Toy In Concert 17/6/2014
by Nick the Bookman

Well, another dream gig to attend. I've been waiting about two years to see Toy come to HK. I think I made a mention in my Clockenflap 2012 Review. First got into them after reading a splendid concert review in MOJO Magazine. They were the opening act for, and sort of proteges of, The Horrors and the review pushed all my twisted prog/psyche/rock buttons. The first release, eponymously called Toy, is a keeper. Haven't heard any of the new release yet, but chances are good that will change during their HK debut concert.

So, it's another trek to Kowloon Bay and the KITEC Music Zone. A big shout of approval and acclaim for Kinnie who has assured me that I'll have no problem getting in. You're a star, Kinnie. And ably supported by Bryce behind the ticket desk. I recognise a few familiar faces, Hi, Lisa and Barbara. Hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did/do/will.

Don't you think we need new tenses to adequately explain the All Is One concept of the SpaceTimeContinuum that we inhabit? At least for the next 100 trillion years which at a conservative guess is the running time from Big Bang to Heat Death of our Universe>Milky Way Galaxy>local Solar System. The demise of Black Holes, subsumed into dark energy. Our STC is about 13.8 billion years old and expanding/contracting at various speeds of evolution/deconstruction. So, there's still plenty of time to find answers. On the cosmic scale. On the planetary scale, we've had about 7 million years of mutating species of home sapiens and we now seem to be heading blindly down the One Way Street to Dead End Gulch. Unrestricted and unconstrained population pressure is gonna fuck us all up BIG TIME. The end of another disastrous experiment in "civilization". Well, so says Private Eye every now and then.

And what does all this have to do with Toy and their awesome Norwegian opening act HIGHASAKITE.? Not much except both bands have a lysergic cum kosmisch cum progorch take on music. Free flowing. Mind expanding and well, here we are thinking Deep Thoughts. It's a rather sparse audience. About 200-ish or so I would guess. These two bands deserved more. Have caught up with Drummer Paul from DP who's been middlemanning the two bands. Says they're all real nice folk and the show is worthy of our attendance.

I've failed dismally here in not being able to get even the rawest material about HIGHASAKITE. I believe they've released one album. Name unknown. I know there are two ladies, one brunette and one blonde and three husky blokes in the band. I don't know their names because I'm unable to surf the web and find out these things. 20th Century Technofear? Not really. More a realisation that I'm about a year down at the base of the steep learning curve that 3 to 4 year olds manoeuvre with aplomb. Not all that interested in most of the Interweb. I can write my stories as that's just a muscle memory for me now. And what with about 3,000 books and an equal number of DVDs/CDs at home, I'm not starved of infotainment.

The late Dr. Gonzo used to say that he was just about able to slide under the wire of reprehensible behaviour when he wrote/composed/imagined the novella that would become "Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas". You can't pull that sort of shit these days. Except you probably can if you're a big enough "whale" in Las Vegas and can pay handsomely for your misdeeds to remain undetected. Money still talks and bullshit still walks. Just see The White House/Senate-Congress, 10 Downing Street/Parliament, EEC HQ, The Kremlin, Beijing, The Middle East oilarchies, Africa, Financial Centres and shit this is depressing me.

Anyway, the opening act. I tried describing them to Kinnie and Justin as what I was told was a mix of AHA and Sigur Ros. Sort of agreement from both. Justin said they were the best group he saw at Austin's South by SouthWest festival. Having heard their blend of vox/keyboards and synths/drums/guitar and occasional French horn, I concur. This is a band who are more Sigur Ros in the haunting unearthly tonal melodies and a bravado mixture of Dead Can Dance in their global progadelic meets orchestral compositions. They'd fit on the 4AD label, no sweat. Kinnie, if you have any copies of their CD available, I'll buy one for sure, yah. (Go! Fargo!)

Toy are on now. From stage left to right, the quintet are Dominic O'Dair on lead guitars. Tom Dougall on secondary guitars and lead vocals. Charlie Salvidge on relentless speedy thunder drums. Maxim Barron on bass and co-vocals. Finally, the bewitching Alejandra Diez on vintage synths and keyboards. Dom and Tom appear to have had haircuts since the earliest photos I've seen of them. The other three are hairy exemplar/avatars from the 'highest" point of the late Sixties/early Seventies. They all seem to be playing at different speeds and tempos to each other. Locked in a sonic goldfish bowl of white noise/pulses/throbbing menace. Kosmic Keyboards, channeling Kraftwerk and Can and Neu. The hubbub is omni-directional like the inbetween channel static on your tv channels which is the whispery remnants of the Big Bang. Cosmic debris as the late Frank Zappa would have it.

Although they all seem to barrelling down the sonic superhighway at odds with each other, they aren't. There's a gestalt to this group born of relentless touring and fine tuned practise and performance. They might not be in three-guitar lockstep like Lynyrd Skynyrd on "Free Bird" free-flight. Or The Allman Brothers at The Fillmore. Effect is more than cause in this case. And while their patrons, The Horrors, use a more feedback/drone channel of erupting sound at times. Ditto The Stone Roses when they played Fool's Gold in HK. Ditto the now retired Sonic Youth. Toy are more ambient heavy rather than the crushing weight of heavyosity that pervades the other groups.

The only song titles I remember were "Kopter" and "Heart Skips A Beat", while other tunes seemed familiar. I spent most of the set three rows back from Alejandra's keyboards. Gurning like a loon and occasionally remembering to jot some notes down. Time to introduce Jeremy and Sam who are dancing fools and snap heavy photographers. Enjoying the vibe. They got some photos of all of us three with the band in the background. Hopefully, they'll arrive on the Lamma Site at some point.

And that's about it. Shows over by 2300 hours. Lisa, Barbara and I share a cab back to Central. Just miss the 2330 ferry. Plenty of time for the next one. Everyone's pumped and raving. Another fine pair of performances. Another satiosfagtory (I meant to type satisfactory). See how keyboard fatigue is setting in. That's the cue to end this review. Until the next time... ntb

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