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.