God how I love crossing Waterloo bridge on foot, where the lights and sights of my city are cut through by the wandering and impenetrable ooze of the Thames, carrying its load of tidal detritus back and forth..The rubbish and the garbage and the mud, the polythene jellyfish, the guilty knives and rusting pistols and the scattered bones of countless lonely, unfound suicides.
The South Bank welcomes us and after a swift one we take our seats. First up are Mantana Roberts and her band.
Not knowing too much about Jazz I would guess this falls into one of the “free form” or “modern” categories- it’s all there; the guitarist whose contorted facial expression suggests that bamboo splinters have been forced under his fingernails pre-show, the ecstatic drummer who’s “really feeling it”, whilst Roberts’ sax whinnies and bleats.
Think in terms of the “Naked Lunch” soundtrack. A sound that took me back thirty odd years to the Alexis Korner show that used to follow John Peel’s.
Not really my cup of fish or kettle of tea but fairly entertaining and soothing nonetheless.
When cool Barry Adamson steps up to preview the new album it is with a sax section and a trumpet to augment the predominantly jazz feel of his latest offering, out next year. Jazz has always been at the forefront of his work, but with a melange of genres influencing his sound. This however is predominantly jazz led.
Still louche as fuck and the epitome of dark, laid back menace, Adamson’s set, - despite the overtly cultured instrumentation and surroundings- is still lyrically grounded in the shadow realms of hard drugs and hard knocks. “This is a song about gardening,” he states before launching into a swinging tale of crack use.
Not having a set list made it difficult to comment on individual songs, but the new album looks like a blinder. Cinematic jazz in his own inimitable style replete with carnally throbbing bass lines and the sampled banshee wail of the siren that has become a trademark.
Atmospherically speaking, the place was rapt. An interesting contrast to that of the excellent orchestral “Manorexia” set I saw Jim Thirlwell perform the next night at st Giles, where a slightly mis-matched crowd (perhaps I just speak of and for myself here) for an “avant garde” orchestral set, in a church, which personally speaking, initially led to an atmosphere of suppression that took me back to school and, well, church.
Perhaps I just “avant garde” (okay, just fucking shoot me then) a clue how to conduct myself under these circs..Wanted to dissolve into giggles. Wrong drugs maybe.
Mr Adamson however presided with ease, stepping offstage at the end for an orchestral piece and a break before unexpectedly returning to play two songs from “As above, so below”- “What it means” and, (but of course)“Jazz devil”, putting a top hat (beret?) on the event.
The following night was, I believe a collection of his favourite movie themes (I noticed the bass player loose a fragment of the “Get Carter” theme bassline while tuning up), which I would have loved to witness.
Now…Things were set to get really dark and fucked up when we adjourn upstairs to hear the infamous Eugene Robinson (Oxbow) read from his new book “Fight”, (or “Everything you wanted to know about asskicking but were afraid to ask in case you got your ass kicked..”).
Backed by Ms Roberts’ band, with Barry Adamson on bass, Eugene’s tales were in turn heartbreaking/heart warming (when he spoke, for example, of his father) and horrific, recounting tales of an acquaintance who had just been released for aiding and abetting eight murders.
Not all at once. But eight individual, separate murders.
In another story of a pickaxe killing, Eugene regales us with the information that when the point of the pick is removed from someone’s torso, it causes the entire contents of their abdominal cavity spill out… “It took THREE DAYS to get rid of the smell of it..THREE FUCKING DAYS”... One presumes Mr R is not speaking in the first person, but hey, this man is one dark fucking horse.
And so back across my beautiful bridge and the blackness below, imagining Barry on his way home out west to slip out of his suit into a bathrobe and slippers, and sipping a Martini in some softly lit bachelor pad, with of course, a couple of ladees..
