the need @ berbati's

my friend and I were making squash tacos and she brought up that the need were playing that evening. a lady roadie friend for the first band got us tickets and away we went.

it was a black metal showcase sorta. upon arrival, I ran into an old acquaintance who promised the next band ruled, but it was an uninspired melvins copy. the audience was primarily men in ragged black; my friend and I wearing between us a floral print dress and a purple knit jumpsuit.

anyhow, a miraculous gender swap occurred: as the need was setting up, the arc of audience transformed to primarily women. they played partially as a three piece, with the third, a younger woman, supplying supplemental percussive elements. in one transition between songs, she stepped to the front with a baseball bat swung over one shoulder. a shiny new aluminum trash bin was rolled out, and she bashed it flat to the beat over the course of the song. at another point, rachel carns pulled off her shirt to reveal the clean line across her chest of a post-mastectomy scar. the set was amazing. a call out for witches to dance on the stage occurred. women united will never be defeated.

and then another black metal band set up and the men returned.

flower water / thrones

Yesterday, I went over to my friend Liz's house. She has tea rose and mock orange in full bloom, so we made flower waters with each.

The rose petals at the ready:

and the mock orange:

We simmered each for a few hours, then strained the petals off and let them cool. The rose petal mash (still weirdly flesh-like) reminded me of a recipe I'd read for making your own rosary beads. So we simmered them again, this time in a cast iron pan where they turned purple! The recipes I have seen actually say to do this process for three days, but we opted for an abbreviated version.

The beads, on a wire to dry:

Afterward, we went and saw Thrones at Tube, which was sortof and odd vibrational space. I was leaning against those metal rabbit murals and totally got a back massage from the vibrations.
But yeah, totally great to be back in the NW!

lee is a weirdo

Lee Ranaldo + Alan Licht
performing Text of Light with light show by Gary Panter and Joshua White @
Family pop-up space

it was a really good show

Drawlings! and, colors of noise

I saw Drawlings play last night at Death by Audio here in Brooklyn. It was rad. I have been trying to see her play but kept getting waylaid en route every time. (Also on the bill was Love of Everything, City Center, and Soft Circle - as a two piece w/ Ben Vida)

There was a presence of this tone that I kept trying to locate after the first time I went to mutant fest. It is this maximum drone that feels like capacity but not like a brown noise or a pink noise, maybe a purple noise? It is typically concurrent with psychedelic visualizations. I thought I found it on the Chris + Cosey album Trance. It is intense but soothing. I don't know the names of any of the tracks or else I would attempt to identify. The was also a song that sounded like a unicorn romp. And a pulsing red heart behind.

Wait, in lieu of going back and editing, I found this amazing colors of noise audio samples! I stand with purple-ish I think, but will do some more study.

"Green noise is supposedly the background noise of the world. A really long term power spectrum averaged over several outdoor sites." !!


I like that the video here is from Mad Vicky's - it is a place I would have loved to have seen, but, c'est la vie.

evangelista @ ash's place

from the show last night. Thrones played after.

grass widow & crystal stilts @ brooklyn museum /who shot rock and roll

Grass Widow.

Everyone is taking photos for a flickr series for Brooklyn Museum, they even have a front area reserved for anyone with a camera and there are these girls getting up in with moms a few steps back.

Crystal Stilts.

I used to be really into Bow Wow Wow - I think the singer was around 14 in this picture. (They were another Malcom Mclaren creation.) This was in the packed Who Shot Rock and Roll show. A security guard is yelling at me as I am taking this.

a confection of an installation

The whole event was great. There was a baton twirler in the center of the space at the beginning, and then a marching band with color guard came through. People were eating fried chicken or drinking wine and there were lots of kids all over and music nerds too.

black dice / fermenting

Ana da Silva @ Starr Space

Ana da Silva's set was great! She put out an album on Chicks on Speed records a while back. You can hear some of the songs on her myspace.

This show happened at a nice venue called Starr Space in Bushwick. It reminded me a little bit of old Hall O' The Woods shows. It was founded by the artist Jules de Balincourt.

I missed the big Raincoats show at the Knitting Factory the night before, but this show was special. After Ana's set, Viv Albertine (Slits) and Anne Wood came up on stage. We had a sing-a-long of "Adventures Close to Home", and then they sang "Lola".

When they started "Lola" I could not resist pulling out my video camera. It was the first Raincoats song I ever heard, sometime in high school in the back of my friend Luke's car. Here is a little clip of it, Ana on the right, Viv in the middle, and Anne on the left.

