After parting from a nearby Irish pub where I and my colleague Smiffy had been enjoying a pint or three, I made my way towards clwb ifor bach, (bka "The Welsh club ") bumping into Ruffstylz and his mates en route. Despite it being a miserable November night I was up for a good time and with Headcase Ladz, Alias and Dose One all on the same bill, I reckoned good times were guaranteed. The problem is, it seems that Cardiff Heads like to have their good time a few hours earlier than me. I’m used to having to wait till about midnight for the support act to turn up so when I finally entered the club at about 9.15pm, I was surprised to learn that I had totally missed Recall’s opening deejay set. In fact, If I had stayed in the pub for another pint, I would have missed Headcase Ladz entirely – luckily, it turns out I only missed their first one or two tracks. Could promoters perhaps start putting the planned running order and time of their events on flyers or tickets?
These guys are truly scary (and that’s coming from someone who’s had Necro on his case). For those unfamiliar with the Headcase Ladz’ steez, they are a veteran Swansea hiphop outfit who bare a closer resemblance to Screaming Lord Such (RIP) or The League of Gentlemen than your average rap group. I didn’t want to get too close to the front of the crowd for this set because I swear these guys possess demonic hypnotic powers - and when emcee Nobsta Nuts confides "It’s come to my attention that this ostrich farming yields a good return on one’s investment" amid a fog of harmonica, saxophone, guitar and drum oneshots, it’s all too tempting to want to hand over your life savings and board a plane to a commune in Mexico. Nonetheless, I am reliably informed that instead of the customary "hiphop" uniform of clownish baggy sports wear, Headcase Ladz decided to represent in some classy tutus. For the chief of this cell of Al Qaeda ballerinas, the tutu was part of an elaborate "Super Nobsta" costume involving a long golden cape, a Virgil Tracey style military hat and a "N" emblazoned across his chest. I’ve seen these guys’ live show a few times now and not only do they continue to up the ante with unforgettable stage antics, but they also always have treats from their large, but mostly unknown back catalogue. The music? Well, Headcase Ladz’ works are never likely to be heard on Westwood. To be fair, even the most adventurous deejay would have trouble trying to meld the latest cookie-cutter rocafella fodder with The Original Wonky ‘Edz or Porky pies. At times it’s difficult to know whether you’re listening to a song commence from or climax into a fuzzy haze of lunacy. However, after one taste of Nobsta’s surreal and naughty scatter-brain half-sung raps floating through dense clouds of unmelodic but highly seductive loops, who cares right? This night’s set featured the best tracks from two Radio 1 sessions recorded in September and October. The infectious whistling, catchy riffs and winning lines like "It’s time to bust a banger, I grab the microphone and then my wanga!" (If I had a hammer) make for the sort of show where you feel it would be rude not to join in with the funky rabble by plucking, banging or blowing something yourself. Another distinct highlight of their set was a performance of The butler did it. Over an ominous instrumental that sounds like Jeru’s The Mind Spray, Nobsta assumed the role of a shroomed up Poirot to declare "and even the deeds of Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler or Elmer the Thud could not compare to these hideous terrible crimes seen before you today!" Well I don’t know about that - but if Headcase Ladz are ever in your town and you’re not in the audience, that’s a heinous sin of omission and there should be a law against people like you. Be on the lookout for a ukhh.com interview and the guys themselves when they come to a town near you as Blade’s support act later this year.
After a ten minute interval, the first of the night’s two main acts took to the stage dressed from head to toe in this season’s finest leisure wear from The House of Anticon. Pensive producer / dead-pan emcee Alias wasted no time, getting straight on with performing what turned out to be a mostly straight-forward showcase of the best tracks from the Sleeper album of 2002. Despite not having any stage props or routines to compete with the other acts and despite keeping inter-song banter to a minimum, this most overlooked and under-rated member of the Anticon movement still managed to be the star of the show. I wish I could now wax lyrical or even be able to find words to pick bones with his set in order to talk about his performance as much as possible. However, the simple truth is, Alias commanded so much authority and wielded so much charisma simply by performing his colossal existential music. Alias’s communicative performance of gargantuan drum & bass with disembodied, godlike lyricism was invigorating in it’s own right but to be in the company of so many other people genuinely getting into and down with music normally associated with anaemic angst-ridden wall-flowers made it even better! This set was spot on comprising an uninterrupted momentum throughout. It was not until after the gig and the walk back to the hotel that it occurred to me that there was no performance of Opus Ashamed (a track from The Other Side Of The Looking Glass where Alias duets with Dose One). This show was the biggest gathering of Anticon acts under the one roof in the UK to date and yet, neither Alias or the next act took the opportunity to live up to the Anticonite reputation for ad hoc collaborations and jam poetry seshes.
