Track Could Bend, the monthly series happening on the first Tuesday of each month and focused on bringing together musicians from various genres and disciplines for largely improvised sets, is always an interesting time, since you never know exactly what surprises may be in store for you. This evening was no different, with uniquely weird and satisfying sets from Kapali Carsi and Professor Andy Dolgin and the Cereal Killers.
Emerging from the basement in his homemade suit of cereal box armour, Dolgin joined his band for a set mixing noise jazz and hardcore punk with snippets of breakfast cereal jingles, Saturday morning cartoon themes and other half remembered detritus of childhood pop culture past (“What’s Your Thing” and “I’m Just A TV,” just to name a few) chewed up, spit out, and filtered through the lens of a bad trip. Dolgin even brought a tuba to the venue with him, then totally didn’t even bother to use it. That’s dedication to your craft. I think. Is Andy Dolgin actually a professor though? Is Andy even his real name? We may never know. Well, I suppose we could just ask him, but who has time for that?
Up next was Kapali Carsi, aka Kevin Hainey, who followed up the wacky spectacle of the Cereal Killers’ set with a performance that was almost an anti-performance. Kneeling with his back turned on the crowd, he focused squarely on his guitar and amp and all of the noises he could wrench from them. It did the trick though, sounding good and weirdly making for the perfect soundtrack to the bacchanalian nude hippy grape stomping scene from John Frankenheimer’s Seconds which was playing out on the screen. Trippy stuff.