IS kicked off the show with a nice little pedal noise set. Blake said to mention that he had some nice grizzly ass stuff when he had the mic thing in his mouth and lurching over the table. Soliday and solotroff were up next. Soliday started things out by dragging a metal thing across the floor and processing it through stuff and solotroff brought the feedback so much that the speakers overheated and they jammed it through the subwoofer. Vertonen came out next. He made some fuzzy blurpy noisy things with a big purple pedal and some other fancy equipment. He copped stelzer’s jank by ending the set with a tape deck magic trick. Then i came out and played too quiet through a pocket amp and sucked it.
i thought i had accidently left my camera at blake's condo so i didn't get any photos of the show..but then i realized that i didn't leave the camera at blake's condo and i took my shirt off and took some post show photos
Next day i had brunch with philip vz and his friend who is moving to richmond and we ate some good food at BITE and i ran into this girl abby who i know from boston. pvz and i talked about girls and music on the way to get rice milk.
Detroit (talbot).
Blake and i made a stop in the middle of michigan to give pat from SNSE his copies of the demons/vertonen LP. We met his wife and two really awesome dogs. i peed behind the general store.
It was at this store that i discovered that pabst comes in 40oz format. We arrived at the “get lost house” and loaded ourselves into the basement where we’d be playing. Slither (a two piece band consisting of heath andchris who run the venue and make nice drawings) started things out with some processed thumb piano and zither then shifting into some sax and clarinet abuse.KLVTS performed next with greh rubbing a plastic bag over a mic and charlie manipulating the sound and adding layers of other noisy things over it. It was pretty cool. Then blake. .. err vertonen ... played next. He did his thing and he did it through deathroes’ PA system (run by this dude dan who had an offensive joke throwdown with blake and supplied us with some fresh material for the road). The PA was pretty kick ass and made blake’s music stuff sound larger than life. I took off my shirt and played next. i brought some big big low rumbly feedback and scratchy bumpy sounds and mike from wolf eyes/hair police said something like it was “woah dude weird sounds and cool”. Then deathroes (gerrit and sixes combo) played behind fog and strobe lights and it was loud and dense and i was dancing around to it a little bit. Then we slept on
the floor and woke up and read some old penthouse and playboy (1970s)
magazines and it was raining really really raining.
(pabst 40oz)
Columbus
Blake and i showed up in Columbus earlyish and started our tour long rummy game. Then we got into the venue and it was an art opening for kate csigill and she made stuff that reminded me, sort of, like paper radio/fort thunder type art including a big vagina type thing called “the guilt catcher” that you shot poker chips into with a slingshot. For his set Blake brought out thecalifone for the first time on the tour. Then i played and did like a bad jessica rylan vocal impression and it was pretty terrible. Then kate and leslie and another woman played a chaotic disco singy thing and people were like “wooooohooooo” and then a bat flew into the window and i was like “shit”. Then the real fun began. Aaron who booked the show busted out his hula hoops and showed off his sick hoopingskillz . Laura who painted my face earlier in the night also hooped. Aaron is aiming to break the world record of hula hooping and it’s pretty rad. Then we slept a couple of floors below the venue in this pretty interesting apartment that was probably once an old office and they had a bunch of manikins and stuff and a real life tarantula and some old school porn on thetv and this really nice dude lived there and let us crash and i woke up at like 7am to someone’s alarm and got up and shut it off cause he or she wasn’t home.
Philadelphia
We left for philly at like nine something cause it’s a 7 hour drive. We got to philly and continued our rummy game and blake continued to kick my ass. The jesse kudler showed up with tim and sarah and we ate some vietnamese food. the venue was nice and had AC pumping through it. The dude who runs the venue (bowerbird) already had the line up decided cause he was all worried about some jazz critics showing up for the jack wright trio. Blake played first.
Then i played and accidentally knocked off some ofblake’s equipment from the table. Then jack wright played with toshi and a tall bass player who looked kinda like claire’s boyfriend on 6 feet under. They kicked some free improv and it was good to see jack play again. Toshi really brings it on the jazz kit. Then HZL played in the front room cause they play quad and needed to set up the chairs around the table. They made some nice sounds with guitars and electronics and short wave radios and it was nice. Then we went to a diner afterjesse took, like, forever to try and get a photo up on myspace. The next day we introduced blake to “curb your enthusiasm” (this being after the 4 hours it took jesse to get out of his bedroom and get us some damn breakfast and coffee).
