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 […]
Dave Pettit
68 posts
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
London 18 October 2016 “This is what happens when a band you love gets really popular”, my friend says to me as we enter The Coronet Theatre, which seems to be already bursting at the seams with people. The Coronet is an awkward venue anyway, with what seem like labyrinths […]
London 7 October 2016 Atomic Suplex are in many way the ideal support band for Guitar Wolf, . A frontman with a pilot’s helmet complete with mic, decorated with the words ROCK and, of course, ROLL, some sleazy good-time boogie-woogie cranked up to eleven
London 4 October 2016 The Man Whose Head Expanded. Not in a good Mark E Smith kind of way, though. Oh no. Sadly not. In a kids-back-at-school, viral-laboratory, I’d-like-to-just-lie-down-in-this-ditch kind of way. Taking the bus down to The Scala, I wonder how long it will be until my eyeballs just […]
Corsica Studios, London 29 September 2016 It’s the beginning of autumn and leaves are already starting to turn a darker shade on the trees and supermarkets are already trying to sell us Christmas fare three months early. It is also traditionally the time when the mighty Acid Mothers Temple decide […]