Sightings w Tom Smith at Death by Audio

I showed up to this show and the place was, surprisingly to me, already full. Sometimes shows that are can’t-miss line-ups of legends in my mind have single-digit attendance so I’m not really able to predict these things. But I was happy to see that these bands are apparently not just legends to me.

I completely missed the first act, which was Tom Smith and Don Fleming playing together. Don Fleming is a longtime NYC avant-rocker and Tom Smith is best known as the central figure from the post-music band To Live And Shave In L.A. Tom currently resides in Germany and was briefly in the states around the holidays, playing a few select shows. So I’m sad to have missed their performance.

The second band, Child Abuse, was going on. No photos, I was in the back of the room and they wouldn’t have been good anyway. Child Abuse are a bass drums keyboard trio who play metally brutal prog. Very technical, very tight, but with very messy and grungy sounds. It’s funny actually, most of the time the keyboard sounds like a distorted bass and the bass (run through some synth pedals I’m guessing) sounds like a keyboard. They were as great as ever.

Then the anti-rock, max-confusion band Fat Worm of Error was up!

Fat Worm of Error at Death by Audio

Notice how it’s not even clear what’s going on in this photo? That’s how they sound, but much moreso. Of course 5 people just noodling and doing separate things would be pretty boring. Okay, maybe I’d think that was pretty cool too, but what makes Fat Worm really mind-bending is the way they have a plan and they’ve really honed their own style of playing – in a way that sounds like chaos at almost every moment. Until both guitarists suddenly play the same sequence of notes exactly together and your brain twists 360 degrees in your head in an attempt to figure out what just happened. More Fat Worm photos:

Fat Worm of Error after one of a few costume changes

Fat Worm of Error, feeling it at Death by Audio

I spent a little time chatting in the back room and realized this was almost like a reunion (to me) of people from a show waaay back – at the Polish National Home, now known as the Club Warsaw. Maybe I’ll write all my recollections from that show someday, but it’s where I first met lots of the people playing or in the audience. Anyway, with all these long-time friends and acquaintances in attendance, there was definitely a very friendly and supportive vibe going on. You could tell from all the chatting and joking and cheers, but also from the huge smile on Tom’s face between songs.

Tom Smith with Sightings at Death by Audio

Mark Morgan's guitar moves

Sightings were doing their thing, sounding as focused (yet blurred) as ever. I was told there was exactly one practice for this show but it would have been hard to guess they hadn’t been playing this set for a month on tour. Everyone seemed 100% in command, holding back or cutting loose exactly when needed with no nervous or puzzled glances. It’s a pretty perfect pairing too, Sightings and Tom Smith, as they both work in a similar mode: composed but loose, planned but spontaneous. Sightings works with sound shards and Tom works with words, both of them stretching their material to the breaking point.

Sightings w Tom Smith at Death by Audio

Mark Morgan of Sightings, bending spacetime

Sightings w Tom Smith (and Pat Murano!)

Oh yeah, this fellow named Pat Murano also played with these guys. You can see him lurking behind that synth in the photo above. I can’t say too much about his playing, which is probably a good thing because it means it blended right into the Sightings vibe.

The set was short but satisfying. Definitely worth catching, but if you missed it some people seemed to be videotaping and recording so hopefully that will turn up online soon. Great show all around!

Even more photos over at the NO-CORE Flickr.

Meager Sunlight/Skeleton Warrior split 12″

I’ve definitely listened to this record repeatedly the most times this year, just flipping and flipping it. One side dark synth jams that could have literally been major radio hits in 1988. Other side mutant synth jams part DEVO, part Oingo Boingo, part bizarro.
Get it from Hot Releases or More Records.

Unicorn Hard-On/Container split 12″

Unicorn Hard-On’s track “Persian Cats” is just about song of the year and makes this split worth it alone. the other UHO track is great too and Container does “minimal techno” or maybe “fake techno” AKA the genre that noise became in 2011.
Also from More Records and Hot Releases.

