Rock Lotto

I'm just now getting a chance to blog about the Rock Lotto. It was the 3rd annual and it took place this past Saturday night at the Fishtank, a venue which belongs to Aaron Seeman, my old grad school classmate, who's better known these days as Duckmandu!

As soon as the first band (The Salvation Barmy & the Merchants of Death) took the stage, a cat ran full speed across the venue and hid somewhere backstage. She didn't look like she was having a good time with all the noise.

I was in Band #6, and we decided to go with that name, instead of picking a new name like everybody else did. Gino Robair was supposed to be the guitarist in our band, but he had to bow out on account of a procedure done on his back which resulted in doctor's orders not to lift anything or play instruments. So we were bummed about this and decided to dedicate our whole set to Gino. We wrote two songs about him and I wrote one that he suggested the title of, "Sausage Everywhere", which was all about a sausage rocket experiment on MythBusters.

Ferrara was also supposed to be in our band but he bowed out as well. So we were the Incredible Shrinking Band, down from a quintet to a trio. It was me, Michael Guarino, and Michael Mellender.

Gino actually made it to the gig and got to hear his songs. My favorite band of the evening was Myles Boisen, which was not really Myles Boisen at all, but a band that named itself after him. They were really tight. It was later revealed that they had four rehearsals, which is a lot for the Rock Lotto, and so it's no wonder they were really tight. The Sinking Swimmers were very cool too. They did a really groovy reggae song and dressed up in snorkeling masks and flippers. They also did a song about getting your heart broken by a squid. It was very B52's.

I was tickled to hear several homages over the course of the evening to the ascending chromatic riff served up so infuriatingly by Hammer Girth last year. Vicky Grossi, my former Hammer Girth bandmate, shared with me that Suki O'Kane actually played the recording of Hammer Girth doing that on KPFA -- and locked the studio door so nobody could stop it unfolding in all its maddening glory. It's said that people were pounding on the studio door trying to get it to stop. I am so into that.