saturday we went to lou & robs fourth of july gathering - had a great time there - mid-size crowd, "little michael" and his band played a couple of sets (gothy/ebmy mix - live drums/guitar/keyboards/vocalist) and were surprisingly good, it was great to see everyone and just hang out and talk to people
drove home sunday morning (we left lou's in joisey at about 3:30 am and got home at about 7:30 am) and crashed for a while, then i went to a family 4th picinic, and stopped home to pick up
kaboodles and mystikvelvet for freaks united at 
alchemy_dc - had a good time overall, but was a bit disappointed with the crowd and the muddiness of the sound for the bandsdetails, details...
but first, a vent... what gives people the idea that parking their car and getting out to stand on their roof on the highway (395) around dc is an acceptable thing? we were on our way to the club when the fireworks (not terribly impressive to me btw - the fireworks at war last year were much cooler imho) started, and managed to get to the top of the ramp and then stopped dead because people were parking and getting out of their cars on the highway - what the fuck?!!!!! i could not believe it, nor could i believe that there weren't any cops around telling them they couldn't do that
now, back to freaks united - finally arrived, and was somewhat confused to see that there was ample parking near the club, headed inside to find a much smaller crowd than the past 2 years, and a lot of people i expected to see out were not... the music from the djs was pretty decent, did a good bit of dancing on the deck in the sweltering heat and then inside when
defektiv spun some old-school industrial, but i was disappointed at the muddy sound and difficulty hearing the bandshaving seen and really enjoyed stromkern at alchemy sometime last year, that was the set i was most disappointed in - everything was so bass heavy - i'm thinking it was the use of the regular club speakers that was distorting the sound, especially the vocals, but otherwise they put on a pretty good show
it was really good to get to see some people that i haven't seen in ages though - cesar and his wife (i cannot remember her name), carmina,
interrogation and yveline among others, and apparently the modifications i made to the hell raiser dress from lip service look pretty good - got loads of comments on that, and hopefully at least one of the pics will be decent so i can post it here 