If it was Petraeus you were after, I sure hope you read the Streak yesterday. I'm well on my way to breaking my TPM record from September of 50 Petraeus posts in two days: we got like 40 in on day one. I'll be liveblogging rounds three and four of the Petraeus-Congress bout over at The Streak today, too. Thanks to Holly for taking care of the Obama questioning while I was out Surging.

So, a quick after-action report: it's been nine years since I played a hardcore show. (Maybe I should have titled the post "Nine Years Later.") And the Bobby Fisher Memorial Building was a perfect reintroduction: totally collective-run, in a space covered in Borf-graffiti, that the city's charging the BFMB kids thousands upon thousands of dollars to use. We had to take an extremely heavy generator to the gas station on Florida and North Capitol to acquire the necessary fuel to power the PA. No one complained; they just got to work. The actual staging area looked great, with a small riser for a stage, tasteful lighting, and an extremely live concrete room. Support these guys. They want to turn the space into a real community center. Maybe next up will be a Gestures/Surge extravaganza.

Video coming soon of us. I thought we were pretty good. But Ingrid, who're from around DC, were better. Pulvarizing math-metal. The guitarist could rival Marnie Stern and the drummer was waaaaay better than I am. Luckily she borrowed my snare stand; I told her I hope she some of her style on it. Ryan Harvey sang some great and humorous folk songs about the war and the circumstances that drove it. He works with Iraq Veterans Against the War, so he had me at "I'm not going to use the mic." (The Surge's newest song is called "Winter Soldier," inspired by/a tribute to this.)

Then: From The Depths. My second time seeing them, and after a bit of a disjointed beginning they came back with their blend of operatic anarcho-metalcore. Kids were doing the piano-haul dance. (Sam called it The Rope Ladder. Hardcore kids, what's this actually called? It seems to be the new picking-up-change.) I had some trouble hearing Monica, except when she sang her solo Italian folk song, but no trouble at all hearing the dueling technical guitars, or Jeff's blunt-end-of-the-stick drumming. If you go see them, don't expect Requiem -- they do not sound like Requiem, to *****'s great credit -- but do expect something special.

Even better was getting to see ***** for the first time in about 18 months. He came by the Flophouse and suddenly we were in a long chat about Iraq, troubles with the antiwar movement, and other things we talk about to indicate "I am doing well and hope you are too; now catch me up, it's been too goddamn long." Sam came in from Boston before flying back to Berlin this afternoon, making for an interesting bookend: *****'s old band Catharsis played the first show that Sam and my old band Yakub ever played, in New Brunswick in 1998.

So: probably no THFTNR today either. Petraeus is back on the Hill in a little under an hour. Storm heaven! And unleash hell.