Basement Jaxx is the Bomb

When it comes to L.A., a one day lineup of Queens of The Stone Age, Beck, Basement Jaxx, Blackalicious, and others is only good enough to get JUST THE RIGHT amount of people -- not too many, not too few -- into downtown L.A. -- cuz who even now wants to ride a bus or train much less go near city hall?

Anyhow, these are the key takeaways from the LA Weekly Detour Festival:

1) Basement Jaxx is the bomb. I'd heard about the two big black lady singers, but I didn't believe it til I seen it. They basically took their albums and played em live. Multiple drummers, 3 kilt-wearing horn players, oh and 2 or 3 big ladies singing and rapping and stuff. Fantastic.

2) Beck is great live. Kind of a one man white guy equivalent of Basement Jaxx, again with like 5 drummers, a bunch of different postmoderny songs he's known for. . . and full-on marionettes which stole the show.

3) !!! -- someone tell me how to pronounce this band name. Live -- AGAIN, like 5 percussionists and a shirtless mick jagger/joe freund ripoff singing. VERY danceable.

4) EVERY high school kid there (like half the crowd) dressed vintage 1979-1982. We're talking Ramones to Joan Jett to Ted McGinley. AKA tights and tight jeans, converse sneakers, push down cowboy boots, and every bad haircut imaginable. Even jerry curl. Also, some of the girls even had the 1980's puffy face thing going, like they switched off their tofu diet to do the fashion properly. Total uglification fashion-wise. OF course, everyone in L.A. high school is skinny so they actually look pretty good I'm afraid. But wait til this look gets to flyover country. Remember Heart in the later years? Or any hair metal band once the hair started falling out? I'm a big fan of 80's metal and glam, but now I'm a little scared. . . .

PS: Shoutouts to Jillifus, Jenny, Anhela, and Tomas, my comrades on this fine adventure.