RVA Noise Fest II, Day Three
Sunday, April 28 at The Nile
Picking back up from our previous installment of RVA Noise Fest coverage, day three (sadly I missed day 2) took place at the Nile Ethiopian restaurant on Sunday, April 28th. I have seen shows there before, and it seems to pick up on the anything goes vibe that was of old Richmond venue Nara Japanese Sushi, which is now the uptown City Dogs.
RVA Noise Fest II, Day Three
Sunday, April 28 at The Nile
Picking back up from our previous installment of RVA Noise Fest coverage, day three (sadly I missed day 2) took place at the Nile Ethiopian restaurant on Sunday, April 28th. I have seen shows there before, and it seems to pick up on the anything goes vibe that was of old Richmond venue Nara Japanese Sushi, which is now the uptown City Dogs.
Starting up the proceedings was The Guild, featuring Jonathan Lee (Anduin, Souvenir’s Young America) on keys and laptop, and Noah Saval (Souvenir’s Young America) wielding a harmonica. It looked like an interesting premise. What we got was big off-kilter beats with a harmonica and copious amounts of delay. Imagine the opening to “The Wizard” by Black Sabbath, but with drone synths and beats. A very hypnotic sound. I can’t wait to see more of this.
I got a chance to chat with Jimmy, the sax player for New Loft, before they went on. He seemed to be down with me suggesting a Slayer-esque song with a crazy sax doing its best Jeff Hanneman (R.I.P.) impression. If Ornette Coleman lived in RVA and played with Buddy Rich on a permanent drum solo trip, you would pretty much have this band. It was loud, abrasive, and totally crazy. Just like life. The drummer used every part of his kit—rims, sides of drums, sticks, stands to make noise with. A few times he gave out really fast fluttering snare rolls into cymbal chokes that Dave Lombardo (legendary drummer for Slayer) would be nodding to. All the while, the sax player would weave bursts of noise and quick legato passages out of the chaos, only stopping to sometimes sputter and spurt. The best part was when he made the sax laugh at everyone. This is how life should be dealt with.
Short Skirts sounded like heavy club pop with light-hearted keys. It was quite bouncy. If The Killers could figure out that they could get by like this guy without having to pay a bunch of mouthbreathers, then this is how they’d sound. Every once in a while the dude would hit a pedal, and it would completely mangle the output into a modulated mess. I really liked when that happened.
Playing almost immediately on the other side of the room was a short set by Genders. It felt like one song that lasted about six minutes. Big sleepy beats like Portishead, with no live instruments save for female vocals that were looped. Kind of trippy.
Male/female duo Miranda had some trouble setting up. Interface issues? I don’t know. Their first song sounded a bit traditional. The male was armed with a guitar, and the female sung high-pitched with a ton of delay. It didn’t work out. The guitar was too muffled while he finger-picked it. After that, the guy begun messing with a synth that built to a zenith of cruddy shit. Like total mixing board meltdown. All channels in the red. All the while, the female member crooned in high-pitched tones that sounded more like coloring than message. It started rough, but ended on a high note.
Nu Depth provided a highlight in the form of performance energy. The set began with a bunch of random noise generated by effects pedals. Somewhere along the way, the dude triggered a house-like beat with an extremely happy vibe and started jumping about the place crazy-like. The crowd seemed to feed off this dude’s energy. They should bottle it and sell it next to those energy drinks in stores. For real.
Another quick turnaround saw Medicinal start within minutes. Bass-heavy hard club beats. Old school Korg synth look, complete with all the patch cables. Good beat mixing. It sounded professional.
Stone Garden Jam Temple consisted of Joe Legzz of Contortionist Jazz Exotica. Stuff was smoking, lights were strobing and some blend of harsh power electronics vomited forth. Bad Vibes Bears at work here. I was really digging it. At one point some kind of tone came through that pierced my goddamn brain. It was a good time.
Closing out the night was Niki, also of Contortionist Jazz Exotica. She performed under the name Kimberly. And the vibes just got worse. A constant single kick pulse at a slow-ass tempo kept the set tribal. She used a bass hooked up to an arsenal of distortion and delay as a microphone, into which ear piercing shrieks where layered. Wolf Eyes came to mind.
I had a really good time watching all the groups ply their respective trades. Even if I didn’t care for what some of them were doing, it was nice to see something different. I hope to remedy my deficit and see all three days next year.
