Fraggle Rock

Under smoke screen of a Bailey's Pub late night drinking session with Kristie and Daniel, sitting quietly by Adam's side, we listened to song after song roll off the satellite radio. It felt like someone was scavenging through my high school cd collection, now long hidden in a deep dark corner of my bedroom closet. At least that's the way I felt....Smashing Pumpkins, Beck, Butthole Surfers, Nirvana, Pearl Jam...

It brought out this starry eyed girl, all of these little memories, sitting in sophomore art class and listening to the LA's on "Bring Your Own Music Day" as the other kids grumbled about how they wanted to listen to Randy Travis. I thought of my first Lollapalooza, the bonfires we danced around at the frenzied end of a long, extremely exhausting day as Billy Corgan screeched and swallowed us whole into his own oblivion. Singing the lyrics to Beck's Loser in my high school bathroom, thinking I was alone, and giggles and a "you're weird", falling out of the mouth of the mighty Margie Sefton as she slammed open the end stall door. She laughed at the befuddled look on my face and told me it was true...

I was weird. I guess I still am. Sitting around with friends and discussing the beginnings and ending of our many music loves, I realize that there is so much that I regret missing out on, growing up in such a hollow small prairie town. And there are so many things that I'm glad I never found out about until later, until I was ready to appreciate. Yes, I never had MTV. I'll never see those visions in my head when I hear a song that others see. I only see those moments, late night driving moments, art all nighters at Archer, somber nights sitting on the hood of my car and watching the strange lights in the distance coming from the direction of St. Elmo...what were those anyway... I've no idea. I dream alot in these thoughts, walking through these memories like a great hall of portraits, only they are guided by a song, telling me the importance of each grating and blissful brushstoke made by Mark Kozelek, Michael Stipe, Jason Falkner, Over the Rhine.

These dark and course rounds of song, a porthole, bringing me back to myself a few minutes later down the road. I'd just seen Kelly and Josh listening to Led Zeppelin, hovered around a blazing fire in a field somewhere. I'd just been told over the top of NIN's haunting heart wrenchers that Neil Skippers loved another girl more than me. I just danced through a crowd and into the arms of my friends as Sunny Day Real Estate took the stage and heads began to sway, as Ben Folds played his piano with his stool, as Mad Richard of the Verve writhed and flailed and yowled, and as I wiped the tired tears of a long day in New Orleans away from my eyes and stretched to the top of my toes to see Elliott Smith frown his way into my heart.

Jeff Higgason

He stood at the counter, fumbling with his keys, eyes peeking down through thick glasses, gaze then quickly turning away. Shifting from side to side, perspiration forming on his brow. I had no idea what to say. I had seen him in the store before. Here he was asking me to go to a music festival, a girl he didn't even know.

We drove to St. Louis for Point Fest. I remember They Might Be Giants causing a giant conga line to be formed across the lawn at Riverport. I jumped up, running to break in and join this line of hundreds of kids snaking around and up and down the hill yelling and dancing and singing in the summer sun. Jeff sat with his friends, unaffected and quiet.

I never really knew. Or maybe didn't want to think about the fact that he liked me. It was several years later, riding in my car and listening to the mixed tapes that he had made for me that I suddenly realized...
I was an idiot.

We lost touch long ago. I'll probably never be able to tell him what an amazing influence he had on me, how he changed my way of thinking about music.

The "I just Felt Like Making Sara a Tape" Mix
---------------------------------------------------
SIDE ONE

Vincent - NOFX
Tears of a Clown - English Beat
Where Did You Sleep Last Night - Lead Belly
Shimmer like a Girl - Veruca Salt
Outer Space - The Muffs
I've Been Waiting - Matthew Sweet
I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea - Elvis Costello
If You Could Only See - Tonic
Superstition - Stevie Wonder
Yes, The River Knows - The Doors
Panama City Motel - Sugar
Prove Yourself - Radiohead

SIDE TWO

Naima - John Coltrane
The Man in Me - Bob Dylan
Clove - Green Pyramids
99 Red Balloons - 7 Seconds
Just Like Heaven - The Cure
Whip - Fred Schneider
Don't Tell Your Mother - The Sundays
Swan Theme No. 10 Act II - Rimsky - Korsakov
I want the Angel - Jim Carroll
Ain't No Cure For Love - Leonard Cohen
Here Comes Your Man - the Pixies

