Having navigated down the twists and turns of Tribeca to get there we had to make the decisions to see certain acts playing either upstairs or down. We went subterranean for the first act of the night and caught a band called the The Low Suns. Now, I was fairly surprised that the venue was practically dead... I mean yeah it was a Sunday night but I hoped at least the experimental scene in NYC had to be more promising than the town of yours truly. I mean, just by population numbers alone I reasoned that there had to be a greater turnout, right? Well... no. A half a dozen of us or so in the basement with some Brooklyn Lager at most. The few of us there witnessed the intimate stylings of The Low Suns who happen to have an interesting dynamic: one guitar player with a wicked Gibson rig who could pull of dynamically brash jandekian anthems and quiet introspective Faheyesque landscapes, the latter featuring absolutely beautiful guitar lines. The other half consisted of a drummer, though he would sit in and out of the songs and add touches and exclamation points. I remember them saying they were from Tennessee if I'm not mistaken, and in some of the more hushed cinematic tunes I could picture the lonely Tennesee sky. Its just too bad this kind of stuff goes silent into the night.

Next we ventured from our cave to catch the legend, Gary Lucas of Captain Beefheart, and Jeff Buckley's "Grace" sessions, and now with his full band Gods and Monsters. The band has some all-stars like former Talking Heads keyboardist/producer Jerry Harrison - though this incarnation had only the Gods and Monsters member Joe Hendel in on keyboards and trombone. They also have Billy Ficca of none other than Television fame, Ernie Brooks from the Modern Lovers, and Jason Candler (Hungry March Band) on alto sax. Immediately Gary begins with the sprightly Stax/Velvet Underground bop of "Climb the Highest Mountain". A lot of the sound really reminded me of classic 60's psychedelia but with that VU drive with a little Television punk in there, like "Depression". I could definitely see how Lou Reed digs him. A few songs gave way to monster jams. It was definitely cool to see a living legend perform and once again, where is everybody... anybody? Maybe a dozen. No matter, that guitar sound is unmistakable. One guitar intro sent me right to back to "Mojo Pin" from Buckley's "Grace" album. He definitely comes equipped with the pedals and effects and has it dialed in. What was really interesting for me is I couldn't get over the ear to ear smirks Garry would occasionally volley around stage. I wasn't sure if these were acknowledged gaffs in the live renditions that just gave him a rise or he's just into grinning - who knows? For the finale Mike Edison joined Gods and Monsters with a theramin which elicited additional grins of the shit-eating kind from Gary. I did shake his hand after the show and Dana asked him what Beefheart was like to which he responded something along the lines of 'crazy'. I believed him. This was an titillating question from Dana, a gentleman who has collegiate credit from a Frank Zappa course under his belt. Incidentally, the last question I was privy to hearing Dana ask to a famous performer... well let me rephrase. It wasn't so much a question as it was a comedy-club-drunken utterance. It was posed to comedian Patton Oswalt after a set and all Dana could muster to Patton as he's shaking his hand is"...rusty tuna can", which if you're a Patton fan is pure gold. Patton responded in step with "I tried to do new material tonight". But I digress. This is about music.

Next up White Rainbow took the helm, sporting a trippy-ass Jackson Pollacky-looking Oakland A's baseball hat. Whilst setting up his myriad pedals, he had an amazing song playing with a killer drop in it and I had to ask him who it was. It turned out to be a band called Stag Hare: note taken. Again, just a few spectators and herein lay the greatest shame for White Rainbow dropped a fucking colossal bomb into the Knitting Factory and subsequently my cortex. I was immediately sent into a Gary Lucas ear-to-ear grin. The sound began with flanged out bliss. As it evolved it was simultaneously loud and saturated and layered and nuanced and hypnotic and pulsing and rhythmic and shimmering and crisp and sublime... when the time was ripe I could not help but instinctively nod my head to this - utterly unstoppable for me and the hoodied gentleman in front of me who was videotaping the show. Another person was seated, plastered against the wall, almost pinned by the sound, perhaps as well by the continual bursts of throbbing multicolored strobe lights that accompanied the music. The lights were perfectly fantastic triggers for the sounds. It was begging a hapless audience member for a pokemon induced seizure. Who needs drugs I say? I want to succumb to the cliche and say I am at a loss of words to describe it, but even in doing this, it places the experience into that rare category of transcendance. I know that the songs seamlessly morphed into one another and took on new directions and rhythms. He subtlety added vocal touches, rim shots from a drum set, and guitar notes but as Rey later confirmed, he really is a master at looping. Part of me wishes that music like this is played behind a curtain or something because I think visibly focusing on someone "simply" manipulating pedals on stage really takes away from the mastery that performing this type of music requires. In this way, you really have no distractions and can fully surrender to the sounds. I could hear every wave develop, crest, crash, foam, and recede. Nothing was lost, muddy, or counter to the flow. The volume was certainly an advantage because this is the type of music that has to wash over and smother your senses. The mystery lies in how in the hell one keeps this stuff from derailing or mashing into a fucked off racket. The last notes of this inspirational set faded out almost as it had come in: into nostaligic, wistful drone, like an uncertain memory. The one thing I know is that I was in the right place at the right time and glad to have shared it with friends.

-Chris