I’m on a trip to Germany this weekend, so sadly I’m going to miss the philosophically nomadic and ever-engaging Erik Davis as he whizzes through London for a couple of fascinating gigs.

On Friday May 20th at 6:30pm he will be on a panel at the British Library as part of their new Science Fiction show.

And on Sunday May 22nd he will be reading from his new book Nomad Codes and the new edition of Strange Attractor Journal at the Horse Hospital, Russell Square, along with sonic and other contributions from Dreamflesh contributor Stephen Grasso, Christos Fanaras, and the Raagnagrok Allstars.

I’m not sure I can or would soundtrack the sporadic bits-and-pieces that posting here has degenerated into. So, in honour of my drifty seriousness, and my penchant for protracted oneiric research (a.k.a. staying in bed ’til gone lunchtime), I’ll plump for Coil’s majesterial ‘The Dreamer Is Still Asleep’.

May the Goddess keep us from Single Vision and Newton’s Sleep

The comfy crust of semi-hibernation got pleasantly broken last night at the positively bustling opening night of the Strange Attractor Salon. It’s an exhibition ably curated by SA guru Mark Pilkington, showcasing art from contributors and allies. Needless to say, the obscure, the psychedelic, the devilishly fascinating and the bizarrely seductive are thoroughly celebrated.

That much was clear, even though the exhibits were lost behind the thick crowd for most of last night—a quiet afternoon of proper contemplation beckons. I did manage a leisurely perusal of the excellent venue‘s basement collection of skeletal oddities, pickled puppies and cultural emphemera. This assembly of strangeness is a fine companion for the exhibition, and another good reason to head there.

Also on the cards are a few performances, salon discussions and film screenings. Check out details and buy tickets.

Modern city dwellers are used to the constant presence, here and there, of gaps in the architecture as old buildings are torn down and new ones are built. Still, when the building in question harbours potent (if hoary) memories of formative experiences, turning the corner to see air, nothing, in its place is an unusual ontological shock.

I got that the other day when I walked from Holborn to Oxford Street and, just passing Centre Point near Tottenham Court Road, stopped sharply in astonishment to see that the London Astoria—and the whole block of buildings it was part of, including the Dionysus chip shop I was heading for—was gone. At first it seemed to just register as something taken-for-granted and familiar suddenly vanished, a simple upsetting of the habitual norm. Then, as I stood looking incredulously at the empty space that filled what was once a living place, all those old gigs started bubbling up…

After I passed my driving test, I would fill my red Mini with friends and we’d pile down the A1 to London to see bands.

Bad Brains, 29/9/89

The first was Bad Brains, the legendary Washington DC hardcore punk rastas. They were past their heyday of course, but it was stupidly exciting. We bunked off school on the Friday afternoon and hit London rush hour around 5.30pm. This was about a week after I’d passed my driving test, and I’d never driven in a city before. Ha! That rush very much set me up for the gig. Before the band even came on, a knife fight rolled past us like one of those cartoon clouds of dust with arms and legs sticking out. The band were stunning, and the mosh pit was the entire venue (or so it seemed). They did a curt set, and when they refused to come on for an encore, the audience started tearing the stage apart. YouTube has a snippet of them doing Re-Ignition at the gig.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, 11/2/90

I’d missed the tour of the Chili Peppers album that got me into them, The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, so I sadly missed guitarist Hillel Slovak, who died soon after. But his eventual replacement for the Mother’s Milk tour was a fresh-faced 19 year old called John Frusciante. It’s odd looking back now they’re a stadium band and he’s (rightly) regarded as one of the best guitarists in the world (I wholeheartedly recommend his recent solo stuff). I remember him gyrating with insane grace all the way through Nevermind, his feet rooted to the spot and his hips tracing a blur of a circle and his guitar spinning us all around.

Jane’s Addiction, 5/10/90

Another band I’d missed before, on the Nothing’s Shocking tour. By all accounts Perry Farrell was less smack-addled and the band tensions were creatively frictious then, whereas this tour saw some shambolic playing and mundane chaos creeping in. Still, it was a frenzied spectacle, with a fantastically diverse, druggy and vibrant crowd. I think it was only when I caught them at Brixton Academy in 1991 that they had their full Ritual de lo Habitual stage set, with Farrell’s sculpture of him in bed with his two ladies, adorned with Santerian paraphernalia. But the epic centrepieces of this album, Three Days and Then She Did, conjured up enough exotic and sensual riots of energy on their own at the Astoria that night.

I’ve only been to the Astoria sporadically in the years since these early gigs, but they were more than enough. I’m sure I’ll think of them every time I walk past that space, even as it transforms into a Crossrail station…

Tickets are now on sale for the exciting-looking Equinox Festival, to be held from June 12th-14th at Conway Hall in London.

