no fun fest- day one. who still alive?

[jkudler]

ps - i too would be curious for a description of dilloway's *sound.* was he doing the tape loop stuff? low-fi crunch? guitar in there? thick, thin? etc. .. .

-j.

[jon abbey]

Pure blasts of physical and mental energy that you would have to experience live to understand, the sound of pure intensity, and everyone is fuckign getting better by the minute. the violence in some cases its only a conduit for it. for most,not even necessary.

umm. . . i'm not sure that's really gonna help anyone know what it actually *sounds* like.

maybe not, but the point is that it's not an experience that translates well to words. it's very visceral and exciting (at its best, other times I personally find it somewhat silly) and there's so much input going on between the volume and detail of the music and the audience that it's hard to process as anything more than a general qualitative experience, at least for me. I did try to report on the dilloway set somewhat earlier in the thread.

that being said, you guys are looking for quality reports before the fest even ended. I'm sure once people recover, we'll get to hear a bit more, maybe we can even get some kind of note-for-note transcription for you...

[jkudler]

maybe not, but the point is that it's not an experience that translates well to words. it's very visceral and exciting (at its best, other times I personally find it somewhat silly) and there's so much input going on between the volume and detail of the music and the audience that it's hard to process as anything more than a general qualitative experience,

fair enough. but i have been to plenty of noise shows! i was curious about the specifics of some of the sets i missed. i don't know. . . smegma, rylan, and dilloway have all sounded really different from each other when i've heard them.

i probably would have been there friday if i hadn't had previous commitments. oh, well.

at least for me. I did try to report on the dilloway set somewhat earlier in the thread.

? i saw the description of what happened, but i couldn't find any talk about what his music sounded like.

that being said, you guys are looking for quality reports before the fest even ended. I'm sure once people recover, we'll get to hear a bit more, maybe we can even get some kind of note-for-note transcription for you...

that would be nice. i want to practice those solos in my bedroom.

again, fair enough!

-j.

[jon abbey]

fair enough. but i have been to plenty of noise shows!

but I doubt you've been to many on as good a sound system as The Hook has, with really impressive volume and no distortion (at least I've never heard it pushed to that point). it's an overwhelming experience.

[user_380]

that sound system is pretty solid..my only gripe with it was that it seemed to favor low end during a lot of the sets and the mids/highs felt dampered

[user_997]

I'll write up a more detailed review of what i saw when i get back home... this whole weekend has just been so overwhelming (in a good way) and i didn't really have time to fully describe the music when i posted yesterday. The best set of everything I saw all weekend was without a doubt burning graveyards + corsano. More on this later, I have an 8 hour drive ahead of me.

[Richard Pinnell]

the point is that it's not an experience that translates well to words. it's very visceral and exciting (at its best, other times I personally find it somewhat silly) and there's so much input going on between the volume and detail of the music and the audience that it's hard to process as anything more than a general qualitative experience, at least for me. I did try to report on the dilloway set somewhat earlier in the thread.

OK, thanks to all that have tried to explain. I appreciate its a bit early for people to be able to write in detail on such an event so soon, it took me months to get my Erstquake write-up together last year, and my only excuse was laziness rather than nursing any physical wounds...!

What I am taking from all of this so far though is as Jon describes above the physical experience and adrenalin rush of these shows is the real appeal, rather than any great musical content?
I can equate this closely with my experiences of stagediving and crowdsurfing to indie rock back in my teens, and the days of tinittus and bruising that often followed. Another analogy seems to be with the summer of 1988 Acid House raves that took the UK by storm when for a few months anyone under the age of twenty could be found dancing like an idiot to incredibly loud, physically engulfing , trance inducing music, the quality of which didn't really matter beyond the speed and intensity of the whole experience.

How close am I? Yes to a degree I'm playing devil's advocate here, but I'm really not seeing much different to the experiences i've described above.

[sevenarts]

OK, thanks to all that have tried to explain. I appreciate its a bit early for people to be able to write in detail on such an event so soon, it took me months to get my Erstquake write-up together last year, and my only excuse was laziness rather than nursing any physical wounds...!

What I am taking from all of this so far though is as Jon describes above the physical experience and adrenalin rush of these shows is the real appeal, rather than any great musical content?
I can equate this closely with my experiences of stagediving and crowdsurfing to indie rock back in my teens, and the days of tinittus and bruising that often followed. Another analogy seems to be with the summer of 1988 Acid House raves that took the UK by storm when for a few months anyone under the age of twenty could be found dancing like an idiot to incredibly loud, physically engulfing , trance inducing music, the quality of which didn't really matter beyond the speed and intensity of the whole experience.

How close am I? Yes to a degree I'm playing devil's advocate here, but I'm really not seeing much different to the experiences i've described above.

i'm gonna post a more detailed review w/ some set descriptions soon, but suffice to say for now that i think your interpretation is way off. there were certainly some sets this weekend that were just pure physical spectacle, but i'd say those were generally the ones i liked the least. noise is as much about the quality of the sounds as other avant-garde musics, and i'm frankly kinda surprised that someone as deeply into experimental music as you would write off this big chunk of the modern avant-garde this way.

