Thursday, December 16, 2004
Le Tigre, Cat's Cradle, 12/7
Le Tigre / Lesbians on Ecstasy / Measles Mumps Rubella
Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, NC
December 7, 2004
Beth had to keep an eye on the kid (everything he is today was constructed COMPLETELY from her, which is pretty spooky when you think about it, so I completely understood her prioritizing his feeding over an evening with Kathleen Hannah and the gals). Craig didn’t feel like driving all the way up from Charlotte on a weeknight. Mari’s boyfriend was out of town so nobody was around to keep an eye on Tristan. Tom is agoraphobic. Bill Cross wasn’t about to fly all the way out here when he had a chance to see them at Coachella and opted instead for a rather plump The Cure. So I extended an invite to see Le Tigre to Larry, my 58-year old neighbor ("60 year-old neighbor" sounds so much cooler, but I felt bad about my original Rather-esque reporting and edited it to reflect his real age). He’s a cool guy, but he made sure to proclaim his dislike of “the hard rock” while accepting the invitation. Talk about passive-aggressive.
Dave decided at the last minute he needed some new material with which to make fun of me, so he declared his intention to buy a ticket of his own and join me and Larry for the trek to Chapel Hill. Just prior to leaving, I sent him a few MP3s of Le Tigre to prepare him for the evening. By the time we all piled into the car, I was sweating profusely from the cold medicine I took to suppress the other symptoms that were making me feel rather miserable. Dave announced the MP3s I sent were “awful, just awful,” and dialed in the Country Hits station on XM. Dave and Larry sang along to Travis Tritt in the front seat while I sweated silently in the back.
We arrived at about 9:30 (opening band usually goes on at 9:00 at the Cradle). I could hear Measles Mumps Rubella’s dissonance in the parking lot. I asked Larry for the third time if he brought ear plugs. He reassured me, also for the third time, that he had.
Dave walked up to the window to buy a ticket. I prepared to hand mine and Larry’s to the door guy. Then I saw the sign:
“Le Tigre cancelled due to illness. FREE show tonight with Measles Mumps Rubella and Lesbians on Ecstacy. Le Tigre will announce a rescheduled date. Come on in and see these cool bands for free tonight!”
MMR ramped up their post-punk caterwaul as if in synchrony with Larry’s evolving look of disgust. Under different circumstances, I might have found their post-punk angular shrieking “interesting.” Under these particular circumstances, I was simply embarrassed.
Larry, Dave, and I made a beeline to the back for a beer. Dave got the idea to ask the bartender for change for the pool table. He actually pointed to the table to, you know, indicate that’s where we’d be using the change. You’d think that would have been the bartender’s cue (ha!) to ask for Dave’s driver’s license in exchange for the cue ball, as per Cradle policy. But no! This is the Cat’s Cradle, where it is much more important to act disenfranchised than it is to, you know, actually help the customer. While Dave inspected each of the pockets carefully for the missing cue ball, I gave the bartender my own license in exchange for it.
We began playing pool. Dave made up his own rules for cutthroat, and Larry and I gamely went along with them. We drank more beers. Mercifully, Measles Mumps Rubella drew their set to a close. We conversed for a while and continued to play pool while Lesbians on Ecstasy prepped the stage.
Amazingly, a few hundred people stayed for the free show. Many of them were lesbians, and a surprising amount of those were lesbians in the Penthouse sense of the word which, let’s face it, you usually only find in magazines.
Larry pulled out his wallet to get some cash for beer and a comb fell out. Dave thought this was particularly funny, and began to taunt Larry about his comb. “You carry a COMB? A COMB? I didn’t know anybody actually carried COMBS any more! Hey, Combover! Comb over here and take your shot!" Et cetera. He kept up the comb shit the rest of the evening. It was pretty funny.
Lesbians on Ecstasy hit the dark stage amidst a thumping gay bar techno beat that… wasn’t half bad, at least at first. I detached from the pool game for a few minutes to see what they were up to. Four Adidas sweat suit-clad women wearing butch haircuts stood on the stage looking exactly like The Happy Mondays and sounding like, well, an awful lot like Peaches. Unfortunately, they didn’t have Peaches’ train wreck appeal (or overt heterosexuality, for that matter), and their stage show (which relied heavily on fluorescent glow sticks) quickly bored me. Easily enough ignored, I left them to concentrate on another in a series of horrendous pool shots that plagued me the entire evening.
By midnight, the bands had wrapped up their sets, 90% of the folks had left the building, and we had finished playing pool and drinking beer for the night. I slept well that night, exhausted by a combination of cold medicine, beer, and laughing at Larry’s comb.
I still have an extra ticket for the rescheduled Le Tigre show: 2/23 at Cat’s Cradle. Let me know if any of you wants to go.
