Nightmares Tour Report 02

Following a tasty Vietnamese meal at Pho Grand, I think that David, Jonathan, and I got off to a pretty good start last night, at Apop Records in Saint Louis. The show was actually upstairs in the store, as opposed to when I played with Consumer Electronics last year, downstairs. Likewise, when David and I were on tour in 2007. Both local acts were well chosen for the night, in my opinion. N.N.N. Cook got things started with a fairly minimalist set up, utilizing cassette players that he mic'ed from above, and some sort of synth module device. Nathan's sound ranged from calmer and more droned-out passages to more heavy, forceful parts. His set definitely had a dark analog feel to it which was quite nice. The Lonely Procession were up second and Kevin and Chris combined voice, electronics, and electric cello to create a dark and tense sound, probably inspired more by 20th Century classical and avant-garde music, than noise/experimental. Ligeti came up in a conversation that I overheard, which make total sense. After only hearing snippets of their music online, it was both nice and rather surprising to hear it in long form. We set up and proceeded to play three pieces, clocking in at about 35 minutes in total. We got off to a slightly heavier start than I expected with the first song, so I tried to vary the mixes of the following two songs to make sure to include the more atmospheric sense of our recordings. I am definitely happy with how it went, considering that it was our first time playing live and our first time playing together at that sort of volume. The crowd's response was very positive and we got a lot of good feedback from people who seem to really know our individual band and solo recordings. Thanks to Jeremy/Ghost Ice for the help with the booking and with live sound, and for his generous hospitality. Special thanks to Tiffany at Apop Records for her willingness to host a mid-week show during such a busy period. Thanks to our Saint Louis friends - and those who drove quite some distance! - for the great support at our debut. Off to Lexington...