There were maybe thirty or forty people sitting arced around the floor. It was so sweet & happy.

After, Hawnay Troof brought out the jams. Vice Cooler actually was tambourining in the above clip, and toured with the Raincoats as their drummer.

Also, the first act was Max Steele, who started with a Tracy + the Plastics cover, and continued in that fashion very successfully. and DJ Anthony Thornton played dark italo disco all nite.

I.U.D. & Silk Flowers @ Deitch / NY Art Book Fair Bene

Rad. I was at home, sewing a skirt (gold & black Senegalese inverting pattern) when I remembered about it. When the skirt was done I was ready. I got to PS1, missed the review, but was whisked to Deitch in a chartered bus. It is a double warehouse space on the water in Long Island City. The bar was free, sponsored by ******* liquor, (made from "bugs and herbs") and I got in free on account of volunteering at the fair tomorrow. Silk Flowers started up, I had never seen them despite meaning to, but I had read many reviewsish about them, and so when the Ian Curtis inflection came out I was pretty sure it was them, then confirmed. It was really good though. The acoustics were wild with the tall ceilings and obelisk (truly) speakers scattered about, but they sounded better then Joy Division, I think. Where JD's guitar got intricate and pressing, SF just rode out a sweet drone ride, maybe. It was heavy. And stand-up drumming, I'm such a sucker for that, I love it.

I.U.D. brought dueling lady drummers and it was sick. Like, siiiick. Plagued slightly by tech difficulties it was still such a pounding rhythm goodness.
Also, I watched an Artist feed a white mouse to a snake art piece installation living creature. There were paintings and sculptures everywhere in the space, I remember best a circle of wolves within a ring of gauze suspended, but also lots of bleeding neon and distorted pizza/cacti.

Home now, eating rosewater halva trying to sober before my nesting. Good night.

Emily Lacy: "Ice Music" @ Cabinet

(I reserved a spot in the Ice Music tent after getting this description via email from Cabinet):

"Working with time, music, color, and, temperature, "Ice Music" allows for fantasies of intimate visceral mischief with folk and electronic sound patterns. Performances made for 1-2 people will be available by Emily Lacy inside a small, freshly cooled homemade music environment, similar to an igloo or personal camping tent."

She led me into a tiny little igloo structure set up in a larger gallery space. The floors were sparkly felt, and the white cloth walls were built around a chickenwire frame. There are two fans blowing ice-patterned streamers. I was sortof expecting to be nervous in an ice tent with a stranger, but there was none of that. She went to work with her sampler and mic and built up beautiful layers until words came overflowing out. Have you ever had that experience (at a concert or otherwise) where you feel like a performer is playing just for you? It was exactly like that in the quality of the music, and then I had to remind myself that I was the only person that she was performing to. The space was tiny, and after feeling that perhaps I shouldn't map out the moles on her bare arms, I focus on the inlay on her guitar. After the sampler singing piece she played a sweet folk song on the guitar. The words are about the sea and color: universal. An alarm goes off in her pocket and our time is up. I thank her, and when I peek outside someone is there, cued up for the next session. I collect a cold seltzer, and then walk back out into the heat.

Crossing the Gowanus canal, there is a rave or something going on at the next bridge down. There are fish in the water, and up the way a man is assembling his bottle collection for recycling. I passed a crowded swimming pool on the way to the Cabinet performance space, and everywhere there are giant flowers blooming.

Link to her site here.

A Crimson Grail for 200 Electric Guitars (Rhys Chatham) & Liquid Liquid @ Damrosch Park/ Lincoln Center

Some of the 200 guitarists

Somehow I ended up sitting in the front row even though I arrived when the seats were nearly all full. The stage extended around three sides of the seating area tho. A percussion group opened it up, performing in the walkway between, and it was interesting as it created a third space, and placed the audience and performers in the same viewing position.

Oh but the guitars! Rhys Chatham conducted from the (obscured) bandshell stage to four section leaders, who then led roughly 25 [corr., approx: 54] guitarists each. It was a sight, but then I had to close my eyes. The first part just straight melted and it was like listening to giant headphones on a water bed - better, even. I did not even feel that I was hearing it, more as feeling. Each guitarist appeared to be hooked up to their own amp and the sound moved about, sometimes one at a time, building up to all at once in sync. Then it went delicate, barely plucking singular strings, and it was like a garden of tiny flowers opening. Through all this Chatham is directing in what looks to be a self-created visual language. At one point he holds up a paper with a giant asterisk on it but otherwise it is mostly frozen gestures. The second movement began sounding like Growing (or should I say it sounded like Growing was inspired by it? I never know how to be proper with such references.) And it was like movements of light over space. My eyes are closed.
It all ends in a climax that vibrates the earth and men behind me stand up with their arms in the air as tho they have found god. Can it even be described as dense? It is beyond that; beyond "wall of sound," beyond (melodic) noise, beyond independent senses (synesthetic, even?) it was an experiential composition - it never could be recorded to be played back. (Unless each performer was separately recorded and played back on two hundred cd players!)

