Games We Can Play

1. Blurb Generator
I met a gentleman last night whose gay porn novel, Backwoods, featured some heavy-hitting blurbs on the back-- from no less than the likes of Dennis Cooper and Kevin Killian. I was impressed. Blurbs are one of my favorite formats to read and shouldn't be left in the hands of laymen.
This includes band blurbs. Bloomington show flyers are notoriously plastered with some cringe-inducing sonic descriptors. It's a shame that terms like "epic," "blackened," and "blistering" get so overused when this could be a chance for the town's aspiring word nerds (your humble narrator) to step up and offer some more inspired interpretations.
This is why I have created the Band Blurb Generator.
Show promoters who are unsure of how to sum up the sounds on their bill can look no further. Take one word from each column. Mix and match!
This thing could definitely be expanded.Consider creating a band to fill the genre you've just created. Build your culture, up the punks, etc.

2. Twilight Telephone
In Twilight Telephone I describe what I understand to be the plot of Twilight (violent vampire sex, unlikely gestation periods, something with werewolves) as it was told to me by my friend Catherine, who has seen the movie, to somebody else who is unfamiliar with the movie/series. Then they have to repeat the plot to the first person (ex. Catherine) or somebody who IS familiar with Twilight.
Then we all have a laugh about how this distorted recap is still not as fucking nuts as the original article.

3. Mating Failure
This is the one where I retroactively use context clues to come to the conclusion that the rando I gave my number to is in a pretty seriously relationship. Examples: Rando and girlfriend making plans together, kissing.

Play smart, play safe,
Love,
Erin

Where's Worldo?

Bloomington, IN is at its most Bloomington when the middle aged people who own the place don their Peruvian alpaca hats and twirl into the streets for the world music fest known as LOTUS. Consequently, my co-workers at a popular local coffee shop/juice bar and I set to task identifying some of the trappings. Behold: Lotus bingo. Saturday, as I tipsily left the Bishop and filtered into the cool night air, I was accosted by a shirtless young man with a digeridoo perched on a fire escape above me. "What's your name??" He cried to me. "It's Erin," I muttered. "Erin! You're radiant!" he crowed and tooted his digeridoo into the night sky. It's his world, we're just living in it.

Variety

Hi, how are you? Why are you on the internet when you could be running around with me? Or going to a house show? It's been a good run at my house since March, The Bitchyard. Here's what you've been missing: (All images by yours truly, Erin K. Drew. I know, "new media" or whatever, but don't steal please!)











Coming soon: An online companion to a personalized edition of the Bloomington DIY calendar, "Let's Go!" if I can stand sitting in front of a glowing screen that long... Godspeed!

Noise Eulogy

As promised, here's John Collins McCormick's interview with me about my experiences participating in the mysterious and musky genre sometimes referred to as "NOISE."

Erin Kemp Drew ran THE A/V CLUB at Indianapolis’ Earth House, she also booked shows at SHARED HERITAGE Gallery in The Murphy Art Center (which if you haven’t been to Indianapolis this is a “must see”) as well as booking shows in various living rooms and basements. While not a noise practitioner herself, she’s been exposed to many different forms of sonic expulsion so I decided to send her a few questions I’d had on my mind.

1. What is Noise Music and isn't that redundant? or, shit, what's that thing...like silent thunder, or military intelligence...uh, oxymoron! You're so smart Erin! That would be a great name for a noise band.
Oh boy. The term "noise music" makes me a little uncomfortable cuz it seems to evoke some 80's, "transgressive" aesthetics. Even though I like that stuff alright, it seems kind of knee-jerk and overtly negative--like intentionally off-putting. "Experimental" is a more comfortable term to me, when you think about music-making being an experiment with variables. And like in science, sometimes experiments are repeated and sometimes experiments fail.

2. What is a Noise show like? Is it like a folk show or is it better? You know what I mean...
One notable thing is that energy levels can vary so much. Sometimes people sit with their hands in their laps and really hang on little sounds and you can hear their jackets creak. Sometimes performers maul the audience. It's funny to think this could be the product of the same genre! Oh yeah, and sometimes people dance. That was an important realization I had at one point: you can dance to any music, there doesn't need to be a 4/4 beat.

