Chubber! Now in Poster Form!

What's That Smell?

At long last, after much gnashing of teeth and clashing of swords, the opening of Jeffrey Wonderful's CHARIOTS OF RUBBER has been announced: It debuts in the Arena stage at Theatre Theater on Belmont on one month from today on Thursday, July 23rd!
Your friend Virginia is dancing in it, and also has recently gotten a speaking role- watch her tear up the stage as Gas Station Attendant #2!
This is the ultimate Portland Rock & Roll Musical- the stories of fate and failure in Coos County demolition derby, featuring an original soundtrack, a live band, blood, cross-dressing cops, supernatural sisters, and in general comporting itself like Grease meets Hedwig and the Angry Inch! CHARIOTS OF RUBBER is an all original, heavy-metal musical about friendship, love and loss at the demolition derby.
Written and directed by Jeffrey Wonderful, Music By Private Mike Albano performed by Jedediah Aaker, Keith Bornzin,Dylan Skiles.

Set to an ALL ORIGINAL score, Chariots of Rubber is performed by Portland rockers- Jen Shepard as the hooker Cindy "Portland's Erotic Pleaser", Donny Don't debuts as Crash, Seantos as Bow Tuck, Jarud Meyer as Tommy, and Rob Taylor as Tommy's Mother.

The running dates are July 23rd, 24th, 25th and August 13, 14, and 15!



The posters and flyers have been printed for the show, and we have been generating tags to add to the info-

*Dancing so hot, our choreographer's pregnant!
*What if I get a b*ner?
*It's a little car! You can stand on it!

Grimly Fiendish

In case you are sitting on lots of holiday cash and don't know what to do, I wanted to point out that Dave Vanian of seminal (huh huh) punk band The Damned has co-founded a high-end goffic makeup line called Illamasqua. Who better to do it than Dave? He's been blending clown white and smudging black liner since Billy Joe Armstrong's parents argued over whether the condom would hold. Anyway, Dave's makeup line is is the culmination of my dreams in many ways.


Awesome things about Dave:

1. He is married to Patricia Morrison, formerly the bassist of Sisters of Mercy, and together they are the gothest couple ever. Everyone else should give up.

2. He once threatened to beat the tar out of Bauhaus' Peter Murphy, for copying his "Vampire schtick", not realizing that there was enough of it to go around for the UK, Germany, and the States for many years to come.

3. I have been in love with him, body and soul, since I was fifteen years old. All five foot six of him.

4. Screw you, Patricia Morrison!

Postscript: Illamasqua has started shipping to the States! They can now ship worldwide for seven pounds, which I think is eleventy hundred dollars. Hooray!

Who's My Ugly Little Angel?

There's a podcast up of me yammering in a smoky basement here. The podcast is called The Ugly Angels, and they have a cute dog named Steve. This bad boy is downloadable on Itunes also, natch. My friends The Oblik and The Gingerbread Patriots have songs on it as well.

Ride with the Dandies!

Come ride with the Dandies! Meet at 6:15 at Ladd's Circle to tour significant Portland sites with members of the Dandy Warhols-

Ladd's Circle, 1600 SE Harrison St
Come on a tour of sites important to the history of the Dandy Warhols, one of the most successful bands to come out of Portland, with a couple members of the band! See where their 1st show electrified the audience, where they recorded some of their highly successful CDs and filmed videos, and their Portland recording studio, where they took back control over their music and now record other bands too. We'll be blasting DW music the whole way! The ride is free, but we will make at least one stop at a cafe or bar so bring a couple bucks for a drink. The ride will end with a trivia contest.

http://shift2bikes.org/cal/view3week.php#15-577

Zia McCabe on the takeoff for the Dandy Warhols ride

More amazing photos of the riders, the ride, and the Odditorium here!

Portland Area Comedy Open Mikes!

I have had some questions lately about where people can see free and enjoyable local comedy, or where they should go to perform some, and although I try hard not to have anything useful on this page, I am too lazy to write things down for people and would like to have something on the internet.

Monday Nights: Boiler Room with Kevin Michael-Moore. NW 3rd and Davis.

This is the longest-running open mic in Portland. It is seven years old. Sign-up is at 9, the show is from 9:30 to 11:30, or earlier, karaoke follows! Kevin Michael-Moore is an amazing emcee. I like it there. Kevin keeps the chitchat to a minimum.

Tuesday Nights: Suki's, at SW 4th and Carruthers. Host Dax Jordan.

This is a fun room in the dive bar in the basement of Travelodge. The comics believe that sitting in the small cul-de-sac room is the same thing as being in a soundproof shark cage. Dax is skilled and funny, and this is the hands-DOWN best place to be ignored by your friends in the shark cage while they talk about who threw up in whose car, and also who has pot.

Wednesdays:

Roots: SE 7th and Hawthorne, starting at 9 PM- on the first and third Wednesdays of the month. Hosted by the lovely Jimmy Newstetter. This room had a huge audience when I stopped in this week, and is a nice venue.

Thursday Nights: Evidently, Harvey's open mic is moving to Thursdays at 8:30! I have not been/confirmed!

Sunday Nights:

A new biweekly Sunday night mic at 8:30 at the beautiful Curious Comedy Theatre on MLK, hosted by the beautiful Andy Wood! 5225 NE MLK! The next one is on the 28th! In this venue, several feature comics open the show, and it's currently free to the public!

