Next Spirit of Gravity gig: Tuesday 20 February

Spirit of Gravity presents

January’s show, all newcomers to The Spirit of Gravity

GAGARIN / THE VAINGLORIES / THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

The Three & Ten, 10 Steine St, BN2 1TE

8.30-11pm, £4/£3 concs.

Gagarin
”One man sonic space explorer, moody beaty melodectronica and atmospheres.”
www.myspace.com/ggrn
Gagarin has been making music on the edges of the musical galaxy for many years in many guises. Currently he works alone crafting atmospheric digital soundscapes, sculpting future grooves and polishing aching melodies. He plays out live - an exciting mix of software precision and human frailty/spontaneity thats never the same twice. Early adventures in cult Manchester band Ludus were followed by a sustained period playing and co-writing with the legendary Nico of the Velvet Underground. He's since recorded and collaborated with John Cale, Suns of Arqa, Eric Random, David Thomas & Pere Ubu, Bill Pritchard,Cabaret Voltaire as well as many others and played at the Tabyck shamanist festival in Siberia,in castles in Scotland and France, festivals and clubs across the globe.

The Vainglories
”Pretty electronica in a bad mood.”
www.myspace.com/gilliealder
I started writing music shortly after moving to Melbourne in late 2002. In 2003 I began lessons with Ollie Olsen, who deepened my understanding of both the frustrating world of second-hand computers and the beautiful world of electronic music. I have been featured on a compilation disc, "Get Off The Couch," under the name 'The Vainglories'. The disc came about through a Melbourne Fringe competition, and my tracks have been played on SBS' Alchemy program as well as Kiss FM, Triple J and PBS radio. In 2006 I contributed music to VCA graduate Kelly West's short film "Fine and Dandy", which has been presented at film festivals around the world including the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, The 21st London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and film festivals in San Francisco, Philadelphia and Berlin. I have also composed music for Melbourne Fringe Festival and Melbourne Comedy Festival shows. I am part of experimental electronica duo 'Sweet Violentine' with the fabulous Mel Pesa, and we are currently working on an EP. In 2007 I moved to Hove, England, and am interested in continuing to work with visual artists, filmmakers, dance and theatre companies.

The English Channel
”Multi-instrumental electronica.”
www.myspace.com/theenglishchannel
"... a unique, revolving ensemble, centring around his ghostly, deeply emotive song writing. Imagine Mark Kozelek's haunting folk with elements of Robert Wyatt's heart wrenching vocals combined with Collyer's beautiful song.... this is truly great."
- Rough Trade.

Don't forget we're at our new venue "The Three and Ten" on Steine St, just off St James' St and The Old Steine.

For details of future Spirit of Gravity events, go to www.spiritofgravity.com/.

· Greetings:

The new Live CD by Bela Emerson “Laurasia” contains a track recorded live at the Spirit of Gravity in 2007, it’s due out soon.

Collective member Chris Cook had a Hot Roddy track played on the radio 6 Freakzone show.

· Reviewings:

Spirit of Gravity at the Three and Ten, Brighton, Tuesday 11^th December

The Xmas Spirit of Gravity featured a seasonal collaboration between minimal impact and I’m Dr Buoyant, the legend that will be Don Tempi and a tribute to Hunter S Thompsons “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” from The Samoans.

Some people have a funny idea about Christmas don’t they? When I put this to I’m Dr Buoyant (www.myspace.com/tonyrimbaud) after his seasonal soundclash with minimal impact, he looked slightly taken aback “there were lots of samples of well known Christmas songs”, but jingling xmas bells in a menacing fashion isn’t Christmassy, is it? Nor was whatever it was they did with the Cash register from the beginning of the Wizzard Xmas record. (Well spotted by Don Tempi) There was also a hallucinating use of Greg Lake I think, too. Rather good. But not necessarily what you’d play when putting up the tinsel. However it may be what you need to help get it down if you haven’t done that already.

