BEN LEE SAVED MY LIFE

holy shit, its been a while. i guess thats what happens when you leave your job for over a week, come back to boatloads of catchup, and end up getting a supersweet job offer from your dream company! im finally freed up to do a bit o the recapping and rehashing and recommending, as my lovely trainee is doing desk duty for me for a couple of hours.

alright, so since ive been back in nyc, ive had a few too many nights with the masters of mood. their homecoming is always what homecoming in high school shouldve been. late nights, cold pizza, fridge raids, black pants, and um, magnums of champagne. i had a great time and a headache.

my i-pol hangover couldnt deter me from venturing out to sloboken for my dear pups, army of me. so alright, there were only about 40 people in attendance at 9 pm on a thursday, but those 40 people couldnt deny the talent of the boyz from DC. army of me will be tremendous. super snobby blog-readers and music "aficianados" may not go wild for em, but that says nothing. after all, 10,000,000 bon jovi fans cant be wrong. AOM have SONGS. its a concept that many bands fail to acknowledge. the stands, a new band from the UK were playing after AOM that night at maxwells. from my vantage point, i could see their mops and their boots tapping to every chord my friends laid down. of the 40 or so audience members, about 15 were youngish girls. as one of my soon-to-be-former-coworkers commented at a southpaw show, "thats a good sign." the girls go nuts for AOM. looking far too young to be drinking the beers in hand, they swarm the merch table, giggle at the sight of band members, and sing along to every word. look out maroon 5. look out jimmy eat world. army of me are on their way. after the gig, we all head into the city for a bit of apocalypse and a lot of the dark room. we ran into sarah at the latter, fresh off a night with the crue at MSG. hey, the dressing rooms on that tour may be "dry," but sarah certainly wasnt and in our mutual intoxicated states we were suckered into confessing appreciation for MC that neither of us were aware we had. the memory just crept up on me and i realized that one of the first videos i was conscious of watching repeatedly was "home sweet home." followed rather closely by "dr feelgood." ha. what a wonder.

friday night ended up being an enormous bag of kickass. sarah and i got wrangled into DJing the palomar afterparty at the orchard bar. at first, we were pretty apprehensive. we passed around the silver for a bit, watching top model reruns and brainstorming additions for my living room art gallery. but then we got to orchard bar. the supersweet DJs that went on before us took our hands. "good luck with this crowd," they told us, "weve been trying to get them dancing for months." whatever. we could do it. so we went on around midnight. and it was astounding. people. actually. danced. like fucking maniacs. i started out with "tendency" by this band called battle that ive been telling people about (not battleS, this one is british). the high hat kicks in and people had seizures. it ruled. armed with sarahs cd collection and my ipod, we DJed for FOUR FUCKING HOURS. and people would not stop dancing til we closed the set with "helena" by my chemical romance at 4 am, long after last call had been made. we had such a great time that were now looking into making that friday night party a regular tarts affair... so keep your eyes peeled for details.

speaking of tarts parties... NEXT MONDAY (march 14th)!!! you havent forgotten have you? two super duper incredible UK bands... MAXIMO PARK and HOT CHIP are making their US debuts.

now those of you who know me outside the blog realm know that i dont hype bands i dont believe in. its too tiring. there are far too many bands. every once in a while though, something comes along that makes my feet tap and grabs my ipod by the balls and screams "notice me!!!" maximo park are one of those bands. theyre already falling victim to the hype-machine, so im sure most of you have heard of them already, but its no reason to ignore the tunes. call them the next futureheads, call them the poor mans franz, call them stuart if need be... but if you want to get in on ze proverbial "ground floor," come see them play at ROTHKO! and ok, hot chip are a little different. my friend stephen has been been up my ass about them for ages... telling me theres no way i can get it until i see them live, etc etc. he sent me some tracks and i was completely underwhelmed. on record theyre just another electro-art-rock band. very few of those amaze me. so i ignored him. and pressed on chasing bands like tom vek, nine black alps, and the rakes. and then i got to london. i was meeting with the boys from new rhodes (who ive been telling yall about for quite some time... embrace their british stroke melodies!!!), shooting the shit about the various parties that sarah and i have in the works. and then i mentioned the PEP RALLY (yeah, thats the one next monday). and i was all, "yeah, were really stoked, maximo park are making their debut..." *nods from the indie boys* "and then stephen asked us to put hot chip on the bill for THEIR debut as well..." "HOLY SHIT," sayeth the indie boys, "hot chip are ACE live!" i stared at them in wonder. "really?" their eyes widened. "oh, theyre completely mental... fantastic... great fun..." and on it went. so apparently, hot chip will blow your load live. and therefore, you should be seeing them at the pep rally.

the key factor here is... tickets are 6 BUCKS. thats it. for less than the price of a pack of cigs, for less than the price of a martini, you can see two incredibly ripe talents from the UK in an intimate venue. the awesome cant be contained. and neither can the crap dance moves, because the tarts will be DJing before, between, and after sets as well.

doors are at 9 pm, hot chip on at 10, maximo at 11. $6. be there, foolios!