OK, that took longer than I thought to type up, and I have to go and cook a risotto, so I'll leave you to it...
SALMONELLA DUB/ YT/ DUBWISER - Zodiac, 29/9/05
In general, devotional music works best when it pushes fewest boundaries - marvelling at technical novelties tends to distract from the matter in hand. I'm sure that any number of British Christians listen to Tallis' Spem In Alium or Bach's St Matthew's Passion for their beauty and ingenuity, but when they feel in the praying mood some harmless old John Rutter finds its way onto the stereo. Interestingly, in Jamaican musical history the rule is inverted. Much of the deepest, most invigorating reggae can be loosely classed as roots, with an emphasis firmly on the spiritual and irie, whilst dub - a blueprint for studio innovation over the last 35 years - is synonymous with Rastafarianism.
The only reason I mention this is to highlight the oddity of seeing a reggae gig mostly full of non-believers jumping and singing along to music that is explicitly religious. They're just there for the music, the lyrical content is irrelevant. I don't know whether Dubwiser are true believers, or whether they're just working within the confines of the genre, but they certainly deliver the goods with deep resonant tracks like "Jah Kingdom Come". Dispensing for the most part with reggae's signature offbeat guitar, they birng percussion to the fore, creating a bouncy mix of nyabinghi rhythms and dancehall clatter. The vocals are sweet and clear, too, in the best Alton Ellis tradition.
Only the overworked apocalyptic number obsessed with "prophecy" falls flat, coming on like a messy Rasta version of Aphrodite's Child. However, with this exception, you'll find that 30 minutes in the company of this relentlessly bouyant bass will put a smile on your face...as will the fact that said bass is seemingly played by Chris Moyles.
YT. I don't know whether that's his initials, a pun on "Whitey" or a play on Youth Training schemes. the last option would be fittest, as there's still lots more work to be done if YT is to become a successful live performer. May U-Roy strike me down if I'm forgetting the long relationship between toaster and selector in Jamaican music, but this feels like a man talking over a backing track, nothing more, nothing less.
In fairness, YT sounds like a decent rapper, if he could calm it down and stop growling like a B-movie pirate, but the real problem is the the backing tracks are so tinny and compressed they sound like they're playing on a tape recorder at the back of the room. The other difficulty is that there's no feeling of narrative at all, either lyrical or musical, and the tracks just start and then suddenly stop a few minutes later. I'm prepared to believe that in the studio YT could work some wonders, but live he's at best ignorable and at worst annoying.
I guess New Zeland dance music is an area in which my education's somewhat behind, as hundreds of cheering people have turned out to see Salmonella Dub, while I admit to never having heard of them. They know best, though, as SD are an excellent dance act. The sound hits the usual dubby club references, like Dreadzone and Zion Train, with some of the slower sections recalling long forgotten ambient skankers Another Fine Day. However, the live horns and full frontal drums add a more organic punch to the performance. It's all about texture and process, as guitars and brass drop into loping repetitions over which keyboards gradually phase and develop.
Salmonlella Dub are all clearly excellent musicians, and there's a part of me that would like to see them let go a little and throw in the odd solo. Perhaps "an excellent dance act" is a critidcism as well as a celebration: if you're not in the dancing mood sitting a nd wathcing the band could prove a tad samey and uninteresting. then again, the number of people in the Zodiac not in a dancing mood is approximately seven, so I think we'll strike that objection, don't you?
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
If I Had A Nikolai For Every Time I'd Done This Joke...
Gogol Bordello kick arse live, this is a fact. On record, they're fine. So, your choice is clear; now, fly, my pretties, fly.
GOGOL BORDELLO/ THE FIGHTING COCKS, Zodiac, 3/09
The Fighting Cocks have five members, but they only play three instruments, two of which are inaudible. The guitars are there solely for show, and the turntables don’t add much to the incredibly loud punk ragga backing track anyway, so effectively this band consists of four oddly attired people ranting brattishly. As a chunk of ironic Variety it’s fun, but the strength of the show is that The Fighting Cocks are clearly half in love with the same pre-packaged pop they ridicule (both Kelis and B*Witched have their lyrics reappropriated). It can all turn into a Dumb & Dumba Chumbawumba occasionally, but this band are updating the punk credo for the digital age: don’t even bother stealing instruments and half-learning them anymore, just cut straight to the dressing up and shouting. For this, they must surely be admired.
