This Friday past marked Lolo's return to the grand world of live music after a several month hiatus hiding in my cave up here in Northern Cal. And what grandiose musician could ever possess enough talent and skill to lure me from my cosy den illuminated solely by the kindly glow of my notebook? None other than the immensely-talented, divinely-inspired, mouthpiece-of-the-almighty: Amon Tobin. The man whose aural soundscapes opened up new worlds of possibility for sound and music. The man who has provided the soundtrack for my life since that rainy Eugene afternoon 5 years ago when i purchased his album "permutations" from a crackhead on the street for the insignificant cost of $5. The man who I may rightly blame my music freakishness on. I had missed him by three months when i moved from Eugene to Hawaii, and had regretted it ceaselessly, often wishing to bash my head upon a wall for the soul-shattering ecstasty of seeing him work his magic live. So it was with great joy that i was fooling around on the net a week or so ago and saw that he was coming to the Bay for a night as a performer in the 4 day Noise Pop festival. I leapt on it. Pulling K@ from her pre-slumber fugue state, i informed her that we were going to the bay next weekend come armageddon or nuclear warfare. I was so serious in this respect that i even volunteered the unthinkable- I would drive home. Those who know me are well aware of my aversion to driving. I loathe it. I despise it. If I could, I would ride mass transit wherever it ran, and my bike everywhere else. Yet I digress. So, with K@ slipping back into catatonia, I purchased tickets (learning my lesson from the "wait-until-last-minute-to-buy-ween-tickets" fiasco of last year).

Fast forward to Friday evening. K@ returned from work at 6 and we were off, car filled with gas, us filled with red bulls. We hit the city and surprisingly were not immediately tossed willynilly into the abyss of winding one way streets that normally spells doom whenever we embark to SF. The fates were on our side that night, we did not become hopelessly entangled in the backstreets, in fact only took one wrong turn which was easily put right. Found the venue with minimal fuss and were in. The opening act was just winding up, a dark minimalist set by telephonejimjesus- a heavily stoned dready in an impecable dark suit. Next up was a quartet from the bay area called roots of orchis providing an epic sound along the lines of godspeed you black emporer! and mogwai, with the addition of a drummer doubling as dj, and the guitarist doing part-time on a DAT machine. the highlight of this group was watching them all switch positions and instruments with such smooth surety, they were a definite group, comfortable with each other and the music they were making together. The third openers I missed out on. I got pissed off at a drunk man standing behind me yelling insults at the band, so wandered off to the bar to make some friends and see if I could find K@.

Finally, the time came and the man himself was up center-stage. His hair unruly under a baseball cap, and a cigarette pushed defiantly between his lips (screw California anti-smoking laws! damn puritans!) he started the show off with Lighthouse, the first single off his new album- chaos theory, the soundtrack for the new splinter cell game. And it only got better from there. Playing tracks from all across his vast catalogue, as well as some of the hardest hitting drum and bass that human speakers can support, he had me dancing more than i've done in years, turning myself into a sweating heap under the disco lights. Amon had just dropped one of my favorite tracks from Permutations, when i just happened to look over at the girl who was dancing next to me. "Hmmm," I thought. "She looks a lot like Tamar from high school." I snuck another look. "Yeah, she really looks like Tamar, except the last time i saw her she had a really short pixie haircut." This girl's hair could only be described as an unruly mane. Still, it had been four years since I had last seen her, maybe it could be. I decided to chance it, calling "Tamar" loud above the music. She looked at me, looked away. Looked back. Double take.... "LOGAN??!!??" I had guessed correctly... We hugged and over the thumping bass exchanged news. We were both the first people from high school we had ever spontaneously run into since leaving coeur d'alene, and were utterly shocked that it would happen here of all places. Still, of all the people I could ever expect to run into at an amon tobin show, it would be Tamar. She had always had superb taste in music, and even when CDA was all wrapped up in the rave thing, she always exhibited the best taste in the music, eschewing fluffy house and emotionless trance in favor of the drive-it-through-the-floor-feel-it-in-your-bones-hours-later drum and bass music. In fact, I had been thinking of just such a night on our drive down to the show, and wondering what had happened to Tamar, Josh Beckett, and even Mike Mayo. The show carried on, Tamar and I dancing until we were only sweaty messes oozing around on the floor. The show wrapped up about an hour later, with Amon segueing from his orgasmically good remix of the velvet underground's "venus in furs," into a death metal metallica song laid over the bass line from "reanimator" from permutations, which managed to evoke one last burst of energy from the wrung out audience. WHAT A NIGHT!!! It definitely re-ignited my love for live music, and a need to see more groups in their natural environment. I figure, what's the point of living on the mainland if you don't enjoy the best parts about it? So there shall definitely be more shows for K@ and lolo in the future.

Pitchfork's review of Amon Tobin's Supermodifed
Pitchfork's review of Amon Tobin's Permutations
Pitchfork's review of Amon Tobin's Out From Out Where