Welcome to Houston

Wow! A whole hell of a lot to catch up on! First, well, it's Day for Night! I got picked up by Josh Friday morning. This was after I'd sliced my face open while shaving (okay, that sounds more dramatic than it was, but "cut" isn't dramatic enough, somewhere between). Okay, then we pick up Zach and hit the road. Pretty uneventful drive up there. The biggest even was stopping for some Hardee's somewhere past Little Rock. We get to Houston around, what 6 or so? We check into the hotel and all that. We're staying downtown just a fifteen minute walk from where the festival's at. Downtown Houston is the business district and very little goes out outside rat race hours. Someone found some place that does Indian pizza (makes me think of the amazing Jewel of the Nile pizza that Printer's Alley inexplicably had back in the day). Anyway, we walk over there and it's pretty mediocre. It wasn't bad but it wasn't as good as it should have been. The place had a bit of a chain feel. We then decided to walk around downtown and find the venue and explore a little. Downtown Houston does have some pretty awesome buildings, minimalist with a dash of brutalist. A lot of it smells like sewage though. It's a pretty clean area though, it's just the sewage smell seeps out from below, I guess. The venue (an abandoned post office hub) was across from this river. It's got this pretty nice park/walkway built below the street level that's pretty cool. The river itself also smells bad. Anyway, we found the place and admired the lights going off around the building (the building's just awesome anyway). We get back to the hotel and, anything else? I was able to buy a poncho at the gift shop (didn't end up needing it, but the upcoming weather was a concern so it was good for peace of mind).

Now we get to Saturday! We wake up and get an uber to check out this breakfast place that's popular, The Breakfast Klub. There was a line but the lady who passes out menus told us they have a second dining room that has a limited menu and serves alcohol (the limited menu is all the popular stuff we came for anyway). She was also pretty funny being simultaneously very nice and mean. We were drawn by their wings and waffles so we all got that and they were fucking amazing. Their chicken doesn't beat Gus's, but it does come closer than any other chicken I've had out, I think. It's not spicy, but it's well flavored and so juicy and tasty, ah I'm gonna drool thinking about it. There was a record store literally around the corner called Sig's Lagoon so we checked it out. It wasn't that great. Their cd selection was pretty small but I picked up a couple things: Kashmere Stage Band: Texas Thunder Soul 1968-1974 and Neil Young: Trans. Back to the hotel before walking over to the festival!

Okay, first thing we do is hit the merch tent. I got the two Aphex Twin shirts (one with no text and the yellow logo featured on Syro and one with text in the Cheetah font). I also got Cheetah on cd and the limited edition 12" for the show (in plain white sleeve, and people of course have already sold it for hundreds on ebay...). I actually almost picked up the wrong one (because he had another non-limited one in a similarly nondescript sleeve, but a little more descript) and Josh saw it and said something so I was able to easily switch it out. There were only 500 and of course were sold out before the day was over. I also got ALL of the John Carpenter shirts (Halloween, The Thing, They Live, and Escape from New York) and a Jesus and Mary Chain shirt (Psychocandy but it's red). So that was my merchsplosion for the day. Oh and the weather. It was a great day for a festival (most of the day). It was around 70, humid but not too bad especially since it wasn't super hot, just a little warm. It had been forecasted to thunder and storm, but as it got closer to the day the forecast got more and more favorable. The storm only came much later. Oh and they had one of those rootbeer stands where you buy the mug and get free refills the rest of the time so I made good use of that! Oh yeah and there was the festival's official merch tent and I got two festival shirts (one with an awesome blue color and the other in a less cool silver but with the really cool logo with the two semicircles).

Okay, now to the music! I started off at the green stage (all the stages were outside except for the blue stage). I only listened to them for ten minutes, they were really good though, kinda-experimental rock. But I'd really wanted to check out Herman Kolgen so I went inside to the blue stage just before he started. His set was really good. I think it was called "Seismic" or something like that and it was all built around that theme. He played a small modular with a lot of environmental inputs that reacted to vibrations and such. He started it off by stomping on a mic'd board on the floor. He had a few antenna-like things and at one point moved a wand around one. There was also a pretty impressive video component that went with it. He was projecting this pretty awesome digital graphics that related to the theme and sometimes the visuals were being controlled or responding to the music (especially when it was graphing something like the waves). Lots of geology and vector lines and such. It was a good drone set. Really awesome.

