Brothers of the head

Nice to see Desparate Dan and Juju again, even if it meant we had to sit through some truly diabolical bands. 'Bush Guru', the reason for us being at the Clapham Grand on a Friday eve, were the best of the lot. This isn't praise by the way, as the rest of the acts were so utterly bland and formulaic, it didn't take much to rise above them. I'm not a fan of this sort of right-on 'Afrika the Muthaland is weeping' shite, but they were competent players and they did do a song called 'Bulawayo' which must count for something. It was all downhill from there as they were followed by a ghastly Nelly Furtado wannabee (that's 'I'm like a bird' Nelly, not sexed up, Timbaland trippin' 'Man-eater' Nelly) wearing a screaming yellow dress which looked like someone had detonated a cage of canaries into some cling film and wrapped her in the remains.

She was eventually dragged off the stage by some passing PETA activists, only to be replaced
by one of those bands who used to play during break in your school hall. You remember those utterly wet Christian Youth bands, wot had one of those cylindrical hand shaker things and a weird sort of clacker machine that used to randomly mulfunction when they artfully banged it against their pasty thighs. The earnest weenies used to gaze meaningfully down at their synchronistically tapping feet while their leader (who always looked like that Jane from childer telly classic 'Rainbow' ) beseeched us all to 'Caharrmm to ther Lorred.' Not sure why she had a quasi-americano accent, it being seventies Rhodesia n' all. Sheesh, if anything was to drive an impressionable yoof into the arms of Satan it was these people. But I digress. By this stage I was sufficiently numbed by cheap lager and Jazz cigarillos to venture across the Saturday Night Fever Flashing Coloured Disco Floor (TM) the like of which I haven't seen since Sarah's in Harare, with the intention of rudely heckling the God Squad. Lucky for them they dashed off into the wings and cunningly tagged with something even worse. The lead singer of the next crew came on in very nice white jeans and top to compliment her shiny blondeness, but for some mysterious reason, had decided to wear a fluffy white tutu on top of her jeans. This was one stylistic flourish too far, I begged for mercy and Juju n' DD graciously allowed me to escape from what was quite obviously 'Bad Band Hell'.

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Follow the light, the light will guide you

Fuerzabruta at the Roundhouse in Camden, is an Argentine production which perfectly suits the newly revamped home of crusty rock concerts of yore. The show traps its audience in a ring of curtains and herds them about in shuffling groups, their movements dictated by the action taking place overhead and all around them. As a treadmill barges in from a corner a lone spotlight picks out our everyman hero of the day, trudging endlessly towards death/epiphany as all manner of obstacles hurtle towards him (including some people who looked like they'd just stumbled off the platform at Chalk Farm station). This poor fella gets shot in the back but bravely soldiers on, runs like the clappers for a bit, gets bludgeoned by a wall of boxes, gets rained on, gets randomly bumped into by those rude tube people again, gets shot again, keeps going, holy shit, it's like a metaphor for, like, life! This is all laying it on a bit thick but fortunately he manages to run off before someone else shoots him (namely me). We are now surrounded again, only this time by a massive curtain of tinfoil. Two nimble young gels in flimsy frocks dash around at ceiling height across this billowing silver surface, like a human wall of death, rolling over each other and screaming like banshees. My metaphor gland struggles to process this bit, but gives up as we are once again shuffled around by frantic backstage crew all sporting elaborate head mics, in order to make way for what looks like a giant 50p piece that floats down into the middle of the space. On either side of this 'coin' are a man and a woman, who set up a rhythm by hurling themselves from side to side which sets the entire structure rotating madly. This has the knock on effect of driving them both utterly insane, and they jabber and hoot at the crowd like Tourettes infected howler monkeys. Is this the paradoxical dichotomy of man and woman, or has the cast been laying into BSE infected Argentine beef? We will never know as the 50p is whisked away and replaced by a swimming pool that covers the entire crowd. The floor of this pool is made of some indestructible transparent plastic allowing us to view four scantily clad women as they perform an x-rated Esther Williams piece in a garishly illuminated cascade of water. I find myself becoming oddly aroused by all this frolicking, and am somewhat disturbed when they lower the entire structure down to head height allowing the audience to prod and paw at the nubile bodies a mere membrane away from them. The odd idiot takes it too far and has to be chastised by the roaming stage crew, as the pool sails back up into the rafters and...oh no, it's that poor running sod again, forced back into action on his eternal treadmill, you vicious Argie bastards, let him be! I too am calmed by a circling crew person, who assures me the actor is extremely fit and has been doing the show for months, like that's supposed to make me feel better. The whole event peters out suddenly in a rather anticlimactic fashion and we find ourselves abandoned by cast and crew to make our way out or linger on the floor while their DJ bashed off (no Spencer, not that sort of bashing off) a few tribal choons to prepare us for the world outside. Anyone familiar with the work of Grotowski would know this sort of thing was all done with equal fervour in Poland in the fifties and sixties (don't want to come over all poncy like, it's a miracle I remember anything from four years of speech n' drama). I can't say I was utterly blown away by the whole thing, but I recommend people check it out, just for the spinning 50p and the nekkid chicas in the pool, which strangely enough made it all worthwhile!

