Scared of Chaka, 7th Street Entry...in 2008, WTF?

Last night Mary and I went to 7th Street Entry to see an amazing five band line up. Now five bands is a lot even for a music head like me but when you put together a bill like this you don’t even notice how many bands there are because you face is being constantly rocked. The bill consisted of The Dynamiters, Birthday Suits, Off With Their Heads, Scared of Chaka and Dillinger Four.

The highlight of the evening was getting to see one of my favorites, Scared of Chaka from New Mexico. Scared of Chaka’s last album came out in 2001 and they haven’t been around since then but for some reason they decided to get together and do a 3 show mini tour with D4. If you were to give Chuck Berry 10 Red Bulls and a 8 ball of coke you’d get Scared of Chaka. It’s fast, it’s loud, it’s punk but it’s also melodic and danceable. The singer/guitar player for Scared of Chaka is also the bass player for the highly successful indie band The Shins which could explain why Scared of Chaka just kind of went away. It was such a great treat last night, being able to see a band I thought I would never hear from again. I was in my happy place.

Mary and I felt like we took a time machine back to 2001. We got to chat with some my old coworkers from Cheapo and catch up on their lives. It was great to hear of their successes and I look forward to keeping in touch with them. 12:35 am, Dillinger Four took the stage and our age started to show. This isn’t 2001 anymore, I don’t work at Cheapo and Mary isn’t in college, no, we have to get up at 6 AM to get to our desk jobs.

Anton's CD recommendation of the week

In two days we leave for Vegas so I wanted to try to recommend a CD that ties in somehow to Las Vegas. I was looking through my record collection trying to figure out what to recommend that fits the Vegas theme and was having a tough time. I pulled out albums like Hank Thompson’s “Live at the Golden Nugget” and The Rat Pack “Live at the Sands” but I only want to recommend music that I think everyone will like and would round off any music collection nicely. Then I came across my one and only Elvis album. Now this is not the “I left my last gift to mankind floating in my toilet” fat Vegas Elvis but the young up and coming punch your mama in the face hip shaking Elvis.

My Recommedation this week is Elvis “56”. This is a collection or 22 songs that Presely recorded in 1956. I do not agree that Elvis is the king of rock but this album is his best argument, it’s raw and dirty rock and roll blues. You’ll recognize most the songs on the album but there are some amazing lesser known surprises. Elvis doesn’t get any better than this. I picture him drinking a fifth of whiskey, walking into the studio, rockin’ the shit out of it, kicking the some studio hand in the teeth and then being carried home to bed. Minus the couple ballads on the album this was punk before punk was punk.