Chris Corsano and Indoor Eagle with Thurston Moore, Live at the Old Blue Last (24/04/06)

The quiet Monday evening in that a number of us had planned was thrown into disarray by a press release stating Thurston Moore would be playing a solo set at the Vice Bar in Old Street that night. In the event the press release wasn't entirely accurate, but he was there and he did play, even if purely as a member of Indoor Eagle. Everyone downstairs waits until nine before trying to get upstairs to the venue room and milling around. Thurston Moore wanders on stage a few times to tune and set up his guitar then goes to the bar, seeming somewhat incongruous in the Old Blue Last's very 'traditional English pub' décor.

First on is Indoor Eagle's drummer Chris Corsano, who performers the sort of solo drum set that would make the average avant-garde night at The Klinker up the road seem a bit…well, straight. He spends a long time setting the kit up, picking up various types of beaters, weird resonant discs (prayer bowls of sorts, maybe?) and home made wind instruments. The preparation leaves me wondering if he's ever seen the kit before, so often does he stop to consider how he's laid it all out, but when he starts to play his actions become clear.

He makes noise by methods such as blowing through various tubes with the reed from a sax, beating the drums, cymbals and other paraphernalia, or by bowing the set of strings he has attached to one side of the rack tom. Rather than stopping and starting you can watch him, hunched over the kit, putting his next instrument together with one hand while playing another part of the kit rhythmically over and over. For example, taking the reed and moving it from one tube to another with his left hand while playing a driving beat with the right, or bringing his violin strings into play by quickly sliding a wooden bridge up under them. If it's tunes you're after you'll be disappointed, but as an exercise in experimental beats and noises this is really something quite special.

There's not much of a wait for Indoor Eagle to take the stage. By this point we've realised Thurston isn't about to whip out an acoustic and run through an unplugged Sonic Youth greatest hits: instead he takes to the stage with Indoor Eagle. The Ecstatic Peace site states that the band consists of Moloney and Corsano but there's another member tonight as well as Thurston. Corsano plays his drum kit more traditionally, but no less inventively; Thurston and the other guitarist play off each other, filling the space with as much noise as they can; the vocalist (John Moloney?) has bunch of effects pedals, one mic and a wild amount of curly hair that he whips around as he gets into the music. The set starts off with a frankly scary set of drawn out notes, reminiscent of Ligeti's vocal pieces used in the end section of 2001, and then quickly gets a bit more thrashy. Occasionally the drums will kick into a driving thrash rhythm and the vocalist starts screaming wildly and the audience start to move, but most of the set is simply chaotic noise. Toward the end Thurston attacks his guitar with a drumstick while the other guitarist begins to fling his instrument around. By the time it's all over we're more than a little impressed and I'm surprised to see the set was as long as half an hour. Okay, not for those who like their tunes, but there was something incredible about being in a room that small with someone like that on stage…