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.

Stellar 30 minute tape from Richmond, Virginia’s Gameboy-freakout noise artist Brian Blomerth, aka Narwhalz. Having heard his earlier stuff, I can tell you that this tape shows a much more evolved and refined Narwhalz.

Maybe someone reading this has seen Narwhalz perform before. This reader may wonder how I can use words like “evolved” and “refined” to describe an artist whose performances involve rolling on the floor while punching Gameboy buttons, humping Pomeranian stuffed animals, repeated “technical difficulties,” and periods of extended, rambling, semi-surrealist, self-deprecating monologues that approach a form of MySpace-culture beat poetry. Meanwhile, the music is a torrent of chaotic videogame sounds in a fast-forward jumble.

These points are noted. However, just listen to this tape. There is an ebb and flow to this chaos. Long periods (relatively) of repetitive sounds almost start to hypnotize you before things explode and insanity breaks out. Then there’s some time to catch your breath, the music settles down and starts to sound almost pretty, or Brian shares some words of wisdom before the next round. Then you start to notice that the music has the same pacing and flow as everything Brian writes, and everything he draws as well. Nothing is quite as random as it seems here. A lot of care has gone into putting the sounds on this tape together.

For another thing, unlike earlier recordings I have, this one is all at the same volume level, or at least it gets loud only when it’s supposed to get loud. I also like how the vocals are mostly obscured by distortion, letting you believe that maybe he’s screaming about some truly HARSH power electronics shit. Then there’s one very clear part where he addresses Snoopy and you realize it’s actually the same bizarre nonsense it always has been.

Bottom line, if you have seen Narwhalz and you thought it was amazing then you’ll love this tape. It edits down and distills all the best sounding stuff and most successful moments. If you saw Narwhalz and thought it was the most inane bullshit ever, this tape JUST MIGHT CHANGE YOUR MIND … maybe. Probably not. On Flish Records, nice yellow tape and full-color illustrated art.

http://www.myspace.com/narwhalsofsound
http://www.myspace.com/flishrecords