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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Fictional Show Review: Rat Jackson

rat jackson the samurai general

Local 506, Miyoshi Japan
July 10, 1545



Departing with the aid of darkness afforded extensive armaments. Blades, projectiles, explosives, these are decisions not normally on my mind during day light operations when I approach an iron clad target with nothing more than fisherman's rags covering my pounding chest and bare hands idly bluffing their intentions. No, on this night I would not worry to disarm my foe as a means for a weapon, I need only muse from which pocket death would be pulled.

The cobblestone pathway wound me to the center of town just as the masters stick drew in the earth hours earlier as our assignments and instructions for the evening’s raid were given. The clashing of sticks and swords distantly on my right confirmed that indeed the master's plan to alert the imperial guard of skirmish came to pass as members of our order, A Rooster For The Masses and The Loners, besieged the magistrates guard houses at the edge of the town. Approaching a cross street I became a shadow as guards clamored past and on to the fray below. Kneeling in silence I peered one-hundred yards down the path to see A Rooster For The Masses holding ground mid street and rapidly upending guard after guard with deliberately placed arrows. Meeting any who attempted flee with a fury of katanas, The Loners was the locked gate which held the guards within their burning hell. A perfectly executed strike, but alas, the guards within the guard house were not the target of the night, they were the unfortunate means to an end as this action would surely now succor the high protectors of the magistrate to the defense of the palace, the location of which lies at the end of my path. All that the master explained would occur was now in action. The crossing now clear, I glided through the disorientingly shadowless night towards the gates of the palace to ready my assignment.

Approaching the courtyard I paused in the outline of a tree and watched the Samurai General address Glenn Boothe, the Magistrate Lord, before leading his armored warriors within the gates. Known for his supernatural timing, rhythmic speed, and merciless delivery, the Samurai General's face is known to few for he is only ever seen in battle and in battle he is only ever seen wearing a helm with the emblazoned mark of a dragon upon the face visor. His ascent to the high militia authority is just as much a mystery as his persona and he earned the target of the master due to his overly public policy to unite and govern the boroughs of Durham, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, a political state which the master has deemed unacceptable. His name is Rat Jackson , and it was this name ornately scribed in the ink of a quill pen on the rolled parchment handed to me by the master. I quietly slipped past the palace door guard who stood under the crude 506 marker and assumed a vantage point in the shadows near the central riser from which the magistrate makes his addresses. This night would be Rat Jackson's last battle.

The samurai led the magistrate and his subjects into the riser room and calmly directed his warriors to the perimeter. To the panic of the members in the room the samurai only showed steadfast conviction and murmured, "Shortly my friends, shortly." Knowing the next action would be from that of my counterpart Red Collar, whose assignment was the magistrate, I maintained my stealth and meditated. The magistrate stood defiantly in the center of the riser and drew confidence from the long sharp steel in the scabbard of the sandalwood armored samurai standing at the edge of the platform, a confidence that was ill derived.

Moments later, with a thin katana held parallel with his body Red Collar dropped from the ceiling swiftly dispatching the magistrate as the momentum of his drop drove the blade deep through the spine. Remarkably quick, the emblazoned Rat Jackson met the attacker at the floor and with a single flash of steel rendered the dark figure into a mosaic of parts painted in red. Red Collar was to be out as quickly as he was in but in this final departure from the plan, he went out differently than was expected. Seemingly unaffected by the slaughter of Glenn Boothe, the magistrate he was blood-sword to protect, Rat Jackson sheathed his blade and slowly turned his visor toward the shadows I kneel concealed in, stealth was no longer a redeeming skill here.

Leaping to the riser I engaged close quarters with the samurai to shorten his ability for full scale long parrying and to lesson the leverage of his steel. The room was a blur with motion. Squires and clergymen scrambled for doors while some stood in shock wearing the mixed blood of the magistrate and of Red Collar, but Rat Jackson and I were suspended in our stance, one gaze locked to the other, I waited while he waited.

The first move was he as his lead hand gripped the sheathed steel, hips rotated downward and right with shoulders lowered. I sensed the all too familiar coiling of a samurai sheathed shortcut strike. My mind flowed to exercise where again and again the master's wooden shaft struck in forms of samurai kill blows until reflexes countered without thought. Following the impulse I instinctively inverse mirrored the motion in a grappling stance to counter. My steel claw-fitted left hand rose slightly to my hip to seize the momentum of the blade just as its stride was to begin and my right hand remembered the feel the cold bone handle of a shiv fettered to my back, a shiv which would rip forth in a single motion and thrust just below the rim of his helm through the base of his skull, a move so ingrained by training that the muscle movements involved even changed the way I moved my clothes over a washing board or how my axe struck a block of wood.

