Down & Out With The Dolls, Sahara Hot Nights, and Coyote Shivers

By Lucky DiPalma

Down & Out With The Dolls
A film by Kurt Voss
World Premier Screening and After Party
CineSpace, March 11, 2003

Note to self: RSVP early if you actually want to watch the film at a movie premier. Otherwise, just show up whenever the hell you want if you’re more interested in the free booze and the wandering hands. Unfortunately, this lesson came a bit too late for the premier of “Down and Out With The Dolls”, an indie comedy about a struggling all-girl band from Portland. I really wish we could have seen more of the film (as the beginning was pretty funny and the premise was cute - heck, Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead lives in one of the girl’s closets!), and much much less of the party - lots of limp girls with limp bodies and limp hair and pushy, obnoxious, GRABBY eurotrash guys. We stood at the bar and watched for a while, but didn’t have the patience to stand through the entire screening. As noted, there was all the complimentary libations and chic-chic food you could ask for served up by mounds of trendy little boys wearing trucker caps, and the venue itself was well conceived - a big screening room with dining tables and bar, a separate bar outside the screening room, and an "indoor" smoking patio which was quite popular, as you might imagine.

As for the evening's entertainment, Coyote Shivers who plays an up-n’-coming rock star in the film <a big stretch, I'm sure>, turned out to be the real highpoint of the entire event. Curiously enough, he looks a bit like Mark Wahlberg with a Ramones cut, but his tunes are - to my complete surprise - some seriously funny shit! Inside this garage-glam pretty boy is a very witty comedic poet - yet another great example of not judging a band by its cover (art). He had the Barflies crew hooting and hollering with a tune called "Plus One", a cynical poke at being on the ubiquitous "guest list"; the chorus persuading the invitee that it’ll be fun ‘cuz "there will be sluts and drugs and fags and rock and roll". I believe I’ve heard comparisons to Lou Reed bandied about, but I really can’t recall Lou Reed ever making me laugh so hard…

It did seem, however, as though we were really among the few who thought it was hilarious, but then there also appeared to be no accounting for taste with this crowd, who were taking their little Hollywood-trashy selves just way to seriously to pay much attention to the bands. As a matter of fact, one fellow in front of me was alternately cheering and then booing the bands for no apparent reason. By the time that Sahara Hotnights, a popish girlie garage band from Sweden, hit the stage, most of the attendees had obviously had much, much more than their fill of the free-flowing booze, including my companions, who I was unable to convince to return to the screening room to catch their set. I headed back in alone, but although SH’s enthusiasm was pretty decent <lots of shaggy hair a-shakin’>, their tunes maybe ranked about a C for creativity and entertainment value, and, in the end it really wasn’t worth fending off the barrage of loaded losers to stay for the entire thing. Ah, leave it to creepy Hollywood scenesters to put a bit of a damper on what otherwise would have been a fun, well thought out event!