pre-show procrastination; or, writing to avoid writing.

Tomorrow is my first solo show and in anticipation of that I’ve spent my morning burning and hand-labeling 20 demo CDs with a sharpie. I don’t expect I’ll be able to get rid of any more than five at tomorrow’s show, but it’s not as if they have an expiration date. Behold a visual sampling of the future of my music career:


I’ve figured out my set list just now, too. In order to round out the time I’m decided to play a song I told myself I wouldn’t play live. I’ll change some of the words, it’ll be fine. If art can’t be daring then it expresses nothing. Oh, dear, that sounded horribly cliché…my apologies about that.

I have two “special guests” lined up so far. I think I’m allowed surrounding myself (in one case literally) with people who’ll make me more comfortable with being on stage alone. The first one is Jason, aka- my boyfriend and, more importantly, one of my best friends, who will be accompanying me for a cover of his song “Literal Walls.”

The other consists of my friends Ahna and Irina from the Dooryard who are, as I’ve mentioned before, my back-up dancers. We had our first practice this past Sunday for it and it was awesome. I have a video of it, but Ahna said she’d kill me if I posted it. I’m taping the show on Friday so you can see it there, but in the meantime, here’s a screencap of my favorite moment:


Wir sind sehr Berlin Cabaret. Also- having back-up dancers who are so much taller than I am is the best comic relief I could possibly think of. Wunderbar!

In addition to show things, I have to write two articles including one review of a show my friends’ bands played this past Tuesday. I feel like I’ve now photographed Marie Stella at a minimum of three shows now, which is a big number for me, considering I rarely go to shows these days. I was at their first show, but all I have to show from that is a picture of Matt Erickson rocking a very sharp looking mustache. It looks like his evil twin compared to what he looks like now. See what I mean?:


It’s weird how one thing can jolt you into a different life path.

The other band I photographed/wrote about was the Rattlesnakes, who I’m new at being friends with, but they’re all ridiculously nice people. I look forward to getting to know them more. Here’s Tara singing in Jason’s face. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about mimicking some of her Karen O-esque stage moves for tomorrow’s performance. She just knocks everyone over when she’s on stage, it’s awesome:


I hope someone takes a bunch of pictures while I’m on stage tomorrow. I have no clue how I’m going to come off without someone else/other people to steadily interact with while I’m up there.
I guess it’s time to stop avoiding writing those two articles. And doing my reading. I really can’t afford to be up until 2am again.

-Aubin