There is no theme to this post. A few random thoughts before bed:
My roommates are watching some Justin Bieber documentary type thing, which made me realize another thing I like about 80s rock concerts: I am the closest thing there is to a screaming 13-year-old girl. Thank God.
Tonight is Halloween in New York City. So was last night, and so will be tomorrow. Monday and Tuesday might be sort of calm, and then it will actually, according to the calendar, be Halloween on Wednesday. NYC will always start celebrating Halloween on Friday, even if it's in the middle of the week. Nay, especially if it's in the middle of the week.
And as it gets closer and closer to the 31st, it gets harder and harder to tell who is or is not in costume.
And I'm working pretty much all day, all six of those days. Maybe if it's allowed at Fuerza, I'll bring back my Ziggy Stardust facepaint from two years ago for the show.
Whenever someone holds the exit gate open for me at a subway station, or allows me to pass in front of them to exit a train or my building, it is always a surprise to me. But I like that, because then I don't take it for granted.
I now work in Times Square in addition to changing trains there on my way to or from Fuerza, so I spend a lot of time in the Times Square subway station. Tonight there was a full band of five or six people performing "Twist and Shout" with a crowd of about 50 people watching them, and there was so much joy in the subway station. It was awesome.
Today I got to spend an hour or two organizing wands at the Harry Potter exhibition. There were three display cases and about ten different wands, and I got to decide which ones went where, making both aesthetic (based on box color) and dramaturgical (based on Hogwarts house or series importance) choices about placement. I hope I can show you pictures at some point, because it was way too much fun setting up the store today.
One of my fellow ushers told me tonight about a place in Chinatown where she got a massage today. $30/45 minutes, $40/1 hour. I think both in celebration of and because of this new job, I might try to go tomorrow in between rehearsal and Fuerza before my lower back craps out completely at 22.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Speaking Of...
In conjunction with last night's post, these are my activities for the day:
- Watch last night's Daily Show and Colbert Report while drinking coffee. (unrelated)
- Read about the new Rolling Stones single being released tomorrow.
- Read a list of the Top 10 KISS songs of the 1970s (slow news day, apparently).
- Discover there was a movie made in 1999 called Detroit Rock City about a KISS cover band: find movie online, prepare to watch said movie.
- But first, apply to work at Harry Potter: the Exhibition when it returns to NYC November 1st. I may never have been so qualified for a job in my life. And by that I mean I hope my Harry Potter knowledge and enthusiasm makes up for my severe lack of retail experience.
- Watch Detroit Rock City.
- Read The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling, because I'm way behind since I won't take it out of the house. I don't want anything to happen to it.
- Go to work at Fuerza.
- Buy groceries at Trader Joe's
- Come home, read some more, go to bed.
AWESOME DAY. This is what my days should always be like.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Nostalgia?
This post probably isn't going where you think it's going.
I was chatting with a friend of mine today and he called the rock shows that I go to "nostalgia concerts." (It should be mentioned he was born in 1976.) So I thought about that label, because clearly for me, going to an 80s rock concert is not motivated by nostalgia, since I was never alive in the 80s, unless you're using the conservative definition of "life." Which I'm not. But I get the idea that for people who are somewhere between 15 and 25 years older than me, that may be exactly what such an event is. There are definitely guys in their late 30s, early 40s (or older) at these shows who want to relive their teens and 20s, and they bring their kids who are now like eight or twelve, and the whole family paints their faces with KISS make-up. Or they bring their girlfriends and get really drunk but pay very little attention to the music, and occasionally stare at me, because my presence is inexplicable to them. This is understandable since the demographic at these shows is usually 35-50 (and 5-12), and also heavily male-leaning, but there was a guy a row in front of me in Hartford who turned around every half hour or so not in a lecherous way, but with a look of confusion and/or amusement on his face. Out of the tens of thousands of people at the concert, I saw less than a dozen who were within ten years of my age by the look of it.
So maybe for those people it is about wanting to relive "the good old days" (although I've heard they weren't so good). But for me, this is about going to hear the music I like and see the bands I like now. I'm trying to think of bands/artists formed in the last 10-15 years I'd pay money to see live (which is a much more specific thing than "contemporary artists I vaguely like).
I've been thinking for a couple minutes now and the only thing that came to mind was maybe Maroon 5, maybe, and I guess technically I did sort of see them live at Ravinia last summer, but we couldn't actually see them. And that was before "Moves Like Jagger" came out, so really it doesn't count.
Maybe Pink, since she's still around, I imagine it'd be interesting, although I don't really know her music anymore.
Anyway you get where I'm going with this. I'd rather see Elton John, Led Zeppelin (please get back together (they won't)), Bruce Springsteen (I know, I know, I missed it), the Rolling Stones (God I hope they do that show they have rumored to be planning in Brooklyn), et cetera.
The point, really, I think, is that I don't believe the bands are doing this out of nostalgia for earlier decades. I can't imagine Mötley wants to go back to the 80's. They probably couldn't survive them a second time. This is still about making new music. KISS's new album, Monster, came out last week. While the review I read said the songs probably won't make it past the tour supporting the album, I think the single is as good as any of their stuff from the 70s, and they've got to keep making new music.
