This past Thursday, a local showcase of artists from Philadelphia / New Jersey took place in the city of brotherly love at a new venue, 2nd Street Brewhouse. Was told it would be a pretty primitive setup in the backroom of the bar. Thought that maybe we would be sequestered off from the main bar area, but nope! There is barely a divide between sections, so now the local patrons have their Phillies game soundtracked to the local flavors of this scene. Hah. Great...
First performance was held by Canker Sore, who booked the entire thing. The artist has recently been upping their noise activity since the last time we performed, and things are really starting to take shape for them, as evidenced by the performance I saw. Good mix of digital synth churning, manic microcassette and even a clarinet to add to the delirium. I know the latter can really turn some people off in noise but the inclusion here made total sense with the gory soup the artist had already created. Rather than sound like free-jazz, trip metal whatever, it instead sound closer to another piercing lash of feedback. Very cool stuff. Came out really well on the tape I recorded of the show.
Next up would be Tchernobylists, a duo that features myself and John of Pleasure Island / Mistletoe / Amphibian fame. Project has always been simple in terms of approach; 2 synths dual it out in a delay-filled swirl. Being the first performance though, we took some time to rehearse and found that such simple setups could lead to some interesting developments, namely delay stutter loops that brought us into more ambient leaning territories at points. People seemed to enjoy it a great deal; was told the volume level was pretty ridiculous at points. Not bad for just a single PA speaker and bass amp serving as our outputs!
Inarticulate traveled down from Jersey and delivered one of my absolute favorite sets of his ever. With a rig that fit in just a milkcrate, the audience was transported to a beautifully unsettling territory that merged absurdist tape cut-up and brooding synth noise. Despite the rather crappy PA setup, this set shone through crisp 'n clear. Not much more I can say beyond this being just a terrific performance and continuing to beg the artist to make some wider releases for people to hear. More should be attuned to what's going on here.
Closing out the entire shindig would be Jolklore, a new collaboration between Fricker & Max Julian Eastman. Being made privy to rehearsals the night before, I knew the duo would bring something great for this show. Delivered they did, as they chose to use the PA situation to shift their sound into a more acoustic improv territory, using not much more than a couple of amps and studio monitors. Instruments used included a disembodied guitar neck, a microphone a CD player and a toy California Raisin. I am sure you could picture the absurdity that ensued, hah. It had its rough moments but how can you expect that to not happen when this duo is still fresh? They show plenty of promise in working together though, and I look forward to what comes next!
Hoping this venue sticks and we have some future shows here. Bar patrons surprisingly engaged with our activities at points, with one man in a polo shirt coming up to ask Fricker if he's going to bring down the house or not. He then came up to me and said "I know I'm not your usual audience, but I was just wondering what they got planned!" I laughed and shook his hand. Great show.
