Some months ago hanging around the Contact Group on Facebook I realized I’d seen the phrase “no-input mixer” a few times but had no idea what it meant. So I decided to do some research and a’googling I did go. What I found out is that it is a technique that uses a mixing board as a musical instrument by connecting outputs back into inputs, creating a feedback loop, and manipulating the feedback tones either with the mixer’s own controls or through effects within the loop. Among its pioneers are Toshimaru Nakamura and Merzbow, and it’s become a popular technique in experimental music. I realized I had a mixing board just sitting around in a closet that I wasn’t doing anything with, a beat-up Equinox ACM-1262 that somehow fell into my possession in the waning days of No Consensus. So I had to give this a try.

I posted on the Contact Group about it and soon Eric Crowe (he of Marax and Muchausen Sound) was proposing a no-input compilation, then taking submissions. And so it is that today (a little late perhaps) I am pleased to introduce the latest compilation for Distant Trains to end up on, To Gain Is To FX Send. Approaches to and interpretations of the no-input concept vary on it. Check it out:

I also did a live performance on no-input mixer recently at Vaudeville Mews, opening for Ben Bennett, on a Sunday night when Reverend Horton Heat was playing elsewhere in town. Chances are, you weren’t at the Mews for that show; almost nobody was. But I did record it:

I also managed to get Office Park to come down for the show, and recorded them as well, you’ll find that on my Soundcloud page also.

Getting a board recording of Ben Bennett was pretty hopeless, since his thing is pretty much acoustic percussion and he moves around the room too much while he plays to keep microphones on him. Didn’t matter; working with the acoustics of the environment, letting the waves mesh and interplay, is a big part of his sound and thankfully the Mews is a live enough room to do it in, especially once he had completed relocating his assemblage of frame drums, homemade wind instruments, odd bits of metal, a snare drum and an old bugle, from the stage to the audience area, while simultaneously playing on them. I did get a microcassette recording but I intend to get his blessing before doing anything with it.

Also here’s a recent collaborative album by Andrew Chadwick a.k.a. Ironing and Roger H. Smith a.k.a. Chefkirk, who someone on the Contact Group called “the Hendrix of the no-input mixer.” You can see that Chefkirk favors jagged ultra-high tones whereas I (currently at least) tend to go for long, slow, low sounds and use more effects.

And here’s a Chefkirk album available from Public Eyesore, the label run by Bryan Day, the instrument-inventor who is in Office Park and Seeded Plain and this and that.

EDIT 3/15: Here’s that microcassette recording of Ben:

And just because I might as well, here’s Office Park’s set from that night:

These won’t be up forever, I’ll probably take them down when I need more space on my Soundcloud account and am sure that they have downloaded copies for themselves if they want them.

Until a few months ago I’d been seeing House Of Bricks as one of those bar/venues in decline, you know the ones that seem to book mostly the same has-been/also-ran folks repeatedly. This is the place that seemed proud of the fact that Green Jello still played there, after all. It did have some things going for it, though. For one, they have pretty good food. When I first came to Des Moines I worked a couple blocks away and would occasionally go there for lunch when I was feeling the need for something a little bit coma-inducing to be washed down with a beer. Also, they did seem to manage to bring in some fairly current metal acts, though usually none of the sort I was interested in.

Of late, the place seems on a comeback. I began to take notice when I went there for the Red Fang show a few months back. Then recently the place started showing more and more evidence of a pretty major remodel, which seems to be oriented towards adding an upper level or perhaps rooftop patio. And, it turns out, Fetal Pig has had a few pretty good gigs there lately. We even got paid for most of them, which I guess hasn’t been the case for any gig Dan had done there in several years. This is, of course, a function of turnout, and a lot of things play into making that happen. Also the staff have been very cool and friendly, the sound system is quality, and the sound man, even though he consistently shows up late and appears pretty blasé about his work, obviously knows what he’s doing and always gets a really good sound. Some recent experiences there have been fun enough to make the atmosphere of certain recent Mews trips look downright depressing in comparison.