I keep thinking about what it must be like to still be constantly performing songs written thirty or more years ago. In some interview I read, Nikki Sixx mentioned that when they brought Vince Neil in to sing for the first time, he sang "Live Wire," and they knew that he was it. And he said they've played that song at every single gig ever since. That's 31 years of playing that song (give or take some years in the 90s when they were all fighting or in rehab). I've tried really hard, but it's rather difficult at age 22 to imagine what it's like to keep performing something for a longer time than I've been alive. But maybe I've in some ways talked myself out of my own point because they're playing those songs from thirty years ago because that's what the fans want to hear. KISS was extremely prolific for a decade so their catalogue is extensive and I don't know it as well, but I know Mötley has nine studio albums, and I know they only play material at their shows off of the (five) releases from the 80s and their most recent album from 2008. There are three albums (1994's Mötley Crüe, 1997's Generation Swine, and 2000's New Tattoo) that are completely ignored. Their eponymous album was never that popular because it's the one that doesn't feature Vince Neil on vocals, and Generation Swine is just not very good, but the only explanation for New Tattoo being overlooked is that it lands in the middle ground between the classics and their newest material. I think Saints of Los Angeles (2008) is as good as 1989's Dr. Feelgood, but it will be interesting to see when their new album comes out in 2013 if they will continue to tour with material from Saints.
This analysis is a much longer breakdown of a pretty brief topic of conversation, but that evolved into a discussion of Harry Potter and the generational need for something that teaches us that it won't be easy but if we fight for what we believe in, things will be okay. For my friend, as representative of gen X, that was Star Wars. Clearly for 90s babies (I abhor the label "millennials") it was Harry Potter. And now I wonder if I will be the equivalent of those middle-aged guys at Crüe concerts, reliving my childhood at conventions or comic con (I probably won't go to comic con). And I wonder if there will be those two or three random kids who are 20 years younger than me, and if I'll be totally baffled by their presence.
As I've said before (though maybe not on this blog), Harry Potter will never be for another generation what it was for mine, because they won't have to wait. I was ten when Goblet of Fire came out, but thirteen by the time Order of the Phoenix was released (since JK Rowling went off and got married and had a baby, like that was more important, in those three years). Yeah try telling a ten-year-old now that they have to wait three years to read the next book in a series. No way. Not now that it exists. There will be no waiting, no speculation, no midnight release parties, no early-days-of-the-internet community bonding. The anticipation, the theorizing, the community built up around those things, cannot be recreated, and that makes me feel awfully lucky to have been a part of it. There's a really wonderful book called Harry, A History I read a few summers ago that catalogues this experience and I guess for kids to read that will kind of be what they get to understand, the way I read band autobiographies to vicariously live through the pages into the 80s.
I can watch youtube videos of concerts, and read books by Nikki Sixx and Gene Simmons and get some idea of the 80s, but I can't live it. So it's not nostalgia. Audiences now aren't like they were in the 80s, tickets are expensive and the people with the most money (or the fanciest friends!) sit in the front instead of the people who care the most fighting to the front like in the days of general admission. (At the Rock and Roll hall of fame I saw a ticket for a KISS show in 1975 that cost $6 for general admission at the door.) So what this "scene" was in the 80s and was for that audience in the 80s isn't what it is for me in the 21st century. Just like Harry Potter won't be for kids now (because it's been fifteen years almost already) what it was for me in 1998. But that doesn't mean that either thing is any less amazing, or won't continue to serve a purpose.
Maybe this is a weird parallel to draw. It's probably one no one else would put together, but it makes perfect sense to me. Cultural phenomenons evolve. Their place in society changes. And that's kind of weird, and realizing I'm getting to the point where things that are quintessential to my childhood are becoming something people would call "nostalgic" is kind of freaky, but it's okay. I said my childhood ended when the last movie came out ("It all ends 7.15.11") and I was only sort of but not really joking. So I guess now I like Harry Potter as an adult?
We end with Harry Potter, so maybe this did go where you were thinking. Whatever I'm gonna live with Anna and if we get an apartment like the ones I've been looking at it will have a fireplace that probably doesn't work that we will turn into a Harry Potter puppet castle. And I will play the metal version of the theme song all the time. So, just, you know, know what to expect when you come over.
I was chatting with a friend of mine today and he called the rock shows that I go to "nostalgia concerts." (It should be mentioned he was born in 1976.) So I thought about that label, because clearly for me, going to an 80s rock concert is not motivated by nostalgia, since I was never alive in the 80s, unless you're using the conservative definition of "life." Which I'm not. But I get the idea that for people who are somewhere between 15 and 25 years older than me, that may be exactly what such an event is. There are definitely guys in their late 30s, early 40s (or older) at these shows who want to relive their teens and 20s, and they bring their kids who are now like eight or twelve, and the whole family paints their faces with KISS make-up. Or they bring their girlfriends and get really drunk but pay very little attention to the music, and occasionally stare at me, because my presence is inexplicable to them. This is understandable since the demographic at these shows is usually 35-50 (and 5-12), and also heavily male-leaning, but there was a guy a row in front of me in Hartford who turned around every half hour or so not in a lecherous way, but with a look of confusion and/or amusement on his face. Out of the tens of thousands of people at the concert, I saw less than a dozen who were within ten years of my age by the look of it.
So maybe for those people it is about wanting to relive "the good old days" (although I've heard they weren't so good). But for me, this is about going to hear the music I like and see the bands I like now. I'm trying to think of bands/artists formed in the last 10-15 years I'd pay money to see live (which is a much more specific thing than "contemporary artists I vaguely like).
I've been thinking for a couple minutes now and the only thing that came to mind was maybe Maroon 5, maybe, and I guess technically I did sort of see them live at Ravinia last summer, but we couldn't actually see them. And that was before "Moves Like Jagger" came out, so really it doesn't count.
Maybe Pink, since she's still around, I imagine it'd be interesting, although I don't really know her music anymore.
