Grandma stays up til 2:00

Before the Ariel Pink show I went to an exclusive pre-party where the VIP guests included Petey the Parrot. I'm sure you've heard of him and I can report that he's every bit as fabulous as the tabloids say. He has a full repertoire of whistles and can make a sound like an explosion.

I then careened over to the Bonn Lair where Jenny and Margaux had made two new friends that thanked them for providing them shower masturbation material and upon leaving, one of the gentleman drunkenly swayed in front of Margaux while saying, "I love you in ways that only the district attorney can understand". What girl isn't charmed by a threat of rape? I drank a Chimay, which as you may know is VERY strong, and then back to Miller's for a bracing shot of whiskey and out into the cold, cold night. Right before I left I complained that I was tired and Miller said, "come on grandma, get young!". Then we started chanting "get young" in imitation of so so many white white tiger singer girl chanting "get awesome" before they played (which I found to be very contrived). That can be the new chant for oldsters, Get Young!

Within the first three minutes of arriving, I cut my finger while locking up my bike, ended up insulting little Ariel Pink (I didn't know it was him. He sidled up next to me at the bar and I thought he was this guy I knew, so I mock snarled, "I'm next". He said, "you're feisty aren't you" I said "I thought you were my friend". He said, "that's how you treat your friends? Touche), and spilled beer down Jenny's arm. Although we tried our best to delay arriving as long as we could, the first band had just started when we arrived. I won't say much, except that they wore masks and capes and the singer was singing in a sort of smarmy, Nick Cave style. Then after forever and me trying to pace myself with drinks so I wouldn't just want to go home, the Pets played their usual bouncy 80ish set.

All through the night I noticed the little guy (who I still didn't know was Ariel Pink) hanging with this group of handsome, interesting looking dudes. Of course I didn't put two and two together and realize that they were the band, I just snottily joked that I was going to go up to them and ask "what suburb are you guys from?". That's how small Sac is, 5 guys that I don't know stand out like a sore thumb. They were obviously looking me and Margaux's direction while we were talking and some seemed to want to join in (I'm not saying they were scamming, maybe just bored in a town where they didn't know anyone), but I couldn't think of anything to say and was worried I'd babble drunkenly. I suck. I should remember to be more friendly. I just re-read that and it made me sound really bad because it seems like I'm saying I should have talked to them because they were in the band, I just meant I should have been friendly in general and not chickened out.

Anyway, after a million years and beers they took the stage. At first I thought they were too noise-style and boring, but by the 2ndand 3rd songs it was a bit more poppy (I just wrote poopy ha) and the cute, lanky keyboard player was going nuts and I was pretty stoned and it started to be awesome. I can't describe what they sounded like, what do I look like, pitchfork.com? Then they played a long time more and people started heckling and chanting "Bal-lad, bal-lad". People also chanted "more delay" because dude had an insane amount of delay on the vocals the whole time. Margaux yelled out "Tom Delay" and I think she thought no one noticed. But I did and it was funny. ( Speaking of Tom DeLay what more does he have to do to get brought down? Get caught blowing the President under the desk?) Personally I thought they(Ariel Pink) seemed a bit taken aback by the audience participation, I bet people in most cities just stand there and try and look cool. The main guy seemed a bit snotty but OK and agreed to play ballads, but also gave the impression that he was sort of mocking us at the same time. By the end they just jammed out for like 15 minutes and it was awful. I felt like it was pretty lame because it was almost like they thought they were putting one over on the rubes and we would think it was cool even though it was utter crap. Then they said they were tired and all left the stage. So Sac wore them out! Sac vs. Ariel Pink=we win! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the turnout was really good, I think like a 100 people? maybe. So see, bands like this can have good shows in Sac. They should stop passing us up!

A tip for you: LCD Soundsystem with bass player local boy makes good Tyler Pope just taped David Letterman and it will air on the 27th. Amy Sedaris is also on the same show.