It
Who no longer can listen
It
Saw a gusty wind
Come up to listen
Before I was ten
and all of the evil grids
From a hill where rats consider
And they gang
And they topple
And they send a smoke ring
Into the onion field
A ghost!
And this can make you choke
Coming from the throat
Of a ghost!
And sent to my weak knees
From a voice plantation
All in together
In terror
This is the day GBV were supposed to have played, and then they pulled out shortly after the (rapturously received) announcement. What a tease! :) Quite a few of us went anyway, and had a good time, but really, it's a bit sad they're not coming back over here. For years, I would always wear a GBV shirt, Sundays at ATP, it was a tradition, so on the day they were supposed to make this come true and actually close out the Sunday night slot, I wore my brand new rune T-shirt which I acquired from the nice guys @ Fire Records when they were representing at the indie label market in Spitalfields recently.
I went quite early, & the first three slots in the main room for Sat and Sunday (which was actually a biggish side room to the main hall at Alexandra Palace and worked quite well for most of the acts on Sat and Sunday; on Friday, the "metal day", there was a bigger crowd & the Melvins, Sleep and Slayer rocked the big hall which only works for pretty big shows), were all vaguely haunted electronic acts with a strong AV focus, Forest Swords, Blanck Mass & Demdike Stare; outside it was brilliant sunshine, inside it was a dark room with trippy & twisted images and sounds.
Blanck Mass:
"Don't Look Back" Bob Dylan doc from 1963 or so. The day in the cinema room was curated by Louis Theroux who also showed his new documentary "Twilight of the PrQn Stars"which I missed, at the festival and the other day on the telly as well...
The foyer, you can see how light and summery it actually was on that day:
Demdike Stare:
three minutes and 14 seconds: Set the controls for the heart of the sun:
The fun and slightly camped up garage sounds of Thee Oh Sees from San Fran. They looked and sounded like Billy Childish had found them in his wardrobe ;)
Gavin and Vanessa, outside in the brilliant sunshine:
Archers of Loaf return with their agreeably gruffy vintage power pop...
It's Joerg!:
Yuck, amazing lightshow, continuing the AV theme from earlier in the day, featuring mashed up images filmed and screened immediately. They sounded a bit more engaging than previous times I've seen them.
Ally Pally looks a bit like the Brighton piers used to look, huh?
The Panorama room:
The Make Up, who really divided opinion. I thought they were maybe a bit washed up? but not too bad... Truefact: I almost bought their album, that time in 1997 in the Brighton Virgin Megastore when I bought "Under the Bushes, Under the Stars", my first GBV album and my gateway into GBV fandom. So maybe I should get that Make Up album after all?!!
and on to the reunited Afghan Whigs who played a passionate well received set, Greg Dulli on top form, looking and sounding very good. And that's the slot GBV had, originally. They were certainly a worthy replacement. Pretty much loved it from start to finish!
woop woop. We're playing another show in Brighton on Sat 28.04 at the Gladstone on the Lewes Road (I don't think I've ever been there but it looks good!) and it's FREE. We're playing with the groovy Sumerian Kyngs again & should be on stage around 9pm.
So here's some stuff from the last time at the Latest Music Bar in February.
We played: Daylight / Indiscipline / Information Relief / Disconnected from my bed / Cracks of Language / Bijou 80s Breakdown / End of the Massacre / Rotating Futures / Double Shine Dustbowl Future & (spontaneous encore!) Antique Doll. Can you spot the new ones?
some photos... before the doors opened:
getting ready backstage (who are these guys?):
I took a videos with the camera, it was basically sitting on the music stand, next to the lyrics, so it's a rather extreme closeup, often you can't see much so I mashed them up with some other videos, the first one from this hill near my parent's house which we christened Hexenhuegel sometimes in the 80s, and the other one from some Cornish beaches, Bedruthan Steps and Harlyn Bay I think, (unfortunately those got watermarked in the process which you can see in the second and third video). New songs as well!
"Disconnected from my bed" vs Hexenhuegel
"Information Relief" vs Cornwall
"Daylight" - one of the oldest Plus songs, we still sometimes dig them out...
Sumerian Kyngs, an eight (or maybe even nine) piece "psychedelic swamp rock" combo with a groovy light show/visuals:
Welcome to my online scrapbook: there is no real focus here but you will find writings about music, literature, arts, walks, 80s and 90s nostalgia etc., some creative writing, lots of photography and other experiments in presenting thoughts and recordings of who i am, what i do and where i am going. hope you enjoy it!