Now, imagine this punk cabaret schtick but put the musicianship back in tenfold, and you’ve got Gogol Bordello. Searing East European fiddle and accordion runs are married to thumping bass and drum rolls that wouldn’t be out of place in Pantera, whilst all the time frontman Eugene Hutz throws his bared torso round the stage like Borat Rotten, his handlebar moustache dripping sweat. What’s amazing is that beneath all the chaos Gogol Bordello are still as tight a folk rock band as anyone could dream of. But when we add in washboard wielding sisters, musicians crowd surfing on bass drums, fists aloft on all sides and one of the biggest stage invasions seen in recent times, the net effect is like an egalitarian Nuremberg Rally. There’s so much going on that any review is in danger of becoming simply a list of salient oddities, but it’s evident that this band are tapping a vein of good old-fashioned showbiz, offering us choreographed carnage, built on ruthlessly honed performance and practised theatricality, equally embracing Busby Berkely, The Who and Taraf De Haiduks. Expect imitators springing up all over London about now. Expect none of them to come even close.
GOGOL BORDELLO/ THE FIGHTING COCKS, Zodiac, 3/09
The Fighting Cocks have five members, but they only play three instruments, two of which are inaudible. The guitars are there solely for show, and the turntables don’t add much to the incredibly loud punk ragga backing track anyway, so effectively this band consists of four oddly attired people ranting brattishly. As a chunk of ironic Variety it’s fun, but the strength of the show is that The Fighting Cocks are clearly half in love with the same pre-packaged pop they ridicule (both Kelis and B*Witched have their lyrics reappropriated). It can all turn into a Dumb & Dumba Chumbawumba occasionally, but this band are updating the punk credo for the digital age: don’t even bother stealing instruments and half-learning them anymore, just cut straight to the dressing up and shouting. For this, they must surely be admired.
Now, imagine this punk cabaret schtick but put the musicianship back in tenfold, and you’ve got Gogol Bordello. Searing East European fiddle and accordion runs are married to thumping bass and drum rolls that wouldn’t be out of place in Pantera, whilst all the time frontman Eugene Hutz throws his bared torso round the stage like Borat Rotten, his handlebar moustache dripping sweat. What’s amazing is that beneath all the chaos Gogol Bordello are still as tight a folk rock band as anyone could dream of. But when we add in washboard wielding sisters, musicians crowd surfing on bass drums, fists aloft on all sides and one of the biggest stage invasions seen in recent times, the net effect is like an egalitarian Nuremberg Rally. There’s so much going on that any review is in danger of becoming simply a list of salient oddities, but it’s evident that this band are tapping a vein of good old-fashioned showbiz, offering us choreographed carnage, built on ruthlessly honed performance and practised theatricality, equally embracing Busby Berkely, The Who and Taraf De Haiduks. Expect imitators springing up all over London about now. Expect none of them to come even close.
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Much Ado About Muffin
So, here's the very last scrapings from the BBC barrel. There was one other review I wrote that never got used, about a sax & drums duo, but that's long gone. I recall it was poor anyway, so that's OK. In fact, to be frank, I forget whether I submitted this to the BBC or someone else - all I know is that it never got used, and probably for good reason.
THE MUFFINMEN, Zodiac
Well, the jury's still out on how posterity will treat the musical anomaly that is Frank Zappa. His life's work is a mass of contradictions, with tireless musical invention and a cast itron work ethic on one side, and lame scatalogical humour and sterile, locker room musical athleticism on the other. Any Zappa tribute has a tough job deciding what to include and what to discard.
The fivepiece Muffinmen are a more beefy proposition than John Etheridge's Zappatistas, who played at South Park earlier in the year. They certainly delve straight to the blues heart of "My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Momma", or "Wonderful Wino", a track that sometimes became a piece of absurd cabaret at Zappa's gigs.
