Bloodyminded. hadn't heard much before, but now they are instantly one of my favorite bands. "Becoming an Animal" - best song of the no fun fest 2005 all the way aside from the vocals and feedback, the sound was oddly quiet, which somehow
made it more menacing. psyched for low-volume noise, especially after 3 days of
everyone upstairs blasting the paint off the walls. lots of kicking and brandishing of
evil grins. + a cappela PE to round it off?! the whole next day I kept thinking about the
totally menacing energy of their performance. really powerful-
Quad Muth. actuallyy not at no fun.. the thursday night, just before, jumped onto the end of the Lucas Abela/Dave P show at my place in Philly. went on at like 2 am, totally woke up the whole crowd, everyone freaked. gross styrofoam, and muscle suit.
awesome rhythmic programmed tremolo on markus' vocals. bleach bottle blues. one of the
best performance at the South Philly Athenaeum. Sunday at NFF was awesome too, but
thursday really rang my brain.
Metalux. the bass power totally shook me, made my mind race, totally stoned. refreshing rhythms and silver tones.. wish I could hear lyrics better, but was content to submit to bass bump. seems to me like lots of bands playing upstairs were
psyched to be playing through a good PA, to a big crowd, and as a result totally maxed their
shit out- in terms of both energy and sound quality. was good too see metalux keep their
compsure, and avoid total washout scree.
Tom Smith and Sightings- of course it ruled. wanted to hear more of Mark Morgan's Tom Smith impression vocals. sounded beautiful. best guitar of weekend- blood pluck shred. (actually second best-- second only to Rat Bastard's rock god shredover after newton lost tooth and aaron destroyed lighting fixture). plus subconscious bass and manic
obssesive drumming... plus tom smith? best rock band recipe, right there.
Dreamhouse- maximum love going out to my friends. the perfect three minute set.
frenzy and anger, plug is pulled. Ryan declares 'Hellworld' on us and we go back to drinking beer by the grill- what? wow
Kites- weird to see Chris on a stage, separate from audience. but after initial bass build and focus, the golden horn erupts and chris screams-- we are all redeemed. everyone pick up the new psychedelic double cassette.
Max and Carly- Carly drowns in electrosonic water dish, Max confronts his own image in the mirror. usually the first thing you forget when someone performs is that they are a real person, looking out into the world from body. not here.
other:
Lucas Abela- blood mustard breakdown. who doesnt love it?
Hecker- playing severe noise drones as I went downstairs.. came back up 20 minutes later and he's playing dancey house music .. what the fuck?? totally weird!
nihilist assault group: who was the third person? pretty sure I saw emil on the sidelines.. thought it was him. maybe it was?
everything was pretty much awesome the whole weekend. Like last year, the best part was just to be among so many people excited for the music.. instead of normal 30-person- audience show. Although towards the end, this year, the music seemed to explode under its own weight, like black hole- suddenly sounds coming from stage don't matter, just wash over you, and are all good. near the end of sunday, people were just hunched over on the floor- it took some major endurance to take three days of such tumult. the end vibe was like a sinister rave.. especially with Aaron dancing alone. I guess the result of an extended festival such as this is to provoke a transfiguration through extended exposure to an obscure genre. in this case the transfiguration seemed to be the total deconstruction of sonic performance, violently ripping apart meaning from form.
the traditional is experimental, the experimental is traditional. everybody just keep moving forward, ok?"