For me, there is nothing like seeing a good band at a small-to-medium-size venue. As I get older, most of my concert-going friends have gotten sedentary, but I can usually scare up someone to go with me - I don't like going out by myself.

I like seeing bands at The Palms, a not-so-converted barn in the middle of nowhere, both for the strangeness of the venue and because they book an eclectic range of music, from traditional Irish accordionists to a dreaded X reunion show (okay, it was The Knitters, but who's kidding who, and I didn't go anyway). The only time I went to the Capitol Garage, the lead singer made rude remarks about me.

Most of the bands I like play at Bottom of the Hill, Slim's, GAMH, or the Starry Plough. I notice Xeney coyly refrained from mentioning the name of the band she saw.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Oh, I guess I didn't. I've mentioned them before -- it was the Decibels.

I'm way too old to go to shows in San Francisco, that's for sure. The last SF show we went to was ... oh, hell, I can't remember; it was at Bimbo's, but I'll be damned if I can remember whether it was Big Sandy or Big Bad Voodoo Daddy or one of those other Big Somebody bands. It was a long time ago, in 1997, maybe. At this point I can't really imagine a show so amazing that I'd be willing to drive all the way to SF to go to it, although I used to do that once in a while.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Oh. I just realized that you were probably trying to figure out who was the band with the cute drummer. Well, okay, I'm not going to tell you that, although it would be pretty easy to figure it out.

The Val Kilmer/David Duchovny lookalike was Tim Foster from the Troublemakers. He's dreamy.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Yes, I like to go to a live concert once in a while, but no more will I go to any show where you have to sit on the ground. I did that last summer for the *last* time, breaking my own rule about it, but never again.

And I never leave SF anymore to go to a show. I've been to Berkeley a few times for shows, and to Marin, and to Mt. View once (never again), but never to Concord, and never ever ever to Sacramento.

Last concert I went to was in October - Etta James and Joe Louis Walker at Masonic Auditorium on Nob Hill - probably my favorite auditorium- size place. Before that it was Elvis Costello and Van Morrison, and before that, Boz Scaggs.

It must have been a busy year, because I only go to a concert maybe once a year now, and usually not in a "nightclub" kind of place. I hate large arenas though, so it has to be a sort of medium sized concert hall to please me.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Okay, I just need to say this real quick: DO NOT say bad things about the Knitters (especially if you didn't go to the show). I drove to SF to see them at Slims and they were awesome. Don't press my buttons, man. <--humor

I really love seeing live music, especially local bands. We've got quite a few decent bands around Sacramento in the punk/pop genre that I try to check out as much as I can. It seems that the hard part is always getting anyone else interested in going.

And you know what's really cool? When your friends don't flake about going to shows. Here a situation that actually happend:

Friend X and her boyfriend J on my porch. We are planning to go see music at a place within walking distance.

X: "We need to run home first to let the dog out."
Me: "So do you want to meet at the show?"
X: "Okay, we'll meet you there."
Me: "You guys aren't going to flake, are you?"
X: "No way."
J: "No. We'll be there."

...they flaked.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Yes, we did in fact flake that night. I don't even remember what our excuse was, although I do know that we tried to call you but you'd already left. I think it is just not in the cards for us to ever see Go National ever again, even though we like them well enough.

I am really ashamed of us, though.

Here's what we can do: we were going to ask you and Dave to go see the Troublemakers with us on March 4 (I think) at Old I. If you like, you can flake on us. Of course, you'll have to do it three or four times before we're really even.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Wait, how did you know I was talking about You????

Troublemakers, eh? Sounds cool! I will Definatly be there. I swear. In fact, please buy me a ticket. (heee heee).

Since you were nice enough to reformat my message I won't bring up Friday night's flake.

Incidentaly, if you live in the Sacramento area, go see LITTLE ELVIS. They rock!

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I, too, have been struggling with the whole live music thing for years, which is complicated by the fact that I run a punk zine/website - although lets face it, it's always been much more of a political zine than a music based one.

See, I think my dislike of shows originally came from my zine. There is nothing like putting hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars into creating something only to have people refuse to even look at it as they elbow past each other to lay down $10-20 to become human billboards for their favorite entertainers to make you get really fucking depressed.

