Slothra Goes to the PLUG Awards

Fellow blogger from the deep, Speckled Trout (of recent Type Slow fame) and I attended the 10 bones per ticket PLUG awards show, which is the awards show for cool music. I don't know why they give out these awards, what the criteria are, who votes, etc. but the lineup was Malkmus, Deerhoof, El-P (and two other shitty bands that both had guys who played little synths and bobbed their heads vigorously during choruses) and for ten bucks I was there.

David Cross hosted it and did a good job of making fun of how stupid/boring/unnecessary everything in between the performances was. I never understand why people every try to put comedy on a bill that people come to for the music. The last thing anyone wants to hear when they are waiting for a rock band to bring some discomfort are well-written comedy sketches. Also there was this thing called an "iPod battle" which was by far the worst excuse for entertainment this side of that Everybody Loves Fuckbasket spin-off show. Two teams or two people just played songs on their ipods though the PA back and forth and then the crowd was asked who was better. Everybody booed both teams and the next round (yeah apparently it was a preliminary round) was cancelled. Thank God.

First band I could give a fuck about. Deerhoof played about 4 songs. I love this band. They gave the lead singer, who is a tiny japanese woman who sings like one, a birthday cake. That was cute. El-P played two new songs, both of which sounded pretty rich, and got me fired up for his new album. But two songs, goddamn Producto, give the people what they want. He even had a horn section and didn't wear a trucker hat. Whatever, bring on Malkmus. Trout was the most fired up drunk person I have ever seen. He was grabbing random people and screaming in their face, which expanded his personal space considerably.

Oh yeah I saw the bass player from Pavement so I thought there might be some Slanted and Enchanted action (which didn't happen, much to Trout's chagrin) and there was a guy standing behind us who was almost 7 feet tall, so we thought it was Status Ain't Hood. I mean how many seven foot tall people are there period, nonetheless at an indie rock awards show. He claimed he wasn't him, but Trout wasn't convinced. If that was him and he didn't want to be harassed cuz he's a famous blogger, then fuck him. We'll see if there's a post about a screaming drunk kid wearing a brooklyn dodgers hat later.

Silversun Pickups was higher on the bill than 'Hoof and El-P. Fuck that. This kind of middling indie rock band is beyond boring at this point. Cross interviews Malkmus as James Lipton. Kinda funny but hey, again, we're here for guitars. Malk plays new shit, no Pavement. Has a mustache. Trout is pissed. No Pavement. He did play his Yul Brynner song however. Later Trout spends about $89 to download Pavement songs on this jukebox in a bar that did not wake up that day thinking "hey I think I'm gonna play somethin other than Bon Jovi and Europe tonight." Then Trout made the "I slept with your sister, oh not really" joke and almost got punched in the face by this fat Mexican who looked like Alf. Bad night for Trout. It ended with him spreading Nutella on a Tortilla and then not eating it, probably because it looked like poop.