BODY/HEAD
Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London, 20th June
Body/Head
are the main post-Sonic Youth project of Kim Gordon, featuring noise
stalwart Bill Nace on guitar and Ikue Mori on drums and electronics.
(Ex of fabled no-wave pioneers DNA, in apparantly her first live
performance for a quarter century.) Though Mori is apparantly not a
permanent member they seem keen to be seen as an ensemble with their logo image (above) fusing Gordon's head with Nace's. It was
notable how, unlike Thursten Moore's sold-out Meltdown appearance,
the title 'Body/Head' did not automatically equate to ticket sales
and Gordon's name was made a more and more prominent subhead as
booking time went on.
Perhaps
through a combination of longevity and a sustained existence on the
periphery of the mainstream, Sonic Youth often felt like one of those
barometer bands. Faces which would turn blank at many other names
would at least know of them, and be blown away from quizzing you any
further by thought of that squall of noise. It became a mark of The
Sort of Gigs I Go To that at least one person would show up sporting
the celebrated Pettibon cover to 'Goo' on their
T-shirt.
But,
despite being a longstanding fan, I was one of the few people I knew
to think K-Punk's infamous diatribe did have some kind of a point. Suggesting
they spearheaded the “conversion
of experimental rock into part of the heritage industry” may fit
his own description of “deliberately provocative”. And
'curatorial' is probably too strong a term. But there was always
something cerebral, even hipsterish about them.
They'd attack guitars with screwdrivers, but in a semi-detached way
that made them cool to like. Which sometimes seemed to bypass the
really cool thing about music – the way it can
come straight from the gut. In short, they were lucid without always
being frenzied.
And
while I wouldn't want to make some “who gets the fans” issue out
of Moore and Gordon's recent divorce, I do associate that downside
more with... well, with Moore. I never, alas, saw the full band in
action. But I saw a solo Gordon gig early in the Noughties, which I
much enjoyed. While the year Moore headlined Colour Out of Space...
well, it led to another sold-out crowd but let's say it wasn't for
me.
I'd
mentally compared the earlier Gordon gig to a charcoal sketch; broad,
gestural strokes against a pop song's tight pen-and-ink drawing, all
neat composed lines. And Body/Head reproduced that rawness. Two
guitars (no bass) played dissonantly atop throbbing drums. One tended
to build up rumbling sounds, as if measuring out an expanse of canvas
for the other to draw over. (Often in screechy high register, Velvet
Underground style.) It's neat the way they don't abandon song
structures so much as press them into service, even during the vocal
sections - which seem on the border between sung and chanted.
Yoko
Ono, this year's Meltdown curator, joined in for the encore. And
while she may dance like your Granny at a wedding, her much-mocked
waily vocals actually work well with the guitar cacophony. I was
reminded, in a good way, of the often-skipped second side of 'Live
Peace in Toronto'.
Yet
despite the unarguable highlights it somehow feels half full. It's
hard to pin down what's missing, but it never quite
gets going. We had the derangement of the senses, just not in a
systematic fashion. It was like one of those camp fires which will
roar into flame but fall back into embers the next moment. It had the
feel of a rehearsal in both the good and the bad sense – raw and
immediate, but also rough-edged and uneven. And, while it may have
just been me, I felt the accompanying filmshow (about Manhattanite
loft-dwellers and their art projects) distracting and uninvolving. In
the end, I tuned out of looking at it.
After
a fairly short set the audience applause felt less than hearfelt,
encouraging as much as appreciative – as if our way of saying “keep
going, you nearly had it.” Keep going they didn't, at least that night.
But watch this space...
Keeping
to the family theme, support act Mystical Weapons were an impro duo
of Deerhoof's Greg Saunier and no less than Sean Lennon. Though this
did suffer from the familiar highs-and-lows syndrome of impro music,
highs it did have and it certainly made 'Beautiful
Boy' feel a damn long time ago...
That
encore, complete with added Yoko Ono...
...and
more Body/Head from Belgium, complete wiTH stRange CasiNg fOr sOME
rEAson i Don'T unDERstaNd... (They sound like a different band
without Mori, with abrasive and dirgy guitar lines taking up the
rhythm role. To be frank they sound a considerably better one. Maybe
the downsides of London just mark an off night.)
BO
NINGEN
Clore
Ballroom, South Bank Centre, London, 20th June
Perhaps
these London boys play best at home, because I found myself enjoying
them even more than when they recently played Brighton. And, in another perhaps,
perhaps having just seen Kim Gordon directed my thinking. But they
did seem like a contemporary psychedelic version of Sonic Youth –
with a seemingly limitless ability to conjure strange sounds out of
familiar-looking guitars, combined with an unerring ability to press
the strangeness into the service of driving rock numbers. (Though
they also use more dub effects than I remember from before.)
A free
gig on a week night in central London, that must be a recipe for a
pick-up audience. If so, they turned that pick-up audience into
clamouring fans and had their endless energy fed back to them.
Not a
band to miss live.
JEFFREY
LEWIS + PETER STAMPFEL
Blind
Tiger Club, Brighton, Tues 28th May
Anti-folk
artist Jeffrey Lewis is back in town! And he's telling us it's been a
decade since he first played here. And indeed, if I'd been together
enough to review him in
the previous post on the cult gigs as I intended, I'd have had an
act for every decade down from four to one. (I do just throw this
show together, you know.) I honestly can't remember if I was present
at that inaugural occasion, but I have now seen him more times than I can count.
