Lady Rollins live! This Friday!

Lady Rollins will be doing a VERY quiet set this Friday at the Antena Gallery in Pilsen (closing out the "Evil is Interesting" show they've had up). I think we go on at 8...? I'll update post this shortly with actual details. We go on at 9:30!

Jess will be playing records (through her turntable's internal speaker), I'll be scanning things with an inductor (through a 1/4 watt amp) and Devin will be literally scraping objects together. Caroline will be reading isolated vowels and consonants from a recent piece of hers. We ran through it over the weekend and were all pleased. If you were at our last show but wanted the opposite, volume-wise, be sure to stop by.

THE SPEERS ARE PLAYING ON SUNDAY!

Last minute show:

This Sunday, 9pm at The Mutiny:

Scraping Teeth (voted "Worst Band in America" by Spin Magazine in '93!)
Holly Hunt (drums/guitar doom metal duo)
Names Divine (our favorite band in Chicago)
Reale Sadd (new to me)
The Speers (live for the first time in a while)

I don't know if there's a cover or not, but I can't imagine it will be more than $5 if so. Get there early! We go on first.

Photos from yesterday's show

Lady Rollins played a loooooong set yesterday afternoon. Caroline filmed everything-- I'll post the video once it's up. In the meantime, here's a couple of photos:

Post-show stretch (with our vibe tech Trevor):


D & T started a new band called "Didgeri-Duo." They sounded pretty good!


Caroline in her reading mask:




UPDATE:

My patch notes:

2-hour Lady Rollins performance this Saturday

Lady Rollins (full band this time) is playing a 2-hour set at the Carrie Secrist Gallery on Saturday. This is an afternoon thing-- 2-4pm, at the closing of the "(No) Vacancy" show. We'll be playing something that people can wonder in and out during, so if you're in the area stop on by! Weird sounds, videos and readings aplenty.

Mike Brown RIP

Mike Brown of Livewire Electronics passed away yesterday. I never met him, but the person I used to build modules for got his start building modules for Mike, and from the stories I was told, he was the nicest, most generous guy on the planet. Plus he designed the AFG and reissued the Synthasystem filter-- both gold medal moves. His passing is a true loss to the community.

In this "classic" 2008 NAMM clip, not only do we get Mike giving a great demo in a quiet space (show me another NAMM clip where no one yells or wears a mic), but there's a prototype AFG, Chaos Computer* and Audio Compositor** in his system!

Rest in peace.

*, ** unreleased, oft-discussed Livewire modules

Photos from last night

So, not everything went as planned... half of Lady Rollins could not play last night: Devin was sidelined with a freak injury, and Jess wasn't told ahead of time to bring a cartridge for the turntable-- a true shame, as she'd lugged along a stack of keepers ("Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House," for starters).

Still, Caroline and I soldiered on as a drone/text duo and made the most of it. I think it went pretty well, considering the last minute changes (+ Caroline's story, about an artist getting transfused with horse's blood, ruled). Photos below, audio to come later today...






UPDATE:

There was a photo booth at the bar:


Here are my absurdly last-minute patch notes, scribbled on a piece of scrap paper seconds before leaving the house:


UPDATE AGAIN!:



Lady Rollins is playing a two-hour set later this month. Details soon!

Lady Rollins live on Sunday!

Lady Rollins is playing at the Beauty Bar this Sunday night as part of the "Two With Water" series of literary events.

Caroline will be reading, Devin and Jess will be on turntables and I will be processing their records through the modular synth.

We go on first (8:30-ish), and are not playing for long, so get there early and wear your fanciest pants!

WFMU Marathon!!

The annual fund drive marathon for our favorite radio station, WFMU, has begun! The station is 100% listener supported-- do the right thing and pledge now/often!!



We love WFMU. Bill Kelly played both of the T&V albums on his show (he even gave us a quote for the LP liners!), The Shamblers played live on The Long Rally and New Mexicoe had its first rehearsal (not-entirely legally) at the station. Here's a video from The Shamblers' time there:



HELP KEEP FREE FORM RADIO ALIVE!!

Photos from Saturday's show

Running with the "Lightness & Darkness" theme, Jess and I played Thingamagoops on Saturday through the following pedals:

Jess:


Peter:


(I used the 4-track as a looper (there's a tape loop in a cassette in there))

This guy (AJ Cesena) built a tent out of thin cloth and mic stands before his set, which looked great:


...and these nice people wrestled around on the floor while we played, which happened some three and a half hours after it was scheduled to:



We recorded the set, but something went a little haywire and what we got was 25 minutes of silence. A shame!

Holy shit we're playing a show tonight!

We're playing at a book release party tonight for Lightness & Darkness at the Happy Dog (1542 N. Milwaukee, Second Floor). We'll be backing up readings by Taleen Kalenderian and Nicki Yowell. Starts 9ish, we go on second.



