My Favorite Mistake (By The Lake)

Cleveland. The butt of many a joke. A home to Polish Boys, awful sports teams, pollution, industrial collapse, extreme poverty and consequently one of the best industrial / harsh noise scenes in the country. As a harsh noise guy, I'm lucky enough to have a dual citizenship between Athens and the Cleve, due to the summers and winter breaks that I spend at my parents' place a half hour from the city. Thankfully, this puts me less than an hour from the nexus of depressive and abrasive noise emanating from the bowels of the city.

For instance, last weekend I was privy to witnessing a show of incredible proportions at The Cool Ranch, a basement venue not far from the Case Western campus. The show featured a lineup of out-of-town acts from Chicago (Winters in Osaka, Koufar, Pyrrhic Thanatology Monger) and Michigan (Dog Lady, Body Collector), as well as an enormous amount of local support (The Family Chapter, Arsonist's Prayer, Michael James and myself as Nyodene D). All the acts set up in the absolute filth of the basement and created some of the most hellish clatter, shriek and thud I've had the privilege to witness for a few months now.

There were several standout sets that readily come to mind. One of the first was Arsonist's Prayer, the anarcho-power electronics act who was performing his second set of the day. AP made use of disgusting low end synth rumbles and forceful vocals in a way that toed the line between out-of-control and completely dominating. The sheer violence of his set was a promise for more great things from his project in the future.

Another standout was the set by the Family Chapter, made up of Wyatt Howland (Skin Graft), Steve Makita (of Lockweld), Amanda Howland-Davidson (of Dead Peasant Insurance) and Christine Brennan (vegan chef extraordinaire). Full-on white noise screeching, out-of-control screaming and arcs of sparks being ground off the side of a machete into the audience. It ran a lot of people out of the basement and prompted one hapless attendee to ask Makita afterwords if he'd ever killed anyone. He explained that, while never intentionally, he thinks he may have given a woman a heart attack after walking into a nursing home wearing a hockey mask. Mike James did a unprecedentedly short set, full of scrap metal abuse and sonic self-loathing that made for a super grimy time.

Regarding the out-of-towners, all performed well, but three stood out in my mind. For sheer brutality, PTM was the winner. His set was four minutes of the most pissed-off harsh noise I've seen since, well, the last time I saw him. The set ended with PTM storming out of the room, glass broken all over the floor and a feedback loop ringing for an extra two minutes of performance time.

For his haunting aural beauty, Michigan's Dog Lady takes the cake. His synth fuckery, combined with his delicate yet shrill violin bowing, made him a standout once again and brought a Godspeed You! Black Emperor sensibility to a scummed-out basement noise fest.

Finally, the most harrowing performance was the emotionally draining and politically-driven set of Chicago's Koufar, whose brutal vocal delivery lent a throatbleeding cry to the cause of Lebanese nationalism. It's hard to not be moved by Koufar's plaintive and urgent pleading in front of the flag of Lebanon, and anyone who gets to witness his set will be privy to a emotional display of fervent hatred and mourning.

With its crumbling factories, brutal neighborhoods and pothole-laden streets, the Cleveland skyline provided the perfect backdrop to an evening spent bathing in waves of harsh noise and sonic hatred.