Real Festival Music - gig - Nik Turner's Space Unit

[trev]

Aw shucks John...

It's wierd about people you know on the internet - when you meet them in the
flesh. There are loads from boc and yahoo who i would like to put faces to.

Pretty accurate review as well, i think.

Trev


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Jarrett" <jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK>
To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET>
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2004 1:09 PM
Subject: NIK: Re: Real Festival Music - gig - Nik Turner's Space Unit


> On Mon, 1 Mar 2004, trev wrote:
>
> > NIK TURNER'S SPACE UNIT
> >
> > Will be performing at the Underworld
> > http://www.theunderworldcamden.co.uk , Camden Town, London on Thursday
> > the11th of March 1994, on stage at 10.30 approx, open til late.
> >
> > The participants in this "Spacerock Supergroup Frenzy" will include
> > The Mighty Thunder Rider himself, Judge Trev, Commander Jim Hawkman,
> > David Anderson, The Fabulous Angie, Jackie Windmill, Myreg, Ola, and
> > introducing Gordy Everitt - new bass boy, and other "special guests"
> > to be announced.
> >
> > The musicians will be careful to ensure that there are absolutely no
> > rehearsals prior to the gig in order to recreate the original "vibe"
> > of the great days of Acid Rock in old Camden Town - the heart of Inner
> > City Unit's stomping ground.
>
>         I didn't see anyone else I knew at this gig, which I only went to
> on the fly, so I thought some kind of review of what the Other Half are up
> to might be interesting while I'm unable to get to any of the current HW
> gigs...
>
>         I was teaching that evening, so I missed all but one number by the
> support, Landmarq, and I didn't quite know what to make of them from
> that; I didn't like it exactly, but more, I didn't even know what they
> were. Some kind of twin-lead-vocals prog with one female singer was all I
> really got out of it. They reminded me vaguely of a Cambridge band called
> Skelliga who are also trying to be many things and on a good day get away
> with it. Landmarq might get away with it more often, but really, I didn't
> see enough to tell.
>
>         It took me some while, even once our own Judge Trev had taken the
> stage with a towel around his head shouting "death to the
> infidel!" several times (that might even be as punk as you can currently
> be I guess), to be sure what was going on with Nik's lot as
> well. As we started, the line-up was, left to right:
>
> Gordy Everitt (second bass, young bloke, possibly from the All Stars?)
> Dave Anderson (still with head attached, and playing bass)
> Milo Griffiths (the All Stars drummer, playing drums here too)
> The Mighty Thunder Rider, Nicholas Turner Esq. (sax, flute, vocals, weird
>         percussive things on a string)
> Judge Trev (extremely loud guitar for the discerning)
> Commander Jim Hawkman (synth, extra howling)
> Jacqui Windmill (umimportant djembe, off-tone screeching)
>
>         And mention must as ever be made of the fabulous Angie, who really
> can dance, and who unfortunately had to deal with some idiot trying to paw
> her for altogether too much of the set.
>
>         The setlist was, as far as I knew it all:
>
> Watching the Grass Grow
>
>          I scribbled some notes down but I can't read half of them; there
> was a lot of Trev all over it, but it wasn't quite together, either the
> bassists' fault or someone else's I wasn't sure, but it was a little
> uncertain, until they all got to break when it just turned into an extreme
> freakout and damned pleased I was to see it; If that was the shape of the
> evening, I decided, that would do me fine;
>
> Solitary Astrid
>
>         Good version, good enough, anyway, but took the wind out of the
> band's sails rather I thought;
>
> Space Invaders
>
>         Ragged, but still a lot of fun; and the freakout break was
> everything you could have demanded (expect perhaps coherent);
>
> The Bones of Elvis
>
>         Points for Trev here also, who a few seconds after the drum part
> had started began shouting "NO, no no stop! It doesn't start like THAT! It
> starts like THIS" and then stepped up to the microphone and gave us a
> verse of his best Elvis impression before letting the band carry on. Nik
> forgot some of the words (hey, it was going to happen at some point),
> mostly the long list of ethnonyms at the end, but it was still good. It
> always is, let's face it;
>
> ?
>
>         All Stars number, and therefore interesting to see; everyone
