World of Latte’s! I love those hilarious commercials! I miss Fancy Ray, I bet he’d totally endorse Barista Girl.

You Tube Fancy Ray or Lickety Split. He’s so cool.

-R-

I was made privy to some info about a friend who was having a show at local venue The Fine Line, a few days ago. I was there a little bit earlier in the year to see some other band that I again can’t remember. The parking was fucking atrocious the cost was astronomical (you can park right behind the venue for 15.00, thats all my booze money for the bar!) and the closest spot that could be found was about a mile away. With the weather turning for the coldest I say fuck all that noise and I’ll just lobby for more accomadating parking.  

I walk in bust out the ol ID tell the bored gentleman behind the glass I’m there to see “Sleep is the enemy” and make a bee line for the bar. I order a Red Stripe and was flabbergasted at it being 5.75, but when the nice bartender brought me 2 you better believe it was Christmas in September!

There were 3 bands playing but, hey, them dudes blew. Sorry guys I just didn’t appreciate anything you were doing and I don’t remember your names. So I have no way of protecting my readers from your crappiness.

BAND: Sleep is the enemy

Ok, so here I go again breaking my first rule of reviewing. What rule might that be? Well, this is a new band and since this is Barista Girl’s dusty old music revue there is most certainly nothing dusty about these guys.

Sleep is the Enemy is a 3 piece hard rock/alternative/metal/ band from St. Paul, MN. The band was formed in March of 2008 by 2 former members (Dave Pickerign, and Josh Nickleby) of the grunge alternative band, “Emergence Entombed”. Whom, upon having jacked this little ditty off of MySpace I have no friggin’ clue who the hell they are. Were that is. Anyways they made bedroom eyes at a 1 Joe Radke ala a drummer fixing to get his rock on for serious ad and rounded the lads group out. These boys have been all over the Twin Cities, and I think Iowa aaaaand Madison, Wisconsin?

The influences of this band are as follows but not limited to:
Seether, Breaking Benjamin, Tool, Mudvayne, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, AFI, The Misfits, Goo Goo Dolls, Silverchair…The 1st song has a lot of potential, 2nd left a little to be desired, which I was most certainly ready to let it sort of set my opinion of the band. But with open ears and an open mind I press on. Whilst they might be emo I think that if they stay the course in their sound they might really contribute something worth listening to, to my little Minneapolis music scene. Ya know, for the kids. The vibe I get would be something along the lines of dare I say actually good screamo? No I don’t dare. I can’t fucking stand screamo, but I know some people that really REALLY dig that sound and I swear to all of you if you like any of the influences of this band you will not be disappointed. I think they have a lot to offer. The theatrics however? I’m not sure what to think, everyone loves to play dress up but I find that a somewhat cheap means of getting the attention of the crowd. I don’t think HONESTLY they need it…They’re good enough as is. I base this on seeing them practice at profile quite a bit before this show. My current, as of this very moment, thoughts; they’re good. They could OBVIOUSLY use some work (the band is still just a baby!) but they’re someone to check out. 3rd song, somewhat can I say swing meets thrash? I think I can. Dave the lead singer has a good report with the audience I notice that this is a bit of a lost art, oh, as they progress to the 4^th song it reminds me of…incubus. I personally enjoy the soon to be easy listening sounds of them but I imagine others beg to differ, the Gogol esque scream (I say that only because I can’t even reach that octave) in the middle might change one’s mind on that but I stand firm. Definitely incubus-y 4th song, slower, reminiscent of something along the lines of slipknot…but still DO NOT be deterred, if this was on a cd it’d be a welcomed change of pace next to the first couple of tracks. 5th song holy shit its pop punk. But against the pop punk bands of today they stay true to the a sort of west coast style, still keeping the thrash sound nice and growly but with better clarification on the lyrics, this is the penultimate pop sunk song, if you dig on that style of music that can be used in a skate video soundtrack you’ll be fucking set. I gotta say though despite my disdain towards such things I did really enjoy this song. Final song, I like this song, It’s faster and has something to it that I think is a sound that this band is making all their own. Seether’s cover as an adieu, what can I say? I think that I don’t like seether, I fucking abhor seether. But their rendition was worth listenin’ to… A toe tappin’ hit, maybe? For a fan of Seether, I digress, this is actually (for a Seether song) pretty damn good. I’d say they covered it almost brilliantly, just as a tribute or cover should be, in YOUR style, they did it expertly. I’d say from personal experience this might have been the 1st song they learned how to play together as a band. Which I heard sets the tone for every song they make after. Tonight though and even if Seether is listed as an influence all of their songs sound uniquely their own. Not all slathered in Seether. Very nice, I gotta say I’m glad that the 1st song they played together as a band wasn’t fuckin’ “Satisfaction”…I’d say that based upon what I overheard the lead singer talking about they could’ve busted out with a stirring rendition of…insert Danzig song here and it would have been one of the better concerts I’ve been to in a long while. My advice to them is to work out a rocking cover of a (OLD) Misfits song and you’ll have all the kids in town at your next show. They have the skill they have the vibe SHIT as much as I hate to say it they even have a look that is most certainly worth keepin’ an eye on.

