Well not really knowing anything about Dial or Blowhole other than the Luminaire's weekly email pitch which was as follows "This weeks... erm... gig... is on Thursday and it's a treat for
no-wave fans as DIAL headline with Blowhole supporting. Jacqui Ham - a guiding force in legendary no-wavers UT - assembled Dial in the '90swith Rob Smith (ex-God), Dom Weeks (Furious Pig,
Het) and Lou Ciccotelli (Eardrum). They sound pretty much
like no one. Expect a night of chaos and dischord."
Well any band containing a member of UT and one of God has to be worth walking round the corner to check out in my book and the email also promised a special guest opener. I had no idea how special till I walked in to find UT on stage and already playing!! Damn I hadn't walked in on them playing in over 20 years as they used to be one of the most regular opening acts at
the gigs I was going to in the mid to late 80's when I saw them open for among others Nico, Sonic Youth, Band of Susans and These Immortal Souls.
They were always great but somehow I never bought any of the records, but still the chance to see them again was incredible and they still sound great a swirling hurricane of repetitive guitar patterns and obtuse lyrics that sound like the bastard offspring of the Velvets sucked through a womens workshop and
crossed with any of the bands on Homestead in the 80's.
I spend some time trying to work out which one I used to fancy and strangely I don't think it was the guitarist in the tight dress and high heels and clara bow bob tonight but the drummer instead, but I'm not sure it was a long time ago. I had apparently missed the first 2 songs of there 5 song set, thankfully they were long songs and one of them at least was from the New York period before they decamped to London to make it They were spine tinglingly good and I hope this means there will be a properly announced reunion tour in the near future. I may even have to track down some of there old albums too.
Next on and while I was still calming down from UT were "Blowhole" who were three guys in their 40's/50's and one young black girl on drums who looked about 20 but pounded those drums like her life depended on it, they played fast and furious punk that mixed New Values era Iggy with early Fall and apparently they were almost famous in the 80's but what they were called
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back then who knows as when I asked them who they were I got told "If you find out tell us!!" Very helpful, but if you know a punk group from the 80's that had a song called Blowhole let me know, they were very good fun and worth catching even if they didn't need all the mystery.
Then it was time for Dial to assault us with their particular sonic stew which for any of us that saw UT and God at the height of their powers was always going to be slightly fearsome. They didn't let us down either. Jacqui Ham had her lyrics for most of the songs on pieces of paper that kept blowing away but it didn't matter as they were pretty indistinct among the maelstrom
of repeating riffs and shifting time signatures while the guitarist with all the effects did all sorts of weird things and when he was having trouble with his amps at one point none other
than Kevin Sheilds walked on to help him sort out the problem.
Strangely the quieter part had taken them into another dimension that needed to be shattered as they ramped up the sound and brought a good noisy set to an end. Most of the audience were too stunned to be cheering too much and I got the feeling we wouldn't have got an encore even if we did as they are not an
encore playing kind of band!!
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