Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Dr. Milo T. Pinkerton III's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
1:38 pm	Shaping up Last night was rehearsal... time to teach the band the new songs and evaluate where we stand on the new CD. 'Zombie Apocalypse Barbecue' was a bit tricky for the guys to figure out some of my chords and turnarounds (fie on my lack of formal musical training!) but in the end they nailed it, of course. We went over the full song a few times and it was just really fun to perform... really looking forward to performing this one live. Ya'll are gonna love it (and thanks Squid for that jews-harp overdub!) After that we tried to work on 'Evil is Fun' my new wave song for potential juvenile delinquents. True to form, I found out that I'd written two new songs that are completely dissimilar in basically the same key. (See also: 'I Have the Power' and 'Reach Out & Touch the Hand') Rach struggled with 'Evil is Fun', trying to give it more of a Fixx sound than the DEVO-esq sound of the demo. Unfortunately this had the result of putting the verse into a minor key rather than major, and that wrecked the happy-go-lucky 'kids song' feel I was aiming for. So we called it a night, having at least had a good time with the new material. These new songs make the LONG overdue new C.O.G. CD seem a lot closer to completion! The basic rule for a new C.O.G. CD is that it present 13 original songs. Of course, there are certain 'new songs' that will be omitted from the CD for various reasons: 'Homecoming Queen at the End of the World' is not a C.O.G. original and will not be included (sorry Charlie.) Nor, we have decided, will 'Slay Ride', which was more a seasonal single (perhaps if we write a couple more Christmas songs, we'll put out a holiday-EP but that's neither here nor there.) So with that in mind, the new album's track list so far is: 01. I Think Therefore I Rock 02. Do The Creep 03. Mallet of Metal 04. Too Many Atoms 05. Lab Coat 06. Zombie Apocalypse Barbecue 07. Evil Is Fun 08. Lab Girl 09. Science Fight 10. Catnip 11. Free Bird Attendant C.O.G. concert-goers will several of these from the last couple years - we generally don't record ANYTHING without play testing it first. Some of these are older things that haven't gotten their due - 'Lab Girl' was written around 2004 but was shelved and not though about again until recently. 'Free Bird' is VERY old and was only exhumed last year for live performances. Like 'LoBoToMy' on the last CD, it's time to make a studio version of it! 'Science Fight' was always intended to be included on the next properly pressed CD, so although it was already issued on our 10th Anniversary disc, it was intended as a little look ahead to the future. There are of course many more demos in various stages of completion, like 'Big Bomb', 'Coffee', 'Assclowns', 'Ventriloquist Dummies', 'Flying Car', etc. If I were in a mad rush to pad out the album, maybe a couple these could be aired out and/or finished. Question is, which ones DESERVE to be?!?? Wait and see! Current Music: C.O.G. - 'Evil Is Fun' (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 15th, 2009
12:53 am	Anybody want to see...? Anybody out there want to see one last C.O.G. show in New Orleans before the end of the year...? If so, tell me when and where to make it happen. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
6:49 pm	Like lightning... ...in a bottle. My best music comes to me really quickly (and usually fully formed) and I have to work hard to get it from my cranium to a recording of some sort while it's still piping hot. And this one was really on FIRE. I caught the inspiration for it watching Mojo Nixon perform a rare show at the Continental Club in Houston on Saturday night, shortly after eating some really fine barbecue at Goode's Barbecue down the street. Over dinner, the idea for a song called either 'Zombie Barbecue Apocalypse' or 'Zombie Apocalypse Barbecue' gelled over conversation. And later that night, seeing Mojo tearing it up in his unmistakable style gave me the rest of the picture. The seed for a song was planted. As soon as I got into town Sunday evening, I knew I had to get the thing down rapidly before the spark wore off. I had concluded that nothing rhymed easily with 'apocalypse' but LOTS of things rhymed with 'barbecue', and so I settled on the 2nd title. So late Sunday evening I sat down at the synthesizer and put down what I thought was a good rockabilly beat and started working on a basic bassline for the first verse. I also had a couple words written down for a rough chorus. Before I knew it, it was midnight, and time to call it a day. By Monday, everything had brewed in my head long enough to catch fire... I couldn't wait to sit down in the evening and work it out onto 'tape'! Dour weather forecasts for the evening made my colleagues skittish about getting together for a normal rehearsal, so I'd have the lab all to myself. "So much the better" I thought, trying to console myself (I really had wanted their input, but oh well.) I left Jeannine watching TV in