Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – 9 May 2008, Hammersmith Apollo

Much has been made of the revitalising effect of old Nick’s nasty old Grinderman project on The Bad Seeds repertoire – the way playing bone-crunching raw eyed swamp rock has fired them up. Certainly the latest Bad Seeds album, ‘Dig, Lazarus Dig!!!’ sees our Dark Lord in a playfully rockin’ mood (and using the punctuation of an excitable twelve year old girl). So as we settle into our circle seats, feeling quite young in comparison to our fellow audience members (all traces of past gothery erased – these are nice mums and dads reliving their big-haired youth), we wonder what delights there are in store. Surely the band won’t be able to surpass the last time we saw them - a sublime mix of the devotional and the deranged, complete with gospel singers.

Whomp! Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds hit us right between the eyes from the get-go and don’t let up for two hours. They are spectacular, filled with a ferocious lust for life, booting their older songs up the arse and dragging us by the hair on a rip-snorting ride around the new album.

The Bad Seeds are on top form – men who mean business. Aside from Mr Cave himself, Warren Ellis is the obvious star of the show. Looking like a wild eyed prophet who’s just staggered in from the wilderness, crazy old man beard and hair a-flurry, he wrenches diabolical shrieks from guitar and viola alike. You’ve never truly seen a man play viola until you’ve watched Ellis terrorising the instrument. Who knew you could treat it like that? During ‘We Call Upon The Author’ he’s on his knees, supplicant in front of a crazy guitar/mandolin thing alternating between torturing noise from its depths, pounding on the floor with his fists and going into torturous backbends to reach for the microphone.

Wire-thin, managing to carry off a look that no fifty-something man should really be attempting, Nick Cave is squeezed into a tight jacket, pinstriped kick-flares and pointy Chelsea boots. He looks like a character from ‘Yellow Submarine’. Later, he emerges wearing a skinny-fit ‘Dig…’ tee-shirt plundered from the merch stall and Good God he looks amazing; rushing frenziedly across the stage; cavorting out to tease the front row of the audience; hurrying back and forth to bash out a few notes on his keyboards; doing crazy Cave-esque hands-above-the-head disco belly-dances. He even goes for the full-on rock-out factor by strapping on a guitar for odd numbers. This isn’t the Cave of reflective sojourns behind a piano that’s for sure. The man Entertains. And that’s before you even get to The Songs.

‘Tupelo’ rumbles stormily, complete with a vast, thunderous night sky as a backdrop. It’s screamy and sweaty and full of thrillingly intense viola desecration. ‘Deanna’ is full-on vaudeville, a crazy-eyed clap-along. ‘The Lyre of Orpheus’ takes up the music-hall thread, the audience encouraged to join in with its half-camp/half lamenting refrain of "Oh! Mama!" which they do with gusto. ‘Papa Won’t Leave You Henry’ rollicks around menacingly. ‘Let Love In’ is given a Johnny Cash make-over, in the way Johnny Cash gave ‘The Mercy Seat’ a make-over (a song, incidentally, conspicuous by its absence tonight – but really, there’s such an embarrassment of riches on display here its presence is unnecessary). ‘Today’s Lesson’ and ‘More News From Nowhere’ are both unspeakably groovy in different ways (one a Stooges/ organ-funk swagger, the other laconically swinging).

Cave introduces ‘We Call Upon The Author’ thus, "Check this out. This is worth the price of admission alone." He’s right, the band ransack the entire history of garage rock, funnelling it into a hypnotic hurricane of a song, before cracking it with white out blue-funk NoiZE. Jeez, no wonder they need two drumkits.

There are few concessions to Cave’s sublime oeuvre of big bad ballads, we get ‘The Ship Song’ (squeals of joy from the audience) and the ever gorgeous ’Into My Arms’, but that’s really not what tonight is all about. To prove it, the set ends with a double flourish, ‘Hard On For Love’, as nasty as the title suggests and a terrifying ‘Stagger Lee’, the stage illuminated blood red, Cave screaming at the top of his lungs. Argh!!

Here’s ‘In The Ghetto’ with a young Mr Cave looking thoroughly skagged up, but damn! totally cool. See how beautiful he is with that magnifique explosion of hair? Who knew heroin was such a great conditioner? Man, what a crime it is that that hair is slowly being lost now. Can’t we get a preservation order slapped (no pun intended) on it? Luckily, thanks to the cannily cropped press shots and artfully framed videos (the edge of the frame always seems to come just above Nick’s eyebrows?) we can try to not notice the obvious and keep our memories of those raven-tressed glory days intact.

