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Corndogorama
The Earl
June 2005
Friday I tried to get their for opening act Telegram, only to be defeated by
a grumpy Thunderbird. Ah, the joys of classic car ownership...
By the time I got there around 7:30 I'd missed several acts
and whoever was on stage was wrapping up their final number. I vaguely
remember enjoying the few seconds of it I caught, but they were over about
the time I took this picture. |
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I hadn't noticed the decorations the night before, or maybe they weren't
there. But the stage was flanked by two giant corndog bombs. |
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There were corndogs hanging from the ceiling around the bar, dancing
corndogs on the walls... |
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and a chunk of floor was covered in cardboard for a "dance
floor," complete with a squished half-eaten corndog that disappeared later,
leaving a grease stain in it's place. Mmmmm, deep fried goodness! |
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Speaking of, out front the corndog lady was whipping up the best corndogs in
the world in her brand new rig. You know you've been following Amanda Corndog's
career too long when you notice she has new equipment.
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In the front room of the Earl a band was doing some strange
Tom Waits sort of hard to describe stuff with a variety of instruments -
banjo, accordion, standup bass, etc. No, I didn't catch the name. You think
I'm a journalist or something? I enjoyed the act though. |
A corndog and a beer later it's New Roman Times in back doing stuff that has
those chords that somehow sound depressing and desperate. Very "alternative."
(Shit, when will 99X come up with a better label/marketing term for this kind of
music?!?) I was reminded of The Cure, though New Roman Times has more guitar and
less whining. Unfortunately I was busy chatting or something and only took this
one blurry photo. Sorry, Romans! |
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Hot Young Priest followed, sounding a bit more Breeders-ish
than I remember, and not n a bad way. |
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Powerful vocals, power chords, rolling bass - hell yeah. |
There were a few acts on the side stage in between acts on the main stage,
making the time between bands very short. Unfortunately I wasn't in the mood to
plow through the crowd to get pictures of the side stage acts and I missed most
of them to get corndogs and beer anyhow, so you'll just have to use your
imagination and picture almost-non-stop music between the two stages (not to
mention the DJ's and bands out front and all the carnival activities in the
parking lot.)
Luigi always makes me miss Shonali and Ultrababyfat. Michelle's vocals
are a bit strained, which worked well in contrast to Shonali's velvet tones.
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Luigi does power pop kinda stuff with interesting lyrics.
Good stuff, but I still miss Ultrababyfat. |
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Apparently I left after Luigi because I don't have any more notes or photos
for Friday. I'm thankful for digital camera technology to help me remember as
much of this as it is!