Posted on by mwhybark

Firesign

On the realization that I would regret not going more than going even if it sucked, I took Viv to see the Firesign Theater show tonight at the Moore. It was… rough. Still, it was a pleasure to see the act. I chuckled when I noticed that an image of a shack being apparently twisted by an encroaching tornado used as an element of the show’s stage dressing had appeared within the month on either FilePile or tmbo.

Viv found the act confusing and the apparent confusion onstage regarding scripted bits and sound effects did not help to clarify things. Firesign’s material is always murky and it wasn’t reaching her. They did mostly new stuff, I think, with a few recorded bits that were vaguely familiar used as scene transitions. Adding to the problems were sound mix issues, including bad cues, over-amped mics, and so forth. The second act was largely a Nick Danger piece, with the customary post-modernist fooraw. There was only one brief multi-voice bit, which is a shame, because the layered speaking bits have always been my favorite part of their material.

It felt like a workshop performance, as if what we saw is going to evolve into a new album and a touring performance. As it happens, this was stop three of six.

Also: Firesign podcasting – a huge trove of downloadable mp3s, right here.

Posted on by mwhybark

You Can't Just Sing in the Supermarket

I met Dan and Jim at the U. District Safeway, where we discovered a produce section crowded with fifty or sixty folks, to the growing bemusement of the store’s employees. Eric Sooros emailed me that he was accosted by a store representative be cause he, his wife Rose, and their infant child “looked like they knew what was going on.” Both Eric and I, as it turns out, purchased some produce.

Jim took pictures.

In the midst of the crowded produce section, about seven people began by holding aloft a selection of produce, silently. Then one of the performers began to sing the Clash song, “All Lost in the Supermarket,” which quickly spread to the otyher performers and some of the rest of the crowd. Slightly anxious Safeway employees looked on from the edges of the produce section, which was very full.

Suddenly a guy in a white shirt, featuring the classic managerial combination of cheesy moustache, thinning hair, and black tie rushed in and began scolding the singers, saying “you can’t just sing in the supermarket,” whereupon, of course, Jason struck a chord and the whole lot broke into a Broadway-style hand-waving kick-kick-turn chorus line as they sang a little ditty based upon the phrase.

Then Jim, Dan and I waited interminably for my onions to be rung up, whereupon we headed off to the dank recesses of Finn MacCool’s for a beer and on to the brighter precincts of the Big Time, where we ended the evening, noticing that the brewpub both advertised free wifi and was remarkably uncrowded for a Saturday night, and as the de facto social comittee for MeFi Seattle, it’s on the list of potential venues.

Partway through the evening the ever-amusing Dan remarked that a neighboring tabe had brought a giant robot frog out drinking with them, an amusing wisecrack that improbably turned out to be true. By coincidence, I was wearing the hopkin tee that John and Mikey gave me.

Later, the people with the frog gave it to me.