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Click here for a complete list of entries in the series  ”the first 23 gigs I can remember going to”.

16. Suicide, Spacemen 3, Into A Circle, 999. Town & Country Club, 13th December 1987.

It was cold. Sign on the door of the T&C: “Unfortunately 999 will not be appearing tonight”. The general consensus in the queue was that this was fine by everyone. I associated 999 with the uncreative dregs of punk, purely because their logo (a raffle ticket) appeared on the back of leather jackets alongside the Anti-Nowhere League, Exploited and all those other bands I could never be arsed to check out.

So an odd choice for the lineup, but perhaps not as odd as Showaddywaddy supporting Einsturzende Neubauten around the same time. Which I missed out of guilt at my exam fuck ups. Bah. I suppose this gig was like an early xmas present to myself. I think I probaby went along with either Chris (an old school mate) and/or Martin (a mad Ramones fan I had hooked up with doing resits).

Into A Circle were on a psychedelic/pop/goth tip. They had evolved out of Getting The Fear, who had in turn spawned from Southern Death Cult. Bee, their singer, had some connections with Psychic TV which obviously piqued my interest. Their single “Forever” had been on the Chart Show and was pretty good. They had some nice collages as projections and tapes of flowing water between songs.

I picked up some leaflets from the stall and found you could order some demo tapes and collage artwork off them. They also had a pseudo-TOPY magickal group associated with them called “The Game” if I remember rightly. I ordered some tapes and a collage. The former was pretty good and even had a recording off them at the end talking about financial arrangements for a gig. The collage arrived in a clipframe which smashed into a million pieces in the post (it was just in a regular jiffy bag).

There was  buzz about In To A Circle, but they didn’t really get anywhere. Bee was rumoured to be the source of PTV’s “why don’t you just enjoy your own fucking body” vocal sample, taken from an answerphone message. (The other story I heard was that it was the bloke from Bomb The Bass.)

“1987 and all I want to do is get stoned
All I want for you to do is take my body home.”

Spacemen 3 were excellent. I’d first heard them on Peel (he’d faded a 25 minute track of theirs in and out a few times in between other records). I suppose the Spacemen were the flipside of the Butthole Surfers in the eighties psych revival. Dreamy gentle drones and some almost-pop songs with choruses vs the Surfers balls-out chaotic rock. I saw Spacemen 3 a good few times and they were always completely brilliant. They often finished up by taping down several keys on their synth and leaving this huge cavernous drone running. I’ve never really bothered with Spiritualised, though.

As I pointed out in a previous episode, I spent a large chunk of the summer of 1987 rinsing valve casings in paraffin:

1. Pick up one casing in each hand from the dirty pile on the left.
2. Rinse in small vat of paraffin.
3. Place carefully in the clean pile on the right.
4. Repeat.

To help pass the time I’d think about the records I was going to play when I got home. It only helped a bit, I was completely isolated without anyone to talk to and was probably going a bit mental. Possibly the actual records I was listening to didn’t help very much. “Industrial Music For Industrial People” sounds very evocative if you’re on the dole or in an office, I guess.

One of the records I was caning was the first Suicide LP:

“Frankie teardrop
Twenty year old Frankie
He’s married he’s got a kid
And he’s working in a factory

He’s working from seven to five
He’s just trying to survive
well lets hear it for Frankie
Frankie Frankie”

I probably tried to kid myself that I was having a really hard time of it like Frankie but the reality was that I was living with my Mum and Dad and was spending virtually everything I earned on records and gigs. But that Suicide LP is perfect – from the lush ambience of “Cherie” to the timeless astro-rockabilly of “Johnny”, it really has it all. The debut has been a staple of my late night listening for the last 22 years. In fact it is so perfect that I have studiously avoided hearing anything else by Suicide in case it detracts from my enjoyment of them.

They were awesome live. Martin Rev (basically Dr Teeth from the Muppet Show in a squatted space station) and Alan Vega (one of them androids out of Blade Runner channeling the ghost of Elvis) ruled the stage like they were a 32 piece ensemble. I’m not sure if Suicide or Sparks can claim to be the first synthpop duo but Rev held it tight, barely moving from his minimal equipment, yet conjuring up walls of incredibly rich sound. Vega prowled the stage, every inch the superstar.

