thx j

Thanks to my future husband John Christon for the great new cheesy logo/name. And uhh, I'm sure I'll update about something at some point.

Big stuff happening, guys.

LNS: November 6

A ton people came to last week's Late Night Series and none of them drank the coffee. What's the deal, guys?

I guess a lot of them were probably there for the Michael Isley (pronounced is-ley) Band, who were our feature that night, and not for the free terrible coffee. Whatever.

They were kind of like Maroon 5 or The Fray. Unless that's insulting. Then I guess they were like the Talking Heads or the Clash. Their band name is like the Dave Matthews Band's. And their initials are like the Men In Black's. Or Michael Ian Black's. Whoever they're like, they brought like a million girls with them, so I guess they're doing fine.

We thought maybe they were going to break our stage because there were five of them and they were jumping around and being all animated and stuff, but they did not break our stage and instead they just rocked the house. And after the show was over they and their million friends hung around and were skateboarding INDOORS. It made everyone feel like they were in an Avril Lavigne video and we were all grateful.

The rest of the show was pretty good, too. There was a girl whose name I forget who played guitar and sang with a few guys playing bongos and harmonica and stuff. She was good at singing and sounded like Michelle Branch.

Simply D did some comedy and made everyone feel awkward.

And, saving the best news for last, Josh, Jon, and I played Scrabble!

Josh won, I came in second, and Jon was mad the whole time. It was great!

The End

LNS: Does anyone read this?

It's been almost a month.

The first time I didn't update the feature was DeJesus and they were great.

The second time I didn't update the feature was Luke Giordano and he was funny.

Last week we had a student comedy competition, the winner of which gets to open for the opener for Kenan Thompson at CAB's annual comedy show. The participants had to be Drexel students and maybe had to be not funny. No, that's a terrible thing to say. One of them was funny. He won and his name was Diego. They were all judged by a panel of local comedians (Philly's Phunniest: Kent Haines and another guy) and Luke. Luke was supposed to be competing for the Kenan thing until he decided he was too good for that and had to be a judge. What's with that, right? Why did we let him do that?

Our big ticket item, "free pizza," disappeared in about 10 minutes. Sorry to everyone who missed out.

LNS: October 9

See, this update is way (kind of) timelyer.

Last week's LNS was RECORD BREAKINGLY AWESOME.

I'm kidding, we didn't actually break any records, but it was PRETTY GOOD.

There were a few notable moments. The first that comes to mind was this group of guys who played this song that may or may not have been called "Voodoo Child." I don't think any of them were Jimi Hendrix, but that only put them at a slight disadvantage because one of them was still a guitar player and they were all alive. Anyway, they were ridiculous. The guitar player soloed the whole time, WHICH I HATE, but instead of hating it this time I LOVED IT. And the singer had a ton of hair.

Another great moment came from the cello player/frontman of Dejesus. For some reason we put him on last, so by that time I was like "ugghh, I wanna go homeee." But when he started playing I was like, "ugghh, this is grreeaat." His band is actually going to be the feature tomorrow night. So if any of you who read the blog (Matt) want to, like, see them or whatever, you should totally come.

The feature for last week was Mike Bell and the Tom Hanks. It was a guy, he played guitar, he brought friends. It was good. Then we ran into him at a bar on Friday night. It was embarrassing for everyone involved. I took this picture of him there:

Uhhh, what else. Luke Giordano did comedy. He does it every week. "I'm here every week, folks." He could say that if he wanted to.

So every Thursday I send out these Facebook messages telling people to come to LNS. They're always really great -- funny, informative, etc. -- but I was never sure if they actually brought people out to the show. But last week, and I hope Nick Anselmo is reading this, one guy ACTUALLY ATTRIBUTED MY MESSAGE TO HIS BEING THERE BEFORE HE STARTED PLAYING. So, you know, next time anyone thinks the only things I contribute to LNS are these self-indulgent blog entries, I'd have to ask them to THINK AGAIN PLEASE.

Well, I hope to see you all (Matt) tomorrow.

LNS: September 18 and 25

WELCOME BACK!

Ok, well, welcome back three weeks ago. BUT WELCOME BACK TO THE BLOG! 

First, I would like to say hello to NEW LATE NIGHT SERIES PRESIDENT JON NILES! 

