August 26, 2004

In Person, He's Gallo-liscious

There's a reason why Cinecultist is an obsessive movie goer and not quite so fanatical about the music shows. Those suckers run quite late for those of us who need their beauty sleep before heading off to the Day Job. That's CC's way of saying, we're sort of feeling the pain of attending Vincent Gallo's late performance at Rothko last night in the LES. The crush of the hipsters, that bright red light before the show started, the incessant flash of the digital camera bulbs and the lack of any real pathway to the bar made CC feel a bit old and out of it. Then, we ran into Miss Jen on the way home and she suggested a drink at Piano's. At 1 am. This is what we're talking about. Those music bloggers have the stamina of god knows what and we just can't keep up.

Anyhow, what did we think of Gallo in the flesh, Live at Budaki, so to speak? He's not the best musician, that's the first thing. He's certainly earnest and he does this soft-spoken mumbling with the sheepish grin thing that seems utterly indie. Sean Lennon on the other hand, who played with Gallo last night along with some young fellow named Nick Haas (perhaps the brother of the slightly ana, former child star Lucas Haas?), is quite a good musician. He has a stronger voice, and more of a style when it comes to his compositions, but we'd be hard pressed to say he has more personality on stage than Gallo.

The music really isn't our cup of tea -- sort of noodling, jazzy ambient folky stuff -- but the real reason we were there anyhow was for the personality. Star persona on stage, so to speak. Highlight in that respect: Rothko's a tiny place with no real backstage area so to start the show Gallo and the entourage had to part the crowd with the help of a ginormous bouncer. It was like red sea of greasy hipsters being separated by their Moses. He's shorter than you would expect, by the way. And the kids love him, they kept yelling for Vinnie and that they were there to support him.

By the way, HUGE BJ poster for the film over the bar.

The ticket for the evening came with a free pass for a Brown Bunny screening over the weekend at the Sunshine on Houston but CC's going to be out of town. Thus, we offer the pass to one of our lucky readers who can identify which noodling '70s band the 12 year old Gallo told us he saw in Buffalo and was influenced by. Drop us a line at karen AT cinecultist DOT com with your guesses.

HINT: It's not King Crimson. More classical rock, according to our friend who knows about this sort of thing. One word name. We'll be picking the winner at random from the guesses Friday morning and e-mailing them back.

Posted by karen at August 26, 2004 10:51 AM