‘Circus Club’
Bats in the Belfree
Bats in the Belfree
The names change as one generation is replaced by another, but the emotions remain the same. Bats in the Belfree — Christian Von Hamm (guitar), Riley Sieverts (bass) and Kimo Carpenter (drums) — speak for romantics of all generations with the alt-rock originals on the group’s debut extended-play effort.
Stark guitar-bass-and-drum arrangements are the soundtrack for timeless tales of lost love, exploitive relationships and the search for something better.
"You know I always knew you were heartless," they sing in one song. "Why/Am I always the one/To clean up after your fun?" they ask in another. A sound bite from a Martin Luther King Jr. speech adds enigmatic elements to a third.
Bats in the Belfree is leaving the comfortable environment of the local music scene to try its luck in California. With hard work, good material and the right breaks, the group could do as well as Pepper did when that trio left Hawaii in search of success almost a generation ago.
"Without The Shades"
‘Wait, it gets better!’
Fernando Pacheco
Pass Out
Fernando Pacheco has well-deserved credibility as a musician, recording artist, producer and radio personality. This CD is his debut as a stand-up comic. All going well, he will indeed get better at it. As of October, when it was recorded, his material consisted in large part of autobiographical accounts of male genitals, body hair, masturbation and bodily fluids.
There is an audience for almost any type of stand-up material, no matter how juvenile, but several bits show Pacheco could reach a larger and more refined audience. Consider his comments on fantasy football ("If I had a fantasy football team … it would be made up of strippers and unicorns"), those free samples at Costco and the fact that some people think "classic rock" is music from the ’90s.
Pacheco’s best work is "Lost," a sketch comedy piece about two guys at a funeral. It’s improbable in one respect but also clever and well written. While Pacheco can certainly plumb the depths of the local comedy scene talking about his one-handed sex life, "Lost" shows his potential for bigger and better things.
www.fernrocks.com
"Classic Rock"
