First gig where I set off from my new house in Liden (although I really wasn't there that long!). Dave picked me up, and he drove myself, Ady and Tim down to the Alleycat, in time to get a pint in before support Idlewild started at 9. They were painfully young and introverted types, who nevertheless played a spiky punk thrash, which initially reminded old timers Dave and myself of Birdland (remember them???) but also sounded like a slightly thrashy and more unhinged Joy Division. When they get their shit together, they may be a name to watch...
Quite a crowd out for the Warm Jets tonight, which seems to signify that they're on their way up, right now. Vocalist Louis Jones' romance with DJ Zoe Ball having ended, I think the star spotters are on their way out, and real fans hopefully on their way in! Tonight they took a little while to get started properly in their set, but burst into life with the mesmeric "Silver Surfer". Overall, another fine, moody and agitated set from the Jets, during which I shook a leg despite recovering from flu! They'll play better sets than this one, so The Warm Jets are definitely a name to watch in 1998!
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
370 DRUGSTORE, Wireless, Cheltenham The Axiom, Thursday 26 March 1998
Well, after 370 gigs, here's a first - a first one in Cheltenham! Drove Dave and Ady and met up with Clive in the Axiom pub, then decanted at about 9.15 into the venue, which was the shed in the courtyard! This one brought back memories of the Windsor Old Trout, albeit on a smaller scale, but was quite atmospheric - especially when the dry ice got going!
Wireless, a new name on me but a fave of Clive's, got going at 9.30, and played a splendid spangly pop noise, reminiscent of C86 strumalong stuff, or even Rumblefish at first listen, albeit toughened up for the 90's. Despite injuring his groin moving amps the previous night (!), the vocalist was an enthusiastic and kinetic frontman, but had to cede to the chunky drummer, who grooved down and "gave it loads" especially during the last number. By this time, of course, I was a whirling dervish down the front along with Clive!
As for Drugstore; Isobel took the stage at 10.30 with her intro, "Say Hello", an introduction to all the junkies, prostitutes and lovers who don't get it right! She was then joined by the rest of the band - now a 4-piece, following the recruitment of a full-time cellist! - for a stunning set drawn primarily from the imminent new LP "White Magic For Lovers". Isobel was her usual enthusiastic and effervescent self - bantering with the audience and giving as good as she got in terms of sexual innuendo. "Nectarine" however was the highlight of the set for me, a bewitching blend of magic and madness. Also, following the planned encore, Isobel took the stage solo one last time, and played a freaky number rubbishing Glenn Hoddle and extolling her home country Brazil's World Cup chances! A spellbinding night, and well worth the late night and car-mare with Clive afterwards, as he found his NCP car park was locked up! D'oh!
371 LIBIDO, GLITTERBOX, Ballroom, Bristol Fleece, Monday 13 April 1998
A veritable Easter Monday "Posse" field trip, this one, with 7 of us descending on the "Seven Stars" to meet up before the gig. This being necessary, of course, as I had the tickets to get us in! Gained entry to the sparsely populated venue at 8.30, just as Ballroom took the stage. Despite still being derivative of the current Suede/ Radiohead school of angst, this was a much improved Ballroom set, with a bit of fire and passion where there was previously precious posturing.
Clive's current hot tips, Glitterbox, were next up. I joined the one-man moshpit down the front and had a rocking time to this excellent set, from a fine new guitar band with an expansive and well-rocking sound, semi-American in feel but also chunky and radio-friendly, rather like Cottonmouth (Lemonheads support from last October). The band's flippant style and delivery was also entertaining, and made for a great set which received the thumbs up from the boys.
Headliners Libido, on the other hand, polarised opinion more, despite (in my view of course!) once again coming up with a good and challenging guitarry set which I took the opportunity of having a good bop to. I dunno, they remind me a little of Pale Saints mixing it up with Daryll Ann, which pitches them on the difficult and experimental side of the guitar rock spectrum, but then "Overthrown", their best number, is a totally catchy pop blast, like a poppy Wonderstuff number! Anyways'up, I enjoyed them again!
Clive's current hot tips, Glitterbox, were next up. I joined the one-man moshpit down the front and had a rocking time to this excellent set, from a fine new guitar band with an expansive and well-rocking sound, semi-American in feel but also chunky and radio-friendly, rather like Cottonmouth (Lemonheads support from last October). The band's flippant style and delivery was also entertaining, and made for a great set which received the thumbs up from the boys.
