We participated in another enjoyably strange event last night. It was called "Art on Track," which was basically an 8 car el train, outfitted with all kinds of visual and perfoming art. Our good friends from The Peter Jones Gallery had their own car and some of our friends participated - Peter Jones, the Puppet Bike, Elefant Foot Theater, and Alan Hicks. The train circled the loop for 4 hours. Now in some quarters this would be a vision of hell - stuck on an EL car with a bunch of artistic crazies. Endlessly circling.
Our group Black Forest (The Lovely Carla and I), dressed up and concocted a little traveling musical monologue called the "Thorn and the Rose." I attached a little Pignose amp to my belt and plugged in my old Telecaster, wore a gold shirt, and played the roving Electric Troubadour. The Lovely Carla had a retro-bathing suit, fishnet stockings, and a tray of little green plants, which she handed out to people as they got on the train.
We had no expectations, and that's usually best. We got on the train late and exited early. We were amazed to find the trains were packed with people checking out the art. Another example where people seem to be desperately searching for off-beat creative stuff, off the grid, in this case, on the track.
So, anyway, it all went well. I played a long guitar jam and then The Lovely Carla recited a monologue and then she sang a song. We could have kept going, but then suddenly, improbably, my batteries in my trusty Pignose ran out.
Man, oh man, isn't that just the ticket? Finally we have a large, captive, very inquisitive audience, and my batteries fail! Anyway, maybe sometimes less is more. We entered at Adams and exited after a couple loops around at Randolph. Sometimes just enough, is enough.