my autechre adventure

A funny little story: I've seen AE three times here in the states and they're great, live. The second time I saw them was, hands-down, the best (although, their most recent concert was great, too--the "Elektron" concert, I call it). This event was June 2000 or 2001, when they were still very heavily into their Nord Lead phase ("LP5").

I looked on the WARP website and the only thing that was mentioned about the venue was that it was at Princeton (university), in Princeton, New Jersey. It was about 2.5 hours away from where I live, near Philadelphia, but I thought it would be worth it. I mean, it was the summer and I never mind exploring new places.

So, I drive a couple hours and eventually I find the school. I ask around about where AE is supposed to play, but of course nobody knows who AE is in America. After driving around for a few more minutes, I happen upon a row of what looks like frat houses. (AE? Frat houses?) I park and walk around asking about AE, again. Of course, nobody is of any help, but I found one "goth" kid at the corner of one of these houses--when in doubt, always follow the goth kid. (Misdirected as they are in their belief that Autechre is "dark" music, goth kids have amazing sense of direction.) So, this kid leads me to this unassuming frat-house with a large garden and a small stage. I guess this is where they'll play.

Yep. Unbelievably, this frat is hosting AE. Now, I don't know if you know anything about American fraternities, but they aren't exactly into "Intelligent Dance Music" (or anything intelligent, for that matter). So, it was pretty weird, but there is a huge upside to having the concert in such an incongruous place: very few people.

By the time Rob Hall (the Gescom DJ) went off the stage and AE began their set, maybe 30 people had arrived. 30 people! I'll type that again: 30 people! Holy sh*t, man. This was AE at their pinnacle and I was there, virtually by myself.

Oh, man, I almost skipped over the most important part!
So, Rob Hall is doing his nonsense, playing with his jacked MiniDisc, and who is watching the whole thing from the crowd? Sean Booth. The dude, himself. A couple people are coming up to him with some bullshit, but I stand back. (One very out-of-his-element, way too old to be wearing all-black, guy asked him to listen to his tape [yes, tape] of his tracks in which he used "drum triggers" to trigger keyboard sounds! Drum triggers!) As I watched "Old Man Omen" hand Sean the tape, I remembered that I had brought a FutureMusic magazine in case I wanted to get an autograph or something, so I thought, this is my chance. I might as well ask him.

So I come up to him (mistakenly calling him Rob, at first--that must've pissed him off) and page through the magazine, looking for the article. He grabs the mag and starts paging through it himself. "What the fuck is this shit? Why don't you get a real mag with proper gear reviews? We haven't talked to these guys for years," he informs me in a thick, Manchester accent, while glossing over the one-paragraph WARP profiles. "I'm not fuckin' signin' it, mate."
"Hey, I'm a big fan."
"Fine, but this mag is shit."

So, that's what he wrote, along with his signature: "This mag is shit."
HAH!

Yeah, so the concert was great, but that was one of the most entertaining days of my life--not because I was a fanboy--but because of the almost perfect circumstances surrounding it. Can you think of any better environment to be in to watch your (then) favorite artists?

Anyway, see the attached .jpg.