Soontofu and sonic noise

Ben Clark and I went to K-Town last night to catch the Mogwai show at The Wiltern. The pre-post rockers from Scotland were on tour with upstart drone washers from Bristol, Fuck Buttons, who I had arranged to interview for the next GR. We arrived on time but waited for about 45 minutes for someone to let us into the historic Art Deco venue. It turns out the bouncer thought we wanted to interview the headliners. Nope.


For two guys that make a lot of noise, Andrew and Ben turned out to be pretty quiet. Also quite serious. But they were cordial and the interview went well. With minimal gear and just a tour manager in tow, the art school graduates seemed slightly swamped by the massive green room. The table of drinks and snacks was bigger than their full load of equipment.


After the interview concluded and portraits were taken, Ben and I walked down Western to BCD Tofu House. There are harder core BBQ joints nearby, but the 24-hour chain is pretty good about handling non-Koreans. They didn't even scoff at Ben when he dropped the entire, uncracked egg into his soup. More like amused.


I was totally amazed by Fuck Buttons debut CD and wondered how the rhythmic noise would translate to a live performance. How do they make the soundtrack to clouds forming, glaciers imploding, and stars being born? A lot like two guys playing ping pong--minus the racquets and running around. Even so, they were very intense and the set was great.


Mogwai didn't move around much, either, but were solid. I have to admit it was getting past my bedtime and I was fading during some of the prettier instrumentals. So the noisy rock pieces that came out toward the end of the set were somewhat jarring. When house lights suddenly went on, it was as if my eyelids were being peeled by the beautiful, awesome noise.


On the way out, we spotted some of Ben's friends. On the right is fellow photographer Atiba Jefferson, who is not only a legendary skate shooter but has also shot portraits of some of the NBA's biggest ballers. It turns out we got a lot of the same shows...


Two nights out in a row is a pretty big deal for me. Time to catch up on sleep and crank out articles!