F O R T R A N F I V E 'XX21' remixed from their debut Mute LP 'Blues' (STUMM 79) remix by Thrash produced by Fortran 5 and Thrash engineered by Mark Stagg at Worldwide International, London Fortran 5: Simon Leonard David Baker Colin Faver Thrash Lucy Review: A B O Z Flash Photos: Peter Anderson Fortran 5 Switzerland (approx) "NOT another CERN Synchrotron gig!" Having removed my blindfold, such was my initial reaction. As usual, also, my seat was adjacent to the bubble chamber and I had to lean forward in my chair to avoid the low-flying sub-atomics. In front of me a bevvied pack of nuclear physicists suddenly began to jerk about on the calcified concrete dancefloor. The band were nowhere to be seen. A childlike woman chugged at my jacket and handed me a TV Walkman. The volume was glued on full and, once the headset was placed on my ears, the sound snapped my spine erect and put my head in line with the particle gun (I found out later that a pimeson had collided into my hypothalamus). I moved my head out of the gun's path, got up and walked forward to join the scientists. The latter were behaving as if their 'TV21' puppet operators had cerebal palsy - I was forced to do likewise or be bludgeoned by their massed acumen and small change. One of the white-coats (his security ID read 'Rodney Slater') quit jerking and pointed down at this hand-held two-inch screen. "They're not here, you know," he shouted. "They're elsewhere, look..." He pointed again at the mini-TV. I looked down. A star-shaped split- screen showed five figures, each labeled as to name and location, playing and singing. On 'Orbit 4' guitar there was a Metallica fan using his scrofulous feet to bang out tunes. This was Thrash. Exxonville, California. There was a bespectacled neo-Georgian, quill pen in hand, scratching out cuneiform characters onto the monitor of a 'Go' computer. This was Lennard Leonard. The John Logie Baird, North London. At the screen's top left, another man, in flowing denim and Dr. Marten jodhpurs, bit down on sundry millimetred bullets and used the resulting sounds to hit, play and destroy a bullseyed, Jarresque, circular keyboard. This was DP Wilson-Bakker. VR-Space: Moon, Sea of Tranquility, AG 117. The other two members of the band were playing drums in perfect synchron- isation[sic] and grinning at each other. These were Piquet and Colonel Faver (the former was also singing ). Konk Studios, Crouch End. Mr. Slater further explained that the gig was being video-conferenced to a number of other locations. "We're getting it piped in for our MD's birthday and, yesterday," Mr. Slater continued, "we got three gravitrons in the chamber!" The set pumped on. Particular favourites[sic] with the maintenance crew were 'XX21' and '2 Curious Friends'. This last track saw Blakey sparks flying out from their heavily soled boots as they Skidded and Bug-Beeped around on the calcified stone floor. The small woman threaded through the throng once more and drew me out of my sensory de-deprivation. (Infectiously, I too had begun to dig my (unBlakeyed) heels into the ground in a vain attempt at sparking.) She tried to grab the TV from me. I resisted (such was my intoxication), but her smiling persistence and powerful forearms got the thing from me. Having retuned it she returned it and the screen now revealed an audience longshot. The subtle read: Unholy Car Impoundment and Biotics Assembly Hall, Massachusetts. At this venue a series of inflatable rigging units suspended the 50,000 watt Marshall PA system, from which exuded the plangent sound of Fortran 5's 'Inanga'. Below, the apostatical crowd milled, snogged and pummeled their feet in time to the satellite broadcast band. The punters, I remembered, were celebrating their new-found cultless freedom; ex- Scientologists, ex-Rajneeshs, ex-Esteerhazys, ex-Lazarus Trainees, etc...all were bumping, burping and burning (eyes magnificently closed) to the Five's deluge. Again, I found my body de-possessed and reinjected, and I joined both the physicists and crew in their bizarre logarithmic rites. Fortran Five gigs are few but elemental. Aleister Burroughs O'Leary Zeitgeist Flash Aleister Burroughs O'Leary Zeitgeist Flash is Technical Editor of "Sewageworker Monthly"