Anyway you get where I'm going with this. I'd rather see Elton John, Led Zeppelin (please get back together (they won't)), Bruce Springsteen (I know, I know, I missed it), the Rolling Stones (God I hope they do that show they have rumored to be planning in Brooklyn), et cetera.
The point, really, I think, is that I don't believe the bands are doing this out of nostalgia for earlier decades. I can't imagine Mötley wants to go back to the 80's. They probably couldn't survive them a second time. This is still about making new music. KISS's new album, Monster, came out last week. While the review I read said the songs probably won't make it past the tour supporting the album, I think the single is as good as any of their stuff from the 70s, and they've got to keep making new music.
I keep thinking about what it must be like to still be constantly performing songs written thirty or more years ago. In some interview I read, Nikki Sixx mentioned that when they brought Vince Neil in to sing for the first time, he sang "Live Wire," and they knew that he was it. And he said they've played that song at every single gig ever since. That's 31 years of playing that song (give or take some years in the 90s when they were all fighting or in rehab). I've tried really hard, but it's rather difficult at age 22 to imagine what it's like to keep performing something for a longer time than I've been alive. But maybe I've in some ways talked myself out of my own point because they're playing those songs from thirty years ago because that's what the fans want to hear. KISS was extremely prolific for a decade so their catalogue is extensive and I don't know it as well, but I know Mötley has nine studio albums, and I know they only play material at their shows off of the (five) releases from the 80s and their most recent album from 2008. There are three albums (1994's Mötley Crüe, 1997's Generation Swine, and 2000's New Tattoo) that are completely ignored. Their eponymous album was never that popular because it's the one that doesn't feature Vince Neil on vocals, and Generation Swine is just not very good, but the only explanation for New Tattoo being overlooked is that it lands in the middle ground between the classics and their newest material. I think Saints of Los Angeles (2008) is as good as 1989's Dr. Feelgood, but it will be interesting to see when their new album comes out in 2013 if they will continue to tour with material from Saints.
This analysis is a much longer breakdown of a pretty brief topic of conversation, but that evolved into a discussion of Harry Potter and the generational need for something that teaches us that it won't be easy but if we fight for what we believe in, things will be okay. For my friend, as representative of gen X, that was Star Wars. Clearly for 90s babies (I abhor the label "millennials") it was Harry Potter. And now I wonder if I will be the equivalent of those middle-aged guys at Crüe concerts, reliving my childhood at conventions or comic con (I probably won't go to comic con). And I wonder if there will be those two or three random kids who are 20 years younger than me, and if I'll be totally baffled by their presence.
As I've said before (though maybe not on this blog), Harry Potter will never be for another generation what it was for mine, because they won't have to wait. I was ten when Goblet of Fire came out, but thirteen by the time Order of the Phoenix was released (since JK Rowling went off and got married and had a baby, like that was more important, in those three years). Yeah try telling a ten-year-old now that they have to wait three years to read the next book in a series. No way. Not now that it exists. There will be no waiting, no speculation, no midnight release parties, no early-days-of-the-internet community bonding. The anticipation, the theorizing, the community built up around those things, cannot be recreated, and that makes me feel awfully lucky to have been a part of it. There's a really wonderful book called Harry, A History I read a few summers ago that catalogues this experience and I guess for kids to read that will kind of be what they get to understand, the way I read band autobiographies to vicariously live through the pages into the 80s.
I can watch youtube videos of concerts, and read books by Nikki Sixx and Gene Simmons and get some idea of the 80s, but I can't live it. So it's not nostalgia. Audiences now aren't like they were in the 80s, tickets are expensive and the people with the most money (or the fanciest friends!) sit in the front instead of the people who care the most fighting to the front like in the days of general admission. (At the Rock and Roll hall of fame I saw a ticket for a KISS show in 1975 that cost $6 for general admission at the door.) So what this "scene" was in the 80s and was for that audience in the 80s isn't what it is for me in the 21st century. Just like Harry Potter won't be for kids now (because it's been fifteen years almost already) what it was for me in 1998. But that doesn't mean that either thing is any less amazing, or won't continue to serve a purpose.
Maybe this is a weird parallel to draw. It's probably one no one else would put together, but it makes perfect sense to me. Cultural phenomenons evolve. Their place in society changes. And that's kind of weird, and realizing I'm getting to the point where things that are quintessential to my childhood are becoming something people would call "nostalgic" is kind of freaky, but it's okay. I said my childhood ended when the last movie came out ("It all ends 7.15.11") and I was only sort of but not really joking. So I guess now I like Harry Potter as an adult?
We end with Harry Potter, so maybe this did go where you were thinking. Whatever I'm gonna live with Anna and if we get an apartment like the ones I've been looking at it will have a fireplace that probably doesn't work that we will turn into a Harry Potter puppet castle. And I will play the metal version of the theme song all the time. So, just, you know, know what to expect when you come over.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Hartford, Rock City (Again, I Know)
I have to talk about glam rock again. Because I saw Mötley Crüe. Again.
Most of you probably know - or maybe you don't, it was very last minute - that I went to see the final stop of THE TOUR in Hartford last Sunday (the 23rd, not the 30th). I didn't talk about it a ton because I wasn't sure I was going until I bought my bus tickets at 9:30 that morning.
Here's what happened, and I promise this is all leading somewhere philosophical, not just to another concert play-by-play, although there will be some of that, too. This one was special. Anyway. I don't think I ever mentioned this on the blog in the context of the last Crüe show I was at, but this guy, Tom Zutaut, went to my high school. Yes, my little high school back in Park Forest, some 35 or so years before I did. I discovered this while reading Mötley's 2001 autobiography The Dirt in the summer of 2011 because Tom Zutaut was the A&R (I have never known what that means) man for Elektra records in the 80s and signed the band to their first record deal in 1982 when he was about my age. Being the thorough fan that I am, I looked him up, found him on facebook, and just asked if he really indeed went to my high school. (He hadn't said the name, just the town and state, but there's only ever been one high school in my town.) He responded, friend requested me, and we got to chatting over the next several months.
