[Event Chat] Crushing Death & Grief: Jailbreak + TIME - 14/10/10

Someone like you probably digs the work of Chris Corsano. Well, luckily for you, he's back in Cambridge playing a rare gig with Heather Leigh Murray (ex-Charalambides, Taurpis Tula, etc.) as Jailbreak.
http://cor-sano.com/
www.wishimage.com

Also playing are TIME, a rather lovely new duo featuring Frances Morgan (formerly of Plan B mag) who do an excellent line in glacial, semi-improvised laments.
www.noiseimmemorial.blogspot.com/

Advance tickets from: https://www.wegottickets.com/event/93781

This news causes my wang to engorge with blood

Bigmal is not asking for pictures ;-]

Bot bump.

Ah Yiiiii. Turn this up loud.>>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1M4ss4yIVA

Looking forward to seeing Frances Morgan play finally.

The Jailbreak album is great. Seems Heather Leigh Murray is going without the last name these days.

That is a good point. I shall expunge the Murray forthwith.

I wasn't meaning to be pedantic about the Murray thing, mind. More personal confusion at the shifting labels than anything.

Thanks to ed_xN for the YouTube link to Jailbreak. Despite finding that YouTube is a great place for music, I have a low-bandwidth mentality that stops me going straight there for this kind of thing. I mean, high quality Blood Stereo footage? What next?

looking forward to this. i obv need to get out more, since when have gigs been happening at the corner house?

I got round to watching that video this lunchtime - it's pretty rad.

Now there's 3 turns sorted for this hott evening of contemporary music.

That King Elytron guy who plays in Glass Cello is a cool guy. He also looks like a shorter version of you, Carney. You should wear matching clothes for ultimate hilarity

I always wear matching clothes.

One week today, etc.

I hope you're all going to be in attendance. If not, why not? You can even nip out to Tescos to do your weekly shop between the musical acts.

Any idea of stage times for this?
Cheers

Not sure how long everyone's playing for, so let's make a guess:

Glass Cello - 8:45
TIME - 9:30
Jailbreak - 10:15

Get down early, leave late.

i've yet to hear Jailbreak but this review excites me.

What does it mean when Heather Leigh and Chris Corsano invoke the sacred world of Thin Lizzy? Their sound project, Jailbreak, is named after Thin Lizzy’s 1976 landmark album, Jailbreak, and the album is named after what is arguably the greatest rock song ever created, “The Rocker,” from Lizzy’s third album, Vagabonds Of The Western World. The song titles on The Rocker come from two more Lizzy tracks, “Brought Down” and “Sugar Blues,” which appeared on Shades Of A Blue Orphanage and Chinatown, respectively. As a rabid Thin Lizzy fanboy who, if he had more positive freedom, would travel to Dublin just to sit at the feet of the life-size Phil Lynott statue, I was droolingly excited to see the band invoked on this album. But, seriously, what does all this mean?

Thin Lizzy exemplify the bulging-crotch, bottle-smashing glory days of rock ’n’ roll rebellion that we all both love and hate. The Lizzy song that best exemplifies the attitude that corresponds to these days of glory is “The Rocker.” It tells the tale of the rock archetype: a motorcycle-riding lady killer clad in filthy black leather that perpetually exudes cool, hyper-masculine toughness, spontaneity, and danger. This rock ideal was not absolved by history, but rather history allowed us to see that such a seemingly antagonistic character could be easily absorbed by the multitude of power structures that it initially resisted — the attitude and style of the rocker became the norm; the rocker became just another mode of status quo/capital reproduction. What is the purpose behind Chris Corsano and Heather Leigh’s resurrection of this world of meaning?

