Live show reports / comments

[k.p.g]

On a brighter note, happy to see there is actually a thread for live shows.  Hooray!  I have to say that I have seen a number of standout acts this year that do not get their flowers much.  Perhaps it is because of minimal output/online presence.  Let me highlight here:

Robert Fuchs & YU//F came and played New Jersey in April, and it turned out to be a surprisingly good turnout for a Thursday night!  I have said it once before but it is funny to know that college students up at Rutgers see what we do up there and call it "The New Brunswick Noise."  Half the time you maybe get one jersey local on shows. hah. 
As for these performances though, both artists were on point.  YU//F started out with some crushing, crude harsh before descending into some absolutely stellar tape ambient.  Robert Fuchs did his usual mixer feedback spiel but something felt different about it this time.  It felt far more dialed in and ferocious.  Definitely the best time  I had seen Dean perform.

In May, I played up in Providence, Rhode Island as part of a tour with Max Julian Eastman & Fricker.  This gig was particularly noteworthy for having the best performance I saw on those round of shows, courtesy of a virtual unknown in Causis.  His actual name is Keegan BH, and I mention that as I have no idea whether the Causis name is meant to stick or not.  However, it shouldn't matter when the noise rips as hard as it did with him.  4 track manipulations brought through a harsher, more cut-up vibe.  Not at all how I would approach tape noise, and I am not sure how he accomplished what he did.  I was pretty hard drunk at that point, and this set did the trick.  We can only hope for a release to come soon, as I think this is an artist more people need to hear. 

I must continue throwing my praise towards the young bunch of New Jersey who are stepping up their live work.  I already mentioned Scronch once before on here but their performances as Storage Locker Suicide have gotten better each time I see it this year.  They have another friend named Ian who performs under the name MSDS.  Tons of harsh tape manipulation.  Like I said with Causis, MSDS does things with tape that I would never think to do and that was certainly displayed in the set I saw of theirs.  Think of a Dilloway meets Facialmess type of performance.  Pretty rad!

PCRV delivered an electrifying set with his first ever performance in New Jersey.  Feel like tons of people had been posting about his sets on the usual social media channels but it was the real deal that has to be mentioned again. The old guard shows no sign of slowing down here.

Lastly, must mention again that the Sheer Anxiety duo I saw with Andrea Pensado & Christopher Strunk a few weeks ago was brilliant.  A great combination of harsh electronics, vocal freak outs and percussive fury!

[k.p.g]

Played my first show in Philadelphia this year as part of a bill that Legless put on with himself, Inarticulate & Canker Sore.  Total raw, guerilla style show in the middle of an abandoned housing project with just a small practice amp to rip out of.  Wasn't much of an issue, as it was intimate enough for such a sound setup to work (also was fitting for the setting). 

Thought the Dead Door Unit sent went over well.  Just a 4-Track & Walkman at play, nothing too crazy. 

Canker Sore is a new local, whose first show ever was this one.  He is more in tap with the grindcore/noisecore/gorenoise  side of things (sings in a great band called Aroma for you blastbeat lovers) than proper harsh but ended up delivering an interesting set!  Was sort of like a blow-out sound collage type of deal.  Samples coming in and out, being distorted and then promptly destroyed.  I talked to him a bit about recording after, and he said "it's never usually that blown-out."  I promptly replied "you should explore more of that!"  Hope he does, as this set did not feel like an amateur at play.

Inarticulate set was great.  This project is due for some more name recognition soon enough, and the live performances will back that up.  Good balance of source tape stabbing and mixer feedback.  You would think the latter could blow up a tiny practice amp, but the little thing held out well!  Clarity was there.  Looking forward to more people taking notice of his work.

Legless delivered a harsh burst of chaos, working with classic microphone and couple of pedals setup.  After a minute of figuring out the sound, he kicked it into gear.  I am not sure there is another project going nowadays that is as perfect for practice amp ripping as Legless is. 

[k.p.g]

This past Saturday was one for the books with noise in New Jersey.  A monstrous bill of Viodre, A Fail Association, Bob Marinelli, Inarticulate, VIPER, Max Julian Eastman, Dead Door Unit & Storage Locker Suicide packed a tiny basement in New Brunswick and delivered.  It was one of those shows where it felt too good to be true that all of the acts DELIVERED.  Let me recount...

Storage Locker Suicide was up first & set the tone immediately.  I have written once about Scronch on here, but that was for their other project, Pounds of Copper.  Storage Locker is essentially the 2020's answer to old "mic and a couple pedals" era of live Prurient, and it continues to improve with each time I see it.  Each yell feels like it has a machine gun blast accompanying it, and the intensity never lets up.  I think everyone in attendance knew from this set that the night would be destined for pure raging.

As previously mentioned, I did a Dead Door Unit set.  People seemed to really enjoy it.  Good enough for me.

Max Julian Eastman played next, and had been telling me all week that he wanted to get pretty chaotic with it.  I think some original ideas were pretty gnarly, and hopefully he gets a chance to do them in the future.  But for the first show in this new house space, he opted to dousing the crowd in water & beer before breaking in to incite a mosh pit.  I always like the spitting water move.  Not sure why.  I have done it before when singing onstage with bands, and it's been met with reactions of "why did you do that? Gross!"  No one here felt that way though.  They all wanted a taste of Eastman.

If anyone could make a claim that their vibes carry an entire show, it would have to be Joe Roemer.  He could have stood around just telling life stories, and it would have made for a great time.  Lucky for us though, we were treated to a VIPER set where Joe battled with his six strings and amps to the death.  A total wall of sound cut in with the occasional shred solo.  Probably the closest set to lean into psychedelic territories.

I guess we could say this show served as a sort of release show for Inarticulate.  Their tape just came out on French Market Press the day before, so yeah, it kind of was!  And they did not disappoint in delivering a good live set.  Way more work with mixer feedback/cut-up techniques than previous sets I have seen.  I was a little surprised at how good Alex can transition from their usual tape murk to this type of sound.  Maybe more releases down the line in this style will showcase it for the listening public who cannot attend a show.

Bob Marinelli originally came to the show as an audience member; ridiculous!  He's here, he HAS to play!  And play he did!  He delivered a short burst of synth and vocal chirping to a hyper enthusiastic crowd.  You would think he was the headliner the way people cheered him on.  Great set!

We are 7 acts deep into this.  How can energy keep after so many unhinged sets?  Simple; you get the audience to participate in it!  A Fail Association delivered some of the most cutthroat harsh noise I have heard in my life, and was tossing shaker boxes back in forth to the crowd to play along with his pedal smashing.  Favorite moment of the show came when he tossed a shaker into the crowd before cutting to silence.  He says "dance" before diving into a sledgehammer's worth of harsh power.  Audience danced.  Fantastic.

We finally end the night on the original lineup of Viodre.  They could have delivered just a ripping harsh noise set, and that would have been enough.  But Viodre couldn't just settle.  By the end of the set, Bryan Gilroy was tossing his mic around to the crowd as he convulsed on the basement floor with his own screams.  How you could hear his unamplified voice just as well as any of the other noise was beyond me.  He was possessed.  The other band members clearly had seen this more than enough times to know that they have to continue slamming the crowd with a hellish soundtrack to this.  By the time their amps had turned off, the night had ended perfectly.  Wow, 8 acts that didn't disappoint.  Call that a damn rarity.  I found myself really unable to accept that it was over.  This type of gig reminded me why I really just love harsh noise.  Can't say much else.