Howl at the Ace Hotel Theater L.A. Tues April 7

I didn’t know poems celebrated anniversaries but this one did. Don’t tell Stoger but I never read Howl. It was not on the reading list at St. Ann’s School. A rainy night produced a late arriving crowd and the 7:30 show started at 8 pm. The Ace Theater is a very ornate and nice looking theater downtown, a block away from the Orpheum. The show was a benefit for the David Lynch Foundation for some reason. Since David Lynch is weird and Hal Willner is quirky it seemed like an unusual evening was in store. The place was not sold out but it was well attended. There were recitals of various parts of Howl, accompanied by a house band, funny bits, and original songs by the featured performers. Doug was in the house band, on pedal steel and various guitars. Some woman named Beth Orton played a pleasant set of 2 songs. A woman named Petra Haden sang in a beautiful voice. Some other people I didn’t know played early in the night. There was a funny bit by Amy Poehler and Chris Parnell. Later an amusing bit by Fred Armisen and Will Forte. Later yet a painfully unfunny bit by John Mulaney. I was hoping a sniper would take him out mid-performance but they are never around when you need them.

Lu came out earlier than I would have expected and was great and well received. Doug and Butch each went mental on Unsuffer Me. A man named Andy Kim, looking like he had just escaped from a funeral home, came out and forced us to endure a painful version of Sugar, Sugar, The Archies hit. Apparently he co-wrote it (and I thought it was an Archie-Jughead composition all these years), and also had some other hit or 2 in the 70s or whenever. To cap it off he was accompanied on the song by Courtney Love, of all people. He had enough black hair dye in his hair to paint a battleship. It was fun to see Doug wailing away on guitar to this song though. I’m sure it was the highlight of his career. The MC-type person asked Andy Kim if he had retired and Kim said no, he had just become irrelevant. Oh really.

Nick Cave came out and did a loud song on the piano. It was announced that Nick Cave and Courtney Love would return later so I deduced that they were the closers and Lu would not return. At the 2 hour mark I took off while a band called The Americans made terrible noises on the stage. An hour later I was in bed.

All in all it was a fun evening; a tad overpriced and maybe it could have used another major artist or 2 or just let Lu do 4 or 5 songs or something. Amusing anecdote: I took a picture of Lu and posted it to Facebook during her performance. The woman sitting next to me engaged me in the following conversation:

She: Do you have any idea how irritating that is?
Me: Not really, no.

Thus ended our relationship. The woman sitting behind me laughed at every funny bit with a jet engine loud laugh and made weird jungle animal noises after each song. Good times.

Perhaps Tom could fill us in on what happened after that, if anything. I did bump into Tim Robbins in the mens room. Not literally.