optimus live. hyaline live.
after some free chinese food for dinner i headed to the Ballroom in Fremont to catch Optimus Rhyme putting on a show. I happened to run into the guy i saw kid rock with, but then avoided him since he’s kinda weird, plus he was with a friend. then i met and hung out with jerry (a.k.a. tycho from penny arcade) and his friends, for the rest of the night. mike (Gabe) and jerry both like optimus rhyme, and penny arcade is how i heard about the band, so it makes sense he’d be there. that was pretty cool in itself, oh, and there was also a band there.
optimus rhyme is pretty good live. i like their cd, but somehow it’s better to see some geeky guy rapping about transformers, computers, and other things like that. they played basically every song they know (except fuzzy dice which is a good song), including a few i hadn’t heard from their EP, or from a label compilation. They also had a song about the 520 bridge traffic and the eastside in general called Fuck Bellevue. good things. somehow i don’t think they’ll make it too big, there’s not much demand for geeky white guys rapping about geeky things with lots of seattle references (i grew up in 317 / now it’s 206) in the songs, but you never know. hell, just having penny arcade talking about them gets the word out to a few million people a day.
They’re goign to be at the scarlet tree (east of greenlake) august 13th (two weeks from friday), i’ll probably catch them there.
also, friday night… tomorrow that is… Hyaline will be playing at the fenix underground at local band Windowpane’s CD release party. hyaline is a friend’s band from LA, they sound sort of like a mix of tool/APC and alice in chains with a flute (played by my friend) and violin thrown in for good measure. it’s a really cool sound, and anybody who likes things that are good should go. Doors open at 8:00, music starts at 9:30, with the standard $12 pioneer square joint cover that gets you in to about 10 different clubs. go, you’ll like it. plus you’ll be supporting local bands that haven’t made it big.