1: Dammit, teo. I was just fixing that. I of course blame Fox News.
All your brain cells are belong to Glenn Beck.
Wasn't there a briefly famous musician named Beck? Or something like that.
You could use him like a "Beck-otine" patch to wean you off Glenn Beck. Instead of watching Fox, just play a Beck album.
In the early days of the rave scene, people used to get into these "dance-off" circle things which will be familiar to you if you've ever seen a movie with a dance-off scene (e.g. Earth Girls are Easy or Breakin' 2). DJ Dan (who was a big early rave DJ, as you might have been able to infer) hated these things, because they fucked up the energy of the crowd (instead of everybody happy dancing, you have one person dancing, 30 people watching, and a bunch of competitive glowering), and besides it took up a ton of space at an oft-crowded party. It got to the point that he would actually stop the record that was playing until the dance-off-ers knocked it off. Ahh, the idealism of the old days.
My second story, related to the OP but unrelated to the first story, regards my first concert, a They Might Be Giants show where people were actually (welcome to Boston in the late 80s/early 90s) trying to mosh and doing some crowd surfing here and there, when one of the Johns from the band got on the mic and said in his nerdy "uh could you knock it off with the pass-the-dude stuff? I don't think it's really that kind of show."
They Might Be Giants
I saw them a couple of months ago. They do kids shows now. They don't have hot dancers like the Wiggles, but they're pretty good.
8: yeah; I have a friend with a toddler who always hated them, who called me totally psyched: "[Sifu], I figured out what TMBG had to do to not be terrible: make kid's music!"
I'm waiting for Lady Gaga to make the same shift.
10: "Ga Ga, Ooh La la" wasn't enough for you? You're a monster.
The Wiggles have hot dancers?
And I've been steering the youth to TMBG all this time?
Anyhow the Wiggles and TMBG are old news. Gabba Gabba Hey is the new hotness. Or... no?
14: whoops, I do. My imaginary kids are SUPER EMBARRASSED right now.
Yo Gabba Gabba gets old very quickly. Sure, you get to say "That's Frodo" or "Jack Black in a tight orange jumpsuit?" but it is really a one note show.
I'm going to bed, so I won't harp on how unhip a parent Sifu would be.
I should turn in also. I'm going to see if Nina is on Sprout first, to wipe "Jack Black in an orange jumpsuit" from my brain.
Wow. I'd not heard of Yo Gabba Gabba! prior to this thread, I don't think. We should get Knecht to cross market this to the kids in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. There's a definite ironic opening there.
I only let my kids watch Wonder Showzen.
19: if you've worried that said ironic crossover is not being exploited, rest assured that DJ Lance Rock of Yo Gabba Gabba! played Coachella this very weekend.
"you've" should be "you're". Stupid um volcano.
9 I figured out what TMBG had to do to not be terrible: make kid's music!
Alas, once the novelty wears off, I think the TMBG kids music is actually pretty terrible. Since my kid got their ABC and 123 albums, I've realized its possible to dislike them on a whole new level. It doesn't help that they also do theme songs to awful kids shows.
21: And Muno worked a biker bar outside of Scranton.
We should get Knecht to cross market this to the kids in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Is there a chance at all that the kids in Williamsburg don't already know about Yo Gabba Gabba? I'm thinking it's pretty slim.
Charlie friggin Brooker raved about Yo Gabba Gabba eons ago, so no chance at all.
I could noodle to a guest post by M. Leblanc about now. LADYPALOOZA !
TMBG gave the same lecture to a crowd in Providence in '95 or so. Actually, so did Fugazi. That was awesome.
I really feel like I've aged out of TMBG. Isn't it basically all children's music?
Also: the Wiggles may or may not have hot backup dancers (YMMV), but if you're watching the dancers for hotness you're really missing the best part: the blond dancer guy (Ben Murray) who gives ONE HUNDRED AND TEN PERCENT ALL THE TIME YEAH!!! It is so much fun to watch.
re: 110%
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvWXuQp1pPI
28: Aaargh. I hate that guy even more than I hate his multi-coloured overlords. The way he waggles his head irks me. They are the Wiggles, not the fucking Waggles.
My youngest daughter loves them all, of course. But her older siblings agree with me.
29: If only the world worked that way. It did cause me some slight physical pain that it took that long to work out that 100/110 is around 0.9.
I have not yet outgrown TMBG, which gives me at least one thing in common with my 5-year old. I've trained her that the correct behavior when the baby starts crying is to immediately start singing "Everything Right Is Wrong Again" to the baby.
28 - Dude, are you thinking of the Fugazi show in Providence (at the Met Cafe, I think?) that had all-time rock gods Unwound opening for them? "Your kids are going to say, 'Wow, you saw the Unwound, how was it?' and you'll say, 'I don't know, I was upside down?'" That show?
Because if you're not, you should be.
7 Seconds had a whole song about keeping one's elbows down and not being a violent dickhead in the pit so that the girls could have fun, too. This was hugely enlightened in 1984.
I really feel like I've aged out of TMBG. Isn't it basically all children's music?
I saw them over this past Thanksgiving weekend in DC. They did a G-rated afternoon show for "families" and then a rowdier show at normal Show O'Clock (which is what we went to). So basically they're double dipping (id est, in your case, emdash, I could imagine you guys taking the wee ones in the afternoon, then dropping them with a 'sitter and hitting up the 9pm show, too, to get the Flood songs.)
34.last: Not that Flood isn't G-rated, really. I guess it's just that the late shows are later, and there's more booze and more of a normal rock show atmosphere about.
All this hating on TMBG in kids and grown up form is mystifying to me.
32: Snark, no, this was at Lupo's with Scarce and the excrable Shudder to Think opening. The show was notable in that Guy had food poisoning. And Ian kept bellowing for the club to turn down the A/C, which I found dismaying because I was melting into a puddle. In fact, I think I was so uncomfortable that I left before the encore and missed my chance to meet the band. Hardcore!
Despite being pretty much over TMBG, I would totally go see one of the Flood shows.
I really feel like I've aged out of TMBG. Isn't it basically all children's music?
TMBG was always basically a kind of novelty act, a Weird Al Yankovic for a slightly more literate audience. That's not a bad thing to be--I wish I were half as successful, or as funny--but it isn't a role guaranteed to wear well over the length of a career (theirs or yours). I still really love about a third of everything they've done and of the rest I like the idea better than the execution.
(At the right price, I'd totally go to one of the Flood shows.)
Last year, I went to a show by Kimya Dawson, who sings in a kid-songs style (crowd sing-along, animal sounds and hand motions), but with lyrics not at all interesting to or really appropriate for kids. Anti-folk or something was the category label that I picked up. Not to my taste at all, I don't get what these damn kids are listening to now, etc.
Kimya Dawson of the Moldy Peaches? She's great, but the style of her and the Moldy Peaches can lean a bit towards the never-gonna-be-a-grow-up-I'm-in-my-twenties-oh-haha-velcro-and-TMNT-yay! barrier. Which is tiring.
This has been Back-Porch Stories with Stanley, Who Was Never Very Punk Rock Anyhow.
I expect not, what with being a big hippie teddybear. But really, since the straightedge kids don't do a lot of things, it is probably wisest not to get in between them and the things they do do.
m, you guys need a lot more fiber in your diet
I remember a brief moment around 1984 of great mosh-pits when they were collaborative efforts to maximize average velocity, and no drunken 'fratboy' groper meanies had turned up yet. Also, I had an enormous friend at the time and we did the mosh Lindy, which was my sole approach to hip ever.