Scene and Heard

Throw noise shows in your basement

Photos by Nate Dorr » Grab a PA, plug some samplers and pedals and whatever into it, call some friends, you're good to go. Just hope the neighbors are cool with the bass thump and molten feedback.

Text by Nate Dorr
Posted on March 26, 2009

Wednesday's foray into the the ultra-unofficial concert was the last-minute work of new Brooklyn noise trio Best Hits, who have distinguished themselves with an ear for rhythm and sample manipulation that reveals them to be coming at noise less from a punk or avant angle than from that of IDM and electronica (suspicions cemented when they put on a dubstep album -- Benga -- between sets). The set we heard will apparently be largely the same (though in cleaner, clearer mixdown) as the second side of their upcoming debut.

After casting around for a venue for the bill they'd assembled (new Corey Bauer project Curlers, for whom knocked-over equipment that posed no hurdle to finishing the set by contact-mic-ing the PA, the similarly electronic-minded CH ROM, frenetic solo Baltimore drummer Teenage Souls, and cut-up party beatsmith GDFX, now with an MC as well), the show was finally given a home in a Bed-Stuy apartment belonging to Cammisa, previously of now-defunct power-noise outfit Miami Beach.

Also, disaster was narrowly avoided. Matt from Best Hits gives this eyewitness account: "I hope the show will be one that is talked about years down the road, between the speaker falling over during our set and knocking the natural gas line open filling the room with flammable gas as countless unassuming bystanders were lighting up - we all owe our lives to CH ROM for quickly noticing the danger and turning the valve off."

And then the cops showed up, claiming to have "heard drums" from the street, and everyone kept real quiet until they went away. When else has that actually ever worked?