30 September, 2011

More pictures from Queen For A Day

OMG YOU GUYS!! Gunpowder Gelatine are mentioned on the FFAD site! AND!! There are pictures of me in the gallery!





My heart is so broken that I can't make their next gig on the 29th (both because I don't have a car and can't get to Worcester and I have plans that have nothing to do with Queen). But! I should get in touch with them the next time they want to do a Freddie tribute to see if I can be involved in some way that wouldn't be just answering the shit out of trivia questions :-P

25 September, 2011

Saturday Night Live

Today in 1982, Queen performed on Saturday Night Live. As far as I know, this particular episode is not freely available on the internet, but the ever-amazing Gregsynthbootlegs has posted both Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Under Pressure! Yay!

22 September, 2011

Queen Extravaganza Auditions

I was super stoked to see that auditions are being posted on the Queen Extravaganza site! And then I watched some of the auditions. So far I'm not terribly impressed beyond disgusted and horrified (I go Simon Cowell on everyone's ass when it comes to Queen covers). But!!!



*swoon*

I mean, some of what Roger's said in this article has left a bitter taste in my mouth*, but I'm choosing to be cautiously optimistic and hang in there for as long as I can.

As stated in the comments on my last post (all two of them!), tribute bands are formed out of love. And yeah, in accordance with the rules of music, some bands suck more than others. But it seems really micromanaging to me for Roger to rip a tribute band apart just because they're trying and then say, "Fuck it! I'm picking people for the next tribute band!"

--
*Queen drummer Roger Taylor was recently in his hometown when he saw a poster that caught his attention. "It said, 'Queen on stage,'" Taylor tells Rolling Stone. "I saw in the very hall where we used to play and there's just the quite bad picture of a band. There are so many of these tribute bands and then there are like orchestral concerts going on featuring music. A lot of these things are not up to scratch and so we want to do it properly."

"...but there are an awful lot of tribute bands, some of them good, some of them not good... It's a big hurdle, [but] this is a way of keeping our music alive and doing it to our standards."

"So we'd like really great looking guys to be in this band." (I'm hoping this has been said in general and he's enthusiastic about auditions from people who don't identify as guys)

15 September, 2011

Queen Extravaganza!

OMG OMG OMG!!!!

Okay, got enough of my excitement out of my system to post this gem from Queenpedia's Facebook page:

Apparently this is official, even though the site now only pulls up a blank page. Queenonline has said "Lots more to come on this...".

http://www.queenextravaganza.com/

Also from the site earlier today "The highly anticipated Live Final, held in Los Angeles, will be judged by the official Queen Extravaganza panel, fronted by Roger Taylor. The 10 final contestants, and possible 'wild-cards', will perform LIVE as part of the band in front of Roger and the panel"

12 September, 2011

Mark Blake's book

With a giant sigh of relief, I have finally finished Is This The Real Life? And just in time for 40 Years Of Queen!

I really enjoyed Mark's book, but it was sobering to read that someone the author referred to was quoted as saying that John Deacon looked like he had become a rock star by accident, and that he probably wanted to be done with music since The Works. On one hand, I'm thinking "How on earth could anyone not want to be one quarter of Queen??" On the other, I can totally see that. The music business is indeed, a right pain in the ass. And to badly quote Elton John in an interview from The Magic Years: "You are more or less public property." I wouldn't be able to handle that either.

So John, if you happen across this by accident: Thanks for sticking with it. Your contributions to music have not been lost on me - particularly Spread Your Wings.

My only complaints about the book are that my copy had some typos and small things the proofreaders missed. Apart from that, I really loved how thorough it was and that it didn't focus too much on Freddie, as books about Queen do too often. It wasn't something I used to pay attention to all that much before since I'm such a huge Freddie fan, but as I was reading about how Brian, Roger and John became interested in music and their childhoods in general, it occurred to me that I really have no fucking clue who those guys are and where they came from. I should see about changing that...

But yeah, apart from the typos I highly recommend this book! Depending on the textual content of this 40 Years Of Queen book, Mark Blake's might be worth buying if you haven't already. And even if this upcoming thing completely upstages it, there's no harm in adding it to your collection for the sake of having a bigger collection if it's financially feasible ;-)

08 September, 2011

Probably my favorite 70's picture of Freddie



I scanned it from my copy of The New Visual Documentary by Ken Dean. Hated his writing style, but there's tons of great pictures in there!