the house, shut myself in the lab and got down to work. Clipboard with computer-printed 1st verse and chorus lyrics and a pen, show computer running old Cakewalk 7, a microphone into the computer, and my trusty old Ensoniq keyboard acting as a controller. I pasted a bunch of repetitions of my 8 bar drum loop (to be edited later) and started in on the first verse, figuring out the bass notes on the keyboard and then singing a rough vocal. I also figured out a chorus in short order, then cribbed together the little 'B' section between the verse and the chorus to get in a couple of bridging lyrics and provide a more graceful chord change (still kind of klunky, but I liked it being a 'bit off'.) By 11:30pm or so, I had the rough structure down; an intro (drum intro first, by necessity as in all C.O.G. songs) then verse, 'B', chorus, and repeat. Double chorus outro with a 1/4 speed last couple lines. I had drums, a bassline, and somewhat shaky lead vocals (still weathering a mild flu) and even a couple harmony vocal attempts here and there. Very much by the numbers! My lyric worksheet was now a mess of handwritten markup and scrawl beneath the neat computer type. I didn't have words for the 2nd chorus yet so I had literally copy and pasted them in the computer. Right before I uploaded a rough of the nascent demo for my colleagues to hear, I got the idea that the repetition of the 2nd chorus should be played up 'two frets' so I used the pitch transposer in Cakewalk on the bassline and vocal for those two parts. This approach sounded horrible but it got the idea across... and I knew I'd be able to re-sing it the next day anyway. Hooray! I had a somewhat listenable demo in record time! (Albeit VERY bare-bones, no guitar, and some shaky vocals.) Tuesday I got a short amount of time to work on the thing, fleshing out some more harmonies, putting in the new words I had written for the 2nd chorus, properly performing the key change at the end, and arranging some of the drums. I also put in a temp midi part in a spot where I wanted a harmonica. By now I was itching to hear what it'd sound like with real instruments... perhaps a fiddle? Banjo? A jaw harp? Guitar was a must. I talked with Rachnid about some bands to listen to for inspiration... Rev. Horton Heat was an obvious guess but it seemed like there was more bluegrass inspiration in this than psychobilly. Wednesday is the designated 'music-writing evening' in the C.O.G. lab. Sounded like a good excuse to work out those guitar parts! Regrettably, Rachnid took a pass, due to some kind of work related thing he had to do the next day. Dr. Z was also tied up with work (and he works nights.) Z however did call to tell me he listened to & liked the demo, and to offer a lyric suggestion, which I later tried out with success. Then Filbert showed up with his Fender Jazzmaster guitar... when I played him the demo, he rolled with laughter and plunged right into figuring out my chord choices (some of which were pretty weird, as usual!) He figured out what I was aiming for right away, and exclaimed "It's a Johnny Cash song!" Wow, he was right! That finally gave us a solid target to aim at (I even tried talk-singing a couple lines in a deadpan basso voice and yeah, it fit perfectly!) Filbert plugged his Fender into my Vox amp, which I miked up with a Shure 57 and quickly dialed in a twangy sound that we both loved. We laid down the rhythm part first... one thing that Filbert has been able to do the entire time I've known him is to actually play funny - he can actually make me laugh just by playing the guitar (something he exploits regularly as 'Yngwie Flattstein'.) He got into some real wild Mojo Nixon like strumming toward the end that fit perfectly. We were drinking Abita beer (he had a Wheat and I had a Jacomo) and soon we were joined by another friend, Ben Beamis (who drank a Turbodog, then walked over to the grocery to get some imported beers - sorry I don't remember the name.) After a few beers, we were getting one crazy idea after another. The three of us put down sloppy gang vocals on a couple tracks, then Filbert added a really 'drunk' sounding guitar mini-solo using a beer bottle as a slide. The piece de resistance was added when I recorded a huge beer belch from Ben for the middle, following the 'harmony' version of the 'guitar solo'. Wow... At this point, you're probably itching to hear this thing - just as I'm itching to play it to you... Well, have no fear, I'll let the cat out of the bag in the next day or so! Then go back and read this writeup again, and I promise it'll make sense ;^} Current Music: C.O.G. - Zombie Apocalypse BBQ (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 9th, 2009
