Category: music

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 karaoke organization called Baby Ketten that is 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
Brian Perez Jr. Jr. Jr. and John “Baby Ketten Daddy” Brophy, at the Dunes, when I first met ’em

 

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

*Siouxsie and the Banshees*Metal Postcard*Echo and the Bunnymen**Killing Moon*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*Psychic TV* Godhead

You like singin’? THIS is hardcore!  They’re also the only karaoke establishment that I know of with its own app, called the Baby Ketten app, which offers the full songlist in your phone, and also will give you a kamikaze list to sing on demand!

The first night at the Woods was a jam-packed, scintillating media event- the venue used to be a funeral home, and it feels a little like singing in a friend’s living room. Full of GHOSTS!
A Baby Ketten favorite, Ryan Sablan, brought the crowd to its feet by singing a Turandot aria in an AC/DC shirt. That is the magic of Baby Ketten.

edit: The Woods is now just a memory, as is Beauty Bar and Dunes, but wow, there were some great shows and some great BKK events there, including evenings where we sang all of Abbey Road and Doolittle by them Pixies, and BKK now has all of Radiohead’s OK Computer, which will execute sometime this Spring.  For a karaoke addict, there is nowhere else.  Nowhere in the WHOOOLLLEE WOORRRLD!

BKK’s regular roster is currently:

Tuesdays at Mississippi Pizza, which has a wonderful full bar and vegan pizza (and regular pizza too, calm down)

Second Thursdays at the Alibi, Portland’s most tiki-riffic karaoke establishment, where the regulars are slightly flummoxed by the Karaoke selection, but is getting into the groove

UPDATE: Baby Ketten is now FULL TIME at their new location!  See details HERE!

 

Def’n: HAIRLOAF

Hairloaf: N: The hairstyle that happens when all of the hair is perched in an oblong manner on top of the head, ready to attack. SEE ALSO: Nitzer Ebb.

Chub-up-date!

Dear People;

I know it seems like Chariots of Rubber is all I write about these days, but that is largely because it is all I think about, or do. We are starting up again at the Interstate Firehouse on August 20th, running the 21st, 22nd, and at 6PM on the 23rd- and I will be playing Cindy, the Erotic Pleaser every night after Thursday. The show has new choregraphy, new films, a new theatre, and a new ending! It’s more Chubber than ever before!

During last night’s dress rehearsal, I was told my dress was not whorish enough, which has never happened to me before. Come out and see us! Ticket info and showdates here!

Love, Pleather, and Chariots of Rubber.

The Revenge Of The Return of Chariots of Rubber!

Chariots of Rubber tickets are now available for the second run-

Bigger! Better! Bloodier!
I am singing the role of Cindy, the Erotic Pleaser, a street-weary and shopworn prostitute, with a legendary past and a strange secret, but miles to go before she sleeps- so basically playing myself, for all shows except Thursday, August 20th!

My Beloved Chariots Of Rubber Recap


Jeffrey Wonderful and “Private” Mike Albano’s lovechild, Chariots of Rubber, has completed its first run, and it was a rollercoaster of fun and excitement at Theater Theatre.

They say that the rougher the dress rehearsal, the better the first show will be- in our last dress rehearsal, this young man, the lead in the play, broke his nose on a prop car:

During the first show, an audience member joined us onstage to take her clothes off until her boyfriend and Jordaina helped her offstage, him murmuring “You’re not in the show. You’re not in it.” During the second show, another audience member came onstage during the same scene. I guess it just…moves people? The best backstage line was dancer Kimberly’s immortal remark as she was about to go onstage, “Omigod, I got no panties on!”
Second run: (on tiny leather panties) “Are these too slutty for the show?” and the answer is: NOTHING is too slutty for this show.
For dress rehearsal as Cindy, I was told my dress was “not whorish enough”, which is the first time that’s ever happened.

All in all, we sold out three shows, entertained members of the Dandy Warhols, Karaoke from Hell, and other local luminaries, broke a prop bed, passed a headcold to each other, and generated 5000 watts of ROCK. I’m already looking forward to the reprise in August!

CHUBBER ATTACK!


I want you to know about the premiere of
Portland’s first Heavy Metal Musical, Chariots of Rubber, written by
Jeffrey Wonderful and “Private” Mike Albano. It has been in
rehearsals for over a year, and finally, this strange fruit ripens!
It is Grease meets Hedwig meets West Side Story meets Rocky Horror
meets Julian Sand’s Warlock, and it is fantastic.I play Gas Station Attendant #2, a drug-addled lesbian, in a a heavy
metal musical about love, loss and demolition derby in Coos Bay, OR.
I will be singing, dancing, “acting”, and wearing a wig. There will be smoke, cars, carnage, singing, a rock band, talking nipples, sign
language, and blood. Also, you know how colorblind casting was a big deal in modern theatre? This show has genderblind casting!
The premiere is Thursday, July 23rd at 10:15 at Theater, Theatre on
Belmont for $15.
Chariots of Rubber
will run through the weekend (Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th) and again Aug 13/14/15. You can cash-check-paypal them! Write me
write me write me at badinia@badinia.com! 100 people a night will witness this phenomenon,
and everyone else will just have to gnash their little teeth!

Mercury reviews it here as “subtlety-free theatre.” Har!

www.chariotsofrubber.com is up, courtesy of the wonderful Pete Ellison.

SECRET EXTRA POSTSCRIPT:

They say that the rougher the dress rehearsal, the better the show- well, we had a lead actor break his NOSE. Beat that! We might hypmotize ’em!