Author: Penny Chen
Walking into Coltrane Lounge on Friday night, one would have been surprised by the people in the half-empty room attempting to dance to the ruckus created by several half-naked bodies on stage. The latter was a band called The Mae Shi.
The Los Angeles quintet, although pleasing the majority of the indie rock fans, was more of a poor example of performance art than anything resembling a rock concert. Flailing around in any combination of no-shirt, no-pants and eventually no-clothes states, the band shared their notions of music with the unfortunate audience .
Their interesting combination of guitar, bass, drums, tambourines, noisemakers, computer programs, glockenspiel, omnichord and vocals created a general "noise" with overtones of electronic hardcore funk-rock.
It must be noted that they did drift into a more polished sound reminiscent of their studio recorded albums once in a while, with somewhat inspiring drum and guitar lines playing off of each other, but they fell back, seconds later, into a chaotic mess.
As senior Ian Fleishman '06 so poignantly put it, "Le concert était formidablement affreux" (The concert was superbly awful). Chris Lizotte '07 posed the question "Where do we draw the line between 'organized noise' and music?"
Mae-Shi concert flops and flails
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