Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Archives for September 2011

Make It Special

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Every time we have an Arcati Crisis show I want to make it special.

I can’t help myself. When you play in the same city to largely the same crowd over and over again you have to keep it interesting. Spice things up a little.

Well, tomorrow night at the Tin Angel (7:30p, $10, you should come) is going to be spicy enough – it’s our first show with both Zina on drums and Jake on bass. It’s also my birthday show. It’s also our nearly annual Fall Extravaganza.

I decided that wasn’t enough special for one show, so it’s also going to be a CD release party…

Thanks to brand new mixing software and a few quick car trips and a week off from work, Arcati Crisis is ready to release our fifth totally DIY album at tomorrow night’s show – and it sounds really, really, really good. I’m in a bit of disbelief that we played it or that I mixed it. It’s a 10-song, 18-track LP of one of our first shows with Zina on drums at Philly venue The Fire, and it’s only available as a fan appreciation reward from the band.

What that means exactly I’m not sure. I’m going to figure it out while I’m asleep.

Of course, even with a week off I’m going to be up until the wee hours of the morning before a show burning these suckers, but that’s the price I pay for instant gratification.

the gift of me

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Photo shot by Ashley Hall, courtesy of Jump Philly.

Alright, how do I do this without being insufferably both maudlin and self-congratulatory.

Fuck it, it’s my birthday.

Over the summer I received a phone call. I was sure it was a prank or mistake. From what I could make out from the rapid-fire message, someone wanted to interview me for a magazine.

As it happened, I was jumping through a lot of life’s other hoops that week, so I didn’t return the call. But then I got another call. This was a real person, and yes she was looking for Peter the musician. She wanted to do a brief profile on me for a local indie music mag called Jump Philly – yes, a physical magazine, not just a blog.

Now, I’ve been featured in media before. Probably the best mention was during one of the Blogathons, when I was quoted on MSNBC. But that time and all of those other times I was being mentioned in relation to something I was helping to produce.

Photo shot by Ashley Hall, courtesy of Jump Philly.

This time I was being mentioned for producing myself – in particular, my songs for Eric Smith‘s novel.

I had an amazing, hilarious conversation with my interviewer Lauren over sushi on South Street. I coached myself on staying on-message before-hand, but it was no use: get me in front of someone who keeps asking me questions about music and see how well I stay “on-message.” I wind up telling anecdotes about Jem.

(Lauren immediately inquired with glee, “That was on the record, right? Because I am totally using that.”)

The one message I managed to hammer was spelled Dee Aye Why. Every answer dovetailed back to how I did something myself. Taught myself guitar. Got the keys to Drexel’s recording studio with just one term of classes. Self-recorded every song of mine ever released.

The issue came out around Labor Day. Before I could see it, someone at a wedding told me they had picked it up and seen a picture of me. Me!

The photos were taken some weeks after the sushi. Eric, Lauren, and I chased good light all over South Street with photog Ashley Hall until we found our spot.

She snapped away. I coached myself on staying on-message. With my body-language, I mean. I notoriously hate just about every photo of myself taken by anyone except for E and, apparently, MikeyIl. Everyone catches me in these gawky moments between moments. And I don’t like to smile with teeth, because it makes me look silly.

To say I was awaiting the issue with trepidation would be an understatement. There was so much message to be off! I’d probably come off sounding like an ass and looking like Goofy.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. And, let’s not misconstrue me here – I am not bragging about being phenomenally on-message in my interview and photo calll.

Photo shot by Ashley Hall, courtesy of Jump Philly.

No. First, I was in the hands of professionals who cared about getting my story right.

And, second, my life as a whole is what I want it to be, so what is there to get wrong? Lauren talked about my many musical endeavors, all true. Ashley shot a trim and – dare I say – slightly muscular looking version of me beside the ever dashing Eric Smith.

I had nothing to object to, and I have nothing to object to today. As far as I am concerned, thirty is a signpost on a road of awesome goals achieved and dreams realized. It means I’m old enough to call out petty bullshit for what it is, and for people to know to take me seriously even when I am proposing the most outlandish thing.

That’s a far cry from turning twenty, ten years ago, when I blogged: “The world is the container of a finite amount of possibilities both big and small, and i don’t think any chain of events will ever make me truly happy even if you substitute in all of the right jobs and friends and lovers where there are just empty spaces right now.”

Tell that to the guy in these photos.

DC New 52 Review: Resurrection Man #1

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Resurrection Man is one of the more peculiar choices for the DC New 52 relaunch.

First, there is his peculiar power. Thanks to an experiment meant to render him invincible, Resurrection Man Mitchell Shelley bounces back from each death in perfect health with a random new super power that he can only discover through trial and error. Otherwise, he’s a a relatively regular guy.

Second, he’s largely unknown. He headlined his own 1997-99 monthly series, but has only been seen or heard from a scant handful of times in the intervening decade.

Why this new resurrection? The secret ingredient of Mr. Shelley is his writers – Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning AKA DnA. After an ignoble 1988 start on the Real Ghostbusters, they worked their way up the ranks to become one of the hottest writing teams in comics. After penned years of Legion and Majestic for DC they moved on to a multi-year stint on the wildly well-received Marvel Cosmic line. Now they’re back at DC, and back at the helm of their very own hero.

How did DnA do with this peculiar pick in the New 52 lineup?

