Jarret slags off Litmus - Yamato rams Thames Barrier

DOG ROT ANIMAL insect.brain at GMAIL.COM
Tue Oct 30 21:29:12 EDT 2007


Dear star of word composition and beloved forum-resident god-like
one.....put the other T and you never know what good could come of
that.......
I won't even question "original" since it's true I didn't catch you in the
states
bare with me on your personal request, I've got a kidney stone being
carefully attenuated in prayer I can keep it from sending the kidney into
the shock that feels like.......you don't wanna know
I need you to hire me on a couple USA mail-out jobs, my Xanax costs
I deserved it


On 10/30/07, trev <judge48 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Yesssssssssssss.
>
> I'd just like to say that there is a new Space Ritual album in the editing
> stage.
> The original Space Ritual, I mean.  It was recorded live in Freiburg in
> 1994, part of the first European Space Ritual tour
> line up:
> Nik Turner, Judge Trev, Commander Jim Hawkman(ICU), Paul Fox, Tommy
> Grenias
> (Farflung),Jo Blake, Rik Welsh
> It is a desk mix album, but I think you'll find the contrast with the
> present Space Ritual rather interesting.
>
> trev
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Colin Allen" <colinjallen at YAHOO.CO.UK>
> To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 11:38 AM
> Subject: Re: HW: Litmus Dates
>
>
> > See my comments below:
> >
> > Jonathan Jarrett <jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK> wrote:    On Tue, Oct
> > 09, 2007 at 09:18:38AM +0100, Colin Allen typed out:
> >> Uber-Space Rockers Litmus have the following dates scheduled:
> >
> >
> >
> >> 28th October 2007
> >> The Underworld
> >> 174 Camden High Street
> >> London
> >> NW1 0NE
> >> (2nd night of the All Hallows Festival with Leafhound, Gentlemans
> >> Pistols and Earthling Society)
> >
> >
> >
> > Well, I was there, and with a reasonable head of beer on too and
> > so prepared to enjoy many things. All the bands decently represented,
> > which was nice; also good to see that Rise Above have belaboured Litmus
> > into producing new t-shirt designs.
> >
> >  No, they had not; the t-shirts were the band's idea.
> >
> > Earthling Society were first up and opened with a slow jam,
> > which may not have been the best way to go about it; Sherman lost
> > interest quite rapidly and disappeared to the loo for the rest of their
> > set, of which this was about a third. This meant that she missed the
> > bits where they actually did something, including the culmination of the
> > jam where they'd piled so much in that just shunting that noise about
> > began to have an intensity of its own. The second track they did was an
> > actual song, and not a bad one even, but the singer can't really hit his
> > notes, and their playing is nothing remarkable, and by and large I saw
> > nothing in this set that did more than catch my interest.
> >
> >  I do feel that this is rather unfair on Earthling Society, who are a
> very
> > good band; this was not an ideal environment for them but their set was
> > both enjoyable and musically of very high quality.  For me, they were
> > probably played the best set on the night.
> >
> > Of an entirely different stamp were Gentleman's Pistols. As they
> > were setting up I took stock of the general amount of facial hair, other
> > hair, vintage instrumentation and swagger, and was reminded of an
> > interview I read once with Mick Farren about the Deviants gig at Hyde
> > Park. I can't remember who exactly it was that the Deviants had been
> > sandwiched between for that gig, but one of them was the Edgar Broughton
> > band, and Mick told of how he'd been unable to convince himself they
> > could catch the audience, what with being stuck between one band far
> > heavier and another far cleverer. And Paul Rudolph found the point for
> > them to stand on by coming to the mic and saying, "Now we're going to
> > have some fun". This was what I found myself expecting as the Pistols
> > took the stage. I wasn't wrong either. I think a third of the songs were
> > about masturbation or other unsavoury sexual practices, the singer
> > (whose hair and beard were most outrageous of all) needed to be credited
> > for camp as well as guitar, posing and vocals, and they were all
> > enjoying themselves hugely playing loud fuzzy rock and roll of a happily
> > filthy kind. No-one could accuse them of taking themselves too
> > seriously, but you certainly couldn't have accused them of being
> > under-rehearsed either; this band is worth seeing. I shall definitely
