The late show: It's a-Maze-ing, uh, so a-Maze-ing

By the way, in case you were thinking the Maze is just a name, and that it's probably just another art installation, you could not be more wrong. It is a Maze in every sense. You will turn wrong corners, you will get lost. You will not know who's playing next or where they are playing. You will not know what the hell is going on. At one point in the night I turned around a corner and met a wild-eyed guy who asked me if I knew whether White Suns had played yet.

Also I am NOT the first person to come up with the clearly brilliant and original pun used in this post's title. That was all Nicole Schneit, whose set with Air Waves was so breezily beautiful and laid-back that I couldn't believe I wasn't missing something pretentious somewhere in there. Schneit's pop songwriting is enigmatic but revealing, showing slices of a rich inner life you know she has.

Poor Emma Kupa of Standard Fare needs a pat on the back and a reassurance that had, in fact, an absolutely brilliant set. I was informed by her rep at Bar None records that it was one of her first-ever solo shows, which explains why seemed a bit upset afterward. She doesn't have anything to worry about should she choose to do more in the future. Her confessional songwriting, tongue-in-cheek humor and Dido-esque singing voice, with songs about such things as missing long-distance friendships and sleeping with younger boys (how old is she, 25? She should know I can totally relate to that).

Of course the showmen-and-women of the night were Eskalators, a pack of about ten or more people in farm animal costumes, literally bombarding everybody with their pop-punk-ska-jazz insanity, consisting of songs entitled "Hand Jobs?" I was informed later by DBA's Edan that they were lucky nobody was killed, being that the flimsy Maze walls aren't designed to support the weight of a full-grown cow-man.

If you haven't gotten lost in the Maze, yet, you've got one more shot: tonight at 8, with Zs, Excepter, Mick Barr, and no doubt a bunch of weird shit it would be impossible to try to predict. Let's get lost.



Mp3 - Air Waves - Knockout