Me-Blondie
The Passenger-Iggy Pop
Hong Kong Garden-Siouxsie & The Banshees
My Sharona-The Knack
Talkin In Your Sleep-The Romantics
Take On Me-Aha
Handsome Devil-The Smiths
Generals And Majors-XTC
Little Girls-Oingo Boingo
The Magnificent Seven-The Clash
Mirror In The Bathroom-The English Beat
In The City-The Jam
Los Angeles-X
Hybrid Moments-The Misfits
Merchandise-Fugazi
Bad Scene, Everyone’s Fault-Jawbreaker
Shoulder To The Wheel-Saves The Day
Dancing With Myself-Billy Idol
Ca Plane Pour Moi-Plastic Bertrand
Suffragette City-David Bowie
Children Of The Revolution-T. Rex
A Heat Rash In The Shape Of The Show Me State…-Los Campesinos
10,000 Nights Of Thunder-Alphabeat
Like A Prayer (Album Version)-Madonna
Bizarre Love Triangle-New Order
Breakin’ Up-Rilo Kiley
Gimme Sympathy-Metric
Tightrope-Janelle Monae
ATLiens-Outkast
Heartbeats-The Knife
Life Magazine-Cold Cave
Bad Spell-Judi Chicago
“Well Obviously” (Sample, Antoine Dodson)
“Oh Really” (Sample, Me/Jumah)
Pop-NSYNC
Toxic-Britney Spears
Spiderwebs-No Doubt
Feeling This-Blink 182
Semi-Charmed Life-Third Eye Blind
Everything To Everyone-Everclear
The Good Life-Weezer
Peaches-Presidents Of The United States
Motownphilly-Boyz II Men
Poison-bell Biv Devoe
Senorita-Justin Timberlake
Tipsy-J Kwon
“Just Blaze” (Sample, Cam’ron)
Shutterbugg-Big Boi
Ask-The Smiths
Just Like Heaven-The Cure
Hella Good-No Doubt
Agenda Suicide-The Faint
Good Life-Kanye West
Helicopter-Bloc Party
Morning Glory-Oasis
Girls & Boys-Blur
Rosa Parks-Outkast
Spottieottiedopaliscious-Outkast
Deceptacon- Le Tigre
Sippin’ 40z-Gravy Train
Disco 2000-Pulp
Treats-Sleigh Bells
Slow Hands (Britt Daniel Remix)-Interpol
I've been going through a big Blink-182 and No Doubt thing these last few weeks and both ended up in my "MUST PLAY" list for the night. As usual "guilty pleasures" suite is among my favorites and, I feel, always one of the biggest hits of the night with the crowd, though I may be completely delusional about that.
I have since been granted another night (Oct. 22) and the assurance, by a Noni's employee, that I am in "the rotation" for Fridays. Apparently Matt, the owner, remarked on several occasions that I "brought in a crowd", so I am sort of taking all this as the go ahead to sort of start moving into making this into what I want it to be, thinking of it as and acting as if this is "my" "night". To that end, this time out I am gonna be making fliers and trying to do a little more advertising and promoting and officially calling it by the name I want it to have (GUSH) and pretty much claiming that it's my night, which occurs on occasional Fridays, but with no real set schedule, maybe a little like RESCUE or THUNDERDOME, for all you Bostonian/Allstonians. I have my fingers crossed that the success will be compounding and each time this will get bigger and better. I have no reason to expect such a thing, I mean, hey, anyone can stumble onto a Friday that just happens to be busier for no real reason and take credit for it. The real test will be this next time I guess and if I can manage to pump up the volume. Everyone is allowed to/requested to pray for me. Thank you, God bless. Amen, etc...
...
On an unrelated note, as I seem to be saying in every post on here anymore, sorry to those few of you that actually come here and follow and see that I am really slacking on the updates here, and on THE WRAITH and on the Soundcloud page. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I have been having so much trouble concentrating and there is so much involved-ness and lengthy-ness to the updating that needs to happen next on all these pages. It's coming, I promise. Thanks for the patience. It's my own fault for building such complex worlds of idiotic minutiae.
I love you all.
it is 3:59am
this is the seance.
xx
.
