Melt-Banana

03/29/04 @ Stubb's
The earth must have shaken the day Mike Patton was born. The clouds gaped open, the timber shivered, and a metal genius took his first breath. How that man could create Delìrium Còrdia – an epic horror symphony more than 70 minutes long – and hold on to any semblance of sanity is unfathomable. Then again, who ever said Patton’s sane? Fantômas’ newest release on Patton’s Ipecac label is half of your worst night-mare: deadly screams, ghostly whistles, scraping metal on metal, and hollow echoes of noise. It’s an insane asylum gone horribly wrong, with the second act due out later this year. The real question is not how Patton was inspired to create such a chilling soundscape after relatively mind-easing turns in Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, and currently Tomahawk, but how in hell a fourpiece is going to re-create this nail-biting clamor onstage. With the help of all-stars Buzz Osbourne (Melvins) on guitar, the Dave Lombardo (Slayer) on drums, and Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle) on bass, the mad scientist slides Austin into his frightening psyche. Japanese noise rockers Melt-Banana support with their own brand of aural calamity, and End opens.

06/26/03 @ Emo's
Tokyo noise-punk addicts Melt-Banana have done nothing but speed up over time, tweaking their hyper-intense, futuristic metallurgy into an exact science, able to short out the synapses of anyone brave enough to stand near the front at one of their shows. Their brand-new Cell-Scape is a mad collision of digital exorcisms, video-game ballistics, and outer-space chase scenes. Local kings of all things strange and rhythmic Oh, Beast! get the action rolling, followed by Austin’s Dischord-ant riot act America Is Waiting.

11/02/02 @ Emo's
Hard to say what’s faster, Melt-Banana’s riffs or the jet plane out of Tokyo that brung them here. Taking short, loud, and fast to the extreme for the past decade, this is one band that must be seen to be believed. Guitarist Ichiro Agata is the one with the doctor’s mask, but it’s the rhythm section, in combination with the one-woman caterwail of vocalist Yasuko Onuki, that really brings the surgical precision to a new level. Brooklyn’s Black Dice pound out maximum abrasion beforehand, as the epic jangle-rock algebra of Boston’s Karate fills the inside room.