Brightest Young Things

all photos: Mark Silva
all words: Tom Risen

Bravo to everyone who came out to be part of “Cakeblood,” Bluebrain’s 30 boom box marching orchestra in Dupont Circle, Thursday.

If you weren’t, no worries, BYT documented the moonlight jaunt with Ryan and Hays Holladay’s simultaneous tape deck harmony- and so did half of the neighborhood craning heads and snapping iPhones into Twitter mode.

Bluebrain’s latest spectacle began at dusk around the Dupont fountain, where people either dug up their old tape stereos or RSVP’d to have a boombox waiting for them in a giant crate the brothers Holladay stocked with tape boomboxes from Goodwill. The plan- start every tape at 8 pm sharp so they would all chorus their different sound effects together as one great beat.

“I got inspired after I one of these in New York when Phil Kline led people from Washington Square to Tompkins Square,” said Ryan Holladay. “So we composed this great piece of ambient music for an experience here in Dupont.”

So Ryan the conductor led people to turn their tapes on all at once and the strains of starry glints began. People inevitably held their stereos up a la’ “Say Anything,” and then we were off, the circle and across the streets. All the boxes woke up like the crescendo of a moonrise and “Cakeblood” tracks started chiming dueling notes at their brother stereos while being carried down the sidewalks.

Ryan Holladay did some practice runs with their tracks to anticipate when their electro-orchestra’s beat would rise and fall if they were in alleyways or competing with noise form traffic. The real thing brought smiles from their friends and a few befuddled “what the heck is going on,” grins from people passing by in suits, going to bars or putting down their groceries to take pictures.

“We called it ‘Cakeblood’ because it’s equal parts sweet and sinister,” said Hays Holladay. “The performance is a one time event because it’s impossible to repeat it without getting a different result.”

The dream-sequence music chimed out Gregorian chants to match the acoustics of walls between townhouses, shifted natural sounding icicle chimes into synthesized ambient beats when the parade reached 17th Street. Birds tweeted when we passed by a park with a basketball and a rugby game going on. Every box carried a different tune while driving the beat on in harmony, while the Holladay brothers conducted their symphony passing through the crowd, keeping it moving.

People stood dumbfounded as we left the park and when we passed a row of restaurants, somebody jumped over the table fence and shook me,

“Tell me what’s going on! Please, tell me what it’s for!”

I said, it’s just music, man. People cheered from their stoops and some joined in the march. It hardly seemed like 30 minutes had passed when we rounded back around to the Dupont Circle fountain. When we did the, the flawlessly synced boomboxes rang out their last notes, shutting out one by one until a great stream of chimes swooped the last bit of the music off.

Everybody hung around in the post-dream haze and Hays Holladay said they hoped to do something like this again with more new beats. The Bluebrain brothers gave away almost all of the 50 tapes and their regular fans were eager to oblige, like Aida Dargahi, who said it was great music for a late summer night.

“This was amazing, even though we’re super hot afterwards,” she said. “I want to keep this so I can have something great to fall asleep to.”

BONUS:
A Video:

Bluebrain's Cakeblood : Boombox Event in Dupont Cirlce from Ryan Holladay on Vimeo.

and catch Bluebrain next HERE on Friday

Previously in Live DC:

• 5/24: LiveDC: The Adicts @ RNR Hotel
• 5/24: LiveDC: The Donkeys @ Black Cat
• 5/23: LiveDC: The Barr Brothers w/ Kishi Bashi @ The Hamilton
• 5/23: LiveDC: Damien Jurado @ Black Cat
• 5/23: Report: Soundbites 2012
• 5/22: LiveDC: Spirit Animal @ Red Palace
• 5/22: LiveDC: Astra Via @ Black Cat
• 5/22: LiveDC: Father John Misty @ Rock & Roll Hotel
• 5/22: LiveDC: Drive-By Truckers and Lucinda Williams @ Merriweather
• 5/22: Photos: Summer Camp takes the "Ladies of Town" Drag Show