Show Recap #3, shows we've done so far (part 3)

Our Wicked Lady! Rockaway Beach! Cobra Club!

Alright, our show at Sundown is right around the corner so I need to stay on top this. I wanna do our show recaps in a timely manner once we are back up and running.

(We have some exciting shows coming up!!!!)

But for now…

OUR WICKED LADY

This is a very cool venue in Bushwick where many local bands that I like have played.
It was actually one of my short-term-long-term-goal venues so I was pretty surprised/pumped to get to play it within a year of us being a band. It’s also the first place Aki-san and I jammed together (they do a weekly open jam downstairs on Tuesdays, highly recommend). Cute right?

HOWEVER I was very stressed out because

1) we were punching above our weight. It’s a decent venue so they expect a decent audience. Showing a venue that the band is good and can bring a crowd IS the way to keep getting booked, and… this Substack currently has 5 subscribers. I got worried that we were going to be in over our heads. Like too big of a venue too soon, and we are made to feel like we aren’t good even though it was just that we haven’t had the time to build an audience???

No but seriously, it isn’t easy to build an audience that will show up FOR you, especially since this was a ticketed show (95% of my friends are artists and I don’t like asking them to pay to see me - maybe I need to make more rich friends. Please, introduce me to people who feel boring yet wealthy and want to feel cool via association with a punk band.)

2) I was in a play and producing an event in July which, while both were fulfilling, took a lot out of me physically. So of course two nights before this show I explode into a fever and my throat closes up. If you’ve heard our music, I SCREEAAAAM. I shout, I whail, I creak, I growl, etc. etc. etc. MY THROAT CANNOT BE ANYTHING OTHER THAN FULLY ON. I looked at my puffy face in the mirror wondering, “why isn’t my band shoegaze? why aren’t we mumblecore?”

After loooooots of Tylenol and VapoStream and Zinc Lozenges and being silent (if you know me, a rarity) we pulled it off.

This is another one of those moments where I am so grateful to my band. Luckily I was feeling a lot better and was able do all of the voices I needed to do. But in my past decade of being a primarily solo-artist feeling like I have to do everything alone and if I couldn’t deliver everything would crumble, I would simply have had a complete meltdown. Panicking not about my body, but about logistics, the audience, the art form, how I was a bad person who deserved this, and so on until I felt completely unprepared on top of being physically ill.

All Our Wicked Lady photos by Jealyn McFadden

Having people I can trust to carry the show even if I might not be 100%, and having people who I really didn’t want to let down were the reasons able to push myself to actually do everything I can to get better instead of self-sabotage. Sure, self-help books about codependency might say I have to be all those things for myself. But I think I’ve spend enough time in the land where the Venn diagram of [counter-dependence] and [expecting to be disappointed by myself] that I’m allowed to revel in this version of myself that wants to take care of me.

I don’t think we sold out the show, but we sold out of my face-shirts that night so… I’d call it a win.

We played with Will Bug, Fake Pollocks, and La Friki Plaza.

Will Bug is a good friend with a beautiful voice and is a sick ol’ bassist. They had another good friend Tonie on that night as a guitarist and oomph the way they can make a guitar whail!! It makes sense they were plucked out of New York to start touring this month.

Fake Pollocks was real fun, super straight up punk shit that I hope to have more of in our songs one day. I learned their bassist went to high school near my high school. I now believe I am friends with Dave, their guitar guy.

I believe La Friki Plaza said this was their second show but oh man they were so good. They were funky funky and so skilled! Their songs were actually like, music, and intricate. Even in my Tylenol stupor their music reached my soul and I danced the night away.

ROCKAWAY BAZAAR

When we were first about to get booked on this show, Yoko-san asked me to send her a video of us performing because the booker wanted to check out our vibe.

I sent her a link to a recording of one of our shows.

She said a link won’t work, she needs a file that’s just one song.

So I sent her a file.

She said the file was too big.
It needed to about 30 seconds and small enough it can be sent over text.

So Mark, our videographer, shrunk the clip down into basically a GIF.

Blurry as fuck.

Buuuuut we got booked. That’s when Yoko-san informed us that the booker of this venue doesn’t have internet. Like he doesn’t deal with the internet. He doesn’t own any internet-using electronic devices. Only a flip phone. That’s why the video had to be so tiny. Because he needed to watch it on his flip phone.

I still think about him every day.

Summer was on it’s way out (or so we thought - nobody expected warm days into October…) so getting to do a beach boardwalk show sounded super fun.

We got in a car and drove on down to Rockaway Beach.

The thing about doing a show on the beach though, is that it is impossible to invite people to. It is too far. Simply telling people that our next show was at the Rockaways felt like an imposition. So to all who came, thank you (s/o to Dave from Fake Pollocks! See, I told you we are friends now.) But we mostly had to keep our fingers crossed that people who were already at the beach would be into us.

Of course it was a rainy day.
It did stop by the time we were supposed to play, but it was wet and gray — not the ideal beach day.

Once I got there, we basically had to go straight into sound check, but Zéev (🥁) was missing. People were gathering, anticipation was rising, and I was yelling his name into the microphone. Turns out he was just hanging on the beach with his friends.

The sun started setting rapidly, which was when I realized there was nothing lighting us.

All Rockaway Bazaar photos by Alec Suthy

But of course, we play on!

I love the beach, I love the ocean. I am from an island.

The sticky salty air, extra humid from the rain, felt so good against my bare ass-cheeks exposed in the beach-edition FPOJ swimsuit I printed my face on especially for this occasion.

Families with grandparents and parents who looked concerned at first started dancing with their kids. (After Mott Street Eatery and this, I think we can confidently identify as a family-friendly band???)

The booker-who-lives-rent-free-in-my-head told us they usually have ‘easy-listening’ bands play here but we were fun and he’d probably book us at a different venue next time. Seriously, how does this man book shows for MULTIPLE VENUES with just a flip phone in 2023? I guess some of us just aren’t trying hard enough.

COBRA CLUB

And finally, the last of the not-so-rapid-fire show recaps (do you understand why I can’t do Twitter ahem, I mean X? I am a wordy girlie)

I used to do stand up at Cobra Club. I used to lose my voice at Cobra Club Karaoke nights. Getting to do Cobra Club as a SINGER of a BAND felt like a cute little full circle.

It was a fundraiser for the National Network for Abortion Funds tooooo. So you know I was all about it.

All Cobra Club photos by Erica Moon unless otherwise indicated

We played with Smiling Beth, The Manimals, and Chatterbox.

THIS LINEUP WAS SO COOL. We love a lineup full of fem led rock and roll.

Smiling Beth was solo keyboard kind of spooky in a good way with dancing (?) that was strange and wonderful.

The Manimals just brought the theatrics in a way that I respect and strive for. I have a fixation with cults so their whole concept is right up my alley, and storytelling + ritual as a way to introduce each of their songs… just *chefs kiss*

Chatterbox was so fun. The vocals were amazing - she made me want to scat more - and it is always really great to see predominantly fem bands.

After our set, the front person of the Manimals came up to me and said “You guys were all over the place in the most amazing way.”

On our way home, I told Mark that I never want our band to be described as “Cohesive.”

We went to see Talking Heads’ “Stop Making Sense” the following night.

Photo by Tianding He

Okay! I did it!

I didn’t realize I had so much to say about each show when I decided to do this. Now we’re all caught up, so I can soliloquize as much as I want per show (heheh). And also make other kinds of posts.

We have a lot of stuff coming up, including our next show at Sundown Bar on 11/21 - hope to see you there!

Thanks for reading as always.

<3,
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