The Tamborines / Roy And The Devil’s Motorcycle – 2 May 2008, Dirty Water Club

It’s been a while since we’ve been dahn the Dirty Water Club, and in our absence time seems to have progressed. It’s no longer 1967 with the garage / psych kids in the back of The Boston Arms, we’ve fast forwarded a decade and the place in crawling with ye olde punk rockers – there’s a blue mohican on display and everything. We clutch our drinks as Johnny Throttle do their unreconstructed punk rock maniac skinny body thing across the stage. Johnny Throttle's singer is that crazy bloke who used to be in The Parkinsons. Maybe this is why these punksters are here? They don’t seem all that interesetd in proceedings though, nor in The Paper Dolls who are girls in the garage rock ’n’ roll ladies (and mans) from the USA and rattle along entertainingly enough. Meanwhile, The Tamborines are feeling a bit unnerved by all the punker-ing, what will they make of The Tambos’ Velvets-JAMC-Feedback-Psych smash up?

Next though, it’s Roy And The Devils Motorcycle. Tinkering around their MySpace page, I learn that they are ‘three guitarist brothers [who] grew up in a Swiss mountain village. Soon after moving to a larger town with a 'rock club', where they first saw Spacemen 3 and some other sonic pioneers of the time they got immersed in the energy of garage punk and primal rock and roll’ Cor! I’ve been looking forward to seeing them and Christ on a bike! they’re stupendous!
Roy And The Devils Motorcycle look like they don’t give a shit about anything much, a motley gang just mooching onto the stage and then casually locking into these huge outer spaced, hypnotic drones laced with evil feedback, guitars churning and wailing. They do monstrous thousand yard stare grooves driven by nasty ragged garage blues, whiting out into the stratosphere. It’s utterly captivating. The band’s Spacemen 3 influences are easy to espy – there’s a hobo spacerock cover of ‘May The Circle Be Unbroken’ – once also covered by Sonic and Jase – and a song that takes up where the Spacemen’s ‘Suicide’ left off, building an unhinged fireball of sound.
These are exactly the kind of spaced drones we want; raw and menacing and going on for a very long time so you can get properly lost, not someone making floaty noises with a few distortion pedals and thinking they’re the new My Bloody Valentine. Woohoo! Roy And The Devil’s Motorcycle are the mostest!

We haven’t see The Tamborines for a while and here they are with a new old drummer, i.e. the drummer they originally had before the last drummer and the drummer before that. He seems like a very nice man, especially as he kisses me on both cheeks continental style when we’re introduced. He can sure whip up a storm on the old Dirty Water drumkit as well. This heavy hurricane thump is most in evidence on The Tamborines cover of Beat Happenings ‘Bewitched’ which they whip into an evil hoodoo of voodoo sound, Lulu scowling ‘I got a crush on you, I got a crush on you’ cattily. It’s nice to see her take the lead on a song, managing to look menacing whilst stationed behind her keyboards. As ever, the band kick out a magnificent electric storm of noise laced with pop art beats. Even the punks appreciate it.

Harmonia – 19 April 2008, Queen Elizabeth Hall

Tonight is the first! ever! live UK showing of the marv and legendary Harmonia. It’s only been, um, thirty-four years since these kings of kosmiche initially emerged from the Forst countryside with ‘Musik Von Harmonia’ refracting the sunlight into weird new shapes.

As we arrive, Led Bib are going Free Jazz squibbly squonk mental in the foyer. The sound they make hurts our insides and upsets our sense of balance. It makes the lady at the ticket desk scowl testily. We cower in a corner until the scary jazz has dissipated, then make our way into Queen Elizabeth Hall’s soothing wood-lined auditorium to find our seats amongst an ocean of beardy baldy men (inc. author Toby Litt who fits in well).

