HW: OFF: SD2001

[K Henderson]

Hey.  Whattup?

Haven't fully cleared my in-box of everything just yet (thanks for the
Atomic Rooster suggs....so that's where Chris Farlowe came from?  I know him
from Jimmy Page albums and somewhere else...he's pretty good I think, in
that raspy dirty blues voice that Mike Harrison (Spooky Tooth) did so well
also, preferably without the silly falsetto over top that I'm not sure who's
responsible for).

But a few things at least.

Yep, the Nik band was announced as Jim Collins, Dr. Synth, and Professor
Bainbridge (or words to that same effect) all on synths, Richie C. on
guitar, Thom M. (Sun Machine) on the kit, and then Dave "Not-here" on bass.*

Just to remind everyone, in the words of Nik Turner...

"Lets cut all the bullshit, name calling and divisive behaviour about
Hawkwind/Hawkestra.  That is not what it should be about."

:)

*(I did hear that right, didn't I?  I apologize in advance if I misheard it,
or read into it by mistake.)

Anyway, if I can be free to offer 'criticism' without fear of retribution...

The Nik show was very entertaining while being somewhat musically
pedestrian. Thom and Douglas Walker stood out as the key elements IMHO that
carried it along (esp. as I couldn't hear the other synths nearly as well),
but then Nik himself is actually a pretty talented musician when he wants to
be, and he did nice things on both nights.  The absolute highlight of
Friday's Nik show was Children of the Sun with a very simple extended groovy
jam that left the slate clear for Nik to just go to town on the flute.
D-Rider was brilliant as well. MotU was frankly done better by Heavy Liquid
in the bar the next day (Richie has a pedal effect there that he should
'lose' IMHO), and Brainstorm is old and tired - I went to the loo.  The set
didn't start out so great...ICU tracks that weren't coming across too well -
wrong mix or something.  The show definitely improved as it went along.
Good encore - what the hell was it? - I can't even remember.  YSDT was in
there somewhere towards the end (Silver Machine too), but that wasn't it I
don't think.  "Ejection" was part of it maybe?...something else too I
thought.  ?

Yes, Alien Planetscapes was fabulous.  Maybe the strongest performance from
a purely musical standpoint of the entire two days.  I think I heard Doug
say that Chris was back on bass there, but wasn't sure who the other
guitarist and drummer were.  New young guys it seemed.  Ritchie Orlando was
great on 'lead' guitar throughout. Switched between his Les Paul starburst
and the hefty SG, and made 'em both sing.

Speaker\Cranker were totally outstanding - very loopy krautish improv-jam
stuff that I love so much.  Triple guitar attack this time.  Not everyone's
cup o' tea I guess, but I love them.  ESO played mostly their wacky song
stuff rather than their atmospheric jam stuff and were not as good as I
remembered from SD2000.  (Which isn't much to be honest.)  They did do an
outstanding version of VU's Waiting for My Man (VU was played constantly on
the CD player in the bar (when bands were not going)...just exactly why I'm
not sure).  Nucleon were thunderous and entertaining as always - a band I
didn't like much at all on first listen four years back, but they're either
so much better now, or perhaps I just finally caught on.  Red Giant will
take some more time yet - they are really loud and angry (for playing the
cozy tavern that is).  On the other hand, I believe their music is more
intricate than anyone else there, save maybe AP and Quarkspace.  But the
singer isn't doing it for me.  The final three bands I'd just seen five days
earlier, so I wondered how my tired body could possibly get excited about
it.  But all three performances (as good as they were in Columbus) were all
100% better this time!  Likely due to the presence of at least an
enthusiastic audience of measurable proportions.  Harvey (with Nik through
about 70% of it) was having fun - a different opening piece, much longer
than in Col's.  Much of the rest was the same (see previous review), but
done differently and he adjusted to what Nik was playing (some sax, some
flute) and vice versa.  It was the ultimate recharging chillout with great
visuals going on.  I did manage to do a 20 minute interview with Harvey that
hopefully will 'show up' on the tape when I go to transcribe it.

Quarkspace's next-to-last performance was one of the best.  A couple of the
new tunes (which I have yet to hear on disc, though I now have a copy thanks
to Paul...will be offering to work on a tree as it's intended to be
distributed this way - no angry posts please!) :)  But then a lot of
excellent space improv jams where bassist Chester seemingly dislocated his
thumb during a furious stretch, and had to switch back to picking.

Quimby were truly awesome.  I only saw Melting Euphoria once (SD'98 I
think?) and (as they themselves admitted) were really quite uninspiring.
And while I like them, I, like Doug, don't regard them in the top echeleon
either.  The Ozrics, OTOH, I've seen four times or so, each one of them
quite impressive (even Chicago-Metro, where they had no lightshow
whatsoever.)  Yes, better than their discs, but I like their discs as well.
Same-y as they may be.  But Quimby were better than the Ozrics IMHO on this
night, and were I think the best headlining performance that SD has had in
the four years I've been there. Well, that Pressurehed Friday night in '98
was amazing too, but I really can't compare the two that well since I was
pretty 'out-of-it' that time.  Quimby pretty much 'wasted' me physically in
the first hour, and I had to go sit down in the back and just chill out
until the finale (Beyond the Light) and 7x7 (with Nik/Harvey).  I noticed
that pretty much *nobody* left during the first 75 minutes or so of Quimby's
performance, and the cheering and the people down front kept growing as the
show went along.  Up until it got *really* late (1:45 or so) and then folks
started to file out, obviously just because it had been such a long day and
they (like me) had just been wrung out too much.  The sound, the volume, the
energy - all were really a lot better than Col's.

