Cum on feel the Noize

I was thinking today… I need a hero.
I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the morning light
He’s gotta be sure
And it’s gotta be soon
And he’s gotta be larger than life

Then I remembered that I already have one and his name is Dave Hill, the lead guitarist of the insanely popular 70s band from the UK, Slade. Cum on Feel the Noize anyone? What I like about this guy is that homeboy could rock the sequins and the high-heeled platform boots like a champ. A real CHAMP. He was money even before money was money. His hair cut was like a renaissance mullet or something, with these super short bangs that topped off a smooth flowing Kentucky waterfall. I know what you’re thinking because I’m thinking it too…AWESOME!!!

I bet you can't guess which one is him

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There was a particular style of head-dress that he seemed to fancy. I suppose it was Egyptian-Pharoah looking, so that may have been the appeal for him. It covered his head so that only his face was poking out, like Beavis in Cornholio mode. The head-dress was encrusted with sequins, big ones at that, and he shone like a beacon of glam.

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So, If you too are looking for a hero, you needn’t look far. He’s right here waiting for you, bathed in sequins and light.

That's money baby... MONEY

Beast Beats menu: Melt Banana

Melt Banana played at Slims this past Friday. The last time they played SF was 2 years ago at the Independent which was a more energetic show, but their Slim’s show rocked pretty hard with the new addition of Melt Banana Lite. Spoiler alert… don’t read on if you intend to see them on this current tour and you don’t know what Melt Banana Lite is. For the rest of you… read on my friends. Melt Banana took the stage in the dark, wearing head lamps like some sort of punk rock noise miners. I’m not an expert on head lamps, but these must have been some bad ass japanese supersonic lights because they were awesome and bright and white. It was sick, they were playing in the dark and periodically I would get blinded by the lights from their headlamps. What was most impressive is that they were playing a different style too, it was a departure from their straightforward rock band set up. The music was electronic and distorted and noisy but I don’t think that the bass player was there (I was a little disoriented though, so don’t quote me). After some time, the stage lights came up, they left the electronic stuff behind and they launched into their classic Melt Banana goodness. The lead singer always tries to connect with the crowd at some point between songs, but this time she was really chatty. I remember the first time that I saw them in 1997 in Albuquerque at the Launchpad, which we lovingly called the Raunch-pad, she said something about Merry Christmas in major broken English and some dude in the crowd yelled “fuck Christmas”. She turned to the guitarist and was like “huh?” He leaned in to translate Fuck in Japanese and she was all “oooooooh. Okay. thank you” before jumping into their next face-melter.

It felt like since it was the second show of their tour, they were saving their energy for something, but overall it was a solid show. You should definitely see them if they come through your town on the current tour.

The Schwarz

Release the GOOOOOOOOOD

Mauricio Ancalmo – Dubitatio

So, I went to this show that’s in the bottom level of Baer Ridgway Exhibitions, next to the SFMOMA. The artist is Mauricio Ancalmo and his work blew me away.

The digital prints on the wall are abstract and sublime. Beautiful. But what really grabbed me is what’s happening in the center of the gallery space. The artist constructed a tower of 16mm projectors that are stacked one on top of the other. The stacked projectors play looping film of varied found footage that the artist spliced together; Vladimir Horowitz playing a piano concerto, African drumming and chants, and some sort of radio interference sine wave thing, etc. The wicked part is, as the film winds through the projectors, each individual projected image continuously changes while the resulting sound emanating from all of them simultaneously plays like some sort of monstrous instrument. You can see and hear the past, present and future in chaotic unison. Talk about a remix.

To look at the sculpture alone is like looking at a mechanic and organic hybrid of a machine… a Beast Machine. Cords and cables twist and wind down from the ceiling, the film loops snake through the projectors in what should be a tangled mess, but instead activate the machine and give it life.

The show will be up October 17th – November 14th, 2009. The sculpture has four parts, the film changes weekly for the duration of the show (4 weeks). Check it!

Beast Beats meets Eats Tapes

Imagine if your ears dropped acid then plugged into a robot describing how to traverse a martian attack…. that’s Eats Tapes the San Francisco duo comprised of Marijke Jorristma and Gregory Zifcak. Eats Tapes has releases out on Tigerbeat6 (Oakland, CA) and Communtiy Library (Portland, OR). A free EP of unreleased tracks and remixes from 2004-2008 can be downloaded from their website here. If you want to see them live, you’re in luck. They tour the US and Europe and they don’t discriminate against venues. They can be found rocking house parties, art openings, underground clubs and everywhere in between.

