Conference decc::radio_radioes]radio_radio

1123.0. "Terrastock" by ASDG::GASSAWAY (Insert clever personal name here) Wed May 07 1997 19:40

    Thought I'd enter this since I was probably the only one to go and
    someone might actually find this entertaining.  Warning: This was
    written to someone else in stream-of-consciousness mode and is often 
    lacking in spelling, proper punctuation, and correct sentence structure. 
    Extra warning: This insults people who live in Providence.
    
    ======================================================================
Terrastock  was great but totally exhausting. I don't understand how anyone
 could live in Providence.  Blech.

Highlights were:
	Bevis Frond - The guy is as smooth as Jimi Hendrix.  Wow. Talk
	about massive guitar heroes.  You'd never think it though.  Nick's
about  my  height  with  a  healthy  beer  gut  and  long stringy hair. Sue
	said he looks like he should be out on the street.  He has a bad
	habit of playing guitar with Mary Lou Lord (who is now about 30
	lbs lighter and sports a jet black Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction doo.)

	Hovercraft - This band totally rules I don't care if it's Eddie
	Vedder's wife she rocks.  They had this video playing behind them
	that was perfectly in sync with the instruments.  It had a billion
	edits of about 60 reels of stock footage, most of it space program
	related.  I think you can buy it from them off their web site. 
	Whatever, it was a completely intense experience, and it was the
	last band I saw that weekend, so I have this lingering memory of
	having been blown away.

	[As an aside, the were numerous bands with films and or lava lamp
projections  behind  them  (even  the  Bevis  Frond).  I'm not sure if they
 	always do this or whether these bands picked up the idea specially
	for Terrastock.]


	Windy and Carl - Witch Hazel didn't show on Friday so they moved
	all the bands up an hour so instead of missing the first five 
	minutes of Windy and Carl we missed the entire set.  Luckily,
	they played another set in the small room and it was gorgeous,
	Carl has the best guitar sound ever.  Even better than the Frond 
	himself.  She can't sing.  But at least it's not as annoying as
	Jessamine.

	
	Damon and Naomi - Just for being pretty and very simple.  Guitar
	bass and that little accordian thing she's got.

	Olivia Tremor Control - Neutral Milk Hotel played with them
	so there were 8 people bouncing around on the stage playing every
	sort of instrument known to man.  I thought it was great.  Up
	until Hovercraft I thought it would have been the best live set.
	Although I know as I watched them that I still wouldn't be able
	to stomach the record.

	Major Stars - The latest Wayne and Kate army creation.  They
	are very upbeat and suprising accesible, more like Crystallized
	movements than any of the other skronk projects.  The bass 
	player broke his amp and it took about 15 minutes to fix it and
	Wayne got all bent out of shape so it wasn't the best show ever 
	but even with the delay they managed to get three songs in.
	They will be playing on the 29th with El-Ron opening up
	I think it's a must see.

	Bardo Pond - I like this band.  They were real etherealish with
	this blue something projected in mack of them.  The fire marshalls
	even liked it.

	
Low points:

	Mary Lou Lord - she's still annoying and I can't believe she's now
	brainwashed Nick Saloman.

	The Tadpoles - Every cheesy stage effect right down to the bubble
	machine.  I guess you could listen to the music but I had made the
	mistake of listening to the record beforehand and picking them out
	as poseurs after about 30 second.  Sounded like z-grade Cheesy
	Monster Magnet.

	The Deviants - I was going to have Mick Farren sign my copy of Necrom
	until I saw this band play.  Someone told me it was a throwback to 
	the beat poets but all I saw was this aging hipster vomiting out
	this pretentious bullshit and being really irritating in the 
	process. I had to leave the room

Low point of all music ever created:

	Lhasa Cement Plant - I don't know if you're familiar with the first
	Plasmatics album, but there's a cover of Dream Lover on it with this
	instrumental break where all the musicians went to separate rooms 
	and started playing whatever they wanted to and at the end they
	just mixed all the tapes together to make this unlistenable noise.
	This is what this band sounded like.  I guess they're 
	ex-Borbetomagus or something but they had this bass player who
	didn't know how to play and this one guitar player who spent the
	evening dropping random household objects onto his guitar, and this
	other guy who was playing at the threshold of pain.   Eric got so
	angry at them that he left the room.

Most over rated:

	Flying Suacer Attack - yeah it was cool to listen to but it was
	not earth shattering like people would make it out to be.

They held the festival in this huge warehouse in this enormous room.  I
didn't think a lot of people were there and then I asked someone and they
said that there were only 550 tickets sold. I would have thought twice that
number.  I  was kind of nice to not have that many people because you could
always  see  the band. Some people sat right in front of the stage and then
there was a ring of chairs and then people stood behind them. I was so glad
for  the chairs. I was totally exhausted after it was over and I don't want
 to see another band until....

    

Thanks for the review from whoever...

I think they are going to do another in SF, CA.

A friend went and the highlight was a Magic Hour reunion.  Wayne and Kate
played separately as well.

> going to do another

The Friday before the show Jon Bernhard had an extended interview
with one of the organizers.  They plan the West Coast show for something
like 6 mos or a year from now (given the massive amounts of work to
put the first event on).  I'm not sure if they said SF, but the plan
was definitely for some place in the Bay Area.

R.

    It wasn't exactly a magic hour reunion.  Damon and Naomi played by
    themselves and then Wayne and Kate played with their new project, Major
    Stars.  I think they have the bass player from Vermonster and the
    drummer from Luxurious Bags.  Doesn't really matter, it's the same 10
    people who play in all the Twisted Village bands.
    
    Major Stars are set to open for Juneau on May 29th.  I can't stand
    Juneau so it will probably be an early night for me, but I highly
    recommend going to see the first band to play, El-Ron.  It's Russ from
    Wednesday LRC playing drums straight for 45 minutes and a guitar player
    who does things like play a birdcall record at the wrong speed through
    a distortion box and then mikes to the point of pain.  An experience
    not to be missed.
    
    BTW, I wrote the review.  I'm glad I did, now when people ask me how it
    was I just send them that.
    
    lisa/Jon Bernhardt formed his band so that he'd get in free to 
    Terrastock and get an orange all access pass and not a green general
    admission pass

Thanks.


also of interest: 

	http://www.primenet.com/~mmaxwell/Tstock/Tstock.html

    
    http://home.earthlink.net/~jimjbeat/terra.htm