Hey guys!
So on Sunday, I had the pleasure of going to see Reignwolf (nowaypablo will provide music videos) at the Barbary in Philadelphia. It was a blast! I thought I would share some pictures with you and regale you with a short short story about the time we had. Hopefully nowaypablo will pitch in too. Mostly I think we have a lot of pictures.
Originally, I thought I had a different concert on Sunday, but was still planning on being in Philadelphia, so noway and I had made plans and exchanged a virtual handshake promising that we would meet up after. This was specious for me at best, as I am not really a night owl, but I was down for it! As it turned, I didn't have a concert on Sunday and arranged to go see Reignwolf, opened by Satellite Hearts, at the Barbary.
Venue : So, surprisingly enough for me, I'd never been to the Barbary before. The internet told me it was a bar and that doors opened at 6, so I figured I would show up at 6:30, before Pabst, get a drink or two, and be ready to get my rock on at 7:30 when the music started rolling. The joke was on me. The Barbary is small. I highly doubt it is a full-time bar. When I got there at 6:30 there were two doors. One said "Exit only" and the other said "Doors open at 7:30, band entrance only until then." From outside I could hear the rehearsal. I wandered within a two-block radius and desperately texted Pabst, who was running late. Oh, and I took pictures of Philadelphia cats. These cats are tough, let me assure you.
These cats will fuck you up.
Pabst showed up and we had a photo-op. I have two black eyes and a not-quite-broken nose. Cue jokes about how I made someone tell me twice. Giant glasses, for the record, are very good at covering up broken noses and moderate black eyes - helps if you have an olive-y to yellow skin tone.
The guy in the pink hat is named Stitch and drummed for Reignwolf later that evening.
Once I got inside I was delighted by the mini-hipster-heroin goodness (disclaimer: neither Pabst nor I do heroin or have any interest in such). At the Barbary, which probably has enough room for 75-100 people on the ground floor if you are good at pretending to be sardines, you can tell it's a dedicated music venue - there's a small stage, true, but what I was amused by was the dedicated merch section to the left, something that's relatively rare at smaller venues. Clearly, the Barbary is pretty much all about the bands (on the ground floor). It was appropriately dark and they had hipster disco-lighting. It was adorable. The show was all-ages and the bar was located upstairs to accommodate for that.
Upstairs was equally enjoyable. The bartender was a cool dude with a haircut I'd consider regrettable but of which he was obviously fond. Again, the upstairs was broken out into two different sections. One was open floor space and looked like it could be used for dancing or karaoke, both of which apparently occur exclusively upstairs on a weekly basis (when the upstairs is open but downstairs isn't, it's referred to as "Barbarella.") The rest was cozy seating, romantically lit, and so on. The bar selection was more than adequate although I would not say expansive. I pregamed a little bit and headed downstairs.
Side note the bathroom graffitti was hilarious. This one's for you thenewgreen
NSFW blah blah
Then there was music. Pablo and I exchanged stories over the screams of heroin addicts and the sweat of drummers. (He wanted me to put that in.) Although I hadn't really checked out either band before I didn't hate them by the end of their sets, which is actually a really good sign. Pablo and I talked about Hubski, of course, and a couple of other topics he wanted to delve into on the site but more than one user had pointed out that they might be inappropriate. (Pabst is welcome to address those in the comments.) I swayed back and forth and pretend to dance somewhat. We talked about New York a little bit and whether or not my car had a flat tire.
Pablo commented on some of the graffitti:
When Reignwolf came on Pablo basically wet his pants so I had to excuse him for a bit. (I drank some more.)
After the show Pablo was able to secure an audience with the main man himself Reignwolf! who has a real name which I don't know. I'm sure this was awesome. I was outside enjoying the Philly night scenery.
Once we rejoined we went over to my car, made sure it did not have a flat, and departed. It was a brief, but enjoyable, encounter. I have every intention of making sure we hang out again.
