It has been a while since n0teeth fired up the ol' music blog but as this is the last bank holiday until Christmas and the weekend was bookended by two jolly delightful gigs we figured, hell, what's the harm?
Bank holiday gig 1: there's no point in crying over spilt poppers.
Plack Blague and Transmigration @ The Victoria, Dalston, Friday 23rd August
n0teeth once read somewhere that something like 95% of the UK's amyl nitrate is manufactured in one factory in Huddersfield, owned by a guy who also opened the city's first gay club. Regardless of one's sexual orientation or stance on recreational substances, this is not the sort of single-handed commitment to keeping the country's ailing manufacturing sector alive that n0teeth will turn our nose up at (unless it's to sample some of the product in question).
The availability of poppers by the counter is a feature of London cornershops that I am sure must boggle the American mind, accustomed though it may be to finding all sorts of exotic gear in the "bodega" at all hours of the night.
Feeling ambassadorial, we helpfully suggested to Nebraskan homo-industrial leather-punks Plack Blague - manning their own merch stand like the DIY superstars they are - that they might like to acquire a little room-odorising souvenir from their UK tour at a shop not two doors down from the venue.
One of them immediately scuttled off out of sight, but whether it was to follow our suggestion or simply because "did you know you can buy poppers at the shop next door" is a somehwat odd conversational opener from a fan regardless of how pro-popper your music and image would suggest you are, n0teeth cannot say for sure. (This is by no means the weirdest thing we've ever blurted out to musicians we admire; just ask Perc about the floppy discs that one time.)
So anyway, the Victoria, eh? n0teeth has a decade+ of history with this place, fondly remembering the days when the locals would be out front eating fried fish at the main bar while the spindly black-clad Italo-goth massive bopped and tweaked to minimal synth in the spacious backroom. Since Jaguar Shoes took over, there's less of the local touch, none of the fried fish, but at least the music lives on.
("What is Mr Internet doing in our queer spaces?" the rabble ask. Sizing them up for redevelopment into luxury suicide clinics complete with Little Waitrose and squash courts, that's what.)
First on the bill was Transmigration, a new name to n0teeth, offering a pretty tight set of stompy EBM beats. The palpable rage in Transmigration's songs wasn't quite done justice by the music, which somewhat lacked in heft, even with the addition of a rhythmically chain-slapped metal grille on a music stand. That said, the performance had energy to spare, with the sole band member descending into the dance floor to berate us in close-up, even busting out a furious Fad Gadget cover at one point.
Then, finally, came the Blague, much missed since n0teeth last caught them opening for Adult. at Electrowerkz a few years ago. Sonically, tonight's set really captured the BP boys at their most raw, hard-edged and noisy, without losing sight of any of the bouncy, hedonistic energy that fuels their best beats. Performance wise? Imagine the most flamboyantly homoerotic display you've ever seen the louchest leather lads in Lincoln, Nebraska put on and multiply by 69. All Black Plague's set was missing was a builder, a cowboy, a sailor and a Native American. As camp as Christmas and twice as Paganistically excessive.
All that flying sweat & ointment got n0teeth thinking, though, about something we're gonna tentatively call the Leather Daddy Industrial Complex. Without wishing to detract from Plack Blague's current mastery of the form, they are far from the first pair of leather chaps to throw on a pair of leather chaps and crank out a scuzzy distorted disco soundtrack to a night of Liquid Gold-fuelled dancefloor grinding.
Take Manchester's Red Meat for instance: sort of a rougher, harder Blague - more aggro and less playful. Or Zeigenbock Kopf perhaps. The Kopf are, astonishingly, a side project of some indie guitar fuzz band or other called A Strange Place To Bury People. Safely assumed to be neither queer nor German, but a noisy, sleazy and danceable delight nonetheless.
