The Quiet Road

I’m still feeling quite blown away by the Damo Suzuki and Makoto Kawabata set the other night, though as I’m seeing Billy Bragg tonight I suspect the radical shift in vibe will put me in a rather different headspace. So while I’m still in that spaced-out groove, I thought I’d put up a couple of videos for you lucky people. First up, something from Can. Trouble is, there’s a real dearth of decent footage of Damo Suzuki and Can out there. It goes without saying that a band this far from the mainstream didn’t make lots of slickly-produced music videos, and the live footage that exists tends to be mostly low quality, both sonically and visually. This might just give you a flavour of what they were about though…

Yes, the massive hair wearing a red jump suit is Damo.

And here’s a clip of Acid Mothers Temple playing live. Again, do bear in mind this is just a taster… something to give you an idea of what Makoto Kawabata’s guitar playing (as well as the rest of the band) is all about. If you’ve never been to see anything like this, then I need to emphasise that it’s all about being there. Experiencing it first hand. Anyways, there’s about a minute and a half of silence punctuated by spooky atmospherics. Then, at about 1:40 Makoto kicks in.

ROCK!