Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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Apocalyptic Love Song – Arcati Crisis, Live @ Rehearsal

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It’s a new year!

Ten years ago at this moment I was a freshman in college with a totally new group of friends at my first adult dress-up party, about to experience my first kiss. And maybe die in the throes of Y2K.

Tonight I am home alone with my wife, and I shaved off my mustache., so I could give her a unscruffy New Year’s kiss.

There have only been two constants in my life that ten years. Music. And Gina.

“Apocalyptic Love Song” is about loving someone to the end of the world and beyond. I think it’s the best song anyone currently living in Philadelphia has written. Possibly the Eastern Seaboard. And I will not rest until Gina wins a Grammy for it. Sometimes I am brought to tears while we’re playing it, moved by the power of Gina’s lyrics and performance.

Encompassing the two constants in my life, and addressing the unknown the always lies ahead, it seemed fitting to end our concert with it tonight.

The future makes me laugh, the future makes me cry
I can see it all in the reflective square of light shining in my eye
I see ripples. I see waves. I hear cries of despair.
And all I can think to do is go on breathing all this air
But I know that for a while the sun will continue to shine
Just as long as at some point you were standing here by my side

You can download a revelatory version of “Apocalyptic Love Song” from our most recent Live @ Rehearsal CD.

You can watch our entire web concert in sequence via our YouTube playlist.

Better – Arcati Crisis, Live @ Rehearsal

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I love this darn song.

When it comes to my past few songs, the typical Arcati Crisis selection process is like so:

I write a ton of songs. Sometimes dozens. We sift through them, and eventually choose one because Gina or I finally get stubborn about it. If I don’t change my mind in a month or two, then we learn that song.

“Better” was different. I wrote it knowing it was going to be an AC song before I ever played it for Gina. I wrote it with counter-point, callbacks, and open harmony all built in.

I just knew. And because I knew, it’s so very satisfying to play, to hear, and to watch. It’s not much of a stretch to say it’s my favorite one of my songs to play as a duo right now, and I’m in love with our performance here:

That’s the only way you can hear “Better” at the moment – we took a shot at recording it live, but I suspect it’s going to be one of our first fully tracked songs.

Around the big ball drop I’ll chime in with our final song, somehow appropriate for the end of the year. Then, on to solo music to ramp up to my appearance at the Tin Angel next Friday, opening for Dante Bucci!

Total Eclipse of the Heart – Arcati Crisis, Live @ Rehearsal

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Today was pretty crazy.

In short, I unexpectedly stayed home from work, and just as I was finally dragging my carcass out of bed a digital series of events began to unfold on my laptop (which had been in bed with me) that resulted in my being booked for a solo appearance at the Tin Angel – opening for my friend and esteemed musical colleague Dante Bucci.

Not how I expected to spend the day, and a lot of information to process (and songs to prepare!) in the next nine days. What will I play? Will I slip in a surprise cover?

Gina and I never used to be good at learning things in a hurry, but in 2009 we got suddenly alright at it. We surmised in an interview earlier this year that it’s because we finally figured out what we’re supposed to sound like. Now that we understand our sound, it’s much easier to build it from scratch.

On that topic, this is perhaps our seventh or eighth full run through “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which we learned in two brief sessions.

There’s still some tweaking to do, but I’m happy we captured this hilarious blast through it on video.

There are just two more songs left in our web concert; after that I’ll be presenting some solo content to take us through my appearance at the Tin Angel on January 8th!

Love Me Love Me Not – Arcati Crisis, Live @ Rehearsal

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The second song in our Live @ Rehearsal concert is my “Love Me Love Me Not.” LMLMN is infamous in that I spent several months actively writing it – like, daily – before it was finished. And then my amazing vocal instructor Dr. Emily Bridges turned it upside a bit, and then Gina turned it upside down a bit more, and then we arrived at this:

That’s the first-ever video of “Love Me Not”! If you love it, download a high fidelity Live @ Rehearsal recording of it, for free.

If you missed the first song, it was Fisher Price. Tomorrow I’ll have a brand new cover, and after the holiday another week of videos!

Backfilled

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I’ve been crap about blogging live for the past few weeks. Too much life, not enough to say.

Or so I thought.

I kept jotting down thoughts as I lived, because stuff kept happening. It seemed pointless at the time – journaling that would never see the light of day. However, starting from the Philebrity party on Thursday I felt like a theme was beginning to emerge. I went back to straighten things out and edit a bit, and it turns out I had something to say that I want represented on CK after all.

The result is that I’m backfilling all the non-blog blogging I’ve done since the first of this month. It’s blogging via hindsight, having seen the threads of my story woven neatly together over the weekend.

In the future I have to post as life happens and trust that a story is being written.