Sonic Youth's House of Shifting Plates and Ridiculous Juice (by Melissa of Shiloe)

I think we can safely say, without hyperbole, that taking part in Sonic Youth's awesome "House of Shifting Plates and Ridiculous Juice" at Origami Vinyl this past Tuesday was one of the coolest things ever - truly the next best thing to actually opening for the band themselves! The excitement started for us long before the 9th actually rolled around, as advance press started to trickle in and then, miraculously, SY actually posted a MySpace blog in which they linked back to our MySpace! I don't think I've ever been so thrilled by something so simple. Anyhow, our expectations were pretty high for this event, and we were not disappointed.

When we arrived at Origami around 5:30, with Ben Heywood from Summer Darling in tow to play second guitar for the occasion, there were already tons of people milling about, eating pizza, drinking Tecate, and spilling out onto Sunset while The Eternal blared gloriously from inside the store. The pizza, courtesy of next-door neighbor Two Boots, was a mercilessly spicy yet completely delicious concoction featuring both diced jalapenos and Sriracha hot sauce (a.k.a. cock sauce). Despite the burn, I ate two pieces. The sign out front had been changed to reflect the Sonic Youthy festivities, and the shelves inside were filled with SY records and albums chosen by the band themselves, with each band member's name painted on the wall above his or her picks.

In-store performances at Origami are held in a small loft area accessed by a tiny spiral staircase in the far corner of the store. For some reason, despite the fact that we are normally a 3-piece, for this show we had 5 members, including both of our drummers (the Dans) and Ben. I had visions of tumbling down and face planting in front of the crowd, but fortunately that never came to pass. (I did, however, come perilously close to knocking a potted plant onto the heads of Origami patrons, but my cat-like reflexes prevented that tragedy.) I was uncharacteristically nervous for the show, but I think overall it went extremely well. The crowd definitely seemed to enjoy it!

Even after talking to friends and sticking around for Pocahaunted's set, we were still done before 10 PM! As I remarked to Ken on the drive home, "Man, I wish we could play early sets for crowds of Sonic Youth fans every night!" Thanks again to Ben, Dan, Daniel, all our friends who came out to support us, Sonic Youth, Neil and everyone else at Origami for letting us be a part of it!