Fast forward to this summer. I intended to see The Tour while I was home, on September 7th. However tickets were crazy expensive (just a lawn seat - meaning a space on the grass - cost about $45). I just couldn't afford it. My plan was to win tickets. I entered every contest. I analyzed the tweets and habits of Tommy Lee, the drummer, because he was hiding tickets in every city they stopped in, which usually included VIP passes meaning a trip backstage to meet the band. I didn't win any contests, so on September 7th, my mom and I went on a stakeout of the venue, waiting for Tommy Lee to tweet his first "Crüe Clüe" to find the passes. But none came, nor was there an explanation of why he suddenly didn't hide them (although I later deduced it was because of the weather, which was his excuse at a later stop on the tour).
So no tickets for me, no Crüe/KISS extravaganza. I was more than a little disappointed, although kudos to my mom for sticking out for hours with me to help me try to go to the show. I figured I could always try again at one of the later stops in the NYC area - they weren't playing in the city at all but had shows near Newark, on Long Island, and in Hartford, Connecticut. You see where this is going. Or do you?
Re-enter Tom Zutaut. I texted him as we were driving away from the venue, saying how disappointed I was about not going to the show. He said he could call and get me tickets, my mom could come too if she wanted. I said thanks, but we were almost home, and the show had already started, so it felt too late. Then he mentioned he would probably be at the shows in Boston and Hartford and I could go to one of those if I wanted, since I had said I'd be back in New York soon.
I said I could get to Hartford (2 1/2 hours by bus). He said he'd get back to me after he'd made his travel plans. Two weeks went by. He ended up being stuck in Kansas City for work. But he said he'd call in a ticket for me if I was going to go. I got very skeptical (I always had been a little bit; I've still never actually met this guy), having that feeling that I think every girl my age in my generation has, being wary of nice men we meet on the internet. But something told me to say yes. So I did. That was Saturday night.
Sunday morning, I bought the bus tickets. I went to church, taught Sunday school, met up with a friend who printed the bus tickets at NYU for me, and then went to Port Authority to head to Hartford. I got there, made my way to the theatre, and went to will call. My ticket wasn't at a regular window. I was redirected to the VIP Guest Services Guest List window. I had a free ticket and a wristband for a photo with KISS. My roundtrip bus cost me the price of a lawn seat, and now I was in row N of the lower pavilion with a ticket to meet KISS and, soon, an all access backstage pass that is now my prized possession. (This is all also thanks to Doc McGhee, the former manager of Mötley, Tom's friend, and now manager for KISS. Imagine that guy's life. And he also went to high school near me.)
What I originally wanted to talk about though was glam rock itself. The music, the stage show, the aesthetic, the attitude. KISS was a pioneer in their form. No one has done quite what they've done, become a franchise and a brand the way they have. Gene Simmons I believe is a businessman before he is a musician or an artist. He might even say that himself. I read his autobiography (also written in 2001), Kiss and Make-Up this summer while I was home, and he's certainly proud of his head for business and refers to KISS as a business. He wants to be rich, he wants to be successful, he wants KISS to be influential not just in a musical sense but in a cultural sense. And as early as the mid- to late-seventies KISS was creating stage shows like no one had ever seen before. The pyro, Gene's fire breathing during "Firehouse," Paul Stanley flying out over the audience, raising platforms, pyrotechnics, moving lights, moving trusses full of lights, projections, etc. That technology has continued to develop into the current century - next year will be KISS' 40th anniversary as a band, if you ignore the fact that two of the original members, though still alive, were kicked out of the band long ago. (You'd never know it though if you didn't do your research; Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer adopted the make-up and personas of Peter Criss and Ace Frehley respectively.)
Similarly, hugely influenced by KISS themselves, Mötley Crüe has pushed the boundaries of the live rock show in artistic ways. (That was the most academic sounding transition sentence I have written in a long time. Wow.) I still think, having now seen The New York Dolls, Poison, Steel Panther, Def Leppard, and KISS, that Mötley puts on the best live show out there. This time things were a little different from the last two times I saw them (the second being kind of a European leg of the summer tour, I think, at least concept-wise). The stage show was new, the set list was a bit different. There was a countdown clock projected on the screen, with a deafening ticking noise that built palpable anticipation (all the more impressive when you then saw how unenthusiastic so much of the crowd was). They opened with a huge processional of hooded figures that came through the audience with banners. The show itself had tons of pyro, fire, power washers spraying the audience with water, Nikki Sixx's guitar shooting fire, Tommy Lee's 360 drum coaster of course, lasers (which were, admittedly, kinda lame), and constant, relentless, media, which, though perhaps the newest technology in many ways, is kind of the least interesting part of their design.
My point (and I do have one) is this. Nothing gets my heart pounding, gives me a rush, gets me so fully involved and passionate about what is happening on stage as these rock concerts. And yes, I like the music, and yes I've read all their books and know weird things about them I have no reason to know, and I follow these people on twitter even though I still think twitter is stupid and I only got an account in the first place because Nikki Sixx tweeted during their show when I first saw them in St. Louis in June of 2011. But the shows, the full-on design of these theatrical events, of the lighting and the costumes and the sets to combine with the music, is unlike anything I've seen anywhere. I get a little bit of that feeling from American Idiot on Broadway. But that was a rock musical and the lights were designed by Kevin Adams who does a lot of rock musicals and lights them like mini-rock shows.
