To Live and Shave in L.A.

TLASILA.COM

top- AWK, TOM
bottom- DON, RAT

NOISE AGAINST FASCISM MIRROR/DASH, THE BELIEVERS, METALUX, DOUBLE LEOPARDS, 16 BITCH PILEUP, MONOTRACT, NAUTICAL ALMANAC, BUZZARDSTAIN, CHRIS CORSANO/PAUL FLAHERTY, TO LIVE AND SHAVE IN L.A., MAGIK MARKERS 

Thurday, January 20th, 2005
Inauguration Day

Black Cat 1811 14th St. NW Washington, DC 
$12 mainstage 8:00

The Line-Up: T. Moore, B. Wolcott, A. Wilkes-Krier, D. Fleming, C. Grier, T. Smith, and R. Bastard.

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To Live and Shave in L.A. 
God and Country Rally! Tour
September 2004

band roster:

Tom Smith - lead vocals and electronics
Rat Bastard - electronics and bass
Ben Wolcott - oscillators
Don Fleming - guitar, synth and backing vocals
Mark Morgan - guitar and backing vocals
Andrew W.K. - drums and electronics

September 10
Northsix  / Brooklyn, NY

September 11 
Tarantula Hill / Baltimore, MD

September 12
Southgate House / Newport, KY

September 13
Empty Bottle / Chicago, IL

September 14
Detroit Art Space / Detroit, MI

September 15
Bug Jar / Rochester, NY

September 16
Flywheel Arts Collective / Easthampton, MA

September 17
Safari Lounge / Providence, RI

September 18 (early afternoon) 
SUNY Purchase College / Purchase, NY

September 18 (evening)
Tonic, New York, NY

September 19
WFMU-FM Session / Jersey City, NJ

Here's the TLASILA tour bus. Be on the lookout for us when we hit your town!

 

The No Fun Fest

March 20, 2004 in Brooklyn, NY at north six

 

    

photos by nuuj nuuj@rochester.rr.com

various comments:

to live in SHAVE THREW SHIT DOWN god damnit. tom smith is a giant. fuckin gnarled out pyschopath whos rants are some of the craziest shit to ever hit my ears. -jdf hjkd

During To Live & Shave in L.A.'s frantic surround-sound dance party, Rat Bastard turned a blinking joystick into a codpiece.  - Village Voice,  March 29th, 2004

To Live and Shave in L.A

Leveer: I'm well aware that most of my TMT cohorts hated TLASILA. I was super-excited to see these noise-masters, as its my understanding that they're nearly impossible to catch live. And they didn't disappoint me in the least. Their set started off with an incoherent noise warm-up portion. Then Tom Smith went over to his laptop and started up and drum-n-bass file, and havoc was wreaked. Tom Smith was a "demon" onstage, with unbelievable energy. Rat Bastard had a simple tone generator that he vigorously played and danced with, and eventually turned into unmitigated noise. And Mark Morgan just stoicly destroyed all of our ears with his "guitar." I thought it was a perfect destruction of music, with more energy in their set than the rest of the fest combined. So, in the end, I'd love to know what everyone else thought their shortcomings were.

Mr P: I am also surprised by the negative reactions people had with To Live and Shave. I thought they were really exciting and put a lot of energy into the show. So, no, I have no negative reactions at all. Although a little more rock-oriented, I still think they were completely innovative on their instruments and the vocals were crazy, to say the least. In my opinion, I think this was a good return for TLASILA, who originally broke up in 2000.

Amneziak: I probably enjoyed this set more than the average guy. I liked the way they used electronics in their set. And when I say electronics, I mean electronica. A lot of the music seemed like it was a cross between Sightings and night club music. But all-in-all, I was pretty happy with this one. Lastly, I must mention one thing that I loved about these guys: they seemed to be the most happy on stage. It was if they felt the most privileged to be involved with the event. Tom, in particular, had a smile on his face from the time he walked into North Six until the time he left for the airport on Monday morning. But again, that was the overall vibe of the whole event.   -tinymixtapes.com

postings at dusted magazine:

To Live in Shave in La- Was also excited to see this band but not totally impressed with them live. They had a drum n bass track in background over Tom Smith singing impassionately the same thing over and over and Rat bastard and Don Fleming contributing noise. People were dancing and moshing to a pretty noisy group but they were dancing to the drum n bass rhythym. Nothing as special as what I was hoping to hear and way more accessible than what you would expect from listening to their records. -guest

I only bought tickets for the second day of the festival, and only really to see To Live & Shave in LA. I enjoyed Alan Licht's preceding set, and Hair Police seemed to drive the audience bonkers. But, I admit, I was very psycked to see what TLAS were up to. I completely disagree with "Guest" - their set was about as ass-kicking and mind-frying as anything I've seen in a long time. The fact they used massive D+B breakbeats only amplified the relentless sound they pioneered. The old switcheroo! Nobody expected such a change from them, and most of the people around us (in the crush upfront) were dancing their balls off with sweaty abandon. Yes, Guest, they were dancing to the beat, but all eyes were on the band. At least mine were, my girlfriend's were, and our two friends were... Everyone's eyes were glued to Rat Bastard and Mark Morgan, who shredded. Don Fleming was hard to detect on the side of the stage, but he let loose with some crazy solos and feedback bursts. Tom Smith threw the gauntlet down HARD. There's no other way to describe it. Sick, sick vocal skills, crazy spazz dancing, no fear!!  It was beautiful, and well worth the drive from Philly. Some asshole busted out the right rear window of my Saab while we were parked in Brooklyn, so we drove back in sub-freezing temps, huddled together in front of a blasting heater. It was worth every moment...Ya'll be cool, Jedediah B.

 "Jerediah B"- maybe you should've gone down the street to a disco if you wanted to dance so much. The rest of us came to hear non-idiomatic music- i.e. abstract music, noise music, marginalized music that is not usually heard in clubs. Obviously your poor girlfriend had her eyes "glued to the band" because she was so bored with hanging out with a reactionary lame like you. -guest

 You miss the point entirely, Guest - TL&S have been pioneers in non-idiomatic, abstract, marginalized, noise music since the early 1990s. Their albums explore the farthest reaches of the non-idiomatic, and rend abstraction itself into wholly other realms of strange. I and many other attendees were blown away by having an opportunity to see them again (because we love them, and we didn't know what to expect of them), and really blown away by their audacity in rejecting just the sort of confined point of view you seem to be espousing. It was brilliant of them to flip the script on crotchety octogenarians like yourself. Oh yes, we danced to Hair Police, Pengo, Rubber-O-Cement, and Nautical Almanac as well. Joy isn't reactionary, you fucking moron.  -Jedediah

hmmm. well, boys, i think we can infer that you disagree. guest called jed a lame, jed responded by calling guest a moron. i tend to side with jed's opinion of tlasila at no fun, but i abhor this childish name-calling by the two of you. so, i hereby call this thread to order! here's a day-old post from ilm by carlos giffoni, curator of no fun. let's see what he has to say, shall we? (by the way, for those of you unfamiliar with tom smith's european side-project "ohne," i should remind you that they record for mego!)

Has TLASILA formally regrouped? Have they ever! Yesterday we received an email with details of their autumn tour - Andrew WK (yes, that Andrew WK) has joined Shave as their drummer! Considering the level of mayhem they engendered at NFF, this could have completely insane consequences! Apparently AWK is a long-time friend of Smith's; he and Sightings' Mark Morgan, who is also a new member of TLASILA, are fellow Michiganites. It all makes a strange kind of perfect/imperfect sense. Jesus, I'm going to be up front for this one. Hope they come to Indianapolis!!    -JSN

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