I had a chance to catch up with the dynamic duo after their recent tour:

Where did you two meet? Old Town.

Were you always Eats Tapes or did you work on other projects together previously? nothing else, except for Apes Teats and Peak Oil.

How do you describe your sound? annoying, with pounding bass.

Who are some of the musicians and artists that you’ve collaborated with? nate boyce, mat brinkman, wobbly, sutekh, fyoelk, hot city, seripop, MNDR, and other global devastators that we’re forgetting at the moment.

Are you Eats Tapes because you are finished with analog or because you can’t get enough of it? i think we liked the name because it conjured malfunction, anthropomorphized technology, and thrift store electronics.

If there was a circuit bending triathlon what would the events be? we’re really into straight forward functional modifications and experimental/homemade stuff that falls outside the confines of circuit bending convention. some of our favorite crafters are peter blasser, forrest mims III, nic collins, ray wilson, ken stone, twig harper, early video synthesizer pioneers, and all the really helpful people on the synth-diy email list.

for the triathlon: butt-flossing, internet reading, and self-congratulating.

Tour survival kit… what’s in it? 3 MMT-8s, data cassette backups, 6 pages of set notes, at least 2 broken synths, hundreds of thrift store AC adapters, half a drum module.

What’s the best thing about being a band in SF? being exposed to a lot of different scenes and a rich musical legacy.

The worst? rent, and the constantly shifting availability of cool venues.

Where is your favorite place to get gear? before ebay it was definitely pawn shops. the blessing and curse of the internet is that now you can get anything you want, but you have to pay market value.

What was your biggest score? no real big ones, probably the free copy of Reaktor from the Native Instruments office in Berlin.

What do you have going on for future projects? not telling!

If you hosted a Mad Hatters tea party and could invite any of your influences, alive or dead, who would be there? Doris Norton and Beowulf

What’s your favorite you tube video at the moment? what’s you tube?

So there you have it. Get you some Eats Tapes action on MySpace, Vimeo and Sound Cloud

San Francisco Cheese-Fest

The LoveFest passed my window at work yesterday, so I thought that I’d go out and take some pictures. I really couldn’t resist the call of stacks upon stacks of speakers, no matter how bad the music coming out of them was. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like electronic music, it’s just that I don’t like cheesy electronic music. Big difference.

Does Exstacy shrink your penis?

So anyway, what I saw was lots of boas, spandex, fishnet everything and fluorescent fake fur. Tis true, there are places other than Burning Man in the world for such things. That means it isn’t safe ANYWHERE. Giddy dancers rolled down Market street sucking on their water bottles. I understand, it ain’t easy staying hydrated in metallic lamé.

It's the big gut float!

Iwanted so badly to hijack a float. What I wouldn’t do to get behind the wheel of a semi truck pulling a flatbed loaded with stacks of speakers. A beast beats TAKE-OVA, and I wouldn’t be playing no shitty bubblegum techno.

Somehow this works

and this does not

trick or treat

Thriller Zombies vs Teenage Runaways in a battle to the death. Who will win the title for most tattered clothing? You be the judge.

Supertouch shitfit

Bad Brains tonight!!!! I’m dieing right now… I can’t wait!

Thank you for not calling it Sparklemouse or Dangerhorse

So Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse collaborated on an Album called Dark Night of the Soul. This project is one collaboration frenzy. They collaborated with each other, then collabotated with other musicians including Frank Black and Iggy Pop, not bad. Then they went on to take their collaboration and form another collaboration with David Lynch (awesome) who collaborated with various celebrities to produce a photoseries inspired by the album tracks. The photos were shown in LA at Michael Kohn gallery (let’s see… officially I think that brings the artworld in on the collaboration somewhere too.)

Well after all that, the album isn’t even being released for some lawsuit reasons, it’s not surprising with that many collaborators involved. But the photoseries was published and is being sold with a blank CD so that you can burn the album which had already made its way into the world wide interweb. Turntable Lab is selling promos on double vinyl.

The only thing that really interests me about this whole project is that it was a collaboration orgie. It’s an ok listen, the music is so so and doesn’t really evoke all that is the “Dark Night of the Soul“. That’s a pretty hefty theme to live up to.