"Corpus Callosum is the band I always wanted to
be..."
A. The Scene
On March 10, 2009, Corpus Callosum had a big reunion show in down town San José at Anno Domini gallery. I was there. Unfortunately, I didn't think to bring my camera. How stupid. Fortunately, it's now The Future, and I had my crappy little cell phone camera with me, so I was able to snap a few dark and grainy pictures of the event and transfer them to the Internet via the magic of USB memory cards. Sorry, no sound. But, you can go to the Corpus Callosum music page for some sound... Click the thumbnails below for the bigger grainier images.
The house was jammed, and there was even less than standing room only -- there was not an inch of empty floor space, all the folding chairs were in use, and the crowd spilled out the doors. The show started with some of the band members giving an instrumental intro. They were all dressed in snazzy brown almost-matching suits with neckties and vests, except for Andrea in a dress and Qarly in severe black with blood-red hat. The ten-foot-tall Goddess of the Night (Stephanie) soon entered, dressed all in black on long stilts with a halo of stars in her hair, to bless the audience and hang the moon in the sky above the band. She then proceeded to "light the stars" in the sky above the audience. Soon, Avery appeared with a bullhorn singing and speaking and having a seizure.
The band played a few familiar tunes and some new ones, including Dax's new Cold Cold Cold Cold Fucking Chicago. Later, Dax demonstrated his Portable Picture Box and the crowd went bonkers.
For their last number of the evening, Qarly came down front to sing Insecteopus Rex solo while strumming her little ukulele. Meanwhile, the band dismantled the stage behind her, and the Goddess of the Night returned to reclaim the moon and stars from the heavens. At the end of the song, there was Qarly, alone on an empty stage.
B. The Pictures
1. Andrea on the left, below the moon, playing the mandolin. Dax plays the accordion (center) while Qarly is on the tuned glasses (right). Above, center, you can see one of the stars glowing in the sky.
2. Avery is now on guitar in the center while Dax plays the tuned glasses.
3. Stevie finally comes up for air! You can see him on the right blowing into a green keyboard/wind thingie. He is usually seated behind the crate playing toy piano or other mysterious instruments.
4. Dax comes down front into the audience to demonstrate his Portable Picture Box. You can't see all of the strange percussion instruments (tuned pick-axe heads, etc) that the drummer has, but you can barely make out the odd assortment of "cymbals" on top of the bass drum.
C. The End
The Scene: Direct from their Madison Beer Garden debut and the exclusive four-page interview and photo-spread in Roiling Storm Magazine, Corpus Callosum rocked the Bay Area with a fabulous show at the Barefoot Coffee Roasters in Santa Clara on March 24.
Here are a few horrible little blurry pictures taken with the infamous cell phone camera of deservedly ill repute. There were lots of people there with real cameras, so hopefully someone will someday post some real pictures.
1. The show opens with a tune featuring Avery on the harmonica and Dax on accordion... Then Avery switches to guitar while Dax takes his place at the tuned glasses.
3. Between Dax and Avery you can see Qarly come up for air...
4. Jason takes a break from percussion to come down front and bang on something. And you can finally see Stevie there in the limelight, at the toy piano and stylophone.
5. Stephanie comes out of hiding behind the left speaker to play her flute, front and center beside Avery. And Qarly takes a turn at the tuned glasses. The bit you can't see in these nasty little blurred photos is the massive rock on Qarly's left ring finger! Alas, ye poor love-struck fans: rumors are now flyin' that this lass may be spoken for.
The band's next to last song featured a highly-anticipated toy piano solo by Stevie, then they wound the crowd up with a rollicking, uplifting number that featured lots of people fixin' to die and massive audience participation... And below, in the last picture, you can see the band's happy concert promoter standing in the audience, indicated by the green arrow. Click for the close-up view.
The band played the Campbell Art Walk on April 18. I guess that means they walked around for 3 hours on the street playing and having fun. And then they came into the Sonoma Chicken Coop and played an hour show at 9:00. First, we see the whole crew waiting patiently at the cross-walk for traffic to stop. (Note the Goddess of the Night on stilts, far left.) Then they cross the street with great fanfare and music.
The subsequent show was nice, but the venue was very noisy. I guess people were more into partying than listening... I took several terrible little out-of-focus photographs with my cell phone. I will only inflict three more of them upon you... Note the flashing lights, and the band on the big screen (right)... In the center picture, you can see Stevie coming to the front with his little green keyboard. And what's that in the background on the left? They are accompanied by an artist who painted a picture on stage while they played! Ah, reminds me of Paris in the '20s...
