t O D D D i C i u r c i o

It is said that if you put a frog in a pot of water & and slowly turn up the heat,  the frog will just fall asleep & die.  So when you put an artist in a lawless fishbowl within the Cosmopolitan Hotel Las Vegas & turn up the oxygen,  it’s the opposite effect. Checked in & up to the 32nd floor- 3203> a suite overlooking the Bellagio fountain,  the aquatic version of roman candles…this would be the first disguise.  A puddle, drying to form a bow with no arrows.  I  wasn’t the first buffalo lured off the proverbial cliff here, but I came to tell their story or run like hell with them..draw us in.  But who needed that place,  it’s off to the sealed cement & black walls of P3 Studio that effervesced spiritual information like steam from a hot spring when I walked in.  How the west was REALLY won.  Nowhere to run here. why run? why not rum? Have a seat & a smoke.   Drink a Corona borealis served up by a message called S E X.   Drawing us sin would prove to be a much more slippery task than even trying to live under the bridge at New York New York on the strip. At least they got one thing right-  there’s lots of garbage under that thing.  My first 30 hours had me creating grounds on paper with ink washes that I would stare into like a crystal ball for answers.   There were many. The musicians who joined in on my scrawl became the figures of such fortune telling. This alchemy with a vintage backline, projections of gun powder exploding on black glass from the Wizard & sound engineer whom I am conducting,  is beginning to feel like I got the band back together.  The Men, #thisbandwillripyourfaceoff dropped by to blow the lid off P3 Studio on opening night and from that point on,  it became THE standard…we were live in Las Vegas, 24/7. It was open for any soul to come in and jam, thereby being added to my body of work & placed in a drawing created while they performed.   Underground rappers Sam King,  Kayyo and singer/songwriter dpocket were among the first to take the controls, dpocket even filling in between busking out on the strip.  By this time,  my insomnia was in full swing.   I’d roam the game floor late at night imagining I saw the APF girls at a craps table & was especially drawn to the slots,  where the winning was clearly happening,  at least I could hear it happening somewhere in the machine forest.  When Shaun McNally came thru, he ended up cashing in some $500 odd dollars on Wheel Of Fortune slots.   Jake D’Arc from Peanut Butter Lovesicle won 2 grand on Lord Of The Rings penny slots.   Their chant went from “Drummers Shouldn’t Sing,  Ever” over & over to “Two Thousand Dollars,” up & down the hallways.  Local drama made its way into the space- maybe it was the sense of escape that was happening there…Draw Us Sin was new,  it never happened anywhere before,  it was beginning to feel like a mothership and we were all preparing the capsule for launch in 20 days.  P3 became a portal confessional for banning stress from the kingdom and by the middle of it all I’d seen & heard enough local Vegas sin drama to write a legitimate screenplay.  Most of it stirred up at the Bamboo Pool during the day,  and then at night where I would draw the live shows there as a break from P3 with Band Of Horses, Marina & The Diamonds, New Beat Fund & Aloe Blacc and the subsequent jams.   I had to get out of this sin spin and the angel horder / documentarian Hew Burney got me to the edge of town,  to the red mountains that surrounded the valley. There’s no way out of here.  I wondered how far I would make it,  and how many already made it into shallow graves.  They’d never see the James Turrell in Louis Vuitton’s private collection in Crystals or Michael Jackson’s glove.  Pawn Stars. 1,000 Elvises.  Ever.  But I did.   We wandered in & out of other casino floors, desensitized by their Cracker Barrel decor and airport gift shops but we had to get to the Little White Wedding Chapel.  I accepted to be a witness to Boris & Honey Bunny’s wedding in a pink Cadillac,  two punk rock kids who fell in love & decided to tie the knot at P3 Studio where I would later draw their portrait & perform “Yesterday” by The Beatles as their wedding song,  which I would play every night on the baby grand in my hallway.  I was back at The Cosmopolitan within hours where Bruce Bromberg’s Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar had become my living room and the festivities started there daily with my discovery of raw amberjack sashimi & libations.  When I fish, we always throw back amberjack.  Now I’m eating it.  McNally transformed into Sonny Graves for his visit,  writing for hours on end, even backing up Craig Martin in a late night session but not before a member of the San Francisco Philharmonic Opera spanked all sinners to eyes swollen shut in the room like a pollen twister with one song. He floated out like nothing happened and I’m found lost at the double down- it was written on a bathroom wall.  Now I’m hearing rumors that the Puma (Timmy from Peanut Butter Lovesicle) was spotted making out with girls IN the Marquee pool and later busking on the bridge over the strip outside with Transformers & Willie Wonka.  There was a whippet slinging djembe dude who came rifling thru their set later as if teleported from Lollapalooza 1993.  PBL’s (@PBLovesicle) stomping heavy, loud stoner psych riffs seemed to fuel this cat like gas on a fire.  I’m rolling the dice every day with a new ink grounds on paper,  searching.  Watching for release. The Rorshach effect of lifted paper towels, the father & son (Garth & Alex Forsyth) outfit called Poor Luther’s Bones performed psych folk sets for 2 days and this music, mixed with all this sin,  put the standard up to another all time low…it’s precious. Nothing out there like it.  I jumped at the chance to back them up on drums for “Do It For Fun” for the Vegas vampire weekend visit and portrait.  Melting to muddied melodies left to a large drawing called “Family Secrets” in the end…but it wasn’t the end….badbad has just arrived.  Their first live performance ever would go down in P3 Studio,  with me drawing.  Goodgood.  This was it. The warrior sweat crescendo with chief & squaw Jon Foster & Chelsea Tyler.  The Vibe Tribe was in full ceremony with an MC THIS light show.  My brain was exposed by this point and it had attracted spoken word by the poet stylist Sir Burbage, who later gifted me Bruno Mars’ hat from his performance the night before. He brought a spread of fine wines, hummus, tapinade & bread to break,  which lured in an 85 year old retired japanese congressman who tried to convince me to be the poster boy for Chess Boxing & Pickle Ball..the payment for which would be an email of Stan Vaughan’s most recent chess cipher. The samurai seeks serenity.   Before I could lift my body with one arm out in front,  the hatch door of the mothership was locked. This was over & I was transported back to NYC.  There’s something to miss in Vegas, and it will find me again. -Todd DiCiurcio @odddc

The Men; Freedom

badbad

NEW GROUND

detail: HOMAGE TO TROUBLE