Despite being the most mystical band on the planet, the Boredoms (pictured) still have yet to figure out how to be in two places at once. After 77 drummers joined the Japanese noise shamans for a cosmically proportioned beat circle under the Brooklyn Bridge last July, the expectations for this year’s follow-up have been about as high as Yamatsuka Eye, the group’s inimitable frontman, must have been when he famously piloted a forklift into an Osaka stage back in the d’90s. Dubbed “8/8/08,” the concert will see something of a resurrection of last year’s mind-melting must-see, except the progenitors have relocated their expanded army of percussionists to the toxic shores of L.A. That, and Nike has slapped on a sponsorship.
The saving grace for an East Coast show lies in Brooklyn’s own Gang Gang Dance, handpicked by Eye to carry the groove torch forward. Moving the party to the Williamsburg waterfront, the protégés have assembled 88 trap-masters of their own in an attempt to realize the century’s first bi-coastal rock show.
“In California, they’re going to be arranged in a counter-clockwise spiral, and we’re going to be going in a clockwise spiral,” elucidates Gang member Josh Diamond. “The two spirals will then combine to make an infinity symbol.”
Sacred geometry is nothing new to the Boredoms. Last year’s concert, “77 Boadrums,” took its theoretical impetus from the band’s Sevena, a towering noise maker comprising seven stacked guitars, and some Okinawan creation story about stars and caves. Flip the 8 of 88 on its side, and this year’s agenda becomes clear.
Less spiritual is the intervention of the world’s most popular shoemaker into the mix. “The organizers were really apologetic about all this corporate stuff,” explains Diamond. “Apparently they told Nike running was a lot like drumming.” The logic of repetition, it seems, has no limits: Everything is the same as everything else. It’s a philosophy those skeptical of a Boredom-less Boadrum, and certainly the members of Gang Gang Dance, might do well to honor.
The saving grace for an East Coast show lies in Brooklyn’s own Gang Gang Dance, handpicked by Eye to carry the groove torch forward. Moving the party to the Williamsburg waterfront, the protégés have assembled 88 trap-masters of their own in an attempt to realize the century’s first bi-coastal rock show.
“In California, they’re going to be arranged in a counter-clockwise spiral, and we’re going to be going in a clockwise spiral,” elucidates Gang member Josh Diamond. “The two spirals will then combine to make an infinity symbol.”
Sacred geometry is nothing new to the Boredoms. Last year’s concert, “77 Boadrums,” took its theoretical impetus from the band’s Sevena, a towering noise maker comprising seven stacked guitars, and some Okinawan creation story about stars and caves. Flip the 8 of 88 on its side, and this year’s agenda becomes clear.
Less spiritual is the intervention of the world’s most popular shoemaker into the mix. “The organizers were really apologetic about all this corporate stuff,” explains Diamond. “Apparently they told Nike running was a lot like drumming.” The logic of repetition, it seems, has no limits: Everything is the same as everything else. It’s a philosophy those skeptical of a Boredom-less Boadrum, and certainly the members of Gang Gang Dance, might do well to honor.