I know what you're thinking -- "Jon Niles? Kelly, why aren't you president?" Believe me, EVERYONE is wondering the same thing. I guess it's just because Late Night Series is not a democracy -- it is not a place where everyone gets together and votes for the prettiest, funniest, and (therefor) best person for the job. It is, rather, a plutocracy*. Except in LNS wealth is not measured monetarily. It is measured in how many rock/blues/country bands you're in. Since Jon Niles is the only person in a band like this, he holds all the wealth and was the only eligible candidate. 

Speaking of Jon Niles' band, The Levee Drivers, they were the feature for the welcome back show! (I wonder how they got that gig.) They were very good. I take back everything** horrible I've ever said about them. 

We had a bunch of new people perform and an even bigger bunch of new people come to watch. It was exciting. 

We also had a show on September 25th. Even though we had a show the week before, it was kind of the official "welcome back show." I don't know why. 

To encourage people to "come out and play," we didn't have a feature. Surprisingly, this worked. A ton of people came and some of them were even good. 

Once again I know what you're thinking. "Hey Kelly, this all seems pretty general. Can you give us some specifics about these shows?"

Short answer: No.

A little bit longer answer: It's, like, three weeks later. I don't remember. 

I promise this week I'll give a better, more timely update. 

We also had a show on October 2nd. 

I'm sorry.

*Only other form of government I can think of.

**Not everything.

LNS: May 8

Ok, I know it's been a while since I last "blogged." Let me just say this: I have a lot going on in my life, all right? Heidi is moving to Vegas and Spencer has no idea, Joey is absolutely crazy but is going to rehab and should be fine, Amanda found out, via Facebook, that Alex has a girlfriend, Tila is finding out who's really in it for her...I clearly can't just sit around and blog about LNS all day, ok? Jesus.

Anyway, the feature on Thursday was Thom McCarthy. That's right -- Thom. With an "H." Like Thom Yorke or Thom Arnold.

Every picture of him that exists on the Internet is of only half of his face. Except this one:


He's kind of an eccentric guy, Thom. In a good way, though. I think. His songs are good enough that he gets away with it, at least. When he performs he gets really into it and, like, walks around and stomps and yells and stuff. It's entertaining. Thankfully he did most of this off of the stage, because when he was doing it on our (crappy, makeshift) stage we were kind of all exchanging worried glances, visualizing it collapsing underneath him. It didn't, though. And he was great.

There's only one thing I don't really like about Thom and I'm going to say it right now. In his song "Cheesteaks [sic] Live Forever" he sings:

Blinding ball of fury in the sky
Of which we dance around
In perfect time

Of which? Really? Thom, that doesn't make any sense. "Around which we dance," yes. But "of which we dance around"? Nah. Get rid of the "of," Thom. It's unnecessary. It's something of which you should rid yourself. (<-- Necessary.)

A lot of people came on Thursday night. I don't really know why, but I hope that keeps happening. We even ran out of coffee. We RAN OUT of COFFEE. The worst coffee in Philadelphia and we ran out of it. That's how many people were there. I guess we're just pretty great, huh?

Yeah.

LNS: Band Night, April 24

So, last Thursday was band night at Late Night Series. As opposed to our normal laid-back, acoustic, hey-man-whatever style, we had rockin' lighting and full bands and loudness and man-get-totally-pumped-dude attitude. Like, you know, whatever.

If I were to say that the night went off without a hitch, let me tell you, I would be kind of lying. It was like a reality TV show, almost. And not the Tila Tequila kind, either. More like the Apprentice kind. Or the High School Reunion* kind. Up until right before the show started we had (basically) no idea whether or not any bands would be showing up and, if they did show up, whether or not any of them would have instruments. There was a lot of drama but, like all good reality TV shows, things worked out. For the prettiest of us, at least.

The bands that played were Reno Subject, The Bee Team, Everyone Everywhere, and Mercy Blue. There was something for the frat boy, indie kid, emo kid, and tough guy in all of us, respectively. (More like disrespectively, am I right??)

But yeah, it was fun. And Mercy Blue did a terrible cover of a Tom Petty song. It was great.

So uhh what else...

We handed out surveys to everybody. It's a new thing we're doing. We're trying to, like, learn stuff about our audience. Like how they heard about us and how hilarious the things they fill in under "Other" can get.

So far: a friend and not hilarious.

Uhhh...No scrabble this time.

Yeah, I guess that's it. We're having a bake sale this week. I accidentally sent out an e-mail saying that it was last week. Again, my b.



*Because no one watches that show.

LNS: International Night, April 17

Tonight's show ended about...a week ago. Totally slacking. My b. 

