Not much really to add to Nick's description, except where Jimmy's track is concerned. The night in general struck me as several things, and was a mixed success I think. The range of performers was just a little bit too disparate to make any real sense, so basically it became a series of unrelated five- to ten-minute long performances, which ranged from the stand-up-comic approach (Ken Campbell), the philosophical travel writer approach (Iain Sinclair himself), the journalistic approach (erm... that journalist guy) and the general result was, dare I say it, pretentious. Bill's reading was rushed. When I saw him read on the Bad Wisdom tour, he spoke at a good pace, and with confidence and drama that made it really interesting to listen to him. But on Friday, despite the fact that almost every word he said was coming from the pieces of paper in his hand, he actually seemed nervous- probably the first time I've seen Bill Drummond nervous in any situation!- he was rushing his words, and pacing up and down the stage directionlessly. (By comparison Iain Sinclair himself was simply a more authoritative and impressive speaker). After reading the text, he referred to the painting that he'd brought on stage with him, that he claimed to have finished at 3am the previous night. It was a canvas almost as tall as him, with the word "GIMPO" in capital letters painted three times horizontally- the top two times black on white, the bottom one white on black. His explanation of the fact that it was bequethed(sp?) to the estate of the first person who dies whilst undertaking the M25 spin was quite good, but also hurried. It would've been so much funnier if he'd said it with the quite passive, almost arrogant confidence that he spoke with during things like the K Foundation 'era'. Oh well. People get old... The other musicians besides Jimmy were good but not mind-blowing, and both were guilty of something that I personally don't like seeing in live performances of electronic music- a distinct vagueness about what was actually being performed live on stage and what was coming from portable Mac or DAT. Wire in particular seemed to mostly be just stood there awkwardly while their track was being played. With four of them in a row on stage, it was like a faulty copy of Kraftwerk where one of the members was sitting down and one of them was wobbling slightly. So anyway, Jimmy's track was undoubtedly the highlight of the evening. The stage went dark (except for the motorway footage which ran throughout the entire evening), and the LOUD sound of traffic racing past screamed through the speakers- when each noise reached its loudest, there were a couple of seconds of gunfire each time. After some time of just this noise and a black stage, the noise of a choir singing "Glory Glory Hallelujah" started, and two rotating lights (can't remember what they're called now- the flashing lights like you used to get on the top of police cars, except the orange kind that you still get on the top of wide slow vehicles) picked up. The drummer, the long-haired other guitar&vocalist and Jimmy wandered on stage in bright orange K2 flourescent jackets, picked up their instruments, and waited for the entirety of "Glory Glory Hallelujah" (all the verses) to finish. Then when it did the real noise kicked in. The track was somewhere between "Gimpo" from the Kalevala stuff, "It's Grim Up North part 2" sped up, and some of Jimmy's nastier remixes. It wasn't as heavy and nasty as the Extreme Noise Terror performance though. It was a fairly continuous attack of noise- verse (where the other guitarist who wasn't Jimmy was coming out with some words, I didn't make out a single one, with a Metallica-ish guitar riff), chorus (Jimmy and the other one shouting what I heard as "Gimpo Gimpo!... Gimpo Gimpo!... Gimpo Gimpo!... The M25!" over another riff), and break (my favourite bit actually, heavy electronic bass effects and drum fills, very short though), and repeat... Probably about three minutes long (not counting the intro). After this particular noise attack, they shuffled off stage and that was that. I can't remember who was on stage directly after that, I think most people took a while to recover enough to listen... Here's hoping that the recording that was going on in the audience (we know who it was) has turned out alright, I wouldn't be surprised if Jimmy's performance was too loud for the microphone though. I'd love to have a copy of that performance to listen to whenever I've got anger to vent. Maybe it's that performance that inspired me to (jokingly, though some of you obviously didn't realise) vent spleen over the weekend (or maybe it's the fact I had a shit weekend apart from Friday). On the negative side, what did disappoint me was that both Bill and Jimmy are using the same old tricks. After a while, Bill's style and attitude of writing does begin to seem quite familiar, and he was reading an old text, nothing new. Jimmy's new material had a drawn-out section of choir with sound effects layered over the top (A:WTIL, FTM), shouting Gimpo's name for a chorus (Kalevala), etc. I know that Gimpo is Bill and Jimmy's main connection to the subject of the evening (the M25) but even so they both sounded quite Gimpo-obsessed. Gimpo may be a bit of a nutter but there's only so often you can write songs or short stories about one of your weird personal friends before it gets a bit repetitive. It was great to see them, but it wasn't the "something completely new" that we might have been hoping from either of them. Worth it though. Looking forward to seeing the photos... Stuart.
-----Original Message----- From: Nick King [mailto:nickwking@ntlworld.com] Sent: 26 October 2002 16:12 To: klf@mailman.xmission.com Subject: [KLF] "Faster Gimpo - M25!" - Last night at the Barbican
Top night, arrived late at the Kings Head and briefly met up with some of the list members before the gig.
Anyway, the whole evening was split into different segments, each representing the different junctions of the M25, and most with an introduction by Iain Sinclair.
Bill was the 2nd person to be on, bringing on a large black and white painting saying 'Gimpo, Gimpo, Gimpo' on it with the explanation that if anybody dies on next years annual M25 spin (nearest Saturday to 21st March), then their family can have the painting!
He then read basically the following text - http://klf.life.eu.org/Misc/m25.txt
Lots of other artists then appeared, including Ken Campbell (KLF link - Bill helped to put on a stage production of the cult book "Illuminatus!" with Ken Campbell's Science Fiction Theatre), Scanner (two sets - superb), Wire (not sure what they were actually playing live - certainly not the vocals! - but good anyway), the poet - Bill Griffiths - who also played some tunes on the piano, Aaron Williamson (who was dressed in silver with a wheel and a chair on his back - very strange), and of course Jimmy...
Well, Jimmy in an Orange fluescent jacket and guitar was joined by two other musicians - a drummer and another guitarist, and Gimpo with a flash light. They played a thrash metal song with the lyrics "Faster Gimpo - M25!" shouted all the way through - although not to be confused with the Kalevala song of a similar name! Very good, and hopefully someone videoed/taped it.
There were a couple of press photographers taking photos during the night, and also someone with a video camera - if you're on the list, I want a copy!
Anyway, there will be a film about the book being shown on Channel 4 on Tuesday night at 11:30pm, although this won't be a film of the Barbican event - see http://www.illumin.co.uk/ for more details on the programme. Also, it doesn't look (by the credits) as though Bill/Jimmy/Gimpo are featured in the film...
Superb night, and I welcome any other reports!
l8rs,
Nick ;-)
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