AIDS Wolf “Ma vie banale avant-garde”

Epic abstract harsh guitar tracks. Still torch-carriers of the no wave bad vibes.
Get it from Lovepump (free download by mailing SASE).

Mincemeat or Tenspeed “Games of Chance”

Best Mincemeat or Tenspeed album? More headbanging noise but freakier sounds and tighter changes. Davey (dude behind this project) calls this “fake techno” too but uh… this would definitely still be half on the noise side of the fence.
Get it from Harshnice.

White Suns “Waking in the Reservoir”

Ah, a refreshing blast of negative noise-grind-dirge to wash yourself clean from all that reverbey indie-hippie nonsense.
Get it from ugExplode.

Dead Rider “The Raw Dents”

Slick and skilled and unsettling and really kinda OFF in a weird way – all at the same time.
Get it from Tizona.

Gay Beast “To Smithereens”

As good as their last one “second wave” but this seems to have been overlooked by most people, maybe because the band split up before it came out and weren’t able to support & promote it. Compositionally ambitious prog/no wave.
Get it from Skin Graft.

Black Pus “Primordial Pus”

Rocking drum-n-noise numbers. Kind of unhinged and spontaneous compared to the Black Pus 4 album, but with more blood sweat and tears.
Get it from Load Records.

Dick Neff “Dunce Slap”

Okay, apologies to Black Pus, but I think Dick Neff one-upped him at the one-drummer-noise-band thing. Lance (dude behind this project) calls this “fake metal” and it is heavy. Triggered synth tones fight each other as he drums like a maniac and everybody wins! The heaviest metal band that’s neither metal nor band.
Get it from Lance himself, I guess whenever you see him somewhere.

Mutwawa “Mayan Mutations”

Totally ruling merger of beats, noise, samples with a sci-fi/conspiracy theme. Sinister and tense and mind-blowing awesome.
Download it free from Free Music Archive.

Skoal Kodiak “Kryptonym Bodliak”

This is like what I was hoping !!! would sound like, but didn’t. Post-apocalyptic funk played by mutants and malfunctioning robots.
Get it from Load Records.

Dog Leather “Greezy Man and Stinky Man”

So this album did seem kind of short and half the tracks felt a little like filler, but the meat of it was still great even if it’s really sort of an EP. It’s probably too much to hope that this heralds a return of the goofball pseudo-music noise bands – last heard from around the time when we had Danse Asshole, Meerk Puffy, Wolf Eyes’ first album on Bulb… But I can dream!
Get it from Ehse Records (free download available).

Satanized “Technical Virginity”

Pretty much no one else touching this caliber of complex, skilled, aggressive music today  (outside of metal).
Get it from Skin Graft.

Doomsday Student “A Jumper’s Handbook”

Most of the Arab on Radar crew reunite and make what’s basically more Arab on Radar music. Nary a disco beat in sight, just atonality, dissonance, shrill shrieky guitars and voices. Yeah, it’s been done, but it was done by most of these same guys and I kind of wish there were more people making this music so welcome back boys.
Get it from Anchor Brain.

Men’s Room tape

Like HEALTH in an AmRep world or something. Way, way blown out and effected-into-oblivion guitars with rock drums and unintelligible vocals. Sounds kind of like garage rock pushed into the red until it becomes industrial noise.
Download it free from Bandcamp.

last second entry: Bloodhuff tape

Just grabbed this tape literally yesterday! Some Providence noise girls doing something sort of like punk rock. Every once in a while something like this convinces me that maybe punk rock is still a good idea. The sound is pretty subterranean and the vocals are almost strangely prominent but the weirdness of the sound only helps. Urgent and weird and spooky. Hard to say if something I only listened to once yesterday has earned its place on a “best of” list, but I’ve got a hunch this is better than that Iceage album everyone raves about but I still haven’t heard.
Get it from Price Tapes (free download available).

The rest of the dates are as follows, including a Brooklyn show next weekend!

