All hail the 13th Note
Posted: November 30th, 2001, by Marceline SmithI went down to the 13th Note on Wednesday to have a look at Cayto. Well, I actually went to the cafe first ‘cos I was thinking too much about how awful it will be if the 13th Note has to close. Once I’d realised my mistake I backtracked to the club and was greeted by a ‘can I see some ID?’. I must have looked pretty incredulous, told him I didn’t have any and that I was TWENTY SIX and he let me in. gee, how many more years til people believe I’m not 17?
Anyway, I picked up my raffle ticket er, ticket and walked into an appalling wailing noise which turned out to be Slowloris. I’d kind of liked their track on the Smoke compilation so I was surprised, but they soon picked it up and the rest of the set was generally good stuff. Haunting vocals and nice atmospheric beats. After meeting up with diskanteer Will and getting a free badge it was time for Fighting Red Adair. I had nothing to go on here except that they had a good name and one of them had a hat on [often a good sign]. But they literally launched into their first song, throwing themselves about the place as they bashed out an instrumental OXES/Reynolds kind of thing. I was stupified with glee and all ready to proclaim them as my new favourite band. the rest of the set wasn’t quite up to that level but still had me laughing to myself and I was that person left still applauding when everyone else has stopped. heh. they did some dual vocals on the rest of the songs with one singer having an americanised sounding voice and the other just a mental shouting voice. they just made me laugh a lot and I really want to see them again. it’s making me laugh just thinking about it. haha.
but I was technically here to see Cayto and I was now very worried. I’d not been overly impressed with their EP and after that display of rock activity I couldn’t see that they could impress. but I was pretty much hooked in from the first song. I guess they come across like a more energetic Radiohead, like if the early punky Radiohead had the song structure and technology of current Radiohead. It all just sounded really big and much more powerful than their records. the singer reminded me a little of stevipus [Steve of The Oedipus, diskant fact-fans] in the way he ran about and jumped off the stage and stuff. they had one song with a clarinet bit which was kind of painful to watch and didn’t really sound of anything but most of the songs were pretty great.
After that they did their legendary raffle but I didn’t win anything [and I could have really done with those biscuits]. so, basically I’m glad that I got off my lazy ass and went down to the gig. if there’s any possible good thing to come out of the 13th Note’s situation it’s that people like me are more prepared to go out to mid-week gigs on a recommendation or a whim. I even forced myself to drink alcohol so as to give them more money. I felt like going up to the bar and saying, ‘I’ll have one of whatever you make the most profit on’. Ah, all hail the 13th Note!
Marceline Smith
Marceline is the fierce, terrifying force behind diskant.net, laughing with disdain as she fires sharpened blades of sarcasm in all directions. Based in Scotland, her lexicon consists of words such as 'jings', 'aboot' and 'aye': our trained voice analysts are yet to decipher some of the relentless stream of genius uttered on a twenty-four hour basis. Marceline's hobbies include working too much and going out in bad weather.
http://www.marcelinesmith.com