Hola amigos. I'm acutely aware that it has been well over a week since I last broadcast at you. Running out of prescription productivity pills will do that to you.
As the comms team here at Mr Internet towers knuckles down to write up a report on the first of three gigs this week (four, in the unlikely event I manage to schmooze my way into a sold-out AR Kane show on Friday) we are attempting to drown out the unexplained whistling noises coming from our water pipes with The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste b2b Mekano Turbo, having been reminded of the latter's existence by a not-that-recent episode of the always delightful and interesting NoiseExtra podcast, and never needing an excuse to return to the former, still as frighteningly powerful and deranged and hypnotic and mechanistic as the first time a teenaged Mr Internet put it on naively expecting "something a bit like Rammstein or Nine Inch Nails".
The gig in question: Lydia Lunch sings Suicide, backed by Marc Hurtado. Mrs Internet and I bought tickets for this out of curiosity more than anything: what was Lunch planning to do with our favourite NYC synthpunk bops? Put a Foetussy big band jazz spin on them? Go full noise rock a la Teenage Jesus? Or - shudder, whisper it - give an acoustic rendition?
We needn't have worried, because as I would've known if I'd taken two seconds to google the fucker, it turns Mr Hurtado is an electronic musician himself. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Oslo: a fine venue occupying a building that I'm 99% sure I read on one of my favourite British Rail nerd blogs used to form part of Hackney Central station. Nice bar downstairs, two for £12 cocktails, DJ spinning a noticeably frontwoman-heavy post punk selection (no Essential Logic sadly). The gig space upstairs is bigger than I remembered it, possibly because the layout of the bar downstairs makes the space feel more crowded. A fine venue, like I said!
The name Tina Kit suggested, to me at least, a female solo performer taking inspiration from certain angles of Lunch's career so far, but they turned out to be several suited and floppy-haired lads taking inspiration from the decidedly noise-oriented angle of Lunch's offerings. Abrasive guitars, shrieking trumpets and howling vocals, all at a volume satisfyingly loud enough to require earphones (which the bar staff were happy to dole out for free. A fine venue! Like I said!). Not exactly mine or Mrs Internet's cup of tea, but regardless, Tina Kit deserve a cheeky plug on internationally-renowned online media platform for their sheer onstage energy. And for attempting to make brass dangerous sonic weapon again.
Interlude. This blog salutes the person at the front wearing a serious bit of industrial drip - a NIN raincoat:
The gig was running a little behind schedule but the headliners didn't keep us waiting too long. Just enough time, in fact, for me to dash off and answer a call of nature in the most fragrant toilets in London (a fine, fine venue). When I returned, still gagging on piss fumes, the house lights were being dimmed and your man, er, Mark Furtado (?) had appeared behind a bank of electronics.
Electronics! She's gonna do Suicide exactly how god intended! Christmas is saved!
Moments later Lyda Lunch took to the stage to welcoming whoops and cheers from across the assorted crowd of goths, industro-perverts, artsy hipster types and older dudes who look exactly like J Mascis, and Marcus Delgado (?) fired up the unmistakeably slinky, sleazy beat of Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne.
And then Lunch approached the twin mics positioned at the front of the stage, opened her mouth and let 'er rip.
I made the cardinal error of trying to second guess an artist as volatile and unpredictable as Lydia Lunch. I thought she'd faithfully cover Suicide's hits but with strange new instrumentation. What she did instead was completely lose her shit over Matt Pintado(?)'s noisy electronic backing. Which didn't exactly displease me; people losing their shit over a wall of electronic din is, broadly speaking, my favourite kind of music.
After teasing us with those few bars of "Diamonds...", everything descended into madness, Lunch ad-libbing furiously over the distortion, occasionally being witty with it but largely falling back on what sounded like amplified Facebook boomer screed about yutedem & their damn smart-telephones. Ghost Rider was rendered fairly faithfully but far too slowly. Frankie Teardrop more or less worked but could have done with more terrifying screams. Lydia Lunch isn't a screamer; she yelps, barks, howls, snarls and growls but I don't think I've ever heard her scream.
All this time the screen behind them showed clips of somebody - possibly Martin Rev, who the lovely wife rightly pointed out would've been a much better choice to provide the music for Lunch's performance - bobbing around and mugging for the camera. Has anyone seen that TV show Rev? Where Martin Rev moves to London to become an Anglican vicar? No? Nevermind.
Rewatching clips of the gig in the cold light of day I can't fault the performance for what it was: a dirty great industrial racket. I'm always up for that kind of lark, any day of the week. I had however hoped I was taking my hep chick out to a hop, you dig? I thought we'd be grooving and bopping the night away to the switched-on sounds of those crazy cats from NYC whose songs could make you wanna go steady with your gal or jive till the cows came home. Deadsville Daddy-O segregation hydrogen bomb Brylcreem four-ten.
Listen, right, I'm not saying that we here at Mr Internet Heavy Manufacturing Concern could do any better, you dig? But rest assured if we'd landed that coveted "Suicide tribute band" contract ourselves, we'd be doing things a little differently to Ms Lunch and Mr Tostado. We'd be banging out the tunes on the cheapest Casio the local Oxfam could palm off on us, with Johnny Vegas standing in for Alan Vega. At the very least, we could pretend to be Sleaford Mods and take bets on how long it took anyone to notice.
Today we went to the zoo and then saw Ryoji Ikeda at the Barbican. More on that tomorrow.