Such was the iconic minimalism of the Suicide schtick that Vega decided they’d make up a song for the encore. How cool is that?

This was a Sunday night gig, so I think the place was half full. That didn’t stop me getting completely immersed in it all…

Click here for a complete list of entries in the series  ”the first 23 gigs I can remember going to”.

I ended up signing on at the local Higher Education College to study for ‘A’ Level resits a year later. Having done a round of visits to Universities and Polys I’d had a taste of student life and was all the more keen to get my head down and escape work and my parents for another few years.

Physics had been my worst failure – a “U” grade (Unclassified) indicating that I was now worse than when I’d passed a physics ‘O’ level two years previously. I tried to swap it for Philosophy, but nobody else wanted to take that, so I plumped for Psychology instead.

My other two subjects were retakes of Maths and Chemistry. On reflection I should have torn everything up and started from scratch.

College was a breath of fresh air after school – there were girls there and the staff mostly treated you like adults. My classmates were in the same situation as me – people who had screwed up their exams and were giving it another go. People who had learnt a bit of humility.

I responded quite well to all this regime initially and got my head down. This meant less gigs, not least because everyone I used to go out with had fucked off to a better life somewhere else. Wal had headed for Manchester, Peter had jammily managed to set himself up in Vienna. And so on.

I can’t really remember, but I might have gone to this by myself:

15. SWANS, Dave Howard Singers, The Sugarcubes. Town & Country Club, 14th October 1987.

Something of a dream line up, really. The Sugarcubes were of course “Bjork’s band”, evolving out of Icelandic anarchopunks Kukl. There was quite a buzz around them and I think this might have been their first or second London gig.

They were pretty upbeat and poppy and odd, especially in terms of banter. I guess it seemed obvious that they weren’t going to remain a support band for very long.

The Dave Howard Singers were most famous for their indie chart hit “Yon Yonson”. I have previously written about them here and the Yon Yonson backstory here.

To quote myself: “Much madness ensued as Dave ran around the stage with his acetone on a wheelchair. He also dragged some unsuspecting guy out of the audience to do a keyboard solo.”

SWANS had just released their “Children of God” double album. This was a turning point for the group as it combined the brutal sludgy minimalism of their previous work with the more folksy material which was to come.

I’d been fed tidbits of gossip about their previous live shows – people running out with hands over their ears, lots of stuff getting thrown, that sort of thing. This was also really really LOUD. Apparently some poor punter kept falling over because the sound messed up the balance control in his inner ear. The noise aspect has inspired some wimp at Uncut to rate this as one of the worst gigs ever. Pah!

It was pretty intense. Pounding. Gira was possessed. And he had a rug. A large rug covering most of the stage, which allowed him to pace up and down barefoot, wearing a thong. Intoning balefully. He stuck his arse in the first few rows of the audience. I don’t really know why.

It was hot and sweaty and a crowd surfer managed to dislodge my specs, which then got trampled under the feet of other audience members. I managed to retrieve them. They needed some serious attention from an optician the day after – she seemed pretty impressed with my account of the gig. As was I.

You used to be able to buy “Time Is Money(Bastard)” t-shirts in Carnaby Street. They were grey shirts with the text and iconic dollar sign in purple if I remember rightly. Not wanting to antagonise my Mum and more than I had already, I plumped for a “Greed” one instead with a nice gold dollar sign on it.

Peter went one better by acquiring a “Public Castration Is A Good Idea” shirt which caused our boss some consternation when we worked alongside each other in some shit temp job at a warehouse.

I don’t think I fancied any of the shirts at the gig, though, possibly because I was skint or more probably because I didn’t want to be wearing anything with “Children of God” written on it. I do seem to recall having this poster on my bedroom wall at some point, though:

“10 productions/producers that made me wanna produce”

King Midas Sound: Prisoner of the lab.

Click here for a complete list of entries in the series  ”the first 23 gigs I can remember going to”.

14. Alien Sex Fiend, Psychic TV, Steven Wells. Hackney Empire, 30 September 1987.

Doing our bit for Biafra. Jello Biafra.