The beardy, baldy men and us and a small boy who has been brought along by his beardy baldy man dad are in a state of high anticipation. The stage is set mysteriously with three trestle tables swathed in black cloth. Laid out along the tables is Equipment – laptops and wires and stuff. You know the way it works with electronica – lots of Equipment, not very sexy, unless it’s olden times analogue Equipment with big reel to reel tapes and clacky bakerlite switches and dials and things. Which it never is.
Harmonia take up their positions behind the tables. Hans Joachim Roedelius is bald as an egg and wears his trousers old-man high – this is perfectly acceptable as he’s in his seventies. To the left of the towering Roedelius, Dieter Moebius is small and bespectacled. To Roedelius’ right, Michael Rother appears to have hired a younger man to pose as him.

And so they begin, stretching delicate ambient sounds out across space, choosing notes carefully. The beardy, baldy men are a bit let down. This isn’t a greatest hits thing. This is three men renowned for their mischievously experimental explorations with sound doing what they do – experimenting, improvising, building precarious structures with slivers of noise. Behind them, a screen twitches with images of themselves as younger men, in monochrome days of longer hair and lots more Equipment. The small boy is lead out weeping silent tears of boredom. After some time, a voice from the audience calls in frustration ‘Make it louder!’ They make it louder, washes of sound filter the room, techno beats thud engagingly. It’s weird to be sitting still and silent amidst an assault of such obvious dancey sounds.

Michael Rother takes up a guitar – ooh! to throw furzy, looping chords into the mix, a motorik backbeat kicks in – aah, that better. Then…more ambient drops of sound. I discover its best to close your eyes and really concentrate on each note, making each one into a little universe to be explored minutely. Time is elastic. How long have we been in here, sitting in the dark, absorbing soundscapes?

Then, finally, finally ‘Immer Wieder’ from meisterwerk second album ‘Deluxe’ ripples and flexes its way across the auditorium, yawing laconically. Beautiful. Underneath its mighty flood you can sense mass sighs of contentment. This is really what everyone came for. As the song comes to a close, too soon, too soon, the audience is euphoric, leaping to its feet to offer a standing ovation. It’s been an intriguing and touching evening.

Phil Wilson - 10 April 2008, Gramaphone

The Gramaphone is full of big grins and bobbing heads. Pocketbooks are playing back-up band to Phil Wilson who’s bashing out a pop euphoric cover of The Go Between’s ‘Lee Remick’. Next, they take on an exhilarating ‘In The Rain’ by Wilson’s olden band, eighties indie poppers The June Brides. It’s a fabulous, fun-filled, life-affirming end to a sweet-hearted gig.

We learn from Phil Wilson’s MySpace that he has once again taken up music, performing as a solo artiste. Tonight’s gig should therefore not be confused with the brief but jolly June Brides reformation that happened a few years ago
evidence here (evidence here). To make it even more confusing, Mr Wilson is joined by two original June Brides - viola player Frank and trumpet man Big Jon and their set consists pretty much entirely of The June Brides’ back catalogue played along to a backing track. Not that anyone here is complaining. These songs are tatooed onto our fluttering indie kid hearts. Songs that hop, skip, jump and jangle their merry way out of our pasts and back into our arms like they’d never been away. Like we’d never put aside guitars strummed with such violent enthusiasm, trumpets soaring sunbeams straight to our hearts and pop tunes that made us dance stupid steps, singing along fit to burst, ‘Lets shout out loud to prove that we’re alive’. They’re all here, those songs, ‘Every Conversation’, ‘I Fall’, ‘Sunday To Saturday’. Yay! Then there’s the teary, cheery downbeat ache of ‘This Town’ which makes me feel like someone’s walked over my grave – sort of nostalgic and freaked out and happy and sad as the trumpet line tangles its way around my heart and twirls up and over the rooftops.

We also get the Phil Wilson Creation Records solo stuff, like the fab flamenco-tinged gallop of ’10 Miles’, the wistful croon of ‘Even Now’, the country stagger of ‘Waiting For A Change’. There’s even room for a new Wilson song which fits in with the general jangle just fine, perhaps getting a bit lost amongst all the swooning over yesteryear that’s going on.

It may be pure nostalgia, but we get our pop thrills where we can. Oh yes, and can Pocketbooks always be Phil’s band please?

