The Spitz, London 5 June 2003 When the Acid Mothers Collective come to town, a few things are certain – extended improvisations, guest appearances (tonight’s honourable psychonaut is none other than Daevid Allen), antics and japes at the keyboards, and hair. Lots and lots of hair: not just on the heads of Makoto Kawabata and Higashi Hiroshi, what with the Camembert Electrique crowd out in force, some spectacular […]
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The Mean Fiddler, London 27 April 2003 I’ll be honest: I went for Peaches. Her 93ft East show last year was one of the most bacchanalian gig experiences I’ve had in recent years, a benevolent riot of loud, fired sexuality and abandon. But, truth be told, I’d really enjoyed the lyrical audacity / buffoonery of the few Gonzales tracks I’d heard. Someone summing themselves up as “a combination […]
The Buffalo Bar, London 16 March 2003 The Guinea Pig club’s second outing finds the experiment being performed through the strange filter of Hyper Kinako, an Anglo-Japanese power Punk Pop band. As they’ve apparently got classical training to back up their skittish riffs and obscure lyrics, it’s no surprise that the delivery is precise in it’s chaos, a well-drilled cacophony of rattly percussion and reedy keyboards which includes […]
Mind Your Head Royal Festival Hall, London 1 October 2002 After a blazing performance by Coil, (which was, incidentally, their best yet which I’ve seen: completely charged with the energy one craves from Coil) I was not optimistic about seeing Sigur Ros, despite being a devoted lover of Agaetis Byrjun. Another example of a headliner being shown up by their “special guests”? Just goes to show how wonderful […]
The Garage, London 8 June 2002 Circle look worryingly like they’re going to play pub-Rock covers of Judas Priest – but fortunately nothing could be further from the truth. Finland’s finest space rockers (with the emphasis on the rock) have all the churning drive of Hawkwind at their psychedelic wind-tunnel best, with all the extraneous Blues influences stripped down to the bare rage of fuzz and phaser set […]
The Garage, London 7 May 2002 There’s been a fair amount of good press come Bobby Conn‘s way since he last visited these shores in February. Appreciative album and live reviews in the national papers. A full page photo (wearing a lurid 80’s shellsuit) and enthusiastic write-up from Ted Kessler in the 4th of May edition of the NME. Badly Drawn Boy Damon Gough‘s description of The Golden […]
Brixton Academy, London 13 May 2002 Quick question. Have you ever done, like, TONS of acid, read the entire works of HP Lovecraft AND watched Audition, all in one night? No? Well, whoever sorts out Tool‘s visuals certainly has. So we don’t have to. Let’s just say “thanks” now, shall we? But of the visuals, more later. Tool. A band I’d avoided for years, cos I thought they’d […]
The Mean Fiddler, London 30 April 2002 Just in time for Mayday, who better to start the riot early than everyone’s favourite shouty German anarchist popkid, Alec Empire? And, truth be told, he doesn’t disappoint. Support Leech Woman attempt to get with the whole Empire thing by scowling a lot, but, let’s fucking face it, in a scowling contest with the boy Empire he’s gonna come out laughing, […]
Featuring the films of Jean Painleve (1902-1989) Only Connect @ The Barbican, London 20 April 2002 Although Yo La Tengo are most often described in terms of the Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth and Can, you only have to take a look at a setlist from one of their annual fund raising “request” shows to see just how diverse their influences and abilities really are. Sun Ra‘s “Rocket No.9” […]
The Albery Theatre, London from 4th April 2002 for 11 weeks Based on Heinrich Hoffman‘s dark fairy-tale Struwwelpeter, Shockheaded Peter originally opened in 1998 and last year alone played to an audience of some 80,000 West End theatre-goers. For its 2002 production, David Thomas & Two Pale Boys appear along with the original cast, to provide their own interpretation of the music of Martin Jacques and the Tiger […]
93 Feet East, London 8 March 2002 Kitty-Yo hit London, taking over the snazzily labyrinthine 93 Feet East venue on Brick Lane for an evening of the label’s quality acts and a host of guest DJs from Berlin, London and further afield, one of whom seems to be playing Generation X‘s “Dancing With Myself”. Retro-chic has enveloped itself after all, it seems. The event is sold out with […]
Trash @ The End, London 11 February 2002 The End is a fairly bad venue for a live gig. The room where Bobby Conn is playing tonight is wide but not deep enough to hold the capacity crowd who have sweated their way into the bar area to witness Chicago’s favourite Judeo-Christian Edutainer develop his own particlar brand of FM Radio cabaret Art-Rock. Add in the lack of […]
The Garage, London 18 January 2002 Not just another of those long-thought forgotten altered-state Pop could-have been idols extracting and revitalising themselves from the Eighties and onto the stage again, Frank Tovey, here backed up by a full band is back. In front of an audience half uncolourful and speckled with piercings in place of acne, and half old enough to have been there the first time Fad […]
Label: Studio Philo/Music Video Distributors Format: DVD When Genesis P-Orridge returned to London in 1999 after nearly a decade of tabloid media-inspired witchhunt and subsequent exile to America, there was no doubt that the reappearance of Psychic TV on stage would be an event. That GPO’s manifestation resulted in broadsheet The Guardian running an extensive feature on his welcoming into the very heart of the arts establishment was […]
London 12 October 2001 Given that this appearance by Faust marks both their 100th live performance since the group’s reformation in 1993 and possibly their final show, it’s somehow appropriate that the emergency services soon became involved once again.
Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool 11 October 2001 Whatever combinations of players you find Keith Tippett in there is always an element of the spiritual, in a broad sense, in his playing. He says he plays to ‘move people’ and ‘remove them from chronological time’ and often that’s just what he does. On this occasion, as part of Liverpool’s Frakture Festival, he was in the company of drummer Peter […]
Tufnell Park Dome, London 2 September 2001 A history lesson… Everything you think you know is wrong. The last ten years never happened. Mrs. Thatcher’s still in power, The Dome‘s still standing (Tufnell Park that is… not the Big Tent), and Conflict are still gigging. We are ruled by a bunch of corporate whores who’d sell out their own party for some cash from Ronald McDonald. Hang on […]
Label: Ralph (America)/EuroRalph (Europe) Format: DVD, CD (soundtrack only) There have been plenty of strange and powerful musicians and groups out there for many a long year. Captain Beefheart, Coil, Wesley Willis, Ken Nordine and so forth, each extending the realms of taste and disrupting the boundaries of what exactly constitues music and art . Then there are The Residents. Through thirty years of wilful obscurity and cutting-edge […]