OMFG I WENT TO SEE JONWAYNE LAST NIGHT - Montreal Nov3.2011

Hi - my name's maxmax - new poster here. Thanks for hearing me/x O_o

The Death of Andrew (2011)

So here's my tale. Thursday night I tore myself from my usual sloth, biking 8 km (to spend my bus fare on entrance) through the autumn rain to witness a special surprise come to say hi to Montreal: Jon Wayne flown in from LA for the first time ever entertaining my beautiful city.

First off, if you haven't heard of Jon Wayne (which, surprisingly, many seem to have not), he debuted last year on the experimental label Alpha Pup Records with his album Bowser, a full length album he made using playstation samples, and he's just released a second album, The Death of Andrew (OCT25/2011).

At this point, I suggest immediately diverting your audio output to this source:
http://dublabmedia1.net/audio/podcast/08_10_10_jon_wayne_mix.mp3
Jonwayne mix!

On my way to the show, I stopped to meet my friend with the tickets (5$ - no joke.) and was swept up into the spellcasting frenzy of a 4-person free-for-all of MTG. Understandably, this delayed me, and so by the time we made our appearance to the aphotic brick chamber of smoke and sound that is the Belmont, the introductory DJ, Wolfey was just finishing up and Mr. Jon Wayne was about to begin.

I must first say that, as Jon Wayne himself mentioned a few times over the night, never before have I seen so many beautiful ladies at one time at the Belmont. Seriously. You were all gorgeous. This, I attribute to my friends over at http://www.low-life.ca/ who were the ones to make the plans to fly the hero in and set up the playing field in the first place. There were roughly 150 in the room (far under capacity, despite all my last minute facebook friend-finding efforts) but the lucky us who were there will undoubtedly remember this night forever.

How do I begin? Jon Wayne lumbers up to the stage, unshaven, hair not cut in months, glasses, with a detached empathy on his face giving off the general appearances of something like a cross between your local DnD shop clerk and a mongolian witch doctor of the digital age.


[MORE PICTURES FROM THE NIGHT HERE]


Instantly this surge of twenty year old nintendo synth, louder than anything that tiny tube TV you once owned could have ever pulled off, crushes you in your place with this ominous monophonic bass, and then come the cleanest snares perfectly fit off any beat your even wonky-learned mind could ever have expected, lifting you back up with the unsuspecting benevolence of a little red running mushroom that instantly doubles your size and strength to prepare you for your adventure ahead.

Which is pretty fortunate, because you could see that everyone was for a moment just completely struck by the oddity of the sounds they were hearing but as the social consciousness couldn't deny the fact that they were just sooo fucking deep and badass and nintendo-nostalgic that everyone immediately joined in for the win on the wonkiest frenzy that I've ever seen live.

Behind him on the wall are projected animations that fade in and out and back and forth of pixelated pyramids, monkeys and deserts, faces and eyes, bright blue skies while the "ACID WASHED" logo keeps showing us up.


It was as if he put a pixelator in front of hiphop but then and again a track would escape through the cracks and refresh us from our two dimensional mario world (which could come as as great a relief as standing up and opening your front door and breathing that first breath after any typical gamer binge - because, despite how awesome it was, the weight of the whole affair could start feeling like a pretty big burden to bear)

Every single (rare) melodic shift of the bass carried with it so much importance that you couldn't help but feel dragged into the event, most of which was pretty damn ominous, like he was sweeping you through Bowser's castle with him, over the appropriate amount of fireballs, swinging chains, pits of lava, skeleton koopas, finally engaging and destroying the boss, at which point you're cheered up by a transcendental melodic bout of nintendo fanfare just before remembering that there are still 7 castles left.


Fuck yeah.

And like, you would keep getting the impression that this guy wasn't quite there. Or like, he wasn't really playing a show for you, rather, he was this kind of slumbering bearded giant and you were just witnessing this intricate 8-bit wake-up ritual that had devised for himself to slowly unlock his hidden powers.


His set went way over his allotted hour ( I would have allotted him no less than four goddamn), but we let him stay (thanks again Construct thanks again!) to finish up. His encore built up slowly with a mixture of hip hop beats and even tribal sounding low wonky beats. And culminated in him telling us that he'd just made this new beat on his way there from the airport. Then as this crazy carnivalous wonky tune pops up, jonmotherfuckignwayne picks up the mike and starts giving us a piece of his mind in rap form.

To be honest, I couldn't quite make out every word he said, but whatever it was, amen. amotherfuckingmen. Happy happy happy he ends to the room's cheers and applause and wanders back down to join us.

Then, Construct gets up for his set (which was wonderfully appropriate, some of Construct's finest moments where he's kind of free to be himself before an infinitely appreciative crowd) And he tells us that Jonwayne had just played his entire set on THE FOLLOWING:

http://www.roland.com/products/en/SP-404/


And that's when I wished I had more quarters.

Thank you world. Thank you universe. Thank you Jonwayne. Thank you Belmont. Thank you Montreal. Thank you Low-life. Thank you grandma.

Honestly if this guy is ever in your city, I urge you to gouge out your ears before even considering passing it up.

The manager of the Belmont was also kind to inform me that Jonwayne would be back in town in the near future. Mr. Jonwayne seemed to have fun with us too.

mm peace thanks for not editing my post