Featuring the films of Jean Painleve (1902-1989) Only Connect @ The Barbican, London 20 April 2002 Although Yo La Tengo are most often described in terms of the Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth and Can, you only have to take a look at a setlist from one of their annual fund raising “request” shows to see just how diverse their influences and abilities really are. Sun Ra‘s “Rocket No.9” […]
live review
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The Albery Theatre, London from 4th April 2002 for 11 weeks Based on Heinrich Hoffman‘s dark fairy-tale Struwwelpeter, Shockheaded Peter originally opened in 1998 and last year alone played to an audience of some 80,000 West End theatre-goers. For its 2002 production, David Thomas & Two Pale Boys appear along with the original cast, to provide their own interpretation of the music of Martin Jacques and the Tiger […]
93 Feet East, London 8 March 2002 Kitty-Yo hit London, taking over the snazzily labyrinthine 93 Feet East venue on Brick Lane for an evening of the label’s quality acts and a host of guest DJs from Berlin, London and further afield, one of whom seems to be playing Generation X‘s “Dancing With Myself”. Retro-chic has enveloped itself after all, it seems. The event is sold out with […]
Trash @ The End, London 11 February 2002 The End is a fairly bad venue for a live gig. The room where Bobby Conn is playing tonight is wide but not deep enough to hold the capacity crowd who have sweated their way into the bar area to witness Chicago’s favourite Judeo-Christian Edutainer develop his own particlar brand of FM Radio cabaret Art-Rock. Add in the lack of […]
The Garage, London 18 January 2002 Not just another of those long-thought forgotten altered-state Pop could-have been idols extracting and revitalising themselves from the Eighties and onto the stage again, Frank Tovey, here backed up by a full band is back. In front of an audience half uncolourful and speckled with piercings in place of acne, and half old enough to have been there the first time Fad […]
Label: Studio Philo/Music Video Distributors Format: DVD When Genesis P-Orridge returned to London in 1999 after nearly a decade of tabloid media-inspired witchhunt and subsequent exile to America, there was no doubt that the reappearance of Psychic TV on stage would be an event. That GPO’s manifestation resulted in broadsheet The Guardian running an extensive feature on his welcoming into the very heart of the arts establishment was […]
London 12 October 2001 Given that this appearance by Faust marks both their 100th live performance since the group’s reformation in 1993 and possibly their final show, it’s somehow appropriate that the emergency services soon became involved once again.
Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool 11 October 2001 Whatever combinations of players you find Keith Tippett in there is always an element of the spiritual, in a broad sense, in his playing. He says he plays to ‘move people’ and ‘remove them from chronological time’ and often that’s just what he does. On this occasion, as part of Liverpool’s Frakture Festival, he was in the company of drummer Peter […]
Tufnell Park Dome, London 2 September 2001 A history lesson… Everything you think you know is wrong. The last ten years never happened. Mrs. Thatcher’s still in power, The Dome‘s still standing (Tufnell Park that is… not the Big Tent), and Conflict are still gigging. We are ruled by a bunch of corporate whores who’d sell out their own party for some cash from Ronald McDonald. Hang on […]
Label: Ralph (America)/EuroRalph (Europe) Format: DVD, CD (soundtrack only) There have been plenty of strange and powerful musicians and groups out there for many a long year. Captain Beefheart, Coil, Wesley Willis, Ken Nordine and so forth, each extending the realms of taste and disrupting the boundaries of what exactly constitues music and art . Then there are The Residents. Through thirty years of wilful obscurity and cutting-edge […]
The Kosmische Club Upstairs At The Garage, London 28 July 2001 For the Kosmische Club’s fifth birthday, the party hats, balloons and banners have been brought out to celebrate half a decade of putting on one of the best clubs in London, if not the country and possibly the world. A touch of hyperbole, perhaps, but the nice thing about this club, despite the almost unbearable heat in […]
93 Feet East, London 9 July 2001 “Bosses, They’re all cunts, pricks wankers and shits – does anyone here like their boss?” Well, those were similar words to the ones I muttered when Simon Breed nearly trampled me in his stampede to the bar pre-showtime. He was allegedly referring to his boss, or bosses in general. The same song also proclaimed him to sound like Bruce Springsteen, make […]
The Junction, Cambridge 9 July 2001 For whatever bizarre reason, this gig couldn’t be advertised. Having found out about it, having already missed Tricky’s appearance at Robert Wyatt’s South Bank Meltdown, and noting that his only other UK appearances this tour were at the V2001 festival and Penrith (remember Withnail spitting this town’s name out in a phone box? – yes, that Penrith), I had to check it […]
The Mean Fiddler, London 2 July 2001 Somehow Lolita Storm should have got a better reaction on this bill – their shouty teen rants and splattery digital hardcore beats and pieces are part of the busy collision of electronics and rock the Young Gods were instrumental in creating after all. But perhaps the early start time is why there’s about twenty people gently bobbing in front of the […]
Kosmische Upstairs @ The Garage, London 23 June 2001 I‘d never heard of Khan (aka Can Oral) before hearing about this gig a few weeks back, but his odd background (Finnish mother, Turkish father, grew up in Germany) and his array of current collaborators (Kid Congo Powers, Diamanda Galas, Julee Cruise, Hanin Elias and Jon Spencer, among others) certainly grabbed my attention. Hitching back from Avebury on the […]
The Spitz, London 7 June 2001 The Spitz tends to look different every time I go there. Tonight it is a late arrival just in time to see Appliance play their version of Krautrock-inspired Electronica. Projections on small screens around the room show Rand McNally maps of the Great Lakes areas of the US, Chicago Art Institute-like photos of fall/winter nature scenes, and stage backdrop of goldfish tank. […]
Kosmische @ The Garage, London 31 May 2001 Beware all snow leopards; indeed all mammals were at risk of having their asses rocked Thursday at the Kosmische Club‘s presentation of Acid Mothers Temple. Once Southall Riot was done with their opening imitation of all that was Krautrock in a Nineties sort of style, all three chord-led and droney – and most of which I missed – Acid Mothers […]
The Social, Nottingham 30 May 2001 The first act were Floach, an electronics duo from ScoobyDooLand. With a table full of electronic contraptions that would have made Throbbing Gristle drool (and a hairstyle that would have frightened Dave Hill from Slade), they cooked up a glorious electronic rumpus. If Pierre Henry had been commissioned to compose the incidental music for a Carry On film, it would have probably […]