I Just Want Back Into Your Head
Friday night I had to break my plans with the Quallers because I scored a ticket to see Tegan & Sara, which means that I missed out on washing new pots & pans and on the tortuous deliberations about whether or not to keep HBO.While I was missing out on crucial decisions that will affect all future social events to be held at the Qualler household, I was taking in a performance by the worst band to ever exist - Northern State. As I sat by myself in a theater filled by screaming sixteen-year-olds and obnoxiously excited 40-year-olds, I felt as if my parents had dropped me off at daycamp and the counselors formed a rap group to teach us about drug use.
According to their wikipedia page and reviews on Pitchfork, Northern State is classified as a white, all-girl rap group with comparisons drawn to The Beastie Boys. However, clearly someone forgot to give this group some guidelines on what constitutes a good rap group.
While I wouldn't claim to be the authority on this subject, here are three rules courtesy of Lady Amy that might help an aspiring hip hop group:
1) Don't confuse rapping with cheering. I know, I know, you pick up the microphone and get really excited. Pretty soon you're smiling and jumping and clapping your hands in the air and your raps start to meld into happy chants. Avoid this at all costs - it tends to destroy your performance.
2) Attempt to dress like a rapper. Now, I don't subscribe to the philosophy that you have to look the part to be authentic, however, when you've got a problem with rule #1, dressing like a suburban teenager does not help your case.
3) Under no circumstances should you dance like an aerobics instructor. Period. Enough said.
This entry was posted by Lady Amy, on
Monday, December 03, 2007.
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I totally disagree with this entire post. Northern State was a good time! How about that electric guitarist!!
Also, I think it's a bit ludicrous to punish them for not conforming to the stereotypical rap mold. That's like saying you shouldn't have a box of awesome props at a wedding reception.
Also, write more about Tegan & Sara! Duh!
the electric guitar was probably the most disappointing part (if only because pat told me it made them awesome) - nothing exciting, just a couple of distorted power chords every other song and one song with a mediocre yet actual guitar lick with more than 3 notes.
and the drummer was limper than, well you know.
if anything was redeemable, it was the keyboard work - and even that was buried by unrehearsed spatting back and forth on the mic between 3 voices that were all the same except one sounded like a pile of cigarettes.
i agree with the cheering thing too though - it sounded like they were just getting excited and didn't know how to organize it into a musical flow, much like cheerleading.
plus not only were they basically the beastie girls, they also mentioned the beastie boys at least twice during their set.
hey, lady amy--what happened to the poll?
we were discussing the other night which is actually a more lame (or is it lamer?) way to spend an evening. you take your pick:
option 1: watching a terrible band while sitting by yourself amidst the fanatic, 40+ crowd while text-messaging your friends
option 2: shopping for new stemware, pots and pans, then spending a quiet evening at home watching Twin Peaks on DVD and wondering how to reorganize the cupboards, toped off by having some friends over to watch soft core on Cinemax after dark. *
*please note that the second option was chosen by a married couple, who are therefor automatically more lame, while the first option was chosen by the young, hip, girl-about-town, who probably should be doing less lame things.
sweet god, what happened to our youth?
i told amy last night the poll/question becomes automatically moot when anyone finds out that amy got the $35 concert ticket for free because she met the band earlier that day and saw them play an intimate acoustic performance in a room of about 5 people - plus the terrible band she's texting during is just the opener for a much better band.
sorry, lame-wads, amy wins.
wow, who died and made you the king of deciding who's more lame? don't you think our blogulator audience members have a right to decide for themselves? i know i do!
Yeah! Chime in, Blogulator-land! Solitude is infinitely more lame, especially if it involves text messaging of any way, shape or form. Skinemax is life.
A question:
Which band did Lady Amy meet?
Comments:
After seeing this video, I hate Northern State. It all sits wrong with me. Maybe I'm reverse racist.
I hate Skinemax. I wasted unlimited high school hours sitting through blah dialogue/plot waiting for disgusting pairs of tits to be exposed. And it never excited me. But I still did it.
Skinemax makes me question how much control I have over my own body.
how can you hate skinemax? it's so arousing...i mean....what?
As someone who has gone to a concert alone (who was too shy/ashamed to text her friends) but hasn't picked out stemware or had anything more than network TV for two years, I would say the latter is so much more lame! And the band I saw wasn't even that bad, although a drunk suburban guy did grope my foot. Ehh, I guess it's a tie.
Surely the support act *has* to be rubbish... that's part of the point, isn't it?
When the support are good, bad things happen. Kinda like when I saw Placebo and their support, Kerbdog, totally blew them away. Most of the crowd left during the main act, Placebo's record sales went to crap just after the tour and I can still, more than a decade later, remember how weird and yet awesome that gig was.
Them's the rules, dudes.
northern state? m'eh woulda been good if i was drunk. not terrible but subpar. would have been better if they didn't make the EXACT same small talk during both shows. i'm not kidding exact.
and i'm with p.arty. more about tegan and sara!!!
as for the skinemax. . .i'm worried about you guys. . .you know, you could get addicted.
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