Crash of Moons Club no.3

28th October 2015
Bramleys, Canterbury

The third installment of the monthly psychedelic/progressive live music night. As Professor Appleblossom, I DJ'd before and between the bands, attempting to bridge the musical spaces between them, and then threw on some danceable stuff (Afrobeat, Ethiojazz, etc.) to close out the night.

First up were Splink, featuring Leonie Evans' dad Matt on lead guitar. He used to be part of the Whir-Y-Gig crew, doing rave-style decor for events in the early 90s, and brought Leonie up listening to Gong, Hillage, Ozric Tentacles and The Orb. He was so self-deprecating about his own music when I spoke to him a while ago that I was genuinely surprised at how good his band were. As well as his own mercurial guitar playing, there's some beautiful violin in involved. The bass player's appearance, glasses, mustache, hat and the angle at which he held his bass were very reminiscent of Hugh Hopper — would have been the perfect in a Soft Machine tribute band (no fuzz bass heard that night though!)

Lapis Lazuli played next, COMC organiser Adam behind the drums as usual. They were launching the vinyl re-release of their Alien album that night, and played the whole thing (somewhat reorganised, with some other bits spliced in, I think) as one continuous piece. They sounded exceptionally tight and yet were clearly having a lot of fun with it. A new album (three pieces — "Reich", "Phighyphe" and "School") is just about to be recorded.

Evil Usses headlined. This is Dan (drums), Leon (bass) and Lorenzo (tenor sax, Casio keyboard) from Rae, plus their old friend Conrad Singh on guitar (our friend Dave commented that Conrad brought a Sly and the Family Stone vibe to the proceedings). They'd played a "quiet" set for a few of us at a secret location the night before; this was them in full, abrasive freak-out mode. Resonances of Lark's Tongue-era Crimson, Deerhoof and Beefheart. And quite a bit of humour in the mix, too, like Lorenzo looking characteristically baffled as he struggled with the presets on the Casio.

Professor Appleblossom became Professor Alienblossom for the final post-EU set: