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They are. Different, I mean. From…everything.

This was at least my 8th time seeing them. I say “at least” because I don’t remember how many times I saw them as a teenager in Seattle. At least once but probably more. I took Nathaniel and Dillon, and also a new show buddy I’ve met, Meg. She works at my husband’s company. She’s young and into all kinds of music and totally willing to go to shows with me whenever. I love it. I have friends that will sometimes go to shows with me, but they’re not very into music, and it’s hard for some of them to be out late, they have small children. And a lot of the shows I go to, I’d feel bad dragging them along—they just wouldn’t enjoy it. But Meg’s up for anything.

We got to the Troubadour pretty early because I know Melvins fans. They are die hard. And I wanted a stage spot. We ended up getting there even earlier than I meant to, and I felt a little stupid, until I saw that there was already a line forming. By the time they let us in, it was the longest line I’ve ever seen at a Troubadour show. And they were playing two nights, Friday and Saturday—we went to the Friday show.

I checked out the line for anyone I knew when we first arrived and immediately spotted two. One is a guy I know from Facebook, I see him at shows occasionally–mostly Melvins shows, I think. He’s a cool guy. Another was a kid Nathaniel, Dillon and I have seen at different shows. He’s the lurker who always shows up in my pictures! (You can see him here and here, and here he is at this show.)

First band to play was a band I’ve seen before called Porn. They’re different now—Coady and Dale, both drummers in the Melvins (yeah they have two drummers), played drums. Tim Moss played guitar and made a bunch of noises with some kind of other equipment, and another guy played a toy keyboard hooked up to a bunch of effects pedals. They didn’t play that long.

Then Big Business played, and the guy who played the toy keyboard for Porn played guitar. Jared on bass/vocals (he also plays bass and sings in the Melvins), and Coady on drums. So Coady was on stage for all three bands’ sets. I’ve seen other Melvins shows where it was Dale on stage all night, either playing drums or guitar in different bands.

I like Big Business with a guitar. I like them without a guitar, too, though. Since the songs were written without one, the songs are very bass-oriented, and I like that. Jared is funny, too. At one point he said there was something near him that smelled good. My Facebook friend Will raised his hand to indicate that it was him. Jared told the guy behind him to smell his hair and verify that it was actually Will that smelled good, but the guy wouldn’t do it. Jared said, “Come on. Are we not all adults here?” Then he leaned down, grabbed Will’s head, and buried his nose in his hair. He said, “That is the best smelling-hair in L.A.” (or something like that).

I thought maybe Big Business wouldn’t even bother leaving the stage and the Melvins would just come out, but they left for a few minutes while the guitarist removed his equipment.

I was standing directly in front of Buzzo.

The coolest hair in all of rock, and possibly the world. It looks like Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons.

Nathaniel and Dillon were standing a couple people away from me, around the side of the stage.

Buzzo kept stepping away from the mic and playing right in their faces. He’d look right at them, it seemed at times like he was glaring at them. He can be really intimidating, like he might be mean, but he’s actually just really goofy. I met a guy at a Melvins show once who had done an interview with them, and when he met Buzzo, Buzzo had cracked some joke. The guy said, “Oh, you’re a comedian?” And Buzzo, referring to the set they’d just played, said, “Yeah, what do you think that was?”

The Melvins typically wear goofy outfits on stage. Buzzo usually wears a long dresslike garment. It used to be a black one with a big red cross on it. Now it’s one with nurses all over it.

Jared wore a wig, and fringe leather vest, and a scarf. I think he was going for a hippy look, but I couldn’t tell exactly.

Meg and I definitely had the best vantage point in the place—we could see both drummers really well. It’s interesting to watch them play, to see the cues they give each other. Coady really has to watch Dale carefully. It must be really challenging and fun for them to play together like that. It’s amazing how in sync they were.

Dale’s daughter was there, she looked like she was about three. He let her come out and play his drums in between bands, it was really cute, and everyone was cheering and clapping for her.

