Beloved dive bar CBGB is a cozy hipster hideaway. Its' one of the last places you can smoke indoors and never has a cover for its' underground music acts. Last Thursday, prolific multi-instrumentalist Zagk Gibbons played along with newcomers Brother Father. http://www.facebook.com/zagk.gibbons
Zagk Gibbons is a Belleville based musician who has played in many acts including Old Capital Square Dance Club and the Leopard. http://www.facebook.com/theleopardstl At CBGB he performed solo, illustrating his multi-instrument and multi- tasking ability. It is vaguely reminiscent of Emperor X- a one man band using loops and instruments together to create tracks that are both beat driven and ambient. Gibbons says of his looping process; " I have three stages of looping using a Boss RC-50, a Line 6 DL4, and a Korg Kaoss Pad 3, so this allows me to build loops of different lengths, and also to add/remove loops as I please." While he performs, he alternates from the CDJ to the drum and then to the mic, and all you see is a frenzy of long curly hair moving between each station.
Gibbons was a member of The Apple and the Worm and Whiskey Dick. Both bands were Gibbons' and in 2009, the other part of those bands died tragically in a car accident forcing Gibbons to stop playing. Some months later Gibbons saw his friends perform in the two-piece group Kid City, which is also heavy on drums and looping. "It blew my mind, they were freaking spectacular... So I set out to get a loop station and try to start writing and playing again.," says Gibbons.
Though he uses a guitar and drums, the format of the songs is classic electronic-- First the beat is laid down, then another element begins, and then another and so forth. "I'm working on making these songs progress a little more instead of a constant crescendo of a then-monotonous riff," says Gibbons.
The songs performed were from his upcoming album "Nothing with the Letter V" and his album "Exact Zagk As Axe Act", which can be downloaded at zagkgibbons.bandcamp.com.
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