Also: Free Queen podcast from Absolute Radio!! You should subscribe!

05 September, 2011

Happy birthday, Freddie!!!

Freddie's 65 today and there's OHMYFUCKINGGOD so much to post!!

First of all, Brian wrote an especially beautiful guest post on the Official Google Blog, everyone and their mom has been sending me the link to the Freddie Mercury Google Doodle, there's an upcoming auction where all proceeds will go to the MPT, and there's even a site where you can write a birthday message for Freddie!


Seriously, I fucking worship adore this man!

You can see more birthday tribute videos here!

And it's Freddie For A Day! As promised...



I hope Freddie knows how much he's loved and how much we all miss him!

03 September, 2011

Queen For A Day recap

So last night I went with a friend to Queen For A Day at the Midway Cafe in Jamaica Plain.

Opening was the Ukelele Union of Boston with renditions of Fat Bottomed Girls and Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Sadly they weren't totally together on their sound, but they more than made up for it because they were clearly just having fun. Overall I was pretty happy. My friend that came with whispered in my ear after their set that they had no idea that those were Queen songs, and seemed amazed that I knew all the words. This would not be the first time I'd hear that.





I think this was where the MC asked us all trivia questions, and I got all but one of them right. Every time I got one, the MC would look at me bewildered and say, "Jesus! You really like Queen!"

Following that was Miss Madison West dancing with a blow-up doll to Body Language. It ended with her pointing her strap-on at the audience and shooting a can of silly string at us.




Then came Aquanette Jones (sorry, no link) dancing to I Want To Break Free. I didn't enjoy that one nearly as much, which is pretty sad. I think it might be because I've seen something similar done by Johnny Blazes.



Next, Alhena (again, no link) did a phenomenal belly dance to Mustapha! There were no words, only pure enjoyment!



Miss Madison West came back on stage to dance to Fat Bottomed Girls while wearing a prosthetic ass. When she had finished, she came up to me and apologized for "eye-fucking" me during her first number. But it wasn't often that she saw someone in the audience who would sing along to every single word. I'm about half-sure she was cruising me.



Someone in the audience was dressed as Freddie in the I Want To Break Free video came up to me and we shot the shit over the recorded music. She asked if I'd seen Queen + Paul Rodgers play in Worcester a while back and I told her that I hadn't. She then proceeded to tell me that I simply must go to London someday and check out all the Queen stuff there! It really bugs me when it doesn't occur to people that other people may not be able to afford that kind of trip.

Finally, Gunpowder Gelatine came on! While they set up, the bass player, Allison, claimed to know everything about Queen, but then the band looked down at me and were like, "Well, obviously not as much as this guy!" They then rocked so fucking hard that I was beside myself! During Now I'm Here, Bethany held the mic out to me so I could sing "Down in the dungeon just Peaches and me." I probably sounded terrible, but it was one of many kickass moments.





My friend decided to leave after their first set and come get me later. I had to crash at their place for the night because public transportation in Boston stops running by 12:30 and that's when the night would be over.

I think my absolute favorite moment was when Bethany came off the stage to dance with me during the ending of Spread Your Wings. I really hope to G-d somebody got a picture of that, because I sure as hell didn't!

It wasn't even that the singer's pretty and gave me the time of day, but Spread Your Wings is one of my all-time favorite Queen songs and for years my enthusiasm and excitement for Freddie and Queen has been amusing at best to people I've interacted with over the years. I've not been to any North American conventions (yet) or seen any other tribute bands (yet), so to be surrounded by people who Get It and to have this moment during what happens to be one of my favorite tracks was so fucking huge for me.






This is probably one of the most fun nights of my life. There was great music, fantastic performances, cupcakes. I hope Freddie felt the love. And The Mercury Phoenix Trust got a good chunk of money!



Gunpowder Gelatine are:

Bethany Hanley - vocals
Julie Perron - guitar
Allison Sigrist - bass
Nancy Galluzzo - drums
Kate Dobroth - keys

*ETA: photos of me taken by Amanda Johnston*