David Stoked

We can't say we miss Luxx too massively. It was a funny shape, out of the way, and rarely booked the truly awesome bands, aside from Mastodon. Luxx is no more now, but the development of Grand Street continues apace, and the people who bought Luxx, after tinkering with a gay theme for a while, decided that what the faux-hawked locals really needed was a place that put their PBR-drinking into context.

Thus was Trash Bar born, and my does it smell of rancid grease. In a good way.

We were there to catch The Kelly Affair, who are either named after the circumstances surrounding the unfortunate death of Dr David Kelly, or the skag-laden circumstances surrounding the end of the first Breeders line-up. But the Kelly Affair, while fashioned entirely from girls, does not really compare to the Breeders. Think Sleater-Kinney, instead, a comparison that has likely plagued the Kellies during their six-gig history.

They are very good, though. Our associate for this evening, whose name would be Mig-hell if you put it through a Mexican vocoder, thought that the songs were so good they had to be covers. Nyuh-huh, Mig-hell, originals all. Very punky, and tuneful, although they need to get the vocals a tad clearer and higher in the mix. And stop being so goddammn nice. It's like they're all from Laguna Beach or something. They need the glorious "we have some songs that angels hum, so we're allowed to do whatever the hell we like to the genitals of our roadies" surliness of prime Go-Gos.

But we should probably steer clear of offering any more advice, after our ill-advised "play more in a New Zealand style" urgings at Kill Henry Sugar were mecilessly, and publicly, ridiculed. We would also like to prop Barcade for its cheap microbrews, Roadblasters and Gauntlet. Oh, and fine jerky too. We like jerky.