Dan Schnebly, host of Prime Audio Soup (Friday 9pm-Midnight)
Prime Audio Soup's Top 20 Albums of 2007
1. Threshold Houseboys Choir - Form Grows Rampant (Threshold House)
2. Human Quena Orchestra - Means Without Ends (Daft Alliance)
3. Akron/Family - Love is Simple (Young God)
4. Prurient - Pleasure Ground (Load)
5. Throbbing Gristle - Part Two: The Endless Not (Mute)
6. Angels of Light - We Are Him (Young God)
7. The Skaters - Dispersed Royalty Ornaments (Wabana Ore)
8. Burning Star Core - Blood Lightning 2007 (No Fun)
9. Astral Social Club - Neon Pibroch (Important)
10. Yellow Swans - At All Ends (Load)
11. Daniel Menche - Deluge and Sunder (Beta-lactam Ring)
12. Machinefabriek - Weleer (Lampse)
13. Pedestrian Deposit - Vestige (Hospital)
14. Islaja - Uluel Yyy (Fonal)
15. Amon Tobin - Foley Room (Ninja Tune)
16. Frank Bretschneider - Rhythm (Raster-Noton)
17. Bloody Panda - Pheromone (Level-Plane)
18. Pan Sonic - Katodivaihe / Cathodephrase (Blast First)
19. Neurosis - Given to the Rising (Neurot)
20. Snotty Z & the Curly Fries - Rock N Roll with Snotty (Poophand Productions)
This year I bought a digital camera and went to a lot of good shows. Here are some words and pictures about some of the best stuff I saw in 2007.
Sleepytime Gorrila Museum
06-03-07 at the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge, MA
08-21-07 at the Cabaret in Montreal, QC
I saw this band twice this year. I’m not as familiar with the songs the first time, because their new album came out days before. I buy a t-shirt and talk to the singer- the one with the dreadlock doo-doo beard hanging off his chin- about neoprimitivism, Heidegger, and the Unabomber. At the start of both shows, the band approaches the stage from the back of the venue and the sight of them in ragged costumes cavorting through the audience with drums and brass looks something like a scene from The Wicker Man. The band plays highly conceptual and grandiose rock-in-opposition with berserk arrangements, multi-faceted genre shifting, and an assortment of dazzling, custom made junk-yard instruments.
That they can so closely recreate the intricacy of their recorded work in a live setting is a tremendous accomplishment in itself, but a lot of the fun is in how the demented humor hinted at on each album really comes out on stage. In Cambridge, they interrupt a song to celebrate a band member’s birthday. Hooded figures come on stage to remind him he’s one year closer to death, throwing kazoos into the audience to let us all partake in a silly rendition of “Happy Birthday”. In Montreal, one member’s between song banter turns into an attempt at speaking French, which probably sounds hilarious if you speak French, because the audience loves it.
After both shows, I make my way outside to the back of the venue to find their tour bus, a puke green junker of a vehicle with a “Visualize Industrial Collapse” bumper sticker. I trace my finger through the dirt on the back window, writing out the name of my radio show and station, like they’d give a shit. This band is unique and absurd and fun and, most of all, close to my heart.
8/11/07 Set of Red Things at AS220 in Providence, RI
I arrive with no idea what the fuss is all about. Some talk outside between sets about a girl whose leg was bent sideways, about the multiple surgeries to fix it back up again. A merchandise table full of pamphlets from the Industrial Workers of the World. It’s the release party for this Providence band’s record and before the band even begins to play, the singer starts crying. She says it was one of the worst experiences in her life, watching the police hold down her sister. Then the band starts and the singer bumps around in an audience that already knows some of the words and she just about bursts into flame.
Before the story of what happened is in the paper the next day- how Alex Svoboda was injured by police in an IWW protest- the intensity in the Set of Red Things’ playing offers a powerful catharsis for a scene shaken by tragedy.
8/26/07 Bloody Panda at Metal Mansion in Pawtucket, RI
The band wears black masks except for a petite Asian woman on vocals. She wears heels and a skirt, all dressed up to go to a CEO’s dinner party, and way out of place in a basement filled with drunk metalheads. While the rest of the band is busy tuning, she takes a small camera out of her black sequined purse and politely asks a girl in the audience to take their picture. It’s an odd scene: this cute woman smiling toward the camera and behind her, men in executioner’s masks setting up to play.
Next, Bloody Panda’s lumbering doom metal threatens to dismantle the house’s foundation and somehow, the room’s pretty Japanese woman consistently overpowers the band with a series of chants, screams, and guttural roars. If she ever did go to a fancy dinner party, she’d be the first to bite the head off the ice sculpture and disembowel a waiter. Also insane is the drummer, who adjusts his executioner’s hood between practically every measure. It’s almost comical at first, watching the poor guy secure his hood in the same gesture as a cymbal crash, but he gets props for keeping the damn thing on the whole time. If that guy from Def Leppard could learn to play drums after losing an arm, surely any practical drummer can incorporate adjusting their executioner’s hood into their drumming rudiments. When he stops pounding out the caveman tom stomps, the band holds back to let a mass of glacial low frequency guitar drone pad out the set. This band has far more to offer underneath the surface. One to look out for.
