2012's Under The Bridge jams

My apologies for not posting recently, laziness, drunkenness, and living in Phillyness made me forget:

I'll not waste more time. Here's the Highland Park Gem Collective:



Next up, the day's master of unceremonies, Trevor Pennsylvania:






Oh, boy. Again, another awesome full set by CJ Boyd. Still touring, still ruling.






And, finally, the master, King Darves






I have a lot more footage backed up from the past month or so, expect at least one show this month and the rest in June.

UNDERNEATH Th' BRIDGE LUNCH POTLUCK

Saturday May 5th 2012 1PM
Join Us Underneath th' Bridge, Highland Park, NJ
For a Pot Luck Lunch and an Afternoon of Esoteric Music

C.J. BOYD
KING DARVES
GEM ENSEMBLE
T. PENN

Phantom Selector, Lazy Magnet, Jenny Haniver, & Noise Nomads @ The Wormhole (2012)

The first all-noise show in New Brunswick in nearly a year, it may have been the shortest in recent memory, but goddammit, it didn't matter.

First up, we've got JP's floating head and just a hand as the lights go out for this entire set by

Phantom Selector:



and next up, from Providence RI, 
Lazy Magnet:




I know you see this next video and think, damn, another King Darves video? Yes. Yes it is. It's King Darves, playing as Jenny Haniver and letting the noise flow through him:




And we finish this off with a set by Noise Nomads, out from Western Mass. to play a set haunted by technical difficulties and solved by percussive maintenance. In simpler words, amp shits out, hits amp to fix it. Hell yeah.

Slow Tongued Beauty, Worms in Women and Cattle, & King Darves @ The Alamo (2011)

Straight outta Philly (after a few years in the NB area), fucken Slow Tongued Beauty. My only complaint, it wasn't long enough.




Next up, out of Providence, RI, Worms in Women and Cattle, sounding evil as shit. Yeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh.




And to finish off the show, the always-awesome King Darves:

MV & EE and King Darves, Live at Tumulty's (2011)

After a few changes of venue and dates, this show finally happened, and damn did it rule. I'll post the reason everyone's reading this post first and go with Matt Valentine and Erika Elder, AKA MV&EE

And, of course, the king himself, King Darves killed it, electric style:





Sadly, there is no footage of the Kohoutek set, and the Pots and Powercells video is still on its way to the internets, but to make up for it, here's a minute of us goofin' off after the show in an alleyway. Also, farewell to Caitlin of Pots & Powercells, and best of luck in Texas. It won't be the same without the powerpot.

MV+EE / Kohoutek / King Darves / Pots and Powercells in NB, NJ, 7.28.11

Thursday July 28th 2011 @ 7pm

MV EE (Ecstatic Peace / Three Lobed Records)
"in fact still orbiting the earth in vermont is matt 'mv' valentine, once the brawn of the tower recordings, and erika 'ee' elder, the CEO of Heroine Celestial Agriculture/The MV & EE Medicine Show, together with their dog zuma they run the child of microtones terran library of exploratory music and sing songs with fellow avatars 'the golden road'. sometimes their own lunar blues, som...etimes fingerstyle noise/space, sometimes lonesome frontier volk...always environments. you will find many are one and they like to jam together within many guitar dimensions/amp realms...respectfully and yours as free folk." Note: Albums on Thurston Moore’s (Sonic Youth) label, Ecstatic Peace. J. Mascis (Dinosaur Jr) plays lead guitar on some of their records!

King Darves (De stijl Records)
"So i would imagine that youd have one look at the photo of King Darves we have here and think "Oh brother! Another guy with a beard getting over what looks like a bad case of the clap and an acoustic guitar. Wheres my axe?" so were not gonna put it up here. (Mystique, dig?) But its really not like that, i tell you! The bedrock of King Darves New Brunswick based concoction is certainly folk based but theres no headband and hes not singing of pixies in the moss. This is somewhere between rolled cigs and the foggy vision of Big Pink from somewhere on Jersey Avenue, or maybe a one-manned Meat Puppets. This kid has really cobbled something together in his kitchen sink! ...the prettiest sound of his deep, rich voice will make you tap yr toes and nod yr head like a little Jersey Goil." - Tony Rettman.

