APRIL OVERVIEW

I'm slipping something shocking. But I'll be getting better. I'm moving house. Now living in Rockville. May has some great gigs coming... exciting times. But April was fun.

TOP 5 BANDS IN NO ORDER
Taking into account talent, stage presence and how surprised I was at their awesomeness.

The Drones
Because I love them the most and never get tired of them live. Every set is different, the songs the always play get better, and the random songs they slip in are better than anything you can do. Yes... you. River of Tears as the Encore will be one of the best performances of a song of the year.

Zappa Plays Zappa
The best guitarist I will probably see all year. 3 hours of mind-melting music in a theater straight from the Muppets. Zappa is the king of music.

Kev Carmody
A BIG surprise. Pretty much making it into this list because he proved me wrong. I can be wholly enthralled, entertained and satisfied by a guy with an acoustic guitar for 45 minutes. He could have played for hours and I wouldn't have lost interest.

M83
Cool french sounds. Bad Audience. The last 3 songs made the set. I can't remember what they were... I think everyone needs a Guitar and a Heart in their life. That's one of their songs. Smile.

The Good China
I had seen them before and wrote them off as a bunch of obnoxious arty Arcade Fire fans. Which they probably are... but they are terrific. The songs are catchy, they have terrific stage presence and apparently they're going places.

Venue of the Month

Cherry Bar
I don't know why Pat chose the Palais over Cherry bar. Cherry bar is loud, full of booze and violence. The Palais had kids in it. I saw a photographer hit his head on a speaker because he was rocking too hard at Cherry bar. We sat down at the Palais, and the guy next to me filmed a whole Zappa song (approx 45 minutes) with no camera shakes. Cherry Bar was burnt down by Jamie Oliver (or something). Win!

THE BRUNO KIRBY AWARD FOR MOST BEST BAND THAT MIGHT NOT BE THE BEST BUT I SEE GREAT THINGS FOR THEM (And even though they're kind of a comedic actor they were in the Godfather 2)...

The JSB's
I don't like the name, but the nerdiest looking band in the world (Sorry Weezer) are great fun. They played songs with stupid names, stupid hooks, stupid beats and stupid roaming cow bell. Everything I like. The singer has a cool sort of David Byrne x with Lux Capacitor thing going on. Luv it. I went home, turned up my drum machine to 168 bpm and yelled for 30 minutes. Shit was so awesome. Inspirational. ALso, the singers name is James Murphy. That's now two James Murphy's that are my heroes. I wish I had a famous name.