Mon 3 – Baltimore, MD @ Floristree
Tue 4 – Greensboro, NC @ CFBJ with Ear Pwr
Wed 5 – Cleveland, OH @ Now That’s Class with Cloud Nothings
Thurs 6 – Columbus, OH @ Skylab
Fri 7 Philadelphia, PA @ Pi Lam with Dustin Wong
Sat 8 – Providence, RI @ AS220
Sun 9 – Brooklyn, NY @ Death By Audio

10/20/11 – Brooklyn, NY @ Death By Audio
10/21/11 – Cleveland, OH @ Now That’s Class
10/22/11 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
10/23/11 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
10/24/11 – Iowa City, IA @ Gabe’s Oasis
10/25/11 – Lawrence, KS @ Replay Lounge
10/26/11 – Normal, OK @ Opolis
10/27/11 – Austin, TX @ 29th St. Ballroom @ Spide
10/28/11 – Denton, TX @ Rubberglove
10/29/11 – Hot Springs, AR @ tba
10/30/11 – Birmingham AL @ Firehouse
10/31/11 – Athens, GA @ Farm 255

11/3/11 – Miami, FL @ Churchill’s
11/4/11 – Tampa, FL @ Crowbar
11/5/11 – Orlando, FL @ Will’s Pub
11/6/11 – Atlanta, GA @ 529
11/7/11 – Chapel Hill, NC @ Nightlight
11/8/11 – Harrisonburg, VA @ Festival Ballroom at JMU

11/10/11 – Washington DC @ Comet Ping Pong
11/11/11 – New York, NY @ 92Y Tribeca
11/12/11 – Binghamton, NY @ Pajama Kazama
11/13/11 – Boston, MA @ Church of Boston

All October dates w/ Henry and Hazel Slaughter; all November dates &
Halloween show w/ Unicorn Hard-On

And here’s AIDS Wolf playing a song at their practice space:

Kings of Convenience

Kings of Convenience “Declaration of Dependence” – I feel like I’ve heard of this but not sure. The band photo looks like the guys who got beat up in high school by Simon & Garfunkel. I’ll give this a few minutes. Oh wow, it SOUNDS like the guys who got beat up by Simon & Garfunkel. This makes Scarborough Faire sound like AC/DC. They even sound bored with the music themselves. Yup, every song is the same. Next.

The XX

The XX “x” – Oh no, I think this was something like the “buzzed about band of CMJ.” I don’t know if I can do this to myself… and you just know this band wanted to name themselves ‘X’ and then was like “What do you mean there’s already a band called ‘X’? Okay, then we’ll be ‘THE X’ … There is? You’re kidding me. Okay, ‘The XX” will have to do I guess…” Here goes: Oh, come on! You’re kidding me. This is exactly the same adult contemporary alterna-rock that’s been boring since 1995. Sounds basically like 10,000 Maniacs. I had this faint hope that this would actually be a rock band and surprise me. At least it doesn’t have the faux-feeling-it falsetto vocals, but that’s about the only redeeming feature here. Painfully boring and bland.

Hot Chip

Hot Chip “One Life Stand” – Another frequently mentioned band. I thought this would at least be a synth-pop guilty pleasure like The Faint or something. No such luck. Breathy sub-crooning and basically the same soft-rock music as all the others, even if it is technically “electronic.” The songs are slightly more memorable than the rest, and so far this comes out as my “favorite” by a narrow margin. Makes The Faint look like The Jesus Lizard.

Local Natives

Local Natives “Gorilla Manor” – More promising band photo? At least one of them is smiling and the others aren’t explicitly moping. Starts with that same sparkly U2 guitar schmutz, and pretty much continues in that vein. Like we really needed a (further) watered-down version of U2. Not much different from anything else I’ve heard so far.

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend “Contra” – Not too different from Paul Simon’s “Graceland” – right down to the vocal delivery which sounds like an indie boy’s best attempt at impersonating Paul Simon.

