NYC show review

NYC's perfomance at Le Poison Rouge Friday was expectedly complicated, as a live blend of programmed electronics and acoustic jazz drums in a quasi-improvisational set is a difficult feat. It was good enough, though, but that's not even why I attended. No, it was for my worship of John Cage that I attended.

The C3 percussion line performed the middle set with compositions for percussion written by Steve Reich and John Cage. I was extremely excited to see my first live performance of a Cage piece, and as expected, it was absolutely amazing. The collective clatter and inventive, oblique climaxes ejaculated beauty all over my face.

The first opener, ARP, achieved their goal, which I believe was to be derivative of anything remotely related to Brian Eno and accompanied with footage derivative of anything remotely related to Stan Brakhage. Good enough to drink my seven dollar beer to, though. Which leads me to the next item of the review: the venue. This was my first visit to Le Poison Rouge, decorated modernly with chained fish tanks dangling over stairways and occupied by a large crowd of obnoxious douchebags that love to chatter throughout the show. I would have preferred tohave seen the performance of Cage's "Third Construction" at a seated concert hall and not an indie club who claims to be an "art center" (stop embarrassing yourselves and call it what it is, a dump with beer and bands).

I attempted to locate more information on the C3 Pecussion group and have found the following information. (1.) They're names are Jeffery Irving, Haruka Fujii (has a web site, http://www.harukafujii.com), John Ostrowski, Sam Solomon, and Chris Thompson . (2.) Most of them studied or are affiliated with The Julliard School in New York. (3.) Irving has participated in releases on New Albony Records (mostly a 20th century composer label, well known for releases for Ingram Marshall, John Adams, Threnody Ensemble, etc.). (4.) While writing this, I found they're official site! http://www.linec3.com (members page does not include Irving, who is said to be a member by The Julliard School). (5.) They're next show is in February. I'm going.