Autechre @ the Funnel Club, Feb 13th: The Funnel was rammed this evening for the Warp stalwarts and although we half expected it to be like this, it was surprisingly uncomfortable up the front for this gig after about 11pm or so. Dennis and Alan fucked about on the decks from 9.30 til 12am, playing loads of cool tunes and a few shit ones, Dennis was apparently in a "swing beat" mood for Valentines Day so that got a bit dodgy at
times (the music got Thayl really horny and he kept on grabbing my leg like a neighbours dog), but they played cool stuff, and a real nice mix. Autechre came on at about five past midnight, and again like the Furnace over two years ago they played in pitch blackness. Their live set is crazy.. you recognize bits and pieces of stuff from the recorded
material but you're not sure what it is, because its so mangled and distorted.. their set starts off very minimal and then they build up layers and layers of sound, each one more menacing and darker than the last, and at no one stage did I hear a 4/4 beat, not that I expected one. Their set was dark and crunchy in places but at other times very meaty and beaty, and the crowd were dancing with the heads down. They finished up around 12.50 though which I was disappointed with. I was hoping they would play for about an hour and a half. The ponytail of Dave Cleary appeared on
the decks then and started playing some Autechre tracks with this wierd howling wolf noises over it which were a bit annoying. Thayl and I loitered about until about 1.30am or so and then we split and got the 2am NiteLink home back to our respective suburbs. Overall not a bad night, the place got a little too packed for my liking, the smoke was hurting my eyes and the heat was making me sweat a lot, perhaps Autechre would have been better suited to a slightly larger venue. Thier live set was brilliant as before..
live techno is definitely the way to go. Reportedly they'll be playing here again relatively soon so we'll definitely be going to see them again.

This is part of an email we recieved.. thanks to C. for the encouragement and kind remarks, we hope you dont mind us replying to this bit of your mail in public cos we'd like our readers to see what we have to say about the whole thing anyway..

    I'm a bit unsure as to your practice of advertising E usage (abusage?).
While it can all seem like good clean fun - Dancing for hours, drinking mineral water and shouting 'I love you man' to a grinning gouger against a ferocious
and infectious breakbeat - there shall be a price to pay : have you ever come
across a documented case of divorced yin or yang? If so, please let me know. We
all know about unhappy lotto winners, lovers that spoil their marriages with
pointless affairs, youths that spoil their youth with pointless marriages,
 and on and on. Extasy shall never come without some agony. You may not be the
one who experiences it, it might be the one who ODs on H as he's coming down.

     Print what you like but I would be more pragmatic. How would you feel if
20 years down the line all the clubbers start to develop immune system diseases
(a sort of Acquired Clubbing Immune Deficiency Syndrome - or ACIDS for short)?
Great, at last we're rid of the muppets? Or, fuck, maybe we made somebody take
the plunge into E-world and now they're seriously ill? They're your odds - you
play with them.

