heading home

Richmond show at the Church of Crystal Light was awesome, until it was shut down by the cops. RADIO SHOCK got to play but the other guys did not. In Richmond now, but we're all packing up soon to head back to Philly, then I catch a train back to NYC tonight or tomorrow morning. I'll write a review of the last few shows shortly.

Then I start booking the next shows.

FREEDUMB FEST continues

Things have been too crazy and awesome to spend time documenting in details, I've just been soaking it up. Plenty of hot, humid, fresh air. Plenty of good food, exercise, ROCK and NOISE, etc. This Is My Condition playing together with Mincemeat or Tenspeed was just about the best sounding thing I've ever heard in my life. Bonfires. Coffee. Marshmallows. Loudness. Weird people.

I'll probably get to write a better review on our drive to Asheville tomorrow.

FREEDUMB day ONE - Sept.11

Made it to Freedumb Fest! The Black Casl is a big house on a lot of land that feels like it’s way out in the country even though you drive through some kind of suburban development to get there, then turn down a bumpy dirt driveway about a quarter mile long and there you are. There’s a pond, some kind of gazebo platform in the yard, and a bonfire area. Lots of trees all around.

I set up my tent before it becomes completely dark, grab some coffee and pasta. Justin’s made a bunch of evil Uncle Sam coloring pictures and there are plenty of crayons so everyone can enter the coloring contest. There’s also a nice poster of evil Uncle Sam pushing a bald eagle into a grave with his foot and shoveling dirt on top. Most of the crew from Birmingham seem to have made the trip out and there are a few other tents up.

I’ll try to summarize some of the performances, but there’s no way I’ll give everything the time it deserves, and this was just day one. Honestly, everyone was amazing. I’m not playing tonight, so I’m just an audience member. DRUMS LIKE MACHINE GUNS kicked the festivities off at 9:11PM sharp. Loud and headbanging like always. Instead of a HYLAND HOLOGRAM set, the band fractures into solo projects tonight. CARZ WILL BURN, MINCEMEAT OR TENSPEED, and DICK NEFF. Dick Neff set was particularly awesome, Lance looped and layered up gross farting noises made using some kind of kids’ “slime” stuff, building up to a wall of noise that he played drums over, then did a “dance number.” MINCEMEAT hit a killer groove that had everyone moving. CARZ sounded super-powerful.

UH OH SPADES did some pumped synth jams. GASHY was spooky and great, especially his dirgey cover of “You’ve Got The Whole World In Your Hands.” Of course the closing act and highlight was THIS IS MY CONDITION with DAN KOZAK. TIMC is Craig playing drums and guitar at once, knocking out riffs on the guitar strings with his drum sticks. Dan plays sax, flute, harmonica, etc. This is a totally inspirational and powerful performance, really really something special. There are only about 20 people there but everyone knows they’re witnessing something special. Craig and Dan are really on fire, inventing new ways of playing their instruments right before our eyes. At one point Craig’s effects pedals are acting up and making weird noises, so he plays them by picking up the pedal and dropping it in rhythm.

Because of the good time planning the show this night ends way before the crack of dawn. Probably by 2:30AM or so. Most people still in the house seem like they’re going to keep the party going the rest of the night but I decide to retire to the tent for a bit. Some reading and then a really good night’s sleep. It’s so peaceful sleeping in the tent and the temperature is pretty nice, maybe a little warm but definitely cozy. Day 1 of Freedumb Fest down.

Birmingham AL - Sept.10 - 11

The van has officially been named “The Shitty Church.” This happened pretty early in the trip, based on the fact that the person who has to sit in the middle in the front feels like they are sitting on a church pew, staring at a Virgin Mary statue stuck on the dashboard. The drive to Birmingham seems pretty easy and is totally un-wobbly with the new tire. We’re still going 40 MPH top speed up hill, but this leg of the trip seems pretty short.

