America the loud... in order to form a more sonic union... "O, give me a home/where the Dancing Tony roams..."

I never get stage fright, not any more, but I got the butterflies in the leadup to Let Feedback Ring. Maybe it was residual shell shock, maybe it was my concern that something might go wrong or someone may be unhappy, but I got the anxiety.

I knew it was silly. We'd been on WKNC - eight of us - and the interview had gone beautifully. This was on July 3rd (link to come when sound clips are published). People were excited and plans had cemented nicely. We were a steamroller of Getting Shit Done Right and we were rolling right over the maybes and the I don't wannas. That may sound pretty redneck, but I was astounded by how well things had come together in the lead-up to Let Feedback Ring. The radio show, Grayson Currin's stellar write-up (does that get a hyphen?), a crack squad of flier ninjas... buzz in general was solid.

So I had a pretty easy morning and made it to Sadlack's about 1:00 to get the PA set up and soon it was 2:00 and it was ringing and it was happening. The butterflies turned into badass birds of prey or something (with electric guitars in their talons, etc. Insert your favorite patriotic heavy metal cliche) and I was doing okay.

To see more pictures from Let Feedback Ring go to the myspace. Sana has put up her shots from the show and I know there are others floating around. I'll collect as many as I can so if you have some good shots you can send them to corbie hill at gmail dot com. I'll credit you properly.

Spy Satellite/Where the Buffalo Roamed

Andy and I played the earliest set, honestly, so that no one else would have to. Initially the plan was for other members of Spy Satellite to come down for the set but, with time, we settled on it being a WtBR split set with Spy Satellite material and continued to publicize it as a Spy Satellite set so it wasn't so obvious that I was playing twice.

For the curious, Spy Satellite is a band Andy and I formed about four years ago in Asheville (Andy drumming, Cody and myself on guitar, no vocals). Spy Satellite has continued with a revolving membership (not be confused with a collective. You'll never show up to a Spy Satellite show to find 18 people on stage, half of them with tambourines) so, technically, Andy and I can play as Spy Satellite as we're both founding members. So Where the Buffalo Roamed is always also Spy Satellite but Spy Satellite is not always also Where the Buffalo Roamed.

Anyway, we played for about 40 minutes and it felt pretty solid. Jesse of Once and Future Kings joined us on the tambourine during "Golgotha '98" and Sana joined us on tambourine for "Missouri." We pulled out a pretty heavy Spy Satellite number that, in true Spy Satellite form, was written on the spot. "Perry Combover Pt. II?" "Sword of Santa Claus?" Any of these could be the name of that song.

Andy's drumset sounds fantastic with the new heads and his playing was on point for sure. There was a decent little crowd, even that early in the day. Also: this is the first show in which I've been able to use my new pedalboard! It works beautifully.

Blag'ard

Blag'ard pulled a pretty heroic 4th, in that they played Let Feedback Ring, hung out as long as they could (later than they said they would, which was sweet), and then rolled to Winston-Salem to play a show at Elliot's Revue! Double duty!

Last time I played with Blag'ard (which was also my first time seeing them) Joe hadn't had both amps. This time he packed his Marshall half stack as well. These guys are a seriously punchy band and they play at a healthy volume with the amps pointed in instead of out! It sounds cool as hell, I just know it's louder inside the amp bubble than out and I figure it probably hurts the ears is all.

Right. I wait until now to think about hearing damage?

Anyway, dancing Tony really liked Blag'ard (as you can see in the picture). Dancing Tony hung out at least as long as Free Electric State, I think he drifted off at some point during their set, but he was definitely out in force, dancing and sweating and doing splits with wild abandon. I don't recommend shaking his hand, he will pulverize various bones.

Sadlack's patio has really good acoustics, especially for an outdoor space, and it treated Blag'ard well. I definitely appreciate their approach, which is an evolved pop structure delivered without bells or whistles. Joe and Adam, to put it simply, are good at what they play. They've obviously been at it for a long time, in one band or another, so it's very natural to see them plug in and go to work. Is it reverse punk? Is it Buddy Holly in an alternate universe in which he lived to see meanness and depravity? Is it the spine of rock and roll, the skeleton of all that is loud, the molten core that is the center of all distortion, presented naked and unashamed? Whatever it is, it's Blag'ard and it's really damn good.

Once and Future Kings

I met Rush, Jesse and Matt of Once and Future Kings on the 3rd when they came by WKNC for our on-air interview. Jesse is a recent Nashville transplant, he's been in Raleigh for about a year, whose latest incarnation of this band played their first show at Let Feedback Ring. I'm really glad they did. They really distinguished themselves. The songs are well written and well practiced, it didn't seem like a new band at work.

They definitely exist in the tradition of Radiohead, with interwoven guitar parts, transcendental washes of delay, nontraditional pop structure at its best. There were also hints, and this is rare, of early Muse... way before they sucked (think Showbiz or Origin of Symmetry era). It's tricky, tiny hints of math thrown into a mind rock mix. Great tonalities all around (be it Jesse's vocals or Rush's Mustang) and perceptive drumming that goes beyond practiced tightness.

