Eli | Mike | Mary - click for individual bio

March 29 , 2004

So…the Monolators played our last show for the time being—that is, until Mary and I have our baby. We’ll start back up in about late August, but until then we are out of commission in terms of playing live shows. Mary’s getting to the point where it’s really uncomfortable for her to play at the frantic tempo that a Monolators show demands. Me, personally, I’m a bit sad that it’s winding down, but like a cunning fox (or bee, or fish, or whatever) I look towards the future and then all is well.

For those of you who missed our Maternity Leave Extravaganza last Saturday at El Cid, may I say it was without question the crown jewel among the riches of our many concert recital performances. The afternoon was started with a champagne brunch of canapÈs and salt, followed by an opening selection of melodies by the ladies of Smells Like Flan. Suddenly, in walked none other than the bad boys of Chooka, and nirvana was achieved. Rumors of an all-star Zombies tribute made up entirely of genuine living corpses flitted through the crowd, but sadly turned out to be false. Then Maxwell Demon knocked us straight on our pansy fannies with their banshee sounds of the most extraordinary kind! Finally, a teeny tiny flaming chariot descended from the ceiling (I admit that it was hard to spot if you weren’t in the front row) and The Monolators stepped off, radiant in our sequined ascots and babushkas. After pummeling the audience into submission with our musical tribute to starch, “Die Frau mit der enormen Pretzel,” the living corpses unfortunately arrived and we had to clear out the club.

Seriously, though, the only thing that was a major disappointment that day…well, there were two, I suppose—was that, first, because of scheduling difficulties, Death House Chaplain wasn’t able to perform as planned, which we all very much regret. Also, while I was standing outside the club with Terence, Maxwell Demon’s manager, some Silverlake scenester idiot pulled up and asked us if we were valets. In retrospect, we should have said “yes,” and taken his crappy SUV and driven it into the paddleboat lake in Echo Park. So that was the other disappointment of the night, that we didn’t do that.

Before I go, I want to announce one last thing of importance, which is that while we are on our maternity break we’re planning on starting a little service we like to call “The Cover Of The Month.” The idea is—and, I admit, this is of dubious legality, but anyway—we are going to record a cover song every month and post it on our website for you to listen to in lovely streaming format. The nifty thing, though, is that we are going to solicit requests directly from YOU, the discerning reader/slobbering fan, as to which song we should cover. As long as it’s not something hopelessly obscure or impossible to play, we’ve agreed that we’ll make a good faith effort to honor your requests. Be sure to watch our site for the upcoming “Cover Of The Month” section!

Oh, and one more last thing: I would also like to give a little eulogy to a club that the Monolators used to frequent and is now dead and gone: the Garage. Yes, it was kind of crummy, yes, the sound wasn’t so great, yes, the entire audience usually consisted of other bands waiting to go on, and yes, the very last time we played there it was raining and the roof was leaking and there were puddles of water onstage near the amps. But for a long time it was the only club that would give us a chance to play in Silverlake. I have fond memories of going to see Mary’s sadly short-lived all-girl band, Hope Rides A Pony, play a set there, and what do you know but Kiefer Sutherland shows up. He’s tiny and is walking/limping with the help of a cane—like he’s messed himself up pretty badly somehow. He looks scruffy and out of it and very short. Like 5’ 6” or something? The thing I like is that he has some hangers-on milling around him, a girl(friend?) and a guy, and they are both considerably shorter than Kiefer—I assume a requirement of working with or dating him is that you can’t be taller than he is. So after the show we get the treat of watching his all-munchkin crew all pile into an enormous Humvee SUV. A lovely sight. I’m rambling, but the point is that although a while back I swore that I was sick of the Garage and would never play there again, now that it’s gone I sort of miss it. Should I feel guilty?

Eli