Report from the road.

I'm writing from Kansas City. The weather is beautiful. Early summer. San Francisco rarely if ever gets like this... makes me miss the Midwest. We played tonight to almost no people -- maybe four other band people, two of whom have already seen us twice this week, and one or two private citizens. I had trouble feeling inspired, but it was not our worst show of 2007 (a band conference determined the Stork Club gig stills holds that honor).

Expo '70, from KC, opened things up with a spacey drone set. Casiotone and guitars through lots of delay. Chinese gong rolls. Things started out a bit muddy in the fairly live room, but they found the right sound after a few minutes. I liked how Justin wasn't afraid to go for the psychedelic guitar solos on the high frets. Maybe a bit corny, but if you're working that area there's no reason to pull any punches. Moving through lots of different sections, they kept working at the same goal in a continually fresh manner. The duo got into some Sunn-style riffing near the end, then it dissolved into low bass drones which, in my mind at least, had something to do with the Moogerfooger. Somewhat innocuous, but the music sounded very nice (as it did the last time we played with them, in October). I'm thinking about it, and I don't think "innocuous" is insulting to music like this... it's almost the goal.

This Is My Condition is a frenzied one-man punk band. Guitar laying flat across his drum set and fed through a looping pedal. Really energetic and rocking when at its best. A lot like something I've seen Moe Staiano do during his solo sets, but not improvised and a lot straighter in this case. A shorter set would've had more impact, but most people seemed to be into it for the full 30 or so minutes. Mass exodus when he was done, then Ettrick played.

Obviously nobody returned for Clan of the Cave Bear's closing set, though a couple kids wandered in off the street for the last song or two of their shortened set. Clan is a drum and guitar duo playing Orthrelm-style brutal prog. Pretty good. Tonight was my third time seeing them (and playing with them) since last Sunday. So maybe more on them later.

Last night's show in Denver (at Rhinoeropolis) opened with Spellcaster screaming through a mic attached to his face with a gas mask (run through a flanger) and playing punk power chords on a guitar. All done noise style. A contact-mic'ed fan sounded amazing during sound check (Lucier style), but was completely inaudible during the set.

Zoologist is the duo of John Gross (of Page 27) and Novasak. Digital electronic waves (laptop, sampler, etc.) which reminded me of Thomas Dimuzio's stuff. Sounded really nice, but went on a bit too long.

Clan of the Cave Bear was next. Most/best crowd interaction, worst sound. Usual tight and energetic playing.

Nightshark was a drum/guitar/sax/sax quartet that sounded like electric Miles headed in a total noise direction. Slower, funky beats with all of the shit mic'ed up and run through delay and other processing.

Felt good about the Ettrick set, though a few things presented mental and physical obstacles. Audience members strangely kept returning lost and discarded percussion objects to me while I was playing, even when I responded by throwing the objects back at them.

Thomas Kincaid's Youth Brigade closed the proper show. Three guys screaming through feeding back mics. Simple to the point of stupidity, but it sounded pretty good. Things degenerated into beer can throwing and wrestling.

A couple hours later, around 2:30am, Weak Sisters (a solo act) decided to play a set as well. Not unlike the Youth Brigade, this consisted of a guy screaming through a feeding back mic while bashing on a feeding back guitar and thrashing around. Shrieking and screeching. Then something would come unplugged and there would loud buzzing and acoustic screaming until it got plugged back in. Far more alcohol fueled far more violent and destructive crowd participation. Someone started sweeping up mid-set and my mind went to Sergio Iglesias & the Latin Love Machine. Take away the bongos and bananas, and that's pretty much what was going on. This was probably my favorite set of the night. In a way it was totally unmusical and stupid, but some great musicality actually did shine through. Cool stuff. A lot different from Weak Sisters's last set with Ettrick (in October), if memory serves.

