Shavin'

"to live and shave in ibiza"

"do you wanna get down?"

not really ibiza - more like berlin! they began with full-bore improv raunch (courtesy of mark morgan from sightings and don fleming - yes, that don fleming), with rat bastard and smith weaving around the angular, stabbing vibe like punch-drunk boxers. it was really cool to watch - they were mega-loose, almost like liquid. no overt rhythms, only internal ticks of their collective atomic clock. then tom signalled the band to "bring it down," and he set a program in motion on his laptop computer. at first, we heard strange, almost splattered sounds. then came an explosion - there's no other way to describe it! tlasila circa '04 (featuring the band's original, hardcore line-up of fleming, bastard and smith, and thankfully free of the distracting shtick of free-jazz comic weasel walter) use hard breakbeats instead of spazzed-out devil rock drumming, and they played with even greater intensity than they did in 1999-2000. (i don't count tlasila 2 or any of the other spin-off groups from 2000-2001; they were largely spoofs of the original and lacked the heady intellectualism and power of the bastard/smith group). yes, breakbeats! it was incredible... i saw them at the cooler in '99 and it was great, but this was even better. can't wait for their tour!!!

Darn, I thought this was going to be a thread about Billy Joe Shaver.

LYDIA DO YOU KNOW IAN JOHNSON

HAHAHAH

hello gygax - I recognize ian johnson from various threads; i'm always more of a lurker than a responder, but i had to speak up re "ibiza". tlasila at no fun wasn't exactly "speed-garage". :)

i like the flying luttenbachers, but i felt weasel walter's involvement with the whole tlasila 2 thing was pointless. without smith, there was no "head," only a spastic corpse swatting at an approximation of shave's sound. he fits right in with the san fran costume rock / comedy improv thing, however! :)

thanks for the thread link!!

--LL