eN - Review in this week's Guardian

[herod]

Last thursday's eN was fun. Yep. It was fun. But don’t take my word for it. Herewith extracts from review in Saturday’s Guardian. Double page spread on pages 1 and 2 featuring full naked shot of DJ Skoda (Staples covering nipples) (not reproduced here)

Incidentally, in our defence Sebastian Poncey-Smythe and Guiaumme Chenp were the reviewers who referred to the London Sinfonietta's recent reproduction of Bizet's Carmen as 'like watching the Keystone Cops wrestling with the cast of '2 pints of lager' on a Swingball court. Mainly just chobfokkers' So getting a decent review out of these two is about as likely as a film being given 5 stars in the Halliwells Film Guide. But enough excuses already, enjoy!

---snip----

…It was with some trepidation that I travelled to Norwich from London to witness eN. Word has spread far and wide about this most undergroundestest (sic) of underground nights. It is the longest running regular electronica event in the Greater Norwich region and some members of the chattering classes are already starting to refer to it as ‘Just about bearable and you might as well attend when Uncollected or some other crack, elite troup of electro renegades are not putting on a proper night’. Hence my excitement as I sped up the A11. My own personal fear was that Norwich is in fact some kind of town full of live-pigs-head-eating-gimps-with Toblerones for fingers and legs made out of reprocessed turkey cum. It was also my fear that they would still remember me from my last visit when I accidentally stumbled upon a meeting of the Old Catton Klu-Klux-Klan and that the pitchforks and burning torches would again amass to hound me back to civilisation. I shouldn’t have worried, I reach Bedfords on schedule and am pleasantly surprised by the high-class atmospherics and friendly welcome afforded by the bar staff. The location of the pub is quaint, and even the barman’s face is cobbled which I consider to be a nice touch. The Chesterfield sofas are well upholstered and the Lobster bisque is exquisite. Unfortunately I find I am in the wrong place. When it becomes apparent that I am sat in the upstairs restaurant rather than the Crypt where eN perform my fellow clientele become aggressive. They round on me, I am blindfolded, spun round while the other customers count from 1 to 10 (slower than I am being rotated I suspect) then am frogmarched at rusty-Stanley-knife point down to some kind of dirt ridden, rat infested cellar in the bowels of this ghost train of a listed pub. The blindfold is removed and I am left alone in the care of an ogre who introduces himself as Neil the barman and begins a lengthy diatribe about why something called The Spider, is stronger than something called The Terminator. I presume he is a WWF fan and humour him as my ex-captors cackle and shout barely formed insults and jibes from just out of view behind the crypt stairs. I am then treated to commendable hospitality by Neil who plies me with drink of some origin…the funnel and restraints were unnecessary…cut off the circulation…etc etc…memories hazy of what happened next…wake up on floor bleeding from eyes and fingernails…etc…eN equipment roadie turns up and unties me…DJ Clam prodding ‘Neil’ at arms length with a screwdriver while shouting ‘Back! Back! Bad Neil! No!’ etc… propped up against wall while someone called Obsolete fires random images into my eyes with a clicking cine projector…reminiscent of Klockwork Orange…etc etc
…can’t really say much about DJ Skoda because for the majority of his ‘set’ I had my fingers in my ears. Couldn’t quite work out if he had forgotten his record bag, and was forced to play sandpaper and the bits you find under tables in the Bedfords Crypt, or whether he is just some kind of animal with less musical sense than he was shat into this world with…chobfokker…I was hysterical before the first track ended and regained consciousness to see a crew of St. Johns attempting to stem the blood flowing from the earcavetunnel of one of the barstaff’s headnodule…
... then followed a set of Ghetto from the gutter courtesy of DJ Jonny Megabyte. Megabyte himself entered the venue wearing a black cowl and shouting 'silence' to an accompanying dwarf who was carrying his bottle of Gatorade and Admiral goalie gloves. The dwarf himself appeared to be dressed as some kind of wild west sherrif or similar. I was told later that Megabyte only agreed to appear if the venue remained entirely silent for his entry and during the entire set. This might explain why he stormed out after 45 minutes, since someone at the back of the room had had the audacity to strike a match in order to light a roll-up. The entire clientele (including this correspondant, and the afore mentioned dwarf) roundly boo-ed Megabyte as he stormed up the stairs. This was met by tears and cries of 'gypsies, gypsies, fools, I'll destroy you all' from Megabyte as he ascended. As an aside, and given this reviewer's well documented penchant for the Ghettotech genre, the music was superb and sublimely mixed. Megabyte is clearly a man of some talent. It is dispiriting that he is clearly so fragile of ego, otherwise I could see big things ahead (potentially a monthly residency at The Mustard Pot’s notorious but patchily attended ‘funk nite’). If I were to quibble with the music selection I would highlight the absense of the DJ Assault classic ‘Rock your Jocks, shaft ya mamma, oh yeah, feels good, right in the a55 (Tits and Ass redux)’. Anyway, mustn’t grumble…
…and so to Gabba the Slut…firstly, it’s worth noting that the guy can’t be any more than 5 years of age. Talk about prodigious young talent, I mean, he could barely reach the milk carton that he had to stand on to reach the first step of the step ladders he needed to use to see the underside of the DJ desk. 3 hired midgets and the Bedfords Labrador had to help him up. The music is superb and we end with an unexpected but very welcome airing of some Human League song…only recognisable tune of the night… etc

…so in conclusion…dreadful hangover…violated…chobfokkers.

