NO-CORE blog

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.

The weekend before last I caught a good portion of the epic Ende Tymes Fest at the Silent Barn in Queens. This is far from a complete overview, but I did catch most of the acts and got a few good photos and videos, so I’m going to post them up in parts. This was a 3-day, all-noise event with several long-time veterans of the noise scene represented. And when I say noise, I don’t mean just the “anything goes” stuff, but specifically the rhythm-free, note-free, harsh sound variety.

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!

In April of 2008, Lauren Boyle toured as a member of the Laundry Room Squelchers, Rat Bastard’s free-noise band. Along the way she interviewed and videotaped a number female noise artists, including Leslie Keffer, Val of Unicorn Hard-On, Nancy Garcia, Heather Young of HNY and Social Junk, and many more. The interviews and select performances were edited down to make this 35-minute film, “GUTTER: Girls of Noise.” Lauren has kindly allowed me to be the very first to present it online. Caution: check your volume, this film starts right out with some intense Squelcher noise. Enjoy!

Clang Quartet at INC2011 in Miami, photo by Valerie Martino

As of right now, the podcast side of No-Core has an interview with Clang Quartet. I don’t usually double-post items like this, but just in case there are some people following the blog who aren’t following the podcast, I thought I should point it out here. The summary goes like this: “Scotty Irving AKA Clang Quartet is an incredibly nice, honest, and humble guy who is also one of the most – maybe THE most – captivating and intense noise performers around. He is also a very devoted Christian whose religious beliefs play a central role in his performance. Just to head off some potential comments, I’d like to point out that though I’m an atheist and we do mention this difference, this was not intended as a debate. I mainly wanted to let Scotty explain how his beliefs motivate what he does and just get a picture of what he’s like as a person and an artist.”

GO PODCAST-SIDE AND CHECK IT OUT!

Get the latest Clang Quartet tape from Hanson Records.
Follow or contact Clang Quartet on Facebook.

Neg-Fi at Silent Barn 03/13/11

I am hereby going to dub Neg-Fi “The most punctual band in New York City.” Even though they did cut an agreement with the organizers to start a few minutes after their designated time and put in what, for them, qualifies as an epic set (20 minutes?), I’m pretty sure no other band is in the running for this title. I’m always using the word minimal to describe Neg-Fi’s music, but I don’t think that’s really the right word, because they’re always plenty loud and fill the room with sound. It’s just such tightly scripted and executed music. Punctual is actually closer. Or maybe maximal.

E.I.D. at Silent Barn 03/13/11

This was one of the Silent Barn’s upstairs-downstairs shows, and downstairs the one-man noise project E.I.D. (Explosive Improvised Device) was going on. This contact mic harsh noise has been around almost 20 years now if you think about it, though it seems to be less popular at the moment and I think E.I.D. is too early for a retro resurgence – but he’s definitely carrying the flame.

The sounds here were actually really varied and dynamic. Lots of quiet-loud moments. More like a Masonna without the vocals than a C.C.C.C. or something. My only complaint: protective gloves! Does Masonna wear kneepads? Does Lucas Abela put masking tape on the edges of his glass? Bleeding for your noise is just part of the HARSHness, dude. Okay, okay, I’m giving E.I.D. a hard time, but there’s just something about a guy doing the full-on, serious noise thing (in a Macronympha T-shirt no less) that begs for a little heckling. But for real, I was impressed by how good this sounded.

Benn Miller at Silent Barn 03/13/11

Back upstairs was Benn Miller, who played a table full of fun, ancient-looking stuff. Cassette tapes, loop station, reel-to-reel, old synthesizer, and saxophone run through effects. There was also a drummer who did a good job of playing along, keeping things loose enough so that the oddball sounds could run free, and just tight enough to add a little rock. My only complaint here is that all the stuff could have been turned up because the drums were by far the loudest part.

Deathcrush at Silent Barn 03/13/11

Then Deathcrush (from Norway I discovered) played, and at first I honestly thought this was just terrible, but I was totally won over by the end. So many things made it seem like this was going to be awful. First, I’m always skeptical of bands that seem like they spent more time getting their hair, make-up and clothes right than their music. (male or female of course) Deathcrush came out of the gate with rock star “attitude” and “moves,” accompanied by completely un-tuned guitars and beyond rudimentary technique. (except the drummer who clearly had some solid skills) My first impression was that this band did all their song-writing and practicing in front of a mirror with non-functioning prop instruments, and this was the first time they’d been handed the real thing to use. It was like they thought they were in Def Leppard but came out sounding more like… The Dead C?

