Sue's Views

April 18, 2005

I'm sitting here in short sleeves in front of my computer, looking out the open window. It's a 65 degrees, bright sunshine, blue sky kind of day - spring time. Wasn't it snowing last week? Suddenly it's time to get out the porch furniture, the BBQ, the shorts, the badminton net. Suddenly it's time to start planting the tomatoes & basil. I'm always amazed at how quickly spring seems to just appear. Maybe it's because we refuse to believe wintery weather is really over until you're sweating in your living room wondering where the air conditioner is.

At least the nice weather puts me in a good mood. I can't even get a good rant going today. So Happy Spring. I'm off to put the lounger out on the porch.

April 11, 2005

In my pursuit of writing regularly:

Last week was the first week of the annual Rock 'n' Roll Rumble, presented by one of our commercial rock stations that NEVER plays local music except during a late night Sunday specialty show. Unfortunately, the Rumble usually has very little to do with "rock". I went to 2 nights, to support some friends - first to see Spitzz, and then to see the Turpentine Brothers on Thursday. Thursday I also got to see Beyond the Embrace, a very metal band who had all the hair moves & finger moves down perfectly. I actually enjoyed watching about half of their set. I would've enjoyed it more if they hadn't seemed to take themselves so seriously. They won. I just checked the Rumble semi finals & I am very relieved to see both the Marvels and Muck & the Mires are there. At least there'll be some good rock at the "Rock n Roll" Rumble. They're both playing Saturday at the Middle East. I'll be there.

I didn't make it to the see Muck & the Mires on Friday, or Mono. I opted for the Konks CD release party at the Abbey. It was beyond packed, and hot as hell. I hope the extensive renovations the Abbey folks have been doing include a very powerful air conditioning system.

Yeah, Friday is Tax Day. That always makes everyone really cheerful. Even people who are getting refunds don't seem to be cheerful on Tax Day. I'm not cheerful. As a Freelancer you not only pay any taxes due on April 15th, but you also have to pay quarterly taxes. This is a ridiculous burden. There should be at least a month between those 2 dates. Every year at this point I wonder if people would be more willing to pay taxes if they could designate where their tax money went. I know I would, and I'd be curious to see what people would really choose. It'd be an interesting social survey.

April 4, 2005

It was my New Year's resolution to get back to writing these on a regular basis. OK, so it took me 3+ months to actually do it. I'm nothing if not an expert procrastinator.

I'm going to at least mention what shows I'm planning on seeing in the upcoming week, and any thing I might want to say about shows I went to last week.

I'm even going to go back to commenting on world news & events, but lately, most world news makes me so mad I'm not sure I should even say anything...

This Week's shows:

Monday 4/4. I went to the Rumble at the Middle East to support Spitzz. They were supposed to play at 9:00, which I hoped would get me over to Great Scott early enough to get in to see DMBQ & Lightning Bolt. Unfortunately, the Rumble started late. Spitzz totally rocked the full room, but we didn't get to Allston until 10:20. There was a HUGE line outside, as Great Scott was full to capacity. I was pretty bummed since I really wanted to see DMBQ, who are from Japan. Their CD (Essential Sounds from the Far East) is such a blast of garagey loud noise/rock I was psyched to see them live. It's really frustrating when I want to see an opening or middle act on a bill, and the show is sold out because of the headliner. Especially when it's not even possible to get advance tickets. I also suspect 95% of the people there were there only to see Lightning Bolt, and probably had no idea who DMBQ is. Not that I don't love LB, but I've seen them a bunch of times, and wanted mostly to see DMBQ. Ah well, the best laid plans...

Thursday 4/7 is another screening of Marissa Acosta's LRC documentary, along with a documentary about Unnatural Axe. It's at the Coolidge Corner Theatre at 7:30pm. Check http://www.coolidge.org/balagan for info.

Then it's back to the Rumble to catch the Turpentine Bros. I'll probably stick around for Antler also.

Friday 4/8 is one of those nights where I need clones. First it's Muck & the Mires playing the Rumble. Then it's the Konks CD release party at the Abbey. Finally it's a great show at TT's with Mono & Eluvium. Unfortunately for me, they're all playing at the same time!! Not sure where I'll end up, and how many of the sets I'll manage to see.

Saturday 4/9 is Black Helicopter opening for Sonic Youth down at Lupo's in Providence. I'm not sure I can get there after my show, but I'm certainly going to think about it.

World News?

Well, don't take this the wrong way, but you would think the ONLY thing that has happened in the last 2 days was that the Pope died. Yes it's very important, but last I looked, Catholics were a minority religion in the world. There have been other events in the last 3 days that affect a great many of the worlds' populace, but you wouldn't know it if you watch TV news. It always amazes me how limited the TV news broadcasts are, even the 24 hour channels where you'd think they cover more stories since they have so much time to fill. That's why I read the newspaper, listen to BBC world news, and read a number of online news services & blogs. Staying informed takes a little work, I only wish more people tried.

Links

Band Links - Listed Alphabetically

This is a collection of all the links we've found for bands on Sue's playlists. If you know of a band website that's not on this list (it has to be a band that Sue has played), send us an and we'll put it up.

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