What Do You Want for $16?
I was really looking forward to the Comets on Fire show at the Bowery Ballroom last week. I'd seen them 3 times previously and they were consistently excellent, and as much as I liked their recorded material, I found their live show to be more entertaining. Particularly appealing was the chance to see them in a good room with great sound. The bill that night also contained NYC sonic terrorists Sightings and doomy ambientists Growing. It seemed a recipe for a well-spent evening.
The chance to see Sightings in a good room was something I couldn't pass up, so I arrived a little after 9 PM to see their drummer trying to get his girlfriend past the security at the ticket desk. Even though Sightings was due to hit the stage momentarily, the door people made him wait for 3 or 4 minutes while they struggled to read the guest list for the band in order to demonstrate their authority over all who came to their club. After he was able to get her in, I heard Sightings' singer say into the PA "Has anyone seen our drummer? We're looking for him..." As usual, a New York City club went out of its way to make life difficult for those who bring their night's revenues in. Despite this annoyance, their drummer was onstage by the time I got my drink and got up to the front of the stage.
Sightings played a great set, opening with "Sugar Sediment" from their most recent Load Records release Arrived in Gold. After that, they played all new material--7 more songs in all. Very impressive stuff that was both noisy as shit and really well-thought out. The second to last song in their set was incredible--bassist Richard pounding on the bass like it was a drum while guitarist Mark layered shards of trebly noise around like broken glass. This newer material seemed to mix in a healthy amount of improvisation as well. I am more impressed with them every time I see them.
Growing was next. I saw them open for Khanate back in the summer of 2004 at Northsix, and I was unimpressed even though I knew what I was getting since I owned a copy of their first release on Kranky. I found them to be meandering (which is usually a strength in the ambient music genre) and on the whole quite uninteresting. Most of their best sounds were being produced by a digital 8-track recorder that night. Ironically, this set has been released recently as a live disc by Growing...I read a review of it somewhere (maybe on Foxy Digitalis...I forget). Anyway, I was trying to keep an open mind for them but was not optimistic about their set. Their first piece was pretty, as looped e-bow parts circled around a massive bass drone, but really didn't go anywhere. The second piece was awful, as the bassist put on a guitar and they proceeded to play pretty much the same melody as the first piece, with the same drone going underneath. The last piece was more to my liking, as they droned a crushingly heavy guitar chord for about 10 minutes. It ventured into the territory marked off by bands like Earth and Sunn0))) but had its own unique twist to it. Guitar feedback crested around the looped riff while the bass droned along with the main chord. It was tactile and pure, a really cool piece of music.
After the sound subsided, Comets on Fire took to the stage. Trouble surfaced as soon as they started playing, as the soundman didn't know what to make of them--the Echoplex delay was cranked up louder than both guitars, and for the entirety of the first song there was no guitar in the mix at all. A band with two outstanding guitarists like Ethan Miller and Ben Chasney, and there was no guitar in the mix....I'm really unsure as to how an absurdity like that happens. After the first song was done, many voices were hollering at the soundman to turn the guitars up. He decided to ignore the advice of these listeners and proceeded to absolutely ruin the band's set....a blind person would have thought that Comets on Fire contained a drummer, an effects guy, and a bass player, along with a singer--the mix was that awful. Occasionally Ethan Miller's guitar would surge to the surface of the band's sound, but that was it...Ben Chasney was visible onstage but missing completely in the mix. Even when the drummer stepped to the piano and the Echoplex guy stepped to the drumkit things didn't change with the guitar mix. I was shocked.
Now, Comets on Fire does have a sludgy, noisy sound that can veer into the direction of incoherence. But I cannot understand how a professional soundman could not have fixed the problems with the band's mix; after all, he saw the same two guitarists onstage that everyone else saw. Things were so dismal out in the crowd that there was little energy going back towards the musicians...they picked up on the vibe that something was wrong and began to play poorly. There were lots of confused looks exchanged between the boys as things ground to a slow halt. It was a shame.
This was the second straight bad mix I'd seen with a headliner at the Bowery. The last time I saw Do Make Say Think there the soundman had similar problems. Maybe he can't handle any 2-guitar bands, or bands with a lot of varied instrumentation--but for sixteen dollars it would not be beyond expectations to assume that the bands will receive a good mix. I'm sure Comets on Fire played a better show at the Narchitect house in Brooklyn the next night, and I'm sure the sound was far superior, even though the band room at the Narchitect is concrete and the bands only use a vocal PA. So bigger is not better, and the venue doesn't matter anymore when it comes to bands performing in NYC. Let the Bowery book shit bands from here on out to simplify matters, or they should get a new soundman. Either way they're not getting my sixteen bucks again.