So Birmingham is totally awesome. Everything about this stop, except the heat and the fleas, is awesome, which the locals all tell me has never been the case before. Pull into town a little early and we head to the AC Temple, Lance’s old home and current home of Birmingham Brian, Milton, and Jason. It’s another totally crooked house with cool art and amazing flyers everywhere. Lots of various musical instruments and spray-painted amps strewn about. It has a really gnarly dirt and stone basement too that feels like a real cave. You’d think Birmingham is some kind of major noise/punk mecca from all the amazing bands they’ve brought there. Several Cock ESP flyers.

Brian gives us some homemade salsa and cooks up some beans to wrap in tortillas. Totally delicious. Just what I needed after a day of snacks and miscellaneous food. Like every spot so far, they also have a few cats that are sort of wild but sort of live there too. After some food we head over to the venue, which is a cool bookstore called Greencup Books with an incredible upstairs loft space that they use for shows. It’s huge. It would rent for $3500/month in Brooklyn, MINIMUM. Just the upstairs.

I browse the books and chat a bit with Mike, one of the bookstore owners, about Brooklyn. He offers me a deal on the used books so I grab a few for the road. “Decoding the Universe” by Charles Seife (I’ve heard it’s a bit muddled, but it’s about Information Theory and cosmology, which I’m into) and “Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon” by Daniel Dennett.

The first band are some indie/post-hardcore/shoegazey band, one of those bands where the singer closes his eyes and cocks his head to the side and makes an eyebrow-raised smile face while singing. Oh yeah, important to lift up your shoulders while singing like this too. They’re good dudes and a talented band and all but kind of a strange match with the rest of the show.

The second act is a guy named DAVEY WILLIAMS who was AMAZING. He played what he called “fake blues” which was guitar that started out sounding kind of like the blues, but would then get warped with pedals, looped, layered, and then he’d break out electric toothbrushes and a balloon to play the guitar with on top of all that. Really alien music. Totally great. Google that guy.

There was a really good crowd for this show too and everyone stayed to the end. Repeatedly everyone told me that noise shows in Birmingham are never this cool, but maybe things are changing. An older punk guy who told me he played in Birmingham’s first punk band (formed in ’83) was there and was stoked on everything, which was a big compliment.

All around best sets of tour from everyone in our crew. No one in the audience would dance or clap for the RADIO SHOCK show, but that just encouraged me to get crazier and pump more and more energy into it. Very hot, lots of sweat. DRUMS LIKE MACHINE GUNS set started with Brian downstairs talking to people on his wireless mic through the amps upstairs. When they started into their intro noise part it sounded so good I had to take my earplug out and it just got better from there.

Lance’s triumphant return home went great. Everyone crowded up front at his insistence and HYLAND HOLOGRAM sounded the best yet. The opening and ending of the 2nd song were super-tight. Last song ended with the drum kit getting kicked apart. Everyone loved it. They sold almost all of their T-shirts.

We leave the gear at the bookstore (and Lance mistakenly leaves the door money there too) and go back to the AC Temple. Some of the show-goers also come back to the house. B’ham Brian breaks out some more chips and salsa and makes us all blueberry banana smoothies! Plus some bread and humus he made the day before! Southern hospitality and more healthy food, an awfully nice trend on this tour.

Mark and I retreat to an empty and slightly quieter room around 3AM or so. I decide to sleep on a giant stuffed Cthulu thing, some kind of shark-squid stuffed animal that someone made. It’s about as big as me, so after wrapping the tentacles around a bit, I make a pretty nice bed out of it. It takes a while to get to sleep because Brian is really pumping the music, just about the best DJ mix I’ve ever heard, a mix of novelty songs, thrash metal, classic oldies and noise. Even some Jesus & Mary Chain in the mix. Cool but distracting, but eventually I fall asleep. No idea when everyone else went to sleep.

Wake up around 10 and searched around for some coffee. Got bit during the night by some mosquitos and I think a few fleas. Bummer, but it’s not so bad. Mark’s reading about Postmodernism on the porch. Lance is up and I ask him about going out to pick up some coffee. He wakes everyone up and convinces us to go to the Big Lots to find food. This turns into a couple-hour-long outing which makes me a little grumpy, being all before a cup of coffee and food of course, and naturally when we get back someone has already found coffee which is brewing. But we also got some eggs and cereal and soy milk which is good. B’ham Brian gets me online to do blog posts.

