Boredoms Present 77BOADRUM, Play with 77 Drummers

BY Cam LindsayPublished Jul 5, 2007

After giving Toronto one of the year’s most exhilarating performances this past Monday night (and we can only assume Calgary got the same thing last Saturday), Japan’s Boredoms will play perhaps their most adventurous gig to this day on Saturday, July 7, when they set up 77 drum kits with various skinsman (including Lightning Bolt's Brian Chippendale, White Magic's Jesse Lee, Blood On the Wall's Miggie, Gang Gang Dance's Lizzy Bougatsos and Andrew WK) under the Brooklyn Bridge for a supreme drumming clinic.

Here’s everything you need to know, courtesy of their label Vice Recordings:

"Legendary Japanese iconoclasts BOREDOMS, a visionary band who has spent over twenty years pushing itself toward new frontiers, will stage the most extraordinary concert of their career on July 7, 2007. A once-in-a-lifetime performance featuring 77 drummers, and meant to be performed just once (on 7/7/07), BOREDOMS will create 77BOADRUM as a free show in the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park section of Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Located directly on the East River and majestically framed by the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park section of Brooklyn Bridge Park provides an arresting stage for this audacious performance. The free show will begin at 4pm and will feature performances by First Nation and Soft Circle and DJ sets from Gang Gang Dance before the 77-minute 77BOADRUM commences.

Guests must RSVP on www.viceland.com/77BOADRUM

A volunteer army of 74 of the best players in New York City's avant and experimental underground were selected by the event's music director Hisham Bharoocha, including members of Gang Gang Dance, No Neck Blues Band, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Excepter, Sightings, Onieda, and more. They will join BOREDOMS drummers YOSHIMI, YOJIRO and SENJU, alongside with 77BOADRUM mastermind EYE on electronics, effects, and vocals. A live sculpture built of musicians, BOREDOMS stand at the center as 77 drummers on full 5-piece, 3-cymbal drum kits snake around them in spirals, like the coils of a boa constrictor.

Below is diagram of the performance's layout...



The number 7 resonates on many levels to BOREDOMS. The Japanese people descended from the Amur, a primitive people living on the Amur River in Russia, to the North of Japan. The Amur were followers of Amaterasu, the sun god. The Amur River snaked down from North Russia to what's now known as the Sea Of Japan, delivering the Japanese people to Japan, who celebrate a cosmic connection with all that's north, or above, the world. 77BOADRUM helps reconstruct the river into a river stars in the heavens. On July 7 all of Japan celebrates Star Day. "7 is the number when we try to express sun as sound," says Yamatsuka Eye. "When I look at the sun, I see number 7."



Boredoms at ATP 2006

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