REVIEWS AND COMMENTS
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Audio Waffle REVIEWS AND COMMENTS |
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from
the blog of Mason Jones, regarding S.A.W.#6:
Is It Hot In Here, Or...?
Jun. 26th, 2006 | 10:48 pm
music: Something silly on Fuse
It makes me wonder how I survived living in Davis for three years of high school.
The heat, that is. Yesterday wasn't even all that hot, given how summers go
in the central valley, but it'll do, yes indeed.
Yesterday's Audio Waffles in Sacramento was a lot of fun. Nice people, good waffles, and though I hate to admit it, even better popsicles (it was the weather, really; don't rename the event Audio Popsicles, it sounds weird). Held in a room at an artists' rental studios warehouse, there were chairs, a couch, and enough room for several folks to be set up and ready to go, which speeds things up. Pump Kinn & Don played first, a couple with a great feel for feedback. Crouched down with mics in front of small amps, they let sound cascade up and up really nicely; one of the couple produced grins from the audience as she slowly roller-skated out of the room, down the hall, and back, mic in hand the whole way. Tralphaz was on and off in the blink of an eye, or perhaps the click of a switch would be more apropos. His set was a combination of table-top pedal manic noise a la Government Alpha and vocal-hi-energy madness a la Masonna. Five minutes at most, but an hour's worth of sound.
I spent a couple of minutes working out a technical difficulty, then settled in and went for a noisier thing than I've been doing lately, seeing as it was a crowd there for noise, not ambience. It was a lot of fun, and I found some new sound combinations, having pulled out some older pedals from the collection. The bizarro frequency swapper from Vanilla Electronics worked better than it ever has before, I think. About halfway through my short set, I'm not sure why, I started getting shocks from the guitar strings. It added some more excitement, I guess; I don't think the audience knew it was happening -- though one of the guys said afterwards, "Oh, that's why you were slapping things quickly." Yeah, getting a shock will do that...
After a short break, the final mega-set consisted of Power Circus alone, then with Soriah joining in, then with Nequaquam Vacuum joining in, and finally N.V. alone finishing things up. It was all very smooth, from fascinating noise-collage-manipulation to vocal effects to Z'ev-like metal pounding and alien incantations.
When it was all over, I hit the road back to SF, though when I first got in the car I couldn't touch the steering wheel because it was too hot. I forgot what that was like. And now I'm back to trying to forget all over again...