Action Bronson x Riff Raff - Hot Shots Part Deux
one of the last moments before @RyanAustinKan proposed to @CHadjimina tonight at the Rockefeller Center Ice Rink.
my friend Ryan got ahold of me about a month ago to let me know that a) he was proposing to his girlfriend and b) he was going to briefly shut down the skating rink at rockefeller center to do it.
with that in mind, tonight I showed up about a half-hour before the time he told me (and their friends & family) that the rink would be cleared and this would be happening. while looking super suspicious and leering over the corners of the rink i was able to spot them, and snapped a few candids.
“Born This Way” mercifully finished blaring through the speakers, the rink attendant announced that everyone had to clear the ice, and Ryan, Crystall, and the 2 friends of theirs they had been on the ice with lagged behind, one of the friends getting the couple to pose in the middle of the rink. I had made it down to the closest ledge, but the two of them were staring right in my direction, so I literally hid behind a guy and popped out to take a few shots here and there until - Bob Dylan’s “Emotionally Yours” began in the speakers, and Ryan did his thing.
my buddy Ryan putting all other proposals to shame - Mazel Tov!
this made me laugh really hard.
also - everyone should follow thesexblog.tumblr.com/ which is Rob Lotzko’s tumblr. He’s one of my best friends and one of the best dudes ive ever met. and he’s handsome. and he trains me. and he helped me lose 40 pounds and become more handsome.
Everyone else is talking about it…I guess I will too
American Nightmare/Give Up the Ghost is reuniting and after thinking about it all day, im still not quite sure how i feel about this, truthfully. On one hand, there a big part of me that wants to see them since its been 8 years since ive seen them last. But, theres another part of me that respected them more for not getting back together after all this time - for kind of saying, “well that was that” and moving on and not following the trend of reuniting like so many other bands have in the last couple of years.
I think the first time i saw American Nightmare was at Club Krome in Sayreville, NJ in May of 2001. The tour was all Equal Vision bands - Bane, AN, the Hope Conspiracy and the Stryder and although most people were there to see Bane - AN easily received the second biggest reaction of the night. The band played New Jersey and NYC so frequently, it was comical at points knowing that if you missed them one day, youd be able to catch them a few weeks later. I must have seen them 25 or 30 times easily. And perhaps, thats the reason why i dont care that they are playing again. I saw them completely blow bands off stage but i also I saw them completely blow. One specific show that comes to mind is when they were playing the Hamilton St Cafe in Bound Brook, NJ (Nicky Horrorshow’s fundraiser - Reach the Sky was unreal that day) and Wes was too fucked up on whatever he was on at the time to complete the set. He just kept repeating “when we were punks…when we were punks…” over and over and over until everyone got weirded out and just assumed they were done.
Thinking about it from a monetary angle… it makes sense. I know this band has received offers before this to perform. I cant even imagine how much must have thrown this time to make them finally give in and say yes. I like money as much as the next guy - hell, I probably like it more than the next guy, but with that said, are your hearts really still in it? Do you actually want to go up there and perform these songs that you claimed you would never perform again?
Its crazy though, to sit here and think about because it forces me to recall all these shows from nine and ten years ago that I havent really thought about in a while. Team Narc Fest 2001, Posi Numbers 2002, Hellfest 2002, Deathwish/B9 Fest in Boston, AN playing with Avail at the Knitting Factory where i proceeded to break/badly sprain my thumb (believe me when I say that it was sore for a year after), the weekend of shows where Wes blew out his eardrum so Chauncey CC covered vocals, the few times i got to do Standhard’s part at the end of “Farewell”, Black Cross/My Chemical Romance/AN where I almost got my ass beat (for some reason that i cant recall right now), the surprise show with Hatebreed at CB’s on MLK Day in 2002, AN/Converge/Horrorshow in Philly when Jake and Wes covered vocals for Horrorshow…I think thats the last time i saw them - they broke up shortly thereafter.
