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Grovel, grovel, grovel...
Jun. 7th, 2008 04:26 amMy deepest apologies to my entire flist!
I know I've been MIA lately, but I've had trouble remembering which end is up. During my Foxboro Hot Tubs extravaganza with the surrounding work shifts, I calculated that I spent only 5 nights out of 17 in my own bed! Ouch. Anyway, I know I have posts to read, pr0n to read, and FBHT recaps to read (yes, Beth, Cheryl, and Dorie, I'm looking at you!) and I promise I will catch up and comment this week. I also have my own FBHT recap to do,too.
In the meantime, I leave you with this. This is a most entertaining open letter to Rolling Stone magazine, written by Punkinhead on GDC. It's clever and well written, and I know many of you don't read the forums there, so I asked (and received) her permission to reprint it here.
**********************************
Dear Rolling Stone:
Thanks for the interesting story in RS #1054 on so-called green touring. But I wonder if it’s really so complicated as you make it sound? For great ideas on reducing rock concerts’ carbon footprints—while giving those pesky, polluting concert goers the rides of their lives—one need look no further than the just-ended inaugural world tour of a new bar band called The Foxboro Hot Tubs. After scoring tickets to their shows in San Diego and LA, I can tell you these boys have figured out how to do green touring right! Here’s their four step system:
1. Downsize. This summer’s medium-sized and mega- touring acts should abandon the usual sports arenas or bum-fuck campgrounds where 25,000 cars have to fossil fuel themselves out and in just to get a little big-name musical action. Like the Foxboro Hot Tubs did in May, bands should instead book small to mid-size bars and clubs—nothing w/a capacity of more than 500--located right where people live and play, from resort-like Solana Beach San Diego to suburban Texas strip malls and Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood. In the downtown drinking centers of these communities, there’s plenty of public transportation fans can take advantage of, leaving their Humvees and DUIs at home. A side benefit of the intimate venues is the ecstatic thrill for fans of getting so up close and personal with their musicians--even with an unknown, new band like the Hot Tubs. As it turns out, ecstatic fans create a lot of energy. (See #4.)
2. Switch to biofuels. The Hot Tubs’ “Stop, Drop and Roll!!!” tour invested heavily in alternate energy sources. The stage shows appeared powered exclusively by plant-based biofuels such as tequila, Tecate, and the band’s apparent #1 choice, Pabst Blue Ribbon in the recyclable aluminum tall boy. Switching to beer could save touring bands millions; plus, it’s tasty and easy to find. At the Tubs’ show, for instance, it was everywhere. Lead singer and bassist Twitch and Dirnt even used the alternate fuel source for an alternate use; by soaking the crowds repeatedly with PBR, the band dispensed with the need for summer air conditioning, simultaneously helping to preserve both the earth’s ozone layer and the polar icecaps. You gotta love a band that respects Mother Earth more than their own livers.
3. Recycle. Both in concert and on their first LP, the Foxboro Hot Tubs prove they are happy cultural dumpster divers, digging through all manner of 60’s bad boy band psychadelic brit pop and resurfacing with only the best vintage stuff. FBHT play what my older brothers were listening to when I wanted to be them. You didn’t have to listen too closely at the “Stop, Drop and Roll!!!” shows to hear musical ideas lifted straight from the Strawberry Alarm Clock, the Monkeys, the Beatles (of course) and the Who. But this resourceful new group doesn’t just recycle, they completely refashioned found riffs in novel ways, forming sharp, sexy new sounds out of the best old well-loved raw materials.
