Sometime in 2000 Fargo-friend Luke asked if I went to the Marilyn Manson concert. I probably snickered. I remember being curious but not enough to pay to stand in one spot at the seats-only venue, especially without being a fan. I would’ve been bored. Probably would’ve broken something. “You missed out,” Luke told me, and I understood immediately he wasn’t talking about the concert. He was referring to the idea, the phenomenon, that Force That Emerged when we were teens, the pointing-finger-fear-magnet, scape-goat-sacrificing music-anti-messiah social pariah Marilyn Manson.

And maybe I did. Miss out. I didn’t have a good reason for not tuning in, I just didn’t. I am and have always been cool with the theatrics of it, the spectacle, because he always seems to know what he’s doing. Artistically, yes, but also with how he navigates culture, aware of both representation and its reception, then manipulates it because… people expect him to. Pushes it ’cause someone has to, then pulls back appropriately to remind the accusations, it’s not the music doing the damage, the “degradation of youth,” it’s all the reasons forcing kids to escape in the first place. He’s an important social figure—the poster-boy of Pure Evil—and that’s a tough job, especially when “he seems to know what he’s doing,” but the majority of his audience doesn’t… really… get it… exactly. Not suggesting, What’s he gonna do next? I’m along-the-lines thinking, Buy another tee shirt, jackass. Yeah, yeah, people express admiration in different ways. Construct identity through consumerism, flags to say “I don’t fit in.” I just… I missed out.

Then this one time I wrote this book and then met this girl Anna who knew this guy Manson and I was like shut up and she was like no, really and I was like whoa and she was like yep and at the show I missed out on in 2000 a security guard was allegedly emotionally traumatized by suggestive gyrations at the back of his skull which was decidedly bullshit by a trial the nine yards just a month ago and Anna and Manson hung out and I was like dude! totally give him a copy of my book because I would laugh! and she did and I was like yes! I’m a dork! then at the concert last Thursday we went backstage and I was all fangirl for four minutes shaking his hand saying, “Uh, I’m Meg,” and he said, “The author!” and I said, “!!!” then everyone just stood around blinking at one another, it was awesome.

The performance was impressive, and what I mean to say is a helluva lot of fun. I’ve been to piles n piles of shows, but it felt like that was my first “rock concert”—in a good way, an every five-minute WTF! new experience kinda way, at least when I was watching and not rocking out to yeah, the essentially unfamiliar, but also the not so far removed I didn’t know how to move. The pit-goons left me alone and even gave me room to dance for the majority of the show, though the huge shirtless guy with the American flag bandana? shoot yourself, please, thank you. Good times, overall. Mr. Manson, kind sir, return! Yeah.

In other music news, last night at the Quest I saw Thursday, Thrice, and Coheed and Cambria, all of whom recently released albums which made it extra fun, especially since I enjoy all three groups, would see them individually, and have seen them all before. But something was off… I dunno. I went ’cause there was no question, I was there… but it also felt like a job. Now I will make an appearance. Now I will go through motions. The crowd was young, all raw-boned bodies smashing against me, hot dog burps and waaaaaaaay too much cologne. I left feeling old. : \

Mini-reviews that aren’t really reviews but whatever:

Coheed and Cambria—I’ve dived into and am divided by their second release, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3, still undecided whether they’re good now, or could/should/will be. Either way, there’s something about ‘em, and I don’t know what it is. I probably shouldn’t like this band at all. The second and title track is knockout, but later on in the album, I sense a lot of fluff, a desperate scramble to get enough material, which isn’t helped by their repetition of melodies and riffs from their first LP. Now… I dig that, I do, the recall and reinsertion, by its very nature, I’m hooked ’cause I’m weird like that. But there weren’t enough decisions, the real ones, the should this make the album or not? decisions. From the go they promised an epic—Coheed and Cambria enter the desert sorta thing—but the house lights have yet to fade. I’m not holding this promise for a premise, the desire for a mythology against them—it’s a heady demand, from me and from themselves—but I can’t help but feel I’m still holding my breath. C’mon, guys! The attention is got, now go.

Thursday and their third, War All the Time. Some great songs, yeah, but also some… wee bit loaded ones, title track included. I give it a decent, their earlier releases seeming more with it, and I enjoy but still don’t get their ever-present alienated business exec motif. They’re not office monkeys, they’re musicians, and their audience is kids. *Shrugs.* I still like it, a lot (is the “copies of copies of copies” a Walter Benjamin reference? because now I’m in love), and their performance was excellent with a great mix of songs old and new including the EP gem “Jet Black New Year” (is there another kind?). Their energy was admirable, and positive, too, though I couldn’t help cringing during the soft beautiful “This Song Brought to You by a Falling Bomb”… in a Clear Channel venue. I still love and respect the band… and this irony is my own. I was there, right? and I go to Quest events at least once a month blah blah blah will this news update ever end? Get some Thursday mp3s here.

An album note—the packaging, gah-damn. It’s just so nice (I have the posterboard edition). Recording companies are really stepping up the presentation, a ploy/incentive to have us actually buy the damn discs, I s’pose, and on-the-side scoring points with the design conscious (yes, I checked the registration and crossovers < /shoptalk >). Packaging big-ups also go to Thrice and their Artist in the Ambulance, which has songwriting notes from all the band members for every track, each on a separate insert card. Very well done, and pretty, and appreciated, and neat. The album itself… I really like it, but I’m not excited-obsessed over it. That’s the problem with getting 4-5 new albums in a week; no time to digest.

And finally…

Fluke’s Puppy. I finally got a hold of this suckah, an album so rad I had to import it from the UK. It sounds B I G—I’d love to see them in hole in a wall but the music begs stadium and I wouldn’t even mind. Lyrically it falls short, trying to get away with more of that “Absurd” and “Atom Bomb” crap when they should’ve explored and remodeled the depth of moods made with “Setback” (all from Risotto). Instead we get… well, what we get, and I guess it is fun, and Puppy does make up for it musically. It’s no technical masterpiece, it’s just really pleasant, I daresay bangin. It sounds American, and I don’t even mean that in a bad way for once. I’m sure there are plenty who could tell me all the ways it sucks, but the grin on my face the first time I heard it is irreversible.

I didn’t want to mention this but… remember watching that part in Matrix: Reloaded when Neo’s in the underground with all the Zionists and he and Trinity are gettin it on and the camera keeps cut-shottin (shooting?) to the sweaty sultry sexy rave scene and the whole damn thing is obvious and overdone and you turned to your companions in the theater because everyone wanted to see this much anticipated sequel even if they didn’t want to admit it, and everyone was let down and many even did admit it, and you said, “Wow, this is dumb”? The dance song during that scene is track three on Puppy, “Another Kind of Blues,” and I’d probably like it a whole lot more if I didn’t get that überlame spring-break style This is How We Saturnalia montage in my mind. It’s still cool. Just a tad embarrassing and you’re not sure who for, like the collective eyeroll whenever a DJ drops the Blade blood-rave song Hey, I know this song! this song is wic—oh wait, this is lame. Yeah. As far as Puppy goes, I’m just disappointed “Pulse” didn’t make the full length, because that song and remixes thereof own me—hard.

In less than two weeks I turn twenty-three and odd age years have always been kinder, committed to outlive dormancy indifference by any other name is still confining and we don’t make luck hiding our hands.

Sometimes less is less.

Goodnight.