I’m home on a Thursday night trying to finish a story that I need to turn in tomorrow. Since it’s already tomorrow in the U.K., the new Pet Shop Boys album, Nonetheless, is up on Spotify. So, I listen as I write and I listen again after I decide that 700 words is enough words for now and I can finish that article in the morning, when my eyelids aren’t quite as heavy and the chocolate mini Easter eggs I popped into my mouth one after the other aren’t weighing me down.
To recap: I flipped over “Loneliness,” the first single and opening track from Nonetheless, when it was released earlier this year. It’s been doing really well in my sets too. It’s a classic Pet Shop Boys club track, the kind of that reminds you that life is sad, but you’re happy on the dance floor. They followed up “Loneliness” with the single “Dancing Star,” which I haven’t played yet, but I do quite like. It’s slightly reminiscent of “Domino Dancing,” which is probably why I picked up that vintage 12” at Rubycon last weekend.
I hate to break it to you in the midst of this “indie sleaze” moment, but the late ‘00s weren’t that cool. It was the era when poseurs and paparazzi flocked to Hollywood and West Hollywood to catch a glimpse of the misadventures of Lindsay Lohan. Bottle service was on the rise, as were the profiles of well-connected, but barely competent DJs. People started dressing up for Coachella, a baffling development to anyone who ever stepped near a porta potty on the final evening of the festival. This was also the time when it was obvious that we were in an endless war and the divide between the haves and have-nots was just going to get bigger. The late ‘00s foreshadowed all of today’s bullshit, but people were too entranced by gossip blogs to notice.
Lest I ruin your enjoyment of early 21st century nostalgia, I’ll let you in on one really cool thing that happened in the midst of ‘00s L.A. That was Sean Carnage’s Monday Nights. Between the mid-’00s and mid-’10s, Sean put together weekly showcases of local and touring underground artists first at Il Corral in East Hollywood and then at Pehrspace in Historic Filipinotown. Over 1100 bands played the events. Some became well-known, at least in indie circles. Most were just really cool.