This was a benefit for the Dead Kennedys’ No More Censorship Defence Fund – the group were being done for “distribution of harmful matter to minors” when someone’s Mum had called the police after seeing some HR Giger artwork they had used. There was a fair bit of coverage about the trial in the UK media if you knew where to look. I recall the NME’s “Censorship” issue being especially good and to give them fair due they ran regular news updates about the case as well. I assume that this was largely down to the insistence of my favourite ranter Steven Wells, aided and abetted by Stuart Cosgrove (see what happened to him in a previous entry).

Rehberg struck up a conversation with Paula P-Orridge by the merchandise stall. She seemed fantastically nice, but I just lurked about in the background. Grinning like a moron.

I probably picked up a shit load more live LPs and other merchandise.

The crowd was a motley punky/crusty collection – more dyed hair than my previous time at the Empire when PTV were headlining, but actually less diverse. Swells was compering and was characteristically in our faces from the off. He dispatched some hecklers with aplomb, correctly identifying them as being try-hard punks with hilariously fake cockernee accents.

There was a small bunch of us down the front for PTV, who launched into a rendition of “My Old Man’s A Dustman” and complained about Alien Sex Fiend demanding a sack of cash for expenses. It ended up being a nice intimate set in a venue which was slightly too big. I was still fascinated by Psychic TV fans at this point.

We watched about five minutes of Alien Sex Fiend and fucked off back home in Peter’s car. I could just about tolerate their electro-crusty-gothness, but this was all a complete no-go zone for my designated driver. To give Alien Sex Fiend their due, it looks like they did a two night stint at the Empire. I have developed a soft spot for their drongo-disco anthem “Smells Like Shit” over the years.

After my exam failure I was trying to stay in my parents’ good books. They were very pleased to see me back so early. After all, I had work the next day…

Click here for a complete list of entries in the series  ”the first 23 gigs I can remember going to”.

13. Butthole Surfers, Shamen, AR Kane. Clarendon, 6th August 1987.

Me and Wal were spending our hard earned at Record and Tape Exchange in Camden one sunny day when they started playing this insane freaky noise over the stereo at ear splitting volume. It was all screaming and deranged swamp funk guitars and mad samples and a whole bunch of other stuff that we didn’t even know what it was. It was ace.

Wal was considerably braver than me, so went up and asked the notoriously bullish staff what it was. He came back a few minutes later, looking chuffed. “It’s the Butthole Surfers! But they haven’t got anything by them for sale here!” Wal got his copy of “Locust Abortion Technician” as soon as was humanly possible (I suspect we scoured London for it that same day) and taped it for me. He gradually amassed a little stack of similarly wackily named albums like “Cream Corn From The Socket of Davis” (click that link for my man over at expletive undeleted and his take on all this).

We spent a short time trying to figure out what the hell it was all about before our earnestness dissolved in fits of giggles. The Buttholes were fucking mental and they rocked. Even saying their name out loud was fucking brilliant – annoying parents and rugby playing twats in equal measure. Only freaks liked the Butthole Surfers – and that was fine by us.

Inevitably Peter Rehberg had got there before us and played me the Buttholes video “Blind Eye Sees All”. From what I can remember it featured chaotic live performances mashed up with certifiably insane dialogue. “They’re playing soon – do you fancy going?”

AR Kane I can’t remember anything about. We were more excited at the prospect of having seen both John Peel and Coil lurking about the venue. With hindsight I should have payed more attention.

My cassette version of The Shamen‘s debut LP “Drop” (official release, not TDK business!) hasn’t aged well, so I can only check out the first two tracks on each side before terminal tape wobble sets in. But tunes like “Something About You” have aged remarkably well – partly I suppose because of the debt they owe to “timeless” influences like Syd Barrett. Most of their songs were either about drugs or women or both, but there is a good one tearing into Thatcher and the tabloids also.

Between songs The Shamen berated us soft southerners for re-electing Maggie a few months previously when their native Scotlandhad rejected her. The group were still in pre-dance indie psychedelia mode. It’s easy to forget this incarnation in the face of their later chart success, but as Paul Meme says in the comments below – 1987 was something of a crucible for alternative UK music. In retrospect it is clear that some people were yearning for acid house before it was invented, almost willing it into being.

