PRAXIS
At the Knitting Factory - NYC (6/30/00)
The great Bill Laswell & psychotic guitar phenom Buckethead!!!!
Praxis (featuring
Bill Laswell, Buckethead, DJ Disk and Brain) did a very good performance at the
Knitting Factory, but I still felt somewhat cheated. Praxis seemed to be
showcasing more hip-hop in their act, rather than the stuff off of the
"Transmutation", "Sacrifist" and "Metatron" CDs. Maybe
it's a little hard to do that stuff when keyboard wizard Bernie Worrell is not
on the scene, but then again, he wasn't featured on 83% of the Praxis second
CD, "Sacrifist"!
Praxis
started at 9:30pm, with a man sporting a monster costume, hyping up the crowd.
The band started with some hip-hop/hardcore rock groove with some insane
Buckethead axe-slaying, heavy Laswell bass, Brain's frantic drumming, and
turntable scratching by DJ Disk!! What followed sounded a little like "Iron Dub" (the
ambient track that follow the schizophrenic "Cold Rolled" on
SACRIFIST!! Buckethead set off guitar riffs from the very rotting,
cancer-infected bowels of H-E-L-L!!!! The Laswell bass had enough power to
crush a thousand skulls at once, more lethal than even Brain's psychotic
episodes on da skins!!!!! The set featured four rappers and a chanting woman who did a lot
of weird screaming........I could have done without this. On the good note,
Buckethead entertained fans with some exhilarating guitar antics from the song,
"Vacuum Mass"!!!! The jams were extremely long because there were
only four or five songs. Praxis's first set ended at 10:25pm with an encore
(which didn't feature the musicians......just the chanting woman and one rapper
with the DJ)......what the fuck was that??!!!! The show stopped at 10:40pm.
Click here for pictures of Praxis
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