Thursday, 2-17-2000 -- Local alt/rock diva Lauren Hoffman prepared for a couple months' European sabbatical with the last installment of her "Shut-up-and-Listen" songwriter showcases at Tokyo Rose. The show featured Karmen and Lauren and one of my favorite little-known local performers, Atsushi Miura, the Japanese emigre who started at Tokyo Rose as sushi chef, ended up buying the place, and now helps make it the happening sushi bar/underground nightspot where Charlottesvillains (sic) can be alternatively chic.

Thursday night the alternatively chic were out in full force: mostly girls who fancy girls and smelly guys with big shoes, overgrown sideburns and dirty hair-- that auto-mechanic/hipster fashion thing. No matter where I sat, it seemed like one of these dudes would plant himself five feet away and gas me out with his noxious fumes-- and still have girls crawling all over him. God bless America. Someone should invent an anti-freeze scented cologne and save the world from alternative B.O.

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months." --Oscar Wilde

the mighty miura

Anyway, the show was charming as usual, with fine sets by Karmen and her Fridgean Mode and Lauren Hoffman, but I'd come to see the master, Atsushi Miura, in action, and I was not to be dissappointed. Legend has it that Atsushi was something of a stand-up comic in Japan before he migrated here to our decidedly more mellow village. If you've ever spoken with the man, you may have noticed that he's dry as hell-- a real icy wit, you might say-- but lurking beneath his cool exterior is the silly mind of a bored Beatles fan. He even has the Beatles' faces laquered on the front of his guitar. His music is, in a few words, the best of the worst: a repretoire of self-penned broken-English love songs yodeled like Roy Orbison with his manhood caught in his fly, mixed with tunes full of sugary sentiments so cute that they challenge the listener not to throw up, and biting commentaries on the glaring reality that there is more to life than three nightclubs, 900 restauraunts, a college and a hospital. He is, by virtue of his unadulterated honesty, a grand master of acoustic suck-rock-- a loveably low-fi lounge crooner and cynical social critic. I had a blast. The alternative greasemonkey set was loving it, too, howling between tunes and roaring their approval.

winn (in hat) wallows with the ramblers

The show ended early so it was off to the Buddhist Biker Bar & Grill for another overstuffed Hogwaller Ramblers Thursday. I snuck around to the side porch and peeked through the glass door before risking an assault on the main entrance. True to form, the place was packed with college partiers guzzling suds in the postage stamp-sized room that houses both the band and the main bar. Back when I used to spend alot of time at the Buddhist Biker, I'd always end up trapped at a corner table unwilling to move for fear of losing my seat. This usually resulted in boredom. The other night I realized that the key to having fun in this kind of frat party environment is to stand in the middle of everything and be jostled. Once you get used to it, it's a kick to have a new person to talk to bumping into you every 30 seconds or so.

The Hogwaller Ramblers pumped out their acoustadelic porch rock for the packed house in an admirably ramblin' way. Jamming with them on nylon-string electric guitar was Agents of Good Roots' Andrew Winn, providing an almost classical counterbalance to the Ramblers' barnyard jams. I said "yeehaw" a few dozen times, rubbed elbows with a few dozen wahoos, and headed to my shed to rest in my nest.

Saturday 2-19-2000 -- All the local papers wrote about Moe, (somebody's press agent should get a raise) so I figured it was my duty as a responsible journalist to check them out live. They stuffed Trax-- front-to-back and side-to-side-- with hippie freaks. Out-of-town, traveling hippie freaks, no less. I don't think I knew more than 12 people there-- and half of those were on the staff. I could only assume that Phish was taking a break from tour, so the Trustafarians (-- tour-lingo for rich party-kids following the hippie-style "jam band" scene, squandering their trust-funds on t-shirts, hacky-sacks and unmentionable illicit entertainment) were making the rounds of other noteworthy psychedelic bands. Moe is indeed noteworthy, although it took the majority of the set I caught for the jams to turn from commonplace two chord extended soloes into something really fiery and interesting. The digital light show was tre cool, and had a profound impact on the audience, making me wonder if some of the afforementioned unmentionable illicit entertainment could have found its way into the gig. Never!
--Cripsy Duck

It's not just for breakfast anymore. cripsyduck@mindspring.com