There is this feeling when all the senses line up as part of the same experience. It's loud, and bright, and hot, and fast (is tempo a feeling? I think so...), and gritty, and powerful. I think I have said before that I love glam rock for being 100% what it is. For not apologizing for the make-up, the big hair even now, the sexuality, the desire for more than the mundane. And in so many ways this is all over-analyzing, because as many of the artists of the 80s will say outright, glam rock wasn't about some deeper message, or the expression of rage or oppression. It was in a sense a rebellion to be sure, but mostly it was just a bunch of guys singing about what they liked - sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.
I just wonder why more theatre - or really any theatre - doesn't give me that same feeling. Is there more of a narrative and therefore more of an emotional journey in a play or a musical? Arguably, yes, of course. That's theoretically the point. And sure, I go see plays and have a lot of feelings, and sometimes they're very good, and provoke a lot of thoughts, too. But I just... I just want that rock show feeling more. It's never mattered to me that a domestic beer costs $11 at a concert, because I don't need it. I go to these shows by myself and have more fun than practically anywhere or anytime else, even when I'm with people.
How do you make that happen for theatre? It's a communal experience. But so is a rock concert, actually. In Hartford I was in this section with a bunch of other people who had KISS VIP wristbands and during Mötley's set they were all just standing around. I am obviously a bigger fan of the Crüe than KISS, so I was having a great time, baffling all the middle-aged men around me, who never understand what a 20something girl is doing at an 80s rock concert, especially, I think, without a middle-aged man as my escort. Anyway there were these two other women, probably in their late thirties, a couple rows in front of me, who were the only other people in the vicinity who also seemed to actually be having a good time during the set. They caught my eye occasionally when turning to the side or something and we would acknowledge each other, part of an unspoken clan, the Crüe crew, the people who were actually engaging with the monstrous stage action while everyone else stood around and drank. There was also the community walking to the theatre, as people who had parked far away walked too, and various people complimented each other on their band t-shirts, cars blasted KISS out their windows, it was very communal. Kind of a massive tailgating parade, as it were, on the way to the arena. So the communal aspect isn't it.
Is it subtlety? Maybe it's subtlety. There is absolutely nothing subtle about a rock show. Both bands played their one new single from their upcoming albums on this tour along with the classics from decades ago - KISS' is entitled "Hell or Halleluja," Mötley's, simply, "Sex." Like I said. Not subtle. The chorus includes the line "It's all about the sex," which was the not-really-unspoken moral of most of their other songs, but now they've really literally just said it.
I don't know. It's something I seriously think about a lot. It matters to me, that feeling, rock music, theatre, how to blend them when I don't actually know a damn thing about writing music or music theory. But figuring it out is becoming my conscious self-education now that I'm out of school.
I still think I was born 25 years too late.
Most of you probably know - or maybe you don't, it was very last minute - that I went to see the final stop of THE TOUR in Hartford last Sunday (the 23rd, not the 30th). I didn't talk about it a ton because I wasn't sure I was going until I bought my bus tickets at 9:30 that morning.
Here's what happened, and I promise this is all leading somewhere philosophical, not just to another concert play-by-play, although there will be some of that, too. This one was special. Anyway. I don't think I ever mentioned this on the blog in the context of the last Crüe show I was at, but this guy, Tom Zutaut, went to my high school. Yes, my little high school back in Park Forest, some 35 or so years before I did. I discovered this while reading Mötley's 2001 autobiography The Dirt in the summer of 2011 because Tom Zutaut was the A&R (I have never known what that means) man for Elektra records in the 80s and signed the band to their first record deal in 1982 when he was about my age. Being the thorough fan that I am, I looked him up, found him on facebook, and just asked if he really indeed went to my high school. (He hadn't said the name, just the town and state, but there's only ever been one high school in my town.) He responded, friend requested me, and we got to chatting over the next several months.
Fast forward to this summer. I intended to see The Tour while I was home, on September 7th. However tickets were crazy expensive (just a lawn seat - meaning a space on the grass - cost about $45). I just couldn't afford it. My plan was to win tickets. I entered every contest. I analyzed the tweets and habits of Tommy Lee, the drummer, because he was hiding tickets in every city they stopped in, which usually included VIP passes meaning a trip backstage to meet the band. I didn't win any contests, so on September 7th, my mom and I went on a stakeout of the venue, waiting for Tommy Lee to tweet his first "Crüe Clüe" to find the passes. But none came, nor was there an explanation of why he suddenly didn't hide them (although I later deduced it was because of the weather, which was his excuse at a later stop on the tour).
So no tickets for me, no Crüe/KISS extravaganza. I was more than a little disappointed, although kudos to my mom for sticking out for hours with me to help me try to go to the show. I figured I could always try again at one of the later stops in the NYC area - they weren't playing in the city at all but had shows near Newark, on Long Island, and in Hartford, Connecticut. You see where this is going. Or do you?
Re-enter Tom Zutaut. I texted him as we were driving away from the venue, saying how disappointed I was about not going to the show. He said he could call and get me tickets, my mom could come too if she wanted. I said thanks, but we were almost home, and the show had already started, so it felt too late. Then he mentioned he would probably be at the shows in Boston and Hartford and I could go to one of those if I wanted, since I had said I'd be back in New York soon.
I said I could get to Hartford (2 1/2 hours by bus). He said he'd get back to me after he'd made his travel plans. Two weeks went by. He ended up being stuck in Kansas City for work. But he said he'd call in a ticket for me if I was going to go. I got very skeptical (I always had been a little bit; I've still never actually met this guy), having that feeling that I think every girl my age in my generation has, being wary of nice men we meet on the internet. But something told me to say yes. So I did. That was Saturday night.
