Another last-minute night out last night - this time around we headed out for Bassline Pressure at the Record Bar. This is a fairly new night in town, and one of the first to consistently feature dubstep.




In the United States, dubstep is a relatively unknown genre, even among those who are somewhat involved in other electronic genres such as house or techno. The sound is probably most familiar to drum n bass, downtempo, and minimal techno specialists, but dubstep itself has managed to side-step compartmentalization in its development over the last several years. It’s not overwhelmingly fast, it’s not built on the standard 4/4, and honestly, it’s pretty gloomy music overall. Dubstep dance floors are as equally welcoming to head nodders as they are to hip-shakers, but fashion and bourgeois attitudes haven’t forced their way into this scene just yet.




Sharing a similar trajectory to hiphop, dubstep was born from a cross-pollination of music found in the streets. The Jamaican-bred dub reggae’s understanding of intra-compositional space in the mix, and usage of the studio and extensive effects processing as instrumentation instead of augmentation are key elements in both. Whereas hiphop looked to disco, funk, soul, and RnB breaks for rhythmic inspiration, dubstep took the evolved results – UK garage, drum n bass, downtempo – and combined it with the futuristic man/machine palettes of Detroit, Berlin, and Cologne.




What dubstep is tonally most known for, though, is the seismic sub bass. The bassline in dubstep is king – the low-end of each song becomes a signature mark of the producer’s ability. While the “wobble” has changed constantly since the sound’s emergence earlier this decade, it’s remained a constant, identifying force since the beginning.




So here’s where we get to last night. I appreciated the Record Bar hosting the event and Bassline Pressure’s introduction of the sound to a wider audience. The real stars of the show though were Ces Cru, the night’s special guests, who ably rapid-fire rapped over what is undoubtedly a very difficult style of music to ride on, given dubstep’s monstrously twisting basslines and often unsyncopated rhythm lines. I would be interested to know how much of their set was planned and how much was freestyle, but either way they kept the whole process moving forward and interesting.






Visuals were also provided as well. They were kept abstract and metamorphosing for most of the night. It’s always a nice touch when a crew provides some eye candy for those of us on the floor.




To the tunes - it is important to note that, of all electronic genres, dubstep especially should not be run through the house sound mixed like an indie rock or even a hip hop show would be – especially when vinyl is in play, as thankfully it was last night.




The frequency emphasis of the sub bass is, as I mentioned, far and away the most important aspect of the sound. It guides everything – rhythms, pads, samples, everything - are built on top of it. When, sonically, only the higher levels of these low-end frequencies are being pushed through house monitors more accustomed to broadcasting midrange-frequency Fenders and Marshalls, the result is, and sadly was, a muddy mess.




I ran into a similar issue a couple of weeks ago at Crosstown Station when one of the original dubsteppers, Hatcha, did a dj set. I fully expected to feel the bass in my guts as I was walking up to the building, and I had the same expectation last night. On both nights, it barely registered even when standing directly in front of the speakers. I’ve spent more than enough nights both in and standing outside of buildings with both proper and DIY soundsystems, and needless to say, that low end can and should be physical. It’s palpable. What I don’t understand, and what ultimately frustrates me is the question of why one-off nights of local djs in a dirty warehouse in the bottoms can get their hands on – and properly calibrate – a soundsystem so that it shakes the walls and can be heard a couple of blocks away whereas a legit venue at a night being put on by professors of a sound seem to come up short?




Worse off, in both nights’ case, this was an intermittent (albeit constant) issue. Some times, the wobbles pulsated at frequencies that, while not perfect, were at least acceptable. Other times, they were barely discernible from the rest of the soup they were mashing around in. I’ll give credit to both Hatcha and the Bassline Pressure djs that they know how to operate a standard dj mixer – the bass eq’s are pretty standard across the board there. So why the variances?




Both nights were using the house sound systems – again, perfectly fine if you’re running a mic’d Marshall stack that can itself be adjusted for both volume and EQ. This is different though – at the very least, there should be plans to hire in some subs next time around. They are going to need something more than house sound to replicate what’s printed on the vinyl, and to separate those frequencies out of the way via crossover, allowing the mid and high ranges room to breathe.




