Hi folks,
Just a quickie especially for those of you considering coming tonight, it's going to be very different! Gorbys [top floor] is undergoing renovations so we only have the use of one floor tomorrow night which is G2. So rather than simply going ahead with either Freakscene or Danascene, we're going to combine the 2, myself and Miss Fitz are going to forge a hybrid set featuring the best of Freakscene and Danascene! We are both looking forward to the challenge of selecting tunes from each floor that we feel will satisfy both sets of regulars [many of you migrate from one floor to the other anyway] so you will hear Florence and The Machine, Bat For Lashes, MGMT, Elbow, Ida Maria, The Cure, Bloc Party, Smiths, Empire Of The Sun etc from upstairs. Miss Fitz will play La Roux, Noisettes, T-Rex, Bowie, some 50s/60s rock'n'roll etc etc, we'll throw in some electronica, dance and heavier stuff for our moshers too! I actually think it could turn out to be a great night, albeit chaotic, but trust me we do chaos really well!

Just to avoid confusion as I'm not sure when some of you will check your e-mails:

Wednesday August 19th - G2 featuring a mix-mash of Freakscene & Danascene music!

Wednesday August 26th - Freakscene as per normal

The DJ box is also scheduled to be moved in Gorbys over the coming weeks but it won't affect any of our nights so the 19th is the only night that the floor will be closed from a Freakscene point of view.

All the best
Dodgy

The Freakscene Recessionaires Club
I used to be terrible with money, no matter how little or much I had on a night out, I came home broke. Jenny Glitt was much better, when she was a student and went to Henrys, she'd leave with £10 (ten old pounds like , £3 for a flagon in the Liberty, £3 for 10 Benson & Hedges, £3 for entry to Freakscene, and the remaining £1 went towards a drink she shared with her best friend Chrissy in the club! I kid you not!! She survived on a very tight budget and had no choice but to be this frugal. We reckon it is entirely possible to have a really cheap night out at Freakscene from as little as €12 - €15!
Entry for members is only €3 before 11.30 p.m!! (£2.10, less than what Jenny Glitt paid 10 years ago!)
Even if you are not a member yet, it is only €4 before 11.30p.m!
Depending on whether you are a spirits or beer drinker you can avail of our special drink offers and enjoy 3 or 4 drinks for as little as €10-12!
• Pint bottles of Tiger and Kopperberg only €4
• Havana Club or vodka and splash only €2.90

'Drinks, tunes and laughs at Freakscene €12
The friends & memories. PRICELESS LIKE!'

Don't forget that Freakscene Discount Card holders can enjoy 10% off at the following shops:
• Citywax
• Hallmark
• Moonshine
• Positively Eight Street
• Plugd Records

Reed-ing Material

"Watch out, the world's behind you.."

Taken from the opening song on their incredibly influential first album this line has always summed up The Velvet Underground perfectly for me. Infused with an unshakeable paranoia, an underlying sinister quality but then married to a lovely soothing melody, all the contradictions of the band are present, and paranoid or not they were right. The world was always behind them. That's what happens when you're so ahead of your time.
Formed in 1965, basing their name on a trashy novel, The Velvets couldn't have been more out of step with prevailing fashion trends. While the world was awash in pure bubble gum pop, Lou Reed was instead dwelling on the effects of Heroin, S&M and casting his keen observational eye and streetwise wit on things very much outside the pop spectrum. But with a band like this it wasn't just one man's vision that shaped it, it was the alchemy that came between all the players. Lou Reed's no frills guitar work meeting John Cale's avant garde leanings and squalling viola ably supported by the chiming notes of Sterling Morrison and the solid as rock thump of Mo Tucker's drums, the Velvets just worked and while they were largely ignored in the bands lifetime, their influence has seeped into every part of contemporary rock.

And it was hardly an inauspicious start, backed by famed artist and cultural figure Andy Warhol the band became synonymous with his "Factory" scene, a melting pot of bohemian and tragic figures wallowing in the decadence that the band's music celebrated. Reed took a lot from this world in his compositions and a part of this world was then foisted on him when Warhol insisted on the band taking on German model and actress Nico as another singer [her unusual vocal style has been attributed to partial deafness]. While Reed was perturbed by this it turned out to be a masterful coup and whether you love or loathe Nico's contribution to their debut album she added so much to their appeal and her handling of certain songs revealed sides to them Reed's singing wouldn't have been able to find. But still they found it hard to find an audience as while their subject matter was always extreme, they later began to reflect it more openly in their music.

Nico drifted out of their orbit when they made their second album "White Light/White Heat". An experimentally abrasive record, its use of distortion and feedback as punishing as it is exhilarating and as you can imagine it hardly cemented the band's popularity to the wider world. Unfortunately following this album tensions within the group between Reed and Cale led to the latter leaving the band and while far from the death knell of the Velvet Underground, part of the initial magic couldn't help but be lost. This didn't stop them from making two more wonderful albums with drafted in new bass player Doug Yule the band went in totally the other direction replacing the consciously "anti-beauty" of "White Light/White Heat" with the hushed measured tones of their third album. A late night mellowed affair the album is draped in ruminative mediations of some kinda loves, the usual assortment of low life and surprisingly enough religion. While more conventional it didn't shy away from the difficult, with an epic Murder Mystery set to music providing the avant garde angle. However the bands reputation had always been seen as perverted and dark so few people bothered to investigate beyond that and therefore missed their evolution across the albums.


Increasingly frustrated by their lack of fame the band reconvened and decided to make an album loaded with hits. Their fourth record "Loaded" certainly has a pop sheen absent from their other releases, from the harmony driven "Who Loves the Sun", to the strut of "Sweet Jane", via the tender yet bitter ode "New Age" this album is underrated even within their canon and remains a vibrant engaging pop masterpiece. Their last one alas, as Reed had fi