Thursday, January 22, 2009

Review of CSC show at Market Hotel on Jan. 9th 2009

A Funk Carnival at Market Hotel


Carcinogenic Static Carnival funks up Market Hotel. — Photo by John Ruscher

It takes no small effort to put together an 11-person band. There are so many likely scheduling conflicts, so many potential breakdowns in communication. But for Carcinogenic Static Carnival, who played at Market Hotel last Friday, any such problems seemed to have either been deftly avoided or just tossed off in favor the jams.

And part of why Carcinogenic Static Carnival succeeds is because it’s an all-star group of sorts, featuring members of USAISAMONSTER, Talibam, Gwar and more. Their sound is decidedly funkier than those groups, though. An e-mail for the show suggested that the night would feature tunes of Can, James Brown and Sun Ra, but it was better to just soak in the sounds than to try to pinpoint the source of each song.

The group describes themselves as “minimalist funk,” and that’s technically accurate, as each member contributes small, repetitive parts to the larger, rollicking ensemble. But “minimalist” sounds deceiving when it comes to CSC as a whole, because their funk exercises build into quite massive psychedelic avalanches.

Highlights of the night were the five-piece horn section (which included an oboe and baritone horn), the wailing guitar of USAISAMONSTER’s Colin Langenus and impeccable drumming from Matthew Clark. It’ll definitely be worth your time to check these guys out, especially if you are a fan of acts like Sun Ra and Funkadelic or ’70s German krautrock.

Friday, January 16, 2009

2009 Year of the Ox...The Year of the Golden Situation

2009 and the Year of the Ox...The Year of the Golden Situation...In attempts to corral energies, commune with coral, and burn mental copal I'll be using this site as an archive of past sounds as well as a template for present thoughts and a beacon for future happenings.

Carcinogenic Static Carnival three sets at Market Hotel Jan. 9th was smokin'. We finally hit our stride I'd say. Felt light as Mountain Air and heavy as Hematite.

January Gigs::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Jan 27th @ Death By Audio 9pm (Williamsburg Brooklyn) M.C. Gong Train (me + colin is monster + my sampler) w/ Hard Nips and Lazy Magnet

January 28th @ Issue Project Room (Brooklyn!) (I'll be drumming w/the Legendary Corndawg) Corndawg Band + D. Charles Speer "look see" ISSUE PROJECT ROOM
The (OA) Can Factory 232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11215


January 29th @ Matchless Bar (Greenpoint) again with Corndawg Band 10 pm

January 30th-31st Production of Live at Pompeii with Dogs F*ckin' Death Metal Dirge Video with UberVideoArtist Frankie M.

Face Muscles Don't Lie


from the archive...face muscles aligning the 5th chakras

Monday, January 12, 2009

Calling Forth Animal Energies


Tigers within summoned by feedback-drone satori. This is a still I found onliine from Bongladesh's only ever American performance last March at the Market Hotel in Bushwick.