Trip Tych - Overall review

[ragudave]

This is a briefish review of my outings at the Trip Tych festival. Lots of variety and fun. Rating 8/10... I would have liked to have seen everything but my ears and wallet needed a rest at times. Anyone see the dub stuff last night or the Giles Peterson set ?

Dave

Wed 28 th

T Model Ford 80 year old bluesmeister singer and guitarist. Backed up with just a young 60? year old drummer. Lovely rootsy blues with sparse vocals.

Uncle John & Whitlock Young Glasgwegian blues wannabies. Quit the laboured American accent and just play the music guys.

Thursday 29 th

Wire tight, very loud, great lighted intro. Played two almost identical sets of recent material. Dont miss them live. Very fresh sounding post punk band with little pause for breath. I wonder if MES will ever play with them... Old, yes but so much better than Stiff LF, Buzzcocks and lots of other aged punk bands still zimmering around.

Komputer 2 blokes, 2 laptops, some knobs to twiddle mix of Kraftwerk and Autechre type noises. Pretty decent if a little up and down. The new file noise did make them seem a little unprofessional.

Pan Sonic imagine Orbital playing death metal. This is Finnish ambient supposedly. Very good but louder than a plane taking off. Nice Fela Kuti t shirt worn by the one with the mullet. Strange Dunn & co hat worn by the other one. A great act that I would love to see again, but need some ear protectors first...

Pink Grease Cross dressing, Cramps wannabies meets Daisy Chainsaw. Not my cup of tea at all. Didnt quite fit in with the rest of the night to be honest.

The Liars Post punk Adrian Sherwood style. Brave live act but def worth a second view.

Overall the Mute night was maybe a tad too ambitious - too many bands ?

Friday 30 th

Trans Am Surprise of the festival for me. Tight as Ganger. Post rock, stadium rock, fun, samples etc. Mostly instrumental and sound so much better live than on CD. Pity about the low turn out. Lovely orange suits.

Tigerbeat 6 night Kid 606, DJ Rupture, Knifehandchop.com etc. Gabba, dancehall, oldschool techno, hardcore, electronica, jungle, Drill n Bass, hip hop. Great large dancefloor lots of dancing by yours truely ! .

Sunday 2 nd

Space is the Place Showing of Sun Ra film with film maker Q&A. The directors cut version got lost. We had to watch a pirate version which was quite poor quality in terms of pictures and sound. The film maker was there but not exactly a character or public speaker. I thought the film looked very low budget as well. Remember Button Moon anyone ?

[Alan Cynic]

Thanks for the rundown. I missed it all (thin wallet), but would really like to have seen Wire. You're probably correct about too many bands on the Mute night....that's what put me off getting a ticket.

[chilli]

Mr Cynic, u were @ NN9, GS & Future PIlot, which was part of Triptych

The Mute night was a brave attempt @ doing something innovative @ the LT,

ie an upstairs downstairs leftfield night, however for me it just didn't gel, Wire & Pan Sonic were fine, but just too throbby at times, Pink Grease were a joke, Liars were influenced by too much Birhday Party but were okay, Irmin Schmidt not playing live was poor, T Raumschmiere being ill was a miss. the much maligned Komputer (window tinkles aside) were okay & Tim Wright's set which most people missed was excellent.

5/10

Trans Am just wonderful, where was everybody?

9.5/10

Tigerbeat 6 Night

1st two acts okay, main two urghhhh too late for this old chap, Kid 606 drill & bass

far-too intense. Dav'e Kung Fu arm dancing was a delight.

3/10

NN9, GS & Future Pilot

FP shambolic, disjointed & full of loveliness, GS lots of variety, NN9

three or 4 songs of genuine class, not enough meshy trademark guitars,

set too short

6/10

Space is the Place

turned up @ 5 delay for 1.5hours, directors cut not available, went home

a big dissapointment

0/10

Moog night

shambolic but likeable old people

5/10

triptych this year

5/10

ps Paragon Ensemble tonight will be special, be there...

[RF Scott]

i'm pissed off i missed kid606, pissed off. pissed off. pissed off. pissed off

[RossP]

Sat 1st May at Tram way Galsgow

Andre Williams- like watching your randy grandad mumble his way through explaining who he'd fuck nowadays to some dirty old rock n roll,

Fennez (sp?)- really impressed with him, although he cut his set short because the sound guy kept turning his levels down. Big anthemic wall of sound

Explosions in the sky- Holy poop, still not recovered from their performance. They were in the smallest room, and i heard there was a massive queue of folk trying to get in. I was right at the front, and got my ears blown off brutally. played a lot of tracks from their earlier album, nice. And they were throwing themselves about at the heavy bits, lovely.

