Pat McD, lead vocalist of the Telepaths gives Black Forest's Flaming Eyeball a nice write up over at HollywoodChicago.com.
Not bad considering he and I were cast in an earlier version of the piece and well, we were both eliminated (by me) in the final stage production. The lovely women who replaced us, bring another level of physicality and creativity that we just didn't seem to have in our more terrestrial-based performances.
Last night was probably the Black Forest cast's best performance yet. Our special guest was the Puppet Bike and it was a great little opening show that sort of helped set the wacky, carnival gone off the rails vibe. It devolved into supreme lunacy and joy when Brian Jones sang songs from the Smith's catalogue while Jason Trusty (master Puppet Man) showed us all how to cook breakfast on a light (you had to be there to get the mad beauty of the thing!).
Tonight our special guest is the Telepaths in all their mad rock and roll glory. I of course will be on guitar. We play once in awhile, we rehearse once in awhile, and when we get up and play, anything is liable to happen. I do love this band. There's something about being able to crank up the volume and just bash away on 3 minute rock songs for about 50 minutes that is supremely liberating (at least for us!).
This Black Forest run has been instructive, and we are doing some new things. For instance, we're doing the Radiohead thing by letting people pay what they want, or nothing at all. We have a hat and people are free to put some cash in it, or not. We have encouraged folks to BYOB. This is great, no worries, no liquor expense for us!
Also we're doing a 45 minute show, which seems to me just about perfect. I mean, even if you hate the show, you can't really be too bummed, it's over before you know it. Plus the special guest idea is genius! Every night a new vibe, a new crowd. The acts we have lined up are quirky and cool.
So far, so good!
UPDATE: Check out the Peter Jones Gallery site for additional Flaming Eyeball info. Special guests in the coming weeks: Sandro the Magnificent, Famous in the Future, Matt Griffo, WWSP, Valid Hysteria and the Banana Street Band!