Scandal At The Parkade

My friend Liz asked me to make her some cds to expose her to new things. I think I focused a little more on the visual element than I probably should’ve, when I could’ve been trying to come up with things I think she’d be more particularly interested in musically. The first design I did for her was for Mike Patton’s Pranzo Oltranzista, a great cd to play for your friends in the dark. Here’s a couple pictures of the design.

It’s hard to make out, even in real life, but the cover reads “Pranzo,” and the second pictures is of the tracklist which has this nice staggered layer thing going on. Since I gave them to her, I don’t have better pictures, or pictures of some of the other parts. The inside cover said Musica Da Tavola Per Cinque, and the slip to hold the cd had bat wings and some spooky yellow windows. I was really happy with the final look of it, but it did have a few flaws, namely the slot for the cd was a little too tight, and the look of the cd itself was unimpressive. I wanted to go for a look with eyes peering through the aforementioned fenestrae, but it didn’t work out quite as planned. I have some diagrams I might post in the future.

I just made a somewhat similar design for Alicia to celebrate seeing Boris, she has it right now, but I’ll borrow it back to take some pictures of it.

I recently saw Daughters play with Russian Circles. Most of my friends were more excited about Russian Circles, but Daughters was my main draw. This was my first time seeing them, and I had heard a few things about their shows, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. People had told me that at least the singer gets pretty sloshed during the show, and then he strips down, sometimes all the way. I wasn’t really thrilled to be looking at this, I turned down Dinosaur Jr. (I believe) some time ago because those guys are not pleasant to look at.
Before I get to the reviews, Daughters has a shirt that they’re selling that I think I’d like to get a copy of. It’s got a nice Yoshi-dinosaur font that says “Daughters” and several bats flying around it that are actually vaginas. In case you are like at least one of my friends who can’t make out the vaginas, I drew this guide:

They didn’t have the shirt at the show, or any small shirts for that matter, according to a note next to the pricing. On top of that, there was no vinyl. I picked up a copy of Daughters’s Live At CBGB’s. I’m a sucker for anything limited edition and when I heard that there’s only 1000 copies or some such, I couldn’t pass it up. The next thing I heard was that “they were really drunk when they recorded it.”
I ran into Jason, the drummer from Psyopus there, an old friend of mine, and we were chatting in front of the merch table. One of the guys from Daughters rooting around some boxes and pulled out something that looked like a 7″ record, and it turned out to be Daughters’s s/t EP. The girl, who has a British accent despite the band hailing from Rhode Island, placed it on the table with a note that said “$4 – Last one ever!” Jason called dibs on it, but I was closer, so I turned and asked her for it. Jason looked like he was about to flip out, and then I explained to him and the merch girl that I was just ensuring that he’d be able to grab it before any of the few fans near us eyeing it could snipe it. Jason was happy, and said he’d let me digitize a copy for him, so I’d be able to give it a listen. I need to wait right now before I set up my system, since I’ve still got a ton of stuff in disarray from a move.
The Merch girl also pulled out another vinyl, this time a 12″ and offered it to us while we were still talking with her about the record we now had reserved. I took it, a black vinyl version of Hell Songs. After I got it and I realized how little I had in terms of cash, I felt like perhaps I should’ve capped it at the one CD, especially since it was just the black vinyl. At least I got it at a decent price.

The show was quite entertaining, they played for quite a bit, and the singer didn’t get all the way naked, he stripped down to his shorts and stayed there. They played several new songs, which were all quite enjoyable, and some songs almost felt like they were just waiting for the dance remix to come out. It was pretty intense overall, and they closed with highlight of the set “Recorded In A Pyramid” which is also probably my favorite track on Hell Songs.
Russian Circles came on next. I really wasn’t that familiar with the material, and instrumental type stuff I can be very particular about, but I stuck around because my friend Liz hyped them up, and was also there. They did remind of me of a more metal Pelican. It was a nice set though, and they did seem to make decent efforts to keep it interesting to look at. They did have a wind-swept look, and had a strobe light on too.
On top of all of this, I ran into Neil, the guitarist from Bensin, who was looking to start up a little side project, so I need to give him a call about that, I was supposed to last week. Whoops. More details on that as they come to me.

Still 12 days until X-Files!