Headliners Libido, on the other hand, polarised opinion more, despite (in my view of course!) once again coming up with a good and challenging guitarry set which I took the opportunity of having a good bop to. I dunno, they remind me a little of Pale Saints mixing it up with Daryll Ann, which pitches them on the difficult and experimental side of the guitar rock spectrum, but then "Overthrown", their best number, is a totally catchy pop blast, like a poppy Wonderstuff number! Anyways'up, I enjoyed them again!
372 CHINA DRUM, The Pecadiloes, Reading Alleycat "Live", Friday 17 April 1998
I was expecting a hot one tonight, so despite the snow earlier this week, I donned shorts for the trip to The Alleycat with Rich and Ady. Got there at 9 and got the beers in before The Pecadiloes came on. They were bloody awful; clumsy pseudo-glam, with a triple-decker leopardskin print keyboard being played at random, like a bad Roxy Music or early John Foxx Ultravox. Still, the vocalist had a good t-shirt on; "Jesus Is Coming - Look Busy!"
Got more beer in and returned to the by-now very busy stage front crowd just before 10, for the arrival of the Drum. Vocalist Adam Lee, now divesting himself of his former drumming duties and sporting a maniacal stare and dyed blond crop, pitching him somewhere between Henry Rollins and Edd The Duck (!), sauntered onstage and sang the a capella opening of "60 Seconds". I immediately knew we were in for a battering, and this proved to be the case, as the Drum ripped into a sweaty, phenomenally hot and hard set of their top drawer popcore, a la Sugar/ Husker Du. I've enjoyed the Drum at festivals before, but in a small club they really soar, and were magnificent; aggressive, intense, committed and bloody loud and fast! I stayed in the fierce moshpit with the boys throughout the set, the highlights being a superb early "Fiction Of life" and the wilful encore destruction of "Wuthering Heights", including Adam dragging some poor unsuspecting girl onstage and pronouncing her, "Kate Bush for the night!".
Wandered around Reading town centre in a slight daze afterwards, with the boys, looking for fast food and stripped to the waist, still steaming from the mosh, soliciting cries of, "it's freezing! That bloke's a nutter!" from the locals. Right then, however, I was hot and happy - a self made maniac!
373 DAWN OF THE REPLICANTS, Formula One, Cheltenham The Axiom, Wednesday 13 May 1998
Left late for this one - 8 pm - as this is a late gig, apparently, even on a Wednesday night! Had a drink with the boys in the well-appointed courtyard outside this venue, before venturing in at 9.45 for first band on, Formula One. Their formula was a Stereolabbish love of metronomic rhythm, with a heightened ear for strumalong tunes. The final cacophonous number also harked back to the unorthodox song structures of the likes of Wonky Alice (!). In F1 terms, not podium finishers, but likely to get a few points here and there. Maybe they should tap up Jackie Stewart, as he needs a driver for his team...
The Replicants came on at a very user-unfriendly 11 (d'oh!); a very odd looking bunch, accentuated by the vocalist's silver lab jacket and WW1 linen flying helmet. They played the most intriguing, unorthodox and downright weird set - sorry, show! - I've seen or am likely to see this year. Showing it is possible to push the boundaries of rock music without losing sight of good tunes and absorbing melody, their set, based mainly on their puzzling but fine "One Head, Two Arms, Two Legs" CD, was oblique and mightily good, with "Lisa Box", nevertheless their most orthodox and rocking number, the highlight. Comparisons? Well, the vocalist matches such as Isobel Drugstore for unusual attention-grabbing stage presence, but the music? Hmmm... the best I was able to come up with was an indie/grunge Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band!
Friday, 27 August 2010
374 THE FLAMING LIPS "BOOM BOX" EXPERIMENT NO. 13, London Kentish Town Forum, Saturday 16 May 1998
It was Tim's 21st birthday today, so how better to spend it than a day's shopping in London and a completely different aural experience in the evening! Tim organised the hire of a spacevan which I duly offered to drive, as everyone else got drunk the night before! So, after a trundle up to Kentish Town, we parked near the Forum at 1-ish and went off to Camden! I did some shopping then watched the FA Cup Final in a pub, Arsenal beating Newcastle 2-0. We then met up back in Kentish Town, and were first in the Forum at 7, gaining good vantage points by the mixing desk for this very strange musical experience. 40 chairs occupied by beatboxes were laid out onstage, and by 9 pm, they became occupied by guest operators, including Miki of Lush, Martin Carr of the Boo Radleys, 18 Wheeler's Sean Jackson, and Wannadies' bassist Frederick! The Flaming Lips vocalist Wayne Coyne, our "compere" for the evening, then explained the procedure for this event; he and Steven Drozd of the Lips would "conduct" pre-recorded tapes played by the beatboxes to the operators, for an experiment in sound!
