New Year's Eve!

My friend Michelle was nice enough to put me on the guest list and get me a "Backstage V.I.P." pass for a show at The Paramount on New Years. I wasn't too excited to see The Presidents of the United States of America, but wanted to see Monotonix (Michelle is their booking agent) and hang out with some old friends from Humboldt. Rather than write a long, drawn out story about the night, I've decided to post photos with captions. . .



This is Ami, the singer from Monotonix doing a little "crowd surfing" on a drum, which he also somehow managed to play. Monotonix is a 3 piece "garage rock" band from Tel Aviv, Israel. They've been receiving a lot of attention lately for their over the top, chaotic live performances. I overheard the drummer from The Presidents telling them how he was a huge fan and had seen them play at The Comet Tavern before. Monotonix got flown out from Tel Aviv, and received a "generous" amount of money for their single show at The Paramount.



This is how I arranged the food in The President's green room while they were playing. I hope they liked it!



I got to stand right on the side of the stage for The President's set, a pretty sweet spot! For some reason, the balloons didn't come down right at midnight, which Jake (Michelle's roomate in New York) said was a "bad sign" for the New Year. They actually came down sometime around 1:00 AM. Strange.



This is Michelle and my friend Ryan Carlisle. They were both very involved in the music "scene" in Humboldt, and I've stayed in touch with them over the years.



Leigh (Ryan's friend from Portland) Ryan and I



This is the mandatory, "I'm drunk and posing with the guitarist from P.U.S.A." shot. They actually were nice guys, and for some reason had no complaints about our "crew" hanging out in the green room, drinking their booze for about two hours.

After leaving The Paramount we went to a house party of some friend of Leigh's. I finally made it home around 5:30 AM. It was a pretty amazing night overall, I met a lot of people, got to see Monotonix for the first time, and of course got silly drunk.