Opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of KRUI or its staff but of the writer. 

MISSION CREEK DAY 3

Thursday, April 2, 2015

6:57 PM

THE MILL: Jeff Chang

I’m standing in position and in good spirits to write about Jeff Chang’s talk at the Mill. The space I occupy is the same standing table I used as a flat surface previous nights. I’m starting to break it in. We had received Jeff Chang at KRUI before this appearance at the Mill, and he charmed us all with his willingness to chat and hang out in the studio. Jeff used to DJ at his college radio station KALX at UC Berkley, so our time with him planted many smiles in the room. Seldom have I grown to admire someone at such a quick rate. He is an ally for all people and here to do good and cut it straight to us kids. Our news director, Sri Ponnada, expertly interviewed Jeff and maintained a jovial, informal atmosphere while still keeping the questions compelling. In my sole interaction with him at the radio station besides expressing my gratitude, I offered him the new THEESatisfaction album after he joked about playing records to kill time before his appearance at the Mill, and when I handed him the album, his grin suggested I might have convinced him to stay, but unfortunately, we were cutting into another show’s time slot. It was a memorable interview. Unlike a certain famous TV astrophysicist who also sat down at KRUI for a brief interview, there is no condescension and only goodwill.

The crowd at the Mill tonight is by far the most diverse crowd I’ve been a part of thus far in the festival. It feels great to be in a varied collective such as this one. Men and women of many identities are here; it almost feels stupid to catalogue it because we’re not filling out a damn census, but to finally feel inside of a large group of people not uniformly defined in skin color, hair style, and background is quite honestly moving, and such a crowd should be celebrated and strived for, maybe even demanded. It’s somehow individual and collective at the same time. This is the college experience of unity and action I’ve always wanted and I didn’t find it in my hours spent in business school lecture halls or literature discussions; I end up finding that feeling tonight and in a bar. Why not learn in a bar? Public houses brought about revolutions when the literate read to the masses. I consider that learning, maybe even enlightenment.

Local icon Kembrew McLeod walks on stage and introduces Jeff Chang with a brief but loving monologue. Jeff climbs the short stairs to the stage amid a rousing applause and then thanks his numerous benefactors and gives context to his talk. He interviewed then-presidential hopeful Obama for Vibe in 2008 and while there was celebration in order for the election of this country’s first black president, the post-election exuberance distracted from the prospect of a real discussion of race in America.

He asks, “Has cultural desegregation changed things?” Pop and visual culture has begun to show cultural desegregation through hit television shows like Empire, but what about policy? Has the political world caught up to the cultural world?

It’s been a tough year. Jeff chronicles the bad year with popular hashtags, #ICANTBREATHE, #FERGUSON, and also touches upon the reactions of rightwing extremists, like the gunman who shot up downtown Austin to voice his dissent in the most asshole way possible about Obama’s executive actions for immigration. Sometimes I (and probably many of you) ask myself what the hell is going on in this country? But the thing is, it’s always been going on, this struggle with the unwilling cowardice of the rightwing (and even elements of the liberal establishment) to admit and confront the problems of race that are not enforced by specific legislative language but quite clearly institutionalized due to the obnoxiously higher rates of incarceration and deaths by police for people of color. Such a scourge upon vast swathes of people cannot simply be explained by the clichéd, racist stereotypes but by real goddamn biases that people have and are unable to reconcile because they’re too cowardly to admit something is wrong with their logic, something is wrong with the logic of this society.

Jeff doesn’t promise answers to our problems, but a few ideas to perhaps point us in the right direction and to this pragmatic gent, that sounds better than the status quo of bickering with the morons and blowhards who’ve been holding the map upside down this whole time. I say we just leave them behind to continue bloviating themselves into madness, drinking their own piss.

Jeff shows a slide of Obama on Edmund Pettus Bridge for the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s march from Selma to Montgomery. The 1965 Voting Rights Act passed with a popular consensus for racial justice. However, the Supreme Court recently stripped the Voting Rights Act. 1965 was the last time there was such a consensus. Jeff then goes on the talk about how 2042 will be when the demography of the United States will compose primarily of citizens once deemed minorities. Despite the oncoming equilibrium Jeff says that “the stakes in the quest for a just America are high, and we have to consider how culture affects this.”

How do we see race? Jeff posits this to the crowd and explains that national culture tends to move towards segregation, with whites moving to communities with better schools and public works, and while everyone else may have enclaves, these enclaves are not as privileged as white communities in terms of the quality of education and safety. How do we wright America’s direction towards better equality? It’s a damn tough question.

Jeff then raises some great points that, if you don’t know them already, write them down:

1. Difference is human, and to notice it is human.
2. Difference is a way to enhance superiority and a willed blindness.

What does “willed blindness” mean? Well, it means willful ignorance. This happens when the prospect of a true discussion about race is bypassed and we are told to wait just a little longer or that what we’re concerned about isn’t the way we perceive it, that racism doesn’t exist, that poor people are just lazy, that kids in gangs just suck at school, or any other shitty thing that people say to maintain their docility, their illusion.

I’m angering myself and I can feel body temperature rising. This is a historical moment in our country, and to be able to face it in a room of willing peers is jarring. Jeff shows a picture of a young, tuxedoed Eric Garner, and I don’t know, showing the younger picture of him, years prior to his violent death at the gloved hands of a white racist New York cop irks me, and to settle myself I take a weak breath, realizing the weakness of Eric Garner’s last breaths before being denied his right to live a full, complicated life that some people, like me and perhaps people like that murderous, racist cop will be allowed to realize without fear of violence, so I decide every breath I take from now on is an act of solidarity and remembrance for those who were denied a complicated, long life.

Jeff continues his talk and relates to us the historical amnesia of this country, and how people only remember the most convenient parts of MLK JR’s speech every February, forgetting his indictment of police brutality and considerations for black militancy. Years pass until the next moment in racial history, and that’s the eighties, when the golden age of hip-hop came about and widespread campus protests for a more multicultural world. Of course, there are those who feel threatened by this, and Pat Buchanan initiates the culture wars to convince idiots that somehow, difference is bad, and they strip the National Endowment for the Arts and cut funding for professors in the humanities. Then, the LA Riots blow up, and the culture war escalates.

All the while Jeff is giving this history, he uses old Time Magazine covers. In retrospect, it looks as if Time’s covers play on their reader’s racist fears; it’s almost a case study in how not to cover important cultural developments, so I decide I will never again purchase an issue of this magazine, because let’s be honest with ourselves, Time always kind of sucked.