So far, so good… back to the bar…
The gig’s final act was the group formerly known as Them. Appearing to be 15 years too late for their high school prom, Dose One and Jel walked on stage accompanied by Dax Pierson (whose name sounds like someone from the cantina on Mos Eisley but who is in fact a member of Dose One’s live band, Subtle). I’ve always been otherwise engaged when Dose & co have been in the country, and I will forever regret declining my invitation to be one of the exclusive 200 members of the press attending Dose One’s first ever UK appearance - so I was bursting with excitement to finally see this cult figure do his thing. Unfortunately, whereas the Peel sessions were exhilarating, moving and at times disturbing voyages into the fruits of the uninhibited imagination, this show’s scripted banter was limp and it soon became evident that the group’s intention was to do their best to fight against establishing any sort of chemistry with the paying crowd. I had always had doubts about attending a non-seated show for this kind of post-modernist performance poetry stuff and sadly my suspicions were confirmed as they cranked out a lifeless selection from their new album. The problem with this focus on showcasing the No music is that it’s a couple pearls of dopeness lost in a pile of vigorously stirred, obsessively toyed-with doo-doo. True, the album is not all impenetrable morbidity and painful noise and I did enjoy the energetic performance of the wicked Dark Sky Demo whose instrumental is an up tempo, arthouse counterpart to The Beastie Boys’ Brass Monkey. However, profoundly personal music blighted by a self-defeating fixation with pro-tools makes for a tortuous clash between the incomprehensible and the inaudible. This is bad enough on record let alone in a live setting. The closest their album gets to the original eponymous Them masterpiece is the brilliant ode to critics and nay-sayers Good People Check and with this anthem soon out of the way, anti-climax was inevitable as they proceeded to cross that line between deconstruction and sonic vandalism. Unlike Alias, these guys had given some thought to a stage show - but when Dose began rapping into a mirror, my only response was to think that perhaps the tour’s roadies had given Themselves a prop that would have made more sense if given to the previous act. The set’s main high-concept prop made more sense. At irregular intervals, Dose One would tend to his flip board featuring various instructional and warning traffic-sign like symbols. I guess that must be why Dose asked people not to clap along to the funkalicious bits of Paging Dr. Moon Or Gun. Surely props and lighting should be complements to a performance and not alienating substitutes for one –furthermore, does not an audience reserve the right to respond to art as they feel? Dose shouting into his bouquet was I guess supposed to be the cathartic enactment of his overwhelming frustration and sadness concerning his mother’s ill-fated battle against cancer (the unremitting trauma at the core of the inaccessible album) but it succeeded only to further alienate the by now bewildered and beleaguered audience. By about half-way into their slot, I don’t think it would have helped if they had then started performing tracks from their classic debut album because the combination of inappropriate venue acoustics and the low sample rate of Jel’s equipment made stuff sound screechy, scratchy and generally painful. With their set crawling toward a longed for silence, I found my enthusiasm and happiness plummeting into the ever-widening chasm between Dose One’s abstruse nasal witterings and Dax and Jel’s bass-heavy, itchy instrumentation. I never knew music could be this distressingly loud and yet still inaudible. A trouble shared is not halved.
It was really weird to be in a room full of people who, like the dog’s in the psychological experiments of Rosenhan and Seligman, let themselves be put through a prolonged bout of intellectual and physical agony. Yes Art should be a challenge or an adventure but whilst Themselves gave their audience plenty stick, there was very little of the proverbial carrot. Sometimes, the "this makes no sense…I don’t like it so it must be good because I don’t understand it" self-learnt subservience is as annoying as the usual "it’s too difficult and I can’t be bothered to invest any effort to appreciate it so it must be wack" prejudice. I don’t know how the rest of Anticon’s European tour panned out but my personal response to this anti-showcase of anti-music has got to be anti-applause.
