Anyone Care For A Guatemalan Handshake?

Anyone up for seeing "The Guatemalan Handshake" at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring? It's playing from Friday, April 27 to Wednesday, May 2nd. My neighbors worked on the film and I got to see an early version of the movie (before final editing). It was a little odd, yet very amusing. I think you'll like it too. Will Oldham is one weird dude.

What's the movie about, you ask? Well, here's what AFI has to say:

"Fresh from his jury award at the Torino Film Festival, Silver Spring resident Todd Rohal's debut feature has premiered to rapturous audiences worldwide. Will Oldham is an awkward demolition derby driver who vanishes in the confusion following a massive power outage, setting into motion a series of events affecting his pregnant girlfriend, his car-less father, a pack of wild boy scouts, a roller rink employee, an elderly woman and a ten-year-old girl."

Who's up for the show on Sunday night? Maybe Monday?

BTW, I asked the director about the title of the movie. He wouldn't tell me exactly what a Guatemalan Handshake was, but I believe it's a secret move that involves a short bald man, a knuckle, a swirl, and a pinch.

Who's Coming?

Who's coming, you ask? Rock's coming, spewing its hot, hard-driving spunk all over the waiting face of the Washington DC metropolitan area. Fetch the fluffer--Rock is ready to go again.

Some highlights:

--Kristin Hersh, Iota, April 26: former Throwing Muses singer in a small venue, could be cool.
--Dr Feelgood, Jaxx, April 27: Motley Crue cover band. A good reason to finally visit Jaxx.
--Peter Bjorn and John, 9:30, April 30: more Swedish cultural imperialism.
--Chris Barron, Velvet Lounge, May 11: who, you ask? This guy:

Okay, this is the best pic I could find, so I'll just tell you: it's the goofy looking guy from the Spin Doctors

--Arctic Monkeys w/Be Your Own Pet, 9:30, May 16: I'll go to this one just to throw shit at Be Your Own Pet. I am publicly challenging their Gabe Kaplan bass player to a fight. Fucking pussbag.
--Huey Lewis and the News, Wolf Trap, May 31: Perhaps this man will be in attendance.

Patrick Bateman

--Long Blondes, Rock and Roll Hotel, June 7: I still maintain that this band will be huge, driven by the adoration of the My So-Called Life crowd.
--Asia, Birchmere, June 26: original lineup.
--Morrissey, Wolf Trap, July 2: Miserable Morrissey, as Weasel used to call him. What better way to celebrate the 231st birthday of our optimistic, forward-looking country, than by listening to this mope?

Date		Venue		Band
4/25/2007		9:30		Wolfmother
4/26/2007		Iota		Kristin Hersh
4/27/2007		Black Cat		Dismemberment Plan
4/27/2007		Jaxx		Dr. Feelgood
4/28/2007		Black Cat		Dismemberment Plan
4/30/2007		9:30		Peter Bjorn and John
5/4/2007		Black Cat		Konono No. 1
5/8/2007		Black Cat		The Clientele
5/9/2007		9:30		Air
5/11/2007		Velvet Lounge		Chris Barron
5/13/2007		Black Cat		Sloan
5/13/2007		9:30		LCD Soundsystem
5/16/2007		9:30		Arctic Monkeys (w BYOP)
5/17/2007		Black Cat		Mando Diao
5/24/2007		Birchmere		English Beat
5/31/2007		Wolf Trap		Huey Lewis and the News
6/7/2007		RNRH		The Long Blondes
6/13/2007		RNRH		Heartless Bastards
6/26/2007		Birchmere		Asia
6/30/2007		Wolf Trap		Smothers Bros.
7/2/2007		Wolf Trap		Morrissey
8/18/2007		Jaxx		WASP

Just say, "Vandervelde Industries."

Richard Swift/David Vandervelde
April 19, 2007
Black Cat

Introducing POINT/COUNTERPOINT
With your hosts, JUMBO SLICE & JIMBROMSKI

JIMBROMSKI: With the Black Angels/Vietnam on April 5 and David Vandervelde last night, Rock Club's been on the hippie tip lately. The wavy gravy trifecta is now in play, as long as we catch the Grass Roots/Vanilla Fudge out at Wolf Trap next week. Vandervelde had a cool-sounding, high voice, along the lines of Jeff Buckley/Marc Bolan/Thom Yorke/Tiny Tim. It was a short set with a little too much jamming for my tastes. If I wanted real hippie goodness, I'd catch a Phish show. Get to the point, furballs. Sparse crowd as well--I was reminded of the movie Dig!, where The Brian Jonestown Massacre played the Cleveland Communist Party Headquarters, in front of one highly-committed comrade.