Performers include Comus, John Zorn, Aethenor, Z’ev and Arktau Eos; speakers include Ralph Metzner, Erik Davis, Stephen Grasso, David Beth, James Curcio, Philip Farber, Carl Abrahamsson and Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule; films include The Holy Mountain, Divine Horsemen and The Mindscape of Alan Moore.

Seems likely to be an essential gathering.

My body’s in a occasionally chilly room at a computer or in bed much of the time. But, thanks to recording technology and the Parliament-Funkadelic, this is where my mind mostly is:

In the wake of his splendid Black Sheep album, inspired by the Clash’s 1986 busking tour, Julian Cope’s undertaking a brief, bold tour around England this week. Starting at 10am tomorrow, Monday 27th October, at the ancient law hill Swanborough Tump in the Vale of Pewsey, it sweeps through a fascinating array of landmarks in the history of British protest, ending at the C.G. Jung statue in Liverpool at the end of Wednesday.

There’s a list of days and locations; times for each performance are being left rough, ready and open. Pull a sickie and catch one.

If you want to link to the event, please use this URL. You can also reserve tickets there (we expect it to be busy); plus, it looks better on black.

Ritual de lo Habitual by Jane’s Addiction

Nothing’s Shocking is my preference when it comes to albums by this group that spent a long time as my favourite thing in music. But Ritual still stands head and shoulders for me above most rock in 1990. There’s a furious vitality on side one, a kind of near-nihilist sense of freedom and apocalyptic abandon. And that closes with the incomparable klepto-disco hit ‘Been Caught Stealing’. Side two opens with the stupendous prog-metal of ‘Three Days’, over ten minutes of incendiary awe, the last song they recorded before their first split, all in one take. The first song I heard on LSD. After I managed to get the cassette into the player, the intro’s ethereal “At this moment, you should be with us…” voices called my friends from their little worlds on the other side of the room. We looked at each other with wonder, and silently gathered, kneeling in front of the ghetto blaster. I also vividly recall reading out the lyrics to ‘Then She Did…’—a lament for the singer’s dead girlfriend and dead mother—to friends as we played music in the kitchen during an especially wonderful MDMA evening. There’s few more moving moments in modern rock.

Dead City Radio by William S. Burroughs

OK, no songs here (excepting Bill’s touching ramble through ‘Ich Bin Von Kopf Bis Fuss Auf Liebe Eingestellt’), but some excellent musical atmospherics, and great readings. ‘Where He Was Going’ is brilliantly evocative, a truly gripping little yarn of death and fate; ‘Apocalypse’ is a dominant root of my feeling for eschatology as a form of liberation.

Songs For Drella by Lou Reed & John Cale

I was just discovering the Velvets then, my first term at college. Of course. ‘Beginning To See The Light’ persuaded me that instead of using my high intelligence to excel in academia, I could use it to get by well academically, while delving deeper into extra-curricular activities. But this album, packed with wonderful songs, was right there too. ‘Small Town’ spoke to me, leaving home for college; ‘Open House’ described the beckoning potentials for freedom. But I also relished the dark, fragile atmosphere of ‘A Dream’. ‘Forever Changed’ still speaks to me in times of upheaval. A great album.

Repeater by Fugazi

Fugazi’s EPs Fugazi and Margin Walker had already shredded post-Minor Threat expectations to leave room for the full reality of Ian MacKaye’s vision of music “like the Stooges with reggae”. Add to that the political vitriol of Chomsky, the oblique lyricism of Michael Stipe, and song dynamics that make the Pixies look pancake flat and floppy. Their debut proper album is relentlessly intelligent and riotously energetic, and I find it very difficult to overrate it. They were just as stunning live, and I always remember that the pits down the front at their gigs were some of the very few where all was let loose in an atmosphere where girls weren’t generally excluded thanks to boorish masculinity.

Well I’m afraid that’s it for 1990 albums that really got me in 1990. It seems to have been a bit of a dud year, symbolized powerfully by Nirvana’s brilliant debut Bleach coming in 1989 and their storming breakthrough Nevermind coming in 1991. I’ll end with a 1990 album that I missed at the time:

Skellington by Julian Cope

I discovered Cope late, around 1995. It’s a shame I didn’t catch this playful collection of lysergic campfire poetry in time for it to soundtrack my descent into psychedelia. The opening ‘Doomed’ sets the tone, undercutting Brian Wilson confined-to-bed self-pity with lo-fi jauntiness and lyrics descending into delightful gibberish. Funny, touching, catchy and wry. I can’t think of another collection of such small ditties that can open up such spaces to get lost in.