The Look of the Night

Famously secretive and only secretly famous the London-based musical collective known as 41st night are notoriously hard to pin down. Even less is known about the four individuals at its heart. Their pasts, their faces, even their names are shrouded in mystery. Known only by their function titles of Mr Sing, Mr Guitar, Mr Bass, and Mr Drum they can at times seem to be more cultural constructions than flesh-and-blood individuals. Or at least that has always been the case.

Armed with the latest in concealed audio-visual equipment and a range of disguises we sent our reporter Ted Otterman undercover with music’s least investigated enigma. What he discovered will both startle and disturb.

Subject 1: Mr Sing aka Tommy Humbucker

Following a tip off that the night would be engaging in one of their all-to-rare practice sessions Ted installed himself in the studio the day before, cunningly concealed within a defunct air-conditioning unit. After enduring four hours of the aneurism-inducing strains of Norwegian Black-Metal-Rage-Pop combo Heroin Baby his chance finally came with the somewhat late arrival of four pasty, argumentative, and at times faux-intellectual individuals matching the vague descriptions that he had gathered of the big 41. This first picture would appear to show Tommy H doing to prog-rock what Peter Sutcliffe once did to the night workers of Yorkshire. What remains of Ted’s notes indicate that the poor quality of this image is due to his attempt to aim a camera whilst avoiding a barrage errant drumsticks. It can be assumed that the general miasma of sweat, alcohol, and recrimination that the band are famed for generating cannot of helped.

Subject 2: Mr Guitar aka Danny Blasphemy

With ears bleeding, higher brain function slowly returning, and the coast clear Ted extricated himself from his wall-mounted observation post. At this point, his notes inform us, following 23 hours inside a crate the size of standard archive box, he was only able to return feeling to his legs with alternating applications of direct mains voltage and a staple gun. Finally ambulatory, somewhat short of blood, and with a 45 minute head start to make up for he headed out into the early evening of East-Central London. Without any leads but assuming that alcohol would be a considerable draw on his prey he began a sweep of the local hostelries. It is apparent from his increasingly incoherent scrawl that Ted was by this point not so much disguised as confused, gin-sodden trap as well on the way to becoming one. It is believed that is was under this guise that he managed to capture the accompanying image of Mr Blasphemy. The nature of the telephone call depicted can only be guessed at but, if the time code is correct, it preceded by only minutes an unprecedented collapse in the value of the Tanzanian Shilling.

Subject 3: Mr Drum aka Max Noise

It is at this point that our tale takes its darkest turn. The lack of notes makes it impossible to ascertain exactly Ted’s movements after his late night encounter with Mr Guitar but this image of The Noise, known enforcer and hatchet man of 41st night, was the last recorded on his camera’s memory card. The camera itself, smashed beyond repair and smeared with the bodily fluids of several unidentified contributers, was found some 15 yards from Ted’s beaten and broken body. The best wishes of this writer, and all at this paper, go out to the Otterman family and we pray for Ted’s recovery, in whatever form it takes. While investigations are ongoing and, it is hoped, details will be revealed in the fullness of time, it can be surmised that Ted’s activities were discovered and Mr Drum, as befits his calling, took care of business and pleasure alike.

Subject 4: Mr Bass aka Owen Wilde aka Erasmus Pendleton

Ted’s valiant and possibly suicidal efforts failed to yield a single image of the night’s fourth member. However, further investigation suggests that this 2002 cutting from Madrid’s El Man' de trabajo; diario de s de la lucha revolucionaria (The Working Man's Journal of Revolutionary Struggle) may well be the only existing image of the Wilde one. Curiously, when first published, it was claimed to be a shot of equally reclusive Belorussian novelist and political agitator Alexander Kazulin. Kazulin was later revealed to be a hoax perpetrated by political satirist Ivanov Sergo in a scandal that caused considerable professional damage to much of Eastern Europe’s intellectual elite. Recently released documents indicate that Erasmus Pendleton, a known alias of Wilde’s, was visiting Madrid at exactly the time that this picture was taken and, whilst first hand accounts are rare, it would appear that he capitalised on his physical similarity to reports of Kazulin to win favour with not only the Madrid Workers Commune, with whom he boarded free of charge for nearly two months, but also some of Spain’s more impressionable and nubile students. For more on the whole Kazulin affair I would recommend Simon Webber’s surprisingly readable The Bela-Ruse: Alexander Kazulin and the Old Left’s New Myths (2007, Oxford University Press).

And there we must close. With all four members of 41st night still at large, but at least now somewhat better understood, one open police investigation, and Ted’s prognosis far from clear, all that is left to be said is that this publication will not rest until all of the facts of this sordid affair are brought to light, no matter how many journalists that takes.

Be safe, and as always, beware of the night.