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pink & brown/flying luttenbachers/x27/25 suaves
plus skin rattlers
1 april 2oo2
3rd street saloon, detroit

1st up was the suffuckators, who were either 25 suaves' alter ego or an unannounced replacement. fronted by a very highly strung 2 string bass player/vocalist, who led the masked female drummer and (also masked, chador-style) androgynous male guitar player thru a set of fucked-up rok-ruin damage. was hard to hear much, the p.a. was feeding back constantly, and the sound was reduced to the antics of the bass & backing from the drums with the gtr being indistinguishable. i still wonder what they sounded like... but they were somewhat visually interesting. [sentenced to 3 months as fashion consultants in camp x-ray]

x27 upped the ante with a relatively brief set featuring new drummer sisca adorned in layers of aluminum foil. my first live x-perience of this band improved upon the sound of the 1st cdr ep (reviewed here). rikkeh has an interesting variant approach to guitar, avoiding any familiar riffs, and instead concentrating on abusing the strings in taut angular lines of sound. i enjoyed his use of the metal support pole as slide. carmen acts as a different kind of foil, with her vox providing an added sensuous dimension to the sound, and her way of moving her hips and feet while she plays bass evident of rhythmic & focused immersion. i liked this set well enuff to pick up another cdr ep by the trio, to be reviewed in earpeace11. i look forward to seeing more developments from x27. [sentence: probation & court costs payable in cds to the court...]

fred's luttenbachers took the stage for a highly choreographed and intensely arranged set of prog-punk. there was a martial feel, from ww's pants & marching around the room before & after playing, to the way he dominated the proceeedings with his percussion. his kit is pretty specifically oriented towards the rapidfire patterns he throws up, while the two bass players look for cues and play intricate phrases of interlocking fast-fingered parts. kinda reminded me of one of zappa's projects in the musical director mode functions, while maybe evokes beefheart in the interpersonal dynamics, with the 2 subordinates obviously bending to the ruthless singleminded will of the leader (hal russell uber alles?). while i have to respect the amount of practice and determination that goes into making this band as tight and strong as it is, it is just not my cuppa. [sentence: six months in the re-education camp plus endless touring thru the amerikan gulag...]

bad craziness was delivered in spades by the pink & brown duo, and that is a damn good thing. they have distilled the recent performance tactics of the providence bands (like lightning bolt) into an adroitly deranged showcase of now wave rok. some of the audience (predominantly other musicians) became willing participants in the anti-spectacle. it will be interesting to see just how much business this medicine show can do... [this judge finds pink & brown guilty of various promiscuous & miscreant behaviors...]

a debauched set of 70s rock covers was spewed upon the diehards by the composite all-unstar lineup of the skin rattlers, in the tradition of the chicago sound. all i can say is, you hadda be there... [wanted, still-at-large...]


wolf eyes/the animal collective
3 april 2oo2
c-pop gallery, detroit

arrived too late to see mammal, tho from previous experience last fall, they are not to be avoided...

the animal collective of avey tare, panda bear, the geologist & conrad deaken presented a strangely evocative set. one member appeared to have collapsed into an insulin coma over the drum set, another "fronted" the grouping wearing (and occasionally playing) guitar and the remaining pair crouched on pillows before a makeshift altar of electronics setup. everyone contributed various chanted, moaned and singsong exhultations/exhortations. occasionally something song-like would break out of the soundscape. i had no experience with any of their recordings, so i really didn't know what to make of the situation. there seemed to be a jelling about midway into the set, and the sounds gathered momentum from there. overall, my curiousity was aroused enuff to obtain some evidence from the merchandise table for the files. [remanded to the prosecutor for further investigations...]

wolf eyes was rare form at the beginning of their set, triggering a light show with the electronics as a nice touch. john o. was looking like the poster child for the military don't ask-don't tell tribunal with his mirrored aviator glasses and dress shirt. the din & fog machine triggered the smoke detectors, and the sound of beeping fire alarms & flashing evacuation lights added an ominous environmental ambience to the proceedings. nate y. looked eerie as the lighting behind him cast beams & shadows thru the settling fog, even as the c-pop folks opened windows to try to relieve the distressed smoke sensors. very loud, both sonically and visually. i wonder what the firemen thought? [sentence: community service with a fire safety education program...]


metalux/scummerai/nautical almanac/rubber o cement/viki/hans grüsel's kränkenkabinet/kinque kolute
7 april 2oo2
detroit contemporary, detroit

wrapping up a a week of not-to-be -missed shows... thrown out of whack by the (daylight savings) time change. i was pretty early (gunshy after missing mammal on wednesday), so got to hang w/twig & have a nice convo. things were kinda chaotic & confusing, with setups taking awhile, and soundchecks conducted on the fly. hopefully, i have the performers in the right order here...

