Days of Lore

Endless weekend I’ve said it before, but the work week should be scaled back to four days—Monday through Thursday. Employees would be happier. Productivity would skyrocket. Businesses’ bottom lines would increase.

Of course, people, given that extra day off, would likely binge drink more. Alcoholism would skyrocket. Cirrhosis of the liver and obesity would increase. Damn.

Taking it to Main Street I didn’t have a three-day weekend last week, but it was loaded with all sorts of fun nocturnal activities. I checked out the new Lost On Main, which opened its doors Friday night (Nov. 3). New proprietors Tyler Eckes, Kyle Ullrich, Tommy Sprague (who books the shows) and Neil Andrus were schmoozing with those on hand to check out the new digs as live music poured from the stage.

It took some doing (the place was originally scheduled to open in March), but the delay paid off. The entire bar has been redone—opened up with funky art on the walls, and the old side bar has been replaced with seating. It’s nice to see that little section of Main Street (including Dino’s) finally thriving again.

Deaf vs. def The rest of my weekend was plumb filled up with a pair of shows that—although worlds apart—both had the potential to be something absolutely phenomenal or utterly disappointing.

Lou Reed and the Deftones. The old and the new. The salt and the pepper. The oil and the water. Rock and scissors.

OK, I’m done.

So I went into the sold-out Deftones show Saturday night wondering if the band would still hold up live, or if the music still even had a place in my heart. It was definitely one of the LOUDEST shows I’ve been to in some time, but the enormous stacks of amps and sweaty bodies were enough to combat the Senator’s notorious echo. And I must say lead singer Chino Moreno’s vocals sounded great, as did the rest of the band. The Deftones played a good mix of new and old songs from their five records and still kill it live. Who woulda thunk?

LaPado vs. Lou I ended up at Duffy’s on Sunday for the John LaPado Variety Show before heading to Laxson for Lou Reed. In hindsight, I would have had more fun staying and listening to LaPado and friends playing country classics than seeing Lou Reed play a rather uninspired set. LaPado—flanked by his wife, Christine LaPado, and a rotating cast including Barbara Manning and former Land of the Wee Beasties singer Elise Kuykendall—dusted off a number of ditties, highlighted, of course, by LaPado’s lap steel playing. It doesn’t get much better.

But, Reed ticket in hand, I forged on.

The first thing that caught my attention was the insert in the program, explaining that all the sound for the night’s performance was being provided by Lou Reed. Hmmm … part of Reed’s rider, or were the sound people at Laxson trying to pass off any sound glitches to ol’ Lou?

Not that I expected him to play any Velvet Underground songs, but I did wonder if Reed would satiate the crowd with some well-timed V.U. numbers, or would ego come in and deny us. Well, we got “Femme Fatale,” and that was it. The rest were selections from his solo albums, which were good, but aside from a couple of moderate distortion breaks, things trudged along sans dynamics.

Not horrible, but very by-the-numbers. That’s just me. C. Owsley Rain had quite a different take on the show. Must have been the acid. Read it in Culture Vulture.

World domination One local band that is looking to take its sound to the outer realms is Goldmind, which is in the midst of duking it out with other bands from all over the U.S. in the Global Battle of the Bands contest. The prize? A world tour and $100,000.

Goldmind already made it through the qualifying event in Los Angeles and last month won the regional finals. Now they’ll head back to L.A. this weekend and perform against 14 other bands at the Key Club in the U.S. National final. If Goldmind takes that, it’s off to London for the World Final Dec. 12.