“Here’s To You” by Lowri Evans (June 20th 2018)

Behind Islington Mill an artist had set herself up in residence behind a small table and a sign reading “Hello OPEN.” On the table were a few old bottles. People were invited to bring something and destroy it and these were emergency bottles for people who didn’t bring anything. Lowri Evans’ performance of potential catharsis through violence against inanimate objects was advertised thus: “Do you have a household item you would like to smash against a wall? Do you have something you use every day that you’d like to destroy forever? Do you have something precious you’d like to break into tiny pieces? Then now is your chance! Bring your object and yourself and tell me all about it!” Lowri was dressed in a high visibility fluorescent yellow jacket and kindly supplied protective goggles, hard-hats and gloves so smashers wouldn’t get hurt. I brought an old stereo I’d found abandoned on the street and had taken home in the hope that it would function, however it didn’t so I suppose it wasn’t really something precious. This turned out to be the largest object anyone smashed, but I foolishly only wore goggles and got green paint all over my hands from the large shipping container that things were being smashed against. I should have worn gloves! After each person smashed an object, Lowri would select a shard from the debris and place it in a small transparent plastic bag with a message phrased from whatever the smasher wanted to say to the object. My bag has a transistor and a message tag reading, “Graeme To carrying you home and never working.” She asked everyone how they felt about smashing an object. I told her it was fun but I didn’t feel any different after smashing the stereo, I had a sense of equanimity about it. Some people did get some catharsis out of it, especially Jen Wu who it was generally agreed threw the best smash of the day. Her bottle shattered into so many fragments it seemed magical: almost total destruction. Later in the afternoon more people gathered and some stuck around smashing lots of objects, mostly glass but also an old squash racket. It was a smashing party. Lowri smashed the final object, a glass she’d brought all the way from Brazil. She told us that after the end of her last long term relationship she had smashed every glass in the house except this one. Now even that last glass was destroyed forever.

“True Story” by Lowri Evans and Sippy Cup (June 18th 2018)

The large gig room at Islington Mill named the Burrow by Fat Out has been closed and is being used by screen printers One69A until the planned refurbishment is finished. The gallery is occasionally hosting gigs, and other happenings continue in and around the warehouses on Regents Trading Estate behind the Mill. Lowri Evans of Hotpants Romance and Eggs Collective was living at the Mill bed and breakfast as artist in residence, and invited me to a performance she was planning at Caustic Coastal warehouse with abstract improvised music duo Sippy Cup and photographer Heather Glazzard. She told me that it was her celebration of the World Cup, and would be happening at the same time as England’s first match. She said the performance would be a surprise. The surprise turned out to be that she was stood naked with a large dead fish draped over her shoulder. I don’t think it’s any great secret that I’ve had a huge crush on Lowri since the first time I met her when the bands we were performing with played at a house gig in Levenshulme, so it was quite a lovely surprise to see this beautiful woman naked. It was not however a sexually arousing experience, maybe due to the presence of other people in the room and certainly due to the overwhelming stench of the fish. As Kate Armitage and Stuart Calton rattled, whistled, rustled and clanked in a corner, the candyfloss haired lady walked very slowly across the concrete floor, clutching the dead body of the silver haike close to her. Fish scales stuck to Lowri and later she said they looked like contact lenses. Another surprise: after about fifteen minutes Kate, who drums for Hotpants Romance, suddenly banged a drum and switched off the light for a few seconds. When the lights came back on, Lowri had moved to a different location and was holding the fish above her head, with her back to us. Lights would go out at roughly fifteen minute intervals for the hour and a half long performance, increasing in frequency towards the end. Each time Lowri would move to another place and took on a new pose in the silent darkness. I thought that it would have been funny if she’d walked right up to the people watching and held the fish out to them and then dropped it on someone when the lights came on. When I told her this she suggested that I get naked with a dead animal myself so that I could do it! I’m sure Jamie Robinson could find me a dead rat or pigeon somewhere around the Mill! There was a terribly worrying moment when Lowri slipped in water on the floor, but she regained her footing and didn’t fall over. She laid on the floor with the fish next to her and slowly raised her head so it was right next to the fish’s head, and I thought she might be about to kiss the fish. Later she told me there was no way she was going to kiss the fish. When she stood again her thigh looked bruised, but it was just dirt from the floor. Lowri always makes me laugh: the funniest moment was when she shuffled along with the fish along a leg and its tail on her foot. The overall feeling was rather solemn and ritualistic. All of the senses were involved in the primarily audio visual performance as the fish smelled horrible, and there was strawberry water to drink, but only Lowri was experiencing the sense of touch, holding the fish to her for most of the performance. It must have smelled worst for Lowri, and Heather actually had to stop photographing and filming towards the end as the stench got too much. I managed to reduce it by cupping my hands over my nose. At the end Lowri lied down on the floor again and didn’t move much with the fish lying alongside. Seven people watched, but only two stayed for the full performance, as people could come and go as they pleased. One lady seemed a bit disgusted by it. There could be moral objections to this performance. The prudish would frown upon public nudity, but Islington Mill isn’t known for prudery. A more serious moral objection that I pondered myself is that as a vegetarian, using a dead fish seems repugnant. It could be argued that the fish was already dead when Lowri and Heather caught an early morning taxi to Ashton to buy it, or that it could have fed people as was actually intended. When it was alive and swimming in the sea, what would it have thought of its future if we could listen to the fish? What would the fish out of water think about being paraded about artfully by a human? Did it live and die for this? When Lowri dies will a fish carry her away into the sea? Was it all a mermaid plot? Lowri said the idea behind the performance was caring for a dead thing. This reminded me that when I was a child I had cared for a dead bee. It stung me and died and I kept it in a box until it completely decayed, and I was sad that the beautiful bee slowly disintegrated. I suppose I was a little sad for the dead fish, but much happier to see Lowri and hear Sippy Cup’s longest ever performance. They created a memory that has forever transformed the freezer unit in Caustic Coastal. I’ll certainly always remember Lowri and the haike every time I go there. Aside from the duration of the performance it didn’t really have any connection to the World Cup but holding it at the same time as an England match must have drastically reduced the risk of any loaded laddishness erupting.

