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Rule 23
Before the Wales game started on Saturday, Barrie and I spent some time admiring the new gear which our good friends Fireroad had brought along. As well as kindly providing a mighty 500 W Trace Elliot bass amp and 15" cab, they’ve refitted our drum kit. Matthew Whitney, the band’s drummer, has put new skins on everything and tuned the drums properly. After trying it out himself, he said that any drummer who turned his nose up at it was ‘a fussy bastard’.
My pal Dai Corfield had put together (on paper) an impressive line-up of rock bands for the
evening. Twisted Illusion, the headliners, are from Manchester. They’ve played at the Bloodstock festival, which is no mean feat. On the strength of that, on Friday night I talked my mate Andrew into coming along. I’ve completely lost touch with the Hard Rock scene since my brother stopped buying Kerrang! I wanted to run Dai’s gig past someone who’s tuned into the current trends. Three other bands (Jupiter’s Carnival, Kinky Wizzards and Häxan) meant that it was good value for money, too. It’s been many years since we had a proper Rock night in Aberdare, and I was a bit disappointed not to see more of the old Carpenters gang. But the longest journey begins with a single step, as the saying goes.
We had a good crowd in for the match, but the late kick-off meant that timings were already very tight. After last week’s Top Tips for visiting bands, I’ve decided to draw up a list of rules, along the lines of Gibbs’ Rules in NCIS. (I can’t decide whether to have them printed on beermats, or embroidered on pillowcases.) Rule 22 is Don’t bring your gear in five minutes before the final whistle.
Because that’s exactly what happened. With Wales desperately needing a try, the bands rocked up (no pun intended) and started bringing their gear in. Everyone was glued to the TV. The last thing we needed was people criss-crossing in front of the screen. Hence Rule 22.
After the match ended, the bands started putting their gear together. In spite of Matthew’s input this week, the first thing Twisted Illusion did was to set up their own drums.
Rule 23: Drummers are a pain in the arse.
Häxan are three young rock chicks (two sisters and a pal) who played a very impressive set here last autumn. It was good to see them back in town. They played an interesting mix of originals and covers, including a medley of Queen numbers, a real curveball in the shape of ‘Chelsea Dagger’, and a great version of ‘Delilah’ (the unofficial Welsh rugby anthem). Their own material is strong, too, demonstrating a fine grasp of their instruments and decent songwriting skills. Even though they’re operating within the fairly limited HR/HM framework, I’ve little doubt that these young ladies will find their own direction before too long.
When Dai came into our midst to collect the ticket price (fourthree bands for four quid), the
tightwads started to leave. For Goddess’s sake, I was paying four quid to see three or four bands in London over thirty years ago! Imagine if gig prices had kept pace with inflation … But Top Quality Artists in the local club represent better value for money, apparently.
Jupiter’s Carnival had pulled out at the last minute, so Kinky Wizzards were up next. My first
handwritten note reads ‘Don’t know if it’s the soundcheck or if they’re playing a stripped-down version of “10.30 Returns to the Bedroom”’ (a mental instrumental from Soft Machine’s second LP).
Rule 24: Don’t ask the band if they’ve finished the soundcheck halfway through their set.
You’ll see where my confusion arose when I tell you that Kinky Wizzards are a bass player (who doesn’t sing) and a drummer (who also doesn’t sing). There was some seriously technical stuff going on, but without a lead instrument it kinda sounded like a Weather Report jam while waiting for Zawinul or Shorter to report for duty. I could imagine this very complex material working OK at an avant-garde jazz gig, but it seemed rather out of place on the evening. And yet … If I’d promoted an avant-garde jazz gig, only five people would have turned up. And Kinky Wizzards would have gone down a treat. As with everything else, the trick is to realise that genre barriers are artificial, and it’s all music. You won’t like it all. That’s just human nature.
Chris from Cripplecreek and I were chatting on Sunday afternoon, and we agreed that we’d been mis-sold a Prog Rock gig. Musical mis-selling is one of the traps that await you when you’re getting older. Friends of mine were mis-sold an R’n’B night in Cardiff some years ago. They strolled in expecting to hear decent music (Cream, Yardbirds, early Fleetwood Mac and so forth). Instead, the place was full of kids grooving to Destiny’s Child.
Hence the mis-selling. To me (and most people of my age group), Prog Rock probably suggests extended keyboard-driven pieces, concept LPs, theatricality, and musical virtuosity. Similarly, Chris was expecting complex time signatures and adventurous harmonic structures. We both decided that Twisted Illusion were decidedly Metal. And I’ve never been a big Metal fan.
A lot of the guys in school were big Metal fans. Thirty-odd years ago, I was shopping in Cardiff with my family. My brother decided to take a punt in Spillers, on the back of something he’d seen in Kerrang! He came home with Fistful of Metal by Anthrax and Kill ’Em All by Metallica. When Lee, Simon, Dai, Duffryn and the rest of my hard rockin’ sixth form mates heard these exotic imports, Phil earned himself some serious kudos. He was pretty much Aberdare’s Thrash Metal pioneer.
As far as I can tell, though, Heavy Rock/Metal stalled not long after that. The entire scene still seems to rely on the same tired plodding rhythms and limited chord structures as it did before Phil turned my mates onto the last Next Big Thing. And I can’t keep track of the many subgenres that have sprung up in the wake of the initial Thrash explosion. My mate Dave – a bedroom guitarist par excellence – once played me a very long, very fast and very intricate specimen of something called Quest Metal. It sounded like a decent Iron Maiden LP track.
Twisted Illusion – fine musicians and a cracking vocalist that they undoubtedly are – did little to encourage me to pursue the new generation of Prog Rock. But I can also understand their frustration at being called on to open The Great Valleys Songbook at every opportunity. They write their own material, and it’s material that appeals to their audience. But last night’s crowd wasn’t their audience. From where I was sitting, it reminded me of the last ‘proper’ rock gig I went to: Wolfsbane, in Cardiff, circa 1990. Wolfsbane are still around, apparently. Twisted Illusion will probably still be around three decades from now as well. Perhaps by then HR/HM might have moved on a bit.
Rule 25: Don’t Abuse the Management. You Probably Won’t be Asked Back.
On my way back from the bar, my pal Dale called me over. He’s a serious Rock fan of many years’ standing. We chatted for a minute, and then Twisted Illusion announced that they were going to play a cover. Dale asked me what I thought they had in mind.
I said ‘Honestly, mate, I’ve gone past caring.’
As with the Blowout gig a few weeks ago, I’m definitely not in the target audience for Dai’s gig. But I should be. I’ll be 52 next month. I’ve grown up with Heavy Rock/Heavy Metal/whatever as the secondary soundtrack to my teens and twenties. But (it’s a big but – I like big buts) I’ve always been able to see over the edge of the quite narrow furrow that the majority of HR/HM bands appear to plough. I bought Twisted Illusion’s EP while we were chatting after the gig. Maybe it’ll grow on me. If not, Phil might enjoy it.
I think Dai may have made a tactical error booking original bands straight after a Six Nations
match. On a different night, it probably would have worked better. With the right marketing strategy behind it, it definitely would have worked a treat. There are literally hundreds – if not a couple of thousand – people in South Wales who would have absolutely loved Twisted Illusion. It’s just a pity that they weren’t here on the night.
