A Nonconnah Show

Big mail day for me yesterday! I got a few cds: v/a: Warp20 (Unheard), John Cage: Works for Piano & Prepared Piano • Vol. I, and Milton Babbitt: Philomel. I also got the module I'd been fucking waiting on forever, since around labor day: Doepfer A-143-2 Quad ADSR. I can finally start cracking in on my lacking envelope situation! Well, other than that the big thing was the show. It's funny 'cuz I walk into the Hi-Tone and go straight back for the small room and people are like, the show's in the big room. So that was marginally funny. Nonconnah was up first so we got to set up our stuff right away. We were a four piece configuration with Zachary on guitar, Denny on percussion and pedals, Jack on bass, and me on modular. I thought the show was alright. Hard to know how it all sounded in the back just hearing through a monitor. But it was probably alright. Darn it, it was probably good! It was a really weird lineup. The next act was called The Outcry and they weren't good. They had a flamenco guitarist and drummer and bassist and singer and they were doing a kind of coffee house funk thing. The bass player at times was hitting on good things, funk-wise, the drummer was inoffensive and kinda just there, but the vocals were awful and ostentatious and the guitar was awful and showy. The lyrics were kinda checklist woke points (sometimes going around all the way to almost unintentionally borderline offensive with the rapping about Orange Mound and aping spirituals). And did I mention the rapping? The coffee house funk rapping? You can probably imagine. Zachary was talking about the visceral loathing he experienced hearing it, and I explained I was trying to be nice, playing on a bill with them and all. Their second-to-last song may have put it over the edge, a cover of that Gorillaz hit. The next act was Louise Page. Her stuff wasn't what I'd call good but it was a far cry better than what it followed. She sang and played piano and there was backing trumpet, saxophone, violin, upright bass, and drums. So, I mean, kinda what you might imagine that sort of configuration would produce in a singer/songwriter sort of situation. Last was Mystic Light Casino. They're about the same as before, Elvis Costello influenced rock that might think of itself as kinda pure raw punk rock'n'roll because they feign being wild and "unhinged" by just playing sloppily here and there. I mean, it's nothing bad, but just kinda generic new wave rock. They also do a costume thing (which they didn't do the last time I saw them). They also did a Boys Next Door cover that may have been better than the original ("Shivers" but the original is kinda bad). The show went on real late. It probably sounds like I was complaining a bunch, but I had a good time. I went with Mary Beth and there were some other people that were fun to see (aside from those playing): Luís and Jacques. Got to bed late but I didn't wake up very late. Anyway, here I am and it's the last day of this year!