We realize it’s an hour later in Atlanta because of the time zone difference so it’s time to go! Richie opts to ride with the Birmingham crew, who are also going to FREEDUMB FEST 2012 so we have a little extra room in the van, which is basically taken up by the new groceries. Pick up the gear and the $$$ are still right where they were left. Still doing good for gas money. On the road to Justin’s place now, the “Black Casl” or “Chateaux Noir” where FREEDUMB FEST happens in Stone Mountain GA. We’re all pretty psyched about it. DRUMS LIKE MACHINE GUNS open AND close the fest.

On our way to FREEDUMB!!!

Human Hologram

Possible NEW names for HYLAND HOLOGRAM suggested while in the van:

HUMAN HOLOGRAM
HORMONE HOLOGRAM
HAMBONE HOLOGRAM
HUNGRY HUNGRY HOLOGRAMS
HONKY HOLOGRAM
HOLOCAUST HOLOGRAM
HARDCORE HOLOGRAM
HEAVY HOLOGRAM

Nashville! Sept.9-10

So it’s Sept.9, Tuesday. We made it to Nashville safely and roll up to the venue. The Crystal Mud System Warehouse is a cool work/live space in what’s basically sort of like a big, single level garage. The place is rented by Bridget, of the noise project Mouth Pet and also a member of one of my favorite bands, Do It Big (or D.I.B.).

Show starts around 10PM with “The Hijacker” which is RJ from Right Arm Severed. As it’s been explained to me, the performance is based on an obscure Marvel comics villain. He wears a black mask and has a cardboard tank cutout stuck to the front of his amp. Then he plays random stuff on a Casio SK-5 while ranting that he has “lasers, and missiles! And lasers!” Using scissors, he cuts each of the drawn missiles from the cardboard tank and throws them at the audience. I don’t know if my description made it sound as entertaining as it was.

RADIO SHOCK is up next and thanks to a longer guitar cord that Brian gave me, I was able to break out some dance moves and get a little more expressive. I think I was overloading the signal at some point though because some songs turned into big muddy fart noise when I played too many things at once, but I’m sure it still sounded good.

DRUMS LIKE MACHINE GUNS had some technical issues setting up, but once they got rolling, they did a great sounding set. I’m starting to wish they would do a second song.

HYLAND HOLOGRAM played last of our crew, which I insisted they had to do because they wired up a light show for the night. I guess the light show burned out not long into their set though because there was a bit of smoke and a burning smell and then the lights stopped. The set was awesome though, gets a little tighter each night and Lance was totally jazzed throughout.

UNICORN HARD-ON is the headliner. Val does a long, slower, noisy trance-out song first, then a dancey, robotic, synth-hurricane song second. It’s denser and more complex than anything I’ve heard from her yet. Sounds great through all those amps we brought.

All around great show and an appreciative crowd. I talked to a cool young guy who bought something from everyone and talked about how he saw Mincemeat or Tenspeed last time he was in Nashville and that was the first noise show he ever saw. That’s the best kind of thing you can hear. This was the best show also for people buying stuff and we even got some pretty good donation money.

We all sleep in the space. There’s a couch, some foam blocks, and a mattress which I share with Brian. I chose the mattress because the adorable little kitten which lives in their place was laying down on the mattress and I wanted to sleep with the kitten. However, during the night it somehow got shut in another room because a few of us woke up to it crying to get out.

I do a little meditation while its still dark (inside anyway) and quiet and then head outside into the bright sun and chat with Richie for a while. When others arise we start moving stuff and Brian takes the van to an auto garage next door. Their assessment is just that our tire is totally shot and they send him to a place down the road to buy a new one. Tour funds cover it with still some left over for gas to the next town. Birmingham! So far I have actually not had to pitch in money for anything on this tour (except my own food) which is pretty amazing. I always have to rent a car on my own and start out like $500 in the hole. If I sell more CDs I may even be able to come out even on food money.