My regular readers will recall that the NME’s “Steal It” issue had appeared about a month before this gig. Copyright-violating anthem “Pump Up The Volume” by MARRS was released a few days before the Clarendon bash. MARRS included members of Colourbox and… AR Kane! The tune would be a seminal point in the pre-history of UK acid house. “Pump…” is also rumoured to be a key influence on The Shamen’s evolution. Backstage chats that night may have been interesting…

Whilst writing this I also dragged out their 1989 indie/acid crossover album “In Gorbachev We Trust”. It’s a weird hybrid with guitars sharing space with 808 bleeps. “Rasberry Infundibulum” could be off “Drop”, but the sampledelic single “Jesus Loves America (But I Don’t Love Either)” points to the way forward, controversial lyrics with biting pop backing. I’d forgotten how great they were pre-”Ebeneezer Goode”.

The Butthole Surfers did not disappoint. They were properly deranged. Sweat, strobes, smoke and a slideshow featuring all manner of strangeness. An emaciated woman dancing about naked. Surreal banter. Walls of whacked out psychedelic noise. Much weirder than Big Black, and the condensed sweat rained down off the Clarendon ceiling just as hard. Cathartic.

A few months later Wal and I were in the Virgin Megastore. The in-house DJ was having a charity-thon in which he’d do requests. We scratched around in our pockets for some loose change for a donation. Then Wal (still the braver half of our intrepid duo) took him the shop’s copy of “Locust Abortion Technician”. We could barely conceal our glee when the announcement rang out over the Megastore’s PA: “This is dedicated to the young man with red hair who just popped in and didn’t give his name. He’s assured me there’s no bad language in it…”

Around this time I also found out that I had completely fucked up my ‘A’ levels. Partly because I’d spent too much time sitting in my room listening to music and reading books out of the library, and partly because I’d ended up on an academic treadmill of hard science and just couldn’t hack it.

My mates generally did a load better and were flush with the excitement of heading off to Universities in big cities while I lurked in suburbia. Uncertainty had been injected into my life in large doses. With the prospect of an indefinite period of time in the parental home stretching in front of me, some things started to snap.

I began to have a lot more arguments. I got more politicised. The increasingly strange array of post I was getting was also a source of concern. The shelf of records got longer, the pile of fanzines got higher. Walls I built up around myself. I wasn’t going anywhere.

See also:

Recollections of a Butthole Surfers gig in New Jersey, 1987. (link courtesy of Agent Bauer).

Click here for a complete list of entries in the series  ”the first 23 gigs I can remember going to”.

12. Siouxsie and The Banshees, The Fall, Wire, Psychic TV, Gaye Bykers On Acid. Saturday 25th July 1987, Finsbury Park Supertent.

My ears were still ringing from the Big Black gig the night before, but a handy crew had assembled for some post-post-punk frolics in Norf London. In a big fuck-off circus tent.

The promoters needn’t have bothered with the tent, the weather was fine. Quite a nice way to spend a summery Saturday afternoon in fact. I must have worn my gleaming new Psychic TV t-shirt because I remember we were accosted on the way from the tube station to the park by someone flyering for a squat gig who got chatting to us about the group. This confirmed my view that London was full of awesome freaks, but obviously he was there for the same reason we were, not just passing by…

One of the other memorable things from the gig is that I bought a copy of SMILE Magazine by Stewart Home from a bloke outside the tent who had laid out his wares on a blanket. I think he may also have run the “skidmark” t-shirt stall on Camden market, back when there seemed to be some genuinely subversive and sinister goings on down there. These days it’s all trance CDs and goth boots. It was in the eighties as well, so yes I was probably just young and naive.

