Thanks to SI's resident Solmaniac, I've recently been enjoying reading the many and varied Solmania-related postings and in the interval- er to be precise just a few minutes ago- remembered that I had exactly one show review kicking around. I can't recall where I originally posted it, probably to the old blue noiseboard, possibly 2004(?), but after digging around and finding will now duly post here.
Geez. It is... uh, pretty navel-gazingly-bad, but no worse than anything else offered to date. Let that be my caveat. I like some of the more er enraptured descriptors offered respecting the primer mover-
quote:
show review: pain jerk, solmania 06/18 Tokyo
June 18, DOM Shinjuku
I apologize in advance because this is one REALLY DUMB ASS REVIEW.
Right. Okay. Let`s see now. How do I put this as succinctly as possible? How about, "FUCK! I FUCKING MISSED PAIN JERK! FUCKING AGAIN! Pardon me while I go jump in front of a FUCKING TRAIN!" Precisely the words spoken to the dude sitting outside DOM, Shinjuku that mild Friday evening. But wait, says he (as I`m making a bee-line for the tracks), "You like Solmania?"
Solmania? Fuck yes, I like Solmania. Five years in Japan and yet to actually see the dudes do their thing. (Though I did catch their equipment live and unplugged backstage of Shinjuku Antiknock when Slogun and Sickness were over in December. Ohno-san was apparently "really pissed" about something or other and, despite having made the three-hour trip from Osaka, couldn`t be assed to get his ass on stage. Rock on.) I, ah, fucking like Solmania.
Solmania. Solmania! Yeah, Solmania! Cracked open a "Super Dry", toasted a night of ear abuse-to-be, ventured downward. Sauntered through the entrance with a half-shit-eating grin, said "hi" to a remarkably mild-mannered what`s-his-name-vocalist-guy from Nikudorei. Very surprised to see him drunkenly calm and glassy-eyed, not picking fights with anyone. Maybe he`d already got it out of his system, kicked a hole in a wall or something. Stepped inside a fairly crowded house and was treated to a scattered stream of loud guffaws and random giggling. Torihada Minoru dominating the stage. (Torihada, I learned later, is some kind notorious actionist slash political commentator slash minor celebrity who coats his pointedly bitter pills with non-stop hilarity.) Looked very funny indeed -- Kohei / Guilty Connector, sitting in the side-lines, looked like he was going to shit himself at one point -- and probably would have been even funnier had I understood a single word Torihada was saying. Okay, I exaggerate. I caught something about "Koizumi" and "zamen", which probably tells you more about your reviewer's general frame of mind than anything else. Anyway, Defektro`s main squeeze thinks Torihada is some kind of god, so there must be something noiseworthy about the shit.
Alrighty then. After that incredibly long intro, some noise. Solmania. This dude fucking rocks. Must have about a million pedals, plus of course that wacky custom mutant-space-guitar jobby that I remember being featured in the closing scene of Bill & Ted`s Excellent Adventure. What to say? Basically a massive, deeply rich and overwhelming wall of feedback, modulated, molested, mangled ad infinitum through a million and one effects. The sound. THE SOUND. The sound just getting denser and denser, heavier and heavier, more and more out of control. Or not. Difficult to say how much is supposed to sound like that and how much is left open to chance. Solmania is a duo, after all. And oddly enough, it seems as though Sugahara-san, the mostly effect-less, regular-old-guitar-playing half of the unit, is having a much more profound effect on the sound proper. The sound proper probably on par with Live - Big Rig (Kubitsuri Tapes), if a fair bit more multi-faceted and unrelenting... in fact, comparable to the quite brilliant, studio recorded, DLO (Alchemy), so maybe these guys are onto something. Anyway, where was I? The sound. Right, the sound. Ahem. Flushed abysmal toiletry plunging bowelpiped plummets plowing. Darkly dark ritual flavoring for color, largely owing to the very purposeful, but never plodding, pacing - with none of that rhythmical crap to detract from the essence of CRUSH. Loads of what can only be described as stir-fried, metallic "kikakikakika" flouncing about then getting crushed, pulverized, mutilated, scorched. Meaty scoops of low-end lurch heave and thud against almost ambient wailing scree. Tons of shit going on in there. Tons. So much, in fact, that I really can`t stand still for more than two seconds, can`t figure out where to direct my confused attention, barely suppress the urge to start bugging out and do the "Mikawa". I compensate by punching the dude who put out the GxCx/Tabata collab, always good to have on hand when a good punching is called for. Toward the end, Ohno starts kicking at random pedals, achieving very little noticeable impact on the raging tempestuosity. Then, suddenly, he backpedals to the middle of the stage, goes mildly ape-shit, and the whole room, seemingly filled to capacity with utterly assblasting earstink, floods with an immensely biggy-size gutchurning beauty of the crushingest kind. Ahhhhhhh. Solmania. Still-substantial audience most appreciative.
Cough. Pain Who?
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