Out of the Jungle and into the Fire - The Killers, Costa Rica, Gray Young, New World Highrise, Toon & The Real Laww, and Vienna Teng!

...Longest Blog post title ever? Well hold on to your hold-on-ables, as this is actually going to be a mostly pic-heavy post, to boot!

I felt a sense of obligation to explain to my faithfuls why there has been a huge black hole in my blog for the past few months, where Hopscotch should have been. Well, we all know I go through fits of depression and straight up laziness, which makes for inconsistent content. Alas, here i sit with time and energy and a steady internet connection, so here we go!

The Killers - August 12, Redhat Amphitheater

There are bands that on the neo-hipster scale that I absolutely adore that I'm sure most of my friends would agree are perhaps sellouts or too big for their britches, (U2 and Coldplay to name a couple obvious ) and I'm sure The Killers are in the non-in crowd as far as Indie cred goes... honestly, I couldn't give two shits. I LOVE them, always have, and used a small part of my well-deserved severance money (Oh, didn't you hear? I got laid off!) and bought the best tickets you could get for their show in Raleigh! My former bandmate and one of my all-time best friends, Jayseph, came along for the ride!

friends are friends forever!

It was well timed and staged perfection, and sounded SO GOOD as expected for a quasi-arena show for a megaband. I heard all my favorite songs, made friends with all the gay kids half my age in the pit and got generally overly emotional, as expected. 

Why so emotional? Well, good tunes with which I have unnaturally deep connections with, obviously ...(um, All These Things That I've Done?? Hello?) but also there was the whole "I gave away everything I owned and moved into the Jungle of Costa Rica to work on an Ecofarm, isolate myself and finish my Novel" thing.. which I did. Without going into too much public detail, (as it was a totally personally intense situation,) I didn't stay quite as long as I thought I would, but in the end, I didn't need to. Unfortunately all this self-reflection and Tao reading just happened to take place while Hopscotch rolled around, so I missed it. And the bluegrass festival...

Cut my hair off, stopped wearing a bra, and ran around in the jungle with a Machete for a few months... the only excuse I have for missing Herpskerch.

BUT! I came home just in time for:

The Last Gray Young show - Slim's - Oct 3

They say all great things must come to an end. But in this case, I am virtually inconsolable, as the VERY BEST THING has come to an end... for now, anyway... Gray Young has decided to take a little break. I am trying my best to come to grips with this now. Pre-show and about halfway through, I believe I was in a bit of denial... But as the entire Kitten Army was in attendance and once Dana and I hit the Bloody Mary's, it became all too clear that the end was neigh --- therefore the setlist was compromised and edited by your truly, I may have stagecrashed a little, and also forcibly broke the nearly 3 year vow of silence and all but attacked Chas on stage to thank him, basically for saving my life. I can't be completely sure, as the gods of convenient blackout drunkdom seems to have blocked out specific details, but its entirely possible i cried. like, a lot. It's what I do, man.

holy crap, i love you guys.

can't decide if this is my proudest ever moment or if should be mortified?

It was, for all intents and purposes, believe it or not, probably my favorite GY show I've seen, and I promise you, I've seen lots. Probably has something to do with the fact that do many of my favorite people were in attendance, that the last half of the show became a ridiculous dance party, and mostly because I was riding high on the surreal wave of my triumphant return from Costa Rica. 

I think I'm still in denial. They'll be back.

kinda hard to see, but I was handed a pen and was told to edit the set list, which I did.

The following sunday, after work, I found myself racing downtown once again to catch:

New World Highrise - Oct 6 - Slim's

The band that Jay was working so hard to make happen when we were tinkering around with the Clink - a mix of Jay's songs and the songs of others... a poprocks/80s indie postpunk - all good things - IT feels funny talking about them, because I feel like I'm bragging, as Jay called me up onstage to sing, as well. I had missed that, for sure!

I had actual face-pain from smiling so broadly with so much pride!

Toon & The Real Laww - King's - Oct 11

This show was a real "Should I or shouldn't I?" conundrum - I have seen these guys several times, but this was an EP release party, so I knew it would be a good one... I literally was indecisive until about 5 minutes before an awkward Landmark patio situation drove me into the arms of killer hip-hop!

I was glad I went. The crowd, every time I see them, knows more and more songs, gets denser and more excited... It's awesome seeing groups grow in the scene! Local music Pride!!!

photo taken specifically to taunt Sir Austin Parker

Professor Toon is a fan of House of Swank! YES!

I may have also incited a stagecrash at this show, as well. Which then erupted into one of the best post-show dance parties I have EVER seen!!!

I grabbed Laww and told him "IT'S TIME TO GET SOME SEXY LADIES ON STAGE!" and of course invited myself along!

And on that day, shit got cray.

Vienna Teng - Carolina Theatre, Durm - Oct 12

I found Vienna on a quirky internet channel I listened to for about 6 years straight before i discovered Spotify called "Radioparadise" - honestly one of the greatest radio stations ever - 90% of the songs are ones I love and the other 10% are songs I fall in love with; ergo Vienna... Blue Caravan was the first song I remember hearing and being all like .... "ohhhh mygah... what IS THIS? i love!" and then devouring everything i could fit in my earholes after. I was incredibly lucky to see her and Alex Wong a few years back at the Broad Street Cafe with an intimate crowd, that put me right up front. This time she played an actual (and quite beautiful) concert hall. The sound was pristine and the songs were totally emotional and my companion for the show was charming and my friend Amy is the best.

(haven't uploaded the only little video i took from the show, but here is a video from the last time i saw her at Broad Street, back in 2010 xoxo)

I've learned it best not to promise publicly or even personally, that I'll be anywhere at any time. I have learned that I am not fickle or flaky, I have learned to trust my instincts and my body and sometimes my instincts just lead me to bed early... Therefore, I can't promise you any reviews of any specific shows, but I can instead give you a pretty good idea of where I might be :)

Next monday I was tipped off that I would be a fool to miss Wild Belle at King's

Next thursday at London Bridge is a benefit for Cause for Paws, (a local charity I support wholeheartedly) called Pints for Paw - Try and come out!

Oh, the glory of no longer living downtown - an empty events calendar! But hey, I'm not saying don't invite me, or anything... If you hear about a I shouldn't miss or would like to use me to promote your shows, as always - I'm down, y'all. I'm always down...!

xoxo