JON JARRET NARROWLY ESCAPES TERRORIST BOMB BLAST was NIK/OFF: Litmus & Inner City Unit, The Standard, Walthamstow, 11/05/07

[trev]

The celebrated music reviewer Jonathan Jarret narrowly missed death in the 
early hours of yesterday morning when his home was destroyed by a massive 
explosion. He survived by a fluke..."I had the radio on and they started to 
play a track by a band called *Inner City Unit*.  I was so frightened by the 
music that I just had to get out to get some fresh air. Imagine my surprise 
when my house suddenly exploded".

The terrorist squad wish to interview a London musician, Nazar Ali Khan who 
was seen lurking about Jarret's home the previous evening with a large 
package. Khan has since disappeared. The police found Khan's own home 
deserted with the slogan "Allah Akbar" daubed across his door.

Khan is now believed to be in the Tora Bora region of Wales and is being 
sought by special services to help them with their enquiries.

The Pime Minister declined  to comment officially on the situation but 
members of the press have reported that he seemed to be in a daze and was 
repeatedly muttering "ICU have reformed ha ha ha ha ha ha ha - ICU have 
reformed he he he he he hehe....".

Reuters


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jonathan Jarrett" <jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK>
To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET>
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 11:20 PM
Subject: NIK/OFF: Litmus & Inner City Unit, The Standard, Walthamstow, 
11/05/07


> I realise this review is a bit late, but so is all my mail at
> the moment, and there haven't been any others. I stuck this up on a BBS
> I use, which is why it contains explanations BOC-L don't need. This is
> going to be another review where I hope Trev will forgive me; I thought
> he was badly let down by a band of which he was by a long way the best
> part. But this is what I wrote.
>
> "I had worries about this gig, because since I last saw them
> Litmus had shed their keyboardist and I didn't know what the new one
> would be like, and because Inner City Unit, the 80s punk band of
> ex-Hawkwind saxophonist Nik Turner, while brilliant at the time, have
> always been rather awful since they started sporadically reforming and
> would be playing with two original members max. But because I wanted to
> see what would happen with Litmus, and also buy their new album, and
> because [another user of the BBS]  was also going to make it, I happened
> along.
>
>        "Litmus has in fact not yet acquired a new keyboardist at all,
> which made them sound rather different. They had more space for guitar,
> whereas before the guitar had often been fighting against the actual
> tune; on the other hand, now on several tracks big parts of the actual
> tune were missing. The jams, of which there are usually lots, were more
> successful than before--both bass-player and guitarist separately told
> me that now they're carrying more of it by themselves they're generally
> concentrating more--but the setlist oddly restricted by what they could
> so as a four-piece. So there were only two tracks from the new album,
> two things from before the first one and a cover. The setlist was:
>
> Destroy the Mothership! [which was awesome for the extra attack]
> Tempest
> Twinstar [with a long and brilliant jam]
> Sonic Light [with a fluffed intro and half the tune missing, dull]
> (Theta Wave) Inductor [which Martin said they only do because I moan if
> they don't, well, it was good so I don't care]
> White Light/White Heat [which was OK, and segued into a new number whose
> title I don't know yet, which sounded like a lost
> Hawkwind track from long ago--I mean even more than
> their stuff usually does]
> Ejection [Hawkwind cover, solid]
> Evil [very old song which still needs to be part of something bigger I
> think, but whose riff is still the absolute killer]
>
>        "And that was it! Short and odd, but mostly well-played, and
> it's good that they are confident enough to do this kind of holding
> performance until the line-up can be healed, but, at the same time, this
> was sort of only part of a show.
>
>        "Inner City Unit took the stage with two synth players, both
> scrounged from Nik's lacklustre Hawkwind nostalgia act Space Ritual,
> Judge Trev and Nik from ICU proper, the drummer from Nik's Cuban jazz
> outfit The Fantastic All-Stars, and Nazar Ali Khan who was sucked into
> ICU for the reformation having previously been the band's graphic
> designer. This was not an auspicious start, and they followed it up by
> doing one of the few gigs so bad that I've left early rather than listen
> to any more. I'll try and be brief.
>
>        "Nazar cannot play bass live. There was a time when he was just
> completely useless and I recognise that he has got a lot better.
> Unfortunately, he has got a lot better by practising soloes and licks in
> his bedroom, not by playing with a band. He ruined almost every number
> that had any kind of change in, simply because when he hit the change he
> would charge off at a different speed to the one he'd been using,
> oblivious to the rest of the band who then had to try and match up. This
> in turn made the drummer, whom I've seen be very good before, more or
> less useless because he kept being unfooted and so played everything
> safe.
>
> Trev, on guitar and possibly the only person in the band who
> knew how the songs actually went (Nik's recall of this sort of detail
> often being a bit sketchy--though actually he only came in out of place
> twice that I spotted and then at least he was 4 bars out so that the
> band could cover it relatively easily, and though he did do one sax solo
> in the wrong key that was mostly because Nazar had already got out of
> key and Nik followed him  rather than Trev), slowly took more and more
> control over the course of the gig. He'd started too quiet, and too
> respectful of the other players, and by the time I gave up and left he
> at least had become impressively aggressive and shreddy, but since apart
> from Nik the rest of the band weren't picking up on it that didn't
> really save matters. And whenever there was some energy actually going,
> the hapless swooshes and sputters of the synth players, of whom they
> *maybe* needed one, sucked it away by destroying and puncturing the
> rhythm and drowning the tune.
>
> In summary, Nik and Trev were good; but they'd have been
> incomparably better had they been busking outside by themselves. I
> couldn't stand seeing what had been good songs once so uselessly
> murdered and left well before the end. Sorry. I shall need considerable
> reassurance before I risk another ICU performance I'm afraid.
>
>        "The setlist such as I saw was:
>
> Watching the Grass Grow
> Raj Neesh
> Ghost Riders in the Sky
> Cybernetic Love
> Brand New Cadillac
> (Remember) Margate Beach
> Two Worlds
> Virgin Love
> Gas Money
> Space Invaders
> World of LSD
> Cars Eat With Autoface
> The Right Stuff (although Trev played the guitar part from `Ejection'
>        throughout, which is more or less the point at which I decided
> to leave)
>
>        "All of these, I promise, are good songs and you can haul most
> off http://www.deadfred.co.uk and I bet you will enjoy them, more or
> less, but for gods' sake don't go and see them live. The end."
>
> How it seemed to me, at least, 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
>