Ok,
I’ m recovering … trying to recover … and failing
so far … from the Sacramento gig Saturday. But not too much
from the gig itself, but from driving back and forth here and there
(70 miles one way) TWICE in two days! We got a late start Friday because
Linda had to straighten out a snafu with the delivery of my rental
hospital bed to our hotel room … she had been working on it
for two months. Because we got a late start, we got into rush hour
traffic and it took us 3 hours in the 100 degree heat. When we finally
got to the hotel, there was no hospital bed … and no room for
a hospital bed in the room … and no concerned staff. So we had
to drive back home … after having a great dinner! So the next
day we got up and did the drive again. But Steve Davis put us to shame.
He drove up from L.A. to play in both my Cherotic All-Stars’
and Instagon! But I’m hurting much more than usual after a gig.
Getting old?
The Space is a great little theater with bleacher seating. Lob put
the show, A MIDSUMMERS NIGHT FREAK OUT, together. Lob and I have been
doing things together for over 8 years. The night started rather peacefully,
rather calmly, with Instagon playing jazzy trances. Like my band,
Instagon is never the same line-up and never rehearsed together. This
time Instagon was Lob on bass, Steve on guitar, Jim of The Shenanigoats
on drums, Danny on trumpet, and another guy on the didgeridoo. Except
for the didgeridoo-er, the rest would join my band for the night.
When all was peaceful, BOTCHII messed it all up, blasting ultra-high
energy punky noise assault. They are a trio of guitarist Tom Skowronskif
and drummer Matthew “Lobster” Graybiel and Kevin Meecrob
on pedals. They were simply mind-blowing great! Lobster would join
The Cherotic All-Stars later, trading his drums for a mean guitar.
Then after Botchii, a scary bunch of weirdos started setting up huge
steel drums, power saws, giant puppets, etc. I smelled fresh danger
of destruction. So I asked a member of UBERKUNST if we were safe sitting
in the front row. We moved to the side! And Erika still got wounded
in the chest by a flying shard of vinyl from Mary Martin’s South
Pacific! UBERKUNST bills itself as “offensive fun, experimental
music, noise ?music?, huge clumsy amateur theatrics and the scariest
13 person band on the planet.” Basically they presented your
post-apocalyptic world where evil robots butt-rape and then disembowel
humans (the disemboweling was rather whimpy!) … leading to a
total chaotic destruction with a lot of banging, bashing, power saws
grinding on metal drums, creating red hot showers of sparks. At the
end everything was in ruin! Wendy O Williams would have been proud!
From UBERKUNST, the “filthy bass” of Dire Deparra would
join The Cherotic All-Stars’ jam!
So I had my work cut out for me! By Lob creating a brilliant line-up,
he was forcing us to stretch, expand … take the night into soft,
intimate, erotic trances … which is the opposite of UBERKUNST
… but building on what had been created through out the night.
To start I sat nude under strobes and slides, doing an emotional vocal
solo for several minutes, moving, dancing, rocking back and forth.
Then Linda and Erika naked except for pearls joined me in the moaning
chant. They danced together, moving, pleasure rubbing deep into each
other within infusion, soon enveloping me into the intimate body.
Soon the rest of the band appeared, forming a semi-circle …
Danny on Trumpet, Lob running around the stage banging on the tambourine,
Steve Davis plucking his bass, Dr. Gruve blowing his harmonica, Dire
pounding the bass, Lobster pushing his guitar, Tomek squeezing his
accordion and playing other instruments, Jim beating the drums. At
a certain point, Linda and Erika left me to cuddle with each band
member, and then they went into the audience to cuddle with people
as I wailed with the band. People are hungry for that deep human touch!
When Linda and Erika got back to the stage, Erika tried to play clarinet…but
quickly started moving with Linda again! The jam lasted over an hour.
Here is what Corey and Alexi wrote about the night:
“We turned on the A-C, the traffic cleared, we broke out the
snacks, and things were looking up! Despite all the traffic, we still
pulled into the Space at right about 6. There was Lob, Steve from
DOG ... a blast of heat! What a neat space! We unloaded, Lob showed
us where we could set up the free stuff, and we got started setting
things up, and soon you guys were there ...
It was really neat how popular the zine totes and Skip Skiffington
CDs were ... people were looking through them all night, and took
a lot of CDs! When the tech gal had finally gotten the pullies in
the right position and hoisted up the backdrop for the first time,
she was totally blown out. She loved it.
The whole night was so much fun ... we'd meet out by the shirt table
between bands, talking about how neat each one was. After the jam,
we were just blown away ... we both said that we had thought to ourselves
that it was the most amazing jam yet, if you can really say that.
On all different levels ... musically, you could hear every single
instrument and voice, and it all blended into an otherworldly at times,
beautiful, trance-like sound with explosions of sound within it. Hard
to really describe it, but it was amazing ... especially neat to have
the trumpet sound in the mix of electronic instruments. And how deep
and erotic and beautiful the playing/dancing was ... and how soft
and willing and open the audience was. Sometimes the jams clear the
house ... except for a small group of people ... but it seemed like
this time, the jam did not clear people out ... most everyone stayed.
It was amazing to see the look on people's faces when Linda and Erika
"got" them ... from the way the group of boys went from
elbowing each other and joking into an unexpected softness ... to
the deep expressions of peace on people's faces... Alexi saw that
when Linda and Erika first started "getting" the band, the
boys pointed at the guitar player from Botchii, motioning that they
were gonna "get" him! And laughing! And then they were "got"
too!
Everything was really fun ... breaking down the set and packing up,
and then saying goodbyes ... When you guys were in the bathroom, Danny
the trumpet player was talking to us ... he had come from southern
Illinois to California to escape "Deliverance" country ...
He said he became spiritual when he came to California, something
he guessed California was known for doing to people ... and then Tomek
chimed in, "It's known for doing a lot of other things too."
With that look on his face ... funny! How neat that the tech gal wrote
two poems during the jam ... wow ... “
It was fun hitting the AM/PM for some fizzy lifting drinks before
hitting the road. We were talking about the jam ... And then we hit
the road, following you guys and got the tunes started! Much much
fun. Listening to the music, and following the sight of the LUVeRmobile
made the trip back seem timeless. We really enjoyed the mix Frank
put together! We were singing along as we rode back down to Berkeley.
"
Frank Moore
7/17/2006
Download free audio of the performance here:
https://archive.org/details/frankmoore2006-07-15
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