Transmissions.003, Chapel Hill, and More

Not really, I found out, as I shuffled to the counter with that Azusa Plane double CD from last year that I never got around to hearing. $16.98 seemed a bit much for a used CD even for a double even in Chapel Hill even for some weird shit like Azusa Plane that the college kids probably aren't selling along with their Everclear and Spacehog records. My skills at haggling were rejected by the glum proprietor, who fed me a tear-jerking soliloquy about his failing business and 8 months without profit. Understandable, so I pushed the Plane platter back onto a pile and walked out only spending a few bucks, picking up the Sun City Girls' Valentines for Mata Hari on CD and a Sigur Ros 12". The vinyl selection in Chapel Hill was thin all over, though significantly lusher than the previous year.

My favorite store though, and unfortunately the last one I hit (so the thrifty "watch your money" rule that my Dad ingrained in me had kicked in), was a little standalone building called Nice Price Books. By this point in the day my usually quite agile vinyl-flipping fingers were beginning to ache so I limited my vinyl glimpses to the incoming jazz, where I scored a remaindered radio station LP of Old and New Dreams (on ECM with Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Dewey Redman). I usually don't buy radio station copies on principle, but this was a good find, and since it wasn't a radio station I was familiar with, I could listen without being plagued by guilt.

Sunny Day Real Estate was gracing Chapel Hill with their poetics but I decided not to subject myself to that and catch Meisha at a space called the Go! Room instead. Meisha graciously let me jump on and play a solo 10 minutes as thei internal opening act (which was wonderful of them, I must say) so I loaded in with them, and we hung out until the show started. The first band was something called Moth Light that did the post-rock angular guitar wizard thing as a two-piece, with Bud Cort from Harold and Maude as the singer (that's a movie, kids) and some guy on drums. Meisha and I took awhile to set up but all was okay as I cut my set down to seven minutes. I started my set with Meisha's meandering improvisations behind me. Banging on my guitar with an improvised tennis-ball mallet I amused myself for 7 minutes then jumped off as Pete Spynda announced me as John Fail from Land., or maybe he said I was La, or just Nd, I really couldn't hear him but then they started playing so it didn't matter.

I've seen Meisha a million times but there's something about seeing them in a new space with an unfamiliar crowd and the films and projections going that makes it really special. Or perhaps it was the music they played, a new opening piece with Ken on the Tibetan Bowl that was pretty fab, and then they all started Meishing and wowing the audience. It was the second show of their tour, after we had both just played with Pelt the previous week in Pittsburgh (so then I decided it was the second show of my tour also).

Fatigue set in so I didn't stick around to watch Analogue 2.0 though I was told that they were quite phenomenal. I slept a few hours, and drove to Raleigh in the morning for an exciting haircut at the Man-Mur Barbershop. The barber told me the secret of Man-Mur, and I swore that I would take the secret to the grave, so I cannot reveal it to you, dear readers.

Friday was exciting, as Transmissions.003 was about to begin! I got there early to both grab a parking spot, and "make the scene" (as is my style), though I found the scene to be a couple of glum kids sitting on the sidewalk outside of Cat's Cradle waiting for things to begin. The door were finally open (somewhat later than the announced 6 PM starting time) and the festival began.

Dean Roberts took the stage first. I am no fan of Mr. Roberts, being the unhappy owner of Thela's first album, but friends had told me to give him a second chance so I did... for about 12 minutes. There are many people who would just assume Roberts to be a man playing weird folk songs on an out-of-tune guitar, not recognizing the use of atonal scales and his creative (if not disorienting) guitar style. I am not one of those people, but I still walked out to the parking lot.

Zuerichten played next, a vastly underappreciated act at Transmissions. Locals with laptops, they created layers of sound in many different styles with some great projections over them. They played a bit long, but for the welcomers of the oncoming Powerbook onslaught, they were quite satisfying, and I sort of tranced out (and forgot to pick up one of their modestly priced CD-R's).

I bolted over to Carburritos, a splendid Mexican restaurant that offered the puree de papas burrito--mashed potatoes, cheese, carmalized onions, salsa, black beans and lettuce. The splendidness of this meal reinforced my desire to move to Chapel Hill. I took it back to the club and caught the last half of Kim Cascone's set, which left the listener submerged underwater (or perhaps heavy glue) with barely enough air, so hallucinations would ensue.

