Wild Weekend and Squiddo @ The Tower Bar

If you read my Blog about the Sessions Fest, I talked about having seen Wild Weekend's first show ever at the Coffee House on Broadway, I recognized that they had some room for growth. I'll admit I don't give a lot of credit to cover bands, and I understood the obvious gimmicky element of an all girl cover band. However, I really like the Zeros and I thought it would be fun. So, I didn't give up and decided to give it a second go at the Tower Bar on Saturday 12/01/07. The show was billed as Wild Weekend, The Sexies, and The Rich White Males. Both The Sexies, and The Rich White Males canceled at the last minute, so Squiddo stepped in to fill one of the spots. I was glad that I had come out because I think much of that growth has come on rather quickly for Wild Weekend. The two girls from The Atoms, Melissa and Kaitlyn, have left the band. No disrespect to Melissa as a drummer, but she's been replaced by Brian Hill (formerly of the Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower and The Prayers), who's quite the bad ass drummer. Kaitlyn has been replaced by Wendy from The Sexies, who is considerably more comfortable with the bass guitar. One description I heard of Kaitlyn's bass playing was "it always looks like she's taking a test," and well Wendy's got a lot of strut to go with her strum. Kelly's coming out of her shell as a performer, she's a lot more mobile, and sang lead on a song ("Leech," which can be heard on her personal myspace page here). Maren's solo's were timed sublimely, which is something that I really couldn't say for the first time around. She knows her way around that big ass yellow hollow body guitar. All three girls are hitting the back up vocals strong and right on queue. Also, they've started writing and playing originals. The originals are speedy pop punk girl shout anthems that remind me a lot of the Soviettes when the girls are singing. You can hear a big difference in Maren's vocals when she sings the originals, they're just a better fit, more natural. Wild Weekend is a much tighter, more engaging band than before, and I hope to hear more good things.

I'd seen Squiddo play before, and they made a much stronger impression on me this time too. I wonder if Squiddo's bummed about the covers project possibly overshadowing their own. The funny thing is, I think that Squiddo songs sound more like Zeros music than the Wild Weekend originals. Actually that makes a lot of sense considering Hector Penalosa, one of the original members of the Zeros, is in Squiddo. It's kind of a weird situation altogether.

Now that Brian Hill is drumming, this puts Wild Weekend ahead of The Vultures and The Prayers as my favorite post-Plot project (Mostly because I refuse to buy into the hype). I gave the Prayers a good long listen, and that Madonna cover just gets on my god damned nerves. I don't dislike the Vultures, I just don't see what all the fuss is about.

In other news: I am super bummed about having missed some really good shows recently: M.I.A., Jay Reatard, The Walkmen, Calico Horse, Repeater... next time.

Planes Mistaken For Stars at the Tower bar. 9/21

Tonight I will be going to see the mighty mighty Planes Mistaken for Stars. The first (and only) time I saw PMFS, they were opening for Converge at the Che Cafe. I'm pretty sure this was in 2001 after "Jane Doe" and "Fucking Fight" had just come out. I forgot who else played. The show was sold out, so a small group of us watched the show from an open door to the side of and just behind the stage. We got there a couple of songs into their set, and they were already shirtless and covered in sweat. I was fucking mesmerized. They put everything they had into playing. I was blown away. Later the door man let us inside for the Converge set after a few people left (fools). Converge was equally mind blowing. I had up until then just sort of dismissed the whole metal-core genre as a whole. I listened to punk before I listened to hardcore, not metal. Even though the floor looked more like a fucking martial arts exhibition than a pit, which was a little disconcerting, it was fun. Jacob Bannon is hell of a front man and an amazing artist. He and Gared O'Donnell are my fucking heroes. I interviewed Gared a couple of years ago for Modern Fix after the release of "Up in them Guts." I spoke with him for more than a hour, and transcribed about 6 times more than the magazine's interview format called for. They printed it on a page and a half, and posted the interview in its entirety online. Their online format changed, and I don't think it's online any longer. As soon as I get home I'll post the full interview, and review tonight's show at the Tower Bar in San Diego. I'm still in Riverside, but leave today. I have tomorrow off, and then I'll be working in Orange county for the following week. yay for me.