Jeff Chang then focuses on the use of Obama as an image to attach causes well beyond his agenda and party platform. Supporters use images of him to push their causes, like environmentalism, immigration, withdrawing from the Middle East and closing Guantanamo Bay. However, detractors use his image in depressingly stupid ways. They alter photographs to depict him as a Muslim, or as an illegal president, or as some other ridiculous accusation he’s faced in the past and these pathetic appropriations of Obama’s image and their intended demographic of fearful senior citizens may explain why we as a nation tend to stick a lot of our elders into assisted living and ignore their phobic chain emails and let the Florida sun wither them in their racism and stupidity in instead of revering them as they do in other countries. Wisdom is usually not positively correlated with age in this country, but luckily, it is in my family and hopefully yours.

The speech ends on a note not of hope but of realism. Hope can be realistic, sure, but hope is convenient when realism is necessary, and Jeff provides us his theory as to the ingredients for precipitating change in this country and somehow, by some divine incursion, waves are again used as a metaphor, but much, much better than I did in the last column. Jeff’s idea of change is waves upon a shore: There are a lot of different factors that influence the currents and a wave, like change, is both an event and a process. So, we just need the right ingredients to make this happen, people. We live in an age where dreams are proscribed and then sold back to us, where the culture war is raging again and the people are re-segregating because the problems left unsolved by the previous generation still linger for us to continue working on. Jeff leaves the stage and the Mill erupts in applause. I go to him as he speaks with some other young people and I thank him again for coming to the radio station, but I shy away from telling him how much this visit to the Mission Creek festival means to me, so I shake his hand and walk away.

In my mind, we as a people can visualize the solution for these tired old problems, in fact, it may already be written on the board in front of us, but we’re still writing the equation, checking our work and perfecting the proof that this is the solution for the world we want and the world we can have, and then, only then, may we write QED.

****

9:45 PM

GABE’S: How To Dress Well, Maids, Jack Lion

The walk from the Mill to Gabe’s is brief but a welcome bit to myself to clear my head in the cool spring night. Well, I don’t have that much space to myself, with the horny hordes of loud, harassing underage drunks that this town robs twice, first with tuition and then with the revenue from their arrests. Some weeks in Iowa City, the streets are more crowded on Thursday nights than Friday or Saturday, and that’s because of the mug club at the sticky-floored, piss-stained and bug-brained sexualized sewer-pipe of an establishment known as Brothers Bar And Grill, a name I take issue with because what does the name of the bar even mean if “brothers” is plural and there is no possessive? It’s like calling it Men Bar or Women Bar. Will I find plenty of brothers there, albeit none who take ownership of this place? I mean, I suppose I understand if none of the titular brothers desire to claim ownership of this bar, because it is, after all, a massive fire hazard of flammable egos and libidos with cheap, watered down drinks. This is where you go in Iowa City if you want to get away with drinking underage. The bar all but encourages it in language, but certainly encourages it in their demeanor. Hilariously, the Brothers Bar won’t let you wear sweatpants, basketball shorts, or baseball caps to this place, which is probably the sole reason the men at this bar are not wearing sweatpants, basketball shorts, or baseball caps, but instead my grandpa’s golfing attire, which, while stylish on my grandpa, makes these men look like they’re all attending the same barbeque, or maybe regatta fish-fry due to the amount of polo’s, boat shoes, and tiny shorts, but then again, the sailing motif may be a reflection of their love for Captain Morgan rum or the cheaper, equally disgusting dorm-variant Admiral Nelson. There’s also a fair share of women at this establishment, but if they’re smart, they go in large groups and form a human wagon circle to keep these buffoons from pressuring them into the poor decision of recognizing that they are made of matter and exist in space and time.

I wade through the sea of awful people on the streets and I arrive at Gabe’s a little early. This gent’s on the list and I see MJ, my friend whom I mentioned in my previous columns and produced the Amen Dunes show. He is also producing the How To Dress Well show. I also saw him briefly last night at the Ne-Hi show, as he had been hopping between the different venues. I grab a beer, something citrusy on sale and 7% alcohol by volume that I immediately regret purchasing, and I walk to a booth and meet the band Maids. Nice guys, Danny and Micky. I had run into them at KRUI after Jeff Chang left, as they were being interviewed on air as well. It’s a reunion of sorts, but this time we have a proper introduction. I’ve not heard them but I’m excited to tonight.

I walk upstairs to the second floor stage. I take a spot along the sides of the hall, where there is a convenient, wall-long table I can use a flat surface for writing. Jack Lion’s playing first, and I love their ambient electronic jazz. I would rate their performances as some of my favorites in the local circuit. They’re a three piece, and their songs travel very far with just bass, trumpet, synthesizer, and drums. Jack Lion step on without fanfare and the drummer, Justin, an energetic, restless fella whose paradiddles have charmed me before, goes headfirst into the first song as Drew the bassist plays some keys while Brian on trumpet puckers up and layers his horn’s long notes in echo. Brian’s an interesting trumpet player. Most trumpet playing I’ve heard is upfront and loud with a flurry of notes, but Brian plays long, brooding notes that shift the moods of a song. It works very well in their dynamic. Brain’s trumpet Drew’s bass work like the air around Justin’s detailed, eager drumming. Haven’t really seen anything like it. It’s as if they’re flirting, perhaps teasing with chaos.

The next song Jack Lion plays begins with intermittent noise, perhaps field recordings of what sounds like a gutter emptying rainwater onto the pavement in a downpour. It’s chopped up into something danceable, and the band plays around the watery sounds like glass around an aquarium and keep this liquid song under control and talking about an aquarium, the best accessory for the are the newest glowing aquarium deco for any type and style.

The transition between songs could be compositions on their own, in fact, for all I know, they are. I’m writing in darkness again, and I can tell deciphering my nonlinear scribbles will be extra difficult. I’m not writing from the trenches at the Somme, but it’s still pretty damn tough to transcribe the experience. Suddenly, Drew takes his hands off the bass guitar and sings some echoed words into the microphone. Until tonight, I had known them as primarily instrumental, or at least without human voice, and now, obviously, they’re doing something different and upending my expectations of them. Drew’s words are chopped up in a live sample and looped into something upbeat and catchy. Drew focuses on his bass playing and the band proceeds to work around the garbled recording of his voice. I compared playing the modular synthesizer to watching someone troubleshoot a VCR at a desk, but when Jack Lion plays, it is watching scientists testing different ideas in a lab. There must be science to this music. A word comes to mind, “orbital.” I wonder how much they’re thinking during their set. It sounds so natural, but I can see them counting to themselves and gazing at each other for cues.

