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Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 17:13:31 -0500
From: de l`abattoir <del>
Subject: The emperor penguins.... head South
catching up..
> muck[at]-remove-elm.circa.ufl.edu
> was wondering when they would return to the states?
there may be bad news here. i asked pat about this and he mentioned
that if distribution in north america doesnt speed up, they may sit this
tour out. more should be known in a month or so (i *know* that is
what is always said..)
> edwardc[at]-remove-aisb.edinburgh.ac.uk
> a suspicious lack of 'analysis' of the Black Eg concert.
> Does anyone have any opinions or are we keeping quiet for a reason?
yeah, well it took me several hours to plow through my mail,
and i got back from chicago this morning. thats my excuse.
> smeats[at]-remove-lincoln.gpsemi.COM
> Here's my analysis of the Black Eg concert.
> Don't drink too much Grolsch. It makes yer head hurt.
syd was nearly completely out of it. at least i didnt see
him with his eyes closed like SOME people.
> I found the live show very impressive,
> if perhaps a little samey after a while.
thats a good description.
the gig was hidden in arches between buildings, and was actually
in the club Heaven. once a week a room there turns into a disco
with DJs - one of whom is named "horton jupiter" - he put the show on.
the room itself was small - about 50ft square, but it had stairs up to
another room which opened so you could see the dance floor. it was on
this upper level that the Black Eg set up and played. those on the dance
floor never really saw the band - if they looked up through the fog, they
may have seen some pointy black heads or thumbs.
the show was sandwiched between sets of DJs spinning and was three tunes,
each 15 minutes long with little feed-backy bits in between.
depending what you were expecting, this was either boring, or interesting.
the beats were just slightly less white-boy than from, say, the JBC tune
"Line Of Death", but it was the right tempo to dance to. the best part
was what was done over the top of the beats.
kurt played guitar through delays mostly and he provided dreamy feedback
and pseudo heavy metal solos on occasion.
emil is still pig and he manned (egged?) the 4-track which had the samples
and drones and other backwards guitar parts.
otto played with a cheesy synth with which he would do LFO sweeps and
plinky sounds.
karel was in a wheelchair and did nothing but circle the room,
bumping into people.
the interplay between the synth and the guitar was good. even though
the dancers would have moved to nearly anything.
horton at the end could be heard "singing" the stars and stripes forever
with the slogan of the night "Yhet Abrdige!" (well, thats phonetically
about right - it means "fuck off" in czech.
horton (the club owner) would love to put out a re-mixed single of
eg material, but emil is hesitant to do so. his accent was difficult,
but i think he was telling me that the eg do not want to play indiscrimiately,
which, i guess is why they chose to play the sound shaft - it was "right"
for them. i personally think he is afraid to become popular.
> Thanks for the tape, Dave. I was amused to hear myself described as "sick
> diseased and bitter" on the WRAS interview.
this from the man who writes tunes like
"you're so indifferent (you think this song might be about you)" and
"the involuntary bowel movement of love". dont even try to convince
me otherwise, syd.
> edwardc[at]-remove-aisb.edinburgh.ac.uk
> Actually, the biggest disappointment was that they actually tried to
> make it kinda dancy and they didn't try and repeat the Black Eg album
> tracks.
ed, i dont think that had they attempted an album re-creation it
would have gone over too well. it was a dance club, what they were
doing was already on the edge of acceptability for that type of crowd.
the recording i made is decent. the (what i call interesting) parts
are very clear, while the boom boom boom is less so, which is fine.
-david