JUMBO SLICE: The Vandervelde set did seem short. Of course, he's only released one album with 8 songs on it, so he lacks the material to play for too long. Maybe that's why they launched into a few Jammy-Jams. Overall, I was pleased with the set. I found his album underwhelming. His music, like a lot of hippie stuff, is better live. I mean, who really buys Phish albums? I also like Vandervelde's singing voice and his banter was pretty funny ("Derek James on lead bongos"). Of course, the real star was the bassist. After the show, I enjoyed your debate w/ Potsy about who the bassist most resembled. Your doppelganger submission of Kevin Dillon in HBO's "Entourage" was the clear winner. You retain your belt as King of Look-Alikes. Congratulations.

Ersatz Drama

The Real Drama

JIMBROMSKI: Jumbo Slice, you ignorant slut. I disagree with two of your points. First, I think this guy sounds better in the studio than he did live. I know I've gone on about this before, but there's something fucked about the acoustics at the Black Cat. Everything--guitars, bass, vocals, percussion--gets washed out and overmodulated. This is a very un-rock thing to say but I think if they just lowered the volume a bit it would help. We don't need The Who/Live at Leeds treatment when there are only 30 people in the audience. Second, banter. I'm against it. A few comments here and there are okay, but after that, I don't want to hear it. Everyone thinks they're witty and insightful. I'm here to tell you, as a student of the human race, that most people are fucking boring and stupid, and rock stars are no exception. If you're going to do it, please give me a mic as well so I can shout amplified insults back at you. Additionally, do you remember the moment where Art Vandelay asked an audience member for a sip of his beer, and then kept the beer? Where I come from, that's an ass-whomping. I would have cracked his flower power skull like a Chicago cop in 1968, believe it.

JUMBO SLICE: While I agree there was no need to set the volume to eleven, I stand by my assessment that Art Vandelay is better live (even w/ the crap sound system). The album, "The Moonstation House Band", is flat. In contrast, Vandervelde, Kevin Dillon, and Zoot from the Muppets bashed out a spirited set, especially considering the piddling attendance. As for concert banter, I like it in moderation. No one wants to hear a political diatribe, but it's good when someone displays a little stage presence, builds a rapport with the audience. When I saw Ryan Adams at the 9:30 he didn't say a word to the audience the entire time. Didn't announce the songs, no hellos, no thank you's, nothing. He just tuned his guitar between each song. It was lame. You would have loved it.

Stillwaters Run Vandervelde

JIMBROMSKI: Okay, Jumbo Slice. In a way, we're both right, but in another, more accurate way, you're 100% wrong. Let's finish with Stillwater-lookalikes Chad Vanderslice, and move on to headliners Richard Swift. Picture yourself in front of a television in 1978, watching Saturday Night Live. The special musical guests come on. Since it's 1978, and you can't really remember things that far back in time, your recollection of the performance is cloudy. All you can remember is, the band looked like some sort of Rickie Lee Jones/Billy Joel/Bachman-Turner Overweight melange, and sang soulful, personal songs of love and loss, that sucked greatly. That's Richard Swift (or "Dick Swift", if you're his pal). Instead of Dick Swift, I would have preferred a spoken word performance from former NASCAR driver Dick Trickle, or ex-San Francisco Giants pitching coach Dick Pole, or maybe retired Congressman Dick Swett, or any other person with a funny name. In conclusion, I give The David Vandervelde Experience a 5.9 rating, and Richard Swift gets a 4.5.

Rep. Dick Swett (D-NH), performing w/The Singing Senators

JUMBO SLICE: You are correct: Dick Swift = Shitty 70's love songs. I was patient with young Richard for the first few songs and then I gave up. They sucked. It was hokey 70's lite rock. It was Tony & Dawn, Bread, or America. Is Richard Swift trying to bring back Yacht Rock made famous by Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald? If so, he must be stopped. Gentle drumming, semi-Beatle melodies and heart-tugging, sappy lyrics is not what I signed up for when I joined Rock Club. With this ass clown headlining the night it's easy to see why the crowd was almost non-existent. I'll close by pointing out his head is enormous. It is absolutely gigantic. David Vandervelde and the Moonstation House Band garner a Rock Club Rating of 6.8. Richard Swift sets a new low: 1.6.

