ARCHIVE GIG – Dirty Words / Green Minge @ Bar Blu, Rhyl

(Review n pix by Neil Crud)
Ha ha – Blood & Lipstick promoter, post-punk DJ and coke-by-the-pint drinker Steve Rastin, whipped the rug from under the Green Minge (pic below) live debut after 20 minutes, stating it was a Broken Pavement moment – see review from 2004.

Yes it certainly was a Broken Pavement moment and for 20 minutes, the wonderfully named Green Minge kept the masses bemused, amused, unamused, ashamed and aghast. Any longer and I’m sure one (or all) of the band would’ve got bottled, but for those 20 minutes it was a mindless, yobbish and ridiculous spectacle to remember!
There was a hippy band called Exit in the early 70s who used to have a fluid line-up on stage, where people would join or leave the band during the set and just improvise. This was similar, but without the improvisation!
The opening song (that is a very loose term – maybe ‘piece’ would be better) had the drummer texting someone on his mobile rather than play – again, I say drummer, but I don’t think he actually played anything, instead choosing to get up, walk around the stage, drinking and then joining in on the microphones before a ‘guest drummer’ appeared. This led to a song of sorts, like the Butthole Surfers – a triple bad acid tripped out Butthole Surfers. It may turn out to be as legendary as the aforementioned Pavement performance, like the Old Dolphin Brigade at christmas. Hmmmm…

Apologies to the excellent Micrographia and Schismatic, but being such a hard working twat, sleep beckoned me so I could be up at some ungodly hour on a snow filled morning.
I can tell you that Micrographia will have been absolutely superb and a good source tells me that Schismatic were very, very good.

Dirty Words (top pic) prove there is more to Llanberis than grey mountains, inbreeding and rain. There is a also a well rehearsed, tight band with an excellent drummer. The music isn’t as ground breaking as it would’ve been, say 5 years ago, but these type of punk bands tend to do the rounds then discover diversity after a year or so. I’ll link this review to see the difference next year…!
Of the night, promoter Steve Rastin said, ‘You think I’m capable of coherent thought after Green Minge?! Schismatic got the best reaction of the night because oddly enough quite a few of Blu’s metal fans really got into them.
The mixture of aggressive vocals, thundering bass and laptop generated drums n FX reminded me a bit of PSST and the current upsurge of interest in Mancunian
post-punk means that they could be just in the right place at the right time.
Micrographia, decked out in matching Bernard Matthews-style white jackets were enjoyed by their travel-to support but went a bit over the heads of the
mainstream punters.
It underlined the fact that they are a band who will always work better when they’re in the middle of a bill rather than toplining and I still think they’re the most hypnotically brilliant entity on the North Wales coast.
Just a reminder that this week’s show is on Tuesday rather than Wednesday – Iris have pulled out so we’ve got Drop Dead Pornstars in their place alongside Bite and Entity.
I don’t know whether you caught Entity first time around but as far as brutal metal goes they are hard to top.’

Dave McCann of Micrographia had his own take on the evening, ‘Blu goes green… Andy is a bastard. Last night my good nature was taken advantage of, and now my poor old back has paid the price. Andy – your amp weighs a ton at 3 in the morning up 4 flights of stairs.
Luckily the pain plasters over many of the memories of last night. After waking up this morning I felt the compulsory ignorance; that blissful half hour when all you thought you did was go to the pub …but which pub? Oh fuck….errr….Rhyl? What was I doing in Rhyl? My ears are ringing……oh…….We played a gig didn’t we……

‘I remember being 15; fun was moshing to thrash bands at the Hop Pole, or drinking White Lightning in fields and crashing parties in posh cul-de-sacs. Gone are the days when one had to try really hard to shed that teenage angst. One had to be inventive, stand up and be a cut above the rest. Supply and demand, privatisation and healthy western competition. THATS what being 15 and drunk was about.

‘No longer. Emo is purchasable in almost every town and city in the country. Its possible now to pay for your angst, and shed it with a sly haircut and eyeliner. No more White Lightning, or classy Carling. In its place is something blue. Luminescent in the subtle UV lighting, the shadows of countless geometrically marvellous objects protruding from the earlobes of gyrating minors playing across its surface. One can only imagine what ambrosia is held in those fantastic, alien bottles. What wonders have these children seen? What pandora’s box will Green Minge open for us?

‘The only real way I can explain how Green Minge and their entourage of lary phunts made me feel is treading in fox shit. Although noticable when your dog rolls ecstatically in its fetour, its clandestine intrusion into your house, carried in by your own stupid self, is much more difficult to notice. The smell is utterly vile. A sweet, meaty yet totally noisome odour. How can something so small mount such an olfactory assault on your senses? Your eyes water. Partly from the smell, partly because you realise it was your own stupid fault you’re in this mess. You could have taken your shoes off before you came into the house. You could have not gone to the park altogether. The humour of it is simple – “laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone”. What the hell eh? It’s just shit after all!

‘NO. no no NO. It’s not funny. That TURD originated in a scabies-ridden fox’s lower intestine. A dark, warm, fetid lair where only fox shit dares to roam. Befriended only by tapeworms, fox shit is the most vile and utterly avoidable substance you could have brought home on the bottom of your shoe. And in the case of Green Minge you actually paid for the privilege. What can you do? The fox turd doesn’t care; you can’t insult it, it listens to shit music and it drinks fizzy raspberry for fun and giggles. The only thing you can do is walk outside, find the hardest, most abrasive paving slab on the pavement, and stamp that terrible mess into the ashphalt. Fox hunting is essential. If you see the fox that laid that log again, shoot the fuck. It can’t do what it did last night ever again if its rotting.

‘Drink makes everything better. Dirty Words made things better too. Whether it was because the night had been ruined by the gay dance troupe on stage before hand I’ll never know, but Dirty Words really were alright. Top trumps for trying that hard, for such a young band thay made a much bigger noise. All the best to them. Here here!

‘When I heard Schismatic on soundcheck, the idea of headlining no longer sounded feasible. I felt totally robbed when I realised I wasn’t going to be able to pickle myself to their beat, and that is if I danced TOO hard I would probably collapse by the time i had to play. Schismatic truly are a militantly tight operation. Vocals, bass, and a laptop/keyboard. They played what sounded like the same song for the whole set, but WHAT A SONG. Dive-bombing breaks, synth that Midge Ure would be proud of and relentless, thrashing vocals. Big Black and Ministry. It was an honour to play alongside them, and I hope we shall again soon.’