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Ozric Tentacles (live at The Academy)

O2 Academy, London 23 May 2012

Ah, the British summertime, the time for festivals, too much sport on the TV, beer gardens and BBQs. But not this year, for the past month it had rained everyday, festivals would have been mud baths, sporting events cancelled and beer gardens and BBQs were just a faint and distant memory as rivers of water run through the streets. Then the Ozrics came and so did the sun…..

Due to delays on our wonderful transport system I arrived at the venue to catch only the last few minutes of Champignon. What I did see was perfectly wonderful and had the ethereal sound of summers past. Jon Le Champignon was his usual mercurial self and it made me want to try

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Guitar Wolf/Bo Ningen (live at The Academy)

O2 Academy Islington, London 8 July 2011

Two very different Japanese interpretations of the idea of rock’n’roll descended upon The Angel Islington.

Compare and contrast the constructions of rock’n’roll energy, of gtr-bs-dr dynamics between the leather-clad machismo of Guitar Wolf and Bo Ningen‘s more androgyne angle. Bo Ningen favour the Acid Mothers Hendrix approach, riffing and cavorting at an angle to the regular hard rock template at the junction where Flower Travellin’ Band, the Butthole Surfers and Keiji Haino intersect.

Guitar Wolf take on wholesale the template laid out by The Ramones of a hairy, shades-wearing confrontational power trio vigorously reinventing bubblegum pop and garage rock in a fast, harder and definitely louder version. They open bombastically, leaping from the drum riser and getting more uproarious from there on in.

Complete with pulling (apparently) random members of the audience onstage to play lead axe while Bass Wolf and

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