Concert Preview

I thought a preview of the next concert might be helpful since there are four bands playing and some of us haven't listened to the bands much (if at all). Here's the lineup for Thursday's show in the order they're playing.

Headlights - Comprised of former members of Maserati and Absinthe Blind, Headlights play blissful and driving guitar pop. Maybe it's because I'm getting into a lot of female fronted bands, but I really like this band. Too bad we won't get there in time to see them play.

Page France - Page France plays what I call indie wuss rock. I happen to like such music, when done right. Their music is hit or miss. I saw them play at Iota a while back. I was into it for the first half of the set. By the end I was ready for a change of pace.



David Vandervelde - This is really the guy we're going to see. He plays 70's inspired rock, a la T. Rex and David Bowie. Right in Jimbromski's wheelhouse. I'm looking forward to seeing him live. I hope he has a cool banner with his name on it. That would rock.



Richard Swift - He may be the headliner but w/ three bands before him, I might not stick around for his whole set. After all, it is a school night. Anyway, I don't know much about this guy. From what I've heard, he plays the type of music you'd find on those mixtapes Potsy makes for his lady friends.

The following show is Spoon (or as I like to call them, Poon). They don't need a preview, but perhaps we can make the preview a regular feature when going to see lower profile bands.

May I suggest...

I spend all day listening to Rhapsody, an online music service. I'll tune into their Indie radio stations, but for the most part I listen to whole albums. I try to mix it up, listening to 1 or 2 new albums a day. Rhapsody keeps track of my top 10 artists "Based on recent listening activity". Here's my Top 10 the other day:

1. Ted Leo
2. Asobi Seksu
3. Thao Nguyen
4. LCD Soundsystem
5. The Futureheads
6. Peter Bjorn and John
7. Blood On The Wall
8. Fountains of Wayne
9. Kaiser Chiefs
10. Marnie Stern

Based on my "listening activity" it makes recommendations for me. Well, after listening to Rhapsody for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 years, they know EXACTLY what I like. They suggested my 3 favorite albums of All-Time:

More Celeb Lookalikes

Alex Maas, lead singer, The Black Angels

Jesco White, the Dancing Outlaw

More Black Angels/Jesco White goodness:

(1) Here's the video for the Black Angels' "First Vietnamese War." I actually confused this song with another one of their songs last night. It's a great song and was the final encore of the evening, which we missed due to Potsy and Jumbo Slice unilaterally making us leave the venue because of the late hour--definitely not one of Rock Club's finer moments. Decide for yourselves if we should have stuck around (3 min 37 sec):

(2) Here's a clip from Jesco's movie, The Dancing Outlaw (2 min 4 sec):



(3) And one more Jesco clip, wherein he discusses how he likes his breakfast eggs cooked, and the consequences of not cooking them to his preferred taste (12 sec):

Happy Passover

The Black Angels - April 5, 2007 @ Rock N Roll Hotel with Vietnam ($12)

It should be noted straight away that Sacklunch was unable to attend this week's show as he and Mrs. Sacklunch were busy bringing into the world the next generation of Rock Club membership. Congratulations to Sacklunch, Mrs. Sacklunch and to baby Sacklunch! As a result, we had a substitute for the show, we'll call him "Stuttson," as in Stuttson's Famous Bar and Grill. Again, good job Sacklunch. We still expect to see you for Rock Club road trip to Bawlmer for the Spoon show.

