the music...

Rip It Up, Issue 65, 1 December 1982, Page 12

the music...

Jewel Sanyo

Windsor Castle, Friday 26, Saturday 27 November.

Fetus Productions Nocturnal Projections Fishschool This Sporting Life Windsor Castle, Nov 26. Four bands played to a capacity crowd. Fetus Productions stole the show for sheer impact. This is one NZ band who have made the transition from entertainment to (dare I say it) art. Their performance utilised several mediums as vehicles for a total concept. Serum in white, on synthesiser, feeding through voice in growls and cat noises, Jed in black with full face balaclava, executing pointsman signals and guitar. A bottle in a rubbish can and Synre 3 provide percussion. Split level films conjure images of birth, death, accident, design, mutation, mutilation, metamorphosis, decay.

Their own background' tape, using drum machine, AKS synths with Travis Bern bass is the basis of a seamless programme. All of it is rivetting, not always musical, the power and intent of this performance is to provoke, disturb, compel. Nocturnal Projections played a tight set of well chosen songs ranging from reflective to furious. Their music deals in emotional tones with atmospheric density, vocalist Peter Jefferies incants the melody lines, the drummer never lets you relax. Graeme Jefferies recalls Alex Bathgate with some fast, fiery, very neat guitar playing. Fishschool instrumental virtuosity on the progressive jazz style frontier. This three-piece play very distinctly in loosely defined structures. Jessica Walker's

inventive bass playing stabilises flyaway guitar and provides a secondary lead instrument linked to the feathery, almost fluid drums. The audience enjoyed the 'Disco Song' and George ex Spy Henderson's protest guitar rage 'Law's Gonna Change'. I like 'Charisma' notes dropping gradually into beat formation to build a castle in the air. This Sporting Life play medium to fast paced songs which rely more on punctuated rhythms, both musically and lyrically, than melodic flow. New material benefits from Paul Fogarty's change from Music Man to Burns guitar in definition and resonance and from vocals in lower keys with sustained notes e.g. Too Proud'.

If you pay for musical entertainment at a pub what do you expect? If you are over 20, are not carrying drugs or gelignite, aren’t falling over or armed with chains or flick-knives do you expect to be able to enjoy your evening without disruption?

Maybe you’re expecting too much. On Saturday, November 26 at the Windsor Castle Hotel, these people were part of a fairly attentive and sedate crowd when a task force of about 25 police arrived.