I'm beginning to fall in love with Portland. Last night was the big KLC Show, with a fat line-up of 5 LC bands. First off was Laps I Swim, a noise-folk duo (or rather, trio?) consisting of a drummer/percussionist, singer/percussionist, and a karaoke machine with pre-taped guitar/keys. With the bare-bones set up of a few drums, a few glockenspiels, a tambourine and various liquor bottles to hit, these guys had to work pretty hard to keep it interesting -- and they did. Their myspace says they're a blend of Jaymee Martin (upon further investigation I found nothing about Jaymee Martin--is this the singer?), Microphones and Pavement, which sounds like an excellent mix to me. Their shambling liquor-bottle gamelan orchestra proved to be more than a gimmick, and something I recommend seeing if you have the chance.
After a blue-grass-ish trio that I didnt catch much of, Cream-of-Wheatasaurus Rex (nee Bloom) came on, the recently-birthed project of Pomegranate friends Owen, Wyatt and Ben. With two guitars, drums and no bassist, they simply turned the distortion up real loud, creating a wall of sound with layered melodies and impressive texture. And then they played "Pizza Day, Fuck Yeah!". Hopefully they'll take this project past its infancy into something full-borne, I'd pay to see them.
The last band I saw, Booze Howl was something special. Before the show, I had heard rumblings of the name around campus, but nothing really substantial, and nothing hinting on what I was about to see. When they took the stage (space? there wasn't really a stage, just an area where the band played) they let the guitars feedback, filling the room with a single ominous tone, only an inkling of what was next. Then, the lights went out, and they proceeded to gouge the room with the most piercing noise of any live band I have ever seen. It was majestic, pure unabashed fucking sound, consuming the body and working its way past your ears into your head. On stage they had guitars in their hands and they were projecting their voices, but these weren't the sounds that we were hearing. They twisted and fucked their six-strings through an array of pedals, making sounds you couldn't imagine and wouldn't want to. The sound was violent, cathartic, and the best part was, they got the crowd moving. They truly were howling into the microphones, translating their physical energy into noise. It was amazing to see such an atonal, harsh, ugly sound move the people in the audience so much.
After further inquiry, I couldn't find any recordings of actual Booze Howl online, but there is Ghosts & Mysteries on myspace, the side project of the second, noisier guitarist. He creates poppish psychedelia more reminiscent of 60's bands warped through effects pedals, barely hinting at the spectacle that was Booze Howl.
Although the guitarist for Booze Howl said if I didn't stay for Snake Plissken, I'd die, but I could only hear one song and I'm just fine right now. Owen stayed for more and he ended up bleeding from the head, if that's any indication of how good they were.
Here's songs from Ghosts and Laps, if you guys are too lazy to go over to their myspaces and check them out.
Laps I Swim
Ghosts & Mysteries
p.s. Sorry for the lack of pictures, like a dumbshit I brought my camera but not the memory card.
