I stood in front of a black gate and wondered for a second how to get into the show. All I knew was to go to Capp St. and then find the black gate at 110. After my eyeballs engaged in a little confused meandering, I discovered the key entry pad with a washed out little sign that said “Godwaffle Pancakes Press 500.” After getting dialed in, I wandered through the alley, still a bit confused. Signage was limited, so it took me a second to find the staircase. At one point I thought I heard the sounds of a noise show, but it was actually just a big compressor likely used to refrigerate some kind of imported produce. (I did take a second to notice that the oscillation of the compressor motor could make a nice backdrop for a mixer feedback food fight.) I navigated five flights of stairs and used my nose to follow the smell of pancakes.
When I entered SFArt, the gallery revealed itself as a lovely, long room culminating in a great view of downtown San Fran replete with midday sun and blue skies. The show must have started right at twelve noon, because a couple of bands had already played, and I swear it was only 12:25. The Godwaffle mini-circus would prove to be a noise gig played out with a ruthless efficiency that belied my experience, which had shown instead through repeated empirical evidence that harsh electronic affairs are largely played out into the wee hours of the night in inexorably inefficient fashion, especially when seven or more bands are involved. The rooms are never bright. And there are usually way more fucked up people lurching about. This would be a noise show to live standing on the pedestal of contrast.
The lineage of Godwaffle Noise Pancakes begins with a noise show titled Pancakes at Pubis, which held down a spot in what is now a flooded living room somewhere in the bowels of the Mission around the turn of the millenium. Fast forward to now, and Pubis McNasty of Bullshit Detector and some of the BrutalSFX folks relocated the Pubis PA to ArtSF to curate a series with no listenable music allowed. Genesis Godwaffle Noise Pancakes. The ostensible theme is that all the bands play electronics, pancakes & waffles are served, 78s are played between bands, and at some point, a little puppet show occurs. And you better eat some pancakes, dammit.
Perhaps it was a combination of the early hour and the apparent lack of drug-fueled confusion that allowed the show to move so smoothly and quickly. No bands offered banter, there was nary an introduction, and each group or individual basically played one ‘song,’ which was some variety of noisy build-up into a wall of sound that was cut off unexpectedly or too late, then followed by applause. Most of the performers either had their gear pre-set or possessed relatively simple gear configurations, such as one mixer, a few pedals, and perhaps one contact mic or other device. All told, I believe, seven or possibly eight bands performed in just under two hours and without the prodding or tasking of any mad promoters or black-cloaked underground overlords. Plus, there was a puppet show featuring some art and characters that carried the unmistakable artistic squiggle familiar to anyone who has delved in Caroliner or Rubber O Cement. A densely packed noise cake and overall good value.
I was largely clueless as well as totally unfamiliar with all of the performers, so I tasked myself with deciphering the names of the bands playing while trying to gain an appreciation for what each of them was doing. I’ve seen enough noise sets that a certain number of them feel more like lukewarm showers than hot sticks of butter slapped across my face. That is to say that many bands forking with electronics don’t really do much to make themselves standout. Visually, knob-turning and fader crashing lacks the intensity of long-hairs stroking guitar necks or smashing drumsticks. For the less talented noise groups, it can be helpful to cover up a lack of virtuosity with a bevy of well-meaning bodily intent, regardless of whether the physicality is a concerted and planned piece or just a chaotic reaction to the music. If the audience is so inclined, they can choreograph their own noise jiggle or just pound beer and hold their fists in the air.
The noise purveyors that I saw that day (and I admit I missed a couple bands) squashed all their sets together without jumping around or feedback-induced body noodling, and the crowd’s reaction was equally tepid. Appreciation was limited to applause. I was disappointed in that regard, but a couple of sets stood out thanks to auditory excellence. I realized in the process that variance and originality in the juxtaposition of sound were factors I valued highly, and volume and mechanical energy matter less.
Running down the order, I must say that Tullan Velte of Oakland ruled more than any other. As the lone feller in dark clothes with short, spiky hair approached his card table and whipped out his pedals, I noted the casual and flippant tosses which brought dude’s gear from his briefcase to the card table pedestal that invoked late nights of Scrabble. A little bit of confidence seemed to be behind those tosses. He stood with his back to the audience and got nasty.
The TV set began with a deepish fart note, which built into a scattered mechanical throbbing permeated by a sickly smell of fevered, formless mixer shouting as the volume built geometrically. It sounded pretty good, actually, and he managed to throw in some insane laser waves. A squeaky doodle was being built to a feverish disco threat before horrific throbbing resumed. A drop of heavy and deep mixer feedback warned the earplug-less to gear up before the whole jam slingshot into hotter fever.