But back then Camden did have stalls, like the aforementioned Skidmark, which gave me genuine “what the FUCK” moments. He had a nice hodge podge of t-shirts including Crowley stuff, Stewart’s “I love Hackney” design, and some off the wall things like the classic “Joy Through Disobedience” as modeled here by Stefan. Shirts like that weren’t band merchandise, they weren’t even flogging a political ideology. They were just weird and hinted at a whole subculture of weirdness which I was magnetically attracted to. And then you’d have the zines as well – strange occult stuff like Joel Biroco’s Kaos nestling up against “Towards A Gay Communism”. There was this spooky ephemeral undercurrent of ideological nihilism and polymorphous perversity. The zines and shirts hinted at people creating and consuming them: a whole mysterious underground culture – tantalisingly out of reach…

I’d read about SMILE in Vague and some of the Coil literature put out by R&D Group 28. It freaked me out a little when I read it the day after. My sister found the magazine hidden under my bed and got very disturbed by the de Sadean aspects of the pulp fiction and the “SAY NOT TO DEMOCRACY” centre spread. I was more bothered by the deranged manifestos and theoretical texts.

I met Stewart a couple of years later at Beck Road and later still hitched up to the Festival of Plagiarism in Glasgow in the summer of 1989. But that’s another story.

As for the gig, I remember watching Gaye Bykers On Acid from the back of the tent and not being overly impressed. I think this may have turned into a bit of a “wandering around with a beer” session rather than studiously watching the bands.

It is entirely possible that a vast quantity of goth girls may have had an impact on my attention span. To my eternal shame I didn’t make strenuous efforts to see Wire.

We all piled down the front for Psychic TV though, and eyed up the rest of the crowd. Genesis P-Orridge came on in a Siouxsie wig. Jokes! This gig was later released as part of the PTV series of live LPs and it sounds like a pretty good psychedelic freak out to these ears. There’s stuff on the net suggesting the Chaz Jankel was laying keyboards for them. Really? How did that happen?

The Fall were brilliant – John Peel had been caning their album “Bend Sinister” since it came out, so I was well up to speed with tracks like “Lucifer Over Lancashire”, “Hey Luciano” and “Mr Pharmacist”. I guess the line up included Brix Smith on keyboards and all that. I’ve never been obsessed with The Fall but have always had a healthy arms-length appreciation of them.

The first time I ever heard Siouxsie and The Banshees was during an especially dull Christmas visit to my grandparents in Weymouth. Actually that’s probably uncharitable of me, because they took us all into their home even when I would have been a snotty 14 year old. I’m sure I got some good presents as well.

But after that it seemed like nothing was happening and it was all really polite. For an eternity, like that Tony Hancock show about a Sunday afternoon. We went out for a walk. Somewhere, somebody was playing “Dear Prudence” really loudly. It echoed around the streets, filling the dead air with life and energy.

But this gig was four years on from that. The Banshees had just done their covers album “Through The Looking Glass” and were still touring their “Tinderbox” LP of original material (including the single “Cities In Dust” which I doubt many people remember, but it was pretty good pop-goth with BIG EIGHTIES STUDIO SOUNDS).

The well-worn formula of teenage drinking has eroded any trace of recollection of their set, so I am guessing it was passable but not especially good or bad. According to this link they did a bunch of older material, so I expect we were all pretty chuffed with that.

We got the tube back to Kings Cross and I sat there proudly with my SMILE “SAY NO TO DEMOCRACY” centrespread open on my lap. A woman next to me giggled about it, which was not the effect I was after.

Vagina Dentata Organ: A Tribute to the Most Fanatical Band In The World.

Click here for a complete list of entries in the series  ”the first 23 gigs I can remember going to”.

10. Psychic TV with With Tiny Lights, Zoskia Meets Sugardog, English Boy On The Love Ranch, Webcore. Hackney Empire, July 3 1987

June 1987 was taken up with hay fever and sitting my ‘A’ levels. I wasn’t very confident. I’d managed to pass nine ‘O’ levels a couple of years before but hadn’t dealt with the increasing demands of the sixth form all that well. I was doing subjects that didn’t suit me, I hated most of the teachers (and indeed a good few of the other pupils) and was easily distracted by music, fanzines and mad stuff I’d got out of the library.

There was a fair bit of parental pressure to knuckle under and succeed. I didn’t respond well to that either. So I sat in the exam room nervously and did what I could. The stakes were pretty high – if I got good enough grades then I could leave the parental home and live somewhere much more exciting as a University student. If not, well I was fucked. Maybe, it was suggested, I might consider working in a bank?

I left school for the last time and tried to put all of that to the back of my mind. The results weren’t due for a few months. Time to cram in as much as possible.

