Pieces Of Ape! Pieces Of Ape!

This is quite readable for one of my old BBC reviews, I'd say. I'd go so far as to call it "passable".

I spoil you, I really do.

PART CHIMP/ 65 DAYS OF STATIC. THE SUNNYVALE NOISE SUB-ELEMENT, One Louder, Wheatsheaf, 14/2/03

Dynamics. Now there's a contentious issue. Should a performance be a rollercoaster of volume and tempi, or is that crass theatrics? John Lee Hooker played the same song his whole career, and is perpetually mesmerising, whilst a Christina Aguilera show leaps from rock to rap to ballad, creating nothing but a variegated tedium.

Dynamics figure high on Part Chimp's agenda. The first track bounces from arid single note deserts to furry blocks of noise every few bars; later a Valentine's Day track (allegedly) flips between grinding churn and throbbing blast with gusto. Imagine a whole Mogwai album condensed into three minutes, and that's roughly what we hear...until the shouty vocals pop up, that is. To my mind, when playing the fuzzy noise card, rock growls and drum fills actually detract fro the experience, providing a mundane reference point in the assault, and noticeably diluting the sonic immersion. Having said that, Part Chimp are obviously a rock band, not the Glenn Branca Ensemble, so maybe I'll shut up. All in all, a not unplesant monolith of sound. But then, monoliths shouldn't really be pleasant, should they?

Conversely, 65 Days Of Static don't worry about dynamics so much, the guitars and bass strumming along over dirty pre-programmed loops and hisses. There are two problems with this.

Firstly the sound is terrible (nobody's fault, really, it's a good night for the gremlins), so the programmed sections are lifelessly flat. The whole thing's also strangely quiet (One Louder, you say?), so the band consequently sound like some kids jamming whilst an Asian Dub Foundation record plays next door. Secondly, the live element is sadly obvious and uniform in tone (some odd jerky moments excepted), particularly the bass. Which is a pity as the prerecorded parts - what we hear of them - are pretty effective, combining drum & bass with 70 Gwen Party's filthy shimmy.

"This is the part where you dance," they shout at the static crowd. No, this is the part where you go home, lock the guitars away, turn the machines back on and start layering those rhythms. Then we dance.

Ironically, The Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element's programmed sections sound great, but now we can't hear the rest of the band. And something keeps breaking down half way through the songs. Therefore, this truncated set probably doesn't do them justice, so let's be brief. The samples and splutters are enticing (if a teensy bit PWEI), and some of the random skronks and squeaks are superb, but, as with 65 Days, the guitarists seem redundant, chugging along in the background. More noise, fewer guitars: Anyone for The Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Sub-Element?

My Poor Trait

A cynical bloody review, this. I made up the stuff in the 1st paragraph comepletely. Simply never happened. But I wanted an angle for the review, and this popped into my mind. The last line's pretty facetious, but the rest is OK - I'm quite happy with the Scampi Fries. But, the lesson to take away is, I'm a barefaced liar, and should never be heeded.

NIGHT PORTRAITS – Demo


We had a schoolfreind who never used to do any work for the first half term of the academic year. After that he’d start turning in a little, until finally he’d begin to put actual effort in, towards the last third of the year. “Wait till you see my report card,” he’d say if asked why, “it’ll read ‘A wonderful improvement, we’re very happy’, whereas yours will just say ‘Passable student’. We’ll have done the same quality of work, and you’ll have done more of it, but I’ll get the better write up. This is because a) all judgments are relative, and b) teachers don’t think too much about report cards, so keep things simple for them.”

Having listened to this two-tracker, we’re beginning to think Night Portraits are following the same strategy. When we saw them live it was a shocking mess, an atonal, slovenly, dropped blancmange of a gig, which ended early when the engineer got bored of coming onstage to tune the bass for them. Compared to that, this CD sounds fantastic – the band don’t sound as though they’ve just emerged from seven years in a sensory deprivation tank during which all recognition of their instruments and each other has been erased, for a start. But, if we can think about it for longer than first form teachers on report day, we have to ask, “Is it any good?” Well, it’s loosely promising, but has a way to trek yet.

