Sat., 10/24/26
Slow Body Brewery
831 E 17th St.
Tucson 85719
7PM
Benson Highway Band
Mad Ugly
Miss Olivia and the Interlopers
$10-20 sliding scale, half the proceeds go to No Desert Data Center Coalition, half to performers
Seems like a worthy cause to me!
Yeah, the link name is funny and gross but that's how Colin wanted the track subtitled on the album so there you go. The other Ovipositor albums can be streamed at Amazon and Bandcamp but this one has been out of the digital sphere. That cover guy is Jason Batzer. He ended his life in 2013. This world was not kind to Jason and he struggled a lot. Cool font for the logo too.
Chicago Bar of Tucson is under new management and they're doing lots of things in order to make money and get some new buzz going for themselves. I feel like this spot would be a great place for many different types of Tucson bands, and bands from other places. It's a nice sounding room and there is a ton of historical vibe residing within its walls. Chicago Bar is just cool, and I hope that they find much success. Zenzizenzo played a somewhat truncated set at this fine establishment and it was a fun time for that duration, even with a few tech difficulties. Especially cool was having Holy Nitemare singer Rita sing a version of Annihilate This Week with us. Rita rocks. I like to think that Zenzizenzo rocks too and hopefully those who hear us would agree. And if not, ah well.
Sat., 10/17/26
Chicago Bar
5945 E Speedway Blvd.
Tucson, 85712
10PM
Zenzizenzo
Holy Nitemare
Dead Train Gone
Free
We will be doing yet another cover song with a special guest vocalist!
Just one shot and it's a still from an Instagram feed. I'm in there somewhere! It was a good time as we had some people dancing and such. People were too busy partying to take pictures, and that's OK because that's what Che's Lounge is all about. Good times at a cool spot!
Zenzizenzo brought our mostly instrumental sounds to Brick Box Brewery and Sky Bar in Tucson. We decided to add some cover to our sets so that they would vary a bit. Songs by Minor Threat and Black Flag at Brick Box, followed by Minutemen and Ornette Coleman at Sky Bar. Fun shows and I believe that we played well. Hooray for practicing!
Below: various shots including a really nice backline drum kit at Sky Bar that belongs to Raven And The Acolytes drummer John. Thanks, John!
Sat., 9/26
Che's Lounge
350 N 4th Ave.
Tucson 85705
9 PM
Sean Whalen & the Benson Highway Band
Wayne Norfleet
Schlog Cart
Bear Down Bear
Free!
Thu., 9/24
Brick Box Brewery
220 E Broadway Blvd
Tucson 85701
8 PM
August Minotaur
Zenzizenzo
Free!
Fri., 9/26
Sky Bar
536 N 4th Ave.
Tucson 85705
Zenzizenzo
Raven AndThe Acolytes
The Disconcertions
8PM
Free!
We're giving it away and have been working on some cool covers along with our own compositions. Maybe we'll see some heads at these shows!
Benson Highway Band had to slog through some serious storm-age on the way to Cottonwood, as well as on the way home from that sweet little Arizona town, but while we were at Queen B Vinyl Cafe the rain stopped and the vibes were high. A real cool time playing for some people and meeting the wonderful staff of a very cool establishment!
Below: the backline at Queen B Vinyl Cafe, top notch gear.
A bunch of shows coming up next week! Like, a lot!
9/16/26
Queen B Vinyl Cafe
102 Pima St.
Cottonwood AZ 86326
Pentagram String Band
Swamp Rats
Sean Whalen & the Benson Highway Band
7:30 PM
What will it be like to be the Special Guest?
https://archive.org/details/weecreatures1
Demos here, of a duo that formed in 2020 and practiced at my house until June of 2021. No shows played for obvious reasons. It was stranger times. After this project collapsed I quit playing drums until Summer of 2022. It was kind of a bummer, the whole thing. Graphic by me.
This show almost didn't get completed. Raven and the Acolytes had to truncate their set that opened the night's musical portion at Che's Lounge. After about thirty five minutes they were told by the stage manager that a large storm cell was getting ready to pass right overhead and that all of the equipment was to be placed under tarp. Bummer too because they were sounding good and their drummer, John, told me that they had saved their most impactful material for the latter parts of the set.
The tarp situation lasted about thirty five minutes before it was decided that the storm cell had passed without going over 4th Ave. and that the live music could continue. Benson Highway Band played last and we had a fun time. Nathan Smith sat in on tenor saxophone for a cover of Hungry Heart and that was cool. It was also nice to Evan back on guitar. Very grateful for having had some people digging on our sounds.