Nashville tomorrow. Sleep now.

another thousand shows

Hemlock Tavern, Tuesday night. Hans Grüsel's Krankenkabinet started things off with their usual swirling analog synth madness. Lots of electronic tick-tocking and other clockworkish sounds. Great noisy chaos seemingly originating from Gretel near the end of the set, then Hans knocked on the stump's head to wake him up and they launched into a brutal version of “Don't Pass My By”. Stumpy stomped around and grunted out Ringo's vocals through a pitch shifter. Gretel tap danced around with her bass guitar and Hans controlled the wall of noise and acid lines. It was no “Crimson and Clover”, but it was good. Crank Sturgeon came on next. Completely naked except for a plastic bag loin cloth and large silver fish head worn over his human head. Introductory vocal fanfare on fish eyeballs as cardboard eyes were taped to his head. Jokes about the balls concealed behind the plastic bag. Lots of comedic ranting followed, interspersed with lots of great harsh noise. The noise stuff was good and would have been interesting and enjoyable on its own, but it was taken to a much higher level by the crazy theatrics going on. Contact mics in the fish head, in the mouth, and hanging from a long spring on the top of his head once the fish head flopped off. Switched on and off by switches also hanging down by his loins. Mics swinging everywhere, things going wrong and constant tourrette's narration. I saw him at Terminal on Sunday and was glad to see that although this show had most of the same general sections, they were executed entirely differently at both performances. He played plastic wrap like a blade of grass at both shows, but at the Hemlock he wrapped his whole body in it. Both sets had a backpacker guitar (which I kept thinking of as a “grandpa's guitars”), but he rolled with the Black Sabbath riffing a bit more at the Hemlock. Great stuff. I was really impressed by his performance on the Unmusical Postscript DVD, and the actual live show was even better than what I expected based on that.

My Monday night started out with the 10pm ICP Orchestra show at Yoshi's. This was my first time seeing Han Bennink live after spending so many hours listening to recordings of him. ICP is a bit more of a jazz band than I tend to prefer, but they get crazy enough often enough to keep it pretty interesting. Wolter Wierbos always kept things wild with his noisy trombone flurries. My favorite piece was a really abstract and eerie(?) clarinet/clarinet/piano trio. The best part of the show for me was, of course, Bennink's drumming. He spent the majority of the concert playing relatively simple jazz beats, but the impact he achieved with the occasional well-timed rimshot, and especially the extreme joy he got from it (evident by his boisterous laughter) was pretty amazing. And of course it's great to see a 65-year-old who isn't afraid to throw his sticks around or kick his left foot up onto the snare drum to bend the pitch. The show wrapped up with Misha Mengelberg relating a “macabre” dream he had about people getting their skulls smashed in to the rhythm of an Edvard Grieg piece, followed by a performance of the music inspired by this dream.

After ICP, I headed over to LoBot just in time for Lightning Bolt. I last saw them perform at Club Verdi in 2003 (my 7th favorite show of that year, as related in my last post) where I was rather disappointed in a number of ways. They resolved one of my major complaints at this show by playing with a huge curved mirror behind and above them. Good for turning out of blind driveways and good for seeing excessively popular bands who insist on playing on the floor. Was this LB's mirror or is someone at LoBot a fucking genius? Musically, their sound reflected the influence of black metal way more than the last time I heard them. The drumming was the same fast and wild rock style, but the basslines were more frequently evil metal riffs rather than major scale arpeggios and melodies based on “Frere Jacques”. I was less offended by the circumstances of the show and the sloppiness of the band than I was in 2003, but I've recently realized that I've significantly relaxed my standards on certain issues. The set was pretty epic in length... probably more than an hour... could that be? As in 2003, they were definitely overshadowed by the recent Noxagt show, still it was a pretty cool set. I was glad to hear some classic hits from Ride the Skies, which is honestly the only Lightning Bolt album I've ever really listened to or liked. I even ran up near the mosh pit for “Ride the Sky”. Oh yeah, what happened to that weird fucking disc that had been hanging from the LoBot ceiling for years? Years? It always scared me to stand beneath it.

