Crib Notes

Who are you?
Dan Melchior

Describe yourself in three words.
Blah blah blah.

Who — dead or alive — would you most like to meet?
They’re all dead! William Blake.

Who would you most like to slap in the face?
It’s a long list. I don’t know, let’s say Bill O Reilly.

What song do you wish you had written?
The McDonald’s jingle.

Elvis Costello or Elvis Presley?
Elvis Presley (although I would’ve chosen Boston over Elvis Costello)

LP, CD or MP3?
LP.

If you could start one trend, what would it be?
Talking in regional accents (and not valley girl/guy isms) for people under 25.

If you could end one trend, what would it be?
Twitter.

With whom would you most like to play a game of spin the bottle?
Keira Knightley (with a little more weight).

Dan Melchior und Das Menace play Eyedrum with Gentleman Jesse, Sat., June 13.  $7. 8 p.m. 290 MLK Jr. Dr. 404-522-0655.

(Photo courtesy Dan Melchior)

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The Les Savy Fav show at the Earl is sold out, but not all is lost. The day after they play the Earl, Tim Harrington and Co. are heading to Roswell to play a Chunklet Magazine sponsored Whirly Ball show. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 8 p.m. Admission is $20 (advance) / $25 (day of show), but that also gets you a game of Whirly Ball, which is a pretty sweet deal. FYI: A typical Whirly Ball game costs $190 per court and can take up to 10 players (5 per team).

For those who are unfamiliar, Whirly Ball is a team sport that merges basketball, hockey and Jai-Alai with bumper cars. Throw Les Savy Fav into the mix and it truly will be, as their website so boldly claims, “the hottest party in town.”

The Liverhearts are opening the show, and this was intentionally booked early in the evening so as not to hamper anyone’s plans to go see Paul Collins and Gentleman Jesse at the Earl later that night.

There will also be a “special,” limited edition (only 50 available!) version of Les Savy Fav’s new LP, Let’s Stay Friends that will only be available at this show. So you kind of have to go.

(Photo courtesy of FrenchKiss Records).

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Last week Dry Ink Magazine posted a video piece that documents the final show at Rob’s House in East Atlanta before the label’s founder Trey Lindsay moved to New York. The video features interviews and segments of performances by Carbonas, Gentleman Jesse, the Black Lips. Drunken chatter from all of the above punctuates a marathon of interviews conducted by Tom Cheshire of All Night Drug Prowling Wolves.

The video does a good d job of capturing the mood (and the heat) of the last show there before handing the reigns over to the Danger House crew.

The video can be seen here.

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Paul Collins cut his teeth during a strange time in American music.

When his band, the Los Angeles power-pop trio the Nerves, released its one and only four-song 7-inch in 1976, the radio waves were dominated by Peter Frampton types riffing on 20-minute guitar solos. The hippies had come and gone and punk rock was still a few years down the road. No one knew what to make of three guys driving to gigs in a station wagon, wearing suits with skinny ties and playing three-minute pop songs.

“People thought we were from another planet,” Collins laughs. “We got kicked out of every music store in L.A. and San Francisco because people thought we were jerks and that we weren’t playing real music.”

Along with his bandmates Jack Lee and Peter Case, Collins’ one near brush with fame happened when Blondie scored a hit with a cover of the Nerves’ song “Don’t Leave Me Hanging on the Telephone” in ‘78. But to this day when Collins performs the song, people approach him after the show and say ‘Hey man, great Blondie cover.’

Since then the group has existed as little more than a footnote in the annals of pop history, but its influence on indie music culture is incalculable.

Read the rest of the story here.

The Paul Collins Beat plays The Earl tonight w/ Gentleman Jesse and Beat Beat Beat. $10-$12. 9 p.m. 488 Flat Shoals Road. 404-522-3950.

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