Demiurg / London 3 March 2019 This is a story of two enigmas. One is an inscrutable totalitarian art-rock collective, and the other is the most secretive state on Earth. And this is all about what happened when the two collided to the strains of a much-loved feel-good musical with Nazis in it. Laibach have been defying musical and artistic conventions and outraging public decency for nearly forty […]
Dave Pettit
68 posts
London 26 January 2019 It’s a wet and cold January night as I edge my way past the throngs that inhabit the high street in Brixton to make my way towards the venue. The weather seems rather apt to witness two of doom’s finest bands, as well as Rise Above records stablemates.
London 1 December 2018 It’s Saturday night. It’s Oxford Street. It’s nearly Christmas. It’s fucking horrible, is what it is. And what a relief to get into The 100 Club which, while packed, is still somehow less claustrophobic than the street outside. And the reason it’s packed is because everyone’s hear to see The Heads, the elusive Bristolian psych-rock combo
London 31 October 2018 Years ago, back in the early 1990s, I had a friend (well, I say “had”– we’re still friends and he’s here tonight) with whom I shared a lot of common ground in terms of musical taste. He used to always be on at me to listen to The Church.
London 13 October 2018 Hallowe’en is just around the corner, and as the holy month of Spooptober gets underway, what better time could there be for that most festive of tipples, a Nurse With Wound / Current 93 cocktail? And that’s just what’s being served at Shepherds Bush Empire tonight, albeit with a VERY early curfew, no doubt due to that awful urban phenomenon of people moving in […]
London 4-6 May 2018 Friday: Justin It’s a sunny Friday in Olde London Towne, and the weather’s predicted to be a strictly non-traditional scorcher of a May Bank Holiday weekend. What better time to punctuate outdoor drinking with a succession of slow bands in dark rooms?
London 30 November 2017 By the time I get to Heaven, Aluk Todolo are already on stage, kicking out a fine racket. I have no idea what to expect from them, but as I enter the venue I’m thinking “Neurosis”. And for the next few minutes, yes, they do sound a bit like Neurosis.
London 23 November 2017 “Dunkel. Dunkel ist die Nacht“.i It is most certainly dark tonight, the evenings now well and truly drawn. The winter solstice approaches. And, as is customary for such astronomical phenomena, we are gathering together tonight to celebrate by watching the rise of the strange, intense sun that is Laibach.
London 27 July 2017 Our Black Heart, on a dingy sidestreet in the middle of Camden, is rapidly becoming one of the capital’s finest purveyors of underground heavy music. Not only does it once a year double as the command centre for Desertfest‘s weekend-long celebration of all that is doomy and stoned
London 14 June 2017 ‘Are you going to see Kings X?’, the guy in the pub says to me. ‘No, I’m going to see a band called Blood Ceremony at The Garage’, I reply. ‘They sound a bit weird to me, mate’; and with that he shuffles off, pint in hand.
London 28-30 April 2017 Friday GP: It’s the one date on my calendar that I look forward to each year. Three days of having my ears pummelled by some of the heaviest bands around and a chance to see some artists perform in the UK for the first time, this is Desertfest. Across five venues in three days, Desertfest takes over Camden Town with heavy guitars and . Every year […]
London 12 April 2017 Belinda Carlisle was right when she said “Heaven is a place on Earth”. David Byrne, however, despite the superiority of his recorded output, was wrong when he said “Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens”. Although he was KIND of closer to the money when he said “the band in Heaven play my favourite song, play it one more time, play it all […]
London 29 March 2017 In the early ’90s, the Norwegian metal scene was a scary place to be. Church burnings, murders, violent assaults and a total refusal to take metal’s Hammer movie schtick as anything other than deadly serious mean that anything written about the era is as much true crime as it is musical history.
The Barbican, London 21 March 2017 The tickets. We purchased them, they came. Who are they? Explorers in the further reaches of experience — demons to some, angels to others. We bought the tickets, they came. Now we must come with them and taste their pleasures.
London 23 February 2017 OK, so full disclosure — it’s been at least a decade since I went to a grindcore show. At least a decade; maybe two. So I’m coming at this with… if not “fresh”, then at least “renewed” eyes (if not ears). I’ve not been keeping up with the live scene, let’s put it that way.
London 13 December 2016 Boris are back! One of Japan’s finest rock bands are back in town to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their crossover hit album Pink, by… well, by playing it, obviously! But first we get The Broken Oak Duet, who I don’t want to sound too mean about, because they kick out quite a noise between the two of them. They’re ; their real problem […]
London 18 November 2016 Men guitarist Andrew O’Neill opens the show, an amiable, affable presence beneath his comedy black metal goatskull backdrop. His is a fascinating cocktail of comedy — the gentle absurdism of an Eddie Izzard or Ross Noble shot through with a pitch-black streak and edged with a harder political sensibility, all .
London 14 October 2016 Swans are a strange, beautiful and terrifying beast, a bit like that white royal waterfowl whose name escapes me but can break your arm with one beat of its mighty wing; but with shorter necks. And tonight sees the second of their London performances on the UK leg of what frontman Michael Gira says will be the last outing for their current incarnation. So […]