Then we had time for one game of bowling balls and blake was all mad cause he really fucked up his game. He still won..jesse lost. Jesse showed us his balls at one point and they are pretty big...but i put him to shame after showing him my baby dolls. It was a lot of fun hanging out with jesse and the gang.
i didn't really get a good photo of blake at the philly show
(blake interjection)
and the bowling was particularly lame because the lead-in to the lane was
like 4 feet long, so I could not figure out what the hell was going on (ie,
I was running out of space for my wind-up, as it were. Plus the lane oil was completely stupid; people were breaking hard and it took more than a few throws to try and figure out how to account for that disaster.) Yes, I’m a bowling dork, that’s how I roll.
the kud
(new jersey, talbot resuming)
Then we got in the car and drove to new jersey. Blake and i listened to a special philly to brooklyn via jersey mix that was “no sleep til brooklyn” and then just that song over and over. We had a total possee show up in jersey. David and terri and mariette and chris wolf all trained it from ny. Seth cluett and scott smallwood
made a surprise show up and we were like “yeah dudes!!!!!”. The venue was another basement show. They had a crazy lightning bolt type ton-of-speakers PA set up. Dan who lives at the joint played first ... he shook the house (i really thought some windows were gonna break) and he was rad. Thenkevin (who had some real nice bold tattoo work including some dan higgs flash) played as 2673 and brought the noise pretty pretty good but maybe a little too short of a set? Then i busted some jams. Then blake busted some nice jerky cutty jams that were nice and a bit different than the other sets.
(blake intervention here)
post show, we crashed with chris wolf, his woman, and two kick ass cats. In addition to being a generally upstanding citizen, he treated us as hospitable as an army,
let alone one person, could. What a swell fellow, and regrettable we didn’t have more time to hang out due to obligations north...
(back to talbot)
We took the day off at my parents crib in scituate, ma (three blocks form the atlantic ocean). My mom made some burgers and mac & cheese and salad and mashed potatoes and a bunch of my peeps came down to bro down (chris “pillars” page, jen ko, jamie g. and her rad boyfriend will, my brother and sister and her man mike and my nephew jake). we busted out the croquet set that blake brought along and set it up in the backyard. Then we walked down to the lighthouse and looked for whales.
(tag back to blake)
After a day off with talbot’s folks in lovely scituate we creeped up to Maine to hang with mr crank sturgeon and lay down some sound for the folks at strange maine; the store has about 6,000 vhs tapes, a stockpile of records, and a decent slap of books as well. They had some pretty killer sinister cinema flicks as well as a nice slathering of horror withbarbara steele, horror queen supreme, end of discussion. Crank opened the night with a (literal) undulating head piece (spring loaded) that delivered alternating distortion and jangling pile of cans sound. He then entered a narrative based on a photo of a small child (two; one sorta happy and one sorta not so happy) while acasio kicked out some drum machine choke and he strangled a guitar. The narrative was based (if I recall correctly) on three personas / personalities / ego levels. I went up next and aimed for a similar flavor as the NJ show since I wanted to have a little more breathing room in my sound amassing (akin to talbot’s sputter and gargle turntable scrape and brush); I started with said sounds, phasing and blurping crackles with some clips of feedback, then evolved into the louder static discharge and eventually a drone that faded out as the turntable river slowly ground to a halt; I was pretty happy with the set, although the ending was probably the strongest component. Talbot took the floor next and brought one of his better distortion sets; a combo of good squall and squeal balanced by some deep ugly (in the best way possible) basswaverings and clipped crackle. Bad Bus, a collective (including crank) ranging between 5 and 7 people, mixed up some vocal-based drones, electronic fever dreams, percussion, woodwinds, bells, thumb piano (second thumb piano sighting on tour, please note), and other assorted electronic and non-electronic devices. Their sounds at times reminded me of a cross between Crass’s “ten notes on a summer’s day” 12”ep (the one recording that pretty much sounds nothing like Crass) and parts of Psychic TV’s “Temporary Temple” LP. If neither of those recordings mean anything to you, think a cross between really weird folk-esque music, heavy percussive jams, and odd electronics and call it a night, Doris.
After a relaxed morning with crank (which included a delicious home-cooked
breakfast, his kick ass cat, and some banjo and guitar jams on the balcony) we took a sojourn with the sturgeon to the ocean and sat by “the giant steps” a huge outcrop of rocks that go to the ocean. We hung out on some equally amazing outcroppings and jason and crank talked a lot about their shared art school experiences while i just laid on my back and enjoyed the free time.
Providence
We departed vacation land and hauled down to my former stomping grounds, Providence, RI! Everyone warned us that finding the venue would be hard, and even with Crank’s delectable map to aid to themapquest fun we ended up calling diagram A. However, i will say to our credit that before we heard back from Mr. A the house we suspected as the venue was indeed the venue.
(jason taking over)
We dropped off our shiznit and headed out for some pizza and rummy where blake continued to trump my ass. we returned to the venue and got ready for the jams. Aurlac opened the show with a vocal/drums duo. The vocalist ran through some echoey
effects and it was a nice and short set. Then lazy magnets came out with a classical guitar, piano, flute, drums, and metal some electronics. They played a pleasantly deceiving set that started out with a brutal metal and drums noise burst that stopped abruptly and allowed the quieter instruments to end the set with a pretty little
ditty.
Kites and diagram A came out next. kites rocked some homemade electronics and diagram A was armed with his impressive thing that i’ll let blake describe right here:
It’s pretty simple: an armada of cables and oscillators and distortion elements housed in two large metal and wood boxes with telephone components all over then that were used to kill circuit lines. Please note: this may not be a 100% accurate description.
They were loud and made use of multiple layers of noise and it worked out really well for a first time public meeting. I put my stuff on the floor and started out with some more low rumbly bass and scrapings..then brought in some of the loud and then
soft scrapings again. Blake brought the evening to a close with use of his full arsenal of califone , pedals (including a borrowed EXTRA pedal!) and kicked the jams right out the door. Also there were some dogs walking around the venue.
(blake back at the wheel)
after an extremely pleasant evening of chatting with mr diagram a and hanging out with ~his~ awesome cat (with thumbs, no less)
we made the run to rochester, a 5.5 hr drive along the scenic mass turnpike. We showed up pretty early (like 5) and ended up playing rummy for a couple more hours. I
had the good fortune to continue my attack. The space (a/v space) was reminiscent of green door in MI in that it also is in a farmer’s market. we started playing cards at a park bench in the market area and this security guy actually drove over to us (all of a 200 foot trip from his guard shack) and asked us to move to a different table so he can keep us on the video camera... anyway, the show started around 9 and the attendance was pretty thin; most people seemed to be there for the first guy, a young kid whose folks came to video record him. He did some of what I would consider pretty old-school noise; contact mics on scrap metal (a garbage can) and a dragged some sounds out of an old mixer (i believe that’s what it was); it was pretty good, but he seemed to have trouble finding an ending he liked. Next was a violin/voice and guitar duo; think along the lines of my bloody valentine and you’d be in the right ballpark; a lot of sonorous fuzz that was pretty pleasant.
Talbot started with some quiet scraping and bass feedback that was some of the best feedback he’d pulled; he was visibly annoyed (and understandably so) by a few people squeaking in their chairs but maintained a good level throughout that part of the
performance. He then switched into some high tone feedback and more tonearm scraping before slugging back into some “applied pressure” derived bass, at which point he signaled me on stage so we could do a little segue that actually worked pretty well; the purple viper oscillations and high hiss worked well with his bass rumblings—at least it seemed that way from where we were standing.
As Talbot faded out I brought in some gritty TT stuff; i had suffered some needle damage so it was more sandpaper than source material, but I was fine with the snap crackle pop action; besides, it soon got swarmed by shortwave and purple viper hiss and clutter. I wasn’t the happiest with this set; the ending really got away from me (i took an easy out of a feedback volume swell) but it wasn’t the most horrid thing that could have happened.
Joe from Carbon duoed with a friend; they had some sweeping oscillations and noise burst form Joe rolling on the floor and wrestling it out with a couple pedals. It
was a pretty short and sweet set with both lads playing well off each others’ sounds.
We spent the night in the gallery and awoke to the delicious smell of food being cooked at a handful of the food places in the farmer’s market.
After rochester, there’s really nowhere to go but pittsburgh, to hang out with a good chicago friend Matranga. We were supposed to play at an art space but there was an amazing and fairly delicate exhibit up so we played at the BPOE (Elk’s Lodge,
y’all) next door which was awesome.
First band started out of nowhere; I was actually on the back stairs and had to walk through them (sort of): guitar, drums, electronics, and a shortwave and trumpet player (who actually does stuff withMacronympha to boot). Their set was pretty solid but i wanted more breathing time / evolution; maybe the electronics could have soloed, or cut out for a while: I wanted more dialogue among the quartet, basically.
This fellow Michael was up next (who I’d played with in Pittsburgh maybe 4 years ago?) with his boxes; He had about 20 of them, and each looked like a lot of the 4ms
pedals (although he built them all himself); it was like an eviscerated
synth that he was modifying on the fly. A lot of nice sounds (good contrasting with the walls of noise we’d been hearing) ranging from dripping water to a battlefield of oscillators.
I went next and tried a more rhythmic based intro via tapping two live cables; fuzzy lurches were the result, and although it didn’t hit 100%, I was pretty happy with the pacing and the volume. I shifted into some short wave and then a drone that filled the place pretty nicely, although I don’t recall liking the ending very much though I can’t remember why at this writing.
Talbot actually broke his set into distinct pieces (no segue attempts) and that idea worked really well. He announced each piece as a song he had been working on and ribbed the audience a lot more than previous shows.
Next day went bowling and it was a for real lane (as opposed to the dwarf lead in space and horrid oil conditions in philly I groused about above) and my score definitely reflected that; instead of the absolutely despairing 94(!) i hit in philly, I managed a 174 / 179 / 166 series—much more consistent with my chicago bowling average. A really cool bowling space to boot, plus before it opened we went to a coffee shop for more cards and joe for talbot. I got the best hot chocolate i’d had on tour thus far.
Also, Matranga and his wife have a lovely Pit Bull, which reinforced the very good experiences I’ve had with those dogs.
Last show: toledo.
Good man Zeh called at 7 (we got in at 5 and played rummy at the venue) and asked
what the weather was like. I told him it looked fine to me from where I sat but he said there were flash flood warnings in the area... i decided to go to the window and lo and behold it was raining furiously.
The show was to start at 9:30, so we hoped the “flash” part was the main component and that it wouldn’t kill attendance too much. Well, the two opener bands didn’t get in until about 10 PM, 30 min after the start time, and to say that was lame would be a bit of an understatement, since this was the only show where time was a big consideration to us: we were driving to columbus int’l airport after the gig to get Talbot to his 6:30 AM flight home. Talbot had the brilliant idea to let one of the previously slated as “opening acts” headline so we could get our stuff packed up; this proved to be ~the~ brilliant decision of the night. The first guy played a guitar with plenty of fuzz (as with rochester, in the vein of my bloody valentine to these ears) and then a second part, a screaming vocal component that didn’t grab me much. Zeh and Reed were up next and may have been the highlight of the tour for me and talbot; solid cassette and synth precision, high tones, low tones, gurgled cassette tape, sweeping oscillations and drone action. Really solid. I went next and reworked the ideas i’d started the night before with the rhythmic cable piece opening the set. Things evolved much more successfully in my mind for the entire piece—definitely inspired by the awesomeness of Zeh and Reed, and we’ll see if the recording bears out these ideas / recollection. Jason started with perhaps the meanest bass rumble of the tour—the sound guy was really good about letting him hit hard, and the PA is solid (this is the same venueZeh and I jammed together at during the Z’EV shows in April). Like the night before, he broke the set up into songs, the bass attack and then two distortion feedback parts. The last act was a duo; electronics, guitars, drum machine, floor tom. It was loud and generally directionless. The part that cemented it for me was 25 minutes in when a third guy, not even in the band, came up and began playing the floor tom. In rhythm? Out of rhythm? Who knows. This project “jammed” for about 40 minutes, the latter half of which talbot and I spent packing the car; we weren’t the only ones who didn’t get
off; a handful of people got their coats (as if this were the theater...) and left as well.
We hit the road at about 1 AM and made it to the airport at 3:30, despite some of the roads not seeming as obvious as we would have liked (we had hoped to swing by someplace like denny’s or applebee’s and finish cards and have a celebratory tour
finale meal, but alas, time was not on our side.) I drove though to Chicago, and admittedly got a little fatigued around 5 AM; but once the sun came up the second wind kicked in and despite some road construction in ohio/indiana that made no sense (i literally was on a 5 mile stretch of cloverleaf and highway for 30 minutes before just “guessing” that an interstate number was the same as the main highway number) and got into chicago at around 10 AM. I returned the car at noon, got home from that at 2 PM, watched Jeopardy at 3:30 and then, after having been up for about 34 hours, took a nap.
