Erin Go Braughless with The Flabby Hoffman Trio

Some of the day time hours sort of turned to a blur from one day to the next and some days are just plain forgotten. The reason they are forgotten are not perhaps exactly why you might think. Today it was because of the musical extravaganza we had that night. It was so intense that it pretty much erased anything we had in our direct short term memories.

March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, brought us a double bill. The evening started off with The Flabby Hoffman Trio and ended with Marbin.

Flabby Hoffman is regionally famous and equally flamboyant personality. Flabby has a cable access show in Chicago that airs on channel 19 at 11:30pm every Thursday night. It is a no-holes-barred talk show if you will that is sure to shock, amaze, entertain and of course offend a relatively large portion of the population. He is also a rock promoter and knows lots of truly amazing players in the city.

But Flabby, by his own admittance likes being a musician first and foremost. He is indeed the lead man to the Flabby Hoffman Trio which usually is made up of between eight and twelve musicians. This night they showed up with eight.

The Flabby Hoffman Trio

Did I mention that the electrical power we had in this place came from two simple outlets with two very long extension cords. I don't have to tell you that I became more and more nervous as over the period of an hour and a half  as amplifier after amplifier was rolled in the door. By the time we had two banks of amps set up I was sure we would blow a fuse, and I was not so sure I would know what to do at that point.

Flabby, who is a big man with a hand-drawn mustache walked in just in time for sound check. He said his hellos and off we went. Just about the time it was obvious all the amps had been turned on and nothing had blown yet, Flabby took me aside and asked, "Do you have any ear protection? If you do, you might want to put it in now."

Flabby Hoffman

He wasn't kidding, and it was a good thing that I brought my gallon of earplugs I used to keep at my old studio for when we did rock and roll shows there...  Needless to say it was good thing I had the gallon size.

Click on this link to download a sample of the wall of sound we had to work with compliments of the Flabby Hoffman Trio.
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B78iaw8zgPQ7YTJmMzFkYzktMTk4YS00NDIyLTgzMzMtZjEyZDJmOGI5MDM1&hl=en

Royce's painting as it looked after a couple of Flabby's sets.

 Once again, we were impressed by how the influences of a few decibels and a few more musicians can readjust just how we reacted and responded during this particular collaborative situation. To be honest, we were exhausted. But exhausted in the best way possible. 

Thanks to Flabby and his band mates, we really had a great time and really enjoyed what came out of this experience. We were not really so sure how we were going to deal with the fact that we were only half way done with the night. Because as Flabby and his minions were breaking down, Marbin was setting up. More on Marbin in the next installment.

©2011 The Colorboration Project is the property of Tali Farchi and Royce Deans.