The Lionheart Brothers – 1 April 2008, Hoxton Bar and Grill

Into the heart of darkness that is Hoxton we venture to see these whizzy wee Norwegians fizzing out songs from their fab MBV meets the Beach Boys swirling pop feast of an album. Live, they’re more squirly shoe-gazey and less weirdly-flavoured West Coast bubblegum, but they’re still exhilarating, especially when the one that looks like a small boy dressing up as a Keith Richards new romantic pirate goes mentals with his guitar, throttling it and whacking it around all over the show, making squiddly sqaaww noises for aeons. Fun!

The end of summer on Bookbinder road – Cocoanut Groove (Phonic Kidnapping Records)

Oh my! This is amazing. Cocoanut Groove is the work of Olov Antonsson (yes, another talented Swede – bah!), his pop daydreams fleshed out into real live moments of exquisite beauty with the help of numerous musicians. With ‘The end of summer on Bookbinder road’ they have created an astonishing thing. It’s baroque pop with a big, teary sound and on first listen you’ll feel like you’ve known this song all your life, whilst wondering where it’s been all this time. There’s melancholic brass, gauzy flute, and best of all a harpsichord stretches sedately underneath the whole thing – this pleases me immensely. My ideal band (the one in my head) has a harpsichord.

The obvious band name to drop here is The Left Banke – masters of sweeping pop moments that sparkle like jewels and of course the finest harpsichord purveyors in the pop universe. But there are also hints of Saint Etienne’s soft pop side and The Young Tradition’s sugar-spun West Coast-isms.

Even the title is perfect, like the name of a lost children’s literary classic full of scratchy ‘50s line drawings and a fading two-colour print dust jacket.

B-side ‘Shadow’ is spare and a little bit folky. Olov’s regret-stained voice, gently plucked guitar strings and a spectral violin suggest ripples spreading quietly over the surface of a pond. The music perfectly complements the imagery of the lyrics, ‘the stillness of the afternoon’, ‘a hazy August sky’ and ‘ten dusty books on a dusty shelf’. Sounds like holding your breath and remembering.

Buy this record and play it on repeat right now:
http://www.myspace.com/phonickidnappingrecords
http://www.myspace.com/cocoanutgroove

The Dilettantes / Sky Parade / Winter Drones / Time. Space. Repeat - 21st March 2008, Sonic Cathedral at The Social

It’s Good Friday, so diligently we go to worship at Sonic Cathedral. We take the sacrament (in a glass, with ice, numerous refills) and settle in for Time. Space. Repeat. who are just one bloke today doing swirly, drifty, shoe-y, post-rock-ish stuff with his guitar and voice. It’s pleasant enough, but I get distracted by the episode of shit sixties sit-com ‘Mothers In Law’ that’s showing on a screen behind the stage. In it, The Seeds are making a rather embarrassing guest appearance. They have lovely shiny hair and Sky Saxon swirls his cloak around. Hurrah! "We hope you like it. We think it’s gassy!"




Where were we? Oh, now Winter Drones are playing. Prior to clambering onstage, their keyboard player has been sitting with her back to me, sticking her bony elbows into my shoulders. This suggests a certain lack of co-ordination, as does her actual keyboard playing. But this is Winter Drones’ (good name, well done) first gig so we’ll give them some leeway, eh? Their songs hint at the whites of eyes rush of early Telescopes dissolving into the static crackle and snowfield hum of, er, late Telescopes. Intriguing.

Sky Parade are a bit too manly rocking for me. A bit too (metaphorical, I hope) foot on monitor, wind in hair riffin’. They’re another one of those bands that feature an ex-BJM band member (they get everywhere, don’t they?) in this case ex-bass player Tommy Dietrick – now vocalist/guitarist. And although they have their swirling moments and psych twinges, they’re just too sleek and rawk for me. Their sound suggests The Cult circa ‘Love’- dark, sleazy, goff-tinged. When I was fourteen, this would have been a good thing. Now it leaves me cold.

As anyone with eyes and ears nose, Joel Gion is the reason everyone digs ‘Dig’, Ondi Timoner’s Dandys/Jonestown crockumentary. He’s the one with the wild frizz and ginormo fly-eye shades, the stupid voices and the wacky antics. Well, he was. That was a while ago. Now he’s the leader of The Dilettantes, a band of psych-rock troubadours who take to the stage and give it some welly in a fine mod-poppin’ style.

They work their way through a set of beat tunes that sounds like its been lifted wholesale from some pop-sike compilation of long-forgotten garage-rockin’ nuggets. The guitars sparkle and sunshine melodies snap at your heels – these are perfect tunes for dancing like a loon.