Sara Mix : Vol 2
-----------------------------

SIDE ONE

Where Is My Mind - The Pixies
There Is A Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths
If I Should Die Tonight - Marvin Gaye
Moment - The Pietasters
California Dreamin - Hi-Standard
Can't Fight It - Bob Mould
The Unseen Power of the Picket Fence - Pavement
We're the Same - Matthew Sweet

SIDE TWO

The Killing Moon - Echo and the Bunnymen
Shimmer - Fuel
What Does It Take? - Jr Walker and the Allstars
In Dreams - Roy Orbison
Nite Club - The Specials
Crazy Love - Van Morrison
In A Sentimental Mood - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane
Coney Island Baby - Lou Reed

3am

Erick and I sat on the porch of Seama's apartment. Kids slouched in tired chairs around us, a crowd gyrated and jumped to Outkast just inside the door. Downstairs, bottles were breaking, laughter, yelling. We sat, eyes bright, leaning forward, discussing his radio show in Tuscaloosa, soul music, projects, collectors. Fifteen minutes before, I had felt a bit lost walking through the hazy, loud apartment, bumping into people, Adeeba pulling me out to the center of the room to dance. I had already had my night out with Jess and Hollis and Rebecca. I was a bit tired. I was there...why was I there? To see Seama and Adeeba and Charles. To hug them. Charles sat beside me, Adeeba and Seama were shimmying and twirling a few feet away. Erick told me of his baby sister and her unusual interest in music, that at 11 she was already telling him what she really did and didn't like in different songs, her preferences in soul and classic rock.

"You'd expect her to like something like..." He scratched his chin and looked around.

"Britney Spears?" I finished his thought.

"I got her a Beatles t-shirt..I'm making her a compilation of their songs."

I smiled. I thought of that musty coat closet by the front door in my childhood home. Down under the hem of a London Fog duster, through the scent of mothballs and leather and dust, I spent many a morning, digging and shifting and pulling out a wonderland of sound. Stacks and stacks of records. I can't imagine who I'd be today with out that, without my father's record collection. I wondered as Erick talked glowingly, proudly of his little sister if she would feel the same way about his gift of music in a few years time.

Discovery of the Day

Um...my birthday is coming soon. You know, like in November...
Do you think we can put one of these together by then so I can drive it with joy through the streets of Birmingam? Holy crapness. What a beautiful and disturbing thing,

Karaoke Ice



 

 

















From the Website:

"Project Overview
Imagine an ice cream truck transformed into a mobile karaoke unit, driven by a squirrel cub with a penchant for cheap magic, deployed to spark spontaneous interaction between passersby in Chavez Plaza and surrounding neighborhoods.

The truck, or Lucci as she is known, is a tasty pop culture hybrid, one that brings three familiar expressions of network cultureice cream trucks, datasets, and karaoke barsinto conversation. Dressed in song and shimmer, Lucci broadcasts twinkly pop songs in endless, repetitive loops as she weaves her way through the zone of the festival. At nighttime, once her work for the day is done, its time to let loose. She finds a party to join, dispatches the squirrel to hustle some more karaoke, and enjoys the festival entertainment.

Participants perform for an audience from a stage in the transformed rear of the vehicle, and use a customized karaoke engine to select, sing, and record a song for later broadcast. Free popsicles lure passersby to participate, creating an economy of exchange: She gives you icies, and you give her a song. Remedios the Squirrel Cub, the resident MC, distributes the pops and dances badly while choreographing enigmatic rituals of his own. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Work it. Heart of Glass. I Want You to Want Me. The streets of San Jose transformed through flavor and song. The resulting mix is one that celebrates the power of music to entice and inflame, as well as the sense of community that can be fostered among strangers trapped in a terrestrial network.

Trees with Bells - The last Sarashow at the Moonlight

This Thursday, September 28th, 8pm




So one day, I happened to look in the paper and saw that a good friend of mine from Illinois was playing that very night at a venue I'd never even heard of before called the Moonlight Music Cafe. I was a bit under the weather that day, it being the tail end of my rehabilitation at Healthsouth from my first MS attack, so I missed the show. I promised myself that as soon as I was able, I'd go up to Vestavia and check the place out, because if Bill Passalaqua of the infamous Poss family (the Music dynasty of Effingham) had played there, it must be something special.

I dropped by there one afternoon. I walked up the stairs and into a long purple room. The man behind the counter had a smile and handshake waiting for me, ready and willing to tell me all about the place, of his dreams of a venue for original acoustic music... Keith made me a latte and I sat at a table and thumbed through a magazine. Almost immediately the phone rang. Keith paced across the floor, looked at me and smiled. The manager, Lindsey Stone, had seen me walk from the car to the door as he left on some errands. He remembered me from my tenure at Slip Disc. "If she's looking for a job, give it to her."