They also boast the vocals of Jimmy Carl Black, and original Mother Of Invention, and a confused looking individual - it appears that he might have fallen asleep during the mixdown of Freak Out!, and woken up again five minutes before the gig. Still, it apears he's got the great british 'flu, so we'll let him of singing only a couple of numbers, and sounding more like Beefheart than Zappa.
Even without Black the band get their teeth right into the angular complexities of the Zappa canon, and find plenty of time to unfurl imaginative and exhilirating solos on guitar, trumpet and (best of the bunch) flute.
Veering, as he did, oddly between hardnosed artpunk, and chin-fiddling muso, Zappa's music can be at once fascinating, funky, beautiful and infuriatingly stupid (see the aformentioned six string matricide), and is sometimes difficult work. Still, if you don't enjoy it, blame Frank, don't blame the superb Muffinmen, as light-hearted a bunch of noisy virtuosic Scousers as you're likely to meet.
THE MUFFINMEN, Zodiac
Well, the jury's still out on how posterity will treat the musical anomaly that is Frank Zappa. His life's work is a mass of contradictions, with tireless musical invention and a cast itron work ethic on one side, and lame scatalogical humour and sterile, locker room musical athleticism on the other. Any Zappa tribute has a tough job deciding what to include and what to discard.
The fivepiece Muffinmen are a more beefy proposition than John Etheridge's Zappatistas, who played at South Park earlier in the year. They certainly delve straight to the blues heart of "My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Momma", or "Wonderful Wino", a track that sometimes became a piece of absurd cabaret at Zappa's gigs.
They also boast the vocals of Jimmy Carl Black, and original Mother Of Invention, and a confused looking individual - it appears that he might have fallen asleep during the mixdown of Freak Out!, and woken up again five minutes before the gig. Still, it apears he's got the great british 'flu, so we'll let him of singing only a couple of numbers, and sounding more like Beefheart than Zappa.
Even without Black the band get their teeth right into the angular complexities of the Zappa canon, and find plenty of time to unfurl imaginative and exhilirating solos on guitar, trumpet and (best of the bunch) flute.
Veering, as he did, oddly between hardnosed artpunk, and chin-fiddling muso, Zappa's music can be at once fascinating, funky, beautiful and infuriatingly stupid (see the aformentioned six string matricide), and is sometimes difficult work. Still, if you don't enjoy it, blame Frank, don't blame the superb Muffinmen, as light-hearted a bunch of noisy virtuosic Scousers as you're likely to meet.
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Count Boozula
Drunkenstein. What a stupid name, it makes them sound like a sloppy funk covers band at a student disco in 1987. Not a bad band, but they should get someone to work on their PR.
DRUNKENSTEIN – THE INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC OF DRUNKENSTEI (1908) – Rivet Gun Records
This is a very good record – comfortably the pick of our recent review pile – but it does display two huge faults, standing out like a pair of High School Musical deely boppers at a state funeral. Let’s start with the positive, though. First up, the playing is rather wonderful. Both guitars manage to combine rock heaviness with some intriguing curlicues, but the palme d’or belongs to the rhythm section: Snuffy from the much missed Marconi’s Voodoo supplies rich chocolatey bass, equally at home with funky slap figures and metal density, evident in the awkward yet propulsive intros to “Equation” and “Kool Aid”; Tim “Junkie Brush” Lovegrove’s drums are just as enticing, thudding yet precise – even finicky – in a manner that slightly recalls Zappa alumnus Terry Bozzio.
The compositions play well to these strengths, “Doktorr Black” rising from a lightly gothic guitar haze to a sludgy tsunami of noise. “Red Shift” takes a reverse stroll along the same path, opening with a righteous clatter, only to drop suddenly into a slow offbeat lope, in which reggae zombies scuff the aural sediment at the bottom of a trough of grunge rock. In fact, the track changes tempo and direction a number of times, but manages to avoid sounding uncertain or ill-thought out.
Letting all this excellent work down are the twin crimes of forced levity and overstrained vocal cords. The former is best displayed in the Dr Shotover aping spoken introductions to each song, delivered critically by a world-weary incumbent from a gents’ club wingback chair, an example of self-deprecation so contrived that we feel we’re imprisoned in some kerrazy rag week penal colony, a jester’s gulag, in which Pat Sharpe is a grotesque cackling overlord of wacky agony. Tragically this air of silliness over proceedings is not only as funny as a grubby, twitchy child repeatedly demanding you pull his finger on a long bus ride, but it detracts from the EP’s tightly controlled and intelligently constructed music.
