I attended this concert in '95. Tony Conrad and Jim O Rourke were behind a giant screen of curtains, silhouetted. They started playing cellos /violas? can't remember, but it was like a massive screech of feedback that went on and on, incredibly loud and piercing. After a long time the drummer and bass player picked up a beat which went on for another very long time.

Towards the end of the piece Jean-Hervé broke a string and Werner's kit started falling apart. At one point the snare drum fell of its stand and rolled across the stage. A roadie rescued it though. Phew.

Then it all stopped and Jean-Hervé slammed his bass to the floor and they walked off. As far as I remember his hand was bleeding too as the whole performance was very violent.

They came back on for about five minutes, trying to cook something up but that went wrong too so they walked off again.

I turned to look at my companions. It was hilarious... they looked like they'd been in a car crash. Completely dazed. Jarvis Cocker stood up along the row and shouted to his friends that he was going to decamp to some, no doubt extremely hip, place.

I'd like to hear this disc if I can find it cheap. Everything is so expensive now... not the actual disc but the shipping.

Oh yeah, AMM played as support that night. Great to see and hear this important improv group in the flesh.

This is all from memory btw, so any mis-rememberings are entirely my own fault. It's coming on 27 years ago after all.

Is this any different from Outside the Dream Syndicate Alive is?

I remember getting this album around '06/'07, listening to it a couple of times and then packing it away finding little reason to go back to it.

Now, having really got to know Faust, Jim O'Rourke, Phill Niblock etc I thought I'd give this another shot... and I actually really like it! It's minimalism but not buffered to a shiny textureless, humanless plain; the playing is raw and not without its inconsistencies but that just adds to the whole. It feels more rooted in rock music than modern classical and it's easy to see how the original 'Outside The Dream Syndicate' from 1973 may have had an influence on a lot of doom and drone acts. Good stuff.