Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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Total Eclipse of the Heart – Arcati Crisis, Live @ Rehearsal

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Today was pretty crazy.

In short, I unexpectedly stayed home from work, and just as I was finally dragging my carcass out of bed a digital series of events began to unfold on my laptop (which had been in bed with me) that resulted in my being booked for a solo appearance at the Tin Angel – opening for my friend and esteemed musical colleague Dante Bucci.

Not how I expected to spend the day, and a lot of information to process (and songs to prepare!) in the next nine days. What will I play? Will I slip in a surprise cover?

Gina and I never used to be good at learning things in a hurry, but in 2009 we got suddenly alright at it. We surmised in an interview earlier this year that it’s because we finally figured out what we’re supposed to sound like. Now that we understand our sound, it’s much easier to build it from scratch.

On that topic, this is perhaps our seventh or eighth full run through “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which we learned in two brief sessions.

There’s still some tweaking to do, but I’m happy we captured this hilarious blast through it on video.

There are just two more songs left in our web concert; after that I’ll be presenting some solo content to take us through my appearance at the Tin Angel on January 8th!

Love Me Love Me Not – Arcati Crisis, Live @ Rehearsal

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The second song in our Live @ Rehearsal concert is my “Love Me Love Me Not.” LMLMN is infamous in that I spent several months actively writing it – like, daily – before it was finished. And then my amazing vocal instructor Dr. Emily Bridges turned it upside a bit, and then Gina turned it upside down a bit more, and then we arrived at this:

That’s the first-ever video of “Love Me Not”! If you love it, download a high fidelity Live @ Rehearsal recording of it, for free.

If you missed the first song, it was Fisher Price. Tomorrow I’ll have a brand new cover, and after the holiday another week of videos!

Fresh Music: Regenerate (video demo)

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In a moment I’m going to show you a song so new that I’m not entirely sure what the title is. I’ve played it less than a dozen times.

At some prior point in this site’s storied history I would write a song, literally record my first run-through, and post that as a demo – sometimes all in a single day. “Granted” is an example.

That’s pretty wild stuff – giving birth to a new creation and immediate debuting it to the world. They at least towel babies off before they shoot most of the photos.

Now, debuting a just-born song is a scarier prospect for me – my recording set-up is more sophisticated and (as a result) much less forgiving of tiny flubs. Luckily, video saves the day. It forces me out of my audiophile box to think about how to perform a new song, instead of just how to play it. Flubs are part of the charm.

That’s how this video came to be. The song is newborn, and it might still pick up some more lyrics or transitions. The emotions are still vivid and visceral to me; this may be as close as I can take you to being inside my brain as I write.

I’m sure I’ll get snooty about all my crap old videos after nine more years of blogging, but for now I love it.

Filmstar. Rock’n’Roll Star. Wife.

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Elise & Co. (aka Filmstar) rocked an amazing show tonight at the M-Room, followed by the obscenely sexy and awesome Stone Thrown (like Muse, but Philly-local and half-Asian).

Here’s Filmstar’s newest tune, which I am in love with. Note the Bowie / Karen O. dual influences.

(Or, head to YouTube to watch “Rock & Roll Star.”)

There is prelim talk of a worlds-colliding Filmstar v. Arcati Crisis party/show sometime in the fall. If that were to happen, I would play the shit out of a tambourine on that song.