Eventually I got bored of shows for a lot of the same reasons as Beth, there isn't much to do there and I feel no stimulation. The only shows I have really liked in the past year were one's where I spent the majority of my time outside talking to folks. But because of my zine, first selling it and then reporting for it, I felt an obligation to go to as many shows as possible, and I would often go to two or three a week. I've seen well over a thousand shows in my decade+ of punk rockness, and frankly, it gets a little dull.

Now I no longer work in print so I don't feel as much of an obligation to be there to sell stuff, and honestly there are not that many bands that interest me enough to want to go see them. I find most bands sound the same after a while, and I still have to listen to two or three new CDs a day to review them. I find the CDs I really like are the ones where the bands have really good lyrics and/or take the time to write really interesting liner notes. Again, just listening to music bores the crap out of me, I need something more to feed my brain.

The shows that I like going to are either ones where you can talk to folks or where you can actually *understand* what the singer is saying, which is rare in punk. One of the reasons I have been getting into folk music so much lately is that I don't need lyric sheets and liner notes to understand the words and their meanings. David Rovics doesn't really need to introduce "Henry Ford was a Facist", he just has to play it. That, and the fact that Joe Hill, Woody Guthrie, and Phil Ochs wrote more radical songs than anything I have ever heard come out of punk rock.

But the wierd part is, because of Retrogression, people seem to assume that I still know every band out there, have heard every CD and have gone to every show.

Wierd.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I've never been much of a live music chick, mostly because they're Too Loud. And Too Smokey. And now, unfortunately, Too Late. I guess I'm really getting old. I actually like the shows where you can sit in the grass, since there's more space and fresh air, you can play if you get bored, and it's not quite so loud. And you can get a tan!

I did try the live thing when I was dating the band guy. Nothing, and I mean Nothing, is more boring for a cronic multi-tasker than sitting through ANOTHER show alone.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Oh, you can go ahead and bring up Friday night, because that was all J's fault. He really was feeling sick, even though I know you didn't believe me. If you saw the pictures of Jeremy and Doc in Saturday's entry, those were taken at the time we were supposed to be at the show with you guys. He was asleep a few minutes later. He was crabby and headachey and generally unhappy to be alive, so it was all for the best, really.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Well, I'm glad Beth missed the show, because that meant I got to see more pictures of Doc.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I enjoy myself whenever we go out to shows, but I always find a million reasons why I don't want to go to them beforehand. They're always on weeknights and I have to get up at 6 the next day. It'll be too crowded. Too smokey. Nobody I like ever comes to town. I don't know how to get tickets so if my spouse isn't interested, I don't know how to get there myself. I don't like to go by myself.

But the fact is, I love to go out. However, there actually isn't that much that I like to see. I hate to hear bad bands and there's no shortage of those. There are a few big name groups I like but of course they don't come around all the time - the Squirrel Nut Zippers is the only one I can think of. I guess it's true that there isn't much I like.

I like bluegrass and a lot of Celtic music, so we've gone to a few festivals of that kind of thing. And there's various kinds of ethnic music I like, like afropop, from listening to KALW in SF where they have a lot of shows that play interesting stuff. But I don't know who all the artists are in order to go see them.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Deeply into live jazz & blues but I will not travel farther than Berkeley. I go to three or four concerts every year. I'd call them medium size shows. I went to Joshua Redman Quartet last month at the Sac. Civic Center. He plays a mean sax. The concert started at 8 (on time) and we were home by 11. Afro-Cuban All-Stars was a highlight of last year in Berkeley.

I've also seen Joe Louis Walker one too many times at the Palms in Davis. The band was absolutely smoking last December (my fourth show so I'll probably go again).

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

It's been a very long time since I went to a concert, I find that I don't like the crowds anymore, and I hate the smoke. I used to love live music, in fact a lot of my favourite memories have to do with going to concerts. There was the time during the summer before I went away to University when we saw the Ramones, then stayed up all night because we had to leave really early the next morning to go to the first Lollapalooza tour and there was no point in sleeping. And seeing the Beastie Boys in Varsity Arena (Toronto) which was bizarre because I had written a final exam in there not too long before. For our six month dating anniversary my now husband got us fourth row tickets to Simon and Garfunkle, which was wonderful, except for the chick who sat behind us and sang along (very loudly) with every song.

The very first concert I ever went to was a triple bill of Echo and the Bunnymen, Gene Loves Jezebel and New Order. A few years before that I had begged and pleaded to be allowed to go to a Duran Duran concert, but my parents wouldn't let me camp out for tickets.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000