Viva Las Vegas

While I’ve spent the last few days engrossed in other projects (which I’ll elucidate upon later this week), my blogging brothers have done an excellent job covering the two-day nerdcore extravaganza that was last week’s Beauty Bar and CES shows. Of course, I’m not going to let their exemplary musings on the subject preclude me from putting in my own two cents.

Why?

Because the better part of blogging is, generally, writing concerning items about which others have already written. May the circle be unbroken.

While Tuesday’s Beauty Bar show may have been merely the precursor to the much talked-about CES gig, it was, in its own right, nerdcore history. While we’ve had other instances of full frontal nerdity from the scene, the previous examples (such as the Post-PAX show at The Shark Club) have been mostly regional affairs. The Beauty Bar, on the other hand, played host to artists from all major pockets of nerdcore civilization save Texas and the far Northeast.

The general consensus concerning the gig seems to be that things started out well enough, but tended to lose some momentum as the night wore on. “The Beauty Bar show was great for the first half,” said Benjamin Bear (to whom, I am lead to believe, the night belonged), “ until the venue decided they needed to have a DJ spinning ‘real’ music between artists, which just made things longer until the venue then decided everyone needed to hurry up and get out.”
A mini-review of the show even made it’s way into Las Vegas Weekly, and, snarkiness concerning hairstyles aside, seemed generally positive. Pictures from the venue tell a story all their own; as much as the overall setup was, to quote Doctor Popular, “far from ideal,” you get a genuine sense of warmth and community.

Not surprisingly, the real story was at CES.

As Doc Popular also points out, “the sound at the DivX booth was ideal… for the audience.” Onstage? Not so much.

I asked Ben about this, as well:

“The CES show could have been done better...for some reason they had it as the convention was closing for the day, so everyone was leaving as we were setting up...not to mention the horrible feedback problems that kept us to the rear of the stage. However, some good performances still came out of the show, and I suppose the fact that it happened is more important than how well it happened.”

Despite sound problems and the overly corporate feel of the CES environment, many artists made themselves known in indubitable fashion. YTCracker brought his “A game” (both during his scheduled set and during his impromptu Bloghaus performance), while MCDJ and DJMC (who has blogged about the event both personally and professionally) proved, once and for all, that LA knows nerdcore just as well as its neighbors up the coast.

So what can truly be said about the exploits of dozens of displaced nerds (and one local: Hi, MceeP!) in Vegas?

On a lot of levels, it was more of the same: High-C was high and Ultraklystron and Nursehella were incredibly cute.

On others, however, the world was turned on its ear: as when, in a moment of earth-shattering synchronicity, Monzy and MC Plus+ declared a lyrical ceasefire.

When I asked Benjamin Bear if the shows, their press, and the overall experience would truly change the landscape of nerdcore, he had, in his typical, realistic fashion, this to say:

“I think it will just make its underground lair bigger for now. It will make people curious, but the general consensus is still that we're ‘those wacky nerd rappers.’ … [And] while not everything went smoothly, the important thing is that everything went.”

I can only think of one thing that sums things up better than Ben’s ruminations.