While I do think the promoters and djs have a hand in the quality of sonic presentation, there is ultimately a heavy weight of responsibility on the Front of House sound mixer. I don’t know whether either night provided its own FOH guy. Not to say just anyone can do it, either - it’s a little more complicated than setting the EQ’s on a car stereo, and, much like DeNiro in Jackie Brown, a lot of places don’t like “other people” touching their levels. I go back to the fact that dubstep is not a widely known genre – how easy would it be to mix a show featuring traditional throat singing?




At the same time though, frequencies are frequencies. Keep the sound clean. As the sponsors of the night, I expect the djs and promoters to know how their records are supposed to sound. If they are pushed to the red on their limits as to what they can change, then attempts need to be made to have it rectified at the main mix desk. While Ces Cru would appear to be the main “focus” of the event, and indeed, their vocals were more upfront in the mix, the cloudiness of the struggling bass made it difficult to do much more than follow along with the cadence. A better separation of the tonal ranges would have allowed much more clarity all around.




What’s the point of all of this then? I honestly had a great time. I seriously do love dubstep – it’s one of the most innovative, exciting genres to come along for me in years. It’s everything I love about minimal techno, jungle, tech-house, soul, and dub, all wrapped up in one very community-driven and always-mutating package and dispersed largely by a passionately supportive network. 2562’s Aerial and Scuba’s A Mutual Antipathy are going to be, if not my #1 and #2 albums of the year, then top-5 easily. Burial has taken #1 for me each of the last two.




The point here is that I want the next events for both Bassline Pressure and Lotus Camp (who threw the Crosstown Station event) to be even better. I want it to sound better. I want more attention to be paid to how this music is supposed to sound, and I want acknowledged responsibility for that to be placed on those who are the playing role of stewards for the night – the dj and promoter. Work these issues out with Front of House early in the night. Soundcheck and warm up your set-ups, just like a band. Know that your sound is not a typical “electronic” sound, and most definitely not anything like any rock band’s – allocations are going to have to be made for huge low-end to get its due, and for the rest of the range to stand out and be heard as well.




All of these issues may have gone entirely unnoticed by most people in attendance last night – it seemed like everyone was having a great time, and again, I think this was largely due to Ces Cru’s performance. I go back again to the factor here of the relative foreignness of dubstep – again, how many people are familiar with the sound, of its intricacies and its native environments? Where is, pardon the pun, the baseline for comparison? This is what is being established at these introductory events.




If appreciation of the sound is to grow and expand, then it must be presented in its truest form. It must be respected and not shrugged off indifferently. I want to come back, I want to give you my money for giving me the opportunity. In return, I want music I love to be clean and clear, to resonant in my body and my soul. This is what separates the passionate from the bystander. We are your intended audience.









While we were at the Infoshop on Saturday night, we met Drew, who we’d recognized from the Teeth Mountain show a week or so ago. He invited us to the first show at Haunted Hills, a new house venue. He was even kind enough to hand-draw a flyer for us so we’d have all the information we needed:




After having gone to as many shows in the past couple of weeks, we weren’t sure we were going to make it. As the evening wore on, it seemed less and less likely that we’d be heading over to see Banana Bomb, Stress Ape, and This is my Condition – but thanks to a nap and a couple of scoops of ice cream we found the energy to head over 71 to the house.




We arrived a little early and spent some time talking with John Paul and Rachel, who had both been at the Infoshop the night before. I realized that, for a lot of people – myself included – this weekend was serving as the end of summer, with classes beginning the next day. This seemed an appropriate send-off to the season – half a bottle of wine, some new friends, and an interesting mix of genres playing on the house record player, including a side of Esmerine’s Aurora.




We headed downstairs to the basement where This is my Condition’s Craig was setting up his drums and guitar. Yes, drums and guitar. We’d been meaning to catch the one man band, who’s often joined by Dan Kozak on variations of the saxophone, for quite some time, but it had just never worked out. We spent a few minutes talking with both Craig and Dan, and learned a bit about Coleman Hawkins and his history in the St. Joseph/Topeka area.




The side bedroom was, by this time, full of instruments. A cheap Casio keyboard was hooked up to a Boss multi-effects pedal, a Mooger Fooger, and several other assorted boxes. Jonathan, aka Banana Bomb, told us of his plans to build a light-effect rope that re-acted to low, mid, and high frequencies – and it was pretty clear he intended on putting on an interesting show.




