Well, it's only bricks and mortar!

So said Moz in one of his most amazing solo efforts ever, that being "Last Night, Maudlin Street."

I was recently visiting a friend where we began discussing books. We remenisced about the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop where I discovered some notable gay authors such as Gore Vidal and  John Rechy. I mentioned that there was a possiblity of its doors closing once but that it had been saved. Then my friend said to me that earlier this year it had in fact shut down its doors for good. It made me very unhappy to hear this.

I suppose things like this are going to happen. And everytime it does, I feel a piece my youth and defining moments being taken away from me. The small record shops, and even the big ones such as Tower Records and Virgin Megastore don't seem to have a fighting chance now with the rotten economy together with on-line shops like Amazon and others. It's rather depressing now that the alternative is that you go out your door to go and buy the books or music you want. It's more common to shop by computer these days. We're all doing it so we have all contributed to this change.

But the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop was very important to me.

I must have been around 17 or 18. Walking around Greenwich Village on my own  on a fine weekend where I saw the shop and decided to walk in. I'd never been in a bookstore where its entire contents were for and about gays and lesbians. I picked up several books and I remember what they were: Gore Vidal's "The City and The Pillar," John Rechy's "City of Night," and Laura Z. Hobson's "Consenting Adult."

I returned to the shop many times sometimes to just browse and sometimes to buy. Once on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I bought Phranc's "Folksinger" album. She's your average Jewish Lesbian Folk Singer who opened for The Smiths once and even for Morrissey. I remember playing this record when I got home and smiled about it and was very satisfied with how my day had gone. This is a personal statement, but I'm not having those days anymore. And thinking back at these memories are sometimes what I have left. When these places dissappear, I'm scared that the memory won't be enough. I'd like to keep pointing to these places when passing by with friends, and declare a moment of discovery, peace and self-realizations in a certain point in my life.

There's a point and time in your life that becoming old is furthest from your mind. You think at that point that you're never going to get older, lose hiar, go grey and fa....

Ok I'll stop now.

Visit the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop's website. There are many pictures.

HULMERIST - Re-Visited

So last night I was feeling extremely Morrissey. Meaning I was sad, lost, alone and could not "find my place in this world." I could feel pretty high about life one day, such as being at a great concert and the next day I could be reminded how I still have far to go to be considered a "person."

And I said "V...Lots of things make you want to pop open a vein... But let's see if we can find something to replace that. Who knows what tomorrow brings.." You know the bullshit.

I was thinking about the early days of Morrissey solo bits and so I took a look into my box-o-video tapes and wondered "hmm.. which will it be? Live in Dallas? The Malady Lingers On? Introducing Morrissey? Ah, Hulmerist, that's the first one, let's re-live that moment."

I remember watching this a lot during its release in 1990. Moz was still so young, MTV was still showing music videos and 120 Minutes was airing. So music wise, it was still an exciting time.

In between the videos to the singles, you can a glimpse of adoring Moz fans going to the show. It's like Moz saying "I want the world to see how much I am adored and loved." From what I remember, when Moz first went solo and was to perform his first show, you got to go in for free and only if you were wearing a Smiths T-shirt. You see this in the video when people are lining up to go through security. There is one live performance in Hulmerist, that of "Sister I'm a Poet." Fans are constantly swimming through the audience to get to the stage and give their hero a hug, all the while Moz is showered in flowers from the audience. It was like The Smiths without Marr as Andy and Mike were also present in the videos.

I can't say whether watching this again since I don't know when the last time I watched it - made me feel any better. I know I smiled a few times and at times I felt like letting the flood gates open.

I've read lately that Marr is not opposed to a Smiths reunion. But much of that reunion rests on Morrissey which I feel will probably not want to do it. But think of the excitement this will cause among Moz fans if this were ever to happen. I think it would be big news in the music industry that The Smiths would reform if only for some live shows. Moz already performs the Smiths stuff during his live shows, but that's just a few select songs sandwiched between his solo stuff. Imagine a two hour Smiths concert! If it was one show one night in England, I might go out there just to be a part of it.

Pet Shop Boys @ Hammerstein Ballroom 9/2/09

I'm actually down there somewhere near the front. Off to the right of the stage.

