Okay, after the Leave vote – what
happens now? Assuming for a minute we’re not told to have the vote
again until it goes the correct way. (Despite that being precisely
what happened to both Ireland and Denmark.)
Another way of asking the same question
– why did Boris Johnson decide at the last minute to join Brexit?
Not only is there little previous evidence of Euroscepticism on his
part, he used to say he wanted Turkey to become a member. Precisely
what he's now baselessly accusing others of. And the answer to that
is obvious, he thinks it will hand him the keys to Downing Street.
His arguments – a combination of outright lies, slander, bluster
and suggestion – are essentially interchangeable to Farage’s. Why
bother with good arguments? They just need to
work.
The British Right has long had a
particularly distorted view of the EU, compressing it into a
caricature to best fit their agenda. In times past, the Soviet Union
provided the always useful bad counter-example. We just needed to do
the opposite to their moribund bureaucracy, eschewing planned
economies for deregulation and ‘free markets’. Once a guy has the
right to open up a corner shop, everything else will fall into place.
Now that has gone, they are stuck with painting the EU in the same
colours of “stifling” regulation. And the colours don’t apply
at all. They raise an austerity-imposing, neoliberal flag to rail
against an austerity-imposing neoliberal body. Just ask the Greeks
about the gifts they got...
But mostly it was fortune who handed
Leave a hostage. Or more accurately, two hostages they claimed as
one. A combination of EU enlargement and the refugee crisis, separate
events they shamelessly spliced together, allowed them to fight this
campaign on a basis of immigration, immigration, immigration. As RationalWiki has pointed out “The UK is only admitting a tiny fraction of
the migrants which are seeking asylum in Europe. The 'take back
control of our borders' argument is a false argument being used to
justify a false argument.”
While the influx of EU migrants was
already past it's peak. In 2004 ten new countries joined, including
the sizeable Poland. As the majority of member states promptly got
cold feet and delayed their right of free movement, a
disproportionate number came to Britain. (Their only other choices
being Sweden and Ireland.) There's no realistic prospect of another
country joining in the near future. Even if we were to see
immigration as some kind of problem in itself, which there's no
reason to whatsoever, to act now would be the classic slamming the
stable door after the horse has bolted.
Who voted leave? They were mostly skewed
along two axes – older, and more likely to be from working class
backgrounds. Look at a map of the results, and overall Out was
strongest in the poorest areas. The people who had lost out most to
neoliberalism were handed their target. Which wasn’t
multimillionaires like Philip Green, the man who took the BHS pension fund to buy himself an extra yacht. The poor’s true enemy was the even poorer.
Johnson has cynically talked the
turkeys into voting for Christmas.
Which leads us back to the question –
what happens when it gets to Christmas? Not only will Johnson’s
promises not bring about what Brexit voters are hoping for, he will
not even be able to bring about those promises. Asked in one of those
interminable TV debates whether he was actually saying Brexit would
bring down immigration, he evaded the question in a blur of
blondness. Of course he did.
My guess would be that, should he
succeed in becoming Prime Minister, Johnson will do nothing to stop
the free movement of labour whatsoever. Yes, he could in theory
impose quotas. But then the affected countries would just respond in
kind. Which would damage the economy he's always going on about
protecting. Free market anti-globalisation is a nonsense, a chocolate
teapot of a policy. It can only be promised while keeping your
fingers crossed behind your back. Britain will almost certainly
either stay in the European Economic Area (like Norway) or do that in
effect while pretending not to (like Switzerland). ‘Leaving’ the
EU will mean nothing of the kind.
But what he will do
is further erode worker's rights within the UK. Some of this might
actually be directed at migrant workers, such as lengthening the
already discriminatory delay before they can claim benefits here. But
most of it will be aimed at all British workers, if dressed up in
terms of keeping migrant workers in line.
