The Wire editor Rob Young sometimes booked us for Wire-related nights but this one was a daunting prospect. A soundclash with Improv legend Derek Bailey? Well, we had no reputation to lose...
So Derek turned to us as we were waiting to go on stage and said "Could you both play at the same time?" I looked at Nigel. He looked at me. We didn't know what to say. In retrospect, it was a great idea, but we were far too limited in our vision to do as he suggested...
So we went on stage. Nigel's decks were stage left, mine right, with Derek to my right. A packed venue...we started playing records...and Derek began playing his guitar...
I wish I could have interacted with him more but I doubt that even a turntable maestro could have kept up with his freeform fret dexterity...
On stage it was impossible to hear the totality of the noise we made but Gary Mulholland's impression (see clipping below) of it sounding like ''Metal Box'-era PIL being repeatedly thumped with rubber bath mats while a rapper shouts at them through a toilet-roll' was probably spot-on...
I had no idea whether it was a 'success' or not, but it was an interesting experiment. As I walked through the crowd afterwards I recall the singer with Tindersticks (there for headliners Cornershop, I imagine, not us) turning to me and saying with a smile: 'How was it for you?'. I was in some kind of noise-induced trance and did not reply...
Imagine my surprise when, ten years later, it became a seismic performance...one of '60 concerts that shook the world'...
So Derek turned to us as we were waiting to go on stage and said "Could you both play at the same time?" I looked at Nigel. He looked at me. We didn't know what to say. In retrospect, it was a great idea, but we were far too limited in our vision to do as he suggested...
So we went on stage. Nigel's decks were stage left, mine right, with Derek to my right. A packed venue...we started playing records...and Derek began playing his guitar...
I wish I could have interacted with him more but I doubt that even a turntable maestro could have kept up with his freeform fret dexterity...
On stage it was impossible to hear the totality of the noise we made but Gary Mulholland's impression (see clipping below) of it sounding like ''Metal Box'-era PIL being repeatedly thumped with rubber bath mats while a rapper shouts at them through a toilet-roll' was probably spot-on...
I had no idea whether it was a 'success' or not, but it was an interesting experiment. As I walked through the crowd afterwards I recall the singer with Tindersticks (there for headliners Cornershop, I imagine, not us) turning to me and saying with a smile: 'How was it for you?'. I was in some kind of noise-induced trance and did not reply...
Imagine my surprise when, ten years later, it became a seismic performance...one of '60 concerts that shook the world'...
You wee jazz hipster you : )))
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