She's still hanging on the telephone ...

What MES doesn't understand ...

From his er, "controversial" Channel 4 News interview, a gif of Mark E Smith at the very moment that his mastery of the European refugee issue become plain for all to see ... "What I don't understand is ... why they're all young fellas ..."

Oh! Gunquit just don't quit

A Oh! Gunquit gif from a 2012 gig of theirs ...

Raw, cooked and burnt, Podcast #126 (Jan 2016)

Kill all yr idols, because ... well, they're not worth idolising when you really examine the matter. No, tear 'em to shreds, chuck 'em in the fire.

That's right. Forget Bowie, Jagger, Dylan, Lydon, Cobain. Billy Childish? No, him neither. Nor Tony Wilson, Mark E Smith, or even the saintly John Peel. I'm throwing them all overboard. It's just me and my podcast from now on. Never mind that it's second-hand, hugely derivative and entirely untouched by genius. It's mine. It might be raw, (over-)cooked and burnt, but it's still mine ...

1: Vir Nocturna, Analgesia

2: Martha Rose, Tree. cloud. crow.

3: NITWIT, Fuck to my Romagna

4: MFC Chicken, 29 bus

5: Flat Sucks, Hitoga atsumaruto rokunakotoga nai

6: Help Stamp Out Loneliness, Record shop

7: Nick Didkovsky, Ice cream time

8: Siege Stompers, Accepted price

9: Winjer3, Slowly spreading

10: Courtney Barnett, Pedestrian at best

11: Chester Hawkins, Sepia (for Dieter Moebius)

12: Lord Beginner, Christmas morning the rum had me yawning

13: Umanzuki, Light crystal bounce

14: He was burnt

15: That Fucking Tank, Bruce Springstonehenge

16: Lloyd Briscoe, Jonah (the master)

17: Arrogants, I’m gonna leave you

18: Alien Center Of Disease, Dental work

19: Martin Auer, Draußt auf da Gassn

20: Howard Hughes & David Tattersall, He can see her

21: Kοκκαλα, β7

22: Hinge, How the west was won

23: Meow Meow!, I wonder what went wrong

24: Doug Shepherd, Desert mud

25: Harry Violet & The Sharks, Dance at the Korova

26: Cat Apostrophe, CBA# (3am)

No Form/Fickle Twin: noise and hair metal

Turn the dial to 11, this was enjoyably punishing wall-of-noise squealing and moaning from No Form, whose best moments came when they went into dark chug-drone mode. The guitarist was particularly animated, apparently engaged in some kind of fight-to-the-death battle with his instrument. Against the often quite thrashy percussion and general cacophony the singer/moaner-in-chief wailed away while throwing himself about in his black mac, doing a sort of spidery fall-over-spring-back-up move that was fun to watch but probably very hard on the ankles. 

No form, no focus:

No Form, Stuck On A Name Studios, Nottingham 5/2/16

More noise, meanwhile, came in the form of Fickle Twin's bass-throbbing sound, which was notable partly because of the growly singer's ironically amused air and expressive facial gestures, as well as the bassist's broody boarding-school-aristo-on-drugs demeanour. A shortish set, all good, no fillers.

Return of the mac:

Fickle Twin, Stuck On A Name Studios, Nottingham 5/2/16

And before I leave you and end this wonderfully illuminating gig mini-review, I should just mention the fact that at least two musicians played in macintoshes at this gig, something which I'm sure you'll agree is ... very much to be welcomed. Rather surreally, meanwhile, as Fickle Twin and No Form did their noisy stuff out front, members of various hair metal-type bands would suddenly appear through a doorway at the back and process quietly through the room, stoned extras from a Spinal Tap remake. It was apparently an instance of two worlds colliding on a rainy night in Sneinton, Nottinghamshire.