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.

[k.p.g]

Last night's show in Philadelphia was a quaint 3 acts featuring Number of the Beast, Mistletoe and Embarker.  I fought off a somewhat persistent headache and my body screaming from a long workout to make it out & support some good friends on tour. 

Embarker was first.  The first 5 minutes of searing harsh stuff was very good, but it slowly trailed off into pockets of sound I just had no interest in.  Not my thing, not everything can be either.

Mistletoe came second, and I am always interested in hearing what John Pyle has in store when he plays out.  Keeping things sparse, I saw only a 4-track, 1 synth and 1 pedal.  This was the setup to create an eerie passage of time as he moved between different tracks that ranged from instrumental industrial, dark ambient droning and body sounds being looped in creeper fashion.  Many moments reminded me of S-Core.  A nice visual that John created accompanied the set.  Only issue I had was there seemed to be a persistent clicking sound throughout the set.  Not sure where the source of that sound was, but it could be off-putting in more ethereal moments.  Very good set though.  I'm currently enjoying the new disc on Chondritic as I type this out.

Number of the Beast closed things out.  Duo consists of Justin Lakes & Kyle Flanagan, so there's a hefty resume of noise power going on here.  This actually was not my first time seeing the duo before, as I was at their first show back in 2021.  Prior to going on their current tour, I am not sure they had played much since. Regardless, I have to say that these guys clearly had their shit together to bring the goods.  Synth crawls, oscillator squeals and scrap metal all battled for superiority in the mix.  Favorite moments of the set would be whenever scrap metal source took over entirely.  It was not cacophonous racket, but enough of a moderate pace of sound that it would remind me of some early era Skin Crime, which I will never say no to!

Overall nice show.  Nice excuse to get out of the house and see some people I rarely see in my day to day.

[HateSermon]

Number of the Beast closed things out.  Duo consists of Justin Lakes & Kyle Flanagan, so there's a hefty resume of noise power going on here.  This actually was not my first time seeing the duo before, as I was at their first show back in 2021.  Prior to going on their current tour, I am not sure they had played much since. Regardless, I have to say that these guys clearly had their shit together to bring the goods.  Synth crawls, oscillator squeals and scrap metal all battled for superiority in the mix.  Favorite moments of the set would be whenever scrap metal source took over entirely.  It was not cacophonous racket, but enough of a moderate pace of sound that it would remind me of some early era Skin Crime, which I will never say no to!

You rockin' the 8 hour arm day like Rich Piana?
I've seen clips from some of the Number of the Beast shows and it sounds massive. Love the candelabra and red backdrop - really adds that vampiric sleaze. I was really hoping that tour came through close to here but no dice. If anyone has a copy of the "Playing With Fire" CD-R for sale, hit me up.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Very good reports! Would be good to hear from other countries too!

[Manhog_84]

Tower Transmissions XI

Pffft...! was the big surprise for everyone and highlight of Friday. The massive sound was perfect for their Test Department-style metal percussion and all the details were crystal clear. The project has existed since 1984 already and I say that's well kept anonymity! Discogs didn't list any of their releases prior to this gig, but a new tape, Bunkerbeschallung, was for sale at the festival,

Minimun Sentence was okay and short enough. PÅGÅ, also ok, atmospheric stuff but felt too long. Kommando's flanger-glucking was enjoyable for a while, but the set was really long and became a bit monotonous. The very long sets actually started to feel like an endurance test. Nocturne and Sigillum S were total garbage. The kind of lame synth pop and IDM stuff I don't listen at all. It wasn't really a surprise for Sigillum S, but I slightly hoped they would do something different than electronics beats.

Saturday was easily the stronger day!

Moozzhead was at the top of his game. The big stage, PA, and hands down the best background video of the festival. And in general, probably best visuals for his sets so far. The pure harsh noise blast of 17 minutes felt really refreshing in contrast to long industrial sets.

ᚦᛟᚦ ᚷᛁᚷ was not musically bad, I could listen to this at home, but there is always something off in Trepaneringsritualen guy's stage antics. Hard to pinpoint it exactly, maybe it was the crust pants combined with the lump mask.

Sektion C was unfamiliar to me. At first, I wasn't sure about the visuals with vague political statements: Palestine/USA politics, "Refugees Welcome," etc. The cardboard Trump was funny, though. The sound was excellent and powerful again. In retrospect, this was really good! The second song especially was great...The world is on fire? Not sure about the title. I listened to older Sektion B material on my way back, and elements from those records were used in the live set.

Arktau Eos played one of their strongest sets. The sound was perfect again.

Genocide Organ was good and luckily different to the Turku gig. Some metal junk sounds weren't properly audible, but it wasn't a big problem. At this point, I was quite tired after a long day. GO good, but Turku gig better! It felt more intense and resonated better with audience. The images of Dresden bombing at the background video was a nice touch.

Cindytalk was another unknown act for me. I only watched briefly, but the guitar wall and female vocals didn't sound bad at all.

Overall, it was a fun trip. Socialising with old and new acquaintances, decent record scores from merch section, Dresden was beautiful and the venue really good. The amount of women in the audience was surprisingly large. There should have been more seats. Some of the more atmospheric sets work better if you watch them while sitting down.

[k.p.g]

Drove up to New Jersey for the Monday night noise gig.  What a way to get myself exhausted for the week to come.  Still, it was worth it.  Scene up here is a very dedicated crew, with even a dozen people showing up on a Monday night with ease. 

First up on the bill was H.D., whose spurts of activity are far and few.  Not so much noise as it is sampler and guitar freaking.  Has more of a general outsider music vibe to it.  Solid start to the night, and a nice subversion of noise show expectations.

