Music

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

… and thanks to a little cold I picked up and some car drama, I’m more behind than expected. So a quick update, bullet-point style:

• I had a few CD reviews run in last week’s Las Vegas Weekly, of new discs by local bands Theory of Flight and Onara. Two very different approaches. Check ‘em out.
• I’m meeting a photographer tonight from The Rebel Yell, my alma mater’s newspaper (which I edited for a short time during my undergrad), for an article about my comic book creations that I think is running in tomorrow’s issue. Of course I’ll keep you posted.
• I’m pretty sure I’ve rounded out the line-up for the first issue of Omega Comics Presents, the new comic anthology series I’m starting next year. Should be good. More soon.
• Outside of sitting on the couch watching Smallville (and I have to say, Season 8 is making up for the last few seasons) yesterday, I did manage to sign, pack and mail all the pre-ordered copies of The Utopian #1. This is what the home office looked like last night:

• If you DIDN’T pre-order the first issue, no worries: You can now order both the standard and deluxe editions directly from IndyPlanet — and even get a preview of the new splash page artwork. You just won’t get signed copies or discounts on shipping. Sorry. But if you want ‘em signed, come see me on Nov. 7!
• Some changes are coming for As Yet Unbroken. Don’t want to talk about it too much right now as we have a meeting about it this weekend, but suffice it to say, things are happening.

That’s it. I’ll have a wrap-up on the Florida trip and other goodies soon. Just wanted to check it. Booyah!

It’s that time again, kids, where I squeeze into my hipster jeans and lug my Ludwig drum kit out of the house to entertain your lovely faces. This time, As Yet Unbroken is kicking off the semiannual Neon Reverb music festival, which takes over just about every club and bar in downtown Las Vegas from Sept. 17 to 20. We’ll be playing at the Thunderbird Lounge inside the Aruba Hotel this Thursday, Sept. 17 at 10 p.m. with The Black Jetts and Collinz Room.

I’ve never heard of Collinz Room, but The Black Jetts is probably one of the most well-regarded, rawest, rockingest bands in Southern Nevada. The guys were recently picked “Best Local Band” by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, for what it’s worth, so even if you think my band sucks, you should come out Thursday night to see how it’s really done. Admission is only $5 and, sorry children, you have to be 21 or older to come shake your ass with the big boys.

Left to right: Lemmy Kilmister, Willy Wonka, Ringo Starr, Thurston Moore

Amongst all the recent discussion of my musical past, it may have slipped my mind to talk about my musical present.* Well, let’s fix that, shall we?

That badass rock band in which I kind-of play drums, As Yet Unbroken, returns to form this Friday, July 3, at the Aruba Hotel (1215 Las Vegas Blvd. S.) to join up with the monthly music-art-performance mash-up called N.O.I.S.E. (Network of Immersive Sensory Entertainment, I believe). It’s a hippie-ish vibe over there, but our friend Steve (who also plays in another band performing that night, The High Rollerz) hooked it up and despite the fact that we will MELT THE FACES OFF THOSE LONGHAIRS, we’re quite looking forward to being surrounded by creative people.

Starting at 10 p.m. and costing you ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, N.O.I.S.E. takes place right after First Friday (and the Aruba is all of five minutes from the Arts District … walkable, almost) and features multiple artists live painting, a DJ or two, two rooms of live music, a communal drum circle and … probably a lot of incense-burning. But it should be good times. You should come on down and see what I do when I’m not making comics, writing articles or drinking myself into a stupor. Here’s a flier or something.

*Um, so I totally wrote about AYU all of one week ago. Whatever.

Because it's better than looking at my mug again ...

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here about that rock band in which I bang on various items, but that doesn’t mean we broke up or anything. Just been busy with, you know, other things, and haven’t really had time to randomly blog about anything, even if it’s to promote one of my copious creative projects.

But anyway, as long as we’re here, let’s talk about the last-minute show we booked for Tuesday, June 23 at Gallo’s Pizza Kitchen in northwest Las Vegas. Yes, that’s tomorrow. See, we ordinarily wouldn’t have jumped on board a midweek show at an oddball venue (though we’ve heard good things about it!). But we were invited by The Day After…, one of my absolute favorite bands in Las Vegas, about which I’ve written numerous times in publications such as CityLife, Las Vegas Weekly and Rolling Stone. So of course I easily said “yes,” and so did the rest of As Yet Unbroken.

If you find yourself hungry Tuesday night and want your dinner accompanied by original, live music, then I do suggest coming out to Gallo’s. It’s located at 3250 N. Tenaya Way at Cheyenne Avenue in the Target shopping center, just off the I-95. The show starts at 8 p.m., and the $10 cover gets you all-you-can-eat pizza and pasta, bottomless soft drinks, and if you’re 21 or over, your first beer or wine free. Really, how can you beat a deal like that? The nearest casino buffet will cost you $15 easily, and won’t be accompanied by the soothing sounds of modern rock. Really.

