Aphex Twin, MC Teabag and a debt to a dog (aka Aphex Twin 1993 live review)
Friday December 1, 2023, marks 30 years since I first saw Aphex Twin live, an unfathomably long time in weird and wonderful electronic music. He played at Norwich Waterfront, a 600-ish capacity venue in Norwich’s seedier area, as part of a Megadog gig, alongside Eat Static, Banco De Gaia, DJ Michael Dog and MC Teabag, a line up that I feel needs some explanation for the way in which it opens up what was going on in electronic music in the UK in late 1993.
But, firstly, to the gig. I was only 16 at the time and a relative newcomer to both Aphex Twin and electronic music. As you might imagine, night clubs were more of a fantasy than a reality for me at the time, particularly ones that might have featured DJs actually mixing electronic music, rather than playing the latest chart hits and shouting loudly over them. (Norwich. Bless you.)
My introduction to electronic music, then, came initially from the big chart rave sounds I would watch on Top Of The Pops and hear on Radio One, two outlets that, as part of the BBC, were basically obliged to play whatever music was big, be it sublime early house in the shape of Love Can’t Turn Around, or cartoon-y rave filth like The Prodigy’s Charly. From there I moved on to the more cerebral, home listening sounds of The Orb (particularly 1992’s U.F.Orb), Warp’s Artificial Intelligence compilation and, in particular, Aphex Twin’s classic Selected Ambient Works 85–92, which hit hard for me when I first heard it, back in late 1992.
As I have previously mentioned here, live electronic music was a big thing around this time and Norwich was well served with concert venues, who would let you enter from the tender age of 14. My first live electronic music gig, which came years before I saw my first proper DJ, was, I believe, the world-ish, proto-trance-ish Banco De Gaia at the Norwich Arts Centre, sometime around summer 1993 and it enchanted me. So when I saw that Aphex Twin was playing at the Waterfront as part of a Megadog event, on December 1, 1993 — a Wednesday, no less — I had to go. Even if, as it turned out, no one else wanted to go with me.
I don’t, honestly, remember all that much about the concert. Aphex Twin had played a gig at Sheffield Hallam University in April 1993 that I had taped off the radio and I remember it being a bit like that: furious, filthy, fast and not a great deal like the gorgeously dreamish ambience of Selected Ambient Works. He played Come on You Slags!, a song that would appear on … I Care Because You Do two years later, its furious clanging breaks and terrifying intense melodies a fairly good indication of the gig’s general sound; and he also played a song off Selected Ambient Works, although I don’t remember which one. I recall, quite clearly, a SAW song coming in and it being so bright, beautiful and faithful to the original, in comparison to the satanic banging that had gone on before, that I assumed Aphex must have finished and a DJ was following up with one of his tunes, only realising about half way through that Aphex was, in fact, still playing. (Even back then, I assume the line between Aphex live and DJ sets was pretty thin.)
Beyond that, I don’t remember much. I have a vague feeling that Aphex Twin was playing lying down but that might be a result of something I read, around about this time, rather than an actual memory. But no matter, because Aphex himself is only half of the story here, with the concert’s unique musical line up being equally as important.
This is where I get to Megadog, Eat Static, Banco De Gaia, DJ Michael Dog and MC Teabag. De Gaia, as I’ve mentioned above, played a vaguely hippy mixture of proto trance, dub and house, with influences of what was then known as “world music”; Eat Static were a psychedelic trance-y offshoot from incorrigible neo-prog rockers Ozric Tentacles. Both recorded for Planet Dog records, the label founded by Michael Dog, one of the co-founders of the Club Dog and Megadog club nights.
If that seems like unlikely company for Aphex Twin, then you haven’t heard anything yet. Club Dog started in 1985, when Michael and Bob Dog were looking for something rather more relaxed than London’s rather uptight club scene. The night housed everything from reggae to prog, new age to alternative comedy, catering largely for the UK’s New Age Traveller community, which was still reeling from the Battle of the Beanfield, where travellers were attacked by police, resulting in one of the largest mass arrest of civilians in the UK since the Second World War.
