Praise be to the Old Timey Cyclops Diety

This past weekend I attended the 2011 MidPoint Music Festival in the heart of downtown Cincinnati.

the three day live music jamboree is held in the heart of downtown Cincy/OTR at every venue that you can forseeably cram a band into. Festival includes music, dancing, free vitamin water (that you can spike and then drink on the street), doughnut wenches...

a rotating cast of characters including KathyLolz, Evan Blyth Sneath Lord of Pilkington, Heather "The Kitchuation" Kitchen, Intrepid Reporter Leyla Lane of the Daily Planet, Steve the Comic Book Guy who loves that reference, Archaeologist and Party Host Peter Stone, Drunk Philologist John Ryan, the cast and crew of Peter and John's party, the guy who knew me and shook my hand but I have no idea who he is, Amar Singh (whom I literally bumped into. with my elbows. twice.), some kids from Delphos OH et al.

BUT, contrary to the logo, there was no old-timey cyclops god

 Here's the list of the bands I saw this list is the list of the bands I saw:

I will preface this entire section with a disclaimer that yes, I gave Dom-esque comparisons for every band I viewed on twitter. A certain twitter follower apparently deemed them annoying and began to ridicule me. This follower shall remain nameless, but because he is over critical, possibly a closeted homosexual and plays the clarinet, I shall call him Squidward.

THE JOY FORMIDABLE



cute blonde Welsh girl sings like Dolores O'Riordan from the Cranberries and swirls a swirling guitar for people who care about swirling guitars. Also, as seen in video, hallucinogenic cat heads.

BANDERAS

Bruising hard rock with guitars like Motorhead and a lead singer who snarls jovially like Dick Valentine from Electric 6 but moons the drummer and climbs the rafters like some 12 year old who needs  juvee time. Met him afterwards though; his name is Jeremy,. Real pleasant fellow (in the Iggy Pop tradition of nice midwestern men who transform into punk rock incubi on stage).

TWO MAN GENTLEMEN BAND

 An old timey jazzish comedy duo, like Wayne's World, but on some sort of self referential Lawrence Welk parody. Many songs about parties, food and fancy beer. Of all the bands I saw, they made me laugh hardest, and then instantly crave Indian food.



VIVA VOCE

 A neat little two piece who makes beautiful sounding guitar noises. I did not hear of them through word of mouth, however...

OKKERVIL RIVER

Like Arcade fire,but without all the bullshit that makes me hate Arcade Fire (all I'm saying that if they were British, all of the duchebaggery would be explainable. But no Canadians should act like that). Really cool- also has a trombone on some songs.



CUT COPY

Australians who immediately made me want to listen to New Order. In their hour and a half long set they facilitated the rockinest dance party at the fest. And,
their lead singer looks like Hipster Seth Meyers...







THE RIGHT NOW
Kathy and I saw this band as we were waiting for Bright Light Social Hour to take the stage. We had uniquely different opinions:
Kathy: "that dress she wore was so ugly. What the fuck? It was like 'hey, I'm pregnant, but still look at my underwear!'"
Dom: "Legs"

Still, fun soul music. She sounds like Katherine McPhee, the boys dance behind her, the guitarist looks like jazzy Remus Lupin.

THE BRIGHT LIGHT SOCIAL HOUR

This band is a dangerous combination of four guys having fun on stage combined with four excellent fucking musicians. The only thing scarier than how good they are is how nonchalant they are about it.

Their sound is steeped in old school but on the cusp of the new- think if the Allman Brothers were into Animal Collective and got a synth player. But still they're as bluesy as you'd expect four long haired unshowered boys from Texas to be. It was tiring keeping up with who was playing what. You know when you listen to a Cream album and there comes that point where Jack, Clapton and Ginger are playing different solos? Mind blowing- they did that a solid three times. 30 minutes into the set, a lady in an official mpmf'11 t-shirt gestured for the band to end after two more songs. Curtis the guitar player nodded in agreement, then turned around and gave the rest of the band a look like "is she for real real" and shook his head no. They played four more songs. I screamed for joy. I randomly screamed fuck yeah several times. I guess that's just them bringing a slice of Texas on tour with them. Their album sounds about 80% percent as wild as they do live, which is still impressive. Seriously, buy their albums now! This is not brainwashing; this is heartwashing!

God's Gift to Youtube

Here's a fun story.

It was Nate Loyer's last week Cincinnati, and we decided we needed a frivolous pizza lunch at Dewey's. We ordered our usual: Nate, Christobell and I swagged out chicken, buffalo and bacon ranch style, Brittany ordered a salad that was way too big to be considered a side, Kathy continued her lachanophobia, and Heather took pictures.

As we exited, we saw several men in V necks, dancing upon a young, seemingly disinterested woman as another young man filmed. Of course, we asked if we could join. It erupted into a dance party outside of Dewey's. They said they would get a hold of us so that we could see the finished video.

And this is what happened. I will let the video speak for itself.

"You Are All Assholes"

This is a list of famous people I aspire to be:

• Chuck Klosterman
• Henry Rollins
• Rob Dyrdek
• The RZA
• Bruce Springsteen

This post is about 1 and 5

So if you've ever read my blog, you may know that I love and aspire to be Chuck Klosterman, professional witty dude.

Chuck Klosterman is the Bob Dylan to my Joan Baez; all the cool shit you thought I was coming up with, not me, him. And one of the best things he ever said was his 85% theory. In lay-summarizers terms, everything ever is at 85%.

Now I don't remember if this was Chuck or my brother, Dean TeenIdolAngelo Tartaglia who said this, but the ratio of people who will one day leave their hometowns and make something of their lives is 85%.

And now #5, the guy who made leaving your hometown in a youthful rebellion cool: Bruce Springsteen.




Bruce's songs all come from a place of quasi-semi-auto-biographical wholesomeness, where you expect all of these songs to be about this shit he used to do in New Jersey. That's his appeal. I one day expect to meet Wendy from Born to Run or Rosalita or Crazy Davey from Spirit in the Night and talk about young Boss. This is the kinda shit that makes people beleive that Bruce works at a car warsh in Asbury Park, he's always had that still back home appeal. The 85%.

But comes Glory Days.




Ah Glory Days. My friends are drunks or housewives, but they used to be cool. And it's cool to remember being cool with the other 85% of my hometown! Bruuuuuuce. I am 80s Bruce Springsteen: my biceps are huge, I play a positive blue collar guy in the video, and Clarence plays random percussion because fuck saxophones.

But then I started realizing the contradiction. 80 Bruce Springsteen is all about he's stuck in his hometown (My Hometown, Glory Days, Born in the USA), but 70s Bruce is all about leaving his hometown (Born to Run, Thunder Road, Badlands). And obviously, the 70s story is correct, because he's a rockstar; he is the 15% percent we aspire to be.

When he was singing about staying in the hometown, he was the world's biggest rockstar. Therefore, what is the true meaning of Glory Days?

All of my friends used to be cool, but they are now all drunks and losers because they peaked in high school. Now I am the biggest rockstar ever and fuck everyone I knew.

He's totally about to give 85 percent of the work the finger...