told ya.

So. Two days and no pics. I told y'all - Year of Lowered Expectations. I hope you weren't expecting anything more from me.

Anyway, I sort of have an excuse for not getting any pics up on V-day. See, we went to see Dick Dale at Churchill's, and I was expecting to be home by about midnight or 1 a.m. and make my post then. But when we got there at 10 p.m., only the first of the three opening bands had played. The second band (Guajiro, a local punk band that sings "rock en Espanglish" - check out their myspace) went on not too long after we got there, and I thought they were pretty good, though the sound man had them up way too loud. The third band, Laramie Dean, took longer to set up than they did to play (this is not necessarily a bad thing). They get a 9/10 for style, because they had tiki torches and a small stone tiki head on stage, but their playing was a little sloppy and the guitarist's tone wasn't the best, and, most disturbingly, they did this arm gesture between songs which, while it wasn't meant to be, looked too close to Heil Hitler for my comfort. The great thing about shows at Churchill's, though, is that Sweat Records is located out back, so you can browse between sets. I found this awesome purse made from recycled tire rubber in the markdown bin. When I went to ask if the sticker price was the before-markdown or after-markdown price, the girl at the register said, "Well, I already marked it down, but make me an offer." To which I replied, "...uhh......" until she said, "How about $25?" "OK!" (It was marked $30 - I peeled off that sticker later and found the original price was $40). Yay, bargain!

So Dick Dale did not actually take the stage until midnight, which is quite late for a mid-week weeknight show. He was 100% worth the wait, tho' - so amazing!! He may be 800 years old, but he's still got it. It's so awesome to see someone who is not only incredibly good at what they do, but who so clearly enjoys doing it. Not only did he play his guitar and sing, but also he picked up drumsticks at one point and went back and played on the kit alongside his drummer; then came back out front and played his bass player's bass with the drumsticks while his bass player fingered the notes; and then the roadie handed him a trumpet and he played that, too! Craziness. And he was such a charmer, flirting with the ladies in the audience, and cracking jokes about how his crappy hotel didn't have wireless internet and how, as a Mac user, he thinks PC stands for "Piece of Crap" (tee hee). Oh, man, it was a great show. We didn't get home until after 2 a.m., and we reeked of smoke - I had forgotten what that was like, what with NY's smoking ban. I slept in until 11:30, but poor Johnny had to get up early and go to work...

Oh - we had dinner before the show at Tom Jenkins' Bar-B-Q in Ft. Lauderdale, which featured the best mac & cheese I've ever had in a restaurant. I was a little bummed that I couldn't get the hush puppies I'd been craving, since they'd turned off the fryer for the night by the time we got there, but that's what we get for not realizing we were walking in just before closing time. We'll definitely have to check that place out again sometime soon.

So, pictures. You get shots of just about everything I mention in this post:
Tom Jenkins' mac & cheese


Sweat Records


The underside of Churchill's patio roof - they've got all these tin beer signs nailed up under there. It looks really cool lit up by the mini lights.


Dick Dale


There's a few more shots from the show up on my Flickr photostream, if you're interested. And now that I'm caught up with the pictures, I'm going to bed.