ubik.s sound is fairly dependent on Michelle's ability to echo and distort... that Digitech
vocal processor (the purple people eater) has been tweaked and customized over time to the point where Michelle really plays it like an instrument over several songs-- recording the EP (almost done!) was a crash course on how inimitable that thing is. You can't take a dry vocal and make it sound like Michelle sang it through the Purple People Eater with post-effects-- you have to use the original effected vocals. We can't live without it.We played pretty much every song we knew that night... we didn't have a setlist, and everything ended with "what should we play next?" We didn't exactly put on a "show," but we played for a long time, to a big crowd, and everyone had a good time. We closed with The Planet's Kerploding!, and since Tyler's toes had frozen, we had to stop.
Saturday night at AMF went more smoothly, after we'd learned about generators, camp setups, and how to get all of this done. Red Rapture, ubik., and then In The Age Of Terminal Static again at Wondercamp-- (A)symetric Warfar(e) played over at Unicorn Camp that night, to one of the best mosh pits I've seen in years. ubik.s set leaned towards the mellow and the trippy, simply because Michelle's scream seems to scare off some of the more chemically enhanced campers. Of course, we still played Seven Feet Under, and we closed with No Such Thing As an Open-Ended Equation, but it was the kind of night where we brought out Silence, which isn't on our setlist too often.
The voyage was... eventful. After testing the ubik.van (now possibly named Rita, Edith, or Bruno) past Portland, plus another hundred-plus miles on Route 26, we learned that we do, thankfully, have a spare tire in there somewhere, but no jack. ubik.van was also carrying Andre, of Red Rapture, and Andre and Joel worked out a frightening-looking contraption out of a rock, a piece of lumber, and two borrowed jacks... and the wobbly, oversized spare tire happened. After limping to Madras for nearly an hour on a temporary spare (emblazoned with "do not exceed 55mph"-- I don't think we exceeded 45, due to wobble), we did learn that Les Schwab is the most awesome franchise in the country-- those guys had us rolling again in less time than it took to buy camp groceries.
We also had an odd issue where the van lost power and needed a jump. A nice woman attempted to pray over the engine (lord, please let this car start), but, for some reason, that didn't help. Jumper cables did, though. I think our van is more into Science than jesus, but, hey, whatever floats your boat. They were going to look us up on MySpace, and we don't want to seem ungrateful (we really needed that jump), but I can't imagine them digging a song like External Retraction... which is fairly overt in its anti-religious message. (unlike Glitch. I had to have that one explained to me.)
Regardless, we made it, there and back again. Andre maintains that the four of us actually manage to be more odorous than Jeremy (the other half of Red Rapture. If you're not listening to Red Rapture, it's your loss. Seriously)... but that was after a few days of camping. We're all really happy to be back in the land of toilets and showers again. Playing out of state let us meet some Oregoneons, and hopefully have a line on playing Portland sometime soon, which we've always wanted to do.
ubik.s playing in Seattle again in about two weeks, 4th of July weekend, and we're all geared up for the Autonomous Mutant Festival next year, too. We might stay longer and play later. We'll work it out.
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