Jarret slags off Litmus - Yamato rams Thames Barrier

[trev]

Yesssssssssssss.

I'd just like to say that there is a new Space Ritual album in the editing 
stage.
The original Space Ritual, I mean.  It was recorded live in Freiburg in 
1994, part of the first European Space Ritual tour
line up:
Nik Turner, Judge Trev, Commander Jim Hawkman(ICU), Paul Fox, Tommy Grenias 
(Farflung),Jo Blake, Rik Welsh
It is a desk mix album, but I think you'll find the contrast with the 
present Space Ritual rather interesting.

trev
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Colin Allen" <colinjallen at YAHOO.CO.UK>
To: <BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET>
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 11:38 AM
Subject: Re: HW: Litmus Dates


> See my comments below:
>
> Jonathan Jarrett <jjarrett at CHIARK.GREENEND.ORG.UK> wrote:    On Tue, Oct 
> 09, 2007 at 09:18:38AM +0100, Colin Allen typed out:
>> Uber-Space Rockers Litmus have the following dates scheduled:
>
>
>
>> 28th October 2007
>> The Underworld
>> 174 Camden High Street
>> London
>> NW1 0NE
>> (2nd night of the All Hallows Festival with Leafhound, Gentlemans
>> Pistols and Earthling Society)
>
>
>
> Well, I was there, and with a reasonable head of beer on too and
> so prepared to enjoy many things. All the bands decently represented,
> which was nice; also good to see that Rise Above have belaboured Litmus
> into producing new t-shirt designs.
>
>  No, they had not; the t-shirts were the band's idea.
>
> Earthling Society were first up and opened with a slow jam,
> which may not have been the best way to go about it; Sherman lost
> interest quite rapidly and disappeared to the loo for the rest of their
> set, of which this was about a third. This meant that she missed the
> bits where they actually did something, including the culmination of the
> jam where they'd piled so much in that just shunting that noise about
> began to have an intensity of its own. The second track they did was an
> actual song, and not a bad one even, but the singer can't really hit his
> notes, and their playing is nothing remarkable, and by and large I saw
> nothing in this set that did more than catch my interest.
>
>  I do feel that this is rather unfair on Earthling Society, who are a very 
> good band; this was not an ideal environment for them but their set was 
> both enjoyable and musically of very high quality.  For me, they were 
> probably played the best set on the night.
>
> Of an entirely different stamp were Gentleman's Pistols. As they
> were setting up I took stock of the general amount of facial hair, other
> hair, vintage instrumentation and swagger, and was reminded of an
> interview I read once with Mick Farren about the Deviants gig at Hyde
> Park. I can't remember who exactly it was that the Deviants had been
> sandwiched between for that gig, but one of them was the Edgar Broughton
> band, and Mick told of how he'd been unable to convince himself they
> could catch the audience, what with being stuck between one band far
> heavier and another far cleverer. And Paul Rudolph found the point for
> them to stand on by coming to the mic and saying, "Now we're going to
> have some fun". This was what I found myself expecting as the Pistols
> took the stage. I wasn't wrong either. I think a third of the songs were
> about masturbation or other unsavoury sexual practices, the singer
> (whose hair and beard were most outrageous of all) needed to be credited
> for camp as well as guitar, posing and vocals, and they were all
> enjoying themselves hugely playing loud fuzzy rock and roll of a happily
> filthy kind. No-one could accuse them of taking themselves too
> seriously, but you certainly couldn't have accused them of being
> under-rehearsed either; this band is worth seeing. I shall definitely
> hope to catch them again, and I only held off on buying the album
> because it was clear that Sherman was going to and I wanted to save the
> money for a new Litmus t-shirt.
>
> So Litmus had a lot to follow, although I was confident that
> they could manage it. However, I'm not sure they made any converts this
> night in the event. A four-track set, half of which was new and
> unfinished material, and much of which was jamming, would have taken
> over and stolen Earthling Society's thunder with no problem but
> following people who'd been playing short, furious and complete songs,
> Litmus unfortunately looked rather amateur. The known songs were
> `Infinity Drive', which was ugly and brutal but in a good way, and
> has a new break now, and `Under the Sign', which probably jammed for too
> long; I think it's possible that Litmus might benefit from a performance
> rule that says once they drop the ball once in a jam it's time to wrap
> it up and remind the audience who's boss by getting back to the riff. As
> it was it was a long time to wait for the bit where one could dance
> again.
>
> The new stuff had its parts but they were spaced out too far at
> the moment. The worst of it was that during the last track, which was a
> monster in terms of time but only came to a focus for about two minutes,
> I found myself thinking, "Marek [the drummer] is wasted on this", and at
> any other time I wouldn't usually notice him because I'd be
> concentrating on the stringsmen. From this I conclude that Simon,
> especially, but also Martin to a lesser extent, need to come up with
> some new tricks, or perhaps focus on song structure a bit more, or
> mainly, I suspect, finally get a new keyboardist and be prepared to
> endure him or her saying, "guys, guys, this is flaccid spacewasting, we
> can do better than this". It may not always be true but it's a point
> they perhaps need to be readier to hear. So I don't quite know what goes
> on in Litmus camp at this time, but I think it needs some work and
> possibly some help.
>
>  Unfortunately, you did not hear the new material as it is supposed to be 
> heard due to the untimely death of Simon's pedal board, which left him 
> playing solely through his amp without any effects whatever.  This was the 
> cause of the somewhat stilted jamming as, to an extent, the songs were no 
> longer really playable.  Due to this, it was a poor set, especially when 
> compared with the recent performance in Brighton supporting Space Ritual. 
> I suspect that the band are even more disappointed with what happened than 
> you were.
>
> Headliners were Leafhound, of whom I probably should have known.
> They have done a Nektar- or Blue-Cheer-like rejuvenation by recruiting
> one new younger member, but I don't know how much difference this has
> made. The guitarist is the new boy, and definitely had the shred and the
> widdle, a Vai fan I suspect, whilst also being quite ready to hold down
> the riff where necessary, and apart from the fact that he looked too
> damn clean compared to the rest of the band I had no problem with
> considering him part of the deal. And the bassist was fine, the drummer
> and singer both clearly still had what they'd had, or if they didn't, I
> didn't know, not knowing the original. Let me put it this way: if you'd
> only been able to hear them, you wouldn't have known they were an old
> band. What you might have thought, however, is "why is this pub blues
> band headlining in the Underworld?" There was nothing wrong with them
> but they were some way off being special. I guess there were big fans in
> the audience who were pleased to see their favourite tracks actually
> being done right, and I can certainly relate to that from experiences
> with other bands, but I couldn't join them there and there wasn't
> really much for anyone else.
>
> So yes. Earthling Society and Leafhound come in some way behind,
> Litmus suffering creative injuries and scrape a second place; outright
> victory by a long way to Gentleman's Pistols. If we could get them on a
> bill with Gorilla and Drunk Horse the resultant testosterone guitar
> explosion would probably level the venue. 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
>