I went to the show not knowing what to expect. Supposedly, even veterans of Action Research shows do not know what to expect.
Both Action Research, headed by Andrew Chadwick, and Alternative SubSouth, a similar movement headed by Chris Miller, have been gaining steady popularity as an alternative to the “guitar hegemony” of Gainesville music.
An article I wrote in “The Alligator” describes Action Research. Here, I wanted to further describe my experience in detail and paint a picture of what the show was like.
I was initially going to use samples of the bands that I recorded on my cellphone, but after being notified of the YouTube videos available, have inserted them where appropriate.
Hal McGee performed first at Action Research #24, playing synthesizer as part of a duet with trumpet player, Jay Peele. McGee has been described by Miller as the “Bo Diddley” of experiential music.
Royallen was next. His music was described on the promotional posters as “records and tapes on a play date.” The description is quite accurate. He is a solo act, switching between a record player and a tape player, both which blast out children’s songs, books on tape and other assortments of sound clips. One of his machines broke at the end of the show and he frustratingly threw it down, ending his performance on a happy hoe down.
In the same dimly lit back room as Royallen, Kane Pour under the performance name, Pospullen, looped his guitar, bass and synthesizer into beautiful symphonies. He was one of my favorite live performances of the night. It was a like a cartoon, one-man band on psychedelics.
Andrew Barranca, under the name GayBomb, was probably the best known performer at Action Research #24. In his performance he used two Califone Magnetic Card Readers: devices originally intended to help children read. Sitting on the floor and using his spidery limbs, Barranca frenziedly swiped cards through the machines in order to play prerecorded samples of piercing distortion and thunderous wailing. The sound was akin to urban myths of what Satan would sound like communicating through a Led Zeppelin record played backwards.
Dave Armitage, a UF graduate student who performed under the name, No Limit Cycle, gave one of the most intense performances of the night. The whole thing sounded like a soundtrack from a suspense thriller. His voice echoed into a vocoder and he switched between tweaking knobs on foot pedals, clicking mysterious icons on his computer and playing heavy metal riffs on his untuned guitar.
Later, sitting on an old pew and a couple of chairs, Glockenshock, a glockenspiel quartet, played their hand-held mallet instruments in synchronized patterns. It reminded me of the simplistic band class exercises in third grade.
Towards the end of the night, prowling through the audience on ten gallon buckets, spreading yarn and eventually spasming on the concrete floor, was the dance duo known as Triscults.
All together, there were ten performances at Action Research #24, with two collaborations – and most importantly, it ended at a reasonable time. The show was like a sample disc of all the experiential bands in the area. I wish more shows would follow their example.
I am very disappointed that I missed their July 12 show, as I was not only looking forward to it, but desperately wanted to prove that I did not only attend the other show in order to write a story. The concept of the last show was interesting in that it pitted Action Research against Electronic SubSouth in a semi-collaborative match up. A great idea and great combination.
Visit Action Research and see their upcoming shows at: http://www.myspace.com/actionresearch.
