the fourteenth gig I can remember going to

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

ptv1

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…

Blackdown and Grievous Angel

FACT magazine: The month in…Bass.

Tom Lea interviews Blackdown and Grievous Angel about the “Margins Music Redux” remix album. Which I am sure is great, but for some reason I haven’t received my copy yet… hmm?

Here is a nice promo video for the album:

Paul is a suitably excitable interviewee as usual, dropping in references to Hawksmoor and Stewart Home along the way… 🙂

Coupla exclusive GA mixes available for download over at Blackdown’s blog right now also.

2009, IN RUBBISH CARTOONS

NOT THE REAL BEYOND THE iMPLODE: BTi Anti-Art Department presents…2009, IN RUBBISH CARTOONS – pt 1.

Martin clearly had a good time at the Big Chill House in August. Proof positive that DJ set from me is an unforgettable experience!

Here is his latest rendition of the night. (I should perhaps point out for the record that I have never owned a Crass t-shirt, let alone worn one while playing out…)

Make sure you check Parts two and three also.

the thirteenth gig I can remember going to

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

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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.

locust abortion technician

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).

review: Duke Vin and the birth of ska

Duke Vin

Duke Vin

Off to the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham last Monday for the showing of this film. The event was organised by the RMT Union’s Black and Ethnic Minority Members Advisory Committee. The introduction was by General Secretary, Bob Crowe.

So! A righteous trinity of black culture, Bernie “The youths around here believe the police were to blame for what happened on Sunday and what they got was a bloody good hiding” Grant, and Bob Crowe – an unreconstructed old school socialist. The sort of thing to have Daily Mail readers fuming with rage.

Bob referred to us all as “comrades”, which I liked. The ultra-leftist in me writes him off as a highly paid union bureaucrat, but to give him his due he seems solidly unbothered by spin and PR which is quite refreshing these days. Plus he has blatantly got a good deal for RMT members, so fair play. Comrade Bob set the scene about immigration to the UK and the role that black people played in working on the railways, tubes and buses. as well as the part that trade unions have played in combating racism.

The film itself was much better than I expected – it told the history of Ska, but focused mainly on the early soundsystems in London from the 1950s onwards. I’ve touched on some of this in my article for the forthcoming issue of Datacide, but it was great to hear the story first hand for a change. Vin, Suckle and Vego were all in fine voice (especially Vego with his rockstone tones). They told their stories of coming to London and slowly building up their sounds so that people could have somewhere to come and socialise and dance.

Daddy Vego aka Vgo

Daddy Vego aka Vgo

The recollections of blues dances and early clubs like the Roaring Twenties in Carnaby Street (first reggae night in the West End, attended by all the celebs of the day!) were a joy. Context was provided by Don (yawn) Letts and Jerry Dammers amongst others. There was even a fleeting cameo appearance from Spirit…

Duke Vin and The Birth of Ska is a nice counterpart to the Story of Lovers Rock – it’s great to see some quality documentation of the hidden recesses of bass culture. Hopefully someone will take them up for distribution so that they get the audiences they deserve.