To be continued! Yes, there’s more… I’ll be sure to post up some awesomeness and positivity before the next round.

taken at the Dog Leather show at Silent Barn

In case you hadn’t heard, the DIY music and art venue The Silent Barn has fallen on hard times. This place, located in Ridgewood, Queens (just beyond Bushwick, Brooklyn) has been the place I’ve most frequently gone to see shows. They’ve hosted some fantastic events I’ve helped organize, like 2 Int’l Noise Conference On Tour shows. They’ve been huge supporters of noise/weirdness music. It’s the venue I’ve felt most at home at.

Over this past weekend the Silent Barn was burgled, ransacked, and vandalized. They estimate that $15,000 worth of sound equipment was stolen, not including personal items. (The cats are safe!) On top of this, there are further legal challenges. As a DIY space, the Silent Barn would have to make huge investments in money and time to recover and operate as a legit, secure, fire code compliant and legal space. I am overjoyed to announce that the Silent Barn operators are NOT packing up, but are taking this opportunity to make that goal a reality. Now you can help! You can donate to the cause via Kickstarter. I INSIST that you give if you can. You can hit that link or see the widget at the bottom of this post.

…and now at the risk of getting really sappy. The people running the Silent Barn have not been doing it to make money. They are all genuinely nice people who have just wanted to create special and memorable events and a sense of community. A situation like this can be incredibly disheartening, and can make one feel like everything you’ve invested in and worked toward has been destroyed. That is not true. When you make investments in friends and community, that cannot be stolen. The Silent Barn is not just a place for kids to party, places like this make the city a richer, more attractive, and safer place to live. Mayor Bloomberg should be handing them a check every week for the service they provide. The Silent Barn is asking for $40,000. Let’s blow that out of the water. Let’s make that thing hit $100,000. It appeared this morning and as of this moment is already at almost $6,000 and accelerating! If you cannot give money but live in the NYC area, you may be able to donate supplies or manual labor. Email silentbarn@gmail.com to be placed on the “willing to help” mailing list.

Some reviews I’ve written of shows at the Silent Barn are HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

On Saturday I dragged myself out to Outpost, a place around the corner from the Silent Barn, for the panel discussion with Phill Niblock, GX Jupitter-Larsen, Al Margolis, Katherine Liberovskaya, AMK, Rat Bastard, Gen Ken Montgomery, Damion Romero, and of course Ende Tymes organizer and long-time noisemaker himself, Bob Bellerue. The subject of the discussion was listed as “Street-level experimental music and the evolution of technology and culture.” That does sound like it could be a stuffy snooze-fest, but it was actually very UN-like some of the pretentious art school events I’ve seen. I almost forgot what it was like just to listen to artists talking about why they like doing what they do, without trying to convince anyone that they’re brilliant and totally deserve that grant or gallery show. Rat Bastard’s opinions also kept things lively, as he disagreed with the other panel members on most points.

John Mannion at Ende Tymes Fest

I didn’t catch the video screening on any of the days, but I did get back in time to catch John Mannion kicking off Saturday night. Speaking of doing a lot with a little, Mannion’s main instrument is an open box fan, to which he applies an amplified screwdriver and subway pass. A laptop and effects also play a role, but still, it’s fun seeing the noises being produced by the fan-playing.

KILT filled the room with some thick wall-to-wall sound. Phil Niblock was one of the more famous performers (I gathered) and had one of the bigger crowds. However, he really only sat at his laptop so there was nothing to see. The sounds were a thick and constantly shifting river of tones. It sounded cool, but I felt like it would be more appropriate in an art installation setting where people come and go, as there was no big change in the sound at any point and little to watch.

Sick Llama at Ende Tymes Fest

Sick Llama I’ve also never seen but heard the name pretty often. He made slow-motion echoed sounds sort of like… well, not entirely unlike a sick llama. GX Jupitter-Larsen, of Haters fame (a band which is sometimes just him so I’m not sure what the distinction is) did something or other with a suitcase that resulted in a heavy rumbling noise. The sound was nicely gritty and physical, but I do wish I could have gotten a better idea of how it was created.

