[Culture] Gate to Moonbase Alpha at the Rotunda

[Benseraglio2]

Subdued ambience for ambient music at the Rotunda tonight as Mike Tamburo and later Adelante provided tuneful narration for Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Tamburo played some soulful guitar and what looked to be a Venezuelan dobro, accompanying himself on miscellaneous wailing electronic installations on the floor. The jazz/ambient trio Adelante -- guitar, sax and drums -- supplied heart-stopping crescendi and decrescendi as the video DJ went wild, scratching up the film with a hypnotic eyeball as the workers revolted, raged against the machine and flooded the big city. Metropolis, btw, made in 1925, has all your basic 20th century themes --subterranean oppressed workers, vicious capitalists, cyborg dancing girls, mad scientist, robots and machines, videophone, nightmare of Moloch -- has anything really happened to change your mind since?

The Great Quentini came out in fine form with authentic shaman's drum and eagle-feather suit, lots of cool hats, performed in rapid order an amusing monologue on cognitive science themes, solos on drum assemblage supreme, kinda gamelanish, and on mesmerizing marimba, and a remarkably synchronic rant, considering the movie, about how his wife is a cyborg and his girlfriend is an '88 Ford. Sort of summed it all up for me. Oh, also a sinuous herky-jerk dance to Negativeland's "Dyspepsia."

Unfortunately as usual my bedtime fell smack in the middle of the show -- speaking of smack there was a touching Christmas homeless junkie narrative on tape to start the proceedings -- gave a nice seasonal touch. So I unfortunately missed Anti:Clockwise and Mindwarp Pavilion. One of these times I'm gonna hafta drink a cup of coffee or something before the festivities to keep me awake until the wee hours.

Ross Bender
http://rossbender.org