After getting the new tire, loading up and rousing Bridget, we all head over to Ren’s house to cook some eggs and make some coffee. Listen to a tape of “Guy Mann-Dude” – some seriously wanky thrash metal - on the porch. Check email and post some blog posts from Ren’s computer, plus I score a Lazy Magnet tape which he’s putting out. Gas up, put some oil in the van and we’re back on the highway.

It’s September 10th today which means they did the first proton collisions in the new LHC particle accelerator. Saw a short story on the internet while checking email that says it went well. A few people on the road have been mentioning this and I’ve been trying to explain what it’s about since I’m a science nerd. It’s a rather suspenseful and exciting time for physics. By the way, if you were worried about them creating black holes like you may have heard about, there’s no reason to worry. There won’t be black holes and even if there were, they’re no threat because they’d evaporate instantly, and even if they didn’t evaporate they’d just drift out into space anyway. And we’re all still here and it’s a beautiful day so obviously the world didn’t end.

Birmingham next!

Lexington to Nashville

It became clear after a few hours in the van on Monday that we were not going to make it to Lexington until rather late. Our van just does not move very fast and it is a pretty long way from Pittsburgh to Lexington. It’s on this long leg of the trip that I think we all start to get a little unhappy with van life. It will be a welcome relief when we can stretch out for a few days at Freedumb Fest. We’ve all started doing push-ups every time we make a stop now, even all lining up at one rest area and doing synchronized push-ups.

So the Lexington kids have a pretty decent party on their own by all accounts. Some people play at their house and they have a good time and we finally roll in as everyone is going home, about 11:30 or so. Brian heads straight to the nearby skate park to do a little cube gleaming while the rest of us just stretch our legs. We chat and listen to records with our host here, Eric, then get some sleep. I think I got the best night’s sleep this night because I stole the air mattress.

We walk to a greasy spoon place with super-cheap prices for breakfast, but Davey and Mark go next door for “big pizza” which they later report was disappointing and not very big at all. Those of us who eat at the greasy spoon place are completely satisfied.

Walk back to Eric’s place and pile in the van. After being on the road for about 5 minutes, some guy pulls up alongside us and shouts “hey, you know your back left wheel is wobbling.” Uh-oh. We pull into a Mormon church parking lot to check it out and yup, it looks a little wobbly. Further down the road at a gas station the tire pressure on that tire is found to be pretty low, so it gets filled up and we hope that’s all the problem was. I suggest switching it with the spare, but everyone else seems a little less concerned than me, so we get back on the road. As we drive, the wheel does still appear a touch wobbly but the general consensus is that it’s okay.

Along the way to Nashville we stop at Dinosaur World because Lance promises that they have a cool line of toys called “Transcendence Witchcraft Knight.” Turns out he wasn’t crazy and the Dinosaur World gift shop is a pretty cool stop, but we don’t spring for admission to the Dinosaur World itself.

We roll up to Ren & Val’s house and see pretty much exactly what you’d expect to find rolling into Nashville, some people chilling on a porch drinking beer. After some chilling and chatting, drive to the venue, the “Crystal Mud System Warehouse.” Show report in the next blog entry.

day 2 and half of day 3

Pittsburgh is a basement show in a really small basement in a cool crooked house. At most half the people at the show can fit in the basement, so lots of people just hang out and listen from outside. Our host Anthony cooks up some kind of grains & spices stuff and corn on the cob for dinner which was awesome.

Local dudes played first, a trio doing noise/bass/drums jams and a guy named Trogpite who danced around holding incense and made some sounds that go “EEEEEEHHHHHHHHHH.” Then I got to see HYLAND HOLOGRAM play for the first time. They’re my new favorite band, for real. Amazing freakout drums and noise jams.

RADIO SHOCK goes well, kept it real short because it was getting late. Then DRUMS LIKE MACHINE GUNS debut their new wireless microphone style. Brian walks into the backyard with the mike on and starts asking if they found out who farted. They act like they don’t know what he’s talking about but we all totally heard that conversation going on.