S@E reply: To a certain extent we agree with you. Of course you cant go out taking E or whatever it is, be it acid, speed or coke, on a regular basis, even once a month, without doing a fair amount of damage to your immune system and even your nervous system. I dont think we would ever say that you can do drugs that produce the kind of responses that E does, without any kind of negative effect. It can be seen every year with the increase
in people seeking psychological help after going out on the tear just that one or two times too much. It can be seen with the amount of fucked up heads getting the NiteLinks home on a Saturday night. It can be seen in the amount of people skipping Mondays off work cos their head is mush..
As for us "advertising" E usage, I think that term might be a bit unfair. We're not saying "Hey kids, you know what? E is great, go out there every Saturday night and get fucked up, it's great, you wont feel like your heads been beaten against a wall the next day..", but what we are printing is an accurate account of the nights out we have. I dont think it would be any better just to censor the reviews of the nights out.
If you read any magazines or fanzines with club reviews or gig reviews that would feature dance music or some offshoot (and reviews of clubs are few and far between, most places will preview nights out but never tell you how they went), they never talk about the drugs or drink they took at them. But if you look at nights out, the case in hand being the Spiritualized gig in Galway and then Fat Boy Slim afterwards,
there was a HUGE amount of people absolutely fucked off their heads at both events. Nobody will ever say that though. It all has to be kept hush hush. Its something you do in secret. I think its better to be honest with the readers and be honest with other people. Admittedly theres been loads of times when I went out and if I hadnt taken any drugs, I would have had a shit time. But then theres been other nights when I went out and took acid or an E or three and my
head was wrecked, I'd go home early and then I'd be plugged into the wall all night waiting for a shitty comedown. Perhaps we should focus more on the negative effects of drugs rather than promoting the spirit of hedonism but so far we have to admit that our positive experiences with drugs (esp. E) have outweighed the negative ones. But as you say, doubtlessly in several years time we will regret what we have done to ourselves.
I dont think anyone is going to go out and take drugs just cos they read a review in S@E where the author(s) were off their heads. Most people will come into contact with drugs and make up their mind to try them or not in their circle of friends. What more can we say? Of course drugs are bad for you, you shouldnt do them and eventually they will seriously fuck you up, but the state is saying that every day, every hour to people and they still wont
listen. People will always do things that are bad for them. But people arent stupid. Alright, they are, but when it comes to looking after number one, people will generally make the best decision for themselves and their own health.
This argument was a bit unstructured but basically what we're saying is: We just want to tell the truth about how it is in the clubs and gigs we go to, be it on drugs or not. We're not advertising E usage although we understand how it could be seen that way. E is dangerous, whether you look after yourself or not, you never know what shit you are buying. We've always encouraged people to make their own mind up, so kids, do that, but use your judgement as an intelligent human being.

2 Easy: Yes, its 2 easy alright. Far too easy to rip the people off. For the lucky ones among you that have cars or use of a car, this doesnt concern you. The multinational megacorporate bastards that go under the monicker of Dublin Bus have decided that the 10 journey tickets that the ordinary folk have loved for the past few years are no longer going to be operated. The ten journey tickets saved you money, you usually got one trip free. They were economical and they were cashless. They speeded up people
getting on the bus, and they protected the driver cos there was no cash involved in the transaction. They were hugely popular, and they encouraged people to use public transport over and over again, with 10 journeys on each ticket. Now Dublin Bus have brought in a two-journey ticket and abolished the 10 journeys. Why?? What is the Government (or whoever the fuck decides such matters) playing at? the Department of the Environment would have us all
believe that public transport is the way to travel, its green and clean. But people arent going to use it if its expensive and awkward to get tickets for. People notice these little increases.. You no longer save any cash with the tickets so whats the point in buying them? In our not so humble opinion its just another method of screwing the punters out of more money. This way Dublin Bus still get people to use tickets but they get back the extra quid or so they would lose on the Ten Journeys. As if they arent screwing people over enough with the prices, and the
exact change only machines (it is perfectly possible to construct a change machine that is safe for the driver, similar to the slots used in the banks), where you are given a ticket with your change on it and you have to go all the way to the office in O'Connell Street to claim back your extra bit of cash (every newsagent in the country that sells bus tickets should be made to refund these change tickets).
If Dublin Bus are serious about encouraging people to use the tickets and not cash then they have to give the people discounts, they should increase the cash fare and not the ticket prices (or the absolute price per journey on the tickets). Allegedly one of the reasons for bringing in the 2 Easy tickets is because the ticket machines were developing faults. Surely it does not make any difference what ticket is put in the machine if the machine is faulty - be it a 2 journey one or a 10 journey one, if the machine is faulty the journey will not register.
Its just Dublin Bus screwing the customers over again.