Speaking of which, what Hubskiers are located in reasonable distance of NYC? Would anyone like a NYC meet-up? I will need someone to hold my hand as I cry like a baby on public transport, but otherwise, I'd like to try to make this happen. I think we have been talking about it for over a year.
My writing is not great on this one, but the story is told. The End.
I'm down!! 100% NYC/nearby Hubskiers: nowaypablo humanodon ? (kind of) who else? edit: pablo - we are going to need your recommendations on best dive bars in NYC, and you are also going to have to help out with transportation and stuff. Should I drive to NYC? Should I take the train in? There's like, nowhere to park anywhere in the city, correct?
I will recommend the shit out of NYC nightlife. You should not use any method of transportation besides public transit. I will hold your hand in the subway if I can reach it through the suffocating hills of hobo flesh.
Depending on how far you are, train is usually the best idea. Driving in is kind of terrible depending which day it is, and parking typically costs a lot, unless you can park at a friends house somewhere outside of Manhattan and take the subway in, which could be more trouble than the time's worth. If this happens I'll be taking the train in. Or bus depending on whether I'm home or at school for that time. I know a few bars in NYC, a lot of my friends work there, so I know a few places to get free drinks as well(necessary since often drinks can run up to $12 there). I'm sure someone who lives actually in the city can give some better info.
I'm back on the 17th round when lil said she'd be in the city. I can make any weekend free with notice, it's completely up to your schedules.
Awesome. For information, I'm arriving a day earlier, the 30th (because it's much cheaper for some weird reason). I'll land around 4pm, so I'll probably be at my hotel around 6pm including transit, if everything goes well. So Saturday eve is cool too, although I might be tired from the flight. I can help with the transit though - I've already looked up the New York Subway map and history. Parking is expensive as hell in NY, but you could park relatively cheap at Newark ($15 per day or something) and train to Manhattan from there. Or check out Amtrak. edit: did you know that you can see your hotel reservation and flight details in Google Maps? when I see JFK Airport, it shows my landing time, because the eticket is in my gmail. Kinda creepy but also kinda cool.
Wherever you plan to be, you can find street parking eventually within a 2-3 blocks with time and patience. The problem is that a night in Manhattan doesn't quite lend itself to a similar radius. You might end up 30 blocks away in an hour and then have to waste cash on a cab back to your car. The subways will take you anywhere you need to be super conveniently in Manhattan, and you'll have one less liability. It's just hella annoying taking a train from JFK.
I'll start bragging here cause you actually know Reignwolf. It was... tremendous. Blasted my ears to a medically risky heaven. He had a warm, awesome, attentive and enthusastic conversation wjth me. Me, and pretty much everyone else in turn who waited to say hi. We talked for like five minutes, and he told me he'll make sure the next NYC show is all ages, saying they never told him it was 18+ and how that's a bummer. I also chilled with the opening guys, who imo were surprisingly talented and were also just wicked people. The bassist of Satellite Hearts was either on cocaine or just had sex with the Queen of England. He seemed shocked the whole show and couldn't bring himself to blink. Here's a clip I just uploaded emphasizing the radical level of this show Here's me soiling my panties I'll brag more in response to ref. This show was a big deal to me, and after the intro it just got amazing. edit: ugh, I'll have to do my share of the post tomorrow:(
Cold War Kids?! Sick!! Yeah, I think we practically owe each other a concert at this point.
If you are in or around Philly/PA, you absolutely must utilize the Swollen fox and their concert calendar, which compiles literally every upcoming concert in the state that they hear about into one beautiful multi-page chart thing. It's amazing. I also find local small music stations will do similar- around me it's WXPN. See if you have an NPR music station around you.
Not flag, but songkick is really good. Also checking bands and labels on social media.
Well, on Friday 8/15 and Saturday 8/16 Milkboy Philly is doing its 3-year anniversary show - all tickets, FO' FREE. My brother and I will be attending both days. Friday is the Ataris, how hilarious and classic. It's free - I can't promise any other Hubskiers - but I'll be there. Milkboy Philly's a pretty fun venue.