Club Dog ran successfully until 1992, with electronic music slowly creeping into DJs’ playlists as Acid House exploded over the UK’s free party scene. By the time Club Dog became Megadog in 1992 electronic music was the club’s mainstay and Michael Dog was the resident DJ, spinning proto trance, psychedelia, acid and the rest, while MC Teabag accompanied him on the mic. Teabag was, as you might imagine, a MC very much of the party starting style, rather than a master of lyrical dexterity. Despite having seen him live numerous times, I can’t for the life of me remember what he sounds like, and his guest appearance on DJ Evolution’s hard trance number Escape From Tokyo — in which he appears to be crooning — didn’t really help. I am sure his vocals worked in their context.
Megadog, perhaps as a result of its roots in psychedelic rock music, also became a pioneer of live electronic acts, which British producers, unlike most of their American teachers, had embraced with enthusiasm. The list of bands who played Megadog events is hugely impressive and very varied, from Orbital to Underworld, 808 State to the Drum Club, Renegade Soundwave to Autechre, together with perhaps more predictable names like Eat Static.
That would have been impressive enough, had Megadog done this uniquely from its London base. (I remember being extremely jealous when I read the reviews of London Megadogs in the NME and Melody Maker at the time.) But it also became a touring party, taking live electronic music (and MC Teabag) the length and breadth of the UK.
Aphex Twin, then still a young, hugely promising artist rather than the later legend, was one of touring Megadog’s most popular acts. In 1993 alone, he played at least 10 Megadog parties (according to setlist.fm — I think there may be more), taking his live set to places like Nottingham, Preston and — yes! — Norwich, blowing minds and setting off creativity as he went. Far from out of the ordinary, the line up for the Norwich Megadog was, in fact, pretty standard for the time.
What you encountered at the Megadog was a musical mixture of techno, trance, acid, house, ambient, progressive house and what would later be known as IDM, all together in one room, in one night. In 2023, when you don’t get so many musical genres at entire dance music festivals, this might seem like a bizarre mix. But back in the early 90s (and, in fact well into the mid 90s) it just seemed to work.
Did Megadog create this musical melting pot? Or did it reflect it? It doesn’t really matter. Listening back to Speedy J’s Ginger — one of the albums released as part if Warp’s ground-breaking Artificial Intelligence series of albums — you can hear that IDM and trance weren’t that far apart at the time. Pepper, for example, sounds a lot closer to the early trance records then coming out of Germany, with its surging synth rushes and and snare rolls, than it did to Brian Eno, while Speedy J also played at least one Megadog event in the 90s. Latter day minimal techno lord Richie Hawtin also stretched the links between IDM, techno and Megadog-style party music, appearing on Warp’s initial Artificial Intelligence album, as well as playing several Megadogs.
Were dance audiences more open minded at the time? I’m not sure. But what is certain is that the lines between musical genres were not so clearly marked out then as they are today, when every track is genre tagged for digital convenience. It also helped that there simply wasn’t as much dance music back then; so trance fans might have had to accept a bit of techno in their diet, for want of anything else. And vice versa. You could also, perhaps, trace a line of psychedelic release through the electronic genres that Megadog favoured. Whatever the reason that Megadog thrived, though, the most important thing is that it succeeded in pioneering live electronic music, helping to incubate some of the most important electronic music acts, from Underworld to Aphex.
I continued to go to Megadogs after moving to Manchester in 1995, attending nights where Carl Cox played alongside experimental junglists Springheel Jack, progressive house mainstays Spooky met ambient trance producers Salt Tank and trance pioneers Union Jack shared a stage with Big beat lunks Headrillaz, all under the watchful eyes of DJ Michael Dog and MC Teabag. They hosted their last Megadog in 2001, by which point the dance music world had splintered into 1,000 generic pieces, returning to Manchester for a one-off 30th anniversary party for 2,5000 people in 2015. (I couldn’t attend. My children were too young.)
Aphex Twin, meanwhile, has become one of the biggest touring acts in electronic music, headlining festivals from Barcelona to Brooklyn. He has got far too big for Megadog and I can’t imagine him playing alongside MC Teabag any time soon. Which, in a way, is a shame. Aphex may have made more of a mark on electronic music than Megadog, which seems to have been rather written out of history; but this idealistic group of London hippies with a penchant for banging acid trance undoubtedly had a positive influence on Aphex’s early career, in what now seems one of the oddest crossovers in music history but back then felt beautifully…. normal.
PS I have put together a brief playlist of music that reminds me of this time (minus Robert Miles’ Children, which I just can’t hear again) — have a listen here.
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