Feed Us A Live Insect

Residency week three in review

Week three: dictator week!


Questions about this picture: why does it look like I'm wearing a wig? Why does it look like I've got a moustache? What's going on?

Anyway--since it was time to play We Fell Dead with Mr. Bollas we decided to recreate our outfits for the WFD video, including Mary's hair. We also had Sean recite a...I think I called it a "pseudo-fascist" introductory speech at the beginning of our set, the thought of which initially (and understandably) caused a certain amount of trepidation on his part. He pulled it off with great aplomb, though. I will post a recording of it soon.

We started off in duo land, first with The Voyeurs and then with Fertile Crescent, a lovely touring band from (I think) Massachusetts that played lovely, delicate electronic-y guitar/drums folk rock. And as for The Voyeurs, they played their hearts out and put us all to shame. We feel very fortunate that they asked us to play their record release show in January and I'm looking forward to hearing their LP! In a world of duo bands The Voyeurs have a much bigger sound than one would normally expect of just two people--partially because of drummer Sean's virtuosity but also because of Jonathan's keyboard technique, which fills up a lot of low end. I once thought to myself that I'd kinda like to sit in with them on bass one day, but frankly they don't really need it--drums and piano is a great combination.

And then, of course, was Shirley Rolls, quite possibly the loudest band in Los Angeles, so loud that Tom blew up his amp (I see a theme of self-destructing amps at Pehrspace). Thank god they played "Piss Pot." I've got all of their set on 4 track (along with all of the other bands that played) but Tom said he hates listening to himself play live, which is kinda too bad because it was a wonderful set. Oh well, your loss sucker! I also love that Ethan plays a Casio keyboard with a built-in radio. Of course he does.

Then was, uh, us, and it was chaos. Two basses going at once through the whole set=Volume. Tom said "I couldn't get enough treble to cut through, I felt like I was castrated." Ashley said "HA!" Honestly the set was a blur, I tried (dunno how successfully) to keep raising the energy/violence until the end, and all of my recording equipment did end up getting knocked over, including the old 1960's Sennheiser mic--oops, and Tom did end up getting his face cut open next to his eye, apparently on Andy's bass. Oooops! No stitches, though. Tough guy. What the hell did we even play? I can't remember.

Finally at the end was Jim Merson’s Monster Mash, which for some reason I kept calling Kyle Mabson's Monster Mash. Sorry! This was the second soundman Kyle band we've seen (after Allusions To Jazz, whose name I also got wrong), and again he played his terrifying double kick bass kit, but also with a guitar player and a (incredibly friendly and polite) vocalist. It was a bit more straightforward punk rock this time and it was pretty awesome--there was one song I remember that involved lyrics along the lines of "gonna make you dinner dinner and it's gonna be yummy yummy." Right on. I was a little sad to see that, of all the people who came to see our set, only the indestructible Elaine Layabout stayed for JMMM--your loss, suckers! They ruled.

Not too many pictures circulating from the night that I can find, just these from LA Underground:

posted by Eli Monolator @ 8:22 AM