OFF: A Legendary Pinktroduction to The Legendary Pink Dots

Fri Apr 17 12:34:05 EDT 2009

How I was Introduced, Mike:

Legendary Pink Dots, So What!
Oslo, Norway, April 22, 1998
by Christian Mumford

>From Aural Innovations #3 (July 1998)

Well,
this was quite an experience. In fact such an excellent one it's a
little hard to comprehend where my mind(s) split during this incredible
performance. Not having heard this band before, I went on a gut feeling
that I had to be there come Hell or high water. And I am glad I did, as
this was in fact the best live show I've experienced to date.

To
backtrack a bit, I arrived at the half empty venue, progressively
drowning in a hellish cacophony the deeper down the stairs I wandered.
I feared The Legendary Pink Dots had already started, but I was soon
assured "uh.. no, its the... er... other one" at the entrance as I
paid, asking if they already had started playing. I bought a beer, and
wandered closer, trying to catch a glimpse of this curious opening band
- but the stage was empty apart from the instruments. A druggy
mideastern techno-groove was wandering off on its own, seemingly on
automatic, yet layered with random knob twiddly synths, amidst the
hollering distorted voice of something akin to a televangelist on LSD.
A spastically dancing young man in a red feather boa suddenly dashed
from behind the synths, happily threatening the audience with a
curiously shaped chrome flashlight, and went on to explain how it was
aquired the previous night in Copenhagen, and how in fact it was
designed for maximum relaxation, "with a triple X" we were led to
beleive. He then proceeded to play a fairly "experimental" guitar solo
with this object, as he assured us we were slowly becoming fully
relaxed with the aid of the combined objects' ecstatic efforts. The
fellow proceeded to make the rounds with all the instruments with his
suspect device, grimacing, dancing, hollering, setting off loops and
backing tracks at a frantic pace, distorting the whole place with
obscure electronic gadgets (including one of those primitive
antennae-like synths which produce mindsplitting squeaks), repeatedly
assuring us that we needed his therapeutic records for the princely sum
of just one hundred herrings each, availible at the venue. Musically
some parts were actually quite good, particularly the less chaotic,
more rhythmic parts which got into trancey, oriental Ozric Tentacles
territory, and some thundering drum solos. He topped that bit off with
an extremely bizarre flutist-parody, miming with a stick of some kind,
with a strange googly-eyed grimace, which had everone cracking up, and
then he closed off his set miming and dancing to a very happy song,
disturbingly assuring us "I am sane because I am happy". And indeed the
audience had become quite sane by that time. All that was missing were
a group of giggling little pixies, though the side-splitting one-man
effort deserves a gold star award in my book. It was time to
synchronize with a beer.

About
15 minutes later, The Legendary Pink Dots entered the stage, and the
young man had relieved himself of the fluffy feather boa and revealed
himself as the bands' drummer/bassist. It kicked off into space
immediately, courtesy of a sleazy post-apocalyptic ragtag, pale and
barefooted Syd Barrett-meets-Andrew Eldritch frontman with a snotty
English voice, an eccentric sax/wind player in the best Nik
Turner/Bloomdido Bad DeGrasse school of dress, plus a startlingly
normal looking guitarist and an equally anonymous looking synth player.
It's from this point on that words become rather limiting as
descriptive. I suppose Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come and Radio Gnome-era
Gong, even mid-late 70's new wave-era Hawkwind, are good points of
musical reference, with cosmic lyrics to match yet sometimes within the
framework of the mundane - sinister and psychedelic in every sense of
the word and all run through an array of at least a dozen F/X pedals
and devices lined up on the stage. Jazz, rock, techno, whatever you
want it to be - all at once, yet nothing like any of it. Smoke billowed
out at all the right junctions, lights flashing and twisting, creating
a multicolored tapestry of swirling stars and planets when required,
and sucked into this magical world they spun around the front of the
stage, it became clear that these guys were delivering more than plain
old music - it was pure experience and pure energy from the creative
Source. The shaded frontman (AKA Edward Ka-Spel, as further
investigation has led me to believe) went into several great
monologues, theatrical without pretensions, going with the music rather
than against it, as the band grooved on, weaving aural patterns
dissolving in and out of space, and commanding complete utter attention
in mesmerizing intimacy with the audience. At some point the extended
jams timelessly reached a single climax as Mr. Ka-Spel assaulted the
keyboard violently (thankfully without a knife), then he jerkily
scrambled to maniacally twiddle every knob on the Korg simultaneously
with the already frantic synth guy, as if they in unison had to find
that perfect streeeetchy squeak before the universe imploded - or
perhaps the reverse was their mission - just tweak the bugger outwards
bit by bit 'till it cracks. In a flash of utter chaos everything came
crashing in like a mountain of Skinny Puppy CD's being played
simultaeneously at ground zero (or perhaps it was like being pounded to
orange marmelade by a herd of mammoths being chased into the Wall of
China by a 5000 ton runaway freight train brimming with nitroglyserin,
memory gets hazy and words fail me). The Legendary Pink Dots left the
stage as a few stray blips and feedback echoes desperately tried to
find their way into space and our ears by themselves, and my head was
rapidly melting Jell-O. But of course the band returned for an encore
of more fantastic playing and hypnotic jams, which seemed to last as
long as the first set. I've no idea how long they played altogether.
Maybe 2-3 hours, time was effectively eliminated in the space they
created. When they were through, I left in a hypnotic daze - I only had
2 beers, but I felt like they'd been spiked with 2 hits of acid and
then I'd been violently trepanned for the impeding cosmic rapture - my
brain had dissolved and reassembled itself with a fresh whistle by this
crew of head merchants, and I walked home feeling very electric, only
regretting not having enough herrings in my pocket to pick up some of
their CD's. But rest assured, by this time I have. I would not want a
tape of this show for all the world - why reduce something as sublime
and complete as this into mere audio on disposable plastic junk? Might
as well be audience to whistling primates catching a free cold on the
way to work.

