Index of Shows | Homepage | Upcoming Shows | Write to me
After all these years, I am finally at the Midway Cafe. It's small, and the PA is not great, but the stage is relatively roomy and prominent. Dosage is set up there and plays us a fairly short set of pure electronic noise. The first piece is kind of static (no pun intended, I swear!), dominated by very subtly modulated hissing and 60 Hz hum, and then ends rather suddenly when part of his signal chain falls off the stack of milk crates that constitutes his workspace and ends the sound. This is kind of nice, actually, and the second piece comes in different and has a lot more variation. There's still hissing and humming, but also some screeching and squealing mixed in, and some nifty warbling from what appears to be a theremin with reverb on it, in a slightly more structured progression.
Nate Rally are up next, according to the Midway's schedule. They're apparently some kind of Night Rally tribute band, as Nate, Nate, and Nate look and sound a lot like the guys in Night Rally, and are playing their songs and selling their merch. Going on right after a noise artist really emphasizes their pretty and melodic side, and they do have pretty melodies; they're just hiding behind the jarring rhythm changes and Devin's freaky stage presence. I also pay a lot of attention to the rich, melodic bass (which I happen to be standing in front of) tonight, rather than the more atmospheric, delay-drenched guitar. The vocals really suffer from the quality of the PA, though.
IfIHadAHiFi are from Wisconsin. Their name is a bitch to type. They're working on kind of similar ground to Night Rally, and Nate Rally, for that matter, but they emphasize the punky/noisy aspects a bit more, at the expense of some of the intricacy and tunefulness. The rhythms are a lot simpler and less intriguing. The vocals lean more heavily on shouting, which does suffer less from the inadequacies of the sound system, but there's just not quite enough here for me to go on. I'm really tired, though; it's possible that on a better night I'd be really into them. About halfway through the set, there is major equipment trauma, and we are treated to a fairly long, slapdash attempt to fill time and keep us paying attention while various amps and components are unplugged and replugged and tried out, until eventually the guitar starts making sound again.
After their set, there is a very long pause while Mao Tse Helens set up an enormous amount of equipment. During this time, "Smash Up" by Concussion Ensemble plays over the house system! I now officially love the Midway.
Mao Tse Helens, who have one of the best names I've ever heard, have a ridiculous amount of equipment (for a three piece!) and take forever to set it up. I'm trying to be patient but, as I mentioned, I'm really tired this evening. When they do finally start to play, I'm interested but not really that engaged. The music is basically very simple punk rock songs with a lot of noisy electronics layered over it. There are some intriguing elements--they do some really cool things with noisy electronics--but that fundamental simplicity mostly leaves me wanting more, and it's all executed with a certain degree of sloppiness: a drunken stagger in the rhythms, and some pretty nasty vocals. As I say, there are individual elements here and there that I really like. Some of the guitar is especially fine, and there's one song with a neat nine-beat. But it's late and I'm tired, and I'm ultimately not that into this, so I leave.
