Broadcast/The Caretaker/Thomas Ankersmit - The Vortex 11/10/09

The second of the Wire magazine's Into the Vortex nights started with Thomas Ankersmit who I've never heard of before. His set went like this: manic screeching and steam sounds like trains braking hard on their rails, then calm and high, then drone with sax and drool. Having a mental breakdown. It was great. There was a seriously long line of drool from his sax mouthpiece almost down to the floor from all the circular breathing he was doing. Drone sax. Very nice.

The Caretaker hid himself away in the corner - rather effectively considering the size of his hairstyle, a large frizzy bulb - and hit play on his laptop. I don't know if he did anything else but then I don't know what else he could be expected to do with his music. Last time I saw him play was as V/VM where he had a discman which he just played along to with an inflatable guitar and a rubber chicken mask over his head. I guess that kind of performance would jar a little with the nature of The Caretaker material, but he still managed to fit in a cheeky pisstake, allowing his languorous set to stretch out to what seemed like an ending already overdue and leaving just enough pause before starting a whole other section. Much of the room sighed, some laughed, including myself, but really it's music that requires a lengthy listen, so in that respect this was one thing he could affect live. I like The Caretaker's stuff and I understand the concept behind it but it's better suited to solo listening, at night, at home, the exact opposite of this packed out daytime jazzbar. Still, it was as enjoyable as could be expected I suppose.

Broadcast were supposed to be on some hot shit new direction and playing along to a film so I thought hey I'll give them a chance seeing as I haven't listened to them for a decade so I did, I gave them a chance and I watched the whole set, the video was uninspired, dull and hackneyed and the music really suited it. At its best it was inoffensive, at its worst, twee.

Richard Youngs w/ Heather Leigh Murray/Astral Social Club/The Skaters - The Vortex 09/10/09

I'm so behind on these reviews I'm gonna try and speed through them, drawing on my fast fading memories to paint what will probably amount to a not very accurate portrayal of events. This is my gig blog though and the only people who read it are me (when I'm trying to remember whether I liked a band) and people who search for themselves on the internet, so if you're offended it's probably because you're insecure about your abilities as an artist. Feel free to leave a comment backing that theory up. That said let's get on with some quickfire reviewing.

Richard Youngs w/ Heather Leigh Murray was great, frankly. A swirling dual guitar noise gradually giving way to duel repeated vocals, chanting no lights on over and over, or something like that. I'll check it in a minute, it's details like that that really set one apart from the lazy bloggers. I liked it, whatever it was they said. I'm writing this in March so I don't have too much to add really. I remember them doing the vocal bit for ages and going past that point where it stops seeming like too long and starts getting better because it's so long. That's what I reckon anyway.

Astral Social Club played. Good old Nelly Campbell. He was great, he said something about pork pies and then he played a load of pedals and amps and little bits of kit and a microphone, I dunno, I wasn't really looking. He did some nice stuff with mic feedback, I recall. 'Little bits of kit', Jesus how vague can you get. So anyway I was really looking forward to seeing The Skaters but they didn't turn up I don't remember why, something to do with aeroplanes maybe, but so they put on Alex Tucker instead so I didn't bother staying.

Oh and I just tried to check the audio recording of Youngs and Leigh Murray but I think it's on an external hard drive and I dunno if it's plugged into the USB so sod it.