Through the cold iron mask his pierced eyes met mine for a fleeting moment, and then in the flash of a cold breath our motions opened with the fury of a high mountain blizzard. My claw felt the strike of the blade and a firm pressure suppressed its movement, my right arm grasped the handle of the shiv and retracted like a viper with fangs exposed. Thought became reality as my motions flowed and my mind closed in for the kill, but then happened the only thing that the master did not explain would happen.

My eye caught the most intriguing sight as the samurai’s robe folded back momentarily to reveal a leather spike quiver strapped to his ribs. Spikes being a weapon of stealth and covertness struck me as an inquisitive item for a samurai whose legitimate authority and ordained code found no use for any but the standard weapon of choice, the long steel tachi sword, which was always strapped like a holy badge of honor to their waist. Less inquisitive and more disconcerting was the notice that the first loop of four spike quiver was empty, and that his right hand no longer gripped the handle of his blade but rather drew a line from his shoulder to my neck.

My right hand still in its coiled position but with fingers now open and no longer holding the shiv, and with the claw in my left now releasing its hold on the blade, my midnight black tunic became warm and wet about the neckline. Many times I have seen the life spilling from a foe and it became an eerily familiar and unphasing instance to know that it was now spilling forth from me. A leg sweep rendered me to the ground where I became embraced by the all too familiar death locks. A knee in the groin paralyses from the waist down, hooked thumb in the soft tissue of the arm pit forces the body to retract and curl. Unable to extend, once embraced by these holds, they are to last until your final breath.

As if to honor my dying wish the samurai allowed my quivering hand to operate the visor of his helm revealing the true nature of my opponent. Sick became my thoughts upon seeing his face. Dying in battle has always been my expectation, dying at the hands of a deceiver was only expected for my foes. His masterful anticipation of the attack, effortless dispatching of Red Collar, the uncanny counter of my assassins thrust, and the tell-tale possession of a quiver full of darkness now drew a cold and bloody grimace from my lips as I stared long into the eyes of the one whose wooden shaft broke across my torso in hundreds upon hundreds of sparring matches within the secluded dojo of our order. Broken and bewildered, I spared a breath and into his eyes I asked, "Master, why?"

From the back of the crowd a shout answered my question "He has defeated the assassin, all hail our new lord!" The final lesson from my master was to be that death has many forms and mine is as a lamb whose sacrifice furthers the interest of the farm. With vision and tactics superseding my own understanding of purpose, this is why he is the master.

Paralyzed by his grip I closed my eyes in meditation, eager to meet what lies next with attention and readiness. I savored my breaths and thought of those who went the same way in the grip of my own hands. I was not at peace nor was I at unrest, I was in acceptance. With my last practice of mind over matter I began to numb the pain and focus only on my thoughts. So engulfed in the clouds I became that I nearly missed the release of the masters crippling knee as it lifted off my hip by the bulging crowd forcing in to see the dying assassin. I almost didn't notice the hand releasing the spike in my throat just before a grind and a twist could severe the artery. The assassin's assassin was pushed, ever so slightly, out of position to immobilize my movement. Old habits indeed die hard and plucking loose the spike and placing a finger upon the incision to cease loss of blood I assumed the chance to retreat. Jumping to my feet I lit the fuse of a black powder frag grenade on a torch next to the riser and evaporated from the room just as the smoke choked the air. Indeed this night crowned new lords on both sides, one into the disorientingly shadowless darkness, and the other into the revealing and compromising light. As I escaped across the cobblestones, I vowed to return to my patrol, in secret and in force. --Carrboro Ninja


Rat Jackson's next public appearance will be August 29th at The Cave in Chapel Hill. View all of their profiles here:

Rat Jackson: myspace
Red Collar: myspace
The Loners: myspace
A Rooster for the Massesmyspace

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Clawform, LiLa at Durty

Durty House Party

Durty house party, Durham
June 26, 2009


The creative talent in the bull city is in unrest this summer as art swells toward competition for who can be the most creative. 307 Knox gave us the outlandish Pin Projekt in May, BCHQ has summoned forth a double decker bike from the steel graveyard behind their shop, and Durty is hosting singularly purposed house parties of art display inside, outside, top, bottom, ears, eyes and if you were close enough to the fire breather, heat sensory receptors.

