OFF: Outskirts of Infinity & The Bevis Frond @ The Standard, Walthamstow, 10th October 2004

[Jon Jarrett]

        I wrote:

        "Long awaited, this, after what seemed suspiciously like a slowing
down on the Woronzow label and a new album from the Frond whose
announcement mailout reported how sick Bevis Frond main man and Woronzow
founder Nick Saloman was getting of the music and media businesses. It
made the whole slight uncertainty I've always had that there will be
another Bevis Frond gig rather more nagging. So of course I went," a
friend's marriage, "having kindly ensured that I'd be coming through
London on the right day already.

        "I clearly wasn't the only person who felt it was essential as the
Standard was full by the time Outskirts had finished, and among other
people I recognised two-fifths of Litmus, Seaweed from the Ozric Tentacles
and Eliza Skelton from the Nova Express; London's underground was out for
the show.

        "I got there just in time for the Outskirts of Infinity,
anyway. They are a psych guitar three-piece, and last time I saw them the
way they worked seemed to be that Terry Horbury (bass) and Ric Gunther
(drumkit with too many floor toms for any one man to use[1]) played the
tunes themselves and occasionally, at the beginning and end of each song
Bari Watts (Hendrix clonery with cigarette tucked under strings at the top
end of the neck) managed to join in from his place somewhere off on
another planet. This is in many ways my ideal way of using the three-piece
format, so it was almost (but not quite) a shame to find them playing more
like a three-person band tonight. Bari was more in touch with what was
going on than last time, Ric unfortunately was less; the rhythm section
was still impressive but not quite as flat-out powerful as they had been
last time. Shame. Still a fine performance from the band as a whole,
however, with the exception of one jam for which Nick Saloman joined them
which didn't really go anywhere. Ric, to his credit, did apparently
realise only he could make it move after a minute or two and gave it a
rhythm but neither guitarist seemed to want to be the one to find a
tune. They could have played ten minutes more actual song instead of
trying that but I suppose it *might* have been the best bit of the gig.

        "Setlist was: I'm Only Sleeping, Eyes in the Back of My Head,
Warning to the Curious, Lord of the Dark Skies (this was very good, but it
always is), Meet Me at the Bottom, Jam, You Want Change for your Rerun
(which seemed to have a whole lot of `Hey Joe' squashed into it), Nowhere
Fast. So two Frond numbers but none of their stock covers. Fun anyway.

        "I have my reservations about the current line-up of the Bevis
Frond. Everyone in it is excellent, even the newest member, drummer Jules
Fenton, who despite having a pedigree that includes ABC and the Lightning
Seeds hits things very hard, pretty fast and with considered intent.
Adrian Shaw on bass is as consummately understated a bandmate as any
guitarist could want, which is also a pity as he never really gets to play
at full strength in the Frond, but what we get is subtle and very
well-placed. Paul Simmons is an excellent guitarist and I would love to be
able to buy more of his stuff. And Nick is not only one of the world's
finest and most expressive guitarists, but one of the world's most
eloquent founts of lyrical melancholy since Nick Drake. What could go
wrong? Well. The Frond is Nick's band. Everyone there is backing
Nick. This is only really a problem for Paul, who's nearly as good a
guitarist and is wasted playing mainly rhythm. What's worse is that with
Paul there, I don't think Nick is scared enough. He knows there's someone
to back him up and he doesn't stretch himself as a result. I suppose for
all I know he may be vomiting with stage-fright beforehand when he has to
cover guitar by himself, but I've seen him do it once and it was much
better than since. With Paul playing at about 40% strength, and Nick
playing at 80% or so, I suppose we've got more than we would from one
guitarist, such as a guitar lead when Nick plays a sitar as in
`Superseded', and some twin lead (though much less than I'd expect). Nick
could run to one of the organs that so often feature on the Frond's albums
too, but doesn't. I'd sacrifice `Superseded' if it meant Nick playing at
the 100% mark though.

        "Anyway, we got: Doing Nothing (good), Hole Song #2 (good), Maybe
(OK), Stoned Train Driver (good), He'd Be a Diamond (good), Lights Are
Changing (OK), Dragons (good but a bit over-long for its strength;
considering most of the others struck me as short, I suspect this isn't a
good sign), Alpha Waves (OK), Stain on the Sun (a bit sub-par to be
honest, Nick's heart didn't seem to be in the vocals, which is probably
not surprising given how much of his happy family were there but still),
Superseeder (excellent--but I do love this song), and lastly something
that might have been called `In No Time', which was a very simple
four-chord number. Just as well as it got all the soloes wedged into it.

        "The Frond now do this as part of the routine, introducing the
band in the last number and letting each member take a solo; Paul's was
really the first time he'd been able to cut loose all gig but still left
me slightly underwhelmed, I don't think he's getting enough
practice. Adrian's  was mostly delay, which meant he not so much played a
solo as played two tunes on top of each other and then turned them both
into twiddly noise and feedback. Jules's solo was very good; he made a
determined attempt to keep a steady beat going on the high hat throughout
whilst playing all kinds of other rhythms round it, and nearly made it
except that he got too excited towards the end and roped the hat into a
big rool a couple of times. He's definitely proficient though. Nick, who
had punctuated the whole concert with anecdotes about his mates who'd come
to see him[3] or the mediocrity of his past, had told us about first
meeting Bari and on discovering that this then-18-year-old could play a
Stratocaster like Hendrix,[4] electing to play songs instead of trying to
impress him, said he'd do the same thing again, and thus his solo was a
one-man version of `Waving' from New River Head. Then there was kind of
whole-band solo which was a short version of Love's `Signed DC', which was
very good but left out the big break at the end in favour of finally
finishing the track that had begun all the soloes. This track must have
taken twenty-five minutes to play with everything they stuffed into the
middle of it and it was easily the weakest thing they played, so perhaps
it was best that it was so broken up...

        "And then an encore! I thought it was Hendrix's `Red House', and
seemingly so did at least Adrian who was definitely playing that. I've
been back and played the Frond track that it actually was, which was
`Medieval Sienese Acid Blues', again since then and I swear the bassline
is different, so Adrian was presumably larking about, but either way, a
fine version of the track left us finally free to leave at just after
eleven thirty, half an hour after they'd sworn they were going to
finish. It was just as well I'd managed to arrange a lift back to
Cambridge... But I went home happy. Not just because of having picked up
four albums for 25 quid including 2 very fine ones but because even if
Outskirts of Infinity hadn't been top-class and the larking about in the
soloes had been the only part of the set that the Frond seemed to
give their full attention to except perhaps `Superseded', it had still
been a good do full of friends having a laugh. Possibly more a party than
a gig, but in that case a fairly successful one."

"[1] Okay. He has two. He did use them both. He does use a big kit though.

"[3] My favourite one was "That's my friend [whoever]! He doesn't know I
can play guitar!" This was half-an-hour into the set, I think the secret
might have been out by then...

"[4] He's still only nine of Hendrix's logarithmic ten so I think Nick
exaggerates, but I can see why he chose not to compete..."

        Yours all,
                   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)