Fri. Nov. 21 – Sun. Nov. 23

This year’s Brainwaves festival, the third, consists of three nights of lectronic/techno/experimental music at Arlington’s Regent Theatre, through  Sunday Nov. 23. It’s sponsored by Boston College’s WZBC-FM and put on by www.Brainwashed.com , a multi-media website for numerous indy acts. We recently talked with Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto, which he and a partner started in Swindon, England back in 1987. Dangers moved to San Francisco in 1994 and re-started MBM. Many different people have passed through the ranks. You may have heard their “Prime Audio Soup” song in “The Matrix.” The quartet, which headlines Friday's show, now consists of Dangers, Ben Stokes (video), Mark Pistel (wires) and Lynn Farmer (drums). Its latest album is “Autoimmune.” Live, www.wired.com has described the MBM experience as “a surround-sound sensorium” with “incendiary drumming” and “a politically explosive multimedia program that’s nowhere near as boring as ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’”

We caught Dangers, an affable sort, as he was about to board a plane. He described Meat Beat Manifesto as a group that liked to employ “juxtaposition - of saying something that’s amusing and frightening at the same time. It’s definitely more tongue-in-cheek. I like using things in a humorous way. Politically, we use text and visuals; you can say a lot without opening your mouth.”

JSInk: So what is Meat Beat Manifesto of 2008?
Dangers: It’s always changed. We’ve tried to keep it interesting; I’ve always worked with different people. Live we do a big video presentation, We used to work with dancers, but now we use a lot of video sampling, and the audio samples. The video comes from TV or movies. Musically, it’s still got hints of the dub vibe. I still sing on some tracks. Every album is touched on [in concert], but we’re trying to keep fresh.

JSInk: What’s the most conventional thing about MBM?
Dangers: When I get around to doing vocals. They lyrics touch on subjects of the day. I’m not overtly political. I’m a hardcore vegetarian, but I don’t throw it down people’s throats. I like to be socially aware of what’s going on and things have changed over the last eight years, and even more over the past two weeks.

JSInk: A lot of comics have complained, jokingly I guess, that having Obama in office will make their job a lot tougher. You too?
Dangers: It does make my job more difficult. We have a couple months of being able to use [Bush], for these last shows, before it becomes passe. With Obama, there are not many laughs. It will be real difficult to take the piss out of him.

JSInk: You use a lot of visuals. Where are the band members as all this is going on?
Dangers: We use rear projections. We’re standing in front, with the visuals behind us. We have six different video feeds and six live cameras. It’s all done real time.
JSInk: In concert, the point is the experience, not looking at you.
Dangers: You get an adverse reaction if you’re sitting behind the screen. They like to see you working. I would like to do it in the dressing room.
JSInk: Often, a band will have enthusiasm and a burst of creativity early on, but as they get “better” at their jobs things flatten out. How do you stay fresh?
Dangers: There was 10 years of excitement and inspiration. But you can’t do the same thing over and over again and expect it to be fresh and new. But to use video and audio at the same time, it gave it a breath of fresh air. That started in early ‘90s – when I was working with the Rhode Island band EBN – and now, just being able to do it with technology has made it easier, more practical. I spend hours [finding] bits of video to re-attach to the audio. The video is different every night and the music can be different too.

JSInk: When Psychic TV did that, they used some pretty gruesome, shocking video. Do you?
Dangers: That’s too easy. What we do is very enjoyable. We have good fun weeding out these samples.

Friday’s show at 8, aside from Meat Beat Manifesto, has Silver Apples, JG Thirlwell’s Manorexia (this is Jim Thirlwell/Foetus’ latest project), Marissa Nadler. Tickets: $20. Saturday’s an all-day event starting at 1. The headliner is His Name Is Alive, with Gary Wilson, Rivulets featuring Jessica Baliff, Major Stars, Nmperign featuring Jason Lescalleet, Glenn Jones. The night-time program has Matmos, Threshold HouseBoys hoir, Reformed Faction, Little Annie and Andrew Liles & Jonathan Coleclough. Ticket: $45. Sundays show starts at 1 at has Stars of the Lid, To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie, Boduf Songs, Lichens, Nudge, Strategy and Windy Weber & Thomas Meluch (of Benoit Pioluard.) Tickets: $20. You can buy a pass for the whole weekend for $75.

7 Medford St., Arlington, 781-646-4849 www.brainwavesfest.org  www.regenttheatre.com/brainwaves.htm