ConstantShallowness

hermann nitsch.

tasty, vely, vely tasty Hawk and A Hacksaw kick ass. A fiver too!? ye canni grumble at that. I havent heard the others but from their description, it appears they are the kinda shit I would usually devour for fun. Ive missed too many good gigs here recently, so i'll try and get along. If I can't make it - I hope the Hawk and his rusty blade, do indeed, kick ass.

recent albums Timothy Revelator: Lost Gospel Music Volume 1 (Gawd fearing yankee banjo fest) Slomo: The Creep (one hour long drone in the Lustmord vein) Richard Youngs: The Naive Shamen (beautiful avant-folk) The Nazgul: s/t (obscure Krautrock - four frightening drones from a hellish landscape)

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ooops sorry, didnt realise the length of that post till it was too late!

A wee story aboot Faust: From my introuction to last night In 1998 I was a strange little chap. Still shaking the remnants of pounding rave beats out of my lugs and praying that the great miracle would materialise - The Stone Roses would reform and make a better album than their debut. I was into music that I considered pretty god-damn kewl at the time: Gene, Arab Strap, The Lo-fidelity Allstars (Remember their first album? Quality stuff!), Death In Vegas, Mogwai and Radiohead. As far as music was concerned, I was content and happy with my small collection. Then, one sweet little joy filled day, a librarian chap from Glasgow I was talking with recommended an album to me.......that album was Faust IV. If I could meet that little John Peel-alike fellow today, I wouldn't just buy him a pint. Oh no, he'd get the full treatment - Pint, joint, Fish Supper, another joint, taxi home (aye, even to Glasgow); I'd probably even consider sacrificing the dignity of my erse to him (if he was that way inclined of course, I know I'm not but he did do me an extra special favour!); especially if he had another baby like Faust IV tucked away in his European CD mountain. Alas, we lost touch. I even had visions of bumping into my Librarian friend at the Faust gig last night - or eyes meeting over a flume of circular saw sparks. We took in the gig, had another life changing chat about kewl music and he handed over another baby. Not to be however, not to be..... Actually, to be honest, I've done ok since receiving my nudge in the right direction. From Faust IV the album I went to their debut, then more or less went in chronological order; picking up all the classics, So Far, the Tony Conrad collab, 71 minutes, You Know Us ,Rein, Nosferatu, Ravvivando and the Dalek collab. Delightful. From the Faust IV sleeve-notes I picked up my baby's babies: "Krautrock", "John Cage", "Throbbing Gristle", "This Heat", "Henry Cow". From Krautrock I sniffed out Can, Neu!, early Kraftwerk, then, after testing how warm the water was, I went under: Xhol, Alcatraz, Amon Duul and Amon Duul 2, McChurch Soundroom, German Oak, The Cosmic Jokers, Kluster/Cluster, Kollektiv, Kanaan, Mythos, Necronomicon, Brainticket, Popol Vuh, Sand; all very different but equally similar bands. Those who know these bands know what I'm talking about, those who don't.........please find out. It'll do you the world of good. Throbbing Gristle gave me Coil, Current 93, Nurse With Wound, Psychic TV and the like - such an important, and equally controversial, area of contemporary underground culture. The darkness descended. John Cage took me to Stockhausen, Xenakis, Young, Henry, Glass, Peter Duncan, Charlemagne Palestine. Now I really was the omnivore. Henry Cow introduced my sweet ass to Canterbury, RIO and eventually Zeuhl; the avantgarde/jazz fusion/pop sensibilities of Soft Machine, the industrial tinged, classical inspired darkness of Univers Zero and the evil repetition and epic bass of Magma taking me to the next level in the "you listen to some shite boy" stakes. This Heat. Well, they didn't really give me that much I wasn't aware of already by the time I reached them; criminally ignored and vastly influential - they gave me themselves and Camberwell Now - which, as you'll know if you've heard either, is enough...... more than enough. When I heard The Tunnels were bringing Faust to Aberdeen I was instantly overcome with the fear of someone who cannot believe, be that in ghosts, fairies, monsters, Santa, Jesus Christ, ouija boards or one of the greatest bands in kewl music history playing in the city that I live in. "Faust? Aberdeen? Hah! Hahaha!". So, well done the men and women from The Tunnels!. You deserve a pint, joint and fish supper at least! (my erse is reserved for the librarian!). Anyway, at approximately 9.50pm last night , my eyes settled upon a group of doods with geetars, steel pipes, circular saws, synths, ironing boards (!?!!??), drums/percussion and all sorts of other weird and wonderful devices and they didn't move for two hours - not even when the guy in front of me let loose the dead Al Queada fighter he had been accomodating inside his cave for the last 2 years (to the immediate dismay of both myself and those around me; who I could see were also wincing at the eggy, wicked, aroma circulating) So, what was it like? (I'm off the subject of the fart and back on the subject of the gig by the way). I suppose I could compare it to the way Mr Bush felt after winning Florida - like I was receiving something that wasn't mine; something that belonged to someone else, something else, somewhere else but bugger it, I was gonna take it all in and get the most out of it while it lasted. And that's what I did. There's no point in me giving a narrative account of the gig. It'd be long winded, pretentious, boring and one sided. All I want to say is that it was special. That fifteen quid mix-up of folk, pop, nursery rhymes, performance art, improvisation, industrial motorik psych and drones that had me saying, "I must rake out those Taj Mahal Travellers' bootlegs I have", was very special indeed. Pure Krautrock. A Carnival of the obskure atmosphere descended and pickled the pea that sits behind the confines of my skull. Fantastic. Difficult. Delightful. Disturbing. Awesome. Inspiring. Essential. Before I stop, one thing - what's the point in paying 15 sheets to go and see a band like Faust, any band at any price for that matter, then talking all the way through it? I Don't mean to offend, I know you guys maybe haven't seen each other all week and want to catch up, but that's for the pub, not a once in a lifetime chances to see true originals; men who inspired the music of your wettest dreams playing in your local kewlest club! Its not fair on the space in your wallet, the guy beside you or the Krautrock legends on the stage! Give it a rest! Its embarrassing - people coming thousands of miles to play for you and being met with a wall of chat on the subjects of work, shagging and general Scottish deviance. A minority, it was, I know. Hopefully those doods didn't head back to their dressing room of the firm opinion that we're all wankers. Saying that, the rest of us made up for it with the reception we gave Faust, a reception that they most definitely deserved.