> > hey-any reports on the pole show last night? how was it? Overall, I enjoyed myself.
The evening started out rough; what was originally billed as a 9:00PM show ended up with the artists not starting until 11:30PM. This was due to a lack of European-to-American power convertors, we found out. Luckily convertors were secured and the show went on. Burnt Friedman played first; he started with a whimsical pre-recorded announcement stating that he'd be playing with "10 pre-recorded tracks" and that "the resulting collision will be the sound you hear". It turned out he was DJing with 5 separate MiniDisc players. I enjoyed his set, but it didn't vary a lot. It was very uptempo, which I wasn't at all expecting (only knowing his ~scape release). I was really there to see Pole, and Stefan Betke did not dissappoint. His set was thick, noisy, deep, and utterly involving. He was playing using a PowerBook, Nord Modular (keyboard version), an effect box, and the all-important mixer. In general, he was switching between tracks on the PowerBook, playing riffs on the keyboard, and doing lots of work with the mixer, bringing in the effects and tweaking the overall sound. At times he would be playing a riff, tweaking the sound on the keyboard, and adjusting the effect level on the mixer at the same time, which was great to watch (who says electronic musicians aren't visually involving? the video projections of his hands on the mixer/keyboard were great, IMO). In speaking with him after the set, Stefan mentioned that all the tracks he played were from Pole 3, which I don't own (yet). He said he was running recorded conversations, which he used as a buried-in-the-mix element on Pole 3, from a MiniDisc player during his live set, and was using it as a source for his dub delays. Its effect was to add an element of music concrete, or maybe just full-on noisiness, that was really impressive to me. Jan Jenelik, aka Gramm and 1/2 of Farben, played last. Pole mentioned that part of Jenelik's gear was damaged during flying, but he ended up playing. By that time in the evening, I was pretty worn out. Unforunately, Jenelik played material more in the vein of Farben, which is more uptempo and dancier than his solo Gramm stuff. If he'd played more abstract, I think I would have been more involved in his set. As it was, I was worn out, and the steady kick drum underneath his intricate percussion was just draining me. I called it a night around 1:45AM. All in all, a good show, and a great set by Pole. > p.s. theorem(live), carlos sauffront, bill vanloo(live) and karl meier > are playing 11/3 at the subterranean. Aww yeah, thanks for the plug. This show should be lots of fun, big props to list-member Dave Siska for setting it up. It's gonna be my first Chicago gig, I hope if any listmembers make it out that you'll introduce yourselves! Cheers, Bill -- http://www.chromedecay.org
