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Saturday 23 March 2019

JAMES CHANCE + THE CONTORTIONS/ LOST PROPERTY ARTS COLLECTIVE (GIG-GOING ADVENTURES)

JAMES CHANCE + THE CONTORTIONS
The Haunt, Brighton, Sat 16th March




None less than Simon Reynolds claimed that by “combining [James] Brown with Iggy [Pop], [James] Chance invented punk funk.” Legend has it that as the Eighties New York punk scene hated disco with a passion, finding it wishy-washy and platitudinous, his primary motive was simply to wind them up.

Though his take was unique. Talking Heads smartly espoused the very image every other dance outfit tried to suppress, the uptight white salary worker trying to loosen his tie for the weekend. Conversely, Chance took funk’s raw punch and married it to punk’s swift upper cut. Against David Byrne’s bespectacled nerd image, Chance collided punk with showbiz - with slicked back hair and Fifties suits. Band names varied, but tended to the classic Person and the Band formulation. But Chance and Byrne did something in common, both were white folks taking on a black influence their own way, without trying to merely imitate it.

Commercially, of course, one of these worked better than the other. The last time David Byrne played Brighton it was the Dome, I couldn’t afford a ticket and was told afterwards he was rubbish. Chance doesn’t even fill the smaller Haunt. His name seems a little more legendary than known. In fact, it was only spying him honking his horn in a recent BBC documentary on Basquiat, that I realised he was still around.

Truth to tell, it’s an oddly uneven set. I found the frequent cover versions just derailed momentum. Even when they were tracks I liked, such as Gil Scott Heron’s ’Home Is Where The Hated Is’. Chance’s voice doesn’t seem up to them, less in terms of singing ability than diction and phrasing. They seemed the sort of maketime venture you’d embark on if you didn’t have enough of your own material to fill a set. Hardly the case with Chance, which made their inclusion all the more puzzling. At such times I was reminded of seeing Ed Sanders playing with the next generation Fugs, an older star relying on a younger backing band to carry him through.

And yet what was especially odd was that when things worked they really worked. It had the involving dance-floor readiness of funk at the very same time it sounded askew and discombobulated. Though Chance is a free jazz fan, there’s only one total wig-out - right near the end. The sound may well be best summed up by the lyrics to his best-known track, ’Contort Yourself’, “Now is the time to lose all control/ Distort your body, twist your soul.”

The guitarist seemed especially gifted, able to come up with inventive breaks and flourishes, at one point just tapping the neck to shake the strings, while always keeping the beat.

Listen, for example, to ‘Do The Splurge’ and try to tell me this is not a fine thing…



James Chance & The Contortions - "Do the splurge" from Agata Urbaniak on Vimeo.


LOST PROPERTY ARTS COLLECTIVE
Phoenix Gallery, Brighton, Fri 15th March



Lost Property, the folk who put on the famed Fort Process festival, explain this event thusly: “In the spirit of the creative happenings of the Sixties, Brighton Arts Lab is a new bi-monthly event, serving up performances, spoken word, workshops, film and exhibitions. Each event is themed around different aspects of creativity.”

Jobina Tinnemas’ set seemed more effective than the earlier one at the Radio Three Exposure festival. An engaging character, she worked better in the smaller venue. She’d cheerily explain the workings of her kit and sources of her samples, as if we’d all been invited back to hers. I was less keen on her final piece, however, which brought in overly familiar regular dance beats

Unsoundproofed central venues often suffer from street noise. Yet Anti-Pattern (aka Al Strachan) smartly summoned and incorporated it, by placing a microphone outside the window. Playing in the main corridor, essentially one long window, the street outside became effectively one giant visual to his work. You had to keep telling yourself the sounds weren’t inbuilt.

Ed Briggs started out with some fairly regular organ sounds, which could have passed as a stab at Bach, only to then take off into realms unknown. Two players worked one organ. At one point, as one worked keys and the other pedals, it sounded in no way like a single instrument. The set was only marred by an outbreak mid-way of Industrial Satanist vocals, which seemed straight out of Eighties cliche-dom. (You know the sort of thing. “I will tar your very soul. I will scratch your car door up and down, and not even say I’m sorry.”)

Fettucini Spicer improvised while facing off against one another, rival sonic arsenals set before them, like Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef in some Surreal duel.

Stone Cornelius’ miked-up-knitting piece seemed mere gimmickry to me. But overall, the success rate was high and the night had a good feeling to it. The Phoenix Gallery works well, not only taking it away from regular rock venues but, multi-roomed, able to keep the action going. More seems promised, which we can only hope for.

Jobina Tinnemans…



Jobina Tinnemans - "Varesotto" from Agata Urbaniak on Vimeo.


…Ed Briggs, though here called Black Tiger…



Black Tiger from Agata Urbaniak on Vimeo.


…and last, but not least, Antipattern with cameo street sounds…



Antipattern from Agata Urbaniak on Vimeo.

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