Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London 28 March 2001 Tonight’s Wire Session Live promises to present a few intriguing collaborations, and first up on the scene are Jaki Liebezeit and Burnt Friedman. The latter’s usual live minidisc setup is enhanced with a Korg analogue synth and another keyboard, from which he produces a series of smooth, almost liquidly funky electronic rhythms and grooves. With the added input […]
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The Barbican Centre, London 22 March 2001 “This guy played at The Barbican. About 200 people watched the show. The jam session was awesome. It rocked a snow leopard’s ass. The crowd roared like a lion. WES-LEY WILLIS, WES-LEY WILLIS, WES-LEY WILLIS, WES-LEY WILLIS. Rock over London, rock over” – sorry, is that not enough? Bollocks. But, fucking hell, man, Wesley Willis. Live and direct, in the flesh, huge behind a synth […]
London 21 March 2001 In tow with the usual Krautrock London posse I arrived at The Scala just in time to hear lots of talk about how a lot of people have not been here since it was a infamous cinema. Though I never saw it in its glory, the building is still impressive with its loads of marble and Art Deco swirly tiles not quite lost in […]
18 Kingsland Road, London 7 March 2001 18 Kingsland Road is not a squat, but looks a bit like one, or that it once might have been. It’s now an art gallery and occasional music venue, with steep leg-endangering staircases twisting into the depths of the improvised cellar bar among the salvaged chairs and exposed brickwork, and up to the tiniest of tiny toilets. It really is quite […]
Cargo, London 28 February 2001 It only seems like, ooh, five years since Rough Trade were celebrating their 20th year as the Indiest of Indie shops; tonight’s gig in the cavernous railway arches which are the hyper-trendy Cargo venue showcases some of recent years’ emergent electronic and guitar-droning artists. First up is the geekly-chic Duplo, who continues in jump-cut noise Electro style even through his towered-up PC crashes […]
Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts 25 February 2001 The present-day composer refuses to die, according to Edgard Varese, a man with legendary eyebrows. He also influenced the guy whose music an eager bunch of resurrectionists revived in the Paul McCartney Auditorium. The Liverpool based-band The Muffin Men and the classical Ensemble 10:10 came together to re-create some of the compositions Zappa produced in his thirty-odd creative years of […]
The Union Chapel, London 21st January 2001 Back at the Union Chapel for another of its most appropriate events, A Silver Mt. Zion playing their coolly Classical and most definitely Goth set from the album “He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms”. Union Chapel being as it is the most gothic of venues sans the cobwebs and Halloween decoration […]
Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London 17 January 2001 It’s something of a joy to behold – the entire Queen Elizabeth Hall foyer buzzing with anticipation before the start of the London event in the Japanorama tour of eleven British towns and cities. Why a joy? From Kendal to Liverpool, Colchester to Manchester and Sheffield, in venues with capacities of a few hundred to tonight’s couple of […]
Club Mesa Costa Mesa, California 19th December 2000 AA23 opened the night, and I thought they had some really, REALLY nice moments. but things did seem a bit sloppy and loose at points – especially with the excessive scratching (which when ON – was wonderful.. but less is more when it comes to scratching). The set was MUCH more active than when they opened for Sol Invictus of […]
15th Anniversary Show Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London 4th December 2000 As usual, I arrived at this show in a rush, a little late and with no idea of what to expect. Straight into complete darkness and tracked by lovely ambient sounds and an over-zealous usher trying to get me to take any seat as there were plenty available and filming was going on, so wandering […]
The Underworld, London 2nd December 2000 What was supposed to be a World Serpent presents show with Sol Invictus, Sorrow, and Ostara turned out to be a lot less/more, depending on how you look at it. Due to illness, Tony Wakeford and Sol Invictus were forced to cancel, and due to lateness(my own), I missed seeing Ostara. I did arrive in time to catch the end of a […]
The Garage, London 25th November 2000 Ahhh, poor Suicide… always just missing the boat but still trying to hitch a ride thirty years after Alan Vega claims to have coined the term “punk”. These guys are getting old now, and I must say I did feel a bit sorry for them tonight, faced with a boring as stiffs crowd and faint memories to go on. My sympathy was […]
New Orleans 12 November 2000 Again, a third way around the world and this time for Bobby Conn. This is the Shim Sham Club, 615 Toulouse Street. A round of jokes on that one and 19,000 Heart Association convention goers available to egg it on (“Why are the French Navy’s bases on the Mediterranean like their sailor’s trousers? They are both Toulon and Toulouse…”). Other venues imitate this […]
Royal Festival Hall South Bank Centre, London 25th October 2000 Faust were originally asked to improvise a live score to F.W. Murnau‘s classic expressionist retelling of the Dracula story for an outdoor vampire film festival in Germany a few years back. For some reason the promotors asked them to perform to the silent film twice on the same bill; the generators failed, rain loomed, disaster threatened. Still, they […]
The Third Millennium Festival Union Chapel, London 14th October 2000 Generally I would say that if you want to see a gig in London, there are not many more beautiful places than Union Chapel. I would also add to try for summer. This cavernous gothic spired chapel all of stone and wood and beautiful doorways into maze-like passages provides an atmosphere of spooky tranquility and usually gorgeous acoustic […]
The Royal Festival Hall South Bank Centre, London 27th September 2000 Performing for their 25th anniversary, Pere Ubu delivered such a marvelous performance as to bring me around to wondering why I don’t listen to this band everyday. And why are they not lauded as the one of the best of the last quarter century? Why is Pere Ubu not a household word? Just as well really, as […]
South Bank Centre, London 19 September 2000 For their third live performance in a year after the seventeen of build-up, Coil arrive onstage dressed in unlaced grey strait-jackets, backed by a neon sign proclaiming the title of the night’s performance, Persistance Is All. The multiple possible meanings of this slogan soon becomes apparent, as the playback of Jhon Balance‘s spoken title beat which opens “Something” fills the “Royal” […]
Red Rose Club, London 16th September 2000 A night of drones on Seven Sisters Road, strangely light on traffic in the aftermath of petrol protests, but still teeming with North London’s variegated Saturday night fun seekers and the requisite fully made-up Goths on the 253 bus. The Red Rose is no stranger to the extremes of music, and the venue’s home as a noted comedy club is somehow […]