Photo by Jeanne RiceWe abstained from the mai tais being served at Quiksilver's Boardriderz Club on May 6 mostly because we were stuck in traffic while they were being poured, but also because we were feeling a bit ghastly after the previous evening's Cinco de Mayocelebration at Que Sera. (Keep reading! You'll get there!) Besides, we were there to witness the premiere of Quiksilver's new flick, Extreme, which was playing at the Edwards IMAX at the Irvine Spectrum. Spotted in the extraordinarily fresh-faced crowd at the Spectrum were our homegirl Arrissia, Manic Magazine's Dave Pedroza, and Alibaba from Happy. The powers of schmooze were running rampant as bigwig after hepcat talked his way through the theater door sans tickets very impressively. While the title may be unadulteratedly goofy, we highly recommend Extreme. It features gloriously huge footage (on IMAX's 6 1?2-story screen) of mind-bogglingly dangerous big-wave surfing; snowboarding and skiing on Alaskan ranges; some tanned hotty doing lots of flips while windsurfing; and rock and ice climbing up frozen waterfalls without a rope. Bring headphones: there's a lot of dopey Deepak Chopra-ish New Agey voice-over blather that you'll want to drown out about respecting nature-pah!-and being one with the mountain. Also, smoke a giant fatty in the parking lot; you'll thank us later.
Cinco de Mayo at Que Sera in Long Beach was shockingly un-Mexican. But if we're gonna hang out with a bunch of white kids, we'd just as soon they be those cool Long Beach ones. The musical bill put on by Joe Negroand friends was an berfest blitzkrieg of the incestuous branch of the Long Beach-music family tree: 14-count 'em-different Long Beach bands/ friends (all of which seemed to include bassist Greg Coates) in a sonic parade of shared equipment and members that amazingly went off without a hitch; an alarm clock onstage was the metronome for bands who were given 15 minutes each to lay down their best or newest. If you weren't there, you missed a not-soon-to-be-repeated circus-classic night of offerings from Speaker, Theodore, Johnny Jones and the Suffering Halos, Potroast, Ray Enrico, Twelve Hour Mary, Mickey's Big Mouth, Shave, Liquid Southern California, Delta Nove, Eric Warren, The Dibs, Mention, and Turkish Delight. Damn fine madness! We were accused of being tipsy-and perhaps we were. But we had to pick up the slack for all the other unfestive children who inexplicably refused to stray from their normal scotch/gin/ vodka/bourbon diets and join us in Margaritaville. The bands came and went too fast for our spinning head, but we've been led to believe we really enjoyed the angsty sugar pop of the handsome Johnny Jones. Late-filed reports also had us shaking someone else's groove thang to Mention and the Dibs and licking someone's neck. (We think we may be dating him, although we're doing our best to hold to our resolve against dating rock stars, at least for now-by which we mean press time.) And we were tackled in the bar-and we mean defensive-end blind-side tackled-by Ultrathin's Patrick Swayze. To which we had this to say: oooofff!
On Saturday, we jammed to the fabulous Foothill, where owner Ron Pricetold us at the door that three nights before, the Manic Hispanic show had been interrupted by Signal Hill police, who cut the power to the house and then stormed the stage in the dark with their weapons drawn to investigate whether a handgun concealed by the lead singer was live or Memorex. We were told the gun was plastic, but the drama was real. Oh, except for the thing Ron told us about the cops drawing their guns and making the band members get down on the floor. Apparently, that was just a huge lie. Nonetheless, the show is now destined to be relegated to the bin of embellished nostalgia. If you weren't there, tell all your friends you were.
Inside, Potroast was again laying down his Midwest psycho screw-with-my-beat luscious rock. I know that's a bad description, but read it like this: “I can't describe it, but it's different, and I like it.” Mickey's Big Mouth were next. If you haven't seen these guys, then see these guys. It's that same incestuous mix of everybody in Long Beach jammed onto one stage and playing brilliant beer-commercial music. This is the next Miller Genuine DraftBand, but we like 'em anyway. The tunes were sweet, and they made the people dance in a funky way we've never seen from people watching a beer commercial. If you want to see what we mean, you can catch them on Wednesday at the bertrendy Viper Room in LA. Bring your shades and a fatty; you'll thank us later.
