For those wondering about the Famous Mysterious Actor inbetween his show leaving Lippman’s and resurfacing at Berbati’s, here’s a clip.
THANK GOD an episode playlist of the Famous Mysterious Actor show is online, here!
Peroxide Mocha are all about love. The love between a boy and a girl (not like THAT). And the love of a boy and girl for music . Love has seen them through highschool, military service, video gaming, inter-state relocation and many other adventures that have got them to this, the eleventh year of their existence as a band.
And through all of this, Pete and Rachel – for they are Peroxide Mocha – have created a series of home-made records that sound like nobody else, and which have winged their way around the world through post and internet and recommendation into the collection of a diverse and loving set of fans.
Pete and Rachel met in highschool in Sequim, Washington, in 1997 and recorded their first EP that very same week. After rejecting names like Salmon-Cherry Casserole and Don’t Touch My Moustache, they decided on Peroxide Mocha, and an era began. Their album Sit Down And Wait To Be Seated was released the following year. Vital Peroxide Mocha themes were mapped out, including sex, drugs, sarcasm, Japanese sweets and what it’s like to think someone is neat. Themes that were to be developed over a series of albums that would fall together over the next few years each time Pete and Rachel managed to simultaneously find time to sit down, fire up the PC and let the songs pop out.
Though Pete’s quirky beats and Rachel’s nonchalant delivery and funny lyrics were limited at first by the fact that neither had any idea how a record should be made, people who heard the results of their work tended to loved it, and played it to yet more people. The duo discovered that there were kindred spirits all over the world – people who think pocky is important and recycling is funny. People who got such a collective crush on the music that each new Peroxide Mocha album has now become a keenly-anticipated event for that small but very lovely club of people who Know.
Which brings us to Making Out With Strangers. Now in their 11th year as a band, Pete and Rachel are older, wiser and a bit more educated in how a record should be made – but they are still as nonchalant and natural as ever, and have managed to avoid building any desire to sound like anyone other than Peroxide Mocha. So while the sounds on this record might be a bit tougher, a bit slicker, the kind of thing that electro and eclectic DJs all over the world will find perfect for rocking a wide variety of dancefloors with, this is still the Peroxide Mocha we all love, the Peroxide Mocha who remind us that the tiny details of life can be stranger and more important than we’d imagined, that horrible things can be funny and funny things can be horrible, and that the word “frigidaire” deserves pride of place in the construction of popular songs. This is Peroxide Mocha, and they bring you love.
*swiped from their CD Baby Write-up!
Peroxide Mocha ponder the fragility of our existence.
1. Flickr-snooping: I like to look at picture sets of friend’s parties that I was not invited to. Alternate Name:*Snort* THAT hors d’oeuvre does not look very delicious.
2. Ex-Boyfriend-Googling: A classic, although I was sad to find that an ex had killed himself. Breaking up *is* hard to do.
3. Find My Own Death Announcements: When your name is Virginia Jones, you die several times a month. My family’s OK.
4. Myspace Hatin’: Not possible on Facebook, which is why it is still inferior in my eyes. I don’t want to be your friend, I just want to look at you and feel better that you don’t want to talk to me ever again!
5. Taking mental illness quizzes: I know for certain that I do not have a shopping compulsion. Everything else depends on the day.
6. OTHER STALKING VARIATIONS: Now, we all stalk enemies and exes, because it’s fun. But have you considered checking your own Youtube clip, obsessively, to see if people are watching/commenting on it? How about commenting on someone else’s clip that you like, and then checking back to see if other people think you comment on something you thought was funny was ALSO funny? How about writing a review of a product or service and checking on that, say, a hundred times? Just doing the cyber version of riding your bike past its house, all day- “Do other people love Kindle as much as I do? Do they like my parody song, Kindle in the Wind?”
It’s a big Internet! Get creative! What else can we do with free time, a negative attitude, and a 3G connection?
Super-Christ Auggie-Star
A lot of people have been asking how the Auggie Smith roast went down. Here are the highlights as remembered by me:
Troy Thirdgill in a beautiful daishiki as Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whom I’ll bet you didn’t even KNOW was a friend of Aug’s. Amazing.
