As the QM's lights dim and the intro tape begins to unspool, an electric ripple of anticipation runs through the crowd. Several hundred people are gathered here tonight to forget the drudgery's of the Monday to Friday rat race; they're here for a little bit of excitement, perhaps even a little whiff of danger, they're here to see Curve!
Live, Curve are an experience, both visually and aurally. Tonights live sound is exemplary, the musicians pull extraordinary shapes from their instruments creating a maelstrom of sound. However, it's Toni Halliday who provides the audience with a focal point, Halliday may prove to be one of the most exciting presences the UK indie scene has thrown into the limelight for some time. Halliday prowls the stage with preditory grace, exerting an almost vampiric grip on the unwashed throng (don't equate that with disingeneous suggestions that Curve are the new face of Goth, this isn't the NME).
Just a few hours before we'd been sitting in Curve's spartan dressing room having a quiet conversation with Dean Garcia and Toni Halliday (who for all practical purposes are Curve) We'd arrived at the QM like nervous teenagers on our first date, enduring terrible hardships (and BR) to get to the QM on time, but as soon as we got back stage we were made welcome, in fact Dean and Toni seemed genuinely pleased to be talking to us (perhaps they were just being polite?)
We hastily proferred our modest zine to almost immediate frowns. `Shit, we thought surely they have to at least read it before deciding it's shite.' The actual cause of their agitation was the photo of Ice- T on the cover.
`We had a bad experience with him in America' explains Dean, `he was at a press conference, Chuck D was there as well, and we were really interested in what he had to say, and it was just bullshit.'
`They were just spouting the most sexist, racists things we'd heard, from anybody', adds Toni. `Ice T started this whole conference by saying that women are only good to fuck, they haven't got any real brains and the whole audience is going `hissss'. Theres like 800 journalists and when they start asking real questions, like the guy from the Village Voice gets up and says (to Chuck D) `can you tell me the difference between the bigotry of racism, and the bigotry of Flavor Flav saying he hates all homosexuals?' Chuck D couldn't answer.
The saviour of the world is obviously integration and (Public Enemy) are into segregation.
It's a real shock because I really like their records sighs Dean.
Tonights gig is the third in Curves short winter tour, but all has gone swimmingly so far.
`We had a real nightmare (in Dublin)' says Dean.
We just fell apart' adds Toni, `But when we fall apart we fall apart big time, it was really bad.'
Curve it seems are a band of extremes.
But you need that sometimes, you need to fall apart, you need that dispair in order to understand what you're actually doing `Dean says later. `I'm actually quite encouraged by that in a sick sort of way, because the next night we went to Belfast and did a really good gig, really intense'.
`You get a bit of a kick up the arse by it, says Toni, It's quite frustrating to be in that kind of situation, you've worked really hard to really get it together and then the first gig that you do, it just doesn't happen like that. You've heard it in rehearsals, you've heard it really working and . .' .
`And it was really, really bad', finishes Dean.
Despite vigorous initial acclaim in the inkies, Curve have had a rough ride in the press, recently alternating between being derided one week and clasped to the bosom of the press the next. Melody Maker mounted a half hearted attempt to lump them into the non-existent `Scene that celebrates itself.' and lately the NME has taken to calling them the future of gothdom)
`At the end of it you put your record out and it's up to the person who buys it to decide whether we're into that kind of thing', says Toni, ` and I think people bought our records and decided we weren't.
Is there anyone, or any collective Curve would like to be mentioned in the same breath as?
`Nobody really', states Dean flatly.
`It sounds really contrived and pathetic,'says Toni,' but basically every band you speak to doesn't want to be compared to any fucker ever, because they're them.'
So is it harder to strike out on your own, than to jump onto the latest press bandwagon?
`You just have to be really honest with what you're doing' says Dean.
`And you have to experiment basically', Toni Adds, ` and we like to experiment , especially Dean.'
How did the press backlash and the stuff about your being a `contrived' group (as if contrivance wasn't the basis of all art in the first place) affect you?
`It hurt' says Toni simply.
`Because this is the most honest we've ever been', adds Dean.
`We were trying to get away from that `says Toni, that's why we did this, because we wanted to get from that horrible stagnated, commerical, major label, no development time, you either fucking do it now, or your fucking out the door. And that was the reason we went with Anxious (Curves record label) because they were gonna be that kind of label that were gonna let us do exactly what we wanted to do, and if we took three years to develop into something then that's how long it took. They just completely left us to our own devices.
