It was in eager, nerve-tingling anticipation that I approached SunnO)))’s first New York appearance in roughly two years. A special four date scuttlebutt (two shows on the East Coast, two on the West) would see the band without a new album to promote, instead celebrating the ten year anniversary of the now legendary Grimm Robe Demos, their first recorded output. Like that demo, the initial testament to their unending down-tuned drone worship, their performance at the Knit was filled with intestine-churning glory. Though more recent SunnO))) live shows have hosted up to seven members on stage, they began with just two robed specters, Southern Lord label-head Greg Anderson and the inimitable Steven O’Malley (KTL, Burning Witch). That’s how it would also be this night, and in the end, less was indeed more.
I entered the club and Baton Rouge natives Thou were on stage. Their website explicitly pleads “Stop Comparing Us to Eyehategod,” and I would’ve, had I not read that. Their metallic sludge-core conjured other doom and gloomers like Cavity and Buzzoven, and though their sound was in a lot of ways familiar, they had a certain knack for crossing genres, mixing in flourishes of psychedelic black-metal of the Nachtmystium sort, while never taking the edge off their particularly misanthropic metal-core. Their singer spewed forth vile with throat lacerating vocals, condemning life in all its horrid splendor. He seemed very angry, in that jaded suburbanite hardcore kind of way, and muttered something before the last song about how life was pointless. Their myspace page also displays teenage angst edicts like “Go outside and burn the world to the ground” and "Give up on life as a bad mistake." Bravo boys. Also, they were selling patches, something I don’t think I’ve experienced since 1998.
The 68 year old Tony Conrad would take the stage next and was a little more contemporary. I’d seen Tony twice in the past year or so but both times he was accompanied, once by the foxy MV Carbon of Metalux, the other trading bowed barbs with C. Spencer Yeh. Though there were similar elements in all three performances, there was something deeply satisfying about seeing Conrad up there on his own, perilously bowing his violin, looping drones and noodling atonally over them with a piece of string. His resonating drones were reminiscent of his work with Lamonte Young and John Cale in the old Theater of Eternal Music days, but it was his economic shtick that really stole the show. In an act that is still confounding me, Tony actually managed to bow -- and get some pretty good sounds -- out of a tightly clamped 50 dollar bill while offering some thoughts on the current economic crisis; “Wall Street’s not too far from here” he grunted like a pirate into the mic; “They’ve been playing with our money.” The financial fluxus piece didn’t end there, as Tony bowed a gold chain while urging people to invest in precious metals. Looping violin goodness, classic authentic minimalism and fluxus foundations all made for an all-out great performance.
I decided to make a move after Conrad’s set to purchase the lusciously beautiful 3xlp Grimm Robe picture disc reissue, which, upon further inspection, glaringly exceeds the dwindling worth of the forty federal reserve notes it took to exchange for it. By that point I had already been boxed out of my original spot, and I noticed the room really starting to fill up. Luckily, I found a gap to the right of the stage, and after waiting for what seemed like one full Paleolithic era for them to come out (I think they were waiting for their industrial fog machine to fill the room), the robed duo finally emerged from the netherworld. I had an excellent vantage point of Greg Anderson, but O'Malley was completely out of my purview. Looking back, I saw the room packed to the gills, but eventually moved more towards the middle in a painfully tight trek. Here I could both performers in all their fist-raising, wine-imbibing glory. Holding their guitars to the heavens and playing one impossibly long note after another, SunnO))) were mightier than the cosmos themselves.
I was convinced there was some divine intervention afoot when O'Malley precariously dangled his guitar on a piece of Styrofoam soundproofing dangling from the ceiling. A collective gasp came from the crowd when he let go, sure it would plummet 10-15 feet to its death, but by God’s hand, it remained there for a good couple of minutes, resonating and hanging high from the ceiling. It was a beautiful thing. The two plodded away for over an hour, each stroke of their guitars endlessly enveloping and extended into a bubbling Chernobyl. Overall, an amazing night from which my body is still vibrating.