Postscript:
having now sampled The Legendary Pink Dots' music, a massive catalogue
of releases of varying style and quality, spanning nearly twenty years,
I thoroughly recommend "Hallway Of The Gods" (1995) and "From Here
You'll Watch The World Go By" (1997), the former with one of the most
memorable highlights from the show, the stokingly awesome "The Saucers
Are Coming". Be prepared.

> Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:18:47 -0500
> From: insect.brain at GMAIL.COM
> Subject: Re: OFF: A Legendary Pinktroduction to The Legendary Pink Dots
> To: BOC-L at LISTSERV.ISPNETINC.NET
> 
> I'm willing to admit that I have a brain tumor in this muscical area, like
> most women do with Hawkwind and also the general public that has heard them
> and doesn't get it, but my comment after making it through many tracks,
>  likely the same amount as last time is this
> 1) that ain't Syd, that's Ed
> 2) If Syd were alive and I could get a contact for him, I would encourage
> him that this is a clear cut case of winning a lawsuit over the use of the
> word "pink", not to mention impostering, whatever else
> It also ain't Nik on the sax......
> 
> 
> On 4/17/09, Christian Mumford <royalistradio at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Awesome Pam.
> > Glad to hear you are still working... I thought you had some things about
> > being laid off. I am NOT doing much other than there will be a comic with
> > some of my toons in it published this summer- I haven't been "in print" in
> > any major way since 2000, but '09 looks like a comeback year. Good to hear
> > you
> > are back in business as a cabbie. Damn, my new iPod (a replacement for my
> > 10GB Samsung) is only 8GB but has all of Dead
> > Moon's releases, most of UFO and a bunch of Dead Kennedys bootlegs
> > (about 10) and various Porcupine Tree releases, plus some vinyl rips of
> > Curved Air and som HW shows.... EVERYTHING from The
> > Pirate Bay Org. It contains Nothing from iTunes (except for that the
> > dreaded AutoPlaylist-GeneraTor or whatever making a mess of my music files
> > and the Big MTV-iTunes Box having to empty->refill the WHOLE thing instead
> > of pasting it all in myself custom-like)
> >
> > Rush is a band I heard much from friends who listened to them and never
> > 'caught onto' way back when. I just a few years ago got their early stuff,
> > the remasters real cheap. My faves are the 1st, 2112 and Moving Pictures.
> > Definetly a cool group.......
> >
> > Christian
> >
> >
> > > Oh yeah, I'll probably drive cab till they bury me in one:) I've got my
> > > iPod now, and an 80gb holds a ton of tunage:) It's great fun!!!
> > > Gotta have my daily Dotz , HW & Rush, tho; Along with about 10 or 12
> > > others:)
> > > Pam
> > >
> > > Christian Mumford wrote:
> > > > Pam....
> > > > Damned if I ain't been Pammed! I have only 42 CDs with the Dotz.....
> > now I'll stop being Spammed by my own posts on this subject.........
> > > > (and we've traded some good Hawkwind and LPD stuff too....>:) Still
> > driving a Cab around in Boise with Hawkwind pumping on the stereo?
> > > >
> > > > Christian
> > > >
> > > > NP: Raga Rockers "Raga's Beste"
> > > > ObCD: The Damned "Anything" (which has now been remastered and I really
> > need, being my fave after "The Black Album" and "Strawberries")
> > > >
> > > >
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
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