Most days I seemed to spend a long run at the blue stage first thing. I saw four acts in a row that day. Next it was Tobacco. Staying in the same place allows you to get closer for each act. I started off pretty close since it was the early show. Got a little closer for the next set. Tobacco was good. I could tell the singer dude was actually there (he sat on the floor of the stage with his bass and vocoder and other electronics, a lot of people that couldn't see him thought it was just a two-piece). They were good. They were kinda poppy but with enough noise. After that was Clams Casino. By this point I made it to the railing in front of the stage (actually, I may have gotten there for Tobacco too). Anyway, he was good. Finally I'm even closer for Oneohtrix Point Never (one of the main acts I came for!). That was an awesome set. It was the best of Saturday. I got really confused at first 'cuz there was a fucking guitarist. I'm like, "did I miss something and is this not the right band?" but it was and he's just playing with a guitarist now. The guitar mostly triggered other stuff though it came through as guitar here and there. Okay, this set was pretty fucking insane. Really noisy. Daniel sang a lot but it was hyper-distorted vocoder/auto-(de)tune shit. It was mostly all new stuff and I don't have his new album yet, but it was a damn good set.

At this point, I've got a damn good spot and I half consider staying at the blue stage (I'd be coming back for John Carpenter anyway, and Tycho is in between and I do like them...), but I knew it wasn't feasible staying THAT long without going to the bathroom and Zach had hyped up Daughters enough that I wanted to check them out. So I went over to the yellow stage (the only time I was there). First got there to check out part of Spit Mask's set. They're industrial in that kinda-Skinny Puppy derivative way so I figured they'd be worth checking out some but they were pretty terrible (but it was mostly an in-between thing anyway). Daughters were good. I was getting the feeling of an impending mosh pit as I was kinda near the stage before they started and sure enough the moshing happened. So I got knocked around a bit and went farther back with my mug of rootbeer or whatever. The music was good, good noisy rock. I could tell they're from Rhode Island (with the sometimes similarities to Six Finger Satellite or Arab on Radar, but more hardcore influenced).

I thought I'd try to get some food on the way back to the blue stage, but the lines to the food trucks were WAY too long. I would have missed his set. Also, the crowd is just insane at this point. A little lack of forethought was showing through with how hard it was to get from point a to point b at this time. The red stage (the BIG stage) is near this corner of the building and there was just a huge clusterfuck of people getting stuck around there. I think they really oversold Saturday, but whatever. The worst part was just the lines (more on the consequences of this later!). I get to the blue stage a little earlier but it's okay 'cuz I managed to get a good spot for John Carpenter. I wasn't right up front but in the center and very close. And not too long after Zach and I got there the room was filling up behind us. This was another really good set. He played what you'd expect, themes from most of his movies and a few songs from his newer albums. I had a guess as to what he'd open with and I was right, the Escape from New York theme. The best was Assault on Precinct 13 which was second! The bass synth was so heavy. It was a really fun show. And you could tell John was having fun. He kept making eye motions and pointing at people who were getting his attention. When the band put on shades I knew what was coming! Surprises-but-not-surprises were he played the theme from The Thing (in tribute to Ennio Morricone). He didn't play anything from Halloween III (okay, he didn't direct it, but he did the music and it's my favorite of his, I guess it's the least themey of all his scores, not a surprise but I was just hoping for it). He closed with Christine (often that movie seems to get overlooked, but yeah the score is really good). Oh and of course they were projecting clips from all the movies they were playing behind the stage. All in all it was good fun. With the band it was all slightly more rockin' than the soundtrack versions, but it worked. And I saw John fuckin' Carpenter so yeah! That was my other biggest can't-miss show of the festival. Okay, I'm gonna take a break to eat dinner now (you need to know this!).

