Dear changeng:
Please explain:
Thanks in advance,
Your terrified audience, substitute
P.S. I know you say you haven’t read it, but I keep thinking about Leisuretown
If his website does not lie, then Stuart Pearson/changeng is going to be at Diedrich 17th Street (old) tomorrow night.
Hope to see some of you there.
changeng has been a hero to me for some time, because he does music exactly how he wants and is a superstar. Also because he can do the weirdest versions of songs with the funniest and most unlikely instrumentation and do them really well, not just the tacked-together way a novelty artist would.
Monkey, toy piano, xylophone, slinky, whatever it takes, Stuart will use it.
So anyway he’s saving rock ‘n’ roll, and I urge you to read this account of his gig at the Lords of Chaos tour. This is a NuMetal/pop punk tour for The Kids These Days: Atreyu, Deftones, Thrice, Story of the Year. Not what you’d recommend for a guy who plays “When Doves Cry” on a hurdy-gurdy. But this is Stuart and he’s magic.
Looks like he wins! Damn. Maybe there’s hope after all.
changeng brought us the debut this weekend of this device. It’s a lot of things. A split keyboard. A dual-neck flying-V keytar. A “Sound Mixer”. A light show. $9.95 at “Big Lots!”. A really big mistake. An aleatory composition device that produces unpredictable sound patterns RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX! Ladies and gentlemen, the device Stuart affectionately calls “THE HUMP”: THE HMP-288!
changeng was in fine form tonight. Especially with the HMP-288 and the slinky.
As a reward, here’s an entire SLINKY CONSTELLATION for you, Stuart!
Didn’t have to do much work. salome_st_john took me to dinner at Lido Diner for my birthday and I ate chicken fried snake steak. Went to D’s and saw changeng‘s holiday show including audience participation craziness as documented in the last entry. bruisedhips, klikitak, and the_angelmoroni were… …entertaining as a singing group.
I saw people I hadn’t seen in forever and met some nice new people. Hi there mcpino! Also, people I hadn’t seen happy for months were practically glowing, which was awesome.
There was a fair amount of Six Degrees of WTF as people from different bits of my life recognized each other. “Oh, he’s the one in the motorcycle crash picture!” etc. There was some high-quality storytelling also, including: the awkwardness of a first BDSM date; a sweaty guy who brought a scorpion into the coffeehouse today just sitting on his hand; Jonathan Richman; and other stuff I forgot.
There was a guy with long grey hair and a leather jacket and a pockmarked face and he looked exactly like Bob Forrest from Thelonious Monster if Bob had aged normally since 1985. I wonder.
Stuart played really well, including a version of the Twelve Days of Christmas that sounded like it was done by the Curse Pirate on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
Now I’m having an ’01 Mondavi Merlot in my house that has the heater fixed finally. Life is good tonight.
Everyone around here should go see changeng perform at D’s tonight with a Kristmas Kaos Show including bruisedhips, godforesaken, genericus, and I think hersheyjumper also.
crossposted to
What a strange and terrible instrument this is; a revenant from the Before-Time of the 1980s, unexpected and antique and terrifying like the Balrog in Lord of the Rings. Except cheesier. It combines the best features of the Ultimate Preschool Teacher Instrument, the autoharp, with the 1980s Beep Boop Not Quite a Casio Synthesizer. changeng wields this awful weapon with grace, panache, and a creepy grin. Especially while playing “Having my Baby” or “We Built This City”.
He’s also got an LJ now! changeng is him.
Hey everybody!
Stuart Pearson here. The guy with the slinky from http://www.stuartpearson.net . Summer is here and everyone seems to be shiny. Are you shiny? Here’s a test – face your mirror and squint your eyes so that you can barely see yourself. Do you see a glow around you? I bet you do – you’re a shiny kinda person.
There’s a few schedule changes coming up, so if you were planning on witnessing the drunken bachanalia(?)my shows are increasingly becoming, check the changes below. To read how odd they are becoming, go to my website and read my new blog “Tales From The Coffeehouse”.
Also, wednesday night will witness the debut of my new drum machine – it’s a 12 inch tall motorized monkey that bangs cymbals. Along with the toy piano I dragged out of a dumpster last week, I’m now rocking harder and slamming out the block rockin’ beats. My monkey needs a name! Please send suggestions to chang.eng@verizon.net .
Also, I need new photos for my website! I see people taking pictures of my nitwittery, so please send me some! I’ll give credit under each photo and post your website addy if you wish.
Be My Blog 