The Velvet Lounge schedule is chock full of shows I want to see.  Or maybe it’s chock a block full.  Regardless, I’ve got to find some way to go to these shows:

Thursday, Wise Light Born (mem. of Barkitecture/Meadows/Antlers/Baby Killer Estelle), Adventure (Carpark), EAR PWR (Asheville electro-pop), this show raises my eyebrows of doom and makes me scratch my chin.  And it’s only $7!

Friday, Girl Loves Distortion (CD release!), Relay (shoegaze/psych-pop from Philly, Bubblecore), Timberwolf Division (ex-Ropers/Sounds of Kaleidoscope/Fretblanket/Owls & Crows), Himalaya (ex-Three Four Tens, NYC shoegaze/ psych-rock), how can a guy miss this show?  The sheer number of explanations and genres mentioned would probably rouse even fulsome from his decades-long hibernation.  All this for $8!

Next week, Stella Schindler, Rose, and the Blueheels are playing on the 3rd.  Two women I have been hoping would play a show together have responded to my subconscious wishes.  I hadn’t heard of the Blueheels until tonight, but damn, I like their music.  If I lived in Madison, Wis, I would be going to their show on the Memorial Union Terrace on the 31st of August.  I guess you call the sound alternative country or indie american or some shitty description for music that always seems to fail at describing music I like.

Also up next week, First Monday of the Month at Iota Club and Cafe.

I’m pretty broke, so if people could put Chuckles on the list at the Velvet Lounge, I’ll blog about your show.

So I’m hanging out in Madison, WI this week looking for new apartments. I’m in the process of trying to move out here and I’m trying to get it done by the end of June. Anyway, as I’m hanging out one evening reading the Onion, my GF points out this advertisement in the AV Club section that is listingRage Against the Machine and Queens of the Stone Age are playing at Alpine Valley on August 24, which is right around my birthday.

Luckily tickets hadn’t gone on sale yet and weren’t going to until this morning. So I start getting all excited thinking “Sweet! I finally get to see RATM, a band I’d loved since high school! I make enough money now that I don’t think I’ll have a hard time managing to squeeze the $130 it should cost for tickets.”

So this morning, I wake up at 9:45 and get to the computer and start refreshing the TicketMaster website. 10 AM finally rolls around and I click the ‘best available’ option. After waiting 2 minutes, I finally get in and have the best available lawn/GA tickets. Why did I have to wait 2 minutes to find the best GA? Annoying.

Anyway, I finally get to the purchase page and the total price for two tickets for a $57 show is $153. WTF TicketMaster?! Why do you take something that should be as simple or fun as buying a ticket to a band that I love and turn it into some sort of moral quandry?

BTW, if you don’t want to do the math, that’s $39 in ‘convenience’ fees.

I understand that you want to make money TM, I really do. However, please keep it within reason. Heck, just reach an agreement with the venue and hide from me how much you’re gouging me for. Don’t flaunt your annoying monopoly in my face by throwing on ridiculous bullshit charges like this.

I love how in every other industry, the internet introduces cost savings and increased savings and efficiencies but somehow ticketmaster is charging me more money because I’m printing these things out at home!

I wish I didn’t care. I wish I could just ignore it. I wish I could just see Rage and Queens of the Stone Age. Now I won’t though because I’d just sit around being pissed about it every time I thought about my ticket and how much I paid for it. What was supposed to be a fun purchase this morning has turned into a moral quandary. It’s an effin’ rock show, that shouldn’t be how it goes.