Dreampepper

The enchanting Jess Hill says, "Each artist will draw melodies from the sky and underbelly of the wide, wonderful, sometimes woe filled world of Tom Waits and bring them to life under the two suns at Commercial and 5th. The last time we threw this kind of party the joint was crammed to the rafters with a SOLD OUT sign by 9pm. Don't hesitate to commit this date to memory dearies, the venue is a tight squeeze and if you're late you'll be outside watching the windows steam up.

Dust off your bowler hat, and garter belt, and hurry down, the bourbon won't last forever!
See you at sea, in the alley and below the moon on October 16th at Cafe Deux Soleils"

Particularly exciting are Jess, Tarren, and Maria in the Shower. They rock more than socks. They rock EVERYTHING.

"A city can't be too small. Size guarantees anonymity—if you make an embarrassing mistake in a large city, and it's not on the cover of the Post, you can probably try again. The generous attitude towards failure that big cities afford is invaluable—it's how things get created. In a small town everyone knows about your failures, so you are more careful about what you might attempt." - David Byrne

What surprised me most about the Tiger Lillies show is how gorgeous it was. I was expecting raucous suicide songs, but instead found their show delightful fun, but also rather haunting, as if they were playing the full weight of their twenty years together with every note. The Moore Theater is awfully pretty, which helped, but it really was something in their timbre, a sweetness that ached, sugar in a tooth during the best french kiss you'll ever remember on the birthday you decide you finally feel old. It was blood shivering. Their best trick was to have the audience laugh to the worst, most terrible things, then to mock the laughter with more of the same. I've never heard such dark subject matter vivisected with so much whimsical mirth. It shone a light upon the heart, even as they sang like a house on fire, all bizarre theatrics and kicking kittens down stairs, with voices like elegant flashing sirens.

The after party wasn't half bad either, a mad robot-themed dance review at the Can Can underground cabaret bar, (delicious food, crazy entertainment), involving two astonishingly limber girls and some not too terrible young men gyrating two feet in front of our front row table, then a set by The Bad Things, a band I crashed with once in a Bellingham squat with the Dandelion Junk Queens. (Because the world really can be that small sometimes). Most memorable, after Rainbow, the intense spinning-from-a-chandelier awe inspiring blond girl who looked uncannily like Sara, was the bachelorette unicorn lap-dance. Sounds unlikely, I know, but it was quite the experience. He whinnied, he pawed, he wore embarrassing sunglasses that matched his skintight bodysuit. It was beyond pretty great. It was, in fact, fantastic.

The next day, Saturday, was Seacompression, a Seattle burner party held in a repurposed military hanger. Burner parties are much the same wherever you go, a fun fur collision of invention, wacky art, fire sculpture, dance, music, costumes, and people hanging from the ceiling, sometimes with no clothes on. It was a good time, with good people. We drove over with Robin and Rafael, to find Frank and Claire were there, and Adam and Anna, as well as Craig, Richard, Jordan, and Stephanie, though with the crowd, it was rare to run into people more than twice. Most of everyone we found wandering around, except for Jordan, who was hanging out in the white geodesic dome full of pillows, watching as people were locked into a spinning globe machine by crystal tipped metal arms.

To give you an idea of what it was like, around front was a hacked bus with a fire sculpture on the roof, a hot-rod with a BBQ instead of a trunk, the giant flaming metal hand Tobasco and his crew made, and a pumpkin death pachinko machine. Inside, to the right of the entrance, was a photo booth and a small movie theater (complete with Marquee), and the white chill-out dome. To the left, some couches, the Wheel Of Judgment, a hammock garden, and the hall that led to the main dancefloor, a large room with a raised area in the middle made of cages. Past those, in the main space, were two bouncy ropes hanging from the ceiling, various girls dangling from the ends, tied in by experts, and a performance space behind another bus, where fire dancers were spinning fire and live music played. Mostly we wandered, content to mingle in the madness, though we danced to the EQLateral String Trio and submit ourselves to the Wheel of Judgment. (Tony got a ticket for being "too fury". We think they meant "too furry".) We didn't stay to the end, exhaustion and a desire to be curled up naked won over, but it was a lovely party.

