Step right up, folks!

...and see loooooong awaited footage of Honey B. Combe's "Little Egypt". You can even see the amazing vintage cleopatra collar I recently gained ownership off!

BROADZILLA! (2.25.11) - "Little Egypt" by Honey B Combe from Vaudezilla Productions on Vimeo.

the boogieman! and my gold sequined granny panties.

This post is rather short, as I'm trying to get a million things done at work. I just received new footage from our buddies over at Vaudezilla of Honey B. Combe's newest act, the Boogieman, as performed at Broadzilla, the Burlesque Beast.

We made some sweet new costumes for this act, including my ridiculously gold hand sequined & lamee granny panties, had the track personally remixed by our dj buddies over in Ann Arbor, and Lindsey even got to bust her mustache out again.

Enjoy!

xoxo

BROADZILLA! (1.28.11) - "Boogieman" by Honey B Combe from Vaudezilla Productions on Vimeo.

Way Down in Mexico. Oh how I love the Coasters..

So, as I'm trying to get my vintage business Psychosurplus in order, my wedding planned (oh, p.s., I'm getting married in June!), a new art show under way for March, reboot everything I lost when my my computer crashed two weeks ago, as well as get my ducks in a row for the Windy City Burlesque Fest (which I just found out I would be performing in as a solo performer as well as in a duo with my darling Lindsey, for Honey B. Combe!), I managed to squeeze some time in to perform with my pals over at Vaudezilla for theire Lincoln Fair monthly burlesque exhibition.

And as I LOVEEEEEE the Coasters and have already performed to their musical stylings as Honey B. Combe once before, I decided to step my Sugar Cane Jane game up with one of my favorite songs by them, "Down in Mexico", as rendered in the Deathproof soundtrack.

Once I scored the footage and saw my set, I was extremely proud of myself, considering how disappointed I was with my last solo act, despite the fact that that particular act is what got me into the Windy City Burlesque Fest in the first place. So of course, I thought I'd share it and perhaps get a little feedback.

xoxo

A Milio's Hair Affair

In October, some of my burlesque girlfriends and I were asked to walk the runway for a very special pin up hair show for Milio's Hair Salon. Milio's Hair Salon has been around for ages, and is located in the heart of Chicago's forever notorious Belmont & Clark area, which was once home to all sorts of vagrants, punk rockers, ravers, drag queens, leather boys, and the likes. When I got the call asking to be one of the featured models for their hair and pin up runway show at Chicago's Sound Bar, I jumped on the opportunity immeidately. I was elated to find out that two of my close girlfriends, Loraine Rose and Siren Jinx were involved as well. Of course, we [and some other folks] snapped some photos of the hairs and wares we rocked for the event.













the lovely Loraine Rose on the left, and the equally as lovely Siren Jinx on the right.


stretch it out!


Cheers!


xoxo

happy holi-daze! (even though i'm a touch early)

and with all the chaos leading into the next few days, Happy New Year to all you wild cats!



xoxo

Gimme Some Skin.

The day after Thanksgiving, I was flying solo so to speak, as Lindsey was back home visiting family and enjoying turkey and sides galore for the holiday. It was time for our monthly romp with our buddies over at Vaudezilla for "Broadzilla! The Burlesque Beast", and I decided to do the show this time around solo. There are many times when I do acts and events on my own, as solely Sugar Cane Jane, but it is very rare to have any of those occasions captured in pictures or video. I feel like a lucky gal to finally have some videography of a brand new act I unveiled at the post-Thanksgiving show. Though, I can tell from watching this video that there's some crude areas that I need to tweak and work on in this act(including syncing my clapping with the sounds of the Andrews Sisters), I think considering that at this particular venue I ALWAYS dance with my partner, I did quite alright shakin' it all by my lonesome.

In the end, practice makes perfect, right?

BROADZILLA! (11.26.10) - "Gimme Some Skin, My Friend" by Sugar Cane Jane from Vaudezilla Productions on Vimeo.

xoxo.

Not once, but twice.

Well, yeeehaaaaaw! Our buddies over at Vaudezilla Productions were kind enough to send some sweet, sweet footage over our way of two recent Honey B. Combe performances, both being different renditions of our act, "All aboard the Chattanooga Choo Choo". I'm elated to share them both, as I feel Dolly Dagger(Lindsey) and I have come quite a longggg way since first voyaging into the complex world of burlesque and all that it encompasses.