Come on out and have fun with us! Remember, sleep's for the WEAK!

Ladies' Rock Camp and the Birth Of Furious Yellow

A nice mural of musical ladies, including my favorite, birthday girl Laurie Anderson!

For many years, I have been playing mediocre rhythm guitar. I used to play with my band, Sadly Deluded, and I would tell jokes and play songs until someone suggested that I could just tell jokes and I wouldn't have to haul a guitar around. I have always wanted to be a better guitar player, so I decided to force myself to practice guitar more by signing up for ladies' rock camp. It didn't actually work that way, and so I showed up with baby-soft fingers to play on for eight hours a day, which then hurt like bejeezus all weekend. My fault.

My former band's logo, designed by the fantastic Francisco Garcia

Ladies' Rock Camp is very fast paced- you show up, eat lunch, form a band, take a class for your instrument, and start writing a song. When asked what kind of band I wanted to be in, I couldn't think of the term for the music I like so I just said "Mope Rock". I still can't think of a better word for the music I like.
Something strange about Rock Camp is the almost unremitting positivity and support of the other campers and staff. I think now that I have been selling myself short as a mediocre guitar player, and that I'm at least an average guitar player. It was kind of uncomfortable, since I am used to stand-up, in which all friendships are based on tearing each other down in public or private.
I had a moment I think might have been life-changing- we had been rehearsing our song over and over, and for a minute I was just playing it on my own, and I thought, "This doesn't sound as good as it does with the rest of my band," and that's the first time I've ever thought anything of the sort.

We named ourselves Furious Yellow, and our lead bass player made us matching 1" buttons.
We wrote a song about breaking up, and sketched out our first EP:

Title: I Am Furious Yellow

Songlist:

Confirm or Deny
The Blood Of These Whores Is Killing Me
Doublewide Coffin (a coffin built for two)
Let Go Of The Cremains
My Hands Are Made Of Meat
I Still Have Your Knee Socks From Thanksgiving

Fun Facts About Furious Yellow:

Three members from Cali, one from Idaho, and one Portlander
We're so heavy, we need two bass players
Our lead bassist has been to Rock Camp four times, and features in an article from the London Guardian on ladies' rock camp in 2006!

Two blue-eyed, two green-eyed, one brown-eyed lady.

Five band members, and THREE tap dancers! What are the odds?

I was given a rainbow guitar strap, which I thought was appropriate to use because although I am not gay, my Telecaster is at least bi-curious.
After the show at Satyricon, Furious Yellow was very tired and stinky and our fingers hurt, so we drank alcohol until we felt better.
If you like music and are a lady, I really recommend this camp. It is approximately the most fun thing ever.

All Hail Baby Ketten!

I can't keep my love a secret anymore. I can't hide my love away! Among the many things that make Portland awesome, there is a now a karaoke organization called Baby Ketten that is operating three nights a week, and rocking the best book in the business! You think your karaoke has a good book? Seriously- suck it. Have you ever wanted to sing Siouxsie Sioux's apocalyptic lullaby, Metal Postcard? Probably not, but I did, and I sang it at Baby Ketten! Bauhaus' Kick in the Eye? Think you can keep an audience through Pulp's bump and grind classic, This is Hardcore? Find out! Do you think singing Laid by James will get a singalong going? Can you handle Tori Amos' Crucify? Do you think you can step to The Strangler's Peaches? Holy crap, this is a great book, and the crowd and KJ's are all wonderful people. You can talk to them on their Facebook event page: Baby Ketten

Tuesday Ketten: At Bodacious Classics (B.C.'s!) on Powell, starting around 9
Wednesday and Sunday Ketten: at the Dunes at 9, 1909 NE MLK, with your wonderful barman Mark, and a fog machine and a great sound system!



Can you tell which venue is my favorite? I bet you can't!

OK, to whet your whistle, here are just a HANDFUL of the items available for singin':

Metal Postcard*Siouxsie and the Banshees*Killing Moon*Echo and the Bunnymen*Senses Working Overtime*XTC*Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves* Gavin Friday*Quiet Life*Japan*This Charming Man*The Smiffs*Replacements*Alex Chilton*Nick Cave*Red Right Hand*Proclaimers*Sunshine on Leith*Beats International*Dub Be Good To Me*Belle and Sebastian*Funny Little Frog*Joy Division*Atmosphere*Nine Inch Nails*Something I Can Never Have*Pixies* No. 13 Baby*Beautiful South*Rotterdam*Pulp* This is Hardcore

You like singin'? THIS is hardcore!

San Francisco's Finest Comes to Portland!

I rang in 2008 with a show in San Francisco by the world's finest Smiths cover band, This Charming Band, and I've been keeping my eyes on the skies for the news I finally got this week- they're doing a show in Portland at the Wonder Ballroom next Friday, May 29th, with Depeche Mode project Black Celebration and New Orders inspirados Love Vigilantes. The only sad, sad omission is Portland's finest Cure cover band, The Exploding Boys, but maybe sometime in the future we can bring these powerhouses together.


Clear your calendar. Find your winklepickers. Let's go!

The Best Song Ever

The new Lawrence Welk parody with Judice, the sexually aggressive tiny-handed microcephalic, is the funniest thing I have ever seen. Also, Will Ferrell pretends to tap-dance.