A Funkaoshi Production

Transient Orange at B-Side

   12 April 2004, early evening

update on tuesday, april 14th, 4:00

I ended up going out with Rishi saturday night. He was DJing at Transient Orange’s two year anniversary party. All the acts associated with Transient Orange are really impressive. There is a lot of talent in this city you may never ever hear.

We arrived downtown a bit past 7:00. The first act warming up sounded great. They reminded me of a funk band, but without so much funk. I didn’t know the group’s name at this time (or when they played for that matter), but by process of elimination they must have been Avenue Road.

Rishi was supposed to do a sound check, but because all the bands needed to warm up that was put off. Rishi and I left to eat. We went to Montana’s, where I had an excellent rare steak. We got back a bit past 8:30.

“If you have any requests, keep them to your fucking self. I don’t do that shit,” said the one and only member of Falling Line.

Falling Line was the first act to play. Falling Line consists of one guy, a friend of Matt’s, who usually helps run the door. His banter with the crowd was amusing to say the least. The boy was up on stage at 8:30 or so, a guitar in hand, and a CD playing his backup. He did a cover of Bulletproof, I Want To Be which was excellent.

Rishi was not the only DJ playing that night, but he was the only one that DJ’d with records. Venue Nightclub was providing Matt with the turntables for the night. Well, they were supposed to provide two turntables, but apparently they thought one would be enough. Jake, from the band the Corporation, had a turntable at home, which he ran home to get. So, Rishi got to spin on one state of the art Tech 12, and one not so hot belt driven thing.

The second act was Christian Stepien (formally, Brodie). He reminded me of Hayden, kind of coarse sounding acoustic music. Again, this act was just a dude and a guitar. Of note was his cover of a Sean Paul song, which was done surprisingly well.

The Corporation followed Christian Stepien. They’re a three piece band that are reminiscent of the Clash. Mark McDonald plays bass for the band, and I imagine because of this, there were a lot of Woburn ex-pat’s out to see them. The Corporation were entertaining to hear, and it was nice seeing so many people from Woburn out.

Jon Blair played a wicked good set of Hip Hop while the next act got ready.

Avenue Road were the next band up. This was the band we had heard warm up, so I was expecting them to be quite good. They had a pretty big following out to see them. Avenue Road’s performance didn’t disappoint. They closed their set with a bizarre amalgamation of a bunch of songs, from Ice Ice Baby to Ghostbusters. I liked the song they warmed up to a lot, the second last song they played, though I haven’t a clue what its name was. (update The song I heard Avenue Road play that I liked is called feels right. I think they did a much better job of singing it at B-Side. Nevertheless, check it out.)

Rishi spun once more, while the next act got ready.

Wintary was the second last act that night. I think you either like their music, or you don’t. It was very experimental rock music, with a sort of electronic/ambient feel to it. I thought every song they played was better then the previous one. By the end of their act I was impressed with the band.

Jon played one more set of wicked-good hip hop while the last band set up. They had the most elaborate set up out of all the bands playing. They must have spent a good twenty minutes plugging in all their stuff, setting up their projector, and doing whatever else they needed to do to get ready.

The band consisted of a dude with crap loads of electronics in front of him, a guy in a lab coat with a guitar, and the lead singer, a lady with dreads wearing a pouch with many wires pouring out of it. The last band was Bleep. Bleep were intense. Their live show is excellent. They remind me of so many bands, I guess in particular a sort of Portishead cross Aphex Twin cross something else. The live set was very harsh, big drums, lots of energy. They closed out the show.

The night out was great. I recommend you go check out a Transient Orange event if you get the chance. You don’t want to grow up knowing you never heard any of these bands.

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