Cake

Went to see Cake last night, with redmed, capital_l and technolope. They were, in a word, F-ING AWESOME. Fine. That’s two words. Whatever.

The opening acts were odd. The first group was a forgettable younger band who kept mumbling their name and turning their back on the audience. The second was King City, a six piece acoustic-ish “what the hell was that,” mad mash up of circus music, polka, mariachi trumpet, and whatever the hell else they felt like. technolope commented “well, they only seem to have one song … but I like that song so it’s okay.” The third act, the “Brazilian Girls” was too-loud, too-echoey electronica plus tuba (yes, tuba) ensemble. The singer was cute, but that was about all they had going for them. The tuba player dancing around on the side of the stage made me think of the fat kid dancing alone in his room. It was odd.

Then Cake took the stage with a shout of,”We are Cake! We are here to serve YOU!” They played all the standbys. “Short skirt, Long Jacket,” “Never There,” “Shadow Stabbing,” “Frank Sinatra,” “Stickshifts and Safety Belts,” “Italian Leather Sofa,” “Rock and Roll Lifestyle,” “Sheep Go To Heaven,” and many others. They take stuff slow and deliberate in person. That snide, post-whatever, self aware air that I love about them comes through absolutely clear.

At one point the crowd was singing the backup line to “Short Skirt,” and he divided us up left and right, playing one side against the other. “Louder! They hate you! The other side hates you because you’re STRONGER. There is good and there is bad, whether you like it or not! There are people who work hard, and there are people who bitch that other people aren’t working hard enough. LOUDER!”

It was cathartic.

Then, this morning, Judo again. It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that I was worked over by three black belts. A nicer way to put it might be to say that I got a series of back-to-back private lessons. It was just the four of us for a two hour workout. As usual, very positive … very well intentioned … and I learned a huge amount.

Still. Worked over. Two hours. Three black belts. I’m gonna go soak.