Ulrich Schnauss Roll Call

Originally posted by HoyaSaxa03:
there's no way to buy extra tickets at the door and pass them back when my friends get there, right?

snailhook, please let us know if we can do something of the sort… maybe pay up front, and put the late-comers' names on the guestlist? (or any other list, assuming you have such lists for tonight).

i've told another boardie that i'd try pre-paying his entry, to secure a spot. would be nice to tell him ahead of time if he should even bother coming down. hoya, if there is any chance of us doing this, i'll be happy to "buy you a ticket"/"reserve your admission"/etc. alternately, i can text you later on and let you know if they're still letting people in (least desirable option, but better than nothing).

and maybe we're all just panicking for nothing. maybe this won't even sell out tonight.

Originally posted by sweetcell:

Originally posted by HoyaSaxa03:
there's no way to buy extra tickets at the door and pass them back when my friends get there, right?

snailhook, please let us know if we can do something of the sort… maybe pay up front, and put the late-comers' names on the guestlist? (or any other list, assuming you have such lists for tonight).

i've told another boardie that i'd try pre-paying his entry, to secure a spot. would be nice to tell him ahead of time if he should even bother coming down. hoya, if there is any chance of us doing this, i'll be happy to "buy you a ticket"/"reserve your admission"/etc. alternately, i can text you later on and let you know if they're still letting people in (least desirable option, but better than nothing).

and maybe we're all just panicking for nothing. maybe this won't even sell out tonight.

that would be awesome, i'll give you a call/txt when we'd be able to make it down there

velvet holds like 150 people, it seems like 10% of tonight's crowd are on this board alone, and additionally the washpost covered it in their nightlife agenda column and BYT put it in their weekend picks column … i'm really bad at predicting crowds, but i'd be surprised if this wasn't jam-packed

all this for a guy and a laptop.

yeah, but have you seen the laptop?!?

guys, i understand your concern and sympathize, but there's not much i can do. we don't have physical tickets, so you can't buy one and pass it on, and you can't really reserve one either.

it's a shitty situation, but we deal with this maybe three or four times a year. sometimes sacrifices have to be made. i don't want to sound like an asshole, but i work way too much and get paid way too little to put even an iota of an effort into dealing with ticket agencies. it's an imperfect system and we have to deal with it.

the truth is ulrich schnauss should be playing a larger venue, but nobody else in town wanted to book him, so i did.

Originally posted by snailhook:
i don't want to sound like an asshole

you don't. situation is completely understandable. thanks for the confirmation, appreciated.

hoya: if you're out and about during the evening, maybe you can run over to the velvet at some point, get your hand stamped and then return to your evening with friends? just a thought.

Originally posted by sweetcell:
hoya: if you're out and about during the evening, maybe you can run over to the velvet at some point, get your hand stamped and then return to your evening with friends? just a thought.

This is what I'm going to have to do. Check into hotel and eat post-paying for entry.

What time can we start paying? 8 or 9:30, snailhook? Also, settimes?

Originally posted by HoyaSaxa03:
velvet holds like 150 people

Really? I would have guessed about half that.

arg. now one of my girl friends is saying i should go. i'm listening to this on myspace and it isn't awful…but it seems like it would translate better live.

set times would be really helpful at this point. i didn't want to be out too late tonight…

decisions, decisions.

Originally posted by sweetcell:
if you're out and about during the evening, maybe you can run over to the velvet at some point, get your hand stamped and then return to your evening with friends? just a thought.

I think I might try doing something of the sort too… am trying to juggle this show and another U Street event.

looks like we have critical mass for a meet-up. i'll be there early, before the (upstairs) doors open, hanging out at the bar downstairs. i'll be wearing an army-green t-shirt with a tribal-y circular graphic on the front, and black cut-off pants/board shorts/whatever one calls knee-length pants nowadays. do come over and say hi.

I'll be wearing a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah shirt, girl jeans, and Hugo Boss sneakers. I should be hard to miss!

unfortunately, i won't even be around to deal with this show. i'm playing in baltimore tonight. my staff will deal with it as best as possible.

set times can be pretty loose at the lounge, due to when bands show up and soundcheck. hopefully, things will get started on time since it will be packed. this is a rough schedule:

luxa: 10-10:30
auburn lull: 10:50-11:30
screen vinyl image: 11:50-12:20
ulrich scnauss: 12:40-whenever

basically, expect ulrich to go on between 12:30 and 1.

How did last night's United Bible Studies set stack up against the others from this week/last weekend?


I thought last night's started a bit slow but quickly got much better and ended awesomely.