The first video reel is from our Halloween show at Exit on October 29th. For this show, we decided to channel our inner zombied-out, awakened-from-the-dead Andrews Sisters. Mission accomplished.



And here's the reel for you to enjoy:

BROADZILLA! (10.29.10) - "All Aboard the Chattanooga Choo Choo" by Honey B Combe from Vaudezilla Productions on Vimeo.

And just a short time later, we were invited to perform at the Lincoln Fair, monthly Burlesque Expostion, hosted by Vaudezilla at the Lincoln Tap Room for Lincoln Tap Room's 20th Anniversary par-tayyyyyyyyy.



Here's the reel from that expostion:

Lincoln Fair (11.20.10) - "All Aboard the Chattanooga Choo-Choo" by Honey B Combe from Vaudezilla Productions on Vimeo.

this fall/winter will have far many more things to come, but for now, I leave you with these goodies.

xoxo,
erin
and my slightly altered ego, Sugar Cane Jane

all aboard the chattanooga choo choo.

It has been quite a while since I've posted anything, as I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to gather my bearings with work, shows, freelancing and all that jazz. So I thought I'd take a moment to sit down and sort through photos of the new Honey B. Combe act that Lindsey and I worked so diligently on. Our new performance, the Chattanooga Choo Choo, as rendered by the Andrews Sisters accompanied by the Glenn Miller orchestra, debuted on Saturday, October 16th at Chicago's Viaduct Theater for the Rock Via Vaudeville expedition. We were elated to debut this act as one of the featured performers for the event, and were even more thrilled at the crowd's feedback. It's always a little nerve-racking counting down the moments until call time, especially when unleashing a new act to a theater full of nameless faces. But it went super well, and as usual, we had a fabulous time.

This was the production:


And here are some photos of Honey B. Combe backstage sporting our new handmade costumes for the performance, as photographed by Isa Giallorenzo of Chicago Looks. Additionally, we performed the Chattanooga Choo Choo again last night, in a more awake-from-the-dead, blood and gore fashion for a Halloween Burlesque show at Exit Chicago with a gaggle of smokin' gals for the monthly event, Broadzilla, and will have footage in the coming month, which I can't wait to see.





For Rock Via Vaudeville, we were given two time slots, and of course, we had to bust out our Little Egypt act, so Isa had us do a little costume change in the dark, so she could snag a couple more photos of us and our banner...





with love and tassels,
Honey B. Combe!



oh, p.s. look forward to some of the following random excursions to come:

-"Plastic is Fantastic" Barbies from around the world photoshoot

-Excavated Memories Jewelry lookbook photoshoot

-Milio's Hair Salon pin-up hair show featuring Chicago burlesque babes

-new vintage treasures and inventory for Psychosurplus Vintage

-and yes, new concepts for a new art show,(because it's been wayyyy too long since I've curated) yayyyyyyyyyy!

xoxo,
erin.

Indian Delights, Indonesian garage rock, Incense & a little piece of mind.

Yesterday, I had a lovely afternoon with my long time friend, Kara, traveling to the far north side of Chicago, visiting a street in a neighborhood I lived in for a time as a child. The street we spent the day romping aorund on was Devon Ave, in West Roger's Park, home to one of the largest Indo-Pakistani communities in the U.S. We went to countless fabric stores, jewelry shops and home goods businesses, absorbing all of the amazingly vibrant jewels, fabrics and garments, while Kara searched diligently for a new nose ring. We ventured into a few of the markets, inhaling scents of spices, incense and fresh pastries. It was such an incredible day. We also managed to take ina few snacks while we were up there, first diving into oven fired dough pastries filled with cheeses and potato from a Georgian (provincial region of Russia) bakery, in the more Russian inhabited portion of the street at the western end of the stretch, as well as naan breads and lamb patties, accompanied by highly refreshing rose water yogurt drinks at the Indian Garden, a restaurant dedicated solely to delicious Indian cuisine. Needless to say, we spent the bus ride back to Logan Square in totally delightful food comas.

Though I don't have any photos from yesterday's adventure quite yet, here's a photo of Kara and me from her first day after moving back to Chicago. Together, we make quite the brightly colored adevnturous duo.


