I'd been concentrating on jazz groups in preparation for a talk I gave for the San Diego Jazz Musician's Guild last weekend, and I needed to hear something totally different to feel balanced. Rats Eyes is totally different.



It's quicker and easier to convert everything to black and white, so that's what I've been doing lately to save time. I've been shooting too much lately and I need to get caught up since processing can easily gobble up all my free time if I let it.



Rats Eyes isn't really a band that I could listen to for a long stretch, but they are fun to watch. If you're in the front row, watch out for Gabe, because he's coming for you.



In fact, the show is basically just watching the leads bounce all over the place, set to a crazy soundtrack.



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I never heard a note from Upsilon Acrux before this show, but I kinda know one of the original members and he's quite music-savvy, so I was mainly here this night to see them. I knew it was mathy, but I didn't realize how mathy.



They play songs that are beyond complex and if I heard just one of the instruments isolated, I would think it was playing random notes and rhythms. But the whole band plays in unison.



The bass player told me that some of the songs come from jams. I can't imagine how that can be.



It's very cool stuff in the sense that you can marvel at the dedication to discipline and memory, but no heads were bobbing. And I have a feeling the drummer is the crazy one.



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I really like Creedle's double-CD, even though it sounds like two bands on shuffle.



The heavy klezmer stuff is fun since it draws on tight jazzy licks. I just skip past all the interludes and ditties. That's not so easy to do at a show when one song is stuck on repeat.







Maybe it was just an off night for them or maybe they needed another rehearsal session, but I wasn't really into their set. Oh well, sometimes that's where the wind blows.