Sunday morning, I bought the bus tickets. I went to church, taught Sunday school, met up with a friend who printed the bus tickets at NYU for me, and then went to Port Authority to head to Hartford. I got there, made my way to the theatre, and went to will call. My ticket wasn't at a regular window. I was redirected to the VIP Guest Services Guest List window. I had a free ticket and a wristband for a photo with KISS. My roundtrip bus cost me the price of a lawn seat, and now I was in row N of the lower pavilion with a ticket to meet KISS and, soon, an all access backstage pass that is now my prized possession. (This is all also thanks to Doc McGhee, the former manager of Mötley, Tom's friend, and now manager for KISS. Imagine that guy's life. And he also went to high school near me.)
What I originally wanted to talk about though was glam rock itself. The music, the stage show, the aesthetic, the attitude. KISS was a pioneer in their form. No one has done quite what they've done, become a franchise and a brand the way they have. Gene Simmons I believe is a businessman before he is a musician or an artist. He might even say that himself. I read his autobiography (also written in 2001), Kiss and Make-Up this summer while I was home, and he's certainly proud of his head for business and refers to KISS as a business. He wants to be rich, he wants to be successful, he wants KISS to be influential not just in a musical sense but in a cultural sense. And as early as the mid- to late-seventies KISS was creating stage shows like no one had ever seen before. The pyro, Gene's fire breathing during "Firehouse," Paul Stanley flying out over the audience, raising platforms, pyrotechnics, moving lights, moving trusses full of lights, projections, etc. That technology has continued to develop into the current century - next year will be KISS' 40th anniversary as a band, if you ignore the fact that two of the original members, though still alive, were kicked out of the band long ago. (You'd never know it though if you didn't do your research; Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer adopted the make-up and personas of Peter Criss and Ace Frehley respectively.)
Similarly, hugely influenced by KISS themselves, Mötley Crüe has pushed the boundaries of the live rock show in artistic ways. (That was the most academic sounding transition sentence I have written in a long time. Wow.) I still think, having now seen The New York Dolls, Poison, Steel Panther, Def Leppard, and KISS, that Mötley puts on the best live show out there. This time things were a little different from the last two times I saw them (the second being kind of a European leg of the summer tour, I think, at least concept-wise). The stage show was new, the set list was a bit different. There was a countdown clock projected on the screen, with a deafening ticking noise that built palpable anticipation (all the more impressive when you then saw how unenthusiastic so much of the crowd was). They opened with a huge processional of hooded figures that came through the audience with banners. The show itself had tons of pyro, fire, power washers spraying the audience with water, Nikki Sixx's guitar shooting fire, Tommy Lee's 360 drum coaster of course, lasers (which were, admittedly, kinda lame), and constant, relentless, media, which, though perhaps the newest technology in many ways, is kind of the least interesting part of their design.
My point (and I do have one) is this. Nothing gets my heart pounding, gives me a rush, gets me so fully involved and passionate about what is happening on stage as these rock concerts. And yes, I like the music, and yes I've read all their books and know weird things about them I have no reason to know, and I follow these people on twitter even though I still think twitter is stupid and I only got an account in the first place because Nikki Sixx tweeted during their show when I first saw them in St. Louis in June of 2011. But the shows, the full-on design of these theatrical events, of the lighting and the costumes and the sets to combine with the music, is unlike anything I've seen anywhere. I get a little bit of that feeling from American Idiot on Broadway. But that was a rock musical and the lights were designed by Kevin Adams who does a lot of rock musicals and lights them like mini-rock shows.
There is this feeling when all the senses line up as part of the same experience. It's loud, and bright, and hot, and fast (is tempo a feeling? I think so...), and gritty, and powerful. I think I have said before that I love glam rock for being 100% what it is. For not apologizing for the make-up, the big hair even now, the sexuality, the desire for more than the mundane. And in so many ways this is all over-analyzing, because as many of the artists of the 80s will say outright, glam rock wasn't about some deeper message, or the expression of rage or oppression. It was in a sense a rebellion to be sure, but mostly it was just a bunch of guys singing about what they liked - sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.
I just wonder why more theatre - or really any theatre - doesn't give me that same feeling. Is there more of a narrative and therefore more of an emotional journey in a play or a musical? Arguably, yes, of course. That's theoretically the point. And sure, I go see plays and have a lot of feelings, and sometimes they're very good, and provoke a lot of thoughts, too. But I just... I just want that rock show feeling more. It's never mattered to me that a domestic beer costs $11 at a concert, because I don't need it. I go to these shows by myself and have more fun than practically anywhere or anytime else, even when I'm with people.
How do you make that happen for theatre? It's a communal experience. But so is a rock concert, actually. In Hartford I was in this section with a bunch of other people who had KISS VIP wristbands and during Mötley's set they were all just standing around. I am obviously a bigger fan of the Crüe than KISS, so I was having a great time, baffling all the middle-aged men around me, who never understand what a 20something girl is doing at an 80s rock concert, especially, I think, without a middle-aged man as my escort. Anyway there were these two other women, probably in their late thirties, a couple rows in front of me, who were the only other people in the vicinity who also seemed to actually be having a good time during the set. They caught my eye occasionally when turning to the side or something and we would acknowledge each other, part of an unspoken clan, the Crüe crew, the people who were actually engaging with the monstrous stage action while everyone else stood around and drank. There was also the community walking to the theatre, as people who had parked far away walked too, and various people complimented each other on their band t-shirts, cars blasted KISS out their windows, it was very communal. Kind of a massive tailgating parade, as it were, on the way to the arena. So the communal aspect isn't it.
