Music

I know it’s been awfully quiet around here, aside from the occasional update to let you know how many miles I’m running or whatever. It may seem like I’ve been off the radar, maybe even being lazy or in hiding or running from the Feds or being held hostage by crazed Justin Bieber fans.

Nah. I’ve just been working.

One of the things I’ve been working on is an article in this week’s Vegas Seven about the relative success of local comic book shops, especially in the face of our struggling economy. I think it turned out pretty well, and there’s a lovely picture of Ralph Mathieu inside the new location of Alternate Reality Comics accompanying it, so you should go read it.

The other things I’ve been working on … well, it’s almost tiring to think about it. I mean, my eyelids are even sagging as I type this. Let’s go to list form:

• Playing shows again with As Yet Unbroken. We went from no gigs for nine months (while we shifted membership) to five gigs in two months. And we’re in the process of recording a proper EP, something that takes a lot longer than expected when all of us have day jobs/lives/vacations/side projects/health crises/potty breaks. But it’s getting done. I’d check out the AYU website for more info on upcoming events and whatnot.
• Making art. I mean, aside from comics (which we’ll talk about in a minute). For whatever reason, people becoming aware (or being reminded) of my semi-ability to draw has led me to be invited to group art shows. There was that LVSK8 show earlier in the summer for which I painted a terrible piece, and now I’m coming back again with an original creation for a zombie-themed show at Blackbird Studios (formerly Place Gallery) in October. I’m still not quite done with it, and the show is being hung next week, so I kinda need to get on that. But it’ll be sweet when it’s done. I hope. I’ll also be at First Friday with my own Outdoor Exhibition Space next week (Oct. 1), showing original art from Tales from the Boneyard, and promoting the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival. Speaking of which …
• I’ve been on the planning committee for the aforementioned Comic Book Festival for the last two years, but this year, my involvement has been amped up by volunteering to publish, edit and contribute to Tales from the Boneyard, an anthology of local creators to benefit the Festival’s benefactor, the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District. I know I’ve mentioned it here before, but let me just say that it is turning out way more awesome than I ever could have expected. But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself.
• Oh, comics, right. Well, in addition to the Boneyard book, there’s a fourth issue of The Utopian and a third issue of Omega Comics Presents both coming out in the next few months, and rumor has it you can go ahead and pre-order them at the Pop! Goes the Icon website right now. I’ve got a few other things up my sleeve, but mainly, once these two issues and the Boneyard anthology are out the gate, it’s mini-hiatus time for the Peej, as I recover from what feels like a six-month marathon. You know, before I start another one.

That’s pretty much it. I’ve also been trying to find time to work on a major redesign of this website that would take the focus off this blog and put it on the work itself (a portfolio, I suppose), but uh yeah right. In the meantime, thanks for reading and bless your face.*

*Sorry, Toby.

We’re going to get darker and spookier than any of the previous four entries in this series exploring the trials, tribulations and sheer wackness that has been my fully unsuccessful-but-vaguely interesting musical non-career, for today we discuss a band whose mere mention sends shivers up the spines of the unwashed masses: Morgana Athena.

Morgana Athena (or “MA” as I’ll lazily refer to it eventually) was one of the preeminent Gothic rock bands of the Southwest. Mind you, that’s not saying much as the goth scene wasn’t quite huge in the 1990s or anything, but MA made the rounds for long enough in the early-to-late 1990s that sheer staying power propelled it above the rest of the fly-by-night trench coat musicians.

I was aware of the band through friends and fliers during high school. The band’s bassist, Chris Jensen, worked with me at the Torrey Pines Discount Cinema, and I attended a New Year’s Eve party at singer/guitarist Chris Naser’s house a year or so later. But I’d never seen the band perform, and it had been through multiple line-up changes when I finally encountered the group in full early in 1996. By then, it was just the two aforementioned Chrises, who would perform live augmented by rhythm tracks prerecorded on DATs (digital audio tapes). If you’ll recall, this was the same live set-up my band at the time, Rahne, was using, as well as other Las Vegas Gothic and industrial acts such as Corinthian Flux (then known as Rosemary’s Baby).

