DINOSAUR JR. @ BOWERY BALLROOM

I finally got my chance, albeit twenty years late, to see the now two album deep reunited Dinosaur Jr. at The Bowery Ballroom. I had seen one of the band's offshoots, Sebadoh, way back when at the now defunct Tramps, where former and current bassist Lou Barlow and his bandmate Jason Loewenstein basically played until nobody was left standing, calling for song suggestions over and over again. Ms. Hipster still has arch-flattening flashbacks of that night and probably lived silently with the fear our Dino Jr. experience would be the same. I told her that this would be quite a different time, but that our first stop on the way to the venue should be at a CVS to pick up earplugs. Thank god.

The crowd was about what you'd expect for a band that's been around for twenty-five years and has a lead singer/guitarist who majors in guitar masturbation. Meaning lots of dudes, some of whom are graying around the temples, and some younger dudes who heard their cool uncle liked these guys back in his "skating days." I was a relative latecomer to the Dino Jr. party, my first album being Green Mind in 1991. By that time Lou had already left the band pretty much to start his solo thing. Apparently head honcho, J Mascis, could be a bit of a control freak! My personal history aside, people were there to party. And from the first ridiculous guitar solo, it seemed the boys where there to play their asses off. That was until someone in the crowd decided to complain that he couldn't hear the vocals. Barlow, apparently off his meds, decided to berate the guy and asked him, "What fuckin' show did you think you came to see?" Insinuating that Dinosaur Jr. isn't about singing and lyrics, a semi-slight towards his bandmate, but kinda true nonetheless. Meanwhile, Mascis' guitar playing was absolutely amazing, but he literally didn't talk or open his eyes the entire night. Barlow, aside from his short tirade said nothing and stood bent at the waist stroking his bass with his mop of hair in his face. When your Presidents of the United States of America-looking drummer has the most personality in the band, you know you're in trouble.

As expected the tallest guy in the joint stood right in front of us. He had to literally be 6'8." And while that would normally be a bummer, he provided us with the first (and finest) example of exactly what we wanted, and knew, would happen: air-guitaring. Trust me, it's almost impossible not to, but sometimes you have to overcome your desires to keep your self-respect. Big man sold out. He was certainly not the only one, either, as we spied unembarrassed fellows in the balcony, a dude with a ponytail "playing" the solo on "Freak Scene" and several others basically playing Guitar Hero with no controller. I mean, it's tough. Mascis is like the indie/college rock equivalent of Eddie Van Halen. He can tear the shit out of a guitar. And unlike his hipster brethren, he plays the same ol' instrument the entire show, tuning up or down between songs. No banjos, no Theremins, no giant Stray Cats axe. The shit was crazy. My only issue with the night--aside from having to keep my earplugs in all night to avoid having my anvils bleed--is that with so many albums to choose from, odds are they're going to leave out some favorites. I wanted to hear "In a Jar," dude. But they did play "Wagon," so at least I walked away pretty happy. So I guess I'll see these guys again in 2035.

BE YOUR OWN DJ

It's amazing how a single iPhone application can change your life. Okay, not change your life, but allow you to do something you either never thought possible or thought could only be possible by spending hundreds of dollars. I had originally been looking at a Sonos system several years back. It basically allows you to stream your itunes collection to multiple rooms and control your collection via a Sonos remote. Problem was, it's expensive and not guaranteed to work seamlessly. So I put it off, my iTunes collection trapped in my iMac to only be played through my harman/kardon SoundSticks or shared through my library on my MacBook and rigged to my stereo via an RCA cable. That didn't allow any type of control whatsoever, and I just had to run to the iMac upstairs if some NWA song came on when the kids were present. Not a great option.

And then along came the fortuitous theft of my Nokia N95--giving me the perfect excuse to go out and finally purchase an iPhone. I've also owned an AirPort Express for several years, using it to wirelessly network my printer. And then, unbeknownst to me at the time, I completed the full DJ experience by discovering the most useful iPhone app there is, iTunes Remote. Remote allows you to see your entire iTunes collection (which in my case sits entirely on my iMac), make playlists and basically control the thing as if you were sitting at your computer--all from the palm of your hand.

