Well, the DNA Lounge security staff now has a theme song!

I'm sure anyone who actually reads this journal has some inkling of the fact that the reason clubs don't allow people to bring in outside liquor is not just because that's the only way we can afford to stay open, but also because it's against the law: allowing that sort of thing can cost you your liquor license.

So tonight one of the performers came in, got up on stage, and plopped her flask right down in front of her. Matt noticed this, went over and gave her the ``what do you think you're doing'' look; she ignored him, so he took the flask, emptied it in the nearest sink, and gave it back to the promoter.

The result? MC WhinyPants started rapping out four minutes worth of death threats! The gist of it was that she was not only going to shoot him in the head (sorry, choot him in the head), but his children too!

"That shit ain't right, that shit ain't cool, and he knows the rules, you just don't dump out some girl's shit. Foo!"

This is a keeper. You can listen to it here. The sound quality is pretty lousy, but it was lousy in person too.

Oh, and for full effect when listening to the distinctive African-American vernacular in this rap, please keep in mind that the MC was actually a blonde, nerdy looking white girl.

Apparently the song didn't get it out of her system, because afterward she stood outside and spent more than an hour loudly bitching about it to her friends, too. Maybe she was waiting to see if Matt was going to come out and ``represent.''

I made a few changes to the web site today: the top-level page now lists, in addition to our next event, all of the events for which advance tickets are available. That should make that a bit more obvious, and also points out ``big'' events that are happening more than a couple of weeks out. Also, tickets.dnalounge.com now contains calendar-like details on only those events for which tickets are available.

In this week's edition of the ``people really fucking suck'' newsletter, our top story is pictured to the right: yes, that's a kiosk trackball on which someone has not just stuck, but smeared a giant wad of chewing gum. Dear whoever-you-are: fuck you very much.

So remember last month, when it sounded like we'd decided to do live music on a more regular basis? Yeah, I thought so too. It really seemed like Barry and I had finally made a decision, and dammit, something was going to happen. Then we talked to a few more people, and we heard thirty ways it wasn't going to work, and all the decision drained out of the room.

Alexis put out the word to the existing set of promoters we work with that if they want to do a show that is A) live music, and B) not on a weekend, then we'll give them the room for free. They all liked hearing that, but the world's not exactly beating a path to our door. I'm sure it will help, but I seriously doubt that that alone is going to get us where I want to be, which is at least one live act a week.

What we really need is to find some promoters who know live music, and who are ok with a situation like: promoter and band pay the sound guy and split the take of the door. If we can do that and get around a hundred people in here, we won't be losing too much money, since we can run with a pretty stripped down staff. But this is not a lucrative arrangement for anyone involved, so we need to find some person (or more likely, set of people) who's obsessive enough about live music to be willing to do this basically for free, and talking bands into playing nearly for free as well. Of course, if everyone's working for free, but we still only get 15 people a week, we're still losing money, so we need that rare thing: a band with a draw, who are also willing to work for cheap.

Ron and Caroline have both expressed some interest in doing this, so we'll see how that goes. Ron's working on putting together his first show, and Caroline might do the same once she gets back from tour...

Correction: our little friend smeared gum all over two of the trackballs. (Presumably on the same night, but we didn't notice the second one until this morning.)

Here's an interesting article that just came to my attention -- it is a detailed history of the music industry, from the 18th century through 1999. From Music Publishing to MP3: Music and Industry in the Twentieth Century, by Reebee Garofalo. It goes into a great deal of detail about how things ended up the way they are; it really makes it clear that, from the beginning, the history of the music industry is a story of entrenched monopolies striking back at technological advances that undermine existing business models.

So, based on the email we've been getting, apparently I need to clarify something.

When I say "live music" I mean "bands." I do not mean "Live PA." I do not mean "dueling laptops." And I most especially do not mean, "standing there and playing someone else's records."

I've gotten several messages along the lines of, "yeah, live music, great! I dj deep house, when can I spin?" The mind reels.

Some photos are up of last week's Sunshine Blind show, and of Sunday's Lift event. There were a lot of people here on sunday. We like that. They drank a lot. We like that too. They were very, very bad tippers. We don't like that so much. They broke our previous record for most pukes in one night. We don't really like that so much either, but we do think it's pretty funny.

Blah blah blah webcast blah blah blah. The beatings will continue until the computers improve.