To Live and Shave in L.A. turned fourteen in 2004, having already weathered an infinity of squabbles, a pair of splits/hiatuses, a murder of clones and spin-offs, two tours by OHNE, the neo-Actionist quartet Tom Smith co-founded with Dave Phillips, the rise of Rat Bastard's International Noise Conference and the Laundryroom Squelchers, Rat's ubiquitous, clangorous scrum. With "noise" ascending to a sort of mainstream awareness, TLASILA turned instead to sweaty, improvised "rock" (but not rock) bombast - the bruit of a thousand clashing ideas.

Mix Ben Wolcott, Don Fleming, Mark Morgan, Andrew Wilkes-Krier, the late Chris Grier (our 2004 majordomo - he would join the group on stage in 2005), Rat Bastard and myself together, and shake like a motherfucker, mindful of the disagreeable nature of the constituent elements. These sounds are among those that might possibly have emerged.

The 2004 tour set list may seem to have perversely excluded selections from "Noon and Eternity," but in truth the album hadn't yet been completed. The pieces written for the trip were open-ended by design. With repetition, motifs emerged. They were discarded as often as not.

We were never easy on ourselves. Which is one of the reasons we're still the vanguard of whatever it is that we're doing, thirty years after our / its nascence.

- Tom Smith, 31 Dec 19


Northsix, Brooklyn, NY (10 Sept 04)

Soundcheck:

101 Pictures at an Exhibition

Performance:

102 Row Houses
103 Dignity Overnight
104 Ideas Make Men Hard
105 Keep Me from Speech
106 Pictures at an Exhibition

Tarantula Hill, Baltimore, MD (11 Sept 04)

Soundcheck:

201 Pictures at an Exhibition

Performance:

202 Row Houses
203 Dignity Overnight
204 Ink Solo Acrylic
205 Pictures at an Exhibition

Southgate House, Newport, KY (12 Sept 04)

301 Row Houses
302 Dignity Overnight
303 Pictures at an Exhibition

Empty Bottle, Chicago, IL (13 Sept 04)

Room (with static dropouts due to attendee chaos - the stage
recorder bounced and fell with alarming frequency):

401 Row Houses
402 Dignity Overnight
403 Ideas Make Men Hard
404 Pictures at an Exhibition (with Jim Magas, voice)

Soundboard (incomplete, but no dropouts!):

405 Row Houses
406 Dignity Overnight
407 Ideas Make Men Hard
408 Pictures at an Exhibition (truncated)

Detroit Art Space, Detroit, MI (14 Sept 04)

501 Row Houses
502 Dignity Overnight
503 Ink Solo Acrylic
504 Pictures at an Exhibition (truncated)

Bug Jar, Rochester, NY (15 Sept 04)

505 Row Houses
506 Dignity Overnight
507 Ideas Make Men Hard
508 Undated Portrait (Black Girl)
509 Pictures at an Exhibition

Flywheel Arts Collective, Easthampton, MA (16 Sept 04)

(The group's cassette recorder ran out of gas before its lacerating set began; the only evidence of the evening, apart from 50-odd photos, is a 25-second video of the group's arrival at the venue. This has been included on "USA 2004"'s 2021 reconstruction.)

601 Arrival (video fragment)

Safari Lounge, Providence, RI (17 Sept 04)

(The room recording has a bit of fizz and buzz, all within acceptable limits of tolerance if your tastes resemble ours.)

601 Row Houses
602 Dignity Overnight
603 Undated Portrait (Black Girl)
604 Pictures at an Exhibition
605 Young Demeanor Squat (Homely Initiatives)

603 Tonic, NYC, NY (18 Sept 04)

606 Row Houses
607 Dignity Overnight
608 Undated Portrait (Black Girl)
609 Pictures at an Exhibition
610 Ideas Make Men Hard (truncated)

WFMU, Jersey City, NJ (19 Sept 04)

701 Row Houses
702 Dignity Overnight
703 Undated Portrait (Black Girl)
704 Pictures at an Exhibition
705 Wove Glacial Omen / Eco-Village Woman