Liquid Liquid was tight! A police officer asked me to move from where I was dancing tho and I asked him where I could dance and he said not anywhere! I walked around to another area and found a better space to move. LL is three (3!) percussionists and one bass player! They still got it, good.

Mayor Daley & U.S. Girls @ Monster Island

Mayor Daley is a metal band and it was so good. I am really into Dewayne Slightweight's solo art albums, and this was nothing like it but wonderful altogether in a metal trance drone gallop with melvins breakdowns. yeah. My friend h. chew told me about them a while back and I was finally able to check them out tonight. A band called Queenie opened the set, still cutting their teeth but getting on. After M D was this rad noise lady called U.S. Girls that was this dubby crunch, she sang live but it sounded like crazy backwards tape loops. amazing! check her out if she comes thru your town or village. Next was Ducktails but I missed them because my friend and I were outside chasing stray kittens and then we met Killah Priest. Holy shit! He is the smartest dude I have met in forever. We talked for a while about religion and feminism and all sorts of other stuff. We went back inside and caught the dude from Psychedelic Horseshit that got added to the bill I guess which is great as I have been wanting to see him/ them. I have read that his/their shows go differently every time so hard to describe wholly? Wacky for certain. jandek is the only correlation that came to mind but really he's nothing like that. Will catch again in another incarnation. Left before G Lucas Crane went on as I have a busy day of work and map-studying tomorrow. On that note, goodnight.

Dirty Projectors in-store @ Other Music

The dudes - the girls were to the right

They played as a five-piece: Dave Longstreth on acoustic guitar (and singing), Nat Baldwin on stand-up bass, and Angel Deradoorian, Amber Koffman, and Haley Dekle singing. I was psyched for the show because it feels like the band is at a point where it will be hard to see them in a small venue anytime soon. (Longstreth was signing autographs after the show.) The ticket came free with a pre-order of the album. I think it is the first show they've played (in nyc at least) since the release of the new album. The audience was super sweet and stoked. The band opened with "police story' which, cursing and all, is staggeringly good when acoustic. It was warm (actually very hot) I mean warm vibes I guess. Teenagers (twittering as we awaited them to start) and grey-haired dudes, and all really happy. They played an encore (in addition to the set list below) of "stillness is the move" the jam, the single. With no percussion during the show (save Baldwin's bass and foot tapping) the audience clapped the beat. So good. You can listen to that song here. Nytimes compared the singing to Mariah, as in Carey. And the article has a shout-out to Olympia. Fuck yes.

set list & super-nice OM employee (she helped me pick out father's day cds for my dad!)

dan deacon ensemble under the M train/ Thrones at no fun fest/ other news

I love punk shows outside as you can see peoples FACES - it is almost a novelty. It got dark a little while after I arrived (as Teeth mtn was ending) but whenever a train went overhead the light from the cars was cast into the crowd. The conductors pull the horn for us and we all cheer.

I saw Lightning Bolt play in this empty lot last fall - it is a pretty fantastic space for performance. There were projections going by a ton of different artists, and in between bands, the dj was playing all the mid-nineties hits. One song came on and I was like "oh shit - this was THE jam of my freshman year of high school." Despite the wildly uneven ground most everyone was dancing. I like future islands, I guess I have seen them play several times now. The ensemble was rad - way tighter than at their premier, with a slightly adapted line-up it appears. DD is sortof a master of getting the crowd interacting with one another in the best way. There are always these games that force us to touch and connect in a friendly way. During one ever-expanding circle dance someone grabs my hand and I enter the maelstrom. I grab another and carry on the spiral. There are strangers touching my head and stars overhead. I left during the last song, as I had another show to go to, and walking towards the train the chimes ring thru the neighborhood.

No Fun Fest kindof lived up to its name. I got there as Thrones was setting up, enjoyed the short (two (long) song) set and left just after. It was a goth/metal/ general darkness? themed night of the fest. I am not so into MHOW as a venue, I guess I keep forgetting that.

