Sonic Bust

The experiment goes awry

Over the years, there have been plenty of Santa Fe musicians lucky enough to get out into the world and begin their routes to fame. These include bands such as the now defunct Logical Nonsense, which was amazing, or Beirut, which I could do without, given that actual gypsy music is readily available.

Travis Egedy, AKA Pictureplane, is just the latest example of a hometown act making it big. Egedy was recently signed to the Lovepump United record label alongside LA's Health, which rounded out the night's lineup at a recent Warehouse 21 show.

Since I love it when cool local people start to get much-deserved attention, I had to check out Pictureplane open for The Late Severa Wires' CD release show. The flyer claimed the music would begin at 8 pm sharp but, as I stood around at 9:30, still waiting for the music I was promised, I began to grow cranky. There were a million other things I could have been doing with that time. Like playing my Xbox. Or smooching girls.

Pictureplane set up on the floor in front of the stage, and began his set by letting everyone know that it was OK to get up close. We all surrounded him and it wasn't long before a dance party broke out. The jams were a mix of house, dub and trance, which created a need to dance like crazy. Was I at a rave?

With sampled beats and live synth, Pictureplane showed us he has taken influence from the entire palette of electronica and mashed it together into a pretty sweet potpourri. At times, it seemed hard for him to stick with a rhythm, but no sweat, kids…this is experimental music. Nobody has to be perfect as long as they give themselves that little title.

And no band subscribes to that attitude better than Santa Fe band The Late Severa Wires. What the hell was I watching? I'm down with noise bands, but it's also cool when a music project tries to be, you know, musical. The Late Severa Wires members played like they didn't know what they were doing. It was almost as if each member was in his own world playing something different.

In fact, I wasn't even sure the band was actually playing anything at all. The random noises made no sense and I seriously thought they were making it all up as they went along. Once Molly Sturges, who along with JA Deane joined The Late Severa Wires onstage, started to chant nonsense and scream in a shrill, sonar-like fashion, I thanked god for my toilet paper earplugs.

Perhaps I just wasn't "hip" enough to be into it, but this junk-heap of sounds totally brought my show-going experience to a screeching halt. I had no desire to stay for another instant and left wondering why the band would want to kill the mood after a dance party. I also wondered why they wanted to ruin any chance a touring band may have had for a raucous and enthusiastic crowd. I honestly wanted to see Health but when you've just been through such a musically traumatizing experience, it's hard to get over it.

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