Koji Tano of MSBR very kindly invited the Brutum Fulmen to collaborate with him live on the last night of the East Coast leg of his US tour. The club ABC No Rio is apparently a squat (with no PA system) that also functions as a gallery. The walls were hung with all sorts of sexual paintings and photgraphs. Very nice.

Throughout the evening, Emile Beaulieau (aka Ron Lessard of RRRecords) played MC and filled the space between acts with his four-armed turntable shenanigans.

Fully Functional
I belive one of the two guys in this first act, Kyle, organized the gig. They used samplers, a laptop computer, and something with lots of wires sticking out to create their harsh noise assault. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera out yet to snap a pic.

Cartesian Faith
I understand this guy trekked all the way from Alaska to punish the audience with his computer based brand of noise soloing.

Exercise In Disgust
Anthony of the local Assume Power Focus zine was a last minute add to the nights lineup with his eco-friendly power electronics act. He had a blaring radio and a mic and I'm not sure what else, because it ended after about a minute.

Zipper Spy
Ron's wife also has a noise act. Her clothing was adorned with plenty of zippers but her main activity seemed to be mixing various CDs and who-knows-what into a quickly changing mass of sound.

Government Alpha + Phycus
Govt Alpha, the solo act of Yasutoshi Yoshida, was touring with MSBR through much of the US. Tonight he collaborated with the duo Phycus from Canada. While Govt Alpha spewed out the high intensity electronic noise, the guy in Phycus banged away on a metal folding chair and some oven racks. The woman in the band started screaming that she was the "Chicken King," and pretty much went crazy. Govt Alpha soon followed suit, jumping up and down on his equipment. This was apparently too much for Ron Lessard and he eventually stepped in and tried to kill Yasutoshi by picking him up, smashing him against a wooden crate, and dropping him on his head. Quite a wild set.

In this pic: Ron is caught red handed trying to dispose of the Govt Alpha remains; Ms Phycus screams on, oblivious; and Mark from Skin Crime gets in all on video.

Skin Crime
The Skin Crime trio presented a slightly more structured noise set that built up slowly into a wall of sound using electronics and various objects attached to contact mics. At some point Mark tossed a mic out to Yasutoshi, who was sitting in the audience and still in a mood for mahem.

Here we look over Mark's shoulder at Yasutoshi standing on his chair before startled audience members, including the guy from Cartesian Faith, sitting behind him with the camera and maroon shirt. Shaved-headed Ken from Brutum Fulmen is kneeling down with Mark's camcorder.

MSBR + Brutum Fulmen
Finally, we were up. The plan was for Brutum Fulmen to create source for MSBR's electronic manipulation into a thick, throbbing monolith of noise. Our method was to rub tape yanked out of cassettes across the play-heads of two partially disassembled walkmen. That's Ken on the left and me (Jeff) of Brutum Fulmen in the middle, then Koji Tano of MSBR on the right.  

Koji and I remained laid back fellows, just going about the humble business of making noise.

But Ken, perhaps egged on by the antics of Govt Alpha and Phycus, quickly got into the mood and went slightly amok, jumping up on the table and throwing loose tape everywhere.

Yasutoshi was in the crowd, on his feet and shouting. Ron also got into the act with his turntable-on-a-stick. A great set to close out the night!

But Wait, That's Not All...
No, the space was open until midnight and we still had about an hour to go. So Ron came up and did an official Emile Beaulieau turntable set, followed by a free-for-all noise jam. Members of most of the acts contributed something: screaming, smashing, knob-twiddling, etc. At one point, Kyle from Fully Functional tried to stand on the back of the woman from Phycus as she was huddled, screaming on the floor. In response she got up and knocked him to the ground and probably would have injured him if Yasutoshi from Govt Alpha hadn't pulled her off him. Eventually a power supply blew in a flash of light and smoke, but even then the onslaught continued for a bit longer. When you've had too much, just a little more will help.

Still Want More?
Koji Tano has been posting photos from every night of his tour at the MSBR website.