September. I hate September. I really do. If you live anywhere near Ohio, you hate September as well. Everything dies in September, the summer is over, the nice 99 degree days are over and it is almost time to freeze again. I am not happy that September 11th happend, but in that I guess if fate had to make it during some month, I am happy fate picked September, because it sucked anyway.

Hello, I am Sam I Be, and I hate cold weather. I am also proudly in a band called Passing Time, and one of the things we do is interview bands that we see or play with and post their transcripts up here for our fans and theirs to read. When you are done reading, please do venture a bit into our site and check out our music, shows, and videos. (The Rise is quite good). Also...in case you were wondering, yeah this does all tie together you see, because Combi came in Setember 10th, so atleast I had SOMETHING to look forward too besides the coming of another dreadful gray season of frost.

The show was at Outland in Columbus, a venue I enjoy going to and shall have to hit up for a show, (If you are reading this and want to book us at OUTLAND, please CLICK HERE!). It is not a big venue, and I had not imagined Combi still playing venues of this size, but it was very good to see them upclose because at the rate that they are growing with their brand of new titled (I guess it works as much as any name can) TBM - aka. Techno Body Music - that takes alot of the "happy joy joy bullshit" from happy hardcore OUT of EBM and replaces it with old school Prodigy like pounding.

Opening the show was MODULATE - a very solid techno based project from England. The do WONDERFUL work, and their cover of aforementioned The Prodigy's "NO GOOD START THE DANCE". "Yeah, they heard it,"DJ Echo (Geoff Lee) said meaning The PRODIGY "we were doing this festival in Manchester. Lional (from The Prodigy) heard it and said that we should keep doing it."

Live the use laptops rigged to two small controller, two octave keyboards that I was happy to see that they really played, not just triggered. No, the parts are not Earth shatteringly hard to play by any means, but they were very infectious and I don't think anyone in the club wanted the set to end when it did. Go to www.modulate.net and check these guys out.

SAM I BE: You guys play quite a bit of it live and not just sample"

DJ Echo (Geoff Lee) of Modulate: Yes, we write everything and then decide what will work best live."

SAM I BE: "How has the tour been going?"

DJ Echo (Geoff Lee): Great, really great, actually. Playing with Combichirst presents us to a lot of new people."

Next up were IMPERATIVE REACTION who very strong and have a singer with a real solid stage presence able to work the crowd into the mood of the show. This band also featured a very talented keyboardist who expanded a bit upon the EBM sound. I hope to hear more of this band, because on the music I heard at from fellow traveling conpanions Nik, Donna, and Brandons sounded like a heavy Assemblage 23 meets The Cure and live he sounds NOTHING like Robert Smith at all. Very interesting. Either they were not in a meet and greet mood, or I got tied up with Modulate and Combi, but I must admit that I did not get to talk to this band."

LAST UP.....Combichirst. It was a kick ass show from the very start. Combi live uses a keyboardist, two drummers (one being a stand up percussionist) and a singer. The singer is none other than Andy LaPlegua, fonder of the almost equally awesome Icon of Coil as well as Panzer AG.

If you have not heard Combi,they are very much a dom/sub sex band in terms of lyrics much of the time, and those lyrics are not for anyone who have never FUCKED. No I don't mean made love to, for while I feel that making love is a wonderful art and gift from God, I also like getting the hell fucked out of me fromt time to time (and returning the favor) and THAT is what Combi is great for! The music is not too serious in terms of lyrics (Birthday boy, birthday girl - Combichirst, evil nice), but the music is a true next step for techno. The more serious seems to still reside in Icon and Panzer in this autors opinion. It is always good to hear one of the songs one hopes to hear live right at the beginning and that was what happend with "This Is My Rifle", which was done POUNDINGLY well as the second song. I had a chance to catch up with Andy and drummer Joe Letz on the patio after the show.

SAM I BE of PASSING TIME: Wonderful set. I....

ANDY LAPLEGUA OF COMBICHRIST: Weren't you at the Cleveland show?

SAM I BE OF PASSING TIME: YES! Wow, you remember that?

ANDY LAPLEGUA OF COMBICHRIST: Of course, nice to see you.

SAMI BE OF PASSING TIME: Yeah,last time was at the KMFDM show and I really did not have much time to talk to you because of the line to meet you. You guys are really blowing up.

ANDY LAPLEGUA OF COMBICHRIST: That was a really good tour

SAM I BE OF PASSING TIME: When you write music fomr Combi, how does it compare to the music of say Icon or Panzer?

ANDY LAPLEGUA OF COMBICHRIST: Oh, a big difference. With Panzer AG it is almost all written on the guitar and very much for the guitar. With Combichirst it is just me, and it is all done on keyboards and machines.

SAM I BE OF PASSING TIME: Are any of your drums played live on an electronic kit, or it programmed and played later live?

ANDY LAPLEGUA OF COMBICHRIST: Oh no, it is all programmed. It is just me. Live we add the drums and percussion as it fits to work live.

SAM I BE OF PASSING TIME: Yes,I recall you saying on the last tour that it was the first time that all of the keys were not programmed or sampled

ANDY LEPLEGUA OF COMBICHRIDST: (still wiping stage sweat from his eyes, he is exhausted and nice enough to do this interview - just thought I would mention how thoughtful Andy is/was) Yeah, that has been one of the biggest changes lately.

SAM I BE OF PASSING TIME: Are you releasing anything on a DVD or live disk from either this, the KMFDM tour, or both?

ANDY LEPLEGUA OF COMBICHRIST: I don't know about that, but there is a new CD coming out....um.....maybe around Spring of next year.

From there I decided that I had hogged enough of Andy's time and he clearly had a growning number of people waiting to talk to him as I finished upt he interview,so I ventured over to drummer Joe Letz to ask a few questions, and he was found to be JUST as friendly as Andy. Don't ask me why, but he beats those skins in a manner that INCORRECTLY lead me to think he would be less approachable, but he was not at all

JOE LETZ OF COMBICHRIST: You want to interview me? Sweet, I would love to!

SAM I BE OF PASSING TIME: Well we are honored to have you on the site, Joe. So live, I was just informed that the drums get pretty much added live, so that means you have a large number of loops to play over. I don't think most people who have not done it understand that playing over a perfectly timed loop is harder than playing with NO loop.

JOE LETZ OF COMBICHRIST: It can be very hard because any slight acceleration or slowing down is noticed.

SAM I BE OF PASSING TIME: And there are TWO of you drumming as well.

JOE LETZ OF COMBICHRIST: Yeah,that is what Andy thought would work the best, it really drives everything well live.

SAM I BE OF PASSING TIME: What was it like being on the road with KMFDM? I mean, you have Sasha, not to mention Lucia who is now a legend almost by herself in terms of the underground scene.

JOE LETZ OF COMBICHRIST: Oh yeah, that was great. We got to get ourselves out in front of a lot of new fans,

SAM I BE OF PASSING TIME: In this area, you could not go to goth club and not hear "This Shit Will Fuck You Up" or "Sex,Druggen, and Industrial", so that was really blowing up the same time.

JOE LETZ OF COMBICHRIST: So was Rain of Blood, so it was a good time. People were singing our songs back to us, and that is always great to see

From there, the night was growing late, and the time to leave was at hand Our ears were sting singing the aftermath of the show inside of our heads, and our bodies ached from the pit. It should be mentioned that Combi has an odd, odd pit. You get slammed, that is a given, but you also get fondled. Woman fondle EVERY OTHER man AND woman in their pits, it is different. You never really know who is molesting you, you just know that it will stop and then you will have an elbow in the ribs again like you are suppposed to. Very interesting.