There’s a website – Gigwise – that was just
starting out when I found myself in Liverpool in 2000. It was and still is a
mix of reviews, news, internetty stuff: largely a local music focus with an increasing
amount of touring acts covered. It was started by Andy Day, Mike Davidson and I
think a dude called Simon doing the programming.
I think it’s fair to say that at least at the
outset it was finding its audience, which was the Liverpool music scene of that
generation. That would be bands like Iconoclast, the Inner City Sumo bands like
Flamingo 50, etc, Ji, and loads of other Merseyside acts looking themselves to
bloom and spread their wings, which is a good trick if you can do both cause it’d
make you a flying flower. I remember accessing the site on dial-up in Jon Hall’s
house, to his chagrin because he was paying 1p a minute for it and it was well
slow. The reason I was doing it was that I was – like loads of others –
addicted to the forum.
Forum fuck's sake
The Gigwise Forum, to gig-goers of the time, was one of
the funniest places to be. It was full of in-jokes (‘What is punk’ was a
recurring thread, as was the consequential, ‘Is this site on some sort of a loop?’
as it was in the way of these things essentially self-referential.) Through the
site and the boards, though, people would actually meet up in real life: there
were loads of friendships made/strengthened, bands created or members invited
(I once auditioned for Iconoclast as a bassist, which was a terrible fit and
never went anywhere) and generally the forums served as a real meeting point
for the community. It was excellent. You’d go on there and people would be
pitching in on all sorts of subjects; veering off-post was pretty much
guaranteed.
Amongst some of the regulars were Moly, who was
I think an Iconoclast dude. I do remember him starting a thread
called ‘I drew an ace’ after he had a shit and didn’t need to wipe afterwards.
Kearnsy, who was always sending letters to parking officers etc claiming that
he was ‘a legal fiction’ and as he didn’t exist, he didn’t have to pay. He was
also a music maker into da bass and electronica. There was also Jules from
Liquidation, invicta Hi-fi label etc, who would take on various personas and
once he’d reached 5,000 posts abandoned them and started a new one.
Gobbledegook, I think, was one of his [Edit: It was Chockablock. Close though eh.].
Chief amongst them was the wonderfully gnomic
Shiny Phantom Pearl, who’d write in CAPITALS and format his submissions
carefully, each one a pronouncement of situationist art as much as it was
engaging with the thread. I wish I had some archived but sadly they’re all gone
to the ether. But he’d come on in a thread about, say, The Maybes? And proceed
to slander and single out individuals for their perceived lack of vision,
foresight, talent, musical emotion. These pronouncements often did actually
skewer people extremely accurately and Shiny was both loved and hated for it.
It was silly to argue with him because he was simply there to tell you stuff,
not discuss it. In that sense, he prefigured all the below the article
commentators of the present day: I AM ANGRY AND I WANT TO TELL YOU I AM ANGRY
(what about? It doesn’t matter. Facts? They don’t matter either.)
Gout-ridden swami
So Shiny was like this gout-ridden swami
somewhere halfway up a mountain, eating stardust and casting his furious gaze
over the minions of the Liverpool music scene day after day, and day after day
lasering into Gigwise forums to tell people that they were basically
inadequate, always missing the point, and furthermore he had 20,000 songs
written that would show the world exactly what was right, true and would blast
all this wannabe nonsense aside.
Inevitably, calls came for Shiny to show
himself. In the way of all gods, the challenge became in itself and of itself a
dynamic and iconoclastic response to his commandments sent from on
high. For a while, Shiny could deflect these by ignoring them entirely and
creating another wise and weird lightning bolt for his minions to consider. But
not forever.
Is this the real life?
And it was a Wednesday, and I was there. As
were (my memory says) about 20 others. Shiny’s band played: first or second
support so about 8pm at the latest. It was a disappointingly normal setup –
guitars, bass, drums. I think he might have been wearing a helmet; my mind plays
tricks.
What I did know is that it was a cacophony of
inadvertently Fall-like rough-edged post-punk that lasted about two songs
before first the guitarist walked off then Shiny himself raged offstage.
I’m both glad I saw it and sad it happened.
Better by far for Shiny to remain an untarnished, teasing pearl: well-named,
because at the root of the pearl is grit. A phantom, because he was both there
and absent. Shiny, well, because why the fuck not?
It knocked his pronouncements a bit. Now he’d
come down from the mountain and like the Wizard of Oz was shown to be mortal.
Less than mortal, in fact: wizened and out of touch. He continued to post, I
think, til the forums were knocked on the head in about 2007.
Irony: who is Shiny?
Fast forward a couple of years and the now
London-officed Gigwise has overtaken NME quite easily both in readership and
credibility.
I wonder what Shiny is up to now. And I also
wonder, truly, whether he existed at all or was the alter ego of Andy, or
Jules, or a collective and entirely virtual provocateur consciousness that
became self-aware after constantly indexing itself day after day, contemplating
punk and looping through itself, again and again, faster, faster and forever.
I don't want to know, either. Live long and prosper, you beautiful fucking lunatic.
Edit 2: Here is the gig in question. Fucking great line-up, too. I am pretty sure I had one hell of a time that night. Ace.