July gigs in Manchester

Sunday 1: Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Susie Ibarra and Yoshimi O @ Soup Kitchen

Tuesday 3: Carson Wells & Please, Believe! & Neiman @ Peer Hat

Friday 6: The Cosmic Dead & Cattle @ Soup Kitchen

Friday 6: Seeds of Doubt & Rodents & The Birth Marks & Secret Admirer & Handle @ Fuel

Tuesday 10: Vital Idles & Wurms @ Marble

Thursday 12: The Noise Upstairs @ Fuel

Thursday 12: Mr Airplane Man & 39^th and the Nortons & B-Positives & Jeuce @ Peer Hat

Friday 13: Anti-Trump demo Albert Square 5pm with DJ Dave Haslam

Friday 13: Akne & Beige Palace & Wait Less & Rickerly @ Fuel

Friday 13: The Breeders @ the Ritz (sold out)

Saturday 14: A Tilted Birthday with Kintsuku & Nick Alexander & Poet and the Loops & Rickerly & Tacetmusic & Ux & Work @ Peer Hat (starts 3pm)

Friday 20: Kuken & Slumb Party & Unpaid Intern @ Fuel

Friday 20 Ministry & Chelsea Wolfe @ Albert Hall

Friday 20 Belly @ the Ritz

Saturday 21 Sylvain Sylvain & ILL & Adventures of Salvador @ Aatma

Saturday 21 Liines @ Deaf Institute

Thursday 26 Locean and a showcase of the cinema of transgression @ Dulcimer, Chorlton FREE

Thursday 26 Pet Crow & Unqualified Nurse Band & Careering @ Marble

Saturday 28 Tim Jauncy (plays Grant Hart) & Look Back Bores (play the Fall) & Poppycock & Drink and Drive @ Peer Hat

Saturday 28: Flower Corsano Duo & Bilge Pump & Andy Abbott @ Todmorden Golden Lion (not Manchester)

Sunday 29: Damn Teeth & Strange Friends & Bleach Boy @ Fuel

Sunday 29: Archelon & Glarus @ Marble

Tuesday 31 Cynthia’s Periscope & Mutabase & Glowing Brightly @ the Castle

June Gigs in Manchester

These are the gigs I’d like to go to in Manchester in June. At least these are the gigs I know about. There might well be other good gigs happening that I haven’t heard about yet. If I’ve listed a gig here then I like at least one of the bands playing at the gig. Obviously there are bands I haven’t heard yet, and bands I don’t like, so this is never going to be a definitive gig guide. Put any of these gigs into a search engine and you’ll probably find a lot more information about them. Now go to a gig.

