Friday, January 7, 2005
Merry Christmas! L-to-R: Katzen, Brenna, the Enigma, Josh. More photos...
I got home from dinner with the parents and grandmother this evening and fell right to sleep… Slept (off and on) from about 8PM until about midnight. Now at Mojo’s trying to (groggily) get at least a couple things done with my evening…
So.
December 23rd. Brenna invited me down to Saba, the tapas bar on 4th, to have a drink with her and a few other friends. We did so and then wandered around the corner to the sleek and sexy Foundation bar for a few more drinks (running into Sean Owen on our walk, oddly enough). The friends left after a brief stop by Rain, so Brenna and I decided to walk down ot Elysium. I had hopes of running into the owner to talk about some of the details for the show in January.
But. The owner wasn’t around. But. The Human Marvels were. Enigma and Katzen. Enigma you may recognize from the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow back in the early 90s or from that X-Files episode he appeared in. He’s got a band with his tiger-striped ex(?) that features himself on the guitar and vocals with Katzen taking bass duty and a laptop filling out the sound with drums and other noises. Oh, and then he drills himself in the face and pumps a full bottle of Windex through a tube in his nose and into his belly. Which Katzen then drinks. She also pushes skewers through her forearms and sprays sparks all over using her bass guitar and a metal grinder. Very cool! Makes for a super-fun show — and I’d highly recommend checking them out. Yeah, it’s extremely goofy, but it’s all in the name of fun. I bought a t-shirt and a CD from them.
Afterwards Brenna approached the Enigma to chat. (She’s good at that sort of thing.) So we all talked for a few minutes and got some photos. Enigma and Katzen were just really nice people who appear to really enjoy their freak-celebrity status. Very friendly and gracious. And — as with the nudity thing at the House of Commons — it’s interesting how once you get to talking to someone you stop paying attention to their freakier physical attributes (like the puzzle-pattern tattooed on nearly every available piece of flesh).
They don’t play very often in Austin (odd, since they live here), but they do tour often. (And they have a website with more details.) Go see them.
I had a strange coincidence happen a couple of nights ago… I drove over to the campus Kinko’s Wednesday night to print out some stuff. While using the internet there I finally got access to these photographs (taken by a guy we met at the show). And, well, Engima and Katzen were at the Kinko’s as well doing something on one of the computers. So I showed them the photos and we talked for a bit longer. Enigma showed me a couple different National Geographic magazines he had appeared in. Heh. Again, just super-friendly. Good people. I’m glad I’ve met them.