There's a strong chance I can make it. By the way, the Ataris is a hell of a throwback to my childhood. Keep in touch, I'm not fantastic at keeping plans. Philly sounds awesome and I will be at least stopping by that Friday, since I will be passing through anyways to get to DE.
As I've mentioned elsewhere, I live nowhere near NYC, but I'll be in the vicinity sometime next month (I'm horrible at remembering when things are and my mum's taken her calendar with her out of town for a brief time) and if I can convince my parents (perhaps not the easiest task, but I'll try) I'd totally be down for a meetup. UPDATE: I've just talked to my sister, and she says there's no chance I'll convince our parents to let me do this. But I will still try! Maybe a little bit harder now that I have a chance to prove her wrong :PSpeaking of which, what Hubskiers are located in reasonable distance of NYC? Would anyone like a NYC meet-up?
UPDATE 2: She was right. My mom's being paranoid: she thinks you're all creepy middle-aged men that have made fake profiles for the purpose of ??? Sorry it won't work out. Maybe if I end up going to college up there we can hang out sometime after I'm free from my parents.
Dozens of jokes to make here, all centering around thenewgreenshe thinks you're all creepy middle-aged men that have made fake profiles
Weird. First time my photo, and openness about my identity has been used by someone to poke fun at me. Interesting internet moment for me. But seriously, I'm a nice guy. I have this conversion van over here... Disregard it's lack of windows... You like candy?
Yeah, feel free to not shout-out to me under this premise moving forward. Thanks flag.
Sorry! It was a joke! I could post all sorts of embarrassing things about myself to make it up to you. God knows I've been oversharing on the internet since I was 13. There was, for instance, this picture from high school. I ... well. No one click on that. If I recall correctly it was a thread about comparing hair.
^if you even are a man
-I'm not. Nowhere near. I have a van. You like movies about gladiators?
Tangentially related: I have only ever gotten to know one person on the internet well who turned out to be completely full of shit. He was this older guy who knew more about metal than anyone I've ever talked to since and he wanted us all to think he'd had a part in some of Sunn O)))'s albums if I'm remembering right. Turned out literally everything he'd said was false except for the part where he still knew more about metal than all of us combined. I wanna say he was actually like 16.
That's kind of awesome though, except for the part where he lied about his experience. And it makes sense that he wouldn't want people to know he was 16, to avoid age discrimination or predators/whatever it is my mom's worried about (God knows what that could be).
Biological imperative, young dude. You reproduce and . . . I dunno, this is gonna sound nuts . . . but you don't want something bad to happen to that continuation of your genes. For example: my father was a pro basketball player. Extremely athletic, extremely rugged, never let me miss a day of school unless it was necessary. In fact, the school had to insist my father take me home when I got the chicken pox. Now, the day before I;d asked him if a suspicious blister was chicken pox, to which he replied, "no, you're probably just wearing your belt too tight" and that my fever was probably just caused by me running around all over the place (I hadn't). Anyway, because of my dad I am pretty robust and I don't get damaged too easily which my mother knows. I mean, she's a scientist and she can evaluate the empirical evidence. Even so, a few years back she came to visit me and saw me changing my shirt and of course, she saw a newish scar on my shoulder and proceeded to demand that I tell her what it was from. When I told her that it and several other scars on my head and my foot were from a motorcycle crash I'd gotten into some months prior, she freaked the fuck out. "Why didn't you tell me?!" etc. etc. Now, she knows that there was nothing she could have done because she was thousands of miles away and also because I never told her how I dumped my bike and how if I hadn't been wearing a half-helmet my brain would have been on the road instead of just getting mildly annoyed by the gravel that continues to come out of my skull. Even though I'm almost 30, she's still my mom. Moms exist for a reason. People are clumsy fucking animals and while we're "intelligent" we're not always smart, because being smart takes experience. So even though I know that eight dudes beating the shit out me with pipes is something I can live through, she is hardwired not to think so. I'm glad. I fully understand why that's hard to understand and appreciate in high school, but man oh man, it is a big world and having someone to give a shit about you no matter what is something precious. Edit: I meant to put this elsewhere in the thread, but you'll probably get my point.
