Daily Archive

I’m tired, partially deaf (two loud ringing tones dominate - one high and shrill, one slightly lower and a bit crackly), a bit dizzy (probably due to said deafness), and feel a bit sick (probably due to said dizziness).  It must have been a good night.  In fact the only thing that lets down these Upset the Rhythm events is the cock quotient: the event was held in the trendy Old Blue Last, with its too-cool-for-school bar staff, roadkill hairstyles, ridiculous clothing (good news!  It appears that the vest is in!), stupid hats and sunglasses worn indoors.  The lineups for their events are rarely less than extraordinary.  Even if something is rubbish, more often than not it is so rubbish that it is funny.

Which leads me to the support acts, and first to the cleverly monikered female foursome Back Stabbath.  They were a bit angsty - “This next one is about the normalisation of abuse in the family” (oh, aren’t they all?) - and shouty, with the lead singer wandering the crowd yelling in our faces.  Thankfully, with a set of about six songs, none of which were longer than 90 seconds, they could hardly be accused of outstaying their welcome.

The cock quotient was about to rise dramatically.  Whitehouse were next, revelling in their Wire-sponsored return to the limelight by fiddling with their nipples and swearing at the audience in a manner that was probably very controversial and confrontational twenty years ago, but just put me in mind of a swingers party for pissed-up cab-drivers.  Their equipment - laptop and air synth - worked fitfully; their performance did not work for me at all.  Oh, for heavens sake, put it away.

Thankfully, Wolf Eyes were so good that they almost burnt out my memory of the preceding nonsense as well as blowing out my eardrums.  Did I mention it was really loud?  It was really loud.  Commencing with “Driller” from last year’s fuck-me-I’m-scared Human Animal, they didn’t really let up for the next hour.  

All the elements of this, this, I don’t know what it was, became tangled in a ball of sound.  Nate Young’s vocals, John Olson’s sax and single-stringed bass, Mike Connelly’s guitar, and all manner of devices in boxes, they all became enmeshed in steel wool feedback, which scoured the Old Blue Last with masochistic delight. 

I was reminded of the quote by Don Ayler about how to listen to the music he was making with his brother Albert: “try to move your imagination toward the sound. It’s a matter of following the sound”.  Amongst the dense undergrowth you could make out trails to follow, such as metal riffs or sick distorted pulses - you just had to trust your instincts. Wolf Eyes were following theirs, and to awesome effect - gig of the year so far, i reckon (judge for yourself: here is an mp3 of the whole damned thing).

The pictures look better at flickr; there are a few more there too.