Gigs, gigs, gigs
So here’s the funny thing, I’ve been in London (off and on) since 2001 and I’ve not really taken advantage of the vast and varied music scene that this city has to offer despite claiming to love music. If I’m honest, I feel a wave of anxiousness wash over me at the thought of attending a gig nowadays because I’m starting to feel like I’d be too old. The major theme in my life as a late-twenty-something seems to be that I need to grow up, and going to see nu-whatever hipster-core bands with a bunch of teenagers who resemble the cast of Skins didn’t quite fit my self-enforced stereotypical concept of maturity.
Then I joined a band in January.
The beautiful thing about hypocrisy is, is that hypocrisy is a beautiful thing.
Fast forward to last night, where I found myself at a free gig at the ICA. The original headliners were meant to be Lucky Dragons, who apparently are big on audience participation. Sadly, Lucky Dragons were held up in Los Angeles so they were replaced by experimental noise architect, John Wiese.
Helhesten kicked off the evening’s entertainment with a seemingly free-form musical assault. I won’t go into major details; I’ll let the pictures do the talking instead. You can’t really see it, but the guitarist was playing the strings with his unplugged cord.
Next up; Pre. Oh Pre, pre, pre, pre…how sonically brutal thou art. Maybe it’s because the singer was a cute asian woman with a tiny speaking voice and a banshee wail of a singing voice. Maybe it’s because she was an incredible maelstrom of flailing limbs. Maybe it’s because of just how aurally crushing it was having two bass players. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, I loved Pre. I wish I’d got better pictures, but I was dancing too much.
John Wiese. It all began with clicks and huge bass overloads that resonated in our chests so hard we thought we were going to be sick. At this point we all thought his equipment was broken because someone that looked like a soundman came on stage to twiddle some dials. It wasn’t broken, that’s how he wanted it to sound. For 20 minutes.
I think we lasted about 5 minutes before we left; I’m not sure if it was so far ahead of the curve or just a predictable noise assault. Either way, I saw Atari Teenage Riot do the same kind of thing 8 years ago and no doubt someone will have done it way before them. Sound art. Blah.
Then I joined a band in January.
The beautiful thing about hypocrisy is, is that hypocrisy is a beautiful thing.
Fast forward to last night, where I found myself at a free gig at the ICA. The original headliners were meant to be Lucky Dragons, who apparently are big on audience participation. Sadly, Lucky Dragons were held up in Los Angeles so they were replaced by experimental noise architect, John Wiese.
Helhesten kicked off the evening’s entertainment with a seemingly free-form musical assault. I won’t go into major details; I’ll let the pictures do the talking instead. You can’t really see it, but the guitarist was playing the strings with his unplugged cord.
Next up; Pre. Oh Pre, pre, pre, pre…how sonically brutal thou art. Maybe it’s because the singer was a cute asian woman with a tiny speaking voice and a banshee wail of a singing voice. Maybe it’s because she was an incredible maelstrom of flailing limbs. Maybe it’s because of just how aurally crushing it was having two bass players. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, I loved Pre. I wish I’d got better pictures, but I was dancing too much.
I think we lasted about 5 minutes before we left; I’m not sure if it was so far ahead of the curve or just a predictable noise assault. Either way, I saw Atari Teenage Riot do the same kind of thing 8 years ago and no doubt someone will have done it way before them. Sound art. Blah.
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