Standgericht gig and other London fun and games
So Friday I went down to London, to Purley, south of Croydon, to stay with Snowwy and Keith and prepare for the Standgericht gig. We did five or six runs through the set and it all went pretty well and put us in a good mood for the next day. (Unfortunately, the many hours needed to be sure of success meant we couldn't make it to the new oldschool EBM night, Endurance, far to the north in Hoxton).
Saturday we got up at a reasonable time and got things packed and ready without any trouble. The weather was terrifying and we were afraid it would affect the gig badly, but things seemed to be brightening up slightly when we left the house about 1:30pm. Then we had an epic two and a half hour journey up to Camden, slowed down by surprisingly heavy traffic, two bridges over the Thames being closed and then a couple of wrong turns. We got things into the venue ok and our short soundcheck was quite fine, then the gig started up about ten or fifteen minutes after the stated time of 6pm.
Photos of the gig.
First was Kindermord, being Andi Penguin's ambient industrial project on the horrors of the First World War, with him doing vocals and Keith on oil drum, warning bell and sampler. I was rather impressed with the set, which did generate a strong sense of fear and doom, and felt it would be very effective in some kind of interactive museum exhibition on the subject. Then it was time for Standgericht, oldschool EBM meets rhythmic industrial, and we were pretty fine. My drumming felt good, no mistakes made and I even managed to drink and drum simultaneously a couple of times. The modest sized crowd seemed to enjoy us, even though we were the only disko band, and the three of us left the stage very satisfied.
Then it was Confession (being the name of the event) promoter Gaya performing as AntiChildLeague, some pretty ferocious power electronics which I really enjoyed, especially with Mike from Con-Dom doing guest shouting on the first track. Then we had PE legends Sutcliffe Jügend on for a full length set, and they were fantastic and had me smiling for the duration. Intimidating and perverse ranting, very harsh guitar abuse, a good range of violent electronic noise and some very enjoyable face-pulling and shape-throwing. (I hope I get to support these guys with Now Wash Your Hands one day. I gave them a demo and they were very amused by the concept and imagery). Finally we had 6Comm, being Patrick Leagas who used to be in Death In June in the early days. He played a surprising number of Death In June tracks, and while he was probably the best singer in that band, he didn't do so well on them this time. He also did some drumming which didn't sound right. Overall it was a good set of martial industrial, and a secret masked man provided guitar on some tracks, but there seemed to be some technical issues and performance errors which let it down.
Then the gig ended promptly at ten and we were soon out with out equipment. My bandmates headed back to Croydon and I went down the road with Henrik and Ville (down from Leeds for the weekend) to the Elixir bar near Mornington Crescent tube, where Kate was having her 30th birthday party. Good times were had in there for a couple of hours, although people seemed to leave quite early and, as expected, it wasn't really the kind of music I usually enjoy. There was good ale though and some good characters to talk to so we had a nice time. Then I passed on going to Slimey and took a couple of buses up to Hackney to stay with Ely, who had broken herself the previous night with Aussie friends and thus failed to come to my gig.
Sunday I went to Angel to meet my friend Marion from Germany, who was coincidentally in town prior to going on holiday with a couple of friends from when she lived in London. We went for a drink and chat at the nearby Camden Head and were soon joined by Ville, who seemed a bit delicate after staying at Slimelight very late. Marion wasn't able to stay so long, but Ville and I got some disappointing pies and then we were joined by Kate, Jonas (who'd come from Copenhagen to DJ at her party) and Michelle. I got drunk quite quickly, probably from being tired. Then we lost Ville and went to the Foundry in Hoxton on the bus for a noise gig. No acts were introduced so I didn't find out what they were all called. Also, upstairs some kind of joke folk/funk/party gig was happening and you had to walk through their audience to get to the stairs.
First was a group of men with various instruments and equipment making some fairly industrial sounding improv noise and then two laptop men doing noisy ambient electronica, which was quite good but I did fall asleep. Then none of our friends turned up and the others left me alone. I saw a bit of what might have been Wintermute, a small bearded man doing quite effective shouty power electronics, and I managed to meet the promoter Ryan, who's doing my gig in December. Then Ely turned up, and we watched Ryan do a set as Zero Point Energy, which was very impressive noise with good accompanying strobes. And then the two laptop men from before came back and did some kind of technoid industrial electronica, but nobody was dancing and they sat down. The upstairs had got very silly, with a naked middle aged man getting painted and looking very pleased with himself. But we got out and made a reasonable hometime, although we were disturbed to have some Tourette-ish teenagers screaming obscenities at us from a window on Ely's street just because we glanced in their direction.