Related Links:
Headcase Ladz, Alias, Themselves clwb ifo bach (the Welsh club), Cardiff 
After parting from a nearby Irish pub where I and my colleague Smiffy had been enjoying a pint or three, I made my way towards clwb ifor bach, (bka "The Welsh club ") bumping into Ruffstylz and his mates en route. Despite it being a miserable November night I was up for a good time and with Headcase Ladz, Alias and Dose One all on the same bill, I reckoned good times were guaranteed. The problem is, it seems that Cardiff Heads like to have their good time a few hours earlier than me. I’m used to having to wait till about midnight for the support act to turn up so when I finally entered the club at about 9.15pm, I was surprised to learn that I had totally missed Recall’s opening deejay set. In fact, If I had stayed in the pub for another pint, I would have missed Headcase Ladz entirely – luckily, it turns out I only missed their first one or two tracks. Could promoters perhaps start putting the planned running order and time of their events on flyers or tickets?
These guys are truly scary (and that’s coming from someone who’s had Necro on his case). For those unfamiliar with the Headcase Ladz’ steez, they are a veteran Swansea hiphop outfit who bare a closer resemblance to Screaming Lord Such (RIP) or The League of Gentlemen than your average rap group. I didn’t want to get too close to the front of the crowd for this set because I swear these guys possess demonic hypnotic powers - and when emcee Nobsta Nuts confides "It’s come to my attention that this ostrich farming yields a good return on one’s investment" amid a fog of harmonica, saxophone, guitar and drum oneshots, it’s all too tempting to want to hand over your life savings and board a plane to a commune in Mexico. Nonetheless, I am reliably informed that instead of the customary "hiphop" uniform of clownish baggy sports wear, Headcase Ladz decided to represent in some classy tutus. For the chief of this cell of Al Qaeda ballerinas, the tutu was part of an elaborate "Super Nobsta" costume involving a long golden cape, a Virgil Tracey style military hat and a "N" emblazoned across his chest. I’ve seen these guys’ live show a few times now and not only do they continue to up the ante with unforgettable stage antics, but they also always have treats from their large, but mostly unknown back catalogue. The music? Well, Headcase Ladz’ works are never likely to be heard on Westwood. To be fair, even the most adventurous deejay would have trouble trying to meld the latest cookie-cutter rocafella fodder with The Original Wonky ‘Edz or Porky pies. At times it’s difficult to know whether you’re listening to a song commence from or climax into a fuzzy haze of lunacy. However, after one taste of Nobsta’s surreal and naughty scatter-brain half-sung raps floating through dense clouds of unmelodic but highly seductive loops, who cares right? This night’s set featured the best tracks from two Radio 1 sessions recorded in September and October. The infectious whistling, catchy riffs and winning lines like "It’s time to bust a banger, I grab the microphone and then my wanga!" (If I had a hammer) make for the sort of show where you feel it would be rude not to join in with the funky rabble by plucking, banging or blowing something yourself. Another distinct highlight of their set was a performance of The butler did it. Over an ominous instrumental that sounds like Jeru’s The Mind Spray, Nobsta assumed the role of a shroomed up Poirot to declare "and even the deeds of Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler or Elmer the Thud could not compare to these hideous terrible crimes seen before you today!" Well I don’t know about that - but if Headcase Ladz are ever in your town and you’re not in the audience, that’s a heinous sin of omission and there should be a law against people like you. Be on the lookout for a ukhh.com interview and the guys themselves when they come to a town near you as Blade’s support act later this year.
