skoosiepants | when the robots are truly heartless

Okay, so, yes, I feel like my heart is breaking, and it's ridiculous, because it's a band. A band of people I do not actually know, and it's not like they're all going to drop off the face of the earth (I hope!), but the worst of it is that I can't help thinking that maybe they're not friends anymore! UGH. Whatever, I can still write about them. I predict an overabundance of angsty plot-lines now - more so than usual. Zack, your defense of their announcement is admirable, but it does indeed suck, and, as many people have stated, kind of unprofessional, timing wise. I'm going to go with the so-high-this-seemed-like-an-awesome-time-to-do-this thing.

On other things, my laptop died again, and fed-up and armed with my ext hard drive of everything I needed anyway, I got a Mac. Windows, you crashed my life one too many times. I salute you, but I must leave you behind. So nows I have a macbook pro and it's super neato, and it only took me 4 hours to figure out how to get on the internet - it didn't help that I apparently hid my SSID when I set up my router three years ago - hi, brain, sometimes you go on vacation - but the apple support guys were AWESOME and led me through every single step they could and didn't get impatient with me being a fucking idiot (I seriously wanted to cry and take the stupid laptop back to the apple store, I seriously could not figure it out - so, yes, Apple Guys, you saved me the 119 dollar return fee! *LOVE*).

To celebrate or spit in the eye of the now split Panic, whatever, have a (really rough) fake blog post about Ryan and Jon for my mike/kevin secret band NINJA high school fic (now at the 43 page mark!) Background: NINJA also reviews bands at a site called Eat More Cats. Yes.

TENDERFOOT JUNCTION @ THE CELL
Ryan Ross is not a robot – no, for real, Bden [prove it! – bden] – but his first performance as solo artist Tenderfoot Junction was still damn near perfect. He’s got the range of a wolfhound with an unsteady, mellow pitch, and he managed to charm the pants off us last night with his knobby fingers, old blueridge acoustic, and sweet sassy lyrics about leather boots, hips and toothy smiles.

Old fans of Ross might miss the bitter showiness, the Casio beats, the misogynous dance-pop that defined the ironically named Summer Daze, and while Ross’s new stuff isn’t necessarily better, there’s a simple honest quality to it - discounting the abnormally large amount of nonsense; although even the nonsense, on some instinctual level, seems to take on a certain shape of truth.

Talking flowers, magical caves, peace, love and happiness in the guise of gumdrops and magnified multifaceted insect eyes: Ross has the good stuff, deep down inside, don’t let the sweater vests fool you. Think folksy blues with a solid rock background – jumble in (alleged) copious amounts of weed. If The Beatles ever adopted a gangly, too pale kid from Las Vegas and gave him a funny haircut, Ryan Ross would be it.

There are rumors of a collaboration with local pop-punk trio Samhell. Sharp eyes caught Walker stalking Ross in between sets - now that's something I want to see. Van Vleet's eerie vocals, Walker's simple melodies underscored and amp'd by the relentless enthusiasm of Andy "Butcher" Mrotek, mixing and mingling with the oddity that is Ross-- at the very least, it'll be entertaining as hell.

TENDERFOOT JUNCTION @ THE CELL: SEPTEMBER 14TH 10:00PM
Set list:
+ Wolves Are Held Back
+ Moontime Butterflies
+ Red
+ Count Your Charms
+ What's My Age Again
+ Spencer Bought Me This Watch (???? courtesy of Bden, we have no idea what the fuck this one's called)
+ Since She Says Tomorrow
+ The Song About Wax Statues And Having Sex (thank Billiam for this one)
+ Cool Run Home [aka the John Candy song - k2]
+ Biting Grins and Skeleton Bones
+ Absolute Mayhem

stay classy, omaha
- trick @ emc