Autumn is Dead

On September 30th my friend Autumn had her 21st birthday party.  It was cleverly juxtaposed as a funeral.  Originally a lot of the people at Roup were wearing suits and long dresses, and the living room was covered in red light with foreboding music.  I wouldn't be reviewing this kind of thing normally, but it was also a show.  There were no touring bands; things got kind of sloppy at points.

Here's the cake:

In the basement Negative Witch Goddess played a cover of "I Put a Spell on You."  I don't think anyone knew this at the time.  RJ's bursts of junk metal noise as Autumn shrieked and slurred covered in delay.  It was very much in the spirit of Screamin' Jay Hawkins minus blues.  This set is on the Negative Witch Goddess tape on Roup Records available here.  It was sexy.

Next, in the living room, Drikks Nuns, a new band composed of John Chriest (Ivory Weeds) and Chris Mucci (Sundogpeacehouse), did some ambient stuff.  It was long, though not as long as a certain upcoming guy's set, and drawn out with lots of looping and undecipherable, angelic vocals.  Tribal drums beat as harmonies floated around the sky.  John played an electric guitar (?!) and a cello while Chris sang and twirled some knobs.  The room was covered in a dusky red light and the music seemed as if it descended from the Aurora Borealis in the Arctic frost.

Seth did a short interlude in the foyer afterwards.  He put an alarm clock and some fruit in a box and told a story about waking up and going to work at Right By Nature.  It was pretty funny.  The party continued for an hour or so onwards.  When that hour had passed, Dean Cercone had set up his gear in the basement.  Everyone packed in; he began to play.  In another hour he was finally done.  Many people left during the set because it was so drawn out and very late.  Dean was fine as usual, but I wish he hadn't played his entire discography.

Here's Dean being Shakespeare in a rock pose:

After everyone left, including weird dudes that nobody knew, and there was a weird argument in the basement, Greg Kolls and Brian Hecht played the Magic Band to Brian DiSanto's Captain Beefheart.  I jumped in shortly after they had started to make up for the fact that I didn't get a set earlier (it didn't really matter because I forgot my Boomerang Phrase Sampler and a few other necessary things).  While we played some ultra-dissonent stuff RJ rode his amp around, threw stuff, and shouting some poetry or something into my recorder.  I think he also tried to play a chord organ.  See if you can hear it all:

Here is Wax Text's first show.

Happy Birthday Autumn