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see all the photos from this concert here
Tuxedomoon
Attrition
The Dead
Slimelight, London
Saturday September 25 2004
~review and photos by Uncle
Nemesis
There’s a strobe on overdrive hammering
out its blank white message. There are vague shapes behind the light, and
a blast of noise coming out of the PA, like a washing machine on the techno
remix cycle. Somewhere in all this, a voice is almost singing. What can
it all mean? The Dead are
back, that’s what it means. The powernoise performance poets who gatecrashed
Andi Sex Gang’s gig a while back have got themselves another gig - and
this time they’re doing music. Well, sort of. Their set is clearly an attempt
to be confrontational and ‘difficult’, and it works up to a point. But
the trouble is, in these post-punk, post-industrial, post-everything times,
this kind of antagonise-the-audience stuff has been done and done and done.
It doesn’t even get anyone annoyed any more. As The Dead rant and blare,
the sparse early crowd simply stands and stares into the strobe with mild
interest. I think if The Dead are to continue with their, uh, project they
should consider adding a bit of structure to their raw art. OK, so this
might mean taking a step or two in the direction of conventionality, but
that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Because nobody gets all worked
up about full-on confrontation these days. Nope, we just get a little bit
bored.
Attrition are not in the business of plain
old confrontation, but they’re certainly taking no prisoners tonight. Attrition
are always a somewhat harder-hitting proposition on stage than their precise,
cerebral recorded incarnation - out go the violins, in come shuddering
slabs of analogue electronics
- and on this occasion they certainly seem to have lit a fire under themselves.
Not that they’ve gone all rock ‘n’ roll, or anything: now that really would
be a turn-up. But Martin Bowes rasps out his lyrics with plenty of grit
and attitude, and I recall that the new songs - of which there are plenty
in the set tonight - apparently document all sorts of upheavals in his
personal life. Judging by the bile and wormwood which flavours this performance,
some of those upheavals still rankle. Whatever behind the scenes events
have inspired Attrition’s new material, the fire that smoulders beneath
it all is obviously still burning. ‘Dante’s Kitchen’ is a swirling mass
of booming rhythm; ‘Acid Tounge’, Attrition’s long-time opening track,
now shunted into mid-set, slams harder than ever. A bit of a classic set,
I’d venture, and I speak as a veteran of many and various Attrition gigs.
Tonight, we get Attrition on overdrive: full speed ahead, and some of that
essential grit in the gears.
Tuxedomoon have certainly pulled their
fans out of the woodwork for this one. The Slimelight is positively stuffed
with people who have clearly made a point of being here just for the band.
Right at the front there’s a couple of Geordie boys, down from Newcastle
for the occasion, and almost vibrating with anticipation. What is it about
Tuxedomoon that inspires such devotion? Perhaps it’s because they’re one
of those bands that has doggedly ploughed an individual furrow for more
years than I suspect any of us care to think about. Since they emerged
from the electronic music lab at San Franscisco City College in 1977, and
found kindred spirits in such whackos as Devo and The Residents (to whose
Ralph Records label they signed), they’ve cruised through umpteen musical
excursions and myriad line-up changes to arrive here, in a grimy warehouse
in north London
in 2004, in front of a crowd which clearly believes that the messiah, or
at the very least his backing band, has come amongst us once again. It’s
hard not to get swept up in the enthusiasm as the band plunge into a set
of quirky avant-jazz-industrial numbers, running the gamut from cooled
out grooves to great slabs of heated up noise. The band members wear the
years lightly, coming on like an arty, surrealist version of Nick Cave’s
Bad Seeds. Founder member Blaine Reininger, on lead guitar and violin,
fronts the show with avuncular irony, ever and anon raising an eyebrow
at the audience as if to dispel any notion that we should take the proceedings
with po-faced seriousness. He’s the principal visual focus - indeed, *the*
visual focus - of the band, and it must be said that without him Tuxedomoon
would probably be a little too muso-ish for comfort. With him, they’re
cool. Projections dance behind the band, while the music is full of tangents
and excursions, seldom going where you’d expect it to go, and that counts
as good stuff in my book. Some of the regular Slimelight cyber-crew, standing
at the back wearing bemused expressions, waiting for the EBM to begin,
are rather nonplussed (there’s even a shout of ‘You’re rubbish!’ at one
point) but the Tuxedomoon massive never lets their enthusiasm slip, and
Tuxedomoon themselves are entirely unfazed. I dare say, at this distance,
they’ve heard it all. At the end, an accolade. One of the Geordie lads
turns to his mate and exclaims: ‘I think I’m the second happiest I’ve ever
been!’ Ladies and gentlemen, you can’t argue with that.
see all the photos from this concert here
Tuxedomoon (official site): http://www.tuxedomoon.com
Blaine Reininger's Tuxedomoon page: http://www.mundoblaineo.com/tuxmopage.html
Attrition: http://www.attrition.co.uk
The Dead: (No website)
Hagshadow/Hinoeuma The Malediction, promoters
of the gig: http://www.geocities.com/hagshadow
Reviewed by Uncle Nemesis: http://www.nemesis.to
11/28/04 |