Tightly controlled, that is, except for the vocals, our second bugbear. In his previous band, Fork, James Serjeant sang in a quiet insidious whisper, like the secret voice of guilt nagging at your conscience, but in the rather more full-bodied sound of Drunkenstein his voice simply sounds strained and clumsy. Even odder, when the rest of the band join in the effect is even worse, despite the fact Snuffy and Lovegrove have turned in perfectly reasonable lead vocal duties in other bands: we’re all for vocal brutality and a maelstrom of tortured voices, but the caterwauling at the end of “Red Shift” just sounds like cranky toddlers whose bedtime rusk is an hour overdue. The lyrics yelped are no great shakes, either, although they’re passable, Serjeant falling into his old Fork habit of trying to snare large complex concepts in tiny couplets. Take this excerpt from “Kool Aid”, which appears to be about religious cults,
Endless days of summer’s haze
To winter’s chill our souls gave way
Childhood drama, playground games
Isolation in God’s name
Not exactly Oolon Colluphid, is it?
Let’s get this straight: we only harp on about these faults, because the rest of the record is so deeply satisfying. We find a major stumbling block in the flat humour on the EP, but we guess that if you’re prepared to ask for a copy of a CD by a band named Drunkenstein, you’ve already leapt a major hurdle, and if you do there’s an enormous amount to discover on The Independent Republic. Luckily the slim CD casing means that no visitors will be able to see the band’s name on the spine.
DRUNKENSTEIN – THE INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC OF DRUNKENSTEI (1908) – Rivet Gun Records
This is a very good record – comfortably the pick of our recent review pile – but it does display two huge faults, standing out like a pair of High School Musical deely boppers at a state funeral. Let’s start with the positive, though. First up, the playing is rather wonderful. Both guitars manage to combine rock heaviness with some intriguing curlicues, but the palme d’or belongs to the rhythm section: Snuffy from the much missed Marconi’s Voodoo supplies rich chocolatey bass, equally at home with funky slap figures and metal density, evident in the awkward yet propulsive intros to “Equation” and “Kool Aid”; Tim “Junkie Brush” Lovegrove’s drums are just as enticing, thudding yet precise – even finicky – in a manner that slightly recalls Zappa alumnus Terry Bozzio.
The compositions play well to these strengths, “Doktorr Black” rising from a lightly gothic guitar haze to a sludgy tsunami of noise. “Red Shift” takes a reverse stroll along the same path, opening with a righteous clatter, only to drop suddenly into a slow offbeat lope, in which reggae zombies scuff the aural sediment at the bottom of a trough of grunge rock. In fact, the track changes tempo and direction a number of times, but manages to avoid sounding uncertain or ill-thought out.
Letting all this excellent work down are the twin crimes of forced levity and overstrained vocal cords. The former is best displayed in the Dr Shotover aping spoken introductions to each song, delivered critically by a world-weary incumbent from a gents’ club wingback chair, an example of self-deprecation so contrived that we feel we’re imprisoned in some kerrazy rag week penal colony, a jester’s gulag, in which Pat Sharpe is a grotesque cackling overlord of wacky agony. Tragically this air of silliness over proceedings is not only as funny as a grubby, twitchy child repeatedly demanding you pull his finger on a long bus ride, but it detracts from the EP’s tightly controlled and intelligently constructed music.
Tightly controlled, that is, except for the vocals, our second bugbear. In his previous band, Fork, James Serjeant sang in a quiet insidious whisper, like the secret voice of guilt nagging at your conscience, but in the rather more full-bodied sound of Drunkenstein his voice simply sounds strained and clumsy. Even odder, when the rest of the band join in the effect is even worse, despite the fact Snuffy and Lovegrove have turned in perfectly reasonable lead vocal duties in other bands: we’re all for vocal brutality and a maelstrom of tortured voices, but the caterwauling at the end of “Red Shift” just sounds like cranky toddlers whose bedtime rusk is an hour overdue. The lyrics yelped are no great shakes, either, although they’re passable, Serjeant falling into his old Fork habit of trying to snare large complex concepts in tiny couplets. Take this excerpt from “Kool Aid”, which appears to be about religious cults,
Endless days of summer’s haze
To winter’s chill our souls gave way
Childhood drama, playground games
Isolation in God’s name
Not exactly Oolon Colluphid, is it?
