Monday, October 3, 2016

Failure Cock, Cafe Colonial, Nor Cal Noisefest XX, Sacramento CA; 10/2/16

At a certain point during last night's Nor Cal Noisefest program (incredible!), my old pal Charlie leaned in and asked me, "...how can you tell what's good or bad...?" Fair question, my friend, and I've been reflecting upon it. Noise is inherently something NOT liked, even to the point of repulsion. It strikes me that these kinds of considerations are very subjective: a Noise act that one likes may not be liked by someone else. Ultimately, it's good if you like it or love it, and bad if you don't, I guess.
All that said, I certainly like a lot of the Noise/Experimental acts that I see in Sacramento for Nor Cal Noisefest, and obviously like playing with Failure Cock. If others do or don't, I can't say that I really care. That's their choice.
Eli Pontecorvo continues to add his low end bass vibes to our sound, this time playing two basses simultaneously. This start was according to a loose "set list" that we had cooked up in the preceding months, practicing whenever we could. He created a cool loop to start out, after which horns, looped guitar from Scarp (very cool pachinko sounds!), and dry waterphone and electronics were added.  We carried on with this for about ten minutes before some taiko-style drum jamming commenced. That part seemed to be the most emotionally heavy and pure, at least according to Eli. From there, we brought things down and ended as we started, with Eli strumming along to his low end loops. I sweated enough to feel somewhat drained.
Again, I have no idea if people liked our Noise or not. I just know that I enjoyed making all of that racket with Scarp and Eli, as usual.

Below: "set list" and Failure Cock dudes

Many thanks to Lob, the Nor Cal Noise Fest Crew, Das and Ninah, and all those that paid attention.




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2 comments:

  1. UnknownOctober 4, 2016 at 7:44 AM

    I caught the end of that set, walked in during the Crash Worship Drum freak out! Loved the energy. That's probably one of the better questions I've heard from someone outside of the scene, other than 'What is this!?' or 'How can you listen to this!?" I suppose it takes an acute sense, as with any kind of music to discern what's good or not good and of course beauty is in the ear of the beholder. I think the real question would be what is or isn't genuine...there are acts that just go through the motions or are new to it and want to jump on a perceived trend or want to be different just to be different etc. or they bring a big pretentious trip into it, not so much at NCNF but in the 'scene' in general.

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  2. Mark Pino On DrumsOctober 4, 2016 at 4:14 PM

    Charlie loves Blues music. I wrestled with my myself, trying to find an answer, and this one is the best that I could come up with. Noise Music still seems to be to some sort of "Last Folk Music", in that anyone can do it, and it's still pretty broadly interpreted. I hope that Failure Cock does not seem pretentious. We love what we do. Saw Crash Worship at least three times!

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