Club Blob Tub Number 13 - Wednesday, January 22, 2025
season two kickoff, rain prayers and mega birthday spectacular
January 22, 2025 (Wednesday): CBT 13
Zozo
Lxs Cochinxs
Pop Hysteria
Bromp Treb
DJ Passive Attack
Doors 8pm | $10 | At the Sardine 1101 S Pacific Ave, San Pedro, CA 90731
I’ll be collecting bottled water to donate to mutual aid centers for those working on cleaning up and rebuilding from the fires. So please come to the show with bottled water and/or consider donating to the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) Firefighter Fund.
Okee, so it’s been real hard to figure out how to proceed, but I need to announce this thing that will be happening next week, barring any fresh disasters. Think of it as not any kind of return to normal but more of a necessary island of refuge, connection and catharsis.
Before I proceed describing the bounty talents, I also want to acknowledge the abundance of love, care and community that we have here awaiting us in this big fucked up city of Los Angeles. All levels of people are volunteering, donating and organizing to help eachother out. The eye-opening and brain-exploding that this paradise build in hell has exposed with these catastrophes is maybe the one good thing that could come out of all of this.
The show I’ve had lined up for months, focused on this specific date is a blast of celebration and frenzy. It is the 13th show, the first in the second season Club Blob Tub and it also happens to be my 49th birthday. …and if that wasn’t enough, I’ve invited DJ Passive Attack (Grant Capes), who also shares with me a birthday on this date. …and because I’m infinitely selfish, I decided also to put myself on the goddamned bill. I’ll only play a very short set, but for all those times that you’ve gotten a flyer from me and said, “oh, so, which of these is your band?” I finally get to say “that one, Bromp Treb, mutherfucker, you better be there, I don’t play much and it will blow your feeble mind!”
This lineup was designed to be a bit of get on the dancefloor blowout. I originally wanted queer electro-cumbia punks Lxs Cochinxs on the bill, because 1) they rule and 2) not enough of people came out to see them when they first played Club Blob Tub last year, ironically, when it was raining. The lowest turnout nites that we’ve had so far have all been on these rare cold rainy nights. Almost like a socal snowday, I’ve been learning that peeps are freaked out by and dont know how to drive in - rainy weather - and they love any excuse to get a little hygge staying home. I don’t blame them and I too have become this way, getting thrilled by the possibility of any day where the sun isn’t completely yelling its optimistic joy at me. Now that we’ve gone something like 8 months without real rain, I’m really hoping Lxs Conchinxs will summon the soggy goddesses to finally en-wetten our bone dry regions. Please languidly soak in that notion both literally and metaphorically. So far, other than me and Grump, Lxs Conhinxs are the only artists that I’ve repeated from CBT Season One.
Looking further into the splash zone I’ve invited the psycho-techno duo Zozo to to get our heart rates up and obliterate our egos. They’re coming from a far-crispier high desert region, the source of our Santa Anas, these screaming babylon sisters. Their production style is meticulous and Zoe’s performance focus borders on scary.
Lastly and definitely not leastly is the angular herks and jerks of Long Beach no wave funkers Pop Hysteria. They’re a gas and a squeal and its high time that they slime up our side of harbor. I’ve only ever seen em in Long Beach on home turf, so let’s see how the fare in our dirty little nook. It’s only two friggin bridges and like 10-20 minutes away, how can this be that it feels like a whole other universe over there?
Ya know, a week ago I was poised to write my usual Club Blob Tub reminder email to you all and then our cellphones were buzzing with emergency notices, the winds were blowing and strange calm/dread was falling over Fafnir and I in our apartment with our doofy rescued street cat ChewChew. We started nervously moving some stuff around and nesting in the way that we would back east for typical oncoming hurricane or snow day. We’re no strangers to power outages, flooding, tornadoes/windstorms, impassable roads, boil orders, etc, but fire? firestorms with glowing embers blazing hot and chain-reacting? 10 minutes to bug out with whatever you have to find safety? No fucking way! It is truly psycho! We got some panicked calls, we took in one friend and his cat for a couple days of confusingly pleasant surprise sleepover party. We watched John Carpenter's 1996 opus ESCAPE FROM LA - I can’t believe I never saw this, I’m glad that my first time was under these disaster-appropriate circumstances.
Anyway, my point in all of this is that as much as we need to be vigilant and caring and laboring to do all of the tedious things that all of the gun-holders won’t put down their guns to help with, we also need to gather with no agenda to release, play and reflect.
…and come on, it’s my birthday. Really. The pressure is on. Come, bring the water, get loose and join us in the ‘Tub.
-N
The last CBT was amazing, thanks everybody for coming out. here’s a scene report.