Saturday we got up at a reasonable time and got things packed and ready without any trouble. The weather was terrifying and we were afraid it would affect the gig badly, but things seemed to be brightening up slightly when we left the house about 1:30pm. Then we had an epic two and a half hour journey up to Camden, slowed down by surprisingly heavy traffic, two bridges over the Thames being closed and then a couple of wrong turns. We got things into the venue ok and our short soundcheck was quite fine, then the gig started up about ten or fifteen minutes after the stated time of 6pm.
Photos of the gig.
First was Kindermord, being Andi Penguin's ambient industrial project on the horrors of the First World War, with him doing vocals and Keith on oil drum, warning bell and sampler. I was rather impressed with the set, which did generate a strong sense of fear and doom, and felt it would be very effective in some kind of interactive museum exhibition on the subject. Then it was time for Standgericht, oldschool EBM meets rhythmic industrial, and we were pretty fine. My drumming felt good, no mistakes made and I even managed to drink and drum simultaneously a couple of times. The modest sized crowd seemed to enjoy us, even though we were the only disko band, and the three of us left the stage very satisfied.
Then it was Confession (being the name of the event) promoter Gaya performing as AntiChildLeague, some pretty ferocious power electronics which I really enjoyed, especially with Mike from Con-Dom doing guest shouting on the first track. Then we had PE legends Sutcliffe Jügend on for a full length set, and they were fantastic and had me smiling for the duration. Intimidating and perverse ranting, very harsh guitar abuse, a good range of violent electronic noise and some very enjoyable face-pulling and shape-throwing. (I hope I get to support these guys with Now Wash Your Hands one day. I gave them a demo and they were very amused by the concept and imagery). Finally we had 6Comm, being Patrick Leagas who used to be in Death In June in the early days. He played a surprising number of Death In June tracks, and while he was probably the best singer in that band, he didn't do so well on them this time. He also did some drumming which didn't sound right. Overall it was a good set of martial industrial, and a secret masked man provided guitar on some tracks, but there seemed to be some technical issues and performance errors which let it down.
Then the gig ended promptly at ten and we were soon out with out equipment. My bandmates headed back to Croydon and I went down the road with Henrik and Ville (down from Leeds for the weekend) to the Elixir bar near Mornington Crescent tube, where Kate was having her 30th birthday party. Good times were had in there for a couple of hours, although people seemed to leave quite early and, as expected, it wasn't really the kind of music I usually enjoy. There was good ale though and some good characters to talk to so we had a nice time. Then I passed on going to Slimey and took a couple of buses up to Hackney to stay with Ely, who had broken herself the previous night with Aussie friends and thus failed to come to my gig.
Sunday I went to Angel to meet my friend Marion from Germany, who was coincidentally in town prior to going on holiday with a couple of friends from when she lived in London. We went for a drink and chat at the nearby Camden Head and were soon joined by Ville, who seemed a bit delicate after staying at Slimelight very late. Marion wasn't able to stay so long, but Ville and I got some disappointing pies and then we were joined by Kate, Jonas (who'd come from Copenhagen to DJ at her party) and Michelle. I got drunk quite quickly, probably from being tired. Then we lost Ville and went to the Foundry in Hoxton on the bus for a noise gig. No acts were introduced so I didn't find out what they were all called. Also, upstairs some kind of joke folk/funk/party gig was happening and you had to walk through their audience to get to the stairs.
First was a group of men with various instruments and equipment making some fairly industrial sounding improv noise and then two laptop men doing noisy ambient electronica, which was quite good but I did fall asleep. Then none of our friends turned up and the others left me alone. I saw a bit of what might have been Wintermute, a small bearded man doing quite effective shouty power electronics, and I managed to meet the promoter Ryan, who's doing my gig in December. Then Ely turned up, and we watched Ryan do a set as Zero Point Energy, which was very impressive noise with good accompanying strobes. And then the two laptop men from before came back and did some kind of technoid industrial electronica, but nobody was dancing and they sat down. The upstairs had got very silly, with a naked middle aged man getting painted and looking very pleased with himself. But we got out and made a reasonable hometime, although we were disturbed to have some Tourette-ish teenagers screaming obscenities at us from a window on Ely's street just because we glanced in their direction.