I know i’m dating myself when I mention all of these shows but going to shows was my life back then. It meant everything. Not sure who im kidding though, if this band decides to play more than two shows, i wouldnt miss it.
STELLLLLLLLLLLLLLA!
I meant to write about this video when i first saw it, a couple weeks ago, but since i cant sleep tonight for some reason, I decided to finally finish the post.
In 1998, when I was 17 years old, one of my friends in my high school homeroom class, who was also into punk and hardcore, came in one morning and told me that he had heard a new Farside song. I didnt know much about them but i knew they were a band on Revelation Records and that they were from Orange County, CA, just like one of my favorite bands at the time, Gameface. (My friends and I, at this point in our young ‘core careers, basically drooled over anything with a Revelation stamp on the back of it) He said that he couldn’t remember how the song went but the lyrics started off by saying, “I must have had a dream about you ‘cause I woke up in the worst of mood…” I was so intrigued and I had to hear more. Later that afternoon, I dragged one of my friends who had no interest in music whatsoever to our local record store, Curmudgeon Records in Edison, New Jersey, to buy ‘Rochambeau’ by Farside. I drove around for the rest of the day listening to it. Needless to say, I was hooked mainly because Popeye, the frontman and main writer, was incredibly honest in his lyrics (“I know your children will be beautiful, I just dont want to know that they exist at all”). The song “I Hope Youre Unhappy” was released later that year on ‘the Monroe Doctrine’ Farside’s last (and in my opinion, best) record. They toured in July of 1999, in support of the record, and played the Melody Bar in New Brunswick (which remains my favorite venue to this day) with Saves the Day and Kill Your Idols. I missed the show because of work obligations and it still annoys that I never got to see them perform live.
The Gaslight Anthem originally hail from New Brunswick, New Jersey. My parent’s house is in the nearby town of Sayreville. In 2005, I was living in Los Angeles and one of my friends told me that our mutual friend, Benny was in a new band. I had been friends with Benny Horowitz since high school (we actually met at a Saturday afternoon matinee at the Melody Bar, when the singer of Good Clean Fun jokingly called him out for breaking edge at a keg party - it was awkward) and had seen him play in many bands and most of them were mediocre at best. I looked up the bands Myspace page and played all three songs in the queue. They were pretty good. They reminded me of Springsteen and the Clash and New Jersey and my friends…Hell, one of their first songs, “We Came to Dance”, was basically a love letter to New Brunswick and Central Jersey. I called my friend Andy, a couple days later and we discussed them at length since he was booking them on a lot of his shows at the time. The band consisted of dudes who I had seen play in a lot of bands throughout my tenure in New Brunswick basements. They didnt stay a secret for very long. When I returned to the East Coast in 2006, I went and checked them out live and realized that they were going to be one of the lucky bands that would have the chance to escape New Brunswick because as much as New Brunswick, New Jersey had an amazing reputation in terms of being a hotbed for independent music, it also had a reputation of being a place that many never left. You would get your letter of acceptance to Rutgers and by the time you turned around, you were 30 years old, drinking at McCormick’s four nights a week and playing in a band that no one outside of the Court Tavern will ever hear. Its not pretty but i guess thats the dilemma of every college town.
I listened to Farside’s ‘the Monroe Doctrine’ every day in the month of May of this year, when I was going through a breakup. The Gaslight Anthem now plays really large rooms and stadiums and I hardly talk to Benny (or anyone from New Brunswick, for that matter) but I hear he’s doing really well. I dont go and see them since ticket prices to their shows are usually pretty steep and I got to see them a lot more than most in much more intimate of atmospheres (not to mention the crowd they attract). But it makes me pretty happy to know that a song from 12 years ago still means as much to me as it does to them.
“Boy I bet you that guy can cover a lot of court. Hey buddy, they got a new invention. It’s called a napkin.”
staying up late and watching footage from shows 10+ years ago. feeling deja vu and getting chills because im remembering how much fun we had…young bebs without a care in the world, screaming at the top of our lungs and not giving a fuck.
seriously - sometimes, i thank god for the core.
