a bottle of water is $4 at house of blues

i went to a naked raygun show with some friends on saturday at craphole house of blues. the show was fun except i forgot to bring ear plugs and my ears were still ringing on tuesday. also it got really fucking rowdy, especially considering the median age of the concertgoers was probably above 33 or so. raygun really brings the old ones out of the woodwork.

the arrivals, hot water music and naked raygun were great.

i had never heard of the methodones before, but they were pretty much the definition of an uninspired semi-poppy punk band. i recently began playing piano and learning about music and the methodones finally made me realize what people mean when they make fun of punk by saying it's just three chords over and over again.

by far the best moment was this burly skinhead guy. first of all, he moved in front of us during a really rough pit and acted like a great human shield. then he pulled a really classy move by taking off his bomber jacket, removing his shirt, tying it to his belt (in what you will soon see was a short-sighted move) and then putting his bomber back on. i barely got a look at him, but i saw he was covered in tattoos.

so he was getting pretty excited in the pit and flattened some dorky-looking kid in an undershirt with "the clash" and "anarchy" and shit written on in magic markers.nothing personal against that kid, but it's really funny watching stuff like that happen.

the skinhead really seemed to be working up a sweat (it was hot as shit in there, i wound up paying those fucking vultures $5 to check my coat) and then took off his bomber. i tell you, he had no fewer than eight huge-ass dragon tattoos all over his body. he looked like he was wearing a shirt made of a bunch of dio album covers. he was so awesome i probably spent more time watching him than i did watching the band.

after he took off his shirt, he did another few rounds around the pit and then stopped in the middle and started doing this weird, jerky interpretation of the robot. it was like some wonderful dream.

eventually, he wound up barreling toward these two young-looking girls who looked like they thought it was going to be more like a coldplay show or something. they looked like they were with like an aunt or an older cousin or something and were really grossed out about the whole situation. so they see this human locomotive glistening with the mingled sweat of probably 50 old, scummy punk dudes bearing down on them, and they literally shrieked and tried to run away but couldn't because of the crowd. i didn't really see the impact, but i'm sure he got his gross fat guy sweat all over them. i can only imagine their enthusiasm was considerably... dampened! a-ha ha ha!

after that, he whipped off his belt and threw it at the stage for some inscrutable reason and then had to stuff his shirt down the back of his pants. it was a sight to see... he left soon after and i was really disappointed.