The Laptop Onslaught (as I quickly dubbed the evening) continued, reaching it's nadir with Lucky Kitchen, a group whose handmade packaging had interested me. The two members performed separately, the first doing a poor plunderphonics attempt, and the second doing a deep, dark psychedelic number that was just a bit too short. The second set was fantastic, but just as I was adjusting to the altered space, he stopped, and they "performed" some conceptual neo-fluxus thing, I guess, with a file cabinet on stage. Sorta funny, and no, I'm not going to dwell on the irony.

Break time! And looking over the schedule I am unaccountable for my activities for the next hour, though I do remember talking to Rob Thornton during Marcus Schmickler's set. The man behind Pluramon threw out a much different and rather fierce display of noises from his Powerbook than his pseudonymous act, and he looked like Dieter (from Saturday Night Live's "Sprockets") too! Sat perfectly still and didn't even blink, unless he did when I wasn't looking, which I guess is possible.

After this point I walked out to the parking lot again and talked with someone about performance and laptops in live music, beginning to feel the anti-laptop backlash that was to follow from many people I talked to. Honestly, scheduling the laptops all the first night was a great idea, as it let those who were not interested stay home that day, but I don't believe that most people knew that most of the performers would be just using computers. I didn't mind, but I was beginning to get tired of it at this point.

I ran inside to see Kevin Drumm and only caught the last ten minutes, which began with a really shrill but beautiful pitch that traced around me in circles, and then a burst of electronic explosion that just about destroyed any peaceful feeling obtained in my feckles. Friends raved that he had been the highlight of the evening, one going so far as to say the highlight of the whole festival.

Pita followed with a set that was harsh yet beautiful, soundscapey yet a wall of noise, and damn fine. Projection of some weird landscape with unidentifiable mechanical things made this the most enjoyable act of my evening. Hazard was last but I decided to duck out, knowing that I would be opening up for them on Monday in Pittsburgh.

Saturday I had to do lunch at Darbar Restaurant on Franklin Street. The post-laptop residue cleared from my brain and I headed over to Cat's Cradle by the 3 PM announced starting time, which of course was 3:45. Miss Murgatroid from Portland played her warped accordion music. As much as I hate the rock critic copout of naming other bands, allow me to add that parts of her set sounded like a cross between calliope music and Man is the Bastard. Brutal carnival music aside, she did some neat spacey things, and was quite personable towards the audience (and even made some biting anti-laptop comments, oh my!).

Keenan Lawler, a Louisville-based steel guitar improviser, laid down a noisy work that touched on all of the just-harmonic stuff and the standard minimalist canon but threw in a crazed indeterminate element as well. He played for about 40 minutes but it passed like ten, cause I was caught up in the beauty of it all.

The next band, Idyll Swords, featured an ex-Polvo guitarist, so the Cradle filled till it was about to tip. Idyll Swords provided the low point of the entire festival, playing Mid-Eastern influenced acoustic songs that were totally out of place for the festival. I realize that they're probably the breadwinners, as the venue was only as full for Fahey, but their music lacked anything exciting, innovative, or even improvised. And then they started singing! It was like the ghost of James Taylor, and a friend who shall remain anonymous made the comment "Idyll Swords make me feel guilty for playing acoustic instruments."

John Fahey had entered the building and of course he was the most terrifying and imposing figure I had ever seen. Desperate to talk to him (to tell my grandkids, of course!) but scared I enlisted Mike Tamburo of Meisha to come along with me. I strode up to Fahey and, choking on my own words, told him that I liked his book.

The ensuing conversation was a surreal as you can imagine and was terminated abruptly when David Grubbs took the stage. Fahey shouted "Oh no, it's Grubbs!" which of course is the most perfect Fahey thing to say (tho' Keenan Lawler reported that during the Grubbs set, Fahey sat in the band room backstage and muttered "The fall of the west .... by Grubbs" which is just as good if not better).

I had planned to hit Carburritos again during David Grubbs but I stuck around and was glad that I did. His guitar playing was beautiful, clean-sounding, and bright, and some of the tape pieces that he implemented actually worked quite well. His, um, unique lyrical outlook was easily tuned out and I imagined that the songs were Camoufleur outtakes.

