Infected Mushroom just lied to my face, and made me walk out. I just paid $50 to watch people pretend to make music. It was insulting to the audience, and I can only hope they feel like complete frauds, though I doubt it.

When we bought the tickets, I pretty much expected a DJ set, and at some point our friends pointed out, "no, they play instruments now", which sounded promising. However what we actually saw was some guy bashing away aimlessly at a set of v-drums that had nothing to do whatsoever with the sound coming out of the speakers. Note that I was sitting on the speakers, so it was pretty easy to keep track. Many points where the sound would be a riding cymbal, and his sticks weren't in the air, or the bass drum kicks had nothing to do with the rate at which he was kicking his drum thinga. LAME. I have no evidence that the guitarist and keyboard player weren't playing, they seemed to be, but who the hell is to say? If they're willing to drag around an entire electronic drum kit, who's to say they aren't willing to lie about the rest of their instruments to? They did have wires coming out of them, and the guitar pedals did have lights on them, so maybe it was just so far down in the mix as to be indistinguishable.

I go to a lot of electronic music shows. NIN many times, KMFDM, Skinny Puppy, oHgr, Thrill Kill Kult, Ministry, Hanzel und Gretyl, and on and on. I've seen laptops crash, and lead singers have to chat with the audience while the rest of the band frantically tries to fix it. I understand that a lot of things simply cannot be played. I expect there to be backing tracks, or that if a keyboard player hits a key, it might make more than one sound, that's fine. But to just go out and pretend to play, and lie to a roomfull of people, that's just wrong.

I would have respected them if it had just been turntables, a keyboard for some played fills or whatever, and a mic. I probably would have stayed, and not flipped off the band and walked out.

No pictures of these guys, I wa too annoyed. I did take pictures of one of the openers, and when I figure out who they were, I'll post them. The first opener (which I have photos of) was a really good jazzy/reggae/rockey fusioney group. Their singer sounded great and the crowd didn't just stand around as is usual with opening bands. The second opener was a good DJ set, though he had some pretty dork-tacular moves. He didn't take himself too seriously though and it was pretty fun.

Infected Mushroom though? Skip it, go watch a normal DJ and you won't feel taken advantage of.

This reminded me of a rant I read several years ago on the very same subject:
http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2003/10/

Tonight we got to see Joe Buck Yourself at the Brick House in Dover, NH. This show was the biggest coincidence ever. We first saw Joe Buck playing bass with Hank III at the Roxy, and it killed us, and cost me a toenail. I have been waiting to see him solo ever since. Natalie and I are planning a trip to Tennessee later on this year, and I told her we should try and see if anyone local, specifically, Joe Buck is playing in TN this summer, and make sure we see it. Then, later the same day (yesterday), one of her FB friends posted that they were going to see him in NH tonight, so we immediately got tickets, worth every penny of the $6/ea.

Opening was The Caught Flies, Yankee Cockfight and Calamity (No link, that's what you get for having a single word band name), 3 local bands which were all good. I liked the stripped Yankee Cockfight a lot, they reminded Natalie of the Pine Hill Haints quite a bit, though I didn't necessarily see it.

The Joe Buck set was both raw and really intimate and personal. He had a good time joking with the audience, which had dwindled somewhat, but we were all really into the show, and knew what we were after. You really got a sense of how important he feels it is to remember the history of traditional music and how it turned into rock and especially how it can relate to hardcore and punk, he seems to draw a straight line from the hill people with the mandolins through Carl Perkins and Hank Williams, through Jim Carroll.

Anyway, fuck this nonsense, too late, here are pictures, several more in the Flickr Set:

[music | Killing Joke - Tension]

Tonight we saw Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (warning - that site does every annoying thing a site can do to a browser) at Tupelo Music Hall in Salisbury, MA. We'd never been to the venue before, but it was really nice, you could picture like a smaller version of Hampton Beach Casino, but with tables on the dance floor. We weren't fans of the tables, but we get why they're there, most of the bands aren't "young people bands", and people can sit and eat/drink comfortably.

The band was really fun, this being some of Natalie's favorite music. She got to dress up in fun clothes, not that she doesn't usually anyway, though she chickened out of dancing.

There was some room to the sides of the stage that was left open, and people did dance there, which was great, since they knew how to swing dance...and...we...don't...But fun to watch them. The show sounded great, it wasn't too loud, so I didn't even bother with my plugs. They played for a little under two hours, and got the crowd really into it. I'd wanted to move around a bit to get pictures of the rest of the band and some different angles, but it didn't really look like people were moving much, and the people at some of the other tables didn't seem like they'd want me around, so I didn't do it. I wouldn't have anyway, probably.

Here are some pics, the rest are here on Flickr:

-- Update: Seeing the reaction this has generated is driving me to demand one of these for all upcoming concerts, get ready Natalie.

Last week we got to see George Clinton at the House of Blues. Thanks to HoB policy of a rectal exam for every male customer, I have no photos of this event, which is why Natalie whipped out the following illustration:

Click for massive

I'm really happy with the way that came out, she really went nuts considering I counted 21 on stage at one point!

We were so happy to see this circus on stage, but it was hard knowing how tough it's been for Clinton. For a family that's gone through so much in the last couple of months to be up performing with that much energy was awe inspiring.

This was also easily the best sounding show we've been to at the HoB. I attribute that to the venue finally getting everything dialed in, and the fact that these guys are just that good.

Also, introduced us to local keyboardist Danny Bedrosian, who opened the show before playing the main set, and who has several local dates coming up. We'll be there, definitely.

I grabbed this ad from a red line train:

I would LOVE to have a wallet that reduces my wallet size by 200%. Think of all the crap you could walk around with. Does it reduce the mass as well as the volume? Would I have a wallet that's much bigger on the inside than on the outside, but weighs like 4 tons, or is it more of a portal to a multi-dimensional space that you can just put things in? Like a TARDIS? Two Daleks can tow the TARDIS, even with all of the stuff it has inside, so is this like that? Can I put like a TV in there?

I think Cambridge, being home to the best engineers in the world, is probably a likely place for such a transdimensional breakthrough to make it to market.