OFF: Hovercraft

[K Henderson]

Hi Folks...

I caught this outfit last night in Cincinnati.  Well, Newport, KY to be
precise...but really only 100 yrds. or so south of the river, so pretty much
'downtown' Cincy.  Interesting club I'd never been to before.  It's called
the Southport House, and is an old mansion (built 1860 I think) that
overlooks the Ohio R. and was the home of Col. (rank?) Thompson who was a
pioneer in weapons development.  (So said the historical marker out in
front.)  His machine gun became known as the 'Tommy Gun', better known as
'heaters' in Star Trek/Oxmyx (sp?) lingo (it didn't say that on the sign).
Anyway, it's now been converted into a bar/nightclub, the club part being a
big addition in the back that seems like it may have originally been a
library.  It's an awesome place for a show though, quite large and a big
wraparound balcony that gives you all sorts of different angles to view the
show.  Of course, that means the ceiling's very high and would be great for
a Hawkwind show.  (And in fact, they did have a white projection
screen/sheet there in use.)  The only problem was that the air seemed dead,
such that only a few smokers make the air quality quite miserable. I think
the audience was about 50, but this place could easily hold 500.  Well, it
beats the hell out of Bogarts, the main place for shows of this size in
Cincinnati...that place has absolutely no charm whatsoever.

But anyway, I'd never heard Hovercraft before and barely recognized the
name.  But a guy I knew from Strange Daze that I was talking to at the gybe!
show had seen them last Friday in Cleveland with Speaker\Cranker opening (as
well as their touring mates from Seattle, Kinski), and said I should like
them.  So I checked the schedule and decided to make the 90 minute trip down
to the river last night.

The first band (a local band) was Culture Queer...they automatically go into
my Top 10 list of worst bands I've ever seen.  Nuff said.

Kinski played next, a 45-minute set of interesting stuff...kinda like a
mixture of stoner rock (a la that Spliff Riff the Heads do) and 'atmospheric
metal' like the Gathering these days.  That actually sounds better than what
this band turns out though, as I just didn't think their songs were
particularly interesting.  A near miss.  Maybe in time they'll compose some
better music.

Hovercraft (also from Seattle) is a trio (two males and a female bassist),
an all-instrumental power space-punk unit, not unlike Pressurehed and/or
Helios Creed.  The guitarist really didn't play 'riffs' though, but mostly
played his metal slide way up on the fretboard and made all sorts of wild
sonic noises, in conjunction with numerous pedals on the floor.  The
bassist, who had a very punchy buzzbomb sound, did most of the riffing.
This pair was excellent.  The drummer was just all wrong, though.  He was
good (talented), it's just that he's in the wrong band.  He played like he
was in a hardcore punk or metal band, all bash-crashy and no subtlety...like
it was all about him and not the other two.  I kept thinking that these
other two with Richard Chadwick or Simon King would be awesome.  So that was
a big downer, since it was obvious what 'could be' with this band.  The
movies were really neat though...constantly evolving/swapping images of NASA
launches, space scenes, lots of insects crawling around, volcanoes erupting,
etc.  Went well with the music.  The other big downer is that they only
played 35 freakin' minutes!  Less than their own opener.  OK, it was
non-stop (like one extended song), and really intense, but c'mon!

I passed on the CDs they had there (my teeth are totally screwed and I need
to save)...the newest is collaboration with Mary Hansen of Stereolab oddly
enough.

Well, I think they're on the way east, so you might consider checking them
out if you've got nothing else to do.

Grakkl (FAA)