To top it off, we bought a strand of electric pussy-willows yesterday. Plugged in, they look like the future colliding with magic.

There are no easy words for how blessed I feel to have such lovely adventures in my life. Also, I had the Tiger Lillies sign my decolletage. Pictures soon.

Cthulhupalooza, Saturday December 6, the Rio Theatre in Vancouver BC Canada.
Facebook event link

A pulpy, tentacled, and maddening Lovecraft Rockband fundraiser hosted by two brilliant yet malignant modern men of science, my friends Toren and Jay, with partial proceeds to Child’s Play charity, Cthulhupalooza features:

A very special performance by the Lovecraftian rock band The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets.

A Rock Band Competition with prizes from many sponsors including Harmonix and Jones Soda, as well as a chance to sing the exclusive Rock Band track “Shhh….” with The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets.

A screening of the silent film adaptation of the classic weird tale “The Call of Cthulhu” as produced by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society, along with other short films to be announced!

$16 tickets for Cthulhupalooza are now available in Vancouver at: The Rio Theatre, Red Cat Records, Zulu Records, Scratch Records, Scrape Records, Neptoon Records, RX Comics, Elfsar Collection, Strategies Games, High Life, Pulp Fiction.

Also - starting right now and valid until 11:59pm on Wednesday November 26th, Toren's offering an unlucky $13 ticket price for Cthulhupalooza if you order through PayPal. PayPal to thickets@uniserve.com with your name and preferred contact info (this can be email or phone) and a ticket will be held for you at the Rio Theatre until you arrive!

If you haven’t picked up your tickets yet, you should act fast, as they’re going quick! And remember, DON'T FORGET to register your band by emailing cthulhupalooza@gmail.com

Bonus: Sexual Healing excerpt.

Impossible, this last weekend, mythology in my bed, history approaching me blind, yet wonderful. L'shana tova! Ketiva v'chatima tova.

These are my Days of Awe:

The original Friday plan was a very loosely defined, "Go To Concert", that began with stepping out from my apartment in time for a bus that would get me to the Railway Club at nine. Easy enough. Half way to the venue, however, a man was stabbed stepping off the bus. Right in the ribs. Welcome to the poorest postal code in Canada. The assailant ran off. No way to see who it was, no way to ever find out.

This being an insulated part of the world, no one else knew what to do with violence, and so sat uselessly back, looking too shocked to move, but Crackton is my old neighborhood. This sort of thing happens practically bi-weekly. Abandoning my things to the back of the bus, I began giving orders. "Who has a cell-phone? Did anyone see what happened? Call this in." I got a pair of sterile plastic gloves from the driver and set in staunching the blood with a bunched strip of shirt torn from the wounded man and tried to keep him awake. Paramedics arrived twenty minutes later, (slower than pizza delivery), tell me he'll be fine, and drop me off, late and shaky, outside the Railway Club.

Not the most auspicious beginning to a night out.

Shane's was the first table I found in the crowd. I saved a seat with them, tried to explain what I'd been doing, found myself suddenly in the middle of a conversation about trying to look professional in a miniskirt, gave up, and went looking to see who else had showed up. (Not that it isn't possible, they seemed very sure). There was a row by the bar, another table in the very back, and a group out on the smoking deck. It was comforting, I'd only given people a day's warning, and - yet here they were, a little bit of everywhere. One darling friend told me she hadn't even checked what was playing, but merely came on my invitation. After my stressful transit adventure, her comment was a cliche ray of light in the murky pub darkness.

The concert, thankfully, was phenomenal. I parked myself up right against the stage and watched rapt for the entire show. That 1 Guy plays with an exuberant precision, like a holy embodiment of joyful, theatrical grace. It washed the entire medical emergency right out of my system. I've never seen anything like it. I don't think there is anything like it. His instrument is an intrepid midi-wired double-necked upright bass made out of pipe and studded with triggers, but not really. And while he sings and enthusiastically plays this poetic contraption, building intense, complex sample loops, he's mucking elegantly about with three kick pedals, a snare drum, and a saw. It's almost overwhelming, like watching a sound-cultivating conjurer with as much energy as a coke-high David Byrne. {check if he's playing near you}

END OF PART ONE.

