Kayo Dot in Los Angeles

[NAD]

The Silverlake Lounge is a nice little dive bar in a shitty part of town, but the parking was close and free.

They played The Antique, Marathon, and The Manifold Curiosity. I was hoping for the entire album plus a 20 minute encore of new material, but I can't say it wasn't a great set. I was curious how the timing and dynamics would come out in a live setting, and the results far exceeded even my most optimistic hopes. Probably the greatest moment was the opening note of Marathon which, even though I sat toward the back and was expecting it to hit at any second, scared the shit out of me. The segue music was really cool, it was obvious when the songs ended but these kept the momentum going while instruments and tunings were changed between songs. I had goosebumps nearly the entire set, everything was just so perfect. Hopefully the band will get a chance to tour across the country more often (or I'll just move to Boston, whatever).

Met Greg right before the show, but after walking outside to have a smoke after the KO. set and seeing 20+ cops, one of which searching for possible bullet casings underneath my car, I figured that was a good time to leave so I didn't meet anyone else. Not sure if the Hot Dog Eaters thing was / is going to happen, but at that point I decided I had had enough of LA for the day so I came home. Oh well, maybe it'll be bootlegged.

Finally, I wish more shows were like this regarding time of day. It's about 7:30pm and I just got home, most LA shows I return home around 2am without the will to get up and go to work the next morning.

 

[lizard]

great to hear things were so good. I regret missing this muchly.

 

[xfer]

um hi i didn't know you were there! you should've come up and said hi.

i have stories about LA and also plenty of pictures which i will post as soon as i get them hosted. and also a short VIDEO CLIP of the HOT DOG EATERS show!

 

[NAD]

Since I'm mainly a lurker on this forum I don't know who the hell even knows me on this board. Except lizard and his alter egos of course, since we "met" on the RC forum.

 

[xfer]

were you the dude with the long dreads who was at progwest? i was doing merch for a while.

 

[NAD]

No, short hair, glasses, and an Ulver shirt. Those were my distinctions that day, or something.

 

[xfer]

okay. this was LJed so forgive me if it seems clipped or there are irrelevant/repetitive parts.

My flight in was not the most pleasant because of inconsiderate people around me coughing on me repeatedly and other unpleasant type stuff. But finally I arrived. It was pretty late on Wednesday and Aysha met me at the airport, and also her friend from home in NYC Rebecca and Rebecca's boyfriend Matt. Weird timing to have all of us come out the same week, but it was the only one they could do and I wanted to come this week to see Kayo Dot, so, there it was. Rebecca rented a car and we drove around LA for a bit and went to a DEL TACO (umm just like Taco Bell, but with french fries on the side) and I came to the conclusion pretty swiftly that LA is a piece of shit as far as cities go. Of course I'd always heard "you need a car in LA!" and I half-believed it, but never so thoroughly as I do now that I've been there. LA is like the opposite of what a city should be like.

But despite all that, you know, it is kind of fun if you're properly equipped with money, cars, prestige, youth, good looks, whatever. on Wednesday Aysha and I picked up our own rental car, went grocery shopping so we could cook dinner for everyone that night, and checked out Hollywood and Highland, walking around and going into costume shops. I decided that for Halloween next year I'm going to be Moshe Dayan, and walking around some back streets, got involved in a conversation with a homeless guy who tried to sell me the mold used to cast Hannibal Lecter's mask in The Silence of the Lambs, which he'd found dumpster diving behind a studio. It looked real, although it certainly wasn't.

It also started to reallllly hit me how this entire city is pretty much a shrine to Celebrity and all its trappings. I saw a homeless guy scrubbing dirt off stars on the sidewalk and people giving him money for it. Outside two Scientology centers (later in the week, I saw an L. Ron Hubbard Boulevard and a Scientology Celebrity Center). The Chinese Theatre was neat, and dozens of out-of-work actors were scrambling around dressed as superheroes--the Flash, Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Gandalf (!), et cetera. And EVERYWHERE were Japanese schoolkids--schoolgirls, mostly--wearing ties and suits and weird Japanese sock fashion and shephereded by stereotypical gruff-voiced suited Japanese men.

We made chicken marsala and broccolini for dinner and then went out to some somewhat famous cowboy bar on the Sunset Strip called THE SADDLE RANCH. After a fifteen-dollar carafe-sized Long Island Iced Tea (sans tequila) and the free accompanying shot, I RODE THE MECHANICAL BULL. I actually stayed on for much longer than the nervous-looking Asian guy who was before me, but not quite as long as the beefy frat dude who went on after me (and four times more, trying to best his time).