Banana Bomb’s set was a surprising mix of noise-drone and dub, with heavy textures sent looping, reverberating, and distorting around impromptu vocal shouts and live trumpet. A crowd request for a Misfits cover garnered the first few lines of “Last Caress” to spill into the thick stew, the mobius-loop of vocals running headlong into the scattershot drum beats of the cheap MIDI drumpad at Jonathan’s side.




Chicago’s Stress Ape had scared us a bit when we were checking out their Myspace before the show. We were pretty sure we were getting into some terror-core and might get our faces ripped off or something along those lines.




Not to say these guys didn’t mean serious business, but the reality was that the four-piece roared through a set of post-hardcore grooves that had the room jumping and dancing almost immediately. When you replace guitars with a Casio keyboard run through a dozen or so effects pedals, you are bound to end up at least a little on the funky side. With both bass and guitar pounding out rhythms and the singer laying into every word or scream, it came together in a powerful, visceral package that was impressive to see.




Last up were This is my Condition and Dan Kozak. Craig plays a fairly standard drum rig with a beat-up electric guitar lying over the audience-side of the snare and tom in front of him. He uses his drum sticks to either hammer on the four strings on the guitar, or uses the sticks as a slide. Couple this with a loop pedal and, while it sounds like an inviting recipe for sonic disaster, in the hands of a guy who obviously knows what he’s doing you’ll get a very well-put together of set of songs. Add Kozak’s freeform avant sax (and occasional duck call) playing over the top with the duo’s sense of humor, and it was an outstanding way to wrap up the show.




The benefits of standing shoulder to shoulder with ten or twelve other passionate music fans in a 12×12 room are hard to relay if you’ve never been there – outside of the last couple of weeks, it’s not something I’ve experienced in a long, long time myself. It’s been refreshing to say the least to be involved in these events and to meet new people who are not concerned about fashion one-upmanship, societal posturing, or degrading others around them in order to feel better about themselves.

We got a late tip that Austin’s Harlem was playing at the Crossroads Infoshop. We were headed out to the Ethnic Festival at Swope Park for the first part of the evening, but once we were able to verify that the show was happening at the Infoshop and not at the apparently shut-down Charles Mansion up north, we headed over.




The first band to play was Witch & Hare, who we’d just seen open for Sic Alps a couple of weeks back. The crowd this time around was closer and more enthusiastic for the four-piece, and I think this helped them quite a bit. They fed off of the excitement of the tightly-packed audience, working through their set with more energy than we’d seen in the earlier show.







This sort of “skronky tonk” isn’t exactly light-weight when it comes to leaving it all out there – the whiskey-riffs helped propel the band and the crowd into a mess of amphetamine-blues howls.







Next up was Harlem, a three-piece from Austin that has been generating a bit of buzz lately. While the band’s surface is a fairly straightforward drums/bass/guitar indie rock, they reminded me a lot of acts like Catfish Haven or Low Skies – southern rock updated in the post-alternative era and not looking for the mass adulation of, say, Kings of Leon.




We’re gonna try something a little different out here – here’s a video of Harlem’s complete set, minus the first song:




Harlem @ the KC Infoshop, 8/16/08 from benmighty on Vimeo.







We grabbed a copy of the band’s debut album, Free Drugs, on vinyl as well. Gotta say – very happy to see this trend continuing of bands dropping a little bit of money on this format for those of us who are willing to buy it. I can’t run home and put this up on my P2P or torrent site of choice, and I’m fine with that.




Funderstorm followed. I’ve got most of their set recorded as well:

funderstorm @ kc infoshop, 8-16-08 from benmighty on Vimeo.










This was like the collision of The Show is the Rainbow tearing down and the Mae Shi setting up a few weeks back.




Last up for just a few minutes were Visualizer, a Lawrence duo working on dance-punk beats and heart-felt songs about holding hands. They had some technical problems, but were able to overcome those and, ultimately, close out the night with some manipulated disco beats. It’s not every day you get to see a bunch of punk, indie, and anarchist kids break into an impromptu dance party – here’s to seeing more of that happen.







