Belle collective cast4/10/2023 ![]() You probably know all about Peter Van Conklin-lead guitarist for an elite prog outfit in the 1970s, descent into madness and drugs, partial rehab before settling into an alcoholic holding pattern. Pete was scruffy and paunchy, perpetual four-day salt and pepper beard, the lines on his face a road-map to the history of rock and roll he had seen. I heard the Captain talking with Petey V. He was every bit as big as the locals, and he didn’t need whatever they smoked or snorted on Vamana to stay mean. The Cabaret always had its own sound guy, a time-jumped earthling named Stewie Jensen. The mix was bad, unsurprisingly The Upendra crew working the boards looked half-lit during load-in four hours ago, there was no telling what kind of condition they were in now. One of the opening acts was on, some local group doing covers. I couldn’t see any goblins from where I was standing backstage, but then I could only glimpse a small slice of the crowd through the edge of the scrim, and I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for, anyway. Gas miners, mostly, with all the biogged biceps you’d expect. Big, as in numerous, but also as in gobsmackingly huge. The show began in a fairly mundane manner. I just loaded my stuff into their ship after the show and we took off. I don’t like to brag, but I owned that gig, and there wasn’t even any discussion after that. That happened to be the day that the Cabaret’s previous drummer was taken down by goblins before the show even started, and Captain Grackle had asked me to sit in, sight unseen. When they played my hometown in County Centauri, my band Gripe Water had scored the coveted opening slot. Having played in a handful of small-time bands in and around New Ireland, I had built up my chops pretty well, but I would never have thought myself worthy of the Cabaret. So to say I was in elite company was understatement. And of course, the heart of the group was, as it is still, Captain Cleveland Grackle, singing his heart out while strumming away on his vintage harp-guitar or squeezing the mangalon as he capered and trilled. Kimmy Thistle danced, sang back-up, drove the fish, and was in charge of all Steampowered Effects and Trickery. The Clone Brothers were on brass, and Belle Swain played double violin and a slew of other strings. The core of the group in those days was Peter Van Conklin on guitar, K’tehx McMahon on bass, and Sammy the Hoover on keyboards, auxiliary percussion, and Organism. Peter Van Conklin was still with the band at this point. This is right after they started using the mechanical fish during “Nearer to Land,” the one Kimmy would pilot out of the wings on invisible filaments when Peter began his guitar solo. ![]() I’m telling the story like I’m a veteran, but truth be told that gig was only my third or fourth with Cleveland Grackle’s Galactic Cabaret, even though the Neverending Tour was a full decade old by that point. But we did get the equipment set up, ‘cause you always do, and we did get what could technically be called a sound-check before we were hustled off the stage so the other two bands on the roster could do the same. ![]() I’m just saying that for the all the “professionalism” of the local staff and the “modern ease” with which the intra-dome transfer was supposed to run, we might as well have been playing a dive bar in the Pleiades. A gig’s a gig, and this one was if anything a little bigger than we usually pulled. That we got booked at all is probably due more to the backwater status of Vishnu 6’s fifth moon than any real thought about whether we’d be a good fit-we were a hell of a lot cheaper than the big CorpMuses who played closer to Earth. We were playing the Municipal Amphitheatre, a screamingly Corporate name that was typically boring and grandiose all at once. The city, Upendra, was a big, domed thing with old-school terra-forming and flora-powered atmos that amounted to a human-made jungle in the midst of the rocky moon. Load-in is always a bitch on a gas giant gig, but the moisture off the methane sea on Vamana really played havoc with my drum heads. The Goblins of Vishnu 6 by Jamieson Ridenhour, which originally aired Novemas Cast of Wonders 104.Ĭaptain Cleveland Grackle’s Galactic Cabaret vs.The Goblins of Vishnu 6 By Jamieson Ridenhour We hope you enjoy Barry’s favorite story from 2014, Captain Cleveland Grackle’s Galactic Cabaret vs. Every year in January Cast of Wonders takes a break to catch our breath, plan out the year ahead, and highlight some of our favourite episodes from the year just passed.
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