"ba unf ba unf ba um uuuu"*
For a day to be remembered it usually has to be a day of disaster. Monday 30th of January was not one, so it will probably be forgotten. Except that is by a few people who were in the WOMB at the tiny country club in Wittering. Who were witness to a savage and malicious execution of Rock and Roll and all its pretentions. The people viciously beating the pulp out of the pap were the Metal Doughnut Band.
The majority of people have forgotten the lesson Punk taught us (just turn your radio on before ten o'clock). The doughnut's haven't, they're fighting back. In fact they're a lot closer to the original spirit than a lot of the new so-called punk groups which are just rehashes of now old ideas.
The Doughnuts have smashed down the accepted music standards and created something new and dangerously exciting. Their music is pure aggression, pure beauty, pure ugliness, pure love, pure hate. Its emotion has not been diluted by being confined to verses, chorus 4:4 time etc, just because that's the way it has always been done.
The music becomes acceptable by throwing out reference points, a familiar rhythm from the drums, a sweet sound from the saxophone or a comforting organ noise on the backing tape. These lull our stupid brains into security which is when you become caught. You are suddenly trapped by a hypnotic metallic rhythm and slowly sucked into a maelstrom of noise which is pure emotion. Which, in our plastic world, we are accustomed to rejecting, to when we come face to face with it, it can't help but provoke some sort of reaction.
I think it would be wrong to differentiate between the "songs" as I get the feeling the performance was meant to be taken as one piece of music. Although, hypocritically, the last two pieces stuck out. The penultimate being "Out Damn Spot", I think which is the most "commercial" of all the things they played. It could even become quite catchy on repetition. And the last one "imminent", because of its fantastic orgasmic climax.
They played for about forty minutes which seemed about right and anyway beating metal for that amount of time had left three naked men obviously physically exhausted. So pleading for more seemed inappropriate and unfair. They had left me feeling exhausted, excited and full of hope.
The band had given us their all. They are complete honesty (as their nudity displays).
The Metal Doughnut Band cannot be ignored because, whether it be hate or love, they provoke reaction and emotion.
"ba umf ba umf ba umf uuu"
* Quote from "Karawane" by Hugo Ball written in 1917 (I think)
AMOS ZAMORSKI
Review in Printhead magazine, pg. 10/11, March 1984.
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