This gig was a BIG DEAL. After a couple of years of being obsessed with Psychic TV (even more than I was obsessed with lots of other things) this was the first time I got to see them in the flesh.

Various envelopes with funny symbols rubberstamped on them had been winging their way to me in the post from PTV HQ and I’d amassed a fair amount of literature and interviews with Genesis P-Orridge also. Not to mention faithfully trogging down to Our Price every month to see if they had the latest installment of the Live LP Series, and slowly amassing the back catalogue via 2nd hand shops in London and classified ads in Record Collector magazine.

Psychic TV were still flush from the success of the “Godstar” single (“It’s about Brian Jones, the one of the Rolling Stooooones”) and surrounding exposure. This “hyperdelia” was a definitive break from their previous “skulls/skinheads/scarification” phase, although the sub-VU influences were present from day one. I seem to recall that people attending this gig were encouraged not to wear black. Which probably means my clothes were even shitter than usual.

We knew which direction to go in when we got out at Bethnal Green tube because we’d been to the Empire already to see Test Dept. Oh how we delighted in pointing this out to anyone who looked vaguely like they might be going to the gig, which generated a singular lack of acclaim. We didn’t care, we were just well up for it.

I’d rung up the venue several times before the tickets had even been printed, such was my youthful eagerness. We’d been allocated seats in the 3rd row. I was very very excited. The audience was a suitably mashed up selection of mid-80s London subcultures – goths, punks, industrial skinheads, traveller hippies, straight looking types. A lot of weird t-shirts, a lot of tattoos and piercings. A lot of people clamouring around the merchandise stall, myself and Wal included.

I spent as much money as my zeal allowed. Wal bought a black t-shirt featuring two people shagging on a psychic cross (like on the yellow flyer above. “Oh… That’s, ah… nice, Wal…” – my Mum). I got a more modest one with the cross hidden behind some psychedelic flames. Plus a sew on patch, plus some badges and probably some records as well. If they had been selling Psychic TV fag lighters and car tax holders then I would have bought them too, even though I didn’t smoke or drive. I was so ripe for manipulation it must have been hilarious. Or terrifying. Or perhaps just slightly endearing.

We wandered around, soaking it all in. I spent as much time looking at my fellow gig goers as I did the acts on stage. Most of the support bands were on PTV’s own Temple Records.

I think we must have headed up to the balcony to check out Tiny Lights (quite good psych folk), English Boy on The Love Ranch (synth pop / proto techno / hi-nrg, featuring Dave Ball out of Soft Cell) and Zoskia Meets Sugardog (industrial funk with live sampling, featuring the legendary John Gosling). I don’t think any of them were on for very long.

None of them were all that memorable I’m afraid. The non-PTV Temple Records roster was a regular fixture of the MVE bargain bins in the late 80s and does contain some jewels as well as some nonsense. Turning Shrines were always a favourite of mine – an early project by Fred Giannelli, who would go on to collaborate with Richie Hawtin on Plus 8 records

Webcore were pretty great – electronic psychedelia which encapsulated PTV’s ideas about making “acid dance” music. I know Genesis P-Orridge has tried to blag his way into history by inferring that he had quite a lot to do with the creation of acid house, which is pretty spurious – but PTV were most definitely talking about making “acid dance” music around 86/87. (See also “Dr Ecstasy” on the flyer above). Webcore were definitely a product of the free festival Hawkwind/Ozrics traveller scene but were using drum machines instead of wibbly guitar freakouts. That eventually bled into things like The Orb, Club Dog, Spiral Tribe and perhaps even (shudder) Goa Trance over the ten years that followed.

Webcore had a nice manic edge to them and my mate Wal was well into it. Yet another stamped addressed envelope was sent off and I got back a nice letter and load of very hippyish flyers. I sent off for their “The Great Unfolding” cassette, which the good people of Kill Your Pet Puppy have duly uploaded here. Worth a listen if the above hasn’t put you off.

