Dressy Bessy did, unfortunately, not happen. No one I talked to went, and I talked to a lot of people. I hope the band managed to draw a crowd anyway.

Not much else happened for a few days until this evening's show in Grinnell: indie-rock wellsprings Yo La Tengo, playing for free at the... center... building... at Grinnell College. Those people have a one billion dollar endowment. They can afford to do this shit all the time, and regularly proceed to do so. Motto? "Grinnell College: We ran out of stuff to buy."

Anyway, the show was great. I think the show was great. I had to double-check, but I know the opening act was called "The Aislers Set." Their fashion sense was simple, so to speak; from my hipster perch atop the mixer console, it took me a few minutes to verify that we weren't watching some Partridge Family gig, and that everyone in the band was in fact older than I am. I blame it on electromagnetic radiation emanating from a faulty patch cable hooked up to their $10,000+ mixer console (but I digress.)

Yo La Tengo was nothing short of awesome--the ur-indie-rock act, so powerfully enchanting that already I remember none of their two-hour set. (Well, it was longer, but we left as the second encore started.) My hip-hop loving roommate informed me after the show that he recognized at least five distinct musical styles. I'm presuming he's correct. All I can remember is that at one point, Georgia Hubley and James McNew jumped up on something and started doing swimming-fish hand guestures while singing "sha-la-la-la-la-la..."

The only other distinct image I have is J...ehosephat using the Aislers Set's 45 minutes to down six bottles of Amberbach in parking lot with "the Organ Donor guy." Now, Papa Toasty may have left us in body, but he is ever with us in spirit, urging us to do unwise things for the amusement of our comrades. God bless him!

So passed Friday night. Next Iowa show is perhaps the Cougars gig Tuesday at the M-Shop here in town.

The other day I was trying to remember if I had seen this band play with that other band once, or if maybe I had seen them separately--wait wait no, that must have been that time we went to Grinnell, yeah, this band was opening for a third band. The other band I have never seen play live. Right.

The other day I decided that when I went to shows, I would write something about it here so that I could look back later and know for sure what bands I saw where, when. And of course inform the esteemed reader about new and exciting musicians. Right. This is the first such entry.

Tonight I went down to Des Moines to see the All Girl Summer Fun Band play at the Vaudeville Mews. The Mews, it should be noted, is a newish up-and-coming venue in downtown Des Moines, the kind of midwest concert spot that shows up in a place once every few years, spends a few months coming and being up, and then folds because of either management ineptitude, liquor license violations, police "encouragement," or a combination of the three. From what I've read, this establishment is apparently leaning towards the second option--"we may have to either lose the alcohol or lose the minors"--but for the time being, it's a nice place. Imagine a large shoebox with a lid made of tin foil, a cardboard "balcony" covering one end of the box and a little stage at the other end, cut out of the side of the box. The shows are well-booked and well-attended, the drinks are reasonably priced, and the vibe is okay. Sound and acoustics leave a bit to be desired, but that comes once a few checks make it to the bank.

(I mention all this because I will probably have many more opportunities to drop the name, and I thought I would get it out of the way.)

Anyway, the show was a good time, more or less. The opening bands both had to pause to deal with broken guitar strings, and the pianist/guitarist from Envy Corps had a hell of a time with his synthesizers. They sounded good, though.

The All Girl Summer Fun Band, meanwhile... they were an all-girl, summer fun band. I still don't know how else to describe them. It does raise a couple of interesting questions--like why didn't they suddenly disappear when autumn began this afternoon?--but they are what they are: a small indie rock band trying to make a living.

Tonight their usual bassist was sick, so a blue-haired friend was stepping in, but otherwise they sounded about how they sounded on their newer album, "2". Their set was very short, though... perhaps an hour long, perhaps because they don't have much material. The group's recordings combine for maybe eighty or ninety minutes of music, and with each song an average of two minutes long, it is apparently hard to come up with enough songs to play a very long show. I understand this, I feel sympathy, I emote, I arrive early for a nine-o'clock show, I leave the club at midnight. What is there to do in Des Moines at midnight? Even the bums go to bed at ten.

We drove back to Ames to eat some of my roommate's cheesecake and turn in, stopping briefly to rock the fuck out to a song off the forthcoming Rapture album that came on the radio.

But that's the way it went. Next up on the concert sheet is Dressy Bessy coming to town next Tuesday. I hope I can make it to that one...

"This is great!" he said without irony, and stopped.

I waited a moment, then ventured, "oh."

"Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction. I found out where she lived, so we went to her house, slashed her tires, and for good measure came back after she got them replaced and cut them up again. Later, we went back to her place a third time and slashed her tires, because I'm spiteful."