Let’s get this straight: we only harp on about these faults, because the rest of the record is so deeply satisfying. We find a major stumbling block in the flat humour on the EP, but we guess that if you’re prepared to ask for a copy of a CD by a band named Drunkenstein, you’ve already leapt a major hurdle, and if you do there’s an enormous amount to discover on The Independent Republic. Luckily the slim CD casing means that no visitors will be able to see the band’s name on the spine.
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Nudgefest
Winkstock 2009 never happened. In fact, The Port Mahon closed down instead. That's the influence I have in this town.
WINKSTOCK 08 – Port Mahon/Cellar 13/9/08
Drones. Feedback. Screaming. Things that look temptingly easy for a musician, yet are actually damned hard to pull off. Recitation is another, and so many artists who try talking over music end up as drama school showoffs, or inaudible mumblers. Clara Kindle (actually male), with soft, measured, stately vocals, shows us how well it can be done, and his calm, burnished tones remind us of Meanwhile Back In Communist Russia, Arab Strap and a funeral priest. The looped guitar backing is less assured, but even with a slight reticence the music has a clipped elegance, and sounds how 16th Century troubadours might have done if they had access to infinite delay pedals.
In contrast Joey Chainsaw’s set is a brief, brutal spasm. Bending and bowing his guitar strings with two drumsticks, Chainsaw excitedly slaps out a bunch of sounds, all knit together by a seasick lurching glissando. There are some interesting moments, but it starts to coalesce into something memorable after about 8 minutes, at which point the set abruptly ends. We’d like to have seen this explored further, although punters with fingers firmly in ears may have felt otherwise.
The House Of John Player may have some vocal reverb and delay effects, and a surprisingly tinny acoustic guitar sound, but ultimately the set sounds like yet more singer-songwriter strums from a man with a Paul Weller haircut, which sits oddly on the bill. We’re reminded of the album Brian Eno made with James: some decent textures, but underneath it all the same threadbare songs.
Thankfully we’re soon woken up. The Academy can spend all the money in Oxford on PA equipment, but nothing can ever sound as loud as a full throttle drummer in the Port Mahon, and American Gods boast a very good one. They make a very fine clatter, equal parts Stooges and Thee Headcoats, but with a pop heart beating in the middle – in fact, some of the yearning vocal lines would fit comfortably onto an R.E.M. single, though they’ll probably hate us for writing that.
If Oxford were really big enough to have micro-scenes, You’re Smiling Now But We’ll All Turn Into Demons recall Eynsham, circa 2003, such is their grungy, Dead Meadow rocking. Whilst the latter part of the set features Blue Cheer thrashing and a broken bass drum, it’s the earlier tracks that win us over, woozily sounding like Band Of Gypsies covering Pink Floyd after a few pints of Benylin.
Chops utilise three keyboards, a drum kit and lots of funny bloopy noises to create the theme music to an advert for Finnish marshmallow sweets as imagined by Boredoms, and it’s impossibly brilliant. They’re also full of surprises, the second number - at least, the noise after the first applause - is an octave spanning vamp that resembles Miles Davis’ fusion group having a crack at Add N To (X), whilst they end with a sax-sprinkled Eddie Bo funk tune, resembling a robotic New Orleans bar band. Act of the day, unquestionably.
A run across town to The Cellar is fun, but does taken the momentum from the event. Some haven’t lasted the distance, and Elapse-O start up to a small crowd, although we enjoy them far more than last time. They now seem to play with the programmed beats, rather than near them, and it all has a fuzzy edge to it, like a shoegazing Sunnyvale. The vocals still sound strained, but it’s a decent set.
Shit & Shine may be possibly the best live act we saw last year, but their records are very different affairs, built on queasy synth loops and lofi tape splicings. With a Casio, drumkit and machines Gentle Friendly make a noise that could fit into these records seamlessly. They’re also a touch like Trencher, and a sort of Fisher-Price Fuck Buttons. Most pleasant.