I go to the bar at the opposite end of the hall from the stage and buy a PBR after finishing the pint of terrible citrus beer. I am convinced that disgusting beer was poisoned and an attempt on my life. I go back to Jack Lion and let them take me on an interstellar jazz odyssey as I sink the PBR down my throat. They finish their set and I owe that band more words than I can pronounce in order to properly appraise their skill. I finish my beer and walk to the bar to order another PBR. I notice a woman, perhaps two decades my senior. She’s a locally based writer and somehow involved in Mission Creek Festival. I don’t know if she remembers, but two years ago, on my twenty-first birthday, I put some cash in the Foxhead jukebox and asked her to dance. MJ was there with me, and being the popular guy he is, knew her from his work with Mission Creek. He did not transmit this or his discomfort to me that night, so when I asked this woman and her companion to dance with MJ and I for my twenty-first birthday, they obliged.

“Here’s how you hold a woman,” I recall her saying to me as we danced to some old waltz.

MJ hates it when I bring this story up. Maybe his dance partner wasn’t as fun or maybe he’s embarrassed to have danced with people he works with on a part-time basis at two in the morning on the drunken encouragement of a newly legal fool, but either way, his embarrassment is understandable.

Anyway, she’s at the bar. Last I saw her, she had a kid in tow at a reading. I leave a lot of stuff out of this column, believe it or not, and past chases have been ill advised at best and for once this is apparent prior to my first step in the wrong direction, so I keep to myself, remembering the dumb stuff I’ve done in Iowa City and smile. I walk back to the stage area and Maids has begun setting their equipment up. A laptop on a table with a white cloth like an alter is stage left while a microphone with a sequencer is stage right. Danny and Micky are on stage adjusting the monitor volumes with the sound guy.

“Hey, we’re Maids,” they say.

The band initiates the first song and the subwoofers overwhelm me with bass. Christ, those subwoofers. Suspicious smoke fills the air from an unknown location and synthesizer arpeggios surrounds the crowd in the darkness, except for the lights on stage, which, from my estimation, is every light they had in stock at the nearest Party City. The lights color everyone in front of me with unnatural colors and it’s more or less bioluminescence. More bass bombards the crowd like a WMD and Gabe’s shakes so much I question its structural integrity. I’m standing at the midpoint of the venue a bit to the side and my nose is vibrating so much from the bass that I scratch it vigorously. I never understood why they say “drop” in reference to the bass kicking in at a certain point in an electronic dance song, but I think it’s because the power of the subs will make you feel as if your intestines are going to drop out of your ass, or perhaps because your nose hair shakes so much it may drop out of your nose and form a mustache on your upper lip.

Danny, the singer, modulates his whispered voice through a few effects so the repetition of his lyrics sounds more and more abstract, dehumanized. I try to focus on the repeating lyrics but again, that bass is overwhelming me so much I consider taking cover. It is cool, sure, but I doubt the only other people who experience this kind of personal earthquake are astronauts riding out the friction upon reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, and those people take very good care of themselves while I live lavishly for a university man, eating buffalo wings and burritos and drinking beer as if there’s an imminent embargo or shortage.

“What’s up? We’re from Des Moines,” Danny says into his microphone after thanking Jack Lion.

I start to come around to their variation on subwoofer music. The second song starts with some false guitar and slap bass. I think Prince when I hear it, but maybe because of its modern sense of retooling I don’t hear the famed Twin Cities Sound, but something particularly Iowan, and I dig it. People better start dancing. I decide to start, and by the end of the set, I’m a little sweaty, thankful for their appearance and converting me to the cult of the bass.

There’s a lot of time before How To Dress Well, so I grab a few beers with people and mingle in conversations both equal parts interesting and inflammatory. Lots of moods in the room. There’s a few writers here so I gravitate towards them, as well as a few people from KRUI who just came from the Freddie Gibbs show, a show, which they tell me was filled with flying beer and an insane contact high. I corroborate this testimony with a certain bar owner, and we toast to a good time tonight. Other people I speak to attended the Real Estate show, and they affirm my belief that while capable, Real Estate might be just too chill, but overall, their show was enjoyable.

I head back to the stage area and it’s quite crowded. I can barely see over the sea of heads like mounds rendered black by the minimalist white lighting. From my vantage point, I can see a singer with two microphones and a drummer. Word on the street is How To Dress Well is lacking two members because they had visa problems and are still in Canada, so I am told to lower my expectations of the reduced capacity of the band. They enter the stage, the singer and the drummer bounce deep R&B off the walls and the bass hits me in the gut. Reduced capacity my ass. The singer coos and flies into falsetto at will.

However, some technical difficulties occur by the second song, so the singer pleads for some retro-continuity, a mulligan, if you will, and they play the second song again and the crowd is on his side and they applause madly after the last notes float out of the speakers. I am so far back now that I can only see the singer’s forhead and the drummer is utterly invisible to me, so I take a position in what looks like a private booth already occupied by a cuddling couple I’ve never meet. The table is wet so the outside of my Moleskine soaks in a puddle of beer.

The band still sounds great with a few dozen rows of people in between the speakers and I. How To Dress Well, for me, comes alive when their music reaches its critical mass of volume and emotion, when the singer croons his falsetto into the second microphone outfitted with a hefty dose of digital delay. My notebook soaked, I stick it in my jacket pocket and head as close as I can and dance with the crowd. It’s not the sweatiest dancing I’ve done, but it’s pretty damn close. There’s a lot of yelled conversations with my ragtag group of radio station and writer companions amid our boogying, and I have a good time. The show ends, everyone’s exhausted, but a few companions head down the street for an ill advised shot of whiskey, and I don’t want to go home alone tonight, so I buy a gyro from the food cart and eat it in bed.

Tomorrow I go to see Alex Cameron and Foxygen at the Blue Moose and then Swearing At Motorists and The Sea And Cake at the Mill. Hopefully nothing bad happens at these shows and I have a good time like I did tonight, so until then, goodnight.

****

Again, I let people in the crowd write whatever they want in my notebook. Some of it’s incoherent. Here’s what they wrote, unedited (emphasis theirs):

“I CAN’T SEE A THING” – TA

“LACKING CANADIAN BAND MATES. NOT DRESSED VERY WELL.” – AB

“I’ve been thinking we could do this better” – DH

“What do you think it would take to have the sweet fiber optic cables in Gabe’s in every room I go in for the rest of my life?” – MD

“Just because they say it’s casual does not mean they won’t find you in the crowd and lay their head on your shoulder; tell that shit”-JK

“Joe,

You, my friend are a vision… A daring soul, a wild spirit full of flatbread and KRUI’s golden dude of sorts. I’m Socrates, by the way. Holla if you love Billy Joel!