What we really like about “Place I Love” is the dispassionate, cold detachment in the playing, reminding us a smidgen of New Order. We like the way the drums are neither motorik nor Motown, but just keep things bubbling along. We like the way the guitar has just enough reverb to sound distant and unemotive, without teetering over into goth posturing. We like the contrast between this and the vocals, which are a guttural howl cutting across it all. But what we don’t like is the song itself, which has a brief flash of character, but ends up a tiny puff of nothing much. It’s like a rock ‘n’ roll version of Smith’s Scampi Flavour Fries.

Also, although we like the placement of the voice, we’re not keen on the voice itself, which is affected and doesn’t seem to know exactly what it’s shooting for, ending up a kind of cross between Brian Molko and a drunken lovelorn lumberjack being tossed out of a Newfoundland strip joint. There’s definitely a good punky voice here somewhere, but he’s not found it yet. The opening of “Fortune’s Fool” doesn’t do them any favours, being pretty empty 90s rock with a facile little guitar portamento which for some reason drives us crazy with rage. It improves after a short while, but still sounds rather too much like “Place I Love” for comfort. We’re briefly enticed by a silly noise that sounds like a rubber dog whining for a bone, but this disappears as swiftly as it arrived.

Unlike a lot of young bands Night Portraits have already got some control over their sound, and have some obvious ability glinting through, but it sounds as though they’ve not exactly found their niche yet. Then again, they’re a new act. This demo is analogous to the last week before Christmas holidays, so perhaps the quality shall come later. Maybe we’ll be writing them a glowing report yet.

Gurus Joshed

This was the first time we'd ever seen Stornoway, now comfortably Oxford's best band. My, how they've grown. The venue and the other two acts are long gone, by the way, just in case you were getting excited about things growing to fruition and bursting forth with dribbly creative juices all around Oxford...

THE SWAMIS/ LOS DIABLOS/ STORNOWAY, The X, 4/06

If "unassuming" to you means "tedious and forgettable", skip a paragraph now. Go on, there's plenty for you later. The rest of us can discuss Stornoway, who are quiet, likable, and unabloodyssuming enough to make Belle & Sebastian look like Count Grishnackh, proffering AOR melodicism and Snow Patrol-style vocals that just skirt nasally whining to arrive at disarmingly lovely. Unsurprisingly they're sometimes overly polite, especially in nods towards castrated reggae rhythms, but high points delight, such as a tune allegedly written in a boulangerie that sounds like a fascinating cross between 10cc and The Proclaimers. They could do with letting go a bit, and dropping the worst jazz break ever, but Stornoway are exploring some interesting corners of the overstuffed acoustic rock foyer.

With Mark "Evenings" Wilden on drums and brother James on guitar, Los Diablos' sound is straightforward, but the material's certainly unpredictable. Mixing irreverent covers with originals and a hefty dash of VIth form revue silliness mreans they'll be anathema to many, but if you like a bit of harmless cabaret, this duo delivers the goods. Highlights bookend the set, with a helium thrash through "Wuthering Heights" and Jacques Brel's "The Girls & The Dogs". The ambience may be more Roy Walker than Scott Walker, but the playing is neat, showing sides to Mark's vocals hidden in The Evenings' maelstrom. Perhaps they're selling their songs short with this jocular presentation, but considering one of those songs is a Barenaked Ladies romp about a Chevy Chase lookalike, they probably don't care.

Clever billing for rock trio The Swamis, who sound absolutely enormous after these acoustic prologues. And fair play, too, because they're as tight and powerful as you could wish, powering down a mid-80s rock furrow with much dexterity. If you liked it you could " buy a CD from the man in the Led Zep T-shirt", whihc pretty much sums up The Swamis. They clearly inhabit a cosy world where nothing changes much, where mates dance like drunken uncles at a wedding, heads are nodded at provincial bars and "rock" is spelt with an A and a W. Good word for Scrabble.

A Life In The Day

Jesus, these old BBC reviews get worse and worse. Should I be depressed at how bad I used to be, or happy that wahetever else may have happened, at least I've improved slightly? Or should I have another cup of tea and then go and do something useful?

