The Psyatics, the Bitters and Stagnetti's Cock at the Double Down, Friday Dec 17, 2021

For the last Psyatics show of the year, a truly eclectic gig was set up, with the manic, progressive instrumental weirdness from the Bitters' first show in almost two years, to the absolute chaos of Stagnetti's Cock!

The Bitters opened the night with the biggest crowd of the evening coming out to see their first gig since the pandemic started! I don't know if they would agree with this assessment, but for me, they sounded like an instrumental version of the Mahavishnu Orchestra or later, jazzy Jeff Beck, although they are not hesitant to throw in some Black Sabbath (shades of Jeff Murphy's other band, Thee Swank Bastards!) while blazingly riffing. Everyone gets to solo and everyone is an incredible player, and while most of the set is super fast, they do some bluesy stylings, as well, and playing with speeds and dynamics. The crowd loved them and I'm sure they'll be back out'n'about more now that they've got this first return gig outta the way.

As usual, I've got no pix of the Psyatics, natch, but even though a number of people left before we started, we still put on an enthusiastic and noisy (and, for me, anyway, a bit sloppy) set for our last entry for 2021! We'll be back in February of 2022 with some more new tunes - let's see if we've learned them by then!

Closing out the night was the pure anarchy of Stagnetti's Cock, who tries hard to be the goofiest and sloppiest band in Las Vegas, which is saying something! As much comedic performance "art" as a musical group, they spin monologues, tell jokes, take off their pants (as least Banana Bob did, although his ubiquitous banana costume kept things from getting obscene), break strings - Joe broke a string on the first song, went and got another guitar and broke a string on that one on the second song! - and hands their instruments to anyone in the audience, whether they are willing participants or not! Fun and ridiculous and wacky beyond words!

Once again, thank you to the Double Down for another night of musical madness! See y'all in the new year!