Original bands, original music from Lincoln & Beyond

Hyper Snyper + Tape Noise

Wednesday, 08 September 2010

15 September 2007

The Traveller's Rest, Lincoln

Review by Agent G

IN OUR SOULS WE TRUST

I haven’t been to a gig at the Travellers for some time, and until relatively recently had assumed it had long since closed its doors, and driving past it’s unattended frontage and peeling façade one could be forgiven for thinking it a derelict building, some relic of the past not yet redeveloped.  Not so, a new generation of bands has discovered its squalid charms as a venue and are once again taking advantage of its peripheral location and its mysterious reputation. I wondered if I could find out any more information about its new lease of life on the web, and indeed I did. In a superb Spinal Tap inspired 2-word review, someone had simply described it as “A shit-hole”. Now I don’t know about you, but I like a shit-hole, it’s what I look for in a venue. I don’t feel at all comfortable in higher classed establishments, festooned as they are with leather settees and cocktail menus. I believe in the inverse ratio between the amount of piss on the toilet floor, and the soul of a venue. So roll up your trousers folks, the entertainment is about to begin…

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE BOYS-ROOM

I arrived at the Travellers’ Rest at 8.31, and upon walking into the main bar and one time ‘Smoke Room’ was immediately directed to the function room by way of a swift hand gesture from the barman. I evidently have an air of the gig-goer about me that I suppose goes with the territory. I made for the gestured door, and faltering momentarily, noticed it proclaimed to be the way to the toilets. Have they misunderstood my intentions I thought? Have they presumed me to be caught short on the outskirts of town and in need of relief? Or have the bands decided to take the Piss/Soul ratio to the next level? One push of the flimsy wooden door would soon dispel my confusion, and with an inquisitive shove I passed through and into the darker recesses of the building.
I stood for a moment, alone in a back corridor, faced with the choice of several new doors, and seeing that on the last door to the right there was pinned an A4 sheet of paper, I held my ear to the ply-wood and listened…

Having located my target, I retired to the Gents to check out the ratio for myself, ready to throw my penny into the pot if necessary. But dear reader, the cupboards were bare, and not a splash of urine was to be found out of place. I was crestfallen, could my instincts be misguided? Is it possible all I had heard of The Travellers Rest was uninformed conjecture? Quite possibly yes on both these counts, but I will say this of the place, there is emblazoned upon the tiled wall opposite the troughs, a George Cross. Whatever this venue is, it is most certainly a convergence of very strange bedfellows, a place where Rooney drinks with Borrell, and two tribes of the English stereotype mingle without issue, which after-all is the embodiment of what the George Cross is meant to symbolise. All this and I had not yet entered the venue proper, so I fastened my flies and stepped inside, ready to once again indulge in the solitary profession...

A LACK OF UNDERSTANDING

The support act, ‘Tape Noise ’ took to the stage at 9:01 and blended seamlessly from their sound check into their performance, and performance this certainly was.
“THIS IS A STUDY OF CHAOS…” Bellowed the strange looking front-man, “…AND I MUST BE DRAWN INTO IT”
A study in chaos this indeed turned out to be, and amid an array of unfamiliar instruments, among them a MOOG synthesizer and a pestle and mortar, the study began. It was evident from the outset that the crowd was reluctant to join them on this journey, and for the most part they paid little attention to what began to unfold on stage. I heard a voice within my earshot exclaim “It’s not even music is it, it’s just moaning about life,” and this gap between that which they were trying to convey, and the audiences’ willingness to comprehend, would ultimately cloud the entire set.
The guitarist will be familiar to most that live in Lincoln, as that chap who plays classical guitar outside Anne Summers, and the angry ‘Alex Harvey-like’ poet/front-man has performed, I believe, at the Brewer on occasion.  Essentially, they are more progressive performance art than musical act, poetry ranted over strange percussive rhythms to terrifying effect, but I think even they would concede, that perhaps the back room of a pub is not their natural habitat. These guys require a more alternative, and in all honesty, more sedated audience, and are rather more suited to those small sweet smelling tents at festivals, where the ear-lobes are distended, and the children are barefoot. And I would be there folks, slumped in the fetid darkness…understanding. But, on this occasion, they seemed to have a more complex story to tell, than we had the capacity to understand.

WAILING WALL

At 9:58 ‘Hyper Snyper’ took to the stage amid a flurry of excitement, and let loose their bouncing, grinding, hip-hopping wall of noise. As I scanned the faces on the stage I felt spiders scuttling through the synapses of my brain, as one by one I recalled the circumstances by which I remembered each one.  They have all been active on Lincoln’s musical treadmill in one form or another for around 10 years, and this experience is apparent in their performance, each member seeming perfectly at ease in their roles. People began to fill the baron dance-floor within moments, and it was evident from this surge, that a considerable following exists for the ‘Snipers’, a following that seemed entirely justified by the performance that night. Their sound is a heavy electronic mix of the synthetic and the melodic, with a rasping ‘Primal Scream’ guitar dancing over the backbeats like the flourishes in beautiful handwriting, from which they spin a bizarre anthemic web of sound. I watched the people around me as one-by-one they became entangled in this web, and watched as their heads began to nod in time, and agreement.

All things considered this was a good gig in all but one important respect, despite my surprise at the spacious quality of the venue, the Piss\soul ratio was all out of cock, and my moment of epiphany with St George upon arrival had proved to be so. There was no rock and roll in that room at all, and the acts suffered as a result. This kind of event needs the sweat and the bloodstains of two hundred people staining the walls, but this venue had posters, and no piss at all…

Agent G    19/09/07

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Hyper Snyper

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