Kevin Winter was second.  Those from back in the 2000s might remember him for being the man behind the 2673 project.  While the set was a short one, clocking in at just over 10 minutes, it transported the audience to a black hole that felt like eternity.  Synth chirps started out meditative before slowly mutating into bizarre realms.  At one point, I thought I heard voices chirping around the stereo field.  All hell broke loose by the end, with a great wash of harsh being brought on by an army of oscillator boxes.  Despite not listening to much in this style nowadays, what Kevin does always seems to hold my interest.

Dimension Viewer played third, and brought a slab of classic harsh noise wall.  It was pretty damn loud from even outside the performance room, which is a good sign for this style.  I am more used to the artist behind this project doing more saxophone based freakouts, so this was a nice change of pace.

Somewhere between sets, the crowd waiting outside was treated to an impromptu noisecore recording session by several of the local kids who have created a label called New Jersey Musical Annihilation.  Voice, a broken drum cymbal, a lunch box and an unplugged electric guitar were instruments at play; properly shitty.  I bet it will sound shittier on tape.

Back to the planned acts now, Spreaders continues his streak of absolutely killing it in the live arena.  It is a shame this project does not record more, as anyone who has seen him play in the last several years will tell you that it is unbelievable; tape noise at its finest.

Closing the night's processions was a new local duo by the name of Botrytis, composed of the minds behind the Inarticulate & ksssssshk973 projects.  It made for an interesting pairing of 2 projects who do not share much in common when apart.  Together though, it made for a tough slab of harsh noise crudeness.  Surge synths and broken tape decks merged together without much trouble.  Pacing felt good, with the duo knowing when it was time to close things out.  Always like that for a duo who are just getting their bearings together.  Good end to a fun night. I got McDonald's on the way home.  That was not too bad either.

[impulse manslaughter]

Alice Kemp last Saturday was the most focussed and singular performance I witnessed lately. When less becomes so much more. Total perfection! Also really great were Altar of Flies, Kapotte Muziek (cacophony of minimal electro-acoustic sounds), Red Brut, Riccardo Mazza (a melancholic and dramatic soundscape, slowly building up to heavy and crunchy noise) & Organ of Corti (drunken tape-loop madness and atmospheric layering of sound). 

[FreakAnimalFinland]

how big was event? I was actually talking with friend about looking into how much would be to fly there to check out the fest, but currently too hectic life to add anything more.

[impulse manslaughter]

how big was event? I was actually talking with friend about looking into how much would be to fly there to check out the fest, but currently too hectic life to add anything more.

We had 75 paying visitors on the pre-party on Friday and about 115 on Saturday. Might do another edition next year as I had a great time.

[k.p.g]

Just came back from doing a round of shows with Last Day with My Garbage; New Jersey & Pittsburgh.  Both were very solid times!  Happy to report on seeing some great noise throughout:

In New Jersey, the show was opened by a kid whose project simply went by the name Arch.  Name wasn't even on the flier; kid just showed up with a bass, a pedal, practice amp and a lot of gusto.  It is still obviously a work in progress, but I think it's better than anything I would've done when I was 17.

Up next would be MSDS, another New Jersey project that I think will get its due in time.  Imagine some sort of cross between Facialmess & Dilloway in terms of sound.  Tons of loops just getting cut in and out, breaking each step of the way.  Artist says "each set is sort of meant to be educational," which determines the sources being used.  This one was about dog training, so a lot of barks were to be had.  Loved it.

Panicker played after, delivering a more subdued set than what I have grown accustomed to him doing.  Hope he explores this avenue more, because it certainly paid off here. 

Munt Cascade would round out this bill quite well, as he tagged along with us for the 2 shows of this run.  Tons of broken mixer and synth at play.  While this sound sputters on, Mike is also manipulating visuals in real time on his iPad.  It makes for a trippy occasion, as you feel like you are trapped in a dying hard drive.  A new tool he would use this time around is a cheap, $2 microphone, handing it to people in the crowd to yell into.  Kids ate it up.

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Pittsburgh brought out some of its heaviest hitters for this one.  It honestly made for a hard time for us out-of-towners to compete with.  Hand & Knee opened things up with maybe the best set I have seen Mr. Grimaldi do.  The balance he has between a rotting, emotional core and cacophonous found sound is striking such a potent nerve that feels very... Pittsburgh.  It's the only way I can describe it, but fans of the project should know what I mean.  GREAT.

And speaking of GREAT, next up would be the king of the harsh, the lord of the ducks, the man who knows all things Chrome; I speak of course of Mallard Theory.  Having Henry out at a show is always a treat, even if he isn't playing.  But we were lucky enough to convince the Mallard to wash us in a sea of psychedelic harsh that pummeled all those lucky to witness.  Imagine a more spaced out take on Immaculate:Grotesque as far as the approach goes. I just don't know how Henry does it, but he does.  No notes.  GREAT.

Lastly, before Garbage & Munt took the stage, we were treated to a set from Echo Lightwave Unspeakable.  I don't think I had seen him play a set since 2017 or so, when we shared a bill in Philadelphia (which he correctly pointed out, was a set where I still had a live drummer... yeesh).  His set on this night was a great display of cut-up, harsh fuckery.  With a city that has so much talent in it, Echo's a name that can get lost in the mix.  Think that is a shame, as he is out here rocking it just as hard as the others!

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While not performing, I have to note that Joe Roemer coming to the Pittsburgh was a highlight in of itself.  I think for anyone who has met Joe in person, they know what I mean.  Hah.  End.