Addie Warncke is a New York City-based musician who performs as Computerwife. Her self-titled debut LP is out now on Danger Collective.
(Photo Credit: Lizzie Klein)
Music is both my calendar and my diary. I can pinpoint exactly how I felt and what I was going through when I watch a 15 second video of a live show. Live music and new local music are always, and will always be, the thing I look forward to that makes my life worth living.
Being asked to contribute to this piece has been a wonderful experience, because in about 20 minutes I watched how my world expanded and I’ve grown throughout the year — which was an incredible one, because it may have been the first year where I truly felt involved in a musical community that’s bigger than just my close friends who enjoy going out to experience music as much as I do. This year was full of incredible new releases from people I have been blessed to meet like, Shower Curtain, Scarlet Rae, Lowertown, Corporeal, Feeble Little Horse, Downgrade, Fasting, Full Body 2, Hotline TNT, and Hello Mary. I saw some great shows, some of which were in basements and mansions and tunnels. I wish I had 30 pages to write about them, but if I have to honestly choose what the highlight of my year was in music, it did not take place in New York or Atlanta at all — it took place in Las Vegas at Sick New World.
When the flier was released for Sick New World, my heart sped up to two times its normal rate as I reconnected with my 19 year old self who was obsessed with nu metal and Woodstock ‘99 lore, and Kittie’s 2002 tour doc Spit in Your Eye. I thought about my Melvins poster that mysteriously vanished from my childhood bedroom, and my first time driving through the desert outside of Vegas in 2018. Immediately upon receiving my presale text, I whipped out my Chase student credit card, clicked the pay-after-six-months ticket option for two, and then proceeded to put on the new Narrow Head album as I did my makeup before going to work — which I was probably going to start having to take extra shifts at.
Eight months later, I was in a line full of nu metal fans at the STRAT Hotel upgrading to a smoking room with a view. I wanted to take a look at the pool, but I quickly learned that was not a place I wanted to be as I saw black hair dye trailing behind a lady drinking and smoking slim cigs in the water and what appeared to be a 17 year old in an Invader Zim hat playing on a 3DS in the shadows. Dalton tried to get me to go to the Haunted Museum a few blocks down, but again, it was packed with goths who had bought all of the tours for weeks to come and people in Sick New World t-shirts were already lined up outside waiting for cancellations.
After a few days of running into questionably somber tourists around the wonderful city of Vegas I had my breakfast at the $5 Aztec cafe and casino across the street from our hotel to prepare myself for the trek to our giant nu metal parking lot. The walk was a parade of black clothing forming a one mile trail of darkness through the 105 degree streets. I walked past a few discarded spike-studded belts and cuffs near security and instantly knew these people were NOT going to make it.
Narrowhead had just begun and as amazing as they were, half of the crowd was on top of each other in the three 50-square-foot artificial patches of shade instead of watching the music. The style these people had was incredible — there’s only a few images online and it really should’ve been documented more — but their exposed skin was already red and peeling and people’s knee high patent leather boots were melting into the ground. Immediately at the gate, vendors were selling tall boys, but about an hour in we realized that the only beverage that will make this day function was water — which was available about a 10 minute walk to and from each stage. I thought I wasn’t going to make it every time I went back for another glass.
I genuinely enjoyed Papa Roach! People were dropping like flies. This was exciting and confusing. I figured out a routine. Go soak my clothes in water in the bathrooms (I was one of the few wearing white and camo cargo shorts, thank you, god), stop at the one giant fan with mist halfway through the walk, then go to the stage. I watched the medical tents overflow more and more in between Coal Chamber and Melvins — neither of whom I remember, sadly, because I believe around that time the heat was melting my brain cells. I was unintentionally seeing bands that I can not believe I enjoyed, like Turnstile and Evanescence, but they were really quite great live and all had their own unique communities with different behavioral patterns forming in the crowds.
During the peak hours of the sun, I stopped to watch Panchiko who Dalton and I had toured with, but the music hit differently in this setting. The nu metal fans were really enjoying it and were getting sentimental, holding hands or making out on a small patch of turf. It felt like the few teenagers who were at the festival (internet-emo and shy) were all at that show, standing still and intent on what they heard. I wondered if Panchiko knew the service they provided for people on that day to take a break to listen to this dreamy music that melded quite well with the heat stroke trip we were all experiencing together. After that was Kittie, my favorite band from my first year of college that I never would’ve dreamed I could see live until this. I could tell a lot of the other girls in their 20s felt the same way. I was so exhausted at that point so I stayed there for Machine Girl, who I originally didn’t intend to see because I had seen them so many times before. They were putting on their extremely athletically intense show for an hour on the desert asphalt lot with no breaks. They were inexplicably better there than I’d ever seen them — I think maybe no walls meant total clarity of the industrial style of production and seeing Matt lit up so brightly under the beating sun was unbelievable.
Dalton and I started hanging out on those shade patches we had walked past before. I overheard a lot of really interesting conversations there. I realized what this genre of music meant to people and the kind of people it attracted. Multiple groups of sweaty people, more than any other festival I’d been to, were having conversations about the struggles they had faced in their lives. Some were talking about overcoming injuries and disabilities, some people about loved ones they’d lost who would’ve loved to be here. Nu metal has a lot going on and while it’s funny in a catatonic youth kind of way, it’s really quite complex and intense to listen to. It’s a genre of people getting past the hardest things they’ve been handed in life. System of a Down speaks on generational trauma and genocide; Evanescence’s Amy Lee breaks out of an abusive relationship and processes the loss of her brother as a teenager; Papa Roach deals with the loss of his friends to addiction. The music has so much intensity and energy and community. Dalton and I sit beside a guy with a black cowboy hat and a beard reaching his knees to watch the sun start to set as Incubus plays “Drive.” The stars come out during Deftones’ “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away).” I see a guy bungee jump from the roof of our hotel under the city lights and emerging stars in the distance. Amazing.
But then, it’s KORN! It’s dark outside and people are drinking again, some under a giant fiery metal structure spewing out flame balls every few minutes. The strong have survived and we were celebrating. The EMTs who had been saving lives for 10 hours finally got to rest. For some reason, I and everyone else in the crowd knew the words to “Falling Away From Me.” When System of a Down came on, the crowd sang about as loud as Serj Tankian on every song. They looked and sounded like they were still in the heyday of “Toxicity,” and so did we. Sick New World is lucky they get to play again in 2024. I got to live the “Chop Suey” music video — my favorite musical moment of the year. I wish I could see Flesh Water and Drop Nineteens and Duster and the Garden and Primus and Slowdive and Alice In Chains and Slipknot this year, but there’s a lot I want to do in this world and only little time and money to make it happen.
Computerwife’s favorite shows of 2023:
Unwound at Irving Plaza
Hello Mary at Elsewhere
Stella Wave and Dirt Buyer at Clara Joy’s house show
Halloween and Shower Curtain at the Broadway
Cowgirl Clue in New York
Aspartame and band that opened watching from outside the glass
Sick New World in Las Vegas
Sky Ferreira at Knockdown
The first Hard Baile night I went to at Mi Sabor
Downgrade in Atlanta
Going to Nowadays for the first time
Momma opening for Pavement at Brooklyn Steel
Lola Star and Powerviolets at a house show
Bedridden and Milly at TV Eye
Pretty Sick on Halloween
Lowertown at Baby’s All Right
Buff Ginger, Lola Star, and Shower Curtain at Trans Pecos
Depresión Sonora at Elsewhere
