San Andreas Fault Onstage At Redmoon’s Winter Pageant

Sold Out Opening Night at Redmoon’s 2013 Winter Pageant. Photo: Al Zayed

Last night was opening night for Redmoon Theater’s 2013 Winter Pageant. I wrote the original music for this indescribable show and my surf-noir band San Andreas Fault performs on stage as the proceedings unfold.   Dozens of dancers, improbable and massive machinery, mind-roasting visual spectacle, mythmaking and birds.  Oh man. The birds.

Opening night sold out; only nine shows left over two weekends.

Hats off to my brothers in the Fault, without whose power and commitment none of this music happens. Thymme Jones, John Cwiok and original gangsta Pete Muschong: thank you.

On SIRS and San Andreas Fault

There are two bands that I’ve started and can’t seem to stop.  And things are getting loud.

SIRS

First, there’s SIRS: a Chicago-style noise-rock trio with traces of aggro pop that launched in 2008 with the release of the 7″ single Billy The Kidney on Unicut Records. In 2010, we released the 12″ Boo Hoo EP and performed around Chicago wherever and whenever possible.

In SIRS, I provide words and guitar, both noisy and absurd reflections on the late capitalist era. The team is rounded out by gentlemen/scholars Tony Jones (bass) and Shut Up Andy Kosinski (drums).  There is a Chicago underground tradition of extra-large punk rattle plus high and low verse, a presentation established in the early Reagan era by giants such as The Effigies and Big Black, a shaft that SIRS still burrows.  Which isn’t too surprising since the first Chicago band I started in high school – the Defoliants – was right behind those outfits.

SIRS is next week releasing our third record, High Minors, a 12″ longplayer that features guest appearances by John Haggerty (Naked Raygun, Pegboy) and Thymme Jones (Cheer-Accident, Dead Rider).

Because we exist, we find it useful to prove it every now and then.  And so, SIRS is opening for the great Hugh Cornwell (Stranglers) in Chicago on December 18th 2013 at Reggies.

San Andreas Fault

 

I started the Fault in 1999 by building  a small digital studio called Trailing Edge in a steel plant on Grand Avenue. The idea then was to work out my obsessions with surf, cowboy chords, classical composition and instrumental musics of the 1960s into a modern band.  The result was a couple of CD singles, TV show and game soundtracks, and the 2003 LP Encantada, plus appearances onstage with guitar instrumental heroes Dick Dale and the late Link Wray.  The Fault wound down in 2005, but was revived in 2012 when I came back together to work with Fault guitarist Pete Machine, going through an eight year backlog of my composition.

Word of this reached the legendary Redmoon Theater and the San Andreas Fault was asked to write the score for the 2013 Winter Pageant, running Dec. 13-22 2013 (10 shows only, two weekends only).  I wrote about 12 pieces for this complete freakout of a show, set in Redmoon’s new 50,000 sq. ft. performance space — and we’re performing it live. Who’s we? Rob Warmowski (guitar) Pete Muschong (guitar) John Cwiok (bass) and Thymme Jones (drums).

The Fault is back online for scoring projects, and is now working with New York director Rebecca Rojer on a 2014 film that will draw on Chicago images that focus on the pernicious role that billionaire philanthropists and their foundations play in the “education reform” debate.