I'm hardly recovered from the weekend's festivities now, even though I slept off-and-on all day yesterday and most of the night. On Friday, Behold...the Arctopus and Dysrhythmia played O'Brien's in Allston, right near my house...the next day, we caravaned west to Easthampton, where Kayo Dot reunited with Cerberus Shoal coming back eastward on the final stop of their two-month tour of the country, at the Flywheel. After the Flywheel show, we ended up at a party, and got home to Boston sometime after 8AM on Sunday.
The opening band at O'Brien's was called NEPTUNE. They had a readily-identifiable van spray-painted with an image of a hoary god of the sea, and played homemade instruments of their own making. Notice the buzz-saw percussion pieces and the gong-like bass:
The big round bass had a tone like a sheet of metal wobbled to simulate thunder, and the guitar had a pretty sparse sound to it. I thought they were decent-sounding, and definitely fun to watch--I'd see them again.
Went outside to smoke a cigarette and noticed an inarguable truth stenciled onto the sidewalk:
Next up was a band called Conifer, who I missed entirely while smoking aforementioned cigarette and some brethren. I went back inside in enough time to get a good viewing location for BEHOLD...THE ARCTOPUS!
Colin, balls-out:
They were, of course, tremendous. It's kind of funny--walking around afterward, I heard like six discrete groups of people talking about how "sick" they were and expressing the sentiment "Hearing Arctopus makes me want to fucking quit music, man!"
As Dysrhythmia took the stage, Greg decided he would intimidate me by showing off his shiny coat:
(Sarah got in on the action too)
And I decided to experiment with the video feature on my camera, filming Josh and Sarah briefly...they thought I was taking a picture and spent several seconds posing until the truth came out. I post it here only so you can hear the Dysrhythmia roiling in the background!
http://www.waxwingslain.com/images/dysrhythmia.avi
Yes, Dysrhythmia. Such a balm to my soul. Super-tech, yet super-accessible at the same time:
I bought their new album, and am listening to it as I write. Excellent! Kevin's stage behaviour seems more manic than the swaying, meditative motions he went through the last time I saw them a year or two ago.
Home, sleep, and then waited for my ride to Easthampton to arrive around 12:30 or 1:00, as promised. Ride was Toby, and so he arrived around 4pm.
The Flywheel is a little out-of-the-way art/music space tucked at the end of what I can only assume is Easthampton's hopping downtown area (which beats Boston in that it had an all-night coffee shop [littered with sleeping goths] AND an all-night diner. We hung around out back and ate pizza and drank coffee and played with leaves.
The first band was called the Red Door Exchange. I thought they were okay, but my mind was kind of drifting. I know some other people thought they were awesome, though.
The second band was KAYO DOT:
Here I got all excited because I had an opportunity to get a picture of Ryan playing bass, but Nick swayed at the last minute. Later Ryan would complain that I hated him because I never took pictures of him:
Kayo Dot played the "lite" version of A Pitcher of Summer (one violin, guitar doing vocal lines, no singing) first. Then Toby told everyone that there was a jar of earplugs at the front of the stage of anyone wanted them. No one took them, and Kayo Dot gave a collective shrug and launched into Marathon.
After Marathon was over, Toby repeated his offer of earplugs. I saw one guy head towards the jar, but I don't know if he ever got some. They finished up with The Antique. It was a pretty great show overall, and the pretty-full room responded positively.
Here's a video clip I took of Greg rocking out (and a bit more):
http://www.waxwingslain.com/images/flywheel.avi
Hanging out in between sets:
Caleb from Cerberus Shoal had purposely lodged one of their catchiest songs in Greg's head (and he then lodged it in mine by telling me that), saying, "Now you'll have to wait for us to play it to get it out of there!" They planned to play it last. However, right before they went onstage, Caleb's banjo broke, and they had to quickly rework the set...and couldn't do the tune. Meh!
Audience shot. Mia was wary enough to look over when the pre-picture orange light blinked:
During one song, everyone in the crowd was gently featherdusted:
And here, either my battery started to die or the drugs started to kick in:
The dead battery meant that I couldn't take pictures of the party afterwards, which ran until 5am and featured:
* Sam FalseTodd pooh-poohing our questions of "Are you puking?!" when he drunkenly stumbled off to the bathroom, only to rush back in ten minutes later to do exactly that.
* DJ disrobing completely and wandering around shocking everyone by his nudity. He also lay down next to a dozing Forbes (who jumped up and screamed) and broke into the bathroom where Sam was worshipping the porcelain god.
* Ryan sprawled on the ground with his trousers around his ankles for a good fifteen minutes, having decided to join DJ, changed his mind, and then not bothered to get up or put his pants back on in the meantime.
* Arm-wrestling between Cerberus Shoal, Kayo Dot, and various entourages. I won all four of my matches, excepting a "disqualification" against Toby which I think was utter bullshit (Toby slid his elbow towards mine until I had no choice but to lift mine). My shoulder is completely paralyzed today, though.
* Male-on-male Ambisol make-out sessions.
* Sam later found laying on the gravel driveway on his back, snoring loudly.
Finally, we shoveled Sam onto a couch, convinced the girl who lived there that he was "very respectful and responsible" and wouldn't puke in her living room, and headed off to a diner. On the way, we had to physically restrain DJ from leaping from a thirty-foot bridge into a river ("It's fucking DEEP, dudes!" he protested) and Ryan from breaking into a school of some sort. We had a very nice waiter and sat next to a tableful of assholes who poured ketchup all over their table and tried to skip out on the bill. Walking back to our cars, we could see, with the rising sun, that the "fucking DEEP" river was probably about six inches shallow.
