In Soviet CT, Boston Comes to You!

Boston rock band The Few are comin' to town! (We totally know their manager - shoutout Bryan Donoghue!) They're playing 2 shows, Friday at the Hessian Lion in Avon, and Saturday at the Mapletree Cafe in Simsbury. The band has a little something for everyone... they are described as classic rock, blues, funk, soul... y'know, all the funnest genres. The lead singer, Jaime MacKenzie, is not only a hottie, but classically trained and hella talented. Her husband, Kevin MacKenzie, sings, plays amazing guitar solos, and reminds us that functional relationships can exist! Bassist Ryan Martin is a luthier who crafts custom instruments for the band. (How impressive is that??). We don't know much about drummer Shaemus Shepard, but the imternets tell us that he kicks ass. The live show promises both visual AND aural excitement, as they do something involving a projector, and tend to bust out bizarre instruments like the mandolin or the washboard. They are upbeat and fun and dancey and this should be a wonderful time. This is also a great opportunity to check the Hessian Lion which we hear has all of our favorite things - couches, $4 Guinness, and sexy bartenders! See you there.

Nostalgic in New London

This weekend friend-of-the-blog and drummer-of-The-Ninas Melinda invited me to see on of her all-time favorite CT bands, The Reducers, who were playing at the El N Gee in New London. OMG the El N Gee! I was SO there. The club has gone through various opening, closings and incarnations in recent years, but it was the site of many of my earliest live show experiences (multiple Typo O Negative shows stand out in my mind) dating back to my first driving days. I remember fondly and longingly the boundless energy I once possessed to drive to and from semi-distant shows - on a school night! (And I mean I woke and up and performed above averagely at school the following day, not just made it home in one piece.)

Even as we pulled into the parking lot, I was beginning to feel nostalgia for the bygone days (and really, who doesn't get a little misty eyed over ample, free, safe parking at a club?). Melinda laughed because she has a little nostalgia on me, but come on, I'm talking '96-'97 here, and I'm starting to get these gray hairs. I remember walking out of that parking lot to say goodnight the night I met my soon-to-be-boyfriend. It was the summer after graduating high school. We had just seen Exodus. He saw me sulking (unrequited crush ignoring me, as usual) and offered to buy me a beer. I was too young to accept and I looked and dressed like crap, but he was undeterred! We discussed the relative merits of the then-fresh Swedish melodic death metal movement (my stuff) and the classic heavy metal of Iron Maiden (his stuff). And Kurt Vonnegut (we aren't total morons). I was so innocent we had to arrange to meet again under the pretext of playing guitar together!

But soon enough Melinda was caught up in the memories too, when we spotted this couch outside the club. Is it possible that this couch been here for ages? Or do people just keep dumping couches there?

Inside the club was very much the same as it ever was. Possibly a little bit nicer than it's ever been, actually. With a shiny new bar and plush toilet paper in the restrooms, which were nevertheless comfortingly graffiti covered.

Hey! Charles Diamond is a fan of the blog we've kind of neglected. Now we're posting about him, kind of...

Much like the old days (at least the old days I recall, Melinda tells me the slightly older days were different, better) - and much to my disappointment - the bar selection was limited to mostly crappy beer and a bare bones liquor collection featuring vodka in a plastic bottle. But even crappy beer can make me sentimental. My El N Gee boyfriend used to drink this one beer, and I was too young and inexperienced to have an opinion about beers (or legally purchase them). I've never seen another human being consume this beer, nor seen it in a bar. And here it was at the El N Gee! Anybody drink this? I thought about getting one for old times sake, posting a picture to Facebook, etc., but then I remembered that beer makes you fat.

It turned out our band wasn't going to be on for some time, so we ended up taking a little neighborhood detour and having large, reasonably priced but mediocre food and drinks at Hanafin's, a pretty charming Irish bar favored by cute bearded lads. By the time the Reducers got around to playing the club was respectably crowded. The Reducers have been around for ages - 30 years or something and play punk/power pop with nods to the Ramones and classic rock n roll. So anyone Scenic-aged or younger operating under the delusional notion that their generation invented cool, take notice. With all these years of playing behind them, they are tight as hell musically and have an adoring fanbase to show for it. Eventually most of the audience was dancing... I don't go in for that, of course, but even I could not resist their addictive beats and melodies. My feet and hips may have moved, and I particularly enjoyed the song "Company Man" about a corporate suck-up. Melinda pointed out fans from the old days, including some folks whose adult children were now dancing alongside their moms and dads. Sweet!

