4/8/13 Yeah Yeah Yeahs played a knockout hometown show at Webster Hall in NYC. The band has such a larger than life presence that they project all the way thru the back wall and half way down Third Avenue. The messianic Karen needs to do little to have the audience eating from the palm of her hand. The previous week they performed their single “Sacrilege” on Letterman with a gospel choir. Manorexia will be performing at the I’ll Be Your Mirror event they are curating in London at Alexandra Palace. X-Ray Eyeballs opened.

Source: foetus.org

Diamond Terrifier (aka Sam from Zs) hosts a weekly night of forward thinking and experimental sounds called Practice. Since the demise of Zebulon it has moved to Public Assembly in Williamsburg.
On 3/18/13 the night featured Barker Trio, comprised of Will Holshouser on accordion, Tim Dahl (from Child Abuse) on upright bass and Andrew Barker on drums, who delivered a droning, lurching piece which hypnotized and took us on its undulating, churning journey into catatonia. They were followed by the Robbie Lee/Brian Chase Duo. Lee played various flutes while Chase explored the resonances and overtones of a single snare drum and feedback. Chase has a new album called Drums and Drones, and also plays drums in Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who have a new album, Mosquito, out soon .

Source: foetus.org

11/2  Judith Berkson’s The Vienna Rite, a one act chamber opera started a two night run at Roulette with the music performed by Yarn / Wire augmented by Brian Chase and Chi-Chi Glass. The opera revolved around the story of Salomon Sulzer, a Viennese cantor collaborated with Franz Schubert in 1828 to write music for the newly built city temple. The instrumentation of percussion and organs was augmented six vocalists, juxtaposing traditional operatic voices and a kind of post-minimalism; a high point was a lovely piece featuring a five piece girls chorus. Here’s another piece by Berkson, “Ahavas Oylam”.

If you were ever curious what it would sound like if 10 drummers played 16th notes in unison for 25 minutes, Man Forever is your dream come true. Last night at Le Poisson Rouge, drum wunder-kind Kid Millions of Oneida assembled an underground superstar lineup to celebrate the release of the album on Thrill Jockey. Man Forever is Millions’ “vehicle for exploring the outer limits of drum performance, was created to overwhelm, to investigate the nuances that bloom in the midst of repetitive music, and to act as a pure sound experience”. Millions was joined by Brian Chase(YeahYeahYeahs ) Oran Canfield (Child Abuse), Sarah Richardson (Blues), Bryan Devendorf (The National), Greg Fox (Liturgy), Ryan Sawyer (just about everything), Shahin Motia (Knyfe Hyts / Oneida) joined by bassists Brad Truax, James McNew (Yo La Tengo), and Richard Hoffman (Sightings). When the basses joined the ratatat became an earthquake, eventually a numbing wall of sound with occasional harmonics pinging thru the roar.