You may have just read Stripes few words on Dublin Bus's radical new
change to bus tickets, the so called "2 Easy" tickets (The name "2 damn
fucking useless" was rejected by Dublin Bus on the grounds that they
couldn't fit the whole phrase on their advertisements) replacing the
travel-ten ones. If you haven't then go read that first dammit!! My god,
you morons have no sense of continuity, read the start stuff first!!
[Whooo, calm down there Thayl, before I break your elbows - Stripe]
Spurred on by their blistering triumph of phasing out all chances of
saving money with your travel-ten tickets, Dublin Bus are certainly on a
winner with another well thought out economical time saving idea, the
Travel-Jump ticket. Being pushed with the catchy slogan of "Just jump in
front of a bus", the directors of our finest public transport monopoly
have practically redefined the way we use bus tickets. The new
Travel-Jumps will be sold for ten pence each and will allow you to stay on
the bus for one stop only!! Handy or what? So instead of that boring bus
journey into town where you veg out on your seat for half an hour, now
you'll have the pleasure of getting off at every stop and getting on again
by using another ten pence Travel-Jump ticket. Planning on making any
semi-long bus journeys? Don't forget to bring a rucksack full of
Travel-Jump tickets, hopping off and on at each stop, enjoying unhindered
passage on any Dublin Bus throughout the city.
 Opps, sorry did I say unhindered? These new Travel-Jump tickets
actually have a few limitations, which Dublin Bus assures protect the
drivers, the passangers and the timetables. *grin* Your friendly ticket
inspector will soon be explaining how the TJ's can only be used on bus
routes with *even* numbers in them. (Tough luck you 69ers, hahah) Also,
during the peak times of 8:30am to 9:45am, and 4:15pm to 7pm these tickets
will only work on the newer white buses, unless it's a women driver in an
old single decker green one, then you get to stay on for half a stop,
unless your middle name is Derek, in which case you'll have to show
student ID in order to be let off the bus within a mile of Bray, but only
if you're the seventh son of a seventh son, or a supple maiden of virtue
true. There, a simpler set of instructions I have yet to encounter.
 So, Travel-Jumps, the new replacement for the already popular
2-Easy tickets. Enjoy constantly jumping off and on and off and onto the
bus again, with the all new, Travel-Jump!!!
-This has been an advertisement feature on behalf of Dublin Bus, Changing
with the City-
-And when we say changing, we mean for the better, not for the worse-
-Honest, it's not like we're just putting stupid arrows on our buses
saying stuff like "Super Low Floor", "Engine Is Here" and "Four Super
Roundy Wheels" or anything-

"Man, this place gets smaller every time I'm here." That's what I always
my first remark on entering The Da Club. My second one is usually "Quick!!
Grab all those chairs!!" and then the third one is regularly "Singer, go
buy me a drink you rich Swords bloke" and then my fourth comment is then
"Fine then, I'll buy *my own* stinkin' drink you smelly Swords knacker."
My fifth sentence of wisdom would then be "Argh, let go of my throat
Singer you freak, argh, for christ sake....ouch". But enough about me, how
are you? Fine fine, great to hear. What was that? The review? Of course,
sure why else would we be in The Da Club but to see those great merchants
of melodic harmonious sway-rock Venus Envy. (Sway-rock, hmmm, I like that,
not shoe-gazer, but definitely not mosh-esq material thank god) Actually
speaking of loud stuff, the bass player of the Null Set (our first warm up
band of the night) looked like a bit of a metal type. [Shuttup Thayl, sure
you're nothing but a filthy metal freak yerself - Stripe] *Ahem* Anyway
luckily enough Singer had seen the Null Set plenty of times before and he
was full of Null Set related information pertaining to stuff that I've
totally forgotten about by now. Anyway if I remember correctly Singer was
drinking Woodies all night long, so anything he said was obviously a load
of rubbish. *grin*
 The Null Set were surprisingly good. Not totally blow your mind
excellent, but definitely grow-on-you-good. Like, some of their tunes
seemed too eh, disjointed maybe? As if they just threw some sounds
together, but the vast majority of their admittedly short set seemed
pretty darn catchy. Sing-boy assures me that they're the next big thing,
I'd actually been scared off from seeing them advertised on Hope
Collective flyers (horrible visions of The Waltons still keep me awake at
nights) but they proved to be more "progressive-indie" than horrible-punk.
(Progressive, what the hell does that actually mean? You could make up a
load of shit and stick "progressive" in the middle and it would make it
all interesting, heheheh)
 And next up who do we have but the resident Venus Envy supporters
Palomine!! Wahey, I thought to myself, I remember these people. They've
got the ride with the Fender Jaguar don't they? Damn right, but they've
also got scarily jumpy songs with disgustingly accomplished noises
emanating from their glittery fingers. (Yeah, even the blokes have
glittery fingers) If Verruca Salt were a good bit younger, and had a moog,
and sounded a good bit different, and were Irish, then they'd be
Palomine!! [Yeah fucking great comparison there, you're fired!! - Stripe]
Fired? But I work for free.....grumble.
 Oh, before we go on to the stars of the night, I've got to
complain about Singer again who ran off for ages and left his lovely
girlfriend Cazzo all on her own, which was actually a good thing because I
got to mind her while he was gone. (The fool!!! Muuuhahahhahahaha) And
then, in a big explosion of stars and smoke Venus Envy sailed down from
the roof on some carefully concealed jungle vines to take their place on
centre stage and wow us with all those songs that we know so well but
which just keep getting better and better with every listen. Actually I
spied with my ear some new material. Some kind of loud rocking thing
actually, eh, it's all kind of hazy, but it was some kind of rawk
instrumental maybe? I actually demanded the set list of Maura after the
gig but she ran off screaming when I said I'd be reviewing them. Doh. What
more can I say about VE? You've read all the propaganda already, they're
the best guitar-type-thang in Dublin right now, and they're playing in The
Da Club again on the 21st of March (a lovely juicy Saturday, well planned
or what?) so go judge for yourselves. Oh and come up and say hi to us, I'm
the bloke with the Orange head, and Singer will probably the bloke with
the stupid looking lumberjack shirt and a fisherman's jacket tucked under
his arm.
 
