Lake Baikal at Darling Hall

Lake Baikal at Darling Hall, originally uploaded by RumAli.

This past weekend, me and Steve (as the Batten Revue) played our first show of the year with Kocho-Bisexual and Lake Baikal at Darling Hall.

My performance, for the record, was incredibly sloppy. Typical that most everybody thought we sounded really good. Blame it on the sound system. Put blame it too, sort of, for causing the show to be sloppy. My microphone cable was a bit taut - too short to reach, really - and I kept pushing the microphone further and further away such that it may it impossible for me to sing and sit. Yes, I sing and sit. But I have to because I'm playing foot pedals.

I didn't want to ramble on like that about BR's performance.

Kocho Bi-Sexual, from Detroit, was great. It's a two-person band. Main instrument is a Hammond. They used the arpeggiator incredibly well. The singing, often done two to a microphone, was awesome. I bought their CD and it nearly compares - although you do not get the dancing.

Lake Baikal was loud. A good onslaught. A good tide. Ebbed and flowed. I wish I had my ear plugs so I could plug up my ears properly. Instead, I just had my fingers. I eschewed using rolled up pieces of toilet paper. I had to deal with the fear that I'm subjecting my ears to more germs than usual.

It was only until the next day that I was told that one of the members of Lake Baikal was Monica's ex-boyfriend. Hmm. This was the guy that I had described as "rugged." Yeah, I think that was the term. Monica and I actually had a big disagreement over that. Well, I stand by that term. His music, while maybe not "rugged" per se, was definitely "masculine."