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 system difficulties.
Salaryman themselves were pristine, and beyond that, purely enjoyable. “Thomas Jefferson Airplane” came on massive and Manga, putting me in mind of a fabulous Godzilla style battle waged out aurally between oscillator bass and drums and guitars vs. keyboards. Bass-zilla vs. King Ghidra Electronic perhaps? Of course with special guest Mothra and the crying Godzuki. Add in the pterodactyl screaming flame-throw of Monster Island and this song was far more fun to watch live than it might perhaps let on to on Karoshi.
There is another dimensional addition created for Salaryman by watching Rose play. Her performance is a collection of rarities including being practically a pioneer female, an almost show-stealing front woman who does not sing. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone put as much energy and physicality into playing keyboards. Rose was everywhere, pulling one board to liberation from its stand again and again to take it for a spin, all the while cradling it lovingly, not shy to let her passion for playing belt through and through. She was center, androgynous, pure musician. This sort of music can come off so emotionless and cold, mechanic, robotic; Rose loves what she does, and the four-square, shirt-sleeved office attire of the whole ensemble belies their essential ability to radiate an incandescent electronic glow.
The whole show in fact was most mobile, light and fast, with two stray depatures into a darker place. On “Dull Normal”, with the band’s array of radiowaves, samplers and antique or obscure electronic gadgetry producing much scarier static effects than are evident on the cd version and a tiny pinch of appropriate melancholy on “Taco Muerte”. Mainly though Salaryman were full of energy and interest, hypnotic with intelligent trances. Not too overridden with the current popularity of funk, but groovsome enough for all that, and far, far from boring with their inventive invections of space.
-LN99-
