Bo Ningen - hard core hairy punk grunge rock merchants
Playing together - at the same time no less in a Dadaist sound clash
What could be better?
Met Pete at the Salmon and Ball in Bethnal Green where I have a pint waiting for me (cheers mate, makes up for the ticket price - they were 15 each not 11). We make our way to The Oval Space up by Cambridge Heath station which is a little oval car park type space surrounded by light industrial buildings. A satisfyingly slightly older crowd than usual lining up with even a few grey hairs on show. The venue is lovely. Up and outside staircase where there is a tented bar area and then the main room a big space with pitched roof and massive plate glass windows behind the bar looking out to the outside hanging about area overlooking the gas works drums. Hopefully now not holding much gas a a lot of dog ends being flicking over the wall. The same gas works as I pass every day as I get onto the canal tow path. Fairly industrial minimalist music greets us to put us in the arty mood and I buy drinks. Red Stripe only, not so bad, but with 11 quid change from a score it's hardly put me in a party mood.
First up we have a black and white art house silent film with atmospheric backing track. As Pete says, the sort of thing you'd stumble upon very late at night in the days when we only had 3 or 4 TV channels. We were gagging for something like MTV back then but now I long for obscure foreign films rather than the commercial shite the 101 channels churn out 24/7. Anyways our film seems to be all about a girl who's either chasing or being chased by a mysterious figure who turns out to have a mirror for a face. Of course she goes into an empty room up a flight of stairs in true Hitchcockian fashion and then there seems to be about four of her all looking at a knife on a table and at each other. Maybe I wasn't concentrating properly but I don't know if she, or one of the others, died or not. After a bit more running about we get The End. In English. Next up is a similar film starting with a girl who seems to be drowned in the surf, at least there's no pretence of suspense, and then the waves roll back in reverse and we find out how she ended up there. Seemed to be some lovely beach walk with a bloke but then a few of her too and some old bloke and then running arms akimbo to the beach. OK so I'm an unpaid gig reviewer not a goddam art house film reviewer. After The End the screen in front of the stage comes away to reveal the bands equipment and then they're on.
Savages to our left in a line and Bo Ningen to our right they start off by taking it in turns to read poetry (I think it rhymed) and then some odd bass lines kick in. Getting atmospheric with the minimal music building up til the drums and guitar roll over the top and we have a full on battle of the bands on our hands. Pete says it's like the type of pickup bands you get at Glastonbury. Think that with a little more professionalism but a few decades ago. The lowest common denominator for rock improvisation seems to be standard blues rock drum and bass with guitar solos. We were treated to that minus the solos. It seemed to suit Bo N's hard core rocking out rather than the Savages more sophisticated use of thrash and silence and to be honest reminded me a lot of heavy rock pub bands. I guess each piece lasted about 10 minutes each and after a few of them the bands went off leaving us punters to hang around for a while wondering if they were gonna return. They didn't. In the loo Pete overheard someone saying that they were on stage for 37 minutes. Not great value for money but I guess we did have two films too. We leave into the cold night air with me being a little disappointed but maybe my expectations of a massive white noise sound clash with the two bands on either side of us was a little too ambitious. An interesting night and glad I went but didn't stumble out having been blown away, which was the effect first time I saw Savages and Bo Ningen. At festivals. Separately.
In keeping with the B&W art theme here's my photo...
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