Anyway, Rock Club returned to the venerable RNR Hotel for another dose of rock. This trip quickly followed an extra-credit excursion to the RNR where 3/4 X RC had enjoyed Menomena just a few days earlier (see post by Jumbo Slice). For our return, we went upstairs to have a few drinks, easily finding ourselves on the couches of one of the parlor type rooms. If it weren't for the massive wave of bass penetrating the floorboards from below, it would have felt like we had never left my apartment. The bass was being produced by hippie throwback rockers, Vietnam. See artist's rendering to the right. That about sums up their look. They look as though they haven't bathed since the Vietnam war, and remind you of the guys you see sleeping in the doorways of DC office buildings on the weekends. I saw this band open for Jenny Lewis at the 9:30 Club. I'm not sure if it is a comment on the rise of the RNR in getting bigger bands, or the fall of Vietnam's status as they find themselves opening for another band, but at the RNR. Hmmm. Anyhow, we came down for the last song of their set, and to be honest it was pretty good. I thought they were decent at the 9:30 Club, and they seemed to be drawing a noticeable crowd as an opening act to the Black Angels. But it was getting late, and while there was a decent crowd gathered, the crowd wasn't really begging for more. So Vietnam did what any band hoping to build a reputation as a pain in the ass would do. They left the stage for about 25 seconds, just long enough for the 9 people who were clapping to get some rest. Then the band came back, and decided a slow Allman-Brother-type encore was in order. Again, in my opinion, it sounded pretty good at first, but like a faltering airplane, the sound quickly lost altitude and the band's unwarranted return to the stage ended with the wheels completely falling off this last tune. So instead of being satisfied with the 9 applauders, Vietnam left the stage with 3 people clapping. Here is photo of the band leaving after the show.

On to the Black Angels. Coincidentally, we were able to catch the Black Angels promoting their new album "Passover," in the middle of the actual Passover holiday. Neat, eh? So here is a clip from the show, it began with "Bloodhounds on My Trail"...
I must admit that the first tune reminded me a whole lot of "Hippie Hippie Shake" as performed by the Georgia Satellites. Just listen to the back beat. Now, that is as critical as I'm going to be. I think these guys rock. I also think that the vocal effects that the group employs is reminiscent of Gomez, whom I also like (in moderation). The Black Angels seem to feel compelled to remind us that people are at war and shooting at each other somewhere in the world, probably US. At least that's the vibe I got. Disagree? Here is the track list from "Passover:"
1) Young Men Dead
2) The First Vietnamese War
3) Sniper at the Gates of Heaven
4) Prodigal Sun
5) Black Grease
6) Manipulation
7) Empire
8) Better Off Alone
9) Bloodhounds on My Trail
10) Call to Arms
I believe the titles alone support my claim.

So the show was excellent. The venue was perfect for it, and we were able to sneak up to the front right side for good views and plenty of hearing damage. Alas, it was a Thursday night, and at 1:30am, it was time to hit the road. Mr. "I-work-from-home" cried foul as we left, while the rest of us who have to get up to earn an honest living (Stuttson excluded) were content with what we saw and heard. Just like the war, Vietnam went on too long, and we can blame them for having to walk out on the Black Angels early. Damn that Charlie.

Lastly, here is a photo that jimbromski set up. It was taken across the street from the RNR. I believe this will be the cover for jimbromski's upcoming album, "Risk it for a Biscuit."

Menomena (as in phenomena)

If the only thing I took from the show was the proper way to pronounce Menomena, I'd have been happy. I struggle with these things (well, a lot of things). It took me over a year to figure out to say Sufjan. I still don't know to pronounce MacKaye (Mc-KAY? Mac-EYE? Evil-EYE?). Screw it.

It was good we got there early since the show was sold out. Sacklunch and I witnessed a lot of disappointed hipsters who were turned away. (Sidebar to the kids: if you showed some hustle putting on your hoodies and skinny jeans these things wouldn't happen. Puctuality is virtue, bitches.) One thing I like about the R&R Hotel is that even when it's sold out, it's not crazy crowded. We were able to scoot up front for a good view of the stage. Everyone in our group seemed to like the opening band, Land of Talk (yet another band from Montreal). I would have liked to have seen Field of Music, but they weren't terrbily missed. L.O.T. were steller openers.


Menomena go their own way and I really respect that. Few indie bands have songs that consist entirely of drums, bass, and a xylophone. Or drums, sax, and keyboards. Their song structures are unconventional yet have an odd appeal. It's not unlike Deerhoof, except you understand the lyrics. I wish I had paid more attention to their new album "Friend and Foe" before Saturday. I loved the live songs off of "I Am The Fun Blame Monster". These guys are the oppposite of Be Your Own Pet. They're great musicians who elevate their songs when played live.

Sacklunch said the more he thought back on he show, the more and more he liked it. I have to agree. I have their new album, "Friend and Foe", on high rotation. The next time Menomena comes to town, I'll be ready.