kinque kolute was a 2 piece of big keyboard (had me thinking of larry young's female-zombie-counterpart... maybe) & percussion. i liked the black & white garb, very alicia in wunderland. they kicked up quite a racket. great masks. [sentenced to 30 days solitary in the rabbit hole...]

germany via frisco bay nice-guy hans grüsel's kränkenkabinet not only dressed up, but put up a whole setting of cloth & carboard painted, drawn-on in the style of the cd art: green, brown, reddish woodgrain in cartoon-comix style. hans presided with his masked head inside an illustrated box (the kränkenkabinet, i presume?) laying down most of the tracks while on each side mister & miss kränken-elf popped up to deliver quick jabs of sound on cymbals, harmonica (a wheezy technique eliciting some laughter), small drums & various other percussion or improvised objects. because he was set up in the rear part of the room, with the soundboard behind him and the p.a. behind the audience, there was a strange displacement of speakers, with the acoustic sounds of the elf-twins coming from the front, and hans' electronix coming from behind. [insanity plea accepted...]

viki was plagued by tech problems, with the main drum machine consistently defying her will and refusing to play more than a minute or two. the crowd was very pro-viki, and encouraged her to keep trying. eventually she succeeeded in playing most of her set. her voice was near-impossible to hear, even when she ate the mic. the beats & overlaid noise were well-done, and she seems to know what she's doing. [we were going to give her the chair, but it keeps shorting out...]

the much acclaimed and anticipated rubber o cement was next. one performer showed only a cardboard fort (like the ones you used to make out of appliance boxes- only colored better) which occasionally wiggled & moved & had a little spinning disc shape that spun once in awhile, while the other rubbero wore a most splendid japanese monster movie-type costume, with a huge head and feet, and one tentacle/arm/hand that constantly raked a bass... without ever deigning to play any notes. lots of hyperactive dancing around and whipping the bass guitar cord back and forth, while undefined noises erupted from behind the walls of the fort. lots of associations here, children at play, monster movies, comepletely formless sounds. i thought the whole added up to less than the sum of its parts. [sentence: to do their next show without electricity, think: mimes...]

nautical almanac with chiara giovando on vox then played a quite different set than the one i had witnessed last fall. twig played his facial expressions to the crowd as much as his war chest of electronix, while carly delved into the crowd a couple of times, exhorting us to pump our arms and rally the team... er group. chiara kept her back to the audience most of the time and bounce-danced back and forth a lot, while emitting sounds outta nowhere. the nautical almanac mixer seemed to perplex the sound guy who came out and made adjustments which made no difference that i could hear. twig allowed the tape to be ripped from his head, to much approval from the crowd, but he declined to "eat the tape". i wish they would have played longer... [guilty as sin, released with time served...]

scummerai appeared in the form of a gigantic set-piece which looked like a cityscape or shoreside derrick of some sort, looking ready to fall down & propped up with cardboard painted to look as metal struts-girders leaning. the room was near empty, when the scummerai set began to jettison little cardstock sheets from a slot. first one guy, then a few more ppl noticed that parts of the set were moving and they began to try to throw the droppings back up and in or thru one of the slots. more people wandered in. circular objects (coins? manhole covers? coasters?) rolled out into the crowd. i was enjoying the unique visuals & audience involvement, which culminated in the set partially collapsing. but i didn't even notice the music/noise being played as part of the show. it had begun so unannounced, so indiscernable from what the djs were playing, that i can't even review it. a very interesting performance, maybe not enhanced by the disorganization of the entire night. or maybe that was the intent. [3 months hard labor, working on ford field...]

closing out the night/early morning came metalux, and i enjoyed carbon's use of the reel-to-reel and the old-fashioned mic she used (especially since i have a collection of reel-to-reels & found mics at home aka the dawn of sound reinforcement). unfortunately, like viki, her voice was way indistinct in the mix, but the sound-generating devices (moog, gtr, keyboards, samplers?/delays, etc.) seemed to do better. after a too-brief set seemingly cut short by crowd-indifference it was over. [pardoned for bad behavior]

overall, the event reminded me of some kind of extended family occasion, like a reunion, or maybe a wedding that was supposed to happen but didn't, or a funeral that was scheduled, only to find the deceased had turned up in some compromising position somewhere after having looted the trust funds... lots of connections, related tactics, devices, costumes, attitude in common... bringing out the influences indirect & otherwise of japanese antecedents of the noise/identity-obscuring costumes strategy... i wonder if there is a (creatively) wealthy unmarried daughter in the tree there available... or maybe someone would adopt me...


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