Fourtet and Explosions overlapped, so didn't get to see Fourtet. boo

I heard kid 606 was brilliant on the sunday

[ragudave]

T Raumschmiere - yep I really wanted to see him as well after hearing his great Peel session. He would have fitted in better with the Tigerbeat 6 night in a twisted kind of way.

Oh and Chilli - that was my very tame dancing. Wait until I am not tired, hungover, with sore ears... I did stop dancing at 2.30 though,

Dave

[LonelyHunter Alister]

Really enjoyed 'Charlie is my darling' and the Q&A session with Andrew Loog Oldham. If you hadn't known in advance, you might have been disapointed about the poor quality of the film and sound. The original was stolen, so only a poor copy remains.

Very interesting film, with close access to the band. Showed the Stones after they got famous, but before they hit all the drug problems. ALO was great afterwards, a lot of interesting snippets and stories.

[ragudave]

I read an interview with AndrewLO last week - seems he is now managing Glasgow band V-Twin or producing them anyway,

Dave

[Alan Cynic]

Originally posted by chilli:

Mr Cynic, u were @ NN9, GS & Future PIlot, which was part of Triptych

oops......so it was. I had such a gig-filled week I didn't realise it was part of Tryptch!!!! The Paragon Ensemble will be excellent....I know I'd enjoy hearing Jesus Blood live, but I need a recovery night tonight or my early demise might come sooner than anticipated.

[framheim]

only managed to see trans am, but holy shit they were good. easily one of the best things i've seen EVER!

loved trying to dance to that last song before the encore as well. what kind of crazy beat was that? sheesh.

[andylemontree]

I'm not entirely impartial but being as objective as I can, the overall programme was of a really high standard and mostly stuff that just wouldn't otherwise happen in Aberdeen. Audience numbers were a bit disappointing overall as there were maybe too many shows competing for the leftfield pound and the event probably fell a bit short of critical mass in terms of festive buzz.

Wire, Pink Grease PanSonic, Liars, Yat Kha, Amp Fiddler, Nectarine No 9, Gwen McRae and Andre Williams were all outstanding and Moog, Prince Paul and Dr Alimantado were good fun too.

Any feedback on how we can make it work better in Aberdeen is more than welcome.

[soundian]

Originally posted by daveofficer:

only managed to see trans am, but holy shit they were good. easily one of the best things i've seen EVER!

loved trying to dance to that last song before the encore as well. what kind of crazy beat was that? sheesh.

He was swtitching between 4/4 and 7/8 (?*) ,that was funny watching people trying to dance, or even tap their feet, to that one. Awesome drummer and the rest of the band were far from shoddy.

The support band get the 'most out of tune, out of tempo' award for this year.

I know there's a few months to go yet but I'm confident I'm onto a winner here.

*I couldn't get the rythym properly cos the "dancers" put me off. It could've been 6/8, but certainly not 3/4.

[ragudave]

Originally posted by andylemontree:

Any feedback on how we can make it work better in Aberdeen is more than welcome.

Andy - a Trip Tych festival pass, where you pay say X and get entry to everything or a Y a day pass might increase overall revenue and get people seeing lots of different things.

Dave

[garygilmore]

The Mute thing at the Lemon tree was really good..even if the timings went a bit off and some performers were missing (Modey Lemon etc).

I agree with the comment about the ticket pricing.

I also think that whoever is dealing with the Aberdeen end should try and get ALL the performers to come to Aberdeen. There were events held only in Glasgow (Pastels, Camera Obscura) and this meant that some people (me!) who might have stayed in Aberdeen travelled to Glasgow.

When Triptych first started the "moveable feast" over the 3 locations was one of it's selling points. If it becomes just a mish mash of things over a long weekend it loses that.

I also thought the promo booklet was less than clear....and the prices were too expensive..especially when you add on the unfair booking tax......although credit to the Lemon tree who published how much it would cost you rather than the "Ex Booking Fee" rubbish.

[framheim]

there was some things on in glasgow that i would've killed a thousand men to see up here. though none as much as folk implosion last year. that made me sad.

i like the idea of a golden ticket that gets you into everything. i think overall the triptych things are quite expensive hence me going to just one event. however i appreciate that the calibre of the acts means that they probably get paid a large fee.

basically i think that it would be nice if the aberdeen leg didn't feel like so much like a fringe event.

