21st Century Vaudeville. Music, fiction, comedy, poetry. It’s an AHA! Experience.
2020 Vision means that you can see clearly and the year 2020 has made it possible to see many unfortunate and unfair things that were perfectly obvious all along. We have always treasured information but now there is such a glut of it that it has become almost meaningless. And yet we still aspire. Maybe something great is about to happen.
Darkness settled over the midway. Maps used to say “There be dragons here”. Maps don’t say that now. But that doesn’t mean there are no dragons." - Lorne Malvo. Roadside Attraction had a visit from a dragon. It brought whiskey for kids and toxic ideas. We social distanced. We sought philosophical distance too. We considered distant learning and swapping in spooky distance and quantum masks instead of month after month of lockdown. When none of that seemed to work we sought shelters which soon caught fire, as variously reported herein.
The road to the attraction takes a strange turn this month. Different sounds, other approaches, but the same happy gathering of words and music. Debbie DeCasio is our guest.
Brandon Berry is our musical guest. He is usually handling the video part of the project, including running the camera, but he handed off a bit of that while he's performing. One of the songs he sings is "I Gutted My VCR". That explains a lot. In this show, several things explain a lot. Bill Mooney's take on the word Yum is something to aspire to. Bill and Erich Reith did a drum and poetry jam that effectively balanced the previously attempted attempt to balance which actually led to imbalance. Dude! Khryss Blank is back! Thaddeus played sweet music. The Cosmos piece went off to an island in Arizona after witnessing an ant invasion. Someone shouted "It's everywhere. It's everywhere". We edited that out.
You can see the video at www.roadsideattractionlive.com.
It's pretty clear that we're at the end of an era. Less apparent - but perfectly obvious - we are at the beginning of a new era. These things get murky.
But we are happy to celebrate both endings and beginnings, so we do. Dimmy Jean performs the last holiday song. The cast at The Last Summer Ball at the Cosmos is up to 7 this time and it's pretty psychedelic. Thad Williams shows us what it means to be present. The Roadside Hobo Band swapped instruments with fun results. Bill Mooney offered reassurance and Michelle Allen offered an angry poem.
More than once we've reassured a guest artist by saying, "Well, at least you don't have to follow Sharon Lane." This time we turned it around and gave Sharon a tough act to follow.
As always, you can see video of the show at www.RoadsideAttractionLive.com
For most of us music and literature types, December is a time to avoid nature and the great outdoors. We mostly prefer fires, comforters, hot chocolate and that sort of thing. But we thought we'd take a moment to consider wildflowers in winter. The Roadside Hobo Band does just that. The women's voices in Vivian can blend beautifully. Visit the Live at Yellow Cab site to hear that. Marceia Cornwell borrows Hanna Peterangelo from Vivian to join him on violin. Dimmy has a product to cure anxiety. Bill Mooney spoke of windows on the soul and on the world. Maynard Beverly hit the road in Chapter Two of Scott Millsop's "The Last Summer Ball at the Cosmos".
OK, here's the deal. If you have two entangled particles and make a state change to one of them, the other will change states simultaneously. Even if they are separated, the change is simultaneous. Even if they are so far apart that information about the change would have to exceed the speed of light to achieve simultaneity, the change is simultaneous. Einstein called that "Spooky Action at a Distance". We invite you to think about that for the rest of your life, or if you'd rather you can hear wisdoms from a 2000 lb. Groundhog, music from The American Landscape and Mini Bingo, poetry from Bill Mooney and Joe Kreiss. You can begin at the beginning with Chapter One from "The Last Summer Ball at the Cosmos" a novel in progress from Scott Millsop, who also doubles as Dimmy Jean.
Mid-Summer. 100 Million People Under a Heat Advisory.
Here, have a PassionFruit Vodka Smoothie.
The music, the satire, the poetry, the commentary...they're smooth too.
The 2000 lb. Groundhog usually maintains a semblance of order at Roadside Attraction but she was on vacation for this show. Sharon Lane stepped in as a replacement but instead of managing the zoo, she opened all the cages. John Dubuc's Guilty Pleasures were the guest band and they sang "Peace, Love and Hamburger Helper", then Scott Millsop's story was called "Hamburgers" and it took five voices to perform it. Matt, Red, Erich, Rich, Marceia, & Don offered a heart-breaker. Dimmy Jean should be arrested for his bit. Sharon said goodbye to Dr. John. We all said goodbye to Rich Reuter. Rich didn't die, he's just taking a break from playing seven days a week. We think we'll see him again, which is good because he did something beautiful on guitar while Erich put down a hepcat beat behind Bill Mooney's poem and dig this, everyone rolled with The Name of the Place Is I Like it Like That.
The last thing said at the end of the each show is "Roadside Attraction is an AHA! Production". The producer, Scott Millsop, who is also both the Dimmy Jean character and the writer/performer of the Charlieville Report will tell you that the mission of the program is to create a series of AHA! moments. We sure did it this time.
This show is a series of powerful performances. If you follow this show, you'll know it doesn't let up. If you're new with this episode, well here's a case in point. You have to pay attention, this is foreground sound.
Paige Beller switches time and tone and temperament and thought and DAMN! You wanna hear this! All of it.