> > hope to catch them again, and I only held off on buying the album
> > because it was clear that Sherman was going to and I wanted to save the
> > money for a new Litmus t-shirt.
> >
> > So Litmus had a lot to follow, although I was confident that
> > they could manage it. However, I'm not sure they made any converts this
> > night in the event. A four-track set, half of which was new and
> > unfinished material, and much of which was jamming, would have taken
> > over and stolen Earthling Society's thunder with no problem but
> > following people who'd been playing short, furious and complete songs,
> > Litmus unfortunately looked rather amateur. The known songs were
> > `Infinity Drive', which was ugly and brutal but in a good way, and
> > has a new break now, and `Under the Sign', which probably jammed for too
> > long; I think it's possible that Litmus might benefit from a performance
> > rule that says once they drop the ball once in a jam it's time to wrap
> > it up and remind the audience who's boss by getting back to the riff. As
> > it was it was a long time to wait for the bit where one could dance
> > again.
> >
> > The new stuff had its parts but they were spaced out too far at
> > the moment. The worst of it was that during the last track, which was a
> > monster in terms of time but only came to a focus for about two minutes,
> > I found myself thinking, "Marek [the drummer] is wasted on this", and at
> > any other time I wouldn't usually notice him because I'd be
> > concentrating on the stringsmen. From this I conclude that Simon,
> > especially, but also Martin to a lesser extent, need to come up with
> > some new tricks, or perhaps focus on song structure a bit more, or
> > mainly, I suspect, finally get a new keyboardist and be prepared to
> > endure him or her saying, "guys, guys, this is flaccid spacewasting, we
> > can do better than this". It may not always be true but it's a point
> > they perhaps need to be readier to hear. So I don't quite know what goes
> > on in Litmus camp at this time, but I think it needs some work and
> > possibly some help.
> >
> >  Unfortunately, you did not hear the new material as it is supposed to
> be
> > heard due to the untimely death of Simon's pedal board, which left him
> > playing solely through his amp without any effects whatever.  This was
> the
> > cause of the somewhat stilted jamming as, to an extent, the songs were
> no
> > longer really playable.  Due to this, it was a poor set, especially when
> > compared with the recent performance in Brighton supporting Space
> Ritual.
> > I suspect that the band are even more disappointed with what happened
> than
> > you were.
> >
> > Headliners were Leafhound, of whom I probably should have known.
> > They have done a Nektar- or Blue-Cheer-like rejuvenation by recruiting
> > one new younger member, but I don't know how much difference this has
> > made. The guitarist is the new boy, and definitely had the shred and the
> > widdle, a Vai fan I suspect, whilst also being quite ready to hold down
> > the riff where necessary, and apart from the fact that he looked too
> > damn clean compared to the rest of the band I had no problem with
> > considering him part of the deal. And the bassist was fine, the drummer
> > and singer both clearly still had what they'd had, or if they didn't, I
> > didn't know, not knowing the original. Let me put it this way: if you'd
> > only been able to hear them, you wouldn't have known they were an old
> > band. What you might have thought, however, is "why is this pub blues
> > band headlining in the Underworld?" There was nothing wrong with them
> > but they were some way off being special. I guess there were big fans in
> > the audience who were pleased to see their favourite tracks actually
> > being done right, and I can certainly relate to that from experiences
> > with other bands, but I couldn't join them there and there wasn't
> > really much for anyone else.
> >
> > So yes. Earthling Society and Leafhound come in some way behind,
> > Litmus suffering creative injuries and scrape a second place; outright
> > victory by a long way to Gentleman's Pistols. If we could get them on a
> > bill with Gorilla and Drunk Horse the resultant testosterone guitar
> > explosion would probably level the venue. Yours,
> > Jon
> >
> > --
> > "When fortune wanes, of what assistance are quantities of elephants?"
> > (Juvaini, Afghan Muslim chronicler, c. 1206)
> > Jon Jarrett, Fitzwilliam Museum, jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
> >
>



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