Not to be out paced, Durham's Prince of the Eclectic, Clawform , has carved a single seater genre of over driven, multiple tube amp powered, effect heavy, power chord focused banjo which pushes interesting in to the absorbing. My intention to describe Colin's work stops here because some things you just have to see to understand. The last number in Clawform's set was captured on the following video;




I regrettably disassembled the tripod too soon and missed capturing one of the most captivating hip hop performances I can recall, luckily someone else had the camera rolling and collected some footage. Lila and the Mid-Grade Lifestyle, unknown to anyone but themselves, marked their fifth official exercise as a group and first official public performance and instantly strung the audience like a puppet and started dancing them. Displaying originality within a frame of standards, the markedly boss ox trumpeting and timbre of their living breathing trombone recognized a since of place by bowing to classic Durham jazz roots while piling cherries on top of an already creamy arrangement of pre-digital American hip hop. Dirty corner drum kit, bouncy bass, and unnatural synth crazy keys grow together like limbs on the same tree and the resulting flow leaves no room for the ebb, just one hook building upon another. So fresh off the press that we don't even know where or when the next performance will come from, but so brightly lit that LiLa is not on the radar, the radar is on LiLa. --Carrboro Ninja


go to LiLa's myspace profile: myspace
go to Clawform's myspace: myspace

house party pictures:

Clawform

Clawform

Clawform

LiLa

x

LiLa

Oyster Destroyster

Oyster Destroyster

Oyster Destroyster

Oyster Destroyster

party pics

Durty house party

Durty house party

Durty house party


house party slide show

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Show Review: The Pneurotics, the Winter Sounds

Sassy McFassy

Nightlight, Chapel Hill
June 29, 2009



I know that guitar playing is not a competition measured in static attributes such as top speed or most hot dogs eaten and I get that there is enough head room in this town for as much talent to fly around as have wings to do so. And, like all the watchers lying on our backs staring at the sky, I enjoy the symmetry of the flock whose diving, soaring, singing, and fluttering paint an accidental pattern demarcating our own invisible boundaries and color filling what's inside with beauty. And, with this understanding for the shimmering flashes of the larger picture it's out of context to point at a single flushing feather and say ooh look at that one, but its even more so out of my own character to with hold opinion. So, the realization I have to share moved Monday night from dancing around in the back of my mind to jumping up and down on my head and that is, Rich McLaughlin is the best guitar player among us right now.

Rich, who’s raspishly thin, taunt, and strong folk infused singing matches with wife and bass player Mimi's harmonies to front The Pneurotics, a three piece classic rock inspired riff juggernaut that cruises in altitudes most cannot even breathe in. On their run Monday night at a tiny art-land vortex run by low-income party people, I became acutely aware of his mastery in a downright un-human display of guitar and amp manipulation. Rich perfectly rendered full scale harmonics and ghostishly released them somewhere between arpeggio chord crunching and magically sustained rhythm. After its witness I had to use a ratchet jack to bring my jaw back into the vicinity of my face and then I let those around me borrow it for the same purpose. Getting up and down the fret board with near robotical speed and accuracy are merely his fundamentals, creating one-of-a-kind tone through a custom shop tube amp and lacing bogglingly creative chord progressions together is the clean air between Rich and the norm.

Drawing a crowd of guitar players after the set, Rich fielded questions as if holding a press conference to explain everything from where he got his amp to how and where the stalking fret harmonics were coming from. Those not present for the Q and A will get several more chances this summer as The Pneurotics have a July schedule line up playing through The Club Is Open festival at Jack Sprat on Wednesday July 8 and into a house party with Knock Out Roses and Jeremy Blair From Effingham in Raleigh on Saturday July 18.

the Winter Sounds opened the show after finishing up Sessions at Studio B appearance for MyNC earlier in the day and set the bar high, in more ways than one. With right and title to a one-in-a-million vocal range, Winter Sounds bass wielding front man Patrick Keenan shifts in and out of falsetto like an unbridled European sports car whose driver is standing on the pedals and searching for its limits. Counting on my fingers the number of lead singers that also occupy the bass guitar spot and then subtracting from that number of those that deftly scale chord positions from top to bottom, Patrick is mathematically among the best bass playing front men on the road.

Motivated by creativity, the unstoppable Winter Sounds drives their brand of popular chased indie rock through the walls and right onto the stage. The Chicago via Athens indie crew lived on the road in 2007 and their daily show schedule through September of this year attempts to usurp. Careful those audiences later in the tour, should Patrick realize the top end of his range, don't be standing next to a window. --Carrboro Ninja


visit The Pneurotics myspace profile: myspace

then visit the Winter Sounds myspace profile: myspace

Monday night in pictures


The Pneurotics

The Pneurotics

The Pneurotics

The Pneurotics

Rich McLaughlin scribbling down set lists two-and-a-half minutes before The Pneurotics go on stage

the Winter Sounds

the Winter Sounds

the Winter Sounds

the Winter Sounds

the Winter Sounds

Lauren, the coolest merch girl ever
Lauren, the coolest merch girl ever


gallery of pictures from Monday night:


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