Deathcrush at Silent Barn 03/13/11

But as I watched, I found I did a complete 180 in my thinking. First I thought: if they were pulling out rock star moves and sounding like Def Leppard, would that be better? No way, that would be terrible. If they sounded like a sludgy & dirgey noise-rock band but spent the show crouching over their amps and staring at their feet, would that be better? Again, no way. Then at some point they did this one song and by some combination of willpower and magical happenstance it sounded perfect. Even when the guitarist was holding up her guitar and gesturing to her tourmates that a new string was needed, feedback howling away and sounding no different than it was when she was furiously doing something with it a minute ago – there was this great semi-melodic vortex of sound going on, like a Venus in Furs moment – and I officially changed my mind. The headbanging into the audience finale sealed the deal. Deathcrush were kind of awesome.

Paranoid Critical Revolution at Silent Barn 03/13/11

The Paranoid Critical Revolution, usually a duo, played without their drummer, who I’m told had quit the band. So it was just member Reg Bloor playing guitar. Reg also plays in Glenn Branca’s guitar orchestra, and on her own she sounds like a whole orchestra of guitars. I don’t really know how it’s done, but using an amp that doesn’t look all that big, she can blow out any eardrums in the room. Earplugs take a ton of the treble away, but it still sounds hellishly loud.

We’d had a brief conversation about black metal before the show started and with that in my mind, I couldn’t help thinking how Reg’s style is kind of black metal. The super-fast strumming with little notes picked out of a hurricane of white noise. It’s like part black metal, part no wave, and part nuclear holocaust.

Because of some overlap, I only caught the end of Altaar’s set. They also had thoroughly filled the room with smoke-machine fog, so my point and shoot camera was useless. This was the band that had been described as black metal, but we Americans do know a thing or two about our metal genres, and just because a band is from Norway does not make them black metal. I’d put this firmly in the sludge/doom metal category. Maybe with a noise-rock bent, given all the pedals in use. So what I saw was about 10 minutes of slow, heavy, thudding noise-dirge – which it wouldn’t really be fair to judge these guys on, as it was probably just the triumphant climax to an epic show. I’m going to assume that’s the case.

Satanized at the Cake-Shop

The Cake-Shop is one of the last places left in Manhattan that I still go to for shows, with virtually every other show happening in Brooklyn these days, but it’s also just about my favorite place for shows. They’ve got coffee and yes, cake!, and awesome records to browse, and the downstairs show space is great. And of course they host awesome shows like this one, which deserved a far larger crowd than it got.

White Suns at the Cake-Shop 2/27/11

The White Suns opened things up with their thunderous noise/rock. For some reason, this sounded better than any previous time I’ve seen them. Things can sometimes sound pretty indistinct when you’ve got 3 different people making 3 different grinding and/or screeching noises, but I could distinguish everything that went into the formula this time. While watching them, it occurred to me that while they look like a rock band, this is really a noise band with some rock instrumentation. They do scripted songs, but elements like rhythm or, um, melody? (ha ha) are distant seconds to sheer noise terror.

Drums Like Machine Guns at the Cake-Shop 2/27/11

Drums Like Machine Guns are a long-time favorite. They’re generally a mixture of oddball experiments and howling, head-banging beats-&-noise. To be honest, this show was noticeably less intense than I’ve seen from them. I mean, these dudes always sound great, but they’ve set the bar pretty damn high for themselves with past performances. On the other hand, they did some different stuff, possibly knowing that most of the people in attendance had seen them several times before – and that’s a good choice too.

Satanized at the Cake-Shop 2/27/11 - 2

Satanized at the Cake-Shop 2/27/11 - 3

Satanized pushed things to new extremes with their music, becoming more obtuse and perplexing than ever. Which is meant as a high compliment, in case you don’t know me very well. Satanized are both heavy-bottomed and high-ended. The chugging bass and heavy, complex drums almost sound like they’re operating in a different dimension than the super-shrill guitar, which sounds like equal parts Mick Barr and Big Black. I’m used to Alex’s maxed-treble guitar sound, but he did some harmonics things this time that went into dog-whistle territory.

Cellular Chaos at the Cake-Shop 2/27/11

I hadn’t seen Cellular Chaos before, but since I’m almost always into Weasel Walter’s projects, it’s no surprise I thought they were great. It’s nice to see Weasel playing guitar too, and some of the heavy-handedness of Lake of Dracula is definitely present, but it’s also nice how there was subtlety and complexity involved too. All the members of this group are definitely players, but mercifully un-showy ones. There were moments of freakout improv and moments of rigid tightness, on-a-dime switches between the two, and times when it wasn’t entirely clear what was happening. Unclear to the audience that is, but the band was in command at all times.

All around great show, killer line-up from start to finish.

