Upcoming Show: Cypress Hill

Cypress Hill will be playing the 9:30 club on October 31st.

Upcoming show: Pixies

The Pixies will be playing two shows at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington DC, on November 30th and December 1st.

This tour is in celebration of the 20th anniversary of their album Doolittle, and will feature tracks and b-sides from that era. 

Doolittle and Surfer Rosa are my favorite Pixies albums.  I can’t wait!

Upcoming Show: Beres Hammond

Beres Hammond will be playing Wolftrap on July 12th.

Upcoming show: David Byrne

David Byrne will be playing Wolftrap in Reston on Saturday, June 6th.

Should be a good show!

Bands I’m into right now

Arcade Fire, The Undertones, Selecter, Choking Victim, Late of the Pier, Wire, Sigue Sigue Sputnik

/That is all

My 2009 NCAA Bracket

Check out My 2009 NCAA Men’s basketball tournament bracket
I basically go with the child’s approach: gut instinct backed by no research whatsoever. I’m only posting it on the off chance that it turns out right, I can say I told you so.

RIP Ricardo Montalban

Ricardo Montalban died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles. He was one of my favorite actors growing up.

Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!

What happened to spring?

Holy crap its cold!  I turned my heat on last night for the first time this year.  It had been in the 50s and nice, and then…bam…it’s 20 degrees out!  What happened to spring?

Upcoming shows

There are two upcoming shows at the 9:30 club that I’m interested in…thought I might as well post them here:

F 10/31 The Pietasters w/ The Toasters & Deal’s Gone Bad HALLOWEEN COSTUME CONTEST – Grand prize is tickets to every 9:30 Club show in Nov./Dec. For more info, visit 930.com

Tu 11/4 Bad Brains feat. H.R. • Dr. Know • Darryl Jenifer • Earl Hudson Early Show! 5pm Doors

Movie – “Westway to the world”

Westway to the world is the 2000 biopic on The Clash, filmed by Don Letts, their longtime roadie/collaborator/partner in crime. I’ve been meaning to watch this for years, but for a variety of reasons, including getting a copy that wouldn’t play in my dvd player (grr) I didn’t get to watch this until recently.

“Westway” consists of interviews with the Clash interspersed with concert footage. Letts goes back a long time with these guys, and he really gets them to open up and share a lot of personal information. The film does a good job of putting things in context of what was going on, both musically and politically/socially at the time the band was in it’s prime.

My favorite part was when Joe and Topper talked about how things ended. Topper was heavily addicted to heroin by the early ’80s, and was eventually sacked by the band. Although Joe and Mick wrote the songs and were the heart of the band, they all realized in retrospect that when Topper left, the circle was broken and the chemistry of the band was irrevocably lost. There’s an especially telling interview with Joe near the end, where he realizes in retrospect how special this band was, and how important the chemistry of the four individuals involved was. Without that special bond the four of them shared, it was never the same.

My only real criticism of this film is that the concert footage isn’t as satisfying as it could’ve been. Although there is a lot of music in this film, they never show even one complete song, choosing instead to air short clips of concert footage between interviews. This film is neither a true concert film nor a pure documentary, and it suffers somewhat from it’s lack of identity. It has also been mentioned elsewhere that the film ends after Topper and Mick leave the band, and makes no mention whatsoever that the band did in fact carry on and produce an additional album (1985’s “cut the crap”) before disbanding for good. It wasn’t the band’s finest hour, but it seems like it would have been worthy of at least a brief mention.

That having been said, “Westway” is a wonderful film and a must watch for any Clash fan. The band really opens up and shares some fantastic stories about their time in the sun. They’re all involved, and unfortunately, that will never happen again: this film was made only a few years before Joe’s untimely death in 2002.