The first time I saw Jane’s Addiction was in 1989 in Pittsburgh. They opened for the Ramones and got boo’ed off stage. Needless to say, they quickly became one of the most influential bands of the following decade. Shows what you know 19 year old self.
Jane’s Addiction re-assembled to play the Playboy party in Austin and ChinaShop Cameras were there to catch the action.
Words by Barbie Brady. Photos by Mary Sledd.
The FLATSTOCK poster show series is presented by the American Poster Institute (API). It is an ongoing series of exhibitions featuring the work of many of the most popular concert poster artists working today. The API is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to serving poster artists and promoting the art form. Both the API and its FLATSTOCK series were organized in 2002 as a result of conversations between interested artists and supporters frequenting the popular web site GigPosters.com.
If Bigelf was a sex act, lead singer and keyboardist Damon Fox says they would be 69, “you’re giving and receiving, it’s a good flow of pleasure.” On Friday the band was metaphorically in the alley bent over, giving it away like a boozed up skank. Fox jokes that the psychedlic rock group’s “gigantic surge of sexy wattage” was responsible for blowing the power – literally. As the band was mid-song, toward the end of their set, the power at the famously friendly Rusty Spur went out. It’s not the first time Bigelf has sucked a venue dry – Fox says they’ve blown the power out at the Viper Room, a venue in Sweden and about a dozen other times. It’s no surprise when you consider the amps needed to power a Vintage Hammond C3, a vintage melatron, a mini-moog, a Groupamster Echoplex and several other analog oddities.
Anyone close enough to feel the sound waves thrown from Bigelf’s stage can’t help but notice a delicately placed Yoda figure perched on top of the keys. The Yoda, “harnesses the evil forces,” says Fox who makes sure to keep the sci-fi zen master close at hand. Tonight, the band was almost without the Force. “We were leaving tonight to park the van and I didn’t have him… so I went back to open the trailer and get him out because I realized that tonight was going to be one of those specifically chaotic, heinous nights and I needed Yoda. Do or do not, there is no try.”
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Formed at the edge of the new millennium, Maserati is as sleek, sexy and sophisticated as the legendary Italian sports car it takes its name from. It is fitting, then, that the band has dragged the glory years of psychedelic arena rock kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, with the pomposity (and vocals) carefully removed. In its place are white hot flashes of light pulsing to an unstoppable rhythm that will make you want to punch air and drive really fast in a car with wings instead of doors.
I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness has been on a brake. Not your typical ‘Hey , I thought it was o.k. to stick it in any waitress I encountered because we were on a break’, type of break, but just a well deserved year long hiatus to unwind from touring with their debut album Fear Is On Our Side and have a couple of kiddos.
