Thursday, October 30, 2025
Gus Gus - live @ Radio Palac, Prague - 19.10.25
I preferred them during their previous visit to Prague, when the waved their arms around like traffic wardens.
The singer has a great voice, and looks like he has an ageing portrait in his attic. He conducts several costume changes. The DJ, on the other hand, looks like he’s stayed up a few hours past his bedtime. The 2nd vocalist looks like a young Annie Lennox and brings a welcome dimension to the backing vocals, even if most of them are on a backing track. Sometimes she wanders off stage for a few songs. There is a noticeable absence of traffic warden dance moves this time, much to their detriment.
Their material is shiny, accessible and untaxing fare. Lyrics often centre on a single phrase or word - “Higher”, “David”, “Over” - which is then repeated for the last two minutes of the song.
The accompanying projected imagery is the worst of current digital artistry: just-because-we-can visuals that consist of a galloping horse with snakes coming out of its head, a big red skull or the band logo spinning around.
**
Bootleg: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12aM0C_YuSqaAcp5sLJHaR9VDF838cMpC/view?usp=drive_link
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Chris Cutler and Tom Hodgkinson - live @ Punctum, Prague - 14.10.25
“I don’t normally get piss on my hands,” says Tom, who passes me in the cramped lavatory facilities of Punctum. I gesture that he can wash his hands before me. He does so. It’s not clear whether he actually did get piss on his hands, or whether he was reassuring me that handwashing wasn’t strictly necessary.
Whatever his pre-gig hand-washing routine, it seems to do the trick: seconds later he is on stage and for the next 45 minutes he delivers a tour de force of lap steel guitar noises, clicks, twangs and burps… while his collaborator Chris uses HIGH GAIN microphones on his drum kit to do much the same, only with the occasional burst of rhythm streaming through the experimentation… just to prove that he can do it should he want to.
There are so many original sounds, textures and moments that bubble up out of the duo’s improvisation. They use vibrators, electrical fans, tambourines, wooden flutes, a clarinet, bits of metal, fingernails, knuckles, palms, ball bearings and violin bows to constantly evolve the sound into a hushed and delicate landscape that never quite stands still.
For the first couple of minutes it sounds like a couple of guys just mucking about, before one’s ear tunes in and something much more considered and beautiful emerges out of the chaos.
Bootleg: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZSq8kuLOPF7qW_u0lQ73bOQUQbFSFR8W/view?usp=sharing
Sunday, October 12, 2025
Caroline - live @ MeetFactory, Prague - 12.10.25
Some of these many, many people clearly have a music degree. To demonstrate the fact, two different songs are played at once.
They’re best when they sound like folk-Mogwai.
Should we be sitting? Sometimes it sounds as though we should.
The drummer rolls his eyes back into their sockets and begins an endless hi-hat beat that lasts for seven minutes.
There is a long outro that lasts precisely the length of time it takes the 2nd guitarist to downtune his guitar.
It is like a Christian rock group from Ballywillian Presbyterian could actually play, and do everything in bewilderingly complicated time signatures.
Bootleg: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oRtaxy5cFqvJP9LqNFZEHwM3RezENTxR/view?usp=sharing
Thursday, October 09, 2025
YHWH NAILGUN - live @ Subzero, Prague - 09.10.25
Guitarist watches ethical porn, with a VHS filter on to make it seem classier. He likes Tom Morrello. He sounds like all of Ed O’Brien’s bits for Radiohead, without anything else around it.
The drummer is Brendan Canty, with a maths degree. Tuned toms, and endless rolling rhythms that are positively sublime.
The keyboardist is you or I: some guy in a green sweater pressing buttons. We can image ourselves in YHWH NAILGUN through his lived experience.
The singer is Damo Suzuki on those early CAN records. I didn’t realise it would be so theatric. With early-2000s Thom Yorke dance moves and a challenging stare to the audience, who lap him up.
****
Monday, September 15, 2025
Sunday, September 14, 2025
2021: sessions, concerts attended, rehearsals & mixing
Future Loss mastering using Trio amp, eq & compressor @ Colerabbey Studios, Portrush - 16.01.21
Future Loss mixing @ Colerabbey Studios, Portrush - 23.01.21
Aborted Ex Libris subscription service draft email - 18.05.21
Acquisition of DJ controller - 30.05.21
DJ IBM PC-Compatible set @ Monika's wedding, Moravia - 20.06.21
Future Loss mixing session - 15.07.21
Sham mixing sessions & Bandcamp admin - 21.07.21 - 03.08.21
NES Advantage studio notes - 03.08.21
Writing bass parts for NES Advantage - 16.08.21
Start of CCQs rehearsals (w/ lyrics) @ Depo Hostivar, Prague - 23.08.21
NES Advantage mixing session - 16.09.21
Flying Moon In Space & WWRNGDNG - live @ Underdogs, Prague - 17.11.21
Sham editing - 14.12.21
Future Loss session @ Springfield Road, Belfast - 30.12.21
Bootleg recordings of concerts made throughout 2021 (some of which are not documented above):
2020: sessions, concerts attended, rehearsals & mixing
Future Loss session @ Springfield Road, Belfast - 02.01.20
Tony Hamilton's amp repair workshop @ Dundonald, Belfast - 08.01.20
Transcribing lyrics from notebooks to typewriter - 07.05.20
Uploading of Unimbued solo albums @ Colerabbey Studios, Lisbane - 14.06.20
Future Loss mixing @ Colerabbey Studios, Portrush - 16.06.20
Buffy Tripping rehearsals @ Depo Hostivar, Prague - 11.09.20
404.zero presents Black Sunday @ Lunchmeat Festival, CAMP, Prague - 28.09.20
Unimbued mixing, Prague - 23.11.20
Bootleg recordings of concerts made throughout 2020 (some of which are not documented above):
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