...to the kids from France and from London...but I was there...

When was the last time you danced like crazy to Tiffany and Phil Collins?
If it wasn’t on Saturday night, then you should get with it already.

The scene: a few dozen shoulder-padded Wall-Street boom squash-playing cokeheads crowded into my favourite gallery.
The DJ played everything we loved about the late 80s – with an American Psycho leaning – think: Huey Lewis over Madonna. Comme des Garcons over neon.
(one exception...Golden Girls are still not winning me over. Am I alone in my disinterest in that guy?)

Then, clad in Holly glasses, 18 years old …all of 5 feet tall and 75 pounds soaking wet - this kid strolls up to the stage and kills it for the next 2 hours. Fucking. Unbelievable. Girltalk style mashups crossing Feist with old school Daft Punk. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the best parties are the ones that surprise you. For a second I saw my fleeting youth dash across the stage – oh to be 18 again and new to it all, notes of an LCD Soundsystem track whipped through my head. But then the second passed. Sure, we’re not 18 anymore. But my friends still know how to have a good time. And 27 isn’t exactly geriatric, either. Fuck – I’ll say it: 30 is the new 21.

It’s starting friends: The SPRING OF KELLY. Let’s hope every weekend goes out like that.

lust.lust.lust.

Ok. I’m going to get back to writing about things that actually happen. (ok. Admittedly the light things)... This is not the place for me to tell you my opinion on foreign affairs or what I think of the new tax bill. Nor is this the place to whine about the weather and complain about chances missed…

I've lost myself lately (following the loss of my wallet and the subsequent overly-complicated fallout of that for the past month….no money can make even the most sensible the most reliant on their friends…)

I think I’m back. I think I remember the sarcastic, hard-edged girl of late who – in milliseconds – started slipping into idealized oblivion. I know why I am the way I am. I think the Kelly of March is someone I don’t recognize. All starry-eyed and lovestruck.

This is the spring of Kelly and I promise it’s going to be all fun, all the time. Back are the days of album reviews, art shows, wicked banter and travelogues….I’ll remember that I never believed in that stuff anyway...that I was getting a million miles ahead of myself…and now I'm back.

(for the record, it was fun while it lasted).

back, back, forth, forth

Spring is always on the verge, it teases like highschool make-outs in basements....It is the back and forth last embrace of winter that – while still in March – leaves you feeling anxious, desperate and makes the skin crawl.

I am so ready for sunshine....so ready for the feeling that spring and the possibility of summer, that I am aching with anticipation. And it’s not just the warmth, the suntan or the litany of spring shows to look forward to…it’s that everyone is happier in the spring.

We start to shed the bitter winter angst. The work week blends into the weekend and we wake up. I’m so tired of sleepy, cold, awful winter.

I want the return of Tuesday drinks, of nightly dinner parties, of stolen cigarettes on patios without the chill, of kissing outside and not freezing together and of black tights for style, not for necessity ; )

(I'm back. sorry. I have a real job. sometimes.)

I thought spring was here. I let my bitter winter guard down.
I thought I caught the faint drafts of bbq’s and sunscreen…alas the chilled wind is back and I could not be more non-plussed.
but! fear! not! friends! I promise you spring..then summer are coming. I know it's true.
To get back into the spring of things…here are the top 5 spring shows that make dreaming of the green grassy side of winter seem a bit more possible:



1. Dan-fucking-Deacon in what will probably be the weirdest show of the season in the most interesting venue.






2. Animal Collective. If not just to dance in total abandon to ‘My Girls’ (yes. I said it. I still love that song…see? What did I tell you? Best of ‘09….)





3. The National. I hear they have new stuff ready…I close my eyes and picture the National boys, all earnest and darkly clad against the hazy desert backdrop of a hot California day and I hope that this little (surely less epic..) show lives up to my first vision of them…






4. Noah and the Whale. Cute. Clever.British
(hmmm..this seems to be a Kelly- trend lately…)

5. Like you had to ask.

YES / NO / MAYBE

YES





Caplanski’s Deli – If you can’t handle the smoked meat sandwich/poutine combo, you can just take a permanent seat at the kids’ table there bud.






YES runner up: Coeur De Pirate. I imagine dancing in summer dresses in the dark with CLOSED eyes, all grins and sunkissed cheeks. Listen to this and I want the summer of my youth.



NO

NO NO NO to this never ending winter. It is ruining me. Enough already. I'm dry and cold and wrinkly and bitter. Stop already.

MAYBE

this is my first unsatisfying Chuck Palahniuk experience. I get the hyper-consumer-superficial-debased reality, but I still don’t care.

...I just want to turn you down..I just want to turn you around...

Everyone hates MGMT. Five years ago, everyone hated the Strokes. It’s soo indie to hate whatever ends up on the radio. Forget that Oracular Spectacular is a great album. Forget that This Is It changed a million musical minds and they actually said something on that album that meant something to people like me who thought we were the only ones who didn’t know who the fuck we were (or are, for that matter).

So, whilst perusing my favourite dress store the other day, this track filled the space, I was immediately reminded of why that band mattered. I hope their new album pumps blood back into the limp corpse they became after the backlash. I hope they make music that is so tight and on point again. I hope they have it all figured out now and they can tell me how they got there.

I hope I can figure it out too, all I know is in that song, I am 100% with Julian.

The last chorus is fucking telepathic.

Monday Top 3.

1. The dry month of march begins: day one.
I’m already boring. I can tell. Boring and sober and boring. See? I can’t even think of another interesting adjective. Fuck. This is going to be a long month.

2. I’m giving in. letting go and sliding down the hill to complete and utter brainwashed consumer bliss. I have decided to buy the dreaded girl trappings of feigned exercise fiends. I know. I know! The most brutal, overly-done overly-priced fashion of the least-fashionable. And now I’m one of them. But the truth is, those fucking pants are awesome. And I vow to wear them ONLY to pilates and ONLY indoors.
Please take heed my friends, if, in 3 weeks, you see me scuffing down the street in pony-tail, uggs and the aforementioned lulu’s, please, do not hesitate to intervene immediately.

This is a slippery slope, dear friends.

3. Guys, I’m totally starting a band. I’m going to be the lead (OBVS.) and only my ridiculously attractive friends are allowed to audition.
Once formed, we’ll destroy the local scene with our inherent, attractive, awesomeness. All’s we need is a few thousand color photos of my face and the yettobedecidedbandname splayed in only the cool neighborhoods across town.
The outoftheloopers will be all, “who are those ridiculously attractive people I see on all of the telephone poles lately?”
Intheloopers, “pffffft. You don’t know? That’s yettobedecidedbandname. I heard the lead singer is dating Winona Rider.”

How will we achieve such success, and so soon?
Pfft. We’ll steal the booking books from only the coolest venues in town. Once returned, out yettobedecidedbandname will be splashed all over and those books don’t just fill themselves you know. If the book says you’re playing tonight? You bet your ass you are.

And if that doesn’t work. I’ll just watch these guys and get more tips.

p.s. dear Jay McCarrol, let’s get married already. You can be all deadpan funny and tall and shit and I’ll laugh a lot and let you write piano songs for me. I don’t ever need to eat peanuts again if it means not killing you.