From: dwv@cs.brown.edu (David W. Vorbrich)
Subject: EBN "show" last night
Organization: Brown Computer Science Dept.
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 21:29:29 GMT

I had a few requests for a review of the Emergence Broadcast Network
show I went to see last night.  I don't think it was truly industrial,
but damn close for this neophyte's ears.  Perhaps more "techno-rave",
but since I don't know how to clasify that one either, I don't really
care!

First and foremost, I knew NOTHING of EBN prior to yesterday, so I
didn't know what to expect. A friend said they do tons of sampling,
and use lots of video screens.  The flyers for the concert advertised
EBN as a 'multi media band'.

Well, they certainly were multi-media I guess, but there was no band.
Granted, the flyers said the concert went from 10pm to dawn.  We showed
up at about 11:30 and people said EBN hadn't been on yet, the club was
just playing random techno/industrial/thrash tunes, so we joined in.
By about 2:00am, most of the people I came with were ready to take off,
and since I got a ride with them, I had to leave as well.  I was having
a great time, and would have stayed anyway, but we were still waiting 
for EBN (I think).

Basically, my impression is that EBN's performance was a series of videos
they showed from about 12:30am to 1:00am.  The music definately changed,
and the whole room pretty much stopped dancing and stood at attention in
front of one big monitor, watching the videos (would have made a cool 
sceen for a film like '1984' or something!)... the videos were by EBN,
and were very cool.  They took samples from movies, a Mariah Carey video,
C-Span type congressional coverage, Bush speaches, televangalist preachers,
and lots of explosions and missles taking off.

My strongest impression/memory of the videos was a section where they used
two different samples... Harrison Ford in 'Patriot Games' running out of
a building.  He points and screams "GET DOWN!!"  The second sample was
from  Mariah Carey video.  She is supposed to be in a recording booth, and
has both of her hands over her ears (for "better tone" no doubt ;-), and
she is screetching one of her mega-high pitch squeels... when only this
segment is shown, she really looks like she is holding her head and screaming
in pain... (cool thought indeed!).  The video segment went like this...

"Get DOWN"... "GET DOWN!!"........... "Get DOWN"... "GET DOWN!!"....
"EEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

"Get DOWN"... "GET DOWN!!"........... "Get DOWN"... "GET DOWN!!"....
"EEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

and repeated for at least 2 minutes, with random bass and drum beats growning
in the background.  Another cool section had two Bush quotes "Being born" and
"Bang, you're dead"... which were repeated in a similar fashion.

According to some of my friends who have seen EBN before, there was a
guy who looked like a politition who acted out the whole show.  They said
that watching this guy was about half the coolness of the show, and no
such person appeared last night.  My two friends both agreed that we saw
about 1/4 of a true EBN show.

I had a great time none-the-less, and would go see EBN again even without
the expectation that it could be 4 times as good.  Add in that expectation,
and you can be sure I'll be first in the club when they return!

-David V.
 dwv@cs.brown.edu