Satanized on MySpace
Drums Like Machine Guns
White Suns
Cellular Chaos

this show brought to you by the number 8

This show got far crazier than any I’ve seen in Brooklyn recently. (okay, technically the Silent Barn’s in Queens) The headliners here were a super-group merger of Sewn Leather and Dog Synth/DJ Dog Dick – both dudes who trade in weird noise/beats mergers – into one band known as DOG LEATHER. Somehow this duo seems instantly more popular than both of those guys together, which seems weird but makes sense. This is just an idea that as soon as you hear it, you know it’s going to be amazing. Everyone came to this show just knowing it was going to be amazing. And it was. Things got kind of crazy. How crazy?

That crazy. Now let me back up and mention some of the other stuff. The first act, filling in for Shams who had to cancel, was Guardian Alien. I recognized these people from other Brooklyn acts but hadn’t seen this one yet. Improvised blast beats, some kind of stringed instrument that sounded somewhere between a lap steel and a sitar, and some free vocals and interpretive dance. That combination might sound like it could go either way, but this had tons of energy and ended long before it needed to. (always good)

Guardian Alien at Silent Barn

Then came Buddy Bag, who played really, reeeeaally rudimentary sludge rock. So caveman-style that the drummer just dropped 2 toms flat on the floor and played with one drum stick and one random big piece of wood. Depending on who you are, you might think that sounds like it would be either awesome or horrible.

Buddy Bag at Silent Barn

Then came Narwhalz (of sound), whose performances I always look forward to. They generally involve a combination of confusion, technical difficulties, freakouts, and “crowd work.” Narwhalz plays Gameboy programming that has been sounding heavier and noisier every time I see him. In fact, this time things sounded so blown out and distorted that it wasn’t clear what parts were the buzzing and popping of a faulty connection or the intended sound.

Narhwalz (of sound) at Silent Barn

For reasons I couldn’t make sense of at the time, the crowd just went nuts for him! Not that they shouldn’t, and I’ve definitely seen a crowd of like-minded friends go nuts in Philly to Narwhalz once, but I usually expect something like this (from the last time I saw him play Silent Barn):

Narwhalz at Silent Barn 06-23-10

but instead the crowd did this:

Narwhalz mosh pit at Silent Barn 02-17-11

A nice surprise. In retrospect I think the combination of a generally excited audience and a few in-the-know instigators is the combination that triggered this. Up next was Nonhorse (Or is it Non-Horse?) which is G Lucas Crane’s tape manipulation project. It’s super-fun to watch, as he juggles multi-colored tapes spilling out of a suitcase and works a pair of cassette players (with some effects) like an expert DJ would cut records.

Nonhorse at Silent Barn

And then Dog Leather was up.

The Dog half of Dog Leather at Silent Barn

Their show was actually something of a slow build, starting with a mish-mash of noises before breaking into some of their rap songs. Set to blown out beats, primitive electronic sounds, and not-quite-on-the-beat samples, all mashed together into a fuzzy wall of noise – but yeah – rap songs. Rapping that sounded kind of like Skinny Puppy vocals, but still.

The Leather half of Dog Leather at Silent Barn

And it just got wilder and wilder. A sledgehammer appeared. A chair appeared. And then a gigantic number 8 appeared. Lots of crowd-surfing happened. My show-organizer instincts almost kicked in several times, but I resisted the urge to remove objects or take down boot-swinging crowd-surfers when I noticed that the people primarily responsible for the chaos were all the people who lived at the Silent Barn! They were loving it. EVERYONE was loving it. I didn’t see anyone in there who wasn’t laughing and smiling even while they were getting knocked over and piled upon. We all knew this was absurd and ridiculous and goofy and the best thing ever. The perfect antidote to the self-conscious, second-guessing, people-watching attitude that NYC has a bad reputation for.

And I leave you with a video of a Dog Leather song from early in their set, before things got quite so out of hand (though you can tell people are already rocking to it). This video strangely came out sounding really good.

bbigpigg "Phantom Photography"

*****UPDATE: This album now available for free download at http://www.bbigpigg.com/bp.html GET IT!*****

Bbigpigg are an NYC band and this is their debut 5-song EP. This is noise-rock that falls just about halfway between what I call noise-rock (music with rock beats, but incorporating real dissonant sounds or noise) and what some other people call noise-rock (loud edgy rock in the vein of the Jesus Lizard or somesuch). Shrill and tweaked guitars stab at you, but unlike some other modern No Wavers, this is anchored to a rock-solidly skilled rhythm section. Like… Shellac playing Arab on Radar covers? If you like Satanized or Microwaves you’ll probably want to check these guys out.