Originally posted by sweetcell:

Originally posted by snailhook:
i don't want to sound like an asshole

you don't. situation is completely understandable. thanks for the confirmation, appreciated.

hoya: if you're out and about during the evening, maybe you can run over to the velvet at some point, get your hand stamped and then return to your evening with friends? just a thought.

that's not a bad idea … but the real problem is getting people in who won't be able to show up until 11 or so, we'll see…..

How did last night's United Bible Studies set stack up against the others from this week/last weekend?

like kohoutek, every UBS set is different, though they improvise around and alter many folk songs. i have sat in with them for most of the dates but not all, and my drumming has been vastly different every time.

i liked the set last night, but i had not played on either of the first two songs before (we didn't rehearse them at soundcheck), so i might have been slightly off. the last piece was an improv, so naturally i felt more compatible with what they were doing.

my favorite UBS sets so far were in bloomington (probably the heaviest set), terrastock, and charlottesville.

you need to hear the set kohoutek did in chapel hill. i asked the harpist and the guitarist in UBS to sit in with us and we played a g major drone that reminded me of popul vuh (i played chord organ and light percussion). one of the best things we've ever done.

Originally posted by sweetcell:
looks like we have critical mass for a meet-up. i'll be there early, before the (upstairs) doors open, hanging out at the bar downstairs. i'll be wearing an army-green t-shirt with a tribal-y circular graphic on the front, and black cut-off pants/board shorts/whatever one calls knee-length pants nowadays. do come over and say hi.

Will look for you.

So (upstairs) doors are at 9:30, right? Hmm… I guess I'll aim to get there 8:30-9ish.

Yes, as Snailhook said, sometimes a little extra effort has to be put into attending an in-demand show. I've got some friends who already left Virginia Beach to attend this show and I'll be departing from Baltimore soon. This is one of those shows that's not just for the local yokels.

For what it's worth, Ulrich is not the only act worth catching. I'm in for all 4 bands. Looking forward to each and every one of them.

See you all there.

Snail, I'm very disappointed that I won't see you but hope to soon enough. Glad we had a good chat the other week.

music about to start. only letting in another 25 people.

executive summary: amazing music tonight, the enjoyment of which was pretty much ruined by the sound system.

way-too-long version:

we collectively psyched ourselves out about getting there before doors opened… i walked in at 9:10, and there were maybe 5 other people in the bar. nice to finally meet ms. moritz and jaguar. spent most of the evening with julian, miss p, and her associated roller-derby hangers-on.

luxa kicked things off around 10:45 - the bands were having issues during soundcheck, more on that in a minute. i really liked what luxa played, the edge-type delayed guitar over laptop-driven beat and pads for the most part. the third song that they tried playing had some Kid A/Amnesiac-type glitchy goodness as the backing track, but the band couldn't lock in - the monitor mix was horrible, so they stopped everything and made some mix change requests to the sound guy (not the first ones, mind your). whoever was doing sound seemed unable to do much, their second attempt at the song was abandoned as well. their fourth song started off real nice… but a minute in, 2 of the four people on stage threw down their instrument and gave up. apparently everything was coming through distorted to the point of being incomprehensible. the remaining two members tried valiantly to finish the song, but they eventually apologized and called it a night a few minutes later. bummer, 'cause i was really digging their music.

auburn lull and screen vinyl image was more of the same, although they both soldiered on and finished their sets. AL started out a little stronger than they finished. SVI was an amorphous but blissful sonic wash, the drummer (the only one of the night) was quite impressive. some of their music had a sigur ros'ish quality to it.

ulrich schnauss' set was beautiful. not quite sure how to describe it, he did quite a bit of genre jumping. IDM? neo-tangerine dream? electro dream-gaze? yes, i'm dancing for architecture here. but again, the sound was impeding on my ability to enjoy the show. the volume at this point was ear-splitting. luckily my faithful etymotics cut down some of the high-end distortion. more than one person left the room because it was too grating on the ears - and it wasn't thrash metal that was coming out of the PA, it was dreamy soundscapes. ulrich suffered from what i've christened "the velvet curse". because things ran so late, the crowd started to thin out before the headliner took the stage. he went on at 1:45, hard to expect 100% participation at the end of a work-week. ear-drum-piercing sound didn't help. buy the end of his set, around 2:30-2:40, the room was about a third full.

i really enjoyed all the music that was on offer tonight, or at least what versions of it made it past the PA. i'd definitely go see any one of these bands again. they did a test after ulrich left the stage, and the left speaker was shot. sound-man probably had to compensate by cranking up the right side all night long… = distortion. everyone has good nights and bad nights… unfortunately this wasn't a good one for the velvet's PA.

i sincerely hope we get a chance to hear these bands again. thanks for bringing them to DC, snailhook!