This was the first time we’d been to a show at the Infoshop, but not our first time at the venue itself. A huge thanks has to go out to Chuck Munson for providing a last-minute venue following the closure of Charles Mansion. The Infoshop serves as an important resource in the community, and not just the immediate are of 31st and Troost,, where it’s located, but for the whole city. In addition to the bookstore’s circulating books, zines, and weekly discussion groups, the center also features a theater performance space, the 816 Bike Collective, a community computer lab that’s currently in development, and even an old nightclub buried in the back of the building – not to mention housing for several residents. The building this is all housed in is in need of some serious repairs and if you get the opportunity to stop by and see how valuable a resource this place is, do what you can to drop a few dollars in the donation bucket to help out.

We reviewed Lost Gospels here awhile back - sad news today via the band’s Myspace that they’ve decided to scrap the album they’re currently working on and break up.

Last night was the first time we’d been to Harrison Fort, and the first time either of us had been to a house show in quite awhile. The house is one of several ad hoc venues that have sprung up around the city in the last several years. Most of these shows cater to punk and experimental acts that would otherwise have a hard time finding a show in a “legal” venue.




We arrived around 9:30pm and spent some time hanging out in the red-light front room. It’s a different atmosphere entirely than at a bar – people drift in and out of the room, conversations ebb and flow. We passed around Magic Eye II (I still can’t do those things), and several took turns messing around on the old Wurlitzer organ in the corner.




Lawrence’s Boo and Boo Too loaded in to the basement, and around 10:30 the first swells of guitar began building. One great thing about a house show is that the volume levels are about the same as in a bar – except you’re standing in a 15×15 concrete room with the floor of the storey above you immediately over your head, which increases everything quite a bit.







Boo and Boo Too grew from a five-piece to a six-piece within a minute or two of the first song – four guitars, a bass, and drums. Although they share some similarities (and band members) with CHOMP WOMP labelmates Baby Birds don’t drink Milk, it’s clear that this is a separate project. The songs here are more structured than the pastoral psych-folk of BBDDM. At times, I could imagine that if the reverbs, delays, phasers, and distortion were modified just a bit, some of the pieces could pass for some of the more experimentally drunken-pop moments of classic-era Guided by Voices. The band then took this space-power pop idea further into Slowdive/Catherine Wheel’s shoegaze territory with each song, until finally all six members were thrashing around, beating up pedals and effects, and generally making an awesome noise.




We headed back upstairs, where, after a quick set up, Teeth Mountain began their set. The four-piece was on their way back to Baltimore from a quick West Coast tour aftering having played Whartscape in their hometown just a few weeks back. It was an absolute surprise to see the group booked to play in Kansas City, and they didn’t disappoint. One member manned a guitar, violin, and a mixer; a second played a cello and a bass in addition to a thumb piano. Two more manned a drum rig consisting of several floor toms, a couple of snares, and some cymbals.







The songs built on the dual drummers’ tribal rhythms. Guitars would be strummed, looped, and then layered over by violin and cello, often playing at half-time to the growing beat patterns. The audience made themselves comfortable in and around the band as they moved through their set - each break between movements brought cheering from the awed crowd.







The last band, Terracide, was finishing up a tour of their own, and was on their way back to Minneapolis. We weren’t sure what these guys were going to sound like, so when the four of them started blasting some classic Motorhead-leaning stoner thrash metal, it was a welcome surprise.







Terracide kept a highly socio-political edge in their lyrics, cruising through concept songs centering around topics like future mining spaceship mutinies and characters dealing with the problems of escaping from prison and the ensuing unemployability.







Without a couple of song interpretation introductions, I wouldn’t have been able to get much if any of the stories out of the gruff vocal stylings, but thankfully Stephanie picked up quite a bit, and they included a lyric sheet booklet with their tape. She commented afterward that she was really impressed by their spirit and their political message.







By the way, Gary War was scheduled to play tonight also - I”m not sure if he/they did or not . . . we hung around for a little bit after Terracide but given that we are old, we decided to head out.

This was our first time at Harrison Fort, and while I’m sure we looked like an out-of-place yuppie couple, we didn’t feel uncomfortable or unwanted. The sense among the crowd was of enjoyment of the opportunity to see some interesting music in an informal environment. There is an understanding that this sort of place is ideal for underground, truly independent acts, and shouldn’t be abused or taken for granted. Even the thrash pit during Terracide was mindful of everyone else around it.









