Using a Hammer to Nail in a Screw

This is more a sermon of chaos than music... and, I mean, even beyond traditional music...

Forget stomps, twirls, barks and crows its way down a dark, smoky, cluttered hallway, past the musiacl classrooms of experimental mad scientist types like Captain Beefheart, or Cabaret Voltaire, past the beautifully stuffed ensemble surges of Fela Kuti, past the noise deconstructionist provocations of Throbbing Gristle and John Cage and out...

...structural detachment as well as, essentially, comprehendible detachment... and out...out into the atmosphere to cathartically collide (and then ride upon) their own new asteroid of acerbic, cacophonous expression...

But it is, also...very musical. Horns, dual drums, booming bass, wailing guitars, -indeed, a swelling of humanity translating their mad primal howls into the burr, wisp and clap of crafted instruments.

Forget, the flagship band of experimental-focused Forget Recordings, is a revolving cast (upwards to 50 or more people have performed) that releases its albums as statements of improv; two sides with one 25-minute song on each side, each "song" comprised of a recent live performance.

The highlight here is inevitably last year's Blowout set - with 9 players pounding away inside the smoky cave of Paychecks, back in March 2010 while singers Steve Puwalski (Marco Polio) and Jamie Easter (Druid Perfume) "....duet?"

What it sounds like: googly eyed instrumentalists maniacially grin as they exorcise their demons by wobbling and richocheting off each other and across the stage while the two singers engage in what must seem like the hybrid of a Wizard's lightning-scorched duel crossed with a sweat and beer-spat version of ring-around the rosie and an almost wild-dog-like showdown of verbose conjuring of hexes...........

............

that's just what it sounds like...

and it makes you wish you were there, in the room... what the hell happened? what the hell did this look like? (One of the singers guzzled beer as it was poured down to his waiting mouth from the make-shift "cup" of his own shoe...mid-song)...

Makes you wonder what Forget's got planned for their next set at the Berkley Front (Mar 15)... or wonder what could happen at any Forget set....

or wonder, just what, could happen, under the right (and somewhat mad, mystical circumstances) at any band's set... if the fire catches them.

more info--axis mundi