After Rahne broke up in April 1997, drummer Brian Pfiefer and guitarist Ryan Couevas joined Morgana, on drums and keyboards, respectively. By this time, Chris Jensen had left, replaced on bass by another friend (and sometimes stand-in Rahne bassist), Dru Broils, so Morgana effectively absorbed Rahne. Meanwhile, I spent about six months huddled in my studio apartment near UNLV, writing and recording all sorts of music, experimenting with different styles such as funk, jazz, dance, soul and noise.  I even brought some of my new jazz-rock songs to jam with a friend’s jazz band, spending some time at their rehearsal space off Tropicana and Valley View (this will be important later), but nothing came out of it.

At some point in the fall of 1997, I found out while hanging with Ryan that Morgana was looking for another guitarist, someone who eventually could take over from Chris Naser so he could focus on singing. For whatever reason, I decided to audition — the first time I had to do so, since all my other musical projects up ’til then had been self-started. I showed up at Chris’ house one chilly night. The only other person auditioning was another pal, Scott Hill. Scott was a good guitarist, likely much better than me technically, but I remember his sound being all wrong for Morgana — too much metal, not enough nuance. Apparently, Chris and company agreed, because they ended up liking what I brought to the band, though I’m sure the fact we had all played together for years already didn’t hurt.

Chris’ playing style was quite different from my own. He seemed to create his own, slightly atonal chords to give Morgana its distinctive, haunting sound. I don’t think he could identify a note or scale if asked, but he’s one of those people who just instinctively knows how to make instruments work together. I modified some of the guitar parts to add more heft or depth. Others, I scaled back. I even brought in a glass slide, something that became a key part of the guitar sound for my favorite MA song, “1942.”

(Play “1942” by Morgana Athena)

Actually, “1942″ was the song that made me want to join MA in the first place. Before auditioning for the band, I saw the beefed-up line-up perform for the first time since the last Rahne/MA show. And when I heard “1942,” I was floored. Unlike MA’s other songs, it wasn’t just synth swells and icy drum beats. It was raw, angry, floor-stomping — and I wanted to play it.

My first live show playing guitar solo (thanks for the reminder, Ryan) with Morgana (my first show with MA was at Enigma Garden Cafe, but Chris still played guitar on that one) was at SanctuaryDementia, a goth/industrial night held weekly in the back room of Angles, a gay club that resided where 8-1/2 Ultra Lounge now stands in the heart of Las Vegas’ “Fruit Loop.” Everyone wore all black, Ryan and Chris wore make-up, but I was still coming out of a rave-ish period, so I wore stovepipe jeans and a racing-striped knit fully representative of the late-1990s. Aside from that (and my semi-hollow-body jazz guitar), things went pretty well, and by the time we had a few shows under our belts, Chris felt comfortable enough with my playing of his songs that he pretty much stopped playing guitar at live shows.

Things were cramped at Chris’ parents house where we rehearsed, and coincidentally, my friend Anthony’s band — with whom I jammed on that jazz stuff earlier that year — wanted a co-renter for their rehearsal space, which was a double-sized room big enough for two bands. So we moved in, and I brought all of my recording equipment, including my Macintosh computer (a Performa 6360, if I recall).

This move was significant for more than the band. The rehearsal space became my office and studio as well. The band only practiced two or three days a week, but I was in there much more, coming in right after my day job slinging copies to work on recordings, design artwork, mess around on the drums (yes, kids, this is how I taught myself to play drums, which I did not do at the time), eat dinner and generally hang out. I even started to record other musicians, one of which was a rapper (I’d still love to produce a hip-hop album).

Of course, this all means I brought more to the band than just my iffy guitar-playing skills. Up until then, Chris had been responsible for whatever you heard or saw related to Morgana Athena. But I kind of became — shocking, I know — the producer/engineer/publicist/manager. I relaunched the band for the pre-Millennial era, aesthetically, redesigning the logo, building a new website and crafting the sound of our few recordings. I also brought up the level of professionalism, crafting press releases, opening a bank account, and building relationships with radio stations and the media.

But there was blow-back. Even now, archived on some sort of Vegas goth forums from more than a decade ago, you’ll find those hardcore trenchcoaters claiming I ruined Morgana Athena, that I somehow took over and destroyed the band. Never mind that when I joined the band, it was already changing into something different (hence why I joined), nor the fact that when Morgana finally did break up in the fall of 1998 — with gigs still booked, mind you — it was because Chris quit to focus on DJing. Nope, because I was always the scapegoat for all that was wrong and bad in the Vegas goth “scene,” because, um, I WASN’T GOTH.