The Sunset Strip was kind of neat, with Vegas or Times Square like ads and displays and lights everywhere. I took this picture for Lisa...

A building-sized Spongebob! One of the weirdest things about the Strip I noticed as we emerged from the bar...into a big parking lot alongside the street. It was like a Connecticut roadhouse or something, nothing at all like a parkingless Boston bar.

The next day Aysha and I drove to Santa Monica, where we walked along the pier and beach and then down the Third Street Promenade.

Santa Monica was nice, and I found a logoless black hoodie in a store to replace my shredded-up Definite Choice. We drove back and went out with Aysha's roommates to a restaurant called the Velvet Margarita Cantina, which looked like a club inside and outside but made damn good Mexican food. I had a six-dollar plate of guacamole and a fifteen-dollar plate of enchiladas (sans crema) and suddenly a real live celebrity walked by our booth. It was JACK BAUER!

His table was right next to ours and for the next hour and a half we watched people approach him and bother him for autographs and photographs. He was somewhat drunk, and kept getting up to dance, and at one point shook his butt in the face of Aysha's roommate, then spun around, embarassed, and apologized. Some college girl types were hanging around his table and some no-name friend of his--a bald chubby black guy with dark glasses--kept coaxing them away and totally feeding off Kiefer's celebrity, finally going home with one of them. I knew Dave Leall would blow his lid, but we refused to approach him and look like harassing tards, and left with dignity.
The next day Aysha and I drove down to San Diego. Rebecca hadn't called in a full day and although she and Matt were supposed to come with us, we ended up going alone (in fact, we would not see them again--they continued to do their own thing until they left on Sunday. Aysha and Rebecca were mad at each other for some reason). Whatever!

I had falafel at a nice place called tHE MEDGRILL and then we hit the zoo. The San Diego Zoo was awesome. I took like 20 pictures of the baby panda, and we saw a disgusting bonobo with its finger up its ass, pumping it up and down for MINUTES before withdrawing it and licking it and smiling. Also a (cute) ball-grabbing baby gorilla. And a great reptile house featuring TENTACLED SNAKES and a beautiful albino Burmese python. The zoo also had gharials (gross, awesome) and Galapagos tortoises (which we missed because it got too cold by the time we got there, and they went inside).

In the evening, we went to the so-called Gaslamp District (fake gaslamps!!!) and ate at the Star of India. Lamb vindaloo, palak paneer, mango lassi, onion kulcha...mmm!

We woke up early on Sunday morning and had lunch at the famed Chipotle chain before heading back to LA (pretty good, I have to say). In LA, we checked into a hotel in Chinatown and then scooted over to see KAYO DOT at the Silverlake Lounge!

 

[xfer]

It was great seeing the guys (and Mia) again after they'd been on the road for weeks...they looked rumpled and a little
dirty, but they all had big smiles on their faces. Hugs all around, but stories had to wait until later as they were about to
go on...

 

[xfer]

The crowd was good-sized and the show was, I think, GREAT. I was really impressed by how the band seemed to have improved a

lot since I saw them last--I guess dozens of shows over dozens of days can do that to your playing. I thought the sound was

really good, too, even though the band (especially DJ) were incredulous when I said that later and said it was among their

worst sound-wise recently.



After they played, Aysha and I went to a Chinese place nearby our hotel for dinner and then headed over to the Knitting

Factory for the second show (unfortunately missing Green Milk From The Planet Orange). Toby hadn't put us on the guest list

as promised, so we talked our way past the counter guy and came in while Kayo Dot--sorry, the HOT DOG EATERS--were playing.

 

[xfer]

 

[xfer]

and here's a video clip of the show:



http://www.waxwingslain.com/images/hotdogeaters.avi



then Brian Woodbury came on with his orchestra and played. fun.

finally, after a bit, we followed the mazey tunnels back to the green room, which was shared with the main stage, which had some kind of vaguely indied pop rock band playing. we hung out there and smoked despite its NO SMOKING status, and eventually some other band showed up and announced (in thick accents) that there were named MOCTEZUME and they played ROCK AND ROLL.

and then back out to see some songs by the last band whose name escapes me (they were neat, though).

we wandered out back and I finally saw the KAYO DOT VAN TRAIN.

and took a picture of Cranky Greg, who was understandably upset because the door take from the Silverlake show (which was in excess of $500) got mostly stolen by the shady promoter.