We recently ate some great chilli chicken noodles, eye wateringly spicy, yet with a subtlety of flavour. Manatees’ huge surging roils of sound are similar, in that they’re sonically oppressive, yet musically satisfying. We dutifully wear earplugs, but it’s immaterial, as this bassy rumbling bypasses the tympanum and instead troubles the bowels (much like the noodles, but that’s by the by). Forget the Large Hadron Collider, it’s Melvins onslaughts like this that are likely to produce black holes. We stumble into Cornmarket, reflecting that there’s still 3 hours of DJs to go. They have some stamina, these Winkstock organisers; and a brilliant contacts book. Here’s to Winkstock 2009.
WINKSTOCK 08 – Port Mahon/Cellar 13/9/08
Drones. Feedback. Screaming. Things that look temptingly easy for a musician, yet are actually damned hard to pull off. Recitation is another, and so many artists who try talking over music end up as drama school showoffs, or inaudible mumblers. Clara Kindle (actually male), with soft, measured, stately vocals, shows us how well it can be done, and his calm, burnished tones remind us of Meanwhile Back In Communist Russia, Arab Strap and a funeral priest. The looped guitar backing is less assured, but even with a slight reticence the music has a clipped elegance, and sounds how 16th Century troubadours might have done if they had access to infinite delay pedals.
In contrast Joey Chainsaw’s set is a brief, brutal spasm. Bending and bowing his guitar strings with two drumsticks, Chainsaw excitedly slaps out a bunch of sounds, all knit together by a seasick lurching glissando. There are some interesting moments, but it starts to coalesce into something memorable after about 8 minutes, at which point the set abruptly ends. We’d like to have seen this explored further, although punters with fingers firmly in ears may have felt otherwise.
The House Of John Player may have some vocal reverb and delay effects, and a surprisingly tinny acoustic guitar sound, but ultimately the set sounds like yet more singer-songwriter strums from a man with a Paul Weller haircut, which sits oddly on the bill. We’re reminded of the album Brian Eno made with James: some decent textures, but underneath it all the same threadbare songs.
Thankfully we’re soon woken up. The Academy can spend all the money in Oxford on PA equipment, but nothing can ever sound as loud as a full throttle drummer in the Port Mahon, and American Gods boast a very good one. They make a very fine clatter, equal parts Stooges and Thee Headcoats, but with a pop heart beating in the middle – in fact, some of the yearning vocal lines would fit comfortably onto an R.E.M. single, though they’ll probably hate us for writing that.
If Oxford were really big enough to have micro-scenes, You’re Smiling Now But We’ll All Turn Into Demons recall Eynsham, circa 2003, such is their grungy, Dead Meadow rocking. Whilst the latter part of the set features Blue Cheer thrashing and a broken bass drum, it’s the earlier tracks that win us over, woozily sounding like Band Of Gypsies covering Pink Floyd after a few pints of Benylin.
Chops utilise three keyboards, a drum kit and lots of funny bloopy noises to create the theme music to an advert for Finnish marshmallow sweets as imagined by Boredoms, and it’s impossibly brilliant. They’re also full of surprises, the second number - at least, the noise after the first applause - is an octave spanning vamp that resembles Miles Davis’ fusion group having a crack at Add N To (X), whilst they end with a sax-sprinkled Eddie Bo funk tune, resembling a robotic New Orleans bar band. Act of the day, unquestionably.
A run across town to The Cellar is fun, but does taken the momentum from the event. Some haven’t lasted the distance, and Elapse-O start up to a small crowd, although we enjoy them far more than last time. They now seem to play with the programmed beats, rather than near them, and it all has a fuzzy edge to it, like a shoegazing Sunnyvale. The vocals still sound strained, but it’s a decent set.
Shit & Shine may be possibly the best live act we saw last year, but their records are very different affairs, built on queasy synth loops and lofi tape splicings. With a Casio, drumkit and machines Gentle Friendly make a noise that could fit into these records seamlessly. They’re also a touch like Trencher, and a sort of Fisher-Price Fuck Buttons. Most pleasant.