1:46 pm	Recovery from vacation... whew. What a vacation! The Arcade Expo this past weekend in Houston was fantastic, as you might have guessed from my going on in the previous post. For once, I didn't get to play all the games in the place! In fact there were several old favorite pinball machines I wanted to play but didn't have time for. But in the end, I had my share of the fun, and discovered some new arcade addictions (like Bally's 'Medusa' - WOW, what a game. That's going on my shortlist of games to get, when I get the space.) I managed to tape some footage of the expo, and interviews with some key people, on my good camcorder as well - to be edited later when I get the time. Saturday afternoon we also found time to visit the Fine Arts Museum, and take in their 'Moon' exhibit. Having just read about Alan Bean's artwork, it was a treat to see some of his pieces firsthand - for those not familiar, Alan is the only Apollo astronaut to also pursue oil painting, and his (very well done) canvases combine oil paint with lunar dust and pieces clipped off his own spacesuit... amazing... The real treat of the night was yet to come. We stopped at the Continental Club, which was close enough to the museum to merit a casual inspection (I had wanted to check out a number of clubs.) At the Continental Club was a poster promoting what was going on later that night - Dash Rip Rock opening for... holy shit, Mojo Nixon!? Unbelievable; Mojo had retired from live rock'n'roll 8 years ago to settle comfortably into a radio career (shortly after C.O.G. opened for him at the Howlin' Wolf in New Orleans), with only a single brief live appearance promoting oddball Texas candidate Kinky Friedman for governor a couple years ago. What an opportunity! We left for dinner with a Houston area friend (some great BBQ at Goode's) then returned to the hotel to play some pinball. At 10:00pm we returned to the Continental Club for the show. It was a three band bill, all Psychobilly acts. We caught the middle of the New Duncan Imperials set - they were absolutely great and I didn't hesitate to buy their CD. After them Dash Rip Rock appeared and ripped the place up. In between bands, I spotted Mojo and got a chance to talk with him briefly... Mojo was apologizing for his lack of memory, his age, his lack of hearing, eyesight, etc. (52 years of hard living will do that to ya) I told him to buck up, if Alice Cooper can still do it at his age, Mojo has NOTHING to complain about! Mojo got all wound up at around midnight and let loose with a short but sick set, culminating in his hit 'Elvis is Everywhere', and the coup de grace, an encore of 'Burn Down the Malls', the song that originally inspired me to listen to Mojo. Needless to say, I left satisfied and returned to the hotel to play games until I could no longer stand up (still managed to get the high score on 'Lord of the Rings'!) We returned to Louisiana via Reserve, where we were treated to a really nice dinner by old friend Ron Keller. Arriving home, we were greeted by our enthusiastic cat Bitsy, who enthusiastically welcomed us home with a tribute offering of a big freshly killed squirrel right in the bedroom. Hey - it's the thought that counts! Current Music: Mojo Nixon - 'Destroy All Lawyers' (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
2:09 am	Wow I'm currently in the largest arcade I've EVER been in, there are many RARE games in here dating back over 60 years, and EVERY game happens to be on free-play! Almost every game is in primo condition, shiny, new and playing correctly, and RUSH is blasting out of the PA system. Is this some kind of pinball-induced delirium? Or have I perhaps died and been reborn in videogame Valhalla? No, it's the Houston Area Arcade Expo, and it's happening RIGHT NOW! If all this sounds like your kind of thing, and you can make it to Houston, do yourself a BIG favor and come on out here. Here's proof (I promise I'll shoot and edit a better walkthrough tomorrow, but this should give you an idea of what you're missing!) Games I played Friday night: Quantum (real one's easier than my emulation at home) Sally (still hard as hell) Kings & Queens (Legendary electro-mechanical [E.M.] Gottlieb game) Mayfair (LOTS of stuff going on for a 1965 EM! Damned game almost plays ITSELF.) Slick Chick (totally restored... lots of fun! Can't wait to get mine repaired) Banzai Run (used to LOVE this one when it was new, still love it) Black Hole (mega challenging but I got to multilevel multiball after a few plays) Black Pyramid (run of the mill early 80's Bally) Medusa (total dark horse, WOW what a game... if I ever run across one I'm picking it up.) Apollo 13 (great game, didn't make it to 13 ball multiball) Lord of the Rings (played it practically in my sleep at 1:30am, got #1 high score. This game is too easy) Gorgar (original talking game, not in good shape, couldn't hear speech over the din) C.S.I. (Stern's newest game is MUCH better than expected) F14 Tomcat (I used to kill at this game, unfortunately couldn't even get to multiball) Spy Hunter pinball (never played this before; much better than expected) Simpsons Pinball Party (great game, and I made it to multiball; difficult on this game) Varkon (rare vertical pinball - wow... need to play this one some more) Pinbot (lousy condition playfield, but it played really well) High Speed (amazing restoration, with some really cool 'custom shop' touches and BLINDING lighting) Earthshaker (great restoration, but I