ipo-ee-oh

It's about fucking time I blog about my International Pop Overthrow festival experience, don't you think? I was supposed to go to three shows, but due to the increasing pain of throbbing kidneys, I only went to one.

Let me preface this with saying I have a sort of "I always wanted to go to this thing!" thing since I heard about the festival all those years ago. Bands I loved like Splitsville were traveling out to L.A. to pop the night away. This is even where Pet Soul made its debut. So I jumped at a chance to volunteer my services as a merch lady so I could get in free. But as lazy as I am I was only willing to go to local clubs, so I picked a night at Spaceland where I was curious to see the show but didn't want to pay the cover. That was Tuesday, and Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. headlined. I was never really into Jellyfish, but I really dug its offspring (you know, like Jason Falkner, who I saw walking around Spaceland in a Wings shirt that night).

I think my favorite performance for the night was Kite Flying Society from San Diego. I just checked them out on MySpace and they're playing at The Derby on September 29. If I'm game I'll go. I've sort of been in a funk of not really caring to go to concerts lately. It just seems like a big hassle. I probably wouldn't have dragged my ass to this show if I hadn't made a commitment. But I'm glad I went.

So I know everyone wants to hear about Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. I was more excited about seeing Linus of Hollywood play bass in his band and sing backup vocals because I really like his stuff and the dude never plays live. When Roger appeared on stage in a studded jacket over a mesh t-shirt I wanted to puke. I initially thought he was shirtless, but the ringer on the tee became visible enough for me to think it was just something too seethrough. I don't know what he was thinking. It certainly would have been cooler (temperature-wise) to be shirtless. Not an attractive sight to say the least.

Then he proceeded to play a set of mostly covers. Not covers of any of his previous material, but people like Fleetwood Mac and Thomas Dolby. He played a cover of Redd Kross's "Pretty Please Me," which seemed to be really obscure to some people. He also made some comment about how he and his girlfriend (who he mentioned in several places, like he was trying to tell us he wasn't gay in that get-up) owe Jason Falkner for introducing them to "that band" (he didn't say it was Redd Kross) since they got into them late. I thought there was some association between the Jellyfish camp and Redd Kross? Oh well. They are playing Sunset Junction in a couple of weeks. I'm going to go, if only for the reason that I can't really escape the damn festival since I live at Sunset Junction.

At any rate, he played only a handful of songs from his forthcoming record and mostly covers. It seems he put a band together at the last minute so they didn't know the material. But everyone in the crowd was there to see him, you'd think he'd play some of his older stuff at the very least. He also would have sold a shitload of records if he brought them ahead of their release. If I had a nickel for everytime someone asked me about buying his CD, I'd have made some decent money at the show. But in some ways, it was a hell of a lot easier for me since he didn't have anything to sell.

The set sounded really good, of course, but I guess it wasn't what any of us were expecting.