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For the hip hop lovers out there.

I had major BOOage when i heard this. oh well. no bonaroo for me.

TOKYO (Reuters) - British rock band Led Zeppelin enjoyed jamming together again last year in a charity concert but won’t have another session before September at the earliest, lead guitarist Jimmy Page said in Tokyo on Monday.

A successful reunion show in London in December rekindled hopes of a world tour, but Page said that singer Robert Plant’s tour with U.S. country singer Alison Krauss is keeping him busy for now.

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Brian Botkiller sent me a review of the show last night he went to down on morningside:

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dirty birdies - styrofoam duck - alchemical burn - the geezars

live show review - 1/22/08

by brian botkiller

I know that I’ll probably go to my grave saying this, but there’s a lot of great music out there that’s not being heard, and should be. Yes, I can see it on my headstone now;

“brian botkiller - he never shut up about the underground”

But, it’s true. There’s so much music in the New Mexico scene that is outside the realm of comfort, and I know that it’s hard to step outside that realm, but if you do, you can hear some great stuff - such as this recent show I write of now.

The event was unnamed, save for the many acts playing it, and featured ambient/noise/soundscape and experimental music. Yeah, I know; you hear “experimental” and you want to turn your brain off - but let’s face it - everything that’s not “normal” is experimental.

The event took place at The Stove, a cool hole in the wall art space at 114 Morningside. Cover was $5, and the venue was rather full for a tuesday night show (about 20 or so heads in attendance). Everything started around 10pm. Stove is a rather large space, and lends itself to art jams, experimental events and beyond. They also sell some lovely art, which I encourage you to check out. Paintings, sculpture, and even some very nicely screen-printed shirts are all available for sale.

I arrived a little late, unfortunately, and so I only caught the night from the Dirty birdies onward. If you haven’t seen the Birdies live before, this is one act to see live. The recordings that exist of the Birdies’ material is great, but I cannot stress enough that the Birdies live is something you won’t hear the same twice. Employing the skills of local electro/noise/experimental wizard Ken Cornell (one of the hardest working men in electro), and Bud Melvin (rocking out on various electronics), plus the skills of many a talented electronic/analog/circuit bent musician from New Mexico, the Birdies are a sort of collective of soundscape artists creating a piece of work on the fly on stage that’s different each time they play it. It can be hard to explain, but imagine polyrythm percussion laid down on a drum kit accentuated by a broken Casiotone keyboard running a feedback loop with electric violin, bass, guitars, gameboys and other instruments, all coming to wild crescendos and then slinking back into the darkness of ambient noise/soundscape, leaving you wanting more - and you have the sound of the Dirty Birdies. A 35 or so minute set ensued, each musician pouring into their instruments and blowing away those in attendance. There’s a synergy here, something that you don’t even see with most well-rehearsed “studio bands”. I encourage you to check out a live Birdies show.

Soon after the Birdies, Styrofoam Duck took the floor. A two piece post-punk/noise act from Minneapolis, consisting of Fast Elvis on drums and Ben on guitar, their sound and energy took me by surprise - playing a mismash drum kit, Elvis beat out punk rhythms while the guitars followed suit in a sort of controlled spin. Plenty of energy here, lots of distorted vocals laid over the various sounds, and even the occasional pitch tweaked beat running thru a mixer and into the PA to tie the sound together. Very enjoyable, especially if you like something to thrash to.

Finally Alchemical Burn took the stage. Alchemical Burn is the solo project of Ken Cornell, comprised of feedback-looped mixers and guitar stomp boxes with a vocal mic for good measure, fed into a beat up Peavey bass amp. Ken slams out a barrage of noise and feedback that punches you square in the nose, and backs it up with wild thrashing, knob twisting, cable ripping, mic smashing and of course, some good kicking of the amp. Ken had a good fight with his amp and finished his set by ripping the cables out of the amp, cutting the sound out abruptly and in what I would call serious punk rock style. Seeing Alchemical Burn is truly the progression of Punk and electronics. It is, as some might say, “brutal”.

Overall, I have to say that I love events like this - they don’t rely on over production, but rather on a group of people who truly do love the music they make. Stove is a great venue, and obviously friendly to many genres, so I do encourage you to check them out, and to check out shows like this - it’s all about something new; without that, everything would be the same.

Check out the bands’ websites:

Styrofoamduck.com

http://www.myspace.com/cobragroup (the Dirty Birdies)

http://www.myspace.com/alchemicalburn (Alchemical Burn)

and see the flyer here:

This year calls me back to the Coachella music festival in the hot ass california desert.