Woody Witnesses: KTL + friends live at The Toff

by BRETT WOODWARD

I SUPPOSE any gig that winds up with fire engines in attendance should be considered a helluva night out, right?

ktl

I heaved open the heavy gold door of The Toff's music room and exited in a pall of smoke. The lift doors in front of me were open but this elevator wasn't budging - it shut down automatically with the fire alarm! I hoof it down two flights of stairs and pass a pair of firemen with axes, chatting up girls. You gotta love the pulling power of a uniform. More stairs.

On the next landing a couple of senior fire crew, helmets off, were deep in discussion with a sweating, troubled man in a shirt and tie. Looks like he's wearing all the blame and is doing a shabby job of explaining things. It dawns on me what had happened, "Hey," I ask the nearest fireman, "Are you here because of the smoke machine? Man, that's so funny, last time I saw this guy play the same thing happened!"

The fireman scowled and looked around for his axe. The guy in the tie looked sick - I hadn't improved his situation one bit so I shut up. Out on Swanston Street, late night exhaust fumes were sweet compared to the foul aftertaste of smoke machine fog. Another eight crew members were standing in front of two fire engines. They were smiling, laughing, munching snacks from a 7/11 and generally pretty chuffed with a false alarm that would burn up a big chunk of their shift. Three security staff argued loudly with a couple of disgruntled punters. Someone was going to get smacked; someone else was going to get fined; and my tram pulled up at just the right moment.

Truth be told, the final five minutes was the most exciting part of the night. With fire engine flashers receding in memory, let me try to colour it up so that everything doesn't go downhill after involving emergency crews so early in the piece. We're in a cavernous robot factory in the Year 6066. All around, massive presses, drills, lathes, welding torches, conveyor belts and assembly lines chug, pulse, throb and clank. The sounds are all crashing steel on steel, the smells are hot metal.

Onto the factory floor struts the last surviving human: a young Japanese guy with a Samurai top-knot and the kind of outfit that was regulation in mosh pits when Grunge, and not robots, ruled the world. He arranges a collection of pedals, electronic sound manipulating gizmos and cables. He gets a machine beat going and then unslings a Shamisen, you know, the three-stringed Japanese guitar with the distinctive oriental twang.

All musical knowledge was lost when the fiendish robots exterminated mankind. This lone survivor has assembled his version of a Shamisen from a hubcap, pipe and some power tools. Human music is a dim and distant memory and all that the last man on Earth can recall is the feedback squeals from the Jimi Hendrix version of Star Spangled Banner.

That was support act, Defektro. My sternum rattled for the quarter hour that he took the stage and I was pleasantly diverted. It was a nice to see a noise music act that knew instinctively to leave the crowd wanting more. In his field, Defektro's schtick wasn't exactly novel. Strings feeding back over a churning industrial backdrop has a long history but all musical cycles come around again. What was a tape trading staple in the early 80s is a new field of exploration for someone fresh out of university and with a penchant for homemade instruments.

A drunk - who I presumed was the promoter - had harangued the small crowd before Defektro got up. He took hold of a microphone once more, cussed and spat nonsense, booze and cola mixer until the smattering of applause was helped along with some whistling and 'woohoos'. Defektro - defiant soul and survivor of the horrifying future robot wars that he was - poked his head back around the curtain, smiled and waved energetically.

Fortified by a brisk walk and a souvlaki, I ventured back to The Toff for the main event. Without getting into a whole group genealogy, Stephen O'Malley is a member of a number of droney, maximum volume, left-field bands that are intended to challenge your stamina, hearing and perceptions of what heavy metal should be. I sincerely mean that in a respectful and complimentary way.

O'Malley - graphic designer, axe-wielder, all-round renaissance dude - has brought some welcome intellectualism and a slightly more academic approach to loud guitars but will still happily strut onstage with a T-shirt festooned with dragons. I have enjoyed his work with Sunn O))), Khanate, Ginnungagap, Lotus Eaters, Burning Witch, thenor, Grave Temple and Sarin. Would a name like Fungal Hex give you a clearer picture?

KTL (Kindertotenlieder) is O'Malley's duo with Austrian Peter Rehberg. In preparation for this show I gave albums KTL and KTL 2 a few extra spins and found an Editions Mego online archive of a dozen, high-quality downloadable KTL live performances from this year.

Before that kind of dedication begins to sound like Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, let me regale you with a story from childhood. Every kid likes mashed potato. It's bland enough to please even the fussiest young eater. It provides a culinary canvas for you to paint a palate picture with the addition of your favourite condiment. If I had a large enough scoop of potato on my plate, I could bury the peas, carrot and pumpkin, whip the lot into a beige hash and flavour it with a half bottle of Worcestershire Sauce. Good boys eat all their dinner which is why, even tonight, I stayed until I'd cleaned my plate.

KTL began promisingly enough. Chiming, atmospheric, creepy, cinematic, instrumental music. Rehberg tinkering with a laptop; O'Malley stroking the strings. The volume built rapidly and the smoke machine went to work. Pretty soon the mashed potato had slopped over the side of the plate, I couldn't find the sauce and I was forking a bland mixture into my mouth.

