I attended two nights of >Wooden Octopus Skull Experimental Musick Pfest, and from my perspective and based on reports from those who caught more of it, the event was an eardrum-smashing success.

On Friday, I witnessed Emil Beaulieu (AKA Ron Lessard) spastically conjure helltones from his modified turntable and motley array of FX pedals, all while performing a shirtless interpretive dance in his shredded skivvies and middle-manager paunch. Beaulieu scampered around Re-bar rubbing people's heads and you could smell his rank body odor from 10 feet away, but you had to give it up for his enthusiasm and energy.

Sunday night at Baltic Room, Herb Diamante looked like Crispin Glover doing creepy lounge songs in a David Lynch film. Spider Compass Good Crime Band wrangled some amazingly ill keyboard sounds (think Mort Garson, Sun Ra, and Vas Deferens Organization on psilocybin) while dressed in crazy serpent costumes. Nurse with Wound legend Steven Stapleton closed out the night with a devastatingly weird and great DJ set plucked from his enviably world-class record collection. It was all too much, and I can't wait for next year's sequel.