Jane’s Addiction, KOKO, 30th August 2011

What a gig! So pleased the Bossman let me know that they were playing.

I’ve always been aware of Jane’s Addiction, but like many bands they passed me by. Never too late to catch up! So glad we were there.

We got out pitch near the front, a band of youthful lads, and I mean they looked sixteen or so were the support. They were cool, they were appreciative of who was following them, people wanted to adopt them or put them on their keyrings, they went away and we waited for the main event.

They dropped a big curtain in front of the stage and for some reason played almost all of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon before the curtain raised and there was Perry and the boys.

He was dressed in the manner of a dandy Mississippi card shark, semi resident on the steam boat chugging up river. After he hustles you for your bucks, he’ll smoke a fashionably small cigar whilst checking his pocket watch and saying “yessiree, I’m gonna buy me some grits when I get off this old lady”.

Here’s his attire, a most presentable swamp gent (even though he’s from nowhere near that part of America)

As the gig progressed, he shed layers. Here he admires the lack of layers of his dancing troupe.

Shaking his maracas (the maracas are off screen here!)

Is he posing for me? I think he is.

A romance explosion near the end of this amazing gig.

Encore with wine and no top, the svelte bastard

Our feet at the end of the gig, it’s usually traditional we take a photo of ourselves at a gig. So we kept this tradition going.

Cheers Bossman! Haven’t enjoyed a gig so much in ages!

The Horrible Texas Travelling Shit Show

Met up with the Bossman last Friday, mainly to see Queen Adreena play live and to celebrate his birthday with a few JD's.
QA don't usually play the UK, so this was a grand opportunity to catch up with a band I'd always wanted to see.
It was a "themed" evening called The Texas Chainsaw Travelling Horror Picture Show, with the Damned headlining. The theme was a sort of Scooby Doo cheesy horror type of plot with more cartoon violence. Eg - the actors pretending to cut their willies off onstage for instance or dry humping a "severed head" which was in fact the head of a tailors dummy badly painted with red emulsion from B&Q to give it a gory effect.
I didn't really understand the story to be honest, it was clumsily put together, ham fisted and awkward, so much so that some members of the audience became restless, and booed or chucked beer.
The audience themselves were a mix of glam/goth and hardcore punk survivors. oh and there was me and Bossman.
Here is an example of the supposed "horror show". I think the woman in the cage was pretending to be a man eating eagle woman freak, and the two guys, well they just seemed to perve all over her and wave their arms around a lot.

There was one sort of good bit, when the eagle woman did some proper gymnastic stuff and eventually attached a man by his skin to her ring and then lifted him on hooks so he dangled. I didn't get a photo of that though.

Although Bossman wasn't too impressed.

Anyway, Queen Adreena were fantastic. Shame the crowd was restless and the cock of of a compere irritated everyone by continouously introducing them when they were obviously still sound checking. I guess he was trying his best..... to not get a shoeing.
Q.A's set was powerful and emotive. Monstrous guitar, bass and drums with Katie-Jane's wail bringing a shiver down the spine. It was more than music, it was art and poetry, and pain.


And they were glugging champagne on stage.... there was no engagement with the crowd. it was a relentless assault. And I was gutted they didn't play their cover of Jolene...

I find that I also spill Moet and Chandon down my dress when I'm trying to sing. It's so irritating when that happens. I feel like throttling myself with the mike cable too!

I saw Katie-Jane Garside's previous band, Daisy Chainsaw...back in erm... 1992, and I'm sure this is the same dress!! I got a better look when she stood on a chair.

The label says "wash at 40 degrees" if you zoom right in.

During the last song, Katie-J rugby tackled the guitarist Crispin, leaving what looked like a big cut on her head. It was a breathtaking set, full of energy, they threw themselves into it. There were a few Q.A fans there, but maybe not enough feedback from the crowd to justify an encore, shame :-(
After some more antagonisation from the horror show comperes (and someone doing disgusting farts near us), the Damned came on. This was our cue to leave.
Here is an obligatory shot of captain sensible...

As we were leaving, we could see showers of beer and plastic cups flying their way towards the band. The lead singer gave it..."lets have a fucking good time! don't chuck beer! ok?" or something. Bless. We left.

Sonic Youth and Vashti Bunyan

Saw Sonic Youth last week (or was it the week before?) at their residency at the Roundhouse playing their "classic album" Daydream Nation.
They were good, I enjoyed it. I dabbled with grunge as a teenager, although strictly speaking Sonic Youth only dabbled with grunge themselves.... I would describe them more as Art Noise. Quite melodic, almost poppy but capable of roaring white noise which makes my heart leap,my eyebrows furrow and my smile gently twitch. I do look like a psycho when this happens to my face I hasten to add.
So on two scores I was happy.
1) I'd never been to the iconic venue the Roundhouse before, and I have to say I was impressed.
2) I've now seen Sonic Youth, one to stick on my gig CV.
Back in the day, whenever it was, maybe 1990, I had a chance to see Nirvana, all my mates from the comic shop in Tottenham were going to go and queue up and buy tickets. I was going to as well. But I was such a loser I slept in. One of the biggest regrets of my (gig) life. I heard afterwards people were knocking shit out of each other in the queue, but I'd have snuck in under the radar and I'm sure I would have got a ticket had I bothered to get up. Turns up not many of my other loser unemployed mates got a ticket either and decided to stay up late and watch open university or Kojak or some other bollocks of the era thus rendering them incapable of an early start!
Ah, those days. Never mind.
As for the Sonic Youth gig, as I said, I enjoyed it. I didn't enjoy the young buck trying to dry hump me from behind because he couldn't get through the crowd and get to the front. He was like one of those dogs ready for their nadgers to be cut off, all frisky and annoying. I swung round and gave him a Ray Winstone cockney volley and he backed off. I was so angry. During my favourite song as well!
Anyway, on to Vashti Bunyan, Ongey came round the other night and we had a very civilised evening (only punctuated occasionally by childish references to bumming) with Debbie and we stuck on the original Vashti Bunyan album from 1970. What a beautiful, sentimental and gorgeous piece of music. Her poetry is lush too and it recounts the songs she wrote on her long journey by horse and gypsy cart to the outer hebrides..... It could be described as twee folk, but knowing the backstory generates an enourmous warmth and nostalgia. Then, I unwrapped her second album (from 2005!) as I bought it and hadn't played it and we listened to that too. It followed the same vibe, but I felt it was overproduced, too clinical. Spoilt it for me somewhat, but again, worth a purchase for her poetry alone. Her song "Brother", the lyrics made me want to cry. But I didn't, cos I'm a hard bastard.