Cat’s Cradle, Carrboro, NC
December 7, 2004
Beth had to keep an eye on the kid (everything he is today was constructed COMPLETELY from her, which is pretty spooky when you think about it, so I completely understood her prioritizing his feeding over an evening with Kathleen Hannah and the gals). Craig didn’t feel like driving all the way up from Charlotte on a weeknight. Mari’s boyfriend was out of town so nobody was around to keep an eye on Tristan. Tom is agoraphobic. Bill Cross wasn’t about to fly all the way out here when he had a chance to see them at Coachella and opted instead for a rather plump The Cure. So I extended an invite to see Le Tigre to Larry, my 58-year old neighbor ("60 year-old neighbor" sounds so much cooler, but I felt bad about my original Rather-esque reporting and edited it to reflect his real age). He’s a cool guy, but he made sure to proclaim his dislike of “the hard rock” while accepting the invitation. Talk about passive-aggressive.
Dave decided at the last minute he needed some new material with which to make fun of me, so he declared his intention to buy a ticket of his own and join me and Larry for the trek to Chapel Hill. Just prior to leaving, I sent him a few MP3s of Le Tigre to prepare him for the evening. By the time we all piled into the car, I was sweating profusely from the cold medicine I took to suppress the other symptoms that were making me feel rather miserable. Dave announced the MP3s I sent were “awful, just awful,” and dialed in the Country Hits station on XM. Dave and Larry sang along to Travis Tritt in the front seat while I sweated silently in the back.
We arrived at about 9:30 (opening band usually goes on at 9:00 at the Cradle). I could hear Measles Mumps Rubella’s dissonance in the parking lot. I asked Larry for the third time if he brought ear plugs. He reassured me, also for the third time, that he had.
Dave walked up to the window to buy a ticket. I prepared to hand mine and Larry’s to the door guy. Then I saw the sign:
“Le Tigre cancelled due to illness. FREE show tonight with Measles Mumps Rubella and Lesbians on Ecstacy. Le Tigre will announce a rescheduled date. Come on in and see these cool bands for free tonight!”
MMR ramped up their post-punk caterwaul as if in synchrony with Larry’s evolving look of disgust. Under different circumstances, I might have found their post-punk angular shrieking “interesting.” Under these particular circumstances, I was simply embarrassed.
Larry, Dave, and I made a beeline to the back for a beer. Dave got the idea to ask the bartender for change for the pool table. He actually pointed to the table to, you know, indicate that’s where we’d be using the change. You’d think that would have been the bartender’s cue (ha!) to ask for Dave’s driver’s license in exchange for the cue ball, as per Cradle policy. But no! This is the Cat’s Cradle, where it is much more important to act disenfranchised than it is to, you know, actually help the customer. While Dave inspected each of the pockets carefully for the missing cue ball, I gave the bartender my own license in exchange for it.
We began playing pool. Dave made up his own rules for cutthroat, and Larry and I gamely went along with them. We drank more beers. Mercifully, Measles Mumps Rubella drew their set to a close. We conversed for a while and continued to play pool while Lesbians on Ecstasy prepped the stage.
Amazingly, a few hundred people stayed for the free show. Many of them were lesbians, and a surprising amount of those were lesbians in the Penthouse sense of the word which, let’s face it, you usually only find in magazines.
Larry pulled out his wallet to get some cash for beer and a comb fell out. Dave thought this was particularly funny, and began to taunt Larry about his comb. “You carry a COMB? A COMB? I didn’t know anybody actually carried COMBS any more! Hey, Combover! Comb over here and take your shot!" Et cetera. He kept up the comb shit the rest of the evening. It was pretty funny.
Lesbians on Ecstasy hit the dark stage amidst a thumping gay bar techno beat that… wasn’t half bad, at least at first. I detached from the pool game for a few minutes to see what they were up to. Four Adidas sweat suit-clad women wearing butch haircuts stood on the stage looking exactly like The Happy Mondays and sounding like, well, an awful lot like Peaches. Unfortunately, they didn’t have Peaches’ train wreck appeal (or overt heterosexuality, for that matter), and their stage show (which relied heavily on fluorescent glow sticks) quickly bored me. Easily enough ignored, I left them to concentrate on another in a series of horrendous pool shots that plagued me the entire evening.
By midnight, the bands had wrapped up their sets, 90% of the folks had left the building, and we had finished playing pool and drinking beer for the night. I slept well that night, exhausted by a combination of cold medicine, beer, and laughing at Larry’s comb.
I still have an extra ticket for the rescheduled Le Tigre show: 2/23 at Cat’s Cradle. Let me know if any of you wants to go.
posted by Bill Purdy, 10:00 PM
1 Buffaloes were bitter enough to post comments:
I'd love to go, but I'm too far away! DAMN! Love the review however!