Current mood: BOOM BOOM!!!
Category: BOOM BOOM!!! Music
Of late, I've got it into my aging head, that I really can't be doing with more than a few LIVE gigs per calendar week.
Such a conclusion has come about partly for want of cash, and partly due to my intolerance of the way things are done today (no smoking, no caps, nor drinks up here, down there, outside, inside, bodysearches etc)
It's also part laziness, as well as a desire to not disappear too far into the excess of an addiction blackhole..
Yes boss, I plan to be one of these smug cunts, who plays all the fun cards AND the normal cards and plays them well, thus taking the fewest defeats necesary and spending as little downtime in rehab or serious land....
Basically, I believe it's possible to mix and match and many of the characters I admire, have proved it.....
Life is for living, and for me, freedom isn't only about whirling without responsibilies or commitments in one long whirl of hedonism, so much as having the most possible fun, whilst still engaging with more traditional realities....
And, I don't want to miss a thing...
Anyway, I'm due a quiet night in watching the football and I get a message from the boss saying he's got space on the guestlist for an extra date on this Meltdown series - it's Adrian Sherwood, Mark Stewart and Stiff Little Fingers and I have 45 minutes to get there...
I know nothing about any of that lot other than that Adrian Sherwood has produced plenty of good dub - working with more or less every one worth hearing this past 30 or so years including some memorable and upcoming recordings with Lee Perry...
For Sherwood alone, I jump at the opportunity...
But how to fill the +1?!?
Mrs Giovanni isn't onto it. She's already down for Grace Jones tomorrow night and her appetite for LIVE music makes mine look colossal..
I start going through my phone numbers, trying to find likely candidates who can get to central London inside an hour, or who might know of someone who can.
I soon find I don't have alot of the numbers I need.
My phone (Personal Joy) is a wonderful machine, but it does have the habbit of loosing numbers. They show up with the name when incoming, but you can't browse to, and then use them...
Furthermore, as I browse the ones I can get to and start firing out texts, I find a load of numbers and names that mean nothing to me...
Who in the hell is George or Eric?? Who's Clare & Norman??? I don't recall even meeting these people, let alone acquiring their phone numbers..?!?
Well, I get some replies, but the clock is ticking and no-one is within range or available.
BUT I HAVE A +1 AND IT MUST BE USED!!!!
I spread the net further. People I met once at party 2 months ago, people who might know some of the numbers I'm missing. It becomes a mission!!!
But there's no joy..
So, I am 2 people and Adrian Sherwood is the kind of character that glues things together. A man completely and unavoidably in love with Dub Reggae and SOUNDZ.
He starts things off with a very heavy DJ set of mostly Lee Perry dub and reggae. It's a mixture of classics and reworkings. It's the building blocks of modern sound, rap hip hop, soul muisc, RnB.
Next up is Mark Stewart
Mark Stewart is a completely unknown quantity. Apparently he's from Bristol, and since starting out in a band called The Pop Group, has been in and out of music..
He has Doug Wimbish (of Living Colour) on bass and the music is alright and a good deal more modern sounding than I imagined Stiff Little Fingers to be. It's very good and tightly put together, but overall it doesn't quite grab me....
Well, Mr Stewarts set ends with the information that he's gonna be playing a fuller set downstairs in an hour.
I get confused.
As I've understood it Mark Stewart's band is Stiff Little Fingers and that what he's just done is in fact Stiff Little Fingers, and that the main show is now over.
It's a bit early, but it appeared he opted to take the show downstairs where it's easier to dance...
So, I go out and down and I'm sitting around the main bar, reading the paper and waiting for the evening to continue downstairs, when I hear the booming from upstairs restarting..
Is Sherwood back on???
Stewart???
WTF?!?
Well, I go back up, and find that but Mark Stewart has absoluitely nothing to do with Stiff Little Fingers, because Stiff Little Fingers are the headliners and they are now playing!!!
Sherwood was the warm up, Stewart and his band The Mafia, was the support and Stiff Little Fingers are NOW ON!!!
I ALMOST MISSED THE BASTARD HEADLINERS!!!
So, what I've since learnt is that SLF were and are a punk band - one of the few who've largely kept going since 1977. As original punk did, they don't shy away from politics..
So, how are these relatively old boys going on in 2008??
Well, they've got plenty of energy, play their first album cover to cover and they're loud. FUCKING LOUD!!!! SO FUCKING LOUD that as with last night in the QE2 Hall, the light fittings are falling out of the ceiling on account of the vibrations...
Funnier than this is the crowd. Being a late 70's band, many of the hardcore fans are no longer young and pinned and pinky punky...
No boss, many are these rather portly, suburbanites in their mid 40's and they are HAVING IT!!!!
Yes boss, whilst their teenage kids are at home having it off with their girl and boyfriends, the parents are reliving their youth and it's a thoroughly odd site.
There's a suburban housewife in her Laura Ashley or the like, dancing in the aisle to punk music.
PUNK FUCKING ROCK!!!!!?????
Probably..
So, job done, it's to the reception room for some more floozing and boozing the freebies. The people who run this free bar are getting familiar - it's feeling like my local. They have the beers ready and after sinking a few, go downstairs to catch the start of another set by Sherwood. He pulls on a reggae singer called Little Roy
It's a live jam session. Sherwood mixes the sounds, the singer sings.
It's heavy and dub reggae
And that's more than good enough for me!!!!
 | Currently listening : Never Trust a Hippy By Adrian Sherwood Release date: 2003-02-25 |
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