(OK, to be fair, I was also a dick. But that should have mattered more to the people IN the band, not outside of it, and within the band, everything was mostly gravy. Except for that one time I leaped across a coffee bar at Dru. Or that other time when I smashed at stage lights at a warehouse show. But other than that …)

Anyway, it was an interesting and enjoyable ride. We played a bunch of shows, including the first one at which I ever played drums live, we put out some decent singles that people actually played on radio stations and bought in stores, and I signed my first record contract (sort of), even though I had nothing to do with the recording of “E.S.P.” found on Hollows Hill Recordings’ “Dim View of the Future” compilation and to this day, still haven’t seen any royalties (they may be out there!). But my name’s on it, so there you go.

Next up, I’ll reveal to the world the semi-interesting tale of what the hell I did musically during the “lost years” of the late ’90s and early 2000s. Stay tuned.

BONUS: Buy “E.S.P.” MP3 at Amazon

It’s been a busy week. Last Friday, I attended the opening reception of “Unnatural History” at the Springs Preserve, immediately followed by a reception at the Arts Factory celebrating the 10th anniversary/vow renewal of my friends KC and Ryan. Saturday night was the Psychedelic Furs and She Wants Revenge concert at the House of Blues (after spending the day hosting a 1-year-old’s birthday party), and then Sunday night my band, As Yet Unbroken, played to a mostly-empty room at Boomers Bar.

That was not a bad thing, actually. The show on Sunday night was slated to feature four bands, two local and two from California. We showed up an hour early (9 p.m.) as instructed, met the lovely and helpful bartender/booker Tammy, and waited for the sound guy/doorman to show up. He never did. Instead, the bands (only three of us, the fourth slated act was mis-scheduled or double-booked or something) loaded out and set-up the P.A., and yours truly ended up playing sound guy all night. By the time we played (around 11:45 p.m.), it was just Tammy and about 5 or 6 of our friends/wives/etc. in the bar watching us — which was fine. It was like hanging out in a friend’s pimped-out basement jamming. A good warm-up show for the main attraction …

This Friday, at the Aruba Hotel, As Yet Unbroken will return to the Las Vegas N.O.I.S.E. Project to rock the big room. It’s free and open to all you motherlovers over 21, and we’ll be bringing our A game (or at least our B game). In addition, there are other bands, a communal drum circle, live sculpting and much more artsy nonsense. So you have no excuses. Unless you have to work. Or are in the hospital. Or on bed rest. But otherwise, get a babysitter and get your ass downtown, where we will proceed to rock it silly.

Oh, you should also get to the AYU website and vote on our next cover song. By June 30. Yep.

Oh, HI. I know it’s been quiet up here in Awesome City. It’s only because I’ve been slaving away at various projects to foist upon your delicate senses in varying ways. A brief rundown, because lists are fun:

• My band, As Yet Unbroken, has been breaking in our new guitarist, Peter Stauber, and we’ll be making our revived debut at Boomers Bar this Sunday night at about 10 p.m. We’re playing with a bunch of random bands, none of which play in the same style, so it’ll be like a mini-Lollapalooza. If that doesn’t sell it for you, I don’t know what will. Call in sick on Monday and come rock with us. It’s only $5, and allegedly, we get some of that money.
• I’m editing and publishing a one-off comic book anthology for the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival called “Tales from the Boneyard.” It features all Vegas-spawned creators and will be awesome. But it also has meant spending the last month assembling the talent, setting deadlines, creating sponsorship proposals (this is a nonprofit fundraiser for the Library District), attending meetings and working on my own contribution to the compilation, an eight-page tale about a girl and a robot. If, by chance, you’d like to sponsor this endeavor, drop me an e-mail and I’ll drop you a sponsorship packet.
• I finished painting my terrible entry into the LVSK8 IV skate deck art show. It’s called “Powered by Love,” and all I will say for now is that with its existence, I have created a new genre of art called “sci-fi folk art.” If you’re so inclined to see it, along with dozens of other decorated skate decks much nicer than mine, you should come to Place Gallery (1054 S. Maint St.) next Friday, July 2. I’ll be there from 6 p.m. until probably 8 p.m.-ish.
• Speaking of art, because of demand from one or two people, I’ve created an online store where you can buy prints and postcards and stuff. Why not?
• Been trying to get way ahead on the usual workload, blazing through updates of The Utopian webcomic and deadlines for various publications. A new HRH cover story came out this past week, but I’ll slather you in the details once its digital edition goes online.

