Where I Left Off with Memphis Concrète
Jul. 2nd, 2019 05:53 pmOkay, now I have to pick up where I left off! I think I was talking about things falling behind throughout most of the day on Saturday (thought they caught up by the end, miracle of miracles). It was, you know, a day of some awesome music. MPX was really good even though I thought the drums might make things overly complicated, but I thought they played especially well together. Max Eilbacher was really great. He did a performance art piece with Duncan Moore who was touring with them. They were hitting these hand-held glockenspiel-like bell things in different times and hooked up to a flashing light system (starting off sitting in chairs in front of the stage). They'd move around, parts had random words. It was a really good conceptual piece. Then Optic Sink who are always good. Then Mykel Boyd, I didn't catch all of his set, ended up getting "roped" into a conversation with Martin from Matmos in the atrium. But he's always really good, and a super-nice guy. Oh shoot, now should be the time for Rapoon's set but I should back up and mention the first "disaster" that happened. (This one's not so bad and ended up actually have a positive counterbalance to a later and much worse disaster).
We started off Saturday morning by finding out that Robin (Rapoon) was sick and would not be able to play that night. We did some scrambling around, finally decided we'd switch Pas Musique's set since he was there. He was supposed to play with Shaun Sandor too though and he was not there yet. But we figured we'd give Pas Musique the full set the first night and then squeeze in a shorter set with Shaun as well as squeeze in a shorter set for Rapoon the next night. So Pas Musique performed solo and it was very energetic and good. He has a more "fun-loving" approach to concept-art noise. He, Robert Pepper, was also very nice.
Okay, and last for Saturday was Matmos. Fuckin' Matmos! They were once again incredibly great live. They did a lot where Martin made sounds with some plastic object and Drew sampled them and did things playing them back to create different rhythms and layers. And just everything was great. They mostly played off the new album but the songs they played got longer explorations. Oh, I forgot to say that Drew earlier seemed quite impressed with my keystone correction skills, being nearly shocked that I was able to get a descent projection with a keystone so severe. Anyway, but yeah, on the fourth song (which is not on the album, just some little jazzy thing they have) I came up with the trombone and did a few blurting bursts. It's really hard to even process that. I mean, I played on stage with Matmos, even if it was something as goofy as a trombone I can barely play. Like...what!? How did this happen!? Oh, and Drew hugged me when the song was over! Throughout (and even in the months, year and a half really, of emails before), they were exceedingly nice and funny. I felt on my game for myself, I got a few decent quips in here and there (and only a few awkward misfires). After we were taking stuff down and the house music was playing (my mp3 player loaded up with early electronic and musique concrète shit on shuffle) and one song came on that Martin was like, "what is this!? this is wild?" so I looked it up and it was İlhan Mimaroğlu and a little later (it was a long one), he came back into the room after getting a cart and announced "Entering the Chamber of Mimaroğlu!"). So he enjoyed the house music! The sound guys decidedly did not! A lot of it sounded like feedback to them. Well, I have discussed the awesome force of Matmos so now to move on to a new post!
We started off Saturday morning by finding out that Robin (Rapoon) was sick and would not be able to play that night. We did some scrambling around, finally decided we'd switch Pas Musique's set since he was there. He was supposed to play with Shaun Sandor too though and he was not there yet. But we figured we'd give Pas Musique the full set the first night and then squeeze in a shorter set with Shaun as well as squeeze in a shorter set for Rapoon the next night. So Pas Musique performed solo and it was very energetic and good. He has a more "fun-loving" approach to concept-art noise. He, Robert Pepper, was also very nice.
Okay, and last for Saturday was Matmos. Fuckin' Matmos! They were once again incredibly great live. They did a lot where Martin made sounds with some plastic object and Drew sampled them and did things playing them back to create different rhythms and layers. And just everything was great. They mostly played off the new album but the songs they played got longer explorations. Oh, I forgot to say that Drew earlier seemed quite impressed with my keystone correction skills, being nearly shocked that I was able to get a descent projection with a keystone so severe. Anyway, but yeah, on the fourth song (which is not on the album, just some little jazzy thing they have) I came up with the trombone and did a few blurting bursts. It's really hard to even process that. I mean, I played on stage with Matmos, even if it was something as goofy as a trombone I can barely play. Like...what!? How did this happen!? Oh, and Drew hugged me when the song was over! Throughout (and even in the months, year and a half really, of emails before), they were exceedingly nice and funny. I felt on my game for myself, I got a few decent quips in here and there (and only a few awkward misfires). After we were taking stuff down and the house music was playing (my mp3 player loaded up with early electronic and musique concrète shit on shuffle) and one song came on that Martin was like, "what is this!? this is wild?" so I looked it up and it was İlhan Mimaroğlu and a little later (it was a long one), he came back into the room after getting a cart and announced "Entering the Chamber of Mimaroğlu!"). So he enjoyed the house music! The sound guys decidedly did not! A lot of it sounded like feedback to them. Well, I have discussed the awesome force of Matmos so now to move on to a new post!