Gig Archives: 2019
(Disclaimer: this may be incomplete or inaccurate)Thursday, February 14th, 2019 Three years later we suddenly had another gig - a standard Austin Powers themed event at a
conference party in Palm Springs, CA. This was a particular adventure of a gig - due to a spate
of fucked up weather all over the west coast, there were cancelled flights (rebooked onto
earlier legs), and a harrowing drive from LAX to Palm Springs which involving ceaseless rain,
flash floods and washed out roads. But musically it was a particularly good gig. We had a lot of the
usual A-listers, as well as three newbies (Jamila on vocals, Christopher on drums, Ross on bass) who
absolutely nailed the material. Plus it was a good audience - lots of appreciation and dancing.
Two tight 45s - super easy and fun. But, man, the commutes to/from the gig were a real pain in the ass.
Wednesday, June 12th, 2019 Historic debut show of Monstrika at the Ivy Room! We opened the night, followed by Chicago heroes
District 97 and then local heroes Inner Ear Brigade closing it out. Some might
remember that - almost a decade ago - miRthkon and District 97 played together at
CalProg 2010. So our paths finally crossed again! Nice throwback. Also a throwback: the night before
the gig I was replacing batteries in my bass and one of the 9 volt connectors busted in half, so I
had to solder a new connector in - first time soldering anything useful in over three decades.
I was jumping around the stage and the sound never cut out, so I'm glad my bass surgery worked!
Anyway we played our ~35 minute set of four tunes. Felt great, sounded great, I only forgot one or
two words while singing. Pretty successful introductory statement.
Friday, July 26th, 2019 Back to the Starry Plough! Still doing this! We got the primo slot in the middle of two theme sets. Opening the night
was the awesome entertaining Brian Kenney Fresno playing a birthday show. And closing the night was the
introvert's nightmare Doctor Striker. Total party night with us in the middle playing a dark set, including
two new tunes. We're up to six live numbers - a full album's worth by some accounts. Awesome crowd - all the bands
brought people out. Friends new and old, near and far, checked it out. I love that.
Friday, November 8th, 2019 On paper this was another Jimmy Bond Orchestra show, but only because we were doing a lot of the spy tunes
and a couple of the theme songs, but the set was largely the standard Casino Royale stuff. Speaking
of standard, this gig had both Steve on bass and Wes on drums, back in their original posts for the first
time in forever! Usuals Scrote, Jamison, Chris, and John were on guitar and horns, and we were fronted by
seasoned singers Jamile, Paul, and Meryl. A pretty chill benefit event, especially considering the
absolute stress trying to locate a band's worth of white dinner jackets before the show (mandatory dress code).
I was coming off a bad cold, so I got to practice the art of suppressing coughing fits during the course of
our solid 2+ hour set.
Saturday, November 9th, 2019 Huzzah! We scored another opening gig at the Ivy Room in Albany, this time supporting headliners
Consider the Source. I still had that cold, but I squeaked by given proper application
of tea and lozenges and we ended up playing a rather great set - definitely our best yet. We did
our tight 30, then Reed Mathis & Friends jammed out before the main act came out and
obliterated everybody until curfew. Nice to finally thank John, the bass player in Consider the
Source, in person for helping set up a show for MoeTar and miRthkon in NYC back in 2012.
Also he let me use his rig, which made things super easy for me.
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