3. It's normally dudes right?
Actually, one thing that initially appealed to me about the music scene in Chicago where I first started participating in noise was that the scene consisted of so many women! That was such an exciting change from the hardcore and punk scenes I'd been involved in in my hometown (and still different from the DIY psychedelic/garage rock scenes around me today).
There's an openness with noise that isn't always there in more referential genres. The noise milieu I've experienced seems to rub against the visual arts scene, where tons of women are involved. A lot of the first and most exciting noise shows I went to (Caroliner, Fat Worm of Error, Cock ESP--all in 2003) had performative or visual elements--more opportunities for involvement. You don't need to be a guitar virtuoso.

4. If you went to a Noise show and there were dudes playing like guitars would you be pissed? Or would you just be like "I snuck in anyway" ? also is it nececelery to have instruments to make noise music, or what would you use to make noise music? Good question John!
Guitars don't piss me off, I like uncomfortably masculine butt rock. But I am pretty overtly interested in performances that involve a visual/non-musical element. Costumes, theatrics, a slideshow perhaps? I'm interested in shows that engage multiple senses. Dada stand-up comedy? Confrontational story-telling? Something involving animals other that humans? I'd like to see some soundtracked cat corralling. I think most importantly these things share a spirit with noise music. Experiments. Questioning.

5. Do you think in 30 years they will teach Noise music in public school (you know when they start teaching music and art again in public school) and then, do you think they will teach it in art class or music class?
I love to learn but I hate school. Next question.

6. Why can't I find anyone who lives around me that thinks this stuff is cool? i.e. what's wrong with everyone?
It does seem like the "community" for this stuff is kind of nebulous and dispersed and conferences and festivals like INC and Bitchpork are important. Touring is important. I'm ok with having an international network though. Regionalism is kind of romantic…

7. why is most noise music on a cassette?
Noise music as I understand it is some progression or distillation of punk, and the good kind of DIY punk values affordability ("If it ain't cheap, it ain't punk"--Plan-it X Records motto). I've always bought tapes cuz they're the cheapest thing at the record store. Plus the cassette decades have produced some of my favorite music, so it's easier to find on tape than vinyl.
Also, there's a tendency in noise of celebrating under-dogness. Cassettes are kind of underdog and unglamorous. Clunky flipping and rewinding. Plus, those are good sounds. Cassette players kind of facilitate sound manipulation.

8. Give noise music a few new names that are better, or at least something that doesn't sound so predictable...
a. Fake Jazz
b. Peace Punk
c. Future Blues
d Moist Music
(You made that last one up, John.)

9. Where is the best place to listen to noise music? I know you are going to say the library but don't be so selfish and predictable. OK, say Library. What ever, it's cool....
In the parking lot of Big Red Liquor, drinking a 40, cloaked in shadow, watching people in the gym across the street work out their inner thighs.

10. I like how i made this appear to have happened like we are hanging out together!
Fort Wayne is stunning!

11. Remember when Justin and I were too scared to sleep downstairs? Thanks for letting us sleep on your floor.
That's funny, at the time you guys said you were too "bored" to spend the night downstairs alone....

12. Do you have any questions for me? No, I just ate. But yes I do want to go to that burger place by your house. I live in Bloomington now, so it's probably a store selling those weird rubber toe-glove shoes instead of burgers, but we can go there!

Video Vignettes from a Korean Karaoke Bar

1. Bus explodes. Bloodied woman screams in pain. Soundtrack: "In an Mm-bop they're gone/In Mm-bop they're not there..." ("Mm-bop" by Hanson)

2. Preppy Korean man scans an English dictionary for the word "lumpen." Locates definition with finger and crumples tearfully to the floor. Soundtrack: "Holidays in the Sun" by Sex Pistols

3-5. Stalker girl falls down provocatively. Sullen woman's teardrops rain gently on piano keys. Soldier puts barrel of shotgun in his mouth. Soundtrack for all: "Thong Song" by Sisqo. ("Dumps like a truck. truck. truck. Thighs like what." etc.)

****
The author of this blog strongly endorses Maru Studio's private karaoke rooms on Indianapolis's far east side at Pendleton Pike. Please note that earnest geo-political conversations with your patient waitstaff--especially intiated by reluctant singers-- may result in deep discounts for future room rentals. Avoid the hot/cold fish chunks and make an attempt at any of the extensive offerings from Nirvana's repertroire for me.

