It is super fucking hot in Seattle this week. Crushing really. We live here so we don't have to walk around in 105 degree weather all day. I know people in Tucson will roll their eyes at 105 degrees but no one in Seattle has air conditioning. Crushing. Really.
So unlike most tours i didn't do any documentation of these shows. I don't totally mind though as there was three moments of technical difficulties for me at the four shows. I will do a short breakdown.
Day 1 (July 16th @ The Josephine, Seattle) Today was the kick off for the tour. We had a show in Seattle at The Josephine which is becoming my home away from home. I really love that place. The show started off with issues from the PA which boggled everyone's mind until Eric from Dissonant Plane walked up and flip a button and suddenly saved the day. Slates began the set with a huge wave of wonderful noise. Absolutely painted the room with a warm heavy sound that he seemed to be making with strange contraption built from two boxes of push pins connected to a contact mic and being played with a toothbrush. He (Josh) only uses a few pedals and i have no idea how he gets the sounds that he does but it is well worth seeing. Next Mamiffer played and everyone was floored. Faith Coloccia's beautiful and complex piano lines accompanied by Travis Rommereim who almost works as a foley artist. Playing a floor tom at times, dragging chains over bottles at times. He adds wonderful texture to all of Faith's work. They make an incredible duo (Aaron Turner, who plays guitar with Mamiffer was on tour with Isis at the time and was unable to play these shows). After that we were treated to Sokai Stilhed. Very excellent work. It was a treat to hear her vocal loops and small horn make some complex evolving waves of sound. She is a very special talent and I recommend picking up her two self released cdrs as soon as you can (check Dissonant Plane). Blowupnihilist played after her. It was so nice to see Andre' play. it had been a long time. He played some excellent grind, hardcore, noise, whatever you want to call it... It was great. There will be a Blowupnihilist cdr on Dead Accents this fall and I really hope he plays more sets like this when it comes out. I will make dozens of dollars! heh. ugh. After Andre' Hemingway played for the few people that had stayed. It was chaos. It only lasted about ten minutes and in that time people were knocked down, equipment broke and shane cut a huge gash into his face. Check out the
tagged photos on myspace. Nuts. Time to go to bed.
Day 2 (July 17th Abyssal Behemoth, Portland) Shane and I wanted to get to Portland around 6-7:00pm so we decided to leave at 2:00pm. The drive takes about three hours if you don't hit a lot of traffic so we figured leaving at 2:00pm would be perfect. We got there at almost 9:00pm. We sat in traffic through the city of Tacoma for about four and a half hours. Bumper to bumper through the entire city. Amazing. The fact this region doesn't have serious public transportation is disgusting. The car we were driving down broke down twice but we made it. We arrived at the Abyssal Behemoth in Portland and got to hang with our buddy Gordon. He is the subtle genius behind Oscillating Innards and Concern as well as a new band i have yet to hear called Knelt Rote. The club is really the basement of Gordon's house but it was amazing place to play. The show began with Saltorchard. A duo from the PDX area that are very strange. A boy sits and plays a snare drum with brushes or plays this beautiful iron bell. A girl stands and does really abstract vocals all over the place. It's definitely unique. The compositions they play seem to be less improvised and more or actual written songs. It's hard to explain but they may be playing a few more shows with Mamiffer this summer so you may be able to check them out. Next Hemingway played and after about 3 minutes of our dueling guitar noise, my marshall broke. The high sensitivity input broke inside and shorted out the head. I got this strange ground sound the whole rest of our set that i basically just "played" that. I was pretty disappointed but shane kinda held it together. Mamiffer played again and it was great. They really are an important band workign right now. Probably my favorite thing that
hydrahead is doing these days. good work. Gordon played a rare Oscillating Innards set afterwards. Devastating. He has such control over what he is doing. I can't believe he doesn't do that project more. It was a real honor to play with him. Damn technical problems. That night we stayed at his friend Jenna's house and drank beer and smoked a bit. A great time. I passed out while Shane and I watch Old School on a gigantic television.
