Transmissions from Mars: Show Night: The Bands

You really let me down Worcester. You're not going to get anything cooler than this in this city for a long time.

That said the folks that did come?

You’re fucking Rock Stars! The most sexy. The best dancers. The best dressed. Just the best.

Our hosts

Myra of The Evil Streaks and Jeanette of Haunting TV! set the tone super foxy and adorable. Generally they would have a format to work with, but with the attacks and show prep it sorta fell through the cracks. I don't think any of that mattered though, from the second Michael Ravenshadow introduced them, they were on.

Small things like having hosts are important. Anything that makes your show stand out is important.

Nocturnal Creatures were a pleasant surprise. I didn't book them so I didn't know anything about them. My normal post defense mechanism is "hope for the best prepare for the worst," but I am happy to say they were great!! Stefano Trafacante has a great voice, some killer beats, and an appropriately spooky Cinematic POV. They busted out cool back-to-back covers - a Killers song and a Smashing Pumpkins song.

My only real complaint is that they didn't really dress for the Rock.

(Start rant)

"Not dressing for the Rock " is something you will probably see me complain about a lot. The rest of the night was 100% sexy from top to bottom. Folks pay to see a show. If you're putting on a show, dress for a show. Don't wear the duds you had on all the live long day.

Take your music

Take you.

How does it make you feel.

Dramatic? Nerdy? Sexy? Scary? Silly?

Toss all that in a blender and BOOM! Before long, you don't even think about it. The two big anchors are you and the music. You can be true to yourself and still find your stage self. And I'm not even saying you have to be outrageous or theatrical. When I saw The Curtis Mayflower - a band whose music has sooo many different musical influences - they look like how they sound. It's important. It could potentially take people out of your performance. Imagine if you paid to go watch the latest Conan the Barbarian movie and everyone was dressed like the television program Mad Men... Okay now that I think about it, that sounds pretty awesome but you get my point right? The story would have to be pretty superfly TNT good to not have Conan in a suit and tie to distract you from the smaller more subtle nuances of your story.

It's a show!!!!! Dress for it.

(End Rant)

Now I've oversimplified this conceit and it's possible there was a reference I didn't get tied into the duo’s attire. And I'd be lying if I said the folks there cared about it while getting down to their interesting grooves and quirky synth sound. If you get the opportunity to check them out don't blow it.

Agents of Chaos!

The crowd was nuts for them. This was no accident. Lots of hard work and thought goes into this seemingly random and insane set. Every time I see theses guys I'm like a proud poppa. They get better and better each time out. Beaver McD is a 2 pronged talent whose voice is every bit as good as his rhymes and cadence - and his rhymes and cadence are damn good!

Captain Insidious both as a composer and voice is A+++ soooooooo good!!

I'm so proud to be affiliated with them and to have even the smallest part in their progression.

What can I say about Telelectrix?

They were/are amazing. The best part of doing what we do is getting to meet awesome folks who also do what we do. I really like this band as folks as much as they I like their music.

It's a cool combo of prog rock like Emerson Lake and Palmer or Yes and 80's synth pop like Talk Talk or OMD. So good. Shannon Spreen is an amazing vocalist and is going to be a star! The songs are great and at just under a year old, this is a band to watch out for. To tie up a thought, they dressed like rock stars and played like rock stars. This is a stadium worthy band in both performance and attitude. Jason Kaplan’s drumming gave folks who wanna dance something to dance about while still managing to give pop rock nerds like me something challenging enough to wanna wrap my head around and follow it through. They were great!!!!

I'm going to take a break. And be back with all my thoughts on our set.

Start here

Learn Who's Who