last night was fucking awesome for so many reasons that are surprisingly contradictory.

here's the rundown:

Ninjasonik
Cerebral Ballzy
Totally Michael
The Death Set
Team Robespiere

gavin (of vice/street boners fame) really nailed it pretty succinctly in a description of the SXSW shows the other week: "you want to see these bands in a basement, with the lights out, before anybody has ever heard of them."



well, it wasn't a basement, and the lights didn't even dim a smidge till half way into the first set, but these were definitely bands not many people had heard of i'm pretty sure. there was seemingly no advertisement (seriously, the only way i knew about the show was cause there was a flyer saying "tonight!" next to the cream and sugar at espresso royale), and the show was at arguably the most boringest place to see a show ever, the rathskellar.



early on, the dude in cerebral ballzy quipped, to the largely absent audience, "thanks for coming out to your cafeteria guys!" before saying something about how he had to take a shit, followed by saying he thought he might puke. their shit was loud, fast, dirty, and really fucking good. i felt bad for the guys since there was literally no one on the floor except a dude from one of the other bands, which is sorta how shit went for most of the night until about 10:45 or so when more people started showing up (things had officially started at 8:15) and it started to feel like a real damn show.

even if they had done the show at the now-defunct club 770 it would have been half-stillborn. couldn't one of the people from WUD have volunteered a garage or a basement or some shit? perhaps there would be insurance worries, which got the death sets plug pulled due to crowdsurfing (are we still calling it that?).



early on, the dude in cerebral ballzy quipped to the largely absent audience "thanks for coming out to your cafeteria guys!" before saying something about how he had to take a shit, followed by mumbling that he thought he might puke. their shit was loud, fast, dirty, and really really good. i felt bad for the guys since there was literally no one on the floor except a dude from one of the other bands, which is sorta how shit went all night, till about 11 or so when more people started showing up, and it started to seem like a real damn show.



i'm not mad at the people who put this shit together, cause in reality, the sad madison truth is that there's not really any other place that this would have been able to happen (the frequency? maybe?), and the fact that the bands got paid, we all got a free show, and no one lost their lives or their virginities, is tip-top in my book.

every group was way over the top and really awesome, excepting totally michael, but that's more because his glossy Andrew WK meets ben folds in a not-bad-yet-not-good-sorta-way schtick stood out against the other bands unwashed fuck you edge.

i picked up the cerebral ballzy disc and the ninjasonik ep, bits of both will be on their way down the digital line as soon as i get a sec.