The Pegritz Show tonight....

Oh holy wang of the Crawling Chaos was that FUN.

I'll post a full to-do about it tomorrow, when I'm more coherent and not half-asleep...but, damn, that was a good time.

And kaspellsgoddess? We're going to do this a lot more often, so you'd better be ready with the nifty little paper cups of meds and the drool-towel! You made the show.

More on the Really Big Shew

So here's the full wrap-up of last night's show at the Rex. For those of you who made it: AWESOME! For those of you who didn't: wangs. :)

Anyway, here goes: Set-up was great, and I managed to get all of my materials up and running and soundchecked within, like, ten minutes--a remarkable amount of time, but, then again, the Rex's sound guy really knows what he's doing (and the quality of the sound/speaker set up there was drastically improved since the last time I was there, several months ago). I had to keep the ol' stage setup fairly simple, since I just didn't have the means of bringing along too much stuff...so I brought my wheelchair, a little table for my laptop to sit on, some tissue retractors and stuff to play with, and my Oxygen-8 MIDI controller. kaspellsgoddess was playing the role of Big Nurse to my shriveled up, twitchy, filthy mental patient, and my god did she do a great fucking job. Girl, you MADE the show! Me...I just sat in front of my laptop and snarled into a mic and banged on the Oxygen-8 for thirty minutes, slobbering on myself. This was made much easier by the four or five tequila sunrises I pounded before going on. This is, I believe, the first time I ever played a show of any sort hammered...but it was worth it, because considering the roll I was playing...well, a little incoherence goes a long way!

I was quite literally astonished at how much praise I received after the performance was done. ASTONISHED. People really liked the stuff! I sort of figured they'd dig the music, but they loved the whole performance concept, too....Wicked. kaspellsgoddess and I have already been talking about followup shows to make it even MORE awesome!

The other acts were great, too. Descension Rate is fucking AWESOME. First of all, they've got two guitarists, a bassist, a vocalist, and a live drummer playing an AWESOME oldskool MIDI pad set up--so mad props to them for kicking out the excellent stage show. Second, their music is a great combination of metal and industrial, very polished and heavy, but also quite melodic and catchy. Their cover of Billy Joel's "Pressure" kicks the biggest ass I've seen as far as covers are concerned. I was hanging out with the guys before and after the show, and they told me they're playing another show this Friday at 123 Pleasant Street (which used to be Nayabinghi) in Morgantown. Looks like I'll be going to check those guys out again.

Agnes Wired for Sound was up next. I'll admit, I've never had much love for their stuff: it's just...very average, as far as I'm concerned. BUT. They've drifted far from the awful EBM beats, thankfully, and with the addition of two guitarists (both of whom could really freakin' play), their sound has become a lot more industrial-rock. Stll not quite my thing, but at the same time, definitely improved over years past. I really got into one of their songs, which was a good high-BPM thrash-metallic barnburner that I hope they'd eventually release as a single, because I'd actually play it when I DJ. It would mesh very well with KMFDM's "Drug Against War" and something by Ministry.

Finally, Dark Martyr. Last night was the first time I'd ever heard them play, and honestly...? As far as Pittsburgh metal bands go, I think they're the best. Highspeed double-kick drum tracks, screeching synths, crunchy guitars, and crazy basslines--I dig that a lot in metal. Dean's voice is pretty amazing, too--but I really don't get into the growly black-metal type of delivery too much: I prefer oldskool melodic singing and good ol' screaming in my metal...and Dark Martyr definitely has that at times! Needless to say, those were the tracks I really got into the most. They played a great, high-energy show and polished off the night quite nicely.

So, Big Ups to deadcelebrity for putting the whole thing together so well, and being such a great cat to work with. And much love to all the folks who came out just to hear me moan and twitch. :) You guys rock.

(After the show, though, I tried to catch some Z's at Das Shadyhaus but, man, it was at least 300 degrees there, and my fibromyalgia was kicking up something godawful--felt like my damned muscles were going to snap in some cases. So, at 8 this morning, I drove home to gulp some klonopin since a damned sleep-dep panic attack was hitting me, curl up in the pitch darkness of my bedroom, turn the AC up to Antarctica in Winter, and slept until 5. I'll be back in town tonight, though, to rockamaroll...but don't expect a lot of rockin', since I'm still in hella pain. I'l mostly just be rolling around on the floor.)

OH! And to all you cats who took pictures of the Pegritz Funk Blowout last night? Send them bitchez to me and I'll put 'em on the website this week!