Kohoutek (Prophase Records)
"People interested in music that defies the pop song convention, music that challenges that part of your brain that lies dormant during most aural experiences, need a band like Washington DC’s Kohoutek. This quintet began their wildly meandering journey across the more peripheral realms of free-form psych rock a few years back and from the very beginning they seemed determined to try to cross swathes of interstellar drone, guitar squall and loose, slowly evolving improvisations of drum and bass grooves and squelchy electronics with tapestries of gravitationally flowing darkness. What we get is a sonic bag that is raw, gorgeous, loud, dreamy, dissonant and mystical at the same time, somehow managing to transcend all sorts of seemingly limited genre barriers. Dedicated followers of bands such as the Spacious Mind, SubArachnoid Space and Ash Ra Tempel will for sure want to check these cats out, with a musical style that at its best rarely goes wrong in the live setting." -Mats Gustafsson

Pots & Powercells (dihd/Log Cabin Recordings)
It's hard to say whether Pots & Powercells rose out of the ashes of the dispersed members of experimental street performing act, Buckets & Batteries, or if they're merely in the same mindset; 'space adaptive music' making. Powercells started in the fall of 2009 and has played under a local NJ transit bridge with Finnish sound artist, Kuupuu and performed a set at Avant Fairfax Festival 2010 in Fairfax, VA. Powercells also has released a handful of homespun cassettes and cd-rs.
Members of the Human Adult Band, Mike Bruno and the Black Magic Family Band, Pact of Wolves, The Yets, and several other one-off New Brunswick projects regularly jam with the band, and the rotating cast of characters means you're unlikely to seem the same style jam twice.

@
Tumulty's
361 George St
New Brunswick, NJ

$7-10

Michael Chapman, Darves, Bruno, & Crystal Mountain Music & Tumulty's (2011)

Opening the show was the Crystal Mountain Music Collective (blog here) performing a singer/songwriter-style indie set:




Next up was New Brunswick ex-pat Mike Bruno and his Black Magic Family Band, bringing the creepiness (bandcamp here):

Next we had another New Brunswick ex-pat, King Darves (record here):

...and finally, the reason everybody came out, Michael Chapman, UK folk legend, live, in the flesh ():

King Darves (2011)

Live at Princess Fortress, Friday, March 18, 2011:




Oh baby that's what I like!

ASPS (2009)

I posted an ASPS set from 2008 a few weeks back, thinking it was the only one I had. I found another video of a whole set from June 21, 2009 at Meat Town. Sorry it's in black and white; there was a problem encoding the video and now it looks all artsy and shit.

King Darves (2006, 2009)

I've already posted a few Darves/Jenny Haniver videos, but this is the earliest set I have by him. Recorded on November 10, 2006 at World Trade Slayer on Comstock St, I think this might have been the first time I had a camera at one of his acoustic sets:



This next set was recorded at Meat Town on June 15, 2009 and is, so far, the most recent video I have of him... More from this set might follow as I go over the tape.

Jenny Haniver (2007)

This set by Jenny Haniver//King Darves was recorded on November 25, 2007 at Mutiny's House, over on High St. in New Brunswick. Recorded on two cameras and a tape recorder and mixed with audio from all three, here's a video I've been unfortunately letting sit in obscurity for years.

Gorgot (2005)

King Darves and Andrei here make up the two-piecer, Gorgot, as they play on the floor at the Learning Secrets festival in New Brunswick on April 1, 2005. Also playing that day were Nautical Almanac, Magnet City Kids, and Wolf Eyes.

King Darves (2007, 2009)

There's not much to say about King Darves that hasn't already been said, and said much, much better that I can ever say, so I'll keep it simple. He can be contacted here and his LP "The Sun Splits For .. The Blind Swimmer" can be picked up here.


This first video is from a show at Mutiny's House on High St. in New Brunswick on October 12, 2007.



This next video is from a show under the NJ Transit bridge in Highland Park, NJ on June 12, 2009.

ASPS (2008)

This set was recorded on January 12, 2008 at the "infamous" Castle Puppy, members of ASPS during this set include K. Winter of 2673, Tonio of Hikikomori, Kerr of Slow Tongued Beauty, and, of course, King Darves.