When we got back to my apartment, we vegged out on the couch for a bit, burning our new incense finds and listened to the sounds of Dara Puspita, this super amazing surf/garage girl band from the 60s & 70s that originated in Indonesia, but was later exiled to China. They rule.


After Kara left that evening, and my boyfriend went out skating with his friend, I decided to curl up on the couch with a glass of wine and work on a new illustration. It's been a while since I've had such a relaxing day and had the opprtunity to work on some new art without the pressure of work or commissions or deadlines, so I was thrilled to have a little piece of mind. I didn't really have anything particular in mind to draw out, but I was also pondering different ways to promote my burlesque endeavors and where the fall will take me in terms of my career as an artist and a relative newbie in the Burlesque field in Chicago, so I decided to combine the two work/extra-cirrculars I love and came up with this new piece. Of course, as with most of my artwork, it's not really finished, but for now, I'm pretty happy with the direction it's going in.

Take a gander.


xoxo,
erin

will this stoner smile make do?

...to hide or accentuate the fact that Lindsey and I have a brand spankin' new act for a rather large show tonight, and I'm truly nervous-anxious-jumpin'jivin'-excited? Well, let's hope it does SOMETHING for someone!


The show tonight is a tribute performance honoring this year's lollapalooza. Every performance in both sets of this show will pay tribute to musicians either playing in this year's lollapalooza line up, or musicians who have headlined in the past. We had initally intended on reworking a Jimmy Cliff (who is playing this year) song for this act, but the producer from the troupe we're working with for this event requested that we make a rather wild act to Chromeo's song Tenderoni. We've spent the last two and half weeks creating a rather brightly colored number drawing part of our concept from the music video released for their song. Here's the Tenderoni video:



I'll say this much: we've managed to incorporate a giant ruffled pizza box, a bell boy cap, a rotary telephone, matching red ruffled bloomers and a boombox into the performance we have in store for viewers tonight....mama mia!

xoxo,
erin

pussycats galore

I finally found full length footage of Honey B. Combe! yay! This video is our performance to the Pussycat Song, by Connie Vannett, at Exit, Chicago, this past June. We're still pretty new to the burlesque world, so we have a few minor tweaks to work out with all of our acts, but i hope you enjoy!

BROADZILLA! (6.25.10) - "Pussycat Song" by Honey B Combe from Vaudezilla Productions on Vimeo.

It's been such a pleasure to work with the Red Hot Annie & the Vaudezilla team, and I can't wait to share more of our adventures with them!

xoxo,
erin

Costume Catch up and what not!

Yay! So I finally got a chance to snag and upload some photos of our Honey b. Combe costumes from two different acts we've recently performed. I'm particularly fond of our Peace Pipe costumes from our show last night, as I spent all of Monday morning fringing and beading the hell out of three separate pieces. Here are some fun photos. Though unfortunately we were unable to photograph during our show last night, we were able to snag some silly ones before and after. Here's a little glimpse...

Dolly Dagger & Sugar Cane Jane's....Peace Pipe!

And off comes the first layer! (and only layer, might I mention, because rules are a bit more particular at this venue..)

yay, fringe!

....a cheery end to the evening with our friends Natalie and Corryn!


And here's a glipmse at our second time around, performing Little Egypt by the Coasters, once again, after our set, and at the same venue..


good times. as usual!

xoxo,
erin.

So, I was stitchin' in my kitchen....

So yesterday, before I hit the pool with twenty other rad-tastic ladies, I spent my morning finishing up my new costume for Honey B. Combe's next and newest ridiculous act. Our inspiration for the newest performance comes from our shared love for channeling early 70s psychedelic freak outs, fringe and a whole lotta shaking. When I finally finished hand stitching and hand beading the last few essential layers on to my bikini pieces, I managed to snag a couple of (crappy) camera phone photos of parts of my masterpiece. Unfortunately, the images aren't the best quality, but you get the gist. Once Lindsey and I unveil our new dance, we'll have some sweet and vibrant photos, from a real camera, no less.

For now, here's a little peak at my rekindled love for ruffles and fringe,accompanied by one my favorite Soul Train performance clips to end with a fun spoiler of what track we're working with for these schnazzy costumes..



(and I haven't even uploaded a picture of the technicolor psychedelic piece that goes on top of these skivvies..)

Put this on, and put it in your piece pipe! ;)


..and this is where we'll be debuting this new number of all numbers..


xoxo, with a little fringe on top!
-erin