Coyne was a very personable and entertaining compere, as he conducted proceedings with a, "1... 2... 3... G... Go!" to cue in each musical "piece". Following the test, the first musical piece was a huge and awesome cacophony of white noise, which with various sounds resembling screaming angels and earthquakes, sounded like the soundtrack to a planet being devoured! Galactus in the house? Other "songs" were less cacophonous but no less intense, as Wayne and Steven took on the roles of conducting one half of the operating participants each, creating as visual a spectacle as the sound was awesome. Some of the "pieces" were a little repetitive, and the sound, pushed through 40 tapes on 40 old beatboxes allegedly procured from Oklahoma City pawn shops, was a little fuzzy and impure, but as a sonic experience it was unusual, unique, nothing less than intriguing and at times very enjoyable and even emotionally moving. At the end, after which we ran into some other Wannadies for a brief but nice chat outside the venue, Wayne Coyne thanked us, "for coming along with open minds." That summed it up really - a great way to spend anyone's 21st!
2010 recollections - it's quite interesting to look back on this gig, given how these "Boom Box" experiments contributed to the changes the Flaming Lips subsequently made to how they produced their music, resulting in the massively influential "The Soft Bulletin" CD in 1999. A significant step along the way!
Coyne was a very personable and entertaining compere, as he conducted proceedings with a, "1... 2... 3... G... Go!" to cue in each musical "piece". Following the test, the first musical piece was a huge and awesome cacophony of white noise, which with various sounds resembling screaming angels and earthquakes, sounded like the soundtrack to a planet being devoured! Galactus in the house? Other "songs" were less cacophonous but no less intense, as Wayne and Steven took on the roles of conducting one half of the operating participants each, creating as visual a spectacle as the sound was awesome. Some of the "pieces" were a little repetitive, and the sound, pushed through 40 tapes on 40 old beatboxes allegedly procured from Oklahoma City pawn shops, was a little fuzzy and impure, but as a sonic experience it was unusual, unique, nothing less than intriguing and at times very enjoyable and even emotionally moving. At the end, after which we ran into some other Wannadies for a brief but nice chat outside the venue, Wayne Coyne thanked us, "for coming along with open minds." That summed it up really - a great way to spend anyone's 21st!
2010 recollections - it's quite interesting to look back on this gig, given how these "Boom Box" experiments contributed to the changes the Flaming Lips subsequently made to how they produced their music, resulting in the massively influential "The Soft Bulletin" CD in 1999. A significant step along the way!
375 THE DELGADOS, ROC, Reading Alleycat Live, Friday 29 May 1998
When the cat's away, I go to gigs! Alone in the house for the weekend, and at a loose end, Clive persuaded me to join him on a Friday night jaunt to Reading to see one of his favourite bands. Got there at 9.15 (thanks to footy on the telly delaying us!) just as ROC were starting their set. A shoegazing lot from 10 years ago (so it seemed), they were suporiphic and dull. Music for insomniacs!
The Delgados were on soon after, at 10 past 10. I'd ignored this lot before, due to their connections with the truly vile Bis, but Clive assured me they were nothing like them. Indeed, they came across like a second division Madder Rose, with a perplexing and chameleonic range of musical styles, occasionally a little countrified, but mainly all arty and moody, bordering on but not crossing over into Goth. Their one super-fast number, the incendiary and speedy "Under Canvas, Under Wraps" was by far the highlight of a slightly disappointing but intriguing set. Better than a night in, though!
The Delgados were on soon after, at 10 past 10. I'd ignored this lot before, due to their connections with the truly vile Bis, but Clive assured me they were nothing like them. Indeed, they came across like a second division Madder Rose, with a perplexing and chameleonic range of musical styles, occasionally a little countrified, but mainly all arty and moody, bordering on but not crossing over into Goth. Their one super-fast number, the incendiary and speedy "Under Canvas, Under Wraps" was by far the highlight of a slightly disappointing but intriguing set. Better than a night in, though!
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