MAYFLY, South Park, 4/5/03

It almost seems churlish to start being critical about a free family fun day in the park. Then again, Blind Date is free family fun, and who could watch that and hold back a (probably violent) critical reaction? Also, I'm insecure enough to need to see my half-formed opinions in print. Not that this website is precisely "in print". Unless you print it.

Oh no, I've wasted all these words and I haven't even started to talk about X-Hail...which is lucky, as I didn't see them. I've got a good excuse though - I had to go and buy beer. Sorry.

I did, however, see Eeebleee, the wild card in the day's line up. Take one part shimmering guitar, one part double bass, and three parts crunchy loops, then shake until barely recognisable, and that's the 'bleee, as they are surely not known, and never will be. When it works, it's an unexpectedly poppy cocktail; when it doesn't it sounds like an old OMD B side. This performance is about 50/50.

Let's be honest, Chamfer are pretty much Kula Shaker, albeit a less pompous version. Plenty of rock riffs, keyboard hooks and Indian percussion. This sort of thing probably works better in the (intermittent) sunshine, but it sounds mighty fine, the band turning in a tight, spirited performance, irrespective of amp troubles. Unashamedly positive music played by unpretentiously decent people is pretty hard to dislike, especially on a bank holiday.

Nation open up the covers half of the afternoon, cracking out some rock chestnuts, from Elvis to Oasis, interspersed with a few originals. They're a pretty neat little unit, although they do take on vocal hurdles that are a bit beyond them: Michael Jackson? The Beach Boys? The keyboardist takes over vocal duties for "Heard It Through The Grapevine" and proceeds to sing better than the frontman...and he's not wearing a lino dressing gown, whihc is also in his favour.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch The Cheesegraters, but seeing as their slogan is "Right about now, the funk-soul covers", you can probably draw your own conclusions.

I don't know how many of your days out end up with people dressed in 19th Century bathing suits playing skiffle versions of well known tunes, but for me The Boxhedge Clippers was a first. Talking of things sounding better in the sun - we were earlier, do keep up - The Clippers are made for a whimsical summer afternoon. The call it "skuffle", I call it hilarious. They're very much in the vein of earl Bonzo Dog Band, and to me the sight of an old chap, resembling a drunken badger, accordioning his way through "Anarchy In The UK" is more than satisfying. If it's too silly for your tastes, you may wish to focus on the tight tempo changes, and the lush harmonies. Or you may wish to go and have an overpriced burger instead.

All in all a varied and well-chosen line up, with some excellent sound from a man called Mark Kelly, made for an enjoyable day in South Park. Let's see if we can repeat this line up later in the year, in place of Fox Fm and their hordes of Atomic Kittenettes...

Whorled Music

If you don't know who Ally Craig is, go and find out. That's all.

ALLY CRAIG – ANGULAR SPIRALS 7”


“Ghost Town” by The Specials. “Paperback Writer” by The Beatles. “Breakout” by Swing Out Sister. We all have our pantheon of perfect pop songs, 3 minute nuggets of joy that cannot be bettered one iota, but just as exciting and cherishable are mysterious records, tracks that don’t quite make sense, songs that never entirely resolve themselves into something solid. Amongst the great music that never fully reveals itself – Robert Johnson, Erik Satie, Lee Perry, The Fall – we might find nestled our very own Ally Craig, as his new single is intriguing, mysterious, and somehow sparse and complex simultaneously.

We open with a plucked, clockwork chicken guitar, that sounds for all the world just some disco pants and a voodoo doll away from funk legends The Meters. This one note stroll suddenly tumbles into an odd descending figure, and sets the tone for the rest of the track as “lopsided”. As the song develops it fattens up with some chunky guitar and drums, yet never loses the awkwardness of its central rhythm, until it sounds like a pompous rock epic crumpled up and condensed like discarded notepaper. The lyrics don’t give much away either, the narrator wondering whether he could become a cyborg, and eventually mindlessly playing computer games (err, we thnk). In between he informs us, “I find my beauty in/ Bridges and cities, and/ The angular spirals we/ Both draw.” Who is this comic book urban wastrel, and what should we think about him? Oddly, we’re reminded of James Joyce’s pretentious genius Stephen Dedalus, whose sententious statements (“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake”) seem in equal parts risible and philosophical. Before we know it, a hesitant guitar plays the descending figure again, like an uncertain question, and is inaudibly answered by a muffled drumroll. The end.

