28/10/2006 Kitty Hudson @ Bar Monsta

Subject	Kitty Hudson @ Bar Monsta
PostedDate	10/28/2006
	Woke up after my adventures of the previous night and found I'd missed Saturday and it was already dark. Then realised that I was meant to be in Camden to see Kitty Hudson in a couple of hours or so... I arrive at the TotalRock promoted show at Bar Monsta and find the place full of people dressed up for this Halloween themed show - apart from a few confused individuals who have apparently come as 'pirates' for some reason.  A band are already playing when I get there - they are bloody good.  I find out later that they are called The Super Dead - quite an appropriate name for a Halloween themed gig, and the bass player has particularly good make-up for the occasion. I've never heard of this band before, but I'll certainly be looking out for them in the future. Kitty Hudson are excellent as usual with their own brand of punky rock 'n' roll, and are made up with blood and gore for tonight's theme. It's good to see them venturing north of the river a bit more this year - why should Croydon have all the fun?  I think the final band of the night were called All About Mary, and they were unlike anything I'd seen before. When they start playing they seem very quiet and slow for at least five minutes - I'm less than impressed and soon thinking about going home early for once. Quite a few people seem to have come to see this band, and as I'm at the bar I can't see much. I'm not hearing much to interest me either. However, after maybe ten minutes things seem to start building up up. It's getting louder and faster - it's actually starting to sound more like music - and quite good music too. I start to take notice, and position myself to see what is going on. A large space has been cleared in front of the stage for loads of guitar effects pedals on the floor. There are no microphones for vocals. The drummer wears what appears to be a plastic German stormtroopers helmet and a fake beard covering most of his face - he also sports a T-shirt with 'Look at me - I'm scary!' scrawled across it. The bassist has a rather cool AC/DC 'Powerage' shirt and skull make-up. The guitarist has rather good 'clown' make-up that looks like it may have been influenced by A.Product. He is playing an interesting Parker (I think) Telecaster styled axe. The music is certainly unusual, but very well played - almost like a prog-rock intrumental version of Metallica with their complex arrangments. I am also reminded strongly of Muse. The band are basically just a three piece, with occasional keyboards added by another guy. A rather bizarre episode takes place towards the end of their set - a stoner type guy appears to join the band and dances around, almost like a hippy Bez from Happy Mondays. He has a mic and proceeds to make a big performance out of singing into it - only it isn't plugged in! Does he know? Does he care? I don't know if he's a friend of the band and this is part of tha act, or just a random nutter? You can't help but laugh when he decides to encourage some 'audience participation' and holds the unplugged mic in front of people's faces for them to sing into as well - which they appear to actually do.  What they are supposed to be singing I've no idea! It's certainly an unusual performance, but without any vocals all the band's songs tend to sound much the same after a while...  Still, it's impressive that the band play virtually non-stop for over half an hour with no set lists or written music to refer too. Still, it was an interesting night and worth the trip to see the other bands as well as Kitty Hudson - who are always well worth seeing on their own.

PS: I have no idea why a random picture (I think from the AntiProduct album release party) appears in this post!