Music Of My Youth: Rancid & Ratt

Unlike most people, it's actually more of an anomaly when I don't spend at least one night a week inside some dank venue, watching loud music and slowly chipping away at my hearing. Yet during the month of July, I've almost taken an involuntary sabbatical, choosing instead to focus on finding a full-time job and more writing.

Well, guess what, kids? I'm baaaaack. And as my nature often dictates by overindulging, I'm attending no less than four shows this week. The first two shows of the week were Ratt at Nokia Theatre and Rancid at Roseland, and while the combo may sound like an odd one, both were monumental bands of my youth. In fact, I attribute my conversion to rock/metal music to first hearing Ratt's "Round and Round" as a 9-year-old, spending the summer with my Grandma in a TV-free dacha in Upstate New York.

My love for Rancid, on the other hand, grew out of my admiration of Operation Ivy, but flourished with the gripping hooks on their 1994 watershed album, Let's Go.



Happily, both bands were fantastic. Rancid—in town with headliners Rise Against this past Sunday—ran through all their hits, including "Olympia," which features the chorus: "Hanging on the corner of 52nd and Broadway/Cars passing by, but none of them seem to be goin' my way..." For all of you non-New Yorkers, the reason this line resonates so much is because of Roseland's location—on 52nd, off Broadway. Needless to say, the audience went apeshit singing along, completing the set.

Ratt, on the other hand, were a whole other animal (terrible pun, sorry). Since I was nine when their debut album, Out of the Cellar, came out in 1984, I never got a chance to see them in their heyday—or ever, for that matter, until last night. Disappointingly, the audience was not filled with 40-year-old Jersey chicks in spandex. Rather, the show was an utter sausage fest full of middle-aged dudes in various states of fashion faux pas.

Not that any of that really mattered, because Ratt played just about every song on Out of the Cellar, with singer Stephen Pearcy announcing—almost bemused—that the record was celebrating its 25th anniversary. And though I could have lived without ever hearing "Way Cool Jr." in concert, I will definitely die happier with the experience of seeing them perform the holy trinity of "Wanted Man," "Lay It Down," and the holy grail, "Round and Round."

And being the amateur photo enthusiast that I am, I had to take some photos with my ghetto little point-and-shoot. For more pics, click here.

Also, for those of you wondering: my next two shows are Saviours/Children tonight at Union Pool and the Decibel Magazine book release party for Precious Metal, featuring Brutal Truth at the Masonic Temple. If you see me, buy me a drank.

PS: Here's a bonus video of Ratt performing "Wanted Man."

Perfect Albums: Live

After spending my weekend in awe of Mastodon's complete Crack The Skye live performance—and reading about ATP New York 2009's plans to have several bands perform respective classic albums in their entirety—I began thinking about which records I'd love to see performed live.

The following Top 10 albums are listed in no particular order and are there for my own sonic amusement—picked for their superb tracking, ability to transition well to a live stage and, most importantly, the probability of the event actually happening. I'm always open to hearing other peoples' selections, so please comment back with your choices. And for more Mastodon pics, come over here.

1. Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen



2. Monster Magnet - Dopes To Infinity

3. PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love

4. At The Gates - Slaughter of the Soul

5. Carcass - Necroticism...

4. Cursive - The Ugly Organ

5. Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

6. Deftones - White Pony

7. Eyehategod - Take As Needed For Pain

8. Concrete Blonde - Bloodletting

9. Faith No More - The Real Thing (Hey, it was good enough for The Sword!)

10. Rancid - Let's Go

Dating Don'ts: Don't Be Awesome

A few years back, I dated a model/entrepreneur named Danny. Though I'd known Danny for a while through friends (and realized he was obviously cute because tons of girls swooned every time we were at a show together), he just wasn't my type. He had long hair, personified surfer cool, and was most definitely a thigh bruiser. Then one night out I caught him giving me the eye, so out of a mix of boredom and curiosity, I let him kiss me. And it was pretty damn good.

On our one attempted formal date, we actually missed an entire Lucero show because we were too busy making out—at points, horizontally—at the bar next door. Needless to say, we didn't really have a lot in common except music, but we had a whole lot of fun, and continued seeing each other for a couple of months—completely bonding over the few Operation Ivy songs Rancid treated us to during their 2006 BB King's show. I certainly had no plans to declare him my boyfriend (he personified model ditz pretty well, too), there were no plans of taking him home to Mom's. He was gorgeous, sweet, easy to be around. Like a puppy. A very sexy puppy.

Then one day, Danny started getting weird, distant, twitchy. A few days later, he broke it down: I was awesome. I was "the one." He had to break up with me. It just wasn't the right time.

"OK. That's cool if that's how you feel," I said, secretly thinking, "Yeah, I'm the one—the one that dodged the bullet."

Danny was pretty surprised by my cavalier attitude (really, did he expect crying?), but ultimately relieved to let me know. Right after that, we held hands all the way to the bar and pretty much carried on the same way we had before our "talk"—until he moved 1,000 miles from NYC soon before I left for Atlanta.

The cool part? Danny and I are still pretty friendly, communicating electronically and whatnot with some degree of frequency. He still maintains I rule. So when an echoing experience coincided with one of our online chats, I felt comfortable enough to ask him why he felt the need to break up with me when he did. His answer wasn't surprising: "I thought you were so awesome, but it scared me to think that I met you when I did. I just wasn't ready to commit."

This information overlapped well with a girlfriend's long-standing theory about confirmed bachelors and players: It's never really about the woman. For them, it's a matter of feeling their own biological need to settle down—and it's likely that whoever happens to be on his arm at that point will become wifey. They'll only be ready when—or if—they grow up.

So I guess this is turning out to be a cautionary tale for the ladies. Don't be awesome (or at least TOO awesome) because it scares boys away. Instead, focus your energies on other things—work (if you still have a job), art, learn a new language... then travel to that foreign country and fuck a native. Just don't be awesome.

Is this why a book called Why Men Marry Bitches exists to haunt me every time I pass by the bookstore at Newark airport?