The setlist:

That paper was actually facing away from me, and I flipped the picture in Photoshop so it’s readable. At the show I couldn’t quite make out a lot of it, but I did managed to see “Revolve” on there, and I was anticipating it all night. Only my favorite Melvins song ever:

They did mostly new material, stuff from the last two albums. Which was fine by me: I love the two recent albums. They did “A History of Bad Men,” one of my faves, and then segued right into the Star Spangled Banner. Somehow it’s not something I’d expect the Melvins to do. I got it all on video, too.

The Banner begins at about 5:35. I love how they harmonized.

During the last song, Jared took a mic out into the crowd. He was singing, well mostly just making noises, and wandered through the crowd, sometimes on the floor. I couldn’t actually see a lot of what he was doing, but tried to get video of it. At the end he got back up on the stage, then climbed on their roadie’s back for a piggyback ride. Video:

After that, the band all left the stage except for Buzzo, who sang a Merle Haggard song, “Okie From Muskogee.” In the video above, it starts at about the 6:00 mark.

It was an awesome show.

People have posted a lot of video from the Buckethead show on youtube. Soooo awesome.

Here he is doing his robot dance:

And this one shows him doing the robot while playing guitar, which I think may be the sickest thing I’ve ever seen:

Sorry, the sound quality on that clip is bad. The robot bit is best shown at 1:48 to the end of the clip. It was even more impressive live in person.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’m grateful for talented people like Buckethead.

It’s basically just an outdoor mall. Parking is free the first three hours. Shops and restaurants are overpriced and overrated. Did I mention they blast music everywhere, even though you’re outside? I’m thinking that’s a California thing—a lot of the nicer/newer shopping centers do that.

I wanted to take my panoramic camera with the flipped lens to Downtown Disney, so I did. And here are the results.

The Lego store:

People watching can be fun here:

One of those overpriced, overrated restaurants:

Bird sculpture outside the House of Blues:

The House of Blues:

You can’t read it, but the sign says BUCKETHEAD NOVEMBER 22.

Fountain:

A cool sun flare:

Lights strewn on wires over a seating area:

On the roof of a shop:

The Sephora store:

Almost as much as I’m dying to talk about it.

BUCKETHEAD
Nov 22, 2008
House of Blues, Anaheim

I was excited for this show because it meant so much to the boys. I took Nathaniel, his friend Dillon, and Elijah. All three are Buckethead fanatics. Buckethead tends to inspire that, so I was thinking we should probably get to the venue really early to get a stage spot. But I left it up to the boys, and they thought getting there an hour early would be ok. Nope. The line was huge, and we ended up in the back of the place. Fortunately we were right in front of the sound mixing booth, which gave me something to lean against.

The opening guy was this weird performer who goes by That One Guy. He plays this custom-made instrument. It’s shaped kind of like a harp, all made out of metal. He beats on it and it makes noise. He has all these buttons on it too with pre-programmed sounds and samples. In concept, it’s really cool. However the music itself was rather blah. And his lyrics were just ridiculous. Singing about butterfly bones and scones. He was entertaining, though, and the crowd loved him. The boys really liked him, too. At one point he pulled out a cowboy boot that was wired and played that. Tapping on the sole. He also played a saw, with a bow, which I’ve seen done before. It was funny when he started reeling off words that rhymed with “scones” and then got the audience in on it. I yelled out “moans” but he went with “Tom Jones” and then “Sylvester Stallones.”

After the curtains closed on him, instead of playing music, they played the audio to an old Frankenstein movie. Which was entertaining at first, but then it just went on too long. And then some sort of carnival/polka music came on, which people were clapping along to and stuff. Again, went on too long.

I was dying and on the verge of screaming “BUCKETHEAD” when finally the curtains opened.

And the entire crowd rushed the stage.

I haven’t seen a stage rush like that since I was a teenager and they made you sit on the floor of the venue before shows started. Suddenly I had all this room in front of me. Dillon managed to squeeze his way much further up front. Nathaniel got blocked behind two giant guys. Elijah was just behind him. Eventually Nathaniel got up to where Dillon was. Elijah stayed back by me.