Check out The Reducers in Japan from 2004:

The Reducers were also featuring in the documentary and CD compilation It Happened But Nobody Noticed about the CT punk and new wave scene in the late 70s and 80s. Hey, we blogged that up back in the day (2009). But nobody noticed!

Punk Rawk Weekend

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!

GWAR: fifteen years of fandom

Tuesday, December 28: GWAR @ Toad's Place, New Haven

Christmas is coming just a little late for Scenics, who are amped as anything to see GWAR play at Toad's place this Tuesday. The Scenics have all enjoyed live GWAR in recent years, but Katie Scenic is "celebrating" fifteen years of GWAR shows - that's half her wasted life. Katie pitched a story about GWAR to the Advocate recently, but they said some other guy in New Haven was already doing it. Screw him! Actually, he did a pretty nice job, asking questions about their artistic roots and intellectual side. Also in this article, frontman Dave Brockie claims that the band doesn't have any groupies, but we know better!

(Halloween 2009: DH & Katie attend GWAR, cleverly costumed

as John & Mackenzie Phillips; DH loses his daughter/date)

If you're really, really interested in GWAR's origins, the best place to turn is Brockie's column about the history of the band that he's been writing for the RVA News (the band is from Richmond, Virginia, not Antarctica, anticlimactically enough). Brockie is terribly clever, and doesn't actually need journalists to reinterpret him or make his sentences more coherent. For the record, we totally know him, but we didn't want to bother him with another stupid interview, so we decided to catch up with Katie about her personal history as a GWAR fan, which is really more in keeping with the tone of this blog (e.g. all about us).

CS: So, uh, tell us about your history as a GWAR fan.

KS: I first heard GWAR on MTV's Headbanger's Ball, and one of my early "boyfriends" was a big fan - and so were all his degenerate friends! Which was really lucky for me, because we only "went out" for like two weeks, but it was like months before GWAR was coming around to Connecticut. Mommy Scenic was a really indulgent parent in a lot of ways, but not so indulgent that she drove me to concerts or anything like that. But my "ex" had a friend that also liked me, and he was old enough to drive, and had his license, so he took me to my first GWAR show, at the Sting in New Britain. At least, I think that's how it happened. Mommy Scenic probably should have just driven me to these concerts herself. Because finding my own ride basically meant hanging out with a worse and worse crowd. Older boys with long hair, leather jackets, and some totally illegal habits. Oh well, it was only a year or so before I was able to drive myself. 

(1997: 17 year-old Katie Scenic after a GWAR show)

As a young person, I was equally impressed with GWAR's potty humor as with their more politically subversive content. Oh wait, I still am. Equally impressed or whatever. Watching current political figures and idiot celebrities of tabloid culture like Michael Jackson, Paris Hilton, and Monica Lewinsky get ripped apart onstage in explosively gory effigy just never loses its edge. Once I had my own driver's license and wheels, I was able to introduce the GWAR experience to some of my "non-metal" friends. Like Sara, who was super smart and intellectual and politically active, even as a teenager. During one show we attended together, GWAR tore up and violated the corpse of then-recently deceased Princess Diana. Rather than get offended, Sara was delighted and said the most insightful thing - "It's like how she was totally raped and violated by the media in her death" -  thereby rationalizing and excusing more or less every questionable act performed during a GWAR show from there into eternity. Thanks for that, Sara!

Sara liked GWAR so much that she went along to subsequent shows and years later, when she was a paralegal in NYC she was thrilled to host me for a weekend to go see frontman Brockie's art show at MF Gallery. This was in 2001 or 2002, but it wasn't too soon for Brockie, dressed as a giant singing rodent, to desecrate a model of the World Trade Center as a finale to his set of bad karaoke. But hey, it was OK! It was just like the media and George W. Bush raped and violated our national identity in the aftermath of 9/11. We met some guy at the art show who took us to see a two-headed turtle after. This is not a sexual euphemism. That's really what he showed us. Yay, New York!

