Category: music

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!
I’m dancing in it, and have also recently gotten a speaking role- watch me 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 McDonald as Bow Tuck

Jarud Meyer as Tommy

and Rob Taylor as Tommy’s Mother.

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!

Ladies’ Rock Camp and the Birth Of Furious Yellow

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, 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. I’m at least an average guitar player.

It was kind of uncomfortable, since I am used to stand-up, in which 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. She 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 because 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.

Robyn Hitchcock Wants To Go Backwards

OK, I like to stop in to the Museum of Robyn Hitchcock from time to time, and there’s always interesting stuff going on. Last time I was there, they had a flyer with a premade font, and my mind was kind of blown- the font was based on Robyn’s handwriting off the back of record albums, and it is called Fegmania! and you can get it here. But when an artist, or someone representing an artist, can find a font based on their handwriting to use on the internet- I don’t know, doesn’t it make you feel like your head is going back into your navel and you’re being reborn?

Favorite Things

This flyer, featuring a mash-up of G.W. and a Smiths album cover, has been making me laugh on my bike commute for a week, so finally I post it, 24 hours after the event occurred.

Catching up with the Jones!

Up and Coming: Halloween! I love Halloween. It’s like Christmas to me. Our costumes are ready. We are Lene Lovich and Nina Hagen!)


Eugene! I am excited about the all-girl laugh-fest coming up, and looking forward to meeting more funny ladies!

Chariots of Rubber! I have recently been cast in Jeffrey Wonderful’s musical about Demolition Derby, love, and Cindy, the Erotic Pleaser as a Backup Dancer, so I can add that distinction to my resume! I have NO idea when or where it will premiere, but it is going to be FANTASTIC. They told me I could tap dance in it. Equal parts Hedwig, Rocky Horror, Grease, and giant, talking nipples.

I leave you with a Fact-of-The Day quote from John Hodgman’s very funny new book, More Information Than You Require:


HALLOWE’EN: Originally called Samhain, this is the traditional Pagan-American holiday when we ask our children to consider the fragility of life by dressing them in darkly colored costumes and vision-impairing masks and encouraging them to walk around in the road.

Oh, Oh, Oh, Sexy Vampire!

My friend Pete, owner and proprietor of Disko Warp records, mentioned to me the other day that his single, Oh Oh Oh Sexy Vampire, had gotten a lot of attention because people thought it might be connected to the teen novels by Stephanie Meyer, the “Twilight” series.

I hadn’t heard of it, when I was a teen we went to Anne Rice for our sexy vampires. Then, I went to a party and wound up getting into a discussion with a group of girls that were obsessed with the selfsame series aimed at teens, but read by adults, as all too often tragically happens.

I pointed to an article that posited that vampires had to be fictional, because mathematically they are impossible. If every vampire created a vampire every day, in five days we’d all be vampires, like some sort of bloodsucking Ponzi scheme.

By day 4, none of us would be going to parties, because we’d all be locked in our houses wearing neckbraces and garlic necklaces, because holy shit, there are fucking vampires out there! This girl got REALLY MAD and refused to laugh at any of my hilarious jokes. People suck, and that’s why I’m becoming a vampire. At least then the sucking will have some sort of purpose.