The Mekano Set

What's that film with Christopher Walken in it? You know the one - it's about 'experiments' with the brain? Recording stuff... and he plays back his friend's recording of her last moments of life... yeah, you know... Brainstorm? Really fancy watching that now...

It's been a busy couple of weeks. I've been 'taken to task' in some really encouraging ways. I can see that I don't have a balance between enjoying myself and taking responsibility for the music, the kit, etc. People seem to know when I'm taking myself too seriously, and not seriously enough, and I really appreciate that.

And so to the subject of the last PMS night. It all went swimmingly but I am a little disappointed that I didn't get to be the doorman for a bit this time. Damn. Thank you all for coming anyway!




I've got some gluten-free double chocolate loaf cake in the fridge for later. Got me headphones on. Got a bit of draft coming at me from the window hang on I'm gonna fix that... OK, right.

So last wednesday me, Garfield, Big Kev, Rock and Roll Sweatbox and PLEASE MAKE SENSE took over Engine Room Club down near the sea here in Brighton.

If you haven't already, pop down to Engine Room and see some local live bands. It only ever costs a few quid and there's always at least one act on that I guarantee you'll be talking about the morning after.

The Cylons turned out to be The Cylon, as they'd been reduced to one member for the evening following some 'domestic stuff'. But that Cylon kicked out the jams regardless, and hopefully had a good time in the process. I want to hear that stuff again - some nice programming / live bass grooves. Right up my street. Would love to hear it with the right vocalist.

Then we were on, and we did a completely new set of songs. As some of you may have noticed, our sets have been getting shorter and shorter recently. Why? Dunno.

I guess it is a little bit of a reaction to how bands tend to go the opposite way most of the time. This time we wanted to keep things fresh by freshening things up. With new songs. We've got a lot of them. Next time will hopefully be the best of the fresh, and the best of the vintage.



Our guest muso for the evening was none other than Nigel {which believe it or not, still really is his name!}. Some of you will of course remember Nigel as 'Nigel', who played guitar and recorder and synth with Mekano Set in the 'early days'. He is responsible for the beautifully mental melody-noise-thing on Reel to Real amongst other things.

It's always a pleasure to play with 'Nige', as we call him - he's remained an excellent drinking chum and also an excellent musician. I hope he enjoys the challenge of what must be a very restrictive process for him: having to work with people who think using chords are 'cheating', conventional song structures are 'there to be dismantled' and 'less is very much more'.






The scent of Pernod was in the air. Or was it Absinthe? The Flesh Happening were as charming, freewheeling and as fun as ever. What else can I say - you really had to be there. And I think that's one thing we have in common with The Flesh - people only seem to really 'get it' when they see it 'in the flesh'.




Thanks for the lovely pressies and stuff too! Exciting news to follow...

The Mekano Set

www.pleasemakesense.com

www.rockandrollsweatbox.co.uk

www.thefleshhappening.com