Spring Break
What is Muscle Beach
Tuesday, Oct. 23
Joeseph Nicolello
Issue date: 9/1/07 Section: Tunesday
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This blog will be intended to enlighten those curious in music that isn't and will never be on the radio, live shows, noise rocks, re-issues coming out from bands I'd never have known mattered that much to other companies, etc. My other goal as far as informing goes is to keep the reader up to date on my record label, Brain City, which is in the works as this is being typed.
The following is a brief review of the Lehigh Valley venue Muscle Beach, which is hands down the place to be for underground music lovers. In the past week (in which two shows have taken place) one of the touring bands played live with walls of amplifiers, clocking in at 5,000 watts. Something like a demonic tank barreling through the burnt out aftermath of a hellish bombshell war, bludgeoning the eardrums of those without (and some with) earplugs.
In the middle of nowhere, a building is shaking. The sky bears several glowing crosses; there is no bathroom here, no water fountain. Live music, live noise, and a group of people who have made it past the side streets and alleyways to the hellhole that is Muscle Beach.
Violent, seizure like motions, windows actually glaring at each other wondering aloud who'll be the first to combust - it's something like a factory, something like a shaking Hell.
Endless wires, walls of noise, bruised eardrums, bruised morals; one wall reads "Weed Priest 666". Names of some of the bands are too vulgar to print. The others, well, the names aren't as memorable as the shows in which performers embody on a regular basis. Their words are lost in feedback, about 50 pairs of eyes stuck on the carnage. There is no need to look away - Toward what, a glowing cross? A TV set back home? This is happening in the Lehigh Valley. Somewhere, anywhere.
Donate a few dollars to the bands, get inside and don't even attempt having a clue as far as what's to expect goes.
On the other hand, there may be the following: men crawling pipes on walls like an animal, a woman playing her acoustic guitar between deafening sets singing songs about cats, empty cans in motion, arms flailing, sweat pouring, smoke rising, light bulbs breaking, couches on which there is no need to sit during the shows, the new noise alluring.
The following is a brief review of the Lehigh Valley venue Muscle Beach, which is hands down the place to be for underground music lovers. In the past week (in which two shows have taken place) one of the touring bands played live with walls of amplifiers, clocking in at 5,000 watts. Something like a demonic tank barreling through the burnt out aftermath of a hellish bombshell war, bludgeoning the eardrums of those without (and some with) earplugs.
In the middle of nowhere, a building is shaking. The sky bears several glowing crosses; there is no bathroom here, no water fountain. Live music, live noise, and a group of people who have made it past the side streets and alleyways to the hellhole that is Muscle Beach.
Violent, seizure like motions, windows actually glaring at each other wondering aloud who'll be the first to combust - it's something like a factory, something like a shaking Hell.
Endless wires, walls of noise, bruised eardrums, bruised morals; one wall reads "Weed Priest 666". Names of some of the bands are too vulgar to print. The others, well, the names aren't as memorable as the shows in which performers embody on a regular basis. Their words are lost in feedback, about 50 pairs of eyes stuck on the carnage. There is no need to look away - Toward what, a glowing cross? A TV set back home? This is happening in the Lehigh Valley. Somewhere, anywhere.
Donate a few dollars to the bands, get inside and don't even attempt having a clue as far as what's to expect goes.
On the other hand, there may be the following: men crawling pipes on walls like an animal, a woman playing her acoustic guitar between deafening sets singing songs about cats, empty cans in motion, arms flailing, sweat pouring, smoke rising, light bulbs breaking, couches on which there is no need to sit during the shows, the new noise alluring.
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