LIVE

Rip It Up, Issue 149, 1 December 1989, Page 40

LIVE

SKEPTICS, NRA Gluepot, December 1 It's after 10pm when NRA appear on stage, and by the time the first song ends the dancefloor is already jammed with sweaty humanity. Whereas Bailter Space or Snapper use repetition and distortion to create a virtual out of body experience, NRA use similar techniques to force us back into our twitching limbs, to heighten rather than dullthe senses. At the front of the stage it'simpossible not to feel every drumbeat, a wasted effort not to convulse along with each eruption of subterranean bass. The spell is broken only on a couple of songs, or by e degrees as one moves away from the source of the sound. Audience expectations of the Skeptics had been raised to a ridiculous level by memories of their ) performances at the Venue in June, but tonight their approach was completely different. Six months ago, with two drummers, they forced the crowd into a state of dizzy, blissful surrender. There's only one drummer this fime, though, and the whole sound is sparser, more . clearly defined. : David D’Ath’s half poetic, half animal voice is the focal point, his broken diction strangely sychronised with his spasmodically eloquent body contortions. Drum patterns and samples pierce the unearthly sheen of John Halvorsen’s guitar inventions with a precision that might seem clinical if it wasn'tfor the beautifully flawed humanity of songs like ‘Agitator’and - ‘Crave’. They finish with ‘AFFCO’, a sublime bloodletting, and finally a rhythm as cruelly visceral as anyone could have hoped for. MATTHEW HYLAND CONFESSOR, LETHAL, TEMPEST, BLUEDEMON Powerstation December 1 After looking at the lineup of bands forthe Powerstation this nighf you could be forgiven for thinking that you had stumbled across the court notes for the Plumbley-Walker frial case. With names like Confessor; Lethal and Blue Demon on the menu it was obvious that Ihad a rough and ready night ahead of me. To bégin with, the signs were good. Blue Demon openedinfrontofa largish crowd playing Deep Purple and

Zeppelin covers, although at this stage the majority seemed more concered with getting a few ales down. Blue - Demon seemed more suited to playing parties where they'd get the reaction they need. Lethal didn‘t really live up to their name, although they do have a couple of good original songs. ‘From The ‘ Inside’ was the most interesting, written, we are told, by the band’s drummer while he was in hail. Obviously he learnt afew things about drumming inside there as well, as he held the band

together in theirloose moments. Butit was Confessor who whipped the crowd into action. To say that these guys were staunch would be understatement. Put it this way, | doubt whether there would be many happy parents around if young girls started bringing these guys home for dinner. As abandthey’re New Zealand's answer to Motorhead. They stick to the basics using driving rhythms and sweet

harmonies. The band has a diverse set.‘Hell On Wheels' shows their harder edge, while the atmospheric version of ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’ has a soft fouch. They look good on stage, complete with Status Quo style headbanging in front of a drum kit raised 10 feetinthe air where the manic drummer does Gene Simmons’ with his tongue. All good fun, and with the majority of songs being originals, these guys are one of the best hard rock bands playing in Auckland. The last two bands rather paled in comparison, playing mostly covers. Tempest's lead singer failed to turn up so it was damn lucky that their original singer was there. He seemed to enjoy himself as well and was probably the most charismatic entertainer of the night— it'll be interesting to see if his successor keeps his job. Anyway, a night made worthwhile by Confessorand | hope I've got the lineup rightas | had to ask the sound crew the order. Surely the bands could introduce themselves before they start¢ : BRUCEHUDSON WEILL WORKS, : VIOLINDA Harold Park Hotel, Sydney November 18 Tothe side of the stage a bespectacled young man in abaggy shirt and trousers, braces and a black beret— a cafe bohemian —languishes inachair. He regards the audience with bored contempt and says, ina clipped,

vaguely European accent, “My name is Bertolt Brecht. | died in 1965 when one of my characters through a grenade at me.” Then he shows us a bloody, gaping wound in his side and mutters

something about “pusand - putrefaction.” Thisis going to be no ordinary evening. The support act, Violinda, was oddball enough: a woman withan electric violin, a digital gizmo on the speaker behind her, and an array of dials and switches on little boxes at her feet. The sounds she made were

gorgeous; occasionally as formidable as Jimi Hendrix, sometimes as mesmeric as Philip Glass, and often plumb cosmic. Violinda is AKA Linda Patching, formerly of jazz-blues group Paris

Green and now one oftwo violinists in the Jeff Duff Orchestra. Her own group, Violinda and the Electric String Quartet, has an album out on Third Eye, the new “hippy” subsidiary of Sydney’s Red Eye Records. It's hard to imagine what the quartetfinds to do. Patching soloisa complete marvel, shyly twiddling with the technology around her and bowing up original opuses with ease. She has a pleasantely resonant singing voice too, even when her flash black violin is thrust up against her throat.