So will people then see through his
flim flam? Or, noticing the promised drop in the number of immigrants
hasn’t happened while neither have their wages improved, will they
go on to blame the migrants and Johnson? And who
might come along to capitalise on that?
However far right,
however stuffed with fruit loops and racists UKIP might have been,
Britain has not yet had the pleasure of an actual fascist movement as
have so many neighbouring countries. (The nearest we've had, the
English Defence League, has imploded. Britain First talk themselves
up on-line, but barely exist in the real world. And being associated
with the murder of an MP will scarcely do them any favours.) But
opportunity may soon be knocking...
Things might not stay this bad. They
may get even worse…
Television came from the Seventies New
York punk scene, with guitarist/vocalist Tom Verlaine frequently
playing with Patti Smith. And indeed it's that thar punk music played
on the PA before they emerge. But they were always a strange fit even
for that strange scene, misfits among the misfits, a chess move from
their surroundings. Much like the Velvet Underground before them,
it's much easier to see their influence on what followed (Talking
Heads, the less noise-based end of Sonic Youth, British post-punk
bands such as Wire) than anything before or around them. I always
liked the idea they were named after the term 'far seeing' rather
than the goggle box. (Though admittedly I've no idea whether that's
true or not.)
It was Mark Radcliffe who commented they were like a string quartet who happenedto use rock instruments. Rather than ploughing the familiar
furrows of lead guitar/ rhythm section, the players intersect in
ever-shifting combinations. With guitar solos I normally only want to
know when they're over. But Television's extended instrumental breaks
are so interactive they become the main draw.
Of course they don't conform to the
cartoon punk image, as taken up by the Ramones. But neither do they
sound much like friend or collaborator Patti Smith. Her music's
convulsive, orgiastic. While with Television there's no power chords,
no fuzz, echo or distortion, the overall sound is clean.
However, if all that makes them sound
like pointy heads making music with set squares and protractors,
they're as equally possessed of a keen melodic sense. Like Verlaine's
voice the music's sharp but lilting, lively and spacious. A track
like 'Marquee Moon' is a catchy pop number and
free-form space-out at one and the same time.
It's slightly hard to tell whether the
band's a going concern or not. But then it always has been. After a
lengthy pre-history, they peaked with their debut – the celebrated
'Marquee Moon' - in 1977, and since then have been
waiting for everyone else to catch up. They've only released two
studio albums since then.
Live there's no backdrop or rock and
roll theatrics. Belying the notion New Yorkers are natural showmen
Verlaine's an unassuming figure, most of what he does say lost to
audience cheer. Following Radcliffe's string quartet comparison, it
wasn't entirely dissimilar to seeing the Kronos Quartet. They're so adept at playing together,
it makes for an enthralling live experience. I found I could only
focus on each player's individual contribution by framing my vision
on the player, otherwise all the ingredients go into a greater whole.
It was perhaps an eccentric set list,
in both good ways and bad. We heard no 'See No Evil',
while there was a track or two which didn't really make up for its
absence. But for forty year old band with no new record, there were a
surprising number of surprises. There was a long, slightly
psychedelic piece in the middle of the show, which I'd gather is
called 'Persia', which while appearing on none of
their albums (not even live releases) audaciously stretched to twenty
minutes as Verlane bowed his guitar. Tracks would often build from
scratchy, freeform intros, and rarely be performed just the way they
did on record. You left thinking that forty years later they still
sounded unique...
You'll know what this is. From San
Francisco...
...then the next night...
PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED
Concorde 2, Brighton, Wed 15th June
Three years ago, in
this very venue I saw the recently reincarnated Public Image Limited. And predicted the new line-up wouldn't last long
under the weight of John Lydon's ego. Yet Lydon seems constantly able
to surprise you, sometimes even pleasantly, that new line-ups still
here and I am glad to be proven wrong.
