new your city / billy blue
jean coz (“secret door”) put up pictures of this year’s “” building extravaganza. new your city is a five day event that jean facilitates in which kids of all ages build a crazy cardboard city at the fox point library in providence. i didn’t get to go this year but i checked it out last year and it ruled. the week ends with a performance in and around (and maybe through? and maybe destroying?) new your city by the what cheer marching band. if you search around on the pictures page you can see scott work/death fully exhausted by children.
this thursday (the 12th of april), come see at gilrein’s, 802 main st, 9PM. gilrein’s used to be a big destination for blues acts and fans from all over, partly by virtue of being a cheap, cool spot. they closed down years ago and have reopened this month totally redone as a nice restaurant, with valet parking even. billy, who was a staple at the old gilrein’s, is excited about the reopening, and he’s trying to get a regular gig there (which would be great for him) but had to fight to get the cover down to $3 (from $8) so his friends (us) could go. as for me, i can’t stop thinking about the popular phenomenon of tearing something down and replacing it with an overpriced parody of its former self. and then there’s . well, take a look around this thursday, we’ll compare notes and strategies.
oh, and on topic here, a condo that one of jean’s kids made, which is really quite well executed:
[...] not much to say on last night’s billy blue show- lilah bought me beers, the antifaustian allure of blues music weaved it’s spell for good or bad on a floor full of chooglers, mz said that the decor was “ugly-new” (dim lighting over garish colors, no dust, patina, or signs of use etc.). anyway i had a good time. of course the music was great, billy was so psyched to be there and lived up, and the band is always on point. i especially delight in the guitar player, who has a great lemon-eating guitar face and new errol flynn mustache. as for the crowd, like i said, some real chooglin’ going on, some people flaunting the fact that they took dance lessons, karl lagerfeld was there, lots of students or whatever. there was one lady sore thumbing amongst the people on dates and full-on beering in a red sweatsuit who was OG from the old gilrein’s, i’d love to get her take on the whole thing. ok, back to this, but as for me, i guess i echo bucky jones’ cyber squat piss-take on the affair- that all the cleanliness, the marble, the lines, the lack of character, the idea that lack of character embues a profitable safeness, all these ideas, are sad. white bite. [...]