Let me get one complaint out of the way. For some reason I never like pig-themed things so I’m not into the band name. It might just be me. (I also don’t like songs about volcanos. Can’t say why.) I do think the curious spelling is going to throw people off though. I kept typing it in as bbiggppigg. Nope, the letters in the middle are not doubled. It’s bbigpigg. I never liked Boss Hogg’s name either (similarity intentional?) but somehow I got over it.

I caught a show by these guys last weekend and it sounded great live, and I was impressed by the one-slide-on-each-hand guitar technique. (not present on this album?) I think I caught more atypical time signatures going on at the show too. In fact my favorite track on this is the last one, “Foxx the Fox” where one guitar is playing in threes, the other in fives, and I couldn’t quite pick up on what the drummer and bassist were doing but it was something weird. It makes for a constantly shifting mess – of the best kind imaginable. And it makes me want to listen again so I can figure it out. That counts as a big win in my book.

http://www.myspace.com/bbigpigg
Contact bbigpigg-AT-gmail to get a copy.

I’ve returned from this year’s International Noise Conference exhausted but alive. If you don’t know, this is an epic annual event in Miami FL hosted by Rat “King of Noise” Bastard. Somehow, despite flying amps and tables, indoor fireworks, mosh pit pile-ups, and of course ear-splitting noise, Churchill’s (the venue) continues to allow this event to go on. Over 100 bands each play 15 minutes or less. (Full line-up HERE)

I shot some short videos when I could. If I didn’t get video of something, it might mean I had to eat, sleep, use the bathroom, get ready to play, or that a band didn’t stand in the light and nothing would have shown up anyway. Instead of posting each video separately, I made this playlist. Use the little tabs on each side to skip through the videos, and click that little tongue icon between Play and Volume to access the video list. It’s kinda sorta in chronological order.

There were a number of friends and regulars who dropped out this year, sadly. No Head Molt, Drums Like Machine Guns, Abiku, Loop Retard. But there was still too much amazing stuff to catch everything. At the risk of omitting tons of mind-blowing stuff, I’ll mention a just a few of the highlights:

Night Burger! Every person in the house was rocking out to this by the end. My video does NOT do the sound justice, sadly. When this set was over, everyone was on a total high, smiling from ear to ear and looking at each other all wide-eyed like “Did you just hear what I heard?!”

Time Ghost! I’d never seen this dude before, but in addition to sounding awesome, his show looked amazing with some kind of light-triggered or maybe light-linked synth sounds and his head and face covered in baby oil for maximum shiny-ness. And my video of this one actually turned out pretty good!

Leslie Keffer’s bouncer skills! Angry army dude was clearly not a noise fan, but he sure seemed to like the Cock ESP set and took it as an excuse to jump in with some destruction of his own. In a way, it’s weird and funny when someone really doesn’t get what’s happening, except that it can also be really uncool. I guess a Cock ESP set might look to someone like it’s free-for-all time, but it’s actually not, and when the show is over, it’s over. And when it was over, army dude decided he still wanted to try to bust in some of Churchill’s amps, stick a bottle up Emil’s ass, and then try to talk up C Lavender. Enter Leslie, stage left, who used some kind of snake charmer hypnosis to wordlessly walk Army Dude straight out the side door and shut it behind him. I was impressed.

There definitely was a trend toward dark synth-rock, always with some noise mixed in. Daily Life, which featured both Kites and Lazy Magnet’s Jeremy Harris as members, was a prominent example of this. But I’d like to say that the real trend was “taking it up a notch.” Everyone who I’ve seen at past INCs put in the best show I’d seen by them ever! Seriously. Blue Shift for example? How amazing did that sound? Dick Neff? INC really is a kind of conference, where everyone brings their A-Game and everyone leaves inspired and with fresh ideas to implement. Next year’s going to rule.

I’ll add some links when I find more good stuff online. Please send me whatever you’ve got or leave a comment! The NOISEBLOID blog (http://noisebloid.blogspot.com) has also promised more emerging photos, videos, and gossip from INC.

If you’re into any kind of weird music and you live in the state of Florida then you probably knew this already, but the annual International Noise Conference event kicks off tonight at Churchill’s in Miami. I will be there and will try to post up some news, photos, and videos in a timely manner. I’ll also be twittering real-time INC news from the No-Core twitter profile http://www.twitter.com/xnocorex

As a special present for you, I’ve put up a widget on the No-Core front page (http://www.no-core.net) that will run recent posts with the #INC2011 hashtag on a loop. In fact, I’ll stick it at the end of this post too. I’d also recommend following @unicornhardon (Val Martino) and @noisebloid (Leslie Keffer) to get all the latest dirt.

Early buzz revolves around this “apology” video from regular INC star Loop Retard.

Is Loop Retard really not going to make it to INC, or is this just poking fun at all the acts who have been billed and then dropped out?