- Courtesy Bat Country
- "This album has become something between a beautiful baby to deliver and a demon to exorcise."
Bat Country’s album-release/last hurrah is tomorrow at Columbia City Theater. With the Mongrel Jews, Hounds of the Wild Hunt, Bakelite 78, and Jason Webley. 8 pm, $10
Among the victims of last year’s tragic and infamous Café Racer shootings was “Meshugunah Joe” Albanese, an underground punk renaissance man and icon of Seattle’s neo-cabaret scene. Joe was a pivotal member in many projects and bands, including the Nu Klezmer Army, God’s Favorite Beefcake, the Circus Contraption Band, and an eight-member ensemble called Bat Country that includes Melissa Cerise-Bullock, who co-founded the band with Mikey Sellars in 2006, and Bill Cerise-Bullock, her husband.
The release performance of Bat Country’s farewell album, Love is the Only Engine of Survival, is tomorrow at Columbia City Theater. With tracks like “Knockin On My Coffin” and “God Better Watch His Back,” the 12-track work is appropriately described as “Doom-Americana”—powerful, florid, poetic—a growling dark carnival of gallows humor that delights and sometimes disturbs. I spoke with Bill and Melissa via email.
What is your ultimate goal in releasing Love is the Only Engine of Survival?
This album exists because we had to find some way to honor Joe and his immense musical talent, and to honor what we all created with him and let that live on. We are all immensely proud of this album. In the aftermath of what happened, in the wake of losing Joe, our mission was to make this album into something beautiful—as much of a eulogy for Joe and the band as it could possibly be, in terms of quality and presentation—and making that available to as many people as possible. This album has become something between a beautiful baby to deliver and a demon to exorcise.
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