Last night was easily one of the best nights of my life, even though I wanted to cry every two seconds (I succumbed to tearshed once, I won’t lie). For now, here’s a video from their set:

More shitty music for you.

The night before I left Pittsburgh, I started to lose my voice at work. I had been sick all week with some kind of throat thing and general congestion, but nothing was stopping me from seeing Xiu Xiu. By the time we left Huddle’s Café, I possessed the vocal prowess of a dying frog and began coughing my lungs up all over the grimy streets of Newport. My gift to ye, Kentucky.

Christina and I jaywalked back to the Southgate House at 9:00pm. The ticket person wasn’t there yet, so we loitered in the hallway with several other people who were all staring listlessly at the wide array of concert posters plastered along the walls. I took clandestine pictures of the people in front of us because at the time, it offered more enjoyment than conversing with Christina.

It wasn’t until around 9:45pm that the ticket people finally filled their seats behind the table and we got to enter the ballroom area of the building. Small round tables were scattered around the room, and we grabbed the last empty one near the stage. If I had any foresight into how much time we were about to spend at that table, I’d have lugged in a La-Z Boy on Christina’s back.

I’m not really offended by indie/hipster types, the dominant populace of the venue that night, but Christina developed an immediate disdain for the girls with Pocahontas-style headbands and messy half-ponytails. "I was just thinking that some of these girls are cute, but the fact that I know they’re assholes ruins it for me."

It’s people like Christina who keep our nation from kicking prejudice. Okay, and me, too.

It wasn’t until 10:30 that Thao with The Get Down Stay Down took the stage with their inoffensive brand of indie-folk. In other words, it was pleasing to the ear, but boring. It made me feel really hungry though because I couldn’t stop thinking about how they would have sounded so much better if they were the house band at a restaurant and my back was toward them while I shoved spaghetti-wrapped forkfuls into my gaping maw.

Then I started to think about how I hadn’t eaten in five billion hours and my nose was starting to run and I couldn’t stop coughing and I really wanted to die. Plus, my aging body isn’t used to attending 21+ shows that don’t start until after 10:30 at night and so I kept yawning and resting my cold-stuffed head on my hands and basically illustrating how NOT to act if you don’t want everyone to know you’re the token square at the show.

Also, probably you shouldn’t use words like "square," either.

During Thao’s set, a Super Tall Guy meandered over to the throng of people that had slowly collected at the front of the stage, obstructing our view completely. I didn’t care, because I was only there to see Xiu Xiu, but we still got pissy about it because that’s what we do at shows, us old people — we bitch and complain about those goddamn kids with their long fucking torsos and mop-topped heads that make better doors than windows. When the second tallest guy in the room sauntered up behind him, we lost it.

Then the two most annoying girls in Kentucky wandered over and stopped, naturally, directly in front of our table. I’m not sure exactly why they chose that particular spot, but there was feet upon feet of empty floor separating them from the stage. I thought that maybe they were deliberating where to go, but no. No, they planted their feet down, staked the floor with a flag bearing their name, and stayed there during the entire set. They even gradually migrated further back until the one girl’s asscheeks were nearly resting on the edge of our table. Christina suggested using the threat of rape to get them to stand elsewhere and then tried to slip one of my Moo cards in their back pockets. The one girl wore an ugly tweed blazer and seemed to be confused with where to place her feet; she kept shuffling them like a deck of cards, but then I noticed she was also swaying and slightly moving her arms, and that’s when it occurred to me she might be dancing. A male friend joined them later and he danced as though he was listening to Yacht rock.

I’ve never been more embarrassed to be white.

The next band to play was Why?, short for Why Are They Still on the Stage Oh My God Kill Me Want To Die Please End It All Now WTF Do They Think This Stage Is Their Summer Time Share? Turns out Why? is originally from Cincinnati and 75% of the people there that night were there to support them specifically. We’re talking everyone they knew from college. People from their sixth grade study hall. Bus boys who may have once refilled their water at Olive Garden in 1997. Their parents. 

