Man in Gray's Last Show; or how pretty much this is just a couple of pictures

Dear Web Journal,

Man in Gray played their last show on Thursday at the Delancey. I wish I'd seen them play more often in my almost three years here. Met some old friends, made some new ones. Enjoyed the music and the general spirit of revelry. It was a pretty classic ending, too, with a fight breaking out when the sound guy turned off their set for the last encore song because some jack ass NY hard core dude wanted to play.

Anyway, here are, like, THREE(!) pictures to remember the night by. In classic Rachael-mode, I left my camera at home. And when I'm not leaving it at home, I am forgetting to charge the batteries. Eh, taking pictures at shows is annoying anyway. But I borrowed the one from work, so here is Tina and Brian and the really attractive drummer and a shirtless bass player and the other guitarist to round it out:




Seriously. Lumber jack+drum set=perfect.


Oh wait, NOW there's a shirtless bass player.



Love, Rachael

Beg Yr Pardon, or, how i posed my way to feeling important

Dear Web Journal,

Once upon the not-so-distant past (like, mid-summer), in a land that's only kind of close to here (Lower East Side-hey, it's kinda hard to get to from mid-Brooklyn), I went to a showcase night at The Delancy called BegYrPardon. One El Jezel was playing (along with some others, who I enjoyed at the time, but have subsequently forgotten in the interim). And the bar was open. And the host baked brownies! And it was only $5!!

El Jezel were great of course. Goes without saying. I'd post an mp3, only I don't know how. And even though I hadn't bothered coordinating with anyone (let's face it, I rarely do. My fear of rejection extends far beyond normalcy) and ended up knowing zero people, I enjoyed it so much I signed up for the mailing list with full intention of going to another of the bi-weekly shows.

Fast forward to, well, now, and I had NOT actually gone to anymore. Until the host/promoter/whatever sent an e-mail to the e-mail list asking if anyone would help on the door for this past Tuesday's show. I volunteered, I'd been half considering going anyway to see Up the Empire. And I;m so very glad I did.

After getting over worrying that I would seem strange for randomly offering (I am strange, but not necessarily because of this), I proceeded to bask in the glory of everyone thinking I had something to do with the evening. Seriously, somebody gave me a free CD, people just up and introduced themselves to me and one guy even gave me his number without my having to ask for it. Okay, that last one didn't really happen. Whatever.

The point is, I'm glad I did it. Up the Empire were good and Screaming Females from NJ were AMAZING. The throaty female vocals and REAL rock guitar unhinged me. Does that make sense? Check them out anyway. Um, on MySpace? And now I may even be helping out with the night (now once a month) on a regular basis. Which is perfect, because, you know, being musically untalented and all, it can be my way of contributing the scene.

Love,
Rachael