Google translating the name "Circuit des Yeux" and one will find the rather esoteric, Cirque du Soleil-esque translation "Circuit of the Eyes." For the Bishop's Magnetic South Review six-band power union on Wednesday night the promise of an unparalleled visual (and audio) spectacle was more than fulfilled.
Take for example the opening act, Sitar Outreach Ministry. Two of the three alleged gurus in pseudo-hemp hats sat Indian style in perfect silence while the third member (whose face curiously mirrored Andrew Lloyd Weber's) cocked his outrageously overgrown eyebrows and sent the trio reeling into a dirge-like number of hum-drumming sitar riffs. The mood was bucolic, lit by the glimmer of interspersed Jack-O-Lantern candles and a soft purveyance of green spotlight. The sitar patrons spread themselves on the ground in the strangely comfortable silence as the palpable Southeast Asian atmosphere came radiating from the music and blanketed the room like a sari. Yet the Ministry wasn't just a cultural expose. A scratchy electric guitar added a smidge of color to this culture classic, which fitted in with everything in the short playlist, even with the designated "chill-out song:" a cooing, harmonious mezzo piano that lulled like waves.
With five more bands to get through, the brevity of each performance was harsh and disruptive. A palette-cleanser track that sounded like the bastard child of Cole Porter and a very cynical Igor Stravinsky quailed overhead as Purple Seven assembled themselves from the wings. They took the stage minutes later, a quartet in uniform red who sported a mad-heavy beat and a guitar-all-pervading motif, characteristic of your wailing teenage garage bands. In an essence, this is exactly what the performance consisted of, which by no means should sound insulting. Solid sounds, heavy voices, and the fun of watching four dudes having a ball should never be misconstrued as anything ill-befitting the stage. Nevermind the lyrics (whatever they were). This was an act paying homage to the feel-good beat and the easy rhythm, where nothing mattered more than the half hour glory of the stage. And of course, the free drinks.
The theme of garage band sailed well into the next performance: Circuit des Yeux, a three-member rock group specializing in much angst and plenty of visceral aggression. Quite appropriate for their name, Circuit des Yeux provided a mesmerizing spectacle for the eyes (vocalist Haley Fohr belting into the microphone as her zombified glance affixed each audience member with a glare) as well as an unforgettable sound. Dinner and a show. Even if the dinner was a hefty chunk of savage trash grunge, unsparing amplification that suffocated the track gulfs in an atonal resonance, and a voice that plunged into the dark and despairing ("I'm on Fire!" the lyrics cry). And of course, if this wasn't enough, Fohl's encore was a convulsive drop to the ground where she performed a feat of three minutes blood-curdling screaming. Yet for all its pain, Circuit des Yeux's sound was mesmerizing, raw, and unparalleled, and it delivered what was undoubtedly the most energetically charged and emotional performances of the night.
With an opening line of "I just like to giggle!" the following Thee Open Sex promised almost immediately, a much tamer act. It wasn't by much. Four strings on stage (and one off) created a blast of sound as heavy as the last, which abated only now and again to accommodate the punk-angry moans and shouts of the vocalist. With Fohl reprising her guitar for this follow-up, it was a sound that mimicked the grunging of her own Circuit des Yeux, and yet which brought forth a sort of nod-rock from the audience, rather than drown them in surpassing waves of sound, sound, and more sound. Forget the stiffness of the band, who shifted from foot to foot and kept their concentration keen on the music. It was the audience who did all the moving.
However the moving soon turned to waiting as the break between the third and fourth acts began to drag. One could do little else but check a blank phone and watch the wax drip on the votive stage candles. Mad Monk, a mountainously big man with a greying box beard must have sensed the atmosphere. "I just got back from a retreat with the seven lesbians of San Francisco," he quips to the audience nonchalantly as soon as he's mounted the stage and introduced himself, and then it was nothing but foot-stomping folk anthem-rock. His four songs were intoxicatingly fun and supercharged with potent virility; his stage performance was commanding. "Did you just call me a fat fuck?" he shouted grinning to a friendly heckler at one point. "Well thank you! I AM a fat fuck! I deserve to be a fat fuck!"
The Monk didn't leave any gap in energy when his four-song setlist came to an end. Apache Dropout proved themselves worthy of closing down the night of animated eclecticism as they laid beat, plunged into riffs, and at one point, rocked an amplified kazoo. Masters of easy rock, Apache Dropout kept the audience gyrating, body swining, and head banging. With just three musicians, the projection was uncanny, and their ability to handle a crowd as deft as their ability to handle their instruments. High-octane guitar soloing and blurred fingering looked as easy as picking the "Three Blind Mice." Call it mojo. Call it moxie. Whatever it was, it blew off the purple "M" of the "Magnetic South" sign nailed behind them.
Post by Brandon Cook