Before the inaugural note even had a chance to resonate in the atmosphere of the room, the crowd went fucking apeshit. People were clotheslined against the balcony, frantically waving in the air, lips moving along with the lyrics. The crowd in front of the stage amassed a head count that quadrupled what it was for Thao.

It sounded like they said they were only playing three songs from their new album, but after ninety minutes of relentless xylophone malleting, I realized what they meant was, "We’re going to play three songs from our new album, ten songs from other albums, some B-sides, I’m going to try and sing the Star Spangled Banner and then give up when I forget the lyrics after the second line [this really happened], and then if we start running out of material, I’ll sing a song I wrote when I was four about how dogs sniff butts and girls have vaginas and I think I might too."

They would tease us, Christina and me. They would say things like, "We’re going to play one more song," and we’d exchange looks of utter relief, thinking there was a God after all, Christina would kiss her imaginary rosary, but then after that one last song they’d start playing another song that sounded like the song two songs before the last song that was supposed to be their last song and why did they have to have so many songs? I was getting sicker, coughing harder, speaking less. I even fell asleep a few times because it was after midnight by this point and I was TIRED.

During one song, the singer stopped and said, "That got messed up, so we’re going to start that verse over again," and the crowd went wild. "YES PLAY IT AGAIN! WE LOVE YOU! WHY? FOREVER!" Clearly, Why? is a band of local heroes. Then to our horror, someone would shout, "PLAY ONE MORE SONG!" and dozens of people would follow and Christina would shout, "NO DON’T!" loud enough for both of us since my voice was completely gone by then and no one actually retaliated against Christina’s protests but I wasn’t ruling out a potential beating with orange-stuffed socks after the show. She kept shouting, "XIU XIU! WE WANT XIU XIU!" to counter the pleas for more songs, and I was relieved that I taught her how to pronounce their name. (Shoo-Shoo, not Zyoo-Zyoo.)

Look, they were a decent band. Probably I’d have written a glowing review if they kept their set down to a thirty minute maximum. You know, since they weren’t HEADLINING.

What I’ll always remember about Why? is that the world’s most huggingest couple stood in front of our table and used their music as the soundtrack for all the hugging and lower back-caressing they shamelessly engaged in. I’ve seriously never seen two people spontaneously embrace with such nauseating passion and urgency. The man was about to leave to get a beer and they hugged as though he was never coming back.

By the time Why? left the stage, it was nearly 1:00am. I looked at Christina with sad eyes and croaked, "I don’t think I’m going to make it." But then Xiu Xiu came out and started setting up, reminding me that I had driven five hours to see them. Even though I was so sick, probably had a fever, may have been hemorrhaging from all the forceful coughing, I still marched my ass up to the front of the stage because I’d be damned if any fucking hugger or tall Indian-sweatered douche was going to block  my view. Christina stood behind me, just in case I succumbed to the sickness and fell to the floor, I guess, and we watched curiously as Xiu Xiu dragged their carnival of instruments onto the stage. They had a gong, a hand-pumped piano, some weird Casio-looking keyboard that was played like a clarinet, a flute, whistles.

Caralee of Xiu Xiu gave her synth one last fiddle and then they started playing. As soon as the singer, Jamie Stewart, opened his mouth to utter the first string of lyrics, wrapped with dramatics and dipped in pain, I turned to look at Christina. I’ve never before seen so much of the whites of her eyes and her lip was slightly curled back, exposing her teeth. She looked fearful, like she had just walked in on her mom fucking a dwarf. The room buzzed with dulcet tones of chimes and electronic beeps while Jamie’s voice would fluctuate between anguished whispers and short phrases spoken in a staccato’d monotone before launching into soaring crescendos that socked the breath out of my lungs and made my heart ache. The mood would go melancholy again, lyrics murmured with delicacy, mellow strumming of a guitar, only to jar the crowd with unexpected crashes and stangulated shrieks.

