Faith And The Muse
The Beauty Of Gemina
RazorBladeKisses
Bull & Gate, London
Sunday October 14 2007

The Bull & Gate is London's quintessential back-room-of-a-pub indie venue. Over the years this unpretentious old boozer has been the birthing pool for many indie heroes who went on to bigger things. Manic Street Preachers, Pop Will Eat Itself, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, Coldplay - they all took their first faltering steps on the Bull & Gate's stage. (In Coldplay's case, I rather wish they'd fallen off).

The venue certainly has its limitations - it is inescapably a room, not a hall, not a club: a room - but the musical history of the UK would be very different if the Bull & Gate had never existed. We are present, ladies and gentlemen, at the very incubator of indie.

So, given the venue's reputation as the place to catch the fresh-faced indie stars of tomorrow, this gig must count as a bit of an odd one. Tonight, the Bull And Gate is playing host to a bunch of old goths.

Faith And The Muse probably won't appreciate that blunt description, but I plead simple accuracy, your honour. Compared to the neophyte indie outfits we usually see here, as a band they're substantially older, with several albums in their catalogue and an extensive international touring history to their name. On their previous London visits, they've played down the street at the somewhat larger Underworld. Now, I'll grant you that the Underworld is not the Enormodome, but it's not the Bull & Gate, either. When a band's venues start shrinking, there's only one thing to be thinking. Have Faith And The Muse scaled as much of a peak as they're ever going to climb in the UK? Is this is the start of the descent?

It could've been different. I have always maintained that if the band had included our awkward little island on the two European tours that followed their first UK appearance back in 1998, they could have built on the initial momentum, gained a substantial fanbase, and eventually scored some real success. By now they could've been playing gigs at the next level up, at such venues as the Astoria 2 or Islington Academy (The Birthday Massacre, incidentally, have recently come up via exactly this route, thus providing a neat example of how it works).

But Faith And The Muse stayed away. The momentum and the fanbase never had a chance to build. And here we are at the Bull & Gate.

Having said all that, the venue is packed to sell out point with eager punters, and there's a certain feeling of anticipation in the air. There's also some loping trip-rock in the air, courtesy of RazorBladeKisses, doing their elegant gothic Lolita meets Fleetwood Mac thing.

Did I just mention Fleetwood Mac? Yes, I believe I did, and no, I haven't taken leave of my senses. RazorBladeKisses seem to have polished up their sound, to the point where you could almost imagine them tripping lightly through 'Don't Start Thinking About Tomorrow', or other such golden classics of seventies soft rock. The new wave inflections that previously ran through their racket like scratches on an old piece of cine film have been smoothed into something that sounds dangerously close to AOR.

Possibly this is the influence of Jacqui Taylor, the band's new guitarist - I see from her MySpace profile (now who says I don't do research!) that her fave artists run from Lynyrd Synyrd to Lenny Kravitz, taking in a veritable Old Grey Whistle Test's worth of rock worthies along the way. She could be the factor that has added a certain measured muso quality to the otherwise sharp and punchy RazorBladeKisses sound.

While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, or even shockingly out of character - it's not like the band sounded like The Exploited in the first place, you understand - I do miss a certain scratch and bite to the RBK aesthetic tonight, compared to the last time I caught them at a gig. But the twin vocalists, all flounces and wide eyes, like two Alices in search of a looking glass, provide the focus and the identity of the band. Their moves - whether impromptu or rehearsed, I can't tell which - are an endless physical conversation, every bob and pout and turn lending focus to the performance and charm to the band. They are the element that makes it all work: I just hope they haven't forgotten to take their punk rock pills.

On their recent album, The Beauty Of Gemina make a neo-Numanoid brand of techno-rock, all darkly pounding beats and rumbling vocals. On stage, The Beauty Of Gemina turn out to be a four-square rock band, with a far more straightforward sound. Flanked by a guitarist, who runs through an interesting variety of rockin' poses, and a bassplayer who has clearly opened the stagecraft instruction book at 'How To Loom Menacingly', main man Michael Sele (in the studio he's the only man) stands at the mic like an entry-level Billy Idol, all tousled blond hair and fuck-you leather. He's got the look, but his presence is oddly downbeat and unassertive, as he delivers the vocals in a gothy-rocky growl.