9-11-07 Plastic People of the Universe at AS220
The show is well promoted and I even buy my ticket in advance online, a far cry from the underground concerts this band had to play under Czechoslovakia’s repressive government during the early ’70s. A great turn out, especially their hysterically drunk following’s demand for an encore, chanting “Long live Czech underground!” The band plays with years of confidant, hardened, avant-garde tendencies under their belt, yet ultimately creates psych rock at its most ideal: strangely accessible in all its playful, optimistic rebellion.
10-27-07 AIDS Wolf at AS220
I have to admit I think this band is way overrated and am baffled by the amount of press they’ve received. Their album, The Lovvers, is a novelty and I cringe at any link that is made between AIDS Wolf and “noise”. This show, however, is an enormous surprise and blows me away. Their sound is massive. Forget whatever tight, technical rhythms they might be trying to cram in each song, the wall of feedback is so dense and textured it pummels my body. It’s that great feeling when the rumble pounds your face, melts your stomach, and makes loss of bowel control almost worth it
And if the sound doesn’t blow your load, check out the singer. She’s got a weird haircut, wears a black spandex body suit, and furiously launches herself on and off stage. She might be a pissed off trapeze artist that just got fired from Circus Soleil for looking too out. She surfs the crowd, takes to the floor, and pulls the mic cord tight from the stage as if she’s repelling from the volcanic mess of sound blasting in front of her. Next, she comes back and boosts herself back on stage by pushing her hand down on my head.
I’m still not big on their CD, but... the crazy chick from AIDS Wolf touched me!
10-29-07 Boris at the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge, MA
Super heavy blown out rock and roll from Japan. Boris have quite a diverse catalog, from all-out drone inspired by Sunn O))) to their frequent collaborations with Japanese “king of noise” Merzbow, and in concert they cover a lot of bases while still rocking out the audience with their more accessible material. They announce the set with their signature bass heavy drown, somehow make a flawless transition into lighter ’60s psychedelia with female vocals from the bassist, then crank up the volume, volume, volume, for the high-octane distorted riot from their album, Pink. The drummer is the true rock star as he beckons the raging crowd between songs with sticks raised in the air, until finally diving in to full capacity crowd. I’ve never seen anyone crowd surf so smoothly- he makes his way to the very back of the room to the front again in record time.
11-03-07 Oxbow at the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge, MA
I kind of knew what to expect from this band after watching the “Music for Adults” tour-documentary included with their “Love that’s Last” retrospective on Hydrahead. One scene in the movie shows the colossal lead singer, Eugene Robinson, holding a supposedly rude audience member in a headlock while the somewhat oblivious band continues to play. As some members of the audience take pity on the poor guy getting his skull pressed and step in to break up the scuffle, a bewildered Robinson laughs at the defensive reaction from the folks in the crowd and says, “It’s an Oxbow show!”
Tonight, with incense sticks lit at the edge of the stage, he comes out buried in a black coat and pants, a white dress shirt underneath, and a skullcap. Just half-way into the set, he’s down to only a tank top and underpants and I somewhat reconsider my decision to push my way to the very front of the stage, as sweat and saliva comes pouring off his body. He doesn’t necessarily sing, but alternates between inarticulate mumbling and screeching like a maniac. His eyes roll back into his head and his body contorts, jerks, almost convulses along to the music as if in a trance; he’s lost all control. Considering Robinson’s stage presence is so absorbing, it’s easy to overlook the rest of Oxbow, which is a shame. The band plays abrasive, tightly crafted songs, occasionally delving into a seedy underbelly of blues-based riffing from some wretched hole in the ground. I’ve never been put into a headlock, but the Oxbow live experience kicks my ass.
11-29-07 A bunch of guys in a squat in Brussels, Belgium
In a hostel bar, I make friends with a chill Jamaican dude named Christmas. He introduces me to a beer called Duval and the guy sitting next to him, Steve, a part time American tour guide and full-time traveler, who tells me stories like how he almost got attacked by a bear in Yosemite and how he got stranded in a desert while hitchhiking to Panama. Instantly, with the help of alcohol and the friendly nature of travelers drinking lots of it, I form a posse for my first night in Belgium. We hit the streets with a beautiful and vapid French girl named “Melody” without the ‘M’ who seems to know the coolest places to go. Next thing I know I’m bumping into people gathered on the floor in a loosely formed, out of sync drum circle, trying to make my way to a makeshift bar area, the crowded room’s only source of light besides the flickering lighters attending to bongs, hookahs, and whatever else goes on in this shutdown convenience store-turned-squatted art and performance space. A couple of permanently baked old homeless guys sit at an empty store front window and strum detuned acoustic guitars, their mumbled French vocals taking on a strange echoed effect over the makeshift P.A. system. The place is filled with smoke, wailing didgeridoos, bicycles, grafitti, and best of all, young hipsters and haggard street people together as one, immersed in a frenzied dance, oblivious to social stratas, possessions, and judging by the way they’re dancing, the music itself.
