Thursday, October 11, 2007

Tour Update - October 11


Greetings from Starbucks on the Case-Western Reserve campus in Cleveland, Ohio. We had an excellent show last night. Thanks to Sam Goldberg for getting us all set up.

Pat's In The Flats is a classic dive bar type of spot... in continuous operation for over 60 years... and Pat, herself, was behind the bar all night, seemingly not bothered by the noise swirling around her establishment. She even bought me`a drink at the end of the night.

We had a really great crowd there, with a mix of older (Ralph, thanks!) and newer Cleveland friends. Thanks to Lisa, for bringing the photographs of BLOODYMINDED from our Inside/Outside show from 2006.

Snakebit Beatniks (George of Steam Drapula) started things off with a masterful set of mixer feedback, mainly, I think, which he built up so smoothly, and which he controlled in such a way that it seemed almost melodic at points.

The supergroup trio of Nathan Bowers / David Russell / Wyatt "Howhow" Howland was up next, and they set up in a line, with very disparate instrumentation, almost playing solitary sets, yet completely gelling into a very cohesive, swelling, breathing, improv noise unit.

Catnap (Mark from Emeralds) was up third, and sandwiched between intros and outros of Bill Hick, I believe, Mark layed down some amazing guitar, which started out on the more ambient, mournful side, and which built up to a more aggressive pitch... but I am talking about really well-played guitar... another facet of the emerald... unexpected...

I felt much better about last night's set... things built up really nicely for me. I built up to a strong feedback mix... payed more attention to vocal delivery... let everything sort of collapse... then I slowly faded everything out.

After a quick sound issue snafu, David delivered his fourth primo set of this trip. Like the previous nights, he quickly cast a spell over the crowd and temporarily brought them to some other place.

Thanks to everyone who came out to support!

Off to see some art...