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Email Members: www.spiritofgravity.com
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GRAVITATIONAL
PULL
Dispatches
from the Spirit of Gravity / Edition 100 / February 11
·
Happenings:
Next Spirit of Gravity gig: Thursday 24th February 2011
LABORORTORO
(XELIS AND ALISTAIR) / BARKING TOAD / KOMUSO
The
Komedia Studio Bar, 44-47 Gardner Street,
Brighton, BN1 1UN
Time
8:30 - 11:00 Cost £5 / £4
This
month we’re pleased to welcome acts from far and near: Galicia,
Folkestone and Burgess Hill. Even someone from
Brighton.
Komuso
Derek
Thompson (ex SPK, Jeffrey Lee Pierce Quartet and The Cure) aka Hoodlum
Priest, usually with associates from Apollo440 and Ned’s Atomic
Dustbin, uses Field recording of Fallow Deer and other sound sources to
make uniquely disturbing soundscapes.
Barking Toad
Barking
Toad are a three piece from Folkestone in
Kent who make Noise Rock with Saxophone, bass and drums.
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001472749518
Laboratoro
Laboratoro:
Brighton based new music/sound poetry group. Laboratoro
works in the intersection of language and sound creating textures
through electronic, improvised music, poetry and vocals. Its core members
musician Ed Briggs and Galician writer/performer Xelís
de Toro create new pieces and set-ups for every new performance making
each show unique. Their powerful performances bring together sound
poetry, tribal sounds, performance, live projections and movement.
laboratoro.net/text
Hosted
by our very own 'Laptop' Lee Hume
Visuals by _minimalVector
There
will be the elektrocreche available
for any unaccompanied toys who will be looked
after during the intervals by our professionally trained team of
volunteers. And anybody else that wants to bring along a sound toy to
play with.
For
details of future Spirit of Gravity events, go to www.spiritofgravity.com/.
Video
and audio on the Spirit of Gravity mp3 blog at spiritofgravity-brighton.blogspot.com/
Video
and audio on the Spirit of Gravity MySpace page at www.myspace.com/thespiritofgravity
Facebook
group with shows and information at www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=75568366205
Downloads
of complete Spirit of Gravity sets at www.archive.org/details/the-spirit-of-gravity
_minimalVector
films featuring Spirit of Gravity acts and guests at www.vimeo.com/thespiritofgravity
·
Reminiscings:
Some
time ago one of The Founders of The Spirit of Gravity had control of GravPull,
as we like to call it, prised from his Cold Dead Fingers before he was
swiftly interred in a shallow grave on the waste ground round the back
of Boots under a bit of corrugated iron and an old mattress.
As
it was a special occasion (this being the 100th edition of
the aforesaid) we went to pay him a visit. The mattress had gone, but
when we moved the corrugated Iron we were surprised to hear him speak.
Brushing the dirt from his mouth we got our ears close and wrote this
down before swiftly covering him in a fresh layer of gravel and getting
the metal sheet back in place.
“Bloody
hell.
When the Spirit of Gravity was founded 10 years ago I had a pony tail, a
goatee, a growing hatred of the New Labour Project and a penchant for
organising obscure live art events for five people on a Tuesday evening.
Now I have two daughters, a mortgage in Portslade,
the threat of redundancy hanging over me and a nagging thought that I
should stop blaming the pram in the hallway and do something creative.
Then again, Benidorm is about to start...
These
days my association with the Gravity is intermittent at best. Like Hugh
Hefner, if I perform once a year I'm happy. Well I'm not, but every
one else is. The plaudits for this important anniversary go to
all the guys now, but I can sit in my urine soaked chair and tell the
nurses how I once co-founded the original night for live electronica.
Seriously
though, I am very proud to have played a part in setting up a collective
that has gone through more venues than Spinal Tap had drummers,
sometimes survived on audiences smaller than a Smurfs concert and had
more technical failures than a pre Queer as Folk TARDIS. I could go on,
but that is why I stopped doing our radio show.
The
Gravity is a wonderful, chaotic, electric socket munching monster, with
more crazy noises than Stephen Hawkins on Rohipnol,
and quite often more people on stage than off. But that is why I love
it. One day I hope to return more regularly to the Gravity, sometimes
performing, but mainly standing at the back like some beer soaked father
at a wedding reception, telling all and sundry that this, this beautiful
child, is my greatest achievement. Of course, it isn't, but I'm quite
chuffed all the same.
Yet
perhaps the only reason I am writing this is because I did the copy and
the Pull in the early days, and in my Gravity era bands I am the
wordsmith. To me, the main man out of a few that are more main men than
me, is fellow co founder and still active participant I'm Dr Bouyant,
Tony Rimbaud. He truly has the Spirit of Gravity (Now, will you let me
play with you again?)
Happy
Birthday Soggy.
Nick
Rilke”
·
Reviewings
Spirit
of Gravity
at the Komedia Studio Bar, Brighton,
Thursday 27th January 2011
It
was a good way to start the year and The Spirit of Gravity’s second
decade, and given the occasion, fitting that I’m
Dr Buoyant should have started the evening with a
collaboration with Broken
Star on memory.
Weaving
ensaddened snatches of Dvorak with analogue
synthesisers, old drum machines, bass and guitar against a slideshow of
manipulated found images, the combination swept us back through not just
the decade but through time to a communal childhood. They also managed
to squeeze in one of Andrew’s trademark chunky organ solos.
Clearing
the stage The Organ Grinders
Monkey was a two piece of person and laptop. Person played
shimmering guitar in a fashion somewhat reminiscent of early Brian Eno,
he also sang. The guitar was extremely shiny and seemed to have more
than an expected amount of sliders on it, although I didn’t get to
have the closer look I wanted. The laptop, as befitted its 21st
Century status in the affair eschewed romanticised nostalgia and looked
forward with beats at one moment straightforward and next twisting off
unexpectedly. Along with the beats was a subverting backing track that
included distracting backing vocals that seemed to mock the live voice.
Against type they rounded the set off with a rousing, straight up,
key-change-including Indie song that seemed to be throwing cheap shots
at one of the audience. Very funny.
But
not as funny as Glyphs.
We usually treat our artists to some serious consideration, preferably
while stroking our midweek chins, but once in a while something comes
along that gets taken completely the wrong way. I’ve seen Glyphs play
to stony faced appreciation, but I think it being the Komedia
and quite late, and my exhortations to drink having fallen onto
receptive ears, Glyphs decided to go with it and treat us to a master
class in feral comic timing. It’s not often that verbal comedy that is
beyond comprehension is so amazingly funny. Perhaps it is, on reflection
- I don’t actually like much verbal comedy.
Perhaps
we should get a video to Jimmy Carr. Although I was quite reassured to
have seen someone storming out halfway through their set, I wouldn’t
like to think we were going all populist
(There is a video of the entire set available at The SogBlog
(http://spiritofgravity-brighton.blogspot.com/).
Finishing
things of in a suitable Janusine fashion, Cosmonaut
Transfer played some old school Space Music, abstract toned music of
the spheres with distant over-echoed guitars before a Kosmiche
space pulse boosted us into planetary space, things dissolved again
before a second stage of rhythm built up. Nick was wearing a silver suit
and space helmet (which you can just see on the SogBlog)
and they had a space video of library footage playing behind them and a
small super 8 projector set up in front with a collage of clips from
various b-movies playing onto a small screen. Also on the SogBlog
is a link to a full length version of their set on soundcloud,
which I’d recommend.
Yours
as ever
El
Maestro Con Queso
Editor.
Gravitational
Pull
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