transmission gallery. saturday. july 27, 2024. 9pm.

this was one of those days that was quite simply one of the best days. not being married or experiencing the birth of my first child or anything yet, I can say stuff like that about rock shows. oh man, can I say that kind of stuff about rock shows.

first let me describe the line up:

starlister
p1xel and the chronic network
gays in the military
mmHg
the 68s

I mean, come on. you cant get much more rock out of about 4 hours without risking serious bodily injury.

second, let me describe the venue:

840 w. Washington is this amazing loft space above an auto garage. inside youll find an art gallery, a recording studio, a stage/concert area, a coed bathroom, a pretty rad lazy-boy recliner, several bedrooms, and all kinds of room for hanging out. as a matter of fact, the aforementioned recording studio is overtone studios, where we recorded the torr ep last summer with our good friend ryan staples. since last summer, they've done a lot of painting and fixing of things, so that now the place is, if Im permitted to make such judgments, the raddest place on earth ever.

at this show, we had a few pretty exciting surprises, which I'll get to in a second. to maintain a certain amount of suspense, I'll first talk about starlisters set.

so the room was packed full of pop-needing, sallow-faced indiefoals and hipsterettes. then loren leans into the mic and delivers some heart-quickening remarks. so they're eating it up with a spoon, and the sara jumps on the mic and serves up the second course. and heads start bobbing, and people smile, and then they start to sing along. and delicious bliss shoots out of their eyes, and everyone claps.

a great moment in this show was when after trying to hide in the back during the starlister set, the p1xel kids, unable to resist it any longer, came to the front in full glitter to shout the hits with the rest of us.

soon after the epic sweetest possible end of the starlister set, p1xel and the chronic network sent tongues wagging out of already gaping mouths. p1xel had taken self-referentiality to new heights, sporting a sleeveless shirt emblazoned with rhinestones spelling out "GLAM", reportedly a recent acquisition from the r. l. abdulhadi collection. petal a. lexus donned her floor-length emerald coat, and agent h. magnificent thique further cemented his hold on the bass post and the real as the band unveiled the first installment of their catalogue of circus music for the upcoming la vorris and vox Columbian exposition, one of what is sure to be a wealth of petal-penned masterworks. stryker st. ryker and slugger metropolis were both in full (frontal) force as well.

shortly after a these gorgeous glamorous glitterous guys and gals left the stage, it was time for gays in the military to shock and awe us with their skin tight camo skivvies and atonal no-wave. the near-nakedness of the gays in the military must have been contagious as loren starlister couldn't help himself it wasn't long before he too had stripped down to his black underwear and started dancing around on stage with the almost naked arbiters of cool. their assault whipped the crowd into a dazed furvor, priming them for the next rock onslaught.

we took the stage clad in full tuxedos, and whipped into a smashing swing version of "ace aviatrix." we began "perfect radio faces" in swing mode as well, but tore into the rock version during the intro and charged into the rest of the set, guns blazing. round about the middle of "k.o. star," chris catapulted up to the front of the stage, our friend stephanie whiton took over the drums while ryan staples strapped on a guitar and leapt into the fray. after we took it up to that level, everything becomes kind of a blur. we had a request for "more jumping," which we tried to oblige. layers of tuxedo were stripped away and sleeves were rolled up as everything melted into a sweaty, rock-distended heap.

everyone was kind of tired at this point. and some people probably thought they had had enough. but let the sixty-eights explain something to you: these people were wrong. the sixty eights gave me a third wind, and then punched me in the fucking stomach, knocking it right back out of me. will long was particularly instrumental in guitaring the living hell out of everyone. a surprise appearance by john "stryker" stamos on keyboards was widely accepted. crazy was gone, pumps were fisted, forces were faced in. for the first time in a long time I woke up sore from dancing.

the end.

SETLIST:

ace aviatrix
perfect radio faces
the sun is falling
magazine
k.o. star
too close
theme from the rocktopotamus theme
i!d!m!