`Our backlash came because we were signed to what (the music press) considered the wrong label, just not fucking hip enough. So what. You know, like that thing Moose said about us, that really hurt. Moose said that we didn't deserve anybodies respect because we had Dave Stewarts (Anxious owner, and exactly who you think he is) money behind us. Why didn't he sit there and tell everybody that he had all Richard Bransons fucking money behind him, because Hut (Moose's record label) is owned by Virgin. I'm sure Richard Bransons got more fucking money than Dave Stewart!'
When can we expect to see an album from Curve?
`It's done, says Dean, Done and Cut. Its coming out late February (92). We're gonna have to go out heavily tour frenzy. Because we love touring, its a real joy for us to do.
Can you give us any pointers to what we can expect from the record, is it a change in style from the EP's?
`No, I wouldn't say that', says Dean ` I wouldn't say it was totally different, it's more experimental.'
Later Toni gets exasperated with us .
`People say, Oh whats going to be different on the new album, whats going to be new and really really crossover.'
Well we just did.
`Well you know, they're all really good songs, and it's just ten new really good songs.'
As Curve, you've very quickly established an almost trademark sound, when you hear a Curve song, it doesn't really sound like anyone else.
`It does that to us as well, ` gushes Dean, `it starts to sound like a Curve record, and thats the way we focus on it, that's that way we know. But a lot of things get binned very quickly as well.
`We're interested in keeping very high standards of songs, `states Toni, `because without a song you could wrap Curve around fifty million times and it would still be a pile of shit.'
`Deans got into colourisations of sound, really wibbly sounds (on the new album), really abstract.
`I like to conjour up some sort of visual thing, some kind of atmosphere', says Dean. `Thematic kinds of things, `explains Toni, ` Dean always try to deal with sculpture, he never says `Bridges' or `Chorus' or anything, its always `the air bit' or the `desert bit' or the `water bit'.
Er, I think we lost the thread there, sorry.
What have you taken as sources for the new record?
`Tons of stuff,' says Dean' we were lucky enough to heard snippets of certains Valentines records, but its not just taken from that, its a gut thing, it pushes me in certain directions. I can't explain it.'
`But also, on one track `Already Yours' says Toni ` just one night, Alan and I we're sitting watching this film `Greencard' and theres this drumming at the start so the next morning I phoned up Dean and said `there's some brilliant drums on this video, we've gotta get them.' So he comes over with this little DAT thing, straining in the back of the telly and that's how the track starts. So he goes downstairs into the basement where we record with this sixteen track, get a drum sample going, gets a loop going. It just sounds so enormous,'
`And you get a bass out', adds Dean, `and you get a wrapped up sound on it, and Toni will start singing, and we'll just write a song.
It all depends, sometimes it just jumps out at you, `says Toni, `their just waiting to be taken.'
Toni gives us the Curve attitude to music and life in general.
`You just have what you have, and take what you take, you do what the fuck you want and it has to be like that, everybody should be like that, not the `I'm not going to use this amp because its the wrong type, cos we're this type of band, `attitude, the minute you know what type of band you're in, you've fucking had it.
`It should be a place in your head, where you can go and be yourself and develop what you want to develop. You know it's the little things in life that make life. Just little things, like today, they got two people here cooking roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, everybody was smiling as they were eating this thing, that's what I'm saying: its the little things in life, they make you. It's the same with music.'
How did the two of you meet up?
`I met Toni about eight years ago backstage at some gig, `says Dean. `I was working with some other people and I needed a singer, and I met Toni four months after that at a friends house who we were interested in working with and we asked Toni to have a sing with us.'
`And then he waited in the kitchen to laugh when I got there the next day, `adds Toni. `He gave me a cassette of this backing track, just a backing track with nothing on it, and so I went home and worked something out, wrote a song over the top of it, melody, lyrics, the whole thing. We down there, Deans standing in the kitchen with one of the other members of the band waiting to snigger, cos they didn'tknow if I could sing, they didn't know anything. And I started doing this thing and Deans standing there going `yeah, yeah, yeah.' He ran from the kitchen into the room and said `right, right, it's fine, you're in.'
And we did that for about two years then split and we didn't see each other for about three years. We had a break from each other because it was just so manic. I mean and . . . `
`There was a lot of lousiness involved', says Dean, ` it all got incredibly messy. `
`So that was what made you split?
`Yeah, says Toni, `it made us realise that we wouldn't ever sign to a major again. Because of that pressure. `
Working in an environment where we couldn't be totally honest, `says Dean.'
And so our brief conversation drifts into idle chat, before we leave for Curve to prepare for the nights performance, from the quality of which I doubt Curve will be touring venues like the QM much longer. Curve may be the first band in a long time to bring experimentalism into the mainstream, this is only one reason to celebrate them.