Current mood:	nervous
Current music:	Master P/ DJ Screw

death cult for donutposse


Death Cab for Cutie played at Stubb's, here in Austin, this past Saturday night, October 30. Pretty Girls Make Graves (PGMG hereafter) opened for them. This was an early show; the doors opened at 7 pm. The whole thing was over before 11 pm.

I arrived just as PGMG got going, and made my way through the multitudes of chattering teenaged girls. Each one was armed with a cell phone, but burdened with a midnight curfew. They stood in cells comprised of four to eight members each. Quite a few shared the sentiments of the group behind me, who kept saying that whoever was playing needed to shut the hell up so Death Cab could take the stage. So, PGMG got a tepid reception, at least from where I was standing, but not due to any accurate assessment of their ability. Instead, slights aimed at them represented a misguided attempt by some young fans to declare their undying love and admiration for Death Cab For Cutie, a love they felt would be more strongly expressed if augmented by comments denigrating the opening act.

I remember the same thing happening at a show years ago. Four bands played: Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and somebody else I can't remember. Those first two were not widely known yet at that point. The crowd heckled Pearl Jam, who had the temerity to play first that night. A month later those that jeered were suddenly die hard Pearl Jam fans once Eddie Vedder's voice became ubiquitous. No one noticed any inconsistency.

PGMG had actually been invited on the tour by the members of Death Cab. The bands are fans of each other, and neighbors too, as both groups hail from the Seattle area. PGMG played a decent set. I'd never heard them before, consciously anyway, but I enjoyed their performance. I usually find out about a band by hearing their album(s) first, and then seeing them live if I enjoyed their records. But I have discovered a few bands by seeing them live first, and subsequently checking out their records. Some bands give a good first impression live, and PGMG seemed like one of those bands. Maybe not 'favorite band material,' but worth a listen.

Next, Death Cab for Cutie came out and put on an awesome show. A good show for holding hands & hugging your honey, and humming along. I saw more making out than I've seen at a show in a long time. One member of the crowd was notably absent, however: the guy who, with his arms around his girlfriend, keeps the beat by drumming his hands on her ass.

The set itself lasted a good hour, after which, at the insistence of the cheering, clapping crowd, Death Cab came back out and played four (5?) more songs. The mini-set they did for an encore was even better than the main set. Their music has such a tender quality to it anyway, due to the singer's beautiful voice and vulnerable lyrics, but the encore songs were especially heart-felt and lovely. The band was really together by that time, not that they hadn't been all night. The encore made what they'd played earlier seem like a warm-up. The ending was the good stuff, the creme brulee for dessert that makes the meal memorable, when the appetizers and entree were merely good.

They chose a representative sample of songs when they made the set list. The selections balanced nicely, drawn from the first album to the new album, and everything in between. Plenty of "old stuff" for the die hard, liked-'em-before-anybody-else hipsters, and plenty of singalong material for the Garden State Soundtrack crowd. I enjoyed "President of What?" and "Title and registration" and {a song I don't know the name of. I'll find out & put it in here when I do}. I felt the absence of "Wait" however. That song, or "TV Trays" would have fit perfectly into the young night, cooling off our minds like the intermittent, delicious breeze cooled our bodies.

Quite a few people in the crowd had on Halloween costumes, dressed up to change their identity for this one night of the year. I went out walking, after midnight, on 6th Street after the show, and it looked like everyone in Austin had turned out to celebrate the holiday a day early, since Halloween (or Samhain) fell on a Sunday this year. Sixth Street is normally pretty tame as far as freak shows go, but tonight it was actually interesting to check out the teeming masses of humanity. I left downtown at 1 or 1:30 am, and everyone I'd seen all night had behaved themselves: out having a good time, but not getting unnecessarily rowdy.



The Wingnut of the Evening Award goes to a man I met at a place about a block away from Emo's. The name of the 'venue' is "His Place". I could hear loud, live music coming from the open second story windows as I walked by. The home-made sign hung on the front door looked intriguing, promising even. Did it say something about $1 drinks?

I thought maybe I was discovering some off the beaten, low-key, but hip, hang-out spot. Maybe I'd found another place like _________, a coffeeshop in Houston that I used to go to. My friends and I would gather there to play chess, to drink coffee all night, or to watch a movie. Sometimes they'd have bands play upstairs, and they sold beer, even if it was after hours, out of an ice chest behind the stage. The proprietors didn't seem to notice, or mind, that people gathered by one particular second story window to smoke pot. The place felt more like visiting a friend's house than patronizing an establishment. Indeed, the people who ran it also lived there. On nights when their daughter was asleep upstairs they asked everyone to kind of keep it down, and not to go up there, and people complied. I hadn't hung out in such a laid back spot in a while, so I was really hoping to ferret one out, especially here in the middle of the Biff-n-Buffy-land that is 6th Street.

