Loading ...Bottling Smoke Day 1 + News In Brief
By Evan ~ May 26th, 2007. Filed under: concerts, world news.
The first night of the Bottling Smoke festival was all I could hope for. Lots of fun was had, beautiful psychedelic ambiance was enjoyed by all, and everyone in attendance was remarkably cool. It was a very familial atmosphere at Echo Curio last night. The first person I spoke to while I waited for friends to arrive turned out to be John Twells from Xela, who told me right off I was in for a treat, as he would be performing later in the evening as the “super group” Sea Zombies alongside Brad Rose (The North Sea, co-founder of Digitalis), Gregg Kowalsky, and Jefre Cantu (Tarentel). Speaking of Jefre, I got to catch up with him really briefly before we took in Ilyas Ahmed, and afterwards he introduced me to Danny, with whom I had a really nice conversation. Those Tarentel boys sure are friendly.
The first act of the evening was Fathmount, a stark minimalist project steeped glittery guitar noodles and infinite drones. Fantastic. The second act was Antique Brothers, who mixed down-tuned, buzzing acoustic guitar with manipulated loops, slight percussive beats and the occasional overdriven electric lead. Ilyas Ahmed floored me with his stunning guitar work and impassioned singing. Drawn-out acoustic finger-picking with trance-like vocals…like James Blackshaw, but even better. Sea Zombies were by far the loudest group to perform last night. They mixed low-end rumbles with John’s affected vocals, tone generator knob-twirling, and stereo-panned microtonal twinkles that played ping-pong in your skull to create a huge wave of sound that could shake you or alter your state depending on where you focused your attention. The final act of the night was Pocahaunted, who get mad props from me for their pun-ny band name. They took long enough to set up and soundcheck, but eventually found a nice steady groove.
Today I’ll head back over to Echo Curio at about 3:00 to catch The Alps, The North Sea, and Xela before the party moves to Mr. T’s, where Ghosting, Starving Weirdos and Tarentel are going to take us on a trip.
Now, the news (in brief):
• What’s this? A self-hating ‘Boomer who fears he and his generation have raised a new generation of narcissists? Why, whatever do you mean, Steve Chapman (yup, sounds like a self-hatin’ Jew to me!)? How could you possibly conjecture that you and your peers’ “me me me” attitude could have ever rubbed off on your children!? I am shocked, shocked, to hear you say that. [story]
• Another case of life imitating the Onion. Here’s an article From October 2nd, 2002 that was published in America’s Finest News Source, and here’s an article from this week that was published in the LA Times (subscription required, but you don’t even have to read it. It’s the exact same thing as the Onion article, only for real. This RIAA demanding royalties from radio is the most retarded thing I’ve ever heard. First the labels are going to payola their way into having their music heard, and then they want to recoup money because radio is giving away music for free? HA!
• PC World says it’s never too early to start a year-end list. Not even in May. They’ve come out with their top 100 products of 2007 already. Good job, fellas. Now you don’t have to worry about writing a new list in December, you can just keep on playing World of Warcraft straight through to New Years. [story]
• Last month it was the bees. This month, it’s the potatoes and the peanuts. Now everyone can panic. [story]
• The chairman of the US Senate’s antitrust subcommittee is urging his peers to reject of the XM-Sirius merger (or, more accurately, the acquisition of XM by Sirius) because it would be anti-competitive, would lead to a monopoly, and could also lead to price gouging. Please don’t hold this up much longer. I want to be able to stream all the MLB games with my Sirius online account.