Guiaumme Chenp

(nb thoughts go out to Guiaumme who is fighting for his life at St. Guys hospital)

----snip----

Sounds about right. Come on down for eN vs. Palm Springs 31 March ‘05.
We all float down here…

[MikeTheBarber]

Now I don't know what you meant by it but i kind of object to the comment of "‘Just about bearable and you might as well attend when Uncollected or some other crack, elite troup of electro renegades are not putting on a proper night’." As it could just be a harmless comment but I have alose been informed by one of your friends that you seem to regard the group of people from uncollected as "elitist" and in thier own little "inverted community", where as this is not the case, if you were to actually get to know any of us were all nice, decent people. There is no 'inverted community', more a sense of real community with people from all over getting involved (this board for example). Where as I i remeber correctly someone (and im not saying it was you) telling people at EN night night to not goto the Slow mag Knifehandchop show (which was one of the best nights in norwich over the last few years in my oppinion) so that people didnt leave the EN early, and also other things that I wont mention now

I'm honestly not trying to have a go at you, rather just point out that if you do think we are some up thier own arses, too cool for school group of elitist twats then get to know us a bit better and you'll find we are a nice group of well round individuals

This is in no way the view of uncollected, im not even part of the running of things - rather just a friend, this is just my own personal view the way I see it

[Kenny]

Paragraphs are everyone's friend.

[herod]

!?

Err, no it was a compliment.
Your nights are cool. You're nice people. Your website's ace.
Face value.
Simple as!

[james]

hehe, you guys. Come 'awn, we're all one big happy family.

• 

[Kenny]

Well, I for one resent your usage of those gay Mr Scruff smilies. YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD.

[MikeTheBarber]

I guess I got a bit confused then as I mistook it as something else, like I said - i wasn't have a go, just thought you were having a little dig.....appologies!

[Jonny Megabyte]

Er...I hate to sound like a miserable c-word (as most of my review was nice...I think) but I DID stay 'til the end: even danced like a chicken, helped put the equipment away...and aided an old women across the river Yare (that last bit maybe false)

[lew]

guys guys guys....chill.
Herod, this is mad.having the gaurdian write a piece about your night,you must be stoked.Has anything like this hapened before?did you know this guy was coming down? or do you ave some real good "connections"?
The comment that sam brought up did get all of our backs up for a point,but we are all adults,and if it wasn't said with mallice then thats even better.
I'm afraid i was working last thursday so missed the night,but i am glad it was a good one.

[princess pea]

isn't my boyfriend brilliant, i am very proud of his toptastic review (and proud of all you other boys as well).am i as small as a dwarf, though?
this is my first foray into this uncollected thing, so say hello to me.it's lizz by the way.[/url]

[Jonny Megabyte]

Er...this is going tits-up in a Nathan Barley kinda way!

[herod]

Right-
I’m gonna have to sort this out now.
Hands up.
Serves me right for being a pretentious wanker (it’s happened before)
I was bored and thought I’d write something a bit different rather than just ‘thanks for coming down to en’ etc etc
So I went overboard. No- it wasn’t in the guardian of course.
Then mike took something I said the wrong way (mike- it really was meant to be a cmpliment- no offence meant so sorry if it sounded like that – I am a klutz)

Just like to say, although I know you are not after the compliments but your nights are all cool.
I think the only 1 I have missed was dDamage and that’s because I was away.
Been to pretty much all the slow magazines things as well and they are wicked as well (particularly Bogdan last year!)

The brilliant thing about Norwich is that there is room for all of us, uncollected, chalet, baselogic, slow, analogue:digital, palmsprings, en etc etc and we all get along and support eachothers’ events.
It’s a friendly, cool scene.

It’s the risk-hating venues that are the only downer as we know.

Right- that’s my piece said.

Peace

Nick

[Jonny Megabyte]

Hah : you included Palmsprings!!! (the contributions provided to Norwich nightlife by Palmsprings amounts to
fuck-all-divided-by-6!)

At the risk of EVERYONE taking the piss: I must say, you had me fooled to the extent that I actually called my mum and told her the good news!

Now I don't dare tell her the truth. Hahaha!

[princess pea]

that's what you are, mr nick.

[herod]

hello princess pea


i know it



a laydee on the forum!
ug ug ug ug ug ug ug