All in all, a very fun weekend!
The opening band at O'Brien's was called NEPTUNE. They had a readily-identifiable van spray-painted with an image of a hoary god of the sea, and played homemade instruments of their own making. Notice the buzz-saw percussion pieces and the gong-like bass:
The big round bass had a tone like a sheet of metal wobbled to simulate thunder, and the guitar had a pretty sparse sound to it. I thought they were decent-sounding, and definitely fun to watch--I'd see them again.
Went outside to smoke a cigarette and noticed an inarguable truth stenciled onto the sidewalk:
Next up was a band called Conifer, who I missed entirely while smoking aforementioned cigarette and some brethren. I went back inside in enough time to get a good viewing location for BEHOLD...THE ARCTOPUS!
Colin, balls-out:
They were, of course, tremendous. It's kind of funny--walking around afterward, I heard like six discrete groups of people talking about how "sick" they were and expressing the sentiment "Hearing Arctopus makes me want to fucking quit music, man!"
As Dysrhythmia took the stage, Greg decided he would intimidate me by showing off his shiny coat:
(Sarah got in on the action too)
And I decided to experiment with the video feature on my camera, filming Josh and Sarah briefly...they thought I was taking a picture and spent several seconds posing until the truth came out. I post it here only so you can hear the Dysrhythmia roiling in the background!
http://www.waxwingslain.com/images/dysrhythmia.avi
Yes, Dysrhythmia. Such a balm to my soul. Super-tech, yet super-accessible at the same time:
I bought their new album, and am listening to it as I write. Excellent! Kevin's stage behaviour seems more manic than the swaying, meditative motions he went through the last time I saw them a year or two ago.
Home, sleep, and then waited for my ride to Easthampton to arrive around 12:30 or 1:00, as promised. Ride was Toby, and so he arrived around 4pm.
The Flywheel is a little out-of-the-way art/music space tucked at the end of what I can only assume is Easthampton's hopping downtown area (which beats Boston in that it had an all-night coffee shop [littered with sleeping goths] AND an all-night diner. We hung around out back and ate pizza and drank coffee and played with leaves.
The first band was called the Red Door Exchange. I thought they were okay, but my mind was kind of drifting. I know some other people thought they were awesome, though.
The second band was KAYO DOT:
Here I got all excited because I had an opportunity to get a picture of Ryan playing bass, but Nick swayed at the last minute. Later Ryan would complain that I hated him because I never took pictures of him:
Kayo Dot played the "lite" version of A Pitcher of Summer (one violin, guitar doing vocal lines, no singing) first. Then Toby told everyone that there was a jar of earplugs at the front of the stage of anyone wanted them. No one took them, and Kayo Dot gave a collective shrug and launched into Marathon.
After Marathon was over, Toby repeated his offer of earplugs. I saw one guy head towards the jar, but I don't know if he ever got some. They finished up with The Antique. It was a pretty great show overall, and the pretty-full room responded positively.
Here's a video clip I took of Greg rocking out (and a bit more):
http://www.waxwingslain.com/images/flywheel.avi
Hanging out in between sets:
Caleb from Cerberus Shoal had purposely lodged one of their catchiest songs in Greg's head (and he then lodged it in mine by telling me that), saying, "Now you'll have to wait for us to play it to get it out of there!" They planned to play it last. However, right before they went onstage, Caleb's banjo broke, and they had to quickly rework the set...and couldn't do the tune. Meh!
Audience shot. Mia was wary enough to look over when the pre-picture orange light blinked:
During one song, everyone in the crowd was gently featherdusted:
And here, either my battery started to die or the drugs started to kick in:
The dead battery meant that I couldn't take pictures of the party afterwards, which ran until 5am and featured:
* Sam FalseTodd pooh-poohing our questions of "Are you puking?!" when he drunkenly stumbled off to the bathroom, only to rush back in ten minutes later to do exactly that.
* DJ disrobing completely and wandering around shocking everyone by his nudity. He also lay down next to a dozing Forbes (who jumped up and screamed) and broke into the bathroom where Sam was worshipping the porcelain god.
* Ryan sprawled on the ground with his trousers around his ankles for a good fifteen minutes, having decided to join DJ, changed his mind, and then not bothered to get up or put his pants back on in the meantime.
* Arm-wrestling between Cerberus Shoal, Kayo Dot, and various entourages. I won all four of my matches, excepting a "disqualification" against Toby which I think was utter bullshit (Toby slid his elbow towards mine until I had no choice but to lift mine). My shoulder is completely paralyzed today, though.
* Male-on-male Ambisol make-out sessions.
* Sam later found laying on the gravel driveway on his back, snoring loudly.
Finally, we shoveled Sam onto a couch, convinced the girl who lived there that he was "very respectful and responsible" and wouldn't puke in her living room, and headed off to a diner. On the way, we had to physically restrain DJ from leaping from a thirty-foot bridge into a river ("It's fucking DEEP, dudes!" he protested) and Ryan from breaking into a school of some sort. We had a very nice waiter and sat next to a tableful of assholes who poured ketchup all over their table and tried to skip out on the bill. Walking back to our cars, we could see, with the rising sun, that the "fucking DEEP" river was probably about six inches shallow.
All in all, a very fun weekend!
