Articles - Misc. - "Monotrona/Erase Errata/Black Dice @ The Knitting Factory, NYC"

My friends and I entered the dark club looking at a woman onstage with a white sheet wrapped around her, screaming…singing…I don’t know… It must have been Monotrona and she was at the end of her set, much to my delight… After seeing that I had to get a rum & coke, then I made my way up to the front of the stage.

The `Errata girls came out onto the stage wearing florissant outfits illuminated by a black light looking like post-apocalyptic war survivors. "Mad Max" gladiators searching for Cherry Coke on a barren western desert… The angular guitars and odd yanking of the bass strings, mixed with the scattered but continuously beats and vocals projecting into the audience makes Erase Errata one of the more refreshing bands to come out of California these days. Their socially charged lyrics about mindtrips of liberation, societal breakdowns, and the conflict of the inner are subjects that interest me and seem to standout well in punk rock. After a noisy display of guitar plucking and feedback, they busted out into a jagged exhibition of raw action. Erase Errata aren’t a wild and frantic punk band, but rather a cool, confident collective that slowly boils over in yr face, scarring yr eyes and yr ears. They performed songs off Other Animals LP, like my fav, "Billy Mummy," and "Marathon" and "Delivery," and a mess of others that are either new or on their 45s, which I don’t own because Erase Errata is a band that needs a good half-hour of yr undivided attention. I was very interested in seeing how their songs are played, because most of the sounds Erase Errata makes seem so foreign to me that I can’t distinguish between the guitars and the bass on some tracks, or whether or not they used extra instruments… Needless to say, they performed all of their songs with only a guitar, bass, drum set, and trumpet with precision and vigor. After give the audience ten songs of ingenuity, Erase Errata left the stage, mercifully giving our brains a rest from the attack.

After a long wait Black Dice finally came out onto the stage. I’ve never heard these guys before, so I wanted to know what they were all about. They setup a synthesizer and some guitars and stuff and presided to make noise and feedback for five to ten minutes. It sounded like dolphins drowning in the sea…it was very bassy and very annoying… So I left to find myself an Erase Errata t-shirt and another drink… Erase Errata was totally worth the trip and if you don’t check ‘em out while they’re on tour yr lame…so there!

Article and pictures by Joe Domino