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Over The Weekend: Rockers vs. Mods, Kristy Kruger, Moonlady Festival

Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 02:22:12 AM
Rosey has the mod thing down. (Melanie Gomez)
The highlight of our weekend was definitely the Rockers vs. Mods opening night party at Amsterdam. There were cool bikes, good people and plenty of drinks. All things we like.

Rockers vs. Mods

Despite the name (and the inspiration), the mods and rockers were having a damn good time together at Friday's kick off for the weekend long motorcycle and scooter shindig. We met an original mod, who was at the 1964 rocker-mod riots in England, and a trio of rockers who travelled from Oklahoma for the gathering. After the drinking and the partying, everyone hit the streets for a ride.

Kristy Kruger at Opening Bell Coffee

Singer/songwriter Kristy Kruger is a treat to see live. Her country-meets-folk sound is refreshing and soulful. Her Friday night show was super intimate, and nearly everyone left Opening Bell Coffee enchanted by her timeless vocals.

Moonlady Festival

Tarot readings at the Moonlady Festival. (Rebecca King)

Saturday was hippie night -- super hippie night – out at White Rock. Drum circles, psychic readings, henna tattoos and the like were prevalent at the Moonlady Festival (photos), and we'll admit it was fun. The vibe was uplifting and the dancing was free-spirited.

Easter in the Park

So, we're not real into the religious side of Easter, but damn if we don't dig the bunny. We popped in at Lee Park Sunday to get in the springtime mood. Typically we're anti dressing up pets in costumes, but, admittedly, we totally enjoyed the pooch parade. Then we did the picnic thing and checked out the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. It was laid back, and a pretty awesome afternoon. -- Chelsea Ide

Category: Music News

2 Comments:

Mark says:

Thank you Melanie for some badass photography. My liver is a piece of throbbing gristle. I'll get the photography and video up on the rockers vs mods site once I get my head to stop buzzing.

You didn't even mention the bands! I guess Pete doesn't condescend to listen to Rockabilly. But we did have some Ska-billy, Powerpop-billy, Grrrl Punk-Billy, Vato-Billy and finished with some Garage-Billy.

I had to add "Billy" to the end of all the bands, otherwise the 59ers and TodoMoto guys would start throwing wads of grease out of their hair at the stage.

I was taking shots instead of notes, but here's my take on the bands:

The Currents from Arlington were a perfect way to start the evening and even had a few TonUp guys bobbing their heads in spite of themselves. I appreciated their attention to authenticity to the early ska beat.

Spector 45 brought it in spades. Towards the end of the Ska set a few of the Rockers had forgotten their ritalin and were squirming a bit. Frankie, who was on break from bartending at Dada, came over, absolutely blew doors and bailed back to work. Once they got warmed up Frankie was pulling off some Joe King Carrasco table jumps, minus the burger king headgear.

Then Lovie... ahhh. They played last years' Rockers vs Mods and we had to have them back again. I thought they played a really great set, I think I heard a Judy's cover along with their sweetly polished original fare. Once the set was over Rebecca, their lead singer, came to me a bit distraught because some meatheads within her earshot were being rude-asses. Luckily most of the other people, like myself, love Lovie and let them know it after the show.

The sugar-high that Lovie provided was immediately ramped up to a full-on skin pop of heroin(e) fueled grrrl punk from The Screaming Reds. The front grrrl Andrea is a pocket-rocket and she lived up to the bands name, the girl has some lungs. The whole band was super-tight and my pants got a bit snugger during the show, too. A few years ago A few years ago I wanted to marry the Lunachicks, but now I'm conflicted.

Then onto the straight-ahead professional-grade high-octane hyphen-inducing Flaming Hellcats who were voted best Roots Rockabilly Band of 2007 by the Houston Press. I was pretty drunk by this time but I do recall the entire place jumping to the self described "Vato-Billy".

And just when I thought I was hammered, Cameron, my partner in crime, got on the microphone and started telling the crowd how much they sucked for some unintelligible reason.

After we pulled out the hook, The Ugly Beats defied their name and layed down some killer tunes. I am a sucker for cute Girls with big organs plus I had just snorted some bourbon (long story), but this was the perfect Mod Ending to a great evening.

Thanks to all of the bands, everyone who showed up, Cam, Sheldon, Mike & Baby Jesus!

Billy says:

I was there and my name resembles your summation Mark. As good as all these bands were, Spector's energy was untouchable. Maybe that's why the place emptied out after they played. I did however stick around and must say that Lovie, Screaming Red and the Flaming Hellcats were also great.

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