zrath

So a couple of weeks ago, I went to see Plaid live.
My all-time favorite band is The Stranglers, but my favorite electronic band is definitely Black Dog/Plaid.
Here's a quickie overview of Black Dog Productions and also of Plaid.
(By the way, a French design outfit called Pleix made a bizarre video for Plaid, among other nifty things. Go see!)

A friend of mine from back in 1998, when we both worked at Jobtrak, is a DJ named Hoseh, part of Dublab.
When we first met, he was astounded that a crazy French guy like myself would be into weird music like Autechre, Plaid,
Boards Of Canada, Aphex Twin/AFX, Squarepusher and the like. Then I told him I loved Detroit Techno and he laughed.
We were good friends and traded music information. I listened to his weekly show on KXLU, "Headspace".
After leaving Jobtrak to do production testing for my friend "Spaceman" Fritz, we kinda lost touch.
A couple of months ago, I got on the bus home and ran into Hoseh. He was drunk. Smashed. Hammered. Knackered.
He recognized me, I recognized him, we chatted a bit and exchanged cellphone numbers. I called him a week later and left him
a voice-mail, reassuring him that he hadn't had a drunken hallucination and we had really met on the bus. You never know.
What's funny is that, two months prior to running into him, I was reading a music magazine with an interview of Dntel,
a local emo-electronic artist. There were pictures of the artist and he looked damned familiar. And as I studied the
pictures more intently, it hit me suddenly. It was Jimmy, a friend of Hoseh. He had also worked at Jobtrak back in the day.
Wow, small world.
So anyway, fast forward 4 months, I call Hoseh again and this time he picks up the phone.
And he tells me about opening for Plaid. And he puts me on his guest list. And I start bouncing off the walls.

The gig was at the Natural History Museum Of Los Angeles County.
This is close to USC and on the same city block as the California ScienCenter (where the Star Wars expo took place).
"Und here vee see zee huge bull triceratops engaged in ein life-und-dess struggle viss der tyrannosaurus rex."
The evening consisted of music and lectures and an outfit named Hit+Run doing custom t-shirt silk-screen printing.
The opening band for Plaid was The Submarines, who played what could be best described as Lullaby-Rock (snooooore...).
Jimmy/Dntel was there and DJed before The Submarines went on. He played a few tunes I recognized, and a new one that my
cellphone was able to ID, which is cool because I want to find that tune! Then The Submarines started playing.
After listening to them for a bit, I wandered around the museum, looking at the exhibits.
I checked out the Mesoamerican gallery and examined the artifacts. They felt very alien to me. And evil.
I was overcome by a peculiar sense of dread. I just couldn't relate to these cultures. It was very strange.
Photos: Ullamiliztli? - beheaded Ullamiliztli team captain (snakes symbolize blood, lifeforce) - calendar reproduction

Returning to the central hall, I parked myself in the DJ area, chatted with Jimmy and gave him my business card.
When The Submarines ended their set, Hoseh jumped on the turntables and started off his nifty electro-latino DJ set with
Señor Coconut's cover of Kraftwerk's "Home Computer". The rest of the set was awesome, with at least two tracks by Plaid.
He did all this on vinyl! Just like a real DJ. :)
Photos: Hoseh doin' his thang - Hoseh rockin' the '67 Pioneer headphones. Retro, baby!!
Then Plaid went on.

The sound was loud, the bass was strong, and it's a good thing too because there was a quartet of chuckleheads standing in
front of me who blabbed for half the set. I heard conversation noise but couldn't understand what they were saying.
I could understand doing this on the outskirts of the crowd, but right in the middle of the crowd? With people around them
obviously drinking in the sounds? These morons stood there with their beers and glasses of wine, having some sort of deep
intellectual conversation (or not). They couldn't hear me growl. I dearly wanted to shut 'em up. Eventually, they moved on.
Watching Plaid or any other electronic outfit live is usually not terribly interesting: it's two guys with laptops.
They had a third guy with them who provided visuals, and said visuals were nifty.
The current Plaid album is a CD/DVD combo called "Greedy Baby" and it features the guy's visuals.
(Yes, my favorite techno band put out an album I didn't know about. Le argh. I have to buy it now.)
After the gig, I managed to meet Ed Handley of Plaid and shake his hand, and fanboy all over him. It was embarassing... :)
He told me that they had just scored an anime film whose title translates to "Heavy Concrete". He also said the film was
"quite fantastic". Hmmmmmmmmm, definitely something to watch for...
The gig had ended at 10pm but I didn't get home until midnight. I did stop for a bite to eat at an open-late McDonalds
after my first bus. I had some nuggets and one of those new Angus burgers. It was good but dry, as all McDo things are.
So, all in all, an enjoyable evening and totally worth it.