I DONT KNOW WHY I LOVE YOU

as it goes with an art brut visit, heres the much needed art brut recap... the gang arrived in nyc on tuesday and there was a gig and an afterparty and yadda yadda yadda... im not quite sure what time i made it into work on wednesday. id say wednesday is really where the magic happened, so fuck tuesday for now. i pulled myself up by my bootstraps and made it to bowery just in time for the second of two openers... gil manteras party dream. oh my fucking gahd. lets backtrack. my, er, colleagues had been telling me for ages how much i NEED to see the panty party. how i NEED to meet ultimate donny. how i need NOT have an affair with him, and how we NEED to get him to cut our friend AP's hair (dont ask). sad to say, i resisted for a long long time. sorry, but im not one to jump for an introduction to ultimate anything. so we get to austin texas and that glorious clusterfuck of SXSW, and one of said colleagues grabbed me the first night at the parish. "karen," he screamed, "this is ultimate donny!" he basically hurled me into the hello and i couldnt think of anything better to say that i was uh, ultimate pleased to meet him. fine.

so then on wednesday i turned up at bowery early, really only to have more time to hang out with the brut kiddies. yeah, GMPD was playing, but i kinda expected myself to spend the set down at the bar with my plus one. same ole colleague was present, and once again the pressure arose to see the dream. so i grabbed jason and went upstairs to stand beside eddie and jasper. heres where the wow kicks in.

*VISUAL REFERENCE*

watch that video. thats for my GMPD jam, elmos wish. it may be my second favorite party dream track (right behind their wicked with k version of "dreams" by fleetwood mac), and its one of things that amuses off the bat, but only truly touches your crotch after youve experienced them live. jason was stunned. eddie and jasper were pigs in shit (even more so when ultimate donny started a verbal spat with them from the stage). i just couldnt keep my mouth shut. i couldnt believe what i was witnessing. it was ultimate party band number two. number one came immediately thereafter...

art brut played one of the best shows ive ever seen them do. it was probably one of the best shows ive ever seen at bowery. im not gonna give it a formal review, you can go to a proper blog for that crap... ill just say that there was a full-on circle moshpit of eager beavers calling out "requests," smiles all around, and at least one instance of me breaking the minor between-song-silence with a patented "i love you art brut!"

we spent the night party hopping, and ended up at jasons. a few too many beers into the night, and jasper and mikey started coming up with "ideas." i had explained the concept of the stolen transmission party to em earlier, talking about sarahs and my vision to put on special shows for our favorite bands, and yadda yadda... "why dont we play, then?" jasper wanted to know. and so it began. jason started brainstorming about where to find extra guitar amps and the band (or rather, jasper, mikey, freddy and tour manager ed) tried to work out who could do the vocal duties should eddie not agree to the adventure. and then we drank some more. a lot more. and thereabouts is where the good intentions went out the window...

flash forward to yesterday when the functioning members were dispersed sight-seeing, and the hangover club was licking their wounds. anyone who came to the annex last night know that art brut didnt play. and im sorry for that. but eddie did indeed join me in the booth for a bit (long enough to play some weezer and express remorse for missing my london run with ian and jasper), and some guy did indeed jump the stage to play drums in time with some track sarah played. i was a sad sad sight, working off two brut days with little rest - even jason was laughing at me - so the key was decidedly low. but there was more dancing last night than weve ever had at the annex, which im really really stoked about. as much as the new stolen transmission is about putting on cool, intimate shows, we still want to retain the dancing vibe we had going at orchard bar, so dancing people, come on down!

time to lay low for a bit... the art brut brooklyn invasion version 2 comes tuesday.