Thanks to all who attended the Free Comic Book Day event at Galactic Quest. Karma Lingo is back, and they did their first full-length show at that event after doing a four-song stint at the cabaret the previous weekend. Before their set started, however, Matthew Trautwein, Geoffrey Brown, and I had fun taking turns at songs that were in one way or another related to comics or superheroes. I showed up with a guitar, which I used for Weird Al’s Spiderman-themed Billy Joel parody and Monty Python’s “Galaxy Song”, and a djembe, which I used on the original Spiderman theme, REM’s “Superman” (which I played and sang together with Matthew and Geoffrey), and a new original- a theme for Galaxy Man villain Dr. Ross Rex.

The Dancing Monkey Cabaret’s “Battle Royale” show was quite fun. Karma Lingo played four songs, including two covers that were their entries in the Battle of the Bands contest. They performed a practically verbatim cover of Led Zeppelin’s “The Ocean”, which we of the cabaret house band The Chromatics answered with an instrumental combo jazz version of “Whole Lotta Love”. And yes, we all took solos. In response to Karma Lingo’s cover of the Pretenders’ “Message of Love” we performed a Latin version of “Middle of the Road.” The audience decision went to Karma Lingo at the dress rehearsal and the Friday night shows and to the Chromatics at the Saturday and Sunday night shows. One rather entertaining feature was the new (to America) Thimblerig Circus from Moldavia featuring Molotov, played by Adam Lowe, who has brilliantly portrayed many renaissance festival characters including the Village Liar and the Lost Boys’ Sven Bjornjensenjensenjen…etc., and who was also a big winner at the flattery contest. We also had some highly entertaining martial arts displays by Caitlin and Michael Ward, one of which was likely the only time in my life that I will ever switch back and forth between “Alice’s Restaurant” and “Mortal Kombat” in the same skit. The next cabaret is “Culture of the South”, which will take place at the Academy Theater on June 26-28.

My next big project is to work on my own CD. It will have full instrumentation with me playing all the drums, most of the bass and guitar tracks, and doing all the vocals. More details will follow when I have an idea for a release date a little bit later this year. If you’re not on my mailing list, be sure to sign up so I can keep you informed of that and whatever else I may be up to.

Also, if you live in the Phoenix area or close enough to it and would like to check out the house concert I’m doing on July 31, please RSVP to andyphxhouseconcert@gmail.com.

I hope to see everybody soon!