I played a show
For this week, here are some photos of TV Sleep from a show I played with them. Love those guys. Here’s a bonus photo of me performing as Ghost Down, caught by my partner Em!
I’d love to do more solo sets, so if you know anyone who’s looking for electronic/guitar music, hit me up! I also still to this very day have stuff on bandcamp.
Rather than a long list of recommendations, I figured I’d just write about the aforementioned show with the fleeting minutes I have to meet my weird self-imposed Tuesday-afternoon email time.
Sunday night, all four members of Overheard took their art in different directions. Upstate, Erin and (Overheard collaborator/album artist) Grace Moore’s band The Grackles played a show at Domes, a Kingston dispensary and…dome, with incredible acoustics that transform as you walk around the room. I saw a video of Grace pacing and singing at different spots as a dog played around in the background, both to an enraptured crowd. Would that I could have been that dog happily wagging as pretty echoes bounced around that blessed weed shop.
Meanwhile, down in Brooklyn at Cobra Club, Overheard’s Kennys and myself played in separate acts TV Sleep and Ghost Down, respectfully. After watching the hyperactive punk power trio Cometa Negra thrash about on stage (one of which was a drummer fresh off of a broken foot), I nervously waddled onto stage with my guitar and laptop. I read a poem from The Book of Frank by CAConrad to kick off my set:
Frank throws
pebbles into the
map of the
world and
readies
himself
to ride
new waves
of ruin
and played songs that, mostly, only my friends and loved ones have heard before. It turned out to be really fun and cathartic to hear them played over a PA, and also, extremely loudly. I was told that it was somehow meditative and peaceful even though I was going for anxious and chaotic, but what can you do. For the last song, Kenny H joined me to shake around baoding balls (traditionally a Chinese physical therapy tool meant to be swirled in the hand, used as jingling percussion) as I wailed on reverb and swells with my guitar, and it was really good to have a friend with me on stage to cap off the set.
TV Sleep bursted screaming onto stage with their set of extremely fun Buffalonian violence, with frontman Joey shedding layers over the course of the night, from a jersey to a Bills tanktop to a bare, craven torso. Overheard’s Kennys held down the rhythm section while Joey and Tom screamed and riffed on their guitars, culminating in (my favorite song of theirs) “Leviathan”, where the band transitions from a mathy banger to a slow jam underlaid by shoegazey delay feedback loops.
Finally, the band Post No Bills closed out the night representing Staten Island Hardcore, a scene I did not know existed but have a newfound level of respect for. The frontman paced about in the audience wailing, belting, squealing and despairing while the band held it down on stage with absolutely disgusting riffs and drumming. For the first time that night, people started moshing. Joey fireman carried Tom and used his legs as flails, Matt from Cometa Negra ran swinging into the crowd, and the aforementioned broken-footed drummer did an impressive, yet inadvisable, backflip.
I had a lot of fun being the weird experimental detour among of a night of punk and hardcore, and we made just enough in ticket sales to pay the sound guy. It’s the little victories. Hope to see you at the next one.
Thanks,
Will