Band: Justice Yeldham

The first time I saw Justice Yeldham was a little over 5 years ago in the basement of JnJ's pizza. I had found out about what he does a few days before and devoured every word and picture I could find about the guy. Back then it wasn't much though. I had a few photos of bloody faces smashed against glass and a few short reviews. All I knew was that he was from Australia, and played glass with his face. Even if I had access to everything available now, I don't think anything can prepare you for the first time with this guy.

I showed up early enough that it was just Joshaa who booked the show there and a few other people. I bought a Deerhoof cd and preordered the upcoming first Justice Yeldham 7" from the guy sitting at the table. We sat and bullshat for a while and then the show started. It took me an hour or two to figure out he was the guy we were all there to see. Sadly I don't remember the opening band, but it lasted about the average time a band plays. Then someone else played for another set about average time. Maybe there was another band? I don't remember. The important thing is it was bands, and everybody started getting used to bands playing for around 30 minutes or so. Then this guy gets up with no shoes and starts plugging in all these pedals that he has attached to his belt that look like a bomb ready to blow with a contact microphone taped to a sheet of glass attached to the end. If I remember right he put some grape jelly on the glass and started rubbing his face against the thing. As amazing as it was, I didn't know what to think of it. This guy was terrifying the shit out of me by making what seemed to me to be fart noises on a jelly covered sheet of glass. I was so overwhelmed by the performance part of the show that I don't really remember the music he was making. The purple of the jelly made it look like he was bleeding all over the place. You could see everything he was doing through the glass. Every pained expression, every slide of skin over glass, everything. Chunks started breaking against the pressure and it gradually got smaller and smaller. He smashed the glass on top of his head which took a few tries. I believe he even apologized that the glass wasn't breaking fast enough. This took the glass down to a triangle less than a foot in any direction. He continued to go at that shard just as he had the previous large triangle. He bit a few chunks off and it was done. All this in under 10 minutes. I've never left a venue as fast as I did that night.

The show was my first exposure to a lot of noise related things and that along with others took me down a short lived electronics path, including making contact mics and sticking them on anything I could. As Lucas Abela, he has had many other projects before starting doing Justice Yeldham. You can read about his other projects at the Dual Plover site, which is the label and replication service he is involved with.

He made his way back to Denton in 2008 to play at House of Tinnitus. They had constructed a stage for him that I don't remember seeing since. I read that he had switched to manipulating the sounds coming from the glass with a laptop between these shows, but the pedals were back and lined up in front of him. I think there were some microphone problems at first, but it started and went for about ten minutes until the mic started going out. Since that was about the length of the last one, I was pretty sure it was over but he tried to get the microphone going again. It took a while, but then it blared back up and we were treated to 2 great Justice Yeldham shows in one sitting. You can watch this entire performance here.

The shock had worn off by this show and I was able to watch it without running away. What was once gory fart sounds in my head became something else entirely. He's playing this thing like you would play a trumpet or kazoo, and manipulating the hell out of it into something else. With a sound like this you wouldn't expect anything to progress much, but he's gone pretty far with the instrument since the beginnings. It appears to me that he's learned to control the sounds coming out of the most seemingly uncontrollable instrument I've ever seen. He's even done collaborations with a few people in the past few years. How the hell do you play music with a guy that plays a sheet of glass? Beats me, but the results are awesome. He's got one album with an unnamed drummer you can download from the Dual Plover site. There's also the trio Rice Corpse with him on glass with a keyboardist and drummer. A minute ago I assumed this was a one shot thing, but I just youtubed it to double check that lineup and there are a few live videos available. That's one to look out for for sure, but I'm not going to pretend I know any more about it. You can get some songs from the Free Music Archive. Also available for download is the solo song below March of the Bodypumpers which brings a structure I've never heard before in his music. The title describes it better than I can. Its the first solo thing of his I've heard with a beat but the rest is hard for me to describe. Just click the thing. Its right down there.

He's coming from Australia again to play at a house on Mingo street on August 27th at Majestic Dwelling of Doom. Its worth the heat to see this.
--Reviewed by John Blogerty--

Members: Justice Yeldham