The Red Paintings - Even without the painters they are brilliant!!!

****1/3

Seeing Red: at the Borderline

The Red Paintings ****1/3 Red: is the colour of rage. Red: is the colour of chaos. Red: is the colour of passion. Red: is the colour of fire. Red: is the colour of Mars. Red: is the colour of revolution. Red: is the colour of courage. Red: is the colour of blood. Red: is the colour of the Bolsheviks, Red: is the colour of Muladhara, the base chakra. Red: has a frequency of 480-400THz. Red: is the colour Trash McSweeney, the lead singer and creative genius of The Red Paintings never sees when he listens to music.      

The day wasn’t going well. I was soaked by the time I got to the Borderline. The rain was torrential and miserable pools of water had gathered by the curb sides around the streets of Soho. There was trouble with transport and I hadn’t had anything to eat all day. It seemed the heavy rain was painting everything and everyone a shade of gray, (no sexual connotation intended).

Still I was looking forward to interviewing Trash McSweeney and then catching the show later that evening.  I love nonsense, in the Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll sense. Fragmentary nonsense holds a greater truth than the rational mind is able to grasp. Trash McSweeney, exists in the same continuum as these literally giants, with his form of Avant-Garde  Psy-Fi Orchestral Conceptual Art Rock.

The staff at the London, Borderline are fantastic, but this small venue is not the best for a band with a ‘big’ stage show act. Small venues can be very appealing to fans because they feel more intimate, but for a band like The Red Paintings, so it introduces challenges and constraints. Compromises have to be made, and this causes an artistic tension. The well worn idiom ‘necessity is the mother of invention,’ fits. The full stage show was cut down, and Trash had to perform without his usual accompaniment of live artists. 

Trash typically invites local artists to paint on stage with the band and also has live body painting. This is the first time I have seen The Red Paintings without their full stage performance. As an artist I love the live art element to the show. It is something that makes The Red Paintings unique. Their level of bizarreness is simply cool. 

When I first saw this band I was blown away and inspired by the mish mash fusion of music and art. It seems rare to encounter an act that is capable of altering your perceptions. I haven’t felt this way since I was fourteen and visited the Dali museum in Figueres. Like I said, it could seem like random nonsense thrown together, but it makes so much sense.

I was apprehensive about the performance. I wondered if it would have the same vibe and appeal for me without the live art, but I was equally blown away by the strength of Trash’s performance and the frenetic energy of Alix Kol on the violin. There was a raw angst to ‘Trash’ that was powerful and compelling. The music was on an edge and I was able to focus purely on the sound and the Band’s performance without my eyes feeling hungry for the art. 

Trash was a caged animal during the first few songs. I felt like that lack of space on stage was oppressing him. The set started with ‘Vampires are chasing Me’, followed by ‘Dead Children’. The orchestration of both pieces is eerie, yet confronting.  It is hard to categorize and place their sound. There are elements of grunge, which brings Nirvana to mind, and the orchestral element makes you think of Primus’ experimental sound, but not really. They aren’t really like any other band. In ‘Dead Children’ the orchestral element sounds regimental, and a little like a Scottish Tattoo got in to the mash up.

‘Wasps’ one of my favourite songs, felt particularly poignant and emotional.  Later in the set the bassist ‘Ginny Eck’ vacated the stage to give ‘Trash’ more room to move around on stage and jump while playing - in the already iconic way he does. It is hard to believe that Trash isn’t already a major headlining Rock artist, but surely this is where he is heading. The tension in the room increased for the last two songs in the set ‘The Revolution is Coming’ and ‘Fuck the System’ as ‘Trash’ took a swipe at the pay to play culture within the music industry.

One of their fans observed it was a little bit ‘Spinal Tap’. Sometimes you have to stand up and be counted, and at others you need to just carve the wave and make sure you stay standing. Dig a bit deeper when listening to this band.  The subtext to the songs is multi-dimensional. There is more to it than an anti-establishment call to rebel against stale modalities, dysfunctional political systems, globalization and conspiracies. The Red Paintings would like their music to inspire change.  

There is an interesting art link to Hitler, which they seem to be using as a vehicle to highlight how the world still struggles with authoritarian control, censorship and, what may be best termed as mind control.  The sort of art that is created during a Red Paintings show would surely have ended up in Hitler’s exhibit of degenerate banned art. This exhibit was partly designed as revenge for his two time failure to gain entry to the Vienna Academy of Art. I believe Hitler took such a distinct dislike to expressionist art forms because his paintings were soulless, cold, uncomplicated and too easily understood. 

It is clear he never encountered or dared to journey into the inner chaos, to confront his own shadow and see the human psyche for what it is. This is a place he dared not to tread – to see his own monstrosity. It is sickening that he thought pictures should never display suffering and pain, yet this is what he created in the World. I feel ‘The Red Paintings’ are communicating something very important.

As for tonight’s performance, sans the art - Musically Trash was simply amazing. He looked road worn at the start, and perhaps he had reached that moment on a tour were you hit a low ebb. Some how he dug deep in to himself and transformed that energy into one of the most intense Rock performances I have ever seen. Make sure you catch them at a venue near you when they come back at the end of October for the Nightmare festival and for a headline tour in November.

The Red Paintings - Setlist 

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Vampires are chasing Me

Dead Children

It is as it Was

The Great Escape 

Wasps

I’ll sell you Suicide

The Revolution is never Coming

Fuck the System  

 

Review by Dezadie and Photo's by Dan Devour and Dezadie

Check Out! the Video for 'It is as it Was' Below... (Video Removed by Artist) 

All Photographs on this page are copywrite of Music Trespass Magazine and were taken with permission by Dan Devour or Dezadie Art. If you need further information, you can contact the editor of Music Trespass Magazine on Dan-MusicTrespass@live.co.uk - All passes to take the photos where given by the record companies or PR and we have legally binding emails to prove this.