Noise annoys...

Not entirely sure whether to pollute a mostly climbing blog with non-climbing ramblings. But then again why not. Can't make it much worse!

I went down to London this weekend (non-climbing weekend, resting elbow). Visited family, had some nice meals, did a bit of shopping, bought a new beanie (more on this later)...

...went to a live noise gig. And by noise, I mean noise, howling, pulsing, tearing static noise from 3 acts: The legendary "Godfather Of Japanoise", Merzbow; confrontational power-electronics veterans Sutcliffe Jugend; and low-key dark noise ambient act Satori (side-project of the owner of Coldspring records, who part organised this gig and are pretty much the hub of the dark ambient / industrial / noise / dark experimental scene in the UK).

Now, although I like many genres of electronic music, and extreme music in general, I'm not a real fan of noise music. I don't see any problem with noise per se, it is just another musical tool that can be used, abused, and crafted into something pretty stimulating and ear-catching. And in a few noise pieces, particularly with strong rhythms and a good balance across the tonal range, I find it works and can sound pretty good. In many others, where the noise is abstract and mashed up, I find it purposeless and it leaves me entirely disinterested. Thus I dabble a bit without following the genre.

Nevertheless, Merzbow (below) is effectively the god of noise music, so I felt I had to go to this gig, a once in a lifetime experience through opportunity....or more likely choice :).


And? Well, it was pretty cool. As you'd expect. Not a painfully unlistenable waste of time, and not a transcendentally mind-blowing experience. Just pretty cool.

It was interesting to see the 3 different acts (Satori: no stage show, fairly clean mixture of harsh noise and dark ambient passages, some good rhythms; SJ: strong stage presence with middle-aged man howling obscenities - a bit sad and laughable really - some interesting noise and fairly entertaining; Merzbow: amusingly intense Japanese focus, some strong rhythmic bits and some bewildering ear-splitting bits), interesting to see the usual crowd of goths, metallers, frightening bald blokes with huge beards, worryingly hot goth chicks, worryingly weird goth chicks, a fair proportion of nerds (who doubtless find some deep intellectual meaning in this nonsense that I don't), an appropriately prominent Japanese contingent, and the obligatory middle-aged men in sober dress. All somberly watching the various performances with admirable dedication and civility. As always it gets me wondering: "What do these people actually really like in this racket??"

Perhaps a more pertinent question: What do *I* actually really like in this racket?? Well aside from the performance/crowd interest above, the bits I musically enjoyed were anything with strong pounding rhythms and deep bass, which come across great in the live enviroment, some of the noise when it wasn't too jarring over the top of that, and some of the dedication of the performance. Which is enough for me.

Incidentally I'm listening to a Merzbow CD as I type this (I got into the spirit of things and bought it at the gig), and some of it is pretty cool. The rhythmic bits, as you'd guess ;).