Redeye - Not just pornographic, Cornographic! June 28 2006

The June 23-25 weekend was idiosynchronicity as the Earl held Corndogorama, downtown Athens hosted AthFest, and Midtown showed off its Pride. Man, I deep-throated tons of meaty, Southern-fried entertainment.

First was Corndogorama, where I interviewed the band Ghost Tour for a Creative Loafing podcast. Here’s a primer on the trio (then hit atlanta.creativeloafing.com to hear them in their own words):

• Some people would say drummer Greg Stevens — also having hit skins in local bands Red Level Eleven, Hex Error and the Close — brings a certain, “je ne sais pas.” I, however, say Stevens brings “je ne sais paw.” Yes, Stevens is a Furry.

• Bassist John Naismith, meanwhile, was honored as one of CL’s “Least Influential People.”

• And finally, there is guitarist/singer/songwriter Mr. Craig Gates. Full disclosure: I’ve known Gates for 10 years plus 10 more. And lemme tell you, Mr. Gates could perform a “Deadball” way before the porn industry got a hold of the term.

But seriously, Ghost Tour is to indie rock what, say, a bogart is to Harry Potter. Nightmarish connotations aside, a bogart adapts itself to an observer’s psyche, and Ghost Tour exhibits aspects of each listener’s favorite indie rock. And thus, Ghost Tour is my chosen metaphor for Corndogorama, which over the past 10 years has grown to showcase all homegrown, jalapeño-wrapped facets — the absurd to the accomplished — of Atlanta’s indie scene.

Following Corndog, my friend Uncle Wu and I made our way upstate for our annual AthFest club crawl, still nubile a decade strong. We arrived at the 40 Watt Club in time to catch Cinemechanica. Cinemechanica is the band I imagine formed when four straight-edge kids got high on Pixy Stix and stayed up for three days repeatedly watching Edward James Olmos in Stand and Deliver until they decided they do need some stinking cal-coo-lus. Cinemechanica is post-hardcore math rock: methodically lashing music that gives lanky Indian boys boners of such prodigious turgor, you can use their abdomens as sundials. I can’t help but applaud Cinemechanica’s dueling drummers, however. If having two drummers was good enough for the Doobie Brothers, well, then, I can’t speak highly enough about the tradition.

So what bookended corndogs and boners? Well, cock-tails while watching the Pride Parade, of course. Neither rain nor a misguided zealot could dampen my enjoying throngs and thongs at the Peachtree and Ponce corner, or three indelible expressions of the region’s peculiar personality.

RedEye celebrates going out and going off. Send comments to redeye@creativeloafing.com, but hand-scrawled hate mail is preferred.