Jason Molina + Okkervil River @ Crossing Border festival, Den Haag (23-Nov-2007)
I arrived too late to see anything much of Okkervil River, but lucked into catching a live radio session from Okkervil’s Will Sheff later on. Then scored front-row seats for Jason Molina’s solo set of electric blues. Molina, typically polite and humble, disappoints his hard core of Dutch fans (who identify themselves by their unanimous snappy correction of the MC’s mispronunciation of “Songs: Ohio“) by drawing from his last handful of releases and not playing any Songs: Ohia material. I too would love to hear him play some of his earliest songs - but Molina is a searcher, not looking back: this is a man who purportedly will play songs at nights like this that he wrote that same morning.
See Molina play “Memphis Moon” @ Crossing Border here
Qui + Future Of The Left @ Paradiso (bovenzaal), Amsterdam (26-Nov-2007)
Future Of The Left finally arrive in the fine city of Amsterdam and deliver another acerbic, eloquently nonsensical set of short sharp sonic slams. Although ostensibly the support act to Qui, they are demanded back by the baying crowd for an instrument-abusing & drum-kit-disassembling encore. And all my FotL-stalking bears fruit: this is the first time I’ve ever had a song devoted to me, the particularly appropriate “Small Bones Small Bodies”!
Better Bovine Than Equine? (gevelsteen, Leiden)
David Yow now prowls menacingly rather than the all-action style he was renowned for when playing with Jesus Lizard, but that adds a tension to his performance - the audience never sure if he will flail off the stage when Qui hit one of their riff-peaks. He only leaves stage once, probably less from intent than from the unbalancing effects of excessive alcohol consumption…
See Qui play “Today, Gestation” @ Paradiso here
Jesu + Fear Falls Burning @ Paradiso (bovenzaal), Amsterdam (05-Dec-2007)
Justin Broadrick is a supremely talented and influential musican - with a genre making-and-breaking history that takes in teenage inventor of grindcore (Napalm Death), a stint behind the kit with Head of David, the almighty mighty Godflesh, macro-dub infection (Ice, Techno Animal) and various breakbeat incarnations.
So yes, tonight I come to worship at the altar of JK Flesh, at his harmonics-bouncing-off-the-roof-of-hell guitar and his incredible way with machines. Jesu, the misty early morning light to Godflesh’s dark corners, is now a fully-fledged band, Broadrick augmented by longtime-collaborator Diarmuid Dalton on bass and drummer Ted Parsons, another with a special musical pedigree: Swans, Prong, Foetus, Godflesh amongst many (mostly dubbed-up) others. Parson pounds with precision and power, Broadrick’s programming filling in the spaces between and meshing perfectly with Parson’s biomechanical beats and Dalton’s low-end pulses. And then there is that guitar…
State-X / New Forms festival @ Pard van Troje, Den Haag (14&15-Dec-2007)
from top: Killl, Michael Gira, Scout Niblett, Sunn O)))
An excellent two-night festival split across the multi-roomed Pard van Troje venue in The Hague. Catch the close of melodic Scottish indierockers The Twilight Sad’s set, before then being put through the wringer by Norweigian math-metal supergroup Killl with their strobe assault, eye-twisting backdrop and extremely precise (and loud!) power-electronics-augmented Viking riffage. The night ends with an uninspiring (DJ?)set from Aphex Twin, too populist in its intent but insufficiently groovesome to get the crowd going.
Night #2 starts with another superb Michael Gira performance (always in humble good (dark) humour), shining a cleansing, burning white light on all our failures and inadequacies . Unfortunately then have to make the difficult choice between Jesu and Scout Niblett, Scout winning through having been treated to Jesu in Amsterdam 10 days previously. She again delivers in spades, quickly winning over the first-timers with her powerful combination of kickass and fragile. It’s the first Scout gig I’ve seen where she doesn’t take a turn to bash at the drums, which disappoints some of us but ends up making for a powerful performance with her grungy guitar riffage well underpinned by Kristian Goddard’s hard-hitting drums.
The night ends with Sunn O)))’s pagan drone worship, their innards-massaging rumbles nicely filling the large space of the main venue.
Aesop Rock @ Melkweg, Amsterdam (05-Feb-2008)
Aesop, ably assisted by New York compadre Rob Sonic and DJ Big Whiz’s Wheels Of Steel, brings peace & good times to the Melkweg. By the closer “Daylight” he has the whole crowd signing along to his tongue-twisting rhymes, and before that we’re treated to plenty of songs from his recent “None Shall Pass” album and some amazing cuts from Big Whiz (when Aesop instructs him to “take us into outer space” in the midst of “Bring Back Pluto” he even adds some theremin caressing to his dextrous fingerplay). Songs like “Fast Cars”, “39 Thieves” and “Commencement At The Obedience Academy” are all fist-pumpingly great, the animated skulls and bunnies of Jeremy Fish providing a suitably left-field backdrop.
Whip @ De Nieuwe Anita, Amsterdam (12-Feb-2008)
De Nieuwe Anita is the very definition of “gezellig“, a converted ground floor & basement apartment in a large residential block on a wide Amsterdam street, where you can have a beer while you get your hair cut. Whip brings his shy acoustic blues free-of-charge to the small appreciative crowd packed into the basement performance space (I later learn that Jason Merritt’s claustrophobia kicked in and left him messed up for a couple of days after). His “Atheist Lovesongs To God” release had him sounding like an early Palace-era Will Oldham, but his newer songs show him ploughing his own furrow.
Here is Whip’s cover version of Billy Idol’s “White Wedding”, from the “Bridging The Distance” benefit compilation on Arena Rock.