Keep writing,

Socky, AKA Socrates” – some nice lady who is clearly not Socrates and didn’t write her initials.

“The show was great; Joe was better” – JPC

“Reminiscent of the best essence of Brooklyn. That loose shirt. That grace. That deep spice” – JAW

“OH MY FUCK HE’S BEEN MULCHED!” – initials scribbled out, replaced with “Some Guy.”

“What in the name of SWEET FUCK” – DMM

“LOOK HOW LOUD I HAVE TO YELL!” – BLS

“Frigg off, Taylor Swift!” – JL

“I had fun. I have a separated shoulder” – TK, some guy who dresses… sharp.

The post Joe Goes To Mission Creek: Part Three appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Wednesday, April 1st, 2015

6:26 PM

FILM SCENE: I Dream of Wires

Note: The opinions and ideas in this piece only reflect those of the moron author and not that of KRUI FM or its staff. 

Woke up with slight difficulty this morning, but being a nighttime gent anyway, I get through my day with a steady stream of coffee and a few bags of Chex Mix of the bold, party-blend variety so by the time I reach FilmScene, last night’s crimes and glories stay behind me and I am ready for day two of Mission Creek. I arrive at FilmScene, the local art house cinema and purchase a ticket for the film I Dream of Wires, a documentary about the history of the modular synthesizer. Knowing the great power of FilmScene’s sound system (I saw Purple Rain here last Saturday), I’m pining to hear the waves and saws of Moog’s and Buchla’s through these speakers.

I think back on the synthesizer and all of the bands that use it. It’s a source of both good and evil in music, so I don’t want to see a puff-piece of propaganda that conveniently forgets Styx, Rush, and other evil, historical uses of the synthesizer. I also expect this film to correctly pronounce Robert Moog’s name (it’s mow as in mow the lawn, and then your standard soft g). The audience here is quite possibly the nerdiest I am a part of all week. This is, after all, a screening of a two-hour long documentary about synthesizers at an independent film theater. The only thing nerdier than this event in the festival’s schedule occurs in this same theater, and that’s a live film scoring session by director Jim Jarmusch’s noise band Sqürl. Word on the street is the show sold out in minutes, and unfortunately, my press credentials (funny, right?) could not get me a spot. I will see their rock show at the Yacht Club this Saturday, however.

This film, I expect, will be very, very cool. Before the film begins, Ian MacMillan, also known as Phosphines, opens the screening with a brief overview of how modular synthesizers work. He then shows off his sweet rig and promises us a demonstration. It’s got two configurations: Moog and Eurorack. Don’t worry, I don’t know what the hell this stuff is either, but everyone else in the audience giggles with enthusiasm when Ian makes jokes that don’t register with me. It’s like being a child sitting at the grown-up table. His earnest remarks are refreshing; it’s really endearing to see Ian and these folks in the theater talk shop. I sit back and embrace the opportunity to learn more about this star destroyer control panel that people use to make music.

“This mess of wires has everything you see on a synthesizer: filters, envelopes, noise source, delay; you know, run-of-the-mill stuff,” says Ian. Yeah, sure, run-of-the-mill, I think to myself. Ian’s passion for experimentation, routing this module to that, patching there, patching there, is admirable and what little knowledge I have gives way to me trusting his sheer enthusiasm.

Ian finishes his talk and enters his laboratory, workstation, whatever. He tells us he will play the Moog first and then the Eurorack. The theater lights don’t dim, they turn off completely and the room is dark, except for the lights of his synthesizer. The volume cranks up and the Moog sounds as if the voice of god and a swarm of locusts burst from the darkness and into our heads. I try to scribble notes in darkness and fail spectacularly, so I put away them away and let the Moog absorb me. I think in words: Glory. Galactus. Gargantuan. Then Ian moves to the Eurorack and we descend into hell rendered in bits. I’ve never had a concussion before, but these could both sooth a concussion and induce one. I struggle to endure the barrage of sound and I’m convinced Ian is trying to kill us with the Eurorack. It’s deafening at one point and it sounds like a bottle rocket exploded on a marimba inside a whale’s ass.

Ian ends his set by turning the volume down. Fades it like a pro. The film begins. There is a near-constant visual motif of machinery, knobs, wires, and modules being prodded and poked with hands. The hands on knobs suggest the relationship between man and synth: it is man manipulating a naturally occurring process into music. Obviously, I’m not a scientist, just a hack writer whose work could double as post-bong hit wisdom, but it really is quite something to harness power like that and create truly mesmerizing music that relies on pure sound. It’s potent stuff to hear and to play.

The film introduces us to all the key players in the early days of synthesizers. They set it up like the classic east coast/west coast rap feud, a la Tupac and Biggie, except with probably the whitest dudes to set foot in America after the Mayflower. The east coast guys are squares, led by Robert Moog, an inventor who markets his modular synthesizers to mainstream musicians by attaching a keyboard to it. This runs contrary to the hippies on the west coast, led by Dan Buchla and the San Francisco Tape Music Center, who wanted to abandon old forms of composing (i.e., keyboards) and notation and replace it with experimentation through math and wave science. The film shows the innovations from each coast; Buchla built a board that creates sound by sensing the amount of voltage-conducing skin planted on it. Buchla also invents the sequencer. Each coast released albums that demonstrated their instruments’ strengths: Silver Apples of the Moon with the Buchla and Switched on Bach with a Moog. The mainstream eventually favored the Moog when a few of their salesmen attended the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival and musicians shelled out tens of thousands of dollars for these massive, six-feet tall units.

The film has suddenly morphed into a two-hour pissing contest between men addicted to purchasing walls upon walls of knobs. Of course these guys don’t like the punks. They loathe the punks. In fact, they consider themselves more innovative and basic than the punks because modular synth guys only need one finger, maybe two, to play their instruments. They also don’t care for the synthesizers that most people can actually afford, especially anything built by Yamaha. The knobs motif haunts me. Men have some rooms where it’s just knobs upon knobs. Quite the commitment if your instrument of choice festers across your room like vines or graffiti. And yes, there is heavy Freudian feel when men talk about their knobs like a fetish.

“The 1980’s were a dark time for modular synthesizers,” says the voiceover. Oh no! More men talk about the crappy Casio’s and Yamaha’s that took over the market share. Dark times indeed when regular folks can finally purchase a once cumbersome and expensive piece of technology and play with it on their sofa.

