AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS

everyone has a plan. until they get punched in the mouth. Then they plan on going to the dentist.

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29th Street Ballroom,

8/28/26

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heathendis.co

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Hotel Vegas. 05/09/25

photos by Angela Betancourt

[dustedmagazine]

Chris Brokaw — Ghost Ship (12XU)

Chris Brokaw’s latest is a murky, moody affair, written quickly, according to the artist, on a 1960s Teisco Del Ray guitar. It’s far more solitary than Puritan, his last solo full-length, sheathed in echo and overtone, his voice shrouded in eerie, cloudy atmospherics. The guitar tone is more like what we heard in 2023’s all-instrumental Live at the Decommissioned Power Station than the clear, song-structured reveries in Puritan.

Brokaw describes his set-up with specificity, as designed by “Belgian luthier Flip Scipio with heavy gauge flat wound strings and an .80 gauge low E string tuned down to a low A, which reframes how you play the instrument.” But whatever the alignment of gear, the sound envelops the ear like a grey fog rolling in from the ocean, though there’s light and beauty in it, nonetheless.

Many of these tracks are free-flowing guitar dreams, unfolding slowly and meditatively as Brokaw picks his way through an ominous soundscape. “Ghost Ship,” for instance, launches long, lingering low tones, then plays off this foreboding foundation with lyrical runs and flourishes. Gorgeous “Vampire of Rathmines” arises out of a wavering hum, like haunted denatured voices, the guitar chiming in with measured, widely spaced notes. These cuts are all atmosphere and very little narrative, but they take you into a mysterious and mournfully lovely space.

The late album “8 or 9 Things” gestures towards more conventional songcraft, building tension with urgent, throbbing strums and interlacing Brokaw’s cool, searching vocals into the mix. It’s the most accessible song on the album, but oddly not the one that sticks. I’d rather swim through shadowy “Paloma”’s shifting currents, following Brokaw’s line of melody but sunk in internal reverie. These songs go by like a disturbing dream, soft but unsettling and overhung with dread.

Jennifer Kelly

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Lucas Abela 9:15pm 
Aaron Dilloway (8:45pm)

USA/Mexico (8:00pm)

Gerard Cosloy (7:15 pm)

Deep Cross (6:35pm)

Blank Hellscape (5:55pm)

Dromez 5:25pm (5:40pm)

Lisa Cameron + Adam Ostrar Duo (4:50pm)

How I Quit Crack (4:10pm)

Skratz (3:30pm)

Ingram (3:00pm)

Tara Bhattacharya + James Rippie (2:30pm)

DJ Erika Voight


Sunday, July 16th 2023

Club E, 207 W 4th St, Austin, TX 78701

Tix $15 CASH ONLY~

BYOB

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Rider New Flu Run, by Spider Sabich

3 track album

stuff from Tuesday’s show + plus an older bedroom recording. 

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poster by Samantha Wendel 

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Not a depiction of the actual persons likely to attend

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Spider Sabich - Lock Of The Century

recorded at Beerland, 2/9/17 straight to Olympus LM-11

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genuinely grateful to have been asked to do a Spider Sabich set at this Ghost Ship relief benefit taking place at Beerland, Thursday, 2/9. I'm sure the fire in question seems like ancient history to some but the devastating results are real and still being felt. That this horrific tragedy has given kooks and creeps an excuse to take aim at arts spaces across the country is not specific to the fund raising, but it's fucked just the same. Some of the most crucial stuff we've all seen and heard has taken place in rooms not dissimilar to the Ghost Ship. Wipe out every unregulated/unlicensed venue from the landscape and you're not suddenly gonna see the LiveNations/Bowery Presents of the world step up and start programming the same stuff. huge respect to the organizers & others taking part on Feb. 9 (Breathing Problem, Dom, Sherman’s March, Bondage, J.T. Whitfield, more TBA)

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