(At age 21, Katie can legally enjoy a beer with her heroes)

In 2003 or 2004, when I was working at the Hartford Advocate, I was able to channel my love for the band into something constructive - a feature article! The record label guy gave me Brockie's phone number, and I've been drunk dialing him ever since. Usually around Valentine's Day or so, when I always get down about being an old spinster. 

 (Stalking on the streets of Brooklyn)

Earlier this year, as a Scenic, I visited the MF Gallery in its new Brooklyn location for another art show by Brockie and other GWAR members, where Brockie revisited his "Chippy" character, and put on a week-long webcasted "Crack-a-thon" of live performances. You may have read about it here!

I don't enjoy GWAR shows in exactly the same wild-eyed way I did as a kid. I used to memorize every lyric to their songs to scream along at concerts, and go fearlessly into the mosh pit in order to get close to the stage and soaked by the maximum amount of their fake bodily fluids, all the while on a natural high. But I'm old and delicate and self-conscious now. I don't want to lose my teeth or glasses! I want to stand in the back of the room, sipping a drink, hoping to catch a buzz, rolling my eyes at ugly young people and their easy fun. Actually, that's just what I'm better at now, and I do try to stick with my natural talents. Those were, in fact, the days! But I still get off on the audacity and originality of GWAR's live production and the immense artistic and physical effort that goes into such a touring show.

What can you expect from GWAR live? A professional blogger from Gawker recently expressed her disapproval of the band's onstage slaughter of one Sarah Palin. She obviously lacks the rich history with the band and multifaceted appreciation of their cultural relevance and secretly sophisticated humor that we Scenics have. Her loss!

Punk-ish: Kimono Draggin' et. al. in New Haven

Saturday, Oct. 16: Kimono Draggin, Bobbie Peru, The Clearer @ Stella Blues, New Haven

Here's hoping you aren't already too overwhelmed by the volume of music posts this week. But if musicians are the only entertainers in the state that can be arsed with promoting themselves to us with a more substantial message and visuals than a fucking Facebook invite, well, we're just gonna be like a [much] less long-winded version of CT Indie around here (just joshin' yas, CT Indie, you do great work, and we get long in the wind too sometimes).

Attentive readers are already familiar with friends-of-the-blog Bobbie Peru; Kimono Draggin' are New Haven legends; The Clearer are new to us, but we like it so far.

Here's a vid by Bobbie Peru, not like we're playing favorites or anything, but they stay in touch really well and have great production value:



Hey, if any of our NYC area friends are reading: Bobbie Peru's next gig is Oct. 29 at VIP (Very Important Punk) bar, Otto's Shrunken Head (we've totally been there!).

Big Fish in a Small Pond: Matt Mullarkey

Matt Mullarkey grew up in what he calls the "barren wasteland that is Norwalk, CT"... but it wasn't all bad. In his angsty teenage years, Matt discovered the legendary Anthrax club, which became a home-away-from-home, and a ticket to [local] fame. Although he has considered leaving CT for sexier pastures, a combination of laziness and success has kept him here, keeping punk alive and well in CT. His band, The Midnightmares, just won "Best New Band" and "Best Punk Band" in the Fairfield County Grand Band Slam.

JS: Is it still exciting to get that sort of recognition?

MM: Yes, it IS still exciting to get that sorta recognition. This is now the 4th or 5th time and the 2nd band I have been in that won the "best punk" band category, so I guess I /we are doing something right, haha!!

The Midnightmares

JS: Which other band won? Is this the first win for The Midnightmares?

MM: The other band that won was Elvis Mcman. We won from 2004 to 2008, even after we had been broken up for a year, the last time! Yes, first win for The Midnightmares. We had our first show February 2009, so I guess we are still pretty "new".

JS: What is the first album you ever owned? What were some of the first punk bands that influenced you?

MM: I think the 1st LP I ever owned was either Pink Floyd "The Wall" or maybe a late 1970's Kiss album. (They all kinda blend into one, haha!!) All the usual early punk suspects had a big influence on me, but if I had to cite one, it would have to be the Sex Pistols. I didn't know shit about England or the queen or whatever, but that one album and their whole attitude just screamed volumes at me, ya know??


JS: What first drew you to punk music/culture?