Jamie had a tower of cymbals in front of him and he would occasionally grab a fat drumstick and sweetly tap at them. He would start to walk away, only to turn back and lunge at the cymbals, violating them with frantic beatings while shouting, "Oh my God oh my God oh my God" into the mic. His face would contort into the primal twisting of a killer, sweat dripping down his temples in rivulets. I forgot about being sick. Though I was still using the edge of the stage to keep myself from folding.

Xiu Xiu’s music is dark, bleak, unsettling. I admit that if I’m driving alone at night and one of their songs comes on, I’ll usually skip it because it makes me shiver and instinctively toss furtive glances over my shoulder.

During one song, Jamie fell to his knees and continuously screamed into the mic while scraping a metal washboard, his tortured soul was vomiting angst and passion all over the stage, and it was one of the most satisfyingly horrifying things I have ever seen. I was telling this to Collin and he looked confused, having heard one of Xiu Xiu’s songs before. "But they don’t sound like a heavy band," he argued. A band doesn’t have to be playing Viking metal to earn the right to belch out blood-curling cries. Don’t let Xiu Xiu fool you into thinking they’re some cute little indie art band, because they made me want to hold my mommy’s hand.

In 2004, I wrote this in my LiveJournal:

When I listen to Xiu Xiu, I drift off into a different realm that’s occupied by talking antique dolls that reside in a pastel village surrounded by millions of miles of open pastures and no neighboring towns. I’m dressed like a ballerina with a thick ribbon tied around my neck, only it’s tied too tight and I run around scratching my neck, trying in vain to remove it, while people roam around me with vacant smiles and backward limbs. And even though the sun is shining, the sky is dark.

Then I come upon a tiny steeple and the singer from Xiu Xiu speeds out on a unicycle and starts singing "Clown Towne" in my face while throwing over sized lollipops at me. His smile is so wide and then I notice that it’s because the sides of his mouth are ripped. Then he starts stabbing me while albino midgets stand around giggling and throwing confetti.

And then I’m raped by a mannequin.

But I still listen to Xiu Xiu. I kind of like feeling disjointed.

Four years later and I still feel the same way. By the time their set ended at 2:00am, I was wide awake and wanted to rehash every single moment of it the whole way back to Christina’s house. Of course, as we walked out, I overheard people complaining about not getting what they wanted. "They didn’t play ‘Fabulous Muscles!’" some people griped to each other. I scowled at the complainers as I walked out. They could have played the same song over and over for the entire set and I still would have been grateful at the opportunity to see them. It easily secured a slot in my Top Ten Best Shows.

I’m leaving today to see that fucker Christina in Cinicinnati.

And also, these fuckers will be seen tonight:

I’ve loved them long time! I asked Christina if she was excited, and she said, "If excited means scared, then yes." One of my friends just saw them in NYC and said their set was reall dark so I’m looking forward to adding some misery and depression back into my world. I’ve kind of missed it.

Henry will be home alone (well, with Chooch) this weekend. I bet he:

1. watches a lot of porn

2. sleeps while on Chooch watch

3. orders a hoagie and lots of wings

4. farts a lot

5. calls the party line

Probably he’ll forgo the porn for playing with Photoshop though. I’ll be prank-calling him a lot tonight to keep him on point.

