the ffr revue live in Glasgow

by Rob Hayler

Fencing Flatworm Recordings is a cdr/limited run vinyl label for experimental and electronic music. It is run by me, here in Leeds, and has been in existence for about a year. During that time I've gathered together what I think is a pretty special roster and made a lot of friends in and around the 'noise underground' through trades, sales, the net, fanzines, collaborations etc.

One of these new colleagues is John Wilson, who runs a smart electronica label called Mouthmoth and records under the names Frog Pocket and Ayr Unit. He puts on gigs in Glasgow and invited ffr to come and do a night at The 13th Note Café, King Street. We said: great, he set a date, and here our weekend away begins. The cast is: me (performing as midwich, truant), Cloughy (klunk, truant), Joe (klunk), Ed (klunk), Matt (random number), Graham (no energy), Jeremy (Straight Outta Mongolia) and Richard (the van owner/driver).

The weekend started badly with my partner Cath throwing a fit because she couldn't find her keys and had to leave for work. They turned out to be in my pocket. I was in trouble and it was lucky that I would soon be hundreds of miles away. I turned up a Matt's place to find him hungover and in his pants with us due to leave in fifteen minutes. Unimpressive. I was cheered up by Richard-the-van arriving with his big-ass white van. It has real salvaged airline seats in it - room for seven plus the driver and a hold for our stuff. Richard is a very laid back and enthusiastic guy too. I felt at ease. Joe and Ed of Klunk turned up and we shouted at Matt. Soon we were leaving and stopped in town to pick up the other three.

The journey was surprisingly enjoyable. The countryside, especially around the Cumbrian mountains, is spectacular. The autumn colours made it look like an earthy abstract painting. We saw remnants of the floods in some places but nothing that seemed really serious. There were some very elegant windfarms. Joe has a digital camera and took hundreds of pictures of everything. We had a bit of a smoke in the van and I handed around a hip-flask with vodka in it too. As we approached Glasgow we listened to a mental tape of hardcore rave music from 1992 which we all thought was hilarious. The MC was barking on over crazy hoover noises. It really brought us up and we parked near the venue in buoyant mood.

The 13th Note is a large, comfortable vegetarian café, bar and coffee house with a dinky gig venue room downstairs. The place is covered with flyers and the staff were all very helpful and friendly. We got free coffee and soft drinks all day and the beer was pretty cheap considering it was fancy Czech stuff. We were all very impressed. Joe said it was like being in Berlin. We stowed our gear then went to find fried mars bars but failed. Is it a myth? A few of us wandered around Glasgow for a while but the centre of town just looked like anywhere so we returned to the club.

John turned up a couple of drinks later and we set up downstairs. Despite some initial worries, it went smoothly and we all sounded pretty good. Hugh the sound guy was really excited and enthusiastic which makes the business of soundchecking a lot more bearable. After sorting this out, the klunks went to a gallery two doors down where, coincidentally, a friend from Leeds who had moved up North was having an opening. Small world, eh? Apparently there was a fantastic free bar. John and his friends spent all this time blowing up balloons and sticking them onto the back wall of the venue which looked really good and came in useful later...

The evening's music kind of started when I turned on my box-with-knobs on and started up a midwich-style bubble-drone. I left this running and wandered around the people who had turned up inviting them to go into the stage area and play with it. I stood at the bar and watched the audience play my set. Everyone thought this was funny and a couple of guys really got into it.

I shouted out a 'ladies and gentlemen' type announcement, because I like to be a bit of showman, and no energy's set kicked off. Graham had set up at the back of the room and played a noisy collage which was very involving and well thought out. It caught the attention of the punters who turned up during his set. Straight Outta Mongolia was next but disaster had struck for Jeremy. His laptop wasn't reliable enough to be trusted so he just played a CD, pretended to play Matt's kit and sang along with himself. It was all so fragile that everybody just fell in love with it/him. A girl said he was cute and asked me if we were forcing him to do it. That's how pained he looked! He did a cover version of 'Don't You Want Me?' by the Human League which brought the house down. A guy from a listings website went to take his picture and we laughed thinking Jeremy was going to get busted for pretending.Luckily, he wasn't.

Klunk were next and the three of them played a blinder. Just using mini-discs of found sounds and a mixer they created a properly abstract soundscape. Humming, clicks, throbs and other percussive noises from unknown sources all meshed together into a gradually more brutal piece which stretched on for half an hour. The best gig I have seen them play. Random Number tore shit up. After a slowish start Matt's broken beats, stabs and fucked-funk built into an epic set. His performance is always really physical and he puts on a show sorely lacking in most electronic music by really throwing himself into it. I was hammered by now, having been steadily drinking since two in the afternoon, and showed my appreciation with some wild 'interpretative' dancing.

The finale was suitably anarchic. Truant, me and Cloughy, stepped up to kick off the ffr-kestra. We spent about ten minutes bedding down a drone with Cloughy making some crazy wob-wobs on his korg synth before being joined by the rest of klunk and Graham. Hugh the sound guy was into it too and messed things up through the sound desk. I wanted to get everyone in the venue involved in the performance too so I started pulling balloons off the back wall and handing them out to the crowd. People squeaked them, bashed on them, rubbed them and sat them on their heads and, of course, popped them. Apparently you could feel the sound by holding a balloon tight with two hands. Eventually chaos reigned as we neared finishing and the crowd fell into a popping frenzy.

After settling up with John I discovered that we'd made almost enough to cover costs through door money and CD sales. In a great drunken mood I chatted to some of Diskono who had turned up and eventually got piled into the van back to where we were staying. Gayle Brogan of Boa Melody Bar label and distro was putting five of us up and we burst into her lovely flat and mucked about for a while before crashing. She assures me that we weren't too much trouble.

In the morning I felt ill but we all got up in time. Matt bought some records from Gayle and we piled everything back into the van. We met up with the Klunks, who had stayed with friends, back at the venue and started back. Comparing notes, it seemed like everyone had had a very good time and we are determined to go back again. The drive home was funny in a low-key kind of way. We stopped for greasy breakfast and to buy sweets and newspapers. I nearly bought Cath a key-ring with a haggis on it but, given how the weekend started, thought it might not be that amusing. We talked shit about what caused rainbows, our plans for world domination with ffr's new hardcore rave direction and took photos of windfarms.

This article also published in the November issue of Dddd fanzine - Marleys, Minstead, Hants, SO43 7FY.