Only bass players enjoy bass solos. Only drummers force us to endure drum solos. Only musicians think a smoke machine is a good idea. As the haze thickened and all the instrumentation washed together into an indefinable howl, I retreated to the back wall - this from a man who owns literally hundreds of CDs of 'indefinable howl'. When the bar staff realized that they would soon be unable to see thirsty punters, one another or even the beer taps in front of them, they opened the doors to the smoker's balcony.

Ironically, this was only the second live show I've seen since the recent ban on smoking in Melbourne bars. Doubly ironic was how vehemently the smokers complained about the smell of the smoke machine wafting over their retreat. Muttering, "Suck stench, Marlboro Man," underneath my breath was cold comfort as the chalky taste and toilet deodorant odour of said smoke machine took hold.

I climbed a far corner bar stool and even managed a clearer view of the onstage fog bank with some extra seating height. If you are at all disturbed by the human genitalia then best skip the next few sentences. When my rump hit the hard wood of the stool I noticed how ridiculously loud and punishing the volume was. Kudos to The Toff's fine PA! Every testicle in close proximity - well, the two I was in charge of anyway - began to rattle.

I have an affinity for this kind of music probably because it drowns out the constant skull racket I have from Tinnitus. I was also pretty chuffed with my good sense. Anticipating this very situation I had shoved a couple of medical swabs in my ears by way of hearing protection. Still, a vibrating scrotum can be very disconcerting.

I believe that the KTL concept grew out of the soundtrack that O'Malley and Rehberg did for an avant garde European dance company production. That may be the performance environment in which the music of KTL is best enjoyed although, given the choice between interpretive dance and a smoke machine, I'd probably go one better and suck an exhaust pipe while doing the Macarena.

The 90 or so present - fans of the far fringes of metal - seemed impressed enough. Back in May I'd seen O'Malley play with Pentemple, a supergroup assembled from members of Sunn O))) and Japanese monster-metalliers Boris as well as local musicians including Oren Ambarchi. That 45 minute set of stormy feedback and clattering electronics was focused by a vocalist who performed sewn inside a Hessian sack! I truly got my drone on. O'Malley in Sunn O))) a couple of years prior, every member clad in monks' robes, epic songs consisting of a single, sustained note - simply dronetastic!

As it was, I finished this night with layered sheets of smoke wafting in front of my face like a forest chase scene in a werewolf movie. My mind wandered amidst the murk and din. It occurred to me that the grey and black uniformed Toff bar staff looked like a kindly version of the Hitler Youth; if that freaky Aryan cadre poured man-sized Kostritzer beers like champs. Once you start pondering werewolves and Hitler, you're on a slippery slope to worrying that John Howard (substitute 'George Bush's hemorrhoid' if you're reading this outside Australia) will be re-elected for another term. Time to call it a night and put my hopes in the O'Malley rematch the next night.

Coincidentally, flashing lights were the high point of the following show as well. This time is was not emergency services but Robin Fox's laser show. This is the third, and most impressive, time I've seen Fox at work - including a set at the Old Melbourne Gaol! The dazzling beams and sheets of green light, combined with suitably apocalyptic music, make you feel as though you are witnessing a formidable spectacle like a cataclysmic meteor shower. You should really be looking away or running for shelter but the sight is so awe inspiring and visually stunning that you're rooted to the spot. Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, Pink Floyd and The Who no doubt mounted similar displays on a gargantuan, arena-sized scale decades ago but for tonight, this was the place to be standing.

The laser show was all the more impressive having come on the heels of Peter Rehberg's lacklustre solo set. Under alias Pita, Rehberg has enjoyed more than a dozen years of impressive recordings, collaborative projects and live work, not to mention founding the influential Mego label. This 15 minute show was introduced as his tribute to Austrian autumn wine. Quick, stop the car, I've got to do a pretentious poo really badly! It was such a lazy, bog standard laptop set that I wasn't sure if it was a soundcheck or sound problems. It deserved a sound spanking.

The main event wasn't much better. Like Leslie Nielsen, I don't speak French but I do sometimes kiss that way. I Google translated 'Les Fils De La Messe Peste' - a band comprised of Stephen O'Malley, Oren Ambarchi, Marco Fusinato, Matt 'Skitz' Sanders and Max Kohane - and got the gobbledygooglegook 'Wire Of the Mass Plague'. I'm just going to stick with 'Les Messe'. Despite the all-star line-up - not to mention double drummers courtesy of infamous Ballarat boguns Damaged and grind minimalists Agents of Abhorrence - this set was a lot like being invited to the warehouse practice session of your mate's jam band.

The intensely executed percussion took over to such a degree that everyone in Les Messe not whacking the skins literally gave up playing, grabbed a drink and sat down to watch a long drum solo. Did I not already mention the problem with those?

I really wanted to like these shows. I have enjoyed many, many past shows and albums involving every single person who performed across the two nights. Most of all I felt sorry for the smattering of girlfriends dragged along for the experience because, make no mistake, this was an extremely blokey affair. This kind of shindig only goes to confirm their suspicions about what goes on at live experimental electronic music performances - and they'd rather be watching 'So You Think You Can Dance'.

If I didn't know that the fire brigade were already really pissed off with The Toff I would have foamed these schmoes with an extinguisher to liven things up.

There's more information about Brett's cartoons, books & writing at his myspace thing.

23 September 2007

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