> played their bits, it was a jazz number and pleasant enough, good to see
> Nik playing in time as if it was natural to him, but I was still waiting
> to see what happened next rather;
>
> World of LSD
>
>         I have to say, this one was a bit all over the place. I mean, I
> suspect I'll never like a version of this I see live as much I like the LP
> version because of the huge drums that has, but this was one where people
> not knowing the song (especially either of the bass players) did tell.
>
> Skinheads in Leningrad
>
>         I have now seen this live four times and this was the second best
> version. Hurrah! Oddly, the best and worst versions I've seen have both
> been ICU, same line-up even. But I do love the song.
>
> Remember (Margate Beach)
>
>         I'm stupidly vulnerable to this song, but the backing vocals
> weren't quite good enough to get the full Phil Spector tear-jerk effect. I
> think everyone was having too good a time to make it as faux-tragic as it
> could be. I still enjoyed it though.
>
> Little Black Egg
>
>         Including Nik jangling a big string of various buits of clangy
> metal looped round his neck, decidedly odd, even more so than usual in
> fact, especially as Jim didn't seem to do much of the usual tweeting and
> instead went for weirder noises. Not as far-out as the studio version yet
> but still a good shot.
>
> ?
>
>         Another All Stars number, and I found this one much more
> convincing, it had a definite Latin swing to it which made the album title
> seem slightly more relevant. Points to Trev for playing as if he knew the
> song backwards after a few bars working it out.
>
> Gas Money
>
>         I may be wrong about where this was in the set-list; my notes were
> scribbled in the dark and I think I couldn't see this when I wrote the
> next one down, but anyway. I do remember Angie saying during the spoken
> exchange at the beginning (which was fluffed by Nik) how they really did
> need the gas money, it was no joke. It was a good version, but not
> surprisingly so, and I did think they could have made it more together on
> such a basic song, but though the bass was uncertain the rest was OK.
>
> Bucket Song
>
>         I think I always expect too much of this; it was only all
> right. *Very* quick to do though :-)
>
> Fungus Among Us
>
>         This was odd, as it's probably the closest to big band jazz in an
> ICU setlist save only `In the Nood' (which was not played unless my notes
> and memory have both erased it), but it didn't seem to go off very
> comfortably. Nik seemed very uncertain of the words and I think it was
> infectious. If it wasn't this number it was another, where Nik came in
> about a bar early with the third verse and Trev and Dave Anderson just
> looked at each other as if they'd been waiting for that to happen and
> fairly seamlessly bent the song back round the vocals without losing their
> grins in the process; that was the sort of thing that was making it all
> work.
>
> ?
>
>         I don't know if this was an All Stars number or not, but the band
> was now joined by a tall slim Japanese girl bearing a treble saxophone,
> and she was fabulous; not just in a jazz virtuosity kind of way, though
> she could, and did quite literally, play with one arm behind her back, but
> also in actually having something to say with her instrument, which was
> the bit that made it clear how she and Nik had wound up playing together
> as it was a surprisingly brash and atonal (controlledly so but all the
> same) style for someone so apparently part of the `classy jazz' thing. I
> suspect me listening to more Monk would explain this a bit. She was good,
> anyway, and Nik wasn't bad, and I enjoyed this. Nik did give her full name
> once, but I didn't catch it, and Nik referred to her thereafter, as does
> Trev above, as Ola, so that's who she is from now on.
>
> D-Rider
>
>         The stage was already full, but Nik signed to Ola not to leave as
> Mick Slattery came on to add more guitar (really hardly needed!), and this
> `D-Rider' became something quite mellow as a result, four jazz players and
> four punkspace-rockers trying to find something they could all do with a
> prog number; the saxophones worked quite well. Ola stopped playing after a
> while, which was a shame I thought. Good, all the same. And lastly:
>
> Master of the Universe
>
>         Everyone on stage, including the original bass part obviously, and
> Trev's guitar perfect for it too, all the good points of the ICU and HW
> first versions together, plus two saxophonists (Nik managed to badger Ola
