errol flynn: a spectre still haunts h-wood

I can't believe I'm updating this blog again. This can only mean that in the massively influential epicenter of one of the three most culture-producing/destroying cities of the United States, you can still see shitty bands three nights in a fucking row. I should know - it just happened to me.

Last night I went to a somewhat trendy but "still cool" bar in the dregs of south Hollywood. "Why not?," I thought. "It might be fun."

It's hard to believe how naive and tragic those words seem to me now, less than a day later.

On an off-night this is the kind of dimly lit, vaguely-decadent-in-an-early-70s way place where you might see the solo project of a guy who used to tour as a rhythm guitarist in Black Rebel Motorcycle Club/Brian Jonestown Massacre/Queens of the Stone Age in the late 90s.

I walk in the place to find two guys playing a fratty rock song on acoustic guitars. I can tell they're "indie" tho cause the one singing has long straight hair and an Eroll Flynn moustache, and the other guy's guitar is turned up about 4 times louder than the moustache guy. I couldn't discern many lyrics because of all the slurring and intensity, but from the tone of it I gathered it to be some kind of metaphor combining love and drug addiction.

The next band, a rock 4-piece complete with smoke machines, ultra tight clothes, and age-inappropriate hairstyles, was fronted by some sort of 40 year old ghost of a goth. They did that repetitive heavy blues riffs thing that Spiritualized and all those 'heroin' bands do. Great, thanks, I like those bands. But you must really REALLY like those bands! Because for some reason you don't mind sounding exactly like them and proudly showing the world that you know how to print a Xerox. Thanks.