Hello,
Could you please post this on that iheartnoise site or indeed
anyother site that had an interest in the recent UK tour by
Beaulieau, Rylan & Prurient.
Steve
harbinger sound
=====================================================================
Babysitting three neurotic americans for the last couple of weeks
proved to be an interesting experience and to be honest it would
have been impossible without the help of Mark Durgan ( Putrefier -
...and why do those yankees always spell it wrong ? ), Steve
Fricker ( Onomatopoeia / Cheeses International ), Joke Lanz ( Sudden
Infant ) & Mikko Aspa ( Grunt / Freak Animal ). The latter of which
travelled from Finland to cover the whole tour and not only did he
record every show but he came in great use as a translator between
the poormans english I use and the correct version favored by the
americans.
Lots of long distance driving was made worthwhile thanks to those
guys plus the following who all need a pat on the back; David Keenan
& Heather Leigh in Glasgow for providing me with my first ever
reason to visit Scotland. Tom O'Brian in Liverpool who got a tough
deal with a shitty venue - double bookings with Hardcore bands is
fine with me if it was decent Hardcore ! , Stewart & his pals in
Manchester where I sat up 'till six in the morning listening to old
LPs by The Fall ( pre-1983 ) Bliss!, Mike Dando for the Leeds
Termite Club experience, well, at least the Indian meal afterwards.
Matthew Bower for peeling back the Sunroof ! three nights, Mark
Wharton ( Mr Idwal Fisher ) for being the hostess with the mostess.
Dean Glaister ( Romance ) & Lee Stokoe ( Culver ) up in Newcastle
for setting up the first of the GREAT shows, JIm Backhouse at
Resonance FM for letting us rule the airwaves of London for a short
while. Phil Julian ( Cheapmachines ) for setting up the first London
bash at The Foundry, Johnny Scarr & Chris Bress for dragging the
public of Nottingham out for the night making my hometowns show a
personnal favorite. Richard & LIz in Bristol whose enthusiasm is
infectious, Adrian Smith for being sensible, Philip Best, The
Sutcliffe fellas & Gaya, Luke Younger ( Birds of Delay ) and his
folky folks plus the other Birds, and Jason Williams on the south
coast whose motto is 'If it's worth doing it's worth overdoing' &
provided me for the first time in umpteen years the first occassion
to fear for my hearing ! These are the folks that made the tour a
success, I just joined the dots between them.
Before the tour even started the efforts by Erik Hoffman ( Ground
Fault ) for his grasp of urgency & Dieter Muh's Dave Uden with his
eye for graphic perfection both need saluting.
Lots of fun was has along the way. Got to see lots of artists &
groups again or for the first time, and see friends from way back
plus made a few new ones. Filthy Turd was the proverbial bad penny
who turned up pretty much everywhere we did in one guise or another
be it live collaboration with Romance in Liverpool, a Bongoleroos
show in Nottingham or out on his own in Leeds, shit, walked into a
kitchen one morning and there he is offering to make me my morning
coffee. Stuckometer in Manchester made a great racket with that
Load Records vibe. Snotnosed gave me a geniune sense of danger as
they covered 'Hanatarash 3' note-for-note as a dustbin flew towards
me, and oddly enough, the same bar manager whose stood jaw open as
Sudden infant ate his babydoll didn't flinch once whilst Snotnosed
pounded the floor of his upstairs bar with a sledgehammer. Romance
poured new blood into pedal power & gave Putrefier's pedal sets a
close chase. The Digitariat & Ze folks in London got people whipped
up into a frenzy giving pointers that the London -based Entr'acte
label is the one to watch not Harbinger Sound. Birds of Delay
brewed a storm in both Nottingham & London regardless of how many
members got involved. Consumer Electronics took five minutes to make
the whole Power Electronics movement lok like a fanboy / bedroom
mirror movement as he flattened any possible title-takers with a
faultless delivery. Sutcliffe Jugend brought a cynical man like me
down stage front beaming ear -to-ear, but , sadly, Deepkiss 720
failed to pull off one of his scene stealing shows due to
malfunctioning equipment.
Ron fell foul of the miserable weather conditions on the journey
from Newcastle to London and had to pull out of the radio session,
so Mikko Aspa stood in and played the recent Beaulieau 12"s on an
Emil-stylee. Dom and Jessica got interviewed and Ron got the
Florence Nightingale treatment from nurse Lanz. Other downers
included the cancellation of the Brighton show two days before we
were due there, lucky I checked the emails otherwise we would have
been stranded, The Leeds PA was a joke and was the beginning of a
poor night. If you read Neil Campbell's message on the Termite Club
site he pretty much says it all. It was a Saturday night and the
place should have been heaving but it was the wrong, oversized,
venue to far away from the Leeds centre so only the hardcore crawled
over for the night. The venue is having trouble with noise level
complaints and theyre still planning on using the place for the
annual festival. C'mon Mike take control and salvage that great
reputation and move over to the Fenton or somewhere central with
small, cozy room in the town centre. AND get a decent PA as the last
thing we wanted was a Beaulieau spoken word set. Should have been so
much more. Steve Fricker brought his one-man act away from his
barstool onto the stage and chaos followed, the stuff of folklore.
Glass went everywhere everytime but claimed victims in Nottingham
with Ron cutting his knee open and Filthy Turd cutting his toes.
The Foundry show was great, but towards the end of the evening I
did the rounds with a donations tin - as the venue doesn't allow for
admission fees to be charged - expecting a fairly generous public to
dig deep and be happy they got to see about eight or so acts for
nothing. We pulled in £18 not enough to cover one taxi ride down to
New Cross in South London. Those tight-fisted Londoners ought to be
ashamed more so as most of them actually came for the noise and
weren't merely passing by. Don't think I'll bother with that idea
again.
Roadworks proved to be a constant bane no matter where we went.
Liverpool was a roadwork hell which drove Mark Durgan to near-
breaking point screaming he wanted the "train home", nearly forced
Sudden Infant to cancel his planned trip to Europe, and let get to
venues later than expected. Finally a few twats at the Sutcliffe
Jugend show wanted to pick a fight with Paul Taylor and threw beer
over the monitors breaking one.
The tales of woe were far outweighed by the good stuff like Filthy
Turd's weird mating ritual around Jessica's feet as she serenaded
him, it could have been a scene from 'Grease'. A member of
Whitehouse caling Dom "a pervert", Mikko's exposure to the ladies of
Liverpool enjoying a drunken night-out at his expense, and Smell &
Quim's fashion sense being exported to New York via Hospital
Productions. Just watch those catwalks. Many, many more currently
escape me. I haven't enjoyed a tour of the U.K. so much since I put
together one for MSBR nearly a decade ago.
Thanks again to everyone involved, it wouldn't have happened without
YOU. Hope Ron manages to catch up on his sleep, Dom can enjoy his
home comforts and Jesica manages to find a decent meal in mainland
Europe,
The EMIL BEAULIEAU "America's Greatest Noise" 2 x 12" set is now
SOLD OUT. Ron brought the last few to take home. I have a small
bundle, maybe 12-15 copies left. Still got the
PUTREFIER "Hypertension Classics, Vol 2" 4CD Boxset here. PayPal is
fine.
Thanks again.
Steve Underwood
[email protected]