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MOAM at LaLuna in Portland Oregon

Birdstuff: Hitting things repeatedly with maximum velocity and precision. Occasional shouting and screaming. Curious, birdlike head movements.

Coco, The Electronic Monkey Wizard: Bass, Samples, Theremin, Flames, Ultrasonic Vocals, High-Energy devices, The Book of Power, comic banter, etc.

Dexter-X, The Man From Planet Q: Guitar, Bass, High-Altitude Observation, Demonstrations of Devo-ness.

Starcrunch: Guitars and more Guitars, Audible and semi-audible vocals, Zorlock Pit Diving, Cranial hygene advice, Storytime.

On the MOAM web page was a request for fans to bring working TV sets to the soundcheck, so I bought a black-and-white set at Goodwill and let myself in through the backstage door a few hours before the show. There they were, "out of uniform" in Earthling street clothes busily getting their gear ready for the show. I supressed my urges to talk to them, and tried to stay out of the way. I met a nice kid by the name of Ben Brinkman who is aquainted with Birdstuff. His page about the show, with some really great photos he took, can be found here on my web site.

Chris Bilheimer exchanged my TV for an ASTRO-LP and I bought a few more ASTRO-items.

The soundcheck included complete playtroughs of at least three songs, of which at least two were new ones from the then-upcoming 1000X EP. Sorry I don't have a clearer recollection, but I didn't do any taping of the soundcheck, as Chris had not yet told me taping was allowed. They sounded great! Coco fired up the Tesla Coil, and they moved a big aluminum stepladder close enough for the arcs to be attracted to it as a path to ground. It looked really cool! I wish I had taken some photos of that.

A traditional surf three-piece. A solid old-school surf performance that suffers only by comparison to the ASTRO-guys. It was an enjoyable set, but it does serve to remind me of the gulf that separates traditional surf from ASTRO-sounds. After discovering MOAM, I became curious about other surf music and started buying the "classics". I was usually rather disappointed at how comparatively slow and sedate the performances were. It's kind of frustrating when a band almost rocks.

A very different kind of music from The Brainwashers or MOAM. Kind of synth-pop, but somewhat more rocking than that at times. The sound was very much like The Cure on a good day, which is a good thing. The only Cure album I really like is Disintigration, and every song The Pulsars played was as good as the best songs on that album.

Another interesting thing about this "band" is that it isn't exactly a live band. There were only two live people on stage, one playing guitar and singing and the other playing drums. Other guitar and keyboard tracks came from a fancy tape deck which was sitting front and center on the stage, flanked by the live performers. On top of the tape deck was a video monitor, on which played constant pre-recorded video accompaniment to the entire performance. Many events in the video program were precicely synchronized with events in the live performance.

It would be easy to scorn this as not a "real" live performance, but I must admitt I was impressed at the precision and bravery required for this mode of performance. The slightest mistake can look really bad and even spell disaster for the whole set. To their credit, this dynamic duo pulled it off flawlessly, despite broken drumsticks, hecklers, and other entropic influences. This must make The Pulsars an ideal opening act in that you always know the precise length of their set.

All-in-all, I regard The Pulsars to be a real find. Tunnel Song on the single that was handed out for free after the show reinforces and confirms my impressions from the show. I think I will buy their full-length release. I'm kind of embarassed that I sat right next to the lead guitar/singer of The Pulsars during the MOAM soundcheck and didn't even say "hi". I had no idea who he was.

A big tv was set up on the stage and we were entertained for about 20 minutes by a clever and funny little video short feature created by the MOAM projectionist. It was called "The Star Wars". Did Chris Bilheimer really tell me the projectionist's name is "Pez Dispenser"? That's what I seem to remember.

The creator of this feature, whoever he is, started with a children's Star Wars storybook tape, complete with R2D2 sounds when it is time to turn the page. The visual content was provided by manipulation of Star Wars action figures and accessories. There was no stop-motion animation, per-se; it was more like an action figure puppet show. Barbie, or maybe it was Skipper, was used for Leia's closeup shots.

This treatment really highlighted how absurdly condensed and paraphrased these storybook tapes are compared to the original films upon which they are based. It also showed how action figures don't quite measure up to their commercials or to the original characters and props. The whole marketeer's "for children" interpretation of greater works, such as Star Wars, was exposed for the farce that it is, but in a rather forgiving, perhaps even loving way. I collect action figures myself, mostly STNG, so my apparent cynicism about them obviously doesn't run very deep.

The production quality was preciously innocent and amateurish, most likely by design. It was like community cable access on a good night. As a matter of fact, I have seen other "action figure theater" type featurettes on my local cable access channel. This one compares quite favorably to the others I have seen.

Starting with a short feature is a great idea. Some of the best episodes of MST3K start with a short feature.

A great show, of course, despite numerous technical difficulties (yes, more than usual even) and a WAY too rowdy crowd. It seemed like a rough night for the ASTRO-boys. Perhaps they were a little road-weary. The fact that Coco was the only space dork appearing in full ASTRO-regalia is an indication of a nasty case of Earth-sickness, curable only by a sojourn in the restorative environment of the space-simulation chambers at ASTRO-HQ.

These guys are real troopers, however, and turned every setback into a source of entertainment, even the tragic failure of CoCo's theremin for Principles Unknown. He expressed his frustration with the uncooperative device by dousing it in lighter fluid and setting it aflame, much in the same manner as he does his TV helmet during Nitrous Burnout. Starcrunch's groovy little electronic noisemaker/guitar slide was sadly absent from the evening's performance of Nitrous Burnout. Coco, wisely enough, opted to stay on the stage rather than do his usual mingling with the crowd. Starcrunch, however, descended into what he called "The Zorlak Pit" during Invasion of The Dragonmen, although I got the impression this was an accident.

Down in the Zorlak pit itself, life was a little dangerous. My 3D camera became a casualty after only one shot, smashed to the floor when an idiot Zorlak collided with me. (Of course, I was an idiot for trying to operate a still camera in one hand and a video camera in the other simultaneously in the middle of a surging crowd of teenage punks.) That same Zorlak landed on me two more times, apparently trying to get thrown onto the stage, knocking me down once. With no forethought, but plenty of malice, I bit the Zorlak on the leg while we were tangled on the floor. That doesn't happen every day. At 34, I'm getting way too old for this stuff.

Despite all my whining, please understand this was a live performance that totally strips the paint off of every other show I have seen (except last year's MOAM show).

Standout performances of the evening included three tracks from the then-upcoming EP 1000X, With Automatic Shut Off, The Miracle of Genuine Pyrex, and Man Made of CO2. Everything rocked flawlessly, in fact, for the majority of the set, with things getting a little ragged about halfway through, starting with the usual show-cappers Nitrous Burnout and Principles Unknown played curiously and precariously midway through the set. Nonetheless, the full-on magic of MOAM still resurrected itself at times during the remainder of the show, most notably during Rocketship XL-3 and Escape Velocity. As a whole, the setlist was well composed including virtually every favorite track I can think of, except for The Love Theme to Mystery Science Theater 3000. I was especially pleased to hear a couple of my biggest favorites classified and the new show-capper Special Agent Conrad Uno.

The Flaming Theremin