Anyway, it was "International Night," which basically only meant that there were flags all over the place. Aside from the false promise of internationality, the show was very good. It started out with Kristen of Pint O' Nu (of Pi Nu Epsilon) playing some fiddle (which could be considered Irish, which then could be considered international). She was followed by comedian named Troy who had a joke about Jamaican music (international), and soon after that, the night's feature, Tommy Bottoms. He performed an incredible spoken word piece about America's politics. To the naked eye this may not seem international, but if you were from another country...

Tommy Bottoms brought with him a female friend whose name, I think, was Keo. She performed a pretty intense, sexually charged poem entitled, "Wow." I'm not going to lie, it made me incredibly awkward. But for those lacking my strict Irish Catholic, sexually repressed background, I'm sure it was powerful. The phrase "all up in my snatch" was used. 

April 17 also marked the return of LNS used-to-be-regular Lee G. He performed a few new songs, one of which he sang (rapped?) with a British accent. Thanks for helping out the cause, Lee. 

The crowd was pretty large. We almost ran out of chairs. It was great. 

Jon won Scrabble. He scored 110 points with the word "idealist." 

Impressive. 

LNS: April 10

Tonight's show ended about an hour ago and, really, it was great. At least good with moments of greatness. Remember how I said the Vultures were "pretty good?" Well I'd like to retract the "pretty." They were actually good. I should also retract the "actually." Kind of condescending. They were definitely good. Like, really good. 

Like Fastball meets fans of the Beatles. Meets harmonization. Plus the singer (who kind of looks like Michael Ian Black) would sometimes say cool things like, "Play it, Johnny!" before the guitar player (presumably "Johnny") would play a solo. It was great.

The non-features included a few regulars (Ronnie Long, Kevin Ricci) and a few semi-regulars (Angel, Sam) and non-regulars (Hutch, Lucas) whose links I cannot find. Poetry, Comedy, Music -- there was a pretty decent spread tonight. A pretty good crowd, too, after around 9:30. I guess I'll take a compromise. 

In other (some might say more important) news, I totally won Scrabble tonight. How, you ask? Well...

Zooms. Z was triple letter, the blank landed on a triple word. Bam. I did have help, though. I did have that.

The Vulturez

So the feature for tomorrow is a nice little group called "The Vulturez."  I took the liberty of changing the "s" in their name to a "z" -- no need to thank me, guys. They say they're influenced by bands like the Beatles, Wilco, Bright Eyes, Dispatch, Bruce Springsteen, and Led Zeppelin. Yeah, we'll see. Dana Fortuna of Philadelphia says, "i need you guys on my ipod..RIGHT NOW." Michael Marsdale of Cherry Hill High says, "yo you guys are the shit....my best buds. call me up. do i smell forties?" If that's not convincing, I'm not sure what is. 

But really, they're pretty good. Like when they got on stage last time we were all yeah, "Yeah, ok," but then when they got off we were like, "Hey, that was good." Plus the one guy looks like Maeby from Arrested Development. I won't say which one, but if you come tomorrow night (8:30) you can judge for yourself. 

Anyway, I know there's an elephant in the room, guys. And its name is "The Office." Yeah, ok, it's new on Thursday nights, we have LNS on Thursday nights -- believe me, I see the dilemma. But let me take a moment to make our case:

1. You can watch the Office online on Friday.
2. If you wait until the DVD comes out you can watch them all without commercials OR suspense. 
3. When you look back on your life you can say, "Man, I really lived!" rather than, "Man, I totally saw every episode of the Office on the night it premiered!"
4. Post Midnight, our host, is often as cringe-inducing as Michael Scott.
5. There's coffee at LNS and you just can't get enough of that stuff.

So, of course, the choice is up to you. But I think you should choose Late Night Series. Absolutely I do.

Oh, hey

Welcome to the brand new Late Night Series:Philadelphia blog. Yeah, we're hip. We blog. What can we say. 

For those of you who don't know what LNS is, well, let me tell you. First of all, it isn't a soft-core porn clip show on HBO. Sorry. It's actually a weekly open mic event that happens every Thursday at 8:30 in Drexel University's Creese Center. That's not to say that we're, you know, like, some Drexel University thing. No-no-no. I don't even go to Drexel University*. We showcase artists from all around Philadelphia and the surrounding areas -- everyone's welcome. And there's free coffee. I make it. Sometimes it's decent. Most times it's not. But it's free! Also there's Scrabble. 

So anyway, I'm Kelly. I'll be blogging about LNS stuff. 

*Yes I do.