I was unsure of how the abrasive dirty slash-and-burn grind of Cop Bar would go over, which is probably why we, or somebody (I don’t know what degree of input Dan had) hedged the bet on the bill a little bit and got Love Songs For Lonely Monsters, an up and coming local band that’s well liked and joins melodic pop-punk songwriting to bracing textural guitar sounds and light prog touches. This made for a bill with a nice variety to it, and to my delight, everything was met with enthusiasm from a sizable and lively crowd of diverse ages and appearances.

Cop Bar had just freshly assembled (literally they were slipping them into covers and writing on the discs with Sharpies there in the venue before the show started) their newest release, a split 3″ CD-R with Captain 3 Leg. Each band plays six songs in a little over four and a half minutes per band, ending with a track consisting of all the other songs layered over each other, and each section receiving an introduction from Joe Jack Talcum announcing the next band over squirrely Casio music, and all wrapped up in cover art by Manhorse. C3L are up first with recordings rebuilt from newly unearthed drum tracks from an aborted circa-2000 recording session. They have noticeably more of a death metal influence in the riffs and guitar tone than do the crustier sounding Cop Bar, who here extend much the same thing as on No Justice Just Law except perhaps with even more incomprehensible vocals. It all goes by in a bit of a blur but it’s plenty worth the three bucks. For the show Sam wore some kind of plush Godzilla head and threw his microphone around and was an all-around madman. His performing style, plus the short songs and funny song titles, seemed to win the place over easily.

I don’t remember whether Fetal Pig played next or Love Songs For Lonely Monsters did. It was I think my third time seeing them and they’ve come along way from the first one which was at DG’s in Ames opening for We Are Country Mice (who I guess are just called Country Mice now) with Why Make Clocks in the middle. One thing about LS4LM is they have quite a lot of sound, what with the combination of Nick Park’s ‘gazey use of guitar effects (a prominent feature he also brings to Wolves In The Attic) and Justin Neuenschwander’s 12-string. Add to that that lead singer Amy Badger sometimes playes a third guitar or a flute and Justin sometimes throws down some keyboards, it’s not hard to imagine that their sound could get muddy if the room or PA or sound guy isn’t the best, but this show and the last that I saw of them (at Gas Lamp, a much smaller stage and room) they’ve managed to sound nice and clear, whereas at DG’s they seemed to be new and still getting the kinks worked out. Sam dug them too. They have a split cassette EP with Iowa City electronic pop trio Datagun out which is really good, especially if you like tape hiss. Or they did anyway; they might be sold out of them by now.

Cop Bar headed up the road to Ames where they played the following night at The Space. Opening the set was Human Satan, an improvisational duo made up of Nate Lodgson on trumpet, and a drummer. It seemed a tad self-indulgent and tossed-off but they only played for about fifteen minutes so whatever. I think I drank a beer in the parking lot. Cop Bar did a pretty similar show to what they’d done at House Of Bricks but to the smaller room and crowd who dug it just as much.

CM4KT, from DeKalb, IL, were new to me despite that apparently they’re part of the GetLoFi circuit-bending community that includes the Ring Toss Twins who were on that show Brian and Ember had me up to Decorah for. In the center was a combination drummer and player of colorful circuit-bent toys and gizmos set up on shelves above his kick drum. His ability to keep the beat going while manipulating the various dials and buttons in front of him between drum hits was quite impressive. The guitarist had some homebrew electronic modifications to his guitar along with some interesting pedals and toys he held up to the pickups. I’d say their appeal went beyond just the novelty of seeing them use weird gear, though, which is a refreshing thing to be able to say about this kind of act. The gadgets added a layer of interesting psychedelic noise and whimsy over a foundation of raw primitive blues-rock. They had a recording for sale that was available only as an audio-only VHS tape, I can’t imagine they’re managing to sell many of those. I think most peoples’ VCRs bit the dust years ago and it’s near impossible to buy a new one now. (3″ CD-Rs are bad enough, the only player/drive I have that will take them is on my wife’s computer.) Their other merch item was contact microphones made out of bottle caps, which they’re currently doing a tour of hackerspaces down south, giving workshops on how to build them.

