Ive been in Milan, Italy for the past week, for the third Bats Over Milan festival. The lineup was a heavy hitting one with the luminary Fall, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Section 25, Chameleons (Vox), The Names, Frustration S.C.U.M. and LTD. I arrived a few days early, helped with the setup a little, and hung around Milan with the crew from Vienna, DJs Maldoror and the Crazy Hospital team, as well doing some looking around the streets and city and window-shopping in town, but eating was done mainly at the arguably best Pizza in Milan, Capatosta (near Porta Genova, Navigli Grande 56).
Friday, October 23
Friday was showtime and The Names wound up opening the show, which was better than the original plan while they were the softer band of the evening. I was curious about The Names, as they had never occupied much space in my record collection or DJ sets. As one of the early Factory bands they certainly were a point of interest with songs like ‘Nightshift’, ‘Postcards’, and ‘Calcutta’ as really amazing samples of post-punk putting Belgium on the map in that formative era. And this is precisely the feeling that they projected on stage tonight. A perfect segueway into a weekend of postpunk legends. The Names have been active from 1979 onto the 90s, and returning to the stage since 2007, with a new album this year to freshen up their set and sound quite well.
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry went on without delay, and this is the band I was most curious about. I knew this band as one of my favorite of the original gothic rock / british post-punk wave bands. Picking up their greatest hits album “Smashed Hits”, you cant go wrong – every single track is a masterpiece. With that in mind, how would they be now? The music was fantastic, they played that collection pretty faithfully with ‘Beating My Head’, ‘Generation’, ‘Hollow Eyes’ and ‘This Today’ and although they didnt really tear up the stage they were also a great revival band I would certainly recommend.
Capping off the opening night was Chameleons (Vox), the Vox being Mark Burgess and John Lever of the Chameleons playing Chameleons tunes with Levers’ new band Bushart. And at that they did a faithful job bringing tears to the eyes of more than a few romantics in the audience. The power of the Chameleons is undeniable, with an energetic and captivating show. Impossible to please everyones wish with such a comprehensive list of songs to his credit, Burgess and company included several gems like ‘Paper Tigers’, ‘Don’t Fall’ and ‘Second Skin’.
Saturday, October 24
Second Day of the festival started ungodly early. It wasn’t even sundown before the first guests started trickling in and LTD stepped on stage. LTD is Milan’s offering to the gothic post punk scene. As a relatively new band, they put on a good show with a nice full set. They are slower and more sinister style with elements of Joy Division meets Bauhaus. Its a cool group with some nice guys, so Im looking forward to more from them. They’ve already played for some impressive bands as an opener, as a kind of house-band of the Milan Decay organization, including support for UK Decay, Agent Orange, and another time Buzzcocks. That afternoon it was announced Frustration had missed their flights that morning and it was impossible to make it to Milan to play, cancelling their performance. I suggested that they should play a second set, because it was a bit unfair for them to play only to the first few early arrivals.
S.C.U.M. was next in the lineup, and this was a band with which I had no prior familiarity with, other than hearing the name around a few sites. They were loud and young unlike the other bands. S.C.U.M. seemed to be a little out of place. This is the band thats riding the coattails of the Horrors, because no one could mention them without including the Horrors in the same breath. While they don’t sound the same, they dont offer anything new. So this is the one band that was dissapointing. Having one of these ‘new thing’ bands play with the previous generations of english alternative bands was a good concept but S.C.U.M. is too new, too hype and too nothing ‘new’.
Section 25 was up next, and like the names, they brought that cold, post punk Factory sound back to the stage. Tribalistic drumming, driving bass rhythms, slices of chilly guitar, droning vocals and all. Like New Order would’ve been if they weren’t death by pop. Another excellent revival band, as they’ve been out playing for the past years again, with a fantastic new album “Nature + Degree” too boot. They had the audience dancing to their dark disco tunes like they always have and always should, even after we’re all dust, and I was glad to get to see a part of it.
Since Frustration wasn’t able to arrive in Italy, now there was an unnaturally long gap in the set, where there could’ve been either an Italian replacement or a second set from LTD, although I am now suspecting that The Fall simply took quite a while to set-up their stage, since the early start and late flights didn’t allow time for a sound-check, and they seemed to have some particular demands. Regardless, they took an hour to appear on stage. And when they did, they blasted everything away with their bombastic sound, and Mark E. Smiths legendary slathering beat poetry quasi-nonsense. Looking around suddenly, I realized that the hall was twice as full as before. With a band as legendary as The Fall, my guess is that some people really only came for the headliner. Obviously this was the biggest draw, I’m estimating more than half the audience wasn’t familiar with most of the bands outside The Fall. And this seems to be part of the strength of the MI-Decay events, is to bring these legendary punk and post-punk bands to Milan. For the festival goers who already knew all the acts its a fantastic opportunity to see them all gathered in one place. And on the other hand widens the perspective of the fans of the main acts.
The After Party
Friday after the bands finished, There was a little bit of DJing from the guest DJs. I had provided the DJing between the bands, so I didnt get to meet everyone I was looking forward to. But after the bands only one of the DJs, Gianfranco Condor got to spin but the venue insisted on closing with just an hour of dancing afterwards, so the other guests Dampyr and Retinal Mist didnt get to spin. But the Musicdrome Venue was poorly equipped for a real afterparty. In fact there were a lot of complaints to be made about the Musicdrome, from pre-poured draft beers, poor stage lighting, and an almost antagonistic attitude from the security. The sound staff were for the most part helpful, at least. But Musicdrome is not a place I would choose again.
The After Party
The main afterparty was on Saturday night at Milan’s best weekly gothic club, The Shelter. After a quick exit from Musicdrome (and a good riddance) everyone piled into cars and took off to Shelter, which is a good 45 minutes outside in the countryside of Milan, making it one of the more bizarre, as well as the best clubs. Resident DJs Alex Ascension and Black Radio, plus DJ Yggdrasil (PT), Maldoror (A), Mark Splatter (EU,LA,NY,??), and Gianfranco Condor were responsible for the console clusterfuck. Let me explain to you why the Shleter was a kind of bizarre club. Its the basement of a restaurant far outside Milan. The drinks are quite expensive, although wickedly strong. For the first half of the evening gothic gogo dancers. These barely dressed dancers were a gyrating, quasi-screen between the DJ booth and the dancefloor. My only complaint was that the strobelight was the only light effect that functioned. It got even stranger when the owner of the venue, the owner of the restaurant started cutting off monstrous slabs of pecorino cheese and bread at the bar for the customers. That was actually amazing and damn tasty, and if you know pecorino, it probably does the same as any salty bar snack. Smart tactics! I dont remember too much after that, when the lights came on, as if on cue, my brain and body stopped cooperating from all the Rum.

