The Null Device
2002/4/27
There were too many things on last night; at least two gigs worth seeing. It was a tough decision, but in the end I decided to go to Pony to see Steward's last solo gig in Australia, along with Tugboat and Simpatico. I got in a bit late (due to work and such), and thus only saw the last part of the Tugboat set; they had a reduced lineup and played a sort of slowcore set, ending with a Mojave 3 cover. Then Steward went on, with a MiniDisc player, a guitar and a Hello Kitty toy of some sort. His material can be described as jangly pop meets drill & bass; during the set, he strummed a guitar, with a variety of distortion pedals, over some crunchy electronic beats, and generally jumped around like a maniac. Simpatico, meanwhile, was a guy with an acoustic guitar and a MiniDisc player with some backings, who sang a sort of slightly twee jangly pop, rather reminiscent of The Field Mice (and perhaps The Smiths in places as well). I ended up getting his CD, titled The Difference Between Alone & Lonely.