Friday 1: Claw the Thin Ice & She the Throne & Careering @ Aatma

Friday 1: The Distractions & The Sandells @ Kings Arms

Friday 1: tAngerinecAt & Cinder Well & granola suicide @ Fuel

Saturday 2: Dorcha & Adrena Adrena & Godspeed You! Peter Andre @ Soup Kitchen

Saturday 2: The Maitlands & Jungfraus & Blanketman @ The Castle

Sunday 3: Robocobra Quartet & Handle & Acid Marko @ Peer Hat

Monday 4: Flatworms @ Soup Kitchen

Tuesday 5: Shatners Bassoon & Adrian Northover, Phil Marks, David Birchall @ St Margarets Church, Whalley Range

Thursday 7: Factory Acts & Patchwork Rattlebag & Ethereal & Code:Marla & entha @ Peer Hat

Friday 8: Witch Fever & The Slumdogs & Saintts @ Peer Hat

Friday 8: Slut Magic & Playacting & Great Ghosts @ Fuel

Sunday 10: Mike Donovan & Irma Vep & Aldous RH @ Gullivers

Thursday 14: The Noise Upstairs @ Fuel

Thursday 14: Drahla @ The Castle

Friday 15: Denim and Leather & Polluted Brain & I’m 6 @ Soup Kitchen

Saturday 16: ILL & Mold & Glove @ Deaf Institute

Friday 22: Seven Sisters & Ascalon & Aggressive Perfektor @ Peer Hat

Saturday 23: Bobbie Peru & The Sandells & The Empty Page & Drink and Drive & Diagonal Science & Monkeys in Love & Flea & Four Candles @ Peer Hat

Saturday 23: King of the Slums & SPIRIT:level  @ Night and Day

Sunday 24: The Ex @ Soup Kitchen

Tuesday 26: John Macedo, David Birchall, Andrew Cheetham & Andie Brown @ Peer Hat

Wednesday 27: Owte & Cynthia's Periscope & JFrisco & k1square & TOOM @ Fuel

Friday 29: Slow Crush & Pijn @ Soup Kitchen

Gigs in Manchester in May 2018

Manchester gigs I recommend during the rest of May:

Friday 11: Cassie, Cynthia’s Periscope & Aughra @ Fuel

Saturday 12: Damo Suzuki, The Common Cold & lots of other bands @ White Hotel (starts 5pm)

Tuesday 15: Grey Hairs, SAVAK & Salt the Snail @ the Peer Hat

Tuesday 15: Circuit des Yeux & Matchess @ Soup Kitchen

Tuesday 15: Kaputt, Bunny Hoova & Handle @ Fuel

Wednesday 16: Miki Yui  & Lee Patterson @ Islington Mill

Wednesday 16: Birdstriking, Jungfraus, Blanketman & Respectfulchild @ Peer Hat

Thursday 17: Mary Ocher & Politburo @ Peer Hat

Thursday 17: Father Murphy & A Sun Amissa @ Eagle Inn

Thursday 17: Jim Ghedi & dbh @ the Castle

Friday 18: Easter, dbh, Playacting & DTHPDL @ Peer Hat

Saturday 19: Matana Roberts & Kelly Jane Jones @ Portico Library

Sunday 20: Josh T. Pearson Band & Erika Wennerstrom @ Gorilla

Monday 21: Screaming Females & ILL @ Soup Kitchen (sold out)

Monday 21: The Levitation Room, Goa Express, Freakout Honey & The Big Peach @ Peer Hat

Tuesday 22: Radar Men from the Moon, Stupid Cosmonaut & Schoolhouse @ the Star and Garter