11/29/07-12/01/07 Pauze Festival at Vooruit in Ghent, Belgium
A Belgian record label/publication/art collective of sorts called (K-RAA-K)3 presents an eclectic music and film festival every year called Pauze. This year the performances are held at Vooruit which, for a venue that largely caters to leftfield music and art, impresses with its upscale swankiness. The first floor holds a large bar and café dining area with a luxurious staircase that leads to a separate room for film screenings. There’s plenty of room to move around in the concert space, it’s got a top notch lighting and sound system, and on the first night, they have carpets rolled up on the floor so people have a comfy way to chill out and take it all in. Overall, an impressive venue that’s probably as much a treat for bands to play as it is for audiences to attend.
The Noah Howard Quartet
The fest calls this night of music “The Unhyped Genious” yet bills Noah Howard as “an icon within the free jazz genre”. From the way he handles himself on stage, Howard obviously doesn’t care how much hype surrounds him. The players in the Noah Howard Quartet are experienced and confidant- they know they’re awesome and that they’re going to make you happy no matter what you think (or don’t know) about free jazz. Howard comes out on stage and tells us Ghent is “my other hometown, besides New Orleans. Thank you for coming, everybody. Welcome to my dreams.”
The fun of listening to improvised music is in the joy that comes when, as a listener, you allow yourself to let go, enjoy the spontaneous and unexpected, and thrive on the thought that what you’re hearing is right here, right now, and never again. Howard leads the band, occasionally holding off from his alto sax to motion other players to explore a new direction, reapproaching a musical tangent from a new point of connection, feeling, or bass line. Noah Howard’s “dreams” are intricate and joyous; he wears his music on his face with a big smile.
Volcano the Bear
Before the show starts, I recognize two guys from this band downstairs sitting at the table next to mine. I go over to say hi and tell them how blown away I was when they played at as220 about a year ago. Whereas at as220 they were playing to a small roomful of people, here they are playing on a much grander scale. The swirling, lavalamp-style lighting overwhelms their presence on stage, making it hard to tell who's doing what, which is unfortunate since part of what I enjoyed the first time I saw them was seeing each of the band members moving about to play drum kit, piano, brass, effects pedals, didgeridoo, and whatever else they can fashion as an instrument.
They give themselves plenty of opportunity during the performance to stretch the songs out and improvise, and that's when it gets really fun. As the structure of one song begins to fall apart, a preppy, Harry Potter-looking fellow goes apeshit and throws a pile of pots, pans, cymbals, and chains on the floor, and then launches himself off the stage where he proceeds to make a racket amongst the audience. He twirls a cymbal into the air and lets it crash to the floor a foot from where I'm sitting, then pounces back on it and drags it across the room. Another member hops off the stage, shouts "Hey!", and proceeds to chase his bandmate around the room for making such a mess of the place.
If the Three Stooges formed an avant-acid-folk band. Brilliant.
Acid Mothers Temple
On the last date of their European tour, they top off the last night of the festival and are the band I've most looked forward to seeing. My first live encounter with Japanese psych-supergroup Acid Mothers Temple happens before they even start playing: I walk in on guitarist Kawabata Makoto in the bathroom standing in front of the mirror putting his contact lenses on and "psych"-ing up his hair...or something. It's at least an hour before they are scheduled to play and the anticipation is that much more immense now that I know Makoto uses the same exact contact lens container as me (the blue and white one that comes with the Complete Multipurpose Soft Rub Formula).
Acid Mothers Temple reference the sounds and motifs of every psych rock band in the universe, but as far as the merchandise table side of things goes, they've cribbed everything from the Grateful Dead. That is to say, having streamlined the collectibility-factor of the hundreds of recordings they've released, they are essentially a brand name as much as they are a band name. I decide to pass on the pair of used drumsticks on offer at the merch table for 30 Euros (someone else didn't, though).
Finally, once they start to play, it's all I'd hoped it would be and more- specifically, the shirtless sweaty guy standing next to me yelling between each song. Their set encompasses all areas of the Acid Mothers universe- epic spacerock jams with feedback guitar freakouts, spacey sci-fi synth squalls, and shimmering reverb-drenched ambience, all cosmic debris orbiting around each massive riff. Building up to a climax at the end, as the pace gets faster and faster and more out of control, Makoto's guitar seems to take on a life of its own as he struggles to get a handle on it. He wields it over his head and swings it back down on stage, smashing it to pieces. Intense.