Well, this will go down in history as one of the most fun shows I've been to. I saw PSB once before on their last tour. It was nice, but I don't remember having as much fun as this one. Probably because the last time, they were in a bigger place with seating. This was general admission (if you had a floor ticket.)

At first glance their stage set didn't seem too impressive. It wasn't anything like the picture above. See what happened was that wall was a lot smaller at the beginning of the show. It collapsed to reveal behind it an even bigger wall, which later it also collapsed. It was just wild, I thought. What do I know? I needed some cheering up and this was the ticket.

The boys really had a lot of fun up there and they had these 4 dancers who ran around the stage. At one point throwing those boxes at each other. Assembling boxes, tearing them down, building them up. I don't know. It was a love affair with all things square. They even covered their heads in boxes. Something maybe Leigh Bowery might have cooked up.

The songs? There's music too!! The opening number was "Heart" and Neil sounded great. Though his voice seemed heavily processed, at times sounding as though he was lip-syncing. But I'm sure he wasn't. A lot of the set contained medley types such as "Pandemonium" going into "Can You Forgive Her." At one point I heard the beginning to "Paninaro" and I thought wow, this is a personal favorite! - but ended up with "Go West" which I think was the best part of the show!!

A great moment for me was when they performed "2 / 0" which was the first song from their first album "Please." I always loved that song. It really took me back.

"Why Can't We Live Together" was pretty good too and I think this is the song where the dancers came out wearing New York City building costumes (Empire State, Chrysler, Citigroup).

I thought it was a well rounded selection of songs. I loved hearing them perform "Being Boring" and last but not least a cover version of that Coldplay song. You know the one. Neil just HAD to do it in a crown and purple cape. But it was cool. The backdrop video looked pretty cool too in all black and white, Neil walking the streets wearing the king costume holding an umbrella. The song did also incorporate "Domino Dancing" so it wasn't a complete cover from beginning to end. I think as long as they were doing that, the Village People Cover "Go West," the Willie Nelson Cover "Always On My Mind," (and it was great!) - They should have also done "Where The Streets Had No Name."

"It's a Sin" was performed and right at the end we were showered with tinsel. Nice touch.

Their new material blended pretty well with the older ones. I have no complaints with this show. I had a lot of fun. The visuals were great. The performance was excellent. Total win.

"West End Girls" Ended the show.

Picture above was stolen from Brooklyn Vegan. Please click on the link more excellent pictures of the show.

Wonderland!

Yes, it's another Burton film with Johnny Depp. Looks good!

Trailer here.

Marc

I'm reading the latest blog post from Marc Almond's MySpace page. Aside from him having OCD and doing the same things over and over again in the same places, and aside from his and my dismay at fabulous cities being destroyed by tearing down old buildings, he adds that he has almost finished with his new album. It's a "band" album with real instruments much like "Stars We Are." He is revisiting his teenage years and will have 70s references all around.

"Orpheus in Exile" is out next month.

Marc also ends with:

SOMEONE TELLS ME ANDROGYNY IS IN NEXT YEAR. WHAT AGAIN? I CAN'T REMEMBER WHEN IT WASN'T. I LIVED THROUGH AT LEAST HALF A DOZEN ANDROGYNY REVIVALS SINCE THE ONE THAT I WAS ORIGINALLY A PART OF. AT LEAST IT MEANS THE ERA OF ENDLESS GIRL ACTS THAT STARTED WITH AMY WINEHOUSE AND MUTATED INTO LITTLE BOOTS LA ROUX ETC WILL COME TO AN END AS RECORD COMPANIES HAVE SIGNED EVERY SINGLE DAMN ONE OF THEM IN EXISTANCE AD NAUSEUM. BRING ON THE PRETTY BOYS AGAIN.

Up From The Debths (Godzilla)

You'll enjoy this if you, like me, grew up watching Japanese monster movies.

O Superman

Ok, I'm on a Laurie Anderson kick right now. I LOVE this mix!!

Depeche Mode's Tour of the Universe- August 4, 2009

Last night I went to the Garden to attend yet another Depeche Mode concert.

I went by myself and I think at this point, any other way would probably make me feel out of sorts. Unless I'm with you off course! With you, I think the experience would be 100 times better! Thank you.