Is it subtlety? Maybe it's subtlety. There is absolutely nothing subtle about a rock show. Both bands played their one new single from their upcoming albums on this tour along with the classics from decades ago - KISS' is entitled "Hell or Halleluja," Mötley's, simply, "Sex." Like I said. Not subtle. The chorus includes the line "It's all about the sex," which was the not-really-unspoken moral of most of their other songs, but now they've really literally just said it.
I don't know. It's something I seriously think about a lot. It matters to me, that feeling, rock music, theatre, how to blend them when I don't actually know a damn thing about writing music or music theory. But figuring it out is becoming my conscious self-education now that I'm out of school.
I still think I was born 25 years too late.
BEST. THING. EVER.
Mötley has my artistic heart.
There's me, and there's everybody else.
Thank you for this, KISS.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Gypsyhood
Here's the facts. Since I moved into my first dorm on Third Avenue in late August of 2008, I've moved a total of twelve times. Twelve times in four years. Five of those times were in the last year, thanks to that time when I moved to Spain for a bit.
Post-grad as I've mentioned, I've become a bit of - okay quite - a gypsy. I haven't lived in the same place for more than four months since late mid-2011. After four months in Madrid, I was home for a month, then in an NYU dorm for four months, then in Europe for two weeks, then in New Jersey for a week, then in a sublet on Roosevelt Island for six weeks, then home for six weeks, then couch surfing in Brooklyn for two weeks, and now I'm living in Harlem for three months.
WHY?
It's a valid question. I've had older friends tell me that everyone goes through a kind of gypsy period after graduation. I responded to one friend, yeah but I'm doing it more than everybody else. But I tend to think I do most things I do with a more-ness compared to most people. In any case, the people I know that have moved frequently after graduation still aren't moving this often. Theirs is more a case of, "Brooklyn is too far, I want to move back to Manhattan," or "Manhattan is too expensive, screw this I'm moving to Brooklyn." My year of living out of suitcases has not been that. Actually I've found it kind of interesting to live in different parts of the city, particularly Roosevelt Island since I know a total of three people who've lived there (and I've now lived with two of them).
I didn't lease an apartment after graduation because in February of this year I went to visit my cosmic twin (really, we're the same person) in Philadelphia where he now lives with his boyfriend. I found out while I was there that they were planning to move to NYC and was offered the other bedroom in this hypothetical apartment. I'd always hoped my friend would move back to the city and we'd live together, so I was thrilled. As the spring wore on, the hypothetical moving date kept floating further away. So over the summer, I subletted and then spent some time at home, hoping the boys would figure things out. In the meantime I ended up subletting this place in Harlem where I am now. I just didn't want to buy furniture and sign a lease just to have to ultimately move that furniture and either find a subletter myself of have to wait to move into the apartment with my friends.
So I took on a gypsy life, drifting from neighborhood to neighborhood, sublet to sublet, suitcases in hand on trains and busses all over the city. As I well-documented, I spent my time at home ruthlessly getting rid of anything I could to make ultimately hauling my possessions across country easier. I don't know what size my future apartment will be, but my stuff ought to fit. I believe it would fit into this bedroom I'm in now, and it's not that big.
All this is to say I had an impromptu lunch with my friend today who happened to be in the city for an audition, and he told me he's going to be performing a cruise for essentially the next year. What that means for me, as I was already coming to discern, is that I'm not going to be living with him anytime in the near future. The new roommate search is on.
My first thought was my friend Anna who is currently studying abroad in Madrid just as I did last year. Frequently when kids come back from abroad studies they move into apartments instead of back into NYU housing. (This is much cheaper for essentially anyone who isn't me, who had her housing paid for by a scholarship.) As it turns out, Anna is in the market for a roommate herself as her housing plans seem to have fallen through too, so it looks like I've already hopefully solved half the battle. Anna is quite possibly the only person I've ever met who I would dare to say is as big of a Harry Potter fan as I am. She's two years younger than me and a Playwrights student, and we started talking on facebook the summer before she came to NYU because we both had Potter pictures in honor of the coming film (Half-Blood Prince at the time). I remember in one of our first conversations we analysed the latest production stills that had just been released in the nerdiest possible detail. I know I have friends that would have done that with me when we were twelve, but I don't know about at age twenty.
This is far in the future, as we won't live together until January, and we just started talking about this within the last 24 hours, but I'm excited. It's going to be the best. Have no delusions about what you will walk into if you visit our apartment. Let me give you only this picture: In our "about me" sections on facebook (or "acerca de mí" because our facebooks are in Spanish), I have "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." Anna has "Nitwit. Blubber. Oddment. Tweak."
Friendships have been built on far less.
As Anna and I were talking, I said "I guess I've been a gypsy for no reason," but then amended it to add "Or at least not the reason I thought," which is really the truth. I can see now, on what is probably (hopefully?) the tail-end of my gypsydom (I'm not sure there's a noun for it) that even though I thought I was wandering New York for the sake of my friends, I have of course been wandering New York (and the world, really) for the sake of myself. This blog started because I went to Madrid, and I went to Madrid because I was determined to broaden my experience of the world and gain greater perspective about humanity. That happened. But it continued when I came back to New York and kept living out of suitcases for another year. As I've said before, I've learned a lot about who I am, what I need and don't need, what I value, what I can let go of, who cares about me, what matters. Who are you without all your stuff? You're still you. You really are. I really am.
