Tale of two shows

Roughly a week ago, on last saturday (the 19th of august I believe), Self and Other played their first show in a house in Oakland. The crowd seemed to be mainly art students from SCAI, but further inquiry revealed budding pastry chefs and what would colloquially be known as dudes also at the space. The show featured 4 predominantly electronic/experimental artists performing. We played first, and there were a few interesting hurdles to the space that hindered a lot of our plans for playing. But to digress, stage presentation is something that can be incredibly important for the "politics" of the band.

Originally Rob and I had planned on creating an elaborate light + costume display, involving a sheet, religious and greek iconography, strobe lights...etc. However, due to the abrupt nature of our formation, we decided that our time was better spent practicing. Funny how that works. The decision to face the audience and perform in a spectacular fashion I feel serves to create a show that functions more as an art installation - the artist does not directly interact with the audience as themselves, but either allows the art to be the interactive medium or to cloak themselves in their expression and have it speak for them, as it were.

Once the costumes and lights shenanigans were put away or at least on hold, the face of the band became different; it became us! Since we are not singing at the moment, it is difficult to determine how to face the audience, specifically because rob and I both switch off between our respective string instruments(Gabe - guitar, Rob - Bass) and drums. We resolved this essentially by deciding, once again, to focus on the music. Rob and I just try to watch each other to ensure that we are making the right transitions and instrument changes. Once we actually know our songs well enough to make that unnecessary, we may have some issues about having to face the audience again. Oh well.


Back to the first show! We played in a small house that really didn't have enough room for us, so it was difficult to switch from drums to instrument. We hadn't practiced in a while, and it went about as you'd expect - we were sloppy and had too many delays. But the hopeful thing was that there were tangible moments when people were into our songs, and really it was our own between-songs miscues that were the most grievous. We were sharing my DD-3 delay pedal for certain parts, and when practicing never considered the minute or so it took to set it up of much consequence. When you have twenty people watching you do it in the dark, impatiently, who moments before had been into the song, it becomes a very long nervewracking experience. I put the pedal underneath one of the cymbal stands, and the rest of the show took a turn for the gruesome, as I had to keep stabbing for the pedal and barely succeeding. Although afterwards I had to walk around for forty minutes to cool off, apparently people told Rob that they were into us. As a band, that's all you really want.


Our second show went much better. We pulled into Austin after various journeyings that involved waking up thursday morning and watching the sun rise over the grand canyon we went to Arcosanti, and Meteor Crater en route to driving 1400+ miles by Friday afternoon, when we pulled into the house we were playing at around 7. We got to practice for an hour (and Rob had bought a DD-7! delay pedal, which meant that we would not bleed away our momentum with a harrowing switchover) and then eventually played in a house around noon. We didn't play quite loud enough, and the atmosphere of the show was strange (we are a neo shoegaze I guess band that focuses on gauzy guitar effects and intricate bass lines) for us; the other bands were solo dudes playing ukulele and banjo respectively, who were story-tellers. I like to think that eventually our songs will tell stories, but I'm interested in non-verbal ways of doing so. Regardless, the show went really well for us. Here's a video of most of one song.

on the verge

the (former)sorry state of my glasses - adjusted them last night and snapped one lense clean off the wire bridge that holds them together...I usually never break glasses, and now in the last year i've broken two pairs. c'est la vie. Meanwhile, I'm out of right eye contact lenses (which is a big deal because my right eye is essentially twice as blind as my left eye). So it is tape for me for the next few days until I get some contacts, and a metaphorical flag to hoist declaring my DIY devotion. (in the week it took me to get this done amidst preparation for first show, this was pushed back and my mother got my glasses sent to me!)



Rob and I have not practiced in a long time, since prior to Seattle, and we have a show on Friday in San Francisco (I hope you're not reading this Sammy). I think we'll end up doing an awesome job, but who knows. One other thing that is cool is that Sammy dug up from the vaults something from our old band, Humblebee, and spiced it up. We never played any shows, and just used an 8 track to record some songs in my bedroom using a borrowed Marshall half-stack and my father's drum set. The songs are more like sketches than anything else . Weirdly, some of it sounds a bit like feeble Durutti Column worship, which is great. I love the Durutti Column! Also, at some point this will link to a discussion on why I feel that artists that subtly reference progressive/radical politics but make beautiful music that is only tangentially related, if at all, to their political stance can be more effective both musically and politically. Leaving a sense of mystery that allows the listener to explore if they so choose to do so, rather than enforcing one type of political critique that is usually unsourced; don't do my reading for me.

Anyway, hopefully someday soon Sammy will post the remixed Humblebee song, but it's interesting to see how much production can play a difference in a song, and in fact, totally invert it. Dub is probably the prime example of this. But Sammy took a heavy guitar and drums song with one main riff, and added a bunch of synths on top that seem to blossom over the top of it.

Special Detours

Most of the trip has centered on getting to know urban centers, or going to natural vistas that are renowned throughout the States. Yesterday though, I indulged in cinema tourism. I went to the town that is the setting for David Lynch's Twin Peaks



Most of the filming is set around Snoqualmie and the surrounding area, such as North Bend and Fall City. We visited the bridge that Ronnette Pulaski walks on, the setting for the RR diner and had some cherry pie and coffee, and went to the Snoqualmie falls, the iconic waterfall shot in the opening credits. Luckily, no owls were seen.

@ 1:50


Snoqualmie Falls, In "real life"

Coming together

Rob and I are in Vancouver (at first, now we are in Seattle) - along the drive, we hooked up the power inverter and played some songs in the most naturalistic settings possible. It helped us a bit because we would only have about 20 minutes of power before the battery would get to dangerously low levels (it did not help that in the middle of Montana i dropped the spare battery we bought and sprayed acid all over the parking lot of the post office.)

So we are now trying to integrate that most vulnerable of things, vocals.

self and other actualization

Rejuvenation is a concept near and dear to my Floridian heart - The reputed location of the fountain of youth was after all, somewhere in the swamps of my home state. Rejuvenation also applies to blogs when you decide that you liked what you did before on them and they are not too academic, and besides, you spent an awful lot of time working on the layout. In terms of life though, I find that periods of rejuvenation are necessary.

Traveling is one way of doing so, which is why I'm currently in a motel in the badlands about to go visit the sites of my favorite historical reading, the wars between the Sioux and the U.S. Army. The other form of rejuvenation though, is musical. My prior interest in the Providence music scene was motivated by curiosity and envy (I wanted to be in a band myself!). And now, with my friend Rob, I am. We decided to go on this road trip and try to play some shows. We currently have two guitars, a bass, a small 50 watt Marshall combo amp, a 300 watt Bass head, a Bass cabinet, and a drum set packed into the 1997 Nissan pathfinder we are driving around. We bought a power inverter, also, so that in the midst of wilderness we can crank up the amps and play some music, drawing inspiration from nature while, most likely, terrorizing all the nearby wildlife. Creation is destruction. We are trying to set up shows in Portland, San Francisco, New Orleans, Austin, Gainesville, and Miami. 5 shows over 8000 miles may not seem like much...but it's a start.