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Rock, and the monsters thereof

When rocking hard on a sunny Saturday afternoon, one suddenly finds one's thorts turning to matters epicurean. Rocker and myself have up to this point been content to satiate ourselves with watered down Stella/Strongbow combos. Rockette however, is having none of this and disappears for two hours on a food mission. Queensryche have deeply underwhelmed us with their faux horror ways for what seems like years before Rockette reappears clutching this smorgasbord of delights. She demands we partake of the pudgy wedges of deep fried smash, dripping cornetto and extra hot watermelon, but Rocker's eyes are drawn to the freshly minted pack of Smoking Kills and the feisty Chablis. He hoovers up both in a matter of seconds and is sufficiently enervated to sing discordantly
along to 'Wheel in the Sky'; a Journey classic that has aging rockers as far as the eye can see, weeping into their skull mugs. The Milton Keynes Bowl is a gigantic grass amphitheatre which looks like the crater formed by some giant prehistoric meteorite bombardment. We gather our meagre belongings and head for the relative sanity of the grassy slopes in order to take in the crowd from a distance. By the time Alice Cooper comes on, we have become one with nature and can barely wave a lighter to 'Be my Frankenstein'. Rocker has turned a luminous shade of vermillion and has begun chanting in ancient Mesopotamian, I begin to wonder what was in the Chablis. The Sun mercifully retreats and Deep Purple take that as their cue to stomp on the last remaining synapses firing in the puddled remnants of our brains. I too have taken up chanting as it seems the only way to communicate with Rocker. Rockette has gone off to start up a bra fitting concession next to the veggie burger stand, as she says she's never seen such badly fitted bras in her life, and that's just the men. Finally, to the strains of 'Smoke...' we crawl towards the exit, hoping against hope Rockette is able to drive us back to our hotel without any verbal input from her men. Not one to ever let the party end, Rocker whistles up three tequilas, three brandies and three buds from the hotel bar, but this is the final straw for Rockette, who despairs of us and heads for bed. Eventually, and by eventually I mean after having the shut bar reopened to get us a cheeky baileys, Rocker calls it quits, no doubt collapsing like a felled Redwood as soon as he got to his room. I know I did.

Monsters of Rock, we did you proud.

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Heyyyy

Much shame on me for failing to populate this site for a while. Wanted to do something on Monsters of Rock, but felt horribly drained after the event due to excessive rawking and lost the will to live. Back from the brink, I will renew my blogging duties with new found enthusiasm, partially inspired by, of all things, the World Cup. Ah yes, this joyful opportunity for the Peoples of the World(TM) to come together and get trolleyed while wearing ludicrous facepaint and chanting footie songs of dubious degrees of pc-osity. Fair warms the cockles it does, especially when you pop down to the local Portuguese tavern in Stockwell to take in Brazil v Croatia, along with the odd Super Bok. Interesting to see that well known hero of the Portuguese Nation, Da Fonz, immortalised above the bar counter. Having his benign countenance looking down on us, well, it pushes my already overworked cocklemeter well into the red. I may just back blog on Monsters, if I can find a picture that accurately sums up the occasion, and doesn't feature horribly cremated metalheads, roasting in their Slayer - Decade of Aggression Tour t-shirts. Suckling pork anyone?

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Drawings

Always nice when someone I know, actually manages to extract digit from rectum and get something done. Herewith a link to tortured artist's exhibition opening night, taking place in sunny Bethnal Green on the 22nd of June.
The venue is the snooker hall below his rooftop flat, and it will be the art happening of the er, day.

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