Before going out to see Geisha for the nth time this year, I read on their singer's livejournal that this will be no ordinary set:
"Dr. Sean Talbot will be playing the standard drum kit. Dr. Steve James will be playing a gate I found outside work, this device will be played by power sander, multi speed power drill and sticks, as well as saw. Dr. Anton Maiof will be playing a radiator also with drills and sticks, he will also be creating ebow guitar loops and yelling."
I think he must be joking, right? Wrong. The radiator and metal fencing are in full view in the Louisiana's upstairs room. The ebow guitar loops start us off, eirie sounds and Steve, bass conspicuously absent, begins to hammer away at his piece of metal fence like a man possessed. This continues in a weird industrial early Nine Inch Nails vs. Kodo-drumming vein, Anton screams words you can almost understand and eventually it builds up enough for Sean to kick in some great rhythms. The sounds created by hacksawing or industrial sanding a metal fence are stunning, the drills produce deep bassey drone-noises and people are almost dancing! This is Geisha, but not as anyone has seen them before, even more weird and wonderful than their fully acoustic performance last year. It is said there is a recording... I look forward to it greatly.
King Alexander are a lo-fi early 90's britpop-punk trio, fronted by a shouty girl and a shouty boy. In fact they are much more than this, the first impression recalls that period when they threw the composition out of music. However this band have a lot more complexity. At times the music becomes more interesting than being just punky songs, there is a song in 5/4 time (ooh how daring!), at times it is tinged with metal and rock. I enjoy them more than I wanted to, given my resentment of this basic punky noise, it's just that KA are somehow better than that. Perhaps the alcohol is starting to take effect.
Mugstar hammer some sense into me. They have maybe one song with vocals, vocals you can't really hear. The music, a relentless pounding of distorted one-chord songs, like they couldn't be bothered to spend half an hour building up and just jump straight to the good bit. Like Circle, the loud bits of Mogwai and Godspeed with extra saxophone. Cables trail the room as the band seem incapable of staying on the stage, we respectfully get out of the way, at the front I am in constant danger of being jabbed in the eye by the bass guitar.
My Way My Love are hard to describe, they are a great strange rock metal band with punk tendencies and tons of er... Pedals. There you go.
That this was all in aid of Hunting Lodge's album launch, didn't mean I would stay for the main band. I didn't want to get cross so I had to run away from their set. Well I stayed for the first five minutes then couldn't get out fast enough. Those who did stay have been reported to have liked it though.
