Last Saturday morning was Dave Pecoraro’s first day of work as an animal handler for a petting zoo. An African wildcat swiped his face in front of a large group of 6-to-12-year-old girls and their mothers at a Catholic school in suburban Indiana. The little girls screamed. Luckily the animal was declawed, or “it definitely would have torn my eye out,” Pecoraro says. That might have ruined his plans for the evening, but by 10:30 PM, local fashion designer Stephany Colunga was cutting Pecoraro’s thick red hair and beard while he coaxed crackly, irritating noise out of radios run though effects pedals onstage at Buddy, where he lives.
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Pecoraro, better known around town as Rotten Milk, is a connoisseur of weird. He paints faces and makes balloon animals at his other day job, as an entertainer at kids’ parties. He’s been the music director for Northeastern Illinois University’s free-form radio station WZRD, where every DJ is anonymous. He cohosts a Sunday-night BYO music series at Lava Lounge where anyone who shows up with records or CDs can sign up for a 30-minute slot. He cocurates a night of live experimental music and DJ sets every Tuesday at Hotti Biscotti. He’s part of a semianonymous, collectively run zine and CD-R label called Terry Plumming that’s released work from the likes of Fred Lonberg-Holm’s elaborately experimental Lightbox Orchestra, Eleanor Balson’s electro-noise outfit Soft Serve, and a fortysomething cabdriver named John Polachek. And during his off-hours he dresses like a cross between a hooker and the Latino guy from Hackers.
Also on the bill was Leslie Keffer, who lives in Athens, Ohio. It’s refreshing to see a woman perform full-on noise music and not make a big fuss about it. No costume, no vamping, no shtick. While most noise artists turn knobs like they’re cranking a gear in a Victorian factory, Keffer casually twisted them, flicking her wrist as a DJ does when letting go of the record, taking time to step back and enjoy the crashing tide she was creating from AM static coming out of an old Walkman. She’d gently blow kisses into the mike, then shyly lean against the stand, never seeming coy or cutesy.
Later, the show turned into a dance party, complete with pop music, slutty girl-on-girl dancing, and a round or two of boob flashing. Just as we were all getting into it, some frat-lookin’ dude in a hooded sweatshirt walked up to the mike with a bottle of Rolling Rock in his hand and impatiently told us, “Anytime you’re done.” He handed the DJ a CD and asked if he could pleeeeease sing just one song. I suspended judgment for a minute–the most meatheaded people can surprise you with moments of brilliance. The DJ cued Weezer’s “Undone (the Sweater Song)” and the dude just started thinly singing along.