Some later segments of the documentary are actually interesting again, especially when the younger generations get a chance to speak. Dance and house music ends up saving the day for the modular synthesizer, and Dub Taylor expresses his love for the modular synthesizer in a wonderful German accent  with the line “so much bass.”

And then the film relapses back into more talk between gear junkies. People are now building affordable twelve-feet tall walls of knobs. Merry Christmas. I think I’ve learned everything I’ve ever wanted to know about modular synthesizers. Watching someone play one is like watching a guy at his desk endlessly fitting cables into sockets, as if he’s fixing a TV, but never, ever fixes the damn TV and continues pulling out cables and pushing them in elsewhere. What the enthusiasts call “experimentation” looks more like troubleshooting. You also can’t tell if they’re actually playing the damn thing well. You could put an amateur and a professional in front of me and I would not be able to tell the difference. But maybe it’s like fine wine; I’d probably not know the difference between the box stuff and the bottles that gather dust because my palette isn’t as sophisticated, but blindfolded sommeliers, despite their learned tongues, would pick Franzia over some old-ass bottle from Cotes De Nuits.

Parts of the scenes where these people confess their addictions to bulking up their modular synthesizers bears a striking similarity to the TV show Intervention; they explain how they found themselves stuck in a loop of throwing money at a habit they don’t enjoy anymore because they’re searching in vain and in costlier and more magnificent volumes for that sweet high that their first taste gave them, and they just keep subjecting themselves to this torture for years, maybe decades. I mean, do these people ever hit the record button, or do they simply salivate over these machines and the possibilities they provide? It’s depressing. Can one really tell with meaningful precision between this saw and that wave? Really? How much do you think Renoir or Monet deliberated over this or that paint? Eventually they had to paint the damn canvas, and they would’ve painted masterpieces with mud if they had to.

 ****

As you’ve read, this was not a fun experience for me. It’s too long. So is this column. I ended up writing way too much about my struggle to endure this film and in my notes I eventually compared myself to Teddy Roosevelt contemplating suicide on his Amazon River adventure. If I, a self-professed audiophile, am unable to write more about modular synthesizer, then you, dear reader, most likely would not want to read more about modular synthesizer. Moving on.

9:05 PM

THE MILL: John June Year, B Star, Ne-Hi

I arrive late and local band John June Year is on stage and grooving. I’ve seen them before and I’m not too happy to happen upon them now after sitting through that long ass film. I hope they can change my opinion of them. That happens from time to time. The band has all the parts of a solid group. They have good taste in equipment- Vox amplifiers, classic Fender and Epiphone guitars, and they’re sufficiently loud. Handsome men too, and they have great confidence in their mission. John June Year also knows a thing or two about how to manipulate dynamics for emphasis amid repetition. But you see, everything’s there except the nuance. It sounds like a rock band, that’s for sure, but I’m not sure if this band is better when I sit in the same room or when I hear them through a wall. Again, all the ingredients of a good band are right there on stage, and they’re really selling it with their cool, intense yet apathetic faces, but like the film version of Frankenstein, the monster has all the parts of a real man and it’s certainly alive, but the beast is slow, bland, and without much character except bragh! and fire!

These are definitely capable musicians and I’m sure they’re gentlemen, but their shtick, or lack thereof, pushes me to survey Wednesday night’s crowd at the Mill. Right now, a dedicated few stand for John June Year. Friends? I don’t know. I recognize one as a local wannabe punk. Definitely has a shtick: hubris in a goofy shirt. I think he used to live in a dumpy Iowa City historical site where he and his friends would host bands, but really, these guys just wanted to party. The place is legendary, according to him and only him. Ask anyone else, and they’ll say, “oh yeah, that shithole where a few bands played? Yeah those guys are idiots.” They occupied that house last year, and now it seems he is old enough to legally purchase alcohol, because he’s standing there with a PBR in hand, reveling in his awful and contrarian taste. Good. Maybe now that Iowa City’s Finest no longer clobber his cranium with billy clubs and spray his eyes full of pepper spray, he can finally assess the poor decisions in his life that have led him here, standing docile in front of an underwhelming band. OK, I’m being harsh. I’ve not gotten a beer yet. For all I know, these are capable, good people, albeit people with shtick learned not experienced. Johnny Rotten, Nick Cave, Prince, Nicki Minaj, you name them; they lived their shtick, experienced it. You can’t just take the punk thing because it’s cool and flip a switch ON and become a punk. I don’t really know what punk is, but I suspect I know what punk isn’t; it’s not about fighting cops, doing drugs, and making intentionally shitty music. Maybe in the seventies that’s what punk was, but when these guys do it, it looks like a bunch of privileged white dudes acting like children. And to be punk in Iowa City is like being in a reggae band in Omaha, Nebraska; it’s downright idiotic. This is not a city that produces a local counter culture. This is a nice town! What the hell is there to rebel against? Corn? The farmer’s market? The cheap beer? The touring bands you can see for less money and with less people? Things are good here! This isn’t New York City or London. It’s not even Twin Cities. Punk is dead, anyway. Move on and ask yourself this question: Are you here for the music or for the drugs, and which is accessory to the other? Take some time to think about that one.

This line from John June Year interrupts my thoughts: “I know you can’t be seen with a boy like me.” I glance at the source and wonder why someone could not be seen with this “boy” who is clearly a man. Oh, what prejudices deem associating with a white man taboo these days? Perhaps someone would be ashamed to be associated with you and your music? Is that it? Maybe it’s an upbeat song about womanizing during Apartheid, but I fail to see what may have led him to believe that someone in this modern day and age would ever have a second thought about being seen with a man like him. Everyone wants to be a rebel. Twain wrote about the gilded age, when people bought into fantasy and completely missed their own issues. This is the gilded band. John June Year exits the stage and the singer makes one last attempt to sell their shirts, which are now five dollars, a markdown, according to him. A markdown to wear your unfortunate association with this band like a scarlet letter.

It’s an experience like this that makes me thankful for being on the guest list and receiving incredible service from the bar staff. As I stand waiting for another beer, one of the bartenders comes up to me and I wave him away, “thanks, I’m being served!” Then, another bartender walks up to me, “yeah, being served, thanks,” and yet another bartender, “nope, quite alright, being served.”

There’s something about a well-run bar that makes the whole experience feel effortless—drinks arriving just as you need them, bartenders who remember your order, and that smooth rhythm of service that keeps the night flowing. But sometimes, you just want that same feeling at home, without the wait, the noise, or the parade of bartenders checking in on you. That’s where online alcohol shopping comes in. With just a few clicks, you can stock up on your favorites, discover new brands, and even get recommendations tailored to your taste. It’s a game-changer for those nights when you’d rather skip the crowd and enjoy a perfectly mixed cocktail or a smooth glass of wine from your own couch.

