Happened Again

Yesterday I spent a good bit of the setting up and practicing for the show last night. In the afternoon Mary Beth and I took a walk around the neighborhood. I got some cds in the mail (Relapse had a very-cheap-cds sale): Zombi: 2020, Steve Moore: Bliss soundtrack, Steve Moore: The Mind's Eye soundtrack, Boris with Merzbow: 2ROI2PO, Steve Moore: Mayhem soundtrack, and Steve Moore: Cub soundtrack. Okay, so then I went to the show at the Lamplighter. It was pretty good. Jacob Cline was first. He's a guy that's in a punk band and he playing his punk band's songs solo on acoustic guitar and it sounded like that. I was up next. Well, things didn't go as planned. I was going to do something of a tribute to Alvin Lucier but the thing that happened twice at the Hi-Tone with the power cutting out of my Monorocket case happened again here at the Lamplighter. When that happens, after a couple cut-outs, I start to think how I won't be able to do what I'm trying and this has happened before so maybe I should just quit. But then I end up rolling with it and trying to improvise and work around it, maybe streamlining so that less power is possibly used (if that even matters)? Anyway, so I powered through (no pun intended, but I'll take it). I think what I did come up with ended up being pretty good; I relied heavily on the bassy drones. There were actually some people there. And they didn't clear out. Betsy was saying everyone was there entranced by the drones. People would wander in and get transfixed. That's pretty high compliment I guess! She also said, in parts it sounded like the sounds were chopping up, referring to that phenomenological aspect of waveforms that Alvin Lucier works with a lot and that I was trying to go for with what was originally supposed to be a tribute (though what ended up, with the equipment issues, I wouldn't call a tribute anymore) so it was nice to hear that aspect of it coming across to someone who's then able to describe it back to me. After me was General Labor. Their drummer couldn't make it so they played as a two piece. They were really good. They recorded drum machine beats onto a cassette and played that back through a deck. They covered "Eisbär" and that ruled. All in all a good show in spite of things. I'll probably try to recreate my intended set and tribute today while I'm still set up. I woke up "early" (relatively, given the show) to do a deployment for work and that should be happening pretty soon, waiting for infra person to get on. Anyway.