Liberace's Piano

The Liberace Museum in Las Vegas, located in two buildings on opposite ends of a parking lot in the heart of Liberace Plaza, is forever shutting its doors in a couple weeks. So when the lady at the gift shop from whom you're buying a diamond-encrusted gold-plated piano ring asks you if you're a pianist, and you say yes, and then asks you "would you like to play Liberace's Piano?," you do it. After, of course, filling out all the requisite paperwork, including signing a statement that you're a virtuoso and that you'll wash your hands. The rhinestone-bedazzled and mirrored Baldwin (previously featured on this blog here) was the last piano Walter played, in his 1986 Radio City Music Hall shows, and sits on a pedestal in a room surrounded by all his capes, including the pink turkey feather cape seen behind the piano, and you can bet it'll be the most nerve-wracking performance you'll ever put on.

Later, you might run into Liberace's wheelchair-bound personal dog groomer of 16 years, who will confirm that the man "sure had a lot of crap."

El Polio Loco

this is what you missed

It's that time again. Remember that 5-week tour we did, ah, last year? What a year. Too bad it's over. It was a big year for us. Our record came out, we did a coupla national tours, went to London, yada yada yada. Who knows what 2009 holds. We sure don't.
Anyway, the tour. I, Will, once again kept myself engaged in the only thing that keeps me sane on the road: pointing my camera at barren walls, the ground, and/or people pissing on the side of the road. Like so:


We try to keep it secret, FDR-style, but yeah... Tim's still wheelchair-bound.




Katz's Delicatessen, NYC




Asbury Park never looked so good.




(you like sunsets, right?)










Natchez Trace, Mississippi

So, if you missed it, we had a kinda-show Sunday at the aforementioned Fuck Yeah Fest. "Kinda" because our main Darker-My-Dude Tim Presley (last seen plowing his junkyard convertible into the Old Old Spaghetti Factory) was gettin' all IV'd up - that is, in the hospital - and missed the show. Pretty rock n roll, right? As the story goes, Jared thought it would be really funny if he put a fucking rattlesnake in Tim's bathtub (where/why/how did he get a rattlesnake in the first place?). Well, turns out, it was really funny, because Tim's brushing his teeth in the morning (of the show) and next thing you know, said rattlesnake's sunk its cruel fangs into Tim's foot. Tony hears some pained yelp-cursing from the next room, finds Tim slumped on the floor, bleeding out of three new orifices on his foot (or, pedifices), and the snake coiled above the bathroom mirror. Rest-of-long-story short, Tim's in the hospital all day getting de-venomized, and we're getting periodic updates from Tony, who seemed to be at Wendy's through most of this. After trying in vain to move our 8:00 set time, we erected what turned out to be our little Tim Presley Memorial gear-pile and bullshat our way through 3 prolonged song-jams, hoping that Tim would make a dramatic wheelchair-bound mid-set James Brown-style entrance. But he didn't.

So we rose to the occasion and it was alright and everybody got to overplay to fill the void and Rob got to sing ballsy leads and Will got to make up harmonious non-lyrics and Tim never showed up and then we stopped.

But in all seriousness, it wasn't a snake. It was a spider, and that's much less exciting. But it's close enough. Then again, maybe the story should just be that he was poisoned. Because it's true.