Pretty good night’s sleep on mats on the floor. In the morning we all do crunches and pushups, except Richie who’s sleeping under a tree all morning. We watch a huge backhoe tearing down a house over the fence. Then we all take a trip to the Whole Foods for groceries, where Lance demonstrates his just-walk-around-while-eating-the-food technique. I pick up some coffee beans from the Starbucks across the way and back to Anthony’s house for coffee and sandwiches.

I head out to nearby coffee shop for internet access and to make xeroxes of CD inserts. While there I get a call from Lance. He called some people in Lexington to see if we could crash there since this is our day off, and they told him we could play at their house TONIGHT. So I grab directions from the internet, send a few messages, and it’s time to get out of town. Pile back in the van and we’re on the road right now. It looks like we may get to Lexington too late for anyone loud to actually play, so we’ll see what happens. Maybe just a RADIO SHOCK show since I play quieter… but we’re on our way regardless.

While riding in the van, Lance invented 2 new forms of expression. Free-sketchbook drawing in which you need not draw in the book, but you’re still sketching in the book… it’s hard to explain. Also, drawing inside the lines of the book, outside the book. I don’t know what it all means, but he insisted that it should be included in the blog. Davey also invented a new form of expression, but he says the blogosphere is not prepared for it.

In Pittsburgh, last second show in Lexington tonight! Sept. 8th.

We all packed in the van and miraculously everything fit and we’re still not too uncomfortable, despite the other dudes insisting that we do need to bring all 4 or those gigantic amps. So we’ve got 6 people and a full load of gear including drum kits, 4 big amps, 3 small amps, guitars, etc. in a medium sized mini-van.

Tour lineup is HYLAND HOLOGRAM (Davey, Lance and Mark), DRUMS LIKE MACHINE GUNS (Brian and Richie but no Brandon on this trip), and RADIO SHOCK (me).

Pittsburgh has been cool, but I'll have to write more soon. At a coffee sop doing internet and I just got a call from Lance that dudes in Lexington say we should play at their house tonight! Last second show in Lexington!

473 E. Maxwell. Probably starting at 9:30 or 10, since it will take us about that long to get there. Departing Pittsburgh in 15 minutes or so.

Crunches and push-ups and vitamins for everyone this morning. Total health tour!

Day 1, Sept. 6th of HYLAND HOLOGRAM, DLMG, RADIO SHOCK tour

Sept. 6: Survived day one of tour, barely! Barely ate and barely slept and didn’t get half the stuff done that I wanted to. Missed the train I wanted to catch out of town, took the next one and the train broke down. Had to wait in Secaucus or Hoboken or something for an extra hour for the NEXT train. Pouring rain all day. And I have not had any coffee.

So I finally arrived in Philadelphia for the first show at Big Rock Candy Mountain about 10:45. I have to switch to the “blue line” and there are closed locked gates blocking my path. When I get into the station the turnstiles don’t seem to be working and a random guy tells me to just jump over it. When in Rome… Get off at Berks stop, Davey and Brian meet me halfway, I get to BRCM about 11:30 and time to play!

Takes maybe 20 minutes to get everything set up and then miraculously the Radio Shock show goes pretty okay, despite my hands shaking too much to reliably play things on the keyboard. Crowd demands “Trapper Keeper” as an encore. Unfortunately I missed almost everyone else who played, didn’t mean to be a rock star and roll in at last second but at least I got to play. Small crowd of cool people, good time. After playing I am hating life much less.

Drums Like Machine Guns go on last and rule as always. Ate some applesauce and homemade cookies which were awesome. Crash on the couch. Wake up feeling 100% better. Stretch, meditate, spray stencil some CDs (something I didn’t get done before leaving), shower, etc. Eat some of the awesome eggs and potatoes that my hosts cooked up, drink some coffee, and feeling another 100% better now. The rest of the tour crew has showed, are chowing down now and we hit the road shortly. I’m almost feeling ready to take on the world now. Starting with Pittsburgh tonight.