If “Angular Spirals” is an enigma, flipside “You Get What You Pays For” is completely impenetrable, with more clucking pullet plucking (is this a side effect of Craig’s unusual perpendicular playing technique?), fat guitars like Shellac at a mild canter, obscure lyrics about can openers, and a sax that sounds like a punchdrunk wasp. The whole tune appears to be an excuse to develop an eerie little motif that resembles a suspense cue from Perry Mason. Believe us, we’ve listened to this single a lot, and we still find ourselves asking the same questions: What are these tracks about? Why are they shaped so unostentatiously strangely? Why are they so amazing? Why doesn’t Ally step up his release schedule, because he has it in him to make one of the great Oxford albums? Answers on a postcard.

Terpsichore Continuum

A gig on a Sunday night with far too many acts that went on far too late. Lucky they managed to find one decent act, otherwise I may have killed them.

Breaking news: Youthmovies whom I wrote about in the last post have anounced today that they abbreviated their name again. To Youm. Yes, Youm, that's not a typo. Their music's not bad, but what a bunch of cocks. Youm, I ask you...

PRINZHORN DANCE SCHOOL/ ME & THE NECK/ THE CHELTENHAM AVERAGE/ LOUISE HANSON/ SIAN ROBINS-GRACE/ SOME FUCKING DICK DOING COMEDY/ SUB FUNC – The Cellar, March07

Sub Func? Sub- fucking something. Standard? Musical? Human? Our mission to rehabilitate funk as a respectable genre crumbles in the face of this stolid, flabby and gutless stillborn jam session. And this is just the first of seven acts! Jesus, don’t you people have to go to work tomorrow morning? After a feeble stand up, whose name the organisers don’t even tell us (embarrassment, we surmise), Sian Robins-Grace provides blessed relief with some abrasive poetry, centred on repressed rugger boys and menstrual liberation: strident and amusing, she’s a one woman Hammer & Tongue.

DJ Louise Hanson has hit on the novel idea of playing records and makes sure we have 40 minutes to marvel at her audacity. The Cheltenham Average live up to the latter part of their name, with some clumpy foursquare indie that only comes close to working when it approaches a Strokes shuffle, and we begin to despair. Deeply. The bar doesn’t serve arsenic so we settle down to endure Me & The Neck, who revel in their slipshod inadequacy. In fairness, it’s occasionally charming, but if ever there were a cover version to make you go home and melt your hallowed copy of “The Queen Is Dead”, these amateurs can supply it.

Frankly, by this time anything would sound revelatory, and the fact that Prinzhorn Dance School are one of the best bands we’ve seen in years means we almost explode. They have more authority in one brutal snare crack than the other bands will manage in their lives. PDS have taken bluesy punk and pared it to the bone. Then they’ve sharpened the bone. Then they’ve driven the bone with a ruthless efficiency into your defenceless ears. Seriously, this trio is sparse and commanding enough to make The Archie Bronson Outfit look like Emerson, Lake & Palmer. There’s a deft economy in the lyrics too, one tale of a “twelve piece soul band” in a leisure centre recalling McClusky at their most mordantly humorous; the last song, with it’s repeated yelps of “Crackerjack docker” remind us of Dragnet era Fall, which is high praise indeed. Relentless, mysterious and individual, Prinzhorn are painfully good. Whereas most of the night was just painful.

Brownie Packin' Momma

Hmm, this review kind of bites off more than it can chew, doesn't it? Starts well, and then gets messy, until I'm throwing Borges at it in a desperate attempt to get things to stick together.

Interesting fact 1: Youthmovies dropped the last two words from their name, and are now a much better band.

