Chicago’s Plasmata, helmed by Trent Jeffries, are an industrial rock band with gothic ‘glampire’ aesthetics. Their latest single and video is a glammed-up, dark alt-rock cover of the Blue Öyster Cult classic, ‘Tattoo Vampire’. Until recently, the live band has functioned as a well-oiled four-piece, routinely bringing the house down at Chicago haunts like the Liar’s Club and Reggie’s Rock Bar. One-by-one, however, Trent’s bandmates have all backed out of the upcoming tour, leaving him as the sole touring member of Plasmata. Tonight’s call is the first Danny and Caroline are hearing of this, and Michel has just found out the day before. But despite scrambling to figure out how to make Plasmata work onstage as a one-man show, Trent remains undeterred, and committed to soldiering forward to fulfill his touring commitments. His friends hold every faith in his ability as a consummate showman. And as silver linings go, there are now fewer people’s touring costs for everyone else to worry about…

[melter] are a duo of Jax Allos (vocals, bass, keys) and Rob Hyman (drums, bass, electronics). Like Plasmata, they too hail from Chicago, and likewise draw heavily from the city’s rich heritage of dark industrial music, even if Jax, the youngest member of the Imperfect Waves crew, doesn’t realize that yet. [melter] have an altogether grittier, more jarring and percussive focus: minus the glam, alt rock, and classic rock leanings of Plasmata. [melter]’s latest single and video, ‘blacklist’, has been variously described as ‘raw noise meets darkwave and industrial’, ‘visceral’, ‘soaring’, ‘powerful’, and ‘hot enough to liquify the living’. They have just come home from another tour with Pittsburgh post-punk/art rock duo, Hemlock for Socrates, which took them mainly through the US Midwest, between July and August. Rob and Jax are using the downtime between tours to finish up their next video. In light of Trent’s predicament, the bands are now discussing whether to bump [melter] up as the tour headliner.

From Cleveland, Ohio, 2 Forks is essentially the solo project of Daniel C. alias ‘Danny 2 Forks’, longtime drummer for goth rock legends The Wake. With 2 Forks, Danny combines his love for industrial music, 70s disco, 80s synthpop, and the 90s house, techno, and dance warehouse scenes. With co-producer Gil Singer and guitarist Mark Gamiere in the studio, 2 Forks debuted from out of nowhere in late 2023, with a full-blown concept album, Quanticode, on The Wake’s own label imprint Blaylox Records. The album has yielded four video-singles to date, including the most recent offering, ‘Rip My Hair’, a dark-electro tribute to campy schlock horror. Despite being a seasoned touring drummer since the 1980s, the Imperfect Waves Tour will be Danny’s first tour as a frontperson and sole performer under the 2 Forks moniker. He has meanwhile just volunteered himself to join Plasmata onstage as a live drummer for the tour.”