Longshadowmen wrapped up the night with another Longshadowmen show. They’re remarkably consistent so far as I’ve seen this lineup. How to describe them? Raw electric blues played loud as fuck and dripping with off-the-grid paranoia over hypnotically repetitive chord progressions and Matt Dake’s avant-jazz drum flourishes. It was announced to be Matt’s last show on drums for them, though, as he has other projects he’s looking to devote more energy to. I’m curious what those are, The Jerkles do seem to be doing more gigs than usual lately.

Next Fetal Pig went to Ottumwa to play the Music Union Hall, a DIY venue in the upper floor of the Green Street Hall Mall, an old building in Ottumwa which the Bolingers and crew bought up to house various ventures such as the Flipside piercing shop and a cool horror movie shop called Insane’s Asylum. (I bought a used CD of Morbid Angel’s Altars Of Madness for five bucks.) They also host various sorts of events in this open upper floor area, many of them related to their International Video Game Hall Of Fame. These guys are a big piece of what’s making Ottumwa cool these days, besides all the musicians. This actually turned out to be one of our coolest shows in a while, cool enough for Jeff to declare “no more bars!” When we arrived there was some sort of video game fest going on and we met a guy who saw Fetal Pig in Iowa City circa ’94 and was really excited that the band was still around, then after load-in we met Andy and Sandy and Troy for some dinner.

Broken Point Of View came on first, they were all right if you like stuff like Shinedown as much as they do. Their guitars were all run direct to the PA through Pods or something. Not really my kind of thing but the place was nicely full and people were getting really into everything, dancing around and generally having a great time. Even Spooty, the proprietor, was in good spirits despite his considerable duties coordinating and overseeing and cleaning up. Early on during Broken Point Of View’s set I perchanced to wander the neighborhood a bit in search of a cash machine, and found live music happening in no less than two other places within a couple blocks of the show — one a nearby bar where some young fellows were covering some Skynrd, and the other an Eagles hall or something of that sort where through the wall from the sidewalk I could hear some good ole boys (and gals) doing old country-western classics. I’ve told you before that Ottumwa’s got it going on.

The Mighty Accelerator were on next and the party was in full swing. The guitar leads Andy has been obligated to take on since Travis moved away he pulled off, less flashy but much better than I’d expected given how worried about them he’d claimed to be. Fetal Pig played. North To The Future were less country and more hard rockin’ than they sound on the EP but recognizably the same great songs. A+ gig, would play there again.

Last weekend’s gig at Gabe’s in Iowa City definitely seemed to be promoted as a metal show. That seems to work all right for Fetal Pig, though. Still, if this was a metal show, it was of that metal fringe scene that I dig. Metal is catching on with post-hardcore “indie” rockers who can’t quite get down with the “chill” or hippie vibes of indie shit these days and always preferred the harder edge that “alternative” forms of guitar rock had in decades past, and it’s an interesting phenomenon for both good and ill. I get the impression that that’s kind of where we fit in, and also where this show was coming from, and the show was a winner all the way through.

Starting things off was 100° Centipede, no relation. This was their first show, and as I understand it the lead singer is a longtime well known and well liked figure around the Iowa City music scene, though this is his first crack at performing. He and his band were a boatload of metallic scuz-rock fun, though. For an idea where they’re coming from, they have a song about a certain Nick the Prick, a reference that will be caught by anyone who’s hung around Iowa City enough at certain times in the past 20 years or so.

Fetal Pig were scheduled second due to expectations that some of The Mighty Acceleratör would be arriving late, but it turned out that they made it on time after all. The crowd did thin a tad after our set but was still respectable (it was quite large to begin with, I think a lot of people in town were excited about 100° Centipede) and had lost nothing in enthusiasm. Acceleratör’s performance was a bit unusual among the sets I’ve seen so far by them, in that it was a bit looser, even a bit sloppy, and Joe played a much more raucous frontman than usual, getting out in front and engaging with the audience, something Dan and I had both been wishing he’d do a bit more of. Dan turned to me during the set and said he’d got the idea that they’re going for a bit of a Murder Junkies thing.

Los Voltage sounded pretty neat though I mainly hung out manning the merch during their set. Kind of an old-school hardcore punk sound with some exaggerated guitar delay effects. Loud. Cop Bar was maybe even a little more unhinged than what I’d seen before, perhaps for the hometown crowd; Andy characterized it afterwards as like an excellent spoof of grindcore, which, let’s face it, is pretty silly music, though that’s no reason not to enjoy it. It’s those grindcore bands most willing to laugh at themselves that he and I seem to like best anyway.