And then it hit me. I could take the AirPort Express, hook an RCA cable from it to my stereo, set my iTunes to broadcast to the Airport Express and voila! So now I can broadcast to my harman/kardon DPR 2005 and Paradigm Reference Studio/80 speaker setup rather than relying on my computer speakers, which are sequestered in an upstairs room, tiny and not at all convenient for soirées. Beyond the convenience of now being able to play all of my iTunes library in a public space, I can control exactly what's playing, volume and everything else directly from my while walking around, pouring drinks, making idle conversation and telling other people's kids not to touch my television.

So every time that cool vaguely British kid in the skinny jeans tells you he DJs at some hot club in DUMBO, you too can say, "Oh yeah, I totally rocked my Christmas party this year! Went from Perry Como to The Smiths to Run-D.M.C. all with the flick of a finger!"

iTunes Remote in action

BIG APPLE CIRCUS

I hadn’t been to a circus in many years prior to attending the Big Apple Circus with Hipster Jr. But I seem to recall it being a grand event in a giant tent that included elephants and zebras and tigers and stilt walkers and 50 clowns piling out of a VW Bug. In other words, spectacle. The Big Apple Circus was more like a Black Cat firecracker to your more typical M80 bigtop event. Some might even call it quaint.

The first thing that struck me is just how small the “big” top was. I’ve seen elementary school auditoriums three times the size. While some circuses have three rings, this circus has one—one very small one. It was about the size of one of those round beds from the 60s that my aunt in Vegas sported until they stopped selling sheets that fit it. At one point the guy who balances on horseback came out with his two ponies and they proceeded to essentially turn in circles and look bored. Those beasts weren’t the only animals under the big top, though; there were also two dogs that came out at one point to dance with a couple performers. And that was the extent of the animal acts. There was a dude who spit ping pong balls out of his mouth and caught them, which was a pretty cool trick, and a pair of tiny Chinese twins in matching body suits who shoved themselves into what were essentially trash cans with no bottom, and a Russian woman who did acrobatics of a sort with ribbons extended from the ceiling. While all of these were impressive in their own way, I couldn’t get past the fact that it all lacked a certain oomph. There was a group of young male acrobats who did an abbreviated trapeze act for the finale, but they ended up falling into the safety net more times than they succeeded in completing a trick. And, once again, the tiny space made for a pretty lackluster performance.

That said, none of these folks were the main attraction. That honor goes to Bello Knock the clown. He sports a sweet Kid 'n Play sheaf of hair (to which Hipster Jr. asked why the guy was wearing a paper bag on his head) and looks bulkier than he probably is under his wacky clown outfit. He’s not so much a clown, really, as a goofy acrobat. There’s no seltzer bottle to the face, giant floppy shoes or even a squirting flower. He does, however, join other performers in things like the double hamster wheel of death (or whatever it’s called), the trampoline of ultimate bounciness and various other not-so-death-defying apparatuses of death. He was joined in his celebrity by Grandma the Clown, who was a stout dude in an old lady wig and face paint, and a ringmaster who reminded me of a kind of inexperienced Jerry Seinfeld. Grandma was especially odd, as her/his one talent was apparently doing flips, which he showed off after 90 minutes of doing nothing particularly funny. And the ringmaster was like the CIT version of a camp counselor or the starting JV quarterback—almost there, but not quite ready for the big time.

Overall the kid liked it okay, but was more into the weird lightsaber looking things and wacky lightup glasses being sold by the random carnie freaks than the show itself, and the overwhelming noise of the live band almost drove him to a five-year-old nervous breakdown, but the flying Vodka brothers finale brought him back from the edge just a bit. But, honeslty, the best part of the night for him was the crowded ride on the E train up to Lincoln Center. It would have been a lot cheaper had I known…

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