Mechanical Cabaret/Sheep On Drugs

It has to be said that there was a lot of disappointed punters that night. Strangely, the music press reacted favourably to the night, although I suspect that has more to do with certain magazines and websites (I’m not naming names!) not wanting to lose interviews and exclusives with the band. On the other hand, Fan message boards on the net such as Cybase 23 gave a truer reaction to the reformed S o D, most noting a cynical cash-in by all involved.

So if I was so disappointed with S o D last year, why am I giving them another try tonight? A few good stories have come down the line that they might actually be trying to perform a proper show again, and I’m only paying £7.50 to get in (compare that to 15 wasted pounds last time!).

Opening band Brother Orchid have the distinction of actually being a half decent support band. Very close to Paradise Lost’s more electro inspired output, the only problem is that the Robert Smith style of the vocalist, does appear to get lost in the sound mix when performing alongside the crashing guitar riffs, but still a very good start.

Pro-Jekt are next, a band that are already amassing a few legends around them (see my review of Black Celebration 2003 for more on that!). It would be easy to mock them; they’re four blokes who look like they were in

a Judas Priest covers band until they heard ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ and decided that it was the way forward. Truth be told, there’s not much variation between their songs, but what the hell, when you see this much rock and roll bravado at a supposedly electro night, you’ve got to give Pro-jekt their due. The fact that they’re a little bit older than most bands we see is also a nice change. It’s good to see a band actually playing live rather than doing the usual miming over a backing track routine. Pro-jekt do a brave job of giving a memorable performance when they could have easily slipped into being ‘The Darkness do industrial’. These lads don’t need a model of Stonehenge to give you a good time.

As Synthetic take the stage, its worth noting what a strong image they now have. There's a nice uniform feel to them, each clad head to toe in black PVC with Paul the guitarist in full Martin Rev meets Keith Richards mood, a dragged-up Tim (oops, I meant Syanara) looking like Patricia Morrison's evil little sister and a pointy-eared Sarn looking like a Vulcan dominatrix.

In the past they sort of looked a bit uneven onstage; Paul looked like a refugee from an 80s glam band, Tim looked like he'd gotten lost on the way to an audition for Pop Will Eat Itself and Sarn was dressed like Diana Dors in an episode of the Two Ronnies.

The main problem with Synthetic tonight is that they appear to be operating to a pretty strict deadline, and just about every song appears to a good minute or so shorter than it would usually be, with some tracks just stopping dead rather than having Paul trail off with a nice guitar hook at the end. So sporadic is their output tonight that some of their better songs get a bit lost, 'Body Farm' for example doesn't quite it the heights that it normally does. 'Embrace' finishes their set tonight (rather than start it as per normal), but it still manages to cram all the best bits of New Order's 'Technique' album into 3 and a half minutes!

Sadly, Synthetic receive a pretty hostile reaction from certain elements of S o D's faithful in the crowd, but what what do they know?

And finally, to Sheep on Drugs version 4.0. There have been so many incarnations of this band now, it’s getting difficult to keep track. First there was Lee and Duncan, then Lee and whomever he could find, then Lee and the singer from Tarantella Serpentine, and finally the current version of Lee and the Queen of Perversion, Kate Kuts. As I mentioned earlier, I think a few of the mistakes the band made last year has cost them a high percentage of their following. There’s considerably less people here than you might expect for a former top 30 band.

It all looks rather promising when they start out. There are some nice back projections and Lee struts on stage wearing a white plastic surgery mask. He then embarks onto a mantra-like chant of 'Drug Music', whilst going a bit mad with his microphone stand. In fact he goes a bit too wild and whacks a punter in the front row across the head! Sadly, Lee waves goodbye to all signs of rock star credibility by apologising! Lee encounters a similar problem later when he dives into the crowd and has to ask a member of the audience to help him back onstage! Despite this, there's a real hint of danger about the band, which was always present with the original Sheep on Drugs. The feeling that anything can happen, and probably will! Perhaps this was what it was like at those early Pistols gigs of '77? Lee's soon joined by Kate in her PVC nurse's gear and surgical mask. She's playing bass, but lets be honest here, the sound mix is truly dire and she spends most of the performance yelling 'I can't hear my fucking bass!’. For some reason she sort of reminds me of a cyber Goth version of Kat Slater from Eastenders!

