Photos of the God Module / Tesseract7 / Control Theory show are up now.

The first two were bands (live guitar, bass, and vocals, plus backing tracks.) Control Theory was ok (though I'm pretty tired of "cookie monster" industrial vocals) and I enjoyed Tesseract7 (who were more of a metal band.)

God Module was karaoke.

That "band" consisted of two guys and a girl, all of whom took turns singing. Their microphones were, in fact, turned on, but that's just about it. The girl's keyboard was not hooked into the sound system: it had a bunch of cables plugged in, but they didn't go anywhere. In fact, I don't think it was even powered on. She did spend the whole set pretending to play it, however.

The two guys took turns at the other keyboard. However, the only time any sound (besides the DAT) originated on that side of the stage was when the big guy was over there, which was roughly every third or fourth song. Any time you saw the other guy moving his hands... that's all he was doing, moving his hands. (I know this because I went up to the sound booth to check.)

God Module played here once before, and that time there were only two of them, and I'm pretty sure they didn't play a damned thing that time either (their only instrument had no power cord and no lights.)

How can you do that?

How can you get up on stage and lie to your fans' faces? How can you stand there and pretend to play a keyboard that you know full well is not even plugged in? How much contempt must you have for your audience to do that?

It makes me absolutely furious.

Photos of the Informatik / Psyclon 9 show are up.

So I'm sure all of you are going to drop dead of non-shock when I tell you that I got an angry email from one of the God Module guys. It was very long, but I'll summarize it:

• You don't know what you're talking about;
• It is impossible for us to play our music live;
• Anyone who listens to bands like God Module understands that, and doesn't expect the bands to actually play;
• No, the synth wasn't plugged in, and no, there's nothing wrong with that;
• If you don't take down your review, we're going to bad-mouth your club something fierce.

About that synth, he said:

And for your comments on the one synth that was not plugged in the other night. Um, it was not ours. We had asked for a controller from the promoter of the show, he was not able to get one so we asked to use the opening bands synth as a prop for aesthetic purposes. No evil conspiracy involved.

Oh, it was for "aesthetic purposes" that they pretended to play a keyboard that wasn't plugged in! How silly of me. Had I only realized, I would have seen it in a totally different light.

PS: Milli Vanilli called, they want their Grammy back.

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I know some of you might be joining us late, so on a more general note, let me try and explain how this works.

Every now and then, when I say something bad about an event we've done here, I get some hate mail calling me "unprofessional." People seem to think that because I'm the owner of the club, I should never say anything negative; everything I say should be rainbows and unicorns. Well, sorry, that's not reality. This part of the web site is where I tell you about what's going on behind the scenes here at the club, and present my personal opinions about it. This is not a fucking press release; this is "the view of DNA from jwz." Yes, I also happen to be the owner; what of it? That's where I am, so that's the only perspective I have.

Many people seem to think that it's insane that I would say anything bad about events that happen here: don't I care about promoting the business? But, see, this is not a publicly traded company. There is no board of directors: my business card says "Benevolent Dictator." I spent a fortune building this venue from the ground up, and we operate it as, essentially, a charity. I receive no salary, and I haven't had a single dime of my investment repaid.

This club is a gift from me to the world.

That means that I don't have to blow sunshine up your ass.

Last night at Lift, they had actual karaoke, which they called the "Asian-American Idol" contest. I recommend you at least listen to the first guy... If you don't listen to the whole thing, here are some highlights. The judges were funny:

"You have a lot of guts... for going first. You have a lot of attitude, but I want you to work on your... tone? and your beat? But you had good crowd control and I liked how you moved around the stage."

"You were on key, which I really appreciate."

"First of all, I liked your outfit, and I liked how you were closing your eyes."

"I agree with her -- I liked your pants, and you had a lot of emotion."

"You looked like you were in pain!"

In other news, I thought you might get a kick out of seeing our Wall of Shame: the home of lost-and-unclaimed photo IDs. I started taping them to the wall a few months ago, and it seems like it grows by one or two each week.

I don't know what's going on with that one at the upper left corner: maybe it was just the angle, or maybe they've started using some magic new non-photographable coating on licenses, but it came out solid white in all the photos I took! The hologram on the bottom middle one is pretty funky too...

In case you were looking for a reason to have an even lower opinion of the kind of person who would own a nightclub:

Exiled Spam King's Go-Go Life:

As the head of Philadelphia-based junk e-mail firm Cyber Promotions, Sanford Wallace was cyberspace's most hated person in the 1990s. "Spamford" Wallace once boasted of sending 25 million junk e-mails per day on behalf of clients ranging from porn sites to spam-software vendors. By some estimates Cyber Promotions was responsible for 80 percent of the spam on the Net.

Today, young nightclub-goers in this woodsy section of southern New Hampshire know Wallace simply as "DJ MasterWeb" -- the head disk jockey and owner of Plum Crazy, a popular night spot that features hip-hop and reggae tunes, along with a cadre of young female dancers in metal cages.

And now, another tale from the trenches.

It was around 2AM, and as is the custom in these parts, our staff were going around and taking alcohol away from people. Suzanne took a cup from a girl who then turned and puked right on the dance floor. "Oh my god, you just puked on the dance floor!" exclaimed Suzanne. "No I didn't!" said the girl. Suzanne summoned an escort to introduce the girl to the great outdoors.

Suzanne then noticed that the cup she had just taken from the girl was full of vomit.

Oh, and there was no need to clean up the puke on the dance floor: the dancing feet made it vanish of its own accord before anyone could get a mop over there.

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And may I again take this moment to point out that there are people in the world who think it's a good idea to TAKE OFF THEIR SHOES in nightclubs?

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Photos of the Male or Female / E-Craft / Terrorfakt show are now up.

Male or Female were amazing. They are a Front 242 side project, and the music is in the same vein as later 242, though on the mellow side: live guitar and occasional vocals over many, many layers of electronics. More funky than hammering. Great stuff.

They also had one of the best videos I've ever seen at a show. I know that sounds like a goofy thing to say, but it was really cool; I wish I had a copy to just watch! It was really sophisticated (mostly?) computer-generated landscapes and insects and machines, and it was (to some extent, at least) synched to the music.

E-Craft was a couple of german guys doing the pep-squad thing, like some kind of militant boy-band. Their music wasn't bad, but their performance didn't do anything for me. The thing I kept wondering about, though, was why -- considering that these guys were basically copping Front 242's 1989 act, which I loved at the time. What's different now? Am I just "over it" (as 242 themselves seem to be?) Or is there something different this time around? Well, one difference is that in '89, I spent the whole show getting crushed in the pit, which certainly put a different spin on things.

Terrorfakt were a couple of guys doing really good powernoise. Actually it was more structured and less chaotic than most powernoise, so maybe that's not quite what it was, but I liked it. They were a couple of guys in hoodies and wrestler masks hiding behind their camo-covered keyboard racks while a Skinny Puppy-esque video of nazis and suicides and bombings played behind them.

You could barely see them at all, but (good for them!) they realized that two guys playing keyboards isn't much of a spectator sport, so they played a movie instead.

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Tickets just went on sale for the Genitorturers / Hanzel und Gretyl / Blue Period show on Nov 3. That should be a great show: those three bands aren't much alike, but I think it's a good progression. And Hanzel und Gretyl put on a great show last time.

We had three live shows last week! And there was much rejoicing. And also many photos:

• The Scramblers and The Radio Reelers;
• Entombed, Nocturne, Single Bullet Theory, and Severed Savior;
• Simon Stinger, Betaville, and Buckfast.