Straight to My Mind-Hole

• I'm pretty sure this guy was an actual zombie, but he didn't eat my brain. What he did do was seek out a decent light source for me to take a picture of him with my shitbox cellphone camera. This zombie fellow was so nice that I now believe all zombie movies to be anti-zombie racist propaganda.

• I just got back from spending time in Asheville, North Carolina. In between fending off attacks from vicious pitbulls with heads as big as stop signs and being stranded on the outskirts of town with El Amar and an odd collection of moonshine-drinking locals, there were three concerts at the Orange Peel. Some notes on these shows follow.

• Spoon. The first night me and thee Famous Person got into town we saw Spoon. We showed up late, because we, together, are incapable of leaving town for a trip before four p.m. So we missed The Ponys, which sucked, because FP was really excited about seeing them. Spoon ruled, though. They played their melodic, piano-driven pop songs with a kind of funk-laden slow groove that built, occasionally, into incredible crescendo. There is something blue-collar about their consistency and their "no-frills" (by which I mean, of course, "no eyeliner") look. The bass player plays his instrument exactly like it should, in my opinion, be played. FP says that the lead singer sounds kind of like Billy Joel, which makes sense, since Billy Joel also totally rules in a blue-collar kind of a way.
Spoon used an effect to mimic, I guess, the sound that a ghost might make for "The Ghost of You Lingers." FP thought that they were tying to emulate the sound of the truly big-ass fan attached to the ceiling of the venue.
{Editorial Note: The hyperlink immediately above leads to the Big Ass Fan company, which makes, yes, big ass fans, including the one at the Orange Peel. But I wonder what the percentage is for visitors to their website who are fans of big asses. - R. Ronsonol}
Spoon closed the show with "The Way We Get By," which, despite its inclusion on the O.C. soundtrack, remains a perfect pop masterpiece. The crowd was pleased.

• They Might Be Giants. I didn't actually go to this show. I felt, at that point, that I needed some time away from thee Famous Person in order to preserve my own tenuous grasp on sanity. You know how it is with siblings, man. I will say this: the chicken parmesan sandwich I had while this concert was happening was delicious. That and I have seen TMBG a bunch of times, and they're always really good, and I suspect that they did not disappoint.

• The New Pornographers. I spent the whole time wondering what it must be like to be Carl Newman, who seems to be the de facto leader of The New Pornographers. Everyone, even die-hard fans of this band (among whom I am not), clearly seems to like Neko Case and Dan Bejar - both members of TNP - way more than him. And since both Case and Bejar have pretty successful solo careers, are they, like, doing the less-successful members of this band a favor by showing up at all? I mean. They are. But I wonder how aware everyone is of this.
For a band that I don't particularly like, The New Pornographers put on a pretty amazing, high-energy concert. Neko Case - yawning intermittently throughout the show - adds a nice little twang to the Mamas & Papas-style harmonies at play.
Bejar, by the way, was rarely on stage. He sauntered on to sing lead vocals on about every tenth song on a - roughly - thirty song set. I think he knows that he's the secret weapon of the band. Also: you can add him to the list of celebrities, along with Patterson Hood and Hyde from That 70's Show, who look kind of like Cruton.