With more new material under their
belt, they're noticeably including less old stuff than ever. Jah Wobble must have played more numbers, despite only being in the band for two albums. And much
of what they do play is quite radically reworked. 'Open Up',
the track Lydon made with Leftfield, is all but
transformed. While another uses the Swan Lake guitar part from
'Death Disco', but is to all intents and purposes
a whole new song.
One old number which is retained is
'Albatross'. That the opening track from the
seminal 'Metal Box' has been used as the opener
both time I've seen the new PiL sounds like a statement of intent.
The first time around, the references to “getting rid of the
albatross” and “I know you very well”,delivered like the most
withering put-down, sounded like a refusal to conform to anyone's
post-Pistols expectations. Repeated it becomes like a credo, an
avowal to never sit still but continue pressing forward. And the set
end, morphing from 'Open Up', into the Tourette's
syndrome abuse attack of 'Shoom' - suggesting age
hasn't mellowed the man much.
It also suggests that Lydon's a keen
judge of his own back catalogue, at least when looking at it in
retrospect. In his time he's fostered as much shit on the gullible
public as Lou Reed. Yet like Lou Reed, ultimately he knew when he was
swinging it and winging it. Whole swathes of band history are
eliminated, and while there's things you'd have liked to have heard
nothing is included you wish hadn't. 'This Is Not a Love
Song', though not from a favoured era, is a justifiably
classic track.
And it all works because the band work
as a band. Lydon often gesticulates at the
musicians behind him, like some slightly demented conductor. But
while in times past he's been content to hire a backing band for the
Face of Punk, this lot are clearly a functioning unit.
It does at times feel a little less
savage, a little more showy, than last time. Like they've got better
in the un-punk sense of more accomplished and professional, and less
edgy. Certainly 'Religion', which had previously
reached white-heat intensity, becomes a black-comedy number with
stream-of-consciousness rants. But the band still being here, still
pressing forward, counts as an achievement.
Speaking of 'Albatross',
slooow moootiooon from Sheffield...
When main main Josh T Pearson emerges
clutching an electric guitar someone shouts “Judas!” at him.
“You're a liar,” he quickly quips back.
The point being... Lift to Experience
released the seminal 'Texas Jerusalem Crossroads'
fifteen years ago. But their debut turned out to be their only
release, Pearson swapped it's amped-up noise for acoustic music and was last seen around these parts playing country gospel at a church inBrighton. That gig came with gags about how broke he was,
so reasons for the reformation may not be entirely uneconomic. But
it's a rare chance to hear these classic tracks live, and the Royal
Festival Hall is nigh-on full.
The electricity is not only back, the
music packs such a punch you can feel it on your chest, the drummer
often striking the skins with full arm strokes. But a better term
than loud or heavy would be expansive. Texas-based
and keen to tell you, they make music the size of their home state.
Plus there's something of a psychedelic undercurrent. In their own
way they're as sense-deranging as early Pink Floyd. When I first
heard the band, inevitably enough for the era on the John Peel show,
he compared them a spatial disorientation technique.
Yet combined with post-rock workouts
and free noise there's classic songwriting. (Things often thought to
be mutually exclusive.) Music and lyrics may both be summed up by the
reference on 'These Are the Days' to “that great
trumpet sound”. (Even though there's not a trumpet, great or small,
to be found.) It draws on the wild apocalyptic imagery of American
Christianity. Some songs even sound like they may be based on
Pentecostal hymns.
It's a tradition which seems so foreign
to us English it might as well come from a different religion, fiery
revelation replacing announcements about village fates. But rather
than the nihilism, darkness or derangement religious themes usually
bring out in bands, for example Swans, it's – pun intended – elevating. Contrary to Hank Williams,
perhaps we will be getting out of this world alive.
And yet at the same time they slam you
in the gut the tracks have a twinkle in their eye. Borrowinga phrase previously used for Goat, it's bironic, the
references to six-shootin' angels and promises of the promised land
delivered with with tongue-in-cheek sincerity it's impossible to
parse. (Pearson has said his Father was a Baptist preacher.)