Lately, I’ve been exploring different wines, especially canadian red wines, which have been surprisingly impressive. There’s something satisfying about getting a bottle delivered, uncorking it, and knowing you’ve got a quality drink without stepping foot in a store. Plus, ordering online gives you access to limited editions, small-batch producers, and deals you might not find in a local shop. It’s like having a personal bartender, but instead of waving them away, you just sit back and let the good stuff come to you.

B Star takes the stage. It’s a simple set up, a guitarist and a drummer. They shuffle about shyly, adjusting this pedal and that tom skin; make sure the ride cymbal is high enough. Drummer’s got a short kit at his knees. Those always look cool because the drummers who use shorter kits look like they’re only using their elbows. I don’t know what to expect out of this band. They have microphones set up for both members, and the guitarist speaks into his: “Hey, what’s up? We’re B Star.”

He steps back from the microphone and plays a few chords; B minor to G major, or something like that transposed elsewhere. They’re the ones who need to know the theory, and from the onset, it’s obvious they know the theory very, very well. The guitarist plays over the chords, and that’s when I realize he’s been looping and playing against himself. Sure, the layered looping guitar sounds like cooperation, but what sets these B Star guys apart is that the notes he’s playing aren’t quite polite to the rest of the loop. It’s in key, but there’s a bit of irreverence in his notes. They’re not loud, distorted guitar notes, they’re clean, almost sharp tacks emanating from his Jazzmaster’s pickups. It’s beautiful. Using mallets, the drummer backs him up with some light flourishes on the toms and then crescendos into cymbal crashes and aggressively cascading fills. The real musicians have entered the building.

The next song starts with a few polyrhythms layered on top of each other on guitar. I’m reminded of Dustin Wong’s work. The drummer punctuates every root note like a homerun. I’m giddy. The drummer doesn’t seem to cross his arms when he plays. He’s damn precise and full of energy, as if he just turns up a dial on his body and that makes him faster, stronger, and sharper. The music feels like jazz but kills like rock and roll. There is so much restlessness in their playing. Chords and a four-four beat will not satisfy their appetite. Notes, hits, notes, hits. It’s great. Drummer has the right wrists for the job and the guitarist, while not trying to be a shredder or any of that (who want’s to be?), has enough imagination to push these pieces further than most would. Each song unfolds and what do you get, a map? A love letter? There aren’t any vocals, only feeling and groove. And that’s what we’re here for: A good groove.

I can’t stop admiring the drummer’s abilities. He’s got a knack for timing and rhythm that I and many other lanky, awkward people have longed to possess. It’s just so propulsive. However, there is a lot of downtime between songs, and with their songs being so detail-oriented, I can see why: the guitarist tunes feverishly and the drummer adjusts his kit like a NASCAR pit crewman. They’re so bashful about the delay too. All they need to do is get up there and play these songs. We don’t need an explanation. The guitarist deserves a lot of credit too. It really is a partnership for the duo of B Star. He knows how to keep building these complex structures and then demolish them in some vicious strumming, and whatever he’s running that Jazzmaster through sounds fantastic. And just where the hell did he find those chords?

I start checking my phone while B Star preps for another song. Mission Creek’s website is not mobile friendly. I’m taken back into music when B Star continues, and the guitarist strums like a propeller and the guitar nearly falls off his shoulder. They finish. Great finish.

I meet a few new friends. One is a sixteen year old who used his older sister’s coworker’s ID to get into the show. The headliner, Ne-Hi, is spending the night at their place. We’re from the same area in Illinois and he has an impressive knowledge of music and an eagerness that college kids typically drink out of their system by my age, so it’s refreshing to speak with him. He’s here for the week and seeing a bunch of shows, and we buzz about all the shows we’ve seen, which ones were great; this time at the Metro, this time at First Avenue, and so on. He wants to study film and something with more financial guarantees but doesn’t want to be stuck in an office. I end up giving him dubious career advice, because that’s what all the energetic kids waiting for life to happen want. “Take your time,” I say. I do my best. “Do what you really want to do, and then also do what you don’t really want to do but will pay for what you really want to do” is the gist of what I say to him. He nods, and goes about his night.

Ne-Hi takes the stage. There’s a drummer in back, a bassist front and center with two guitarists flanking him on either side. The band plays their first song and the guitars flirt with each other as the drummer keeps his distance. It’s not time for him to play yet. The bassist keeps it simple as the guitarist, stage right, sings and then howls. The song, upbeat and in top gear, breaks down at half speed and splashes like waves over a shore, but the band remains steady in melody and occasionally enforce a spastic syncopation. The crowd dances in that disaffected way that cool kids dance, and I’m reminded more of the ocean. The band makes waves, and the kids absorb and sway to them like seaweed. Not so much tsunami as it is high tide. Hopefully, Ne-Hi’s songs will register on the Richter scale soon, because the crowd still has a shell of self-consciousness they need to shed to really get down and boogie.

This is a good, tight band with lots of promise. Now the guitarist stage left sings. He has a haircut I’ve never seen before, but I imagine it fitting in well on the set of a Mad Max film. He wears it well and it doesn’t keep him from rocking the Mill. Again, I’m thinking of waves while they play. These waves don’t feel like the sine waves from a synthesizer, no, these waves feel like waves you could surf on. I don’t surf, but Ne-Hi could convince me to try it out. They’re based out of Illinois, and there ain’t much surfing going on in Lake Michigan, at least not the kind the music requires.

Sometimes, you’ve got to put down your notes and get in the action. So I went and danced with the crowd. Hard to report what happened because being in a crowd like that is a shared experience. My individuality melts away and you become a part of this dancing, marauding horde. The guitarist with the haircut cuts open his finger on the guitar strings and bleeds all over his shirt. Rock and Roll is alive and well.

After Ne-Hi finishes their set, I socialize with them. They’re good people. I try to not get in their way. I also meet B Star, and they’re as pleasant in person as they are on stage. It’s a good, long night, but this guy’s got to get up at eight o’clock antemeridian and go to school. Tomorrow I see Jeff Chang and How To Dress Well. Until tomorrow, or whenever it is I finally post this thing, goodnight.

The post Joe Goes To Mission Creek: Part Two appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Joe Goes To Mission Creek

I, Joe McGuire, host of Joe Goes To College, Fridays 2 PM to 4 PM, have appointed myself the man who must write the one true dispatch from Mission Creek 2015. What follows is an ode, a teen-aged love letter, if you will, to the city of Iowa City and its inhabitants, the Mission Creek Festival, and all the good-natured fun we have. Here it is.

