Hardly Strictly Personal "Loud Bands" Show-Berkeley Arts Festival Building, Berkeley CA; 1/15/16

After an incredibly intense day at work, I was somewhat worried about how I'd have the energy to play last night, but when I arrived to Berkeley Arts Festival Building, things felt sort of emotionally light and happy. I suspect that Mika and Kersti were relieved to have 2016's installment of Hardly Strictly Personal wrapped up!
Just like last weekend, I was happy to have a bunch of chances to play my drums. I'm really grateful for ANY opportunity to do so.

Crow Crash Radio-1/15/16
Just like last year, Crow Crash Radio was joined by our friends Brian Lucas and Garrett Caples on bass and vocals, respectively. In keeping with the Captain Beefheart focus of the event, we presented our take on Sho' Nuff Yes I Do from Safe As Milk. It turned out to be a Psych Blues romp, with Brian Strang pasting all kinds of greasy slide guitar all over it. We vamped for a long time, going through different rhythmic variations. It felt sort of like a Hawkwind jam to me, not a bad thing at all! In light of that, I tried to get a chant of "...time we left this world today..." going, but I'm not sure that anyone else heard me! It was great to get a chance to jam with Brian Lucas again!

Below: Crow Crash Radio vamps it up! (photo courtesy of Alison Niedbalski, thanks Alison!)

Feral Luggage-1/15/16
Feral Luggage did a very short set. We played what Mika described as being "29th Century Pop", an Avant Garde lyric song, really. It featured singing by Eli Pontecorvo, and I kept things pretty quiet at first, at least until Kersti Abrams starting piping in with her alto sax. At that point, things got a bit more Free and loose, and we jammed it up a bit before fading directly into Alphastare's set, during the end of which I sat in for a minute on small percussion and flute.

Below: Feral Luggage (photo courtesy of Alison Niedbalski, thanks Alison!)

ebolabuddha-1/15/16
My evening ended with ebolabuddha. Although I was bummed to miss Jason Ague, who has moved to Colorado, the set was still quite enjoyable. We played three pieces, starting with a Noise-flavored reading piece (I read Ovid!), after which we got, dare I say, Jazz-ey even, before busting into some Black Metal moves. Our Beefheart song was Lick My Decals Off Baby, done sludge-ey slow and peppered with a few more blast beats for good measure. I even sang a bit of the tune, but forget the second half of the tune! Sorry, Mr. Van Vliet, wherever you are! Our pal Lorenzo sat in with us on our third piece, which went from fast to crawling and back again before fading off into a single note from Steve, Eli, and Lorenzo. Raucous fun, as usual!

Below: ebolabuddha sets up

Many thanks to all that showed up, participated, stuck around, or supported Hardly Strictly Personal 2016!

Below: bonus shot of Ruminations from 1/10/16, with Brandon Evans! (photo courtesy of Alison Niedbalski, thanks Alison!)