But his greatest talent may well be
compositional dynamics. The standard problem with the end of the
world is that it doesn't leave you many places to go. (Creatively
speaking, though I guess the problem applies in general.) If you come
in with a big bang, what are you going to go out with? Yet Pearson
can shift expertly between humungous soundscapes, shimmeringly
beautiful ballads and aural-assualt noise, making you feel at every
turn that the end of all things is just getting started.
I never saw the band back in the day,
so don't have anything to compare them to, but they seem able to put
the numbers over with full force and conviction. Backing vocals,
sounding on record like they've been recorded by Pearson himself then
overdubbed, disappear – and you kind of miss them. Plus there could
have been space for another number with less banter, something
Pearson confessed was down to lack of rehearsal time. But those are
minor quibbles. Like the man says, it's never too late for the end of
the world.
'These Are the Days'
from their home turf of Denton, Texas, with that awesome ascending
opening...
...plus the opening from the RFH (yes, the actual gig!) complete with "Judas!" exchange...
... two Scottish islands west of Mull. Nature reserves uninhabited by humans, Lunga in particular teems with natural life while Staffs's geology makes it look like it's from some fantasy movie. As ever, full set on Flickr.
If you wanted a soundbite description
for Complicite's new show – a one-man performance with binaural sound and minimal
staging – try 'Brechtian radio done as theatre'. Simon McBurney
smartly starts this long and often intense performance with an
on-stage announcement to turn off our mobile phones, which segues
into some apparently spontaneous chat which precis many of the
themes. Yet he's up to something else too...
Michael Billington's Guardian review comments “shut your eyes at
any point and you feel... that you are in the Amazonian jungle”.
And McBurney does ask us to do precisely that - but briefly and before
the show's headed off for the Amazon. Precisely, I think, to get it
out of the way and have us open our eyes again.
He demonstrates many of the devices
he'll use, including two microphones – one for his and one for his
protagonists's voice – even though it turns out he doesn't need
them in order to switch. Many of his sound sources are
old-fashionedly direct, from the grand old days of radio, such as
crumpling a bottle of water to convey a water sound or – quite
gloriously reductively - crunching recording tape beneath his feet to
evoke tramping.
All this is foregrounded for two
reasons. First, the soundbite description above does mean “as
theatre”. The bare stage and the demonstrated sound sources keep us
reminded that this is a story we're being told. But at the same time,
if paradoxically, it gives them an element of magic. Electroacoustic
music sometimes verges on the animist, the assumption that not only
do objects possess spirits but have a 'voice' which can be unlocked.
And as we follow his protagonist, the photographer Loren McIntyre as
he gets lost among an Amazonian tribe, we get reacquainted with such
animist ways of thinking.
And like McIntyre get lost is what we
do. A dense work two hours long, with lines sometimes literally laid
over one another, it's quite hard to parse in a single viewing. This
is the best route map I could manage...
It's clear enough that as McIntyre
loses his old Western possessions he goes through a symbolic death
and rebirth, he goes through a shamanic journey. In fact, as he both
joins in a tribal rite and is given his own to embark on (acting
something like the play-within-a-play in 'Hamlet'),
this is fairly literally what happens.
The tribe could be read as externalised
aspects of his psyche, those antagonistic to his presence
representing his own sublimated wish to get back home, and so on.
This is most clearly suggested by the way the Chief, nicknamed
Barnacle, can communicate with him psychically, a voice inside his
head. Just as the binaural headsets are ensuring most of he play
happens inside our heads. Notably, McBurney has described McIntyre's journey as “an inner one”.
It might be telling that Barnacle dies,
yet we're told he is always “with” McIntyre. You can probably see
the problem coming. It suggests he's not really a character in his
own right, and that once he's fulfilled his role of passing on his
validation he can be extinguished. An Amazonian tribe aren't there to
represent another culture but map out the inside of a white
Westerner's head. Barnacle is the South American cousin of the magic negro.
