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Nightmare (apparently known as My Spine Your Spine until a recent lineup change) is a bass and drums duo. They don't need no steenkin' lyrics; the drummer occasionally (but very rhythmically) screams into his microphone while playing fast, complicated lines, and the bassist periodically chants a few words (I get here in time for something like "We're gonna fuck your women;" apparently I missed "God, I love rough sex.") while playing thick, raunchy chords. It's protean and oddly satisfying.
The bassist from Nightmare then becomes the drummer for Spiders, with someone else on guitar. They begin (after invoking the impulse to eulogize the recently departed O.D.B.) with a spoken word homage to Prince, before launching into the first of a series of short, punky little screamers. They mostly don't use the microphones during their songs, which are characterized by ultrafast drumming and a toxic stew of distorted feedback from the guitar. (They shout, and even sort of sing sometimes; they just don't do so into the microphones, except occasionally and perhaps accidentally.) It's only sort of musical--it's more like elements of music removed from their regular context and employed in the service of performance art--but it's very entertaining.
Necronomitron are from Providence, they have a great name, they set up in front of the stage (well, the drummer's on the stage), and they have a seven-string guitar! Their songs are wild and noisy. They have no vocals, just a lot of distortion, rhythms that leave me absolutely mystified, and Satan's own chord progressions. I find them deeply, deeply confusing, and I enjoy that. Tom finds them wanky; he compares them to "Steve Vai on bad acid," but he seems to think that's a bad thing.
Robotvoice are, well, I was going to say "normally a four-piece," but they're not anything "normally." What I mean is that they have in the past performed as a four-piece. And there are four of them on the stage, but Donna Parker has insurmountable equipment issues, and spends the entire set behind her amp, attempting to wring some noise out of her setup. (Except when she briefly emerges to fling the offending connector into the audience in disgust.) The rest of the band is Deb vocalizing into an effects box that creates the Robotvoice, a solid rock drummer, and a series of fat, melodic bass lines. I really like the intersection of sturdy, straightforward rhythm section and crazed noise bitch frontwoman, and they really play up the transgressive aspect of it when Deb spends one song playing a guitar with her chain mail panties. Yes.
Black Tail have the honor of headlining this bizarre evening. I've only seen them play Bad Brains covers before, and their originals are a prog-hardcore revelation. The guitars and bass are unbelievably dense; it seems like you could listen forever without hearing all there is to hear in there. The drummer is brutally fast through a rapid succession of strange and wonderful rhythm shifts. The occasional shouted vocal is more of an accent than a focus. It's heavy and intricate, passionate and precise. It makes me want to move.
