Show Review: Psychic TV & DJ CDW @ The Casbah

Psychic TV, originally uploaded by Infamous CoatCheck Girl.

Thanks to Tim Pyles for giving CDW the chance to open for Psychic TV @ the Casbah last night! It was a great opportunity and CDW had a fun time. A freakish time, to be sure, but a fun time as well.

Psychic TV has kind of been "in the news"(if the news you read involves daily updates on the Psychic TV US tour) in that their last show- in Scottsdale was cancelled (http://www.genesisp-orridge.com/) because of bigotry on the part of the club owner who "didn't know" that lead singer Genesis P-Orridge is trans-gendered. Ha! Stupid hicks in Arizona. What a jerk.

Fortunately, our own Tim Mays is not a mindless bigot, but rather a sophisticated patron of the arts, so last night's show was a mellow, well attended affair. I didn't sense that transgendered persons were over represented at the show- it looked more like a goth/industrial crowd, heavy on the dudes.

CDW started her set at 9 PM. Her set of french post punk and new wave was, dare I say, warmly received. She started her set with The Dogs, then played the Calamites, Civils, Lili Drop, Les Souris Delingues, Les Ritas Mitsoukos, very early Jane Birkin, Edith Nylons, Taxi Girl, The Owls, The Standards, The Coronados, Kas, Jaio, Starshooter, Alain Kan, Suicide Romeo, Les Amants, the new Vultures 7" (the san diego band), Indochine, marie et les garcons, telephone, bijou, snipers, city kids, and the standards. She had a pretty amusing conversation with a patron who asked if DJing was "what she did." Ha! She played until 10:45, the crowd was getting visibly restless although politely did not heckle CDW for playing french song after french song.

I thought the show was very well attended, though I heard second hand that a local musician attending the show, more familiar with the history of Psychic TV, expressed surprise that the show wasn't a total sell out.

Genesis P-Orridge, who is def in the middle of whatever sex change he's having (man to woman I'm pretty sure) appears like a cross between Iggy Pop and Courtney Love. The tone of the performance was very much "transgressive." There was a theatrical vibe- Psychic TV uses video in synch with their songs- I kept looking for Visual Underground but I didn't see them paying homage to one of the orginators of what they do (playing videos with music).

Personally, I feel like Psychic TV is cognizable as much as performance art as music. I wasn't able to hang for the whole show- but what I saw was interesting.