Seriously, I did not walk into that door looking for a job. It had been enough, just to get where I was at that point, surviving, living my life again. It seems heavy to think of it now. It was heavy then. I had recently discussed with my parents about going back to school. I still had my Cobra insurance from Compass. I had left my music, my dreams of the store behind...it was time to start anew. And was this opportunity, amazing to me. It may seem small. In fact, I'm sure there are alot of people reading this who've never even heard of the Moonlight, let alone set foot inside the place... But let me tell you this....this little room...this candlelit bubblegum purple room gave me another chance. Not only that, it gave me a new family...Keith and Joni and Kristin and Greg, Herb and Cathy and Carrie and Jason, Adeebah and Jen, Taylor, Sunni and Amber...friends who've had such an impact on my life.




When I had my second attack in the spring of 2004, I was in the hospital, in a room at Brookwood, just over the hill from the Moonlight. I remember Jason Bailey played and Joni called me and held up that phone and I cried. I knew that I would get better. I knew that the MS would not lick me if there were such incredible sounds in this world, if there were people who cared that much.

After my recovery, I continued to work there, bartending. I met many more new faces, heard so much great music, Caroline Herring, Leslie Helpert, Andru Bemis. Bill Passalaqua finally came back.

I started working at St. Vincents. Still helped out a bit at the Moonlight. I kept up with Joni and Keith. I saw the many friends I made at the moonlight all over town. I kept intouch with artists that had played there and made sure to refer musicians I came in contact with to Keith. Somehow, somewhere, I started putting together shows. Not sure how that happened. How did that happen? I do know that I've been fortunate enough to put together some shows that I'm really proud of.

I also have found and can't believe that I've been fortunate enough to be a part of something that is truly unique and special. I can not believe that soon it will all be ending.

My last show for the Moonlight is September 28th. I've asked a Birmingham band to play that I truly admire and really think exude this sort of extraordinary spirit and talent that has claimed it's rightful place at the Moonlight.



That band is Trees with Bells.

Come out and celebrate 3 years of great memories and music with me.

Thursday, September 28th, 2006
Doors open at 8pm
$10

http://www.moonlightmusiccafe.com
http://www.myspace.com/treeswithbells

Sweet Sunday

images courtesy of Leah of Red Blondehead

In truth, as I knelt up there on stage and beat out rhythms onto the floor at the Wrens show, these were the three things going through my head:

1. "Crap. Now Brian's going to have to repaint the stage."

2. "I hope that guy in front of me doesn't mind that I keep hitting him the ass with my drumstick. Here, let me switch hands, maybe that will give me enough range not to have to ....nope, still hitting him....crap...let me try this side...ow..that's uncomfortable...maybe if I take just do a few beats instead off the whole cadence...maybe the guy will have less of a bruise tomorrow....um..." Sorry yellow shirt guy. It's all in the name of rock, right?




3. The obligatory -"This SONG IS AMAZING!" Because it really was. What an incredible sound experience. I kept watching Charles Bissell clicking between pedals and closing his eyes through the set...jumping back and turning side to side, holding his guitar, beating out rhythms, his eyes would fly open and he'd look around as if he had just awoke from some sort of dreamlike soundscape. He created it. He's like my friend Andrew, creating all of those beautiful little sounds during and inbetween that make listening so much more worthwhile.

The Wrens. So good.

Barton Carroll played a completely different set last night. It was dark and sweet for a Sunday.
His set included Vulture (a request), Small Thing, Cat on a Beach, Superman, and a song I was not familiar with, about a man living his life in the shadow of his older brother...I turned to Travis after this song was over. He was smiling, his eyebrows raised, his heart shining through his eyes. I felt the same.

I've been enjoying Barton's album for quite a while...it's become my soundtrack for the ride home on late jovial night, almost like a book of bedtime stories to unwind.

(Okay, I know they are stories full of desperation and fear in time of war, lost loves and quiet obsession...but tragedy is meant to cleanse the soul right? And what better way to arrive home after a big night out, all of your emotions left in the driver- side floorboard of your car.)

Tonight is Jose Gonzalez at the Bottletree. It will be an incredible show.
Don't miss it.

Illinois

My foot is still swollen (I accidently pulverized an ant hill...fire ants...bad), but Sufjan Stevens is in my heart.

Trace Face and I departed for the ATL at around 3:30pm.
I had never been to the Fox before. Freaking Beautiful.

Adding to the beauty were the fluttering butterfly wings worn by Sufjan's band. He wore wings of a condor, moving slightly back and forth as he played....I kept waiting for the absurd moment when he would be lifted off of the stage to float above the crowd.

When he played Jacksonville, the screen behind his glowed with images of Metropolis, Illinois. Is it weird that that made me homesick? Is it weird that in a way that whole album made me long for the flatlands and long winters of Illinois?

I haven't been back in a while, not to my home. I missed my ten year class reunion this summer. Something seems lost. I found all of these pictures the other day of High School formals, Homecoming, Prom. Yes Tony. I even found the one of you and I sitting in the Christmas sleigh. I took the pictures with me to the Bottletree to show some friends. As I turned them up to the light, they became not memories, but glimpses into a forgotten time, like this other life, this other me. Illinois seems so far away. I find myself hearing the forlorn whispers and quiet remembrances of home within the climbing tones of Sufjan's songs.

Skybucket Showcaseness

Photos taken at the Skybucket shows
August 25, 2006 - Bama Theatre in Tuscaloosa
September 15 & 16, 2006 - Bottletree Cafe in Birmingham



















Dude, we had so much fun....so much fun.

More More More pictures

Ghetto Bells in Birmingham

From the Archives of Earfood:

A piece I wrote about the Jonathan Richman/ Vic Chesnutt show on October 8, 2005:

I wish I could tell you, explain to you what you missed Tuesday night, by not coming. If you've never been to the Moonlight Music Cafe before, let me tell you, to see a show there is an intimate thing. The quiet, the silent attention given to artists can either be horrifying or gratifying. I've heard some say they hate to play there because all of the attention is directed to them, they're used to being background noise in a smokey bar.

Vic Chesnutt thrived. He sang of his memories so loud and high with his head held back and his heart held out. The notes plucked with a strange confident pause became a vessel for his every day drama. And that is what I loved, he sings like we speak. He tells a story of a wild girl he loved in the high school band and how she turned square (Band Camp) or what boys and girls say to each other during a particularly uncomfortable date and we bolt upright in our seats with burning faces and laughter rolling out of our chests. His closing song was based on the comments of a young fan who had approached Vic after a show The boy told Vic how much he loved his music, how he had downloaded Vic's songs, but that he couldn't buy a cd that night because beer was too expensive. He didn't have a ticket for Vic to sign because he had gotten into the show for free (His friend knew the doorman). But, "will you sign my IPod? Will you sign my IPod, please?" We wanted Vic to play on and on. But he smiled and unfastened his guitar and left the stage, which was to be taken over shortly by Jonathan Richman.

Later, I approached Vic to ask him a few questions about a band he knew way back when, Smoke. My friend John is looking for Brian Hollerin and thought Vic might know how to get in touch with him. As we were talking, Vic kept looking up over my shoulder and then back to me with a pleasant, busy smile. I turned to my right, to catch sight of his distraction. Will Ferrell was standing there (what?), waiting, so I hastily thanked Vic, and sped away. Surreal. The contrast between the small quiet songwriter and the tall actor was a bit startling.

Vic will continue to tour this fall to promote his latest album with New West "Ghetto Bells", many dates with the freestyle dancing, multi-lingual, cow bell loving Jonathan Richman. Quite a pair. Check out Vic Chesnutt's website for tour details, MP3s, pictures, and the latest news.

www.vicchesnutt.com

www.newwestrecords.com

She's a Study

TV Eyes:

Jason Falkner - Three O'Clock, Jellyfish, the Grays, studio and/or touring musician for Air, Beck, Eric Matthews, Susannah Hoffs, Weezer, Rufus Wainwright, Aimee Man, Lisa Loeb, Travis, Sir Paul McCartney and many, many more...