We’ve looked at the genesis of my not-quite-musical capabilities leading up to the failure-to-launch career of The Jason Only Project and the mentally challenged exploits of all that is Baug. Now, as we continue this wordy journey through my noise making evolution, we return to a band which I’ve discussed here previously, Rahne.

I was at a rehearsal studio recently to interview local band Cherry Hill for the Las Vegas Weekly. These guys have been around the Las Vegas music scene as long as I have, so we shared a number of common experiences with venues, gigs, studios, etc. from back in the day. I figure some of those remembrances are as good a place to start as anywhere.

Yes, I was wearing all black leather. Why do you ask?

As I mentioned in the last post about Rahne, the band was plagued by issues from the start, beginning with the, um, lack of stable band membership outside of yours truly. Despite only releasing approximately less than 15 songs publicly across two cassette-only albums (“Beautiful Sadness” and “Dead Air”), one cassette single (hell if I remember the song) and one live cassette (“The Anti-Goths Live”), I actually wrote and, for the most part, recorded about 50 original songs during the 18 months or so that Rahne existed. The original demo tape I handed to first drummer Phoenix Ladd must have had 15 songs on it by itself. I guess my point here is that I spent a lot of time writing and recording, but not so much building the band, networking or rehearsing. And I think that project never reached its full potential because of it. Well, and because of other factors …

When Rahne was just a two-piece group backed by a tape machine, we could practice anywhere. Usually it was in the University District apartment I shared with best bud Jason Feinberg, which also doubled as headquarters for the multi-band collective to which we both belonged, Still Hour Productions (itself a story for another blog post). Sometimes it was at bassist Sterling’s cinder-block-walled apartment a few blocks away. But when Brian Pfiefer and Ryan Couevas joined the band on drums and second guitar, respectively, we had to find a new place to practice.

We bounced around various hourly rehearsal studios, including a stint at the Noiz Factory, a ramshackle space in Vegas’ warehouse district. It was there that Sterling’s drug problems became more of a problem than even before. The weathered musician had some issues — I recall him always having to borrow bass gear because he often had to pawn his stuff, presumably to pay for his habits — and by the time the full band was paying for practice space, he’d waste our time/money by showing up … and then passing out. After a while, we brought our friend Dru Broils, bassist of Morgana Athena, to rehearsals with us, where he’d often fill in on bass when Sterling was incapacitated. This was some mild foreshadowing, of course, because eventually that group of musicians — in a different configuration — would comprise four-fifths of Morgana’s lineup a year later.

Not much new material was debuted in the four-piece Rahne lineup. All of our music, up to that point, was developed in one way: I wrote and recorded songs, and then gave them to the guys to learn. It was very Smashing Pumpkins in that way. But once the final lineup was in place, we really only “wrote” as a group one new song, “Asphyxiation,” which was this quasi-metal thing that came together during a jam at our pal Dave Taylor’s grandparents’ house, and I think we only practiced it that one time before debuting it at a show. Otherwise, I delivered one more song to the band during the fall of 1996, “Salvation,” for which Ryan came up with about the most awesome Church rip-off guitar riff ever, and one day, I’ll grow the balls to ask him permission to use it again.

We only played a handful of shows throughout the end of ’96 and beginning of ’97, culminating in a tech-problem-plagued spring show at Cafe Espresso Roma in which we played with Morgana Athena. At the end of the show, I pretty much declared the band “dead.” At least one or two of the other guys were going to quit anyway, so it worked out, and of course, there’s some minor irony in the fact that Rahne broke up after playing its first show with Morgana Athena, after which the latter essentially swallowed the former.

Admittedly, I was going through some personal issues at the time that didn’t help things, and after a fairly major life adjustment a few months later, the next chapter of my musical journey was ready to unfold. But that’s for Part Four of this series. Until then, I leave you with a live performance of one of Rahne’s earliest songs, “Jesus Hitler,” from our show at Backstage at Boomer’s in December 1996. When Rahne started, all of my songs were about either religion or Nazis, so this is pretty much the apex of combining the two. As raw as it is, I kinda think I was at my peak lyrically (I rhymed “wants” and “cunts,” come on!), so, you know, try to sit through all four minutes of it (there’s a pay off at the end):

We’ll be getting around to talking about my stint as guitarist with Morgana Athena in a few weeks here on the ol’ Bleeding Neon, but in the meantime, here’s a photo from 1998 of the band chilling on a couch inside dearly departed Cafe Espresso Roma on Maryland Parkway in Las Vegas. That skinny goateed mofo on the left is, of course, me, followed left to right by Dru Broils (bass), Chris Naser (vocals), Ryan Couevas (keyboards) and Brian Pfiefer (drums). I think this was the last show we played together, a weird hodgepodge gig where we started to explore different sounds. If I recall, we did a sit-down acoustic set, a full-on electric set and a few experimental tunes in which I switched off from guitar to bass and then drums. So I guess that was my public debut as a drummer, more than 10 years ago. Huh.