Interesting fact 2: When this reivew was published the naughty word was edited out. Fine by me, but "tosh" really doesn't have the same force as "shit". Surely you could have found a better synonym, ed!

BROWN OWL/ YOUTH MOVIE SOUNDTRACK STRATEGIES/ WOLVES! (OF GREECE), 26/2/03

People were rathe apocalyptic in the mid-nineties...must have been the encroaching millenium. Why else would they coin the term "post-rock"? Did it really seem as though rock were a vast, unwieldy corpse to scavenge? Well, nowadays post-rock doesn't give us images of the death of an artform, but normally translates as "no singer, and they don't do ska-punk knees up". Brown Owl are post-rock in the latter sense (tempo changes, spastic drum fills, neverending pieces, pseudo-bebop cymbal splahes), but they don't do it badly at all. Their references are pretty standard: Shallac, Slint, Aerial M, blah blah (cut up some old post-rock reviews and write this sentence yourself, kids). This doesn't stop them being ace - they just stay within the confines of the genre.

There are onnly three orf them, but sometimes two of them are drummers, and a two-drumkit lineup works for me (Adam Ant, The Fall '82 vintage, Circle). They're jerky, intricate, comical, elastic, irridescent - everything you want from post-rock, really. Then again, this stuff's more about texture than tune, so live performances are a little frustrating. Get them into a giant studio with a grat big effects machine and then we're talking.

It's hard to do justice to variable, semi-successful bands in these short reviews: "unexpugrated shit" and "undying genius" are such pithy phrases, but the middle ground's hard to pin down. Youth Move Soundtrack Strategies are like two separate bands simultaneously, one a hardcore bludgeoning beast, and one a dissonant, experimental miasma: if only one were better than the other, it would be easier for me. Sigh.

There are a lot of good sounds here, like yapping viocals, abstract synths, pounding drums, megaphone gurgle, and wandering guitars. Sometimes they gel, and sometimes they don't: I'm not sure which is more interesting. Lost-in-the-post-rock.

R.E.M. named early tune "Wolves, Lower" because they "liked the comma". Wolves! (Of Greece) have a similar love of punctuation (and the lupine), though not as much as :zoviet*france: or si-{cut}.db. Borges told us that it is the logical end of any art to "overdo its own tricks". Wolves! certainly feel as though they've stretched their artpunk trickbag to the limit, perhaps bringing us back to post-rock's millenial definition.

The instruments crackle away inside a wall of impenetrable feedback, whilst the vocalist rants inaudibly; visually the flailing Wolves" are chimps' teaparty meets playgroup tartrazine OD (uptown, presumably), and they spend as much time on the floor as upright. A celebratory critique of rock excesses? Or some noisy men leaping aournd? Like cheap alcohol it can be intoxicating if you give yourself up to it, but I wouldn't advise it as a way to spend an evening.

Damo Better Oxford Blues

Bit of a waffle this one. I think it's because I enjoyed the set, but couldn't say why. Saying whyis kinda my job, so that's no excuse, I appreciate.

Damo has come back to Oxon a couple of times, with different bands, but sadly I've not managed to see any of those shows, so the final question remains a mystery.

DAMO SUZUKI/ SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT/SUNNYVALE NOISE SUB-ELEMENT, Oxfordbands, The Cellar, 24/1/06

Although it took me a while to get converted, I now believe that Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element are one of the best bands in Oxford. But that doesn't automatically translate into one of the best live bands in Oxford. Their backing tracks are wonderful, all angular electro, thudding techno and thick sonic mulch, but the live instruments don't always add a huge amount, generally consisting of simple, fractured basslines and sudden guitar thrashes. Trouble is, you're not sure you want the live instruments to do much more as it would spoil the musical balance and swamp the lovely crunchy rhythms. Let's just say that Sunnyvale gigs are great but there isn't always much to differentiate them. Oh, except that Damo Suzuki joined them for two numbers tonight. I can't forget that. I get the feeling they won't be forgetting in a hurry, either.

