Faust, The Garage, Highbury 1996/7 (?)

London, the summer of 1996 and what were the hip kids listening to? Gene? Ed Rush 12"s? Add N to X? Fuck no! They were clutching hold of their copies of Julian Cope's 'Krautrocksampler' pocketbook with the enthusiasm and fervour a previous generation had held for Gadaffi's 'Green Book' and turning over provincial records shops across the land to try and score rare Popol Vuh and Amon Duul II LPs.


The previous year I'd picked up a copy of The Faust Tapes for the princely sum of a fiver from the record stall on St Albans market. I was drawn to the trippy Bridget Riley op-art cover and the fact it was only a fiver. Having fought in the hardcore trenches during the Progressive House wars of 1992 and despite occasionally attending the Megadog I was very much opposed to anything that smacked of hippy whimsy: I'd lost too many friends the previous years to Eat Static and The Drum Club. 'This better not sound like fucking 'Gong' I thought to myself as I carried the record home.


It's fair to say my ears didn't really have any point of reference for The Faust Tapes; the discordant electronics and abrupt edits sort of called to mind the weirder, more 'industrial' side of Hardcore and Euro Techno: Ilsa Gold, UR, all those mad Belgian hoover tunes, while the drums were propulsive and cold and full of a stone-cold uncategorisable hollow funk. Their voices chanted opaque poetry, their singing weird, mysterious and without ostentation; not a shred of wacky 'here come the pothead pixies' public school bollocks. And they had tunes. Being what I am, I became a bit obsessed.


So, fast forward to the following year, reading in the NME that MY BAND were actually playing in London, I had to score some tickets. 


Anyone who grew up in St Albans in the 80s and 90s will know what a happening place it was so I was unsurprised when - calling around my friends to see if anyone wanted to join me and have their mind blown this Thursday* night - my enthusiasm was met with blank disinterest. I guess it was a tough call to expect anyone to blow out the Aphex Twin and Squarepusher all nighter at the Philanthropist & Firkin or the secret Andy Weatherall show at the Horn of Plenty to take a punt on some hairy Germans that I was much too excited about playing down in London. I think EastEnders was getting exciting at that time too. I called my friend Pete - one of my favourite people in the world and someone who'd seen me solidly through many raving adventures and misadventures - and asked him if he'd be up for it. 


'So, what do they sound like'


'Oh, they're a Krautrock band'


<blank incomprehension>


'You know, kind of like rock music but with some electronics... sometimes a bit ambient... sortof like Kraftwerk... Stereolab...' I ventured


'Kind of ... Balearic?'


'Er yeah, kind of'


As we rolled up to Highbury Corner and clocked the queue we saw that smiley t-shirts and slip-on boat shoes were thin on the ground. Inside, the traditional music venue aroma of urinal-mint, lager and detergent was accompanied by an earthier undercurrent of cut grass and manure which we discovered as we made our way towards the front of the stage was wafting from a hay threshing machine in the middle of the dancefloor. The venue was also, unusually, draped from ceiling to floor with enormous sheets of hessian cloth, dividing the room into more intimate, shifting groups and creating an eerie sense of spatial dislocation. As we reached the metal barrier at the front and surveyed the array of industrial detritus, farmyard machinery, arcwelding gear, cement mixer and double-necked guitar on stage I was worried - apparently unnecessarily - that Pete would be wondering what the fuck I'd dragged him to. He was entirely unfazed, gazing at the incipient spectacle with wide-eyed anticipation.


Embodying the spirit of generation '68 - Sous les paves la plage! - the band took to the stage: girl with arcwelding gear and metal sculpture at stage front; enormous bald dude towards the back behind the floor-tom and suspended sheet of metal; hairy guy with twin-necked guitar nearest us, beside a tree trunk and an enormous steel chest. Bricks, concrete and wood got thrown into the miked-up cement mixer a chonka-chonk-chonk; sparks arced across the front rows of the audience screeeee screeeee; Zappi, the friendly giant with the metal sheet and floor tom pounded out a metronomic pulse from the centre of the earth and hairy dude - Jean Herve - plucked out the most sublime bucolic beauty and the heaviest, grottiest licks that Tony Iommi or Ron Asheton only could have dreamed of from his twin-necked axe. 


Pete, occasionally prone to narcolepsy, had nodded off with all the excitement and was resting his head on the enormous metal chest that the band had thoughtfully left in front of where we were standing. Looking to the stage, I noticed that hairy Jean-Herve had lifted the tree trunk over his head and the look in his eyes told me that he was ready to bring it down upon the enormous metal chest whether my friend's head was blocking its way or not. With seconds to spare, Pete woke from his slumber to witness the frenzied soixant-huitard pummel an echo from the bowels of his soul from the metal barrel, before stripping off, covering himself in paint and launching himself at a wall of white-record sleeves, soon to be sold from the merchandise stall.


At what we assumed to be the end of the show as the band descended into a pastoral and ambient number that may or may not have been 'Jennifer' from Faust IV or 'Flashback Caruso' from my beloved Faust Tapes, the hay threshing machine in the middle of the venue was switched on, sending a flurry of leaves, grass and dry manure coursing through the surreal pastoral/industrial atmosphere and we left into the cold Highbury air. Apparently, we found out later, we missed Jean-Herve clearing the venue in what was, unbeknownst to us, his customary manner by letting off a smoke grenade.


Lucky for me, I got to witness Faust several more times and their music and theatrics never ever felt like it had become codified or predictable, even if I knew after the third time not to stick around for their encore.

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