the hellacopters


el rey theatre
hollywood, ca
3/25/06

after sxsw i made a secret promise to myself to take advantage of living in hollywood and all the great bands that roll thru here.

i forgot that karisa can always read my mind and when her man was out of town she called me up to see if i wanted to check out the swedish hard rock group The Hellacopters at one of my favorite venues.

little did i know we were going to step back into the 70s, for if i had known, instead of sporting my matt good tshirt i would have thrown on my black sabbath tee or my zeppelin longsleeve, or the deep purple tye dye that i no longer own.

opening the show were The Illuminati who were stony and solid and classic rock man turn it up! the place was packed with tattoed chicks with fake tits and dudes with denim.

everyone stood there and waited for the Illuminati to do something amazing, but nothing amazing was coming from them. and the rest of us wondered why we didnt get baked first before seeing the trio who verse chorus verse solo chorused their way to Obscuriti.

karisa and i took to the bar immediately.

as you know she and i have been friends for a very long time and maybe one reason is because we know how to drink, we like to drink, we must drink when we’re together. not because we’re bored of each other but because its fun. so our first drink were beers and jager.

now normally i pay for everything, because i was raised right. but for some reason i was out of cash and the bar didnt take plastic and the atm was broke so karisa got very excited at the prospect of actually being able to buy a round of drinks. she was all, i have $33 this should be a peice of cake. but the joke was on us because two coronas and two shots were $36 so we sent one of the jagers back and shared it.

then we told the doorman that if he wanted us to buy more expensive booze he was gonna have to stamp our hands or something because the atm was broke and they only took cash blah blah. the dude checked out karisa and said i love u and stamped our hands.

we went to walgreens next door and i was all hey lets get a little bottle of something and drink it in the parkinglot real fast after we get our money but guess what: WALGREENS DOESNT SELL BOOZE! w thee f?

so we got our millions of dollars and headed back to the historic el rey a little buzzed, but very happy to be hanging out again. it’d been a long time since wed rock n rolled.

got to the front door bar and she wanted corona but they had run out so she turned it into a champagne request. me, i got another beer. we took our drinks to stage left just as the Hellacopters were being announced.

the crowd roared and they played fast hard and quick. two and three minute rock jams with two lead guitars, bass, drums. i loved it. karisa loved it. everyone loved it. i didnt know one song but they all sounded fine to me.

a fat guy got on stage and stagedived and we gasped for not only his life but the lives underneath him. others crowd surfed and stage dived and all was well. after a few songs we went back for more beers.

the singer played a left handed rhythm guitar and wore a bad fedora that looked like something cheesy some guy would wear to a van halen show in 1981 but with a long scarf hanging from it. bro singer didnt have the scarf. but he did have a guy on keyboards who kept hitting one note repeatedly for drama as the band rocked on. occassionally he’d drag his hand across the length of the keys.

i didnt care. i was getting a little buzz and my ears were ringing from the velvety sledgelove of rock.

there were even children in attendence. they stood on chairs.

the hellacopters earned an encore and they got one. they brought out a friend from the side and said, yes we have two guitars but on this song thats not enough, we need three guitars. and broke into the MC5 classic Kick Out the Jams.

the fat guy made an appearance on stage again, without his shirt, and dove off again. we gasped.

later karisa and i drove to lianas birthday celebration at The Well and we saw former N*Sync singer and failed astronaut Lance Bass who closed down the bar with us. he didnt look so bad. neither did lots of Look-Look girls who i hadnt seen in ages.

but that wasnt enough for karisa, we had a nitecap at my place and i was all lemme take some pictures of you and she said nah i look fat from eating fondue yesterday you never let me take pictures of you tony pierce and i gave her the camera and showed her what a fondue belly was all about. a hairy one at that.

some say that lianas new boyfriend looks a lot like me, i say he needs to eat some cheese if he aspires to truly steal my style.

i woke up this morning with a blistering hangover and all foods tasted so gross until i had some eggplant tofu at this little chinese place up the street. i made a fire and watched the sopranos. and later a coed from minnesota called me and didnt sound at all like she looks in her pictures on buzznet.

if i ever get depressed again tell me to shut the fuck up.

dbuc + kali + kntgrl + al b