MM: A lot of the early appeal of punk I must admit was the look. A lot of these bands I was discovering as a "wee lad" all looked like extras outta "The Road Warrior" or "Bladerunner".
(Science Fiction and Horrow movies also being a heavy influence on me.) I thought Johhny, Wattie, Sid, etc. all looked WAY cooler than the dirty hippies in Pink Floyd!

JS: Where did you grow up? Was punk part of your high school experience, or was it an escape?

MM: I grew up, and still live in, the barren wasteland that is Norwalk Ct. By pure providence, I happened to live in the same town at the time as the now (...AND then) legendary Anthrax Club.
A perfect place to live and deal with my teenage angst.

Matt playing with Blanket of Ash in 1994

JS: You've been part of the CT punk scene for awhile. What changes have you noticed (musically, socially, culturally) over time?

MM: There have been so many changes in the 1,000 years since I've been in and involved in the Ct. punk/whatever scene. Back in the mid-late 1980's it was a lot of the whole straight-edge hard-core scene, that even then I thought was lame. (A bunch of preppy "tough" boys with magic marker- "x"'s on their hands, telling me not to drink?? Fuck that...).

I'm not really sure how to describe the "current scene"... I do still see alotta the same people, if not playing a show, then certainly in attendance at one.

JS: We met when you were playing with The Injections... can you give us a time-line of the bands you've been a part of?

MM: The 1st real band I started playing bass in was Blanket Of Ash in 1994. It was "kind of" a punk band, but more strait forward "rock". (Sometimes I really hate that word, haha!!)


Then The Injections ran from late 1995 until 2000. As you know, we were the un-official Ramones / Screeching Weasel / Queers rip off band from Connecticut.


Next came Elvis Mcman, from 2000-2007. Female fronted punk rock, kind of hard to pin a specific type of "punk" on that band.

After that was the CT punk "all star" band; The Problematics. Me on bass, Mike Cooper (Def Con 5, Dead Beat Dads) vocals, Kevin Mackenzie (No Image, Disaster Party) drums, and the "legendary" Pugz Licitra (Iron Cross, Lush Life, The Spoilers, Forced Reality, Lost Generation, etc, etc) on guitar. Lasted all of 6 months and 6 shows. (Bummer...)

Now there's The Midnightmares...


JS: Fairfield is basically a suburb of NYC, do you feel the CT music scene is heavily influenced by what is going on in NY?

MM: I wouldn't know if any NYC "scene" has any influence on what goes on in Fairfield County or any other part of CT. I'm pretty oblivious and "un-hip" these days, haha!!


JS: Have you ever wanted to move somewhere like NYC? What has kept you in CT?

MM: A very long time ago I had considered moving to Boston or Los Angeles, because many of my friends had migrated to both cities, but I guess my "laziness" has kept me home-bound in CT.

Matt at gallery opening of Even More F*cked Up and Photocopied, an art show of Matt's show flyer art

JS: What would you say is unique about CT punk music and culture?

MM: What's unique about CT is that it is such a small state, geographically and population-wise, that anyone with the right mind-set can become the big-fish-in-a-small pond. (Which has always made this "small fish" feel special, haha!!)


JS: Do you think punk can still be considered a "subculture"? Or has it gone too mainstream? Do you think this is a good thing or bad thing?

MM: Punk has NOT been a real subculture for many years now. However, if some 14-year old kid who feels alienated and wants to start a band with his friends can discover the Ramones or whoever through some of the new(er) Warp Tour bands or whatever, then go make his or her own cool music, well...how can ya say that's wrong?? (Sorry about the run-on sentence, haha!!)

I gotta admit, when bands like Rancid, Green Day, et. al. got big, I was like "Good for them!!"
I was at a small show in Danbury Ct, X-mas 1992, some band I had never heard of, Green Day, were on the bill, but had to cancel 'cause their piece-of-shit van broke down somewhere that day. I think they can afford a proper one now...haha!!

JS: Thanks Matt, we look forward to the next 1,000 years!

CT Scenic's First Blogaversary Party!

We are pretty excited to announce that we've been blogging Scenic style for nearly one year. August 7th will be one year exactly from our first post, and we are putting on a party to celebrate. We've been pushing other people's events all this time, and now we've got our own. Check it:

We'd love to meet all our readers. If you would RSVP to ctscenic@gmail.com or to the Facebook event page (aren't you our friend yet?), that would help us to have enough drinks and donuts to go around.

