Lach was back running the antihoot at SideWalk, NYC, last Monday, singing "Smokin' Again" and "Drinkin' Beers with Mom." People packed the place. Last Up Larry was first up at the open mike with help from blues wailer Amos Simplesoma Elpmis, singing something like "the last time I took acid I went insane," but that's the Jeff Lewis version. Jon Berger ran the Leisure sUit Larry slide show that accompanied Larry's dreamy effect-enhanced brilliant guitar playing. There was a movie screen mounted on the stage. That was what brought me into the lobster booth close to the stage. It's an enclosed red booth. I was sitting with Charles Herold, The New York Times Computer Game Critic. Already int the booth were Eric, a playwright who had signed up to play, & Lindsay, a young lady and pure audience member who intends to sign up next time, both of whom were attending the antihoot for the first time. The slides were striking transparencies of Larry's hallucinatory artwork, such as a lady witch and a masculine wingless dodo bird over a caldron on the land's edge, surrounded by water, the bird sqeezing the contents of a toothpaste tube into the cauldron. The landscapes are spectacular, usually involving some body of water, rivers from mountains, ponds, spindly christmas trees populated by spindly figures, spindly santa clauses, astronauts, monstors. The colors are brilliantly combined with a sophistication worthy of the Disney staff. Quite the imagination stimulant. Last Up Larry plays SideWalk Sunday (5/26/2002) at 10 after my Golf Wars at 8 and Helen Strattford at 9.
Next up, Aaron Brady sang about phoning or being phoned and knowing both want it and if she says no he'll find someone else instead, perhaps not without a bit of sardonic bitterness. Maybe it was without irony and simply a song of accurate reporting. He also sang about a beautiful thing.
Charlotte had a big out of tune voice, meaning she stretched the notes or contracted them in revolt against the guitar accompaniment. Lyric ending the first song was "Hold my head up high and see what life brings." In the second she sang, "I will web you and drink your blood," I think. "Fly away from here" was also among the sentiments she expressed. People who do not find Grace Slick irritating may also enjoy Charlotte.
Casey, Jen Lindsay's collaborator, sang on an electric guitar, Thin Air and Carousel on the Moon.
Helen Strattford continues to confront people with her zonked leachy used abused woman routine in "Me." "No more sleaze, just a hug" is the ending plea, which tempers and touches. Well, now I've had enough to confront the possibility that she is simply being clever and contrived. The rhymes arising from the list of drugs is more cole porter than lou reed -- this is fine. Then she sings, beat me or something... "I deserve punitive damages and by the way can I hit you up for a sandwich?" The audience loved it. She's a real German chanteuse like Deitrich and Lemperer. It's growing on me again to write about it, but I was beginning to feel, yech. I suppose -- and forgive the graphic suggestions for they are worth considering -- predators, men in particular, are manipulating such a woman to become the way she is for purposes of turning her into a sex object and should confront the reality of her after they've through her been satiated. The predator's actions arising from his or her fear of intimacy produces a victim far more cloying. Predators? Victims? Become more goal oriented... Someday you'll meet your equal.
Nino, who is, I believe, Argentinian, played next. The amazing sound system picked up every click of his guitar. It's a percussive instrument. He introduced his second song as being "about one night stands." "I was born to tell this story." "How's my hair?" he asked, an inquiry that betrays being self conscious about one's basically handsome appearance.
Julian Ballard took to the piano singing all right with you. If it's all right. Julian has a nice low voice. His performance was not without snaz, and it was almost a challenge to like him. The music demands to be liked. His technique and quirky material win out in the end. See him there Saturday at 8.