Tonight, and only tonight

Castro Valley has long been a good breeding ground for garage bands. Though Your Boulevardier cannot personally name any that have broken through to become international stars, many teenagers have nursed the dream. (Thanks in part, it should be noted, to the high quality music education in local schools.)

Meitnerium, is, one is certain, no exception.

The band fills a niche: The slot for Meitnerium is, so far, untaken on the Musical Periodic Table. One can almost be certain that the band chose its name because the element's abbreviation, Mt, evokes the emptiness and loneliness that adolescents form bands in order to escape (or glorify). It must be said, though, that the downside of choosing an element's name as one's band name is that doing so makes Internet searches more difficult. Indeed, chemists and their ilk seem to be monopolizing the top spots, according to our friends at Google. (The band, at this writing, does not appear to have set up shop on MySpace.)

Another downside: Meitnerium's dismissive detractors can point out that the element has a half-life of between 2 and 20 milliseconds -- hardly long enough to perform a song, much less mount an assault on Rock and Roll Stardom.



The band announced a performance on a hastily prepared, illegally posted flyer, encountered by Your Boulevardier this morning in the Castro Village. ("Be there or be damned" is the tagline.) One can't be certain from the advertisement, but Your Boulevardier believes the band is of the standard two guitars, one bass, and one long-haired drummer configuration. And its performance, as you can see, is ... tonight. Unfortunately, one cannot tell precisely when tonight is; perhaps it is already past. If so, Your Boulevardier hopes that the performance was successful, and wishes the band all success.