Luv Doc Recommends: Emissions From the Monolith 9

The weather has been suspiciously nice so far this year. Makes you wonder if part of the arctic ice shelf calved off and is bobbing around somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. Austin is many things in the month of May, but very rarely is it ever pleasant. Regardless of the size of your rent check, this isn’t Maui or even San Diego. Then again, maybe real estate prices have gotten so high the weather just decided to follow suit. Maybe all of those unfinished $500,000 condos Downtown are creating a “urban cool island” effect, dragging temperatures down in relation to the rise in trendy real estate offerings. It’s an unlikely and unscientific scenario to say the least, but with this kind of anomaly all bets are off. Wouldn’t it be great if we could actually pin it down? If we knew for a fact that this recent run of beautiful weather was the direct cause of, say, global warming? Would we all run out and buy Hummers? Spray our hair into huge pompadours and beehives? Leave the lights on all night? Fart incessantly? It might be worth it. So what if a few polar bears (fewer every year) and Emperor Penguins have to spend some extra pool time so we can enjoy some extra porch time? Seems like a fair enough trade. Both species look like they could lose a little weight anyway, and with the glaciers melting and the water getting warmer, they’re going to need to be in fighting trim – sort of like Al Gore in the 2000 election before he got cheated and decided to become an emissary of doom, which apparently demands queuing up at the same buffet line as the Emperor Penguins. Still, regardless of how ominous Al-mageddon’s pie charts and bar graphs look, things around here are considerably improved. Are we better off now than we were eight years ago? Climatologically, hells yes! The Lord surely works in mysterious ways, otherwise we would know what the fuck happened to all the bees. Maybe we should just roll with it and see where it goes. Of course, you might be one of those people who can’t take too much pleasantness and this shit is about to drive you crazy. Don’t worry, Emo’s has your back. This Thursday through Sunday they’re hosting Emissions From the Monolith 9, a music festival that just moved to town from Youngstown, Ohio (maybe it was cooler here?). EFTM9 should pack Emo’s dark hole with deafening, frog-throated heavy music from bands like Super Heavy Goat Ass, Alabama Thunderpussy, Dixie Witch, and Throttlerod as well as sweaty, fist-pumping tattooed fans. If you can survive four days with the volume knobs pegged on 11, this is your scene. If not, it’s really nice outside.