Tag: Husker Du

Preston Venue 23 The Mill – Part 2

For the three-year golden period of 2003 -2005 at the Mill, I was living a handy 15-minute stroll away at Lane Ends, and post gig would happily tumble up Tulketh Brow or Shelley Road in a warm glow after a top night of music.

I had a very noisy double bill of gigs at the tail end of 2003, the first being the old influential stalwarts Killing Joke who formed in Notting Hill in 1979. I was in attendance with super fan Tony Dewhurst who has seen them over 100 times. I recall Tony saying he had a chat with lead singer Jaz Coleman that night and there was a possibility Tony could be hired to write his autobiography, but the interesting offer never reached fruition. They produced a very noisy industrial set.

The second was the Irish punk band Therapy? and I recall them playing their cover of Husker Du’s Diana.

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Therapy? Promo picture. Image Credit conversationabouther.net

In between those two gigs, I saw Brighton band Electric Soft Parade who I had picked up on initially from their stellar debut album ‘Holes in the Wall’ which was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. They were very accomplished and enjoyable on the night.  

Next up in April 2004 was to see Marky Ramone. Originally born Mark Steven Bell he was originally a drummer for Richard Hell and the Voidoids. When Tommy Ramone stopped drumming to become the manager in 1978, he stepped in as the new drummer and changed his name to Marky Ramone. The show consisted of a slide presentation talk with Q&A which was amusing as had a bone-dry wit and there were many Ramones tales to impart. The second part consisted of playing a selection of Ramone songs drumming behind of UK Subs, which was the weaker portion of the evening’s events.  

In April 2004, I saw a Cardiff post-hardcore band called Mclusky led by Andrew Falkous and they produced an urgent slab of noisy rock. After the band split up Falkous created the bands Jarcrew and Future of the Left, I was a fan of the latter band’s off-kilter sound. The support bands on the night were Papa Boon and My Code Name is Milo.

On a very warm Friday night during Euro 2004 we sauntered down to watch Longview, an indie rock band from Manchester. They had formed in 2002 and honed their craft with many gigs at the Night and Day café. They also had the German musician/record producer Ulrich Schnauss in their ranks from 2005 to 2010. Remarkably despite them being in existence for 12 years they only ever produced one album. I recall they were very melodic in the mould of Nada Surf with House of Love tinted vocals and were a perfect summer night band. Just listening to their music now and it still sounds remarkably fresh.

Five months later I saw Hope of the States, a post rock band from Chichester. They were good value and were supported by The Open. When the headline band subsequently disbanded the members ventured into bands such as The Northwestern and Chapel Club.

In March 2005 a group of us went to a multi punk bill and we saw Mere Dead Men (MDM) and Broken Bones who evolved from the band Discharge. Also, on the bill was the local punk legends Pike, one of seven times I have seen them. I recall they played a rarely heard cover of a Naked Prey track, which I think was ‘Train Whistle Blows’ from their lost gem album ‘Under the Blue Marlin’.  Naked Prey were from Tucson, Arizona and in the desert rock genre and subsequently were members of Green on Red and Giant Sand and you can hear distinct similarities in their sounds.  If I have got the name wrong of the covered track, I am sure Pike’s bassist and music encyclopaedist Jez Catlow will graciously correct me!

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Naked Prey ‘Under the Blue Marlin’. Image Credit Amazon.

In the gap between bands, we headed up to the local pub Moss Cottage, known as the Hogshead for an aperitif before returning to see the headliners Conflict, who formed in Eltham in South London in 1981. They were always combative souls and highlighted issues around animal rights, anarchism and class war. During their gigs in the 80’s in the particularly dark days of Thatcherism they regularly stoked up the crowd leading to riots and disturbances post-gig. Even 25 years on, they still cut an aggressive and spiky presence on stage.

London Fifth Trip

I headed down for a London weekend via a £25 Apex ticket on the 12.15 train from Preston on Friday 10th May 1990. My brother picked me from Euston in his mini and we darted back to his current digs in Woolwich. We grabbed some tea and listened to some Screaming Trees and Husker Du’s Metal Circus.

We headed out at 9pm and picked up my brother’s girlfriend from her workplace on some random industrial estate in Thamesmead on the way to London Subterania in the west of the city. The venue was opened the year before by the Mean Fiddler Group. It was subsequently closed in 2003 but relaunched in 2018. It has a capacity of 600.

We were there to see Thin White Rope, the Californian desert rock band who disbanded a couple of years later. It was my first gig for four months at that stage, so it was good to be back in the fray. Unfortunately, we were a tad late in arriving and the band were already 20 minutes into their set and the place was half full, mainly comprised of students.

I grabbed an expensive bottle of Newcastle Brown and headed down to the front. They were a laid-back combo and produced a reasonable set, including two encores.     

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Thin White Rope. Image Credit LastFM.com

After the gig we headed into the city centre to Tower Records which was open until midnight as my brother wanted to purchase the latest Thin White Rope release.

The following day was the FA Cup Final. That particular year we had endeavoured without success to obtain match tickets, in those days that option was more feasible than it is nowadays. Our alternate plan was to see the parade the next day if Crystal Palace won which looked likely when Ian ‘Je Na Sa Quoi’ Wright scored in extra time before Mark Hughes scuppered it with a late equaliser for Man United. We had a gentle gather in the local Poly Bar that night.

We lazed around on the Sunday morning prepping some Wedding Present and REM mix tapes. In the late afternoon we headed back into the city visiting Petticoat Lane and Camden Town where I purchased the Last Exit to Brooklyn novel.  We then drove to Notting Hill and grabbed some grub at a cheap as chips fab Indian restaurant called Khan’s where I ordered Chicken Shahi.

Post meal we headed over to Brixton Fridge landing about 8.30pm. The venue previously had a couple of homes, one of them above an Iceland store, hence the name. The location when I visited was converted from a 1913 cinema, the Palladium Picture House. The venue closed in 2010 before reopening the following year under the new moniker Electric Brixton. It was a large slightly soulless venue with a capacity of 1789 and was almost full that night.

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Brixton Fridge. Image Credit wikimedia

We handed over our £8 entrance fee and purchased a can of Breakers and caught the last song of Benny Profane’s set. The main support was the C86 Bristolians Groove Farm. I recall chatting to another punter who I jealously discovered had seen Minutemen and Husker Du in Washington in 1984 when they a support band.

Wedding Present came on at 9.45pm. They had been collaborating with Steve Albini and it had certainly resulted in a hardening of their sound. They played ‘Brassneck’ early in the set and Dave Gedge broke a guitar string due to some Hendrix impressions.    

They played ‘Everyone Thinks he Looks Daft’ and a seemingly endless but joyous ‘Favourite Dress’. It was stiflingly hot in the moshpit resulting in me re-emerging at the end as a virtual puddle when they left the stage at 11pm. I thought they were superb, arguably better then the first time I had seen them a couple of years earlier at Manchester University as their strengthened sound was of significant benefit.