A short break and the Don Tempi (www.myspace.com/donaldtempi) made his entrance from the back of the theatre. He came to us as “The funniest thing I’ve seen all year – Hot Roddy” The Don lived up to his star billing. Don Tempi plays a selection of songs from TV adverts culled from July 1981, mostly English but there were a couple of German ones too, plus the West Midlands Conurbation Special “King of caravans”, apart from that we had the single “Pacers”, “Shake and vac” “Very tasty (Branflakes)” and loads of others I didn’t know. Well performed on the Yamaha, and with backings ranging from Smooooth Bossa Nova to an almost Junglistic “Shake and Vac” it was a treat for the ears as well as the nostalgia sense organ. Whatever that may be called. “Pacers” is very good, if you contact Don Tempi he can help sort you out with a lovely 7 inch slice of its minty stripyness.

Finishing off the evening on many levels we had The Samoans, it was chaotic as you would expect Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to be, funny and perhaps even laughable in places, certainly confusing and a little bewildering. There was a home made loop tape of the intro to “Sympathy for the devil” that lurched uncertainly about its task, HST hisself reading from the book cut into the mix, a CD-DJ cutting and looping bits of strangeness, a drummer with mooli, pak choi and cucumbers, straw hats, summer shirts and sunglasses and someone who turned the empty chairs upside down and started enacting American Football highlights.
Daft.

Wrong Music Christmas Party, Volks Tavern, Wednesday 12^th December

And then we went to the Wrong Music Christmas party on Wednesday, which was fun with Eddie “Tenpole” Tudorpole and DJStarscream aka Sid from Slipknott. Also minimal impact and some other collective members went, including me – I played “Pacers” twice. Steve from minimal impact (home.btconnect.com/shitola/mi/mi.htm) sent me this:

“I had a most excellent time. The first part of the set (with Geoff Samoan) was meant to be a reprise of the Samoans, but the tape/wicky machine would not work, but f**k it, that’s the way it was so I left it. I heard someone say "its not working properly" but they didn’t know I knew that and had deliberately left it to do that.

“Ten minutes in to my set someone pulled the power cable from the front of the stage and everything went quiet (you may remember suddenly everything stopped), I went up to him and said OY YOU JUST PULLED OUT MY F**KING POWER CABLE, he just said, I need this cable, who was that w**ker. Choice, hit the c**t or plug back in, latter chosen, so 20 secs. later back up to speed, probably why the noise fest ramped up, as I had been quite calm, but after that, needed to release the bats. Then kicked in with the noise, that got people going some dancing and the spoon man joined, there is always one. Then stopped, "shouting time for a change" to play the Dancing Did remix and the Creation Boomtastic rock EP, (boomchaboomcha eeeeeekkkkk-rocktastic, really enjoyed that mega loud), just as people were getting in to the noise, someone shouted "no carry on with the noise" (not a common sentiment I will warrant) then gear change back to to screaming torture motherf***er noise fest. That’s when Henry came up to me with the thumbs up. Cool. I thought he would like it, thanks for your encouragement, there are not many people who goad me to be MORE extreme. Then noise, mid wicky, echo on full, CD on full, slider on full, tape on full, STOP echo .......end. Picked up the wicky smashed it on to the floor, very rock'n'roll.

“As I was packing up a couple of people came over and asked how the f**k do you make that noise and I said "I am a conduit to the portal to the underworld, this is the sound of the gate's of hell being wrenched open, the screaming of evil about destroy mankind in an orgy of guiltless bile" . Actually I said "its a couple of CD players through an echo and I’ve been drinking strong cider". (hahahaha ;-)

“I bought Eddie Tenpole a drink after his set and had a nice chat with him, what a great set he did and what a great choice. He also did a Christmas card for my wife Jane, she was well made-up with that.”

We have video (especially Don Tempi) and audio on the Spirit of Gravity mp3 blog from all our recent shows spiritofgravity-brighton.blogspot.com/

I’ve also fixed the broken links from November (sorry) and finally put up the Xmas mp3’s.

There are other videos on the Spirit of Gravity MySpace page (www.myspace.com/thespiritofgravity).

Yours as ever

El Maestro Con Queso

Editor.

Gravitational Pull is the official newsletter of The Spirit of Gravity Collective, though the opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Collective. Your email address will not be passed on to any organisation outside of The Spirit of Gravity Collective. If you wish to unsubscribe to this mailing service please contact: info@spiritofgravity.com