==Thayl conjugates sentences, with skill, dexterity and finesse==
Hi there, um, I just wanted a section to shite on about the little stuff
that came up in the past month or so. First thing, special congrats goes
out to Maura from Venus Envy who sucessfully played some excellent drum
and bass tunes at the Decal Vs. The Wormholes gig ages ago. I forgot to
mention that in the last issue, so there ya go. Rumour has it that she's
being hired out to do parties now, Power FM here we come (Eds note: Power is off the air because they are reportedly setting up a new more powerful transmitter so now all of Dublin will hear the infectious house and d'n'b in glorious stereo, and hopefully blocking out its near neighbour 98FM).

And second huge big thing is that your favourite zine in the world,
Sl@nted @nd Ench@nted itself was mentioned in none other than In Dublin
magazine!!! Yeah, you know, that one with the birds-in-bikinis on the
cover. (It actually is a quality publication that doesn't need pretty
girlies on the front page to sell more issues, really, we would not tell a
lie) Anyway seems that they liked our "DIY attitude" or something. But of
course the fuckers would get our name wrong, they called us Sl@anted @
Ench@nted, leaving out a whole two letters.....well we'll let them off
this time but next time it happens we buy out their stock and sell them to
RTE where they will endure a stripping of everything fun and lively and be
reduced to articles explaining how interesting Winning Streak really is.

Thirdly I'd like to issue a special message to all you clever shits that
think it's really funny to shout out inspired quotes like "Hey orange
head" and "Your hair is orange". Obviously I know what fucking colour my
own damn hair is, and believe me when I say that this constant reminder
does not help my day in the slightest. Got that? Good. From now on I
wanted deep multi-level slurs on my alternative chosen hair colour, and
not just random jibes about the fact that it glows slightly. Any smart one
liners not containing a word with more than two syllables will be
disqualified. The judges decision is final.

With the last few pence in my pocket I forked out for the "Anakin" CD
released on 4AD records. Its only a cut price job, about seven of your measly earth pounds, but for this sum you get 10 tracks from the label which will all be released some time in 1998. Any good then, I hear you muttering. In one word, yes. But reviews are never just one word, are they <sigh>. I was pleasantly surprised by the Scheer track, "Say what you came to say". Normally Scheer go heavy
on the guitars, but this is an acoustic number, and its only when things are nice and relaxed I realised what a nice voice the singer has. In fact the majority of the CD is acoustic and slowed down. Mojave 3, who AFAIK are members of Slowdive, have a track on it, which isnt bad at all. Neil Halstead is singing on it though, lets hope that Rachel is still knocking about and putting her voice to
the tunes. Another old Slowdive song from the Souvlaki LP, "dagger", is covered by the Hope Blister, which isnt bad but I'm not gone on Louise Rutowski's voice, its too opera-like. And speaking of the classical end of things, Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke have a huge big long epic of a thing on the ninth track mark. The three tenors all over again, except there isnt three of them. And this CD introduced me to Gus Gus, the "experimental" art/music collective from the
frozen rock that is Iceland that have been in the press a lot lately. A nice track, very down-tempo and lazy. Rather enjoyable with a nice glass of wine, if I dont say so myself. Nice compilation.

