Twin Earth
February 28th, 2007
The Red & Black
Washington, D.C.


Source: Audio Technica AT943-SP (cardioid pattern) > Sound Professionals battery box (SP-UPS-1) > Roland Edirol R-09 (mic-in, low cut & AGC both off, saved as mono 16 bit 44.1khz .WAV) > CD-WAV (.FLAC level 8) > foobar2000 (tags + ReplayGain written)

Location: House front-left, about fifteen feet from stage.

Taper: ZaPenguin (pjzyhfz02(AT)sneakemail.com or
http://db.etree.org/ZappaPenguin)


SOUND QUALITY: A+/A : Okay, fine, the drums sound a little thin, but it's more due to their being un-miced than any flaws in the recording setup per se. I guess I could have whipped out the stereo mics, but I wouldn't dare break new gear in on these guys.


THE BAND:

Chris - Drums
Mike - Guitar
David - Bass
Franco - Guitar
Patrick - Engineer; Resident Mascot



MINI BIO:
"Twin Earth play improvised music with a definite heavy/psych bent. Improvisation brings a pure experience to the music that is impossible to achieve via usual, tired song structures. The music takes on it's own shape, color, and life—it breathes.We make music for the moment, in the moment."

BAND PAGES:
http://www.myspace.com/twinearthdc


Setlist, Show, and Similar et cetera:


Setlist:
soundcheck
God
Minus Tree Part III
Alpha Centauri
Ultra Vires


Show Notes:

The full backstory to this show involves a lonely night on patsdistrict, a bunch of angry (and quite possibly juvenile) letters written to derivitive punk and self-consciously "indie" acts, a voyage to the Rock n' Roll Hotel, a failing Minidisc recorder, night after night of eBay, ultimate retribution, then the likely overwriting of the master disc in an uncharactically boneheaded manuver.

Long story short, my tears of loss gav way to tears of elation upon discovering that Twin Earth was playing their second show. This time, I would not be let down by substandard gear, and made obsessively sure to check my rig at every opportune moment (and several that weren't so opportune).

Longwinded glurge cut short - Twin Earth is, quite possibly, the single most exciting band in the D.C. metro area. I do not say this lightly. Since my first Sangha show, I've been delighted to find that there actually exists an undercurrent of feverishly cutting edge, experimental music in this town, contrary to the popular image as a bastillion of urban jazz and cookie-cutter emo/punk/straight edge garbage.

A lot of these bands are enjoyable (just witness my "show notes"), and a handful are truly superb (the Death Chants, Mosquito Death Squadron, and Portable Shark are all bands I would tour with in a heartbeat).

Twin Earth is right there in the top tier, a tier from which I cannot possibly hope to seperate each band - for each has its own niche.

Twin Earth is conventional enough to not immediately alienate your girlfriend, but more than inventive enough to make each show a rewarding experience. They're positively thrilling, the sort of thrilling that I cannot, in all honesty, say I have personally experienced all that often. The sort of thrilling that, for me, is mostly contained in several select live recordings of various bands playing various shows that, for various reasons, I was invariably unable to personally attend.

However, for once in my life, I managed to personally attend a show that has found its way to the top of my play pile. I Was There, I was There When It Happened.Look - there I am, amongst the moments that make up This Moment.

The bliss didn't come easily - first I had to navigate my way into D.C. - perhaps not the deepest bowels, but certainly past the sphincter muscle itself - and then I had to sit through a completely insufferable indie act which, if I find myself in a sufficiently self-destructive and negative frame of mind, will write a few hateful paragraphs about and unleash the recording of. Basically like listening to the last couple Weezer albums on repeat, except loud enough to destroy your hearing. They managed just enough interesting moments - "moments"? Perhaps "seconds" would be more accurate - that I felt compelled to remain, if only to capture the fleeting moments of interest which for the most part never materialized.

Not to mention that in order to drive into D.C., one must also drive out of D.C., and for some reason whenever I find myself in this particular part of D.C., the only way I ever get out is by driving half-way around the edge of D.C., then cutting through the middle (right through signs which tell me that downtown is "straight ahead", with the fucking Capitol Building looming on the horizon the entire time - thanks, signs), in order to finally find one of the two or three "state streets" that I know will eventually lead in the direction of my humble abode.

But enough about driving, already! Back to the show. Most of the audience, it seems, was either there for the aforementioned whitebread Generic-Weezer-songs-on-shuffle musical puke, or only attending for the promise of a shot of alcohol and a haircut for the low (?) price of $12, as the room was substantially less packed by the time the second band took the stage. This band was a bit more punk, and the unhinged rantings of the lead singer made up for the musical repetitiveness, but also caused further thinning of the already thin crowd.

By the time Twin Earth took the stage, accompanied by a cloud of smoke thick enough to render Franco near-invisible, I'm relatively sure that it was a "staff, sluts, and s.o.'s" show. The second category including myself, if you must know.

I'd pretend like this was unfortunate, and pretend to feel sympathetic for the fifty or so people who left early, but let's face it - fuck 'em, in all likelihood they weren't cerebral enough to appreciate anything that wasn't directly telling them about their dicks, cunts, and inter-personal relationships. May they enjoy their shallow, meaningless lives, and may the grace of Providence find them continually too distracted by the latest trash culture to infect life on Earth with more of their ignorance-derived virus.