Then I lost interest for a second and wondered what was coming next in the mix. I was hoping the build-up was going to scatter rapid-shot into some kind of ridiculous other noise, but instead, that was it. An almost flawless build-up with no resolution beyond a cursory fade out. Beautiful use of timing, and it certainly kept with the unstated and perhaps unintentional short set motif.
Another stand-out was +DOG+, a Ventura County project that has seen numerous line-ups in the past. The only male figure in the trio was apparently the original member; he had recruited the two ladies (one on vox and the other on synth) to help fatten the sound in what was an evolving project. The strange hat on the synth member looked like Tim Burton’s version of a Vietnamese rice farmer’s headgear, and her appearance gave the scene a curious flavor. I protected my ears for this extra volume-heavy scheme, and in the process missed some mid-frequency hyper squiggle. I know this because I pulled the plugs out for a second to taste, but then my sensitive drums threatened me, sending a warning prophecy of a tinnitus ring that would keep me up later that night, and I re-plugged into the land of the cautious earhole. Even without hearing the full range of sound, I still rocked along with the thing mightily. I noticed the aforementioned lead member had some kind of mic’d or wired metal piece, not an uncommon site at noise shows, which got me wondering – which one of the sounds that I was hearing was coming from that thing?
A fun game to play at a noise show is to try to figure out what gear is making what racket. In this case, I was unable to decipher how the metal shard, bigger that two cafeteria trays, was sounding off, but from watching him perform seemingly calculated and purposeful little shudders and wiggles of the beat up scrap, I deduced that dude was definitely playing that thing. In fact, he might have practiced with it before. The overall sound of +DOG+ was a curious mix of demented carousel music combined with outrageously piercing mic feedback and a whole panoply of short-lived and finely nuanced garbledy-gook. There were sections when a whole tier of the group’s sound would drop out, and it’s always hard to tell in those cases whether equipment is fucking up or the band really wants it to sound that way.
I ought not slight the other acts I considered less than amazing, for they all had their merits. Hobby Knife from Oregon had an interesting setup which consisted of a variety of adapted toys and battery-powered junk. One of the ‘instruments’ had the look of a hair dryer but was likely some kind of kid’s laser drill with flashing revolving lights. It seemed to be working imperfectly during the sound check/set-up phase of the woman’s set, and some friends were called in. Hence, there evolved a scene which is often witnessed at the harsh electronic showcases, as a small crew of noise musicians crowd around a pedal-strewn table attempting to determine which cable, box, or connection is the faulty one. From my own experience running sound at noise gigs, I know this kind of game can be a significant factor in the stretching of shows into the wee hours, but in this case the faulty equipment was isolated and remedied posthaste. It was actually pretty entertaining to watch her play with the toys, and the demented whine sound, what I think of as the classic dentist office/woodshop aesthetic, is a personal fave. At one point, one of the taped-up box-looking things was being held to her head while she waved the drill dryer around, which was the most visually interesting thing to happen that day behind the puppet show. I don’t think the song was called “Alien Abortion,” but that moniker came to me in a momentary flash of mental imagery. It wasn’t a flawless set by any means, but it stood out from the rest and deserves mention.
Also deserving mention was the guy (I.N.R.I.?) with the plastic flute and cymbal who was playing when I entered. His was truly a sound that seemed unrelated to the action that played out. That means I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on between the flute, cymbal, and cables, but the womb-ocean lapping drone was nicely overridden with squalls and rhythmic sawing. And the fruit flies dancing in the air seemed to be right in tune.
Can’t forget the puppets. A puppet show with no point, no plot, no characters, and no introduction wouldn’t fly at the public library, but with this audience, I think the grotesque cuteness of the little characters was in line. Most of the puppets were two-dimensional, although there was one floating puffy thing that seemed to barf up fabric scraps intermittently. I saw more video cameras whipped out during this segment than at any other point in the show. Certainly, with a backdrop coming through the windows featuring some of the most high-priced real estate in the Union, the view behind said critters helped to enhance the veritable puppet mind-fuck. The skyscrapers were as much a star as the illustrated tape deck on a stick that battled another unnamed creature for a second during a pivotal moment in the incomprehensible puppet orgy.
And yes, I ate some goddamn pancakes. Well, I ate my waffle; it was good. By the time I got to my pancake, it was chewy and somewhat rubbery, so I only swallowed a bite. The namesake of the noise show got its fair due in my belly, and the sugar rush from the ‘maple’ syrup wore off just around the time the last One Spot was unplugged. Excellent timing and an all around excellent Saturday afternoon noise feast. Recommended, dammit.