[Richard Pinnell]

OK, thanks to all that have tried to explain. I appreciate its a bit early for people to be able to write in detail on such an event so soon, it took me months to get my Erstquake write-up together last year, and my only excuse was laziness rather than nursing any physical wounds...!

What I am taking from all of this so far though is as Jon describes above the physical experience and adrenalin rush of these shows is the real appeal, rather than any great musical content?
I can equate this closely with my experiences of stagediving and crowdsurfing to indie rock back in my teens, and the days of tinittus and bruising that often followed. Another analogy seems to be with the summer of 1988 Acid House raves that took the UK by storm when for a few months anyone under the age of twenty could be found dancing like an idiot to incredibly loud, physically engulfing , trance inducing music, the quality of which didn't really matter beyond the speed and intensity of the whole experience.

How close am I? Yes to a degree I'm playing devil's advocate here, but I'm really not seeing much different to the experiences i've described above.

i'm gonna post a more detailed review w/ some set descriptions soon, but suffice to say for now that i think your interpretation is way off. there were certainly some sets this weekend that were just pure physical spectacle, but i'd say those were generally the ones i liked the least. noise is as much about the quality of the sounds as other avant-garde musics, and i'm frankly kinda surprised that someone as deeply into experimental music as you would write off this big chunk of the modern avant-garde this way.

Hey Ed, I'm not writing anything off, just trying to encourage a little more indepth conversation in exactly what you have described above... I have heard a few Hive Mind discs, and saw him and Menche last year in NYC, and clearly yes there is more than just physical power involved... As I sort of hint above, my post was designed to annoy a few people into explaining what they enjoy in this music in a little more detail than a list of sets followed by single word descriptions of how 'awesome' they were.

A lot of people I respect the opinion of (including yourself) have good things to say about No Fun and the noise scene, I am genuinely just trying to understand.

Also for what its worth a scene being compared to the original acid house scene over here from the late eighties wasn't a put-down... the intensity and power that drove that scene for a few months before the media took over was the most impressive show of musical force since punk and brought serious change (for the better) within the mainstream music scenes over here.

[Alastair]

Another analogy seems to be with the summer of 1988 Acid House raves that took the UK by storm when for a few months anyone under the age of twenty could be found dancing like an idiot to incredibly loud, physically engulfing , trance inducing music, the quality of which didn't really matter beyond the speed and intensity of the whole experience.

Except me and everyone one else I knew at the time who was under twenty. Don't exaggerate.

[Richard Pinnell]

Another analogy seems to be with the summer of 1988 Acid House raves that took the UK by storm when for a few months anyone under the age of twenty could be found dancing like an idiot to incredibly loud, physically engulfing , trance inducing music, the quality of which didn't really matter beyond the speed and intensity of the whole experience.

Except me and everyone one else I knew at the time who was under twenty. Don't exaggerate.

You were an honourary pensioner even back then...... 8)

[user_406]

more pictures!

[vegetable mind]

it can't be described how much fun it was

not happy to be back in school

cant wait for next year

[edwin]

it can't be described how much fun it was

not happy to be back in school

cant wait for next year

[user_1453]

hi everyone, im new here. anyway, i attended the festival and i took some shitty pictures. i have some crowd shots. maybe you're in one of them!

[vegetable mind]

i think my fist is allllllll the way on the right in the second dilloway shot

awesome

[user_1453]

haha yes, i caught your limb. maybe more of you are in these?







the best seat in the house was all the way to the right of the stage, up on the ledge near the mirrors. i could observe the chaos below

speaking of chaos, i think it was during Macronympha that i was pulled on stage and my shirt was ripppped by the singer

[user_1452]

like, really punching people and beatin on them with a table leg?

i don't get it.

Tehootbah </3

[user_1453]

oh and in responce to Richard Pinnell, the sounds produced bared one thing in my mind: liberation. the sounds were raw, angry and fierce, and even tranquil. for twiggys set, you would hear random sounds protruding from his throat, intertwined with almost awkward silence...however, the silence also was "musical." you could feel the sounds!
i did a crappy job explaining this. not everyone may agree with me, but this is just what i think....you just had to be there..the atmosphere was intense and i loved every moment of it.
everyone was chill, the crowd was awesome. i wish i could live in a commune with everyone that was there.

[vegetable mind]

oh and in responce to Richard Pinnell, the sounds produced bared one thing in my mind: liberation. the sounds were raw, angry and fierce, and even tranquil. for twiggys set, you would hear random sounds protruding from his throat, intertwined with almost awkward silence...however, the silence also was "musical." you could feel the sounds!
i did a crappy job explaining this. not everyone may agree with me, but this is just what i think....you just had to be there..the atmosphere was intense and i loved every moment of it.
everyone was chill, the crowd was awesome. i wish i could live in a commune with everyone that was there.

totally how i felt

it sucks coming back to reality and dealing with all these people who fucking suck

it sucks not being able to talk about noise with people irl

it was really awesome