I'm going to take a leap here and guess that our fair lil hopes for the day when her own progeny will have the same insight as you. It may be heartrending to read that some kids eventually become aware of the selflessness with which parents act all the time.
Hey b_b thanks, for your thoughtful leap. I originally answered humanodon via pm, but since seeing your comment, let's see how your attempt at an explanation matches my answer: "Well, have a real relationship with a person that goes on for years - That's completely unpredictable. Then you've cut off all your ties to the land, and you're sailing into the unknown...into uncharted seas. I mean, you know, people hold on to these images of father, mother, husband, wife... again for the same reason - 'cause they seem to provide some firm ground. But there's no wife there. What does that mean? A wife. A husband. A son. A baby holds your hands... and then suddenly there's this huge man lifting you off the ground...and then he's gone. Where's that son?" We can't really protect our kids because they have to have lives of their own. galen is already straining the leash. Another year or two, and his mom will be lucky if he phones once a week. Let me tell you how pathetic it is to be a mom: I figured out that if I played Facebook scrabble with my daughter, I'd know that she was still alive. She works a midnight shift in the suburbs on "Upper Middle Road." Trust me, any place called Upper Middle anything is in the upper middle of nowhere, and on nights when there are no late buses, she rides her bike six km from the the train station. I don't want to bug her with texts and email - but at least when she makes her scrabble word, I know she's still alive.Why heartrending? because your post points to how helpless parents are. We bring up kids to be creative and independent at our own peril - but the alternative, bringing up kids to be helpless and dependent is worse. It's heartrending in the way the last lines from My Dinner with Andre always seem to get to me:
It was an understandable assumption. humanodon's perspective towards his mom is something most people grow up to realize. I don't need said daughter to "become aware of [my] selflessness" per se. Parenting is a kind of self-serving selflessness. My guess, though, is that most parents become aware of their powerlessness at some point. To slightly paraphrase William Glasser: the only control we have is through the strength of the relationship.
Yeah, that makes sense. It's just frustrating because my sister does stuff on her own with her friends all the time, and (going on a bit of a tangent here) I never get to do anything with mine because they all live pretty far away (private school, everyone else lives closer). So I was looking forward to hanging out with some really cool people I met, but because I happen to have met you through a scary new technology instead of in a club or at church or whatever, she's totally uncomfortable with me interacting with y'all* IRL. * Typed this without thinking. Yes, I live in the American South. Yee-haw.
Also consider that moms understand the kinds of trouble girls get into, but less so the kinds that boys do. Hell, my mom threatened me (menaced me even) with dire consequences if I didn't use condoms in high school. Haha, it's pretty funny looking back on that actually, since she yelled, "No girls in the house!" and then amended it to "You better use condoms!" Anyway, people get scared of what they don't understand and you already know that. It's a bummer that you can't do a bunch of shit at the moment and hell, you may have to assert yourself just to make sure that your parents get an accurate picture of who you are/who you are becoming. Anyway, i saw elsewhere that you're a senior, even though you're young. You'll be out and about soon enough. Don't be ashamed of where you come from either. I'm Filipino, but I still grew up in New England. I can be as surly as the best of them but fuck, that's my culture.
Conflict is bound to happen between parents and kids, especially teenagers. Birds just leave the nest. Not so easy for humans. On some level, to your mom, you are always going to be her baby. My mom still remembers me at 1/10th my weight and needing comfort during thunderstorms. At some point I had to let her know that was no longer the case. Did she like it? No, but reality has a way of flooding in once it's pointed out.
Yeah he was great, total liar but not like mythomania, because everything was very consistent and made perfect sense if only it'd been true. Was a damn shame because someone figured out he was bullshitting and got mad at him so he left our community and we all suddenly knew a lot less about metal.