But when McIntyre undergoes that solo
shamanic journey he sees himself as “the crack” in the fabric of
the universe. Barnacle leads the tribe as they enact a ritual,
burning all their belongings to get back to the beginning. The
implication is that we're all lost, we've gone
down the wrong path and need to retrace our steps. Yet McIntyre, who
after getting lost in the forest is there for literally that reason,
cannot commit to the ritual. Steeped in linear time he can only
interpret “the beginning” as death, the extinguishing of
everything as the end. McBurney acts out the destruction in an
onstage rampage, but fails to see it through.
Rather than McIntyre taking back home
some of that good-home-cooking simple tribal wisdom, gleaning new
feelgood phrases to stick beneath his e-mail signature, he disrupts
their lives. The storm that besets them represents his failure to
commit to them, the flood relating to his earlier vision of the crack
“from which our time might flood”. And this then segues into a
Fall story. This is an Eden story in which our narrator discovers too
late the snake is himself.
For all his protestations to not be
like the other whites, the profiteers who come to burn down the
forest, ultimately he's irredeemably from the same world as them. And
if he, a clued-up guy and seasoned traveller to such far-flung
places, is irredeemable then what chance do we have? Complicte make
us complicit.
Perhaps the idea was to set up a more
standard Western-guy-burns-his-sneakers-to-become-tribal-shaman
story, and pull a bait and switch. He just ends up a Western guy
without his sneakers, duh. Yet that feels like a post-hoc
rationalisation. The noble savage stuff is too indulged to just
jettison like that. What actually happened on stage was something
more volatile, vying between the two notions.
And in a way this is played up. Early
on, McBurney played a gag of claiming an old video cassette contained
all the images of his dead Father, only for it to fall and smash on
the floor. And the spool of cassette tape which messily pours out is
an image which recurs later, when McIntyre finds the film from his
camera wrapped danglingly round a tree. This is the messy reality,
the truth against which the cassette box was the tidy mechanism we
use to 'storify' our lives.
Yet neither am I sure the point was for
us to not get the point. Certainly part of the piece was the
necessity of our telling ourselves stories, despite their
fallibility. But much like McIntyre, I was led entranced through two
hours but found myself lost amid the spool of cassette tape on the
floor.
PIKACYU MAKOTO + ADRENA ADRENA
Sticky Mike's Frog Bar,
Brighton, Tues 24th May
Adrena Adrena are a duo of drummer E-Da
from Boredoms and Drum Eyes (both Lucid Frenzy favourites) and “performance
artist” Daisy Dickinson, who plays a laptop live. And if the live
drums/laptop combination sounds unlikely, she frequently provides not
just washes and tones but her own rhythms for the drums to play off
against. The contrast is virtuous, throwing each instrument back on
itself – on what it does best.
The centre of the stage was taken up by
projections which, always simple and often semi-abstract, never stole
the limelight from the music. It was more like watching a trio, just
one at work on different senses to the others. Pretty soon you
weren't taking in the sights and sounds as separate elements at all,
but hand been induced into a kind of synaesthesia.
And if that seems like we're reverting
to Sixties terminology like 'trip' we might as well go with it.... it
felt like a trip (man), like being taken through some other reality
then dumped back in ours at the end.
Not from Brighton but the International
Festival of Projections (and I'm going to pretend I know what that
is)...
Pikacyu Makoto are another of the
near-infinite array of side-projects undertaken by guitarist Kawabata
Makoto, alongside his mothership Acid Mothers Temple. (Lucid Frenzy was lucky enough to catch Mainliner some while ago.) This one's with drummer Pikacyu from another Japanese underground
band, Afrirampo. The two bands previously made a joint album, which
alas I've not heard.
As things kicked off I feared we were
in for the whole 'too many notes' business, common when noise music
overlaps with jazz. But after starting with a burst of 11, they then
turned it down just a notch...
