For the last week, the same weather pattern: Stunning blue mornings, and then low white clouds drift over, almost apologetically at first, as though one or two had lost their way and might ask directions before strolling off to their real destination; but then they thicken, and the wind begins to bend the trees and rattle the tarps on our Dachegeschloss (top floor), where they’re turning an attic into a penthouse. Eventually the rain will come, in big drops that sound like hail against the window.
For now, I’m eating my apfeltasche (apple pocket), blowing powdered sugar onto my keyboard every time I breathe through my nose, looking out the window and procrastinating before starting work.
Last night the Boredoms, a 20-year-old Japanese noise group that has evolved from grating punk-ish noise to something like a rave drum circle. Minus their original guitarist, and various other noisemakers, they’re now led by founder Yamatsuka (or Yamantaka, or Yamataka) Eye, who sings/screams/plays various electronics while three drummers pound out trance-inducing rhythms around him.
I love them, but they belong now at an outdoor party, under the moon, with a bunch of crazy hippies doing crazy hippy things around them. They are trying to tap into a primal strain in music that sometimes verges dangerously close to the stoned drummers in Golden Gate park. They are saved by their own manic energy, and Eye’s samuri-prophet charisma.