Joel concentrates on playing the songs, not playing the fool. He sings in a rumbly drawl, shaking his tambourine with classic Gion aplomb. "Here comes the tambourine man, yeah you know what I mean" he sings on ‘Ready To Go’, storming in on a thumping backbeat - a spikily groovy call to arms for the beatkids. ‘Subterranean Bazaar’ is a furious fuzzin’, hard janglin’ freakbeat delight, blamming along at breakneck speed for optimum pop thrills. ‘The Whole World’ is high as a kite bubblegum fun that gets the crowd singing along with its instantly insistent ‘ba ba bas’, and for the few minutes it lasts the world is a goggle-eyed whirl of colour. ‘Don’t You Ever Fall’, on the other hand, does pastoral wide-screen psychedelic swoonage in the vein of the lovely Lovetones.

The band look fab in that Carnaby Street threads ago-go way that Yanks can get away with. We ponder the fact that if The Dilletantes were British, their clothes would make them look like gits. We also ponder the fact that one guitarist looks like Noddy Holder. Excellent work all round.

Horowitz / Town Bike / Mai 68s - 20 March 2008, Betsey Trotwood

Hurrah! First Bank Holiday of the year coming up and to celebrate there’s a handy Spiral Scratch Pop Show being held in the perfect indie-pop venue!

At least two of The Mai 68s songs begin with ‘Be My Baby’ / ‘Just Like Honey’ (delete according to taste) drumbeats leading me to think that maybe all their songs are going to start like this. Such an affectation would, of course, be utterly stylish. Turns out some of the songs have different rhythms. Oh well. I enjoy The Mai 68s and the racket they make. I like their plundering of revolutionary iconography in true first year art student style – the band name, the sixties underground garb, the er, shout-outs to Ulrike Meinhof. They have a stand-up drummer playing in the ‘bom, bom, bish’ style (like Bobby G. in The Mary Chain, obvs.) They have a guitarist who spends most of the gig ‘tuning’ up and who has more pedals than he knows what to do with, including, joy! a Fuzzface! As a result there are some highly satisfactory levels of fuzz ‘n’ feedback. It’s hard to tell which bits of these are actually meant and which bits are bonus noises as The Mai 68s don’t seem that in control of proceedings. This is another reason I enjoy them.

I also like the girl singer in her beret ‘n’ scarf ‘n’ glass of house red who divides her time between hissing at her band mates and intoning from her Big Book of Lyrics. The first ‘song’ involves Beat-like poetry being recited from the Big Book of Lyrics, whilst feedback reigns supreme -‘Howl’ set against a howl. Another song involves ‘nicking words from Dylan Thomas. He won’t mind, he’s dead’. One song stands out. ‘Froth On The Daydream’ (hey these kids know their French avant-anarcho stuff!) turns out to be The Mai 68s single – released in an edition of 100. As it says on their web site the song is delicious ‘sugar-coated chaos’, although there seems to be more chaos than sugar-coating going on here. There’s time for one last track, ‘Shall we do a noisy one or a jangly one?’ they ponder. The audience wants jangly, so that’s what we get. Just about.

Town Bike hurtle in wearing matching bowling shirts, pulling wheelies, doing headstands on their handlebars and generally fizzing about in an attention-grabbing manner. They’re full of energy and enthusiasm and it would be rude not to enjoy their 50 million song collection of punk-pop buzzbombs. Like fellow Liverpudlians Zombina and The Skeletones (only without the, you know, zombie element) they play on that whole fifties (American) High School bubblegum schtick, as originally appropriated by The Ramones and not left alone since.

Their first song is the Town Bike theme song which introduces each member of the band and their particular foibles (the bass player can get you anything knock-off apparently). One song features ‘audience participation’ – time for the indie milk-sops to clap their hands. In encouragement, singer and live-wire Sarah, yells ‘Pretend you’re watching Stereophonics’. So we all throw things at the band (not really). After a nosebleed race through fistfuls of punkpop fun, Town Bike end with the ridiculously stick in your head-ish ‘Trouble Fuckin’ Rocks’ which I initially hear as ‘Trevor Fuckin’ Rocks’ and think is a nice tribute to everyone’s fave Lost Music popbloke.