Roger Manning Jr. - Jellyfish, Imperial Drag, Air, Moog Cookbook, Beck

Brian Reitzell - Redd Kross, Air, Music Producer/Supervisor for soundtracks - The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Thumb Sucker, Marie Antionette, Friday Night Lights



From Roger Manning's website:

"While working on the Air album in Paris in the winter of '99, Brian Reitzell and I fantasized about putting together yet another side project (we had already teamed up for the soundtrack album to Logans Sanctuary, the fictitious follow up to Sci-fi film classic Logan's Run, for Emperor Norton Records). We had had such fun working with old Jellyfish band mate Jason Falkner on a couple of tracks for the soundtrack album that we wondered what would happen if we all got together for a new project inspired by all of our collective 80s influences. TV Eyes was born kind of. Jason was inspired by the idea as well, and in the summer of 2000 we finally began. We wrote the album in one week in Jason's living room but unfortunately spent the next two years, because we were all so busy with other projects, recording several versions of the record, trying to perfect our vision before unveiling it to our collective fans. From the winter of 2002 to the spring of 2003 we developed the most elaborate live show any of us had ever been involved with individually or together. Determined to execute the album live as a trio, we assembled not only complex backing track accompaniment but all original synced video to be shown on a stage screen behind us. TV Eyes debuted its 10 song album and accompanying video show in May of 2003 to sold-out crowds at Los Angeles' Troubadour and Synthetic night clubs. We played additional shows in October of 2003 as well. After many mixed reviews of both colossal praise and simultaneous utter confusion from the major labels, we continue to this day in trying to find a proper home for the release of the record...."


It's 2006. Crap. The 12" single released on Emperor Norton sold out long ago. But you can still download a few songs here.

Sideburns....A new look for me.

Pictures from the Skybucket Showcase at the Bama theatre in Tuscaloosa.
August 25th, 2006

Sara Leah Skybucket and Craig from the Dexateens



Jody and Greg from Through the Sparks



Keelan and Les from the Fizz


Keelan and Les go to the Prom


Travmo and Miss Kim


"Falafel Beluga Whale. Falafel."

a homemade love and a heart of gold

originally posted April 6, 2006



"And you won't have to ask if I'll be here...isn't love the reason to live in the dark...."

Driving over the mountain to the Moonlight tonight, I grasped my phone tightly to my ear, dicussing with one of my dearest friends in the wide world the sound of Barton Carroll. I tried to tell D of the darkness, the beauty, the strange sorrow of his light woodworkers voice, the kind of sad dream that you would find on the front porch of a cabin, rocking back in his chair and telling stories of lost loves, lost moments, lost days...his is a voice of sunset, the sound of the coming night and all of it's long kept secrets.

With all of this that I was thinking, everything swirling around in my head through the traffic and busy night lights, all I actually said to him was this (lord help me), "You know how when you think of Iron and Wine, you picture a field, Barton Carroll is the woods." Does that really capture this, every little thing I wanted to say? No. He laughed and said that it made sense in that Saraway. I smiled. He knows me too well. We spent last summer catching up after years apart, writing not just every day, but almost every hour. He became my best friend and closest confidant. I miss the job I had, if anything but for the hours I sat after my little amount of work was finished, I had so much time to tell him everything. Now I fly and fly and fly. I know he knows and understands. I just miss our emails of whimsy and lunch plans as we sat 500 miles apart.

A small family of listeners sat close tonight as Russell Medford, Donna Jean Godchaux-McKay, and Rob Malone led an absolutely brilliant set. I wish that I could convey to you what the Fiddleworms have become, performing as a live band. Everytime I see them play, I am surprised by their tightness, the intricate little lines sewn by each musician through out this warm, loveworn patchwork quilt. As the Fiddleworms play, each one in turn rustles into step, side to side in an earthy, full hearted wonderland of sound. Tonight, tonight was even more special. Tonight was an acoustic set complete with piano and high harmonies. The blend was perfect. It was a small crowd, as I said, and it was another one of those nights when I wished that by a push of a buttom, or even by a simple thought, I could bring all of those close to me instantly there, just to experience what I was experiencing, just to know.

Would that I were you....

I'd think the same thing too...

I'm listening to Sun Kil Moon. Leaning back to peer through the partition to make sure that no patients have wandered through the door silently. A little paranoia, when I hear the door slam across the room, down the hall, but it's just Alicia, the lab tech. Nevermind.

Carry Me Ohio
I see Kristin the Canadian's tri-shaded pink converse resting on the dashboard of my car. I see the morning drive, returning from Nashville, just as the sky turns grey and it starts to rain. We decide to get off of the interstate. I turn down a road and see a sign for the Jack Daniels distillery in Tennessee. We drive and drive down this empty fourlaned highway for a really long time. I keep looking at the clock...I've already missed English class that morning...I can miss Mass Com too.
This trip was worth it. The Mark Kozelek show from the night before, dark stage and shadowed grimace, crazy guitar fingerings and beautiful low tired voice, echoing through the speakers of the stock stereo in my honda civic, pulling the grey day into our car with a smile.

