Chaos From Order

By Dora Robertson

September 14, 2025

When I was in my early 20s, I had real ambition to become a music journalist. As a college student with a fairly popular blog dedicated to underground metal, I used to fantasize about following my favorite bands around and writing about our misadventures on the road together. Hell, to be completely honest, I was making up stories like that as early as the second grade, drawing little comics of me going on tour with bands I liked and sharing them with my friends. It was a means of escapism, but also something I genuinely thought I would be good at. Music and writing, after all, are the only two things I have ever truly cared about long-term.

Life has thrown its share of weird curveballs, but I’m sort-of doing what Little Me and College Undergrad Me long aspired to do. I’m pushing 40 and have a power electronics project people seem to enjoy, and I’m embedded into the Chattanooga noise scene not only as a performer, but as a photographer, show planner, and yes, writer. My role as documentarian means that I am in a position to observe things that extend beyond the present moment. While others are laying on a blanket and staring at the rafters, my eyes and ears remain wide open. 

Between February and June of 2025, I documented in detail the live sets of two Chattanooga noise stalwarts and their various live shows, both separately and in various collaborative forms. Along the way, I had some significant revelations pertaining to the role that noise has played in the lives of others as well as the role it plays in my own life, and also regarding how what started as a group of casual acquaintances interested in music others don’t even consider music gradually morphed into a close-knit community of friends and a functioning support system.

For starters, one needs to know a little more about Aaron Cole and Jerry Reed, the 40-something harsh noise wall flesh vessels that I affectionately call Statler and Waldorf. Aaron started Chattanooga Noise Night back in 2022 and grew it into the behemoth it is now, all the while sharpening his own skills as a performer. Jerry has been doing the “noise thing” in Chattanooga longer than most people around here have even cared about noise, and has organized festivals like Leaky Sockets and managed DIY labels. Point being, both of these men are well-weathered.

The first performance of theirs I witnessed this year was at the February edition of Chattanooga Noise Night - a collaborative set to cap off an otherwise ambient bill. The set was to commemorate the release of the Second Location (Jerry’s HNW side-project) and Leviathans of Black Hollering split tape, a bristling half-hour of sound waves pricklier than a porcupine in heat. If I remember correctly, this was one of the first live shows where Aaron brought out his little mouth mic contraption that he uses pretty frequently now during live sets.

One thing people need to understand about Aaron as a performer (and as a person) is that everything he does comes from a place of love and a need for inner calm and catharsis. You frequently see him on his knees, aforementioned mouth mic cable tied around his neck, looking as if he has attained nirvana and oblivion all at the same time. February's performance - and all subsequent LOBH performances - revealed a body stripped bare, yet far from susceptible to the jaws of wolves. To watch him at the climax of a performance is to ponder what it means to be a performer and what we dredge out from deep within in the name of sonic rapture.

As for the performances of Jerry as either Rurnt or Second Location, you find yourself looking at a sort of Russian nesting doll. The surface shows mischief and hints of a destructive urge. Nested within are emotions which shine through in small bits like light in a broken mirror. You see a glimmer of sadness, a streak of grief, a spark of joy, and parcels of rage that hearken back to a primal part of the human condition. Perhaps he doesn’t even see all of this in himself and might scratch his well-groomed beard reading my analysis, but I’m a keen observer. There are multitudes beneath the onslaught of distorted static and rattling chains.

Two performances come to mind as standouts. The first performance was Rurnt as an opener for Jason Crumer at Sluggo’s back in April. I was bound and determined to attend this show despite being in the throes of a mental health crisis, because you don’t get guys of Jason’s caliber coming through every day. Aaron and Jerry were both set to separately play as openers. While Aaron’s performance was commendable, Jerry’s was like watching someone flagellate themselves in the name of punishment - both of the self and of mortal sins. If his emotions performing are normally shards in a broken mirror, then this performance was those shards drawing blood from your hand as you dare to try and touch them.

Less than a month later, I had a release show for my debut album, and of course Aaron and Jerry were down to be opening acts. This time, it was Aaron’s performance as Leviathans of Black Hollering that really stood out to me, as well as to everyone else in attendance (almost entirely close friends of mine and CNN regulars). This performance also called to mind a sort of self-flagellation, but not in the name of seeking atonement from the divine, but rather in the name of seeking spiritual synchronicity. Most of the set saw Aaron on his knees, eyes closed, cable around his neck, mic in mouth, mind swimming in rapid frequencies only transmittable between him and whatever god cared to tune in.

May’s Chattanooga Noise Night saw Aaron and Jerry teaming up with Matt from Cryptic Rising in an act that our mutual friend and CNN stalwart Pearson described as “too many cooks”. Perhaps meant in a teasing way, the recipe all three men tested out on Chattanooga that night would later be carried into Murfreesboro in June. However, instead of getting one huge main course, you got five smaller courses at The Dollhouse that night, including offerings from semi-local noise acts Thin Places and xgfasmrx. Despite being somewhat annoyed with technical issues, Jerry’s set as Rurnt reminded Middle Tennessee of why he’s sometimes referred to as Noise Dad - he has a gift for synthesizing torrents of sound bytes into something effortless.

Aaron’s final set of the first half of 2025, however, put the concept of Noise Dad into a tangible form. With lights off, he sat at an old TV set and watched baseball game footage from the 90s while rumbles creeped in from his minimalistic but powerful setup. Something about this set made me think of two separate themes. One theme is that of someone seeking solace in nostalgia, a solo quest for comfort from a bygone era. Another theme is that of the nature of voyeurism. We, the audience, are watching someone as they watch something else. We are bearing witness to what is ultimately an intimate moment between a man and his mind. Nobody dares to say a word or make a move. As with all other Aaron performances, one must never present intrusion. Cable mic in mouth or remote in hand, it’s all the expressed desires of a man who just wants to be.

What kind of conclusions can I come to from all of these observations, all of this cognitive pattern-connecting, all of this ringing in my ears? Admittedly, this conclusion is a bit hard to write. I could summarize these performances from a purely sensory perspective - they were loud and they were good. I could summarize from a more cerebral way - noise of course is multifaceted and at times much more technical than it appears on the surface. However, I think I will let emotions take over (within reason) - the music and the men who make it might not be for everyone, but both are definitely for me. It’s one thing to go to a noise show and sip a couple of beers and live in the moment, but it’s entirely another thing to know that the performers are somebody you’ve had deeply personal conversations with that led to a better understanding of all the little intricacies buried within the grime.

There isn’t a need for me to live in a fantasy world where I’m following musicians around and writing about what they get up to - I am that musician now, and many of my friends are those musicians. Back in 1995, I was drawing on scrap paper with a ball-point pen on my great-aunt's bed, talking about how myself and these band guys were adopting dogs and bringing them in tour vans and playing sold-out shows and fighting off crime bosses and other very out-there goofiness from a child who spend way too much time reading comic books and fucking around with a turntable. While I doubt myself, Aaron, Jerry, or any other CNN personnel are going to be taking on The Mob or teaching a dog to play keyboard solos any time soon, we can send each other super niche noise memes that only we find funny and collapse into hugs that linger at the end of a long night full of sweat and switches, and I’m capturing it all every step of the way.