eN - Review in this week's Guardian
Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 9:24 pm
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…
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…