This show was billed as "Nightcare and Lydia Lunch present XXXMAS" and by the time we got there we had missed the early show in the bar where Tin Tone Army played a set with Lydia Lunch that apparently included versions of the Velvet Underground's All Tomorrows Parties and Sonic Youth's Death, but we didn't get there in daylight hours to see that.
Still we were thankful James had got us on the list for this show, although we would have been here either way. But we did get in just before the AMUSIACS came on stage upstairs. They are two guys and two girls and they started out with the two guys playing tin box guitars and one girl on drums and the other singing. It has to be said the singer was just a little bit pregnant and sounding like PJ Harvey fronting a garage punk band on what I guess might be called Wild Tempest House.
The second song they introduced as Hot Stuff and it certainly was burning with some fiery intensity as they shook the place. There was a real fierceness to the sound they made even when they had switched to guitars as she spat the lyrics about the Truth Being Stranger Than You at us and when they roared through You'll always Be My baby it was like listening to a female fronted version of The Dirty Three.
Scratch That Itch had all the urgency of someone with the DT's setting in needing just enough to keep the comedown at bay that most of us needed by the 4th day of Xxxmas and the fact its followed by a song about Doubt for the Soul could only mean they were starting to ram the racket into our heads and were getting a strong message across from us as the little baby took on all the vibrations this band were flinging at us on Last night. As the singer built the intensity while the band kept on pummelling us with heavier and more insistent garage punk riffs it was time to enter Judas Hole: a dark and foreboding song.
To finish the bands set they brought up Lydia Lunch as guest vocalist for I Won't Leave You Alone. It came across as an intense paranoid love song between Lydia and the regnant singer ready to shackle themselves to nothing but each other on a wave of guitars and pounding drums: a very cool end to an impressive opening set.
Next on were THE CESARIANS who I last saw supporting Big Sexy Noise round the corner at the Islington Academy earlier in the year. They were every bit as good again tonight with their dark twisted Cabaret of sleazy despair, this time opening up with Creation Theory that saw the trombone and tenor horn in perfect time together even though they were on opposite sides of the stage and working well with the keyboards, violin and drums to whip up a storm of almost Brechtian proportions for Charlie Finke to sing over.
Woman was as beguiling as ever with the tortured lyrics and Charlie doing his best to explain why he wants to be a woman and that he wants to be the rings on the piston that propels ya over the insistent brass stabs and a rambunctious bass riff. They followed this with the song they always dedicate to Raoul Moate, that most English and Northern of fugitives whose moment of notoriety is fast fading from our minds. I think it's called Kratos Coming.
We then got a couple of new songs that saw a bit of instrument swapping and one had two violins on it instead of the one employed on most of the other songs. Charlie then introduced a song as being called Sex With Mick Jagger, though while it's not as wrinkly and lithe as the title might suggest, it's still a very fine slab of twisted music and lyrics.
They introduced Dethstar as "Save The Beer" (what from I'm not sure) but it was a cool version anyway. They then did a number called Control (no, not the Joy Division song) but one with a motoric beat and a driving force like they will control our hips and minds together. It was followed by what I have down as Blunted that saw more instrument changing and almost everyone playing guitars or drums.
They closed with a good sing a long tune called She Said Just Fuck Off: a brilliant list song of all the things you said or tried to do to her that made her tell you to Just Fuck Off and all the women in the group were singing the chorus in tandem, louder and louder, as the song went on. A great finish to a very cool set.
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It was soon time for BIG SEXY NOISE, again performing in the stripped down trio sans Terry Edwards but with James Johnston on his Fender Jaguar and a range of effects pedals, and Ian White on the drums with Lydia Lunch on vocals. They open by ripping into Mahakali Calling with loads of distorted guitar wrangling from James as Lydia spits the words at us to whip the audience up too. It's followed by Desperate where Lydia repeatedly tells us why we are so desperate before the wall of noise James and Ian have whipped up mutates into a grinding garage finale of Pushing Too Hard.
Lydia then has a bit of a go at audience members who wish to talk to each other, although how you'd hear a word said to you over this lot is beyond me. Anyway, next up is Balling The Jack, which is a good update on the old Rockabilly tune of the same name and is about just as frenzied a sexual encounter as you'd have if you tried balling the jack to this song with the squealing guitar fighting with the drums for much of the song.
Next up is this band's central tune Your Love Don't Pay My Rent (or as Lydia normally puts it "your Mother fucking rent") a great tune that gets stretched and mutated to include a good little rant at an audience member or two but it is a powerful tour de force as they build and subside between choruses and we are in no doubt that our love would never be enough to pay Lydia's rent!
Lydia, in her trademark style, then told us that as Amy was now dead it was one down two to go for the next song that was originally written for Amy, Pete and Courtney and they ripped into Dark Eyes and she was soon screaming at us of how we were all so sick of their shit; all of the drugs and drama etc as James went into full on freak out mode. It must be time for some Self Defence lessons from Lydia? Of course it is, and when she looks and sounds like this who would argue with her as she then tells us to trust the Witch.
Well if you don't trust that witch you'll be on a Collision Course which is a pile driver of a song set on the heart of despair over a fuzz infested stew of a riff that builds and builds towards the final deathly impact. We then take a dip into Lydia's past with the old Harry Crews tune Gospel Singer that tonight was covered in feedback and noise as James got more and more unhinged as the set progressed, which could only mean it was time for the Baby Faced Killer to come out to play once more.
They closed the set with Something Witchy that was again covered in feedback as Ian kept looking at James to see what he was going to do next so he could keep the thing together for Lydia to keep telling us there is something witchy in the air. But of course there is.
With a bit of effort they came back for an encore, which is something neither Lydia or Gallon Drunk are known for doing. They did a full on slow rumbling nasty as all hell run through Lou Reed's Kill Your Sons that always has so much more venom when Lydia sings it. She seems to bring the inner madness of it out perfectly and it provided a wonderfully psychotic end to a great set.
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