Styles and genres were still rattled
through at breakneck speed, as if music history was sighted from the
window of an express train – including Sixties beat music,
Beefheart, Hendrix and some I probably missed as they hurtled by.
After perhaps the least successful part, where Makoto turned to
squelchy keyboards, they even provided a quite serene mid-section –
Pikacyu providing holding patterns beneath Makoto's sustained tones.
They then ramped back up for a thumping finale, chanted vocals over a
power riff.
After seeing Lightning Bolt last year, I commented they “seem
to stem from the child's love of making noise. Rather than the
nihilism so associated with the genre there's something joyous and
uplifting about the whole thing, even as its rough and abrasive.
Certainly, you can rely on a Lightning Bolt set to put a great grin
on your face.” And that seems even more true of this
duo. And Pikacyu I suspect has a lot to do with that.
She seemed intent to hit every drum and
cymbal in turn, a style common in noise music, but with tumbling
rhythms that created spaces in the sonic onslaught. Overall, its
perhaps her cheerful, childlike and almost poppy vocals which gave
the set it's identity and raised things from the too-common
angstiness of noise music.
It sounds like hippyshit to talk of
some balance between male and female energy, and of course any kind
of gender essentialism is pretty dodgy stuff. But there was something
about Pikacyu's performance that took things beyond the
babblebashbash noise music can sometimes degrade into, like a toddler
endlessly smashing a Tonka toy against a wall.
Forty minutes from London... (Three
days later and it seems an almost entirely different set!)
CAVERN OF ANTI-MATTER
Patterns, Brighton, Thurs 26th May
Truth to tell, I was always a little agnostic over Stereolab. There was something slightly knowing
to their retro-futurist schtick. But Tim Gane's new band Cavern of
Anti-Matter mix Neu!-style Krautrock beats, trancy dance and swooshy
Sixties organ. Plus they referred to 'Doctor Who'
in their track 'Tardis Cymbals' and named
themselves after a Situationist painting. (One large enough to cover a whole gallery
which then got sold by the metre.) I mean, theoretically
they could bring in some reference to Jack Kirby comics and the taste
of pistachio to tick all my boxes, but that's
pretty good going.
There no bassist to their three-man
line up and they specialise in stretched-out instrumentals, two
things I think which go together. It's spacey
music which doesn't want to be grounded in any way. Drummer Joe
Dilworth, also ex-Stereolab, spends as much time on cymbals as drums.
(In fact I'm fairly sure half his kit went untouched.) Listen to them
a little while and I swear you'll start to feel like your feet are
lifting from the ground...
Some bands, such as Moon Duo, achieve
mesmerism by simple repetition until trance states take hold.
(Leading to my review stating “more, please, of this less business”. I
was quite pleased with that one...) While others, like this lot, are
able to achieve a virtuous combination. They harness the power of
repetition while morphing as they move, packing in changes you're not
really aware of happening until after they've happened. They move
and stand still. You can listen or trance out. In
fact, you can listen and trance out.
Reviews tend to focus on the futurism
of the band, but I'm not sure they're picking that up so much as
getting a residue from Stereolab. Unlike the 'Jetsons'-style
soon -everything-will-be-silver futurism of Stereolab, COAM lean more
to the end-of-'2001' cosmic side of SF. The long
numbers, the repetition, the psychedelic visuals – of course it's
all about sending you. You'll be part-way through
a track you were previously just enjoying, and suddenly you'll find
yourself through the looking glass. Sometimes you can spot the
trigger, the point where the music stepped up a notch. But other
times it comes almost arbitrarily, presumably because they were
accumulative – the point where your doors of perception got
cleansed enough for the light to break through.