Check out their MySpace and listen to some of their songs, as of 10/01/08 they DO NOT have a demo an EP an LP an RbGHT, nothing. Yet. But when they get something ready for distribution I’ll be updating you all, whether you like it or not.

To finish our night we went with the drummer to local shit hole Mickey’s diner for the best omlette’s on the planet when who should walk in? Perhaps Weezer? They had a show in St. Paul at the Excel and came to Mickey’s for a late night treat. However, since I hadn’t seen any recent pictures of them I was unsure and too much of a wuss to ask. Well, upon further inspection it was infact Weezer sitting next to us.

Next time.

Down to bidniss,

Sleep is The Enemy

UPCOMING SHOWS!!!

10/10/08 @ The Rock Night Club (St. Paul)
10/16/08 @ Big V’s (St. Paul)
10/30/08 @ The Terminal Bar (Minneapolis)
11/01/08 @ The Revival (St. Cloud)
11/12/08 @ The 620 house (Des Moines, Iowa)

Anyhoo.

Thats all!

Cheers

-R-

I was thinking and I came to the conclusion that when I do that, I get into a little bit of trouble. That is of course after everyone gets over that burnt rubber smell…

Anyhoozles, I had an idea…I wanna fan art section, everyones doin it and when they’re done they plan on jumping off a bridge which I also plan on doing.

Just kidding.

But for all you kids who want to achieve a level of fame within the ranks of www.baristagirl.com than send me your idea of baristagirl. I’ll take anything and I’ll post it. No nudies though. Sorry Charlie.

So give it a shot. You think you’re better than me? Huh? Izzat it? I knew it! You bastards!

Pictures, sculptures, interpretive dance, video, songs, sonnets, epic poems, movies, and even photography. Have at it kiddies!

Cheers

-R-

Ok.

I didn’t think I’d like The Blues, right? It all sounds sort of the same and the quality isn’t great and modern blues artists go against my beliefs that there is anything good made past 1989.

Few exceptions to the rule but I make deals. Alriiiight.

So anyhoo, when I was in college I took a class for my humanities credit called female artists through out history, and one of the papers that were supposed to write was women in music. I picked female blues artists from the 20’s and 30’s. Sweet hell was that a tough one but it exposed me to a type of music that I had been relatively indifferent about until I played some tracks by the empress Ma Rainey. Damn it was awesome, and her  story was pretty bad ass too.

But I digress.

It was inevitable bumping into Robert Johnson and when I did I was hooked. Officially. When I get hooked I like to look up all thier influences in search of the feeling you get when you know that this is the song that this great artist listened to and it made them write some great freakin songs. Makes the hair on your arm stand up.

So I did some research and I found this record company called Yazoo, and they specialize in all kinda blues and Jazz. I found Back to the crossroads, the roots of Robert Johnson.

Holy fucking crap.

If you can get down on the blues than you will poo yourself if you bust out the tracks on this disc…unless of course you already have it then shit dood, you know what I’m talking about.

Now don’t get me wrong I like all the songs but I just wanted to pick a few to give you all an idea as to why I think that if you’re interested you should check it out or at least wiki some of these people for the interesting lives they had. Just sayin is all.

13. REV. E.W. CLAYBORN,
Your Enemy Cannot Harm You (1926)
I can play this one like 3 times. I love this track, it sounds like 2 guitars but it’s only one. Also the subject of  the song is so fucking apt it hurts. Your enemy cannot harm you but watch your close friends. Badass, misery that comes with having friends and not being able to trust nobody no way no how. Awesome.

14. JOHNNY TEMPLE,
Lead Pencil Blues (1935)
This song is cool because its totally about some dude who can’t get it up and him and his woman are both pretty fuckin depressed about it. LOOOOONG before the days of E.D. right? Ha. Hilarious.

20. HARLEM HAMFATS,
Oh Red (1936)
This one is kind of vibin on the edge of Rag, I think that it could still get any crowd hoppin and the horns, hell yeah! The fact that its about some dude pissed off at a bartender for gettin his woman so drunk that she passes out before the party is over speaks to me for some reason, especially the part where she wakes up with a headache…I don’t know why…

So there it is. If you’re interested check it out. I think its worth it and it makes for a comfortable ambience if you’re pullin shots.

Cheers

-R-

 Not that though, I really get down on some ghostbusters but I mean

THIS. 

DUDES! I WANNA GO!!!! ME ME ME !!!! Ya know this was supposed to be a zine when I first started out, what with Barista Girl just being a cute lil in between comic to break up my writing and various ramblings…hilarious no? I think that it might still end up that way. I like to think so.

Wouldn’t that be nifty pete?

-R-

So, I dunno if I should be pooping myself in excitement or pooping myself in dismay….maybe I’ll just do a little from column A and a little from column B.

Nothing else to report.
Really.

-R-