BESERKeley

Listening to: Catania vs. Palermo; 1:1

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Didn’t do anything but sit back and relax on a lazy and cloudy Sunday. There was a motorcycle show downtown, but I had burned my weekend budget on beer, a concert ticket, second-hand clothes, Berkeley-ian souvenirs, and CDs. The admission was U$15, and I wasn’t really much into chopper and cruiser bikes, and it would be (according to a US colleague I talked to last Thursday), just motorbikes. No classic cars.

Parking is hell at any small to large US city if you’re unfamiliar to the place. And in college towns like Berkeley – it becomes worse. You’ll have students zooming around on bicycles, mopeds, scooters, and skateboards. And a big number of them will do all sorts of stupid shit like run through red-lights, go the wrong way, cycle on sidewalks, and lock their bikes on the library stair railings. I know, cause I was once one of them…

So I parked my car in the Fremont Station and caught the BART to downtown Berkeley.

The place is just like Madison, where I used to study. Its your typical college town. State Street’s bigger sister would be Telegraph Avenue here. As I said later to someone… if Madison and Berkeley were similar types of beers, Berkeley would be the one with more alcohol…

I’d probably fit in nicely in Berkeley, despite the high number of arch-leftists amongst the population. Yep, there’s scores of folks here who still think governments worldwide should convert to the communist model, even though China & Vietnam are getting out of that phase (Vietnam as you know, recently gave a hero’s welcome to the “evil” American capitalist Bill Gates when he visited. Gates did what McNamara couldn’t).

Speaking of ultra-leftism, there was a shop selling Che Guevara, Mao, and hammer n’sickle shirts for U$18+tax. Hm, I should’ve worn my “Fuck The Revolution” tshirt from Komtar as a counter-statement.

Me too...

Obligatory shot of the gate...

So I spent the next few hours of remaining daylight walking up & down Telegraph Ave., buying clothes (including a nice 2ndhand Elliot Smith shirt), shot glasses as souveniers for me and my colleagues & pals, and until I stopped at audiophiles heaven… where music listeners who’ve been good go to when they die:

Score! What I have been looking for!

Next was to checkout Rasputin’s and compare their selection. But then I got sidetracked when I met this pair of girls selling button-badges on the sidewalk, and who both looked like the duo from Camera Obscura. University students, definitely. They had their own nifty stamping machine which they used to make the buttons, just place, stamp, turn, and stamp again. Bingo… a button which you now can sell for 75 cents…

Anyway, I had a nice little long chat with them for almost an hour… and learned one of them’s probably going to the Neko Case gig in Oakland next next week.

There are two places, at least, to hangout if you wanna hear some decent music in this college town; Blakes, and the Starry Plough. The two gals claimed Starry Plough would be better, but there would be a German death metal band gigging there tonight.

Not my type of music, so it would be Blake’s instead. Tonight’s show would be a Bay Area Band… called the Micheton’s.

The show started at nine, but I hadn’t eaten yet… so I went to silflay at the bar above while the band and their fans rocked out in the basement below. Blake’s allows us to take pictures and recordings (which I think every place should), so I snapped a few...

The fans got me pinned next to a pillar...

The Micheton’s sound pretty much like a 70s-style group in the likes of Led Zeppelin, but with a punk rock influence. And I mean punk as in “The Clash” and “Ramones” punk, not those Blink182 bullshit they pass for punk-rock nowadays. Not big yet, even by indie standards, but the Micheton’s had their own horde of fans who’d crowd the front stage. Like everyone else there, I was shoehorned into the crowd with 1 square ft of standing and breathing space.

Not exactly my type of music, but they have a nice sound.

And they have a MySpace too… like every damn band today.

After that was a college band named “Cold Hard Crash”, but I only stayed for three songs as the last BART was leaving at 12:30.

Anyway, here are several more pics…

"Hey ladies, I ...err... work for Under The Radar... Well,
I think The Decemberist's latest album is umm... ok"

Cold Hard Crash in action...

I wonder how my colleagues are doing now in Disneyland?

I got back at 4:30 in the morning and crashed into the bed. I didn’t get up until one…

THE END