Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1992 10:18:13 EDT
From:         "Michael H. Bloom" <MHB@MITVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Gig report: Urban Ambience at the Middle East

First act was RRRon Lessard, who runs RRRecords in Lowell, Mass, which is both
a label pressing obscure and heavily detailed noise and a store that deals in
obscure noise (also does mail order). RRRon brought some turntables, cassette
decks, and similar devices, all subtly altered, and proceeded to construct an
ad hoc musique concrete concerto. The records all skipped, creating bizarre
loops; one cassette deck had contact microphones and bits of spring steel
attached to it for electromechanical feedback-- anyway, it was all a bunch of
noise, but it was malleable noise. He'd tweak a knob, sit back looking pensive
and evaluate the results, then tweak another knob... I liked it, but largely
because of his humble hacker demeanor and facial expressions.

We knew Urban Ambience wasn't gonna compete on that scale of sheer noise, so
we started with our pseudo-New Age arpeggio number "Grand Canyon Shuffle." In
rehearsal, we'd been building fron that into a satisfyingly raucous jam; on
stage, I started the buildup and everybody else wussed out on me! So we did
the tango as a pretty straight jazz blowing session, and that went well. Our
guest trumpet and percussion players kicked ass on the improv bits here. Our
last bit was the routine we've established lately of "Legend Has It/Drug War
Dilemma/Catafalques of Thoth," where the composed bits have gradually been
retreating into skeletons of their former selves and the extra activities,
like the percussion adventures, have been blossoming. I brought some of my
Javanese gongs and a Chinese folk oboe. I think the band consensus is that it
was about a B- set-- decent, but coulda been better.

Inner Beauty (who arranged the whole night) has become my favorite local band:
neo-Beefheart sprung rhythms with highly textured contemporary grunge guitars,
except the players also know how to play in Summer of Love psychedelic modal
style. The songs are admirably twisted; I tuned in particularly to one line
in "Duchess" about "playing the punk in interviews," because that's likely to
be me soon if I lose my day job (and if I stop posting to the list for a while,
that may be why). Accompanying videos of auto accidents, surgery, and suchlike,
plus slides and films, were all pretty gruesome.

C.C.C.C., the noise band from Tokyo, consisted of two keyboard players (one of
them had a shitload of stomp boxes, some homemade; the other was constantly
tweaking the knobs on an antique analog synth), a bass player, and a woman in
a kimono shaking a sheet of metal with a contact mic, also going through a
veritable forest of boxes. The sound was right at the threshold of pain for me,
but it held my attention, and I found it cathartic: it sounded like a natural
process, like an idealized hurricane. After a while, the woman put aside her
thunder sheet and lit a couple candles. The house lights came down, she opened
her kimono, and dripped hot red candle wax on her arm, then down her cheek and
between her breasts-- when she was done it looked like clawmarks. Without her
sonic input, the music was more electronic in character, then it faded away in
a cacaphony of birdcalls. Intense. I bought one of their CDs, more so I could
have a document of what C.C.C.C. stood for (which I've already forgotten again)
than because I expect to listen to it too often. After I told them how much I
enjoyed their set, I asked them if they thought Urban Ambience could play in
Japan. They said yes, but my wife reminded me that the Japanese say yes to
everything.
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