ok, two shows to recap here. first was in alston at morgan coe’s house, in his backyard. i took the train in and with no wrong turns or anything i took the right train and walked to his house no problem. peter sibley and charles shubert were there, which i was happy about. this is charlie who only a day before arrived at my house from chicago by bike and immediately notified me that the translation of “critique of pure reason” i put in the outhouse was “out of date”, then twisted his ankle something fierce in a long-jump competition with little andrew. after the show we went looking for pizza and he was walking like a frankenstein’s monster, eliciting sympathy from the pizza place who gave us two free “we’re closed and this is left over” slices. but that was after the show. the during the show was good too. dan shea played some great funny songs and worked the crowd, i played my set, including a special song i wrote for playing with morgan coe (it’s about working in a factory), 9 billion names of god played nice and kept it holy, then bread and roses did their second backyard hoedown in two days. really fun show. matt coe was there too, drinking swampwater and getting real mean. lots of my friends were there, in fact, but they stayed nice. in the morning we had kevin play some good wake up records (reggae tone and crunk, mostly) then i took the train back to worcester.

that day (tuesday) i got ready for the puzzled panther show at the flywheel, and just by the skin of my teeth organized rides out there for everyone in the band. the show was a full-on noise show, then us playing last. i’m pretty happy we played last, because that meant that tim and rich had to wait the whole show to play, and watch and form opinions on it all. univark started started it off doing consumer keyboard - effects processor stuff, wearing a fur costume under a black light. my favorite part was when things got fucked up, but not in the way he expected– long, nearly-quiet patch-cord switching parts as his costume became visibly uncomfotable. i tend to view noise performances through a cageian filter– that the most important thing about noise performance is that it can get one to reconsider what is and is not music, and pin the tag “creative” on the listener. so, my delight when all goes mysteriously quiet and no disrespect to the performer. massacre of the dead was next, that’s a devilish duo from the schoolhouse in hadley. they set up drums and bass and effects, and the first minute (said mike leslie, who is also back in town for a good while) sounded like lightening bolt doing “anthrax” by gang of four. but maybe that was the sound check. the show proper was when they immediately turned into cavemen, hopping and hooting and throwing the drums around. yeah, it was good. king darves played next with boxes with lots of knobs, and a mic. it was like a casual blend of live noise nomads and kites, but without the mystery, animality, and soul-searching, and attendant spiritual highs. will soderberg was next, with guitar fed through a laptop and other pedals and stuff. at this point i just didn’t have the attention span to watch a guy move a mouse around. the flywheel must have a video projector, since they do movies and stuff. there should be a laptop show where they project the screen. i think that kind of “looking behind the curtain” could do a lot for the otherwise hard-to-watch laptop set. we went on last and it was fun. people sang along, it was a good time. on sunday’s show i forgot to bring drum sticks so i have to rummage around in the woods looking for other sticks i could use. all through the set i was shredding bark and breaking sticks, and it went so well i decided to try it tuesday too, and yes, it worked out, and no, i didn’t break a drum head. the guys from extreme animals were there and asked us if we’d play a show in august, so maybe we will and if so it’ll probably be a ton of fun!!! i think we’re going to record next week.