Wizard in Exile

Last mission I did in my beloved Metroplex was at the Lounge in Deep Ellum, I was there with one objective: to see The New Fumes, which is a transcendental rock and roll experience of the truest kind. I believe that I will one day relish my small role in witnessing the early time of the New Fumes.

My entry in to the Lounge was riddled with hazards. I don't even believe that I had taken any mind expanding sacraments, but I must have come off like Hunter S. Thompson in his Southern splendor.

I brought several people who paid their way, but I was broke. Sometimes at the end of the month I am just out of money, and this blog is blessed by the Metroplex's commitment to art with an occasional free pass. My wife was with me and I had no money for her pass.

You must try to understand my wife with me. She is a French super spy sent to kill me for my sins against the foreign legion. She uses a strap-on dildo as her weapon. I live only to please her, and my very days are numbered by the sands in her hourglass.

I told the bouncer that I was on the list twice. This was a fact, because when the New Fumes are involved I am prone to sit in an O.C.D. inspired anxiety attack. This band is like a willow-the-wisp. It has to be seen. I have become a prophet of the idea that rock and roll demands film in performance. Which is what the New Fumes delivers, and more.

So I contacted Parade of Flesh productions, who was putting on the show, and got on the list. Daniel of the New Fumes saw my endless whining on the internet and also put me on the list. Ultravictory.

So my reasoning, my wife belongs on the list. I was on there twice, and we are of one flesh according to the Christian scripture.

The bouncer was not impressed with my classical powers of reasoning, but we were still allowed to pass once I began throwing a tantrum.

My expectations for the evening: other bands would suck, New Fumes would blow my mind, go home without a buzz because I was the kaiser of pennilessness.

My expectations were surpassed. I go in and I saw some small children, about age 20 or so, and they had big keyboards. I did not know what to expect. Yet what these kids delivered was a resurrected abortion of Nitzer Ebb, Sound of Noise, Kraftwerk, yet still somehow new. Current. Futuristic. These lost boys call themselves Florene, they are from Denton. If you understand that Kraftwerk was once musical access to light speed then you would like Florene.

Please understand, this comes from a man who's favorite band is Laibach!

I was very pleased. Though these strange bastards insist on selling their merch as tapes. Yest cassette tapes. Why cassette tapes? I don't fucking now. They ware away. It is like selling a dying piece of music.

When the New Fumes came on, after setting up the elaborate screen, and a Wizard of Oz worthy set of gear, our frontman in his cat mask advises us to forget the past, and forget the future and join him now.

What great words to introduce a set.

Let me tell you that I consider living in the now one of the great secrets of life. I consider it up there with the philosopher's stone or LSD. I consider it to be the very discipline of orgasm.

I am writing this weeks after the show. I am in my hometown, which is Lubbock, Texas. This place is my heart, but it is redneck and religious, and fascist. I had my car destroyed by a local flash flood. This is no exaggeration.

I revel in Dionysean rituals with redneck spartans, the sort of sport that once must have given rise to moonshine and Bonnie and Clyde. And I think of this show and I think about treasuring the now.

I was there, totally connecting with the strange movies that the New Fumes projects. Quality shit, stuff that pleasantly fucks with the mind.

I rocked out and so did my friends, several of which were from Lubbock, TX.

Then it was over.

I was seething a little bit at the bouncer, because as the last band went on stage it became clear that the audience consisted of my friends and all the bands who played. Yeah there were other people there, but I think they worked at the bar across the street.

If Deep Ellum is going to rise like a phoenix its going to take a little bit of promotional ingenuity. No disrespect to Parade of Flesh, the last band Starring showed me that they had booked a great show.

I pride myself on negative reviews. And I only cut slack to local bands, its part of my weird scenester nationalism. But Starring was bad ass. They played songs from their new album Wife of God, and rocked everyone out.

All in all the show was a total success for me, I am sad there were not more people to experience the show.

Luckily for me the great wizard Thor Johnson shared his whisky with me that night. This went well with the good music.