Oi, I ask all you nice people to look at this journal and go to see LIVE MUSIC, then I disappear for a month. Well it just seems like it-I was going to see LIVE MUSIC, I just didn't have any time to write about it.

To finish up where I left off regarding the live show that went with "the pocket" premiere, what was so great about these three bands on stage at one time? Well first of all, when ever anyone puts more than 4 instruments on a stage at once I go nuts. Lots of different sounds, yum. Meeting this prerequisite is a given with Go-Go bands, easily there is a drum set, conga set, multiple keyboards, electric bass, horns, and additional percussion with 2-5 vocalists for any and all of them. This would also be the fisrt full set I'd ever have seen by Q and not U. So I felt like there was a pretty even ground. When I heard Uncalled 4 and their 5 vocailists I was reminded that in '92-'94 I did go to more than a couple of Go-Go shows, probably at Takoma Park Station. If I remember these 'soul-styling' vocals were just starting to slip in to go-go more and more. Wasn't too keen on it then, but hey if you wait long enough you never know what will happen. Uncalled 4 blends the more traditional; go-go lyricists with both female and male vocal harmony parts-that do not have the 'canned-music-boyz-2-men" sound that bugged me back inthe day. The performance given on stage is as polished as the music.

so as Uncalled 4's massive amount of equipment was broken down, watching the 3 members of Q and not U set up could only be called odd. Three little white boys with their drums and guitars setting up to play their antidiestablishmentarianismal 'music'. Or with less facitiousness, a three piece Punk band was going to go on after a twelve member all black funk band. While my mind knew it made sense for Q and not U to be on the stage, it looked weird.

Q made no apologies, opening up the set with the longest, loudest coordinated screaming I HAVE HEARD IN A LONG TIME followed by similar antics on the guitars. So having psychologically filled the stage with ALL THIS SOUND in the first minute and a half-they would subtely in the course of this first song lock into a rhythm, not quite the piston-like rhythm of so many other punk bands, but a rhythm like a wave that crested and troughed, not unlike the Funk Music that inspired Go-Go, get it? You may note too that although there are only 3 people in this band there are often 5-6 instruments being played, as the drummer will strike the drums with a maraca or other percussive piece and one of the guitarists will occasionally play the harmonium while playing guitar, so Q and not U, too, meets my 4 instuments=yummy sound protocol. Right before closing the set, before the last song, one of the vocalists from Uncalled 4 would step out on the stage and ask Q and not U's drummer to lock into a beat. (the Citypaper's promised shared set of Qand not U and Uncalled 4 would be delivered, but it was a song, not a set) He would then say something about there being a first time for everything, he had been asked to sit in with a Punk band that likes Go-Go, and one would know what that would sound like. So he laid down a rap alongside a freeform punk jazz funk offering from Q and not U. The rap was sincere, made up pretty much around the movie and the performances that night, so a little sappy considering the normal repertiore of Punk and Go-Go bands, so it was strage yet sucessful, at least from the perspective of an audience member at a one time outing in a historic theater featuring a documentary film and 3 kick ass bands.

The last band to go on Little Benny and the Go-Go All-Stars was totally old-school, no matching shirts and shoes on all the members, no dance moves or contemporary listening vocal harmonies, but intense call and response lyrical weaving between 2 singers, the congas and the cowbell. This is supremely dancable Go-Go and it is hardly possible to stop dancing once you get up. Benny has been at it since almost the beginning. He's had this band since 1985 and was in Rare Essence before that-I hope he keeps it up.