> into taking another solo between his two) and while the best version of
> this I ever saw will probably always be the second Hawkestra one with
> four bass players, whatever band Nik's doing it with always seem to
> deliver the goods. Left the crowd very cheerful when it finally stopped I
> think.
>
>         So overall for a scrathc performance, it was very good. It
> would be nice if some day a Nik gig *wasn't* a scratch performance
> maybe, but I at least know what I'm expecting and am always pleasantly
> surprised. Trev was anxious as ever to assure us that not only had the
> band not rehearsed, but never actually played together before, and at one
> point he felt it necessary to apologise to the Camden faithful for the
> performance not being up to standard "because we've got some people from
> Hawkwind along this evening, you see, letting the side down", but actually
> it was surprisingly good. I guess I'm always surprised when a Nik gig
> comes together, though they don't generally seem to collapse horribly, but
> given the lack of rehearsal you know there will have been, and the rather
> variable attitude of some of the participants, it always seems
> intellectually much more likely that the whole thing will fall on its
> face like the Inner City Pompadours one did.
>
>         The reason this one didn't, and I was more surprised by this than
> I should have been, was the ability of the musicians. Mr Everitt was a bit
> uncertain, and Ms Windmill should just STOP--PLEASE--but the drummer was,
> well, a jazz drummer, and well able to carry on with pretty much
> everything solidly and interestingly even if it was new to him. Dave
> Anderson always could play, but he was doing so well tonight, notes that
> didn't have to be there but it was nice to hear stuck in anyway, and most
> importantly he seemed to be having loads of fun even if he didn't know
> very many of the parts well. If only we weren't all sworn to kill him. But
> anyway. Jim Hawkman, I remember saying last time I saw him which was I
> think the lamentable ICP gig suddenly seems to have come into his own as
> synth player, and he stuck with that this night, lots of well-placed
> swoosh, I'd never hope to do any better than that myself. Nik, even, can
> actually play, though we do tend to forget this when he turns up for HW
> and just makes farting noises to piss off Dave. Perhaps the people he was
> playing with compelled him to wear a mental jazz hat and play as he
> actually can rather than messing about.
>
>         Star prize, right from the start, however, must go to Judge
> Trev. I'm a sucker for his punk attack at the best of times, and one of
> the things about the few ICU reunion gigs I saw were that there really
> wasn't enough of it, the songs don't even have room, but here everything
> was being done so loose that he and Nik both got breaks in most of the
> songs and he played out like a trooper, made my ears very happy. Not just
> the raucous punk end of things either, there were the All Stars numbers
> in the setlist too, and Trev took about eight bars of each to get the
> shape of each and then joined in as if he'd been playing electric trad
> jazz all his life. Perhaps he has, but anyway, I was personally wowed not
> just by his actual playing but the way he fell into every different style
> they went through with no real bother and made his parts shine even though
> he was just making them up. I should have had this much respect for him as
> a player all along, perhaps, but I hadn't seen it before.
>
>         Sherman and I keep passing Trev when I'm in Brighton; so far I've
> not mustered the courage to speak up and do the gushing fan bit, but if,
> Trev, you've noticed a six foot two woman with hair to halfway down her
> back and/or a smaller ponytailed bloke in shirt and jeans looking at you
> funny in Sainsbury's or wherever, I assure you it's fandom rather than
> thinking you look strange or whatever. Well, in my case it is, in
> Sherman's case it's that she's got her punk band covering `Skinheads in
> Leningrad' and doesn't know whether you'd approve or not. But
> anyway. Thanks for posting about that gig, I had a good time and I'd never
> have known otherwise, yours,
>                              Jon
>
> --
>                 Jonathan Jarrett, Birkbeck College, London
>     jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk/ejarr01 at students.bbk.ac.uk
>   "As much as the vision of the blind man improves with the rising sun,
>        So too does the intelligence of the fool after good advice."
>        (Bishop Theodulf of Orleans, late-eight/early-ninth century)
>