Thursday night, we thought maybe we’d end up going to the Pitch’s Music Showcase thing after all. Five bucks, over thirty-five bands, in a handful of nearby bars. But here’s the thing - we looked back over the line-up, and there just wasn’t enough to entice us out the door. Of course, there were a handful of bands that are always enjoyable to see, but there just wasn’t enough . . . edginess . . . in the line-up to get our blood flowing. Ultimately we chose to stay in and save our energy for the following night’s Chomp Womp party at the Bottleneck in Lawrence







Chomp Womp is, first and foremost, a collective. Yes, it’s a label with an impressive and diverse range of bands from the Lawrence/Kansas City area and beyond. Yes, it’s also an onomotopoetic description of many of the bands involved ascribe to. But, as evidenced by the dozen or so people who were already in the Bottleneck when we arrived a little before 8, it’s a collective.

This party was put together to celebrate the release of CHOMP WOMP CHOMPILATION Vol TEW, which you can download in its entirety for free right here thanks to the all-new CHOMPWOMP.COM.




These dozen-plus people weren’t just riding coattails in with band members to get in to a $3 show free. They weren’t sitting around with sullen looks trying to out-ironic each other. What they were was busy. While djs spun a mix of pitch-shifted indie, abstract IDM, and classic soul and R’n'B tunes, Chomp Wompers were busy setting up various backdrops around the two stage areas, preparing vegan cookie tables, and talking with others about a vintage dress business which had its items on display. AstroKitty Comics was set up on a table, selling local zines and comics. KJHK was present with free stuff as well.




Silhouette paintings of dancers were hung on the walls, and the bleacher seating at the Bottleneck was quickly being covered in aluminum foil. Balloons were everywhere, and animal cut-outs were pasted to the floor for a cake-walk that would happen early in the evening.



Here’s a video tour Stephanie put together:










The event kicked off with a video presentation which highlighted the history of August 8th, as well as some of the ideas of those involved with Chomp Womp. The cake walk followed, and then we headed outside for the first act of the evening.




Naomi What? played out on the curb in front of the Bottleneck. These guys kept it simple and fun. They even threw in a cover of Guided by Voices’ “Game of Pricks”.










Back inside, some portion of Baby Birds don’t drink Milk assembled to rock through a set peppered with Breeders covers (”Divine Hammer”, although recognizable and a released single, is still one of my faves) and a smattering of originals.















We immediately turned around to the main floor stage for Beaterbot Pizza Tree, who had also put out some free zines on a couple of the tables around the bar. This two-piece duo consisted of a guy and girl, and I’m not really sure who they were, other than the guy was working in Lawrence over the summer and the singer had driven down from Iowa City for the show. We’d seen the two hanging around the Bottleneck earlier and they just looked like a sort-of indie couple just hanging around a bar on a Saturday night.




Turns out the guy is a freak of drumming virtuosity. Dressed in togas and spandex, the two just made some great free noise, for lack of a better description. This guy’s drumming though - whew. Live breakbeats of the classic drum n bass caliber - good stuff.












Next up was The Armory. This was three-piece punk that was a lot of fun to skank and thrash to.












Somewhere in here things started running together . . . and given that many of these bands were very new to me I’m hoping I’m getting the rest of these right. Bramble Thrash was (I think) the group that appeared to have a few of the BBDDM guys involved, playing a 15-minute psych-stoner cover of The Temptations’ “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch” complete with a warped out fuzzed up sample of the original.







Back down on the dancefloor, Waterfowl Habitat rocked some vocoder-synth jams and got the crowd moving.










And finally, to round the night out, Weird Wounds‘ set was over the top, thrash mayhem. Yes, I am the sweaty guy with his shirt around his head in the video . . .










As DJ Iggy Baby (who also produces as Norrit for CHOMP WOMP) spun more tunes, we headed out for the night. Stephanie and I both remarked that we were really happy with our decision to forego Thursday night’s Kansas City showcase in order to be rested and ready for CHOMP WOMP’s party. There was true diversity in everything done for the event, from the decorations, to the snacks, and, most importantly, to the music. A big thanks to all of the bands and everyone else who helped make this a such a fun, great experience.