Re: [LAU] Laptop Battle Registration and Promotion

Another show was held in what I think must have been a church or union hall basement. It was barely promoted; I came upon it almost by accident. We walked into the room to find it packed with a large "scene" of noise enthusiasts, most of whom seemed to know each other. There were 3 or 4 performers (I don't remember exactly) armed with DAT units, tape recorders, and samplers. And they issued a disclaimer about ear damage and asked anyone with epilepsy to please leave. And then the noise started. Harsh, industrial, arhythmic, practically white noise. Layers and layers and layers of it, as one then another tape machine was started up to add more noise. And the performers and audience sat there... meditating. At the time I was mostly into jazz, and had enjoyed enough avante-garde honking car-crash jazz to appreciate noise, but this was a whole new level. The tape-deck-jockeys sat there with beatific grins, spacing out. The audience soon ended up in a similar state. The noise had blended together into such an all-encompassing, seamless, overwhelming, shifting whole, that was so loud and so overpowering that the overall feeling became as still as silence. The noise had become so loud that it was like quiet. It was a very unusual feeling. When the show was over we were completely disoriented.