The other night we went to Ames to play at The Space and got to hang out with Nathan Thrailkill, who did all our awesome artwork for the record and was in town that night. It was a low-key show and maybe we were too loud for the tight little corner of the room we were set up in but nobody complained. Forget the Times, from Chicago, opened it up as a three-piece of two guitars and a drummer doing improvised noise rock that was in similar territory to early Wrong but with a bit more post-rock groove, though I thought I maybe detected a bit of Dead C inspiration in there too. A didgeridoo was employed at some point, apropos of nothing in particular. They jammed continuously for about 20 minutes and personally, I could have used another ten or twenty because I was enjoying it. One of the guitar players runs a label called Already Dead Tapes and they had a wide assortment of recorded material for sale on cassette, offering a special of three tapes for $10 so I got both Forget The Times tapes plus one of nice meditative synth drones by somebody named Kyle Landstra. Forget The Times have an LP out too but I’m still in process of scraping together cash for a working turntable on which to play the records I already have. Donations happily accepted. They have it up on their bandcamp though so maybe I’ll snag a download sometime.

I don’t like to toot my own horn as you can tell by the lack of details I’m providing about our sets at these shows, but the crowd response to us has been really positive and exciting when I’ve been able to process it. It feels weird being in a band people like this much for a change. I want to sincerely thank everyone who came out to these shows, especially the ones that made those cheering noises.

Recent interesting acquisitions: A 3″ CD-R called Under The Cloud of Sleep by someone calling themselves Du Hexen Hase. No contact info on the package. #45 of 47. One 17-minute spaced out improvised track of electronic washes and minimal guitar. Cover art is a photo of emu against an overcast sky. No idea when it came out. And some very cool Earwigs stuff I’ll jabber more about later.

I feel like I want to get away from simply “reviewing music” here and think of it as more like an ongoing diary of a music fan, with reviews sort of embedded into the flow of just writing about what I’ve been doing and what I’ve been listening to and so on. But I’m sure that will come and go. There’s no real rules to the content and structure here, which is the way I like it.

We’ve had a really interesting and productive spate of Fetal Pig shows lately. Our friend(s) at Black Heart Booking had us out to Omaha and we played at this really interesting DIY space upstairs from a couple storefronts that definitely looked like it may have formerly been a bar but was all stripped to the bricks and sparsely populated with old thrift furniture, giving it a really cool squattery vibe as if the whole scene was built from things others had thrown away, which may be literally the case. I love this kind of thing. I felt really at home and the people associated with the venue were super friendly. True underground operation. The Sandbox, that’s what it was called.

The first act on at the Sandbox was The Thirteenth Year, some local kids doing a bass-less screamocore kind of thing. Didn’t super turn me on but it was worthwhile time spent. I think they’ve got a bright future.

Adam Goldman took the stage with one of those cheap skinny acoustic guitars, billed as Class M Planets, this gig being part of a short mini-tour he was doing along with Dan doing solo sets of Why Make Clocks songs. We’d also opened that tour with him and a full-band Why Make Clocks at the Mews. Adam is from Portland and he said so a lot during his set because for some reason it got funnier each time. I’ve only ever been in Portland once, for a night back in 1997, so I don’t know how accurate the Portlandia portrayal of it is, but I like the idea that “the dream of the ’90s is alive” there. I get the outsiders’ impression that if you miss the vibe of a Midwest college-town in the mid-1990s (and a big part of me does), Portland is the place to find it. I also get a lot of that vibe from Adam’s tunes. When I first checked out Class M Planets on bandcamp my initial impressions were that it was all a bit fey (side effects of prolonged exposure to sludge metal and power electronics, likely) and perhaps a bit dated. But the odd, elliptical rhythms and equally elliptical lyrics were intriguing.