Wednesday 23: Cocaine Piss & Threads @White Hotel

Wednesday 23: Father Murphy & Sophie Cooper @ the Golden Lion in Todmorden, FREE

Thursday 24: TV Smith (of the Adverts), Harvey’s Rabbit, Joe Smith @ Aatma

Friday 25: Circle & Trojan Horse @ Rebellion

Saturday 26: Mold, Luxury Apartments, The Starlight Magic Hour & Posa @ The Eagle Inn

Sunday 27: The Bonnevilles & Bones Shake @ Eagle Inn

Tuesday 29: Sloth Racket & Birchall,Cheetham, Webster, Wilberg & Alex Spence @ Peer Hat

Wednesday 30: May the Night Bless You with Heavenly Dreams & Kerry Devine & We Are UX @ Fuel

Wednesday 30: Author and Punisher @ Rebellion

Thursday 31: Blue Orchids @ Peer Hat has been cancelled but you can go upstairs to Aatma instead

Thursday 31; Freakgenes & The Birth Marks & Leather Party @ Aatma 

ILL “We Are ILL” (Box Records)

This is quite a long review so if you’re eyes are tired from googling and booking your face here’s a one word version: brILLiant.

ILL is a very smart name for a band. It sets an agenda: turning the stigma of mental ILLness into a badge of humour and defiance. “You’re putting stress on the NHS,” is the accusation spat back in the very first line of the opening signature tune “ILL Song.” This is the kind of unsympathetic guilt trip a lot of ILL folk are stigmatised with before they kILL themselves.  The guitars scream in protest at doctor’s orders delivered in crazed chants of “Sort yourself out!” and “Take your pILL!”  Punk-disco rhythms get the party started.  The lunatics have taken over the asylum and are making the doctors dance. The rhythm slows to a zombie crawl and dies as the ILL get pILLs forced down them to keep them calm.

ILL are quite frequently described as four women. If you watch singing keyboarder Harri Shanahan’s hilarious sci-fi B-movie spoof video for the second song “Space Dick” you could be forgiven for thinking ILL drummer Fiona Ledgard is a kick boxing interstellar crime fighter and guitarist Sadie Noble was a hologram and bassist Whitney Bluzma and Harri are a pair of blue haired aliens. However they were only acting and no giant cosmic turtles were actually harmed. “Space Dick” is the sILLiest song on the album, concerning sexual harassment and sex(ism) in space. Manic space invader lazer keyboards keep shooting down sarcastic observations about the casual sexism of sci-fi and scientists: “I work for NASA, they sexually harass ya! Fancy some fellation on the MIA station?” The line “Girl you look so foxy when you’re running out of oxygen” is about Sandra Bulloch in the film “Gravity.” I’d imagine kids would like “Space Dick” as it has more rude imagery that their parents don’t want them to listen to than the other songs, and there’s lots of cowbell and lazer guns.

On the cover there are five heads even though there are only four people in ILL. That’s because guitarist Sadie Noble who plays on this album left about a year before the album was released and was quickly replaced by Tamsin Middleton, who also plays in Liines, Mr Heart, JD Meatyard and solo as Tamsin A. The music on this album was recorded in 2015 and 2016 so Sadie played all the guitar parts, and Tamsin was only in time to sing some backing vocals. Sadie still plays in Ten Mouth Electron and Salford Media City and the last I heard was also making solo albums. It’s been such a long wait for an ILL album that the person who sang the first line of the first song on the album is no longer ILL… or maybe they just couldn’t afford the power to keep her hologram running? Whitney is also quite busy with other bands outside of ILL, playing in Diagonal Science and Trancendental Equation.

 “Stuck on a Loop” starts up with a driving bass line quickly joined by circus clown fairground synth and squidgy mangled guitar and typically foot tapping drumming. It would make a great soundtrack to a ride on the Circle line on the Undone Underground.  On the surface it seems to be about obsession, when someone can’t stop thinking about the same thing. It could be about reincarnation. It could even be about the process of songwriting.  It’s actually about the nitrogen cycle. After a manic ride round and around it’s another deranged dance floor filler that decelerates into oblivion.

