Autechre and More Trip
Oct. 17th, 2025 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ateolfOkay then we get into the show and start waiting for Autechre! David showed up too and we talked for a while with him. Then the music started. Cygnus was first and he had some pretty sweet Detroit-ish styled electronic music (it was a bit of later idm still swimming in Kraftwerk inspired sounds). It was good! Then it was Mark Broom and he was pretty good, idm-ish, more straightforward, a lot of sampled hip hop vocals. At some point during the openers Karl and Gretchen showed up but as the music was going on I didn't really get a chance to talk to them. There was no break between the two openers, they were very back-to-back.
This time Rob and Sean didn't crawl under the table to get onstage, but the house shined these bright red lights at the audience so we were pretty much blinded into not being able to see them go onstage. So there's this ominous droning music and these bright red lights are blinding us and this goes on for a little while while they get set up. Then all the lights shut off like before and they start in with it. They had a pretty brief drone to start and then it was just into it with pure unadulterated Autechre pummeling us. I mean, it was very very Autechre and maybe felt like the most unrelenting beat-wise of the times I've seen them (but my memory isn't great). I mean, it starts off like there's almost a normal kind of driving beat but it quickly shows its seams as it mutates into varying levels of incomprehensibility. So yeah, nonstop sounds and it was sooo good! They played a long set, probably about an hour and a half. I picked up a t-shirt afterwards. Then yeah, back to the hotel to sleep. But yeah, it was a great great show. It was worth the trip along with everything else we did.
Okay, then we get to...today! We wake up and check out. We didn't eat first thing for once, but our breakfast/lunch was a bit of a ways out of the city. On the way we stopped to check out a sex shop called Kalli's Love Stuff. Then it was to this town called Bessemer that on a map kind of looks part of the metropolitan area or maybe a suburb or something but it really feels like a rural small town (a large-ish small town but totally has that feel and doesn't feel connected to Birmingham). So we eat at this old old-school diner called The Bright Star. Snapper is their thing and fried snapper throats. It sounds weird and I was a little scared to get it...but it's delicious. I'm thinking maybe that's organ-y but it's just meat (fish meat). It's friend and the fish itself had a soft quality that reminds me of alligator nuggets or a slightly fluffier fish. Really good. And we had all these sides that were delicious and dessert that was delicious. Really good. Well, to add to the small town feel...while we're eating a parade has ended up starting on the street that the restaurant is on...as well as that our car is parked on. We had no idea a parade was about to start up so we are of course completely trapped until it is over. It didn't last super long and we weren't in a terrible hurry. So when in Rome, we sat back and enjoyed the three different marching bands that came past us (as well as lots of what looked to be homecoming queen contestants so I'm guessing it was the town's homecoming parade). When we finally got freed up we went back into the city to check out this bookstore called Jim Reed books. It's another piled-high place and I picked up a few books: Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes, Martha Quest by Doris Lessing, Long Division by Kiese Laymon, The Jaguar Smile by Salman Rushdie, and Broken April by Ismail Kadare. Then a quick jaunt into a grocery store (Publix, so exotic!...I mean, we popped in briefly but it does seem way better than our Kroger monopoly!). I wanted to pick up some Grapico which I did (and some local ginger ale that I haven't tried yet but figure I might as well give a go). THEN we pick up some barbecue that we were too full to eat but to pack in a cooler and eat later. The place is called Miss Myra's and it had been recommended as the best so we wanted to try it even though there weren't enough meals/time to do so! We had a little taste and it's promising! Okay, now we're out of the city and hitting the road. While talking to David at the show, he'd recommended this burger place in Tupelo he said he was stopping at 'cuz it's the best burger ever, according to David. It's called the Neon Pig and we stopped there too. It was really good, though it kind of feels like it's cheating and something other than a burger as it's got so many types of meat blended together in it...but yeah, it was really delicious. And yeah, still full as fuck from that. Anyway, we made it back home. I'm sure I missed something, but I guess I'll try to cram in anything else I can remember into future posts.
This time Rob and Sean didn't crawl under the table to get onstage, but the house shined these bright red lights at the audience so we were pretty much blinded into not being able to see them go onstage. So there's this ominous droning music and these bright red lights are blinding us and this goes on for a little while while they get set up. Then all the lights shut off like before and they start in with it. They had a pretty brief drone to start and then it was just into it with pure unadulterated Autechre pummeling us. I mean, it was very very Autechre and maybe felt like the most unrelenting beat-wise of the times I've seen them (but my memory isn't great). I mean, it starts off like there's almost a normal kind of driving beat but it quickly shows its seams as it mutates into varying levels of incomprehensibility. So yeah, nonstop sounds and it was sooo good! They played a long set, probably about an hour and a half. I picked up a t-shirt afterwards. Then yeah, back to the hotel to sleep. But yeah, it was a great great show. It was worth the trip along with everything else we did.
Okay, then we get to...today! We wake up and check out. We didn't eat first thing for once, but our breakfast/lunch was a bit of a ways out of the city. On the way we stopped to check out a sex shop called Kalli's Love Stuff. Then it was to this town called Bessemer that on a map kind of looks part of the metropolitan area or maybe a suburb or something but it really feels like a rural small town (a large-ish small town but totally has that feel and doesn't feel connected to Birmingham). So we eat at this old old-school diner called The Bright Star. Snapper is their thing and fried snapper throats. It sounds weird and I was a little scared to get it...but it's delicious. I'm thinking maybe that's organ-y but it's just meat (fish meat). It's friend and the fish itself had a soft quality that reminds me of alligator nuggets or a slightly fluffier fish. Really good. And we had all these sides that were delicious and dessert that was delicious. Really good. Well, to add to the small town feel...while we're eating a parade has ended up starting on the street that the restaurant is on...as well as that our car is parked on. We had no idea a parade was about to start up so we are of course completely trapped until it is over. It didn't last super long and we weren't in a terrible hurry. So when in Rome, we sat back and enjoyed the three different marching bands that came past us (as well as lots of what looked to be homecoming queen contestants so I'm guessing it was the town's homecoming parade). When we finally got freed up we went back into the city to check out this bookstore called Jim Reed books. It's another piled-high place and I picked up a few books: Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes, Martha Quest by Doris Lessing, Long Division by Kiese Laymon, The Jaguar Smile by Salman Rushdie, and Broken April by Ismail Kadare. Then a quick jaunt into a grocery store (Publix, so exotic!...I mean, we popped in briefly but it does seem way better than our Kroger monopoly!). I wanted to pick up some Grapico which I did (and some local ginger ale that I haven't tried yet but figure I might as well give a go). THEN we pick up some barbecue that we were too full to eat but to pack in a cooler and eat later. The place is called Miss Myra's and it had been recommended as the best so we wanted to try it even though there weren't enough meals/time to do so! We had a little taste and it's promising! Okay, now we're out of the city and hitting the road. While talking to David at the show, he'd recommended this burger place in Tupelo he said he was stopping at 'cuz it's the best burger ever, according to David. It's called the Neon Pig and we stopped there too. It was really good, though it kind of feels like it's cheating and something other than a burger as it's got so many types of meat blended together in it...but yeah, it was really delicious. And yeah, still full as fuck from that. Anyway, we made it back home. I'm sure I missed something, but I guess I'll try to cram in anything else I can remember into future posts.