I could not believe how cool it was when Buckethead came out. If you’re not familiar with him, this is what he looks like:

He wears a bucket over his head and a white face mask. He looks creepier in the pictures I took then he did live. He’s really tall (like 6’7″) and gangly. And he does the robot, while he’s playing guitar. I think it might be the sickest thing I’ve ever seen.

I was yelling and jumping around and dancing just like everyone else. Finally I really understood the whole hysteria over Buckethead. And now I’m obsessed. Who is this guy? How can he have been around so long and never been revealed?

His fingers are really long. He’s a phenomenal guitar player. And with those veins, I think I could recognize his fingers anywhere. Combined with his height, I’m positive I could know him if I saw him without his mask.

It’d be funny if when he’s not masked, he wears gloves everywhere.

He had people come out on stage at different times—women dressed in ceremonial robes; some guy in a weird mask. I actually could not see anything most of the time from where I stood. I’m too short. The venue really sucks. They have screens you can watch but the lighting was too dark on stage for it to really be any use. Dillon snuck his camera in (really impressively, too, by hiding it in plain sight), and gave it to me to use so he could go jump around in the mosh pit. I managed to take a whole ton of photos. They all basically look the same though—I mean it’s not like Buckethead does a lot of facial expressions. Well, I’m sure he does, behind his mask—and I’m dying to know what exactly does go on behind that mask. Is he smiling? Does he talk to himself? How hot must it be?

I could swear that sometimes the mask changed expression. I know it was just the lighting and how he moved his body but it was soooo cool.

Eventually I got too tired and went upstairs to use the bathroom, to get a drink of water, and to check out the merch. All of Buckethead’s tshirts had sold out. I was gonna get all three boys one, too. There was no vinyl, only CDs. I missed him doing his Willy Wonka/Candyman/etc. tribute.

Earlier he did the Star Wars theme, which was super cool. I took video of it. Dillon hasn’t uploaded any video to youtube yet, I’ll post it when he does.

Oh almost forgot—Buckethead also tosses out toys and stuff to the crowd. First he pulled out his num-chucks and started slinging those around. I couldn’t actually see anything, but I tried to get video of it with Dillon’s camera. Then he did his robot dance, which I totally missed. And then he took out these huge bags full of action figures and stuff that he started handing out to the crowd. I was way in the back but I still had my hands in the air hoping he’d toss something my way. Nathaniel said later he’d never seen people go so crazy for a bunch of Barbies. I guess they were action figures for girls or something. And *everyone* was going crazy. It was so fun.

That One Guy joined him at the end. He didn’t do an encore. Just played for about two hours straight and then the curtains closed. A lot of the crowd hung around, hoping he’d come back out. The venue made a slight change in the lights and everyone rushed back to the stage, chanting “Buckethead!” Then a hand appeared between the cracks of the curtains, waving, and security started telling everyone to leave. It was over.

And I’m converted.

• Buckethead is tonight. I’ve been wanting to get back to Downtown Disney to take pictures and was hoping to do so today. However we won’t get there before the concert until after the sun goes down. Do I really want to go out there twice in one day? Well, yeah, I do. But I also want to go to Newport Beach and take pictures there. I’ll most likely end up doing neither, since it’s Saturday and the kids will have plans.
• Dead spiders are only marginally better than live spiders. Depending on how big and where they are. Sure, live spiders move and scurry really fast and are therefore a much bigger threat. But somebody really needs to do something about all the dead spiders outside our apartment door. That’s all I’m saying.
• Yeasayer is playing tomorrow night. I really want to see them. I was considering going, even though I’m seeing Buckethead tonight, because it’s at the Troub and I could sit down. And I really want to see them. However I just realized I have to help roll out a website update tomorrow night at 9pm. Why do it on Sunday at 9pm? Who knows? I guess they figure less traffic on the site at that time. I tend to doubt it, since it’s a website for gamers.
• I showed Elijah my new favorite discovery, a band called Portal. He showed me Locust. I win.
• My parents are coming down for Christmas. I’m excited. They were originally hoping we could go to Washington for the holiday but there’s just no way. Christmas is one of the busiest times for Daniel, and the next month or so is going to be really busy for me, too, it looks like. Plus, no money.
• We’re going to a friends’ house for Thanksgiving. The family we went camping with to the desert to go dirt biking last winter. They’re super cool. And this year instead of bringing videogames I’m making the kids bring a football, badmitton, some games and some coloring books.

