We Go On After Some Lip-Synch Chicks.

So I think I might put a moratorium on covering Battles of the Bands, not just because we need to think of peace in these troubled times, but because they are no less weird than they were when I was a misguided youth. Disparate acts, three song limits, a harried and hurried pace that serves no one (least of all the showcase bands) and varying qualities of M'sC succeed in keeping everyone off balance and looking for the exits once their friends' sets are done.



Frankly, this particular BoB was doubly confounding, mostly due to the latter awards giving-portion of the show where the majority of gifts and trinkets (Golden records?! Pieces of paper!?) seemed to be given to the A&R, MGMT side of the production rather than to the bands themselves. This brings me back to my original confusion with the Blast:Beat program and where the money goes, where the money lies once it gets there, and who OWNS the bands' music and who ultimately runs the promotion -- something that their website never cleared up. If I remember properly, my fwiends over at Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn described it as seeming like a '4-H Club for kids in bands,' a criticism which seems valid sonically -- meant literally, "as I say it in my head it makes me laugh" -- as well as in practice.



Stream of thought bulletin: While poking around the internet we arrive at Blastspace.com, the ground-level Facebookian arm of the BlastBeat.org website. PLEASE LOOK AT THE UPPER RIGHT BUTTON WHICH FEATURES "COCA-COLA BLASTBEAT." I ain't sayin' there's something sinister going on, but this...



...should be enough to remind anyone of the awful Coca-Cola budding filmmaker commercials they show at the movie theaters during "The 20" or whatever the fuck it's called. It should remind the oldsters of Up With People being sponsored by Gilette. It should definitely make any self-respecting punk give pause.



It occurred to me, and I said as much to Hugh Crawford, that the history of Rock Music is written by the bands whose gumption and spit determined their destiny rather than the whims or skull scratching decisions made by talent fair judges. In fact, the only two acts I could think of at the time were Stevie Wonder and James Brown, and a suspicious search of Wikipedia (sue me) quickly showed those examples to be wrong. Now, the only one I can think of is Kelly Clarkson (sue me).

Creepy Corporate Overlording aside, all of this is the ball-hording way of saying "so what?" Yes, a trip to Ireland would be a major, life altering experience for a group of teens who might not have had the privilege of traveling outside the United States, and seeing the competition might inspire even greater things from those involved but the failure to make the trip in this particular instance isn't in the ballpark of worst things to happen. The Sub-20's music scene in New York (you can call it "Kidcore" if you want, but that's bogus and sad) is too dense and rich -- and too competitive and talented -- to hold anything less than the best the age bracket/genre can provide and by extension... you know what Sinatra said. Further, the support group of enthusiastic Post-Teen bands whose song structure and public attitude implies reckless juvenilization is there to lead the way and provide access, instruction and perhaps most importantly, a valuable crossover audience:

An audience with money.

This is meant as consolation to all the bands that lost, whatever form they took. My favorites included.

They Only Played To A Few Hundred People In Their Lifetime, But Those That Heard Them Immediately Formed A Band

Greetings to those of you visiting through the Flickr back door. As part of my value-added content, I would like to point out that the additional photos of The Mighty Handful from the 17th of May, 2008 are below. However I encourage you to read the following notice to discover how you, the reader, might be able to impact the life of a misguided youth for the better.

With the possible exceptions of cash paydays and booty calls, there's very little pleasure in finding something out on short notice, and with that in mind I am happy to report to you (a week in advance!) that The Mighty Handful (my favoritest) are playing The Big Stage at the Knitting Factory on Sunday the 25th. Now, the Knitting Factory -- shitty lighting aside -- is a brand-name venue which leads to its own level of fun-ness. Amplifying the fun-ness further is the fact that this show is a Battle of the Bands. Great. Boosting the signal to tsunami-like levels is the promise of a trip to Ireland for the winning group and an invitation to an international battle of the bands.

SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?

If you care at all about the fate of these young turks (and you should at this point, especially seeing as how I won't shut up about them), then you will purchase tickets, go to the show and support them with all your might. For just ten (10) United States Dollars -- that's just $1.68 USD a day from now until Sunday -- you could change the life of a poor, Park Slope youth whose debaucherous promise is held back by a sensible Park Slope upbringing. If you have any questions regarding this matter it is in your best interest to contact the band directly as my details are sketchy at best.

Tickets are available through Ticketmaster, which is no longer an issue because the 90's are over and Pearl Jam lost.

But don't take my word for it. Let them tell you, in their own words, why you should go:

So we won that random battle of the bands.

TURNS OUT THE FUCKING PRIZE WAS
A SHOW AT THE KNITTING FACTORY.

If we win, we will go to ireland to compete against other high school bands from all over the world.

COME AND SUPPORT US
MAKE US FAMOUS
WE LOVE YOU ALL<333

SAME RULES APPLY:

BRING INSTRUMENTS
BRING CONFETTI
BRING GLITTER
BRING ANYYYTHING.

He Said Captain, I Said Wot

Dulaney Banks don't need press from me -- any germane facts are on their Myspace (linked to; above. Please visit) but I'll boil them down for you nonetheless. Guy and girl are a duo that sings folk and spirituals and songs about murdering them wot done you wrong. They are will be legally able to busk in the subways once they turn eighteen (18) because they won a permit through the MTA Arts For Transit/MUNY audition. They are not yet 18, so they have no permit.

This is insane on several levels, most notably of which is the fact that they should not be performing in the subways for any reason other than for fun; they should be making the circuit through your usual medium/large touring venues with a proper sound system. Not to give short shrift to the Dulaney half (it's a great skill to do all the heavy lifting through one guitar, it's a wise man who knows when not to play), but to call the Banks half's voice "mature beyond [her] years" is an understatement and an absurd joke.

A Dramatization:

Jack: You're going to shoot Dulaney Banks?

Me: Oh yeah.

Jack: They're great, right?

Me: Yeah. I went to their Myspace link. I was like, 'who is this girl and how did she steal Nina Simone's voice?'

Jack: Yeah.

END

They are fantastic.

Something To Du

I have had a difficult time explaining why I like the Mighty Handful so much. Most of my thoughts are scattershot and age-ist of the "talented enough to be good; not good enough to care" variety and don't do them justice. The pleasure might be in the thrill of discovery -- those precious few months you have where the secret is yours to share with everyone and anyone who will listen.



Most of the seminal bands I've enjoyed in my life were discovered a few years (or more) past their sell date; The Who, The Replacements, all of the NY post-punk bands. There are notable exceptions (including Pavement, Sleater-Kinney, Neko Case, and all the new [bands] out there that sound like them), but my music has historically been acquired a day late and at a bargain price in the resale bin. Some of this was due to (my) date of birth, some due to the inevitable decline that bands go through once they stop having hard-ons for anything that moves and embrace the rapidly advancing twilight of middle age.



The Mighty Handful are nowhere near that place, so they seem fresh and new even as they chatter amongst themselves and realize that Oh Domestic Me! sounds suspiciously like Tangled Up In Blue. Developmentally, they are at the time and place where small steps are giant strides; They are tighter than when I saw them two months ago, and though Aviva keeps slinking off to the side to avoid the carnage (live, they are 5/6ths Keith Moon) they have developed the good common sense to not tack her solo song at the end of the show; the previous result led to a, "...and this is my adopted daughter Margot," sense of unease as the rest of the boys packed themselves away.



They're playing Southpaw on the 15th and I intend to go out of loyalty and curiosity and to take my "adult" drunken friends who look at me like I'm chicken little every time I start muttering about how absurdly great "Uptown Drunks" is. First one on the train gets the best seat.