We have a very cool venue for the night - the Monster Lab Studio in New Britain, which is right off Route 9, impossible to miss and just minutes away from Hartford. We've blogged about Sidewalk Dave before, and we are psyched to present them live in concert at our party. Check them:

And our old friend we mention constantly, CT punk legend Matt "Injection" Mullarkey and the Midnightmares will be there too:

See you there!

We can't quite decide whether it's a "blogaversary" or a "blogiversary." The former looks better, but the latter seems more linguistically correct. So we'll just go both ways - like we always do.

Tuesdays with Metal: Jucifer @ Daniel Street

Tuesday, June 29: Jucifer @ Daniel Street, Milford

Do you like heavy metal and sexy guy/girl lo-fi duo bands? Well, here's something for you: Jucifer. They're a Relapse band from the south (Georgia), so you know they get sludgy with it. They bring together elements of metal, grunge, stoner rock and weird screamy alternative chick music. Vocalist/guitarist Amber Valentine is a fierce and scary and talented, and a big hottie to boot. Also performing are Gloominous Doom, who have been described as a "thrash/ska fusion" (how unfortunate!) and some CT bands Old Man Lady Luck and Electric Bucket. These latter bands are too lazy to have websites besides MySpace, where you can check them out if you have a lot of patience for slow loading pages. This show, like most cool CT shows, is brought to us by the almost-always-awesome Manic Productions - check their calendar for other great stuff.

Check out this cool Jucifer video for "Pontius of Palia"



Bonus feature: check out similarly named band, Gluecifer (a now-defunct glammy punk band from Norway that I happen to enjoy - sure wish they were playing!):

Saturday Night Live: Punk at Snapper Magee's

I've explored some of the daytime delights of "charming little Torrington" (as we've referred to it in my family for years) and blogged 'em up before, but last night I took on Torrington after dark on the suggestion of friend-of-the-blog Julia Sloan (Ms. Brazen Betties) and took in a night of live music at Snapper Magee's, which will be my local pub after I move to Torrington, or should I call it "the next Collinsville." Jackie Scenic couldn't be with me last night (which sucks, cuz she would have loved this joint) but my Substitute Scenic and I determined that Torrington is ripe for - if not already on its way to - an artsy fartsy hipster revival. The evening was basically a tube of wonderful - the club, the bands, the peeps were all just great -,so snark and hilarity in this post will be minimal (sorry!).


Snapper Magee's is plenty adorable on the inside, with walls and ceiling plastered with classic concert posters, pinup inspired art, naked ladies and demon women, and in spite of cheap booze prices and a somewhat "divey" vibe, they have a good selection of drink for snobs like me to choose from (I chose Magner's). Julia is like the mayor of Torrington, so she introduced me to the owner, relevant local cultural leaders and pointed out the coolest shit on the walls (and ceiling).


The first band was AmRev II, a ska-inflected punk outfit. I was impressed with their look and their sound. They were playing as a two-piece, which I assumed was on purpose, but apparently there was an absent bass player.


My favorite band of the night was definitely Big Sister, straight outta Westchester. This female fronted punk act was reminiscent of early No Doubt, or current The Action Design, a cool-ass band I've mentioned before. They had super-high energy, catchy songs, and the contrast between frontlady Lauren's balls-out singing and self-deprecating between-song affect was extra endearing. Unfortunately they're not gonna be Big Sister anymore - a name change is imminent due to a conflict of band names with some other Big Sister, so stay tuned on that front.


I only caught the beginning of the set by Jukebox Romantics, but they were putting on an explosive show from what I saw. This band is having a hot-shit moment, about to embark on the Warped Tour (which comes to Hartford July 11), so now I can say I saw them when...

It was a bit of a slow night at Snapper's by everyone's account. But slow or no, the people who did come out were enthusiastic, well dressed, and nice (to me). The "small state" phenom struck again, as I reconnected with peeps I had classes with and someone I photographed at another event. I'll be looking out for more shows by Big Sister under their forthcoming new name, and would definitely hit up this downtown Torrington spot again.

