It's Friday night and it's absolutely pissing it down. Only a syphilis crazed maniac would be out in this weather, but here I am on my way to see Portland noise goddess Grouper (aka Liz Harris) at the Nexus Arts Cafe. I'll be honest; I had my reservations about kicking off the weekend by being lulled into a coma by ambient drones, but after seeing her at Salford's Sacred Trinity church last year I was not about to miss this. For those of you with better things to do than read self important quasi-reviews, I'll cut to the chase: What a difference a venue makes.
For the rest of you I'll explain myself. The Nexus Arts Café is in the Northern Quarter and run by the Methodist Church- a nice little spot for community arts and covert conversions. A kinder man would enjoy a place like this- with paintings of childhood innocence hanging from strings between pillars, bookshelves to the side of the room inviting visitors to enjoy a moment of quiet reflection and friendly staff serving coffee. What's not to love? Well for starters, I'm not a kind man. As far as I'm concerned, the gig would have been more tolerable if it was held in a dolphin abattoir staffed entirely by gnomes dying from highly contagious strains of genital leporosy.
People have different ways of enjoying ambient music. Some like to concentrate on the sounds presented to them, appreciating every subtle change in the fabric of sound. Others prefer to let the sounds wash over them without any particular analysis. For the anemic scensters present tonight, the preferred method is drink vast quantities of coffee, twitch around on the floor and generally ruin the show for anyone who was interested listening to the music in either of the ways listed above. I don't get it. What's with all the coffee? Sure there's no booze being sold at the Nexus, but the people here are engaged in an unholy oroborus of caffeine consumption. Does the experience of being able to pay money for fluids really have such a pull on their subconscious minds that they can't resist handing over coins for yet another cup? I'm positive that if the cafe had been selling cat urine instead, these half witted zombies would be gulping it down like their gullets were on fire. As the show went on the cups of Joe were taking a toll. One chap in particular, in regulation flannel jacket, went over the edge. He first caught my attention when he fell asleep standing up, his fingers losing their grip of a paper cup. Scolding coffee poured onto the head of a young man sitting cross legged on the floor. Now, in most parts of this fine city, no further provocation would be needed for the pair to lock in to a wildeyed fight to the death. Fortunately, the victim was to polite to complain- perhaps he was too far gone to notice the searing pain of boiling liquid eating through his skin. Our hapless offender left the scene, gallantly returning moments later with a ragged towel. He then proceeded to get down on his hands and knees and mop the floor with a zeal that I've only seen in those deep in the grip of a psychedelic meltdown.
Needless to say my mind was pretty far from the music by this point. Every time I started to get back into the right frame of mind, another ignoramus would order a late or some other infernal concoction- which was undoubtedly followed by the near deafening sound of an industrial coffee machine. During Jasper TX's support slot this was less of a problem- as his set seemed to be crafted entirely from samples of the world famous Grindmaster 2450Q Espresso machine. As Grouper took the stage, it became evident that paying admission to see a musician after nearly drowning in the streets of Manchester was not enough to prevent this audience from sadistically conjuring up that dreaded mechanical sound. This continued throughout her set, the nuances of the loops and sweetness of her voice all but lost to me. I could not help to notice that the main offender was, in fact, the very same numbskull who had caused the ruckus before. Perhaps he was trying to prevent a repeat occurrence of his narcoleptic disturbance, as he was now ordering double shots of the strongest brews available. Unfortunately, his plan backfired as began to shake uncontrollably- once again letting go of his cup. This time it was a proper mug and shattered at his feet. He looked around hoping no one had noticed. Needless to say, at this point, I noticed. I watched as he bent over and picked up the pieces. I watched as he looked around frantically, his coffee-addled mind stalling before coming up with the bright idea of gripping the ceramic shards as tightly as possible. Still I watched as blood started to pour from his clenched fists. At some point during this fiasco, Grouper finished playing, leaving the stage to the polite applause of the chronically impolite.
