The Intonation Afterparties Almost Killed Me

I missed out on Intonation Fest, but I don't really care. I didn't miss out on the swarms of indie girls in from out of town, trolling the afterparties for Band Ass. One girl at Redno I couldn't hear over the music, so she had to repeat it to me in single-word-yelling mode: "OH. MY. GOD. YOU'RE. IN. OUT HUD. AREN'T. YOU." You can imagine how bad I felt letting her down. I helped Liz pick out the famous people in the crowd and she told me how three seperate spiritual healers told her that she is basically going to give birth to the Chosen One. If you look her up and down and think about it for a second, it almost makes sense.
The night before, the Constantines show at the Bottle was balls-deep with Intonationers showing up already hammered. The vibe in there was heavy on the LA/NY indie rock networking with a distinct streak of county-fair-outdoor-concert hedonism running through it. When everybody was holding their arms in the air for the Constantine's breakdown/breakthrough part at least two couples were totally doing heavy public makeouts. I was mostly busy just trying to keep my shit together; Craig had hunted down some guys who would smoke us down and they ended up getting us so high that Craig was afraid of wearing a hat. Between that kind of hysterical retardedness and the effect that the Constantines's live show has on the cripplingly stoned, I was just barely holding on. Not so bad that I couldn't chat up a couple of label people, though.
The Constantines played the song that's made me think more about music than anything else in recent memory, a dead-on cover of Elevator To Hell's "Why I Didn't Like August '93", a piece of three-chord perfection that makes me think (first) how I have become one of Those Guys whose favorite songs are by obscure side projects of not-even-really-indie-famous bands or like the first ABC Diablo seven-inch and (second) how I still can't quite believe that I have an Eric's Trip tattoo. I'd like to word up Brennan Sang for sending me the mp3 of that cover by the Constantines, for remembering a time like a decade ago when I was nuts over the original and for realizing that I probably wouldn't hear it otherwise, since the idea of buying the Believer's music issue (which bonus cd includes that track) makes me want to projectile-vomit blood all over the walls.