Monday, February 09, 2004
A Brief Critical Examination of a Recent Live Musical Performance by the Group Oneida
Oh HO, the mighty forces of ancient eldritch rock fuckery were expounded upon this latest Saturday evening, in the basement of the ever-lovin’ Hoss House, deep in the frosty bosom of Allston/Brighton, Massachusie. A peerless bill rife with farsighted musical searchers and sachems, each with shamanistic tendencies, this show was one hum-dinger. When I arrived at the house I was half-drunk and filled to the gills with mediocre barbecue, a stomach situation that presented a messload of problems. Such problems led to my arriving later than desired, and thus missing a portion of Plunge Into Death’s performance. What was seen was enjoyed, though, and is now being enthused about upon this new-fangled internet contraption. P. I. D.’s electronic noise rap embodies the entire height and width and girth and scope of the modern-day urban experience, crystallized and broken up into song-length slices of slightly humorous, mildly annoying, enjoyably confusing faux-pretentious tomfoolery. They sorta reminded me of Xiu Xiu at times, if Xiu Xiu rapped more, and tried harder to make less sense. All in all, some good stuff, though. Another local group, Devil Music, played next. Friends of long-time Athenians Brian Sweeney, Ballard, and the gents of Hayride, Devil Music’s violin-driven experimental rockism resembled the very best of such eminent titans of boundary shattering rock as Can, Arto Lindsay, and Emerson Lake and Palmer. In both tone and style Jonah Rapino’s vitriolic violin sounded like Keith Emerson’s incandescent keysmanship, and Tim Nylander’s Kraut-flavored drum-pummeling could give both Palmer and Powell a run for their moneys. I’m listening to Devil Music’s take on “In C” as I type this, and am quite impressed. Yes. Finally, fellow Americans Oneida, staunch supporters of the inviolable rights of man, asserted their tough but tender dominion over the denizens of the Hoss House and the outlying areas of the Greater Boston Metroplex. To steal the words noted poet, playwright, and conservative talk-radio icon LeRoi Jones used to describe the blues people, Oneida are truly an “actually expressed creative orchestration, reflection of Afro-American life”. There is some tribalism to them, this Oneida, these primal progenitors of premodern providence. The power is theirs, that ancient ineffable power to slay with little more than the mind, or three minds, or three minds, some drums, an organ, and a guitar (and sometimes bass). Like a glistening cathedral held aloft by the hopes and dreams of countless intransigent believers, Oneida is the apex of reason, and the final culmination of the unflagging, irrepressible human spirit. Touches of nightmares and life, the potpourri of wooden ash and burning flesh, holy light and inexorable dark, and the trenchant encroaching dread of obsolescence permeate the viscous membrane of Oneida’s stygian morass. On the surface Oneida are kings, but secretly they weep, for with each passing day their power, nigh infinite, grows, by necessitude, ever infinitesimally smaller, like the whirring universe grinding slowly, over megamillions of years, to an inevitable halt. Until that day, Oneida are ours, to do with as we please, and as they allow.
Anyhow, it was a good show. Thanks for the effort, bands, and thanks for the Hoss House for welcoming a drunken loner into its inviting arms. I busted my ass twice on the walk home. That’s what happens when you mix a case of beer, icy sidewalks, and unsteady Southern feet ill-acquainted with this intemperate Northern winter.
Oh HO, the mighty forces of ancient eldritch rock fuckery were expounded upon this latest Saturday evening, in the basement of the ever-lovin’ Hoss House, deep in the frosty bosom of Allston/Brighton, Massachusie. A peerless bill rife with farsighted musical searchers and sachems, each with shamanistic tendencies, this show was one hum-dinger. When I arrived at the house I was half-drunk and filled to the gills with mediocre barbecue, a stomach situation that presented a messload of problems. Such problems led to my arriving later than desired, and thus missing a portion of Plunge Into Death’s performance. What was seen was enjoyed, though, and is now being enthused about upon this new-fangled internet contraption. P. I. D.’s electronic noise rap embodies the entire height and width and girth and scope of the modern-day urban experience, crystallized and broken up into song-length slices of slightly humorous, mildly annoying, enjoyably confusing faux-pretentious tomfoolery. They sorta reminded me of Xiu Xiu at times, if Xiu Xiu rapped more, and tried harder to make less sense. All in all, some good stuff, though. Another local group, Devil Music, played next. Friends of long-time Athenians Brian Sweeney, Ballard, and the gents of Hayride, Devil Music’s violin-driven experimental rockism resembled the very best of such eminent titans of boundary shattering rock as Can, Arto Lindsay, and Emerson Lake and Palmer. In both tone and style Jonah Rapino’s vitriolic violin sounded like Keith Emerson’s incandescent keysmanship, and Tim Nylander’s Kraut-flavored drum-pummeling could give both Palmer and Powell a run for their moneys. I’m listening to Devil Music’s take on “In C” as I type this, and am quite impressed. Yes. Finally, fellow Americans Oneida, staunch supporters of the inviolable rights of man, asserted their tough but tender dominion over the denizens of the Hoss House and the outlying areas of the Greater Boston Metroplex. To steal the words noted poet, playwright, and conservative talk-radio icon LeRoi Jones used to describe the blues people, Oneida are truly an “actually expressed creative orchestration, reflection of Afro-American life”. There is some tribalism to them, this Oneida, these primal progenitors of premodern providence. The power is theirs, that ancient ineffable power to slay with little more than the mind, or three minds, or three minds, some drums, an organ, and a guitar (and sometimes bass). Like a glistening cathedral held aloft by the hopes and dreams of countless intransigent believers, Oneida is the apex of reason, and the final culmination of the unflagging, irrepressible human spirit. Touches of nightmares and life, the potpourri of wooden ash and burning flesh, holy light and inexorable dark, and the trenchant encroaching dread of obsolescence permeate the viscous membrane of Oneida’s stygian morass. On the surface Oneida are kings, but secretly they weep, for with each passing day their power, nigh infinite, grows, by necessitude, ever infinitesimally smaller, like the whirring universe grinding slowly, over megamillions of years, to an inevitable halt. Until that day, Oneida are ours, to do with as we please, and as they allow.
Anyhow, it was a good show. Thanks for the effort, bands, and thanks for the Hoss House for welcoming a drunken loner into its inviting arms. I busted my ass twice on the walk home. That’s what happens when you mix a case of beer, icy sidewalks, and unsteady Southern feet ill-acquainted with this intemperate Northern winter.