MISSION CREEK DAY 1: Amen Dunes, Delicate Steve, Bull Black Nova.

Tuesday, March 31^st, 2015

7:54 PM

THE MILL

FINALLY! Beer is coming. I can’t imagine a show at the Mill without beer. Apparently there’s no beer at the KRUI Pizza Party because it’s a university-sponsored event. It’s never fun being in denial; I mean the University of Iowa is, by some estimates, the premiere party school. The only booze the school pays for is served to the haughty people (i.e., donors) in Kinnick Stadium’s private boxes. Good for them. The university-sponsored event is over and so begins the opening salvos of the tenth Mission Creek festival.

A lot of the radio station folks are here tonight, and they look marvelous. As the rest of the Cool People in town shuffle in, the remnants of free pizza are carried away and out come the pints. This week is young and full of promise. My friend MJ, who is producing the show, assures me the bands are great. I’m excited, but I’ve not done any research. Not a single listen on Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud – nothing. What little research I have conducted concerns the Mill’s drink specials. Tomorrow is payday for all of us at the radio station, so if I spend my cash strategically, thirty dollars should be more than enough to cover my lavish taste in tallboys until midnight, but historical data suggests otherwise.

The gang and I move outside and sit on the porch by vines and under what little sunlight remains. Some people need to smoke, so they move to the alley. It’s beautiful out. The low sun’s heat reminds me how extraneous my super-sleek jacket is, but no matter, we’re young. This impractical jacket will, hopefully, be the only poor decision I make tonight. The Mill’s patrons look primed for glorious rock and roll and the sweaty, grotesque catharsis that follows.

It’s been a long year for everyone at KRUI: budget allocations, internal bickering, general jerks, hours upon hours of troubleshooting our automation, and not to mention the goddamned HVAC renovations that we blame for every strange noise heard on broadcast. On top of that, the majority of the directorial staff is graduating, so this post-spring break sprint to exodus and maturity is bringing out the rowdier tendencies of even the most reserved directors. This is the final Mission Creek for many of us. For me, it’s been many years of great acts I didn’t see: War On Drugs, Warpaint, Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, Guided By Voices, Magnetic Fields, Tig Notaro. Of course, I constantly question my taste if these are the acts I missed, but frankly, the acts I did see, like Divine Fits, Hannibal Burress, Jason Isbell, and many others I’m forgetting, were easily some of the best shows I’ve attended.

The gang and I walk back inside the Mill. A lot more people have sauntered in since the end of our super exclusive pizza party. We find a booth inside and more beer is poured. This night feels like a reunion but without a graduation or a few years in exile. Everyone acts out motions that, if time and circumstance allows us, will be repeated for years to come. A celebration, I guess.

As for my impending graduation, I would have to deliberately sabotage my incredible (let’s just call it a firm B average) academic record to stay in school. No one can touch me. I’m just coasting. I’m like David Letterman, except I’m broadcasting in my boxers, chomping on a cigar and flipping off the camera every night. That’s how these final days of my college career feel.

The springtime is so intoxicating that beers barely matter. Well, that’s not true. The beers do matter. Anyway, yeah, springtime is intoxicating, yeah, yeah, yeah; we can’t wait for to hear music. You can really feel it, the anticipation in the crowd. Maybe it’s more like a surprise party we’ve thrown for ourselves. Again, it’s been a long year. The first band, Bull Black Nova, could smash their instruments and tell us off and we would eat it up. We don’t care. Everyone is pumped. I’m shivering for some rock and roll. ROCK AND ROLL!

Bull Black Nova takes the stage. It’s a three piece of the classic bass, drums, and guitar variety. I’m still sitting in the booth with other KRUI directors, and it’s not perfect because we are on the right of the stage and the drums are deafening at this angle, absolutely deafening. Despite this, I can tell that these musicians know what they’re doing and they’re doing it quite well. I move to the center of the speaker stacks from my stoop in the wings, a ritual I’ll repeat two more times later tonight.

I do not regret my decision to move to the front. The guitar’s delay frames the tight rhythm section, and sometimes, the bassist steps on a pedal and cranks up the fuzz. Their first song concludes with a slow, ambient comedown that settles like slow-mo debris, except they start up again and I realize that the song has a reprise that elicits a second, albeit more assured, round of applause. The inaugural song of Mission Creek, and it’s a hit.

“Thank you very much. We’re Bull Black Nova from Cedar Rapids,” says the mustached, tweed-flat cap wearing bassist. He tunes his bass silently and says, “wait longer if you don’t like us.” Not a bad piece of stage banter.

Yes, moving to the front pays off. They begin another song. The guitarist’s vibrato vocalizations are charming. He’s got a nice Gibson SG. Cherry Red. He turns on the fuzz for a little, then turns it off and plays a plucked solo in echo while the bassist turns his fuzz on to support the guitar’s gentle lilting. As for the drums, the seemingly Nordic man behind the kit focuses mostly on the toms in a pseudo-military march, and somehow his drumming feels introspective. The vocals from the guitarist resume, and so does the song from the extended instrumental section. It’s impressive. The guitarist closes his eyes as plucks at the strings and coos into the microphone and the bassist grooves as his pointer and middle fingers pulse a steady stream of eighth notes, his legs stomping. The drummer keeps good posture and reach. What more do you need from a drummer? The bassist is clearly the banter man. Their sincerity is overwhelming and the crowd reciprocates jovially.

I sit back down at the booth after a few more of Bull Black Nova’s songs. I sip at a beer. I heard that when one is drinking Guinness, one must gaze to the horizon as you pour it down your throat. I wasn’t drinking Guinness, I was drinking the cheapest beer available, and I wasn’t gazing at the horizon, I was making eye contact with a lady whose face I cannot remember, and I promptly poured the beer intended for my mouth onto my shirt. No one notices. By the way, this is my fourth beer, which means I don’t need alcohol to be an idiot.

My eyes survey the crowd inside the Mill. As with any town, Iowa City comes with local staples; some you cherish, some you loathe. I loathe a few people here. I’ll condense them into one person: A self-righteous veteran Little Village writer who relishes on the glory days of their long gone youth, the great days when some shitty local band was at their shittiest and man, he was there! That ethnography covers a lot of assholes in town, but they don’t all work for Little Village. As a young person in this town, you pray, PRAY that you will someday leave this town of everlasting youth and forfeit your fate of wearing a fedora for the rest of your life and patronizing honest, sincere music fans.

Bull Black Nova’s bassist speaks into the microphone at the end of a song.