See you there!

Pagan Feelings live in New York!

Everyone's favorite Summertime Fun Band of 2011, Pagan Feelings, will be playing at Cameo in Brooklyn on Thursday, December 22nd.  Also on the bill:

Blood Revenge (Ben of The New Colossus)
Face Blindness (Chris and Lindsay of Radical Dads)
and... mystery band... still figuring that one out...

Anyway, ours is the late show, doors at 9pm.  93 N. 6th St., Brookyln.  Cheap entry, good vibes aplenty.

Also, there will be copies of the Speers cassette and an even rarer CD-edition (10 copies) of the upcoming Pagan Feelings tape (Colonial Recordings USA #105).  Be there and get your beautiful hands on them!!

Lady Rollins set from last night

Here's a recording of last night's set at The Whistler:

Live at The Whistler, October 16, 2011 by Lady Rollins

Caroline: reading from her book "Psycho Dream Factory" and projecting a video loop she'd made (I'm told there was a proper video recording as well-- look for an updated post once I get my hands on it)

Devin: prepared tape players

Jess: Thingamagoop

Peter: modular synthesizer

Lady Rollins strikes again!

EDIT: this show is happening on SUNDAY not Saturday. NOT TODAY. TOMORROW. Whoops!

Everyone's favorite A/V/poetry ensemble Lady Rollins is playing THIS SATURDAY at The Whistler, along with readings by Ben Tanzer and The Dirty Poet. Jason Behrands (of Orange Alert) hosts. All at the early bird hour of 6pm! Be there!!

Videos from our recent shows:

Live at Acre:



Live at Roxaboxen:



Live at Ear Eater:

Photos from ACRE

Recording from Sunday's show

Lady Rollins was invited to play a set this past weekend at ACRE, in beautiful Steuben, WI (pop. 131). It was a total blast-- thank you to everyone involved, and especially to our friends Xina Xurner for putting us on the bill!

The sound guy taped the proceedings with a pair of decent microphones, but it might be a while before we get a copy of that file, so... in the meantime, here's our digital dictaphone recording of the event:

Live at ACRE, August 21, 2011 by Lady Rollins

Caroline, aside from occasionally singing, was projecting a video piece of hers that Jess, Devin and I were playing along to-- once we get the "real" recording from the ACRE folks, I'll post a compiled A/V video here so you can enjoy something closer to the experience of actually being there.

This is what we played:

Devin-- prepared guitar, bow:


Jess-- Thingamagoop, pedals:


Peter-- cassette tape loop, pedals:

Huggabroomstik, live in our house

Eagle-eyed readers of this blog will note that The Speers were scheduled to play a show with NY Antifolk kings Huggabroomstik on July 3rd, but have yet to post anything about it. Why? Well, it's a funny story...

Someone over at Sylvie's Lounge forgot to put the gig on their books, and, being the day before a holiday and with, apparently, nothing going on that night, they decided not to show up and open their doors. No one told us though, and, after hanging out in front of the bar for a couple of hours, we decamped back to our house for an impromptu concert and late night party.

So... here is the tour-sized version of Huggabroomstik (Neil, Preston and Johnny-- Dashan had long since passed out), at 2:30am, technically on July 4th, playing five songs in our living room (a venue we're calling Chez Stadium):

Huggabroomstik - July 3, 2011 by Chez Stadium

If you're anywhere near New York on August 14th, be sure to head over to Huggabroomstock 10, their annual all-day, two-stage music festival at one of our favorite venues in town, Goodbye Blue Monday. Our pals The Happy Rappies had their big debut at last year's Huggabroomstock-- here's a bootleg of their set:

Happy Rappies at Goodbye Blue Monday, 8/14/10 by Peter Speer

Lots of fun, LOTS of music and plenty of BBQ to go around. Make the scene, and tell the Broomstiks we say hi!

Show (in Wisconsin (in August))

Lady Rollins (or whatever we're going by that night) are playing at ACRE on August 19th, along with our pals Xina Xurner! Put some cooking oil in your Beetle bus and BE THERE!!

Radical Dads TONIGHT!

Our friends (including former New Mexicoe bandmate Lindsay Baker), Radical Dads, are playing TONIGHT in Chicago at Memories Bar! Be there!!

(Also-- they were just written up in the New York Times. Whaaaaaaaaat?)

Photo from after Wednesday's show

Drone rehearsal

Here's a recording of the patch I will be using at tonight's Lady Rollins performance:

Psycho Dream Factory drone by The Shamblers

A bit sloppy performance-wise, but you get the idea. The patch looks like this:


Hope to see you there!! Things kick off around 8:30/9 at Roxaboxen Exhibitions.