Perhaps some people are forever seeing bands that play a mixture of revivalist hymns, twisted Beefheartian blues, pummeling metal mayhem and children's TV themes, but for me Suitable Case For Treatment are something special. It's amazing how they switch styles so effortlessly, leaping from falsetto silliness one minute to threatening vocal harangues the next (some of which render a stuffed Cellar completely silent, which is no mean feat) via some abstract keyboard noise. Many people have pointed out that the vocalist is so gravelly he makes Tom Waits look like Yma Sumac, but that's not the whole story: lots of vocalists can growl, but not many can do so with such a vivid range of colour and phrasing. Or with such gut-churning volume, for that matter.

Also, for a band that veer quite close to cabaret at times, they don't get too tempted into showboating or playing to the gallery: witness the funereally slow and sparse take on the classic "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?" with which they open the show. And looking at SCFT you get the feeling the circle will be broken. Broken, mangled, chewed up, cut into tiny pieces and possibley boiled in oil. This is the sort of band that makes you want to take up smoking so your mouth can feel like your ears do. A glorious noise.

As has been well documented, Damo Suzuki tends to round up so-called "sound carriers" before his gigs, with whom he then proceeds to play completely improvised sets, so we saw the tiny legend himself surrounded by some of Oxford music's more familiar faces, which was a slightly surreal experience ( I mean for me, God knows how it felt to them!). Anyway, I feel that Damo can go back home happy with the collaboration he discovered in Oxford, as the band was superb. If the music was truly improvised, it was tighter and better controlled than many bands can manage after a month of rehearsals. The sound itself was rich but ultimately very sturdy and evenly weighted - the complete opposite to SCFT - and, consciously or unconsciously, there was a definite kraut flavour to large parts of the set. Special mention must go to Evenings bassist Phil Oakley whose fat and fruity parts seemed to cohere the whole sound.

Although, of course, there was another man onstage who had some influence on the quality of the evening. Damo is fascinating, as it's tough to tell exactly what he does that's so good, and he's clearly just one of those special vocal presences who can improve any music without doing all that much, like Mark E. Smith, Johnny Cash or James brown. He's certainly got quite a small technical armoury, and an even smaller vocal range, but he does just enough to embellish the music and bring out its flavour, like dash of water in a nice single malt. He seemed to find a melodic and downright groovy song in the midst of Sunnyvale's clatter, which is quite some achievement! Ultimately, it would seem that Damo is a very generous collaborator - he is playing with these musicians, not hiring them as a backing band.

Of course, the risk of fully improvised performances is that there are the odd passages that don't ignite, and occasionally the gig edged towards a fuzzy mid-70s jam nightmare...but then again, the joy of fully improvised music is that the great passages arise unannounced, and there were easily enough of these epiphanies to keep me hanging on to the performance for the duration.

A final question for the cold walk home: to what extent did Damo make this gig great, and to what extent was it down to the band? A real stumper, that. I guess next time he comes to play here he can perform with completely different musicians and then we can compare. That's a hint to the Oxfordbands chaps, by the way...

Like A Baton Out Of Hell

Ah, I'm too tired to write much now, I've just done a review of the latest LP by The Relationships, that I'd been meaning to do for ages, and then typed this up. It's well good. The record, not the review, which is slightly too long, but what the hell, I'm not feeling well, and I'm off to the doctor tomorrow. Is this the sort of rivetting autobiographical tat people want on 'blogs? Does the very fact I've put an apostrophe before "'blogs" and "'cellist" reveal that I have no rela place in the digital age? Answers on a post-rock, please...

THE HELLSET ORCHESTRA/ BIG JOAN, The Cellar, 11/05

A four piece band, two of whom are drummers? Call me unsubtle, but I like those percussive odds, and when one of them is playing an old metal bin we know we're in for some clattery goodness. Opening instrumental aside, Big joan trade in the sort of brutal yet insidious simplicity McLusky used to deliver, with the vocals smweared greasily over the top in the beguiling style of a pitch-perfect Kim Gordon. A superb racket, by any other name. It would have been slightly better if they'd more of the quieter sections, and much better if and angry little New York monster had popped out of the bin shouting, "Hey lady! Tryin' to get some sleep over here!", but you can't have everything.

