Hey there, FYI, I just got my Grandsons mail and they are nominated for 4 Wammies, wow. Way to go. We'll find out how it all shakes down on like Feb. 9, I think, at The State Theater, if you are inclined to attend.

So, right now, I am not going to talk about bands, rather I will speak of another music anomaly like the show that went with the film about Go-Go music, "The Pocket". I saw on Thursday, 1/23, what is being run thru the papers as a post-punk opera (not necessarily what the producers are calling it) called Nitrate Hymnal. So apparently DC is ready for the $20 opera, the pay what you can nite was packed and a 3 day run at a large theater seems to have sold out. So what is going on here?

I've had a couple interesting discussions with people who saw it this past weekend. For something that was trying pretty much to be a straight forward opera, I have to open every time I start talking about it by admitting that I came pretty close to bawling at the end-even with being a frustrated audience member questioning the casting of 3 'musical theater voices' with one flat-out opera diva, and technical issues like sound drop-outs (coming from tech people in the music business), still, to make an audience member cry in a semi-social setting like live theater is no small matter. The libretto is very honest and direct in a stream of consciousness kind of way, like the 3 minute punk song-so I can see how the media glommed onto the 'post-punk opera' catch phrase. And while the narrative reeks of sap, a grandson witnessing his grandmother's death in a nursing home while he recounts her life to us. For sappy, man almighty, it was sincere in it's sappiness. I agreed with every crazy thing the narrator said about his grandma being superhuman, I feel exactly the same way about my gramms-that's nice to see, it felt honest-no compunction about being emotions. Yet somehow this sappy sincerity was artfully given an intellectual grounding, where thru the narrator you are meant to realize the limited time and materials we have as human beings to make our piece with ourselves as individuals; blink and your life is gone.

The performances are done, as in over and finito, (it only ran Thursday to Sunday) for the time being. As I was talking to another music type at a party on Saturday, we hope it is a work in progress. It seems that there is still work to be done to completely realize this project. I hope the immense crew that they have assembled can go thru with it and work out the kinks. Also, I really wonder what all those people in the audience thought, all that recitative trash talking going on and all, I mean do that many people want to start going to operas? Apparently I like opera as much as the next person, boy that was a surprise. Or was the DC punk community just there to 'represent'? Is the corner turning in DC to new and even weirder things. That's fine with me. There is power in weird, as long as it is an honest and sincere weird.