You're probably steps ahead of me and I think he's actually from your neck of the woods, but I've been listening to a lot of Death Vessel since the Steam Powered Giraffe Incident of 2014. I'd known about him for a while (I loved how the name sounded like something belonging to a completely different genre but sort of stopped paying attention for a while there.) It's not "steampunk" per se (wikipedia just calls them alt-traditional of course..) I dunno. Hard to explain but Island Intervals has sort of been my bike-around-town-in-an-airship music this week.

Haven't listened to him much, I'm actually not too in to the majority of New England music but he seems solid. I actually think I played a show or two with him a few years ago but I'm not sure.

I was actually led to this because the guy who designed the sound-responsive lighting for his last tour used a program I use a bit and posted on the user forum about it.

Which makes me wonder how much of the stuff played by the automata is presequenced and how much is being generated in real time in response to his playing, because I have a feeling there's more going on that him playing along with some MIDI sequences that dive servos.

He's like a cross between Udo Kier, Klaus Nomi and Claude Reboul (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbjulOx34Yk - seems to have scaled down, I saw him in the same spot in '95 and his calliope was so big that he was actually sitting on a seat inside it with pipes all the way around and behind, about the same size as the tent he has in this video).

That's really awesome. I've been to, worked and played so many shows that I really don't go to them anymore unless I'm playing, and even if I do I usually leave early and play pinball, my drink ticket well spent on cheapass beer. I mentioned it before but the last sort of well-known band I went and saw was Mogwai, and that was only because I had a +1. It was just boring to watch. And Young Team's probably my third favorite album in the known universe. They were just doing their thing. In contrast, one of my co-workers was playing Captured By Robots one day, whose music really isn't my style but when I discovered the premise I HAD to go see them. Same thing with Quintron and Miss Pussycat, if they're still around. Stuff like this is so much fun.

speaking of Quintron, he could probably sell out big venues in the south but was booked at this little under the street venue (which unfortunately caught fire about a month ago-will reopen soon) that I've played shows there and I have NO IDEA how they got their car in there. Not to mention the puppets. Probably the most fun I've ever had at a show though.

Yeah, I've been a bit of a hermit for the last 18 months or so because I took a break from playing in bands to work out some stuf and learn more about woodworking, so I haven't played out in more than a year (apart from one show back in February) for the longest stretch since maybe 1995 and I hardly go to shows if I'm not playing them. I've only been to maybe three this year, and one last fall (which was a blast, smoked a joint with Nik Turner from Hawkwind and talked about Miles Davis for half an hour - for me that's like hanging out with George Harrison or something), but when faced with the choice between going out or staying home and fucking with synthesizers, 9 times out of 10 the synthesizers win.

That's awesome. I had the same thing with John Doe. When X was officially broken up for the millionth time he just did his solo stuff, opening for Neko Case. It wasn't tiny, but small enough for an artist like Doe to sit around and get some drinks after the show. Doe me, that was surreal. Everyone wanted to talk to Case and Doe was just sitting there drinking a beer. I guess you'd have to know me, but at the time I could've been Doe's Wild Gift-era stand in that's how similar we looked. We got pretty drunk together. Years later, when X got back together, they were playing larger venues. I still got in the pit like I was 16 again and they were amazing, but then I just felt like a face and not a friend.

One of the coolest stories isn't mine, but my brother's. His band was playing a show at this little bar in NYC and Laurie Anderson was opening for them. And Lou Reed was just chilling out backstage. He mentioned it to me but I was like YOU DIDN'T TALK ABOUT QUINTRON'S DRUMBUDDIES WITH LAURIE!?!! I was so jealous.