So I really wasn't expecting much and I was pretty proud of myself to stay away from any reviews or pictures of the show. I wanted the element of surprise to be there for me. I may be the only who gives a crap about that so I don't feel too bad about posting on the show for others to read if they haven't seen it yet.

I was proved wrong for not expecting much - for this concert just blew me away. I tell you the set list was just excellent! And the visuals they used blew me away too. By now, we have been treated to these kinds of stage visuals at just about every concert we go to and really there's nothing more you can do. But for the songs they chose and the visuals used to put it together really made it very unique.

Dave was in excellent form. He did his usual stage-running all over the place. The dancing and twirling was all there and done in the same place where you'd expect him to. The one thing I have to say is that Dave does not like to sing the choruses to all the previous hits. I wish he'd stop that. He's been doing this for the past few tours and it's getting on my nerves. He should sing the chorus at least twice and let the crowd do it at the end like when they used to do with "Everything Counts" in the old days. Dave, please sing the choruses. It makes the song incomplete when you don't do it.

Martin looked great and wants to let you know that he owns a lot of guitars. With each song, Martin switched guitars. He's like Cher.

Andy still has no rhythm and I still don't think he does anything at the boards. But I love him all the same.

There was a big love affair with the drummer. He was the loudest and both Dave & Martin worshipped him from time to time. He was pretty good though.

Another keyboard player was present but I don't know much about him. There's really not much to tell about this guy.

OK, so I had scored a really good ticket. My seat was not too far off from the stage on the floor. I was in the middle of section 6. The stage extended out into the audience and for one song "Waiting for the Night" Both martin and Dave sang together at the front of the stage where it extended and I had a really good view of the boys from where I was at. It was very sweet and moving.

So here's the set list in no particular order. I'm going to list the albums in order of release and the songs performed.

Speak & Spell

none

A Broken Frame

none

Construction Time Again

none

Some Great Reward

Master & Servant - I would have never expected this but was totally surprised and was a great treat to hear it live again!

Black Celebration

A Question of Time
A Question of Lust
Fly on the Windscreen - Again I was pretty shocked when this came up.
Stripped

Music for the Masses

Strange Love - who knew this song was about foot fetish?? (visuals)
Never Let me Down Again - Ah, you can bet this will always be played, because, you know - you gotta do the wave!

Violator

Enjoy the Silence - Big crowd pleaser.
Personal Jesus
Policy of Truth
Waiting for the Night - A touching moment.

Songs of Faith & Devotion

Walking in My Shoes - Very emotional moment for me.
In Your Room
I Feel You

Ultra

It's No Good

Exciter

none - OK with me!

Playing the Angel

Precious

Sounds of the Universe

In Chains
Hole to Feed
Wrong
Miles Away
Jezebel

There were two encores - I have a feeling there might have been a third, but people began leaving after the second encore when the lights were still down. I was waiting for them to perform "Peace" because that was the one really good song on their new album. I was a little surprised that they left it out of the set unless they were preparing to play it during the third encore.

I wish they would have put in a couple of songs from their earlier albums. It would have been nice to see them do "Puppets" or "Photographic." How about "Boys Say Go!"

But I was very pleased with the set and there was not a dull moment - With the exception of the very new material, it was like vintage Depeche Mode. I was surprised that they really didn't play that many songs from the new album. That's OK with me too.

Sorry I don't have pictures. After all this time, I have not invested in a decent camera I could use to take pictures during these events. Maybe for the Pet Shop Boys coming up in September.

Pictures from Monday night's performance.

Crash Course in Science

Well, this is the type of stuff we got exposed to as teenagers while watching TV on late night weekends. I remember the Uncle Floyd show very well. I watched it because either SCTV was going to start after Uncle Floyd or I was staying up to watch the rest of TV madness after SCTV. There was always that one guy in the background providing the laughter. He was the "studio audience" and never shut up with that annoying laugh of his. You can hear him shouting during the interview.

But this was a local show. You could have only seen this show if you lived in New York or New Jersey (I think).

Anyway, listen to this weird formation. It's total 80s weirdness. People experimented a lot with electronics in those days. I think about Laurie Anderson, Kraftwerk, and very early Cabaret Voltaire.

CCIS on MySpace

Keepin it alive.