Weird Korea Tour Dates Posted!

In the name of shameless self promotion, check out Weird Korea at Whitson's on April 23rd. We'll also be playing a slot at the Culture Shock Battle of the Bands on April 9th, 10th, and 11th, so come sell your body to Jeff Levin in the name of our music.

MOKAAD!! and Vaginas

Last Thursday night began like any other: I rolled out of bed, wiped the semen from my eyes, and pulled on my boots. I headed out onto the blustery SUNY PURCHASE!! bluffs and stumbled my way across campus to that last refuge of harmony and debauchery, so affectionately called The Stood. Once there, I was overwhelmed by faux-feminine snacks of all sorts: clitoral cupcakes, fellopian finger-food, and gingerbread villas of violet vulvas are only a couple examples of the multitude of rude dude nutritious food that they had available 4 consumption. This was, after all, a benefit show for the Vagina Monologues, which you have definitely heard of before.

Now, because of my "condition" (have you ever seen Memento?) I have a hard time remembering all the insignificant/specific details of the night. It is also hard to remember because I'm writing this about six days after it happened- but when has that ever stopped me? :/

Anywayz, the first band I can remember seeing/liking was The Boomerangs, a country-pop group who I've been folllowing ever since I saw them at the Co-Op last semester. They have a pretty classic sound for the most part, but for the least part, they also have a pretty rad lead guitar player who adds a bit of a more modern sound to the mix. He plays a pretty lacerating guitar lead, and sometimes he stomps on that good ole' delay pedal, and then u kno it's gunna get EPIC!!1!

Some girl sang to an iPod. It was like... completely unmemorable. Next!

Aha! Finally, at last, I can gush about mothafucking Mokaad and the Flex Points!! They are a very good band, and really, really impressively sized. I didn't count but hey, it looked like there were 30 people onstage for the show. Well, it was actually about 10 or so- three horn players, one guy on keyboard that I smoked pot with at the beginning of school and then never saw again, one guy with a guitar and a goddam wah pedal, two backup singers (boner!), an awesome bass player, a drummer, and of course MOKAAD!! himself. They played pretty funky stuff, I mean, their second song was a Stevie Wonder cover, and they actually did justice to it. Because I'm an asshole, I was ready to hate them. A line in the first song was "When I wake up in the morning/I roll up some gangja," and, needless to say, that line elicited a deafening roar of stoned approval from all the pot-smoking loozers that love that kind of shit. I was not convinced. I will ruin the suspense now and admit that, yes, I did come around. Mokaad really does run a pretty great band, and it's really fun music to dance to. They just groove on one thing for like hours. And they bring all the hot girls out!

Check out all the photos HERE! God, it's like you were there too.

Whitsons Sludgefest '09

On the second Saturday of the new semester I once again found myself at the Stood, and then inside the holy chapel that is Whitson's Memorial Hall. I arrived at around 8:40, and because of the size of the bill, I missed the first 4 or 5 (!) bands. When I finally did get there however, Twin Stumps was the first band I saw. Although the lead singer was an absolute shitshow, the show, actually, was not a shitshow; and when it was, it was so in the BEST kind of way. The type of super-sludgy and slow tar music they played was conducive to a lead singer whose mic was unplugged for half of the set, and whom spent most of the time rolling on the dank Stood floor. There was a great atmosphere of carnal violence and brutish chaos, despite the fact that the lead singer's attempts to jar the crowd were lost in the dead space between the audience and the band. It is worth mentioning that all the bands I saw drew around 20 people at the most.

P.S. Their guitarist was bald.

Between bands, and just outside the Memorial Hall, were the hot ladiezz from For The Birds, a group that can be described in four words: "DIY feminist cultural activism." They were selling all sorts of zines and other artwork related paraphernalia. They were very nice, and I bought their merch by the bucketful, which was easy because everything was two dollars. There were also other DIY outfits, including the collective-based, No Guts No Glory prints, featured above.

The next band I caught was Rejouissance, a Brooklyn band with more of a melodic sense than Twin Stumps. A three-piece, they sported an acoustic guitar instead of a bass, which was interesting, and worked well. This extra guitar played treble-y high melodies, while the lead singer played a very coilly electric guitar. It sounded like he was playing with a quarter or something. Their songs were more structured than the last bands', but at times I missed the dynamics and volume of Twin Stumps and another sludge band, whose name I didn't catch. Also, and Nick made special mention of this to me, they all played sitting down. PUNK=DEADDD.

In conclusion, I only caught about two of the bands Saturday, and out of a total of 10, that's pretty pathetic. But hey, I'm only getting started, and by setting the bar so low on this, our first real entry, it'll be a piece of cake to exceed the expectations of our admiring peers and tireless rivals.

Also expect a little kick to the head tomorrow when I debut a brand new feature here on My Son Cool. No one reads this right now, but the suspense is absolutely deepthroating, don't you think Nick?

For more photos from last Saturday's show, check out the My Son Cool Flickr.