“Thanks to KRUI for – ”

“Wahhahahaiaha!!!” I scream from the wings.

Bull Black Nova exits the stage after a rousing love song I hear from the urinal. Well done, boys. I enter the main room again and so commences the changing-of-the-bands. The Bull Black Nova guys clear the stage, wrapping cables around their arms as audience members offer congratulations. The sound guy puts on the song Girl From Venus by Perrey and Kingsley, and no one notices how weird this music is. Seriously, check it out. More people crowd the stage, clearing away amps and guitars, making way for the next act, Delicate Steve. Plenty of ass crack from all parties with every bend and lift.

And after a very quick break, Delicate Steve takes the stage, checking their microphones. I move to the front again, sharing a tall table with a couple. Delicate Steve has a guy on synth, a guy on drums, a guy on bass, and a front man with an incredible pink hat, who walks on stage slightly later than everyone else and picks up a guitar. Unfortunately, he ditches the hat and whips out a slide for his guitar. So, this is the so-called “Delicate Steve.” Go for it, boys.

They rip into something catchy. The crowd shuts up. Drummer does that thing where one hand has a drumstick and the other has a maraca. Impressive. I imagine this is a drummer’s equivalent of rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time. Titular Steve of Delicacy really rips at the guitar. It’s an instrumental that draws the crowd in, most of whom are ready to dance. Steve of most Delicate Handling handles his guitar like a magician and squeals some pitch-shifted leads. Bassist has yellow hat now. It’s quite impressive how far the band pushes a lead guitar lick into something tender then suddenly wild and mesmerizing.

Steve of the Most Delicate Nature removes his outer shell of flannel and reveals a tank top to show off his arms as he riffs more with the slide. What a hunk. I realize how skinny my arms are.

After a few songs, it is evident that their music is mostly instrumental. I respect that. Not easy to capture an audience purely on jamming, especially if they’re not all on drugs. I move back to the director’s table after a few more Delicate Steve songs and observe some of the characters in the room. AJ fights a romantic war of attrition for the sole proprietorship of a handsome gent’s arm and booth. TA and TH drink cheap beer. I see some guy picking up abandoned glasses and cans, draining what’s left into his mouth, as if he found a canteen in a desert. The smartest people here drink water; I mean, it is a Tuesday, after all. Some guy with a man-bun waltzes through with a stoicism I’ve only seen on Ken dolls and GI Joe’s. The optometrists and hair stylists seem to offer only these options to the women in this crowd: Rimmed glasses and bangs.

Delicate Steve shares the synthesizer with a Noel Gallagher lookalike. MJ comes by to check on his backpack. It’s all good. Delicate Steve takes to the microphone for some crowd work, and I cheer like an idiot from the wings. Their set ends and they exit the stage. They kicked some catchy prog ass, that’s for sure.

Amen Dunes begins their set. There are three of them. The main guy switches between an acoustic guitar and a white Gibson SG, and to his right is a longhaired man on the keys. Behind both of them is a slim, agile drummer. They check their mics and levels, and they jump off stage. The music on the PA system resumes. It’s Prince this time. When You Were Mine. What a great song. It’s really crowded now. I feel like I’m in someone’s way. Amen Dunes heads back to the stage and they adjust their levels more.

“We’re Amen Dunes all the way from New York City,” says the front man into the microphone and they play Lilac In Hand. His voice pierces the conversations of the crowd and somehow neither the song nor the crowd disrupts the other. Equilibrium. He sings with his eyes closed, uncaring if the crowd is even there.

The song finishes and people clap. Monitors are adjusted further. He plays an acoustic guitar through a Fender Twin Reverb and it sounds wonderful. The man on his right picks up a guitar and a slide and strums along with the man at the front. For this song, the singer’s gaze focuses above the crowd as he recites his lyrics. It’s great stuff, but the crowd carries on drinking and flirting. I stand at a tall table as a different couple than before makes out to my right. I take a moment to actually survey the crowd. Overwhelmingly and unsurprisingly, it’s white dudes, lots of beards and man-buns. Members from Bull Black Nova and Delicate Steve make small talk and man their merchandise tables. The good people in the crowd watch the band.

Amen Dunes’ set continues and they play well, but people only seem to pay attention to themselves in my section of the crowd. A shame. I heard from MJ that the singer went underground for ten years. Ten years! Forget about that. I can’t go ten minutes without attention. They play on to the dedicated group at the front. I join this group and sway with them. I’m going to listen to their record again when I get home. It’s always a good show when I’m driven to listen to their record after, and Mission Creek is full of shows like these.

The singer is lost in his own dance, which I prefer him to do than notice this self-obsessed crowd and their phones. Stoic man with man-bun from earlier appears next to me and sways along with the music. Maybe he’s OK. Amen Dunes plays their last song and the interplay between the two electric guitars is melancholic, beautiful. Not much to say about that. It’s good stuff. When the singer recites his lyrics, it’s almost as if he’s working through some stuff on stage. Maybe we’re all working through some stuff here. Maybe I’ve had a bit to drink. The girl in front of me struggling to dance the King Tut seems to.

Amen Dunes exits the stage and a great show ends. I make my exit. It’s a good start to the festival. Tomorrow, I’ll be back. Probably going to dial back the intake, however. The band is Ne-Hi. That should be fun. Looking forward to it. See you tomorrow.

****

Throughout the course of the night, I asked some of my companions to write in my notebook about whatever they want. Here are their unedited remarks.

“Delicate Steve is tolerable while we wait for Amen Dunes.” – TA

“Joe is projecting about the hunks because he can’t get over his own hunkiness.” – TH

“120 LBS. OF TWISTED STEEL AND SEX APPEAL. MISSION CREEK OR DIE! MISSION CREEK OR DIE! M.C. OR DIE.” – AB

“We are at Mission Creek and there’s a man wearing extremely blue pants. It’s gonna be a fantastic night/week. MC2K15, KRUI Edition. Hands claps have begun; that’s my cue!” – AR

“Dear Joe,

I have had too many alcohols! I am also with a man that I like both physically and mentally. I love KRUI than my own body, which says a lot. Also, KRUI is the best thing to ever happen to me during my time at U of I. [a doodle of a heart] PEACE + BLESSIN’S” – AT

“KRUI,

What does that mean to me, you ask? Well I say it means heart. You can have a trillion dollars or the hottest wife in the world but goddamn it heart is what matters. I’ve seen to many of my friends die face down in the goddamn mud for this radio station to go down fuck da man, fuck da poliz, fuck dem other fools. KRUI for life, Mission Creek or DIE.

Party on Brethren.” – IB

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