The chance to see Sightings in a good room was something I couldn't pass up, so I arrived a little after 9 PM to see their drummer trying to get his girlfriend past the security at the ticket desk. Even though Sightings was due to hit the stage momentarily, the door people made him wait for 3 or 4 minutes while they struggled to read the guest list for the band in order to demonstrate their authority over all who came to their club. After he was able to get her in, I heard Sightings' singer say into the PA "Has anyone seen our drummer? We're looking for him..." As usual, a New York City club went out of its way to make life difficult for those who bring their night's revenues in. Despite this annoyance, their drummer was onstage by the time I got my drink and got up to the front of the stage.
Sightings played a great set, opening with "Sugar Sediment" from their most recent Load Records release Arrived in Gold. After that, they played all new material--7 more songs in all. Very impressive stuff that was both noisy as shit and really well-thought out. The second to last song in their set was incredible--bassist Richard pounding on the bass like it was a drum while guitarist Mark layered shards of trebly noise around like broken glass. This newer material seemed to mix in a healthy amount of improvisation as well. I am more impressed with them every time I see them.
Growing was next. I saw them open for Khanate back in the summer of 2004 at Northsix, and I was unimpressed even though I knew what I was getting since I owned a copy of their first release on Kranky. I found them to be meandering (which is usually a strength in the ambient music genre) and on the whole quite uninteresting. Most of their best sounds were being produced by a digital 8-track recorder that night. Ironically, this set has been released recently as a live disc by Growing...I read a review of it somewhere (maybe on Foxy Digitalis...I forget). Anyway, I was trying to keep an open mind for them but was not optimistic about their set. Their first piece was pretty, as looped e-bow parts circled around a massive bass drone, but really didn't go anywhere. The second piece was awful, as the bassist put on a guitar and they proceeded to play pretty much the same melody as the first piece, with the same drone going underneath. The last piece was more to my liking, as they droned a crushingly heavy guitar chord for about 10 minutes. It ventured into the territory marked off by bands like Earth and Sunn0))) but had its own unique twist to it. Guitar feedback crested around the looped riff while the bass droned along with the main chord. It was tactile and pure, a really cool piece of music.
After the sound subsided, Comets on Fire took to the stage. Trouble surfaced as soon as they started playing, as the soundman didn't know what to make of them--the Echoplex delay was cranked up louder than both guitars, and for the entirety of the first song there was no guitar in the mix at all. A band with two outstanding guitarists like Ethan Miller and Ben Chasney, and there was no guitar in the mix....I'm really unsure as to how an absurdity like that happens. After the first song was done, many voices were hollering at the soundman to turn the guitars up. He decided to ignore the advice of these listeners and proceeded to absolutely ruin the band's set....a blind person would have thought that Comets on Fire contained a drummer, an effects guy, and a bass player, along with a singer--the mix was that awful. Occasionally Ethan Miller's guitar would surge to the surface of the band's sound, but that was it...Ben Chasney was visible onstage but missing completely in the mix. Even when the drummer stepped to the piano and the Echoplex guy stepped to the drumkit things didn't change with the guitar mix. I was shocked.
Now, Comets on Fire does have a sludgy, noisy sound that can veer into the direction of incoherence. But I cannot understand how a professional soundman could not have fixed the problems with the band's mix; after all, he saw the same two guitarists onstage that everyone else saw. Things were so dismal out in the crowd that there was little energy going back towards the musicians...they picked up on the vibe that something was wrong and began to play poorly. There were lots of confused looks exchanged between the boys as things ground to a slow halt. It was a shame.
This was the second straight bad mix I'd seen with a headliner at the Bowery. The last time I saw Do Make Say Think there the soundman had similar problems. Maybe he can't handle any 2-guitar bands, or bands with a lot of varied instrumentation--but for sixteen dollars it would not be beyond expectations to assume that the bands will receive a good mix. I'm sure Comets on Fire played a better show at the Narchitect house in Brooklyn the next night, and I'm sure the sound was far superior, even though the band room at the Narchitect is concrete and the bands only use a vocal PA. So bigger is not better, and the venue doesn't matter anymore when it comes to bands performing in NYC. Let the Bowery book shit bands from here on out to simplify matters, or they should get a new soundman. Either way they're not getting my sixteen bucks again.
posted by alyosha mcbain at 12:25 PM
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