SHAGging in Public

Get crafty for a second with me. Take out your scissors, glue and crayons. Carefully cut the SH off of the end of Josh. Then, cut off the AG at the beginning of Agle. Glue the two pieces together, add a few select solid, vibrant colors and you end up with SHAG, the artist behind some of the most ultra-cool retro-modern works you’re ever going to see. At last Friday’s Roq La Rue gallery opening, I was treated to an exceptionally thrilling new show of SHAG art titled Motorino.

I’ve admired SHAG’s work for years, buying stationary sets, post cards, wrapping paper and even personalized checks with his art on them. So seeing him in person wearing an adorable little leopard spotted fez as he mingled with the crowd made my palms sweat with nervous admiration. Had I not already been trying as hard as possible to maintain some semblance of composure while standing in between two other artists I also totally adore, pin up artist Krysztof Nemeth and photographer Rob Butler, I might’ve worked up the courage to introduce myself—but not this time.

Introductions or not, I really enjoyed the exhibit. Seeing original works of art is always thrilling to me. It is SHAG’s crisp, clean lines and brilliant colors that catch my eye first. And when I look deeper into the work, I find myself becoming involved in the scenario displayed before me. More often than not, I seem to want to climb right into the painting, have someone pour me a drink in a tiki glass and hop on the back of a scooter for a ride through the jungle.

Turn up the Juice

By now, you’ve probably gathered that I love me some Rock & Roll—fast and hard or slow and loud, I’ll take it anyway I can get it. But other things tickle my fancy too. Like art. And science. And art mixed with science, oh yeah baby, that’s the spot. Any exhibit that warns you not to enter if you’ve got a pacemaker or a metal plate in your head, well, that’s obviously going to be right up my alley. Enter PEOPLE DOING STRANGE THINGS WITH ELECTRICITY.

Last Saturday was the opening night of the exhibit I had been looking forward to going to since the Seattle Dorkbot meeting last November where in between talking about nonlocal quantum communication and the annoying potential problems associated with time travel, my friend Eric McNeill handed me a postcard advertising the show. When the opening night finally rolled around, a bunch of other engineers, artists and electricity geeks let our inner pocket protectors shine proudly as we wandered the 911 Media Arts Center watching the blinking lights and interacting with the works. In true Rettig form, I had a hand in spilling no less than three glasses of red wine in under five minutes, but few seemed even to care as pure unadulterated chatter about circuits, diodes and high voltage transistors persisted, refusing to be derailed by something as simple as a cup of fermented grapes.

When I wasn't busy adding my own artistry to other people’s clothing, I was able to pick out a few of my favorite pieces. Shelly Farnham’s Electric Scrying Pool, a shimmering futuristic oracle of sorts was on the list. So was Rolf van Widenfelt’s piece, FiveByEight, a light sculpture of scrolling LEDs. It reminded me of a much classier version of my ever so tacky scrolling LED belt buckle that was tucked away in my closet. I sighed when I thought of all the inappropriate places I’d worn that belt buckle, and how this place above all others, would have welcomed me with open arms as I scrolled “For a good time, call 206-351-XXXX” above my crotch--if only I would have thought to wear it.

God of Thunder and Rock & Roll

My step dad and I used to go to NHRA drag races on the weekends at what was once called Seattle International Raceways (today it’s Pacific Raceways). Typically, we’d watch stock cars, funny cars and top fuel. One day we went down to the track and there was a special guest car from Australia: Gravity Storm. Gravity Storm was the first jet engine car I’d ever seen and I was in awe. The car itself is really little more than a jet engine with a seat welded to it, a couple of wheels and a parachute. I had a sneaky feeling that I was going to need my own seatbelt when this thing fired up.