Compared to the cut and paste remixes that Lee was peddling a few months back we've now got a pretty much straightforward 'greatest hits' set. 'Motorbike', 'Mary Jane', 'Catch 22', 'Track X', they're all here, enlivened by Lee's guitar smashing antics mid-way through. A special mention deserves to go to '15 Minutes of Fame', which was pretty much their key track, but now thanks to some pretty heavy testosterone fuelled guitar, really comes to life in a live environment. '15 Minutes' has now become a sort of 'Paranoid' for the post rave generation.

Geez, there's even an encore this time, which consists of 'Lolita' and some new songs, one of which liberally borrows the melody to Depeche Mode's 'Sacred'. Kate sings (alright shrieks) these songs and pretty much makes them her own. 'Lolita' in particular works better when sung by a teenage girl dressed like a hooker, rather than a bald bloke in NHS specs like Duncan. And yes, she is pretty sexy in a 'shag-behind-the-bike-sheds' kind of way. They soon leave the stage, still effing and blinding at the soundman.

Put simply Sheep on Drugs are now an elegant shambles, this was one of those gigs that was so bad that it was good, but compared to the S o D show of August 2002, tonight was light years ahead, at least they're now having a go. Sadly, only 5 points for the performance tonight, but at least a good 10 for effort.

Mechanical Cabaret and (Half of) Sheep On Drugs @ The Islington Garage 17/08/2002.

Mechanical Cabaret's Roi demonstates a new use for his microphone

Mechanical Cabaret are supporting Sheep On Drugs. Isn’t that a bit like Mesh supporting Depeche Mode or Oasis supporting the Beatles? If a band are going to support their late, great inspiration, that band had better be as bloody good as our favourite electro clatter clowns. After an intro by a young gent who’s camper than a weekend at Butlins, we get our first sighting of the boys and by the looks of things they have been out shopping for some new togs (They were dressed as Nazis last time we saw them), with drum pad thwacker Tobi sporting a dapper pinstripe suit.

However, with his pony tail and his new ’tache he’s looking uncannily like David Seamen after a trip to a piercing parlour. Roi on the other hand seems to modelling the latest cyber Goth chic. As they mount the stage we can see that the boys are now going for a Depeche Modey/Mesh type set up on stage with two synths in place of Tobi’s drum machine. Hang on a minute, if there’s two synths onstage and Tobi’s playing one, who’s playing the other?

It would appear that the popularity of Mech Cab’s slides man Bruce holds no bounds (There are even several folks wearing home made ‘We Love You Bruce’ T-shirts) as he’s now playing synths onstage too!

The added live element to the boys sound is completely evident as they Garage fills with the Vince Clarke on smack intro to ‘Meat Closet’. Mech Cab still sound like Mesh’s dark brown excretement, but I’m sure that they’d be more than appreciative of such a comment! However, given the bolster of a strong PA their thick as mud analogue synth lines bathe the audience in perhaps the nastiest shower most here have had for some time.

Since when did Marks and Spencer start sponsoring Mechanical Cabaret gigs?

Bruce obviously loves being onstage, playing up to his fan club with a fleet of paper planes thrown their way, and even the odd invisible shot from his revolver. Roi contorts himself about the front of the stage, before being the recipient of a cock sucking special from Bruce, which is guaranteed to give the kids something to talk about at school on Monday morning!

For some reason, Mech Cab seem to get a lot of stick in other quarters. Maybe I’ve been lucky and have only seen the good shows. Methinks it perhaps has more to do with the fact that a modern drug addled techno Goth crowd just can’t appreciate a band who actually put on a performance, rather than one who just stick a backing track on and tap away on keyboards whilst dreaming that they’re Martin Gore.