• We had some time to kill before the first band came on, so I was telling Henry about this guy Chuck who answered my ad for the photo shoot, and how he has his own project that he invited me to work on with him because he needs a photographer. His project revolves around people doing every day activities like taking groceries from the car, except that they’re nude. How could I say no to a project involving nakedness? One of sets he wanted to use is a seedy motel. Henry looked horrified and asked, "You didn’t say yes, did you?" My hesitation was his answer. He looked out into the crowd and murmured, "Well, that’s one way to get rid of you."
• My Blackberry never left my side the whole night. In between bands, I even posted to my blog. I mused that one of the merits was that it enabled me to fit in better with the kids because I can stand around lifelessly and text all the livelong night. After briefly scanning the crowd, Henry said, "No. You’re the only one doing that."
• I was relieved to discover that I didn’t know anyone there. Henry miserably grumbled, "The only way I’d know anyone here would be if they were friends with my kids." I laughed.
• The first band was International Giant or International Drive or Internationoonegivesa Fuck. I found myself creating a wish list during their set:
  • I wished the singer would stop doing that thing with his voice.
    • I think that thing is called "singing" in some parts.
  • I wished the singer’s t-shirt would stop v-necking all the way past his nipples.
  • I wished the drummer had not been wearing a head band and a 1970s inspired spandex wrestling tank in aquamarine stripes.
  • I wished they weren’t singing so many songs.
  • I wished I was there with someone cooler.
  • I wished the singer would stop wagging his tongue and thrusting his balls at us.
  • I wished I had a pony. With wings. A unicorn pony with a skull and crossbones tattoo on its ass that would gallop across the stage and spear the singer’s nads with its serrated horn made of steak knives bound together with barbed wire.
• At one point, two really fucking annoying teenage girls stood in front of me and the one with teased black hair leaned over and shouted, "I made out with a girl last weekend!" into the other girl’s ear and I really wanted to punch her.
•  I’m glad that my contacts arrived yesterday afternoon, else I wouldn’t have been able to see that the singer of Automatic Loveletter looked just like Kira from the Dark Crystal.
• Automatic Loveletter was better than I thought they would be, because I usually find affliction with female-fronted bands.
• During their set, Henry nudged me and very seriously whisper-yelled into my ear that the singer from Armor For Sleep (Ben) was standing next to him. He acted like it was no big thang, but I know that his inner fan girl was squealing and wetting herself. I noticed Henry stood up a little straighter after seeing him, crossing his arm menacingly, probably hoping all the little girls would think Henry was Ben’s bodyguard. I bet he was kicking himself for not wearing his bandannas anymore.
• When Automatic Loveletter was over, all the guys in the audience rushed the merch table to have their pictures taken with the singer, Juliet. Henry scoffed at that, but I could tell he was longing to have a memento of his own.
• The third band was A Cursive Memory and I was very bored during their set. The one singer had the most obnoxious front teeth, like he had just stepped out of a comic strip. About beavers. I couldn’t bear to look at him because they made me feel so nervous. I just wanted him to close his mouth.
• Right before their last song, Teeth shouted, "This song is about bread in spheres!" and I was like, "Wow, that’s pretty cool" but then Henry was all, "They said Britney Spears, you dumb ass."
• I pretty much wanted to kill myself all throughout Armor For Sleep’s set. Which is to say: They were really fucking fantastic.
• Henry and I got along THE ENTIRE NIGHT. He wouldn’t put his arm around me when I requested it, though.

Christina’s glasses arrived, packaged safely in an empty box of sympathy cards. Unfortunately, she must have near-perfect vision because when I put them on, it’s like looking through lens-less frames.

That bitch.

I asked Henry if we can just pass his glasses back and forth tonight at the Armor For Sleep show, maybe make all the scene kids think it’s the new drug of 2008. "What, you didn’t know we were getting high back there? It’s the new freebasing, ya’ll."

I’m a little annoyed because I’ve been trying to see this band for the past three years, but there’s always something in the way: a test, being extremely pregnant, work. I listened to their second album repeatedly for the better part of 2005. It was all about being dead, about someone who kills themself and then is like, "Oh shit," which appeals to me. I taped the singer’s face over top of Henry’s face in the family picture I have on my desk at work. Not so much because I’m all, "OMG Ben Jorgenson is so hawttttt" but just because he’s way more awesome than Henry will ever be.

At least I still have my hearing. Kind of.

Some of you asked about them, so here’s one of my favorite songs.