didn't like the look of the LED lamps the owner had used.) World Poker Tour (I always liked this game despite the BAD artwork & poor reviews.) I also played some great Williams EM's that weren't at any past expos. Unfortunately I can't remember the names... LED lighting seems to be the new trend, and there's a bunch of companies selling the aftermarket bulbs. These bulbs are brighter than the incandescents they replace and put out less heat than their predecessors, which is great for reducing wear on the game's transistors and heat damage to a game's plastics and paint. However, on a couple of these games, the light is TOO blinding - distracting in areas that never had so much light output, and MPU controlled lights (feature lights) tend to exhibit an annoying stroboscopic effect, as LED's have no filament and therefore no 'phosphor lag' - so you can see their refresh rate. This leads to a 'digital' look as your eye follows the ball around the playfield (sort of like the LED taillights on cars these days.) Nevertheless, I think I will be treating my games to some LED's on the more inaccessible areas of the playfield, next time I do a major shop job on them... Current Music: Rush - 'Jacob's Ladder' (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
8:14 pm	Long time no post! Sorry for the lack of info. I've just been really really busy... doing the backstroke in a really complex flow of projects, plans and evil schemes! This week, I'm simultaneously working on: Writing new music (Evil is Fun!!!) I'm making Wednesday nights our new 'music writing' night. Having a regular night for this will accelerate things... Casting the perfect Lab Girl (still searching...) Also casting another backup musician; everybody needs a backup. Possibly even me! My vow for next year is NO GIG TURNED DOWN. Fooling with electronics (fixing Z's old Western Electric telephone, an old Peavey amplifier, the C.O.G.'s PA system, and the usual pile of computers.) LOVED the old school telephone BTW - gotta get one to go with my old school (1974) modem! Yes, it actually works... Working on making my day gig last by upgrading my company's products' compatibility with Windows 7 (actually with Vista & 7, although I haven't had to really worry about it until now due to Vista's extreme unpopularity with the I.T. crowd.) Cleaning up some more 'Morgus' TV footage for his forthcoming first DVD (I already did this 4 years ago - but I have learned a lot about video since then. Also I can now do MUCH better color correction with this nice Macintosh and Final Cut Pro.) The coming weekend will be a real break from all that, as I'm going to be hitting the Houston Arcade Expo. Yeah, I know I had vowed that my next trip to Houston would involve a C.O.G. performance, but fear not. I've got an Evil Plan to make that happen soon... soon as I line up a good band to perform with over there, or a con that will play along with my plot (still looking for THAT too unfortunately...) P.S.: New 'Sarah Jane Adventures' was lightweight fun, but I'm stoked for November 16th, for some REAL 'Doctor Who'. (Anyone else think K-9's acting kind of schizo lately?) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
10:43 am	Thumbs DOWN from Pinkerton Let's see... the C.O.G., having been ostracized from Voodoo Music Fest for the 7th year in a row, confronts a choice: do we meekly apply for next year, or do we DESTROY VOODOOFEST? What was that? We're EVIL BASTARDS? Oh yes, I almost forgot! In that case, Filbert, plug in the WeatherTron! Time for me to have some FUN... Current Music: Rod Serling interview (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
11:53 am	C.O.G. invades Houston? A friend in Texas writes in: "Did the Houston remount fall through?" This question probably deserves to be addressed in an entire post. For the moment it's been pushed back, yet again. The problems are twofold - first, my current band lineup objects to doing a show without a guarantee and consequently taking a loss, just to get a foothold in a new city. Understandable, but I can get around that. The thing that really needs to happen to get C.O.G. to Houston (or any other city outside Louisiana for that matter) is connecting with a compatible band, or a promoter, who can help get a crowd in. There is no sense in us transporting hundreds of pounds of equipment hundreds of miles to play to 20 people. Unfortunately, to clubs, the intensity of fan support is only expressible in number of bodies. This is due to the simple fact that clubs stay open by selling alcohol. As some people have pointed out, a con might also work, but the problem with cons is that they're generally underequipped to handle a live band. I'm unwilling to haul a PA system (an entire extra truck's worth of equipment) that far, and most cons would be unwilling to rent a PA system (which can easily cost more than they would even be willing to pay the band.) However, if anybody knows of a con that might be willing to talk about making it happen, I'm all ears. My favorite Houston band, Black Math Experiment, is reforming to play a show in early December, and we had made overtures about getting on this show, but the promoter was skittish about putting an out of town band on the bill. I aim to open for them the next time they perform, likely to be spring, but that's not been booked yet. If anybody knows a drawing (and compatible) Texas band that would be willing to perform with us, PLEASE let me know! I really want to make this happen, finally. We just need some smart ideas and connections to blast 'reality' out of the way!!! Current Music: Pinball 101 DVD (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 26th, 2009
