Redeye - Fake mustaches, real spankings September 13 2006

Celebrating the birthday at Bazzaar

Firm oaks and upright ideas grow from seeds, so let’s do some planting. Or as Golden Era hip-hop troupe A Tribe Called Quest so eloquently pronounced, I’m going to “Bust a nut inside your eye, to show you where I come from.” This birthday week is all about not just perception but conception.

First stop was the Sept. 8 launch party for Chuck D’s new record label, SLAMjamz, produced at the Loft by Beneath the Noise (whose B-Free also celebrated a weekend b-day, respek’). The groups — such as Most Hi-Fi, Dirty North and all-female MCs Crew Grrl Order — weren’t bad, and the different b-boys/dancers either provided or incited during different sets were a trip. But best was any time D derided recording-industry bullshit.

Next was a post-band-performance spin through the new Lenny’s, located — for those not bombarded by multiple EXCLAMATION-RIDDEN!!! MySpace bulletins — in the old Neutron Bomb space on Decatur Street. Comparing the old Lenny’s to the new is like comparing collegiate studio apartments to starter homes, and not just because of the size increase. (No longer must you dread a pool cue braining you on the way to the bathroom.) Now, instead of crust and accumulation, you can’t help but notice there’s more potential than anything in particular. In this black-light line drawing of a venue, ghostly minimalism is in abundance — kind of like the frat-house basements I rocked steady in my mid-’90s booty-music DJ career. It’s an inky canvas that creatively lit bands and clubbers with actual flair can inject with agendas. So put away black pegged jeans, thrift-store granny couture and nuevo-retardo Daisy Dookie shorts and get sartorial throughout the color spectrum, bitches. Bring your graffiti guys, check it out and later we’ll revisit.

Finally, I hit the Mark just as the anniversary party became private, and I raised my lighter to the Downtown beacon during a few Blondie-meets-Black Sheep vibes. Classics gone contemporary has always been the Mark’s way, so way to go on three years...

Not least among these birthdays was mine, held Sept. 9 at Bazzaar. Getting older is dirty bidness, and the way I do you’d think I’m Enron. To make sure the party got and stayed hype, I shared with everyone a huge stash ... of fake ‘stashes. Pornstaches. Molestaches. You know how us little hoodrats take five-cent rides. Also thanks to booty beats, Nicole Paige Brooks and other ballsy chicks, Blue Steel™ and Le Tigre™, fake-blood baptisms plus Drinky McDrinkerson the Drunk Who Drinks rum tum tugging it. My birthday was hair-raising and lip-trembling — an appropriately messy afterbirth to the week’s events.

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