After a ten minute interval, the first of the night’s two main acts took to the stage dressed from head to toe in this season’s finest leisure wear from The House of Anticon. Pensive producer / dead-pan emcee Alias wasted no time, getting straight on with performing what turned out to be a mostly straight-forward showcase of the best tracks from the Sleeper album of 2002. Despite not having any stage props or routines to compete with the other acts and despite keeping inter-song banter to a minimum, this most overlooked and under-rated member of the Anticon movement still managed to be the star of the show. I wish I could now wax lyrical or even be able to find words to pick bones with his set in order to talk about his performance as much as possible. However, the simple truth is, Alias commanded so much authority and wielded so much charisma simply by performing his colossal existential music. Alias’s communicative performance of gargantuan drum & bass with disembodied, godlike lyricism was invigorating in it’s own right but to be in the company of so many other people genuinely getting into and down with music normally associated with anaemic angst-ridden wall-flowers made it even better! This set was spot on comprising an uninterrupted momentum throughout. It was not until after the gig and the walk back to the hotel that it occurred to me that there was no performance of Opus Ashamed (a track from The Other Side Of The Looking Glass where Alias duets with Dose One). This show was the biggest gathering of Anticon acts under the one roof in the UK to date and yet, neither Alias or the next act took the opportunity to live up to the Anticonite reputation for ad hoc collaborations and jam poetry seshes.
The gig’s final act was the group formerly known as Them. Appearing to be 15 years too late for their high school prom, Dose One and Jel walked on stage accompanied by Dax Pierson (whose name sounds like someone from the cantina on Mos Eisley but who is in fact a member of Dose One’s live band, Subtle). I’ve always been otherwise engaged when Dose & co have been in the country, and I will forever regret declining my invitation to be one of the exclusive 200 members of the press attending Dose One’s first ever UK appearance - so I was bursting with excitement to finally see this cult figure do his thing. Unfortunately, whereas the Peel sessions were exhilarating, moving and at times disturbing voyages into the fruits of the uninhibited imagination, this show’s scripted banter was limp and it soon became evident that the group’s intention was to do their best to fight against establishing any sort of chemistry with the paying crowd. I had always had doubts about attending a non-seated show for this kind of post-modernist performance poetry stuff and sadly my suspicions were confirmed as they cranked out a lifeless selection from their new album. The problem with this focus on showcasing the No music is that it’s a couple pearls of dopeness lost in a pile of vigorously stirred, obsessively toyed-with doo-doo. True, the album is not all impenetrable morbidity and painful noise and I did enjoy the energetic performance of the wicked Dark Sky Demo whose instrumental is an up tempo, arthouse counterpart to The Beastie Boys’ Brass Monkey. However, profoundly personal music blighted by a self-defeating fixation with pro-tools makes for a tortuous clash between the incomprehensible and the inaudible. This is bad enough on record let alone in a live setting. The closest their album gets to the original eponymous Them masterpiece is the brilliant ode to critics and nay-sayers Good People Check and with this anthem soon out of the way, anti-climax was inevitable as they proceeded to cross that line between deconstruction and sonic vandalism. Unlike Alias, these guys had given some thought to a stage show - but when Dose began rapping into a mirror, my only response was to think that perhaps the tour’s roadies had given Themselves a prop that would have made more sense if given to the previous act. The set’s main high-concept prop made more sense. At irregular intervals, Dose One would tend to his flip board featuring various instructional and warning traffic-sign like symbols. I guess that must be why Dose asked people not to clap along to the funkalicious bits of Paging Dr. Moon Or Gun. Surely props and lighting should be complements to a performance and not alienating substitutes for one –furthermore, does not an audience reserve the right to respond to art as they feel? Dose shouting into his bouquet was I guess supposed to be the cathartic enactment of his overwhelming frustration and sadness concerning his mother’s ill-fated battle against cancer (the unremitting trauma at the core of the inaccessible album) but it succeeded only to further alienate the by now bewildered and beleaguered audience. By about half-way into their slot, I don’t think it would have helped if they had then started performing tracks from their classic debut album because the combination of inappropriate venue acoustics and the low sample rate of Jel’s equipment made stuff sound screechy, scratchy and generally painful. With their set crawling toward a longed for silence, I found my enthusiasm and happiness plummeting into the ever-widening chasm between Dose One’s abstruse nasal witterings and Dax and Jel’s bass-heavy, itchy instrumentation. I never knew music could be this distressingly loud and yet still inaudible. A trouble shared is not halved.