BloodLust!

BLOODYMINDED
Saturday April 29
Enemy
Chicago, IL
with:
Vertonen
Is
Vadim Sprikut
Gays in the Military
Kevin Drumm
Adam Strohm
Church of Light and Sound
Insect Deli
I Love Presets

BLOODYMINDED
Rob Kerr - Synth
Ed Knigge - Synth + Vocals
Chris Mack - Synth
Mark Solotroff - Vocals + Synth

01. “A SONG FOR LISANNE, A YOUNG MODEL”
02. “ANGEL OF DARKNESS”
03. “AS IF”
04. “WEST”
05. “VISITING AN EX-GIRLFRIEND IN THE HOSPITAL - AIDS WARD”
06. “GENITAL PANIC”
07. “BLIND FURY”
08. “HEAD”
09. “BOUND TO DIE” (ED – LEAD VOCALS)
10. “SHOCK PIT”
11. “GRUDGE (ONE)”
12. “MIND THE GAP”
13. “TROPHY”
14. “VISITING AN EX-GIRLFRIEND IN THE HOSPITAL - PSYCHIATRIC WARD - 24-HOUR OBSERVATION - SUICIDE WATCH”
15. “TWO DROPS OF BLOOD”
16. “TEN SUICIDES”

Thanks to Blake Edwards, for setting up this smoothly run event. Thanks to Jason Soliday, for hosting the show. Thanks to everyone who supported the benefit. The night ran pretty-much like clockwork. Everyone stuck to modest-length sets. It was great to have rock and rythmic stuff to add variety to the night. Solid, all around. Rather than try to remember everything, here is Blake's (Vertonen) write-up:

"An ass kicker of an evening. Not the hugest turnout, but those who did
were generous and said generosity will hopefully help twig, carly & co
get things back up to speed.
I shot the first volley at 9:05; it was my first all noise set in
quite a while and I was pretty happy with it; bb guns breaking glass
and stormclouds hurling crippled sine waves dipped in acid while the
bastilles were stormed.
Is joined me as a transition to his set and choked out some guttural
childbirth and high tone ear blistering; I shot back with panning
cassette entropy and eventually we ended the segue with a short drone;
overall, the segue this time worked much better than the last time we
did it. Is continued to blow down a few more houses with alternating
high tone fires and moss-covered gristle in fine fashion.
Vadim Sprikut stepped next and a wall of distortion and channel
jumping explosivity followed; he spit out sold chunks punctuated with
fractions of silence or feedback wrapped in barbed wire; he was the
audio transcription of meth-loaded slot cars trying to race on a
dirty, grime filled track.
Gays in the Military undressed next and brought some serious rock to
the night; it was a pretty good breather from the festering caverns of
barnacled ear we had been occupying thus far. Admittedly, I had been
losing interest in what the Gays had been doing—it seemed they were
focusing more on their schtick (the women's auxiliary and scantily
clad ladies writhing about and handing out porn) than their music.
Well, tonight the ladies were absent and they belted out seriously
tight 70s sludgy hard rock bathed in 80s cocaine and fast cars
hedonism and accented with the general disrepair of humanity. It was a
good shot in the arm and pleasantly caught folks off guard.
Kevin Drumm followed and wasn't going to take any of the previous
noise crap lying down. I know a lot of folks have mentioned "noisy
drone" when describing live sets, but Kevin took that concept out the
exit door and to another level. Instead of a warm, fuzzy feeling that
anyone in the room could levitate on the sonorous density of his
tones, Kevin offered one of the ugliest, grittiest fields of static
dementia one could hope for. He was threshing wheat made of razorwire
with fingernail-like tentacles of carbon fiber that spit acid. If you
were able to stand up for his set it was only because the soundwaves
were compressing between the back wall and the PA and you just
happened to be in a lucky trough or peak. He also had plenty of high
tones shooting about, so even if you felt your knees weren't buckling
your inner ear sense of balance was probably compromised.
Adam Strohm was up next and may have been the highlight of the night
for me, first because I'd never seen him live before and second he
brought a great sound. It was like you were being dragged through
fresh tar on a chain link fence while playing sandpaper in a food
processor. Think chop shop and you'd be in the right frame. At first I
thought he was a little too quiet (and the audience a bit too loud
with chatter), and told soliday (who was deftly manning the uber-board
all night) that he could boost adam a bit. "he says he's just doing a
build up…" was soliday's repsonse and lo, adam was. What started off
as a pebble making it's way down a metal slide soon evolved into a
full frontal collision between an aircraft carrier and the straits of
gibraltar. Definitely looking forward to more of him live.
Church of Light and Sound followed, with a request for "total
darkness" preceding his set. I've always liked his live sets because
he's usually done drone-based bits that really fill the space, your
head, make your guts turn to toothpaste, and disorient wonderfully.
But tonight he opened his magic illuminated trunk and pow! two halogen
lights shot into the audience's eyes and the chaos of an ill conceived
tree-felling in a public park during peak picnic season followed, with
90% of his set seemingly determined to peel the paint off the walls.
Jake was probably chewing his way through his pedals and flossing with
frayed cables. The other 10% consisted of machine guns unloading in a
glass factory as witnessed from a bird's eye point of view. Delicious
and able to split 2 x 4s with his gaze.
Some might say, "woe to the person who follows that," but as it was
Bloodyminded, the only woe was going to be felt by ears that had
already gone through three hours of air raids. The feedback for their
set was magnificent, and that made up for the less than spastic
audience participation (save Jake being a one-man mosh pit for Ten
Suicides). At one point one of the keyboards began making some oddly
clean rhythmic sounds that seemed out of place, but the band pressed
on determinedly, with the other two synths and multiple mics issuing
blunt force injury like it was cigars at a bachelor party.
Insectdeli took over after Bloodyminded, and if there's anyone that
can step up to the brutality of Bloodyminded and deliver it back in
rhythmic spades, it would be julia. She started with a very softly
spoken thanks to everyone for coming out and then pulled the trigger;
it was a blender of rhythmic elements bruised and battered and spit
from left to right at 1400 RPM on a motorboat engine stuck inside an
animal carcass. start/stop pulsing and chopped up samples decorated
the bone-snapping beats: Solotroff had a grin on his face: "I could
listen to her do this stuff all night." He wasn't the only one; most
folks were either head-bobbing or foot stompin' to the complex
labyrinth of sound she was shuffling like a professional blackjack player.
I Love Presets brought the evening to a close, and unfortunately 10 or
so minutes into their set a neighbor stopped by and inquired "when all
this crap was gonna stop." Regardless, what I saw of their set was
solid as usual: electronic nosedives, dyslexic rhythms, garbled
samples minced and vomited out, and modified video projections. The
video this time reminded me of the heaven's gate induction tape laced
with static and kaleidoscopic glimpses into what goes on with the
other side of a corroded camera.
All the performers totally ruled with staying on schedule; all the
audience folks who bought raffle tickets did so unabashedly, and
soliday gets huge props for letting us do this show at his space,
which was already clogged down with shows as it was…
Next Chicago T-Hill benefit (as far as I know) is May 20 at
elastic—stay tuned for info on that as the time approaches."