Thanks so much to everyone who came to the Sonic Sanctuary gig at The Louisiana in Bristol on Saturday night and obviously, to everyone who contributed.
SJ Esau was first on, it's been a long time since I've seen him play live but as ever he made me smile inside and out... he's one of those people who makes me just really glad to be alive.
His music has so much going on in it and it's clever but not in a crap "look at me I'm so clever" kind of way, in a beautifully natural and free kinda way... and normally I find loops kind of annoying but not here, he does it right, he's one of the few people who does...
He started with a new (new to me) song "Soul II Skull" which has been circling around my head since Saturday, then a classic, "Why Are You Angry" followed by a couple more newish numbers, some awesome visuals and a karaoke ending.
It was great to have him back at Sonic Sanctuary.
We (Thought Forms) played next and thoroughly enjoyed it (it's always great sound at The Louisiana) which made up for our disastrous gig in London the week before...
Teeth Of The Sea played an absolute blinder, three tracks from their new album which is coming out very soon, yeah they're really on fire at the moment and one thing that I really love about them is that they're always so hard to describe when people ask what they're all about.
That trumpet that becomes trumpets that becomes a fucking mountain of awesome... the guitar dancing and shimmering up and down in fiery angles through the river and bedrock of keyboards, bass and pounding drums leading us into the battle of genres that's being played out. I love this band.
Now Mugstar have got to be some of the nicest people I've ever met. Bristol loves Mugstar, it's a name you always hear being praised to the highest degree and the only disappointing thing about their set is that it was a shortened version* when all everyone wanted to do was sink into it for the rest of the night.
DIRTY keyboards and repetitive, monstrous psych riffage. Total perfection.
Thanks to Chris Rocket, 7Stu7 and Gareth of Big Naturals fame for DJ'ing some great tunes downstairs and also to Ian Watson, Yoshino Shigihara, Joey Chainsaw, 45RPM, Christelle Rox, Sam Wisternoff and Cloudboy for the artwork that they contributed to the exhibition which is on downstairs at The Louisiana for a further three weeks - go and check it out if you can!
if anyone has any photos from the night please email them to me :
lava-thief@live.com
* You'd think by now that I would have learnt my lesson about putting four bands on a bill. The moral of the story is, just don't do it if you have a strict curfew.
Unfortunately, three out of four sets were cut short and I've no one to blame but myself, I apologize to all. Plans are in place to rectify all next year...
