I went to the Hydey to see some bands and discuss who was the better bass player Tina Weymouth or Fred Smith? (Fred Smith). Solar Barge, Pex, The Velveteens, Craig McElhinney and Frozen Ocean played. I missed Frozen Ocean because I had to leave and figured the Velveteens to be a waste of time, I was half right. I think I had photos for this but lost them, shit.
Solar Barge is another project for Lyndon Blue aka Ra (guitarstick) and in the live format features Mr Serious himself Ringham aka Set (synthwizardry and gobletdrumpad). Solar Barge perform "the soundtrack to Ra and his friends' journey through the heavens and the underworld in perfect stereo sound". And they do it very well, if a little charmingly rusty at times. Also they wear masks. Next time less lighting please, sonic voyage need dark space.
Following this hawaiian feast was "Pex the Astonishing", whose hypnotic one man guitarama pleased the ears of all present, especially the very young and very blotto lady who "dirty-danced" Mr Pex during one of his numbers. This was a few songs after a couple, friends of the drunk girl, started making out in some sort of desperate bid for attention. They won, everyone in the room laughed.
I missed The Velveteens but this is what Lyndon said about them:
"There are many words you could give to the Velvetines’ pandemonium that ensued, and I’m going to go with “fucking hilarious” for starters: here we had a group of youths sloshed, smashed, plastered, tanked, pissed, polluted, sauced and just generally not doing very well that they struggled to plug in their guitars let alone execute a coherent musical performance. They stumbled and swore their way through the next half hour or so, with public displays of affection, coin slots big enough for godzilla’s pennies, guitars swung like cricket bats - at times, the rhythm section maintained some solid smooth grooves, but generally the effect was that of an ape swallowing your shoegaze collection and shitting it out backwards. It was classic rock and roll: a bunch of inebriated lunatics too far gone to play and much too far gone to care."
Craig McElhinney followed this spectacle in fine form, as always. His sets seem to flow out effortlessly out of his long pale hands and through the air in beautiful waves, like a black and white wacky-inflatible arms man in slow motion and tuned to C. Better to listen than read, ok?
NB Solar Barge set coming soon, delay caused by megaupload