There’s something you need to know about me: I’m still the fifteen-year-old girl who turns to music when a boy breaks her heart. I’m still the sixteen-year-old girl who locks herself in her room and blares the stereo after fighting with her parents. I’m still the nineteen-year-old who sobs into cherry wine while listening to The Cure. I’m still the seventeen-year-old girl who thinks every emo song was written for her.

I’m the twenty-eight-year-old girl who gets in a fight with Henry and runs off to the cemetery to scream along to the lyrics that your little brothers and sisters are cutting themselves to.

Not too long ago, someone asked, "Aren’t you a little old to be getting excited about this kind of music?" If I ever stop getting excited about it, stop feeling it in my heart, then I’ll know I’m dead. Exactly what kind of music is someone elderly like me supposed to be listening to, anyway? Should I be donning loafers and sitting back with some John Mayer?

Last summer, when Henry and I were going through a rough patch, Chiodos was there to keep me alive. Their music inspired me to paint again and their lyrics inspired me to keep writing when I really wanted to give up. When I missed their set at Warped Tour, I didn’t care that I was essentially the mama amid a churning sea of other surly fans who missed them due to an unusually early start time.

Yesterday was going to be my first time meeting them. For me, it was worth the three hour drive to Columbus. I wanted to thank them for doing what they do, for making music that means so much to me. But by the time we arrived at Magnolia Thunderpussy for the in-store signing, my heart felt weak and my legs were spaghetti. (Marinara sauce, please.) Very few people were there; I anticipated a line full of unwashed hair and star tattoos serpentining out and around the store, but there were only a handful of messy haired kids loitering quietly among the racks of CDs.

I sat outside for awhile. I was thirty minutes early and Chooch was unable to be contained within the tiny record store. Henry let him play in snow while I tried to make idle chatty with two young people who sat on a retaining wall.  I admitted to being freaked out, hoping to bond with the girl of the pair. She laughed, but it wasn’t the encouraging kind. I think she was suspicious that some old broad was trying to make convo. Later, she asked me if I had come by myself, and I took that as her way of including me. She kind of looked like Rachel Bilson. Then I started thinking about The O.C. and realized, "Holy shit, I really am young……Oh well."

Inside the store, I was mindlessly flipping through used CDs when I looked up and saw three of the band members slipping behind the counter. There was no grand announcement or applause — they managed to slink by unnoticed by most of the kids. A short trucker-capped employee with a voice too husky for a girl came out and determined where the start of the line would be. I had the good fortune of being close by, so only fifteen or so people managed to be ahead of me. Henry and Chooch were still at the front of the store; the growing covey of fans made a barricade that he wasn’t trying to attempt to break through.

I turned around and wheezed, "I think I’m going to die!" to the girl behind me. She laughed. I liked her. She had nice glasses and she let me cut in front of her when I got caught up in the mad scurry to get in line. But I wasn’t kidding — my palms were getting sweaty and I was seeing double.

A trio of tiny girls wearing varying shades of grey and black and olive green huddled in front of me, giggling about what they were going to say to the band. One of the girls never removed her oversized black sunglasses from her pale face. Another had braces. The third looked around and disgustedly observed that there were so many scene kids there. "Oh wait, I am one," she added with a laugh. I wanted to punch her. I wanted to punch her and say that I liked Chiodos more. Then I wanted to steal her purse. Not because I liked it all that much, but because maybe it seemed like the right way to end things.

It was my turn way too quickly. I was barely prepared and my hands shook a little (a lot) as I unrolled my poster and slapped it down on the counter. The first person in line was Derrick, the drummer. He gave me a friendly smile and I felt slightly brave enough to speak. I started to tell him that I had come from Pittsburgh, but the girl in front of me had made it to the end of the line and wanted a picture of all of them. He held up his finger to me and moved in close to the rest of the band. But by the time he turned his attention back to me, I had lost my nerve and started to slide my poster down to the guitarist, Jason. I could have told him that I used a magazine clipping of his eyeball for one of the paintings I made last summer. I could have told him that there used to be a bar outside of Pittsburgh called Chiodos and my mom beat the shit out of the Chiodos daughter because of a guy. I could have told him these things but I didn’t because it probably would have come out sounding like something articulated by Corky.