Dax Jordan on Lonnie Bruhn: If you took away the palsy, he’d just be cerebral.
Andy Andrist on Dax: What’s in his neck, it looks like… an elbow?
Me on Ron Osbourne: Doesn’t he look handsome? This is the first time I’ve seen him in pants that didn’t zip into shorts.
Aug on Holli: Holli Pappan, she’s the second-hottest comic in Portland, behind Andy Wood.
Me on Aug: He talks about having kids, but he doesn’t understand that you have to sleep with the same woman…for nine months…in a ROW.
Andy Wood on Mustard Man: Musty couldn’t be here, but he’s missed because…
Aug: You’re gonna do the Musty jokes?
Andy: I wrote ’em! I’m gonna do ’em!
Andy Wood on Richard Bain: Did you hear that Richard Simmons is going on the Richard Bain diet? He eats shit, but only when it matters!
Art on Richard: What’s it like when Richard tries to dress up for an event- AWK-WARD!
Dax on Virginia: She’s a vegan, she rides a bike to work, and she’s still fat!
Me: I’m gonna kill you.
Dax brought some show-and-tell, in the form of a forgotten storage trunk full of Auggie’s possessions, including a photo of himself on the toilet, and a Christmas Looney Toones tie, from the dark days when he was first learning to dress himself.
At the end of the night, as we stood around finishing our drinks and laughing at the pain we were going to bring to people who called us fat, we heard a majestic KA-WHUMP and turned towards the sound, many of us crying “Shit, Lonnie!”
But it was a tiny lady’s boots sticking in the air, and the semi-sober but very embarrassed Edie Van Ness was fished out from where she had fallen. Once it was clear that she was not hurt, we went back to laughing. She is in the center of this photo, which was taken pre-fall.
Front: Andy Andrist
Behind Andy: Richard Bain and Ron Osbourne
Keith Wallan, Arlo Stone, Edie Van Ness, Auggie Smith, Troy Thirdgill, Holli Pappan, Susan Rice, The Top of Andy Wood’s head, Me Looking Like an Ass, Dax Jordan, Art Krug. I am not speaking to fully a quarter of these people now! life is fun.
This flyer, featuring a mash-up of G.W. and a Smiths album cover, has been making me laugh on my bike commute for a week, so finally I post it, 24 hours after the event occurred.
Holli Pappan made me cry, then laugh, and then cry, at the perfectly miniature Famous Mysterious Actor costume she put together for Halloween. My dreams have died, but my soul sings free.
Something Famous this way Comes!
I can smell it coming in the air tonight,
And I’ve been waiting for this pixy for all my life, oh Lord
Can you hear it scream and and throw candy tonight, oh Lord, oh Lord
Well, if you told me you were Cutter, I would not lend a hand
I’ve seen your face before my friend, but I don’t know if you know who I am
Well I was there and I saw the whole show, I saw it with my own two eyes
So you can wipe off that grin, I know where you’ve been
It’s all been a stack of pies!
The Famous Mysterious Actor is throwing a Halloween Party at Berbati’s Pan! Come out and wear a costume!
Up and Coming: Halloween! I love Halloween. It’s like Christmas to me. Our costumes are ready. We are Lene Lovich and Nina Hagen!)
Eugene! I am excited about the all-girl laugh-fest coming up, and looking forward to meeting more funny ladies!
Chariots of Rubber! I have recently been cast in Jeffrey Wonderful’s musical about Demolition Derby, love, and Cindy, the Erotic Pleaser as a Backup Dancer, so I can add that distinction to my resume! I have NO idea when or where it will premiere, but it is going to be FANTASTIC. They told me I could tap dance in it. Equal parts Hedwig, Rocky Horror, Grease, and giant, talking nipples.
I leave you with a Fact-of-The Day quote from John Hodgman’s very funny new book, More Information Than You Require:
HALLOWE’EN: Originally called Samhain, this is the traditional Pagan-American holiday when we ask our children to consider the fragility of life by dressing them in darkly colored costumes and vision-impairing masks and encouraging them to walk around in the road.