Okay, here's where the weather changed. At some point during John Carpenter's set while we were inside it started pouring rain and the temperature dropped right down. The rain was only sprinkling by the time we were out, but the green stage is right there and people were crowded against the building where there's cover (but yeah, they were even standing in front of the doors so yeah that was fun...). At first it does feel good 'cuz it'd been so warm inside, but that didn't last long. I was prepared for the weather. Oh, aside 'cuz I forgot to mention this part! In the morning I'm putting my jacket on right before we leave and we're about to go and I discover that my jacket smells like cat pee. Great! This is my windbreaker. I leave it at the hotel and I'd luckily brought a backup small jacket (my fuzzy orange one) so I had that packed in my backpack. I didn't wanna bring my coat since it was going to be warm almost all day (and there'd be no room to carry it around). Also, too late, either on the way to the festival or after I arrive, I realize that my backpack also smells like cat pee. Oh joy of joys! And it's a music festival so there's tons of smoking (and especially potsmoke) and while that stuff normally annoys me to have to smell and breathe in a lot, I was actually welcoming it because it covered up the smell of cat urine (and yeah, while smoke and pot are low on my list of things to smell, cat piss is way way lower on that list). So yeah, that was a thing. I don't usually get stuff peed on, but of course that would be the time, right before the trip. Anyway, yeah, I get my jacket on but the rain's so light I leave the poncho and that was fine. But it was pretty cold and my jacket (and hat) helped me out but it wasn't quite enough. So I'd headed past the green stage (where I had to miss Run the Jewels) to the red stage where Aphex Twin was already playing. That was one of the bigger tough choices, but it was easy to pick seeing all of John Carpenter vs. half of Aphex Twin (he was playing a super-long set anyway). Turned out to have been a better choice than expected 'cuz Aphex Twin was the only real disappointment of the whole festival. He was good, but not very good. It was a little boring. Also didn't help that it was strangely not loud. It's a huge stage and the other bands that played there were much louder. As I came so late I didn't have a good spot at all, but I stuck with it and because of the rain and cold people did leave (didn't really get close, but moved closer as the set went on). I think it was kind of a dj set. There were lots of video stuff, but it was a while before I could even see him on the stage (more visible than the first time I saw him fourteen years ago at ATP and he was sitting indian style on the floor of the back of the stage, though I was close enough to see him then), but finally I noticed a tiny speck of a semicircle of hair just above the big screen that was on the floor of the stage. I wasn't with Josh and Zach at the time, but later found out they left before it ended (but Josh got hit with the big rain). Anyway, pretty good but I think he's probably just better on album than live.

Okay, yeah after the show's over I make my way back to the food trucks to, you know, eat since I hadn't done that since 11 or 12 or so. There's one that's still open with a line so I get in that line only to find out shortly later that they'd set the cutoff for the last person they'd take an order for so there was no one to get food from! Ah! Well, I'd hurry back to the hotel to see what I can get. I ask the front desk if there's anything to eat and am told no. I ask about vending machines. They only have drink vending machines. I ask about places that deliver and am told there's Domino's and Frank's pizza. So I ask for a number and he gives me the number to Frank's. Okay. Up to the room and call. After a few busy signals I get through and am told the delivery wait is two hours. I guess if you're the only place open downtown right after a festival downtown then you're gonna get slammed pretty hard. I ask about picking up and there's a 45 minute wait for that (plus walking back out in the cold). Well, fuck it. At this point without any options I figure I won't be hungry if I'm asleep so I went to bed. And that worked! Up the next morning, Josh and I went to eat the expensive shitty hotel buffet. It was food and right there so whatever. After everyone got ready it was lunch time so we had the plan to get some texas barbecue. There was a place at the other corner of downtown that was open (none of the super well-regarded places were open on Sunday, but this place was well-regarded, just not top-tier, okay, actually looking back it does get quite high ratings online) Jackson Street Barbecue. Anyway, we get an uber up there and it's a little later so we come ready for the day. It was a cold day on Sunday so I was much more prepared for the weather with my coat (on me) and gloves and a scarf and hat and all. The brisket was a little disappointing. Not bad, but not anything like the transcendent texas brisket I've had. It was pretty dry as brisket tends to be, the seasoning and flavor was pretty good though. The ribs were good. It was all worth it 'cuz the sides were really fucking good. Their side game was fucking on. So they definitely get props for that. I got a pecan pie too but I was way too full to eat it. They don't allow outside food in the festival so I just put it in a corner of my backpack I knew they wouldn't see it after the search the day before (and yeah, that was successful they didn't see it). And it's reminding me that the piece of pie is still in my backpack!

Okay, yeah, uber to the festival (the second driver we tried 'cuz the first was going the wrong way and called Zach for directions, yeah, and he's like I'm not from here I don't know how to get here so cancelled and got someone that found us) and get in with the pie and all. First thing of course is to his the merch tent! This time I picked up two Survive shirts (one with this vintage Korg drum machine and one with the wall-of-text found in the liner notes of the new album). I also picked up their self-titled cd. Then I picked up a Blonde Redhead shirt.