Ever noticed the similarity between an old Hammond and a child's coffin? Or between a black clad 'cellist and a melodramatic mourner? Watching The Hellset Orchestra's catalogue of camp horror tropes starts bringing these odd images to mind, as they crank out their organ-led tales of malevolent science, mayhem and, erm, ornithology. Like a Hammer Horror film performed by metalheads on a Victorian pier end, the effect is patently ridiculous, but like our very own Suitable Case For Treatment they take farcical elements and weld them into imposing and somehow logical forms.

There's a certain intelligent economy in the way the grotesque ingredients are melded that stops the show falling into the flabby novelty camp - "Temporary Stronghold Of The Weather Thieves" has got to be the best song title of the year, surely - and if the string section were ever in tune we'd be nearing pop music territory. Well, alright, you'd have to excise the vocal growls and the free jazz sax solo too, but who'd want to? Anyone noticed the similarity between The Hellset Orchestra and a bloody great band? A Celarfull, roughly.

Stern Words

Once again, as with my very first review, this involves me filling in and helping out BBC writer Jeremy Stern because he had an urgent engagement in the bath, or the pub, or something. This time he phoned to say he wa supposed to be reviewing a gig, but could only make the last act; seeing as I was going anyway, I agreed to review the first two performances. It's a rubbish piece of writing, but an excellent piece of altruism, so it probably balances out.

JAKE/CACHE, Gappy Tooth Industries, The Zodiac, 9/03

Having seen Cache recently, and been a little bored by proceedings, it was a pleasant surprise to watch them tonight. They seem to have ironed out some wrinkles, and polished up a bunch of corners. Not to mention apparently giving the drummer a clip round the ear and a strong cup of coffee.

It's still hardly groundbreaking stuff, and far too unassuming for my tastes, but the vocals aren't half bad, with a fruity twist of Edie Brickell and a soupcon of Eddi Reader. Still a bit of an MOR soup, then, but at least now we're floating on it, not drowning in it.

Prince. The artist formerly known as any good. You may have read that a certain Mr. H. M. Superstar is the heir to the classic Prince crown, but, though he's got the sleazy pants and dancing girls, he hasn't one ounce of the soul. Jake, on the other hand, is exactly as exhilirating as his name isn't. Check the ridiculous pork pie hat, the white boy apoplexy of the hand gestures, the Norf Lahndon soulboy exhortations to dance, and the syrupy falsetto

This is 30 minutes of funk cabaret like Jamiroquai's wildest fantasies; like Cameo meeting Roachford in a massage parlour; like - well, basically like Prince...almost exactly like Prince.

OK, it's a buit wilfully nostalgic (Sign O' The Times Gone By, maybe) but Jake is one born performer backed by three natural musicians - how can you lose? Catch him playing with Chamfer in the near future. Now, if only they could write a few more tunes...

[At this jhuncture Jeremy turned up and wrote some guff or other about Birmingham metalers Last Under The Sun]

...& A Baptism?

Giving your editor's band a lukewarm review - if you can get past that, you've got a good working relationship! The only thing the band got upset about was that I called the record a "demo", whereas they imagined it as an EP. To my mind, unless your record's got a barcode on the back and you pay tax if you buy one, it's a demo, not a proper release, but I appreciate I'm woefully C20th in this respect.

THE MILE HIGH YOUNG TEAM - FOUR SEPARATIONS

It's an odd name, The Mile High Young Team. Not only does it bring to mind unpleasant images of cramped airplane toilet sex with Mogwai, but it's also paradxically attached to a band that sounds comfortably middle-aged and defiantly earthbound. I don't mean that as a criticism, but this is a demo far more concerned with quality, song strucutre and elegance than the majority of local discs that fall into our hands. At their best TMHYT manage to weave a delicate spell of literate melancholy (imagine weeping quietly onto a well worn volume of Mallarme whilst sipping fine cognac) but occasionally they do enter an arid valley of well-produced politeness located somewhere in 1987.