Below are some photos of Sean Whalen & the Benson Highway Band, taken by Nathan. Thanks dude.
Sat. 8/29/26
9PM
Che's Lounge
350 N 4th Ave.
Tucson 85705
Sean Whalen & the Benson Highway Band
Alex Wilkerson & Them
Raven and the Acolytes
Free!
Found this graphic the other day. It's labeled "Ear Spray Stroma". This marks it as being related to a release by Ear Spray that Andrew Palmer had considered releasing on his Stroma label. Recall Andrew being really stoked on the idea. He was really into doing CDr's with potato cut printing on their covers. I'm not sure if Stroma ever got off of the ground, and Andrew no longer resides on this plane so other details will remain mysterious. This collage was hand assembled by yours truly. I was very excited by using vinyl lettering to get real clarity within the textual aspect of the work. The comic book graphics are from a Hindu devotional comic book that I found next to a dumpster at a San Francisco music rehearsal studio complex, the one near Army St. And yes I'm calling it Army St. now. The image is also a comment upon the treatment that Ear Spray generally got from the Brahmins of the Bay Area Noise scene so often. Take that, Brahmins!
Sean Whalen (pictured above) & the Benson Highway Band had to configure as a trio to play this show. That was fine, we've done it that way many times and I like the trio format for band playing. It was a good time despite the whole thing being threatened by a big monsoon storm that passed through pretty much all of Tucson on the evening of 8/21/26. We were the opening act and as such assembled a very short and concise set. In total we only played for about twenty four minutes! It's like doing a Noise or Grindcore set!
Benson Highway Band will play next Saturday. Sean please send me the flyer.
Below: Lucas and I laughing at some kind of absurdity.
Above: Benson Highway Band live shot by Tim P. Thanks Tim!
Fri., 8/21
Hotel Congress Plaza
311 E. Congress St.
Tucson 85701
6:30 PM
Eric Underwood Band
Sophia Rankin & the Sound
PJ Bidwell Band
Sean Whalen & the Benson Highway Band
Free!
Ann O'Rouke and me getting noisy at NorCal Noisefest 2015 or '16. I've written at length about Ann and needn't belabor the point of how interesting I found her to be during the years in which we ran together. I found this shot a few weeks ago and had some fond memories come rushing back. Hopefully Ann is doing well. The emails from Grux about Noise shows in The Bay still arrive at my inbox and I never see Ann listed. Wonder what she's up to these days. As for me this summer's musical portion was spent on a couple of different recording projects by a couple of different bands. These processes went well generally with perhaps a couple of missteps occurring but those are to be expected. I am older musician now, firmly, which is quite an interesting circumstance. It seems best within it to just play my parts, keep quiet generally and accept any type of scenario with gratitude. Older people end up just kind of disappearing for the most part, and that's fine because it's natural. Still it's hoped that my ability to perform actual music will continue for a while longer. That sentiment can't be helped at this point: playing music is still a kick and thrill for this person. Along with the end results from those recording projects the final third of 2026 and into 2027 will see me getting out and playing in public which feels cool and great. As stated: muchas gracias especially to the members of the Benson Highway Band and Zenzizenzo. And hi, Ann, if you're reading this.
Real good times were had playing with Zenzizenzo and Benson Highway Band on 7/31 and 8/1 respectively. It's always cool to play to some kind of audience and it was the case that there were people at both of these shows, to enough of an extent. It seemed as though both groups played well. No bummers on my end anyway. The stills are screenshots from Instagram feeds. Things come and go so quickly on that platform and really the only way to achieve long term capture of so much of the information presented therein is by screenshot. Kinda sucky but work with what you've got. I'm including a few shots of the green room of The Dirty Drummer, a fantastic and welcoming place as regards musicians. What an honor to play there! I'm no less stoked on playing the Music Box Lounge, that spot is rad and cozy and hassle free. Benson Highway Band will play Tucson later this month, Zenzizenzo in September. Much gratitude to all of mis compadres actual.
Fri. 7/31
Music Box Lounge
6951 E 22nd St.
Tucson 85710
9PM
Zenzizenzo
Room Tree (Phoenix)
Language Of Thieves
Free!
Sat. 8/1
The Dirty Drummer
2303 N 44th St.
Phoenix 85008
8PM
Sean Whalen & the Benson Highway Band
Jayden Secor
$
I look forward to playing out in public again!
A recording of Cloud Shepherd playing at the main library in Alameda, CA 2012. This show was part of a series called "Shh...Music", curated buy Das, the leader of Big City Orchestra. I recall having a great time and getting pretty tranced out. There were large curtains all over the building that shivered in the darkened space. Good times!