The Beauty Of Gemina (and no, we're never told who the mysterious Gemina might be) give us a rock 'n' roll grind that's effective enough without ever asserting any particular identity. That's a surprise in a way, because the studio version of this band has a far more of its own individuality. Perhaps the band members forgot to put their canisters of individuality juice in their suitcase when they packed for the trip over from Switzerland. In the end, I'm afraid The Beauty Of Gemina fall into the dreaded lukewarm category of 'good at what they do without being particularly outstanding', and if that sounds like a classic case of damning with faint praise, that's because it is.

Tonight's gig represents the end of Faith And The Muse's European acoustic tour, an escapade intended to raise money for William Faith and Monica Richards' Ars Terra project - an animal sanctury-cum-organic farm in California, somewhat akin to a cross between our own Centre for Alternative Technology at Machynlleth, and the anarcho-punk farmhouse commune in Essex where Crass once lived.

In a way, then, the project prepresents a new flowering of an old idea, even if the publicity blurb makes it sound like William and Monica are the only ones making a stand against the consume-and-pollute lifestyles of the western world. But it's certainly a worthwhile plan, and probably very necessary in California, a state governed by a Hummer-driving Republican who, incredibly, is generally regarded as one of the more green-tinged American politicians.

There's clearly plenty of ground to make up here, and while the name Ars Terra might sound like an entry in Roger's Profanisaurus ('Cor, I must've had a bad pint last night. Been pebbledashing the chodbin all morning - did I have the arse terror or what!') I'm sure the Americans will be far too innocent to make any risqué plays on the name.

So, on stage, William and Monica themselves - just the two of them, no band, for this acoustic performance. Maybe I should say neo-acoustic: William Faith is toting his habitual electric guitar, which has simply been run through an effect that transforms his usual electrified sturm und drang into a mellow strum and twang. He's also toting a somewhat less habitual towering mohawk, a hairstyle that lends a vital few inches to his height and ensures he remains visible on stage even though he plays from a seated position throughout.

It's therefore Monica who has to carry the show, and it says much for the music of Faith And The Muse - and indeed for Monica's own strength of character - that at no point do the proceedings seem undercooked or underwhelming. Quite the reverse: there's a quietly powerful presence to this minimalist version of the band, and even Faith And The Muse's blockbuster anthems pack a punch in their stripped-down incarnations. 'Sparks' - a swirl of guitars and tumbling rhythms in its original version - is here ruthlessly cut back to an angular, spiky threnody, part Eliza Carthy, part PJ Harvey.

And in that, perhaps, we have the essential point about Faith And the Muse. While they might at times come across like hippyish folkies (or indeed folkyish hippies) their inner punk rockness is never too far beneath the surface, and that always serves to give their music an underlying, implacable strength, whatever the arrangements might be.

Faith And The Muse are probably the only band which could cover songs by Kate Bush and Conflict - and indeed they do, and make it all sound seamless and natural. The crowd is swept along by the experience, and if the band had any lingering reservations about the wisdom of playing an acoustic show in punky old England, those doubts must be entirely dispelled by the applause-storms that break out after every number.

It's good to have Faith And the Muse back in town, even if it is only briefly, acoustically, and at the Bull & Gate. I hope they'll be back again, and (in a distinct break with the band's usual policy regarding the UK) without allowing years to pass before their next visit.

And yet, and yet. The Ars Terra project suggests that William and Monica have other priorities now, other paths to follow. Are they planing to retire from the hurly-burly of rock 'n' roll, and strike out in a new direction? I wish them well, but if this gig turns out to be the band's farewell performance before embarking on a new career in organic ranching, that'll be quite a shame.

Faith And The Muse: Website | MySpace
The Beauty Of Gemina: Website | MySpace
RazorBladeKisses: Website | MySpace

Ars Terra: Website | MySpace
The Bull & Gate: Website | MySpace

For more photos from this gig, find the bands by name here.