Thursday, November 12
Neg-Fi + Brownout + Necking
8:00pm - Admission: $10
Brooklyn-based duo Neg-Fi debuted as a band in 2003 with a series of home-made cassettes released for the annual DIY holiday art event La Superette. Incorporating drastically detuned guitars, bass, walkie-talkies and handmade devices, Neg-Fi creates short, minimalist compositions with maximum impact. Following up the self-released LP Listen-OK in 2006 and a split EP with Atlanta-based noise artist Eiliyas earlier this year, they will soon be releasing their 2nd full length LP mid side.
Both members are also part of the new Glenn Branca Ensemble, and have performed in Branca’s Symphony No.13 in New Jersey, Belgium, London, Rome, and St. Louis.
Brownout
A few years ago, when making a myspace page for my solo endeavors as brownout, I answered the Q “sounds like?” with “A caveman with a tambourine and a sinewave generator”. Having since played a few performances in solo or near-solo circumstances, I have found that this phrase still fits, maybe better than I ever imagined. I don’t really use a tambourine, but rather a homemade shaking stick, and my generator produces waves of less purity that virginal sines. I do have a laptop and employ it, along with my voice and crude horns, to fill things out. But I don’t fill ‘em out fully, as I generally prefer simplicity, space and repetition.
Blinding Headache and Information (who recently regrouped to perform with our “No Wave” contemporaries Teenage Jesus and the Jerks) were my first 2 bands, both contributing to the “legendary” Tape #1 (reissue imminent on Anthology Recordings).
V-Effect was the first group I was in to make a proper album, 1983’s Stop Those Songs, on Fred Frith’s Rift Records. Critic Robert Palmer included our album in his top-ten list for the year in the New York Times.
With Guigou Chenevier of Etron Fou LeLoublan and Charles Hayward of This Heat, I was a member of the drum trio Les Batteries, whose first album Noisy Champs (1986) is about to be released for the first time on CD.
I formed Fish & Roses with Sue Garner and David Sutter in the late 80’s and recorded three albums with them and toured the US and Europe.
Sue and I have continued playing together, first in Run On with Alan Licht (3 records on Matador and a number of miscellaneous EPs and random tracks) and more recently as a duo, sometimes as Two Mule Team and sometimes under our own names (Thrill Jockey released our album Still).
With Mark Howell, who I met during our mutual brief presence in George Cartwright’s Curlew, I formed and recorded with Timber and, later, Inconvenient Music.
Additionally, I have played and/or recorded with Sue Garner (on her solo albums and tours), Stare Kits, Red, Dark Sweet, Elliot Sharp’s Carbon, Chris Stamey, Ferdinand Richard, Manhattan Samba, Yo La Tengo and Susquehanna Industrial Tool and Die Co.
Necking bio:
Necking was formed in 2004 and for years had a freely rotating line-up around a few central members. For the last few years the group has settled into a regular line-up of Nick Lesley (original founder), Dong-Ping Wong, and Rop Vazquez. Necking plays a hyper-active form of improv noise rock influenced by the hardcore punk from San Diego which they grew up with in the 90s. They play two full drum kits, electronics and voices.
Dong has a masters in architecture and founded the firm Family (http://familyarchitects.com/), and formerly played in Oma Yang.
Rop saves dogs at Barc Shelter (http://barcshelter.org/), also plays in X-Ray Eyeballs, and formerly played in Rice, The Peechees, and Semi Automatic.
Nick (http://nicklesley.com/) has an mfa in Performance and Interactive Media Arts, works at Electronic Arts Intermix, also plays in Gunung Sari, Alien Whale, and Prsms, formerly played in Oma Yang, Felicia & Coctopus, and Vholtz.