Resurrection Man #1

Written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, art by Fernando Dagnino

Rating: 5 of 5 – Outstanding!

In a Line: “I’ll sleep when I’m dead. I’ll get back to you when I’ve got a schedule for that.”

#140char Review: Resurrection Man #1 does re-intro right w/perfectly-paced grim glimpse into RM’s dire, hapless life & the forces controlling it. A must-read

CK Says: Buy it!

Writers Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (DnA) are perfection in a reunion with their hero Resurrection Man, abetted by fantastic art from Fernando Dagnino.

From the intro device of our hero slowly awakening to his new life and his new power to his gruesome death and a final scene of him slipping away from a crash, the script never lets up and maintains a vibe of lingering dread throughout.

Resurrection Man Mitch spends most of the book talking to himself and the reader, and you get the sense that his matter-of-fact internal monologue is the majority of conversation in his life. Would a hunted man who dies and dies again have a girlfriend or sidekick handy to chat with? Probably not. His narrative of fellow passengers via the metal on their bodies is a gem stolen from the mind of Magneto. The implication that he quietly re-experiences the world through each new power he awakens with says much about his solitude.

Dagnino’s art is beautiful and perfect for the tone of the script. It reminds me of Gaiman’s Sandman – reminiscent of old Sam Keith, or maybe Jae Lee. It’s the sure black fields of a self-inker, not afraid to get his pages a little dirty with darkness. Colorist Rob Leigh obliges with a set of muted, rusty colors.

The result might turn off some readers as too dark or dull, but it sets an 80s Vertigo vibe and couldn’t be any more perfect for DnA’s script. I took special thrill in small details like the burnished exterior of a plane in flight fading back into an interior scene of the plane.

The deus ex machina of each resurrection coming with both a new power and an inexplicable compulsion to take action could have seemed forced, but you’ll forget it by the time Mitch boards a plane and meets his “hot, in a Gaga kind of way” seatmate. Clearly there are forces greater than him at work and play here – literal god machines reaching their hands into his life. Is it worth stopping a villain about to kill dozens of people if they were all going to die anyway? Can it even be done?

Resurrection Man is a perfect entry into DC’s relaunched lineup of 52 books – his power to start anew from each death is a fitting metaphor for readers picking up his relaunched title with no prior knowledge of the character. DnA have a proven track record of mercilessly dissecting the lives of their heroes to produce fantastically unexpected stories, and Mitch is a rare hero who can walk away from each dissection unharmed.

A must-read comic.

Filmstar Double A-Side: Drum Mixdowns

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I am radically Do-It-Yourself when it comes to music.

Since Gina is also a dedicated DIYer we always go that route with Arcati Crisis with no questions asked. We record ourselves, design our own graphics and websites, rehearse at home, and are now working on creating our own merchandise.

Filmstar is different. They DIY some things, but not others. They’ve been to a recording studio, used a rehearsal space, hired a photographer, and are even discussing working with a manager.

I try not to unduly influence the band with my mutinous DIY ways, but when it came to dropping big dollars on studio recording when we had never been through the process before I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. The result was last month’s drum engineering session in our dining room, which I spent a big chunk of yesterday mixing down. [Read more…] about Filmstar Double A-Side: Drum Mixdowns

DC New 52 Review: Legion Lost #1

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Clearly the theme of today is titles where I’ve got no idea about a darn thing. These are apparently superheroes from the future who get mired in the past? Despite my DC newbness I have a way of hoovering up information about random heroes, yet I don’t even vaguely recognize a single one of them on the cover.

Will this one delight as much as Frankenstein did earlier this evening? Let’s see…

Legion Lost #1

Written by Fabian Nicieza, art by Pete Woods

Rating: 2 of 5 – Uneven

In a Line: “Accessing the sensory patterns of this time period without the transuit filter — is like to see, hear, and talk while inside a pool of mud.”

#140char Review: Legion Lost #1 aren’t the only ones lost. Fast-paced issue w/a slew of chars whizzes by with little effect

CK Says: Consider it.

Legion Lost is a wobbly comic that I suspect improves greatly with any foreknowledge of the characters within or the events of Flashpoint.

The story? A team of superheroes from the future pops back into our present in a malfunctioning time traveling bubble, in pursuit of a villain carrying a contagion. They’re too late to stop him, thus their dilemma becomes how to retrieve him and retreat to chronal safety. However, there are some potentially deadly kinks in their plan.

Scripter Fabian Nicieza hits the ground running and never pauses for a second, wobbling be damned. I appreciated the non-coddling pace and the way his characters always restate the implied question of “what the hell is happening.” I came away with all of their powers and most of their names, if not their relationships with each other.

However, I wouldn’t call the experience pleasant.

Adding to the rushed tone is Pete Woods’s artwork, which looks like it tumbles out of his pen a mile a minute. I’m not sure what gives that impression. Maybe that the action doesn’t always track from panel to panel? Or maybe that the focus of his panels is always crisp and perfect, with perspectives and details bending away at the sides to thicker, heavily-inked lines.

(Also: the weirdly amalgamated logo is awful.)

I understood the book, and even enjoyed some of it, but it doesn’t seem worth returning to next month. I didn’t get the sense it was necessary to be telling a story with these largely charmless characters, and the story that was told wasn’t compelling enough to make me want to track down a seemingly difficult backstory.

Still, it seems like someone fresh from Flashpoint with some fondess for The Legion of Superheroes would be invested in the events that unfold.