That wasn’t so hard, was it? See, all you have to do is get me started and I just type like a madman. More soon on new comics, shows and convention appearances. If you’re interested.

It’s been a while since the last stop on this tour looking back at my not-quite career in music-making, so if you need to catch up, I suggest you check out Part One (The Beginning), Part Two (BAUG) and Part Three (Rahne) before reading further.

We’re going to backtrack a bit to before the break-up of Rahne to discuss the sort-of untold chapter between the chapters. By early 1996, various factions in the Las Vegas-area darkwave/goth/industrial/noise scene had been whispering for months about joining forces to help cross-promote bands and grow the scene. In March, Morgana Athena, Rahne, Rosemary’s Baby, Sackcloth, Someone, Necropsis de la Musique, Wail of Sumer (Jason Feinberg’s band) and surely other acts I’ve long forgotten assembled at Enigma Garden Cafe in downtown Vegas to form an alliance. We took the name of the group from Morgana Athena’s long-time self-publishing label, Still Hour Productions, and with some ground rules set, a new collective was born. Officers were elected, meetings were scheduled, and we were off to the clove-smoke-filled races.

It worked pretty well for a while. With the exception of the colder months when we met at the apartment Jason and I shared, the group met weekly at the UNLV Alumni Amphitheater, which was appropriate, seeing as how most of the venues we played were around, and a number of the Still Hour members lived near, Maryland Parkway. Jason and I took care of group funds and our monthly newsletter, which we distributed to coffee shops and bars as a sort-of self-promotional zine. It introduced people to our artists, promoted shows and provided reading fodder for bored cafe haunters. The group grew in size as interested parties caught on to what we were doing, bringing in poets, artists and even more pop-oriented groups such as Melancholics. Jason hosted a radio show under the name “Still Hour,” plans were underway to release a compilation album (on vinyl!), and even more significantly, we decided to put on a concert festival.

After much discussion at our weekly meetings, we decided to produce a day-long charity concert benefiting AID for Aids of Nevada. We figured an event this large would be great promotion for the Still Hour bands, and obviously also a great fundraiser for AFAN. However, we were mostly a group of twentysomething social misfits taking on a task that may have been a bit too much to chew. Of course, that didn’t stop us.

Somehow, David Taylor (who played guitar in Wail of Sumer with Jason) and I became the point men for the festival, which was dubbed “Music for Time.” Either we both had a little more business savvy and experience than the rest of the crew, or we were both blowhards enough to take charge of things without anyone questioning. Whatever the case, planning for the festival became so time-intensive that I actually took a leave of absence from (and eventually plain ol’ quit) my day job to work on both “Music For Time” and Rahne full-time (ah, to be 20 again).

Our days were spent tracking down sponsors, scouting potential venues, meeting with AFAN, faxing press releases and formulating plans. Back then (and maybe now), it wasn’t as easy as you’d think to secure a large, outdoor venue for a music festival. We were targeting families, but featuring some pretty dark bands. Either way, neither the county nor the city would host a “rock” festival, and eventually we settled on the Rainbow Library Amphitheater, which could accommodate about 1200 people, and that was only after whitewashing the musical line-up for the powers-that-be with a cassette sampler featuring the softest of our proposed bands (bear in mind the schedule included a duo whose act included simulated heroin shooting).

Eventually, we secured services in-kind, including sound and lighting, concessions, advertising, giveaways and more. I designed all the advertising, collateral and tickets (getting really familiar with Adobe’s suite of products), as well as writing up (from notes collected at planning committee meetings) a 12-page document outlining the scheduling, rules of conduct and technical specs for the festival. We had radio spots and half-page ads running, tickets distributed and selling in various retail locations, and even non-Still Hour bands such as 12-Volt Sex (or was it Attaboy Skip? One of ‘em!) booked to bring in a more diverse crowd. I had picked up a new part-time job at Kinko’s as my money ran out, but all was on target for our Nov. 2 production. And then …

KABLOMP (that’s the sound of the bottom falling out)

Dave called me a week before the festival to let me know the sound/lighting company dropped out of the show, and he therefore made the decision to cancel the event. To be honest, it’s been 14 years and my memory is questionable, so I don’t know exactly how it went down, I just know there was no meeting of the collective or even the committee, just a decision made to shut down the whole thing.

