"that's how it was on the first day"...

so day one of Atlantis is over and it was quite an interesting day... i will start with the negative and move onto the positive to finish on a high note going into tomorrow. lowlights: 1. parking - i feel like i spent most of the evening driving around trying to find a parking spot that wasn't going to cost me anywhere from $10 - $15. i have this inbred desire for the "quest" - the neverending search for the best/free parking, so i spent quite some time driving in circles around venues. i ended the night having visited 4 venues and only paying $5 total....score. 2. drop bombz collective - we went to the loft to try and catch some Arc the Finger Records acts (will be discussed later) and got there too early... we ended up enduring only as much of the "collective" as we possibly could, and being illegally parked was not worth the show. unfortunately we left to try and find better parking and never found any so we drove away for good apparently about 10 mins before all of the good shit dropped. they didn't so much as sample old recordings so much as play the entire songs with a beat underneath them and imcomprehensible rhymes over the top. i'm usually loathe to criticize any individual's artistic efforts, but i feel like they could have been more creative with their musical stylings. 3. unknown band at the star bar - there was a saxophone involved and a funny hat and an empty room, 15 minutes later we were gone. 4. it was my friend's bithday and he ended up as DD - and that just sucks all around. highlights (starting at the beginning of the night): 1. Minamina Goodsong - i went back out to fuego to catch some of the devil stole the beat showcases that they were holding early in the afternoon. i arrived just in time to catch this hip-hop act and was much more impresssed than i thought i was going to be. These guys are one of the acts on Arc the Finger that I was going to try to catch at a larger venue later in the night. the beats were orignal and catchy the performance was not affected and did not feel overly rehearsed. the flow of the performance was very good and they had some damn catchy songs, here are a couple of them: - big - the porch the album Four Farmer Circus just came out and can be purchased here... 2. Good Friday Experiment - wow, i was really impressed with this band... they followed minamina at fuego (odd mix) and began setting up your basic drum, guitar, bass things then came the myriad of piano and organ things and i began to became very intrigued. the sound is updated psychadelic 70's organ rock.... at times mellow and atmospheric and more like experimental noise pop in others, whatever you want to call it, it all equals good and a band that you should definitely check out: - full crush - early ideas about light - halocline 3. Second Shift - on a night that was marked by almost empty venues where i had been, second shift packed out 10high, an indication of the solid local following that they have garnered through their live shows. admittedly, this was the first time i had seen them live. i have met the lead singer on a couple of prior occasions, and he is a super nice, quiet, almost unassuming kind of guy.... however, put him on stage and he becomes a performer, literally a young Mick Jagger/Scott Weiland-esque performance that fascinated me. honestly, because of my fascination i was thouroughly distracted the entire show, it was like someone had flipped a switch on the guy and all i could do was stare. i've heard of rock stars having on-stage personas, but never having met anyone like that i never really bought it, until now. i don't mean to harp on this, but it really was an interesting revelation. anyway, the more i dwell on the show and try to pick out other parts of the performance, the more i liked it as a whole. the band was good and cohesive, they know how to perform and keep the crowd engaged. if i had to describe the sound i would say that they are a filled-out garage rock band... so take say, the strokes, add fuller, more complex guitars with good solos and then give julian casablancas some speed and backing vocals. they like to stray away from the standard song structure which i appreciate, as it adds some uniqueness to their songs, but the songs maintain a singalong, hooky quality at the same time. i also would really like to see them at a different venue with a better sound system and better acoustics (the system at 10high has always sounded a little "muddy" to me, and that may be because it is such a small space), maybe when they open for Louis XIV at the roxy. to make a long story short, i hated when it was done that i had been distracted....needless to say, i'm really looking forward to seeing second shift perform a second time... - power in numbers - *stream* that was the end of the night, then there was sleep and an early alarm... my sleepface has been stolen for sure now...