“Bears” is slower than the first three songs and Whitney sings the lead vocal. Guitars are spidery and scratchy and remind me of eighties Wire at times. Threatening to feed someone to “Bears” is as close as ILL get to writing a ballad. The drILL synth on the chorus creates an evILL atmosphere. The Bears don’t care. According to Whitney “Bears” is about “regaining your inner power when it’s been taken away by dickheads.”

“Bus Shelter” is the poppiest song with a funky bass line and calypso keyboards. Sadie sings what sounds like a political protest about a homeless woman who lives in a bus shelter and gets ignored by all the busy travellers. It’s dedicated to a lady who used to give out leaflets and warn people about freemasons on Oxford Road in Manchester. There’s an obvious homage to The Fall in the chorus chant, “Hit the North.” Whitney recites mostly Manchester place names, making “Urmston” sound especially diabolical. Finally everything falls apart in panic to shouts of “The world is coming to an end” after an apocalyptic synth attack on the shelter. The world doesn’t end; it just gets more violent…

Side Two (if you have a blue vinyl copy) turns darker and to me seemed almost all lyrically about the abuse of women by men. “I am the Meat” is the heaviest song on the album. It could be about the commodification of women’s bodies in the porn industry, however it isn’t. Whitney told me it was written as an angry response to a journalist who described ILL as a “quirky choice of a support act, whilst the meat is the main, male, band.” So it’s actually about being overlooked. The drums and bass bludgeon like butchers’ hammers, keyboards make noise like blood and guts oozing out and guitar sounds like final brain death spasms. Everyone screams! ILL wILL not be a quirky side dish; they are the main course.

The longest song on the album “Slithering Lizards” is an ominous warning of impending doom: “Hey sisters, they’re coming for you! You’d better lock your door, you’d better stay inside.” As worries build, the rhythm speeds up and the guitar splutters in wildly freaked out spasms. Teeth rot in a granny flat where life is not pretty. This song could work well in a horror film soundtrack. Appropriately it’s about the vile Tory government. 

“Power” is the most emotional song on the album. Harri sounds threatening and vulnerable, desperate and confused. It’s a slow night time crawl, a brain trying to break out of a skull. “All this violence is so perfect.”

“What am I supposed to do with all this power?” sings Harri like her head is going to explode. Maybe write a song? According to Whitney, ““Power” is about a woman embracing her sexuality and being passionate, which scares some people because it disturbs the societal norms of how women should be seen.”

“Hysteria” picks up the pace and ends the album with a floor filling hyper blast for mother liberation. “You have a purpose, a god given purpose… you’re just a birthing machine endorsed by the state / church.” It’s probably my favourite ILL song and this version is angrier, wilder and more hysterical than the previous version they recorded for a three song EP, but not as funny, as the “Push push” refrain isn’t pushed so much and there’s no fake birth dance. It reminds me of “Arabian Knights” by Siouxsie and the Banshees, but Whitney told me she’d never heard that song. The “mother hero” chant is from the mother hero medal awarded to mothers in the USSR. Don’t waste your life looking pretty, getting married and having kids to please the church and state. Go get ILL at the punk disco instead.

Three other songs were recorded by John Tatlock on Box Mobile studio during the album sessions but not included. They were rerecordings of “Kremlin” and “Secret Wife” from earlier EPs and another as yet unreleased song called “Androids Against Asimov” described by Whitney as a ten minute epic with scary time signatures that they haven’t played live. If I have any criticism to make of the album it’s that “Kremlin” would have made a great opening song for side 2, and it’s a shame they didn’t include it. You’ll just have to listen on the internet or find the EP. After you buy the album you cheeky downloader!

