Clutch @ The Electric Factory - Philadelphia, PA 05/17/13

I've already mentioned that my oldest son wanted Clutch to be his first concert.  It was not to be.  Second time around my youngest son wanted his first concert to be Clutch.  He was 10 and I felt it was time and we had a FANTASTIC opportunity.  Clutch was playing a New Years Eve show at the Trocadero in Philadelphia I felt that would be a landmark first concert.  Hell...it would be a landmark concert anytime.  I was lucky enough to get two tickets and...then found out it was a 21 and older show.

BUMMER!!!

Twitter Tourettes Vol. 2 - Random And Totally Out Of Context Celebrity Replies To My Tweets

Independent Record Store Spotlight - Positively Records, Levittown, PA

Mastodon @The Trocadero - Philadelphia, PA 11/20/11

I always dreamed of going to concerts with my boys.  It is always something that I wanted to share with them.  Although you always hope that you influence their musical tastes you never now exactly what they will like.  And I am ok with that.  I have always encouraged personal expression.  So when my oldest son told me at 11 that he wanted his first concert to be Clutch I was thrilled!!!

His mother, not so much.  The only show they were playing locally was with Motorhead in North Jersey.  I thought that would be perfect.  She did not.  Needless to say, that didn't work out.  When he heard that Mastodon was coming to town he decided that was the one.  I secured our tickets and we were ready to go.

Rediscovered Albums - The Knack / Get The Knack

When I was a kid I HATED 'My Sharona' by The Knack. I remembered sing ape noises instead of lyrics when ever it came on the radio.  And it came on the radio often.  I couldn't escape it.  Even at the local community pool it would be blaring from a ready what seemed to be every 15 seconds. It was a number 1 hit and I loathed it.  Despised it.  At the time I felt as though I may have been the only one. I didn't understand what everyone else heard in it.  I felt like The Knack was Jim Jones and 'My Sharona' was Kool Aid.  I was NOT drinking the Kool Aid!!!

Book Review - No Slam Dancing, No Stage Diving, No Spikes: An Oral History of The Legendary City Gardens by Amy Yates Wuelfing & Steven DiLodovico

My reading consists of music books.  I can't get enough of them.  Especially oral histories about the punk and new wave era.  I've read Punk Rock: an Oral History by John Robb about the start of the British Punk scene through Post Punk and Goth. I've read We've Got The Neutron Bomb about the LA Punk scene and also Please Kill Me about the start of the NY Punk Scene.  I love these books.  They are first hand accounts of scenes I loved even thought I was not a part of them.

I was not a part of those scenes.


That phrase is the key.  A scene that I was a part of was City Gardens.  City Gardens was the Mecca for misfit youths in the bad part of a bad city.  The club was the homing beacon for any punk, new wave, indie, ska, and numerous other genre's that played the underground circuit traveling between Philadelphia and New York.  It made Trenton a destination, regardless of how dangerous it was to travel there, because once you were inside its doors you were home.  Punker, Skinhead, Goth, New Waver, it did not matter.  You were accepted.