So, you know, it seemed crazy, it still kind of seems crazy, that I've had no real permanent address for ages, that I've had to have mail sent to Illinois constantly even though I've spent cumulatively about a year there in the last three, but it's okay. I don't think I would trade it to have had an apartment back in May. Yes, I am absolutely excited to buy a bed and have a room I get to decorate myself (which will still include Harry Potter posters, of course) and having keys I get to keep and being able to give people an address that I'm going to still be at in more than three months time. One day, I will actually change my residency to New York, but apparently that will only be after I've already lived there for five years.
All I'm really saying is I still believe everything happens for a reason, even if it isn't always the reason we expect. That's life.
Post-grad as I've mentioned, I've become a bit of - okay quite - a gypsy. I haven't lived in the same place for more than four months since late mid-2011. After four months in Madrid, I was home for a month, then in an NYU dorm for four months, then in Europe for two weeks, then in New Jersey for a week, then in a sublet on Roosevelt Island for six weeks, then home for six weeks, then couch surfing in Brooklyn for two weeks, and now I'm living in Harlem for three months.
WHY?
It's a valid question. I've had older friends tell me that everyone goes through a kind of gypsy period after graduation. I responded to one friend, yeah but I'm doing it more than everybody else. But I tend to think I do most things I do with a more-ness compared to most people. In any case, the people I know that have moved frequently after graduation still aren't moving this often. Theirs is more a case of, "Brooklyn is too far, I want to move back to Manhattan," or "Manhattan is too expensive, screw this I'm moving to Brooklyn." My year of living out of suitcases has not been that. Actually I've found it kind of interesting to live in different parts of the city, particularly Roosevelt Island since I know a total of three people who've lived there (and I've now lived with two of them).
I didn't lease an apartment after graduation because in February of this year I went to visit my cosmic twin (really, we're the same person) in Philadelphia where he now lives with his boyfriend. I found out while I was there that they were planning to move to NYC and was offered the other bedroom in this hypothetical apartment. I'd always hoped my friend would move back to the city and we'd live together, so I was thrilled. As the spring wore on, the hypothetical moving date kept floating further away. So over the summer, I subletted and then spent some time at home, hoping the boys would figure things out. In the meantime I ended up subletting this place in Harlem where I am now. I just didn't want to buy furniture and sign a lease just to have to ultimately move that furniture and either find a subletter myself of have to wait to move into the apartment with my friends.
So I took on a gypsy life, drifting from neighborhood to neighborhood, sublet to sublet, suitcases in hand on trains and busses all over the city. As I well-documented, I spent my time at home ruthlessly getting rid of anything I could to make ultimately hauling my possessions across country easier. I don't know what size my future apartment will be, but my stuff ought to fit. I believe it would fit into this bedroom I'm in now, and it's not that big.
All this is to say I had an impromptu lunch with my friend today who happened to be in the city for an audition, and he told me he's going to be performing a cruise for essentially the next year. What that means for me, as I was already coming to discern, is that I'm not going to be living with him anytime in the near future. The new roommate search is on.
My first thought was my friend Anna who is currently studying abroad in Madrid just as I did last year. Frequently when kids come back from abroad studies they move into apartments instead of back into NYU housing. (This is much cheaper for essentially anyone who isn't me, who had her housing paid for by a scholarship.) As it turns out, Anna is in the market for a roommate herself as her housing plans seem to have fallen through too, so it looks like I've already hopefully solved half the battle. Anna is quite possibly the only person I've ever met who I would dare to say is as big of a Harry Potter fan as I am. She's two years younger than me and a Playwrights student, and we started talking on facebook the summer before she came to NYU because we both had Potter pictures in honor of the coming film (Half-Blood Prince at the time). I remember in one of our first conversations we analysed the latest production stills that had just been released in the nerdiest possible detail. I know I have friends that would have done that with me when we were twelve, but I don't know about at age twenty.
This is far in the future, as we won't live together until January, and we just started talking about this within the last 24 hours, but I'm excited. It's going to be the best. Have no delusions about what you will walk into if you visit our apartment. Let me give you only this picture: In our "about me" sections on facebook (or "acerca de mí" because our facebooks are in Spanish), I have "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." Anna has "Nitwit. Blubber. Oddment. Tweak."
Friendships have been built on far less.
As Anna and I were talking, I said "I guess I've been a gypsy for no reason," but then amended it to add "Or at least not the reason I thought," which is really the truth. I can see now, on what is probably (hopefully?) the tail-end of my gypsydom (I'm not sure there's a noun for it) that even though I thought I was wandering New York for the sake of my friends, I have of course been wandering New York (and the world, really) for the sake of myself. This blog started because I went to Madrid, and I went to Madrid because I was determined to broaden my experience of the world and gain greater perspective about humanity. That happened. But it continued when I came back to New York and kept living out of suitcases for another year. As I've said before, I've learned a lot about who I am, what I need and don't need, what I value, what I can let go of, who cares about me, what matters. Who are you without all your stuff? You're still you. You really are. I really am.
So, you know, it seemed crazy, it still kind of seems crazy, that I've had no real permanent address for ages, that I've had to have mail sent to Illinois constantly even though I've spent cumulatively about a year there in the last three, but it's okay. I don't think I would trade it to have had an apartment back in May. Yes, I am absolutely excited to buy a bed and have a room I get to decorate myself (which will still include Harry Potter posters, of course) and having keys I get to keep and being able to give people an address that I'm going to still be at in more than three months time. One day, I will actually change my residency to New York, but apparently that will only be after I've already lived there for five years.
All I'm really saying is I still believe everything happens for a reason, even if it isn't always the reason we expect. That's life.
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