The Bunker presents Battlestar America, Torch Job, Hi Octane, and Habitrail at subTonic
Free downstairs, $5 upstairs
Battlestar America is socialist country hip hop. They somehow manage to twist socially conscious lyrics (and dubious dark humor) with an MC, gorgeous vocals (male and female), drums, bass, fiddle, turntables, harmonica(!) and countless other odds and ends. Extraordinarily all these bits sound great together - they never miss a beat. We've seen them cover "9-5" (we love Dolly) and "Man of Constant Sorrow", but their own tracks, like "Home Economics" and "Metermaid Anthem" are even more stunning. Torch Job should be New York's favorite punk rock band. Samatha the Pantha on drums, Tara Fire Ball on bass, and Rex the Sex machine on guitar have been kicking out the jams and art in various projects and scenes since the days of a sqautter siezed Tompkins Square Park. They wear sexy costumes, have an incredible possy of petting zoo freaks (animals in people costumes), and have mastered at least 5 chords! We saw them play their first gig at burningman in 1998 and they sucked. We are so excited that they have found their rock! A recent set featured audience participatory musical chairs, with the last person sitting winning a lapdance from Samantha and Tara! Make sure you read the bios on their website. DJ Spinoza has been quoted as saying "Todd Polenberg is an under-appreciated genius." He makes music, writes software, makes wierd blinky tronics, mixes live video, coordinates elaborate events, is an astute literary critic and philosopher, and treks a crazy team out to burningman (Camp Image Node) every year to combine these efforts. Musically he comes from a clicky clakety experimental electronics improv side of things that has evolved into wonderful breaks and truly dance-able wierd stuff under the name Habitrail. He plays laptop and devices and he's also great fun to talk to. In addition to his live performance, we've been told he's setting up blinkytronic stuff in the barrels. Cool. We met Hi Octane at the Burningman Decompression party in November, where he set the dancefloor on fire. He is a master of everything from freaky bleepy minimal techno to all out stomping party tunes. He's a super nice guy to boot, and he's coming from DC just to play for all of us.