[andylemontree]

In defence of the programming, I have to say that in previous years Aberdeen has perhaps been the poor relation but this year got a much stronger proportion of the good stuff. We also have to be realistic about the size of Aberdeen and the likely audience compared to Glasgow and Edinburgh. Even though we didn't have the full programme, numbers were stretched and I feel part of that was because there was too much going on as it was. I agree the pricing and marketing do need looking at but there is a more fundamental issue of whether there are simply enough interested people in the city to make it work.

[ragudave]

Originally posted by daveofficer:

i like the idea of a golden ticket that gets you into everything. i think overall the triptych things are quite expensive hence me going to just one event. however i appreciate that the calibre of the acts means that they probably get paid a large fee.

A golden ticket as it has been christened would make it feel like a real festival rather than a bunch of gigs under one banner over 5 days ?

On another note maybe Trip Tych should be marketed at the out of area market* to build up potential audiences in smaller places like Adeen,

Dave

* beyond the UK / Scotland

[unknown pleasures]

I think the fact that there was a willingness to even attempt something the mute night pretty much justifies the whole thing.

I agree, however, that this year's brochure was a bit rubbish ... it was difficult to find anything in it, I thought.

I don't think you'll ever get away from the idea of the Aberdeen leg being the poor relation, to be honest. Even if theres only one act missing, if thats one they wanted to see, people will be cheesed off and will feel left out.

As it goes, there was lots of people at the mute night in Glasgow moaning to me that they werent getting T Rasmuchiere, so it cuts both ways ( I was sorely tempted not to tell them that we didnt get him either).

I like the idea of a pass for several shows, although I understand it would make it very difficult to predict numbers - particularly in situations like Wire playing upstairs at the Lemon Tree.

That's enough lines starting with 'I' for now.

[Alex DeLarge]

First of all the word 'ambitious' what do you mean? Do you mean they were too original, or too creative? That is one of the crapest words to use in a review dude.

Secondly Pink Grease were, in my opinion the best act of the night hands down! Your maybe too old to understand anymore, thats OK.

Finally, Wire were OK, 'tight' is not necessarily equal good, it just means old and 'have been doing it for 40 years' thing.

So your 'review' stinks. Any review with comparrisions is stupid!

[unknown pleasures]

what an eccentric performance ...

[ragudave]

Originally posted by Alex DeLarge:

First of all the word 'ambitious' what do you mean? Do you mean they were too original, or too creative? That is one of the crapest words to use in a review dude.

Secondly Pink Grease were, in my opinion the best act of the night hands down! Your maybe too old to understand anymore, thats OK.

Finally, Wire were OK, 'tight' is not necessarily equal good, it just means old and 'have been doing it for 40 years' thing.

So your 'review' stinks. Any review with comparrisions is stupid!

My review does not stink - it contains my opinions at one point in time. Your views may be different from mine. We are both entitled to express our views.

The use of comparisons can be useful when someone wants to know what something sounds like or who they borrowed from... e.g. Elastica sound like Wire, Ladytron and Komputer remind me of Kraftwerk

Yes I have to admit I am old, and narrow minded never attend many gigs or buy music. I mean I only like dub, drum n bass, electronica, alt & old country, post rock, turntabilism, hardcore / gabba, world music, folk music, hip hop, blues, jazz, funk, techno and indie and minimalism. On I like post punk as well.

Dave

[Alex DeLarge]

Yeah, yeah. Whatever!

[lepeep]

oh, alex, with comments like that, you're (ho ho) foot should be full of holes.

that's just not cricket, if you are going to "start a debate" (i.e. pick appart someones opinions) , and end it with a "what ever", if that's cool, and "young", then , I can't wait for you to grow up and have a better perspective of things (no disrespect).

I thought pink Grease were great...but got bored of the same joke after about 4 songs.

I didn't see the Mute nght as "over ambitious", I thought it worked very well, and was very happy at the turnout, for such a left field event (for aberdeen), I was pleasently supprised at the amount of "underground appreciators".

I also liked the way you could actaully catch all the bands on the night, if you didn't mind snipping off a few minutes from each set.

Long live the triptych, that's my opinion. A slice of "different music" for a change...an excellent 5 days for music in scotland.

[ragudave]

Originally posted by lepeep:

Long live the triptych, that's my opinion. A slice of "different music" for a change...an excellent 5 days for music in scotland.

I totally agree. It must be some amount of hassle organising a festival like Trip Tych so good luck to them. I've been to all of the four years of TT and seen lots of great things.

Note to self - earplugs would be a wise investment next time....

[framheim]

it's an asset and a compliment to aberdeen that it's here. and long may it continue. and long may they strive to improve it and better themselves. maybe the addition of workshops could be an idea. certainly if they could persuade people like trans am or wire to participate in such things i'm sure they'd get a lot of interest.