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Not crap.

I used to live in Japan. Yasuko and Rika both lived in my neighborhood and I would see them around and at shows at an awesome (literally) underground club called 20,000V. I saw MB play in Japan often and they had a few different drummers whose performances were identical. Modular grind drummers, what a concept.

They had a great clear 7" ep, I forgot to put that on the ep post. Finally saw them a few years ago, tons of fun...I wish they would play Milwaukee again.
NOT CRAP!

Jay

My band got to open for them last spring and they were great.

I started to lose interests in the albums around Charlie, tho I still love and listen to Scratch or Scritch and the "In the Pillcase" 7".


Not Crap

I've seen them a few times.
The best was them opening for The Melvins in 99 at the Black Cat in DC.
NOT CRAP

Most definitely NOT CRAP.

Charlie and the MxBx live thing are most definitely essential.

Seeing them live has always been a treat because each time i've seen them, there have been a group of musicians gathered around the guitar player just staring at his feet to see what pedals he's using. It's cute. Also, my band opened for them once and they were extremely nice. Dave Witte told me he was going to steal a trick i did where i stood on my drum throne and landed, connecting with the bass drum pedal. At least, i think that's what i did? Regardless, i told him to go ahead and do it because i was sure he could do it better.

Fun story: the team i play Trivia with annually at Lawrence University in Appleton were the only team out of 50 or so to correctly identify a 9-second blast of noise that the Trivia masters played on the radio as a trivia question. It was "Screw, Loose" by Melt-Banana. We are the awesome.

Bump. (NC)

djanes1 wrote:kind of un-essential on CD, absolutely great live

Pssssh. I came to the conclusion while playing air guitar to Cell-Scape a couple of minutes ago that it is one of my all-time favorite albums.

horsewhip wrote:

djanes1 wrote:kind of un-essential on CD, absolutely great live

Pssssh. I came to the conclusion while playing air guitar to Cell-Scape a couple of minutes ago that it is one of my all-time favorite albums.

The song "Chain-Shot..." just about makes me flip my wig every time I hear it. The whole first side of the LP is pretty unbelievable.

Charlie's their best album, and the shows around that time were their best as well.

I remember seeing them at Ben Way records in Venice/L.A. play to a packed audience of 50 or so, freaking out all the tourists at the end of the beach area.

Then later on that weekend, I saw them at some seafood restaurant in Manhattan Beach playing at some booth in the corner of the restaurant. Weirdest makeshift venue I've ever been to. Of course, they blew the roof off the place.

They eventually got to play better venues after this, thankfully. (Then again, Los Angeles has a history of being this huge city with barely a good venue at any given time.) I saw them for Teeny Shiny with Numbers opening in Seattle a few years ago. They sounded more like a standard hardcore band then, but still very fun live.

Not sure if the guitarist's breathing mask is due to keep at bay some medical condition, or it's just a prop for the live shows, or both, but -- dare I say -- it really is nice theatrics to watch him in his mask flail about.

I always heard the rumor that the guitarist was always ill and didn't have much longer to live so the band toured all the time to max out his life experiences on the road or something.. but apparently he's still doing well or better now(?) Maybe it was just a well executed rumor.

mackro wrote:I always heard the rumor that the guitarist was always ill

yeah, that's what someone told me as well, that would be what the mask is all about.