'Hug Target’, ‘Super Snuggles’, ‘I Need A Blanket’ – you could be forgiven for doing a bit of a sick at the industrial strength ultra-tweeness of Horowitz’s song titles. Or you could find them adorable and do little shuffly popkid dances to the songs and revel in the buzzsaw guitar action provided by Ian (he of the Gwegowy Webster voice and ‘What’s under the hat?’ hat) and Pete. Horowitz is just these two playing infectious, endearing guitar lines, whilst behind them lurks a large, bemusing-looking (technical term coming up) ‘backing music machine’ (yes, one of those).

‘Popkids Of the World Unite’ indicates that Horowitz have clearly been time-travelling and listening to our conversations circa 1987, when we’d snigger at ‘the swirlies’ (non pop-kid types in perms and stilettos) and sing ‘Popkids of the world unite and…hang the swirlies, hang the swirlies, hang the swirlies’ (two Smiths songs for the price of one, see?). Not very nice now I come to think of it. Unlike Horowitz, "All I ever wanted was a happy, happy heart and your cutesy hand in my hand" they sing and that’s the song lodged in your head for, ooh, at least the rest of eternity. ‘Sweetness I Could Die In Your Arms’ is full of spangly guitar sparkling like raindrops over a comforting fuzz meadow. ‘Traceyanne’ ends in the time-honoured indie-pop fashion with lots of ba ba bas and fervently jangled guitars peaking with a pop squeal of joy. ‘Sister’ is extra fuzzy and buzzy and thus extra enjoyable. For, despite the hardcore tweeness going on here, Horowitz are kicking up quite a racket. The kind of racket that’s only achievable with the treble and the fuzz turned right up, so our ears get a right old battering as the sound bounces around the Betsey Trotwood’s brick cellar. But hey, that’s what indie-pop’s all about. Right pop-kids?

Always On The Telephone - The Ladybug Transistor (Fortuna Pop!)

I love The Ladybuggers, but it took me a while to come to terms with their sixth album, ‘Can’t Wait Another Day’. Sasha Bell no longer numbers among the band’s line-up, which is a shame as I have a bit of a lady-crush on Sasha and her ice-cold mountain stream voice. The music sounds more mature, less psychedelisised. And by the time I had come around to the album, the time to write about it had passed. Here, though, is a single from that album and cripes! it’s a track I initially had a bit of a prob with. This is mainly due to the saxophone solo and my immature inability to cope with same. As Gruff Rhys once said, ‘I vomited throughout your saxophone solo’.

So the sax makes me flinch a bit. The guitars though…Ahh, the guitars are liquid and luxurious. They peal out over everything as underneath the song glows warmly, country-tinged and rueful. There’s a downy, soft-focus quality to it all, like squinting through sunspots on the windscreen, or rummaging through browning photos of a long ago road-trip.

I can’t comment on the sleeve artwork for ‘Always On The Telephone’ ‘cos my copy doesn’t have any, but the cover photography for ‘Can’t Wait Another Day’ is sumptuous. Two of the band sit in an old subway carriage coloured in deep reds and dark greens. It suggests a mahogany seriousness, a grown-up-ness that comes from travelling and learning and managing to make your way through life without keeling over. Inside, the sleeve has images of expansive landscapes, each one leading the eye and the mind away towards a central vanishing point. There are paths to travel, journeys to make, horizons to explore beyond. And that’s what The Ladybug Transistor sound like. A rich sound. And really rather gorgeous.

(P.S. Photo taken by me. On my birthday)

Tape Art: Let Me Come Over

Here I have managed to make Buffalo Tom who were in no way at all twee, seem simperingly cute by adding speech bubbles to my rendering of the original (back) sleeve artwork. This is because I loved the Tom and not because I wished to denigrate their manly guitar playing. I think this might be my fave album of theirs (although there is ‘Birdbrain’…hmmm…). It has the lovely, lovely ‘Mineral’ which features the opening couplet ‘All spangled up, glittering on / there’s a monster in the kitchen, his light's turned on’ along with whirring, fizzing guitars that gradually build into fireworks in a summer sky and hurtling down the road at dusk, hair and eyes streaming in the wind. Ahhh, I just played it again and remembered how I ended up with a minor case of whiplash after going to see Buffalo Tom at The Underworld in 1991, such was my unrestrained joy and unfettered head-banging.