We recently ate some great chilli chicken noodles, eye wateringly spicy, yet with a subtlety of flavour. Manatees’ huge surging roils of sound are similar, in that they’re sonically oppressive, yet musically satisfying. We dutifully wear earplugs, but it’s immaterial, as this bassy rumbling bypasses the tympanum and instead troubles the bowels (much like the noodles, but that’s by the by). Forget the Large Hadron Collider, it’s Melvins onslaughts like this that are likely to produce black holes. We stumble into Cornmarket, reflecting that there’s still 3 hours of DJs to go. They have some stamina, these Winkstock organisers; and a brilliant contacts book. Here’s to Winkstock 2009.
Saturday, 17 October 2009
Bleep Show
Last night I made two startling observations.
1) The first is about David Mitchell. Now, I have to tread carefully here, as his brother is a very close friend, although I've never met David. My rough take is that he's a wonderful performer, who's never found/written the right material. I've seen a few episodes of That Mitchell & Webb Look, and they were OK, somewhere between the worst of Fry & laurie & the best of Hale & Pace; I've seen a whole two episodes of Peep Show (I'm not really a TV person), and one was very funny whilst the other was really just an old sit com. Take away the swearing and marijuana and it could have been an episode of The Liver Birds or something. With southern accents. And men. Anyway, that's nothing to do with it, my observation is that Mitchell owes his fame, at least in a tiny part, to his amazing eyes. They're so huge and black. I don't mean that he has big, drug-happy pupils, I mean that his eyes are just vast dark balls, like he's been drawn in Japan. Manga face Mitchell, they could call him. Anyway, that's the crux of my observation, that David Mitchell has anime eyeballs.
2) Glory days Pet Shop Boys: Neil Tennant = C3PO, Chris Lowe = R2D2. Tell me I'm wrong.
This review is one of, I think, three that I submitted to BBC Oxford, but that they never used. Yes, that's how pat and generic it is. Enjoy!
CEX/BOVAFLUX/BETA PROPHECY - Remtek/Vacuous Pop, Cellar, 31/8/03
Question: Who the hell goes to a gig on a Sunday night?
Answer: You, if they're all as good as this one.
Remtek and Vacuous Pop have teamed up to bring a selection of cutting edge electronica to The Cellar over the coming weeks, and this is one fine way to start. We warm up with two laptop acts. The first of the two, Beta Prophecy, makes some lush and enveloping - though never overly comforting, let's get that straight - stretched of fuzzy sound, with the help of a guitarist. Oddly, even when the scrunchy beats kick in, it's still static (in both sense of the word). Strangely pleasing.
Bovaflux is more straight ahead, clicking breakbeats and sub-bass from his mouse; it's not unpleasant, but relies a little heavily on ravey tropes, albeit without the recombinant wit of, say, Squarepusher.
Ryan from Baltimore's Kid 606 associates Cex introduces himself in an unforgettable manner, bounding onto the floor in ridiculously heeled trainers, and flying round the crowd spitting out rhymes...aah, you never look bad with a radio mike!
He has the worst haircut of all time, ransom slashes making it look like he's had cranial surgery...maybe he has, but if so, those cortex stretches that deal with language were left well alone by the surgeon's blade, as he rips out what Mark E Smith called "undilutable slang truths".
The beats are more twisted hisses and scrapes athan drums, yet wierdly all the more pounding for it, and Ryan's vocal flow is effortlessly fluid; however, the best tune has sung vox and a more experimental backing, and asks how you can name a town that has been destroyed. I don't know whether this is a comment on "collateral damage", or some interior psychic collapse, but the effect is mesmerising.
In addition to all this we also learn some insights into the world of Cex, including the best description of ugliness ever: "He looks like he was on fire, and someone put him out with a wet chain". More like this please, Remtek. Superb.
