Telepathy in The Midlands
The Groove Consortium & Mighty Fuzz’s Sonic Saturday discussed (gig photos by Gregory Muldoon).
After several years of being a crowd-side pundit, I finally managed to help put a Thee Telepaths gig on.
It's something I'd been keen on orchestrating for some time, but daddy-shackles and other life hindrances always persisted that I be left in the punter position rather than being able to hold my head up and say "I had something to do with the fact that all you audience people are left grinning and partially deaf".
Being a big romantic of gig aesthetics, I ended up spreading myself too thin on the night. I’d planned in my head that it would be great to see them do their show locally for the first time in ages; as well as cover the DJ duties and come out of 6-string retirement to assist the support act… Birmingham’s ever-excellent A Noble Ghost. It made total sense to book Mat Storer’s amplified guitar set alongside Thee Telepaths’ sonic cocktail, so I make no regrets. Mat was also accompanied by a cracking rhythm section in the form of The Anteloids’ Ben and Tom Jennings (who also book and decorate an unfathomable number of local rock shows). The Brothers-in-Anteloid, along with the Thee Telepaths' projections, helped to convert Rugby's West Indian Association into The UFO Club circa 1967.
This blog has regularly held testament to the fact that I’ve loved all of their releases; but the last two Thee Telepaths records have expertly represented their live show… and they ARE one of the most incendiary live acts in the UK.
And what a show they put on that night…
Thanks to their infinite set of filth knobs, Tom and Tim Telepath created a corrosive set of guitar sounds held equal to when Swell Maps locked themselves in their folks' Solihull garage for years-on-end in preparation to unleash their noise-craft.
Vocalist, Dean, was hitting either high-octave new-wave screams, or transmitting Mark E Smiths' socialist gig-poetry during the thumping ‘Apocalypse Blues’; perfectly assisted by Vinnie’s ‘Bill Ward’ tempo changes, or four-to-the-floor Yardbirds-izm during ‘White Thighs’.
The crowd were most entertained… be they out of town fan or local CV21 muso (with the potential to walk out if sonic mustard was not cut). Everyone stayed put and all were rightly slayed by the joyousness of the cosmic rock mayhem.
Don’t ever say there’s nothing to do in Rugby.