Revisiting: Show Review: Avenue D, Beauty Bar San Diego 5/13/06

Revisiting: Show Review:  Avenue D, Beauty Bar San Diego 5/13/06

   I've been listening to the Charli XCX record, which is very much, imo, a love letter to the "indie-sleaze" era, and don't you know I lived it.   Back then they called it 'indie-dance' and here is one of my show reviews from that era.

May 14th, 2006
Show Review:  Avenue D + DJS
@ The Beauty Bar, San Diego May 13th, 2006.

      As I was walking out of the Civic Center Plaza in San Diego to my bank down the street, I passed the venue known as "Fourth and B". For the first two or three years that I was in San Diego, I would regularly confuse Fourth and B with On Broadway. Now I know the difference: On Broadway is the place that gainfully employs man-about-town Morgan "High Octane" Young, Fourth and B is the place that's being driven out of business by the House of Blues.

    I saw there on the marquee that DJ Tiesto was playing Fourth and B. Not only, that... it's sold out. What... the... fuck. In my "weekend preview" post, I talked about how San Diego was one of the centers of the "indie dance" movement. A fair question might arise, what is "indie dance".

      When you are trying to define a concept, it often helps to explain what the concept is not, which helps orient the listener to the ideas that you are trying to communicate. So let me try that approach: Sold out tiesto show at the fourth and b is NOT indie dance. Sold out Tiesto is what indie dance, in large part, arose in opposition to.

      That sold out Tiesto show was on Friday night. Last night, Avenue D took the stage at Beauty Bar San Diego and showed us all what indie dance is all about. Two New York girls, shouting out their gleefully obscene lyrics over a pre recorded cd. Maybe they aren't as angry as Peaches, or as art school as Le Tigre, or as talented as M.I.A. But they're white chicks armed with an 808 and they ain't afraid to use it.
          And that is what indie dance is all about. It's about pushing the DJ off his pedestal, smashing up his white label collection, and putting it back together with a bunch of outsiders.
Avenue D drew a hundred plus people last night. It was a good turn out. The Beauty Bar is undeniably the heart of its corner of the San Diego music scene. Most of that has do with the popularity of Gabe Vega. Pop Rocks is an undeniably solid night: Manual Scan and the Power Chords on a MONDAY night? You got the Pussy Galore on Wednesday night, Dirty Fridays, Creepy Saturdays. OK I made up Creepy Saturdays.

       Honestly, I didn't care for Avenue D. Their reach exceeds their grasp. I still had a good time. Good energy- oh- and I heard Blue Monday there for the one millionth time. Can somebody please put a stop to the playing of Blue Monday at every single indie/punk/new wave dance night?

         Hard not to compare Scolari's to Beauty Bar, but I won't for fear of death threats.