But
this is of course as nothing to co-star Peter Stampfel, whose first
album with the Holy Modal Rounders came out in 1964. In a phrase I
don't get to use very often nowadays, that's before I was born. In
yet another demonstration of how little I actually know about cult
music, they're not a band I'm familiar with at all. However I do know
him through his early involvement with the Fugs, and the Rounders
seem pretty much chips cast from the same block. Which was, protest
war and petition society by growing your hair, playing weird music
and annoying people. But not necessarily in that order.
Though
Stampfel has guested on Lewis recordings before, this is the first
time they've collaborated. It's a more folky sound than when Lewis
plays with the Junkyard, with Stampfel on fiddle, a mandolin joining
in and the bass as the only electric instrument. The numbers seem
oriented mostly around old Stampfel tracks or what I'd guess to be
new numbers they've worked on together. Frequently they head into jug
band/ hoedown territory. I recognise precisely one track the whole
night long, 'Don't Be Upset'. (On which Stampfel
was blatantly winging the fiddle part.) Then again, that's not all
that unusual for a Lewis gig, which often take flight in their own
chosen direction.
It's a
typically eclectic night, with tracks about reality TV stars and
Stampfel's (apparently vast) collection of bottle caps. (The last
with accompanying slideshow.) When one number mentions orgones Lewis
comments “there's only one other song about orgones” - and yes
they really do go on to cover Hawkwind's 'Orgone
Accumulator'! (Always a way to a middle-aged man's heart.)
Stampfel fills in Dik Mik's synthesizer parts with scatting vocals.
Consciously
or not, the generation-spanning line-up seems befitting for the folk
tradition. And it's kind of mirrored by its audience, who range from
us Hawkwind-recognising oldies to the young Occupy/UK Uncut mob.
Lewis segues effortlessly from celebrating Pussy Riot's punk spirit
(“I'll ask me and you ask you, what would Pussy Riot do?”) to
indulging absurdist deadpan humour. When not on stage, he staffs his
own stall selling his comics and self-burnt CDs. It's official. If he
didn't exist we really would have to make him up.
This
clip medley is from their home base in New York City, but just prior
to this tour of Europe...
UNEVEN
ELEVEN
Sticky
Mike's Frog Bar, Brighton, Sat 25th May
“Uneven
Eleven,” it says here, “is a startling new initiative, injecting the
‘ROCK POWER TRIO’ with a new dose of artistic expression,
creativity and freedom.” They're comprised of Kawabata Makota,
guitarist from psychedelic warlords Acid Mothers Temple, drummer Charles Hayward (chiefly famed for post-punk legends This
Heat), and bassist Guy Segers from Univers Zero. (Who, if I'm honest,
I had to Wikipedia.)
...which
couldn't sound more like a supergroup if it had been bitten by a
radioactive spider as a bat flew in the window on the way from planet
Krypton. Now supergroups might sound like the last thing you'd expect
from our sort of music. They sound not just the
preserve but the worst excess of the muso. And yet, despite it all,
sometimes they can come together into a virtuous combination. This
were not the musical equivalent of three circus acrobats who happened
to be tumbling on stage simultaneously, but three guys who you could
believe had been playing together their whole lives. (While I believe
it was only their second ever performance.)
This
was quite definitely one of the most inspirational gigs of recent
months, and I would love to sound all smart and sophisticated and
analytical. But to be honest I spent the whole thing in a state of
stupefied awe. If they reminded me of anything else, and I'm not sure
they did, it was the extended workouts Levene and Wobble (aka Metal BoxIn Dub) were recently giving to classic Public Image
tracks. Makota's guitar frequently took on some of Levene's textured
harmonics.
But
that doesn't really capture their breadth. They
didn't sound much like Miles Davis, but they
reminded me of that spirit. They had the same
caveliar disregard for constraint, the same sense of ceaseless
invention, throwing up not just new themes but whole new sounds - and
discarding them just as quickly. And yet at the same time it remained
tuneful throughout and mostly beat-driven, never chin-stroking or
pondersome. Music for brain and body!
YouTube
seems sadly silent on footage not just from Brighton but the UK tour
in general. This is an all-too-brief snippet from Cafe Oto in
London... (Guy Segers himself is in the comments asking for more!)
...fortunately
there's more from Brussels, aGAin wiTH tHe UNeven capiTaLISatIOns. (This is but one of several parts.)
BLYTH POWER
The
Gladstone, Brighton, Fri 14th June
Despite high enjoyment levels I'm
not sure I have much to say that is fresh or new about Blyth Power after the last time I saw them. Yet as this gig precipitated a
massive Blyth Power listening session on the House of Four Eyes' home
stereo system, they should surely at least receive mention in
dispatches.
Though
if memory serves I only saw them once back in the day, the clip below
was like some crappy VHS footage version of a Proustian cake which
brought the whole era back to me. When life consisted almost entirely
of boisterous gigs to attend, spilt cider, ripped combats,
no-Gods-no-masters and not forgetting to sign on alternate Thursdays.
Did we dance like that? I suppose we must have...
Coming soon! More gig-going adventures. (We seemed to go through a glut of great gigs, so yes there is more equally out-of-date stuff still to come. Same lucid time, same frenzied channel...)
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