Monday 26th March 07 Karl and The Gimps Musicians Night Adelphi Hull By Michelle Dee Photos By The Gimps

Photograph Gallery   Karl and The Gimps Gallery .

Readers with a reasonably good memory will know that Karl Whiting received something close to local cult status last year with his art work. By the medium of pen and paper he produced on the spot drawings of live bands. See some of his work here /art/211914090_karlwhiting.html His creative style is akin to the Scottish Colourists Movement, in that rather than showing clear defined images they are a mass of quick lines and sharp edges that portray the movement of the figures, he suggests shape and form with just a jagged line or a heavily scrawled block of ink.

Karl has now embarked on a bizarre music project Karl and The Gimps www.myspace.com/karlandthegimps that saw its first outing at the Warren Centre in Hull. That day has now gone down in musical history, having seen the footage from the show I can clearly see why. Karl and The Gimps come on stage each one in increasingly more bizarre and disturbing outfits. Karl is in his trademark white straightjacket (they don't seem to have them in any other colour?) Gimp 1 is dressed in orange jumpsuit and black leather cap, with a large rubber dog bone taped to his mouth, preventing any sort of verbal communication.

He takes his place behind a keyboards/synth set up. Gimp 2 is sporting the recognisable gimp style mask and playing a miniature guitar. Gimp 3 bounds on stage wearing crossed y-fronts and a Hannibal Cannibal mask. The deviant act launch into a mish-mash of spoken word mayhem from Karl backed with an increasingly odd array of synth. sounds guitar chords and bass.

Discordant guitars feed Karl's increasingly angry manic outbursts; soundtrack for an alien minefield. Rubber clad musicians playing challenging improvised music that asks questions about what it is to perform and the effect that has on the audience. Each lyric sheet is read with fervent voracity then discarded and thrown to the floor. The headless bass is played over the shoulder, between Gimp 2's legs then used as a symbolic phallus shafting the bewildered audience.

The jumpsuit falls to reveal Gimp 1 is wearing leather zip-up shorts underneath now disrobed he plays more monstrous sounds and people start shouting. Reedy robotic string effects, bass bollocks follow slapping a chicken, Gimp 3 dives of the stage and madness ensues. The straight jacket comes off; possibly a stylized breaking of the constraints to be had with normalcy, decency and almost certainly morality. What are Karl and The Gimps trying to do?

Well it would seem that the name of the game is to develop an increasingly unsettling vehicle for Karl's ranting with dysfunctional, character-led improvised performances. After the last note/noise, the crowd tonight look appalled, delighted, shocked and some I suspect just a bit worried. The Adelphi in Hull has long been the safe haven for new acts to experiment and challenge the audiences and long may it remain so. Karl and The Gimps - not for the faint hearted. www.myspace.com/karlandthegimps

Photographs courtsey and Copyright ©  The Gimps 2007

Photograph Gallery   Karl and The Gimps Gallery .

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