Up to last year I'd only met three quarters of ...Trail of Dead (Keely, Reece and Busch). Starting from last August, I've gone into overdrive:
Yoshimi P-We and Yamataka Eye - The Boredoms, OOIOO, Hanatarash
Lateef - Latyrx, Maroons
El-Producto - Def Jux, Company Flow
GZA and Masta Killa - Wu-Tang Clan
And as of last night:
Kawabata Makoto, Cotton Casino and Higashi Hiroshi - Acid Mothers Temple
There's not a lot to tell, really. Most of them I just greeted and thanked them for the show.
Lateef bizarrely mentioned he'd been drawing power from me throughout the gig, making him some kind of strange energy vampire (putting several layers of disturbing new context into The Wreckoning Part 1).
Cotton Casino was a strange one (as if the flashing light on her mining helmet and silly presenter girl moves during the gig hadn't already alert me to the fact). I bought a Makoto solo live recording from her when she was on the merchandise stall, and she's certainly got the most simultaneously cute but disturbingly loony smile I've ever seen. Very enthusiastic. On the way out of the venue I remembered that I'd left an unmbrella behind the tables that had later become the merchandise stall. On going back to retrieve it the group were still selling, and I got an even more intense replay of that smile, followed by the hilarious spectacle of Casino worshipping me in a Wayne's World "We're not worthy" style. When the whole band started joining in I made a hasty retreat.
I'd been warming up to the possibility of meeting El-P all day. I'd wanted to ask him something cool to kick off a conversation, something like what he thinks of VALIS. After the gig I drunkenly tried to break into the dressing rooms (not much planning ahead or success on that score), before finding him at the bar. Overwhelmed by drink and totally starstruck, I just managed a vigourous handshake and spurted, "Fucking great show, mate! I came seventy five miles by myself to come here! Fucking great show!" I am such a twat 
I guess Trail of Dead could be described as the coolest. I was in the pub next door to the Firkin in Bristol before the show. Conrad and Jason wandered in, and I managed to chat to the former for five minutes about instrument trashing techniques (buy cheap shit instruments, find ways of throwing them that look impressive but don't actually do them much damage). Very nice, straightforward blokes.
Needless to say, when I shook their hands I stole their powers. Lateef ain't the only one with moves, you know. |
