CHEAPFEST

By Zoe Kinney

Cheapfest has been an annual noise/experimental music festival held at Strange Matter for three years now. It’s always cost $2, and usually has a long line-up of artists, which often vary in style and ability. It’s a good event for people who want a sampling of music and maybe enjoy filtering in and out of shows, and there are always some great artists performing. I arrived late, but just in time to see probably the best act of the night. Zak Kouns’ performance was intensely heartfelt and maintained interest throughout. Backlit by a video piece vaguely inspired by Hindu imagery, he produced aching, animal-like sounds with his saxophone and seemed to fall into a trance while playing. Things got surreal for a moment when, seemingly unaware of his surroundings, he sank to the floor and started slowly removing his clothes. But he came back to Earth just enough to start some truly impressive primal yelling. It was good enough to be presented as a formal performance piece.

Also in evidence through the night were people who had cleverly rigged their sound equipment to pick up and warp vibrations from an array of unexpected objects. One artist, who I couldn’t match with a performance name and will call Metal Detector Girl, used a metal detector to create piercing, screeching notes and feedback whenever she held it near a metallic object. Another group amplified sounds created during the destruction of a guitar with a saw and some other tool used for the purpose of bludgeoning the instrument. Guitars are of course made to be resonant, so that was a good choice for a vibration source. Thirdly, Justin Marc Lloyd of Pregnant Spore head-banged in front of his sound equipment, causing periodic rushes of noise whenever the wind from his movements was picked up. There was visual interest in Pregnant Spore’s set as well- Justin created an intriguing scene as he whipped his hot pink hair back and forth.

Retarded Genius played a primarily vocal set with lots of strident yelling. He stripped down to a tiny gray vest and a v-string, and then splattered worryingly realistic mock-blood all over the audience, rolling around on the floor in the spillage. Some showgoers were not pleased by this element of his performance. He had a lot of energy, however, and it was all done in good fun. The fake blood came out of my clothing really easily, but did leave stains on my arms and neck for a couple of days.

Heavy Breathing made a big impression. Last.fm.com identifies his music as fitting the post-mortem genre. I would call it thoroughly angry and militant. Dressed in impeccably clean clothing and perfectly shined black boots, he carried out a set reminiscent of a frenzied, strident orator’s speech, raging at the audience. He got very close to people’s faces and shoved a few audience members during the set. It was an impressive and intimidating performance.

Drums like Machine Guns wrapped up the show. Unfortunately, they didn’t have all their equipment working, which they appologized for.. They recited and projected on the screen behind them a wise mantra, however, which was the simple “Just be the best possible person you can be.” Even if their performance couldn’t fully happen because of technical problems, it was a useful message to express, and ended the show on a good note.

Line-up. (Oct 22, 2011 smatter)

7:00- Flood Beast

7:15- Champagne Of Rats

7:30- Monolith Zero

7:45- Broadcaststatic

8:00- Teen Dreams

8:15- Vveed Vvulf

8:30- Sacajaweeda

8:45- Microwave Windows

9:00- Dave Smolen / Hairloss

9:15- Suicide Magnets

9:30- Zack Kouns

9:45- HNY

10:00- Frailty Of Angels

10:15- Reverse Baptism

10:30- Contortionist Jazz Exotica

10:45- Head Molt

11:00- Sex Complex

11:15- Pregnant Spore

11:30- Heavy Breathing

11:45- Tinitustimulus

12:00- Fun

12:15- Drums Like Machine Guns

12:30- Cheezface

12:45- Abiku

1:00- Radio Shock

1:15- Mutwawa

1:30- Shams