And now, for his next trick, Thayl is going to try and disguise the fact
that he's too broke to purchase any new CD's by reviewing his cold.
 So, after picking up the latest release on the Biology label (yet
another indie off-shoot from Sony) I was at first disappointed by "The
'Flu" for it's apparent lack of effect for the first few days. I mean,
sure we had the basic dance elements here, runny nose, stuffed up head,
but it was lacking that certain *something*. This isn't your average cold,
it doesn't have that instant appeal that gets you hooked straight away,
this release is a grower. Boy is it a grower. I'd barely given it four
days when I was suddenly hit by the big beat of the viral world, chesty
cough. Full of juicy phlem and expertly timed breaks, this cough was pure
two-step heaven. So good in fact that I had to keep my intake of water up
just to keep my tonsils cool. Of course, we all know that big-beat coughs
are all the rage right now, commercial as fuck you might say, but these
were different. The 'Flu's really got it together this time with some
really deep and dark choking respiratory problems. I think I even spotted
a few samples from Aphex Twin's Ventolin remixes thrown in there for good
measure.
And just before you get bored of this thick layer of spluttering, hang on
to your hats people because we've suddenly got headache, yes, lovely
pounding house-esq migraines to keep you interested. I was totally
surprised at this return to late eighties rave, signalling perhaps a
rebirth of the simple techno-nose-cold blips and beeps from yesteryear. A
winning combination all 'round from The 'Flu so far, but what I wasn't
expecting was the stamina of this album. I've had it on now non-stop for
four weeks and I just can't get enough of it. Half way through this
madness we suddenly experience a break from the wall of noise and a light
funk interlude of sore throat helps us to calm down. This mixture of
influences sees The 'Flu reach new heights in originality, a triumph of
break-beat bacterial brilliance. Get it while you can, that warm April
weather will probably make copies of it even harder to find.

Some lovely kind people that deserve the riches of the world sent me out a
CD to review. Ever heard of Dream City Film Club? Well I'd never heard the
name before, so I didn't know what to expect. I mean, I love getting
strange CD's in the post, you just look at the cover and try to guess what
type of music it is, it's like Christmas or something!! Will it be drum
and bass? (Yeah!!) Will it be house? (Boo) Will it be Speed Garage? (Barf)
Actually, this Peel Session I got is kind of Indie-Guitar-Moan stuff. You
know the drill, whiney bloke scraping his guitar over some sandpaper and
some spasmodic drumming in the back, with long noisy bits where they just
hit their instruments with hammers or whatever. Boring stuff really. The
press release says that I'm listening to "Emotional and blistering live
versions of 'Situation Desperate' and 'Perfect Piece of Trash' as
initially performed on last summer's eponymously-titled debut LP." Yeah,
Situation Desperate is actually a pretty apt name for what I've got going
through my earphones right now. These people are too damn sad, and their
apparent lack of any kind of interesting melodic making abilities is
pretty scary. All you die hard Sonic Youth fans out there might like it,
but if you happen to have the same excellent taste as I do [Hahahah- rest
of S@E] then you'll probably switch it off pretty darn quickly.
 Well, maybe I shouldn't actually be too quick to put Dream City
Film Club down. Despite the fact that I don't really like them, I mean at
least they got their shit together and went out and fought for some kind
of record deal. (Uh oh, Thayl's going off on a tangent, quick, I've got a
nine point seven on the tangent-o-meter, we better get the proton packs) I
have to applaud any type of music group, no matter how shitty I think they
are, who actually try and push their album, despite all bad reviews which
they might get. Ohhhh, I've really wandered here, I guess I'm too nice to
just say I don't like them........