TOP 5 AUDIOVISUAL ENCOUNTERS IN INDIANAPOLIS OF 2011

By Erin K. Drew
artist/promoter/blogger at Extreme Appearances

My friend Crafty from Everything, Now! asked me to write a top five end-of-the-year anything for his blog, Muscial Family Tree.
I chose to focus on Audiovisual Encounters-- with an emphasis on unexpected aesthetic convergences among art forms for all senses...In chronological order:

1. Paul Pelsue/Joey Molinaro/Sore Eros, March at MiCO (Midwest Museum of Contemporary Art)
In early 2011, Austin Reavis announced with transformative authority that his house was now a museum. Private turns public. The Midwest Museum of Art was an exercise in oppositions. Video projections of the fridge, beer in the bathtub,. Foot stomping percussion amidst densely packed ceramics. The bedroom gallery (Reavis' room, picked clean save for his futon) featured Paul B Pelsue's found pix of Tonka trucks, afghaned rec rooms, and ambiguous signage alongside a ziggurat of old TV's recording and broadcasting viewers in real time.



2. Jookabox last show and Know No Stranger, June at Earth House Collective
There was a lot to take in amidst Know No Stranger's multi-channel projections and the last chance to dance to the JB's creep-funk. The crowd could have turned sentimental had the tone not been set by tooth-grinding, grimy amphetamines ("I'm Slime!/And it's fine!"). Instead it was a Halloween party on a sweltering summer night with everyone in costume, make-up melting, ready to rage.



3. Ancient Aliens A/V Night with Castle Old Chair, Growth Spert, and Ligyro, August at Earth House
Dusk blooms into night over a mirror-like lake. Crickets scream as you lie on your back and scan the sky for UFO's. A perfect arc of energy piloted this show from Castle Old Chair's tape fuzz-laced bedtime tales through Growth Spert's frazzled vocals and frenzied aluminum percussion to the ambient electronic alchemy that transformed Ligyro's rainbow-colored tent into a spacecraft.

4. Mr. God's Galloping Mountain Variety Show, October, at Shared Heritage
A crew of Pittsburgh industrial hippies from the Cyber Punk Apocalypse brought their bare feet, bad tattoos, and bizarre conspiratorial writings to Shared Heritage. There were tales of police raids on high-tech lowlifes, lunatic ravings about post-consumer hotdogs, and noise interludes from an ominous emcee's box of contraptions. Gunner, awkward granddaughter of Dada, left the silence ringing in our ears with her costumed "stand-up comedy."



5. Auroradoreyalice and Crystal Lynn Thomas, November, at Shared Heritage
The crowning jewel on a night of high-quality trash jazz (with DBH, Sky Thing, and more), was the serendipitous pairing of Crystal Lynn Thomas's video mandala of perpetually melting candles with the warm but witchy keyboard drones of Auroradoreyalice. This quiet fire was a cosmic surprise suitable for 11/11/11.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Revenge Eternal/Drekka/Bad Eyes at Earth House, Orphan 16mm film by 3 TON CINEMA at Shared Heritage, Five Elements show curated by Kid Primitive, all goings-on at Jasona Beach during Cataracts, Sir Deja Doog and the Wasted Knights vs. ASCAP at the Vollrath, Marmoset playing "Record in Red" live at Radio Radio.
FAVORITE OUT OF TOWN BANDS SEEN IN INDY: Child Bite, Wishgift, Fielded, Tracey Trance, Phantom Family Halo

Zooz/Noon A/V

NOONZOOZ - Birfukdeth @ Earth House (IndY)

NOON | Myspace Music Videos

Zooz performing at an Earth House Audiovisual Nite, October, 2010.
A VHS featuring collaborations from some of the performers (audio and visual) from these monthly events is currently in the works....

Stuck in the Stacks

But without the likes of Edgar Froese.


Blog density due to a day spent shluffing in the library.
(pictured above, circa 2009)

Still my most popular picture on Flickr.

Thanks again to model Katie Lyn Coles.

All Punks Please Leave Earth

GAY BEAST



BEST GRAPHICS EVER



BEST BAND EVER???

And while we're on the subject of twisting classic punk around into a whole new balloon animal, it's recently come to my attention that Henry Rollins has been providing the voice of Mr. Rainicorn on the children's television program, adventure time.



Relevantly, I have also figured out how to text a Black Flag emoticon, and so now will go back to bed.
!¡!¡

Jazz Breakfast

This babe has my number.

I've been using an Ornette Coleman cd as a coaster for my coffee lately. You think that's what he meant by the Shape of Jazz to Come?