Then it's off to the blue stage! It was another day spent marathoning it over there. The first three bands I saw were on that stage. First it was Mary Lattimore & Jeff Zeigler. I was pretty early so right away I got a good spot right on the rail. They were really good. She played harp and he played synth and other stuff (including some melodica). There was a lot of delay and loops and stuff. It was mostly pretty sounding with bits of cool electronic textures. So then I'm right there for Survive when they come on! They were really good. They didn't do any Stranger Things music (kinda expected it'd go that way, but you never know), but the band's songs sounded really good live. They sounded much better than on record and I like the album but live the sound was just so massive and full with all those analog synths going right into the speakers. They were really good. And I learned that the sounds on the album I thought were guitar were actually synths making that 80s soundtrack wailing guitar sound. Okay...before I get to the next crucial part of the tale. I'm going to break off into a new post, but fret not. This next bit is going to be a good one!

Finishing Up

Okay, get ready for it...the best show of the festival! Matmos was fucking incredible! Incredible as fuck! And I love Matmos, but they weren't even who I was most looking forward to. They weren't who I was expecting to take the Day for Night trophy home (but they most certainly did). Okay yeah, so the crew wheels out a fucking washing machine all mic'd up on stage and I have a good feeling about what's about to happen. So yeah, ends up their whole set centers around this washing machine. They start off asking an audience member in the front row for an article of clothing (someone throws up a hat) and they put it along with some colored scarves into the machine and start it up. The one guy was just playing a table full of electronics the other guy sometimes played a synth but spent more time with the washing machine. There was also some extra guy who played with the washing machine too. The first part it's filling up and they play along with that, more ambient and all. When it starts spinning they base the rhythm around that. And it just proceeds to be an amazing fucking show. At a point the two guys are drumming on the machine with brushes. At another point they're beating on it with their hands. More towards the end they start sprinkling water all over the metal and then start rubbing it with their hands making a squeaking noise. Anyway, all this is mixed in with Matmos's great sounds and it goes through different cycles (no pun intended) throughout the whole thing. Uh, yeah, way up there in best shows I've seen. And it was very Matmos, that unique blend of intellectual experimentalism and fun music. Now I'm like, why the fuck do I only have three (and a half) of their albums? I need to rectify this!

After that it's outside to the green stage for the end of Lightning Bolt's set (that was the hardest choice of the festival, but I definitely made the right choice, knowing Lightning Bolt is supposed to really shine live and liking them as I do, they are kinda one-note and that helped my decision). But yeah, I was to catch the last ten minutes of their set but I think they played longer and I got closer to twenty minutes. They were good while I saw them. Nice and noisy and energetic. Then they're done and a message comes on that Blonde Redhead's flight was cancelled due to weather and they weren't playing. I was pretty bummed. I wasn't sure if they'd be good or not, but I really wanted the chance to find out. There was a little overlap with Kamasi Washington so that at least resolved that (if Blonde Redhead was really good I'd stay to the end and if they were less than so I'd move out to catch all of Kamasi's set). I was able to get the red stage much earlier so I got a pretty good spot for Kamasi Washington. It was good. They got a late start. Here's where I'm battling the cold, but my scarf played a big part in carrying me through. I especially enjoyed the Moog solo, but it was all good. Lots of solos throughout the musicians. Then I was in position to get an even better spot for Squarepusher on the same stage. And that was another phenomenal show! I would've expected to like Aphex Twin more, but Squarepusher (live anyway) blew him out of the water. I mean, it was just good anyway. I was really close and center. He had these two huge screens (well, a bunch of screens pushed together) in a wedge behind him combined with the stage's other screens with lots of glitchy graphics, it was some good visuals. He played in his fencing mask. Anyway, yeah good, he was going crazy as fuck too. There was a lot of energy and it was loud and noisy and glitched all the fuck out. That was definitely a high point.

Next I wanted to check out Bjork's dj set. I ran into Josh coming back from it and he said it sucked but I still wanted to check it out. It was good to get back into the warmth of the blue stage. It was really crowded and you couldn't see her (his main complaint), but it sounded really good. She was doing a good bit with the music she was playing. There was a lot of flux with people so even though I was way to the side it didn't take too long to get more centered. And by the end I didn't have any pillars in my way and could kind of see her. Kind of. She had all these trees on stage in front of her, but sometimes I could see her upraised arm and her costume's horns when she was dancing. I really enjoyed it, even the bit of "New York, New York" played on car horns towards the end.