12:13 pm	The Future My aching body is slowly recovering from last night's onslaught at the House of Shock. Fun night, albeit small crowd... one of those nights where the frustration of waiting to go on made me say 'fuck it' and rock out till I couldn't speak once we finally got the 'go' signal. Even if there's just a few people getting really into it, it's possible for me to channel my energies their way and make an impression. We rampaged through the first set after starting at 10, and, knowing that we'd only get one set in, just continued onto the 2nd set afterwards, until I totally ran out of wind (following a great rendition of 'M.I.L.K.' 45 minutes into the set, it was practically impossible to hit the high notes in 'Black Plague'.) Guess I should have paced it out better, but how was I to know we'd be allowed to keep playing? (Also - warming up by singing Rush probably didn't really help either! But it certainly felt good.) BTW, 'Die Barney Die' with new video backgrounds worked a LOT better than it did last week without! Well, at this point I've got nothing booked, though I'm working on a couple in-town shows (as well as a Mardi Gras secret project...) What I'm really interested in doing now, however, is following up on recording some new material. We're far behind on recording of our next album, and really need to pick up the slack there. I'm gonna start working on recording/writing on a 2nd night of the week - probably Wednesday - and having that be a regular thing in addition to our normal rehearsal night. It's the only way I forsee getting the CD done. Also got another promising Lab Girl audition coming up next Monday... (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
11:06 am	Heavens to Mergutroid! What a crazy week... I must confess, it's been so hectic, I haven't had time to post anything. Even now, I'm typing this while rendering video backgrounds for the old C.O.G. favorite 'Die Barney Die', which we're performing again tomorrow at the House of Shock. (Last week's appearance was fun and profitable enough, but I'm hoping we can play more than one set this week!) After that I'm delivering my 10th MAME arcade cabinet! The customer, who is the booking guy at The Republic club (who purchased my previous MAME cabinet, and where we're aiming to play sometime soon), has wanted a MAME cabinet optimized for fighting games, and it proved to be a most difficult proposition. It took me several months to acquire another Mortal Kombat 2 cabinet, and another month to settle on a software solution. However, after fighting the software for a while, I finally settled on a 2002 version of AdvanceMAME (this one's about 14MB - most current version has bloated to 40MB!), with ArcadeOS as the front end (natch). This proved to be a nice balance between load times and compatibility. The software runs from an 8GB CF card in a Dell 2Ghz desktop computer. Sound is provided by my usual SB 4810 PCI card (onboard amplification is the way to go.) Control interface is the ever-reliable Ultimarc J-Pac. Thanks to AdvanceMAME's wonderful monitor utility, I was able to get horizontal AND vertical games running quite well on the cabinet's stock 25" horizontally mounted Wells Gardner monitor, with tops and bottoms only slightly cut off for titles like 'Galaga' and 'Pacman'. However, this is a small price to pay for such amazing compatibility (and the total thrill of playing Robotron on a huge screen! WOW!!!) I think the game's new owner is gonna flip the hell out when I deliver this. He's getting quite a bargain too... Next MAME project, already underway, is a vertical 19" setup in a Super Pacman cabinet. Following tomorrow night's appearance, The Consortium of Genius is taking a little break to continue auditioning Lab Girl prospects, and work on writing and recording. I also have an Arcade Expo to attend, the Morgus documentary to finish (?), and a Local Skank CD to record, all in November! So - if you want to see C.O.G. any time soon, come out to the House of Shock Sunday night! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 17th, 2009
3:02 am	Whew Great show earlier tonight! Great fun! BIG thanks go out to: Cosimo for being The Trooper - you always make gigging easier, Chopsley for turning out to be a great sound man and an immense help with loadout, Rebecca for a really yummy (and HUGE) COG-cake, Will Warner and his crew for a nice WTF interlude and alien killing machine, Anaujiram for filling in for Mad Dog at last minute, All the costume contestants - thanks for having fun with us! Filbert Snodgrass for his, ahem, INVENTIVE interpretation of COG's theme song, and of course my wonderful, wonderful colleagues and my wife for their endless patience and help! Pictures later... must sleep now... Current Music: blessed silence (Comment on this)
