Unscene

'Unscene' was the banner used by a number of Birmingham & Black Country bands working in the murky field of 'experimental music'. The main protagonists being Alex Botten [Cosmische, Magnetic North Pole, Thee Moths] & Richard Amphlett [ArcJet, Bloodbath Picnic Heroin, Halon1301, Compsey Tribunal]. Alex was already a Birmingham luminary being guitarist with Cosmische & Richard had made a name for himself in BPH.

In the words of Alex, "Unscene came about after a conversation I had with Richard Amphlett back in the summer of '97. I'd been reading about the Noizefest in New York in the 80's that Sonic Youth had been involved in and thought it would be a good idea to try and do the same kind of thing on a local level. Richard agreed and Perry suggested a name for it."

Stray Dog City became involved via the usual SDC 'happy accident' when Perry came into the music shop where I was working at the time (Modern Music, Dudley) - he was looking for a drummer & put an ad in our window. We chatted for a while & what he was doing sounded interesting. I later rang to find out more & was invited along to an early Unscene meeting. SDC were now involved ;)