mood: oddmusic: 'si se calla el cantor' by mirah with the black cat orchestra

so i ended up going to coachella. the guy who bought the tickets had to bail at the last minute due to academic reasons, so i scooped his up for a cool 60. andres and i left on saturday morning on the 2 1/2 hour journey to the middle of the desert. seriously, who's idea was it to put a 2-day music festival in the desert?

as soon as we got there, andres locked his keys in the trunk. ha. so we waited about 20 minutes for the aaa cart to come by and we made our way across the disneyland-ish parking lot. to get in, they had to shake us and check our bags, so we waited another hour in the desert sun to get in. once in, we went to the main stage to check out the raveonettes in the middle of their set. they sound very much like the jesus and mary chain, in that beach-boys-on-acid way. they have such a great sound and style, and i was pissed off that we missed the first half due to the shitty circumstances.

next we went across the field to find m83 in the middle of their set too. m83 is like my bloody valentine with moogs instead of jazzmasters, but they stuck too much to their new material, which, in my opinion, isn't as good as their old album. nevertheless, andres was beaming.

indie woodstock, i call it. without the nakedness and sincerity, of course. marketing everywhere, i tell you. it's all marketing.

anyway, after dodging the playstation experience goons and the KROQ gestapo, we found nick and miles, who are friends from loyola among other things. mainly, the leadman and drummer, respectively, of the revelators, a band blazing it's way through the l.a. indie scene. also in their group was chris dubos, who's just as good a friend of mine and theirs. there were about 7 in their group, and we gladly made it 9. we went to see the kills, who are like a dark, non-conformist version of the yeah yeah yeahs. i liked the way they moved onstage, and their guitar work is very creative.

then it was time to eat. the food was excellent, sure, but excellence has a price. in this case, the price was $7 for a burrito and $5 for lemonade. i settled for a smoke. we sat in a circle in front of the shrimp cocktail booth and soaked in the atmosphere. miles' girlfriend erin was surprised i knew what an eggplant looked like, and i was surprised she didn't, since she was the one who was eating it. i used the straw from andres' lemonade and fashioned a cigarette holder. miles and erin concluded that both audrey hepburn and i are 'total sex pods'. i just grinned sheepishly.

then the marathon began. all of them wanted to see wilco, so andres and i tagged along. i didn't really care for some of the songs, but they were pretty good. those guys know what they're doing, and i can definitely respect them for that.

so that took an hour.

then everyone pushed forward for weezer. i somehow got turned around and for a short period before the set, i wasn't even facing the stage. then i turned around and found a little bit more space. honestly, i wasn't planning on seeing weezer, but i did, and they had one of the better sets that day. miraculously, i knew the words to most of the songs they played. still, their newer songs seem too similar to me for me to enjoy. that didn't stop me from shouting along to 'say it ain't so' and 'buddy holly'.

so that took another hour.

again, everyone pushed forward for bauhaus. that i could understand. bauhaus stopped playing around 1983 or '84. then they had a reunion tour in 1998 that regularly sold out an average of 5 minutes after the box office opened. coachella is the first time since then they've played. the first song played was their signature track 'bela lugosi's dead'. peter murphy was missing for the beginning of the song. of course it was all part of the show, because 2 minutes into the intro, he came in stage left with his hair long, white, and mad scientist-like suspended upside down by his feet from the 30-foot-high scaffolding. there's glam rock for you. i was amazed he could sing so well like that. other than that, though, the set was lukewarm, in my opinion. i was happy to hear their music, and like peter said, 'i could say i was there', but i was still puzzled as to how those in charge of scheduling could put bauhaus opening for coldplay, much less have weezer open for bauhaus.

and that took an hour, too.

so we had been standing for an hour and we could really feel it. we met dubos again and sat near the back of spoon's crowd to let the night close. we were supposed to meet everyone to go to an afterparty, so andres and i waited in the car for a phonecall. an hour and a half later, we got a call from dubos apologizing and telling us that no one else was going to the party and we didn't have a place to crash for the night. at that point andres was too tired to drive, having blazed enough just before bauhaus. i was tired too, but i drove anyway. it took half and hour to get out of the parking lot, and eventually we got on the freeway at about 2. i drove for about 15 minutes and realized i needed a couple of winks, so i parked at a gas station and slept a while.

i woke up again at 3 and started to drive again. andres was still asleep. i was still tired, but i drove anyway. i kept losing focus as i looked at the road, but i kept fairly straight despite the blurry curtain over my eyes and the high desert winds blowing me around like a 1 1/2-ton plastic bag. i got home at about 5:30 in the morning and the night sky was starting the turn a lighter blue. i went into my room and dumped all my things next to my bed. i wanted to sleep but i was sticky with 12-hour old sweat and i couldn't sleep feeling that disgusting. i was thinking of taking a shower but decided that it would take too much effort. i settled for a wet cloth along my face neck and arms and a good collapsin' into bed.

like i've been saying for a few days now, a lotta shit's going on this weekend.