T & C, Leeds 17th April 2000 So this is what gigs look like these days. It’s been awhile. Last time I was here I got thrown out for pogoing atop the right-hand side speaker stacks on, if I remember rightly, a combination of mushrooms and speed. This time I sit quietly on the stairs overlooking the audience and crowdwatch. Well, I’ve not been well. Girls with those […]
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Anal; Ash Ra Tempel; Brain Donor; Coil; Julian Cope; Groundhogs; Kid Strange; Queen Elizabeth The South Bank Centre, London 1st-2nd April 2000 Since this two-day festival in the South Bank Centre is essentially Julian Cope‘s entry in the venue’s largely excellent series of Mini-Meltdowns, it probably comes as no surprise that he is seemingly omnipresent, playing solo twice, and collaboratively in the guise of both Brain Donor and […]
Kosmische @ Upstairs at The Garage, London 25 March 2000 When consumer electronics expanded sufficiently to include musical instruments at relatively affordable prices for the average band to use in the Eighties, the result was synth pop, unfortunately with some quite dire results. Then came the Techno revolution, and sampler-based bedroom cookups, and eventually everyone who once would have formed a garage band was in on the electronica […]
Stop The Panic The Spitz, London 28th February 2000 O! if all nights out could be so entertaining! A New Orleans style jam session set up between avuncular B.J. Cole (occasional collaborator with Spiritualized) and chin-pierced Electro Bohemian Luke Vibert (sometimes Wagon Christ and Plug) and a couple of friends to boot. And not New Orleans because of the Jazz like you might be thinking, but because of […]
Komedia, Brighton 22nd February 2000 First round on a rare night of electronic experimentalism in Brighton, held in the converted supermarket cabaret venue Komedia and hosted by Semiconductor was Lucky Kitchen, an electronic duo between Alejandra Salinas and Aaron Bergman (AKA Alejandra and Underwood as the handy little placards placed on top of the mixer for each act stated). Their music was accompanied by a little video projection […]
@ RoTa Notting Hill Arts Club, London 21st February 2000 There’s a great sense of expectancy generated by Chicks On Speed tonight; buzzing chatter from the West London cool squad building up a tension upon a foundation of eclectic Electro DJing. When the Chicks come on stage in decorated paper dresses (on sale at the merchandise nook too) there’s an urgent crush to the front which drags all […]
The Garage, London 31st January 2000 It’s been seven years since Matt Johnson released Dusk, the last The The album; and barring the frankly bizarre collection of Hank Williams covers, plus a series of dubious rumours, nobody has heard from him since. Until now. Joining Trent Reznor‘s Nothing label (after Epic refused to release his experimental album, GunSluts) appears to have rejuvenated Johnson, and his triumphant return to […]
The Underworld, London 28th January 2000 Dead Voices On Air are conducting a bit of an experiment on the London leg of their tour, starting off loud, noisy and danceable and trailing down into ambient passages of extended mood workouts. Mark Spybey and Darren Phillips man the keyboards, sequencers, samplers, digital technology; Darryl Neudorf is behind a bare drumkit (complete with fluffy liner on one drum). So they […]
Along the Dotted Line… 12th December 1999 The Legendary Pink Dots are a phenomenon, producing a seemingly endless stream of deeply intense records and genuinely spellbinding live shows for nearly twenty years, initially as a London-based group and for more than a decade now from their Nijmegen base in The Netherlands. While former days on mammoth independent label Play It Again Sam in Belgium produced widespread distribution for […]
The Garage, London 28 November 1999 If a band sounds the same live as they do recorded, it can be a bit disappointing. Too clean, too rehearsed. Seeing Salaryman live at The Garage could easily have been like that, only it never strayed into those well-trodden pedestrian precincts. The only non-perfect things about this show were the lack of audience (Sunday night maybe?) and the less than amazing sound […]
The Borderline, London 9th November 1999 A night at The Borderline, a night for Americanism. We arrived too late to hear the first set, a band called Kenny Process Team, so no insights there apart from the appropriate(d) soundtrack feeling their last couple of songs gave me as I took in the setting. This venue is a strange place for my impressions of London. Done up in 1970’s […]
The Underworld, London 5th November 1999 Back at The Underworld for the second time in six months, follwowing on from an absence from their founders’ homeland of six years, The Legendary Pink Dots bring home their unique format of intense live musical performance at the tail end of yet another whirlwind European tour organised due to public demand. Tonight there’s no support, just two hours of the finest […]
The Water Rats, London 2nd November 1999 The Water Rats seems like a broken place, barely still pulsing with the life of the twenty or so people inside. I wonder if it was once posh, evidence: rubbed-off velvet on the too few bar stools, forgotten glass cases built into dingy walls, and a mid-size double paned front door, spread wide and chained open. It lets in the chill […]
LA2, London 25th October 1999 Prepared and hyped for Atari Teenage Riot, I was ready to hear loud fast music. What a treat it was that the fun started long before ATR ever came on. Other girls have done this, face it, MANY other boys have done this too, but something just chimes right for Lolita Storm. I can’t tell a single song title from Lolita Storm’s set. […]
Wormwood Live The Forum, London 19th July 1999 When The Residents put on a show, it’s something very special to see indeed; like Jesus Christ Superstar (surely one of the defining moments of pomp-pop-opera, and whose theme provides the opening fanfare as the curtain goes up on the monocular ones) taken beyond the realms of kitsch to a theatricality which defies satire and emerges resplendent as total genius […]
The Peel Sessions Live Queen Elizabeth Hall, The South Bank Centre, London 3 June 1999 The ongoing, haphazard selection by John Peel for his live Sessions continues with the welcome return of Stereolab to live performance after an absence of a year or so. Peel compères in his usual style, jovial, knowing, knowledgable and slightly diffident, broadcasting (hopefully) the existence of the Neoist Necrocard to a national radio […]
The Dublin Castle, London 17th April 1999 Hailing from New Orleans, Louisiana, Mr. Quintron is a genuine musical eccentric – but more on him in a moment. First up was partner Miss Pussycat and her amazing puppet show. Presented from inside a pink and glittery puppet booth, Springtime In Yeahsville follows other such masterpieces of performance puppet Electronica as her Flossie And The Unicorns album and show. Resplendent […]
Irregular #5 The South Bank Centre, London 8th-10th April 1999 The last five to ten years have seen an exponential rise in the number of intriguing events at London’s premier Arts Council-funded cultural centre on the South Bank of the River Thames, thanks to an innovative booking policy and the success of the events themselves, expanding the venue beyond its associations with Radio 3 “serious” music concerts and […]