Side One of The Rocker, an LP limited to 700 copies, starts out with Leigh turning the mind-ripping sounds of her pedal steel guitar into a motorcycle engine revving up and blasting off; one can imagine Phil’s 7-foot body draped over the machine like a dragon, flames sparking up between the road and the wheel. By the time Corsano enters the picture, the sound particles are already bouncing off the walls like jagged daggers, and his unrivaled aleatoric drum style whips up the chaos to unprecedented warzone levels. Unlike the rock sounds that Jailbreak linguistically call upon — which are standardized, comforting, traditional, safe, and predictable — the sounds they materialize are the exact opposite: open, indefinable, challenging, and dangerous. It was these latter values that rock music originally set out to realize, but that eventually were forgotten for reasons like media absorption, anti-communism, the failures of ’68, the successful dislocation of radical values into the pacified domain of consumption, suburbanization, disco, New Kids On The Block, and so on. Perhaps Jailbreak are attacking rock for going astray from its primordial values — playing in the disjunctive space between the ideal and the real — while simultaneously showing how these old linguistic shells can be brought back to life with sounds that actually realize the radical fury and noise of the historical Rock Idea.

Leigh’s vocal howling tears through these two sides just as much as her vicious guitar action. This howling provides the two pieces with a forceful femininity that is chillingly haunted, as if she is summoning the spirits of the ghost-women of rock ’n’ roll past who were perceived as the sponges of the love-cloaked-violence and guitar-death-gazes of the almighty rocker. Having returned to the old rock world of meaning in this new form, she smashes the cage with unparalleled vigor, throwing back heavy blows against its history and contemporary traces. Corsano, arguably the greatest percussionist on the free scene, delivers an equally relentless rage. His taps and bangs stretch out in such a way that time itself is destroyed and reconstructed, thus disrupting the traditional mode of rock drumming and exposing its banal kernel. The combined power of these two improvisers makes the triple-guitar attack of Thin Lizzy sound extremely thin.

The Rocker is the kind of free noise that one could listen to all day long. Unlike noise that relies upon harsh electronic manipulation, there is a strong organic feeling on this album that, even if only romantic and illusory, pushes through. Despite the thick webs of sonic bedlam both musicians create, there is much healthy space for autonomous listening and long-lingering aesthetic judgments. Most importantly (for some at least), The Rocker engages with rock history in such a fascinating way that it asks us to think about the relationship between itself and the world of meaning it recalls. My only complaint is that the album ends much too soon. But, given that both artists are highly prolific and compelled to traverse the limits of sound, it won’t be too long for the next sound adventure to begin.

so what did Corsano say exactly to the woman with the pitbull?

He was worried that the dog's hearing might get damaged. Apparently "he's used to it".

Was this good and am I a tit for missing it?

I saw him on tour with Bjork, when she was on the road with Volta. Stupendous drummer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFsHuu0ah_g

That review does well until it's toe-curling finale:

given that both artists are highly prolific and compelled to traverse the limits of sound, it won’t be too long for the next sound adventure to begin.

This was really good if a bit surreal with the local's moans towards the end of the set. And the deaf dog.

Yeah, it was a very pleasant evening indeed apart from the locals. Man. Awkward.

I did wonder how the Cornerhouse would take to free noise...

Woah, also, just checked out the Bjork / Chris Corsano videos Manda Panda linked. They're pretty cool.

so the locals who have no interest in this form of music pay £6/£7 to get in and then moan? Are is it separate bars... been awhile since I was last there.

I suppose the locals don`t pay and just tell person on door they are local.

That was damn good. The regulars were mostly ok, it was just that drunk couple who were acting like twats. The dog seemed embarrassed by them, kept rolling his little dog eyes.

"This is a local pub for local people".

It's amazing that both the Cornerhouse and the Seven Stars kept going before they started doing gigs at the Cornerhouse. Surely the handful of regulars can't generate enough cash to make any money.

I think the Seven Stars shows football, based on a quick glance in. Last night was what I think a lot of artists expect when told they'll be doing an experimental gig in a pub. Free-noise karaoke was a new one, although Corsano had obviously seen it all -- nice response about the dog.

Still not as much heckling as Sonic Youth's Goodbye 20th Century at the South Bank though, and that was from their fans etc. etc. #changethelockgroove

It wasn't the ideal venue, but we couldn't figure out a suitable alternative.

I don't envy you having to choose between a new venue and turning down Corsano -- I think I would have done the same. I've always thought it's a good thing about Cambridge is that this is the rare exception rather than the rule for pub gigs.