Anyway, lets be glad that tonight Mech Cab were more than worth the £13 entrance fee, as tonight’s headliners put on perhaps one of the worst travesties I’ve ever seen on a stage, but more on that in a second.

No sign of Bagman (Dead Lee’s post Sheep On Drugs project) although as this is a gig organised by Flag promotions, Greenhaus play their obligatory set. This band have actually improved of late, with a move towards a richer, spacier sound, that fits in better with most of the bands that they support.

We described Sheep on Drugs as ‘Late and Great’ earlier, well tonight they (If ‘they’ is the right word to use tonight!) are DOA. 10 years ago I fucking loved this band. Spewing blood and shooting guns at their audiences, they put a serious bolt up the backside of the stagnant early nineties underground scene with their gutter trash techno pantomime, leaving a trial of butchered shop window dummies in their wake. Dead Lee and King Duncan were gods in their day. Even the bloody NME picked up on them (If only for about a month) and they got signed to Island records (Which was a pretty poor state of affairs as anyone who’s heard the ‘On Drugs’ album will testify). Still, their debut ‘Greatest Hits’ is one of the most influential on the scene, and no visit to the Electric Ballroom is complete without a blast of ‘15 Minutes Of Fame’.

Alright Lee, own up, where have you hidden Duncan? Is it me or does it look like Lee's sticking two fingers up at the audience in this photo?

For the best part of a week, rumours have been circling the net that this gig is going to be a complete farce, as Duncan isn’t planning to appear onstage. However, it looks like this must be a pretty flat argument as both Lee and Duncan can be seen at the bar prior to the start of the SOD set. Well after ten minutes of Lee pointing his tattooed arms in the air like a satanic Fatboy Slim before a backdrop of old film footage, it’s pretty obvious that the rumourmongers would appear to be correct.

All we’re getting tonight is Lee playing a DJ set of remixed SOD tracks, all of them from album number one. There’s a microphone in front of Lee, but all we’re getting in terms of vocals is a tape of Duncan singing.

a/ Lee (without Duncan) performing as SOD, singing vocals with a new backing band.

b/ Lee performing a DJ set that’s promoted as such, NOT the ‘reunion’ that’s advertised on the tickets.

But what we have tonight is a complete abomination of the great come back so many were waiting for. Where’s the horror? Where’s the showmanship? Hell, WHERE’S THE BAND?

For ten seconds it actually looks like we might get something. Duncan actually walks on stage during a second play of ‘15 Minutes of Fame’, but he doesn’t even bother to mime to his taped vocals, he just puffs away on his cigarette, obviously thinking about how much cash he’s suckered out of the crowd tonight. Stranger still, most of the crowd doesn’t seem to have actually noticed Duncan’s absence. Most are so young that they were probably listening to Take That during SOD’s prime (and that’s probably just the boys!) so they no doubt haven’t a clue what Sheep On Drugs were all about. Then again, perhaps we could blame this lack of awareness on the drugs that are so popular amongst the contemporary cyber Goth crowd, perhaps a warning greater than any issued by Zammo from Grange Hill!

I know that the band’s fans would like them to be seen as great post modernists/ironists etc, and would cite that this would be a prime example of SOD taking their creative life to it’s definitive avant garde conclusion. However, there’s no art in commercial suicide. This is a complete PISS TAKE of an order greater than Roi and Bruce’s genital activities earlier. I spend half my time complaining about how badly attended most underground gigs are in London, and as soon as a major band such as SOD put one on that's a sell out, they ruin it for everybody else who’s struggling to get noticed by putting on such a pathetic performance as this.

Well thanks Lee and Duncan, for soiling the great memories of ten years ago. Tonight’s ‘show’ had to be the biggest disappointment I’ve endured since the first time I saw ‘The Phantom Menace’, all I can say is one thing - Long live the good ship Mechanical Cabaret and all the semen that sail within her. Yes, that was spelt right back there!