Friday Night Noise: Ascites Drops In on Super Happy Fun Land

Ray Cummings October 9, 2009 7:30AM

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In civilian life, Randa Golub styles hair, Nathan Golub works as a surgical technologist, Matt Coffey toils as an IT manager and the mysterious Alex C. isn't "into paying taxes." As Ascites, these four Austinnites like to fricassée eardrums with rending, no-holds-barred noise blasts.

If the quartet's first, noxious act - self-released debut CD-R Incisional Drainage, which comes packaged with the equally corrosive C-6 cassette - was a formidable slab of plutonium, new, synapse-fusing cassette Fluid Excess (Fonofobi Tapes) indicates Ascites has a lot more to offer. And guess what? You can buy Excess from the band - who kindly took some time to answer questions by email - when they rock Super Happy Fun Land this evening.

Rocks Off: Handling the packaging for Incisional Drainage - the biohazard bag, the CD spray-painted orange, the violet see-through cassette - makes me wonder: should I find a decontamination shower or have someone check me with a Geiger meter?

Nathan and Randa Golub: The story with Incisional Drainage is that we really just wanted to have a tangible release to have for our tour. We've kind of always thought that specimen bags would be a perfect vehicle for a release - separate pouches, self-contained artwork, and, of course, the fact of what their true purpose is.

Matt Coffey: I still think we should have included dirty needles - you know, for the kids.

Alex C.: I like that it adds another element to the release, something to hold onto, you know? These days you see so many bands and artist just putting out mp3s or a CD-R with a brand logo and a MySpace address scribbled onto it. To me, that takes away from the experience of owning a piece of art and even if it's a really solid track or release it can just get lost in a pile or on an iPod somewhere.

RO: Is there a particular piece of equipment that you hope to incorporate into your performance set-up?

NG: One day, there will be a vascular Doppler flowmeter in my setup. It's my dream piece of equipment. More analog synths. Oh, and amps. Lots of them.

MC: Amps - lots of amps. If you can stack your cabs in your house, it's too small and you should probably kill yourself or play Christian rock or something.

RO: What are the best and worst things about being an unsigned, relatively unknown noise band?

AC: I've never given it much thought. It's something we do because we want to and we enjoy ourselves. If people are into it or hate it or just don't care, I don't think we'd do anything any different. If someone wants to put out our music, awesome, but if we have something we think is worth releasing we'd just as soon put it out ourselves instead of waiting for someone else.

With Rosemary Malign, Last Rape, Concrete Violin, Zahava, Inhalant, Murex, Respirator, Stress and Skonhet, 8 p.m. tonight at Super Happy Fun Land, 3801 Polk, 713-880-2100 or www.superhappyfunland.com.