some good stuff

The Swining discography is up! I've spent months working on the design and structure for this (all the content is stored in a database and entered through a content management system). I am also awed at the amount of data Filth (who does the actual content management) has put in. And more is coming soon. :)

My professor was on The Colbert Report last night! That was quite weird. Judith Stacey; I had her for something like "The Sociology of Gender." To be honest, it was kind of a lame class compared to some of the other gender courses I took, but she was nice enough.

I somehow forgot to mention that jaydk and I went to see The Cruxshadows last Thursday night. I can't believe I've been seeing them for seven years. I've kind of grown out of them; they're a little too sincere and well-meaning, but I have a lot of nostalgic affection for them anyway.

For some reason they played the Pyramid Club, which actually made me miss Albion. Pyramid is even smaller and more tightly packed, and I think they must let in a younger crowd, because the front section was full of those little kids who whine that people are pushing them. I don't know how many times I have to say this: if you don't want to get pushed, don't stand in the front of a mosh pit. Honestly. If I'm pushing into you, it's because someone is pushing me, and someone is pushing them, going all the way to the back of the club, and you whining isn't going to do anything but make the whole experience worse, since we're still going to be stuck standing next to each other regardless. The only good thing is that these annoying kids tend to get fed up and leave halfway through, so jaydk and I ended up right at the front.

I'm so proud of myself for corrupting jaydk. Now she's a bigger Cruxshadows fan than I ever was. She even knows their names, and knew the new songs better than I do. She was definitely not the type of person to go to a Goth club before she met me. ::evil grin::

I was a little disappointed with their set; too much emphasis on new songs. I would've swapped a couple of the newer ones for classics; I was really surprised that they didn't play "Citadel" or "Resist/R," at least. Not that the new ones were bad; the balance just seemed off.

It does kind of break my heart that this is the last time I'll ever see Rachel, though. She is just so freaking cool, and is probably my favorite thing about the band. How often do you see kids in a Goth club freaking out because the violin solo is so awesome? And she just does her thing, looking so serious, and doesn't show off, which makes her extra-cool. :( Glad I at least got to see her one last time.

And I'm really glad jaydk was there to share the experience. :)

Albion closed :(

Oh my god, Albion actually closed!

But... but... that's the first Goth club I ever went to! I was 17, with Stefanie and Athena, and I totally didn't fit in, but that night I fell in love with the Depeche Mode song "Walking in My Shoes."

I got my fake ID for the main purpose of getting into that club. (It worked.) I saw Uranium 235 there, and Joe (who didn't have a fake ID) snuck in as a roadie, and the band hung out outside with us and the underage fans who couldn't get in, and Chrissy's hair got stuck in Shane's nipple ring, and I was trying to prevent drunken Margaret from falling over, even though I barely knew her.

Steff, Chrissy, Jitney, Shane, and I went there after Uranium 235 played the Bitter End, and we took these goofy pictures, and no one could believe that Jitney was only 13.

That same night I had my final confrontation with a psychotic lunatic of a former friend. We had a tearful screaming match on the second floor, where the coat check is now, and I never spoke to her again. One of the best decisions I've ever made, and it taught me how to recognize (and avoid) the psychic vampires and pathological narcissists I've encountered since.

I saw Godhead there with Stefanie and Lisa and Helyne, and we papered the bathroom with Uranium 235 fliers, and some dude calling himself "Voltaire" hit on Helyne, and I thought he was creepy. And then afterwards the girls came back to my dorm room and we drew goofy pictures of Chris Bride and did impressions of Jason Miller.

I saw The Cruxshadows there more times than I can count. I'm sure I spent at least one Halloween there, and I spent a New Years Eve with drujan seeing Voltaire and Melotron. I saw Bella Morte and Slick Idiot and dozens of other bands. I saw Chemlab there for the first time, and met Jared Louche there. I saw PIG there when they didn't play until 3am and the poor friends I'd dragged along went home, and then 10zlaine and I took Guenter Schulz out to breakfast at a diner on 9th Avenue. I've hung out there with nearly every friend I've ever had, including plenty who would never have entered a Goth club otherwise.

They can't be closed.

I hated the snooty atmosphere and the overly-loud speakers and the disgusting bathrooms and the awful, expensive drinks, but still, I have so many memories of that place. :(