Feed Us A Live Insect

Residency week one in review

First of all, yes.

Second of all, thanks to all who came out to Pehrspace this past Monday for the first installment of our November residency--extra special thanks to Mike Dennis for reuniting the Monolators of olden days and staying out real late to sit in--and of course to Cupcake the Bear for making his/her/its (?) cameo. I HAVE NO PICTURES YET FROM THIS EVENT! If anyone has some, please please forward them! It's mail (at) themonolators (dot) com. I know the inestimable Elaine Layabout has some video footage, so when she's ready to upload it I'll post it here.

Creekbird appeared, resplendent in pith helmet, red sunglasses, stripy socks, and wonderful two-tone blue suede shoes. I thought I had the best blue shoes of the night (mine are pointy) but I think he beat me. He also had an adorable 1/2 size stratocaster type guitar that did not seem to want to stay in tune. He played to a backing track, which was quite astonishing but sadly obscured most of his vocals. I was watching his left hand and it appears to me that Creekbird has a quite advanced grasp of chording--I tend to hold onto one simple chord for as long as possible but Creekbird switches it up like an old-time jazzer--maybe from all of that ukulele playing? He's got a lovely guitar style and I'd love to hear it without all of the backing tracks sometime. IN FACT I recall seeing him play a show a year back or so at Pehrspace with nothing but a tiny 1/2-sized acoustic guitar (I see a theme here) and it was my favorite show of his that I've seen. Maybe I could convince him to come over and record a few songs that way on the old 4-track in our living room. CREEKBIRD ARE YOU READING THIS?

Next was Kyle Mabson, who I believe went under the name of Ascension To Jazz? Without the question mark, I mean--I was trying to indicate indecisiveness on my part. It was a relatively brief free-jazz workout with Pehrspace soundman Kyle on drums (with double kick pedals--terrifyingly loud, but fantastic and awe-inspiring), a fellow playing a droney, bassy keyboard part, and Sean Carnage himself on squawking tenor sax and Creekbird on trumpet. I did manage to make a tape of this if anyone wants to hear it (I tried recording Creekbird too but since his vocals were mixed a bit low with the backing tracks through the PA feed, all you really hear on the tape are the backing tracks).

Then was Zombelle, who played Velvetsy gothic drummerless rock with three singers and were lead by a woman who strongly reminded me of Siouxsie Sioux. Most of the singers, plus the bassist, had interesting black shiny makeup on, some masklike on their faces, others glovelike on their hands. At first I thought they were wearing skintight leather gloves, but now I'm not sure--it looked too much like skin. Some kind of black latex? Anyone? I'm admittedly out of the loop on this. The guitar player had this wonderful 60's Teisco-ish guitar but had forgotten his strap so he borrowed Creekbird's--Creekbird has huge musical notes emblazoned on his strap, which didn't quite fit the gothic theme, amusingly.

Right before us was Pizza! I taped their set too--guys do you want to hear it? I think I'll give it to you whether you want it or not. This was one of my favorite sets of theirs that I've seen. I kinda wish I was in this band but I AM TOO OLLLLLLD. I am sorry we broke your mallets! HJ. Hot Jam.

And then we played and THANK YOU ALL FOR STAYING! That was super sweet of you. Obviously I taped the set and I listened to the tape last night and it sounds SURPRISINGLY AWESOME. For a 2-track recording (mics on the amps would've been great, but I don't have the resources really). It captures both versions of Spandex Hitman (we finished the first one and then Tom said 'let's do that again,' so we did. I messed up the lyrics the second time through though). It would be amazing to put this show out as a 12" LP--I love the sound and, of course, it has almost the entire personnel of the band, past and present (Andy is going to play on the third week, so he'll be accounted for later). Anyone have a spare $1500 they'd like to hand over for this? Maybe I could post it here as an mp3, anyway.

NEXT WEEK: we finish up the Rejection Set Me Free-era tracks and move on to Best Friends In Space territory.

EDIT EDIT EDIT: LA Underground has posted a couple of pics from our set and Pizza!'s . I hope they don't mind if I repost them here. HI CUPCAKE!!!


Original Monolators guitarist Mike Dennis to my left


Cupcake the Bear in diaper and bow. The whole reason for the diaper is that I have a distinct childhood memory of being sick and watching odd daytime television featuring a bear cub in a diaper--it was supposed to be cute and appealing but I found it terrifying. A thousand thanks to Agnes Lily for giving life to Cupcake.


Pizza!


His shirt says "Sweet Home AlObama." I believe McCain took Alabama but it didn't matter in the end. Perhaps if McCain had a Madonna-style headphone mic he would've won.

Cupcake's first Monolators appearance. YES that is indeed Aki Lily:

posted by Eli Monolator @ 9:41 AM