Right, so I told you that our next show will be Wednesday May 30 at the Parkside Lounge in the East Village. (With the savvy and talented Paula Carino on before us. 9pm.) Now how would you like to hear some tales from our recent shows? Indeed... Saturday April 21 we played the closing slot at Freddy's . It's always a good time at our favorite, endangered, Brooklyn local hotspot. I can't tell you what we played because I didn't bring home any set lists - they all got taken - but I know it was mostly songs we're recording for our new (third) record. And we debuted "Midnight Lightening," the first of the triple entendre songs, getting off possibly the best version ever so far because although we'd rehearsed it really quite a lot, what was needed to get it into shape was playing it live. I remember the crowd was high quality, and I wore a Develop Don't Destroy shirt. The next Saturday, April 28 we played music as Plastic Beef . (4 out of 5 members are the same as Liza & the WonderWheels, the difference is the Wheels play 95% my songs and we do the more original music venues, while Plastic Beef plays maybe 80% covers, 20% my songs, has additional musicians, and we go to cover band bars and private parties where people want to dance to familiar tunes, that kind of thing.) It was a surprise birthday party night for our bass player. The surprise being that while Andy thought he was just showing up for Plastic Beef playing over on 5th Avenue, he was in fact showing up to a night of Plastic Beef playing with food, cake, an appearance by Apple recording artist Brute Force and an intermission set from our poppy pals in Pocket Monster . I've been too busy to cook lately... I miss it, but here in the city you can live quite well on take-out and snacking, so being too busy to bring food I volunteered to bring party decorations, and the night before found myself in an odd, dusty party supply shop directly across the street from the bar. It was the kind of place a Scooby Doo villain would buy their mask from, and I couldn't resist purchasing a couple of cheap - but in a fabulously fake way oddly attractive - acrylic wigs. I was told after the fact by one usually reliable, but also imbibing source that the Happy Birthday centerpiece I brought actually said Happy 50th Birthday, but I feel like at least the Party Moms setting up the buffet table would've noticed if that were true. I do know the adorable plastic-silver Sheriff's stars were a big hit. I was even forced to surrender one to the annoyingly sexy lady guest bartender with the astonishingly low-slung trousers, but hey what can you do. That was the first show we did with new Beef vocalist Diane who'll be coming with to a couple of private party gigs in July that are looking to be potentially outrageous. She's smashing! I think you'll like her. [I'm not going out for entertainment tonight, but if I were, I'd be going to Freddy's to see Rebecca and John .]