Livefastdie are probably my favorite band in New York right now. Seeing them live is like watching three-to-five crazed gibbons spinning out of control on the edge of a towering precipice, if that were a rock and roll band who play funny songs that sound like the Ramones. (I know citing the Ramones is music-journalism shorthand for “I don’t know any other punk bands,” but in this case it’s true.) Last night they played a non-CMJ show with the Muslims at Don Pedro’s. Here’s how it went.

This is a few seconds before their guitarist got so angry at my head he decided to throw his guitar at it. You can see the rage welling up in his eyes. That dude hates my head.

Getting nailed in the skull sucks when it connects dead-on and they have to keep you awake for hours to check for a concussion. This one just glanced off the side and made me bleed a lot, so I was able to soak up all the head-wound attention free of the usual nausea and pupil checks.

King Khan is a veteran of rough shows, so he came back to the kitchen to take charge of the me-holding-a-t-shirt-to-my-head operation.

He even got up in Sarim’s (that’s the guitarist’s name) face for me. How about that for some sympathy?

This might have been taking it a little far.

Dumbly, when it first happened I asked the bartender to call an ambulance (and hand me some paper towels). Never call for an ambulance unless you are spurting. The amount of hassle is rarely worth it, and even if you’ve got a tiny little gash, they’ll insist on turning you into that fife player from the Revolutionary War.

See you guys at the Lips show tonight!

Oh yeah, and the Vivian Girls played too. What’s going on with everybody saying they sound like the Shaggs? Maybe they’ve just gotten better at their instruments or something, but I thought they were nothing like the sisters Wiggins. Is it just because there are three girls in the band? “Oh man, you’ve got to hear this group Sleater-Kinney, they are totally like Wilson Phillips meets the Andrews sisters with a sprinkle of Shedaisy.”

BABY BALLS

Photos by Richard Petrucci except for the camera-phone one.