Sunday was an epic day for noise in the Bay Area and I don't know if I'm up to the task of writing about it... I shall boldly press on. I got to Noise Pancakes/Electronic Puppenhorten at ArtSF just in time to hear Soundtrack to a Dream About Nothing. Pretty good harsh noise. The right way to start my day. Eliyas was next. Pretty different from the sampler CD I heard ahead of time, which seemed to be more of a noise rock thing with a full band. Maybe I wasn't paying good enough attention to the CD or maybe this was the stripped down touring unit. One guy going nuts slapping an array of pedals on the floor. Feedback tones bubbled all around, cutting through the harsh noise. Head Boggle Domo played analog synth stuff somewhat reminiscent of the Grüsels. Loachfillet ran tape loops through delay pedals and other processing. Great terror sounds. I remember starting to get bored as things got really repetitive – groaning swell followed by silence followed by groaning swell – but then my mind flipped inside out and I started enjoying the stasis more than anything he had done so far. Vulcanus 68 was next... They tried a lot of things, some worked better than others. I remember it getting really loud near the end. Seance Orchestra Cosmic Mind Zoo (NKA Rahdunes) set up in the back of the room and filled the place up with smoke, which seemed a bit weird on a sunny spring afternoon. The only thing I could see in the direction of their sound was a mysterious woman flipping pancakes in the fog. By the way, these chocolate chip pancakes were pretty good! Topped with some weird Brazilian fruit spread they were fantastic. Anyway, SOCMZ were playing some heavy Sabbath style riffs back in there somewhere, mixed in with some noise. I liked it a little bit, but I was preoccupied taking refuge from the smoke (alternating with trying to wander into it). As the riffs died out and the smoke dispersed Luz Alibi and Georgio Marauder came stomping out of the bathroom in primitive hill people garb and aardvark faces (with a few anachronistic items such as a trucker hat on Luz), blowing through plastic tubes. They lurched over to their table of equipment and started getting noisy, moving through a series of sections where they would play matching instruments. Small metal objects through delay, long twisty plastic tube whistles, bestial bellowing, etc. Toward the end a Matmos style digital drum beat emerged from a jumble of splashing sounds. I noted how this actually sounded good though it had a high probably of sounding terrible. The duo played some stuff over the top, then marched back to the bathroom as the rain beat faded away. Next, Mitchell Brown played what seemed like a really short set, bowing his little set of metal spokes. Sounded real nice and I wanted to hear more. It was right before or after this that some solo guitar guy played a set over where the SOCMZ thing had happened. There was a lot of great humming and clunking and scraping. Then he was finished setting up and started playing some sensitive melodies that seemed pretty out of place at the Puppenhorten fest. Slujun/Ortega took the stage and heavy electronics followed... I think? I can't say for certain anymore. Sharkiface was next. Good set and totally different from her pretty recent show also at noise pancakes. No Nord Micromodular this time, which was a big part of the sound last time. Instead, a lot more noisy sounds. Dimmer was last. Digital electronics and white-glove-handled tape loops. The best kind of new age. I sat on a couch and was near dozing off in a very pleasant way. A nice landing after a pretty brutal 4 hours of noise, but also one of the best sets of the early afternoon.

Crossed the bridge for the Terminal BBQ and ate a lot of hot dogs as Butthole Surfers and ELO played on the boom box. Eventually Psicologicos Traumas took the stage. Though Loach and Ortega were playing, the set had more of the mellow vibe of Brown and Hammer's earlier sets. More bowed spires and delicate tape loops. I think I reacted in more or less the same way I did to the Dimmer set. Tarantism had both members crammed inside the huge body and huger head of some enormous bald guy. Analog and digital electronics mixed with vocal/verbal comedy from the two performers. The sounds were nice, but everyone was a bit preoccupied by the entertainment of watching the performers try to turn knobs in their awkward costume. Good match/warm up for the upcoming Crank Sturgeon set. One half of the body was screaming to be released, then I closed my eyes to listen to the bleeps. I opened them upon hearing an outburst to see one of the bodies on the other side of the room. Xome delivered his usual excellent harsh noise set. It seemed like there were more varied sounds involved than what I'm used to from him, but it still had his characteristic intensity. I described Crank Sturgeon about 1500 words ago... In this loose party atmosphere, his comedic element was brought way to the forefront. It seemed like at least half the set was him rambling on about stuff. Great. PCRV did a harsh noise thing, which sort of paled in comparison to Xome. Still pretty good. I eventually got home and was surprised to see it was only 1:30 or so. Earliest Terminal show ever. Still pretty late, considering the music was supposed to start at 7... None the less, I was pretty wiped out after a long day of approximately 17 noise sets. BBQs are awesome, especially when combined with noise shows. Please schedule more.