So, thanks to the MI-Decay crew for putting on such great bands, and organizing the third Bats Over Milan festival. I’m looking forward to next year and what bands they’ll put together. Although there were a lot of problems before during and after the entire production, they kept it together and I think everyone enjoyed the bands. If you’re interested in more of whats going on in the Italian post-punk music scene, I found this great blog article which mentions some bands I liked a lot on “This is the New Thing” like General Decay and Dance For Burgess.

http://www.myspace.com/redlorryyellowlorry
http://www.myspace.com/thenamesofficialwebsite
http://www.myspace.com/chameleonsvox

http://www.myspace.com/elletidi
http://www.myspace.com/scum1968
http://www.myspace.com/section25
http://www.myspace.com/reformationposttlc

This is it – the deadline for me to pay the server and registry is next week, September 15th. So this is my final push for raising about €200. In the past year i tried to raise that much but havent reached it yet. If it doesnt come in by then, the stream will go down. Hosting a radio stream is more expensive, due to storage of thousands of files, bandwidth consumed exceeds what a normal website requires. I put some of my own money in myself, but this year and especially the last 6 months I havent had a dime to spare.

So Everyone that can put in 1, 5, 10 or more (in € or $ doesnt matter), your support is greatly appreciated, not only by Radio Ghoul School but by all its listeners!

Donation hat here:
http://www.radioghoulschool.com/

Thanks to the Web Urbanist, another great contemporary artist comes to cross my table. This guy Owen Freeman has a dark, grimy street-level to sub-basement vision of Los Angeles. He’s no small-fry, as his client list is impressive, and maybe you’ve seen him in Novum magazine, as well. Gangsters, Monsters, and desolation seem to be his common theme.

http://www.owenfreeman.com/