Day 33

Title: Pink Passion

Title: Drunkship of Lanterns

Ally and I have been together for six years as of today. Our anniversary tradition is to paint pottery together. I'm super meticulous and usually take several hours to finish one piece, while Ally is more of a free-form artist (aka doesn't care much about what it looks like as long as it has pretty colors on it) and only takes about thirty minutes. Somehow, I'm still never happy with my product. I'm no artist...

THE MARS VOLTA tonight. The experience summed in one run-on sentence: drumsticks flailed, countless sperm were smothered due to too-tight pants, a bass clarinet was rocked, faces melted, ears were raped, minds were fucked, at least one camera lens was licked by Cedric (the lead singer, pictured), the microphone was hacky sacked, the base of the microphone stand was sung into, some poor redhead was squished, and fingers flew across a fretboard faster than I've ever had the pleasure to see in my life. I once heard Omar Rodríguez-López, the guitarist, described as "the best neo-shredder," (via here) and I agree fully. I can't even tell you how exiting it was to see him beat that guitar to death with a small plastic pick (one of which I caught at the end of the show! I now have one from two of my Top 5 Favorite Bands of All Time - the other being Guster.).

When the show started, about fifteen minutes of rocking out happened before the first real "song" was played. During those fifteen minutes, the seven instrument-wielding band members jammed, and Cedric danced his skinny ass off, ran around in the crowd (with security guards running after him making sure he didn't get into trouble), slid down stair railings backwards, grabbed girl's purses and hung them around his neck and danced around some more, did the aforementioned camera-licking, tore the black curtains off of the front of the stage and wrapped one of the concert photographers in it, and sang his little heart out about five feet from me (see picture). This guy is nuts. He sings in the most controlled falsetto scream I've ever heard...except for maybe Kelly Clarkson. She can really belt that shit. It was the most energetic show I've ever seen. Dustin and I thought that it very well could be attributed to drug-use (it was THAT fucking seizure-like energetic for all 2.5 hours). Apparently he used to be a heavy drug user, and other people chalked his performances up to that just like Dust and I did, but he stopped doing drugs years ago. He was drinking something hot out of a mug in between fits of dance, and I can almost guarantee it was caffeinated.

I also now understand their albums much better. They're a live band, and they try to recreate that in the studio. As the fifteen minute introduction implies, they like to digress and do improvisational jams throughout the show. I would say that during the 2.5 hour show, only ~8 studio songs were played, and they contributed only about 45 minutes to the total time. I always thought their albums were full of filler to make their 30 minutes of music look like a full 77 minute album, but it's not filler. That's just how they make music. They make weird noises and create ambient soundscapes and flow in-and-out of your consciousness before the next song starts up with a jolt.

I'm so glad I went to that show.

I wasn't sure how Dustin and I would fit in with the crowed there, thinking that they would be a bunch of hardcore metalheads mixed with emo-rock-goths, which Dustin and I are neither of (btw, interestingly they had a large mexican-american fanbase. They do have bilingual lyrics, and several latino band members, so it's not altogether surprising, just unexpected). Dustin suggested that we try to mingle with them, mate with their women, and then all our differences will be resolved in a few years. It actually wasn't that weird, but there were a few annoying sweaty hoppers in the crowd shoving me into the poor girl against the railing in front of me. I just wanted to turn around and tell them "Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?"

Tonight prompted me to think about my favorite music. I have created an Unofficial Current Top 5 Albums list just for my own knowledge. In no particular order:

Lost and Gone Forever Guster
Funeral Arcade Fire
Francis the Mute The Mars Volta
In The Aeroplane Over the Sea Neutral Milk Hotel

...and a tossup between

Begin to Hope Regina Spektor
and The Crane Wife The Decemberists

Honorable mention:

Illinoise Sufjan Stevens
Ima Robot Ima Robot
Keep it Together Guster
Hail to the Thief Radiohead (the album no one liked)

I would love to put something by the Smashing Pumpkins on that list, but I've realized that it's their body of work that makes them one of my favorite bands, not any individual album.