LOS
ANGELES 2006
Friday, September 15, 2006
Novi Split, Justin Shay, +DOG+, Frank Moore's
Cherotic All-Star Band
Il Corral, Los Angeles, CA
Saturday, September 16, 2006
The Refrigerator Mothers, Die Rockers Die!, Frank
Moore's Cherotic All-Star Band
The Cocaine, Los Angeles, CA
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Thursday,
September 21, 2006 -
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Well, here I go again … trying to write about our jams. Steve
+dog+ Davis got us the two L.A. gigs. Friday was at il corral …
a very cool low-key/laid-back live-in artist/noise/experimental space
with an intimate performance room with sofas and over-stuffed easy
chairs for the audience. We had played there last year, so it felt
like home. Novi Split was first up. I’d call him an electric
folk singer. But we were never sure he wasn’t a put-on. He walked
that fine line! And adding to the surreality, the straight-looking
audience was taking him seriously, entranced, tapping their toes,
nodding, etc. … seemingly out of sync with what was actually
happening … as if they were all a part of the act. When he was
over, that audience left, being replaced by a brand new audience …
including the film maker Javier Prato who made the internet classic
Jesus Christ the Musical. Hey, if celebs are in the audience, I flaunt
it! There were also the two [faux celebs?] who pulled the plug on
our workshop and threatened legal action a couple of years back …
traveling all the way from San Francisco to catch the show …
but didn’t say one word to me all night! A very surreal night.
During his noise set, Justin Shay invited the audience to sit in a
tent blowing bubbles! Then +dog+ did a painfully beautiful, tenderly
violent piece.
And then it was our cherotic turn. I advertised the tour as RIPPING
EROTIC PASSION PUNK JAZZ. I think we lived/played up to that! To start
with, I did my 4-minute solo vocal, sitting nude in strobe lights
and color slides of 30 years of performances flashing … my eyes
welded shut tearing of trance. Then Steve Emanuel with his stand-up
bass melted into my moaning song of passions. He and I go way back
to ’68 in San Bernardino, and then in Santa Fe. It’s mind-blowing
that we are still doing things together! We used all of that to musically
tango together. After awhile nude Linda and Erika joined in the deep
rubbing pleasure dance both vocally and erotically. Steve Davis took
over laying down the groove with his bass as Steve E. switched for
his debut as a hot lead guitarist! Vinnie “Spit” Santino
brought Gary Ponder, a great jazz/rock session drummer to go on the
quest of the evolving beat with him. Tomek added a spicy sauce with
his accordion and clarinet. Oh, Justin started out in the jam, but
quickly got immobilized within joy of an altered state. So he just
sat there grooving. That can happen! Everybody in the band was into
paying attention to one another, deeply listening, following one another.
So the tight pink of freedom was there right at the beginning and
never let up, kept opening dimensions for us to explore, never stopping,
even when things got tiny and intimate, then blossomed into newness.
Linda and Erika went into the audience to cuddle with people …
people drank it up. When it was all “over,” everybody
was simply blown out at what had just happened.
Let us have an intermission before tackling the next night. When we
got to our hotel Thursday night, just by chance, the film festival
which had shown my film Feisto a few years back was having its gala
opening in the ballroom. So we crashed the party! And Saturday for
brunch we went to The Newsroom … and who was sitting there but
Kumar of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle … which we had
just watched last week! Kumar now has a Frank Moore 4 Prez button
on his back pack! And that’s your Hollywood minute!
So Saturday we played “at” The Cocaine. But it turned
out to be a booking communal concept which usually books jazz in a
Japanese restaurant in Little Tokyo. So that was what we pulled up
to! But the guy who usually does the booking had turned the night
over to Champ, a high energy showman, the lead singer of the punk
band Die Rockers Die … hence us at a rather straight restaurant!
It was a testing of the waters for more edgy shows than jazz. Actually
it felt quite comfortable and cozy sitting there for a couple of hours
while they figured out the p.a., etc. The restaurant staff just accepted
the bunch of mutants. We had a nice, long visit with Jeff Knight.
We haven’t seen each other in 44 years … since we were
living in The Brotherhood of the Spirit, a commune of 250 in northern
Mass. He said I have done what we dreamt of doing back then. It’s
great to be told that! A fan recognized me from the film Mondo New
York. Then I went to work getting fresh meat … er … I
mean members for The Cherotic All-Star Band. When the dust cleared,
I enlisted about half of the first band, The Refrigerator Mothers
which is a rather big band!
Then the show began, fading out of the sound check into swirling color
lights. We were blown out by how good The Refrigerator Mothers were.
They created deep trance states pushing tribal/middle eastern influences
through punk and noise, softened by more then a dash of silliness,
projecting the jazzy warmth of being in a collective body. Wonder
why they at the roots reminded me of us. When they were playing, I
saw the Japanese bartender bopping and trying not to grin!
Next was Die Rockers Die! Champ was literally bouncing off the walls,
jumping over tables, and violated other laws of nature! How do we
keep getting to be a part of such dynamic shows?
So it was our turn. It was the same structure as Friday night …
except Steve E. wasn’t there because his band had a gig. So
after my solo vocal, the huge percussion section that Vinnie brought
joined me to get down to the beat! That section included Vinnie SPIT,
Gary Ponder, Trevor Henthorn on the Surdo, Mistress Jacqueline on
the Djimbe, and Hermit the Flog (Eric Baughn) of The R.M.’s
on the steel drum. Then after around 5 minutes, Linda and Erika started
vocal/physical erotically dancing sucking each other infusion together,
then sucking me explicitly deeper and deeper rubbing into their combined
body, melting into my pink chant, warm colors flowing over everything.
The band expanded into a semi-circle, expanding beyond “the
stage.” Steve Davis created the railroad tracks with his bass.
Tomek with his accordion and clarinet rocked me deeper and deeper.
Into this R.M.s’ Carl F. Off fell with his toy accordion and
nonverbal chanting. R.M.s’ Jewelie Off swayed back and forth
with a big grin, playing finger cymbals. There was a battery of guitarists:
R.M.s’ e.loi (Jeremy Morelock) and Denise M. Owens, and from
our last year L.A. tour, Leo Coronado. During the last half of the
jam, Tomek and Kerri L took turns on the piano. The jam drove through
various layers which people are trained to translate as THE END where
people usually clap, expecting things to wrap-up…not expecting
multiple orgasms! The timing of our jams is rooted within the erotic
dance/reality. Linda, Erika, Steve, Tomek, Vinnie, Jacqueline, and
Gary understood this, pushing pass artificial “ends” to
hidden lava! When Linda and Erika were cuddling with the band and
the audience, I was playing Jacqueline’s body as a sexy drum!
People in the audience from the other bands were playing their instruments.
After the jam, Jewelie said it felt like everybody in the band were
lifelong friends, treating one another tenderly, even when “in
reality” we just met. The music flowed out of this. Another
R.M. player said he felt that he just found his tribe he lost a long,
long time ago. Powerful stuff!
And now get ready for Thursday’s jam!
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