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The Killing Floor is a blues/jazz/experimental/punk/industrial club in an old warehouse, on the edge of Hell Town, near the canal. Originally a blues club/roadhouse/biker bar, it was falling apart and on the verge of death when Tom Robertson adopted it, reviving and rejuvenating it in his own inimitable style. He and The Hangmen (with a revolving line-up) are now the "house band," more or less, with a regular schedule of like-minded bands, including The Johnson Family, The Skeletons, Saxophone Colossus, Sphere, etc.
Tom expanded the stage to almost twice its original size to allow for larger bands, and built it up to three levels with reinforced plywood and sheets of scrap metal bolted to short lengths of steel girder which were welded to the skeletal structure of the warehouse. Just off-center, downstage, on the main level, is an 8-foot square box made of---I'm not sure what kind of wood this will be---which is two-feet in height, and segmented into equal-size, self-enclosed boxes each of which is "tuned" to a different note by virtue of differences in the size and thickness of the inner box. The whole thing sits flush with the stage floor, but can be raised up out of the floor and suspended on spring coils mounted into the concrete floor beneath the stage. Furthermore, the box is miked and amplified---with the added bonus that the signal can be fed to the house system, to an old Moog synthesizer and/or to a live DJ who can then add sound effects, samples, and scratches to the cacophony of echoes the box produces. Tom Robertson makes great use of "The Box" in concert.
I wrote all of the above this morning under the influence of William Gibson and Tom Waits. I need to read more on acoustics and electronic music in order to make more sense of this. I also have an idea for a "floor marimba" to go along with "the box," but I have no idea what that even means with any degree of certainty. I'm also very curious about what sort of effects one might be able to create by playing different acoustic and electronic instruments on "the box" when it is miked and amplified. All of these are things I know nothing about. But, if I am to write about them accurately, I need to do research. I really like what I've got, though, and I'm eager for more!