Somewhere in here I discovered that an old man had taken a shit on the bathroom floor. He was still around later in the night, hanging around with an alligator skin woman who sported bedroom slippers and a cigarette voice that could sink a hundred ships. She'd been on the streets since the '80s, easy, and he sat like a statue with his stained BP shirt and wild hair. Sweet, merciful freedom... to surround me with the full scope of greatness and derangement. Anything else is absence of perspective, is closed-minded, that way lies barbarism. Give me madness and genius in equal doses or give me neither.

Battle Rockets

We played well. It was loud and there were plenty of people out. When we finished we high-fived.

Free Electric State

I get this feeling when I play with Free Electric State that I'm sharing the stage with greatness, like these guys took a night off from their tour with Mudhoney to join us or something. Considering their upcoming B-more show with Polvo (!!!) I don't think this is much of a stretch.

A lot of Durmites, including Paul of the amazing Scientific Superstar, came out. There were some kids around, especially during the Free Electric State set, which gave me the same positive vibes I got when the neighborhood kids came by Duo-Fest to share in the pot luck.

David, the man with the golden SG, has some of the most amazing rock moves I've yet to encounter. He doesn't beat out Jim of Asheville's now defunct Tyrones, but he comes close. He leaps in the air, he scissor kicks, he throws devil horns. It's the most righteous thing and I'd say it's endemic to this band, is the sheer bliss these four get from their music. Shirlé and David are like kids chasing each other with water guns. It's more transformative to Nick and Tony, who're more reserved but very much taken to a very rock and roll place. It's not another planet where they go, it's definitely this planet and it's a place where sound is a tangible thing you can pick up and put in your pocket for later. These guys got a fantastic audience - the audience they very much deserved - and I'm excited to watch where this band goes.

I had my dinner during their set. Sadlack's has amazing sandwiches and I very much recommend their Hawaiian Ruben. That's a fantastic creation. Good home chips too.

the White Cascade

The three Matts of the White Cascade retained some of Free Electric State's crowd and drew some new people of their own. I'd been watching and people were sitting on the wall across Enterprise from Sadlack's watching the show. People were coming by on their bikes and stopping. People could hear it from their cars and I didn't see them but I heard talk that students were out on the balcony of the campus towers across Enterprise listening to the music. This is exactly what I wanted, I wanted a flow of people. People come, go. Some of them return, having told or brought friends. I like microcosms and I wanted Let Feedback Ring to be a microcosm of how music fits into the city. To an extent I mean the mega-city that is Durham, Chapel Hill, Raleigh... to an extent I mean something even more hippied out and obtuse. Maybe I should talk about the music.

I know Guess (we identify the Matts of this band by last name... it just makes more sense) plays in a bizarro tuning but I still don't know how he gets the thick, amorphous washes of sound from something like a Strat! I've looked at his pedalboard and it has the pedals I would expect to see... no Moogerfoogers or anything. Still, he produces swirling weather patterns in which the delay and the original note are easily confused (or lost) and it is only through Cash & Robbins' rhythmic cooperation that it becomes a song.

The way they play music is like this: Matt Guess takes a blank canvas and several buckets of paint. He begins to smear the paint in what appear to be nonsensical patterns and he does so with whatever tools he has at hand (everything from an actual paintbrush to the back of his hand or the bottom of his shoe). While he's going all Jackson Pollock there are two other guys there, Matts Robbins and Cash, who are going back over his smears of paint with sharpies and drawing outlines, defining the shapes and giving them identities. Think of it as a coloring book in reverse.

Goodbye, Titan

The sun had gone away a little and the sky faded to deep blue just over the buildings. Sadlack's regulars were getting drunker and drunker and they populated the patio the same as the music faithful who had reached critical mass at some point during the White Cascade's set. They were still hungry, they appeared insatiable. I think one of them was gnawing on a picnic table in anticipation.

As Goodbye, Titan set up Allen surprised me by playing part of our (Battle Rockets') song "Conflict of Supermonsters." That was pretty dang cool.

Goodbye, Titan got the best reaction of the night. People love them and they have very good reason to. The songs are dramatic, epic, and very well composed. As Rachel pointed out later, they're one of the most practiced bands I play with. These guys are effing tight and people respond nicely to that. Around them formed a little semicircle, showhoppers and toothless alcoholics alike leaning into the deafening wind, the music so loud it is very nearly a physical thing.

"I think this is the first time I've ever seen Tilson serious," Andy said to me.

A song that started its life as "Trench Warfare" has been expanded upon and was the final song in their set. What had been six minutes is now more like eleven, an epic of unbelievable proportions. Cameron brings in a xylophone part during the transition to the new part, which builds to a crushing intensity before finishing in a triumphant cathedral of crunch and feedback.

Then came a moment of beauty. As the other members of the band put down their instruments and walked away, as the crowd shouted for one more, Tilson remained seated and began to play the Star Spangled Banner on his telecaster. Tilson calmly and confidently made a song his own that has been, at least in the rock world, defined by Hendrix for the past forty years. Very simply, Tilson approached the song with humility and even delicacy at moments, tremolo picking through the melody and ending each phrase with a wash of overdrive and delay. Then the indelible finish, the perfect moment, as the first heavy thuds of distant fireworks accompanied the final notes of Tilson's encore.

*****

Feedback rang and there will be another - though not necessarily on Independence Day. This is the kind of thing that can happen several times a year and I expect to book another within the next few months.

THANKS