We were sitting in the bleachers on the Winston side of the track next to a young boy and his dad when the driver of Gravity Storm eased the car up to the start line just shy of the Christmas tree. The driver began to fire up the engine: “BOOM...BOOM...BOOM, BOOM, BOOOOOM!” Everything vibrated with the earth shaking noise. The hair on my arms stood on end and pulsated in time to the thunderous beat. The car tore down the quarter mile track at well over 300 mph. It took mere seconds to reach the other end. The little boy next to me was completely amazed. He turned to his father and after struggling to catch his breath exclaimed “Dad! (gasp) Dad! That felt like I was getting a massage!”

I’ve seen Thrones play many times, and every time they make me think of Gravity Storm. Friday night at the Crocodile Café was no exception. Joe Preston’s music roared like a jet engine. I wore earplugs, but that was more of a formality. Earplugs don’t really do much—your ears are going to ring after a Thrones show no matter what. The sound envelopes you. It spills drinks not being held onto and it vibrates cameras so one cannot take a clear picture. Thrones are like a thunder storm created by angry gods and seeing them play live feels a lot like...like getting massaged by the shock waves of a jet engine.

Tidal Wave of TOOL

Despite my utter distain for the shocking array of douche bags that I am well aware will unfailingly turn out at each and every TOOL show, when I got the news a few months ago that the band would again be in the Puget Sound area, I found myself setting my alarm to wake up early on a Saturday morning so I could wait my turn in the online ticket outlet queue for a shot at scoring admission. Even as visions of the obnoxiously drunk and tremendously annoying classic TOOL fans flashed before me, I secretly hoped that my karma would be clean enough for me to win the opportunity to once again see one of the greatest bands of my generation. I must’ve done something right in a past life because I ended up with a ticket. But two days before the main event, the universe revealed its cruel sense of humor when it was announced that the Montana show was postponed due to a viral infection that was affecting Maynard’s throat. Would the Seattle area show be cancelled too, or would it go on with a sub par performance from a sickly lead singer?

Virus or no, TOOL, my friends, does not disappoint. Even though Maynard did not attempt the vocal crescendo at the end of Flood, it doesn’t mean they didn’t still hit like a mother fucking tidal wave. TOOL has the unbelievable ability to suck all of the sound out of an arena and hold it inside themselves, leaving the audience to flop on the floor in front of them like fish out of water, until, after agonizing seconds of defiant silence, they unleash it all back full force. Standing in the crowd, you know the sound is going to come at you way too fast to prepare for it, no less escape it—it overcomes you, sweeping you off your feet and forcing its way into your ears and your nose and your throat, filling your lungs and drowning you with its fury. Every time I experience that ferocity of sound, that riptide of music that hits with an intensity of force that one can never fully anticipate, everything inside me is washed out to sea and all I am able to feel at that moment is a primal connection to the music that courses through my body.

SET LIST
Jambi
Stinkfist
46 & 2 (YouTube Link)
Schism
Rosetta Stoned
Flood
10,000 Days
Lateralus (Performed with Pat Mastelotto and Trey Gunn from King Crimson)
Vicarious

MCMLXXXIV

I was eight years old in 1984 and I can still clearly remember begging my then fifteen year old uncle to listen to his newly purchased and much coveted Van Halen cassette. At the time, I had no idea who Van Halen were or what they would sound like, but the tape’s cover art was so enticing...so daring...so bad. It was the embodiment of rebellion. I was mesmerized by the picture of the little boy with angel wings on the cover. He was doing the forbidden: smoking cigarettes. I simply had to listen to it. So when the opening chords of “Jump” punched their way out of the portable ghetto blaster and into my young eardrums, the hurricane force instantly obliterated my petty little girl crush on Michael Jackson and forever hooked me into the defiant world of Rock & Roll.

Despite using practically all of my preteen birthday cake candle-blowing-out wishes on hopes of seeing them in concert, I never did have the chance to see a live performance of the band whose logo I routinely inked on countless pairs of slip-on checkered Vans and Pee Chee folders. As an adult, I conceded that I never would—I didn’t want to see Van Hagar (or God forbid Gary Cherone), I wanted Van Halen featuring David Lee Roth or I wanted nothing. And nothing’s what I got...until last night.

