Continental Club – Page 9 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Nick Gaitan – The Octanes

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Camera: Sony Alpha 100
Lens: Sony 50mm 1.4
F/2.0
ISO: 400

The Harry Rags – Kinks tribute band

Chase Hamblin

Derek Dunivan

After leaving Notsuoh I headed over to the Continental Club. On the bill for the evening were Von Hindenburg, a Led Zepplin tribute band and another band called The Harry Rags, a Kinks tribute band.

I had seen Von Hindenburg before and was not overly enthused, but I was intrigued by The Harry Rags. As it turns out the two bands have some band members in common, most notably Steve Candaleri who drums for both bands and Derik Dunivan (Willie “punkdaddy” Dunican’s kid) who plays keyboard, guitar and sings for The Harry Rags and is the singer (aka Robert Plant) for Von Hindenburg.

I must say, I was rather impressed by the performance of The Harry Rags. They not only performed all the classics like “Lola” and “You Really Got Me” but they also dug deep into the Kinks repertoire and pulled out some rather obtuse songs like the one that obviously inspired the band name.

It was a great show and only at two points did I experience any distress.

The first twinge was brought on when I was discussing with a friend the fact that the members of this tribute band (with the possible exception of Steve Candelari) were not even born when these songs were written.

The second twinge was brought on when they started playing “Picture Book” and a young woman in the audience declared that they were playing that song from that cool HP commercial…

Best shot of the show is this one of Derek Dunivan:

Click for full size!

Many more in the gallery

The El Orbits

Click to see full size image

The El Orbits line-up has changed for 2007.

David Beebe has taken a hiatus from the band to have surgery on his throat and will be spending the next few months recuperating. After that he’s off to Marfa, TX to work on another project.

Thomas Escalante, front man for Clouseaux and lead singer for the Houston based ska phenomenon, The Suspects, has stepped into the role.

Other changes include guitar sensation Jim Henkel (The Musical Find of the 90’s) hanging up his ax and moving into the role of keyboardist while Allen “King of the Oldies” Hill picks up the bass and Allison Fisher take over as lead guitarist and also lends her unique vocal stylings to the mix.

Steve Begnoche and Eric Hughes stay in their role of alternating drummers and I’m not sure where Landis Armstrong fits into this new mix. Probably still the pickup guitarist when the band plays Austin and other outlying areas.

The El Orbits have always been one of my favorite bands. Beyond that, they have been Cynthia’s all time favorite local band. She even likes them more than MY band, The Flying Fish Sailors!

Cynthia had not seen the new El Orbits and therefore had not rendered a verdict on the new line-up. That changed a few Fridays back when the band played a rare Friday night public gig at The Big Top. I say rare because The El Orbits are a wedding and private party machine, only breaking this pattern every Monday night at the Continental Club from 9-Midnight and I we’re just not a go out on Monday night kinda couple.

The show was really good. Even though the band had not played in public very many times in this configuration, you could hardly tell it by the way it sounded. This new incarnation of the band is strong, stong, STRONG.

If you’re a get out on Monday night kinda person, I strongly recommend checking ’em out!

Experimentation

I’m processing several hundred images. I’m not nearly done but while I was going through my shots of The Aqua Velva, one picture in particular caught my attention and I started tweaking it in Photoshop:

Click image for full size

I didn’t do much. The motion blur and contrast was pre-existing and I simply expanded upon that. I used a noise filter to clean up some of the roughness and give it an smoother overall texture and amped up the color just a little.

Elementary penguin singing Hare Khrishna

There’s something about Beetle that compels me to shoot them in black and white. You can always see them in color each Thursday night at the Houston Continental Club during happy hour from 7-10pm.

I’m really enjoying the fast wide angle lens.

Beetle
Sony Alpha 100
Lens: Sigma 20mm f/1.8

click for larger image

Clouseaux

NYE – 2006

No big surprise, last night Cynthia and I spent NYE at the Continental Club.
Last appearance of David Beebe with the El Orbits for the foreseeable future.
It was a good show and a good time with good people.

Jim Henkel
Click for full size

David Beebe
Click for full size

The hero of 3700 Main

In my time I have saved the computer at the Continental Club on a few occasions and bailed out Thomas over at Sig’s Lagoon. It’s my contribution to the “scene”, I suppose.

This week I got a call from the proprietress of Taco’s-A-Go-Go. Seems their PC was misbehaving and needed some tender loving nerd care. I was surprised to get the call since I had never given them my number. I assume it was acquired via my friend Nick or someone else who had access to my digits. I said I would have a look the next time I was in the area.

With the new 9/80 schedule I had this Friday off and felt I could afford the lack of sleep and headed off to go see Beetle perform their usual Thursday night happy hour gig at the Continental. Since Taco’s-A-Go-Go is right next door I popped in to have a look at their ailing PC. Turns out the wireless adapter driver was in need of a re-install. I had it up and running in about 10-15 minutes. No big deal.

Enjoyed the Beetle show, as always. After they were done playing I was talking to Jim and he suggested heading over to a party at “Bongo” Jane’s place.

I was of a mixed mind about the whole thing. I know Jane and I knew I would know some of the people there and Jim was just so darn insistent about it I headed on over. Glad I did. I saw some old friends I had not seen in over 15 or so years and just enjoyed hanging out.

Jane’s place is quite interesting. She has the best entertainment center you can imagine. It’s a sound stage right in the main living room. Jane has a lot of musician friends and they were coming and going from the stage all night.

click for full size

Sorry to say, I don’t know this singer’s name. She was performing with Steve Candelari on the drums and Aaron Loesch of Jug O’ Lighnin fame on guitar.