Note: the above video can also be seen on YouTube:
Avant-music … the final frontier. These are the sounds of Vertacyn Arc Materializer. Its ongoing mission: to explore strange new venues; to seek out new sounds and new audiences; to absurdly go where few bands have gone before! WOOOSH.
At this point I hope you’ve hit “play” on the video so you can hear the perfect soundtrack for that intro. I could also have picked The Twilight Zone, or The Outer Limits to plagiarize. Let’s just say if it were possible to make a band out of the theme songs and ideas of all three of those classic sci-fi/fantasy shows, you’d get Vertacyn Arc Materializer. They are as much conceptual artists as they are a rock band. They may seem weird at first, but they suck you into their unique world and soon enough you never want to leave.
That’s what happened to me last April when I first saw them at the Winters Tavern day-long Beaster event. The weather was perfect that day and bands were alternating between the indoor and outdoor stages. I was mingling with friends outside when the next indoor band started to play. The nice weather and good friends kept me outside for a bit, and then I heard some vocal shrieking coming from the PA inside Winters. These sounds were so …. what, compelling? unusual? strange? Suddenly the small entrance door for the venue turned into a blackhole, pulling everyone on the patio through it to the inside.
As my eyes adjusted from the bright sun to the dark interior, I could make out two orbs bobbing and hovering in front of the stage, one shiny, the other fuzzy. Just as I started to make out that these orbs were the actual heads of band members, several full bodies, this time of audience members, began swimming back and forth in front of the band. This was not a mosh pit, or if it was, it was in slow motion. The music only added to this feeling of time being stretched out. Is this what life is like inside of a blackhole?
Turns out that the front man for the band, Chris we will call him, is the perfect person to ask this question. He’s not only the fuzzy orb I saw on that day, he’s also a physicist. When I learned that the band would be playing at Winters again (next week on Wed), I asked the owner/booker CJ if he could arrange an interview with them. He did, and here’s what we learned about Vertacyn Arc Materializer.
Where did the band name come from?
How do they use humor?
The recent loss of their drummer, both tragic and happy?
What is their connection to the SF band The Residents?
How did they get to play Candlestick Park?
Why did they release a song on a music box?
How does music relate to physics?
Find out the answers to these questions and then go see them live, fully prepared to enter the deep end of the absurdity pool.
Thanks to Vertacyn Arc Materializer
Thanks to CJ at Winters Tavern, Pacifica CA
Special thanks to Mark Hanford for use of Beaster photos and video:
Vertacyn Arc Materializer - April 9th, 2023 Live at BEASTER, Winters Tavern, Pacifica, CA
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