Friday, February 11: Damn Broads (and much, much more) @ El n Gee, New London
Saturday, February 12: Valentine's Day Punk Rock Show @ Anna Liffey's, New Haven
We've mentioned our little crushipoo we have on the Damn Broads here before... Well those chicks are bringing the noise in New London and New Haven this weekend. And what do you know? A club called the El n Gee still exists. We spent important parts of our formative years there. Wonder what it's like now! We haven't heard of any of those other bands, but they're punk so, you know.
Saturday's show is a veritable friends-of-the-blog-fest, featuring the aforementioned Broads, the oft-mentioned Bobbie Peru, and the maybe once mentioned, stylish and handsome Main Street Suits (we totally know them - er, one of them!). And The McGunks, who we totally don't know, but they seem like a good time, if you enjoy being yelled at.
Ooh, all this New London posting. Maybe we'll give them their own tag!
Saturday, February 12: M.T. Bearington @ The Oasis Pub, New London
Hey, remember just the other week we met Matt, the guy who puts the M.T. in M.T. Bearington? We found out that not only was he that guy, but he also used to play in a band with the genuises from Kimono Draggin'. So he is probably a genius too. Well, MTB is playing a gig in New London this weekend, a town we promise to personally visit some day. Maybe when it feels like spring.
Sorry, the Oasis is too cool (because it's an oasis) to have a real website. Mystery = Sexy? We can't even deal with linking to MySpace pages anymore.
We don't often make it to CT's southeast corner. Alas the journey all the way down Route 2 is too long and bleak, and we don't even have a handle on the falafel situation down there. But if we lived closer to the area, or got the damn wormholes fixed already, we imagine we'd be getting a lot of our elite cultural needs tended to by Hygienic Art.
This weekend parallel dimension Team Scenic would be kicking things off Friday night with the Hootenanny, which has a "False Hearted Lovers" theme and a gentle warning to "leave the young ones at home," which we are behind 100%. Sounds like if we lived in New London, we'd be taking our extended cups of coffee at the venue, Muddy Waters Cafe.
Saturday night we'd be taking in the massive open invitational art show. Katie Scenic went to one of these things many years ago and was impressed by someone's 3-D neon light phallus art, and by a band that performed with a robot (dude in cardboard box costume) keyboard player. New London has been hip for ages!
Nostalgia junkie that I am, I have a great fondness for the B-52s. My sister and I grew up listening to them constantly, and I still enjoy their fun and quirky music as an adult. They are also super fun to see in concert, which is why I made the trip down Route 2 to casino land, specifically, the MGM Grand at Foxwoods. This outing was also a celebration of my sister's 26th birthday- Happy Birthday Caitlin!
Our first stop at the MGM Grand was Shrine, a pan-asian joint with decent service, decent food, and ridiculous prices. Like, unacceptably so. How did an order of the General's chicken and some "creative" yellowtail sashimi come to $35?
Throw in some cocktails that we could have gotten off Tisane's $5 menu, and we were up over $60.
Then it was on to wander the casino. For those of us who work hard for very little money, gambling is not an attractive activity (nor is eating at Shrine). Especially since its not even a very entertaining activity. I don't know how to play any card games, and I've played on the slot machines a few times just for the sake of doing it. Really, all you do is put your money into a machine, and continue to press buttons until its gone. How about a casino that was like an arcade? We love playing Skee Ball and Whack a Mole and Pac Man. Imagine if you could bet your skills at arcade games for cash, instead of tickets to redeem for novelty teeth and silly bandz!
We stopped into the casino bar for some pre-concert beverages. When my sister asked for a "tall" White Russian, the bartender informed her that their drinks were tall like she is. Well, thats sad.
After (quickly!) finishing our round of shrimpy drinks, we were ready to enter the theater. But not before stopping off at the concession stand for some overpriced chardonnay and a stealth picture of this Yankees fan:
Hey, sometimes one baseball tattoo on your skull isn't enough! But, I digress. On to the concert!
From Fred Schneider's opening barks of "Whats that on your head?!" (Kate and Cindy's reply: "A wig!") to their closing crowd favorite, "Rock Lobster", the band was high energy and lots of fun throughout their entire set. Their performance highlighted songs from their 30+ year career, including "Private Idaho", "Cosmic Thing", "Planet Claire", "Mesopotamia" and "Party Out of Bounds". They looked and sounded great, and some of the audience members were also really fun to watch. One guy wore a lobster costume and danced in front of the stage all night. An enthusiastic woman sitting to our right had some really impressive new wave dance moves and joined us in our own dance party, until a guy sitting behind her complained that he couldn't see. She felt awkward and sat down. Really? Don't come to see the self-described "tacky little dance band from Georgia" to sit there and be a dick. After several attempts to get her back up and finally, a promise that I would fight anyone who tried to stop her from dancing and having fun, the good times resumed for our nice neighbor.
Fred, with his trademark overly enunciated delivery and ridiculous posing, was my favorite to watch. Kate Pierson's and Cindy Wilson's voices sounded great, and Kate can still hit those high notes- no problem. The B-52s put on a fantastic show and we would love to party with them again. Please return to casino land soon!
Saturday, January 22, 7-10 p.m.: Fake Babies @ The Telegraph, New London
We've written before of our old-fashioned preference for physical record stores and hard-copy music. So we're pleased to know of another actual record store in CT - The Telegraph in New London. Not that we ever go to New London - but we're totally working on that! The Telegraph has music, vinyl, new and used. And books! Which is also exciting, because the Scenics feel them same way about our reading materials and do not prefer a Kindle.
This Saturday we could shop for books and records and check out an in-store performance by Fake Babies, who sound... interesting! They have a song called "Sophisticated Thighs," which we're pretty sure is about us. As in, they aren't fat, they're sophisticated.
We're always happy to have great CT talent brought to our attention. Our newest music promoting friend-of-the-blog recently turned us on to Bronze Radio Return. These guys have a radio-ready sound and have been up to exciting, high-profile gigs like opening for Obama at his recent Bridgeport appearance, so we're sure they're destined for greatness. They have that right mix of contemporary pop sensibility and classic rock influence - and youth and beauty - that made big names in sensitive masculinity like John Mayer, Rob Thomas and Maroon 5 so universally appealing. Truth be told, the Scenics are personally drawn to somewhat edgier (i.e. more depressing, obviously disturbed) fare, so Bronze Radio Return might get old fast if they get the chance to get overplayed - but we see that as a distinct possibility for a band with such hit-making ability and hope to be changing the station on them soon! Check them out Wednesday night at Mohegan Sun's Wolf Den before you have to start paying for these guys.
Friday, Sept. 10: Skateboard Art Show & Video Premiere @ Donald Oat Theater, Norwich
Although we Scenics don't usually make it to the "far" corners of the state, we are excited about friend-of-the-blog Gary Jacobs' skateboard art which will be included in a show by the Norwich Arts Council. Since we like to make things personal around here, I'll mention that Gary is a former student of Mommy Scenic, and that he's known her longer than I have! Now Mommy Scenic probably has thousands of former students in the CT community, but when I mentioned Gary she was all "OMG he was like the best artist, even back then. I totally kept his art in my office for years, he's like soooo talented."
This sounds like a fun kind of art event. There will be a video of some kind premiering, though I can't find much out about it, and a boozy after party at Billy Wilson's.
Posts