(Check the FB gallery for more pics)

Plenty of opportunities to get Pist

The Pist Reunion Tour 2010
Friday, May 14: w/ Feetfirst, Havnotz, M-13 @ Heirloom Arts Theatre, Danbury
Saturday, May 15: w/ Broken, Eddie and the Louvers, The Paraplegics, Sadplant @ Club Hell, Providence, RI
Saturday, June 5: w/ Feet First, Guilt Trip, The Wankys, Chaos Destroy @ Club Europa, Brooklyn, NY

We've mentioned our adolescent love of CT hardcore/punk legends The Pist before, and we are pretty damn excited to make up for lost time and maybe actually see them live this summer. Since our professional lives are in the shitter, we have more use than ever before for pissy anthems like "The Customer is Always Right." This is wonderful:



And you can never ever have enough of aggressive pro-choice atheism.



Can you?

(No.)

The Scenic South: Party on Bridgeport, New Haven

Saturday night - date night again! We rounded up a couple young gentlemen friends (i.e. our beards) and set off on another adventure. Our first destination was Matt Mullarkey's much ballyhooed (by us) show of punk rock flier art. As per our own advice, we took the scenic route (Route 8) to get there. We've been raised on lore of BPort's epic poverty and scariness, and we're sure it has its moments but frankly, we found the neighborhood we ended up in downright quaint and certainly "not any worse looking than Hartford." Well, other than the "gallery" itself which was kind of an abandoned looking building surrounded by barbed wire (check out the FB gallery).


We've mentioned Matt numerous times on the blog - he's been a Connecticut punk scene fixture forever, with bands including The Injections, Elvis McMan, The Pink Slips, and currently The Midnightmares, as well as a flier artist extraordinaire. We've enjoyed both his music and fliers for years (something like half Jackie Scenic's life, and nearly half of Katie's, if you want to do that math...). So of course it was lovely to see the man, the band and the artwork. Jackie is pretty sure she attended this show in the late 90s:


We caught the tail end of The Midnightmares, and were once again taken in by their screamy, raucous charms. We also enjoyed part of the set by Shangk, who look like regular dudes, but rock out like nobody's business. We're going to see if anyone we know will book these bands in Hartford. We're sick of having to drive so far!

Well, either it was too fucking loud or we are too fucking old, but in any event, we had other business to attend to and didn't stay in Bridgeport long. Pretty soon it was on to Rudy's in New Haven. After a moment of panic over the fact that the bar was out of cider, we settled on some drinks (including a beer called WTF, which we've just now realized is, ugh, a Wilco reference) and sat down at one of those giant wooden tables. Between the tables, the poor lighting, the general rowdiness, and of course the ever-present cowled and scowling figures lurking in all the dark corners, the whole thing was very Prancing Pony.

The first band we saw was Skeletonbreath. They play that gypsy punk business, like Gogol Bordello or Kiss Kiss, or all those bands from the soundtrack for Everything is Illuminated. Only they do it strictly instrumental. They go completely spastic on every song, with the one dude sawing away on his violin, and the drummer attacking his kit like a rabid animal. We're convinced they referenced a GWAR riff in one song. We were transfixed. What with the absence of lyrical content and the intensity of their live energy, we suspect they may lost something in translation on CD, but we'd love to see them again. Maybe a field trip to Southpaw in Brooklyn June 4 is in order (we've totally been there).

We spoke with the bass player of 420 Blackbirds early in the night, and from her mellow demeanor and Temple Grandin-esque wardrobe, we expected something a little bit country. And, well, there were some of those basslines (you know the ones), but they were rowdy, heavy, seasoned punk/rock. We were told the personnel in this band have been CT scene fixtures for 20+ years, so maybe we've seen their previous work, we don't know... We do know the singer looks like one of our romantic interests, Vampire Bill from True Blood. We'd love to see him - er, them - again too.

By the time the Vultures (more New Haven music fixtures) came on, we were kind of all rocked out. Our toilet paper ear plugs were wearing thin (shame on Rudy's not selling ear protection, btw). Alas it was time to go. Our time in New Haven was, as usual, fraught with scenic envy. We admired their men, their women, their Belgian fries. This woman in particular:

We're already planning a return visit. We suggest you do the same. We're thinking burlesque next Sunday at Jokers Wild.