Be notified of page updates

it's private

powered by ChangeDetection

look out for spinning heads in the blogosphere, burn your face off Fatali pepper, Rasputina

Listening to:	birds sing
Reading:	40 zillion things
Weather:	55, fog burning off

This morning I moved my butt from bed to computer chair and started looking through my feeds. I use Bloglines, BTW. I check in a couple of times a week, generally. Anyhoo, I scan the headlines on Slashdot, including one about Microsoft creating single-play DVD's, not surprising or terribly interesting to me, I keep scanning. Then I move on to Scobleizer, a famous blogger who works for Microsoft, who claims the story is totally false, and asks bloggers to correct the fallacy. News gets both made and refuted all while I sleep. I need a little javascript to zero out both sides of the equation when these things happen, reduce my feed read a bit.

My hand is still feeling itchy and sunburned from the pepper I got next to last night. I grilled up a feast including green chili cheeseburgers, asparagus, eggplant, a head of garlic, and made a salad, too. I threw a handful of chilis from Larry's garden onto the grill, to chop up and add to last night's leftover grilled chilis. Among the hungarian wax, anaheims, and a few mystery peppers was a beautiful bright yellow, citrusy-scented thin-walled pepper about 3 inches long and tear-drop shaped. The little white plastic tag at the greenhouse where he bought the little seedling to plant said Fatali. Larry said look out, those bitches are so vicious the mailman complained about the fumes from my doorway when I was cutting them up. Pussy. Anyway, I throw that bad boy on the grate with the rest of them. And I start to cough a little, dang, he wasn't kidding. Quick, shut the kitchen door so the fumes stay out here. After all the peppers were appropriately blackened I took them in to sweat a minute before I scrape off skin and seeds and chop flesh. That little Fatali was so thin it was purt near impossible to scrape, so I gave up after a moment. Wash my hands. Seconds later my left hand is smoldering and itching. Nice. That pepper kicked my ass and I didn't even get her processed. This morning it's still feeling a bit like an fresh sunburn.

And backwords to Rasputina. On Sept 24 at the find Rosewood Theatre in motown I got to enjoy an unusual night of cello-infused rock and goth. Rasputina was the headliner, an ensemble of 2 chicks on cellos and a kit drummer. All originals except one lovely cover, Barracuda by one of my favorite good old rock and roll bands Heart. Each tune was preceded by some odd little quip from the main chick, usually some absurdist humor intro to the tune. Her singing and speaking voice was like a cross between Cindi Lauper and Kate Bush. Both cellists each appeared to have basically one signal processor, a sizzling distortion peddle, which they used liberally, alternating with the sweet straight cello sound. I would have like to hear some more varied pedals, maybe some flange and fat stereo chorus. The main chick sang, the dready redhead sang backups. The was as much visual as aural, as both chicks wore lacey Victorian gowns, with some gothy shredding and funkified big rolled up hair, think the old lady in Great Expectations (you know, jilted at the alter, left to decay over time, rats on the wedding cake). Plus headbands. The drummer was a guy, two long braids, shiney christmas balls hanging from the ends, longish beard with a little braid in the middle, and amish-looking lace-up pants. All three were boney with deep eyesockets like meth heads.

The music was interesting and unique, though a bit of a one-trick pony, so the show was a little longer than it's entertainment value, in my book. But they had a very tough act to follow in Tarantula A.D., the opening band. Also a 3 piece with cello, this was 3 guys, also headbanded, also gothy in a way, though not victorian style but plenty of black. They were really committed to their large sound, which was a fresh mix of rock and roll, classical, metalnoise, and medieval vocalise. They had a little piano, I mean a real box full of steel and strings, the size of a rhodes but without the classic e-piano sound, this sounded like a regular piano. It had to weigh a bloody ton. The drummer also had a little xylophone and a small electronic keyboard as well as his set. The cellist also played violin, but played it like a cello. The third guy played some cello and mostly his doubleneck bass/guitar. I always wanted one of those ever since I discovered they existed when I was about 14. These guys threw themselves their large tunes, which were characterized by wide dynamic and texture variations, plenty of reverb and other signal processing, but tastefully chosen and changed. The cellist made good use of long loop delays, playing 3 part harmony with himself and soloing on top. These guys kicked ass, I'd definitely go see them again, though I think once was enough for me for Rasputina.

Both bands, BTW, have too much dorky flash on their websites. Just cuz you can doesn't mean you should, ya know?

K, time for work. Happy Wednesday, just two days before I head for the Bramwell Oktoberfest!

permalink posted by cat 7:38 AM

read 0 comments