  I love coloring books.

I still love this song. Found a live version of it on youtube, and it sounds exactly like the studio version.

“Slow Show” by The National

My favorite lines are at the end, so if you have time, listen all the way through. Or just skip to the 2:30 mark.

–

You know I dreamed about you
for twenty-nine years before I saw you
You know I dreamed about you
I missed you for
twenty-nine years

I’ve been going richter with the picture-taking lately and haven’t been posting any of my photos here, so here’s some of my faves from the last few weeks.

I picked up an old rangefinder camera called a Petri at the swap meet the other day. The lens is pretty soft. But sometimes it does some cool stuff. I like this first picture mainly because it’s my favorite tree around here. It’s in Central Park.

I’m not sure what camera I used for this next one. I found an old roll of film I hadn’t developed yet. It had pictures of Daniel at the beach on it.

When I went to the swap meet a couple weekends ago, I took along my panoramic camera with the flipped lens. I love swap meet shots with this camera. Here’s a table of Barbies:

I love the guy lurking in the background of this one:

I also took that camera to the cemetery on Halloween:

Another camera I got at the swap meet is an old Spartus TLR. Here’s a few pics with it, taken at Central Park:

Cat using my digital camera to get some pictures:

These were taken with a little plastic Vivitar camera. This is one of the drainage ditches in Huntington Beach:

This is a window display at a store in Hollywood:

Someone signaling for help:

Taking the boys to see their FAVORITE OF ALL TIME, Buckethead, on Saturday. Nathaniel wanted to make a Tshirt of something Buckethead-related that might catch his eye. So we went to the mall and had this made:

My digital camera isn’t doing too hot. But you get the idea. That’s a band or album Buckethead did. One of his more obscure projects.

Man Nathaniel is getting ridiculously tall. It looks like he’s almost to the ceiling in that last picture.

If you don’t know who Buckethead is, he’s a guitarist who was in GnR for awhile (after they broke up and Axl got the band back “together”). And if you’re wondering why he’s called Buckethead, here you go:

He keeps his identity hidden. The original idea was, if people couldn’t see him, the focus would be on the music and not him as a person. Yeah, that didn’t work out too well. In addition to the mask and bucket, the guy’s freakishly tall. Do you think that’s a wig?

My favorite part of that song is when he starts bending the notes, but he doesn’t really do it much in this live version. (He changes up songs when he plays them live.) I must’ve heard the boys play this song a billion times, and I’m still not sick of it.

I think it was probably inspired or influenced by this song by Parliament, called “Maggot Brain.” The story is, someone in the band told the guitarist, Eddie Hazel, to imagine his mother had just died, and start playing. This is what came out.

Ween wrote a song inspired by “Maggot Brain” called “A Tear For Eddie.” It’s excellent as well.

Tracy/Dandelion Mama has a sweet post up about her son riding the short bus to school. (Note: I wrote this awhile ago and am only now getting around to publishing it, so her post is kind of old now.)

When I was in 6th grade we moved from one suburb of Seattle to another. Kent was across the valley from where I had lived previously, and it meant a new elementary school for 6th grade. I was horrendously shy. Or at least, I was after we moved. Before we moved, I’d had a gang of girls I hung out with at school, and another gang of kids, including a best friend, who I hung out with at home. At school I was considered the funny one, the one the girls would expect to entertain them when we got bored during recess. We put on plays together; we made up dance routines at recess. The whole world was ours.

