live review: complexcomplex

so a few weeks ago or so, my friend karl called me up and asked "hey randy, do you still write for that blog?" and i was like "not really" and he was all "well, complexcomplex is playing in milwaukee in a couple weeks and i was wondering if you would you want to do a review?" and i was like "sure".

so on last tuesday (4/8) i gets back around 9:30pm with enough time to get to the up & under for complexcomplex's 11pm start. while waiting for the time to pass, i eat a sandwich, pull some tubers and notice that cops is on, in that order. so i get there around 11:30pm and complexcomplex is obviously already wailing away. these guys take their cues from (at least) jazz, hard rock, math rock, nerdy electronic, the prog nation, and probably static on the tv. this was proven true as some songs got as spacey as the farthest out part of pink floyd's 'echoes' to some impromptu eclectic jamb that caused some drunken heckler to yell out "repeat to fade, repeat to fade, repeat to fade..." with the pun hopefully intended. of course that probably wasn't heard over the beautiful racket been served up.

so after the first song (for me) is over i overhear these goobers behind me wooing some b.f.s.p. with these ridiculous eagles lyrical questions. that was pretty hilarious. then they (the band) do this excellent instrumental version of rage against the machine's 'down rodeo'. over the course of the two sets they entertained the masses with many an original and various tuneage renditions from ratatat, cake, dub trio, squarepusher and maybe more! in fact, they gave us two dub trio songs to which the same drunken heckler to inquire "why the fuck didn't the dub trio just fuckin' play tonight then?" before the latter. other highlights include this super hot fucking skank hanging all over this middle aged super crunchy hippy. that was super weak cause she was really hot and not at all crunched up and he was probably some douche who probably wrote a haiku about jerry garcia; the rest of the females leaving at set break; the drums sounding awesome, as you might remember the drummer tim from those moonshiners the groggers (rip) but this time with an actual kit he scored off some hobo outside when he traded him the old boxes he used for drums in the groggers, as you can't sleep in a drumkit. now that i mention it, you also might notice that the bass player, karl johnson from wisconsin, oddly resembles a local but world famous bassist. or you might remember him from the paradise string band. luke palmer plays a bitchin' fender rhodes that he runs through some shit like a laptop or an xbox or some bullshit. it sounds sweet though, whatever the heck it is. and he rules it as well.

you should check out their link up there for a song and tour dates as they are in chicago or something coming up. they will be back in milwaukee at the very same place at the end of the month as well. check it out cause it ain't like there's tons of shit to do in milwaukee. also the up & under has this killer belgian ale on tap that i totally forgot the name of because i was way too crunk off of it to understand what the barkeep was saying when i asked him 3 times what it was called. go buy complexcomplex's excellent brand new self released debut record 'timelion' as well you fucking nerd.

fukudome

yahtzee

zero punctuation from the escapist magazine. good times.

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