And then, Psychic TV. Why did I like them so much? Well, I think they were just a really good window into several other worlds. The ideas were more important than the music for me (which, I have to say, explains a lot when you hear some of the records!). I liked all the subversive anti-religious stuff, I liked the pseudo culty vibe to it, I liked all the stuff about self exploration and sexuality. I liked noise and William Burroughs and all that stuff. There was a wide streak of compassionate libertarianism running underneath the brutality, at least I hoped so. If I’m honest I liked the obscurity of it all, the vast amount of things which could be collected – records, books, ideas.

I wasn’t even doing it to annoy my parents – after the numerous arguments around the dinner table I went for the quiet option for a lot of what interested me. Eyebrows were raised a year later when a really heavy 10 inch psychic cross made of solid steel turned up in the post. Not to mention what I was posting to people myself, but that’s a digression best left for another time.

At his best, Genesis P-Orridge is one of the most charismatic people I have ever seen on a stage. He came on to rapturous applause, took a look around the Empire and said “Well they were saying in the music papers that nobody would come to this, I don’t know about that…”

I can’t remember the line up but I don’t think either Alex Fergusson or Fred Giannelli were involved that night. Gen was pretty intense, getting right in people’s faces. Including mine, as I was pressed right up against the stage, soaking it all in like a true believer. Wooo! Musically this may not stand up as their best gig, but it was a pretty intense experience for an intense teenager.  I am sure the set included a couple of live fixtures of the time like “Riot in the Eye” and also some new takes on old tunes like “Unclean” and “Twisted”. There were also some wibbly ambient pieces which I remember not liking so much. Psychedelia maaaaaaaan – and I still thought I was more of a punk than a hippy, of course.

I do remember being profoundly affected by the massive projections, however. I’d never seen imagery like Catalan before – an incredible dreamy surrealist piece shot by Derek Jarman in the outskirts of Barcelona  and starring Jordi Valls of Vagina Dentata Organ. All of the early PTV films were really powerful back then – we didn’t even have a video at home so the only way I could check this stuff was on a massive screen with the band doing a live freakout soundtrack.

There was also some heckling – people shouting “Godstar” and other stuff (“Weetabix!” for example – wtf? Presumably a rubbish pun on “porridge”). I have a memory of Genesis being pretty adamant that they weren’t going to do Godstar. Which is pretty odd for a gig organised on the 20th anniversary of Brian Jones’ death. Maybe they were sick of it, or maybe it was too much of a product of the studio (and the absent Rose MacDowell’s harmonies?). I enjoyed the banter between Gen and the audience anyway – this was a fucking great gig.

But then I discovered that my wallet wasn’t in my trouser pocket any more. The gig was over, I was scrabbling around an emptying venue trying to find my train ticket. And the remainder of my money. And feeling a bit scared, frankly – how the fuck was I going to get home? Had I dropped it amongst the dancing throng or had one of these sinister hippy occultists nicked it? My partner in crime had spent all his money as well so a loan was out of the question.

There was talk of an after party around the corner at Club Mankind (a squatted venue where the Hackney Central Club is now located). We had no idea where that was and didn’t fancy wandering the dark streets trying to find it and blag our way in. A vague plan about walking back to Kings Cross and bunking the train was hatched.

But then Peter Rehberg showed up and heroically mentioned that he could give us a lift home in his car and why the fuck hadn’t we mentioned that we were coming anyway?

After that Peter’s beaten up blue VW Beetle became my preferred method of transport to London gigs.

And my wallet? The next day I pestered the Hackney Empire again, on the off-chance. It was posted to me a few days later, completely intact with my bank card, remaining money and even my new psychic cross patch inside. “Yes we’ve got it. Apparently it turned up backstage.” Hmmm, I thought. They can’t be that bad then…

“[The guitar] cost me £5 from a guy in another squat, which was cheap even then,” he admits, “and I replaced the missing bridge with a door handle.”

Great retrospective piece on squat punk dubbers World Domination Enterprises over at The Quietus.

Ages ago I used to exchange tapes with a bloke who now runs a well known neo-folk label and distro. We gradually drifted apart, for obvious reasons. One of my tapes had some World Dom tracks on the end of it and his reply was quite telling: “That was awful. NEVER SEND ME ANYTHING BY THIS BAND EVER AGAIN.” The “industrial dub litmus test”…

Woebot contrasts World Dom with The Bug’s “Pressure” album.

http://www.worlddom.co.uk/