Fahey, what can I say? He rolled up on stage and improvised a half-hour piece while tuning his borrowed black Telecaster. It wasn't the greatest thing ever but I had expected him to be dropping fava beans on a guita, so this was pretty great. The piece was classic Fahey, though, sounding just like his late 60's/early 70's output that I love and cherish.

The second half of the set was totally incredible. I can't attempt to recreate it, but imagine lots of wacky comments (not directed at the microphone, so I was straining to hear him), playing with a delay pedal, talking about aliens, and then three amazing songs: "Dance of the Catpeople," "Dance of the Dogpeople," and a pretty blues number that nearly brought me to tears. This alone was worth the price of admission, and I knew that my journey had been reached.

Break time! Carburritos was crowded so we went to some terrible Indian place where we ate an overpriced buffet where the rice was actually crispy. It took a while to unwind from the Fahey set so my accomplice and I went to check out the installations. The one at CD Alley didn't impress me but the two at the Go! Room were a bit better. In doing this we missed Vote Robot, whom were apparently pretty phenomenal (and from Pennsylvania too! (I think)).

Fennesz (Christian, that is) was up before the second break. Of all laptop artists I was most excited for his blistering electronics coming from guitar source material. The Austrian himself had been without sleep for 40 hours before performing. He attacked the audience with some of the most intense and powerful electronics I have ever heard, while standing in front of his laptop and staring down at it, menacingly. Fennesz has been at it since '86 or so but he didn't look much older than 30.

The end of the Fennesz set was so intense that I fell to the ground and pulled the brim of my hat over my ears, as my earplugs weren't doing enough. This audio equivalent of 1000 watts of bright white light shining directly in my eyes, I was physically exhausted from the end of the set.

A hike back up to the Go! Room, where Ian Nagoski and Chris Rice were presenting a film with sound. I guess they started on time because I only saw the last 20 minutes, though I wish I could have seen more. Nagoski's sound was dark electronics that went between beauty and menace. Rice's film (at least what I saw) consisted of slowed-down Super 8 footage of glowing fires and lights, and nocturnal urban scenes. I made the acquaintance of the charismatic Mr. Nagoski, then hiked back to Cat's Cradle yet again.

Alan Licht went up with a Donna Summer disco loop and stood there staring at the crowd with his guitar for about 10 minutes before ebowing along. It was amusing but I wanted something more tranquil. Hiking out to the parking lot I met Keenan MacDonald, organizer of the entire festival. She seemed pretty laid-back, perhaps because everything was winding down, and shared my enthusiasm for the event. Kudos to Ms. MacDonald for efforts.

I didn't want to watch Licht so I grabbed Mike and Pete from Meisha, and Jeff of the Arco Flute Foundation (serving as Meisha roadie for the tour), and we set up on the sidewalk, outside of the front door. I played guitar, Jeff on a cymbal, and Mike and Pete played the Tibetan bowls. We improvised for perhaps 20 minutes to a crowd of 20-30 people who gathered around us. When we realized that rhBand was starting their set, we stopped and found a thunderous round of applause from the gathered crowd.

A lifting experience, perhaps but not nearly as much as rhBand. Three guys with computer or electronics or something, cause you couldn't really see that well and who cares anyway, for my eyes were closed. And the performance was just too short; while it may have been an hour, it felt like only 10 minutes. The sound was more like their recent Klang LP than Third Order Parasitism, clean electronics with a very horizontal structure. I've been going back and forth on this, but I'll venture to say that this was the best set of the whole festival. In the words of Keenan Lawler, "transcendental."

Pelt (my heroes perhaps, and the perfect act to bring everything to a close) pulled out a similar set to what the performed in Pittsburgh the previous week, only more cohesive and matured (as Pat had promised). The sound was really good; I could hear Mike's Tibetan bowls among Jack and Pat's howling guitars. The computer projections were very digital, and at first I thought they jarred with Pelt's non-electronic sound; by the end, however, the 3D-rendered alien landscape complemented the alien sounds of Pelt. rhBand joined the stage, and the ensuing "jam" was absolutely incredible--a meeting of minds like I haven't seen in a long time.

The evening and the festival (and essentially, my entire trip, unless you consider Sunday's 8+ hour drive to be significant) concluded with this set. The most musically amazing day I have ever witnessed? Perhaps. By the time the last tone of the rhPelt filtered out of my head it felt like Fahey had played a few days before. Everything was so fast and slow at

Related links:

• Transmissions Festival
• John Fahey