What We Did.

While not exactly cut short by, this weekend's activities were sure curtailed by the double attack of insane weather and NXNE. Nevertheless, still fun!

Friday's Famous Players website launch saw a half-full basement getting way down to Adam+Jeff's blend of mashups, slutty electro, and trashy remixes, while upstairs Hi Mom and Ellie figured out new ways to mix in and out of hiphop, classic funk, no-wave, krautrock and disco. Truly, it was a jam.

It was so beautiful out on Saturday that it was hard not to imagine that every party in the city would be wall-to-wall rammed:

The Family Affair anniversary was a fun time, with Pat C and #1 Dad spending the night switching off between classic new wave, electrohouse and 80s disco jams while up the street Hi Mom and Hard Dough played to a (mostly) empty house, albeit one that filled up pretty quick by the time last call hit. Weird! But each party had a respectable dancefloor, and when our competition was as heavy as it was, that was all that we could have asked for.

What's in store, though? On June 20th, Hi Mom and Hard Dough reconvene at the Whippersnapper gallery to bring some needed well wishes to the kids in Spiral Beach: after postering a few garbage bins, they got hit with a $1500 fine! What??? Terrible news. Never ones to take adversity for what it is, the band has turned their misfortune into a party: an all night benefit at the Whippersnapper to help them pay the fine. Expect bands, rowdiness, smiles and fun. Hi Mom and Hard Dough take the decks between sets, with an extended dance set at the end of the night!

And if that's not your bag, Bang the Party celebrates it's one year anniversary the same night, at The Boat!

Meanwhile, you might want to check out these tracks. They're sure to make you smile at least a little:

Bluejuice - Vitriol
Like McLusky, Blur, or the Buzzcocks before them, Bluejuice manage to take everything good about snotty, bratty music and leave all of the annoying bits behind. "Vitriol", from their album Problems is a nice taste of fuzzy, organ driven pop-punk, with a much firmer dance beat and less of a focus on lyricism. I won't lie: this isn't smart music. But when has this kind of thing ever been particularly smart?

Sexual Harassment - You Are My Sexual Connection
On the "shamefully neglected 80s New York art-disco" tip is Sexual Harassment. This song is the closer from their only release, 1982's I Need A Freak. The whole album, but this song in particular, is the kind of overjoyed, sexually charged dance music being made in the death throes of disco. It's the kind of coke fueled, forward looking dance-pop that would presuppose stuff like DFA and DC Records, not to mention bands like Out Hud, Stereo Total and Professor Murder, among others. Well worth tracking down!

See you on the weekend!