Capitol Hill Tribute
This past Saturday, a party was held at the Seattle Center (site of the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project, for non-locals), a benefit and celebration dedicated to the victims of the recent Capitol Hill Murders. While the idea of seeing the victims’ community pull together and put on a communal display of remembrance and PLUR, I have to admit that the main attraction was the live performance by breakcore messiah Venetian Snares.
The day got off to a worrisome start though, as rain put a damper on the outdoor stage, and forced events inside. We came down for the kick-off, but the rain drove us away during happy hardcore DJ Jimni Cricket’s set (which wasn’t really my cup of tea anyways). Sadly, this meant we had to miss Calvin Johnson’s set, but we really weren’t prepared for the weather, and made plans to head back later.
By the time we returned, the event had been moved indoors, to the Food Court building, which was a rather surreal experience. We waited through a few DJ sets, including DJ Dan (with an accompanying three-person balancing act that was pretty breathtaking) and the incredibly animated Donald Glaude, and ran into fellow Em411 members The Square Root of Evil and Sohcahtoa, before the main (as far as we were concerned) event.
Venetian Snares was taking the stage as we returned from the nearby bar (yes, we got to drinking a liiiiiiittle early that day, sue me). The anticipation from the crowd was exciting to see…There had been a shift in the demographic of the crowd as the evening wore on, with the candy rave set slowly being replaced by an older, hipper (for lack of a better word) group, although the rave kids that were still there seemed equally excited. After a slowly building intro, featuring one of the orchestral tracks from Rossz Cillag Allat Sulletet, the breakbeat madness began in full effect. Instant chaos. splintered 240bpm Amen breakbeats echoed of the walls of the nearby Orange Julius and Starbucks, possibly the first and last time such a scene would ever occur. Security guards took to the front of the stage as an honest-to-god mosh pit broke out. The pit actually threatened to shut down the show (apparently they’re illegal in Seattle? WTF?), but the bewildered rent-a-cops didn’t bring that hammer down, fortunately. Aaron Funk, the twisted genius behind Snares, didn’t appear to care about any of that though, calmly fucking over the output of his CD turntables with a variety of digital effects and pitch-mangling.
Doormouse had the unenviable task of following up that devastating set, and was totally hamstrung by an unforgiving sound setup and a thinning crowd. He pulled of a workmanlike set full of interesting twists (live vocals and looping, lots of audio processing, and weird, weird songs), but didn’t seem to live up to his potential at this moment.
It was all over too soon, but the good news was delivered shortly thereafter: there was an after show featuring Doormouse and Venetian Snares (and KJ Sawka, who had been bumped for time reasons) at the Capitol Hill Arts Center (the venue that housed the infamous rave the evening prior to the shootings this event commemorated).
That show turned out to be the real main event of the day. The Lower Level section of CHAC is a 21+ venue in a tiny, low-ceilinged room, with an adjoining bar (where we ran into SROE and Sohcahtoa again, along with Umami and John). KJ Sawka started off by playing intense drum n’ bass with live drumming (Ho. Ly. Shit.) and triggered electronics. Watching him was amazing, sitting at a drum kit with a narrow, raised kick drum, two snares, and a multitude of small cymbals, all of which was draped with cables connected to a handful of percussion trigger pads, a laptop, and other gear. The crowd absolutely insisted he play an encore, and he obliged with a flurry of drum rolls and fills that sounded like a cavalcade of funk breaks played in double time.
Doormouse was much more at home in this setting, with much clearer sound and a more receptive audience. He also played a much harder set, with far more breakcore elements that his earlier set, and many other crazy non-sequitirs, like his spastic Tom Jones cover and sampled elements of Nightmare Before Christmas. The volume in the small room had also been cranked to a pummeling level by this time, contributing to the harsh feel of his music.
Even Venetian Snares topped his earlier set, playing harder, faster, more chaotic, and much darker material than he had at the Seattle Center (where he had apparently been forced to self-censor his more confrontational pieces), blazing through track after track with no breaks, and whipping the dancefloor into a total frenzy while he worked through a series of Heinekens handed to him from the crowd. Breakcore at it’s best is the death metal of the electronic world, and Aaron Funk made that comparison completely obvious and valid that night, by virtue of sheer extremity.
We left at 2am, ears ringing, and strolled home through the post last-call crowds on Capitol Hill, a melange of drunks from all social circles and sexualities scrambling to make that last-minute hook-up happen, or just trying to walk straight to some after hours party and avoid the vomit on the sidewalk. Something about that end to the evening just seemed to accentuate the life-affirming aspect of an evening at the extreme dark ends of the musical spectrum.
