Concerning live music, I think some artists play great concerts, while others put on a great show. I’ve seen Radiohead and Insane Clown Posse and found both groups to be exciting and even occasionally transcendent, but they each fit solidly into one side of the “great concerts/great show” Venn diagram more than the other. The former rendered their material with near-album-quality perfection, replicating complicated instrumental work and electronic loops in ways I would not have imagined possible in a live setting. The latter performed to backing tracks and sprayed the ceiling of the Detroit Masonic Temple with orange soda. Guess which act I want to see again.
Channel Planet, an Arlington-based two–to-three-piece sludge-punk outfit, is more interested in putting on a great show. This is not to say that they are sloppy or rudimentary musicians, as their arrangements are interesting and executed precisely and loudly. But Channel Planet puts on a show more akin to ICP’s than Radiohead’s, and it is only partly because the bandmembers are professional clowns.
In an interview at a Fort Worth dive bar, the band’s drummer/co-vocalist Sydnee “Squid” Peralta and keyboardist/character actor Ely Sellers, who are, in fact, both instructors at the Flop School of Clown in Dallas, described how Channel Planet’s creative directive is more than just one thing.
“We play music, but we also are kind of a full theatrical experience,” she said. “We have comedy. We have audio, parody advertisements. … We really like to give you something weird and bizarre and make it a whole immersive experience.”
The first time I saw Channel Planet, where they played in front of that same bar’s green, pleather sectional couch, they raised “wtf” facial expressions around the room with a satirical, between-song audio bit about an abortion, and at each show, there’s an appearance by a blobby, misshapen head named “Medical Waste” who is simultaneously repulsive and difficult not to stare at. They are amicably confrontational in an earnest, absurdist way that, for all the artifice of clown-y garb and fake audio commercials, feels completely sincere and authentic.
Vocalist/bassist Nick Rainone, who was unable to make the interview, worked with Squid “as performance partners in circus and theater,” she said. “He’s been doing it his whole life. I’ve been doing it for about 10 years, and we just, you know, we wanted to do something a little more … something a little different.”
At first, they started with a comic book. Written by Rainone and edited by Squid and drawn by Argentinian artist Kokin Kokambar, Italian artist Andrea Menichini, and American letterer/illustrator Rob Cannon, Channel Planet No. 1 debuted in 2021.
“It follows a band in space,” Squid said. “We were paying money to sell them at comic-cons, and no one wants to buy comics they don’t know … so we were like, ‘What’s a way that we can sell our comic books?’ ”
Rainone had been in punk bands before, so he and Squid decided a band merch table would be a more viable way to hock their comics, and thus the band began.
Squid describes Channel Planet’s sound as “crusty, a little sludgy, kind of grungy.” She and Rainone produce their inter-song commercial content themselves, using royalty-free background music, resulting in fake advertising that sounds unsettlingly realistic, like some calming, palliative announcement you might hear while waiting in line to be turned into fuel or food by some nefarious, dystopian corporation.
Photo by Ely Sellers
Since the band’s inception in 2022, Squid and Rainone have been the main characters of the Channel Planet show, though the band was originally a four-piece. Sellers, who described himself as a “theatrical person, music person,” has been involved in DFW theater for over 15 years. He originally played theremin and keyboards in Channel Planet, though of late, he has been doing “more character stuff.” Sellers used to play in a band called Super Mook that included “thespians to act out the songs, kind of,” he said, “and so I kind of just jumped right in and fit in with Channel Planet rather well.”
For Sellers, Squid, and Rainone, the preposterous humor of their show is sort of a Trojan Horse for music that leans into darker territory.
“We have a lot of songs that actually are more serious, right?” Squid said. “Songs about wanting to die or being hopelessly in love or being lost, but then there’s still that light comedy contrast that’s satirical, [but] our driving force has always been to entertain … to not just confuse [the audience] but leave them going, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen something like that.’ ”
I remarked that during my first experience at a Channel Planet show, I thought that if I had seen them at the age of 16 or 17, they would’ve really blown my mind in a real “what the fuck did I just watch?!” sort of way.
“Well, we want to do that to everyone,” Squid said. “We’re gonna make everyone feel like they’re 17, like they’ve never seen anything like us.”
Channel Planet
8pm Fri, Aug 28, w/The Prof. Fuzz 63, Horsepowers at Dr. Jekyll’s Beer Lab, 2420 Park Row Dr, Pantego. $10.