Day 3 (July 18th Epic Space, Eugene) Shane and I got up at a decent hour and hit the road. Today we were getting tattooed. We drove to Eugene first thing and got to the venue. The venue, Epic Space, is actually a garage attached to our good friend Abe's tattoo shop by the same name. Abe is a killer guy and he has a pretty awesome shop full of talented people. Shane and i both got
Winsor McCay images tattooed. The show started with I Died. Chris, who is I Died, did an excellent job making harsh soundscapes. I was transfixed by the little bowl of water with a bubbler in it he was making sounds with. Great work and got some killer cassettes from him. One was a split with a Russian noise act called OBOZDOR. Interesting stuff. I guess Russia has a growing noise scene. We will have to get over there soon. Scrolls played next. It is so weird to watch them. It is basically this dude scott with Rye Wolves as his backing band. Scott is a strange guy. Obviously a savant of some sort. Really interesting fellow. I really recommend checking them out live sometime. the music is heavy and dark with pretty minimal dynamics. They also played with their shirts off. Hemingway played next and right off the bat there was something wrong with my pedal board. The power kept dying and resetting everything. i got furious as i had just fixed my marshall so i unplugged the pedals and plugged straight in. I can make a ton of different sounds with tube feedback, my playing and my 8 bit synth that i have installed in my Les Paul so i was fine with out all the toys but it made it harder to do somethings. Again, Shane held it down and kept it real scary. He is my rock. Mamiffer played after us. There was no reverb on the pa for Travis' mics so we connected my delay pedal to it. I had to adjust the mix on the pedal for a couple parts but they were amazing that night. The best i have ever seen them. it really blew everyone away. The whole room was in shock. It was something very special to see. Travis needs a delay pedal too. After Mamiffer was Brown. Jeremy is one of my favorite new people and he is doing some pretty amazing drone work. Tonight was loud. He played through four halfstacks and his SG. Using some pedals and tuning forks he created some epic tones in that room. I hope to work with Brown in the future, there has been some talk of a Brown cassette on Dead Accents. I would be very proud to see that happen. After the show we went to Burrito Boy and gorged ourselves. I love that place so much. I ate too mcuh and thought i was going to die until i finally passed out.
Day 4 (Ash St Saloon, Portland) This day was kinda a bummer. It was hot and Shane and I got to Portland early. We walked around for awhile which was nice. Got to eat at Roccos pizza, go to Powell's, get yelled at by a stripper at Mary's, drink at Magic Gardens, play video games and then eat and drink at Tube until it was time to go to Ash Street. Mamiffer played first and they sounded really great in that club but there was really no one there. Josh Hydeman and Jeremy brought a fw bodies bet i think unless you are in a large rock band this is not the best venue. It was a cool place though. Brown played next and did a straight up drone set without a guitar. The tonesalmost lulled me to sleep in their heavy beauty. Jeremy is like Gordon from Oscillating Innards in the way he has great control over making the tones. josh Hydeman played next and he was awesome as well. i had never seen him before except for on
youtube. He started off with some nice drones and about halfway through turned it into a heavey sreaming mess of noise and texture. Crushing sounds and a good performer. Our set was last. My Marshall blew a fuse and i had to use my Sunn which put us out a head. Kinda bummed me out but we got on that tall stage and just let the few people there have it. Josh Hydeman was loving it, screaming back at Shane and jumping around. After we had let it wind down and turned off our stuff we got off stage and sat down. Faith came up and said my favorite thing, "I get it. You guys are a good band and i get it now." I liked that. Nice to hear after three days of technical difficulties. We drove home that night. A much nicer drive than the way down was. As we pulled into Seattle and unloaded I really got a handle on how tired I was. I had to sleep because i had four hours until i had to be at work. I got home and fell asleep next to my pregnant wife. It was a good tour all in all.
We have tour posters left over. You can pick one up from
broken press.
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