Reviewing the Situation; or, the Gin Palace is Closed.

Since Gin Circus is a duo it only works if there are two of us fully behind the band and, while I’ve not talked to Alex in a few weeks (though I could guess his feelings on it) I’m not interested in continuing the band so it’s over. Whatever, bands break up. Reasons? 1)why do you need any reasons?, 2)any reasons for my not wanting to be in Gin Circus anymore will probably be more interesting twenty years from now if I wrote an autobiography. You can read about it if I ever end up doing that. But I digress.

As part of closing this chapter of my life I’m cleaning out my hard drive of all things Gin Circus related and so I’m going to link the videos and stuff in this post and be done with it.

1. A cover of the Stone Ponies song “Different Drum.” This was taken during rehearsal for our last show. Ignore my self-indulgent hand motions. A song like this has to be sung with a purpose, I think, and I wanted to make sure whatever I did with my hands fit the content of the lyrics. I also overlaid two vocal tracks together to strengthen it so you could hear me over the guitar. No, the fan blowing my hair is not an intentional 80s rock video homage. It was overly hot in that kitchen.



2. Clementine, AKA- the song that never really was. Clementine was the first song we wrote together and it was exciting at the time—we sat in the living room until 1am writing it and even got as far as recording and mixing it for the Gin Circus demo (don't ask me whatever happened to that, its all on Alex's computer, last I knew). It was our Johnny Cash and June Carter song and also the most openly psychotic thing in our performance repertoire. Granted, I was the one who insisted on the Gone With the Wind reference of “I’ll crush your little skull in girl, to get him out of your head.” Whatever. This video has both the rehearsal and the live performance of the song because it shows one of the problems with Gin Circus: in rehearsal, we worked very well together—we joked, interacted, and had some semblance of musical chemistry that made it easier to create a coherent performance. On stage, especially in this video, it just looks like two people who are on the same stage, singing the same song but are in two different mindsets. I feel awkward watching it because, well, it doesn’t work outside of the kitchen. The end.



3. The first attempt at Gin Circus photos. Mozaic photobooth style:


There’s more somewhere but honestly, and forgive my language, fuck it. My final points are: it could’ve been a decent band, but it wasn’t and it probably wasn’t one for a good reason. I have a feeling I’m meant to be solo and considering that the first two Gin Circus shows were booked only because I’d been asked to do solo shows and was too afraid then to do them alone I think that the band was meant to be short lived anyway. I’m more confident now, I can stand on my own, blah blah blah the end. Although I sometimes falter in it, I do try and attempt to never burn bridges, I just don’t travel over those bridges anymore if I don’t want to. But enough metaphors and defending of my choices when no one is even bothered with why I made such choices.

This was Gin Circus when it started:


This is Gin Circus as it ended:


Now, no more about it. Closed due to prohibition. Onto more sobering activities. Enough of my bad puns.