The banal, overtly formal, snail-paced days of Christmas are right around the corner. I’m thinking that the impending holiday season was largely responsible for last week’s ultra-bender – as many of my friends and colleagues have reported. Last Wednesday, being right there in the middle of the vibrant haze, was naturally a pretty wild, animalistic night.
The banal, overtly formal, snail-paced days of Christmas are right around the corner. I’m thinking that the impending holiday season was largely responsible for last week’s ultra-bender – as many of my friends and colleagues have reported. Last Wednesday, being right there in the middle of the vibrant haze, was naturally a pretty wild, animalistic night.
I know that I must have had fun, judging by the “notes” I took at The Republic, which consisted mainly of either incomprehensible adjectives or simply made-up words, like ‘jamadilly’ and ‘chapeckskapeesh’…? (I have no explanation to offer for this). But, The Legion of Doom and The Dream Machine undoubtedly put on a great show for us, as they always do.
The ever-morphing Legion of Doom took the form of a five piece last week, with MC Armando Muñoz, Nelson Rich IV on alto sax, Androo Carper on bass, Andrew Sisk on drums, and our main man Gabe Santamaria playing guitar for a change. Normally, I would feel no need to list all members, but this project changes so much that it’s actually news.
Whatever my condition may have been, I know it was prompted partly by the Legion’s ability to fuse old-favorites together seamlessly. For instance, chaining “Grandma’s Hands” to “No Diggity” without a hitch is just, well… sweet as fuck. And I don’t think I’m lacking a better term. That night, I remember being able to spot Nelson’s sax from outside before I knew he was playing it. He’s got a characteristic fluidity that comes off as speech-like.
When the Legion gets together, it’s often whimsical and contingent on many busy schedules. So if you have the chance to see them, don’t screw it up.
Feeding off the energy from recent ReverbNation action, The Dream Machine busted out a well-trimmed set, from what I remember. Now we’re getting pretty late into the evening, and things were developing rapidly and crazily, but my notes indicate some well-crafted new songs from TDM, indeed the ones we’ve been checking out on their weekly additions to ReverbNation and Facebook. They wrapped it up with the long-lost, lyrically explicit Spanish tune that I haven’t heard since old Kincaid was in town; a nice finishing touch. From there, the night is lost to me.
[A note from your editor: I was also at the Republic that evening, and in a considerably less altered state than my colleague, Mr. Mulrooney, so I’ll throw in a couple of things real quick. Dream Machine’s always-capable frontman, Jason Hunnicutt, spent the first part of the set playing percussion, rather than his usual second guitar. He had a couple of drums set up in front of his mic onstage, as well as a bunch of random objects to bang on. The first song of the set was mostly made up of Hunnicutt’s a capella singing, as he kept time by banging together two large metal pipes, one of which looked like the support pole for a parking meter.
Later in the set, he brought his guitar out again, but there was a much more percussion-heavy flavor to The Dream Machine’s music this night than on past occasions that I’ve seen them–as well as a lot of new songs in the set, as Dan mentioned. It was a nice change-up from the band we’ve come to know and love over the past year of Wednesday nights at the Republic. We now rejoin Mulrooney’s article, already in progress…]
This week, Radio Rubber Room presents Psychobilly Cadillac, then later The Dirty Picture Show – whom I’ve already reviewed a few times so far. I’ll hold off on them until after the show. Psychobilly Cadillac has one of the more fitting band names I think I’ve ever heard. It’s basically an onomatopoeia. They’re wacky and rocking and sort of old-fashioned. You can check them out on Bandcamp; you’ll see what I mean. And you’ll also see all sorts of cool stuff at The Republic this Wednesday, 10pm, where you can make one of your last defensive stands against lame-ass Christmas time.
[P.S.–Don’t forget to wear your sunglasses at night like Corey Hart! -ed.]
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Words by Dan Mulrooney (with brief editorial interruption by Andrew Necci)
Images by Tyler M. Conta