The amazing thing about Strange Daze is that there are 15 bands of all types
and sizes and volumes, and yet nobody sucked.  I watched nearly every band's
full set and never really wanted to walk out.  World of Tomorrow (with
horns! Ack!) is not at all my 'thing,' but I still liked the way they
played, and Prato is fantastic on bass.  JFK (with Prato on gtr) was good
also, and threw in some manic edginess and 'attitude' (if you will) that I
could appreciate.  All these bands kept things interesting by doing similar
things, but yet through wildly different means.  Rick Ray's band (was it?)
even had a guy playing bass clarinet (along with normal clarinet, which
sounded like soprano sax through the pickup/effects) for chrissakes.

Fantastic weekend - wonderful venue really!  What Jerry said I agree with on
that front.  This place apparently costs $1500 for SD compared to $8000 for
the Ledges, so no doubt this is the future of SD.  Or something like it.
People did still come from all over the US to see this event!  So those
bands that came from so far away (even if they were expecting more
attendence or more sales) should really know that they were playing to an
audience that represented a very large geographical area and word-of-mouth
will truly advance all of their causes via these little individual remote
cells, even if they are totally unaware.

As far as sales goes, we at A-I.com decided not to do any merchandising,
which was a good choice since we couldn't do it from either 'venue' easily -
the tables were set up in the hallway between the two.  The Nik/Collins
family had a giant box of items, that were mostly 'self-pirated' Nik-related
CDR works.  I got PassOut and a F/i (with Nik guesting) live boot (one quick
listen - seemed pretty good).  They had cool T-shirts made up with 'Got
Nik?' on the back in the 'Got Milk?' campaign style - quite humorous.  The
Strange-Trips and MQB tables were pretty much as I said last time - yes
indeed the Red Shift's that they were offering were in fact also
'self-pirated' issues - more on that in the interview.  There was some issue
about whether individuals were free to hawk their own personal (i.e.,
non-playing-band-related) items.  That was never the case at the Ledges -
not sure what the issue was this time.  Luckily, I decided not to bring my
box of spare used CDs to the show like I normally do to raise travel funds
etc.  In years past, I always thought the outdoor event was
'under-merchandised,' esp. compared to prog-events like NEARFest where fans
pay more attention to the vendors than the artists sometimes.  So in '98 I
started bringing my spare 'traders' as a way of giving people somewhere to
'shop' between bands.  This year, I could see that there was a *lot* more
stuff from the bands playing (as here at Col's), so I refrained from
bringing my stuff in for that reason as well (in addition to the obvious
'table' situation).

Well, enough commentary.  MQB impressed me mightily and I think they did the
same to everyone else there.  I saw a bit of Joe's video later that night
and so I know some people out there will be seeing good quality archives of
this show.  I also saw some archive footage of some Toronto concerts
featuring the General Chaos lightshow of longtime boc-ler's Steve Lindsay
and Eric Siegerman, and although it's difficult to compare them via 19"
diagonal TV video, I think they've got some of the coolest stuff going in
that department. Naturally, we missed having Tommy & Len play live again
this year, but I also missed having Rob Jacobs' come and do his
film/lightshow thing.  And I think that perhaps future SD's would benefit
from having several different lightshow artists perform each year, just as
they have all these bands doing it onstage. But then it's Jim's event and
it's Jim's lightshow, so I don't want to get into any other stupid turfwars
that we already have way too much of.  I'm talking merely from an audience
member's perspective, about advancing the open exchange of art and music.
Every year at SD, I realize how much good stuff exists in people's
imagination, and the more that have a chance to show their stuff, the
merrier I say.

Grakkl (FAA)

Most obscure cover tune - Rick Ray (obviously a Hendrix/Trower freak - he
played Too Rolling Stoned as proof of the latter, and an excerpt of Third
Rock as proof of the former) doing Mick Bolton-era UFO's song "Catch a
Falling Star" or whatever the title is.  A couple of us recognized it too
(though I couldn't remember who it was until he announced it at the end
admittedly).  Somewhere I have a copy of "Space Metal."  Prince Kajuku is a
wonder.

SD'2001 All-star band (all IMHO of course):
Vocals - Ray (MQB)
Rhythm Guitar/Ebow drone - the Speaker\Cranker trio
Lead Guitar - Richard Orlando (AP), the elfin twin of Ali Davey
Synths - Douglas Walker (AP/Nik)
Loops - Paul Williams (QSpace)
Bass - Scott Prato (World of Tomorrow)
Drums - Thom Marianetti (Nik)
Sax/Flute - Nik Turner
Violin - Michelle George (ESO)
Bass Clarinet - Dude from Rick Ray (not a whole lot of competition!)
(This would have been a cool band to see!)

P.S.  Kudos to all listmembers that came to support SD in Ohio - see ya' all
next year!

P.P.S.  Note to Chuck - it's really not like this all year 'round in Ohio.
In fact, if it weren't for Jim Lascko, we would hardly have any noticeable
spacerock shows at all.