White Washed

Artist's rendering of White

So anyway……

I had never really met the folks in exitClov before and to be truthful I didn’t know what to expect as they are beloved by the most fantastical pussy on the face of this planet called ME and I despise said pussy pretty well. Yes Carlton, I’m talking about you. What are you going to do about it, make mean faces at my picture while you’re rubbing one out and wishing you were me?

Sorry, inside loathing there, not polite of me at all.

So I was sorta up in the air as to what to expect from them that are exitClov. I had listened to their stuff online and Philito had told me that they were all excellent people but me being my glorious self I had to make up my own mind. Post show and mind being fully made up they are for the record seemingly excellent and really, really cool people who can all play the holy hell out of their instruments and deserve whatever credit they get. Their recorded stuff is cool but the dynamic of the band live really adds to the allure of the whole thing. Aside from the visual aspect of two mega-watt lovely twin girls and a band of doodes playing with them the hits and hops and intricacies in the songs really are punctuated when you see the band performing them. In a word they are tight. I dug the set very, very much and would be a fan of the band regardless of whether I was a fan of them as people….which I now am….so there.

As exitClov was rocking away and I was digging the music the most odd and bizarre thing was happening. It’s rare enough when someone watching a live show actually exhibits a pulse in this town unless it’s a gang of behatted idiots starting some dumbass mosh pit as a weak excuse to rub each other’s wieners. Mostly playing live around here is like jamming to the statues at Madame Tussaud’s…they look real, frighteningly real, but there is no spark of life in the eyes. During the exitClov this paradigm was challenged and destroyed by one brave and altogether odd soul. I’ll call him….White.

When exitClov was playing I started to notice this movement up by the stage and a set of hands (remember, I’m short), waving to and fro and going left to right and right to left above the sea of heads at breakneck speed. It took a minute to get close enough to see what was going on but when I did…..wow. White looked like the kind of guy that might be able to bore you to death at a bar. Sorta thin beard, glasses, mousey hair, intellectual, maybe kinda. Just a sort of a normal non-frat dude wearing a VERY white shirt with a very bad sweater tied firmly round his waist. You might see White or his doppelgangers at any bar anywhere in the world boring someone to death with some theory on government or the movies or some such thing.

But at iota White was DANCING!!!!! Actually it was more like running back and forth with his arms upraised and his mouth wide open and head back like he was waiting for a beer bong. Not a poster child for maniacal wackiness by the looks of him but as they say, looks can be deceiving. He would break out the Napoleon Dynamite stylee moves every once in a bit but from what I could tell his de rigueur dance routine was pretty much resembelant to that of a hamster on a wheel, the same cardio exercise over and over and over and over and over again. Back and forth back and forth, hands up….JUDO CHOP!!!!! It was pretty wild, pretty scary and although he was shit-talked and laughed at I bet White had as much fun as anybody in the whole damn place.

So that went on and exitClov kept on rocking until they were done and then we got up to do our thing. Our thing was joyous and we had a blast. Wesley had concocted some beast of an amp that was taller than me, (but not him), and it sounded magnificent. Philito’s hair was glorious as always and I hope I cut a mean jib in the middle with my fancy-schmantzy new guitar that Wesley put together for me. The always lovelier than lovely Ms. Claire sang “Figurine” with us and I gave Mrs. Castor a big wink as it’s a song I wrote for her about her kick-ass nature and simply beautiful self.

As per usual I’ll leave the nitty-gritty details of the rockingness to others but I felt good about it and had a great and wonderful time. Lots of folks I knew and lots of folks I didn’t came out. We gave away a bunch of the “Tired Boy” singles which came out looking pretty cool. I guess mine and Philito’s do-gooderness regarding the boozing paid off but man it was a mighty bitch of a time to get through. The night went long and we got paid and bade farewell to the exitClov as they were heading out to Connecticut for a gig on Friday. Intrepid travelers they are indeed. I finally got to drink some beers and lord were they delicious. A good night it was and I’ll remember it fondly.

JUDO CHOP!!!!!