"Distance Between Them" is an enticing opener, loping along at a friendly pace and augmenting its winningly natural vocals with some fairground keyboard swirls and eloquent 'cello. In fact, throughout the demo 'cellist Caroline Taylor provides some enticing embellishments - the 'cello has become something of a lazy signifier of brainy intensity nowadays, with every other singer-songwriter in town trying to snatch a little Nick Drake cachet by inviting Barney Morse-Brown onstage, so it's refreshing to hear it used intelligently. It's also something of a surprise to hear The Evenings' manic sticksman Mark Wilden play with such restraint throughout. Like local balladeers script, TMHYT are adept at marrying arrangments that are clever yet understated with an ear for a pleasing melody.

But restraint can be a burden, and occasionally this demo steps gingerly when it should be leaping headlong: witness Emily Aldworth Davis' threats to "explode like an atom bomb". Can't imagine it myself. Similarly "Letter From Rosanna" has a chorus that is perhaps meant to be rousing, but comes off sounding as exhausted as if it had spent all night playing rummy with Deacon Blue in Billy Joel's rumpus room.

However, this is the only really duff point of the demo, and perhaps it's unfair to focus on it when in the main TMHYT offer such accessible, intricate and emotive songwriting coupled with asured performances (witness aching, wistful closing track "The Bering Straits"). We definitely expect to make time in the future to see what TMHYT does next, but we don't expect to be making space for them in our rock pantheon any time soon.

Denise Marie you; Marie you...

So, here's a funny thing. I've been away for 2 weeks, but the hit rate on the site has been high to average, even though there's been no new copy. Perhaps it was just my 2 regular readers checking in to see whether I was OK; perhaps if I investigated how long each visit was I'd discover they were 1.4 seconds each, just people eyeballing the fact there are no new posts.

In actual fact, I'll never check the duration of visits, in case they're all 1.4 seconds, and nobody's ever read a single article. What would be even sadder than this discovery is the realisation I'd probably carry on posting, even in the knowledge nobody ever read it. What sort of hideous 21st century sickness do I labour beneath? What twisted cyber solipsism urges me to publush thoughts on tiny bands from Oxford that you've never heard of? I feel queasy.

Oh, and if you know who Laima and Chantelle are from their first names, award yourself a Bridge Of Sighs shaped flapjack.

DENISE MARIE/ MARIA ILLETT, The X, 2/06

"I thought if you had an acoustic guitar it meant that you were a protest singer," claimed Morrissey twenty years ago. How times have changed, Steve. Nowadays there's only one subject that gets most acoustic slinging singer-songwriters grabbing the compostitional pen, and that's doleful self-pity. Refreshing, then, to discover a pair of talented singers with a larger agenda and some real songwriting ability.

Maria Illett is a surprise initially, as my previous experience of her is a lovely louche recording brushed with faintly Bristolian electronics, but tonight she's left all that stuff at home. Her great strength is her winning, naturally accented vocal, and by dispensing with the self-conscious warbles that similar acts employ it allows her to acheive a far greater range of sophisticated phrasing. She's not quite a Laima or a Chantelle yet, and a little more diversity wouldn't go amiss, but it's still an impressive performance...but bring the synths along next time, Maria. We like those.

New Orleans visitor Denise Marie has a wider repertoire, drawing on country, blues, jazz and the odd latin rhythm. Denise's voice is sweet and almost reedy with a husky edge and it's equally suited to cajoling, romancing or haranguing - hell, she even does a protest song if you're reading, Morrissey. Her guitar technique is intricate without sacrificing any fluidity, making most local strummers look woefully clumsy. She even sings two songs accompanied by nothing but a tambourine, and if you've only ever seen tambourines waggled lamely by simian frontmen or some guitarist's girlfriend you'd be amazed at the rattling, almost mechanical rhythmic lattice that Denise produces, reminding me oddly of Truck favourite Thomas Truax. Perhaps things get a tiny bit twee at times - visions of Denise serenading Kermit the Frog in a synthetic mangrove - but this is a minor quibble. Watch out for this spirited and individual musician on her next visit.