But I was really shy among people I didn’t know. And I knew no one at my new school. It was painful for me. Most of the kids had all grown up together and knew each other well. Cliques and groups were well established by 6th grade. Fortunately, there was another girl who was new at the school, and we got to be friends.

Her name was Lisa, and her family was Mormon. She used to take me on some church activities. I remember a really fun father-daughter camp out one time.

Unfortunately, we both went to different junior highs and I lost touch with her. It was a bit easier to make new friends in junior high—a lot of the elementary schools fed different junior highs so there were a lot of kids forced to make new friends.

Anyway, the elementary school I went to was at the top of a really steep hill, and we lived near the bottom of the hill. The school was only a few blocks away–definitely within walking distance. But the only road to it was a very steep hill with no sidewalks, only gravel shoulders. My mom refused to let me walk. She made the school district bus me.

The only bus available was the short bus.

I probably would have been teased a lot, if there were any kids who knew me well enough to know I was riding the short bus home. But no one did.

And I liked the kids on the short bus. They were different. And they didn’t seem to care that they were different. I never got to know any of them well enough to know why they were riding a short bus, or even what schools they were going to. None of them went to my school. One boy in particular was a real loud mouth trouble maker. He’s really the only kid I can remember.

It seemed like nothing phased him.

Everything phased me.

My first bus ride home was my first bus ride, ever, and I was too shy and quiet to say anything when the bus driver went right past my house. It wasn’t until we were about a mile away that anyone noticed. I must’ve said something to a kid near me, because Mr. Loudmouth spoke up and told the bus driver. She had to turn around and head all the way back to my house. I was mortified. I can still feel the pang of that embarrassment. And that horrible feeling of needing to speak up but being unable to.

Sometimes I really do think I’m autistic.

And it was worth it.

When I first heard Danielson, or the Danielson Family, I thought they were basically unlistenable. Which doesn’t mean I didn’t like them. I listen to (and love) a lot of unlistenable stuff. It just takes awhile for it to become listenable. An acquired taste. I knew if I spent the time on Danielson, I’d come to love it. I just never did take the time to let it grow on me.

Then one day I was browsing through the music section of a DVD store and came across a documentary called Danielson: A Family Movie (Or Make A Joyful Noise Here). It looked fascinating. I picked it up. The documentary explains a lot about Danielson, whose real name is Daniel Smith, his music, his background, his family, and how they all came to be in a band together.

They’re a religious family, very much so, and they approach music as a vehicle for God. But while their songs have positive and Christian messages in them, I don’t necessarily think you’d peg them as Christian music. I mean, this is what they sound like:

After watching the movie, the music made total sense to me. And now I love it. He’s so far out in left field, doing stuff no one’s doing. He doesn’t tour that often, especially with the family, since they’re all married with kids now. I found out a few days before the show they were playing and knew I’d have to skip all the other shows I wanted to see this weekend for it.

I figured it’d be a rare experience, one that doesn’t come along that often. A band like this is just so unique. They’re not trying to fit into any preconceived ideas or any particular scene or genre. They are trying to make music that uplifts people. Which is ironic, because it is, like I said, rather unlistenable. Mostly Daniel’s vocals, I think—very high-pitched.

Did I mention they dress in uniforms?

They just released a new sort of “best of” compilation, so they played songs spanning their career. Danielson introduced one song as a “party song.” They played a few numbers he called “clap-along” songs, first they’d show the audience what beat they wanted us to clap to. Once we were all clapping they’d start playing the song.

One song was a “snap-along” song. He started us out snapping too fast and had to get us restarted a couple times until he got the tempo right. One woman started cheering and he said, “This isn’t a party song. It’s a snap-along.” See here:

The music isn’t for everyone. But it’s been awhile since I’ve been to a show where everyone was enjoying themselves so thoroughly and I didn’t have drunk guys slobbering on me. One guy next to me brought a tamberine and danced all night.

One of those shows I feel lucky to have seen.

They ended with a sing-along:

Pics here.

More video clips here.

@ Troubadour, Hollywood, CA 11-15-08