Friday, October 16th, 2009
1:54 pm	Unexpected last-minute drama Well, it's always something. This time 'something' came in the form of the opening act, Mad Dog, dropping off the bill at last minute, due to tendonitis in their drummer's elbow. After I spent the morning frantically searching for a replacement, they lined up their own substitutes - a hard rock outfit called 'Anaujiram', a band which they'd worked with many times before. So, now we're set! The Flying Car is all packed and ready to roll. We're in the 'Hot Picks' in the paper. The prize packs for the costume contest are all ready to go. There's a bunch of other stuff going on tonight, but only one Consortium of Genius show this evening! Hopefully people will make the RIGHT CHOICE!!! P.S.: Holy crap, I just found out we've got Chopsley running sound for us tonight!!! Chopsley you idiot!!! Current Music: Mad Dog - 'I Never Liked You Anyway' (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 11th, 2009
8:11 pm	Great time last night, followed by an unexpected vacation... The Alice Cooper 'Theatre of Death' concert last night in Biloxi was lots of nostalgic fun! I call it nostalgic, as he stuck to his older crowd-pleasers. It was also a nostagic romp through decades of theatrics, with lots of the old illusions on display for the first time in years; Alice, doing REALLY well for a 61 year-old, treated us to the gallows, impaled a roadie on a mic stand, did some shadow strangulation, got pierced with dozens of spikes, received an injection from a giant syringe, and of course, was decapitated by the mighty guillotine (only thing conspicuously absent was the electric chair!) me changes too, including his basic black outfit, the straightjacket, the snazzy spider outfit seen at left, and the glittering Vegas style tophat and tails at the end. Songwise, it was off-putting hearing next to nothing new, esp. with his new Halloween single selling at the t-shirt counter for $50 (granted, it was autographed and came with a t-shirt but still...) I had expected a more 70's feel from the band, which would have been appropriate considering the bent of the material, but instead the mood and character of the band remained mostly METAL, as it's been for the last two and a half decades. Here's the setlist: School's Out Department of Youth 18 Wicked Young Man Ballad of Dwight Fry Go To Hell Guilty Welcome to My Nightmare Cold Ethyl Poison Awakening From the Inside Nurse Rosetta Is It My Body Be My Lover Only Women Bleed I Never Cry (But I Die) The Black Widow (instrumental) Vengeance Is Mine (a great NEW song!) Devil's Food Dirty Diamonds Billion Dollar Babies Killer I Love the Dead (sung by the bassist, as Alice was still stuck in one of the illusions!) No More Mr. Nice Guy Under My Wheels School's Out I can't help but regard the decision to simply repeat 'School's Out' at the end as bordering on sarcasm (methinks these casinos frown on new material at an event like this) but the crowd responded to it nonetheless! I would rather have heard 'Elected' or any of the newer songs, but c'est la vie; it was a good time regardless. I saw lots of happy faces that night, not the least of which were attached to some of my friends who made it... Ritchie and Heather, Ronnie and Julia, Bugin and Sherri, and Pensacola horror host Mike Ensley and his wife Heather (and YES, Pensacola friends, we DID speak about getting another show together in Florida before the year's end.) After the show's end (at a very early 9:30pm - no opening act!) we joined Burgin and Sherri for a little late breakfast at a nearby Waffle House (with waffle-music on the jukebox!) and then headed for home... I had a show to perform the next night! Or so I thought... So today, after an enjoyably languid morning and "incognito" church as Alice would say, Jeannine and I hit the Prytania where my friends Randy Perez and Matt Palumbo were screening their great little film 'Sun Dogs', when I got a call from the House of Shock, where we were slated to perform tonight. Bad news; not only was the high chance of rain threatening to slash the crowd, but there was also a power distro issue at the waterlogged sidestage where we play each year. They decided to pull the band for the night, and I was let down but simultaneously relieved. It would have been a hard call to make, with an intermittent drizzle all day, and there's nothing worse than unloading heavy crates in wet mud and running wires in puddles. However, come hell or high water, I NEVER want to cancel a show! But the decision was no longer mine to make. I used the time off to put the studio back together for Monday's rehearsal of the upcoming House of Blues show, rewrite my DMX lighting app to support random and incremental channels (which should make for some more visual excitement), and start getting some screens together for 'Android Woman', which we're going to perform Friday after a LONG absence from the set... Current Music: Alice Cooper - 'Elected' (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 9th, 2009
