Culture time....
MUSIC:
My
last music blog in early September was dedicated entirely to The Drummer
himself;
Lord
Neilson of Govan (http://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-drummer.html ). This meant other
recently acquired music was put on a back burner, which was a little unfair on Josef
K, whose Sorry For Laughing, accompanied with a CD of their initial
demos, made under the previous name of TV Art was my birthday present
from Ben. I wasn’t aware it had ever been released and it was quite a shock
pitting it against 1981’s seminal suicide note, The Only Fun in Town,
which found its genesis in the band’s busy, scuttling angular throb of the
Brussels recordings for Les Disques du Crepuscule in January 1981, whose
uncompromising power and volume took the band beyond Pere Ubu and
towards the Gang of Four, compared to the summer 1980 recording of Sorry
For Laughing that sounded like the Talking Heads; off kilter and
uncommercial, but not confrontational or uncompromising. Comparing the two
albums and the demos, there is a clear sense of progression from proto guitar
and synthpop as TV Art, through to the sense of arcane guitar-based iconoclasm
on Sorry For Laughing that includes 5 of the demo songs, 3 that appeared
there and nowhere else and 5 that also appeared on the clattering, headstrong
menace of The Only Fun in Town, that introduced 5 other songs. These 21
songs, plus Heart of Song’s other life as Radio Drill Time, are
the legacy of Scotland’s second most important band of that era. In retrospect,
I think the band were artistically correct and commercially crazy to scrap the SFL
tapes in favour of TOFIT. However, I’m delighted to own the pair of
them.
When
it comes to live music, I’ve never previously been tempted by the various iterations
of the annual Tusk Festival, which has been an annual feature of the
Tyneside music scene for more than a decade now. However, news that legendary
outsider bluesman Jandek and inspirational French prog iconoclasts Magma
were playing stirred my attention. Sadly, they were on separate days so, at
nigh on £30 a pop, I had to decide between the 2. Jandek won because he was on
the Saturday.
On
the day of the event, my legendary anxiety kicked in and my journey to
Gateshead on a packed 57, longer than many short haul flights I’ve taken in the
past, didn’t help. Entering the Sage, the first sound I heard was a repeated 2
note piano motif that I assumed was part of the Festival. Only when I reached
the café did I discover that the noise was actually being made by a 6-year-old
bairn, whose parents indulgently smiled on him as they took coffee. Knowing
Tusk, it could well have been part of the festival.
Up
the stairs and into the Northern Sinfonia Room for the first time ever, I
joined a crowd of about 30, in a ration of about 30:0 male to female, awaiting
the first act on; Swiss Barns. Assessing this small gathering and the
larger audience later that day, it seemed as if every punter attending boasted
at least 4 items from the following list: beards, baldness, spectacles, black
t-shirt and a tote bag full of esoteric vinyl. This was explained by the racket
Swiss Barns made; 2 viola players, one of each gender, wandered on stage, said
nothing and then proceeded to make a Third Ear Band style drone for half an
hour. While initially the scratching and shrieking seemed to be the sort of
thing, you’d not give house room to, in case it scares the cats, a hypnotic
undercurrent of Irish folk flourishes was discernible beneath the beseeching
wails and pizzicato meanderings. What did strike me as interesting was the
presence of a backing track, which showed this piece was not improvisational
practice, but a structured, rehearsed piece. That said, I wasn’t sure whether
the loud / quiet / fast / slow sections indicated discrete elements or one
continuous piece, because of the absence of any recognisable, repeated motifs
or phrasings. And then it stopped. They bowed and said nothing while a few
people applauded. Fair play to them, though my interest did begin to wander
about 15 minutes in. I suppose it would have been a treat for people who listen
to Henry Cow voluntarily, but they couldn’t hold a candle in performance
terms to Warren Ellis.
The
afternoon promised lectures and some sort of experimental film show, but I
opted for Benfield 4 Northallerton 3, which I thought was the better choice. I
was back for 6pm to see Luke Poot introduce the evening entertainment.
Attired in a surgical gown and mask, he adopted the persona of a mad ranting
lad, babbling on about shopping options in Withernsea, accompanied by some
rambling backing track that had little to do with what he was saying. He ended
by repeating the word “fun” in a silly accent for 5 minutes, apologised and
wandered off stage. I enjoyed him tremendously, unlike KA Baird who was
next on in Hall 2. A woman with a bad perm in a white boiler suit doing a
terrible Diamanda Galas impersonation and looking like Robin Trower. She began
hitting herself over the head with a djemba, before picking up a flute, which
was my cue to head out for a pint. Never mind putting this on at the Sage, if
you herded everyone who really liked this together, you could hold it in the
cupboard under my stairs. If we did, I’d still shut the door. In 43 years of gig going, this was down in the
bottom 5 performances I’ve ever seen.
Thankfully,
Jandek made the trip worthwhile. Mesmerising, otherworldly and utterly
uncommunicative, his 3-piece pick up band made the dirtiest delta blues I’ve
ever heard. Nick Cave and Jon Spencer would give their eye teeth to have the
authentic stench of the deep south that Jandek has. He spent 40 minutes on
drums, then 20 on guitar and I’ve no idea if this was 2 pieces or more, but the
weird and wonderful representative from Corwood Industries beguiled me.
Strangely, a load of the audience were not impressed and a steady drift from
gig to bar was discernible. Their loss.
