HW: Gunslinger

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 09:46:09PM +0100, Colin Allen typed out:
>  Just a quick reminder that Litmus and Gunslinger are playing the
>  following gigs this weekend:
>  
>  Friday 11th April
>  The Standard Music Venue
>  1 Blackhorse Lane
>  Walthamstow
>  E17 6DS

	I was at this one, and it was good. The space-rock newbie I took 
along also seemed to get the point, which is always encouraging. 
Elsewhere I wrote about it like this:

"It's been too long since I had reason to be at the Standard, and
I'm not used to seeing it this full. In fact a lot of the people there
seemed to be related to the bands in some way, but that made for a more
cheerful atmosphere, and when Gunslinger came on they had a happy crowd
walling the mid-front across and expectant. Gunslinger is the new band
of ex-Hawkwind bassist Alan Davey, late also of Bedouin who were accused
very often of being a psychedelic Motörhead. After for a while running a
Motörhead tribute band alongside Bedouin, Alan rejoined Hawkwind but now
he's out again he seems to have decided to simplify the process and just
write a shedload more Motörhead songs off his on bat and get a band to
play them. So the general attack, in dodgy Western-style cowboy hats to
boot, was led by Alan's frantic and very very loud bass-playing. The
drummer followed, and at times led in his own right, though he was best
doing `Overkill'-type double-kick speed attack, during which he
impressively managed to swing his considerable hair in full circles in
half-time with the super-fast rhythm. In the on or two slower moments
his timing was actually rather sloppier, and the band were at their best
going even faster than Motörhead, which they did spend some time doing.
The guitarist, well, there was nothing wrong but he was hard to hear
behind the bass, and what did come through was mainly metal-shredding.
Alan's previous guitarists have been, though very different in styles,
always very musical, and this one is not so much, and as a result he has
trouble fitting round the frontline attack. It is unusual for a
hard-rock guitarist to fit into the rôle of accompanist sometimes I
guess, but this one needs to still.

        "I got a set-list, which went:

Ancient Light [old solo space number, suffered for lack of keyboards]
If The Bombs Don't Get You the Bullets Will [new band number, as it
        sounds, Motörhead would be happy with, etc.]
Going In For The Kill [basically `Bomber''s tune with `Overkill' drums]
Blitzkrieg Baby [song about a girl who *goes*, apparently]
Cyanide [slower]
[a title I didn't get]
Savage Love -> I Don't Need You [the latter hard and heavy and bitter,
        and with an extended break as outtro, rather good I thought]
Warhorse [cover of a song I don't know, and I can't find out who did it
        originally though if I had to guess I'd say Saxon, it sounded
        like that; AllMusic suggests that it might be Jeremy Spencer?
        and, as Alan said, `This was written in 1979, it's an anti-war
        song, and it's still an anti-war song, so what the fuck is going
        on?']
Sword of the East [old Hawkwind number done at close-to-double speed]
Gunslinger [Motörhead-by-numbers]
        *
Chasing the Dragon [Bedouin's fastest number]

        "So in summary, they are very fast, extremely dirty, sound a lot
like Motörhead and seemed to be having a lot of fun, and I'd see them
again no problem.

        "Litmus were still playing without a keyboardist, and so had to
concentrate on their fiercer material, but given what they were following
that may be as well. Apparently Martin's bass rig broke down a short way
into the performance; I couldn't really tell except that they kept
fiddling with it and apologising, but I could hear it OK. It may be
however that Martin couldn't, as he didn't seem quite his usual
flamboyant self. The set was pretty solid though, though Simon could do
with channelling a new guitarist for a while perhaps as his trickery and
improvisation is losing some sparkle I think. Anyway, set-list was:

Infinity Drive
Destroy the Mothership -> Tempest
Under the Sign
Kings of Infinite Space
? [a new one? my notes went screwy here]
Earthbound
? [another new one that I keep thinking is a cover of Motörhead's
        `Killed By Death' till it gets to the break, when it becomes
        much more interesting]

        *

        (Alan then joined in for the encore, and perhaps because of
Martin's failed rig, I'm afraid played him off the stage, but on songs
that were quite happy with two bass-players, as follows)

Master of the Universe
Born To Go

        "The newbie I'd taken along was favourably impressed, anyway, and
the two HW covers were the Real Thing, bludgeoningly heavy high-speed
space travel. As for the rest of the set, the old stuff was excellent;
`Earthbound', the oldest and most ambitious piece, will never be easy to
dance to but now that I have the actual recorded version courtesy of
ex-keyboardist Andy, I can see how much better it's got since they wrote
it and it does work well. As for the new stuff, the only one I really
think counts as finished is `Kings', which is the slowest and calmest,
but is quite nice. I am very conscious however that these are not going
to be done live the way they will sound on record, with the keyboard
parts they're apparently getting, but this means that I'm not quite
sure what on earth I'll be buying when it comes out. I'd say the `Killed
by Death'-a-like, and one they didn't do tonight which has a ring of the
Ozrics about it, will certainly keep the album afloat but all the same I
feel that these songs are straining themselves to do what the older ones
did by way of immediately shocking an audience into awe, and instead
just go for a brute-force riff attack. Which is all very well of course
and who is doing it better, after all? but I hope they have a bit more
life to them on the record, and I still think they need someone to hold
down a tune while they break. If they can't find a keyboardist, maybe a
suitably-effected rhythm guitarist would do, but something extra to
actually direct the ship while the frenzy goes on around it. Not that
this wasn't, despite technical problems (in fact maybe because of them,
keeping people focussed on the song structure) a really good
performance; I just think there's more to be had."

	Yours all,
		   Jon

ObCD: HawXtar - _HawXtar_
-- 
"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