PERFECT DAY

We went to see Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang last weekend at the Geffen Playhouse. It was a matinee show, lasting about 40 minutes. It started on time, and when it was over, I didn’t feel like I should have put myself to bed hours earlier. It was just another reminder of how my life has changed.

When I moved back to L.A. from New York at the tail end of 1997, I’d grown accustomed to eating out and watching bands almost every night a week. That was my world. I worked as an editor for a large, national music publication (rhymes with shin) and going to gigs was an unquestioned recreational activity. Didn’t matter how late, because people didn’t roll into the office until around noon anyway. The first night I hung with the editorial crew, they were all geeked out on Ecstasy at a Chemical Brothers show at Roseland. I dated a woman in the music business whose job, essentially, was to hang out in clubs all night.

That was my mindset when I moved back to the exact same Los Feliz bungalow I had vacated when I moved to New York without a job nine months earlier (thanks, Bob and Stacy!). Short version: I wound up dating another music business person and she covered gigs constantly. I was out all the times, and as a function of the blind lust I had at the time, I saw bands you couldn’t pay me enough to see today: Sunny Day Real Estate, the Promise Ring.

I’ve since my given up the really late nights; in fact they’re so infrequent that they’ve become legendary – Carrie and I will never forget the Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci gig at Spaceland that didn’t start until 1:45. And we got there at ll:30, thinking we were late.

As recently as last week, though, I ventured into the night to hear music. Stupid me. Got word about a Sloan record release party at some too-cool bar on Hollywood and Las Palmas. The info said 10. And when I saw 10, it registered as 10. Somehow it’d slipped my mind that 10 really means the time you should think about leaving your house for the gig. Don’t forget the inevitable line to get in and the opening band. So when I saw 10, I should have said, “oh, yeah, midnight.” Then, of course, I wouldn’t have gone. I wound up not staying for Sloan. Past my bedtime.

But Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang? Well, they rock, as always. The new material kicks serious ass, and I can’t wait to hear the record. Funny thing, though: I was bopping around to the punk rock version of “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and my five year old son Emmett was in a bit of a daze. He never really shows obvious signs of “rocking” when he’s watching a band, preferring to gaze studiously. But long after we’ve gone home, he’ll dance around and sing the music he heard, then talk about it for weeks.

The best part: Gwendolyn was done by 12:30. We chowed down at Mishima, headed back over the hill, and our perfect day was over.