From David Hampson Sent Sat, Oct 21st 2000, 19:52
From David Hampson Sent Sat, Oct 21st 2000, 19:52
Just a few words about this night - I wrote more last night but I got hit by a virus and lost everything I was working on last night! If anyone has e-mailed me in the last 24 hours can you re-send! Anyhow, if anyone was expecting anything as big as Warp's do they would have been disappointed - the venue - up a rather scummy back street in East London - would be lucky to get 200 people in, though they had borrowed the same school disco lights as Warp did, and not splitting them between two rooms was reasonably impressive... First thing that happened when I got there was I got my money back! Having came a fair distance to the gig was a little annoying until the guy on the door told me there was no changes to the bill or anything, just that we were being given our money back (in exchange for e-mail addresses). So all of you who bitched about £8 for some crappy acts no one else has heard of lost out! Inside: school disco lights, no visuals. At the front Mike Paradinas and the guy that plays roadies in every movie ever with roadies - at least it looked like him - were peddling records from behind the turntables whilst on stage some long-haired hippy guy was playing guitar hunched over a console, though how he could see anything through that long hippy hair is anyone's guess. Anyhow, Mr Capitol K kind of seemed like he was hiding behind everything, hair included, and I guess it goes back to the Warp night and the need for some visuals since watching some guy hiding behind computers is not visually stimulating. At one point K slipped into straight indie rock which seemed kind of weird for the night but I guess as a hippy he has to do his own thang (or is it thing...). Straight up next was an unshaven guy who hid behind a laptop and played some nice tunes - at least I think he played some nice tunes - he could well have been typing up the Planet Mu tour accounts, which will probably explain why 4 tunes in Jega stood up, walked out the backdoor and never returned - obviously realising he was not going to get paid! Next up on the decks Mike Paradinas who seemed rather uncomfortable in the spotlight. He opened with a rather mad banging techno style tune on a white label album with "Caustic Window Remix LP" written on it - anyone heard anything about this yet!!?!! A lot of what he was playing was on his DAT player and it was the same style of drum and bass meets gabba that Aphex and Chris Cunningham played, but this time instead of A-Ha it was MC Hammer being mashed up with a track based around "Don't Touch This!" - I was once asked by a gullible friend if I wanted to see MC Hammer live to which I replied "I'd prefer to see him dead". After a while his discomfort got to him and he begged a pair of eager young scamps to take over - Hellfish and Producer who look like a white Maseo and Keith from the Prodigy without all that camp punk rock make up. These guys certainly won't be caught masturbating the tonearm - the menu is dock-off beats and plenty of 'em! Their style somehow manages to transcend banging techno but with more beats, hip hop with a lot more beats and drum and bass without the beats taken out, and what they lack in subtlety that more than make up for in intensity. What set them apart from the others was that they obviously were into the music and revelled in it, unlike Capitol K hiding behind his hippy hair, Jega behind his accounts and Mike P wishing he had something to hide behind! Once again it was disappointing how many people had came to front - only half a dozen people were dancing, though it may be that they were intimidated by some punk rock dude who looked like his butt plug had overheated but maybe he was just enjoying the music! It was a nice small midweek night out, and its hard to feel short-changed by a free gig! I almost wish I brought my MD along! BABY DIDDY