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Cum On Feel the Noize |
I’ve always jokingly typed “Jazz(zzz)fest.” But as my girlfriend commented while reading this year’s line-up, “Dave Matthews and Nelly? They should just go ahead and call it DouchebagFest.” Or Clear Channel’s DouchebagFest. Give me free tickets and I will wipe myself with them. Or I’ll give them to Keith Moore—a.k.a. Deacon Johnson, the noise-addicted son of New Orleans R&B artist Deacon John—to be used in a garbage art installation at Moore’s upcoming Noizefest.
I first met Moore at a birthday party I played, where, without knowing the
party’s
guest of honor, Moore set up a T-shirt booth, blew an airhorn over our music
and commandeered my mic several times to announce his upcoming “Ambient
Wars Two! A sonic catfight between Beatgrrl and Miss
Mass Destruction!” In
my dedicated pursuit of yellow journalism, after deciding I would write about
Deacon Johnson, I took a job working for him, painting apartments. Instead
of whistling while we worked, as we rolled the ceilings, evil techno music
and Moore’s
echo-drenched voice boomed from a trashed and graffiti sprayed jambox, “I
will give you AIDS!” On the floor beside the jambox, a seperate shortwave
radio repeated a glitchy saw-tooth loop, and a wave machine generated an overdriven
wshhhhhhhhhhh.
From age 15, Moore has done roadie and sound tech work for his famous father. “Actually
I still sometimes work as his valet, soundman and roadie,” Moore says. “My
father really is my main source of inspiration.” Still, in 1986 Moore escaped
to New York because, “Everyone in New Orleans expected me to follow in
my dad’s footsteps. Everyone was always asking ‘So, do you play music
too?’ and I was like yeah, but… New York gave me a chance to go be
someone else besides ‘Deacon John’s son.’” In 1988, in
and around New York’s Tompkins Square Park riots, Moore found himself participating
in the “homesteading” movement (some call it “squatting”)
because, “I just couldn’t afford to live in New York any other way,
so I had to take over abandoned buildings with small groups of people.” During
this time Moore also helped produce a wild concert series in Tompkins Square,
and invented the Jambox Pyramid. “Technology’s planned obsolescence
has made for a lot of good garbage!” celebrates Moore, an avid collector
of valuable trash. Any radio he finds is quickly painted up, then hooked into
a giant noisemaking pile of garbage. “Each Jambox Pyramid is a continually
evolving canvas,” Moore explains, “meant to show the visual side
of music.”
With his invention and new clever stage name, Deacon Johnson, Moore returned
to New Orleans in 1999 to do a Barrister’s Gallery opening. He decided
to stay and went on to produce 2002’s Industrial Strength show at Big Top
gallery (where Deacon John played acoustic guitar), and also participate in NOMA’s
Underexposed photography show. “Underexposed is mostly like old men’s
quaint pictures of birds, and my portraits, things like that,” explains
local photographer Jonathan Traviesa. “And Keith shows up in full toxic
waste gear and a gasmask, with flashing lights and this horrible digital image
he took of 9/11 chaos.”
More recently, in December 2004, ballots at the Dragon’s Den’s bar
coronated Deacon Johnson King of Ambient Noise. Then this past February outside
the Den’s picture window, sat a knee-high pile of computer parts topped
with a ten-pound sledgehammer: a scary invitation to Ambient Wars II, which would
determine the queen. Broken jamboxes blaring static littered the Den’s
precarious stairway, and every corner of the dark main room was stuffed with
broken electronics, pill bottles, blacklights, candles, 9/11 photos and anti-corporate
slogans. Giant sheets of foil and photos were taped across the floor and dusted
with shards of broken mirror, so that the 40 or so humans in attendance all walked
around crunching glass as Moore bellowed into the microphone, “People want
to know where Deathhouse is? It’s at each and every one of your addresses!
Because you are all going to die!”
And what did it all mean? “I believe that we are dealing with the repercussions
of a society that has turned its back on nature,” explains Moore. “I
also want to prove that synthetic, digitized techno music is valid, viable and
fun.” Though cool enough, neither Moore’s statement nor his installations
felt particularly original. But as Moore continued dragging more and more junk
up into the Den, it became clear that Deacon Johnson is intensely committed
to the grand New Orleans tradition of working way too hard toward an incredibly
high production value, without much traditional reward.
Also, while it’s not uncommon to hear those who call their noise “music” bragging
about the abrasiveness of their art—when actually, by now, noise has become
more than accepted—Moore must also be given credit for actually disturbing
people. Ambient Wars II (which crowned Beatgrrl Queen of Ambient Noise) actually
got Moore banned from the Dragon’s Den. “I showed up around noon
that day to help Keith load in,” recalls eternally mellow Den booking agent
Tark Putman. “First he unloaded all these computer monitors and stuff and
set them on the sidewalk. By the time the show started at 10:30 we were still
bringing stuff up. But I forgot about the junk out on the sidewalk, and halfway
through the night one of the chefs comes up screaming at me in Thai, because
downstairs these two big jock meatheads were outside golfing computer parts at
his car with a sledgehammer—unloading Keith’s van I somehow never
saw the sledgehammers.” Putnam goes on to recall yelling at Moore, “‘I
hate getting uptight about anything.’ I definitely appreciate what Keith
is doing, and if it was my joint we’d light off dynamite inside, whatever.
But I took all the junk from out front, scooped up all the glass, threw it all
in a garbage can and told Keith, ‘This is garbage! Leave it here!’ And
the next thing I know the pile has been moved upstairs onto the stage. With
the sledgehammers.”
Moore is now producing Noizefest in reaction to Jazz Fest’s “Jazz
and blues whores and crappy jam bands.” But more importantly, Noizefest
is a benefit for Charity Hospital, an institution that not long ago saved Moore’s
life from simultaneous cases of pneumonia and meningitis. “This town
needs that emergency room, man,” Moore states. “Especially the
musicians.” You yourself might need Charity to fix your ears after this
Noizefest line-up:
Rob Cambre (N.O.’s noise guitar elder statesman), Manchild (original techno), DJ
Lady Fingaz (turntablist), Ray Bong (toy instruments and nitrous oxide), Denise
Bonis (dark, atmospheric soul-singer and violinist), PotPie (sinewave studies)
Siamese Cocks (more sinewave studies), Mikronaut (Robotussin and dub reggae influenced
four-track manipulations), Kid Calculator (laptop collages), One-Man-Machine (deconstructed Negro spirituals and Sun Ra covers), Sickniks (guitar and digital
noise), Dead Boy and the Elephantmen, Chuck Reily (singer of Fire, computer artist),
Miss Mass Destruction (DJ), Proppa Bear (DJ), The
Hussy (hot DJ), In the Skin
of the Buffalo (noise band), Brice Nice, Steve
O (DJ), Ridiculous (loops and
samples), DJ Beatgrrl (N.O.’s queen of ambient noise), Michael
Aaron (guitarist),
MC Shellshocker (female MC with real-time laptop vocal trickery), King
Louie One-Man-Band, Quintron (who will not be playing dance music) and Ratty
Scurvics (who knows?). Deacon Johnson himself will also perform and promises “interactive
noise sessions with full audience participation.”
Noizefest takes place at Planet of the Dreamers, 600 Desire Street from 11
a.m. to 1 p.m. on both Saturday, April 30, and Sunday, May 1. Bring in a
piece of
electronic garbage and get $3 off the admission price.
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