The Automatik

The Shim Sham Club
November 16, 2002

What show review of mine would be complete without snarky and amused commentary on those who attended? This one won’t be any different. But first, let’s talk about X.
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Here are my top ten favorite things about VH-1′s One Hit Wonders special.
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House of Blues
March 9, 2002

Do you ever see someone play and kick yourself that you never listened to them before? I’m kicking myself twice today.
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El Matador
February 9, 2002

If you notice, I did not include the name of the opening band. That is because I never caught it. They said it several times, it was even printed on a flyer, but it was long and it was some sort of bizarre Spanglish and I just didn’t feel like writing it down. After BJM, nothing else seemed to matter anyway.
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Kenny’s Key West
February 10, 2002

“The more you drink, the better we sound!”
-Vanilla Ice, Lundi Gras 2002
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The Shim Sham Club
February 2, 2002

Yet another one of my “I’m not that big of a fan but I know I can’t miss this” shows. Seems like those are all the shows I go to lately. But they all turn out to be pretty interesting and mostly enjoyable, at least.
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The Shim Sham Club
January 18, 2002

Jim Carroll is a legend, but my friends, I was a Jim Carroll virgin. Sure, I’ve seen The Basketball Diaries and even heard some of his “hits,” but never read any of his poetry or heard any of his more recent music, spoken word or otherwise.
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“If any of us write a song that’s negative towards a person or subject, Chris automatically thinks we’re singing about him,” claims Ferguson.

“Like ‘Good In Everyone’,” argues Murphy.

“It has nothing to do with you,” explains songwriter Pentland.

“It’s sarcastic about me,” contends Murphy.

“Holy cow,” sighs Pentland, “it’s so not about you.”
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It’s oh so fine getting out of your mind as long as you can find your way back in.

Pulp was one of my favorite bands for four entire years; I scarcely listened to anything else from 1996 to 1999. Then they took several years to work on the follow up to This is Hardcore and I got tired of waiting; they basically disappeared from my radar. Yet as the release date of We Love Life approached, I grew rabidly anxious. This Is Hardcore, while featuring such excellent tunes as “Help The Aged,” “Party Hard” and the title track, was rather an anomaly in the Pulp catalogue, even more than the stratospherically popular Different Class, so I was hoping for a return to old skool Pulp (like my favorite album of theirs, His ?n’ Hers).
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The Shim Sham Club
November 29, 2001

I’ve seen El Vez and his Memphis Mariachi and El Vettes so many times, I can’t even remember how many. He always puts on a good show and I am always entertained, delighted, and frequently thrilled.
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