We bid the band farewell, went home, and slept until late Monday. Awakening, we went to the La Brea Tar Pits (ummm...kind of disappointing) and had lunch and In-and-Out Burger (fairly good). We drove by Aysha's old place of employment, where she had to pick up a check but wanted me to go do it because she had left them on bad terms...



...and believe it or not, inside I saw FORBES AND SAM! The craziest coincidence of all time! They were buying some cheap tour shorts and we chatted for a bit before I headed back to the car.

We drove to the Grove, an outdoor mall type thing, and belatedly figured we should have invited them along, since they seemed to be trying to kill the afternoon. Oh, well. We got some lemonades and then went to Barnes and Noble...



...WHERE WE RAN INTO FORBES AND SAM AGAIN! The doubliest crazy of coincidences. We hung out with them for a while and ended up giving them a ride to meet the rest of the band out near Sunset, stopping at Aysha's apartment for a little while on the way (where Sam and I began snapping beautiful sunset pictures from her window).

I really think that there was some karmic purpose to our double meeting. Maybe, had we not given them a ride to meet the band, forcing the van to come meet them, there would have been a terrible van accident and killed everyone. and God gave us a SECOND chance to save their lives even when we missed the first one. well, you're welcome, Sam and Forbes.

we raced to get downtown in time and made it--we had passes to see Jimmy Kimmel Live (Aysha's roommate interns there). a guy I'd never heard of called Ryan Cabrera was playing, apparently, and also Tommy Lee was going to be on. Okay. When we entered, the doorman asked us "who are you here to see?" Aysha's roommate said, "uhh Tommy Lee?" and I said "uhhh Jimmy Kimmel?" and Aysha said, "uhhhh..." The guy prodded us. "Ryan Canberra?" I suggested. The guy gave us two orange tickets. "Okay, stand over there."

We came to find out that THIRTY SPECIAL ORANGE TICKETS had been given to THE TOP RYAN CABRERA FANS, giving them (us) priority seating for his performance. okay!



The show was meh. Much more interesting was watching everything occuring off-camera. Finally they hustled us up to the stage for Cabrera's performance, and I saw my friend ASHLEE SIMPSON standing ten feet away. I also noticed that Cabrera's band had four guitars. Interesting!



No, not really. He played shitty generic two-guitar-part pop rock. He was playing the same guitar part, exactly, as one of his bandmates, but it became clear that his own guitar wasn't mixed in--when he started to lag off tempo, nothing changed. Retarded. I guess he does have something in common with his girlfriend Ashlee after all.



Then we met my old Philly roommate Mike at a restaurant featuring a Thai Elvis who was unfortunately off duty. We were there for quite some time, chatting (I found out I had missed EVERYONE coming east for Julie's wedding over the summer...whoops) and then bid each other farewell for another couple of years, I'm sure.



And that was that. I woke up early and drove to the airport the next morning and flew home with nary a hitch, arriving at my house around 11pm-midnight but not getting to sleep (time difference) until 2:30. Woke at 5:30 to teach--2:30am my body's time--taught, came home, cooked dinner (Indian mushrooms/lemon/ginger/onions, black beans and rice, LOBSTER TAILS from the Magician), gave Snakie a bath, and uploaded these pictures. Now I'm going to go pass out asleep.

 

[xfer]

i HATE how UM allows you, like, eight pictures in each post.

 

[xfer]

let me point out that toby's TOUR SHIRT was in full force.

 

[ricochet]

whoa, alex. thanks for sharing all of that. I mostly glanced and stopped at parts that STUCK OUT. I'll read the rest later. L.A. scares but intrigues me. also, I totally need to get a better camera. your pics were so clear and not dark/crap. meh. glad you had a fun trip.

 

[lizard]

excellent reportage, alex. thx.

LA is a pretty city at night but you are spot on about how much it sucks without a car and cash.

that sucks SO MUCH about the promoter making off with the money. fuck him.

 

[mindspell]

Excellent! Thanks for the comprehensive report.

 

[minxnim]

OMG panda! good pics.

 

[xfer]

i was actually lamenting the shitty quality of my pics and thinking i need a sam falsetodd-like bigger-megapixel camera.

 

[minxnim]

no think they're a-ok. maybe the flash is too bright or something and darkens a lot of spots but they're good.

 

[chupe666]

awesome stories/pics.

and that t-shirt is gonna walk off of toby's body before the end of this thing.