International Noise Fest

Cost: Free
Things I missed to be there: Nothing, absolutely nothing, at lease not in Florida.

The biker looked to be somewhere in his forties or fifties. His arms were full of tattoos and none of them looked new. Picking his gums with a curved blade, he turned to looked at me. "This shit ain't music...this is noise pollution." I shrugged. "I work on engines all day. Motorcycles. HARLEYS. They ain't half as loud and sound twice as pretty.

My Mom is one out of a litter of seven. When her folks moved from New Jersey to Florida, all but two of their kids followed. Every year since I was born I've taken at least one trip a year to South Florida. Boynton Beach. Boca Raton. Ft. Lauderdale. There's never really anything to do there, and whenever I find something, I end up getting myself in trouble. In twenty-three years I've never seen a good show in the Panhandle. It finally happened today.

I'd like to give a shout out to the nation of Wizards who made it happen. I was talking to Skateboard Dan Demchuk, who happened to be from Florida, and was asking me what I was doing over the weekend. When I told him I'd be in Florida, he said, "That's awesome! [WZRD dj] Rotten Milk is playing a show in Miami this weekend."

The show was The International Noise Conference, organized by To Live and Shave in L.A.'s Rat Bastard. Nobody could tell whether or not the name was a joke, or just ambitious, as there weren't any performers from outside the country. It took place in this fantastic dive bar Churchill's in the middle of Little Haiti. Churchill's was everything that places like Exit could be but aren't. It wasn't trying so hard to look all punk as fuck. It was just fun (after lookingitt their piece of shit website, I was more than hapilly surprised. It claims to be an authentic English pub. I'm willing to believe it, because outside of the red, black, and white facade and the burnt out double-decker buses in the parking lot, there wasn't a damn thing in the place that was English, and I kinda doubt that a traditional(e) English Pub would be as Anglocentric as the ones you'll see in Lincoln Park.

The front room was bright, too bright for a bar. It looked like it had once been a diner and had been shut down and incorporated into the rest of the bar, which was dark and wonderful. There was a bartender who was beautiful. An Amazonian I couldn't look at directly for fear that she was reading all the disgusting thoughts in me. She had a tattoo hat started in her cleavage and went...somewhere. From what I could see, it was just two curved lines that formed a mock shadow, making her tits look even more pronounced. There were two well-stocked jukeboxes in the front, and one out back but nobody played anything but the Clash. Fenced in, behind the bar, was another bar. Every surface was tagged with big murals. Most of them were new, and done in a spray-can anime noir style, one was an old, hand-painted New Orleans piece full of joyous, dancing skeletons.

I got there at around ten and the show was already half-over, which is fine by me cause ten-plus noise acts in a row is more than I could tolerate on even the best days. As far as I can tell, this was what I saw:

2:00 - Dynasty (Providence RI)
1:45 - Otto Von Schirach
1:15 - Can't (Boston)
1:00 - Taiwan Deth (Nashville TN)
12:45 -Temple of the Bon Matin
12:30 - Projexorcism (Asheville, NC)
12:15 - Heart2Heart (Providence RI)
12:00 - Leslie Keffer (Athens OH)
11:45 - Mouth Pet (Nashville TN)
11:30 - Brian Miller & Kevin Shields (Los Angeles)
11:15 - Donna Parker (Boston)
11:00 - Unicorn Hard On (Providence RI)
10:45 - Social Junk (Baltimore)
10:30 - Newton (Philadelphia)

The show was everything you could expect from a good noise show held at an actual venue with a license to worry about. Wires snaking in and out of mysterious directions, battling reels of 8mm found footage, homemade clothes and percussion, on-purpose ugly people with terrible haircuts and body odor*, animal costumes, headaches, etc.

From what I can tell, I got there just as Valerie Allen was finishing up some droney vocal stuff and Newton was starting. Newton's set consisted of a guy in a bee costume beatboxing what sounded like the soundack to a Darren Aronofsky film about strangling puppies.

The highlights of the night (for me) were Social Junk and Temple of the Bon Matin. They were both fairly jazzy noise bands. Social Junk brought as big a ruckus as I've ever seen done with an amped clarinet. Temple of the Bon Matin reminded me a lot of Lozenge, percussion-wise. They had a number of huge pieces welded together that they played wiyh intense, pounding synchronicity. I think I veer towards more traditional bands at these kinds of shows. It seems to me that, unless you're a genius or a savant, you can'd do anything with electronics that I would classify as anything other than cool. There's just so much more that a number of musicians working together can do.

Some other notable acts were Brian Miller and Kevin Shields. Brian wrapped tape from person to person around pipes, merch tables and light fixtures before starting a ferocious pit and attempting to destroy everything on the wobbly table his kit sat on. Their songs ended whenever the power strip got knocked loose and started as soon as they could be plugged back in. Donna Parker sang over a repetitive beat, something that bordered on trip hop. She did some beautiful stuff with her voice but I couldn't understand what the shit she was saying. Her act was this shy/coy sultry geek spazz thing. It's probably a good thing I couldn't hear the lyrics. It's cynical to say, but I can't remember the last time I heard a good lyric in concert.

There was one other thing. Shuttle Lounge. Shuttle Lounge was the band playing the outdoor patio. I needed them. In their first set they were for funny looking guys, think a guy who looks like a skinny Jeff Lebowski, a guy who looked like Don Ho dressed up as Elvis for Halloween, a guy who would've been a shoe in for the Fat Boys if they wanted a Mexican, and a quiet bass pleyer who looked like Deepak Chopra's younger brother. They played country and rockandroll. The mexican guy came on to every girl who walked in front of him and flashed the "Have A Nice Day" tattoo on his ass for anybody that put a dollar in his pocket. They played a lot of funny songs and a lot of classics. I lost my shit when they played a straightforward country version of the Outkast song "Caroline" from the Love Below (later they played "Hey Ya" though, and it sounded a bit too Weird Al for my tastes. I would've left a few hours earlier if it wasn't for them. I needed the melody and the humor to break up the monotony of noise noise noise. What can I say? I'm weak. At least now there's one place I can go to the next time I'm in Florida,