Photo by Jack GouldPerhaps you stayed home this weekend with the flu. Maybe you stayed home this weekend with a tremendous hangover, the kind that sets up shop in your temples and your gut and likes it so much it decides to stay awhile. Or perhaps you just stayed home this weekend because Valentine's Day was coming up and you went into hiding underneath your bed. I don't blame you. There's nothing worse than some chick trying to trick you into a meaningful dinner (and flowers! Why do girls always want flowers?) just because you've dated her twice and it happened to occur in February.
If you did stay in this weekend, with just your television's mesmerizing glow for company, please to put your feet up and bask in the warmth that was the Official Commie Girl Weekend of Bitchenness and Stuff.
Since Mark and Marilyn DiPiazza took over the strip-malled Captain's Quarters, the gossip and drinks have been flowing freely. It's a terrific place. They've taken out the ridiculous pirate stuff and chichied it up (there are far fewer tattoos, goatees and bleached-blond hairdos) while importing fantabulous bands and always having the inside scoop on something. Mark talks such good smack about all of our mutual friends. Hooray!
Friday's bill of the brother-sister duo Paul & Lara with The Moseleys proved an inspired matchup. Some people hated Paul & Lara; others hated the Moseleys. Whichever was the case, there was plenty of hate to go around. Commie Girl heaven! Paul & Lara and their backup band range in age from 19 or 20 to 24. Isn't that cute? They were poppily garagey (by way of Len or The Carpenters), in that some of the instruments weren't played very well, and Lara (a really sexy blonde who plays keys and sings) started out rather tuneless, like the droning, Teutonic goddess Neco and whoever it was that sang “Money (That's What I Want).” By the end of the set, her harmonies had warmed up considerably. Paul, meanwhile, had a retro, poufy bowl cut that reminded me of Mike Nesmith—in a good way—plus he could actually sing. Both Paul and Lara are darling and infectious. Their music, I mean. I have no knowledge of their medical histories. They certainly look clean.
All the LBCelebs were out in force to see the Moseleys, if by “all” you mean Dan Lo Fi Champion, which of course I do. The Moseleys, per usual, were loud like the fires of hell and sported really ugly plaid pants. Their set was truncated by the amount of time they spent trying to get the audience to buy them beers. God, they are lame. Is it any wonder I love them so?
I trucked on down to Costa Mesa's extremely grungy Tiki Bar Saturday night, having been invited by Luke, a backing member of Paul & Lara's band, to hear his own band, despite the fact that one of his “friends” in Paul & Lara told me I would hate it and shouldn't bother going. Meow!
In fact, Luke's band—Super Bright Light—wasn't hateful at all. They were very Silver Lake hip, despite the overemoting singer, who was being all rock-starry and making really intense faces like he was fronting for Sugar Ray or Journey.
Bizarrely, the Tiki Bar—one of the worst-lit places this side of the dark side of the moon—now boasts young, pretty girls and handsome, clean-cut boys. Super Bright Light may have all been about 12 years old, but they've got awfully cute pals. (Also in the house in varying degrees of cuteness were promoter Scott Tucker, the irrepressible Bunny Moseley with a gaggle of girls, and accessories impresario Paul Frank.)
Costa Mesa is not known for its worldly sophistication—at least not outside the Paul Frank store, which I can only assume is seething with hip Japanese tourists and Eurotrash—and yet, for reasons unfathomable, there was a trio at the pool tables comprising a lovely nurse from Zimbabwe (by way of London); her German professor-of-mathematics boyfriend; and their tall, handsome, French computer-company friend. This is Costa Mesa, not San Tropez! What gives?
I kidnapped the three (and not just because one was tall, handsome and French), and we slipped around the corner to the much-loved Din Din at the Bamboo Terrace because I was bored and the Weekly's Dance Clubs listings touted a DJ spinning classic rock. Instead, the place was swimming with dreamy singer/songwriter types like George Fryer, whose tunes are as sugary as The Monkees at their best, and my pretty brunette friend Coleen Rider, who was in the midst of her first gig. (She's already got a bitchen CD out.) Happy synchronicity! Rider was backed by an all-star band including Mirainga's Hedge and The Adolescents' Frank Agnew. This created an almost mind-imploding cognitive dissonance because Rider's songs are beautiful Carly Simonesque liltathons with some Nicolette Larson and Carole King thrown into the soup, and Frank Agnew was in the Adolescents, for the love of Mike! Come on, guys! That's weird, right? Right? As if that weren't enough, you should have seen the aging punk rockers tackle the most punk rock song of all: Abba's “Dancing Queen.” She's young and sweet and only 17, you know.
Wondering what to get the Girl for her birthday on Feb. 25? Oh, yes, you are! Flowers are always nice, don't you think? Girls like flowers. Gifts can be sent care of the OC Weekly, 151 Kalmus Dr., Ste. H-10, Costa Mesa, CA 92626.