As you might imagine, this was a mortal wound to a lot of relationships in the scene, and directed a lot of animosity and frustration toward both me and Dave (him getting the worse of it). I pulled Rahne out of Still Hour, forging ahead in a less dark direction. The collective struggled forward but barely made it past the end of 1996. In the end, it was just another blip on the Vegas cultural radar, but looking back, the short-lived era of the Still Hour collective represented something that, in my best estimate, no other group of musicians has been able to replicate here. It was a rare show of solidarity and fortitude you might otherwise never expect from a motley crew of goths, punks, rivet-heads, chronic depressives and otherwise socially outcast creative types.

Next up: Return to the goth side with Morgana Athena!

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

EVERY DAY. BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU.

Things seem to be getting easier. While I’m still mildly hungry most of the time, Friday went a lot better than Thursday, at least as far as the detox went. It probably helped that I spent $35 at Go Raw Cafe on lunch for a few days, snacks and a smoothie. Seriously, their food is awesome, all raw, all vegan, all natural and creatively arranged in ways you would never expect to taste so amazing, but it is. Even if you think the idea of a raw “pizza” or “pasta” made only with veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds sounds gross, TRY IT. You’d be surprised what you can do with a little soaked almonds or rolled oats.

However, what did suck yesterday was my left eye, which has been kind of tender all week, but Friday morning I woke up with that eyelid a bit swollen. Thankfully, my eye doctor’s office got me in within an hour of calling. Turns out I had the beginning of a sty, caused by a blockage in any one of the 50 glands in our eyelids that produce the eye’s self-cleaning fluid. The doctor relived some of the pressure with a needle — and if you’ve never had a needle poked at your eye, I don’t recommend trying it — and sent me off with instructions to do a warm compress for 10-15 minutes each day. I did that last night, and the left eye seems to be better today, though I’m eschewing wearing my contacts for a while until it’s 100 percent. So, as my friend Mark pointed out at band practice today, I will continue looking like a ’60s college professor for a while longer.

Last night’s 10-year reunion of The Three Wise Guys (Geoff Carter, Gregory Crosby and Dayvid Figler) at the Griffin went pretty well. A huge crowd turned out to fill the bar’s back room, where Geoff read from his forthcoming novel, Gregory reminded us why his words are inscribed on the Poetry Bridge downtown, and Dayvid told a funny, touching and heartbreaking tale of his father’s final day on Christmas last year. It was great to see so many people who I hadn’t seen all together in almost 15 years in one room — and shockingly, we all seem to be relatively healthy and possibly better-looking than we were then. It was an honor to serve as the emcee for the event, even if I forgot to make proper announcements and my shtick was a little weak.

Today, Mark and I jammed with a potential new bass player for As Yet Unbroken. Our singer not being available, I had to “sing” while playing drums to set the timing of the songs. It was pretty disastrous. But the bassist is solid, has great gear, and seems like a swell guy, so hopefully we didn’t scare him off.

That’s all to report thus far. I have some comic business to take care of around here, and maybe a nap before heading to my pal Scott’s house to play Rock Band — sober. We’ll see how that goes.

Here’s yesterday’s menu, to the best of my memory:

• Breakfast: 1 small caro-bana smoothie from Go Raw (banana, carob, dates, tahini)
• Lunch: 1 half-order veggie wraps from Go Raw (pesto, almond “cheese”, tomato, sprouts, onions, cucumbers and carrots wrapped in collard greens) with their house slaw
• Afternoon snack: 1 piece raw “fudge” (I think these are mostly rolled oats, honey and carob — and they are the most awesome things ever)
• Dinner: 1 bowl homemade vegetable stew
• Evening snack: 1 piece raw “fudge” (couldn’t help myself), 1 gala apple, 1 cup “Dynamo” juice blend
• Beverages: Aside from the aforementioned stuff, just water, except for a few ounces of Naked “Super Food” juice blend