I’d
never been to Gosforth Civic Theatre before. I nearly went to an 18th
Birthday do in April 1983 but didn’t make it in the end. My NE3 musical virginity
was ended a mere 36 years later when The Drummer Alex Neilson put Laura and I
on the guest list for the Alasdair Roberts gig. I’m very glad he did as not
only was it an excellent gig, but it gave me a chance to buy his new album The
Fiery Margin that was simply unattainable from all independent record shops
in Newcastle, which is both disappointing and worrying. Support was from Phil
Tyler and a female singer / guitarist from Consett I didn’t catch the name of,
impressively playing self-penned compositions from the folk tradition under the
moniker Yakka Doon.
Alasdair
was billed as being accompanied by friends; viola all the way from Leitrim,
double bass (played in the Stray Cats style) and The Drummer, for an
evening of acoustic excellence. Ranging across most points of his back
catalogue, together with the strong presence of new material, it was a
brilliant evening. Shamefully it was my first Alasdair solo gig and I
luxuriated in the stories he had to tell. It was a beautifully paced and
executed set, rounded off with a highly enjoyable chat over a couple of pints
in a venue I’d like to go back to soon.
Following
a fruitless search in all of Newcastle’s independent search, I was delighted to
be able to purchase a copy of The Fiery Margin on CD from Alasdair
himself. It’s a virtuoso triumph from start to finish; stunning musicianship,
inspirational vocals and literate, narrative words that compel you to listen
hard as the baroque folk stylings where traditional melodies float by as
persuasive gobbets of pavane and plainsong. Standout tracks are: False Flesh,
Actors and The Untrue Womb, all of whom stand close to the genius of
The Drummer’s impeccable Otterburn from earlier this year.
Another
plus point was the relative lack of boorish boys in the moshpit. This gig saw
loads of women getting totally into the band; word perfect singing along,
dancing in an uninhibited way and just having a great time, without being
showered in tepid lager by balding bozos.
As
an aside, one half of Swiss Barns is Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh, who is also one
of Alasdair Roberts’s friends, as well as a member of Woven Skull.
Having been blown to smithereens by their magnificent debut album last time
around, I sought out everything else that was available by them. This consisted
of one 7” split single with Thor and Friends, who I’ve little time for.
Thankfully, the Woven Skull side, The Cracking of the Limbs, is an
utterly brilliant piece from much earlier in their career. It’s more like Sweet
Tooth or Earth than GY!BE but the thunderous Turkish / Balkan
influenced pummelling of instruments is to be greatly applauded. Very glad I
tracked this down.
TELEVISION:
While I’ve always enjoyed Bosco, The Late, Late Show and Come
West Along the Road, there’s no doubt the best drama that RTE have
done this century was the intense Dublin crime series Love/Hate. Gritty realism doesn’t come near describing the
scabrous, intense demi monde of Dublin’s violent gangland. All 5 series were
brilliant and bruising, but the series never had a chance of appealing to the
refined Brit viewing public, more accustomed to Minder and Morse,
therefore it is with enormous personal pleasure I’ve not only watched BBC’s
Dublin Murders agog with anxious
anticipation, but enjoyed seeing the overwhelming positive reviews the series
has garnered.
It’s important to note that
Killian Scott, who starred in Love / Hate
as Tommy is stealing the show as Detective Rob Reilly, with an absolutely
faultless English accent for someone born in County Limerick. A brooding,
vengeful plain clothes Guard with a backstory as detailed and scary as a Nort
Soide family tree, his partner in crime solving is Cassie Maddox, played by
Corkonian Sarah Greene, who exudes just enough Dublinese street slang to make
her fortuitous ownership of a Blackrock pad
believable. Just about every character is given edge enough that we
believe them. The taut, oppressive atmosphere filled with hateful secrets from
the past is both credible and unforgiving. This is superb televised drama.
Anyone with a degree of
intelligence and a grain of humanity will have come to the only possible
conclusion about The Troubles; A Secret
History. Specifically, the British
Government armed, funded, trained and sheltered the UDA, the UVF and every
other Loyalist murder gang that spent half a century slaughtering both active
Republicans and non-combatant members of the broader Nationalist community.
Consequently, anyone who accepts this will also sympathise with the aspiration
for self-determination by the Nationalist community in the north of Ireland.
Read that last sentence properly; it does not say “I agree with the IRA.”
However, what I will say is that the Catholic population in the Six Counties
suffered institutional racism in a way comparable to the indigenous population
during apartheid era South Africa.
This 6-part series,
commemorating 50 years since the start of The Troubles brought this out, both
in programmes from a Nationalist and, on 2 occasions, a Loyalist
viewpoint. The raving right-wing
fundamentalist lunatics from post Reformation pulpits were given scant air
time, such is the irrelevance of their ideological position, as were the landed
gentry of the Tories in sashes OUP. The Loyalist position was expounded by both
the dead eyed, shaven headed, tattooed men of violence and their plummy voiced
puppeteers from Sandhurst. For six weeks
the tragic tale of two generations of Six Counties residents was told in
intimate detail. Even after 20 years of relative peace, the scars remain;
bloodlines in the sand. Let’s hope the imminent reunification of the island of
Ireland gives both the economic and cultural sense of ease that both sides
deserve.
Sorry there’s no books this
time, but I’ve been busy with fanzines you see…
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