Buddyhead Holiday Party @ Hotel Cafe Hollywood

Went to the Buddyhead holiday party at the Hotel Cafe last night [12/21/08] in Hollywood. It was a night of weirdness and intoxication. The bands ranged from awful to awesome.

Here's the Buddyhead Holiday Ho Ho Hodeo lineup announced before the show:

Dead Meadow
The Entrance Band
Josh Homme (Screaming Trees, Kyuss)
Jeordie 'Twiggy' White (Marilyn Manson)
Sweethead (feat. Troy Van Leeuwen of QOTSA)
Aaron North, Troy 'Boy' Petrey & Fiends (Jubilee, Rob Gnarley)
Alain Johannes (Eleven)
Nick Jago (BRMC)
Xu Xu Fang
Dean Fertita (QOTSA, The Raconteurs)
Alessandro Cortini (NIN, Modwheelmood)
Wires On Fire
Dios Malos
HT Heartache
Sid Brown (feat. Bryan Brown of Bluebird)
Todd Congelliere (The Underground Railroad To Candyland, Toys That Kill, F.Y.P)
Tony Bevilacqua (Spinnerette, The Distillers, The Drips, Darker My Love, Har Mar Superstar)
Birthday Twin (feat. Fred Sablan of Goon Moon)
Brandon Intelligator & The Sheriffs
Tsk Tsk (The Breeders, Work Sucks, Balloon)
Ryan Ritchie (performing short stories, rantings, poetry, etc.)

The set of the night for me was definitely Alain Johannes [Eleven/QOTSA]. His solo 12-string acoustic set was awesome. The emotion in his voice and guitar playing were incredible. He only played 2 songs, but the energy was perfect.


Sweethead put on a good show, too. The band features Troy Van Leeuwen from Queens of the Stone Age on guitar and Serrina Sims on vocals.

Zander Schloss [Circle Jerks] and Sean Wheeler played a cool set. Dios Malos did a mostly acoustic cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb." The sold out concert went downhill from there. There were a bunch of bands I didn't know. A few stoner acoustic jams brought yawns to the crowd. The book reading part was a real downer.

Nick Jago, the drummer from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, played his first solo show last night. His voice and acoustic guitar were too quiet because he wasn't standing close enough to the mic so much of the crowd stopped paying attention. He didn't take that too well and started talking shit to the audience in his drunken stupor. Painful.

Aaron North was pretty wrecked too. He played the last set of the night with a revolving cast of friends. Part cool. Part mess. He called up Alessandro Cortini to play on a song at one point, but he had already left. Aaron yelled out something to the effect of, "Alessandro, You Fuck! You made me bring your Buchla with all the patch cords sticking out! Did he leave? He's probably outside smoking." That bummed me out because I would have loved to have seen Alessandro rock the Buchla 200e.

Josh Homme was also there but didn't play. Jeordie White was a no-show. All in all, a night of highs and lows.

Update: Alain Johannes performance video on youtube: