[NewMusic] last weekend, so much music

[jacob felix heule]

I woke up Saturday at noon after two nights in a row of playing really
strenuous Ettrick sets at really late-starting, slow-moving,
not-home-until-3am rock shows. I immediately grabbed an apple and walked 5
blocks down the street to the Golden TrapperKeeper Lodge for Godwaffle Noise
Pancakes. It was only 5 minutes past noon, but My Daddy Ate My Eyes was
already playing (as verbally confirmed via Q&A with a pancake-eating in the
adjacent kitchen). Really pleasant music for waking up. A constant
mechanical metronome pulse underlaid some nice electronic music. I want to
say reminiscent of classic tape music, but I can't really remember what it
sounded like, other than that I was enjoying it a lot. I was the only person
sitting in the room with the musicians (actually right between them) and the
speakers (ditto), which is an unfortunate aspect of that performance space,
as the music sounded notably better than it did heard from the kitchen. The
musician sitting on the floor next to me was playing simple-but-effective
sounds on a processed guitar and a drum machine. The guy standing to my left
had the metronome standing on a hi hat, and some electronics. Pain for the
Party played similarly pleasant music with Max/MSP, accompanied by
ASCII/Walt Disney animations. 60s Residue was loud and active noise, very
choppy, kind of cartoonish. It went well with the video still being
projected. Barry Threw closed the show with some nice laptop ganulator
stuff. The set was cut short by some technical problem, which was too bad.
The watermelon was great, the pancakes have become thoroughly edible over
the years (though the last one or two I ate were too rubbery to cut with my
fork), and alas the coffee man didn't show up.

After making my own coffee at home and gathering my belongings, I walked to
Civic Center, hopped on BART and made my way to 21 Grand for the
Skronkathon. Right after Corpsevapor (Heule/Korber/Dryer) played, an
impostor set up his gear and played in place of some folks who had not shown
up. Really fucking loud noise generated by a turntable with a carving fork
in place of a tone arm, and a circular saw blade in place of a record. I
laughed as I retreated to the alley, and laughed even more when Tom Duff
revealed that the masked noise musician was crashing the show. Hanuman Zhang
played a pretty weird solo set with constant arrhythmic kick drum beats
accompanying and punctuating him haphazardly wailing on piles of garbage and
playing electronic toys through the PA. I'd like to see this guy at a future
Godwaffle or Pharaoh Maybelline's show. Z_Bug had interesting
instrumentation: 2 drum sets, 1 guy playing both bass guitar and Moog synth,
and 1 guy playing amplified shorts, or anyway a microphone amplified by a
small amp in his pocket which was audible primarily when he was making it
feedback. RTD3 was very good, as usual. Great sounds, great pacing, etc. You
can tell these guys are very comfortable with each other. David Michalak on
lap steel sat in on their last piece, and fit in really well, keeping things
pretty minimal. John Hanes & Steve Adams played a really nice laptop duo,
both using lloopp. The sound was so united it didn't feel much like a duo.
Electronic sounds mixed with warped drum samples, speaking, etc. PG13 was a
drum/guitar/alto sax rock trio – very energetic, and made a lot of people
smile. sfSound played a really nice improvised set. The woodwinds in
particular were a very tight unit, and sounded great.
Baker/Djll/Hegelin/Stackpole played a really beautiful brass & gong drone
set that made me wonder about releasing a bootleg cassette and blowing the
minds of the masses of neo-hippy hipsters blissing out to “non-playing
motherfuckers” attempting this same sort of thing. They broke out into other
sounds as well, but the long drone intro was what really did it for me. The
Robair/Neuberg electronics duo was a nice close to the night. Gino in
particular was getting a lot of great sounds out of his Blippoo box set-up.
I ate a couple great sausages in the alley, and maybe a half dozen
ass-kicking brownies.

Brutalsfx Fest #62 at Pharaoh Maybelline's Sound Trough No Toilet was a
natural continuation of Saturday's shows, sort of like a hybrid of the two.
I arrived as Copy Lake (the guitarist/drum machinist from My Daddy) was
soundchecking his watermelon. Hand in a sloppy hole with a contact mic
amplifying all sorts of slurpy sounds. I started snacking and opening
tightly sealed jars of pickled vegetables. Ninety seconds later, I turned
around and the set was over, Copy Lake was covered in fruit juice. I guess I
heard the sounds get louder for a half minute, but the set was damn short.
Sound check looked and sounded great, blinked and I missed the real show.
Gumball Rimpoche did some weird whining vocalizations over electronic
percussion. Donald the Nut started his set with a really nice acoustic
guitar trio, which didn't have any chance to shine after the singing
started. Circuit-bent SK-5 and other electronics by Anti-Ear really brought
a lot to the music. I'm glad his tiny amp was pointed straight at me since
he was being perhaps a bit overly polite with his volume level according
folks listening from the other end of the alley with the masses. Gino Robair
started his Blippoo Box bleeping through the mini-PA and started scraping
and hitting everything in sight. Highlights included the marimba-like wooden
fence, and the USPS mail crate sanded down on the pavement. Shifted more
attention to the electronic performance toward the end of the set. Really
great stuff. Fred Rinne's art hanging inside was cool too.

Just for the sake of completeness, I'll mention that I checked out the Upset
the Rhythm showcase at the Lab later that night. What a weird sounding room.