I sat alone at the Key Arena. I went with friends, but we couldn’t get seats next to each other, and I’d be damned if I was going to let either that or the torrential rains pounding down on Seattle stop me from seeing what Diamond Dave and the boys still had to offer decades after the first time I heard them. What they brought was a montage of my adolescent years set to the perfect guitar squealing soundtrack blasting out of stacks upon stacks of signature EVH amplifiers. What they brought was David Lee Roth, all fifty three years of him, poured into a pair of tight, tight leather pants perfectly balancing a top hat on his protruding crotch. What they brought was pure Rock & Roll. Sure, the jumps caught less air than they did in days past (more resembling high scissor kicks) but it was Rock & Roll none-the-less, and this lifetime fan was not even remotely disappointed.

In the end, I found that my schoolgirl crush on Eddie* and the boys, has never quite been extinguished. The flame just burned on low for decades waiting to be reignited. Only this time the butterflies in my belly were more for excitement and respect at seeing one of the best guitar players in the world perform live and pure admiration for a band that has continued to rock for decades. Last night, I discovered that the rush I felt the first time I heard Van Halen and the spine tingling, goose bump enducing noise that is Rock & Roll still has the same magical ability to move me in ways that nothing else in this world can.

SET LIST
You Really Got Me
I'm the One
Runnin' with the Devil
Romeo Delight
Somebody Get Me a Doctor
Beautiful Girls (complete with Diamond Dave shaking maracas!)
Dance the Night Away
Atomic Punk
Everybody Wants Some
So This is Love
Mean Street
Pretty Woman
drum solo
Unchained
I'll Wait
And the Cradle Will Rock
Hot for Teacher
Little Dreamer
Little Guitars
Jamie's Cryin'
Ice Cream Man (and stories of Dave's early pot smoking years)
Panama
Eddie's amazing guitar solo!
Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love
1984
Jump

*Even though a friend recently reminded me that it was, in fact, a good thing that Eddie Van Halen broke my young and tender heart when he choose Valerie Bertinelli (that bitch) over me, he will always have a special and cherished place in my music crush history.

The Holidays Can Be A Real Drag

With warm holiday greetings like the one I received from one of my family members on Saturday, “Happy Holidays! I had a hysterectomy the Friday before Thanksgiving and my dog had 16 teeth pulled the Tuesday after the holiday. Stay warm!” it’s no wonder I haven’t yet been able to make myself take down the Halloween decorations and put up the ‘ol Chanukka bush.

So I figured, what better way to get into the holiday spirit than by spending an evening with friends at the Dina Martina Christmas Show, Seattle’s most neurotically funny and hellaciously adorned one, er, woman Drag Queen Christmas Show at the ReBar. From the repurposed and remixed classic Christmas carols, one of which included an hysterical medley of Morrissey lyrics and one that was complete with an amazing Louis Armstrong impression in the deepest voice you’re ever going to hear from a Queen in your life, to the Secret Santa audience gifts, or as Dina pronounces it, jiffs (Do you like meat? And do you like strawberries? Good, then here’s a strawberry flavored gummy steak for you!), my cheeks were completely cramped from continuously laughing for so long.

The entire audience loved Dina. The sold out house roared with laugher at the train wreck of emotion she displayed. At times we were laughing at her, but mostly, we were laughing with her, as we could all relate to the emotional pendulum ride that is the holiday season: crazy relatives, past lovers who treated us poorly and holiday songs where we only really know the words to the chorus.

Looking around the auditorium, I was heartened to see so many couples, partners if you will, completely comfortable in publicly showing their affection toward one another as they genuinely enjoyed themselves without having to put up a guard and without having to worry about offending anyone. As I watched those couples hold each other, and as I watched groups of friends (including my own) laughing together and sincerely enjoying each others company, I have to admit, I felt a little bit of something that I feared I might not feel this year: the holiday spirit.