so, lots of water under the bridge since august... went to memphis in september for gonerfest 6, goner records' annual blowout. took lots of pictures. discovered some awesome bands (davila 666! magnetix!), finally saw some whose performances are legendary on the indie garage and punk circuits (jay reatard, who sadly passed away in jan. 2010; nobunny), and learned how to shoot from the midst of a mosh pit without personal or camera injury.
what's it like in a mosh pit? something like this:
once you get over the "AAAAAAAHHH! lemme outta here!", it's kinda fun. as long as you manage to avoid flailing limbs and you're not trying traverse the space. in other words, you have to just go with it. kind of like life. ooo, hey -- new shirt: "Life is a mosh pit. Don't get hit in the face, and you'll be ok." (copyright 2010, me) if you say it with a forrest gump voice, it's even better.
aaaanyway, so -- memphis, good. food was awesome. thanks to my awesome friends, i had a fried chicken experience bordering on the transcendent and got to try, like, five different kinds of BBQ. *nom*!
moving on to october... again, thanks to an awesome friend, i saw one of the best shows of the year, which i wouldn't have gone to otherwise simply because i wasn't that familiar with the bands. st. vincent and andrew bird. awesome.
november brought my favoritest act, the king khan and bbq show, who did not disappoint -- they delivered their special brand of rockabilly do-wop weirdness in costume. yessss. i'll be seeing king khan again in march, this time with his other band, the fabulous shrines. last time i saw them, khan wore a big robot head for part of the show. it rocked.
and, in the spirit of exploration, i took a chance on minus the bear, who rewarded with a great, rockin' show (many, many guitar pedals). i think i was the oldest person there besides the band. i also *finally* finally got to see under-the-radar japanese noisepunks melt banana. they *do* exist! again in a mosh pit.
spent turkey day in philly with my sister, dad, and mom #2. saw "new moon" *twice*. i should probably be embarrassed. but i'm not. we had fun.
in december i got to see brendan benson, whose brilliant powerpop album "lapalco" is one of my favorites of all time, and corey chisel, who i missed at the wxpn non-comm back in may. both worth the wait. show ended with brendan and corey covering tom petty's "american girl". oh yeah.
xmas involved the rambunctious joy of my bro and his fam, plus some fake moustaches and indiana jones. it was a good time.
rang in the new year with the best xmas present ever -- a trip to boston to see amanda palmer and the boston pops. awesome times 10. maybe more. it snowed. it was beautiful. and the city was still able to function. amazing. visited edward gorey's house, which is now a museum. more awesome. and, at the boston museum of science, saw a way cool exhibit of props and costumes from the harry potter films. the details of even the least item were incredible -- care had been put into everything from the contents of student trunks and the Potions lab, to candy boxes and school papers. they even had screaming mandrake root babies you could pull up. hee!
it was extra nice to be able to start the year with an honorable mention award in the visual art exchange's january "road show" exhibit *and* rebus works' february/march "plastic camera works 2" exhibit. my hard work paid off. sweet!
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