So, um, yeh. The Terrorbird one year anniversary “blow-out” was this past Saturday at 111 Minna in downtown SF. Thanks to the fact that I have subscribed to several event calendars online, I now have a calendar that is ridiculously full or stuff I don’t go to, or I just miss the stuff completely because of all the data noise. At any rate, the result of this fact is that at about 10:45 on Saturday night, I realized Daedelus and Boom Bip were playing in town (at Minna). l was unsure about a couple of events I did know about and was at that point planning on staying in — instead, I jumped on the bike and rode up to the show. In the side room, they had set up Daedelus, and he actually went on about ten minutes after I got in the door.
I had forgotten that Daedelus is one of the proponents of the monome midi controller, so it wasn’t your typical “speculate if the electronic music guy is actually pressing any buttons and if those buttons are actually doing anything” show. He was actually using 2 controllers with his laptop, one of which being the 16×16 (that’s 256 LED-lit buttons, folks) version of the monome, so it was pretty fun to watch him play with the sounds. It was also pretty great that there were a few times during the show that the computer or the system or his software glitched out or almost crashed, and after stepping back with a look of “uh oh” on his face, the music would cut back on, Daedelus would pat his chest over his heart, and the crowd would smile and give a little cheer, and everybody would get back to the show at hand. There were also a few times where the lights on the board seemed to just cut out for no reason as well. I’m assuming that this is the same 256 device that he referred to back in May as a prototype; it’s funny to think, but it kind of adds to the charm and DIY-ness of the device, and affirms the actual performance. Boom Bip took the stage afterward with lots of day glow color — three guys playing electronic music on more mainstream instruments (including one of those keyboard guitar things). Video rolled behind them in eighties colors. It was as entertaining as the Daedelus set.
But nothing adds to the character of an evening like a dubious celebrity citing. A rare event occurred between Daedelus and Boom Bip — the men’s room was full while the women’s restroom was apparently pretty much unoccupied, having been recently exited by three women who didn’t entirely seem to fit the theme of the night. As I leaned against the wall, the three women, obviously led by the one in the center approached to take the passage out to the main room. I wasn’t really paying much attention to them, other than to recognize the fact that the apparent leader of the group had her dark hair in a kind of retro-ish updo and had some tattoos. As they approached, Updo said to me with a weird smile on her face, “There’s no one in the ladies’ room.” Not having been in the ladies’ room at Minna before and not really about to pee in my pants or anything, I opted for remaining where I was and said something back like “that’s unusual.” I wasn’t really sure why she decided I needed to have that information, and the weird smile on her face just kind of threw me. As they walked off one of her friends said “Hey Amy…” and something I didn’t hear. Now, I’m not much up on pop culture these days, but I do remember seeing her posters all over the Mission and wondering who the hell Amy Winehouse was supposed to be. Now, I’m just wondering if that smile was a look of “do you know who I am?”, or perhaps just a not so smug look of fame induced confidence, or perhaps “you don’t know who I am because I’m not actually Amy Winehouse”. I’ll probably never know.