matmos

Brainwaves 2008

Posted on by grahams

I had buckets of fun at the first Brainwaves festival in 2006, and Brainwashed is turning it up to 11 for the second festival on November 21-23..  Big name acts you may have heard of like Meat Beat Manifesto, Matmos, and Stars of the Lid, but the real cream of the crop may be the bands you may not have heard of yet (unless you read Brainwashed religiously).   Brainwaves is completely different from any festival I’ve ever attended, the Regent Theatre is a pretty intimate venue and the artists are often sprinkled throughout the venue (not squirreled away in some green room or hotel). 

The schedule was just posted, and at 79 bucks, the three-day pass is a bargain..   You can also buy tickets for the individual days, so if you really want to help one of the greatest independent music sites online (and a native Boston business), buy your tickets now!

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Posted on by grahams

After work last night I headed out to Harvard Square to see a free, in-store performance by Nobukazu Takemura at Other Music. I hadn’t heard of this artist before, but what I heard was pretty good. I met up with some friends there and we went to eat some Indian food after the in-store. I bought a few used CDs and singles in addition to the Tool and Weezer cd’s:

I got a great deal on all of them, but all in all I spent way too much on CDs yesterday… Give me a break though, I have been utterly poor since October. :) For a change I am not leeching money off of my parents, so I needed to celebrate payday somehow.

So far I have given a first listen to the Tool, Weezer, Squarepusher, Matmos discs (I already had a dub of the Coil disc), and I am not disappointed with any of my purchases. I am listening to the Autechre disc now, and so far it seems pretty good.

I went to bed rather early last night, but I didn’t sleep well the night before, so I guess that can be explained. It is raining today, which isn’t that bad, because the air-conditioning is still not working right here at work (although there are some HVAC guys here as I write this), so cool days are appreciated… I am actually working on important stuff at work finally, which is a good thing, although I am still in a little bit over my head as far as catching up to this code base goes. It will take a few days to figure out how this all fits together yet.

Wow

Posted on by grahams

The show was amazing last night…. James and I left my work around 6ish, and showed up at the Middle East about 20 minutes later. Since we were so early, we decided to grab something to eat, but as we were walking away, Jon Whitney and friends (Jessica and Ed) popped out of the club and said Hi. After some chit-chatting, we went to the (terrible, terrible, almost as bad as California) pizza shop and grabbed some chow. We then wandered down to this coffee house (1369, I believe) down the street. Jon must have bumped into like 20 people he knew on the way, and it took us like 30 minutes to walk 2 blocks. :)

We chilled outside the coffee shop for a while (I didn’t get anything, however), and we made our way back. When we returned to the club, the line was already around the side of the building, but Jon saw someone he knew and we cut into line.. :) This show sold out weeks ago, and there were lots of people trying to get in… I am glad I picked up the tickets when I did. We descended into the club and as we arrived the warm-up DJ (Rob Hall, I believe) was spinning, obscured by Matmos‘ equipment. This DJ was only ok, a few notches above annoying. :) Around 9pm, Matmos took the stage, and they were amazing. They did a cool thing: Facing their equipment towards the audience, and (sometimes) sitting with their backs to the audience. While this would be considered travesty at a normal rock show, it was cool being able to see them at work. They turned around and aside quite a bit, so you could tell that they were doing this for the show. Their new album is entitled “A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure”, and it is riddled with lots of disgusting medical samples and visions. Their opening number had Drew (i believe that is his name) pressing some kind of biofeedback probe into his skin (not breaking the skin or anything), and another guy followed the probe with a video camera, projecting it onto a screen. Their set was amazing, and they were the first people I have ever seen to use a metal rat cage as a musical instrument (and it sounded really cool too).

After Matmos left the stage, Russell Haswell took the stage, with his laptop and little other gear. His wall of sound lasted longer than any of the other artists… He was only OK, but he needs to learn some control. He had some really interesting stuff, and some terrible stuff, but in either case, he stretched it out way too long…

Finally, Autechre took the stage, and by this point, my heels were killing me. I was right up towards the stage, and my boots were starting to really hurt my feet (Note to self: buy some Dr. Scholl’s). Fortunately, Autechre has a stage presence that doesn’t really command viewing… I made my way to the back of the club (the bar, actually, where I obtained a Margarita) and met up with James.. We were both taken aback by what Autechre had to offer, they were simply mind blowing. They amaze me with their ability to come up with music that is completely alien yet still sounds great. They wrapped up their set around 12:10, which gave us little time to catch the last train. We didn’t have a chance to hang around, say goodbye to Jon and friends, etc. I wish the subway ran later, especially on weekends… Oh well, it was still a great night, and I am looking forward to more great concerts in the near future. In fact, Other Music was handing out flyers to a free in-store show next week… Free music is always a good thing. :)

James left around 7 this morning, and while in theory I was going to go back to bed for an hour or two, I decided to just come into work and get it done with. Today will probably be a long day, but after it is done, I can go home, get some sleep, and be normal for the rest of the week. :)

What a wonderful weekend!

Posted on by grahams

I had a ton of fun this weekend exploring Boston with James, as it is the first chance I have had to really explore what is available to me. Friday night we wandered around Government Center, went to some stores and just enjoyed some of the beautiful (and not-so beautiful) architecture around. We got back really late, as we kinda got a wee bit lost and had trouble locating a T stop. :)

Saturday, we met up with Jon Whitney, who runs Brainwashed, which hosts the Coil and Meat Beat Manifesto official pages. He was a really good guy, and he showed us around Harvard Square, which is a wonderful area. It turns out that one of my favorite NYC record shops, Other Music opened their second store in Harvard Square recently, which is awesome in my book.. :) I also browsed around some other record shops in the area, and discovered that CDs are simply way cheaper in this town for some reason. I picked up a few CDs used:

Sunday, James and I headed back into Harvard Square and ran head first into a street festival… We had some good Barbecue on the street, and heard some street musicians and looked at the vendor’s boothes (but I really couldn’t spend much money, although I could use a pair of sunglasses sometime in the near future). We then headed back and watched Galaxy Quest and the Sopranos.. :)

Tonight is the Matmos/Autechre concert, which should be lots of fun. I will report on it tomorrow… :)

Not yet, but soon

Posted on by grahams

Just checked with Verizon, and I can’t get DSL yet, but my area is scheduled to be upgraded sometime in June or July, so I will be able to get it soon. :) I guess I will have to get a dialup ISP for the time being. I am going to see if the cable guy knows anything about Cable Modems in my area when he comes by to install my cable today.

I have to leave work early today, since the cable guy is coming, and afterwards James will be arriving later today, he is going to be here for the weekend, and on Monday we are going to the Middle East to see Autechre play (with Matmos opening)… Should be fun!