Closer to these shores we've had the ol' Helvetic Confederation's inimitable Catholic Boys In Heavy Leather. There is nothing n0teeth can write about this wonderful and sadly short-lived Roger Rotor/Joke Lanz collaboration that would do it justice quite like the list of contents of the Nobody Urged You To Get Canonised limited edition box:
- a signed postcard of Pope Benedict XVI
- a pair of rubber gloves
- rosaries
- heavy handcuffs with keys
- a sticker
- a tube of Body Glide
- a vibrator incl. battery in an extra bag
- two condoms
This collector's item has been on n0teeth's Discogs watchlist for a number of years but no pre-loved copy of it has surfaced yet (perhaps mercifully, lest some other industrial pervert should have had his merry way with it). To my immense amusement, many years ago, I stumbled across the Protestant CBIHL tribute nobody asked for in a piece of text from The Troubles:
But I digress: you presumably came here to read about August Bank Holiday gigs.
Bank holiday gig 2: I'll Jack (Duckworth) yo ass like a looter in a (Soft) Riot.
Terror Bird, Soft Riot and Silent Star @ The Lexington, Islington, Sunday 25th August
Sunday evening rolled around, bringing with it two Vancouverite synth acts, Terror Bird and n0teeth's old chum JD aka Soft Riot. We turned up too late for Silent Star, but as we shall see, their opening set wouldn't be the last we heard from them this evening.
n0teeth just has to get this off our proud, glistening, musclebound chest before we go any further: there is a particular type of hat that seems to be worn exclusively by a certain type of wanker you only ever seem to see at the Lexington. A bit like a Christian Girl Autumn fedora but wider and subtly more obnoxious. n0teeth wonders what attracts such riffraff to this particular establishment and concludes it might have something to do with the Lexi's generous selection of bourbons / occasional Johnny Cash nights. You're not a rugged cowboy or troubled bluesman, you're in your late 20s, squarer than a Lorne sausage (but nowhere near as tasty) and probably from Fulham or somehwere like that.
Back to the show. Attentive readers of this blog may recall that we included Soft Riot's most recent full-length release, the gnomically-titled No., on our end-of-year list, with some breathless anticipation of how this crunchier, more dancefloor-oriented sound would play out in a live setting. The answer is: very well indeed. n0teeth & beloved companion managed to get right down the front and have a good ol' boogie, with even the Lexington's less-than-pristine sound system still just about managing to faithfully render the Riot's many sparkling synthetic delights.
I don't know what I thought Terror Bird was - possibly getting confused with an Author & Punisher trackof the same name - but it turns out they're a perfectly pleasant synth goth trio (possibly quartet, I couldn't see if the drum kit was staffed or not) who brought on a guest vocalist for a number that was prefaced with "this is the most Judas Priest I've ever felt". A cryptic yet oddly appropriate intro given Friday night's hellbent-for-leather theme. The guest turned out to be from Silent Star, whose set we missed; the song, a T-Bird collab called The Cold (check out that vid - the Barb looks splendid as always!).
My only criticism of their set was their near-constant larking about on stage which gave the impression of a lack of focus, maybe even boredom and indifference, which in the interest of fairness I am willing to ascribe to end-of-tour fatigue. I've seen it in PVA (Village Underground, 2023) and Ladytron (The Roundhouse, 2018), and to be strictly fair to the Bird they didn't phone it in anywhere near as shamelessly & insultingly as the 'tron did on that occasion. They were having fun, the audience was having fun, n0teeth was happy to have an early night anyway.
For future reference, however, Dr Internet prescribes a steady course of amphetamines (legal or otherwise) to keep you and your bandmates bright eyed & bushy-tailed until the final curtain. You know how Motörhead kept on touring and played their last ever gig only a few days before Lemmy died, while, Mick Mars' chronic disability notwithstanding, everyone in Motley Crue (umlauts deliberately omitted as a mark of disrespect) is alive and well yet still managing to look and sound like a washed-up, piss-pale imitation of a second-rate tribute to a third-rate LA hair metal scene also-ran band? These are the readily observable results of two very different choices of stimulant, my friends.
Tune in next time - which will hopefully be less than a month away, n0teeth's flealike attention span permitting - for a piece tentatively titled "Junk Rock USA".