This is where I finally had my break. I'd first thought I might check out the bands on the yellow stage (they'd seemed okay and at least not as terrible as the other stuff at the same time), but I'd learned my lesson from the day before that I needed a break with some downtime (well, it wasn't so much a lesson because I mean there's no way I'd miss anything I saw the day before). So I hit up the food trucks and got a Korean cheesesteak and some kimchi fries. Good but I had to cram it down my face 'cuz I didn't have any drink due to logistics. I also hit up the merch tent again for some of that Bjork stuff 'cuz that was a damn fine set. They were out of the shirts but I picked up the cds they had: Vulnicura and Vulnicura Strings. Then it was inside to get out of the damn cold and check out some of the artwork installations! I'd wanted to but hadn't gotten a chance to beforehand. It was mostly stuff with lights. I'd seen a good bit of what was downstairs but hadn't made my way to the upstairs exhibits. So that was pretty cool, but a little before the last show of the night that kimchi started to hit me! And yeah, the last thing in the world I or anyone else in the world wants to do is to go to the bathroom (and I mean GO to the bathroom) at a festival. Of course I'd urinated many times in the portapotties which, of course, are all fucking disgusting. But I felt it might be a small sliver of luck that I was upstairs in the least crowded part of the whole festival. I found the bathroom there and while it was pretty disgusting, it was a bit less disgusting than the portapotties. I just utilized the toilet paper for a secondary purpose and made sure none of my stuff touched the wet floor and it wasn't the worst public restroom experience. Yay! Poop talk!

I'll move on to other stuff. The other stuff is Arca's set! Back downstairs to the blue stage. This is after midnight (well, it started a little before but went on til a little after one) and all the outside stuff stops at midnight so it's the only thing left going. He did a dj set and, while it was generally clubbier than I tend to go for, it was pretty damn awesome. He was doing a whole lot of manipulation to the stuff he was playing. Oh, and he's queer as fuck. I noticed right away he wasn't wearing a shirt and he'd dance behind his equipment like someone well acquainted with the gay clubs. He also got out from behind his table now and again and danced and interacted with the audience and all. Once he was "playing" "The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You" where it was all the drums chopped up and layered and bursts of the vocals all chopped up where they weren't words anymore (but you could still just barely recognize the song) and at one point he had the mic and sang the "oway oh waoh oway oh oh wah" part. Once he got up on his table so I could see him in all his glory: just wearing boxer briefs and knee high boots (and sometimes this body stocking thing he'd pull up over his chest but usually not). Anyway, I'm not a dancer but the set was really good.

Okay, so I raced through the cold back to the hotel and had a fucking awesome Day for Night experience! We got a late start in the morning and I woke up with legs like rubber after standing for like two days straight, but that didn't last long. We got ready and hit the road out of town (later than planned, but whatever). We stopped a little outside or inside Houston at a Whataburger and that was our eatin's. The drive back was MOSTLY uneventful. I say mostly but for one major event. Just before we hit Forest City, Josh was passing and then this eighteen wheeler decided it would pass too without signaling and right where Josh's van was supposed to be. Luckily he had good reflexes and slammed on the brakes and there was room off the side of the road to turn to and he kept us from getting killed. So hooray for that! Alright, I'll break off now. Should be one last post now that I'm done with Day for Night and Houston and all that (unless I left something out, which I most likely did).

Returnal

So Josh drops me off and I'm back home last night and yay. My books from librarything's santa thing were waiting for me! I got: Sphinx by Anne Garréta, Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, Jacques the Fatalist by Denis Diderot, and The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler and they all look REALLY awesome and I'm super excited to get to reading them. Definitely feels like it's been a good santa thing year for me!

Okay, it was back to work this morning after my little vacation and I knew it'd be a crazy day to come back to. But it's even crazier 'cuz there are issues both with My Account (after they deployed something) and the appointments api. Also my two new team members started (actually yesterday, but I wasn't there of course). So I'm balancing being bombarded on two different issues and trying to get the new folks set up. We had a meeting for that and we made some progress but there's still more to go. I took 'em to lunch. So yeah, they're Sterling and Spandana. Hopefully we get along, should be fun. So yeah, Spandada's a vegetarian and she likes thai so we went to Bangkok Alley. Had a knowledge transfer meeting with My Account folks (and also Amit). I would have tried to set their environment up first and then go through some ticket they've got with 'em. But the scrummaster all flipping about whatever the issue was and suggesting I go over those issues for the knowledge transfer and making it seem pressing. So I did that and will help 'em set up tomorrow. Then finally squeezed some time at the end of the day to look at the api. Alright. Now I'm back home and getting my posting done and here we are!