What a rum evening this was. Shampoo Boy, the group consisting of Editions Mego label boss Peter Rehberg alongside Christian Schachinger on guitar and Christina Nemec on bass, played a curtain-raising set on the second and final night of some heavily sponsored festival or other at the Museumsquartier. (The forerunner of this group, the sadly missed Peterlicker, also played the opening set at a similarly corporate shindig five years ago; see my review of that event here.) Thanks to the logos plastered everywhere about the place, entrance to the entire festival was free. The event was originally supposed to take place in the main Haupthof of the MQ, which would have been nice; sadly, however, inclement weather meant that it was moved inside to a very large and swish hall known as the Hofstallungen, where I had never been before. The audience was fairly large, but I suspect I was the only one among them who had come especially to see Shampoo Boy.

When I last saw this outfit at the Rhiz in 2013, I complained that the concert was too short. No such reservations this time, in fact this was one of those gigs where I couldn’t wait for it to end. Thanks mainly to the unorthodox approach of guitarist Christian Schachinger, the performance had a shambolic quality which meant that on this occasion the trio certainly outstayed their welcome. Schachinger had imbibed generously from the free drinks supplied backstage, and seemed to be having trouble standing up as a result. His guitar may or may not have been plugged in, but he didn’t seem unduly concerned about the matter either way; in any event, from my vantage point close to the stage, it was entirely inaudible. About halfway through, Schachinger finally succumbed to the inevitable and fell over backwards. There he remained for the rest of the set, his back to the audience, occasionally strumming his guitar in a doomed attempt to play some music.

With all of this japery going on, it was a relief to turn my attention to Rehberg and Nemec, who were bringing things nicely to the boil. Rehberg had an impressive array of dials, cables and whatnot on the table alongside his customary laptop, from which he emitted frequent blasts of scouring noise. Nemec ground out waves of implacable bass tones, her unflappable demeanour contrasting favourably with the events unfolding stage left. Eventually Schachinger staggered to his feet, the three of them concluded their business and they wandered offstage. By that time, though, I was pretty much the only person paying attention, the vast majority of the audience having drifted off to the bar.