ARTIST: Trippy Wicked and the Cosmic Children of the Knight
SUPPORT: Wake of Myetsa, Latitude, Self Inflicted
VENUE, TOWN: The Horn Reborn, St.Albans
DATE: 03 December 2009
RATING: 5/5
FIVE WORD REVIEW: Titillating, inseminating, gyrating, dizzying, defibrillating
MAIN REVIEW: A jocular vibe pervaded over a table of beers in The Horn Reborn where Trippy Wicked and the Cosmic Children of the Knight were soon due on stage. Dialogue was riddled with cheeky ambiguity and as a consequence I was uncertain of what to expect. The self-described D.I.Y, sexy, sleazy, stoner, doom Blues Band, who write about beards, aliens and pirates seemed wacky enough for the comedic stage as well as the concert hall, but I was there to witness what they do best: rock the latter.
“We’re a bit tongue in cheeks.” Admitted the aptly named Trippy Pierre, uncertainly concealing an under-goatee smirk somewhere. The images were discomforting.
“But always expect to have a good time at a Trippy Wicked gig!” Dicky Wicked added with a lens flare sparkling from his toothy grin. After the encounter I felt a strange mix of apprehension, wonder and tipsiness, but I hoped to be treated to a spectacle of some unique description regardless. The band took to the stage and fulfilled their hype; a low dirge of sleazy, blues, filth ejaculated from the P.A system. Whilst Dicky and Pierre put the minor pentatonic to phenomenal use, dizzying time signature shifts were lead flawlessly by drummer Chris West. They were energetically animated, appeared at home on stage, and the mirth from the beer table had not relented as they laughed amongst themselves mid-numbers and cracked gags between. This was fuzz distorted riffing, launched into the 21st century through visionary manipulation of perception-warping echoes with spaced out effects cross pollinating under a half smile of avant-garde lyrical content.
“This one is about going into Space with a sack of weed.” Pierre announced before blasting off an extra-terrestrial number. Kick and snare drums yelled in agony as West beat them like passionate adversaries, making use of classic blues shuffle grooves in a heavier, more original context and projecting compelling rhythms to bang to. Dicky, the tattooed canvas, unleashed a world of ink pen pain on the low E string of his bass, and metronomically nodded crotchets coolly. Meanwhile Pierre demonstrated a wide pitch range with a full and resonant chest voice that might have torn through the mix without microphone help. He wielded his axe with fat distortions that never muddied over as high-gain valve amps often do. In every sense of the word, they were wicked… what of the Trippy? With psychedelic guitar effects and reverberating vocal delays twisting perceptions of time and space, lyrics spewed from a black hole, displacing a funky psycho-acoustic effect. Whoa man, far out!
The audience had been suckered into an ultrasonic journey down the weird side of the speaker cone before being returned back to abnormal; and they loved every beat of it! The catchy riffs and sense of fun were infectious, spreading laughs through a crowd who unreservedly moshed with abandon.
Dicky’s prior words… “Always expect to have a good time at a Trippy Wicked gig”… were just discernible above the ringing in my minds ears. Cheers mate… a parental advisory sticker might have sufficed! If you vaguely recollect seeing Lewis Carol with a resonator guitar, 12 barring it through a billion watt stack in the year 3000, you might have bumped into The Children of the Cosmic Knight! The words ‘Trippy ’ and ‘ Wicked’ serve as both nouns and adjectives. If you want to test your mettle when they play a dimension near you, make sure you do it with good. trusted friends!
LINKS: Official Website // MySpace
– Stevie Yang Lim
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