Henry was standing off to my right, behind a wall of posters. I silently hoped that he wouldn’t embarrass me, because if those guys thought I was old….

Henry chose that moment to release Chooch who in turn came running toward me. Derrick shouted, "Aw, look how cute he is!" When Chooch reached me, I used him to my advantage and picked him up so they knew he was with me; it suddenly didn’t matter that I was "too old" to be there or that I couldn’t find meaningful words to say to them.

The band collectively said things like, "He’s adorable!" and "I like your shirt, little man!" Derrick looked at me and said, "You know, we need a mascot…" Everyone laughed and then he gave Chooch a high five. Even the scene kids in line broke down their steeled pretensions long enough to say "Aw."

Henry doesn’t like Chiodos at all. I mean, he wasn’t glaring at them and flashing Crip signs from behind the protective cover of a rack of Ramones t-shirts — he just doesn’t like their music. I thought that maybe after meeting them he would change his mind. Maybe their boyish charm and ruffled hair would inspire him to give their music another change.

"Do you like them now?" I asked, once we left the record store. (I’m kind of like the Verizon Wireless Guy — I re-ask him with every disc rotation.)

"No! They didn’t do anything but stand there." His standards are too high.

Thank you Chooch, for revitalizing some of my maternal courage and giving me another reason to add to the "no" column of "Was Having a Kid a Mistake?"

Then we went back to the hotel where Henry started snoring and I made him sleep in the car.

Sorry for getting all serious. I promise to resume my regular asshole-y writing style in time for the next entry.

Still reading old vacation journals, I laughed out loud at a paragraph I wrote about my aunt Sharon watching music videos on some European channel called “Viva!” I wrote that she liked men who wore copious layers of makeup and that seeing the video for X-French Tee Shirts had her all excited. I’m sure what really happened was that she was like, “This is fucking terrible” and I began chanting, “Sharon’s in love.”

But the reason why I laughed is because back then, I had no idea who Shudder To Think was, and while at the height of my urban music phase, I can only imagine the pain that must have coursed through my body while enduring such a “weird” song.

After reading that, I was inspired to look for the video, to see if it triggered any memories of lounging on a hotel bed in 1995. It didn’t really, but I laughed again when I discovered that I already have that song on my Zen, so naturally I listened to it the other day and have become batshit-obsessed with it; it makes me feel like Annica the Swede is giving my temporal lobe a deep tissue massage which puts me in a really weird state, like I’m not really in 2008 yet I’m not fully back in 1996, but kind of floundering in some fucked up limbo full of tear-inducing sentimentality for a song of which I have no recollection, yet it still triggers unspeakable amounts of emotion which I can’t put my finger on, but is probably best chalked up to my bi-polarism.

When I first heard of the band a good four years after that trip (because they did the soundtrack to First Love, Last Rites), there still was no epiphanic sparking of any particular, isolated memory bringing me to my knees in a nostalgia overdose; however I did think they were a really great band after that because my tastes had matured and developed a little. (Though I’ll always have a soft spot for some Bone.)

But every time I watch this video, I giggle uncomfortably, imagining what I must have thought back then. The mix tape I had on that vacation was full of 2Pac, Bone, Jodeci,  Junior Mafia and Mary J. Blige, for Christ’s sake! And of course it had to feature at least one black sheep of a song that created a jarring juxtaposition to the mix, and I believe on that particular tape it was “Cry Little Sister” from the Lost Boys soundtrack.

Does anyone else have a story about revisiting a band later on? And does anyone remember this video? YouTube doesn’t have the embedding option for this, and AOL Video is full of retardation, so trying to bring this video to you has been delightful, especially with my boyfriend pushing me out of the way so he can “fix it” because did you know he’s the one who created html? Incidentally, he didn’t do jack to help me, thanks.