4:28 pm	End of the week! The week's come to a pretty good end... for one thing, our new single 'Homecoming Queen at the End of the World' is finally up on Rhapsody, if not iTunes... CLICK HERE I'll let you all know when it appears on iTunes. Meanwhile, the band's gearing up for our first night this season, this Sunday at the infamous House of Shock. We'll be hanging out there all night playing our seasonal mixture of heavy originals and cheezy metal covers! Fun for the whole family!* Saturday I'll be visiting Biloxi for an audience with the one and only Alice Cooper... hope to see some of you there! If you see me, I'll have a few cheap tickets to our big Halloween show on October 16th... Current Music: 'Homecoming Queen at the End of the World' (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
11:37 am	PROGRESS!!! I love it when progress can be achieved in a really simple way. For instance, last night after dinner, I thought again about my old idea of having drumbot's drums LIGHT UP in some way when he hits them. It'd be great to have a light at least on the bass drum, for that is the one drum that you CAN'T SEE being played! Then I remembered the EL wire ring we have around the COG 'gear' logo on front of the bass drum, and the fact that there was an unused dimmer on the lighting tree that holds up the projection screen, which is typically situated directly behind drumbot. "Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinkerton?" Eureka! (no, not the rapidly worsening Sci-Fi show.) The simple solution of course, once I changed the EL wire inverter from battery to transformer power, was to write a Cakewalk Application Language script (CAL is kind of like Lisp, one of my least fave languages...) to change bass drum events to midi lighting commands and plug the inverter power into the dimmer pack. Nice! The effect was cool and will add some nice new detail to drumbot's onstage look. Aside from progress, which always seems to capture my attention at the most inopportune times, lots of really cool things have been going on in the background... We've been going over a couple fun new cover songs, which will probably not be ready in time for this weekend but which we hope to unveil later in the month at the House of Shock, and perhaps at our show on the 16th at the New Orleans House of Blues. (One of them's 'Tom Sawyer' and most of you regular readers already know how I feel about Rush!) We're about to drop an unusual new song, VERY unusual in that we didn't write it - but it was written specifically for us (a first!) This song is a tribute to the 1984 B-movie 'Night of the Comet' and features scream queen Kelli Maroney (who was also in 'Chopping Mall', one of drumbot's favorite movies!) The song's called 'Homecoming Queen at the End of the World' and Kelli has a preview copy of it up on her website, if you want to check it out! The words were written by Charlie Mason and the music by Mans Ek. Sorry about the quality of the preview copy...but I'll let you know when the high quality version is up on iTunes (soon I hope!) Enjoy! Current Music: C.O.G. & Kelli Maroney - 'Homecoming Queen at the End of the World' (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 5th, 2009
5:08 pm	QUICK POLL for our New Orleans contingent: How many of you would perfer SMOKING or NON-SMOKING at our next show (House of Blues Parish, October 16th)? (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
11:22 am	Why am I upgrading again? Oh yeah, because the old one was... too old. Or something... currently getting through the Apple update on Leopard, on the new G5. So far though, it seems slower than it did running Tiger. Frame rate on the HD footage I'm checking out in Quicktime is somehow choppier than it was on the G4, which had a much slower front end bus and was running something like 800Mhz slower... that ain't right. What exactly is Leopard supposed to do better than Tiger? Admittedly I DO need to give this computer a major memory upgrade... 2x500MB doesn't cut it in 2009, no siree! Lab Girl auditions continue... thanks to the very cool EveryInchOfMe for referring our latest candidate! AND NOW, presenting my favorite new website: THERE, I FIXED IT!!! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 27th, 2009