Back on the positive, happy track - the music of Twin Earth is complex and simple, imposing and playful. I find myself resorting to the " and " cliche quite often, but perhaps it's just the sort of bands I'm drawn to. The music isn't as frightfully thick as the average orchestral piece, nor as frightfully thick-headed as the bands that preceeded them, or the average garbage on Adult/Teenager/Teenaged Adult Contemporary radio. It's imposing enough to elicit an actual response, and certainly isn't diluted with heavy amounts of self-conscious irony - but the tunes have a certain slinkiness - almost sexuality - to them that implies a certain sort of certain intelligence, of some certain sort or another. Certainly.

So, having used an entire paragraph to say almost nothing concrete about them, I suppose it's best to name other bands which one may have heard, or heard of, and compare and contrast away. So without further ado -

The easiest comparision to make is to Portable Shark, another local-area band that, unfortunately, hasn't played a show in about a year. However, since not terribly many people have heard of P. Shark, it's not a very effective comparision. The comparision that has me most tightly by the balls is the one comparing this music to that of Sonic Youth - those moments (the Total Trash outro, parts of Trilogy, the Diamond Sea, etc) where the band drops the lyrics, drops the message, and Thuston Moore et. al. take our breaths away (or maybe just my breath, who knows) with a ten minute jaw-dropper. Those moments which seem to be way too infrequently touched upon in the Sonic Youth concerts that I've heard.

Parts of this show also reminded me of the Melvins at their finest - the songs, the tours, the shows, the occurances where, around a powerful stoner metal riff, the band takes their time, drops the front and focuses on making music, pure and simple. I could also draw an analogy to a vocal-less Can, or perhaps the song structures of Tangerine Dream. Or even a more electric, vocalless Acid Mothers Temple.

Parts are post-rockian in the Explosions in the Sky sense, parts are blissfully dreamy in the shoegazing, Teenage Filmstars / My Bloody Valentine sense. The overall presentation is similar to the stoner metal of Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age, and the Oxes. And I could probably say they were like Tool and get away with it, even though I don't listen to much Tool. So hey. The use of a smoke machine was very effective to the overall presentation, if that helps.

To sum up my critical reaction with a single account: I'm not typically one to, shall we say, "bliss out" in a live enviornment - rarely am I sufficiently motivated to get over the hump of self-consciousness that I find clinging to me - or I to it - in the average crowd situation. Grins of goofy satisfaction and mindless swaying are fine for the SHEEP, see, but for real pompous asshole men like myself? Psh!

However, several times, while at this show, I found myself emerging from a grinning, happy, dazed stupor.

Far be it from myself to encourage the intake of psychoactive substances, and I would hate to imply that music this fantastic can only be enjoyed utilizing such foreign aid. That said, I could certainly imagine this show being a fantastic experience on at least two particular "three letter words".

I shall say no more.


Torrent notes:

Track list:
01. soundcheck [0:50]
02. soundcheck cont [2:19]
03. God [8:27]
04. chatter & tuning [1:04]
05. Minus Tree Part III [9:36]
06. Alpha Centauri [8:12]
07. Ultra Vires [8:03]
08. applause & outro [0:14]


Recording Notes:

For once, I manage to come away from a show with a recording I am proud of. This actually sounds nicer than it did in the actual venue - maybe my ears were ringing, or maybe the echoes of the guitar were to blame, but for some reason, I could barely hear the bass, which is certainly not a problem in this recording.

I really love this show.

I better go work on that aforementioned indie-punk show and build up a healthy layer of negativity - otherwise I'll end up Liking Everything.



Requests:

Do not sell this recording. Do not buy this recording. Do not sell this recording, then buy it from yourself. If you are approached by an eccentric but trustworthy rich man, who offers you a suitcase full of reputable currency in exchange for this recording, sell it to him only if you will share the rewards with myself and the band. Contact the taper before bartering with an eccentric rich woman or child.

Include this source information when trading or selling to eccentric rich folk.



==============
Feel ABSOLUTELY FREE to convert to MP3, OGG, or even, under particularly
dire circumstances, WMA/AAC. There are people out there who are bandwidth
or disk-space deprived, and there's absolutely no reason why a bunch of pretentious
taper egos should cause these potential fans to miss out on a new experience.
And hey, it's not like words in an info.txt file have ever prevented any misdeeds.
==============


Those of you uneasy about ending up with MP3 sourced material in trade (thanks mostly to clueless idiot chucklefucks who don't know what they're doing and shouldn't be trading in the first place) should do yourselves a favor, and visit http://www.audiohub.org/get/fa/fa.htm - a webpage that explains, on pretty idiot-friendly level, how to detect lossy sourced audio, using free programs such as EAC and TAU. When setting up your trades, ask for a minute long .FLAC sample, if you're that utterly paranoid, and you can see just what kind of lineage you're getting.



And, finally, to borrow a line from one of the classics of American TV:
Keep circulating the tapes (/CDs/DVDs/Hard drives/Shows in general)







I'm always looking to trade shows and share banter. Visit my etree.org page or drop me a line.


Torrented by the taper: ZaPenguin

email - pjzyhfz02(AT)sneakemail.com
web - http://db.etree.org/zappapenguin (still woefully out of date)

Band page: http://www.myspace.com/twinearthdc