I decided to go in and check this new joint out. I walked up the stairs behind an old homeless lady muttering to herself and struggling to climb the two short flights of steps. A moderately cute girl walking up behind me smiled in what seemed like a genuine manner, as if to say "poor thing" and express impatience at the same time. We finally all made it upstairs, and I was immediately confronted with a table bearing several stacks of papers, including some religious tracts by Jack Chick.

Chick tracts are the ones that look like little comic books, in which the pope is the antichrist, God is some faceless guy on a throne, the bad guys always says "haw haw haw!" (especially when making fun of religious wingnuts). Now: I am a big fan of Jack Chick, and indeed I grabbed a tract that I didn't already have from off of the table, laughing maniacally as I grabbed it, haw haw. I thought it was there for kitsch value. I mean, those little tracts have a following, and I've seen them parodied everywhere from Eightball to The Imp.

I thought the rest of the stuff on the table would be flyers for upcoming shows, stickers some up and coming band left for people to take, and the other detritus that piles up at these places over time. Instead I realized, upon looking around, that these people were serious. The moderately cute girl was now behind the counter, with an inchoate stern look on her face. The rest of the items on the table were more religious paperwork. I don't know what was up with the loud rock music some kids were playing in the next room. But I do know that Jack Chick wouldn't approve of using the devil's music, even to draw people in so you can preach to them. That's reminiscent of an old Hare Krishna tactic: lie to people to get money out of them. Hey, they get the good karma for making a donation, so what does it matter if they think that dollar they gave is going to help burn victims at the children's hospital, when it's really going to buy more incense to burn while chanting. Or so the logic went.

A guy came up to me, from behind the counter/tract stand. "Welcome," he told me, in that too-calm tone of voice characteristic of fundamentalist religious zealots and serial killers. "What is this place?" I asked, incredulous. "It's His Place," he told me, as if that would explain it all. "Why don't you go sit down and listen to the music for a while?" Why don't you just come out with the pitch, I thought, instead of trying to make me feel "comfortable" first, because your tactics are having the opposite effect. Aloud, I asked him where I could find the restroom, in an attempt to tactfully extricate myself from this uncomfortable situation.

I found the men's room, one door farther than the door he'd indicated. The bathroom contained three or four showers, one stall, and a couple of urinals. A few semi-biblical quotes had been industriously tacked up on the wall over the urinals by some short or else not very bright acolyte. The signs would have been at eye-level if I was either 12 inches shorter or standing in a pit a foot deep. Pray for this and that, the sign exhorted the short urinators of the world. Why doesn't Austin have outdoor pissoirs like they have in Paris? I finished using the restroom and quickly left, avoiding eye contact on my way past. I didn't want my family to have to pay for years of deprogramming after I pulled a Patty Hearst. I didn't want to drink the Kool-aid, or lace up some brand new Nikes while waiting for the comet to come. I don't mind a straight forward altar call, or a "have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?" proselytization attempt. And I don't have anything against religion, or God or anything. I just know that if they have to trick simple-minded and/or overly trusting people into hearing the message, then these people had something I wanted no part in.

It sounds strange, but I was actually a bit nervous. I didn't feel particularly safe there. I had the sense of being with a cute fuzzy animal that would sink its razor sharp teeth into your throat if you got too close to its food. I've hung out with a lot of kooks in my day, but good natured ones. It's like hitch-hiking: before getting in the car you assess the person offering you a ride to see if they're a good Samaritan or a smarmy Sodomite. I wouldn't get in a car with the people of "His Place".

Nobody knew I was there, and no one else was present except for Brother Ted Bundy and Sister Moderately Cute, and Muttering Martha, the obviously out of touch homeless lady. And who knows what she looked like when she first visited this chilling little section of surreality. Besides that, who is the unnamed "owner" of this place, anyway? I got the impression you were to assume "His" meant "God's". But I've read enough Chick tracts to know how witches' covens recruit kids who play role-playing games, and satanic cults grab their victims, new members, and sacrifices from among the runaways and throwaways that wander around our country's urban centers late at night, idly curious.

Nope. I'll just order my Chick Tracts from the website from now on. It's safer, thanks.