Elysium
AMODA, Friday, August 29th
I'm gonna make this short and sweet.
The
Austin Museum of Digital Art held another of it's musical
showcases at the Elysium. Normally I am all about electronic
music in general and Elysium shows in particular. I should
have been wary though, when I got
a phone call from another Rank and Revue writer asking me
to cover the show.
"Sure,
no problem, I'm not doing anything tonight anyway".
I
should have known something was up, and although the beginning
of the night leading up to the show was going pretty well,
I should've expected the turn that I got.
Me,
sitting at the Elysium, which at near 11pm was populated with
only a few handfuls of people, most of them AMODA members.
Listening wistfully to the music floating out of the PA and
filling the club. I use the word
wistfully because I wished I could have made out what it was
anyway.
Electronic Artists apparently is the phrase used to describe
quiet morose looking people who stand behind a keyboard and
laptop, pushing a random button and twiddling some knobs.
Not that I have anything against knob twiddling performers,
but I demand there be something resembling a melody line to
go with it. Hey look, I like shoe-gazer music sometimes. I
can
often wrap my head around the whole soundscape approach to
music, that's fucking fine. That wasn't the case at the AMODA
show. There was maybe one out of the five acts that was in
any way salvageable or bearable, the rest turned into a sort
of electronic-pretention-music masturbation., and I was not
getting off.
When
you have to ask yourself and the bartender if "the band
is on" while they are in the middle of their set, then
I think you have to reassess what you just spent money on.
If I had actually paid for the show that I got at during this
AMODA event I would have definately asked for my money back.
I can't even tell you who was playing that night because it
all got lost in un-ending waves of suckage.
In
closing, the night was a bust, and if I get another call again
to cover an AMODA show I will demand hard drugs as compensation.
Otherwise I'm at least gonna ask for the right to inflict
a kick in the nuts on whoever's idea it was to pick me to
do it.
-Darin
D'Avila
|
Sleep
Now Yes, the electro-industrial band on the ticket, was the
first band to take the stage. The lead signer, “Mr.
Vision” was surrounded by electronic devices and Christmas
lights. He was seriously boxed in; the only place he could
bounce around was behind all his equipment. That didn't discourage
him much, though. Mr. Vision stepped back into the hole created
around his equipment to scream away as needed. Keyboard and
percussion duties were handled by Red Sharkey. He wasn't just
standing there tapping a few keys; he was pounding away at
the boards to squeak every last sound out of them he could.
The guitarist, a certain “Evol Kram” played his
licks well and kept everything moving along. In spite of a
few early sound problems, Sleep Now Yes put on a good solid
set that shows some definite promise. Look for these guys
the next time they have a show. There's more to see with this
outfit than the current fare of laptop-punching electro bands.
The
headlining band, My Education, is rather difficult to classify.
If I really had to search for similar-sounding bands I'd have
to lump them in with Hawkwind or Godspeed! You Black Emperor.
The live violin (yes, I said violin) and lack of vocals, when
combined with three guitars and a drummer, add up to a spacey,
almost progressive-rock sound. I wouldn't quite lump this
band in with the mighty ballad-monsters of 1970’s prog-rock,
but what they are doing doesn't really fit anywhere else very
well. The set was interesting, mostly low-key . There weren't
the bizarre tempo changes that sometimes characterize similar
bands. My Education played good, strong dreamy songs with
some rock instruments and some 'classical' instruments; the
keyboard that was onstage sounded more like a piano than like
the keyboards used by synthpop and other electronic bands.
In some ways, this band was more of an update of 'classical'
composition techniques and performances. An interesting set,
all in all.