MOTHERBOY – EVENT

Welcome to the Command House, Chatham. It’s been done up a smidgeon since last we were here: all mirrors and ornate backlit patterns on the bar. Very wine bar-ish and sophisticated. A stark contrast to some of the loudest, dirtiest music your ears will ever encounter.

This is the deafening world of Motherboy. You have been warned.

Motherboy is the brainchild of Suzanne Freeman and Joe Wise of Frau Pouch, one of the bands playing tonight. The idea behind the Motherboy gigs is to promote the louder side of music in Medway and beyond.

“There’s a lot of folk stuff going on in Medway,” says Suzanne Freeman who will later be drumming for her band. “We wanted to bring something a bit noisier in.”

Noisier it definitely is. But as the four acts on show tonight will ably demonstrate, this isn’t noise for the sake of it (well, it is, kind of). This is intelligent noise bordering on the Math Rock side of things. Organised, well disciplined chaos.

FRAU POUCH

First up are Frau Pouch who take to the floor and immediately rip the place to tiny shreds. A heavy wirey bass, bashed to bits drums and screamy, shouty vocals.

Don’t ask what Joe Wise is singing about. It’s (a). probably utterly filthy and, should it ever be written down, in danger of breaching the Obscene Publications Act of 1964; and (b), completely inaudible beneath the glorious, pure noise of guitar, bass and drums.

Frau Pouch’s sound is heavy on the distortion and heavy on the feedback too. This could be music or it could be the sound of a nuclear reactor going into meltdown. It’s all just a bit difficult to tell.

But behind the nuclear meltdown allusions, the music (and, rest assured, it is music) isn’t too far removed from Tunbridge Wells’ Joey Fat. Think The Fall on a particularly loud day and you are some way there.

Drummer Suzanne claims not to have been playing for very long, but you couldn’t tell. Seated at the kit she produces a military style racket: all snare drums, WMDs and daisy cutters.

The bar is far from full but what crowd there is stands in a tight cluster as close to the band as possible. It’s only 8.45 and already a couple of moshers are hard at it.

Meanwhile the rest of the crowd are listening intently. They’re hardly stroking their chins. This isn’t really chin stroking music. But they are listening, admiring and analysing every crunching bass line, every chundering guitar chord.

And then, before you know it, it’s the last in a swift line of excellent songs. That’s the problem with Frau Pouch’s blink and you miss them songs – all fast paced scorching streaks of fantastic lightening. Blink, think, drink and they’ll be long gone.

http://www.facebook.com/FrauPouch

Houdini @ The Enterprise © Annelie Rosencrantz 2011

HOUDINI

Next up comes Houdini who offer a slightly more melodic set of songs than the magnificent primal screams and gleeful sonic distortions of Frau Pouch. Their style is redolent of the Swedish punk of the likes of The (International) Noise Conspiracy and, to a lesser extent, The Hives.

In this band, the drums are king. Tom Bonner’s bashing of the kit is RE-LENT-LESS: a pneumatic drill of a sound.

“Excuse us for a second. We just need to put some heavy rock on the kit,” says lead vocalist Greg Webster after their first song. The drum kit has a nasty habit of sliding across the floor. Probably trying to escape Bonner’s assaults and batterings.

There’s a tightness and, dare I say it, professionalism in this band which defies their image as a trashy garage act. Yes Mum. Yes Dad. It really does take skill to play music this loud. No Mum. No Dad. It’s not just noise.

Another song is an experiment as much in touch as it is in sound. The heavy, heavy distortions of the bass plays not just with your ears but with the walls and floors around you. Everything shakes. This is pneumatic drill music to the power of seventeen.

The set ends on an even more riotous blaze of glory. Less a riot, more an outright battle. Maybe even a war. Whatever it is, it leaves the crowd desperate, absolutely begging for more. But sadly, that’s your lot.

http://www.facebook.com/Houdiniband

THEE CUSS WORDS

Fortunately, help is at hand for those mourning the disappearance of Houdini. With the less than enthusiastic introduction of “This is our EP launch, apparently,” Thee Cuss Words launch into their set.

Considering there’s just two of them performing tonight, they are loud. VERY LOUD. You probably couldn’t get much louder. The distortion’s so heavy that at times you’d think you were hearing the Doppler effect of a passing siren. Maybe it’s the noise police.

There’s a short lived attempt to do a Hendrix as Charlie Wyatt attempts to play his guitar with his teeth. But soon it’s in its proper place, hanging round his neck and they’re on to the next tune.

Members of the crowd begin to gather round the duo, moshing to the maniacal sounds of Wyatt and drummer Thomas Close. It’s like gathering round a camp fire, only a camp fire made of two very noisy musicians.

As the set progresses, the performance gets wilder and wilder. Wyatt races around the room like several men possessed while Close is now stripped down to his boxers. By the end of their set, even these will go – albeit it ever so briefly.

At one point Wyatt nearly collides, mid mad solo, with a punter who’s just been caught out for not paying the entrance fee. That’s what you get if you don’t pay to get in: a demented guitarist thrown at your face. You have been warned.

Thee Cuss Words’ music is beyond music under its normal definitions. Between them Close and Wyatt have extracted the primal need for beats, modulations of pitch and volume – lots and lots of volume – and removed everything else that we would associate with music. And yet it still works. It still works dammit.

The set ends with the cataclysmic destruction – the absolute annihilation of Thomas Closes’s drum kit. And then there’s that final brief moment where Closes’s briefs are no more – for the briefest of moments, of course.

http://theecusswords.bandcamp.com/album/live-from-the-gin-dungeon

Sky:Lark! - Photographer: Unknown

SKY:LARK!

Tonight’s final band is Sky:Lark! You’ve got to love a bit of punctuation in a band name, haven’t you. The venue is pretty empty as the trio start their set. People are busy taking advantage of the cool night air, or a smouldering cigarette. Either way, the band get going and the place is filled once more.

Sky:Lark! have arranged themselves, against tradition, in a triangle so the bass player’s back faces the crowd.

It’s an approach that emphasises the intent attitude of adherents of this noisy genre: determined, intent and focussed purely on the sounds they are creating. Who needs an audience when you’re staring intently at your band mates stretching the bounds of known music as far as they will go?

In Sky:Lark! comes the return of thundering, pounding, rotating beats. This is the sound of heavy machinery turning and churning away. Once more the façade of normal music has been ripped away exposing the skeleton of the basic structure: an organised, fully functioning structure.

You can tell the guitarist means business. He’s got his legs lunged as far apart as his manhood will allow. Not content to be out of the limelight, Thomas Close from Thee Cuss Words sits atop Sky:Lark!’s bass drum, no doubt saving it from wandering across the room.

This has been a night of pure, unadulterated volume of the most intelligent variety. Forget your nights of repetitive, endless cycles of electronic dance music: Motherboy’s night of noise has hit all the right notes and more.

This is the sound of stirring the primordial soup.

Long may it continue.