If their German-sounding name suggests
a Krautrock influence then, much like Cavern of Anti-Matter, there's
a definite Neu! Element to the sound. There's the same extended
rhythmic pieces, stretching to trance-out dimensions. (The CD I
bought fits only four tracks on it.) But they also reminded me of the
point post-punk crossed over with dance music, bands like 23 Skidoo
or A Certain Ratio. If there's not the same uptight agitation, the
David Byrne jerky dancing, there is the straight-faced euphoria.
Vocals, when they appear, are de-emotionalised and intonatory, while
album artwork exudes that post-punk starkness.
If Cavern of Anti-Matter's dominant
movement is up, Follakzoid's is forwards. If Andrena Andrena are like
a trip, Follakzoid are a road trip. Their tracks are driven by
propulsive riffs, other shapes forming alongside them like trees and
hills, some passing by quickly, others remaining a while. Certainly
their tracks are journeys rather than destinations, often ending
rather than finishing – like they're run out of road.
Reviewing one of their releases, the Quietus' Joe Kennedy commented how the motorik beat “can
express both the experience of automated late-industrial modernity
and atavistic impulses towards the cosmic and transcendental.” And
certainly they have not just the tranciness but the sheen
of Neu! In fact one of the surprises of seeing them live is how much
of their sound is made by 'real' instruments.
Yet particularly with those vocals,
which could be either trance-like or robotic, Follakzoid feel like
both experiences at once. But then isn't something like the act of
dancing like that? You repeat ritual gestures until you achieve an
ecstatic state. Kraftwerk unveiled the Man Machine like their
creation, like something they'd devised in their secret laboratory.
But in our era, when Google glass and driverless cars seem imminent,
he's something we just take for granted. Perhaps that's partly why
it's Neu! rather than Kraftwerk that bands today are taking up.
After the theatrical shows 'Lulu' and 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', this was the first time I'd
seen the accordian-driven Brechtian street opera trio the Tiger
Lillies do their actual dark cabaret set in an actual cabaret
setting. And it made for a pretty good setting, laughter drifting
through from the weekend revellers as they regaled us with their
tales of debauchery and woe.
There's supposed to be an art exercise
where you paint a painting from as many different shades of black as
you can, the point being we so rarely come across 'pure' black. And
they make music somewhat like that. They don't stray to the dark side
of the spectrum so much as set up shop there. (Like their lyric of
the woman who “always sees the black and not the gold”.) But they
elbow out a range for themselves regardless. There's black humour. (A
song about inserting hamsters which I won't repeat here gains fulsome
belly laughs.) But there's also stuff that's pretty close to pure
black, and all stations between. (I was reminded of the old Soft Boys
line “And when there's no more tears to cry/There's nothing left to
do but laugh.”)
Musically, they do a similar thing.
Their default line-up may be accordian, double bass and drums. (Is
there such a style as dark klezmer? I guess there is now.) But the
drummer finds the strangest things to drum, while other instruments
include piano, theramin, a “home-made ukelile” (which looks
suspiciously like a chopped-off guitar neck) and a circular saw. And
that last one, though sparingly used, may even be their signature
sound – absurd, strangely melodic, mockingly sentimental and
sinister all at once.
They smartly start the gig with the
semi-diegetic song 'Roll Up' presenting a
freakshow for an eagerly thrill-seeking suburban audience (“our
lives a sideshow attraction, we do our best to please”), which
inevitably frames everything which follows. By not being the subject
of the song, we are somewhat implicated. And then comes another twist
on that...
Though the Brecht and Weill influence
is clear enough, there's none of Bertie's political themes. Their
subject is human folly, people who became addicted to something or to
someone until it finishes them. (Their universe is really a Snakes
and Ladders board without the ladders.) And a song about the folly of
drinking delivered to a roomfull of drinkers gains an edge. We're
voyeurs, yet at any point we could find ourselves projected from out
seats into one of those songs. If the musical saw signifies their
sound, the default response is the uncertain belly laugh.
Not from Brighton... (But then they
rarely are.)
Not sure if a theatre performance and three gigs really go together, but that's how the cookie crumbled...