8:32 pm	Lab Girl Auditions OK, for those who have been wondering, Lab Girl #6 has bowed out due mostly to time constraints. It was an amicable parting, but we are now actively seeking her successor! As soon as the rumor of the open position leaked out, we had a bounty of interested parties - so much so that I did not advertise. However, I have gotten enough inquiries from curious parties that I will now lay down the qualities that we're looking for in Lab Girl #7 - she must: - Be vivacious! Infectious enthusiasm and a quick wit are a MUST. (Dancing & acting ability are pluses here.) - Have a strong lead singing voice! (Ability to copy other people's vocal styles is a plus.) - Have a natural harmony singing voice - including the ability to figure out vocal harmonies without coaching. - Have a good imagination and 'get' what we're doing (a well grounded love of popular science fiction and horror is a major plus.) Other random pluses are: a good sense of 'image' (incl. imaginative costuming), ability to play an instrument, songwriting ability / ability to 'jam'. If you or someone you know can do all these things, drop me a line at: drpinkerton@consortiumofgenius . com I'll ask for a recording of a vocal demo, any song you feel best represents your talent. If we're impressed, we'll ask you to drop by the C.O.G. Secret Lab one Monday night for an audition! (Oh BTW... Monday nights are our normal rehearsal time, and it's not likely to change.) P.S.: We are taking our sweet time with this selection. We're in no hurry... it's more important that we get the right person than the time it takes to hear each candidate. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
11:02 am	Good times, bad times LIFE IS GOOD! Got some wonderful arcade parts from Billy... 25" monitors and a blank cab. Excellent! You can't beat playing 'Wizard of Wor' on a 25" arcade cabinet!!! Got a professionally shot (well, one pro camera) SVHS tape of a circa 1997 C.O.G. gig at Jimmy's from Alfred Richard, featuring Dr. Wissenschaft and a very early Filbert Snodgrass! It's quite unsane... and it's certainly going on a DVD at some point. Wow, what were we THINKING back then?!?? Got a monstrous Mac G5 (the famous 'cheese grater') from Dominic. Wow, this this is MASSIVE! And nice looking. Lab Girl auditions are going well and getting better and better... LIFE IS BAD! Damn, I'm really running out of space for these arcade games over here... too much of a good thing, methinks! Rats, my SVHS deck has stopped working again, right after a botched import of the concert tape. (The picture's too dark and the sound sync is WAY off.) I installed Leopard on the G5 and it's not booting... the thing stops on a blue screen. We were supposed to audition another girl last night but it fell through. Honestly, if somebody can't make it for any Monday night audition, it's a bad sign; Monday is our practice night and that's currently immutable. The prospective C.O.G. gig at the Hornets Oct 30th tailgate party has unfortunately fallen through, due to (they say) lack of budget?! Ahh, the curse of the C.O.G. strikes again! LIFE IS FIXABLE! Man, I really need to get these MAME cabinets finished and out the door... perhaps this weekend I shall devote myself to that. Hmmm, last time the SVHS deck was doing this I simply waited a while and it started working again by itself. Well, at least I have this tape, and can reimport it when the deck decides to wake up. Now trying OSX 'Tiger' on the G5... fingers are crossed... and... now it's working! Woo hoo!!! Rachnid and I talked to two more really promising people for the Lab Girl role. Though we've already auditioned a really good prospect last Monday, we're not making ANY snap decisions this time. It'll be done when it's done! And last night's lack of activity opened the window for me to get over to my friend Mike Perry's place and fix his new Fish Tales pinball, which he's been quite rabid to play since getting it. Problem was a saggy (or in this case soggy?) power section, particularly the 5V power, which is quite common for a WPC game of its vintage. We also worked on the general illumination header, which was quite cooked (similar to my Doctor Who when I got it.) Current Music: Macintosh chime (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
11:40 pm	iTunes top COG songs Every few months I feel compelled to look on iTunes to see what the best selling tracks are. Hmmmm... LET'S HAVE A LOOK Weird, it seems to have changed again since the last time I looked. Throwing out the interstitial album sketches that people seem to buy as individual tracks for some reason (?) , we get the list of top 20 COG songs: 1. Science Party 2. I Have the Power 3. All I Wanna Do Is You 4. Reach Out & Touch the Hand 5. Bow 2 Me 6. Black Plague 7. Brain Wrap 8. M.I.L.K. 9. I Scream 10. Placebo! 11. Born in the South 12. Android Woman 13. Death to the Angel of Death 14. LoBoToMy 15. Bite Me 16. Just a Drumbot 17. Chati Che Cow 18. March of the Skeletons 19. Funky Fresh 20. Destroy Old Things Hmmm! An interesting showing from some material we haven't played in a while. Perhaps we'll have to rectify this oversight at our upcoming appearance in mid-October at the House of Blues!!! Yes, it's true - we are having our Halloween blowout on Friday, October 16th at the House of Blues Parish in New Orleans, with $1 off admission for anybody dressed as either a doctor, scientist, monster, or EXPERIMENT, and a costume contest midway through the night. Special guest will be Mad Dog. Time for me to step up the advertising for this glorious night of MAYHEM & SCIENCE, methinks! Current Music: Dead Rebecca - 'You and I' (3 Comments |Comment on this)