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July 11, 2005
Zombies want to eat you
I've had these insane, violent splatter-gore dreams lately. And I haven't even seen Land of the Dead yet.
In one, it was an archetypal Night of the Living Dead scenario, what with me running from an assortment of zombies and the requisite axe-to-brain type foo, quite nasty and kinda funny. Funny-unsettling, you know?
Anyway (and speaking of), just got back from Hollywood. My band played the Viper Room on Friday night. We played our guts out and were met with discretely polite applause and cell phone conversation static. Ah, the subtle lessons of the Viper Room. Just prior to taking the stage for this show, meant to be a "showcase" for our new record in an attempt to find a suitable home for it, a fire broke out at the Tower Video directly across the street. The sickly grey pungent smell of burning DVDs permeated the area, and firefighters and LAPD blocked off the whole city block to traffic, making it impossible to get in or out of the vicinity via auto, or anywhere close to a certain band's showcase. Foot traffic? See: Missing Persons, duh. Smoke pouring out of Tower, onlookers in their J-Lo sunglasses at 10pm, the whole event just kind of underscoring the bittersweet comedy that is Deathray's music "career".
Right after we left the stage, sweaty and frankly, tripped out, the police and fire crews cleared out. The Sunset Strip returned to relative normality. C'mon, really? Jeez.
Despite all the lunacy, it was a great show for us. Like I said, we rocked with abandon, and were joined by our old friend Max Hart for a few songs, which raised the bar even further. Then: Clap, clap..... (pause) clap. (sigh) I told a brief Ricky Gervais joke. (courtesy laugh from the far corner, and deafening silence elsewhere) You know - the Office? You've seen... it... right? O-K. Back to the rocking. Clap. Clap-clap.
Still have no idea exactly why these shows carry such weight or importance for others. I mean the Viper Room SOUNDS great and the soundguy and staff are always pretty cool to us, really, but we've never played music there and felt like we were playing to a real majority of people who love music, or even LIKE music or us. It's always half full with paralytic zombies and mewling scenesters. Hence, "Diaper Room". It's not the fault of the venue, I guess. It's the zombies. They're everywhere. They want to eat you.
It's nothing personal, man. I'm dead, and I need to eat your flesh, O-K?
posted by dana at July 11, 2005 11:10 AM
