Announcement
I myself am keeping the January post-holiday letdown at bay by kicking the distraction level to high. I've already launched onezero music and am working on enhancements.

I'm also working with some new software, Ableton Live. I've given a...rather odd...interview for Re-Record ROMzine that should be coming out soon (my artistic contribution is due this weekend, so I'd better get cracking on that). And after a bit of a break, I'm playing live again, very soon. Next week, in fact:

On Monday, January 26, I'll be returning to Club Cafe, doing a solo set of feedback as Death Pig, *and* an Unindicted Co-Conspirators set with accordionist/melodica player/throat singer/avant-gardeist-about-town Steve Pellegrino.

The schedule is this:
* 7:30 sharp--Death Pig (no-input effects pedal feedback; it's dark ambientlicious)
* 8:15--Sugapablo (super-friendly hypnotic grooves from this MIDI-box master)
* 9:00--The Unindicted Co-Conspirators (a harmonic PowerBook puree of live guitar and accordion)
* 9:45--Xanopticon (Skull-crushing breakcore madness! You will succumb!)

Ideally, we'll have some time to do a quick improv, too--and with Xanopticon in the mix, that ought to be interesting, for sure. So put a big red mark on your calendar for this one. (Why the DP set at 7:30? Since the last DP set was to just two people, I'm keeping this one exclusive also. If you catch this set, you can lord it over your friends who are just late-coming losers compared to your own gleaming royal hipness.)

Monday, January 26, 2004. 7:30 PM sharp. Club Cafe, 56-58 South 12th Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15203. 412-431-4950. 21+, $5.

Report

While everybody talks about the weather, I did something about it--I ignored it. There was an ice storm all day, slated to get worse during the afternoon. Russ (Sugapablo) was concerned that he might have to cancel, but I wasn't going to. The covenant I made as a performer was--if I'd agreed to play--to show up on time and play, whether there was one person there, one hundred, or one thousand. (So far I've had the first two options covered.)

I'd picked up Mr. Funky on the way, and found that in the event, the most dangerous part of the evening was the walk from the car to the club--the cigar shop's sidewalk was an ultra-slick layer of pure ice. I'd talked to Steve Pellegrino and known that he was going to be there; Xanopticon confirmed a day or two ahead, but I wasn't sure with the weather, so I made some calls and emails, and hoped for the best.

What we got...was a bit of an audience, although mostly club staff. Still, there were people unknown to us there. Since Russ wasn't playing, I waited a bit longer than 7:30 before starting, and ultimately we did get some people.

I must have set up in an order different from the last Death Pig show, because the sound was a lot more up-front and compressed--there was less echo and delay, and at first I couldn't hear any effect of manipulating the Ibanez digital modulation delay. I checked some cables, which meant that there was a fair amount of crackle and plugging/unplugging going on early in the set, as I tried to figure out what was going on. Turns out, it was the mix knob on the Digitech sampler, set to delay only, so new stuff wasn't getting through. At least I found out early.

I wasn't terribly satisfied with it at the time; it lacked the atmosphere and depth of the set I've released, and it was more of a struggle to get sounds I liked. Still, there were some stretches in there that I like, and they may yet show up on something. There were some nice beat/repetitive melody sections, some helicoptery drones, and some percussive sounds that I might keep around. Not a resounding success, but certainly a respectable effort, particularly toward the end, with some rapid modulations and an enjoyable consonant drone. And while I was playing, Xanopticon came in, having braved the weather and our spotty bus system to get there. (Much to my surprise, he was toting only the laptop, and not the desktop machine.) For the rest of the evening, see the next review.