A sound like god, what happens when a man covered in microphones walks into a room full of speakers.

I have been measuring things more in my eyes than my hands this week, which leads to interesting bits of missing time that I worry for, as if they're my children and I've abandoned them for that crucial minute too long in the shopping mall where now the only way to get them back is in newspaper articles I clip out and tape to my fridge.

Last weekend, Burrow was in town. I know that for certain. The order of her arrival is written down, there were pictures taken. She stayed over Friday night with Sam, the evening of Meat Eatery. Sam and I had walked to BJ's after dinner, watched atrocious movies with Bob and his girl-darling from Parksville, then returned to curl up with Burrow asleep in my bed. We were quiet, but woke her unintentionally.

Saturday we crawled out of bed in time for the Fool's Parade. Sam went home to shackle himself to his desk and Burrow and I rolled like tired thunder downtown and met with Duncan, Jenn, Georg, and her pink-dyed ferret, Silky. The parade was rainy and under-attended, so after coming close to winning the Fool of the Year award with ferret breasts, we abandoned the street for Taf's. When work didn't have my paycheque ready, we turned around and walked to the Bay to visit with Eva at her clinical cosmetics booth. It was fascinating, in a quiet colourful way, but not enough to keep Burrow and I from going home to rest before Duncan pulled us out to the graceful Fool's Cabaret on Main st. Reine's mother was there, and Siobhan, a friend of friend's we went to dinner with after.

Monday is missing, a played out afterburn. I took some self-portraits, but I don't know if I slept there at home or not. There was one, two ideas. A number, undifferentiated. Something.

Tuesday is more concrete, not only written down, but recorded. Video, audio, photographs. Imogyne and I at Hawksley Workman with darling Sophie. The Cultch in all it's warmly worn desiccating glory, intimate, red curtained. I remembered all the shows I'd played there. Running through the back when I was a child, that one time making love inside the roof. Downstairs hot-boxing the worn office, how there was once a pane of glass violently shattered in the middle of an orchestral piece, how the beads of my necklace clattered as I bounced and clapped. The music was good too, his acoustic version of striptease sincerely captivating.

After, Devon came over and we stayed up until the last bus, listening to our bootlegs and drinking weary tea. Imogyne eventually went home, and Devon and I talked until far too late, making me late for work Wednesday. The day I went to Andrew's after work and Georg and I re-dyed my hair into the colour of sticky quill ink while watching Ghost in the Shell. She came back to my place after, and we let the ferret run free through my apartment as we talked about partners and lives lost, the soulmates of just then and not today and maybe yesterday we knew something and maybe tomorrow we'll have some hope. She wrote poetry and I woke up in the morning holding her hand.

Thursday I had a date with Sam, a real live date, not one of those on-line long-distance approximations my life seems to enjoy lauding me with. Cleaned up versions of us met at Tinseltown for the Brick preview and had dinner at Wild Ginger before walking out to False Creek to hang out on a water fountain and eat caramel ice-cream. We sat under the moon passing the tub back and forth like a cheap cigarette and talked about some of the same things that Georg did. We're all divorced, the lot of us. It's like a curse or a disease catching in all the social circles. It seems like every split has had very little to do with love and everything to do with a basic need to keep evolving, to keep trying to touch forever.

Friday Michael stole me out from under dinner with Andrew, Navi, Ryan, and Eva, and accompanied Robin and I to Thank You For Smoking instead. It was gleeful, with some damned nice moments, (there was a montage of Bad People that slaughtered us like baby seals), and led well into creeping alone up the stairs into Duello for the end of Fight Practice, a small red flower as my sword. I sat on the couch with Lee, letting him show me knife tricks, as people cleaned up and we sat for coffee until it was too late to think of going anywhere else but home. Friday nights, however, traditionally lead into mornings without work, so we survived.

We survived well, in fact, not doing a damned thing until somewhere after two in the afternoon, until the body-call to breakfast was too deafening to ignore.