Saturday 17 June 2017, 7.30pm
A welcome return to OTO for the redoubtable Neil Michael Hagerty - this time in a rare and enticing duo performance with guitarist Nick Mitchell of Chalaque and Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura.
Best known for his work as one half of the recently re-invigorated Royal Trux, with whom he forged a furnace-blasted, gasoline-drenched take on rock'n'roll that has influenced countless bands since, Hagerty has always remained several steps ahead of his imitators. Mitchell has similarly carved out his own blissfully fuzz-drenched niche through his Chalaque moniker and Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura output, making this a collaboration not to be missed.
As guitarist in Pussy Galore Neil Hagerty re-invented long hair and blue jeans. As one half of Royal Trux he forged a guitar/vocal/boogie paradigm unheralded in contemporary music. The Trux legacy is worldwide in the 21st Century rock landscape and on display on the wastebands and hairstyles of rich kids and fashion people everywhere. The mercury sound of Royal Trux however will never be imitated. Somewhere past Sonny and linda Sharrock, out past the fuel rig blast of time, Hagerty's textural shifts are Uniquely, harmolodically hung. Since the Trux split Hagerty has left the rip of his playing on numerous releases both as collaborator and producer, heard best on the Weird War LP and recent work by Edith Frost. NMH has also written the novel Victory Chimp an acclaimed tour-de-force of solid gone science fiction. However it's on his self-titled debut album Neil Michael Hagerty that he lays it down as, unquestionably the finest guitarist of his generation and as one of the all too few true truth seers in everlasting r'n'r. – Richard King (for Domino Records)
Chalaque is the solo project cum trio of Nick Mitchell (Desmadrados Soldados De Ventura / Golden Lab Records). With a singular focus, he takes the concept of the rock guitar solo to its ultimate end point, beyond the imposed cultural constrictions of artlessness, finding a kind of punk rock spirituality in the historically undignified, employing an endless stream of fast, cack-handed tapping and fingerwork to create an a mesmeric, drone-like blur. "No one is doing more for the future of the guitar as sonic reducer in the UK than Nick Mitchell" - David Keenan