OTHER NEWS!

oh ps : you can always click on the photos I've taken to see it larger

Meredith Monk - Ascension Variations @ Guggenheim Museum

Epic, I suppose. The whole time that I was there it all seemed very normal but I had to remind myself that I had never been to a performance remotely resembling this. It was staged at the Guggenheim Museum, which, if you have not been, is a round, upwardly spiraling space designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Meredith Monk first performed in the space forty years ago, and used aspects of that performance "Juice" in last night's show.

I am a great fan of Monk's vocal records, especially those recorded in the eighties. This was my first time seeing her perform, and it was amazing. When I have seen some other, established performers, it is a little sad that they are still doing the same thing as 20+ years ago. The Ascension Variations had both old and new elements, and both old and new performers. There were perhaps close to one hundred performers in all!

Walking in, there were some cushions on the floor, with ledges where the elderly were perched. I didn't notice at the time, but thinking about it now I was probably one of the youngest people there - not that it matters, I like going to shows with older peoples, especially when they have avant-garde fashion!

The stage was in constant motion, and rarely at any one fixed point. There were multiple casts, generally designated by the color of their clothing. The main vocalists were in dark red, (contrasted by a desert caterpillar foursome in bright red) and a quartet of musicians in gray. There were dancers, a chorus, and three women representing perhaps three elements of the female. To us on the floor they sang and danced and wound their way up to the top. The amplification was subtle, very well-done, and really just gave me chills as the sound moved through me. After this portion was a break (but you were not allowed outside except to leave) and all the performers set themselves up dancing or singing, amidst the art all throughout the galleries. Being a round space, there are many wall panels set up for mounting flat works upon. Some were behind, moving in and out, and interacting with the art, but ultimately they were presented as works of art themselves. The audience was invited to move through the galleries, and "shift perspective." When I walked past Ms. Monk, I watched a museum guard pulled her away and through a side exit. I made my way to the very top, and looked down to see Monk set up in the center with a light upon, legs splayed out playing a small squeezebox and singing. She is eventually joined by the other performers, save the chorus, who, dressed in white, are interspersed among the audience all hanging over the edge of the spiral. Looking down I see hands on many railings below. It ends with the performers all laid on their backs.

There was so much more, phenomenal was the only word that came to my mind when it was over.

Eric Copeland @ 92Y / some thoughts on electroooonnnnicc music

I went to see White Magic play a couple nights ago at the 92nd St Y Tribeca space. Eric Copeland opened for them and totally stole the show. Black Dice (a band he plays in) live is a little much for me - I found it difficult to distinguish much of anything, but maybe the sound system was distorting it as well. On his own it was amazing. He is this scarecrow looking character with hair sticking out the sides of his hat playing circular circusy dub. It ruled. The beats were tuff and heavy. And so when White Magic (I just accidentally typed "Black Magic") went on, my interest waned. Through The Sun Door is such a good album, and when the Songs of Hurt and Healing freebie came w/ Arthur I was so stoked. They played an old jam that seemed lost on the crowd, and then played a song I hadn't heard that people were hooting out for. I guess I haven't really been listening to the new stuff.

I have been listening to a lot more bands utilizing electronic elements. I am guessing this has to do with living now in a hyper-urban environment and listenting too to headphones on the subway. When I was fourteen I got that MTV Amp album when techno got mainstream, but then Smashing Pumpkins did a techno song "Eye" for the Lost Highway soundtrack and I thought they totally sold out. (I have listened to that song more recently and thought it pretty good) There is probably very little that I listen too that is techno proper, I think that term only really gets used for rave music now.
The albums released in the last month or so that I have been most excited about have been Fever Ray - Fever Ray (video here), Telepathe - Dance Mother (video here), and Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion (video here). Maybe it is more about the loss of a physical drummer? Are live drums to rough for the iPod? Maybe not, and I really do enjoy live drumming shows - IUD is killer.

When I got home from the White Magic show, I was questioning my love for the freak folk. But I went to an Arthur mag benefit at Market Hotel last night and it was really pleasant. I think it might have been the first show in New York I have been to that made apparent the use of incense. Afterwards I went to this b&w geometric hipster dance party but had no moves as the dj played no bass.