Saturday night was Yumi Hara Cawkwell with the Jon Raskin Quartet at 21 Grand. Cawkwell opened the program with two vocal solos over a bed of field recordings. Relatively straight material based on Japanese melodies. Didn't really interest me. She got a little bit wilder in her short duo with Liz Allbee on conch shell. Making gargling and farting noises through a shell was about as far from the preceding songs as you could get – I welcomed the sharp turn. Then the three males of the group (Raskin, Robair and Cremaschi) did a short improv, followed by a number of pieces (mostly working from Raskin's graphic scores) by the whole quintet. I've seen this group (the proper quartet version) once or twice before and always really liked them. A fantastic merging of acoustic free improv and electronic sounds. Gino Robair was playing energized surfaces (percussion) and analog modular synth. His percussion style is based on techniques like bowing a paint stir stick held against a snare drum, blowing a small horn into a snare drum head and playing a floor while blowing into it to alter the pitch. Also more traditional (!) techniques like cymbal bowing. He also had a volume pedal which he would occasionally use to fade up his analog synth, which would popping, clicking and buzzing away. Cremaschi was his usual ferocious self on the double bass, and sometimes would move over to his table of electronics, which looked and sounded pretty close to a standard harsh noise set up. No attempt to integrate the electronic and acoustic sides of his playing (though he was playing bass through an amp), but that was totally fine with me. A pretty significantly different approach to the added electronics than Robair's, which kept them from being redundant. Raskin and Allbee kept things acoustic on their saxophones and trumpet, respectively. I remember Raskin doing a lot of glissandos/portamentos on his sopranino, and a particularly great moment where he made analog synth sputtering pops on his baritone (to match Robair's synth). Cawkwell mostly reinforced sounds with free jazz wailing a la Patty Waters. Great evening of music. Especially good to see Gino Robair, who doesn't seem to play in the Bay as often as I'd like him to.

Free Jazz Friday at 1510 8th St saw a pretty atypical cast of musicians. It was punk jazz night and performing were Sword & Sandals, Vholtz and Woman's Worth, who are all linked by shared members. Woman's Worth, a trio of alto sax, trumpet and drums, opened. They've really developed a lot over the last year or so that they've been playing – honing in and finding their sound while improving their instrumental abilities. They played three short pieces, all about 3 minutes in length (punk rock style), totally in a free jazz vein. Mostly free, arrhythmic playing, but there was one time when the drummer broke into a metered beat reminiscent of the title track on Out to Lunch. Their simple acoustic set up gave them a good sound. Vholtz was next. The fist time I've seen their newly expanded line-up with two alto saxes, two guitars and drums. They played pretty free and noisy stuff in a scripted out sequence of changing instrumentation. The saxes and drums stayed in the free jazz realm, while one of the guitars played highly amplified scratches and plonks and the other worked primarily with delay pedal noise. As the piece ended (or seemed to) and people applauded, the guitars came back with a Sunn/Earth style noise drone which was really good. I really liked the sounds and energy of the piece, and the changing orchestration really made it work. Sword and Sandals also had an expanded line-up, now with two alto saxes, drums and organ. I really like their attitude toward music. Pretty casual, but still focused. Working fully within the ranges of their abilities while using them to their fullest potential. I've said plenty of things about S&S in the past, so I won't say much here. Toward the end of the set the drummer broke into a sloppy half time shuffle beat which called to mind both Woman's Worth's earlier foray into sloppy rhythm and the explicitly stated punk rock theme of the evening. The organ player was completely inaudible for most of the set (surprising, since he was the only one with an amp), but the little I heard sounded really good. That little bit was a sustained Ligeti style cluster while the acoustic instruments moved into playing quiet sounds for a while. I don't think I've ever seen 1510 so full of people. There was great energy that night.

I made it over to Recombinant Media Labs to catch the last 4 minutes of Morton Subotnick's performance. Really pleasant digital pulsing sounds moving through a vague repeating chord sequence. Wish I would've heard a lot more.

Last Thursday was 21 Grand. A quintet of Mills students opened the night. Alto sax, drum set, double bass, voice and trombone. The best moments came when they got into droney timbral playing. Jordan Glenn on drums really seems at his best in that kind of situation, delicately striking cymbals and rubbing tom heads. Andy Strain really stood out with his fantastic trombone playing. My favorite moment of their set was, as the other players dropped away at the end of the last piece, he just kept on with a great multiphonic fog horn sound repeated over and over until he (and everyone) was satisfied. I expected the Shelton/Allbee/Walter trio to be good, but they were significantly different and significantly better than I expected. Mostly working from obviously effective scores by Aram Shelton, they kept things in a more controlled realm while still covering a lot of ground. It was nice to see Weasel double on bass clarinet for a significant portion of the concert. Great stuff. Bones (Bracken/Gordon) concluded the evening with a performance on amplified cymbals -- bowing, tapping, scraping.

That's the week.