By Niki D’Andrea
Better than: Wearing Nikes on your suicide comet ride.
Fans of industrial music – a.k.a. “rivetheads” – know that the best industrial events in the Valley are thrown by the local collective known as Sadisco*. Every month, Sadisco* throws a themed party at Homme Lounge, wherein the collective’s “house” DJs break out some wicked wax mashups. The event on Saturday, April 19 was dubbed the “Sadisco* Goes to Leary’s * Town: The S*uicide Cool-A©id Test!” on the flier, and the décor at Homme was fitting. The entrance was decked out in bamboo and fake foliage to resemble Jonestown, Guyana, where the mass suicides of Jim Jones’ cult took place on November 18, 1978. Inside, there were a couple life-size skeletons, centerpiece dishes filled with a hodge podge of bizarre items like rubber chickens and baby doll heads, and more stroboscopic effects than a vintage Pink Floyd show.
The music was a perfect faux doomsday soundtrack. Sadisco* DJs Squalor, Dr. F, ///she///, 5arah, Blonde Noize, and S&M were spinning mixes that combined rapid-fire rhythms with roaring synthesizers, German-language vocals, and some sick drum ‘n’ bass breakdowns. They peppered their sets of original splice-ups with tracks by beloved national industrial acts like VNV Nation and Lords of Acid, lending a frenetic, acid-tribal vibe to the night.
Sadisco* DJs Blonde Noize and ///she///
The headliner was Syndika: Zero, an IDM/electronica duo from Sacramento, California. The male half of the duo, known as “L1f3g1v3r,” was dressed in a white button-down shirt with a black tie, topped off with a decent amount of fake blood splattered all over his clothes and head. He spent a lot of time screaming at the crowd of 100+ people and encouraging them to move their asses. Even when his mic cut out in the middle of the third song, he continued screaming and punctuated his red-faced histrionics with a series of manic gestures. All was well when the mic went live again, though, and L1f3g1v3r explained “That was an improv instrumental mix” (yeeah, sure).
L1f3g1v3r at DNA Lounge on March 25, 2008 (photo by DJ Keyz)
The other half of Syndika: Zero is c1n – she helms the synthesizers and samples at live shows. While L1f3g1v3r hammered out a steady, pulsing beat on the electronic drum kit, c1n provided the real atmospherics of the duo’s live sound, laying down manic street preacher and Benedictine monk choir samples over the relentless, trance-like digital beats.
Even with the brief technical difficulties and the whole cheeky “Let’s die together tonight!” doomsday philosophy jocking, the crowd at Sadisco* was definitely alive, bouncing and gyrating through the smoke machine clouds.
Random detail: The Sadisco* collective prepared eight gallons of grape Kool-Aid for the event.
Personal bias: The scantily-clad goth chicks that frequent Sadisco* events are even hotter than the music.