They say don’t meet your musical heroes because it can fuck up your perception of the music by ruining your idea of the people making it. It’s not guaranteed to happen that way though; Leah’s brief in-person encounters with Jon Auer and Ken Stringellow haven’t messed with her love of The Posies. But what about hanging out with musicians you’re barely familiar with, versus how you’d see there music if you hadn’t met? Meeting Adam Goldman, not to mention seeing him play live, probably helped me get his music more. The sensitive-guy persona of the high, somewhat breathy vocals and pretty indie-folk sounds is the real guy, but it’s only one dimension of him. He’s also got a delightful wicked sense of humor. Once I got that, I started noticing it in the songs too. It’s below the surface. Besides, most things you have to listen to more than once before you can really judge them. So yeah, this stuff grew on me.

I ended up with a couple of his CDs, EP length mostly, all on Dandelion Wine Records which has the hilarious domain name totallypunk.com, each with a different band name and lineup but there’s a consistency between them such that they could be credibly represented as different works by the same band. Adam’s songs, usually in either a folk-pop or power-pop vein, frequently have odd rhythms to them that stick out more when there’s drums and things playing. It actually reminds me a bit of my old Cedar Falls compatriots A Is Jump, of the Chapel Hill area for some years now. The self-titled 2007 EP by his band thebrotheregg, which is evidently still active too (don’t ask me why the lack of capitals or spaces) had already been recommended to me by Dan. Its most straightforward tune, “Elevators”, is an instant pop gem. Elsewhere there are multiple interplaying vocal parts (especially on “Simple Love”) and verses wander kind of spacily, making the catchy choruses hit the more dramatically.

Class M Planets is more of a solo affair by Adam, and the 5-song self-titled EP released in 2010, with a few friends along on percussion, cello, and extra guitars, sticks to Adam’s more acoustic side. “Heart Thing” is wonderfully disorienting. Lastly “Freak of Illuminary”, though up-tempo, sticks to just the bare acoustic guitar accompaniment, but once it’s done spilling words, the disc still feels like it’s just getting started.

The likewise self-titled 8-song disc by Twinklelingus (what a name!) was allegedly started in 2004 but not completed and released until 2011, and is the most a loud rock record of the bunch. The rhythmic quirks that I’m now seeing as a trademark of Adam’s, together with the psychedelic guitar effects, jazzy chords, and busy midrangey bass, lend this affair an adventurous prog feel that is pretty cool.

On next after Adam’s acoustic set, during which he handily won over a crowd that had definitely come out to see louder things, came Omaha locals Super Invader. These guys don’t just play stoner metal, they seem to really live it, for better or worse. They come off as a genuine group of basement-dwellers. They had no bassist, but I get the feeling they used to and hadn’t managed to replace whoever it was. Low-tuned guitar was played out of two latter-day Kustom cabinets set up on opposing sides of the drum kit. The drummer had spray-painted all his hardware black and I don’t think his drums have ever been tuned. He had a loose pair of hi-hat cymbals on his right that he bashed on in lieu of a crash cymbal. There isn’t a whole lot of variation in their material but they played with the ferocity and conviction of guys who truly have nothing to lose, or to gain for that matter. The singer, a tall, long-haired fellow, roared imposingly about the stage and really belted out every line, even when he occasionally seemed to be singing in a different key than the guitar riff. They have a CD out, supposedly it came out like two years ago, but they had neglected to bring any copies with them to sell, and the singer cracked a joke about sometimes taking copies of it to CD Exchange when he’s hard up for cash. Everything about these guys was so real that I came to the realization that even if this sort of music isn’t your favorite, there’s no legitimate way to hate on it that doesn’t boil down to being a bit of an elitist prick. It’s a difficult style to fuck up, especially in the live context, and in some sense it’s the true sound of the American proletariat, a kind of flyover rebel folk art. Crack a beer, loosen the fuck up and you’ll enjoy it like I did.

After our set came the headliners, an amazing trio also local to Omaha called The Machete Archive. Shitting hell these guys are good. They play epically intricate and beautiful post-prog instrumental compositions, all of whose titles are simply Roman numerals. Their bassist plays a Danelectro longhorn strapped at chest-level and seems to constantly be using all of his fingers at once. I can’t even explain these guys to you. I wish there was something embeddable I could put here, but the first Google result for them is their MySpace page and that will have to do. No, Google it yourself, I’m not linking to MySpace.