caged mearachells

After the Vito Acconci lecture at Mills Wednesday night I hauled butt over to the other side of Oakland to catch a few bands at 21 Grand, and as I walked up the street to the gallery from some distance away already I heard the happy muted thrum of music being played very, very loud.  I arrived just in time to catch the last bit of local group Nuclear Death Wish, and let me just say that any band that Jay Korber plays drums in is going to rock your world and hard.  Seattle's Lesbian were up next with some sludgy and psychedelic black/doom/prog metal, proper headbanging music.  Then the awesome Providence act White Mice topped things off with one of the more extreme performances I have ever experienced in my short life, noise rock so loud that even with my earplugs in I could feel my brain turning to mush and threatening to leak out my ears.  All while they were dressed up as mutilated laboratory mice.