ON paper, the Tolbooth's Le Weekend, three days and nights of sounds from the margins of modern music, looked like a venture deserving of a VC - especially in these days of arts funding uncertainty. But by the time Friday's second house went in, the organisers' faith seemed to have been justified.
(V)olume/(V)erses (m)ass, opened to what the dictionary of euphemisms would call a ''select'' audience. Seated facing their computer screens, sucking pils from a bottle, the pair interspersed programmed sounds and radio announcements with golden oldies and children's favourites.
Any given 10 minutes would have been diverting in a mid-1970s Faust kind of way, but the overall effect was like watching two laddies playing with their toys, or their tellies (a suspicion reinforced by a ghostly Coronation Street theme about 8 o'clock), although their exiting to Joe Cocker singing I've had the time of my life showed a nice sense of irony. Quite why Peter Blegvad remains at the margins is a mystery. Backed by fellow art rock survivors, the splendid John Greaves (bass guitar) and Chris Cutler (drums), the former Slapp Happy songsmith produced a consistently compelling set of fairly conventional guitar-based rock songs.
Granted, he has his own idiosyncratic world view. The idea of hard-bitten Texans empathising with the perils of poetry addiction may seem unlikely, but the tight arrangements and tough riffing put me in mind of an Austin bar band, albeit one that might be familiar with the Three Penny Opera.
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