OFF/HW: Legendary Pink Dots

[Eric Siegerman]

On Mon, Oct 28, 2002 at 09:39:44AM +0100, Henderson Keith wrote:
> [...] this LPD tour of the US.  Much of it has already passed,
> hope you didn't miss the opportunity those of you in the eastern part.

Even better -- we (General Chaos) were lucky enough to do visuals
for them in Toronto (it helps that a friend of mine is a rabid
Dots fan/kollector, and was able to open some doors).  A couple
of pix here:  http://www.litany.net/ (in the main frame, look for
the entry for Oct. 9).  (Damn, two computer guys and we still
don't have our own web site.  Sheesh!)

Some of the Dots seem to be into Hawkwind.  I didn't talk to them
enough to find out whether they're serious fans -- first date on
the tour, so nobody had too much time to gab -- but my HW T-shirt
got a couple of comments.

What's more, their sound guy, Ray, mixed the HawkXMas show at the
Astoria in 2000 -- the very one whose T-shirt I was wearing; too
cool! -- and the resulting Yule Ritual CD.  I was glad to be able
to finally compliment him on that gig's stellar mix.  (FWIW, he
says the CD was taken pretty much straight from the board --
can't recall exactly how he put it, but I think that's the gist).
His work for the Pink Dots was just as excellent.

Despite their busyness, when I crawled out from behind Niels's
setup where I'd been plugging in a strobe, he took a minute to
brag about his old 70s analog synthesizer or post-processor or
something that he plays his flute through.  Doug, what *is* that
thing?  I'm pretty sure he called it a "flute synthesizer", so
unless he was oversimplifying a bit for the yokel, it must have
some kind of pitch-to-voltage circuit as its input.  Whatever it
is, I guess it's pretty important to the show, and pretty
irreplaceable.  "Nobody touches this but me!" he intoned.  (Like
Bugs Bunny, I was sorely tempted to respond by reaching out and
touching a fingertip to the thing, but I managed to resist :-)

Indeed, sound check was the first time any of their gear had been
played since it got shipped over from Europe, so they were a bit
nervous of shipping damage, and I guess Niels was especially so
about his flute synth.  There was one glitch (not with that;
phew), but they managed to straighten everything out before
showtime.

> "The support act will be Origami Galaktika from Norway."
> Anybody know these folks?  I like the name at least.

Just one guy, IIR.  What did he call the style?  "Arctic" I
think.  I'm trying to remember what it was like, but par usuel, I
was too busy doing stuff.  Here's how someone named Muffy wrote
it up:
> First, the opening band: Origami Galactika. I enjoyed the hell
> out of it, and I'm grateful for it's high volume as it drowned
> out much of the audience chit-chat. He might be classed in the
> school of "minimal and esoteric knob-twiddling to large effect"
> noise ambience: lots of equipment that couldn't be seen, a man
> with oddly testicular facial hair tweaking knobs to facilitate
> the general blowing off of heads, and eardrum-shattering
> phase-shifted drones. Did I mention ambient loops sent through
> effects processors and filters, sounds of subways and rain, and
> a deep and penetrating bass throb? A significant part of his
> sound mastery seemed to involve mini-discs. Near the end of the
> set he sawed on a guitar like a maniac, providing a wonderfully
> musical end to an otherwise noisy show. I liked!

That's from http://www.dazzled.com/dangermuff/n_dots.html, which
goes on to give the Dots a pretty witty review too.  Look for the
photo of Phil, aka Silverman, and the rats-nets of cables coming
out of the back of his equipment rack.  That glitch I mentioned?
Yup, that's where it was.  Scary!  Flaky monitor-out connector,
or maybe the cable.  Dunno; they finally tracked it down while we
were at dinner.

Back to Keith:
> P.S.  Who have replaced Ryan Moore and Martijn de Kleer in the Dots?

Nobody's replaced Ryan.  There was some discussion among the fans
I talked to as to whether that was a problem, but they seemed to
conclude that it wasn't, despite their worries going in.  I
thought the band were fine; but then, I didn't realize there was
"supposed" to be a drummer until afterwards.

Martijn's back.  I don't know the history or politics, but he was
on stage in Toronto.  I'm glad; I loved his playing.  Besides
guitar, mandolin, and violin, I infer that he took over bass
duties from Ryan.

Their set was mostly pretty mellow -- too much so for my taste --
but they cut loose toward the end.  Best songs: "Lisa Goes
Surfing", for the great mandolin part from Martijn, and
especially "The Brighter Star".  Pure instrumental blanga, that
one!  Martijn shone again, this time on violin -- brighter star
indeed.  I was dancing away behind my overhead, jamming along
with them on the strobes, when I glanced over and saw Ray bopping
too, behind the sound board -- so at least two out of three
Hawkwind fans grooved on that song.  I never asked Steve what he
thought, but I rather suspect it was unanimous :-)  MPEG's of
both songs -- from a different gig, alas -- are at
http://nyxxo.free.fr/Music/music.htm.

BTW, if you're a Pink Dots fan, check out the new "Love and Loud
Colors" lyric book.  The design, layout, etc. are very nicely
done.  Lots of old wood cuts and alchemical drawings and stuff,
with the text stripped out and replaced with song-lyric fragments
(trying to duplicate the original fonts, of course).  Visual
sampling :-)  I'm not really a fan (though if they start doing
more stuff like The Brighter Star that may well change :-), so I
can't comment on song choice etc.  But I was tempted to buy a
copy anyway, just because Kirsten did such beautiful work on it.

In summary, a fun time was had by all!

--

|  | /\
|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        erics at telepres.com
|  |  /
The acronym for "the powers that be" differs by only one letter
from that for "the pointy-haired boss".