You can hear "ILL Song" on the ILL bandcamp:

https://weareill.bandcamp.com/

You can hear "Stuck on a Loop" and "Hysteria" and read the album press release on the Box Records website:

http://box-records.com/album/we-are-ill

Watch the video of "Space Dick" here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRRQcGM6f6A

Watch the video of "ILL Song" here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmml7MBikXk

Find ILL gigs:
https://www.facebook.com/pg/weareill/events/

Fat Out Fest 2017 Saturday

SATURDAY 15 April

I’d helped out setting up the festival for a couple of afternoons before Fat Out Fest began, folding programs, shifting crates of beer and dressing The Bernard, a warehouse venue only used on Sunday. I was also on a bar shift for the first half of Saturday, which tied me to the Caustic Coastal warehouse space. This turned out to be quite fortunate as This Heat drummer Charles Hayward’s new quartet Data Quack happened to be playing there and turned out to be the band I enjoyed the most on Saturday, maybe even the whole weekend. First they had to find their way there and we had to show them the route to their soundcheck. Volunteer organiser Sophie Bee told me to do anything Charles Hayward asked me, unaware that we’d met before. “Don’t worry,” joked Charles, “Anything of a sexual or perverted nature is already catered for!” The funniest question I asked anyone that weekend was directed to the young lady who plays keyboards in Data Quack. I asked Merlin how she met Charles Hayward. “Er, I’m his daughter,” was her reply. Only then did I notice their facial similarity. Data Quack also feature Housewives saxophonist Ben. Their music is a cathartic textured clatter and clang that had me in the moment completely for most of the set when I wasn’t picking up cups and cans. They haven’t released any recordings yet, but told me there are plans to do so. Before the music began we had a lunch break upstairs in Sophie Gardner’s Mother May I kitchen. The tomato based stew was one of the most delicious meals I’ve ever eaten, and the good news is she’ll be selling her amazing vegan gluten free food in the Mill at Sounds from the Other City (April 30) and is available for hire for festivals and events. Later she served an almost as delicious mild curry. The silliest performance I witnessed all weekend was the first one to enliven Caustic Coastal. Lone Taxidermist’s Trifle play light industrial disco, but the focus is on their daft performance antics. Kitted out in dayglo toytown bondage gear, a group of ladies enticed anyone brave enough  to joining in their custard swilling and trifle smearing whilst on the big screen naked butts painted red sat in cream cakes. Eventually they got a bunch of people under a plastic sheet and covered it in trifle. After a quick clean up, a solo Irma Vep sang his blues as he quaffed free booze. Edwin Stevens kept the room enthralled with only guitar picking and almost mumbled singing, a total contrast to the Trifle queens. After the glorious Data Quack attack, Berlin based Japanese duo Group A treated us to some violent industrial beats. Nick Cave once said something about Blixa Bargeld’s scream sounding like a man having thistles torn from his soul and Sayaka Botanic’s distorted violin invokes similar demons. Tommi Tokyo punctuates her bold enunciations by smashing a knife onto a metal bar making a harsh metallic crash or scrape. It proved difficult to tear myself away from their sweet deadly din in time to catch busy drummer Andrew Cheetham in an improvising duo with head Tonk honkster saxophonist Colin Webster in the bed and breakfast space.  Andrew is quite likely the best drummer in Manchester right now, certainly the most individual, and can also be found behind the kit with Easter and Desmadrados Soldados de Ventura. The only seat left in the room was on a sofa right next to the drums, so I got a grand view as he tapped and tumbled around Colin’s high honk factor. In the dark Burrow London progpunk purveyors Teeth of the Sea were down a man but still put on a climactic performance even if they couldn’t reach the heights they did last time I saw them when they soundtracked looped excerpts from the apocalyptic Scottish cannibal punk film “Doomsday.” I’ve seen Sly and the Family Drone play in a house (Anson Corner) and in a tiny Fallowfield bar basement and given myself ear damage drumming along with them so I kept well back when they  infested the Burrow with their raucous racket. With incredible brutal drum and sax duo Dead Neanderthals and their regular collaborator Colin Webster adding to the noise, this emerged as a much more nuanced and structured set than Sly would normally try. What it lacked in chaos was made up for in dynamics and ultra-high honk factor, however Dead Neanderthals didn’t scale the relentless peaks they did in a disused bank vault a couple of weeks before. Back in Caustic Coastal the abrasive industrial beats of Author & Punisher proved the perfect soundtrack to crush empty drink cans to. Maybe it was this that shook the roof apart so that the venue became too dangerous to be used on Sunday! After that it was party time…