M Bar Music, Acting, and a New York Flavored Flashback

So, my friend started an event on Facebook advertising that he and his band were playing a gig on Friday. Great. So, last night, I walked up to the M Bar in Hollywood, on Vine and Fountain. I got there a little early (my friend's set started at midnight and I was there at 11:40), so I sat down at an empty table and watched the band play. Finding an empty table wasn't hard; there were maybe eight people in the bar, which could have seated 70. However, it didn't take me long to realize that these guys were pretty cool.

The X-Chemicals, ladies and gentlemen.

See, The X-Chemicals rocked. I began to realize this when I heard the drummer, this hardcore chick with blonde hair and purple highlights, count in a song with five beats. Add a punky, singing bassist, and a noodly guitarist who looks like he'd be at home wearing a turtle neck and straight-facedly calling his parties "soirees," and you have a pretty interesting combination. I liked them, though it took a couple songs for me to figure that out. The drummer played really hard and looked intense all the time. I kind of loved her. Anyway, here's a recording.

Turns out it was the singer/bassist's birthday, so everyone sang for her, and then they stopped playing at midnight. I got he distinct feeling like they were closing down, though, so after telling the band, "I don't know you, but you rocked," I looked at my phone to double check the event. Turns out, it's next Friday that my friend is playing. Okay. I saw a cool band, anyway.

After I left, though, I got a distinct feeling like I had missed out on something. I wanted to talk with the band. They seemed cool, they were nice. I'm making the impulse sound somewhat logical in hindsight, but at the time, it was just this feeling. A feeling like I had missed something important.

Ah well. I had already left and walked too far to turn back. Right? I mean, that'd be weird. I said "hi," I said, "bye," I was gone. Too late. It still really bugged me. It's really weird, even now, I'm getting this strange nagging feeling. All about some silly band called The X-Chemicals. I mean, they even knew they were silly. That's part of what I liked about them, I think.

After I got home, I went to bed. This morning, I had an audition for a comedic web series. It was fun, went smoothly. On an impulse, I smacked my acting partner (a stranger) on the ass while doing the scene. It made sense at the time, in the context of the audition.

Let's see... Then I did yard work, ate lunch, saw Jennifer Aniston be really boring on the movie screen... Actually, she wasn't that boring in Wanderlust, so... I guess that's almost a positive review?

Oh, you guys might like this; last night, before hitting the M Bar (where I saw The X-Chemicals (in H Wood)), I went to a thing called a "table read." That's where actors get together and read a script out loud. Typically, it's done either when a troupe is becoming acquainted with new material or when the writer wants feedback. In this case, it was the latter. I read stage directions, which is great, if you want to practice enunciation and being dull while saying lots of words. In all seriousness, those are valuable skills, because actors need to know how to give and take focus. Typically, it's safe to assume that the audience can only look at one part of the stage at a time, so a big part of acting is making it clear to the audience where that part of the stage is; it's the director's job to figure out where to make the actors make the audience look. Sounds Machiavellian, no? But I digress.

Table read. Tasty snacks (meatballs, peppers, and hummus (YES)), and great conversation. One guy there apparently had a job working the door at a sports bar and told me about how he ripped his jacket bouncing some drunk guy out. I thought that was pretty cool. The group also discussed good hamburger joints, and, after the reading, we spent a good deal of time discussing the technicalities of the script we'd just read. It was about zombies, but I really shouldn't say more.

This is the part where I transition into talking about what happened in New York after Rachel and I left The Russian Samovar, but this post is already pretty long. I think you'll have to wait 'till next time. Peace.