Hume at the Wherehouse

Skull Valley is still back in October; it's kind of like when stores put out Christmas stuff at the end of October.  Anyway on October 11th, I returned to the Wherehouse.  The show ended up starting much later than it was scheduled to and so there was a long improvised set a little beforehand.  The band consisted of myself on Stylophone, Sigh Meltingstar on keytar and vocals, Sam Young on guitar, and Ben (not sure of his last name) and Jackson Boytim on a drum kit made up of cans, water jugs, and even drums that the normal kids play (the drum kit was the best part of our sound).  We played for 40 minutes or so while Gangwish set up in front of Chris Mucci's recently installed artwork with a lot more members than I had ever seen before.  Get there's and Hume's sets here and listen while you read.

 

Gangwish's set was awesome.  The four member version was still held together by Sam Pace's skilled drumming, but everyone else contributed to the sound and helped make the long jams more interesting.  I wish that the drums had been more like the older one member Gangwish, more freeform with more effects, but their set got the multiplying crowd to really move.

After everything had calmed down for a bit Washington DC's Hume set up.  Featuring the same guitarist, and monstrous pedal board, as similar band Les Rhinocéros, Hume played tightly constructed shoe-gazer music.  They reminded me of a noisier Blonde Redhead with waves of guitar turned synthesizer permeating the seemingly African/world music-inspired vocals.

Hume and Les Rhinocéros both have cool stuff on Bandcamp that you could/should check out.

Next up was resident artist Dean Cercone with a shorter set than usual.  His songs were especially mysterious tonight, his voice passing through from another world, while his instruments droned on the River Styx.  Despite seeming dazed or distant (channeling ghostly power?) Dean's set was really on the ball here and I hope that this trend continues while slowly improving over time.

Last up was Ivory Weeds with his guitar and voice, augmented with loops as always, along with his newly acquired cello.  Compared with Dean's more uncouth techniques, Ivory Weeds is much more like amplified acoustic music with ambient effects added in the background.  Here he went a little harder: his opening song was on cello and brought onto me a sense of impending doom.  Afterwards John returned to his softer side, but quickly went back to the noisier end of sound.  His set was largely juxtaposed in this vein, though it fit together nicely with everything having a similar ambiance.  This seems to be a good direction for Ivory Weeds to go in.


After Ivory Weeds I talked to some people and left soon afterward.  It was a really fun show, though it possibly should have started and ended sooner.  Hopefully there will be more shows to come at the Wherehouse, even if we can't relive the great summer nights already past.