Theme: Noise Show Projections

Last Thursday I went to a stellar noise show at Brooklyn’s finest metal bar, St Vitus. Brooklyn’s DeTrop (helmed by Ryan Martin of the fine labels Dais and Robert and Leopold) started off the show.

Raven Strain was on next

Then Liable Abuse

Notice a theme? Now I’m all for projections at noise shows. It’s not always the most visually performative genre, oftentimes there isn’t much motion on stage. People like Jonathan Canady do a wonderful job of blending Giallo rarities with sound. But when a venue picks a movie and projects it behind all of the bands it is distracting and creates a blanket vibe for the entire show. When that movie is Holy Mountain on repeat I kinda wanna blow my brains out.

This may be one of those “New York problems” posts, but seriously, I don’t think I can even count the number of times I've seen that movie with different live soundtracks. It’s everywhere, from basements to bars to retail stores to art spaces. It’s the catch-all “let’s get weird” imagery circle jerk. I mean come on, is there nothing else you can show? How about you mix it up with El Topo or commit to getting really dark with Salo? Even better, how about you don’t put the same movie on repeat for an entire show?

I would like to point out that it looks like Greh is doing his Hive Mind set in front of a pizza made of people here. I would also like to point out that it was an incredible set. He played the night before at Wierd and had some serious equipment problems. I thought the Wierd show was good until I saw him at St. Vitus. He totally blew me away both nights.

Apparently dude in the feathered cap wasn’t as impressed as I was with Raven Strain.

Hivemind makes machines cum.

Ryan Martin is all that stands between a nubile young boy and a mohawked warrior.

Catch my drift? Despite the quality of the set I caught myself zoning out to the movie a couple times and that really bummed me out. It’s hard not to get distracted by burning Christ, flower guts, tiger titties, green merkins, tarantula hallucinations, and ass art—aka the ultimate cinema symbolism clusterfuck.

If the bands have any charisma at all showing a movie behind them is a disservice. Look at these pictures from the night before at Wierd. Pieter knows all you need is a fog machine and some well-placed colored lights to make things happen.

Sometimes it’s better to let the audience get weird instead.

Greh apparently was a little less than amped at how his set was going.

I firmly stand by the conviction that it is better to see an angry noise bear take out all his synths and then give you the finger with a leather-gloved hand than any cinematic snippet in the history of film.