BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Radio & Music >

Empire rocks a snow leopard's ass

  
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
12:46 / 05.10.02
Sorry... I know I do this every time, but I just can't help it... Alec Empire rocked yet again last night. Pretty much all the new album plus (I think) the first track from Miss Black America...

There was no Nic Endo, though. Anyone heard anything about this? Please tell me there hasn't been some kind of split... that would suck a badger's arse.

Unfortunately, I missed both the supports- I've heard the Shizit, and know they/he are bloody good, but the other one- 80s B-Line Matchbox Disaster- I've seen their name around, but never heard them. Are they any good?
 
 
Seth
22:00 / 05.10.02
And there I was hoping this thread was about the Queensryche album
 
 
rizla mission
14:22 / 06.10.02
... that would suck a badger's arse.

Indeed it would.

80s Matchbox blah blah basically do an excessively loud kind of early JAMC / Birthday Party / generic blues-rock kind of a thing and all have atrocious haircuts. Quite how they manage to not be absolutely brilliant, but are merely not bad, is a matter for the scientists I think..
 
 
_pin
20:44 / 09.10.02
Eightie's Bastards even have their own car. With flames and shit. And still they are, you know... a band. That do stuff. Bandily.

What is this "I will praise Miss Black America" shit you're doing?! Or am I wrong, and you're not talking about the bastards I think you are? Limp-wristed, shoe-gazing toss-pots...
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
00:20 / 10.10.02
No, not the tossy band, the rather fab Alec Empire album of the same name.
 
 
rizla mission
09:31 / 10.10.02
Hey, 80s blah blah Disaster are playing in Leicester tomorrow .. think I'll go along and give them another shot.. any band who get compared to the Birthday Party in every review have to be at least quite good, surely..
 
 
_pin
08:13 / 11.10.02
Compared to the Birthday Party... by the NME. Compared to the Birthday Party... by the NME. Compared to the Birthday Party... by the NME. Compared to the Birthday Party... by the NME. Compared to the Birthday Party... by the NME. Compared to the Birthday Party... by the NME. Yes, that's compared to the Birthday Party... by the fucking NME!!

See?
 
 
rizla mission
13:18 / 11.10.02
yes, sir.

Well if nothing else, they're still really fucking loud and have entertaining hair..
 
 
rizla mission
16:14 / 13.10.02
Wow, fuck me, I take it all back, 80s Matchbox.. are brilliant..

..I mean, you know it's going to be a good gig when the singer punches you in the ribs halfway through the first song.. when you're standing three rows back..

The Birthday Party comparison kind of stands .. basically they do slightly watered down variations on "Kiss Me Black" with additional psychobilly and thrash stylings.. which is well good enough for me.

I borrowed their album off a friend after the gig, and I have to admit, despite the major label deal and NME hype, their recorded stuff is fucking amazing! A thoroughly fucked up, bad attitude 25 minute long album full of disgustingly messy 90 second songs called things like "Celebrate Your Mother" and "Whack of Shit" .. I'm afraid in the space of one day I've gone from being completely ambivalent to absolutely worshiping them!
 
 
_pin
19:45 / 13.10.02
Damn it! Don't make me like them! I like not liking them! It's fun!

I can see how I'm hardly giving them a fair shot here, judging them on one performance where no one really seemed to want them there, at the end of a tour of not really wanting to be there. Oh, and a song which I'd actually think was actually OK if I'd let myself. And did I just imagine that one of the guys with the mohawk used to have a chess baord pattern with the hair on the sides of his head? Becuase there doesn't seem to be any documented evidence of that any more, oddly enough...

Why is hating this band so important to me??
 
 
rizla mission
15:20 / 14.10.02
Dunno.. why not direct your hate at someone completely unexpected like, um, I dunno, Roy Harper? That would be good for a few laughs..

And, yeah 80s etc. have completely lost the mohawks, and the singer's improved on his "I want to be Richard Ashcroft" hair. Thank God.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
23:47 / 14.10.02
Oh, c'mon... Roy Harper wrote "Another Day" as beautifully covered by This Mortal Coil...

...don't see him getting too much airtime with "Black Cloud Of Islam" these days, though...
 
 
The Falcon
14:12 / 15.10.02
I thought Roy Harper was Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy, now known as Arsenal - the only superhero to share a name with a premiership football team.

80's mbb-ld are good: 'I am the son, I am the son of God.' Simple, but great.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
07:27 / 23.10.02
Much as I hate to belittle the boy Empire's snow-leopard-rectal-rockin' abilities, does anyone else find it odd that the "clean version" of "The Ride" just has the heroin references taken out, but still begins with him shouting "fuck it up on drums" and is thus STILL never gonna get played anywhere?
 
  
Add Your Reply