I always liked rainy days. Growing up in Brownstown, during spring showers, I would run out sans shoes and socks to saunter through the puddles pooling up on the warm asphalt road. I miss that smell. Not like the rain here in the city. There was a greenness to it, the fresh and cool and clean of a muddley puddley day.

muddley puddley...

Kristin and I never did make it to the distillery. We drove and drove and once the rain started to come down a bit harder, it's almost as if it pounded the life out of our little side trip. Pulling back out onto the interstate a little while later, we looked at each other and smiled. It was enough, this moment was enough, there would be something somewhere else on down the road, maybe something more interesting.

Mark's guitar made the wheels turn in time...the rain drumming out the changes....

the best Sara Miller Sunday/Amber's Going Away For Another Week Party ever.

Wilson Pickett's Land of a 1000 Dances broke into a small conversation last night and suddenly I found myself surrounded by my friends, who were all dancing dancing dancing. Down in the basement of the Pickwick, in a beautiful smelly divebar named the Upsidedown Plaza, we jumped across the empty dirty floor between the bar and the Jukebox and laughed and screamed and shimmied our way through a short moment of euphoria.

When the song ended and Amber and I looked at each other and smiled the widest smiles, panting and rocking back and forth a bit, like one might after they've finished a short but hard run... Instead, this was the Jerk, the Mashed Potato, the Alligator....

She stood next to Will, her nametag matching "I (heart) Bill" to his "Billy Bob". I had started tagging my friends earlier afternoon, from a box of VISITOR stickers which I'd found in a dusty corner of the ER office. After we'd all been sporting our new nicknames for the better part of an hour, more and more people came over to ask me to name them too. I doubt by this point that I was really very clever (being a few redneck corona's in), but it was fun just the same, naming a member of the newly formed Sunday night Hat Club "Hairyhead" and slapping a sticker that said nothing more or less than "I LIKE CHEESE" on the chest of an intoxicated frat boy.

Good times.

So this coming weekend is a big one.
(don't they all seem to be as of late? It's so freaking awesome!)

Barton Carroll will be flying in from the evil Northwest to tour in support of his latest album on Skybucket, "Love & War". He'll start in Charlotte with an instore and a show on Thursday and will be coming to Birmingham on Saturday the 16th for the second night of the Skybucket Showcases.

Skybucket Showcases?

Yes. Two shows this weekend at the Bottletree. I"m so so so excited.
Here are the line ups/beautiful posters:

Friday:
The Grenadines
Through the Sparks
Wes McDonald and the Fizz




Saturday:
The Great Book of John
Barton Carroll
13ghosts



The posters were designed by Zach Hobbes.

Don't they remind you of Weeble Wobbles?

In any event, we'll be bringing the Skybucket Photobooth to the show. So you can get your picher taken just as purty as them boys from the Fizz:



JR Taylor says nice things about Barton Carroll in the Black and White.

Animental

I leaned against a pole in the center of the room. I leaned so hard that I thought for a moment, "what if it bends and breaks in two and everything falls in, on top of this strange and alarming and terribly captivating performance?" I turned to Daniel, standing beside me. He turned his eyes to mine and we smiled. In front of us were three girls in subtly tie dyed dresses and feathered caps. They flapped their sleeves and bent to the ground. They wound around in circles and leaned into the audience and back into each other, cawing and cooing of the end of their futuristic world all the while. When they finally crept up on stage and picked up their instruments, the music was a lifetime of discord. The drummer held her hands high in the air and dropped them suddenly and deliberately, beating with dramatic, stilted action. The turn into this low, deep metal, slow and dying, I leaned harder into the pole beside me, eyes aflame, mouth agape, smile perking the corners. The ladies from Animental then dropped their instruments and grabbing their microphones, crept off of the front of the stage. A beat track jumped from the speakers and the three started to gyrate and dance, rhyming through crackling microphones... After it was over, this guy turned to me, eyes staring into the distance with a bit of disbelief. "It was like thirty years of music packed into what? Forty-five minutes?" I couldn't get the image out of my head, the fluttering sleeves and the awkward turning turning turning....the drummers heavy handed beats, the quiet caw-caws in otherwise silent moments...

bizarre and wonderful.

SHOW LISTING

Animental
buzzard (we're a country band, and we like to play for country folk.)
the Celebs (This is a song about laser boobs, it's called "Laser Boobs")
No-Kachina -- incredible experiments of sound and atmosphere
Ben Martin DJing..
@the Hot L Birmingham, June 13th

Here are some great shots of an Animental show in Toronto (2004)