Two London gigs, March 2005

Two gigs in one week at the Spitz in London. I enjoyed both hugely, and took some surreptitious photos you see clickable thumbnails of below. I’m also taking the opportunity to quote from and link to a couple of excellent reviews of both by Colin Buttimer.

Arto Lindsay, The Spitz, 14 March 2005

Arto Lindsay is an absolute favourite of mine – as I put it in an email last night, his stuff is “sensual and smart at the same time, Brazil and New York at the same time, beautiful and dirty at the same time, exotic and urban at the same time, delicate and noisy at the same time – it’s very clever, but doesn’t seem anything other than effortless …”. I’ve seen him several times, but always in full band settings at large venues – so imagine my surprise to see him playing a relatively unannounced set at the Spitz (a small, intimate venue in the East End). Imagine my delight too. Colin says it best:

“Song lengths range from will o’ the whisp to settling into something. One moment Arto sings samba gentle as a nostalgic caress, the next his guitar is like flint grinding on flint. At no point is there any sense of flaccid synthesis or well-meant hybrid: this is musical juxtaposition, as if to ask ‘what does this added to this do? what do I get from the co-existence and interaction of lilting Brazilian pop and guitar noise?'” [From Colin Buttimer’s review of Arto Lindsay]

Moist, The Spitz, 17 March 2005

Features two work (and play) colleagues, Simon Hopkins and Peter Marsh. Yes, I know the name’s wack. I think they do too. But they sound bloody good. Check them out if you get the chance – they’ll soon be topping the charts, pop-pickers, with a bullet.

“(I)t becomes clear that the group’s structure is mutable, sometimes it’s guitar and bass, sometimes guitar and sax, and so on. In the latter half of their forty minute set, they develop a dervish-like intensity which, married to a notable sense of honesty/lack of pretension, brings to mind Tarkovsky’s observation that “content and conscience must come before technique – for any artist in any form.” What’s clear throughout is that here are four people unafraid to be musical – there’s a remarkable degree of confidence to the ensemble sound and a pleasing willingness to steal the ball and run like fuck with it.” [From Colin Buttimer’s review of Moist]