Alan Vega Meets Oneida Rockers Downtown

WFMU's Free Music Series took a turn for the legendary during the climax of Alan Vega's solo set this past Saturday night. After stunning the packed house with the kind of wild rants heard on his new album "Station", Vega was joined on stage by headliners Oneida, and together they destroyed the whole room with a rendition of the Suicide classic "Rocket USA". After the set, the musicians retired to Southpaw's backstage area where this photo (right) of all involved parties was snapped by Leah Moskowitz.

Thanks to everyone who came out for the show, especially the performers, volunteers, and the Southpaw staff. We'll be back at ya soon with yet more in the way of free shows, so don't dance too far from your radios.

In the meantime, here's Suicide performing the original version of "Rocket USA". [Real Audio]

Comments

[Steve PMX]

will I be the only one who picks up on the awesome Augustus Pablo reference???

[special tommy]

can someone please comment on simply saucer or were they a drag?

[Jebediah Springfield]

Simply Saucer was not a drag but they also weren't anywhere near as good as anybody else that night.

[K]

I disagree. I thought Saucer were the best band that evening. That said, if you were expecting the sound heard on their CD, you would probably have been a bit disappointed. The only original member left is Edgar. Such is the nature of retreaded bands. I think the problem lies elsewhere...

I've been avoiding commenting on this, but I was pretty shocked that such a nice club, with such a nice sound system, made the bands sound so bad. Could you hear the horn player for the first act ( BTW the flutaphone solo was very amusing )? Could you hear Edgars guitar solos, or the theremin playing? Could you hear ANYTHING but bass and drums? I realize this is all the rage now, but that range of frequencies from about 100Hz up to 30KHz is sorta important to us musician types.... Maybe one of your fine DJ's can clue in the sound engineer at Southpaw that if we can't hear the musicians, and I see many in the audience wearing earplugs, that perhaps we have a problem with how this material is being mixed.

[Scott]

Hi K - I'm kinda stumped by your comment on the sound at Southpaw. I thought every band sounded phenomenal. I read your thoughts think "where was he sitting?" Yes, I heard the sax; yep, Edgar's solos, and the theremin. I moved around quite a bit too. I've shown your post to others in attendance and all agree: the sound that night was amazing, soundguy Ken Heitmueller did a bangup job.

Did anyone else find the sound to be not so hot? I'd be curious to know what you were hearing.

[andy]

Thanks guys for the great event! It was super swell. Regarding the sound: although it certainly wasn't horrible, it was - in general - too loud. Maybe that led to a varied sound quality in the room.