Banging our heads on the keyboard of life: Razak Solar System at the Beachland Ballroom, circa Y2K

I’ll be straight up: I have no idea when this Razak Solar System show happened. It’s definitely the Beachland Ballroom‘s tavern. Judging by the freshness of the paint and the, uh, décor, I’d say this is early in the lifecycle of this now venerable Cleveland, Ohio venue.

The joint opened in early 2000, and none of us (Steve Peffer: Vocals, keyboards / Kevin Jaworski: Drums / Sean Carnage: Bass) are wearing winter coats, so I am dating this May 1, 2000. That was a Monday. I like Monday nights.

Check out the complete list of Sean Carnage Monday Nights & more

And that fits with my only memory of this concert—besides the fact that we played a monster fucking set—which was that it was an off-night and no one showed. Literally nobody / no bodies.

We were Speak In Tongues refugees on the wrong side of town, playing to an empty room except for perhaps Danny Noonan, who I assume took these Polaroids with my camera. Thank you. They are great photos.

Danny once took some photos of Razak playing behind a curtain at a now-classic Speak In Tongues show

Some things to notice:

This was after we added a second keyboard—a digital synth (Casio CZ-1000 FM synthesis thingy, competitor to the classic Yamaha DX-7); no one else was reviving FM synthesis at the time (Eno was a big champion)
I was rocking big puffy Adidas with my cords in homage to Black Flag’s skewed anti-punk fashion aesthetic of the mid-’80s…

That’s all I’ve got. Memory file is otherwise empty. I can’t remember who we opened for or if we headlined.

Please contact me if you remember any details

After this show we got kinda bummed about playing the Eastside. Felt like it was for nothing and that the Beachland crew was not really a stable audience. More fair weather rock ‘n roll types who weren’t into experimental stuff.

Listen to the Razak Solar System Phantom Power EP