Kyle Clyde at Ende Tymes Fest

Kyle Clyde had a simple set-up and sonic palette compared to some, but really sold it with a gripping performance. Then at the other end of the spectrum, and closing out Saturday night, Yellow Tears had the most elaborate set-up with TVs, remote video, bowls of water, keyboards, etc. I couldn’t quite tell if their performance-art-like show, which seemed to be all about … drinking pee? … was supposed to be dark and disturbing or just a goof. It did end with someone getting a pie in the face though.

My resolve and health were deteriorating by night 3, though the quality of the acts didn’t slip. But the heat and hours of breathing cigarette smoke were starting to make me ill, so I made Sunday a shorter night and probably missed some great stuff. I was told that Gen Ken Montgomery was awesome.

Mike Shiflet created a varied range of textured sounds, almost peaceful but never boring. Damian Romero somehow made the walls, floor, and ceiling vibrate with some intense frequencies. It felt like he’d turned the whole Silent Barn into a speaker which we were all inside of. I was really, really glad I caught the set by I’D M Thfft Able (that spelling might be close to correct…) which turned out to be another one of my favorites.

I'D M Thfft Able at Ende Tymes Fest

Much like Crank Sturgeon or john Mannion, I’D M has an approach where you can see how all the sounds are made. It’s simply contact-miked objects and improvised vocal sounds. But from that basic starting point, I’D M went way, way outside the box with his performance, creating some of the oddest, most surprising, and harshest sounds (his amplified scratching down a chalkboard made one audience member cover her ears and run to the back of the room). At various points he stumbled around, dropping and rolling bowling and billiard balls while singing stream-of-consciousness phrases. I wasn’t the only one impressed and I think he got the wildest cheers and applause of all the acts.

ID M Thfft Able at Ende Tymes

This overview is seriously incomplete, but this YouTube user, mathgrind, got far more and better videos than anything I got. I’m embedding a playlist of his Ende Tymes videos below, in no particular order. Please feel free to add other links in the comments.

Twisty Cat at Ende Tymes Fest

When I got there on Friday evening, TwistyCat were going on. They’re locals who do cool free-horns through effects sounds. It’s not the harsh skronk of Borbetomagus, but it’s also not drone stuff. Somewhere in between. Vertonen did a fun set that ended with a feedback noise jam over Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” which (I’m pretty sure) just happened to start coming through his radio.

Crank Sturgeon at Ende Tymes Fest

Crank Sturgeon is one of the scene veterans and someone I’d never seen before, so this was a real treat for me. My personal tastes also lean toward the absurdist/low-brow/dada, which had a smaller representation at the Ende Tymes, so this performance was very welcome. In addition to all that, I am always impressed when someone can do a LOT with a LITTLE. Sure, you can make some mean noise with a laptop, table full of effects pedals, modular synth and mixer – but can you put on an amazing noise show with TWO TIN CANS AND A STRING?

After the above segment, Crank Sturgeon proceeded to stretch packing tape across the venue and back (contact miked, which sounded amazing), strung up a violin from the center and did some kind of performance piece that seemed to be about him ejaculating cotton ball “clouds” onto a packing tape “sky.”

MV Carbon put in a good set of mutant sounds made with effects and a cello. (Was that instrument a cello? I don’t even know.) Bran (…) Pos was really cool to watch, creating noise from processed vocal sounds along with processed video of himself making the vocal sounds.

The Rat Bastard Experience also brought the low-brow in a big way. The Experience was comprised of all of the members of Cellular Chaos with Rat on guitar, C Lavender on a radio or something, and Nondor Nevai on “vocals.” And by “vocals” I mean freaking out and tackling people while sometimes holding a microphone.

Rat Bastard Experience at Ende Tymes Fest

ISA Christ actually did bring a strong rhythmic element in, but run through a suitcase-of-noise-gear. And Hex Breaker Quartet closed out Friday night with their heavy psych-drone. Filling the position in the NYC scene vacant since Double Leopards?

Part 2 coming soon!