claudia the magnetic fields: it's a tie -- honeybunch at the AS200 "fool's ball" in providence, RI. bankers and rich financiers in tuxes were co-mingling with performance artists breaking wood panels over their heads. the other was the lovely 14-carat cabaret in baltimore, MD, where you truly understood the spirit of john waters. we played with leni reifenstahl filmloops at one end of the room, and a shrine to (former B-52) ricky wilson at the other.

legendary jim ruiz: warming up for del amitri in the rock and roll hall of fame -- yikes!

daniel handler: on the target stage of the L.A. book festival, in between barney and spiderman.

amelia sportique/tender trap: I was just thinking about a gig we played at the "head" club in soho. it was a gay club and we played our sweet pop songs in front of an enormous neon cock. I liked it there. I want to go back.

louis philippe: I don't know if it qualifies as an "event", but busking with martin newell's cleaners from venus in front of the reichstag has to be number one. I think we made DM45.

sam quasi: a stripper's vaudeville

shirley the magnetic fields: singing james taylor's "something in the way she moves" in a 110º church with my friend phil as part of the ceremony at a lesbian wedding for $150.

alan low: CMJ.

shannon wright: a woman's center in memphis with the rachel's -- where the old lady whom ran the very proper place, wore a pillbox hat and purse to match -- she did not appreciate us running the air-conditioner so high.

rob sportique: my new year's party. greg (sportique) could only remember one song because he was drunk. and the audience were mainly 5-year-old children.

jonathan lambchop: a "boat-christening" party in the nashville suburbs for our then-guitarist, who'd just bought a yacht or something. (needless to say, he's no longer in the group.) as I recall, it involved a bunch of crusty old farts, crappy ham and biscuits, lots and lots and lots of grass, and really lame version of "sleepwalk."

gerard air traffic controllers: supporting s club 7, upstairs at the garage.

jon flare + aarktica: show-and-tell day at my little sister's nursery school. I was teaching them how to write songs, so we made up lyrics about dinosaurs and the easter bunny. then the teacher suggested I play one of my songs, and it made a kid cry.

james yo la dump: not sure... is switzerland an event?

mark pipas: in-store performance at the record shop I worked at. frankly, the weirdest & possibly worst thing I could've done to myself.

peter would-be-goods + smith garrett band + speed of sound + gospel oak: a "troops out" (of northern ireland) benefit in the early 1980s, which I hated (ah, those left-wing squabbles -- I can laugh about it now, but at the time it was terrible).

jeffrey honeybunch: creation records' 10th anniversary bash at the royal albert hall. I can't think of a higher profile high-school talent show. in a surreal twist of fate, alan mcgee never even showed up.

nick "momus" currie: I wish there were more weird felliniesque events, but I'm sure, if there were, nobody would know how to operate the mixer and you wouldn't get paid because a hermaphrodite would abscond with the cashbox.

ld flare/moth wranglers: an outvoice fundraiser night at one of those dreadful clubs on bleeker street near nyu. outvoice is a new york music alliance for gay musicians, and flare was on a bill with a chelseaboy disco bunny, a drag queen, a sensitive pianist guy singing gay affirmation songs and a tone deaf senior citizen who warbled along to karaoke tapes of george jones songs (which was brilliant, actually). the creepy sound guy kept trying to pick me up while we were on stage performing. even more humiliating is the fact that I dated him for six months afterwards -- until he started pretending to be me.

john phosphene: mine's more of a non-music thing: I'm the voice of a screen saver at the tate modern in london. I read a version of the football (soccer for U.S. readers) scores, with a different pantone colour to go along with each team name!

tim departure lounge: on a platform half way up the mast of a boat, with drums, electricity and all, in the middle of the solent (between the south coast of england and the isle of wight) at the end of the round the world yacht race.

gregory sportique: tricky. either the maidenhead british legion or a gay club in soho square with a charming neon penis dominating the stage.

frances cannanes: hmm that show at the huntington beach library was somewhat out of the ordinary.

stephen tuesday weld: I was asked to perform at a benefit for striking postal workers. I agreed -- rather nervously expecting a crowd of angry radicals. however we were put on just after lunch and the angry radicals had bussed into town for a protest march, leaving children and a few elderly babysitters behind. understandably, the former were more interested in the inflatable bouncy castle conveniently situated adjacent to the stage and the latter in sleeping off a rather too heavy vegetarian lunch. I'm actually not sure anyone noticed us at all.

dan ida: our second show was at a genital piercing convention...

lupe pipas: opening for mean spirit'd robots at a very beer-y and carpeted college dormitory.

richard versus: doing two sets at an irish bar on st. patricks day.

karla ida/k: the pig ears show. one of my old bands played an art museum in ohio and the opening band handed out pig ears to the audience so they could throw them at us while we played. which they did. the opening band at the pig ears show was called suck wagon.

dickon fosca: my former band, orlando, played peterborough truck fest in summer 1997. yes, a festival entirely based around trucks.

tom international airport: my wedding.

david huon/driving past: a jellyheads benefit that the cannanes and I think crabstick performed at. the jellyheads were (are?) a bunch of anarchists who were trying to set up some kind of music performance/rehearsal etc space in redfern and we played some kind of benefit for them at the sando. when we got there though there were all these jellyheads around trying to baste tofu and not interested at all in making it a worthwhile event. the real fallout happened later though when either michael or james from c'stick wrote a provocative article called "fuck the jellyheads" for their fanzine dirty on the shovel. the jellyheads took the debate into another magazine called prowler in which they criticised the cannanes for being too mainstream and not popular enough. amongst other crimes. anyway, the vibes that would result in the fallout were present on the night of the benefit itself. the weirdness of the vibe only became clear after the fallout happened. CF