4. Become energy independent. Perhaps most impressive, it turns out FBHT themselves create more than enough energy during the course of performing to gas up the bus and keep the Tubs all hot and bubbly. Live, FBHT becomes a spontaneous internal sexual combustion engine produced by the interaction of the small sized venues, large quantities of cheap ethanol and the Hot Tubs’ refabricated psychadelic melodies. When combined with the lush instrumentals and the overtly sexual lyrics--delivered with the conviction only a man of the cloth can offer--several laws of thermodynamics were spontaneously violated at the Belly Up and Roxy shows, setting off a perpetual motion machine, in perfect sync with the music. Every time the Reverend pulled another 12 people on stage or body surfed into the crowds’ hands, peaks of energy were visible rolling through the crowd again and again, generating a non-stop frenzy in the pit and on stage. If captured and properly channeled, energy like this could power the band’s tour bus across an ocean and into the bars where the beer is black and warm. Repeated enough nights in enough cities and true global energy independence is within reach. More love, less war. More booze, less guilt. More small shows.
Being the overachievers that they are, the Tubs don’t stop there. They continue generating energy and excitement even when not performing by tantalizing the faithful with a possible follow up tour-ette of the UK. The anticipatory buzz on the boards from Great Britain can be felt a continent away. Still more, cheap surplus power.
In RS #1053, Jody Rosen said the band Green Day (who are also The Foxboro Hot Tubs) “could learn something from this scruffy little band.” In fact, all of pop music could learn something from this scruffy little band and the Gilman Street ideology that has formed the foundation of their careers for 20+ years. At the mid-80’s-era punk collective where Green Day launched, there still is no back stage, so bands still take the take their places from the house. At the Belly Up in Solana Beach last week, brave fans could buy the boys drinks at the bar before the show. And for just $20 a ticket, (not a penny going to Ticketmaster, mind you!) they could afford to. (Go Marty!)
Of course, this first tour probably wasn’t exactly a money maker for the Foxboro Hot Tubs. At an average of 500 fans night or a take of $10,000, you pay six guys in the band plus at least another six behind the wheel and the equipment and the merch and the press, then add in the beer expenses and these were charity events. Where the faithful fans were the crippled (believer) kids.
So the Green boys are at it again, greener than ever, and music and the world are all the better for it. Wouldn’t it be cool if some other big acts joined the FBHT bandwagon sometime soon?
-punkinhead
*************************************
I hope you all are doing well in your little corners of the world!
I know I've been MIA lately, but I've had trouble remembering which end is up. During my Foxboro Hot Tubs extravaganza with the surrounding work shifts, I calculated that I spent only 5 nights out of 17 in my own bed! Ouch. Anyway, I know I have posts to read, pr0n to read, and FBHT recaps to read (yes, Beth, Cheryl, and Dorie, I'm looking at you!) and I promise I will catch up and comment this week. I also have my own FBHT recap to do,too.
In the meantime, I leave you with this. This is a most entertaining open letter to Rolling Stone magazine, written by Punkinhead on GDC. It's clever and well written, and I know many of you don't read the forums there, so I asked (and received) her permission to reprint it here.
**********************************
Dear Rolling Stone:
Thanks for the interesting story in RS #1054 on so-called green touring. But I wonder if it’s really so complicated as you make it sound? For great ideas on reducing rock concerts’ carbon footprints—while giving those pesky, polluting concert goers the rides of their lives—one need look no further than the just-ended inaugural world tour of a new bar band called The Foxboro Hot Tubs. After scoring tickets to their shows in San Diego and LA, I can tell you these boys have figured out how to do green touring right! Here’s their four step system:
1. Downsize. This summer’s medium-sized and mega- touring acts should abandon the usual sports arenas or bum-fuck campgrounds where 25,000 cars have to fossil fuel themselves out and in just to get a little big-name musical action. Like the Foxboro Hot Tubs did in May, bands should instead book small to mid-size bars and clubs—nothing w/a capacity of more than 500--located right where people live and play, from resort-like Solana Beach San Diego to suburban Texas strip malls and Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood. In the downtown drinking centers of these communities, there’s plenty of public transportation fans can take advantage of, leaving their Humvees and DUIs at home. A side benefit of the intimate venues is the ecstatic thrill for fans of getting so up close and personal with their musicians--even with an unknown, new band like the Hot Tubs. As it turns out, ecstatic fans create a lot of energy. (See #4.)
