As the drummer for venerable New York experimental-rock outfit Oneida, John Colpitts, nickname Kid Millions, knows something about concentration. Consider the half-hour of pounding repetition that opens the band's 2002 album, Each One Teach One.
In other words, Colpitts had no small amount of preparation for Pansophical Cataract, his new solo-drums album under the name Man Forever. Its two long tracks, "Surface Patterns" and "Ur Eternity," build on percussion so dense and disciplined that it wills the listener to share Colpitts' obsession. Droning synths and hissing electronics don't relieve or distract but escalate the feeling of being shanghaied along on one person's megalomaniacal crusade. Which means Colpitts has done his job admirably, in ambitious-drummer-endurance-record terms.
He's set himself a slightly different task for the tour that comes to Mickey's Tavern June 11, recruiting one-off collaborators along the route. This show will include Joe Wong, drummer of the recently retired Parts and Labor.
Colpitts provides coaching with a video entitled "Being Man Forever." "['Surface Patterns'] is 18 minutes on the record, but we're going to be doing it for 30," he says on the video. "So get your head wrapped around that."
