You have doubtless read about it in countless other posts, so little need to elaborate a whole heck of a lot, but I will say that this was the con at which I returned to live performance, and it is a con at which I will always feel quite at home.
I traveled to Minneapolis on Friday and arrived in the mid-afternoon, so there was plenty of time to say hi to those whom I ran into on the way up, before depositing my schtuff in the “musician’s lounge” where I stayed with Rob Balder and sometimes Marc Gunn (they had moved the sleeper sofa out of the room in the last year and did not bring up rollaways as in previous years, so space was at a premium). Also met up with many from the Dementia Radio crew, meeting a few for the first time.
We all converged on the deer-in-the-headlights hotel restaurant, which was not open when we arrived despite its sign saying Open For Dinner At 430!! Our unfortunate server was quite harried, having basically a table of 36 or whatever, and seemed at times to be regarding us with a bit of WTF? but I acted my usual “normal” self (yeah, there’s one in every crowd) and tried to assuage her and smooth things out. Dunno if it worked. The food, however, was quite excellent.
I am glad I brought my DV cam (at the request of Devo Spice, who is collecting footage for a new promo video), and carried 3 DV tapes with me, so I was able to capture nearly all of the Friday night and Saturday afternoon shenanigans. This included the debut of Euro techno “artist” Hot Snack Time, who proceeded to get on stage and start simultaneously being all charming and nice, and dissing dementia music!!! It became clear once he brought his musical robots out on stage to play his tracks, that something was not right. In a nutshell, he was exposed as a fraud and as the real reason for the earlier disappearance of Dr Ted Nelson of The Nick Atoms, who made a miraculous re-appearance during all of this, and managed to reprogram his robots just before they completed Hot Snack Time’s command to kill Dr Nelson onstage. The disgraced techno-boy ran offstage and has not been seen since, save for a quick post on LJ, and we were all treated to the long-awaited reunion of the legendary Nick Atoms for a short performance. You can see the video on YouTube under my username powersalad.
Performances by many of my demented friends followed, including Rob Balder, Devo Spice, Possible Oscar and Worm Quartet on Friday night, the great Luke Ski, MC Lars and Music GoH Wally Pleasant on Saturday afternoon, and Carrie Dahlby, Marc Gunn, and lots of folks participating in the FuMP Sideshow and Dementia Smackdown segments. Tons and tons of funny music this past weekend.
A lot of new CDs were debuted at the con this time (as has become usual), including new pairup Baldbox (ShoEboX of Worm Quartet and Rob Balder) with their “The Dumb Album”, the 3rd album from Soggy Potato Chips called “I Accidentally The Entire Album”, Carrie Dahlby‘s new one “Giant Kitten” (on which our Steely Dan parody “A19″ appears), Insane Ian‘s “n3rds0ngs” (containing the Dr D hit “Guitar Hero” – Ian is a force to be reckoned with in the upcoming workd of dementia), and others – oh, not to mention the NEW EP FROM POWER SALAD!!! “The Food Show” is now available for purchase in CD and download form over there on the right. A little more to the right. No, down. Little more. Back to- – uh, no, up now….There it is. BUY!!!
Much more went on than can be encapsulated here, but I want to thank everyone who has made me feel very welcome and really nearly a family member in this whole big world o’dementia. Can’t wait til next year!!
And now it’s on to I-CON, April 3-5 at the Suffolk County Community College Brentwood Campus (hey hey, I went to the original Selden Campus!!!), along with Devo Spice, Worm Quartet and Marc Gunn, FuMP representin’. We’ll have a round-robin FuMP Showcase concert Friday night, I have graciously been given a few minutes of Devo and ShoEboX’s sets that night too owing to a scheduling mixup, then we will all be performing in the Cabaret on Saturday night. Go to www.iconsf.org for info and to purchase badges. Badges??? We – - – - – no, yes you do. Come on out!
Not only that, but plans are now underway for yet another comedy music explosion, this time at Penguicon in Detroit, in May. I will most likely be performing there too, so stay tuned!!
And please pick up some CDs or tracks in the Shop. Thanks again and love to all, especially those who believe enough in funny music to let this be “our” place! Luke and Earl, you guys put on the best Marscon Dementia Track ever, many thanks. And cucumber Mozart.
