Crud World Domination Enterprises give you
The Young Gods
Skinflick
(narration and pix by steve sync)
A month ago, MWJ, Fatman, and
myself went to see and reviewed Killing Joke in
We arrived at the Masque with Skinflick
around 3.30pm got our wrist bands and lugged the gear into the venue where we
were told we had about 2 hours to kill before the sound check??? This wasn’t a
problem as most of the band and the crew had a massive urge for a beer or few,
so Fatman (part time Liverpool pubs expert) escorted us all to O’Neil’s where
food, drink (and bulk quantities of condoms for £2.50 sold by Liverpool’s
equivalent to Del Boy) were readily available. After our refreshments, we got
back to the venue to find The Young Gods had arrived and were setting up their
equipment ready to sound check on stage. This usually wouldn’t take too long,
as The Young Gods are a 3 piece band from Switzerland with a superb drummer Frank Bagnoud, sensational vocalist Franz Treichler (who also
plays guitar in a couple of songs) and their musical backbone technical sample
genius keyboard player Cesare
Pizzi, who only needs 1 Akai sampler to re-create the huge wall
of sound The Young Gods produce. Skinflick and the crew saw this as another
opportunity to lubricate their thirsts in a nearby bar while I stayed behind in
anticipation of hearing Cesare sound check his sampler (yes I am a sad muso
twat at times), but things did not appear to be going well as even though my
understanding of Swiss is a little sketchy, Cesare and his crew were getting a
little anxious and animated over the fact that they weren’t able to get all 14
outputs out of the sampler to the mixing desk (stop me if I’m getting
technical). After a completely new re-installation of leads, they eventually
got their set up working, and blessed us with samples from one of their best
songs ‘Skinflowers’ which was fucking immense – this guy controls the whole
structure of their songs by holding down and playing notes on the keyboard
which are loops of baselines, sound effects, percussion, guitar rhythms and
solo’s etc. There is no backing track or sequencer, and the drummer plays along
with a rather large monitor next to his kit with constant looks over to the
keyboard player for changes and timings. I last saw The Young Gods live some 12
years ago at the first ever Phoenix Festival in 1993. I was already a fan of
their work, but to see them perform their songs late afternoon on that
beautiful July summers day back then just rendered me awestruck. I mentioned
this to Cesare when I introduced myself to him, and he went into deep thought
to remember that event before declaring “Ah Yes, a long time ago, when I was
young and beautiful”.
Fatman and myself had one
mission to complete before we could relax and enjoy ourselves tonight, which
was to sell the 4 tickets we’d previously bought for tonight’s gig, so while Skinflick
were sound checking, we stood outside the main doors of the venue posing as
bouncers/ticket sellers and amazingly managed to sell all 4 tickets in the
space of 30 minutes, although things nearly turned ugly when one of the
bouncers turned up for work while I was passing a ticket to a punter and taking
his money “what the fuck do you think you’re doing” was his greeting, but I
managed to sweet talk him into letting us sell the remaining tickets with a sob
story about poverty and repression. Phew!!
After Skinflick had sound
checked, we all went to the venue’s bar only to learn that MWJ’s Bass amp had
been blown up by The Young Gods crew in their sound check (they had been given
permission to use it, but fucked it in the process) so he had no bass amp and
had to put his bass straight into the desk!
Showtime - Skinflick took to the
stage and piled straight into In God We Thrust, which has the Skinflick laptop back line of
technology thumping and bleeping out the harsh industrial techno rhythms, while
Rich on guitar churned his precise hard guitar chugs and power chords, and MWJ
with his mass of hair, head banging with his fingers a blur with speed over his
fret board, whilst Justin and Jen sleazed and slaughtered the audience with
their dark and dangerous vocals. Their set also included - Pray To The Dogs, Edge Of My World, Hardcore Provocateurs, The
Reckoning, Crashed, Fired, and The Hole, which apparently is an old song
recently re-introduced into their set. I hadn’t seen Skinflick live for a
couple of years, and I was very impressed with them. Their sound is so fresh
and different from all the ordinary guitar based
After The Young Gods had
finished their pre-gig stage side ritual of kissing and hugging each other!!
The weird beating and scratching intro tones of ‘Secret’ started up and bang,
we were taken away on the crest of The Young Gods wave. We stood right in front
of the stage and the sound quality was absolutely immense, with the almost
machine like drummer in perfect time with the huge stereoscope of sound
surrounding and washing over us all, this all capped off with the hypnotic drones
and wails from Franz with his superb flanged delayed stereo vocal effects. Next
up ‘Lucidogen’ with its fast trance like rhythmic pulses, at this point I
started looking around and noticed that there must have only been about 100
people present to witness this fucking amazing musical experience which is
fucking laughable considering you wouldn’t be able to see their London show due
to it selling out well before the gig. Their set also contained tonight the
banging ‘Supersonic’, ‘Child In A Tree’, where Franz plays a very soft and
intricate guitar piece accompanied by Cesare playing a Rhodes style piano part,
‘Skinflowers’ the classic and best known track by the band, ‘Envoye’ the bands
first single, ‘September Song’, ‘Jimmy’ off their first album, the superb rock
track ‘Kissing The Sun’, and ‘Gasoline Man’ off their TV Sky album. After the
gig it seemed like every person who turned up tonight got to meet the band at
the side of the stage where they were quite happy to talk, and sign merchandise
etc. What a band, and what a great day we had, and thanks to Skinflick for
allowing myself and Fatman to join them for the day.
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