Telepathe / These Are Powers / Teengirl Fantasy / Soft Circle @ Market Hotel

This was such awesome fun. We came in as Soft Circle was playing - whose live shows I rather enjoy. It seems like he mixed it up a little bit, but maybe I was just being more attentive to his tech process. He (Hisham Bharoocha) puts on a good trance, alone in layers of loops that he builds up upon. It is remarkable. Next up was Teengirl Fantasy, two Oberlin dudes. I liked it a lot, it was dirty, heavy dance. They had colored projections, layers and layers (theme here?) of patterns. And a great performance persona, like a stare but without eye contact. A few words too on the space - it is a huge triangular ballroom in an old Domenican speakeasy in Bushwick, atop an amazing grocery store (Mr. Kiwi) where I went between sets to get cold tea, and there is this heavy throb from above. All-ages and crazy fun. These Are Powers was nuts. Building up into wild hard dancing. They are a Chicago/ Brooklyn act. I don't even know how to describe them. I just looked on their myspace (visual/ healing & easy listening/ backbeat : but that wasn't what I was even looking for) and they are playing a show in Olympia next month at a place called the Northern?? Check it o u t. I love Telepathe, but it was wierd as there were dudes with huge video cameras filming them that had way bright spotlights on them that they kept pointing out to the crowd and it was a little confrontational. I had to step back for a minute. But I came back at the end and danced w/ buddies. Funn times.

festival & rings @ nyu

as I was walking down W 4th to get to the show I saw a flier that said "RINGS / NYU / ALMOST SOLD OUT!" and I was like "oh dang" but then I read that it was for class rings. The show was great. I think it was put on by student events or something and so it was free, and also had free cupcakes and lots of decorations up and balloons everywhere. It was in a smallish performance room on the eighth floor of the Kimmel building.

Festival played first - they are one of my new favorite bands. (listen here) They are two singing sisters and two more people that are not related. Just really wonderful harmonizing and stripped down melodies including an mbira-type instrument. Their mom was there, stoked. They gave out valentines to the audience. good all around.

Rings was next and I had been looking forward to it as I have not seen them before and am a fan of their latest release. (quick review back here) It was good and weird and groove-y. Three distinct personas and a split/integration of instruments, like live stand-up drums for one song and an electric set for another. I am really into the sound that they make. It was a sit-down/lights-up show, and so I am curious to see them in a potentially danceable setting.

In other news, it was SO windy today, the debris from the streets just stayed suspended in the air like seagulls.

Tunde Adebimpe / Kría Brekkan @ Stone

I came in as the lights were going down and got the last seat. The Stone is John Zorn's club in the East Village/LES area - it is a small venue, and just that, with no bar. I like going to shows at places like this because then people don't talk thru the entire set! Tunde Adebimpe was wonderful. He is the singer for TV on the Radio, who I haven't really heard, but he also played (very well) the groom in Rachel Getting Married. He had a dude from Tall Firs playing live drums, and he did vocal/looping business that reminded me of all the girl acts that I like so much, but I haven't heard this sound from a male, or at least not so well. That looop-y trance/freakout sound. He played at eight, and Kría Brekkan was up at ten.

I went to a bar called The Library in between sets for wine. When I came back to get in line I was listening to my headphones while I waited. A song from Farwell Forest came on and Busy from Telepathe was in line in front of me. I don't like to make people feel uncomfortable else I would have said something kind. Dave Portner was in line behind me chatting with someone. I got in and got a seat closer to the front this time. Björk came in and wished Kristín Anna good luck and sat in the row behind mine. As we waited, the banter of the young gays next to me was hilarious. ("My mom has to wear a neckbrace every time she drives.") (It isn't really funny in print here.) Kría Brekkan was amazing, as always, and in red light and long dress. She played first a song I haven't heard about a girl from a small town. I love how she uses a handheld tape player as an extra loop station. It totally blew my mind the first time I saw her. The energy was like a blooming pink peony with colored jewels inside.

Afterwards, I found some fancy panelled windows next to garden called Little Versailles and then went out for delicious Indian food at a place with multicolored lights and paintings and banana lassis! The moon is almost full and the city is alive. I missed Bird Names at 92Y but I'm going to a show there soon anyway.

Bklyn vs Bmore in Bushwick

audience participation/ dance off:



I really like two second videos - just a few frames, or digital formulas capture a lot. Youtube weighs it down with the overload for me.

It is also still weird/ amazing to me that an "underground" sort of show here has a thousand plus people in attendance. I spent a portion of the evening as alternately a sea kitten and a dogg via giant plush headgear. Everyone wants to touch you when you are an animal. I also posed in photos with people, and then I hugged a giant plushy pokemon. But it wasn't a rave or anything.