2. Switch to biofuels. The Hot Tubs’ “Stop, Drop and Roll!!!” tour invested heavily in alternate energy sources. The stage shows appeared powered exclusively by plant-based biofuels such as tequila, Tecate, and the band’s apparent #1 choice, Pabst Blue Ribbon in the recyclable aluminum tall boy. Switching to beer could save touring bands millions; plus, it’s tasty and easy to find. At the Tubs’ show, for instance, it was everywhere. Lead singer and bassist Twitch and Dirnt even used the alternate fuel source for an alternate use; by soaking the crowds repeatedly with PBR, the band dispensed with the need for summer air conditioning, simultaneously helping to preserve both the earth’s ozone layer and the polar icecaps. You gotta love a band that respects Mother Earth more than their own livers.
3. Recycle. Both in concert and on their first LP, the Foxboro Hot Tubs prove they are happy cultural dumpster divers, digging through all manner of 60’s bad boy band psychadelic brit pop and resurfacing with only the best vintage stuff. FBHT play what my older brothers were listening to when I wanted to be them. You didn’t have to listen too closely at the “Stop, Drop and Roll!!!” shows to hear musical ideas lifted straight from the Strawberry Alarm Clock, the Monkeys, the Beatles (of course) and the Who. But this resourceful new group doesn’t just recycle, they completely refashioned found riffs in novel ways, forming sharp, sexy new sounds out of the best old well-loved raw materials.
4. Become energy independent. Perhaps most impressive, it turns out FBHT themselves create more than enough energy during the course of performing to gas up the bus and keep the Tubs all hot and bubbly. Live, FBHT becomes a spontaneous internal sexual combustion engine produced by the interaction of the small sized venues, large quantities of cheap ethanol and the Hot Tubs’ refabricated psychadelic melodies. When combined with the lush instrumentals and the overtly sexual lyrics--delivered with the conviction only a man of the cloth can offer--several laws of thermodynamics were spontaneously violated at the Belly Up and Roxy shows, setting off a perpetual motion machine, in perfect sync with the music. Every time the Reverend pulled another 12 people on stage or body surfed into the crowds’ hands, peaks of energy were visible rolling through the crowd again and again, generating a non-stop frenzy in the pit and on stage. If captured and properly channeled, energy like this could power the band’s tour bus across an ocean and into the bars where the beer is black and warm. Repeated enough nights in enough cities and true global energy independence is within reach. More love, less war. More booze, less guilt. More small shows.
Being the overachievers that they are, the Tubs don’t stop there. They continue generating energy and excitement even when not performing by tantalizing the faithful with a possible follow up tour-ette of the UK. The anticipatory buzz on the boards from Great Britain can be felt a continent away. Still more, cheap surplus power.
In RS #1053, Jody Rosen said the band Green Day (who are also The Foxboro Hot Tubs) “could learn something from this scruffy little band.” In fact, all of pop music could learn something from this scruffy little band and the Gilman Street ideology that has formed the foundation of their careers for 20+ years. At the mid-80’s-era punk collective where Green Day launched, there still is no back stage, so bands still take the take their places from the house. At the Belly Up in Solana Beach last week, brave fans could buy the boys drinks at the bar before the show. And for just $20 a ticket, (not a penny going to Ticketmaster, mind you!) they could afford to. (Go Marty!)
Of course, this first tour probably wasn’t exactly a money maker for the Foxboro Hot Tubs. At an average of 500 fans night or a take of $10,000, you pay six guys in the band plus at least another six behind the wheel and the equipment and the merch and the press, then add in the beer expenses and these were charity events. Where the faithful fans were the crippled (believer) kids.
So the Green boys are at it again, greener than ever, and music and the world are all the better for it. Wouldn’t it be cool if some other big acts joined the FBHT bandwagon sometime soon?
-punkinhead
*************************************
I hope you all are doing well in your little corners of the world!
