The Null Device
2002/1/19
Tonight I went to the Ninetynine CD launch at the Corner Hotel. It was excellent. The first support band was Baseball, a side project run by Ninetynine's drummer, the mad-haired Cameron Potts. It was an interesting set; with Cameron, another guy and a girl who looked a little like Laura from Ninetynine (but wasn't), playing an eccentric assortment of instruments, including an accordion, a small drum, a violin and various shakers, and performing a number of quirky songs and melodies. Baseball are certainly a band to look out for. Then came a punkish band named Flesh Vs. Venom, which apparently features members from defunct punk-popsters The Vivian Girls. They were OK (one of the songs they played sounded like Joy Division's Interzone, albeit with different lyrics, and in other places they sounded a bit like PIL or someone).
Finally, Ninetynine came on, and put on a characteristically brilliant show, swapping instruments in between shows, and playing with much energy. Not surprisingly, Cameron stole the show, flailing about behind the drums like a man possessed. The audience loved it, and at the end, called for more. (And Ninetynine obliged, playing one of their older songs (the one with the bleepy Casiotone drum loop that probably comes from a pencil-case-sized toy keyboard.)
Some good news: Dutch multinational Philips plans to require warning logos on copy-protected CDs, and forbid claims that the non-Red-Book-compliant discs are CDs; Philips also plan to make CD-R writers capable of copying them (whether making straight binary copies or actually removing the intentional damage is unknown). It's not clear whether Philips could legally require such CDs to bear a warning logo (other than the Universal Music logo or marques of any other corporations which follow suit, of course).
How to disappear completely: Police were called to Ronald Huff's apartment after he hadn't shown up for work; they found him dead, and partly eaten by seven monitor lizards, which he had kept as pets.