7/28/2002 01:14:43 PM

Mary and I were all set to go see Tuatara last night before we discovered that they cancelled the show in favor of a second stage opening slot for The Who. Rather than pay $35 to see them do a shorter set on an enormous stage from seven miles away, I was talked into renting The Mothman Prophecies, which turned out to be just the snore of a two hour “X-Files” episode I expected it to be. Oh well.

7/22/2002 12:25:08 AM

The weekend in 14 sentences and sentence fragments:

Friday night was a rewarding but ultimately forgettable show at the Troc with The Shins, Beachwood Sparks, and some horrible band whose name I didn’t bother to remember. (I should probably look into it so as to avoid accidentally seeing them play in the future.)

Saturday night I went with some friends to see Road to Perdition. I gave Sam Mendes top marks for American Beauty, but he doesn’t seem to have much respect for his audience this time around. Subtlety did not exist, so everything was pretty thoroughly predictable, and just in case somebody didn’t understand exactly what was going on, the more important plot points were pounded into our skulls with a hammer. To continue the tool metaphor, the melodrama toward the end was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Less cartoony villains, more Paul Newman, please. (All this might have been a bit more tolerable had someone in the audience not thought it appropriate to bring her 3-year old child to a 10:20 PM screening of an R-rated movie.) It was beautifully shot, however, with a minimal color style that was nearly black and white.

Tonight my friend Jason’s band The Trauma Queens played at the Khyber. Garage, blues, punk, ala The Hives. Loads of energy. Great show.

And finally, this is one of the funniest things I’ve read in the Onion in awhile: Anti-Spam Legislation Opposed By Powerful Penis-Enlargement Lobby

7/16/2002 08:50:52 AM

You may or may not have noticed that I redesigned the site. Welcome to robweychert.com Version 2, lovingly dubbed “The Motorhead Version” by my friend Merritt. Version 1 has been permanently archived and will no longer be updated. As with that original version, I welcome any and all comments, suggestions, criticism, praise, and disparagement regarding content, functionality, and/or aesthetics.

To coincide with the Version 2 launch, I finally finished the Ireland project I’ve been talking about for the last two months, which includes pictures and notes from my family trip. There is still one known bug to fix (the status bar on the “loading images” screen doesn’t work), but it should be functioning just fine otherwise.

7/10/2002 01:20:47 AM

Ah, the Khyber. I hadn’t been there in awhile. Tonight’s crowd was just the size I like: the audience was large enough to make the bands feel loved, but small enough to allow me to breathe. Tonight’s highlight was Aereogramme (not coincidentally the band I went to see), a melancholy Glasgow rock band with loud/soft dynamics kind of similar to fellow Scots Mogwai, but also with some weird time signature power-riffing ala the sadly defunct Hum. Excellent set from them, followed by Philly band Aim of Conrad, a bit reminiscent of Rye Coalition, replacing the John Belushi singer with a guy who reminded me of my friend Todd. Very rock. Very loud. I really have to get into the habit of more consistently wearing earplugs.

7/1/2002 04:37:18 PM

I was very pleased today to discover that the lineup on the new Skeleton Key album Obtainium is identical to their original lineup, with the apparent exception of the drummer. There was cause for alarm when I saw them in NYC last year with a new stripped-down lineup that did not include junk player Rick Lee or guitarist Chris Maxwell, but apparently they have returned and brought the rock back with them (which isn’t to say the other lineup was bad…I just really missed Lee going nuts banging all that shit on his big rack of junk, not to mention Maxwell’s weird guitar effects). Now if only I could find a copy of the album for a reasonable price…

Oh, and The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys was one of the better coming-of-age flicks I’ve seen in awhile. Go check it out.