Back to the main course. A j presentation of 11 theatre songs, all with music by the German composer Kurt Weill. (Most of the lyrics were by poet and playwright Brecht who, after working with Weill on The Threepenny Opera, referred to his collaborator as “a phony Richard Strauss,” and that was the end of that.) Weill Works attracted a capacity fring-rock audience, coming hot on the heels of a couple of sell-out shows of similar music by the Jackson Code, a project of Chad's Tree leader Mark Snarski. To make along story longer, Snarski disbanded Chad’s Tree, recorded one strong album with the Jackson Code and left for Europe. Weill Works was put on by Code remnants and members of Pressed Meat and the Smallgoods, Martha's Vineyard and others. The key to this evening was atmosphere, conjured up by asneering “Bertolt” (Pressed Meat’s Matt Crosby) and other players who, dressed 20s art crowd, acted out perfectly a war-weary emotional austerity. Cello, violin, flute, piano, accordion, frumpet, guitaranddrumsinvarious combinations framed the tragi-comic songs. : % Kathy Wemyssisworthacult following of her own. She blows abold |

trumpet and her singing ... well, on this night her version of Youkali (Tango Habanera)’ was as moving as the ‘Cry Me A River’ she does with Pressed Meat— for whom she also does a mean tambourine solo (bet she juggles too). 3 The finale, an all-in rendition of ‘Mack The Knife’, lacked the spark that so many performers have foundinthe song since it was written in 1928. But this was a one-off show and allin all it worked. Rock-based performers delved into a highly specialised field and had the talent to capture its peculiar historical tension and humour without resorting to modern rearrangements or mere parody. Itwas a show that apparently won't be repeated, but it should help to open up the optionns for the more adventurous musicians in a fired pub-rockscene. STEVE PACKER LUCINDA WILLIAMS, THETOPP TWINS Gluepot, November 18 Well, the Topp Twins. | guess some people like them -- | don't. ltwas a strange concept, seeing a support act that was basically a parody of whata genuinely talented headliner was doing, but| suppose taste is objective, and all that. Lucinda Williams, however, more than made up for it. Despite seeming quite nervous and having a guitarist called Gurf, Ms

Williams was formidable. She has one hell of a voice, handling her early blues material equally well as the recent and rockier stuff, at times with more kick than any vinyl could hope to hold. Gurf did pretty well too. Despite (or perhaps because of) an exiremely dangerous hairdo, the man played some mean guitar. A full band would have been nice, though; despite the undeniable talent here, the show lacked dynamics attimes -- itwould have been good to give these two a bit of room to go loose. Still, you can't argue with class, and Lucinda Williams had it in abundance. KIRK GEE UPPER HUTT POSSE, D-FACTION Siren, November 29 This gig was a singles launch for the bands, both of whom debuton the Southside Records label this month. Interest was high: a big crowd turned upto watch, and even after the free Steinlagers were handed out the Siren barstill made arecordtake. !

D-Faction are officially two, ex-Ardijah members Simon Lynch and Tony Nogotautama, but for the evening they were five, including singers Krystal Jade and Ngaire Moana, and drummer Eddie Olsen. Lynch zapped the audience with great vocoder on ‘Recipe’ before sliding into ‘Miss You', the B-side of their‘Motivation’ single. The third track ‘Not That Kind Of Man’ cut a great Minneapolis groove but the music was somewhat overshadowed by Eddie’s funky frog routine. He put as much work into dancing as Krystal did into smiling, and that's alot. Then Krystal crooned through her own ballad. Simon and Tony took back the limelight with ‘Motivation’, Tony dishing out roughneck guitar and impassioned vocals. D-Faction surprised a crowd ready for something more laid-back. They were high-tech pop witha 70s funkfeel, and that's good stuffto dance to.

The Posse too were outto make people dance with their new single ‘Do It Like This’ and also ‘Against The Flow’, butthe best song in their set was the slow ‘Stormy Weather’, a great reflective ballad that shows off Tere's distinctive singing style. The bravado of rap also covered up the gaps in Dean Hapeta's political soapbox. “We're against poverty and all that shit,” he announced, thus casting the band's political net around the globe eight or nine times. “Babylon is the flow and we're against it,” he added later, to more cheers. By now my copy of the Liberal’s Guide To Political Awareness was well-thumbed; | groped through the pages in the darkness, desperate to translate. What the fuck was he on about? | checked outthe bus timetable, too: the ARA doesn't go to Babylon. So forget specifics; the affitude was about pride and defiance, and everyone related to that. Dean worked the crowd well, butthe Posse’s biggest asset was their tunefulness. They've got good songs and the vocal input from Acid Dread and Wiya balanced out DJ DLT's scratching. Sometimes there was too much in there (Into The Beat' just gottoo busy, too cluttered) but the final impression was that the Posse are a mix of influences. Out of that mix came their real strength, and their New Zealand flavour. . CHADTAYLOR