1) The first is about David Mitchell. Now, I have to tread carefully here, as his brother is a very close friend, although I've never met David. My rough take is that he's a wonderful performer, who's never found/written the right material. I've seen a few episodes of That Mitchell & Webb Look, and they were OK, somewhere between the worst of Fry & laurie & the best of Hale & Pace; I've seen a whole two episodes of Peep Show (I'm not really a TV person), and one was very funny whilst the other was really just an old sit com. Take away the swearing and marijuana and it could have been an episode of The Liver Birds or something. With southern accents. And men. Anyway, that's nothing to do with it, my observation is that Mitchell owes his fame, at least in a tiny part, to his amazing eyes. They're so huge and black. I don't mean that he has big, drug-happy pupils, I mean that his eyes are just vast dark balls, like he's been drawn in Japan. Manga face Mitchell, they could call him. Anyway, that's the crux of my observation, that David Mitchell has anime eyeballs.
2) Glory days Pet Shop Boys: Neil Tennant = C3PO, Chris Lowe = R2D2. Tell me I'm wrong.
This review is one of, I think, three that I submitted to BBC Oxford, but that they never used. Yes, that's how pat and generic it is. Enjoy!
CEX/BOVAFLUX/BETA PROPHECY - Remtek/Vacuous Pop, Cellar, 31/8/03
Question: Who the hell goes to a gig on a Sunday night?
Answer: You, if they're all as good as this one.
Remtek and Vacuous Pop have teamed up to bring a selection of cutting edge electronica to The Cellar over the coming weeks, and this is one fine way to start. We warm up with two laptop acts. The first of the two, Beta Prophecy, makes some lush and enveloping - though never overly comforting, let's get that straight - stretched of fuzzy sound, with the help of a guitarist. Oddly, even when the scrunchy beats kick in, it's still static (in both sense of the word). Strangely pleasing.
Bovaflux is more straight ahead, clicking breakbeats and sub-bass from his mouse; it's not unpleasant, but relies a little heavily on ravey tropes, albeit without the recombinant wit of, say, Squarepusher.
Ryan from Baltimore's Kid 606 associates Cex introduces himself in an unforgettable manner, bounding onto the floor in ridiculously heeled trainers, and flying round the crowd spitting out rhymes...aah, you never look bad with a radio mike!
He has the worst haircut of all time, ransom slashes making it look like he's had cranial surgery...maybe he has, but if so, those cortex stretches that deal with language were left well alone by the surgeon's blade, as he rips out what Mark E Smith called "undilutable slang truths".
The beats are more twisted hisses and scrapes athan drums, yet wierdly all the more pounding for it, and Ryan's vocal flow is effortlessly fluid; however, the best tune has sung vox and a more experimental backing, and asks how you can name a town that has been destroyed. I don't know whether this is a comment on "collateral damage", or some interior psychic collapse, but the effect is mesmerising.
In addition to all this we also learn some insights into the world of Cex, including the best description of ugliness ever: "He looks like he was on fire, and someone put him out with a wet chain". More like this please, Remtek. Superb.
Thursday, 15 October 2009
Chubb Rock?
I'm in a terrible mood tonight. Not that that's your fault, of course, but all the same, I'll keep my mouth shut & get on with the archival shit.
THE KEYZ – SUPERSTAR GAZING (demo)
At first sight we hated this CD – a combination of the cover, which looks like a nineteenth century consumptive has coughed blood all over a Turner tea towel, and that ugly crass Z in the name turned our stomachs. Almost immediately, we opened Nightshift to discover that this Banbury band has won a juicy £15, 000 to spend on recording through www.slicethepie.com. Interest is immediately piqued; it has to be worth hearing, if they’re flying the local flag so successfully. It’s a crying shame, then, that we hate it just as much after playing the bloody thing.
It opens intriguingly enough, “Monkeyfish” wafting out a highly polished guitar swirl that could be from some mid 80s Eric Clapton LP, primed to explode into vastly expensive, sleek pomp rock and supersized blues. Tragically, it just flops into a puddle of laddish ska punk instead. It’s not the worst ska punk we’ve ever heard by a long chalk (it’s a pretty benighted genre, let’s be honest), but it doesn’t have much to say, and even less in the way of character. Apart from sending us scuttling to dig out Twizz Twangle’s evergreen “Monkey Dog”, there’s no real reason for this song to exist on record. Live, maybe; a few beers, a loud enough PA, a frustrating failure to cop off, could all make this third hand bounce sound enticing, but a well played yet vapid studio performance has leeched any tiny fragment of life it may have had.
The next tune starts with the line, “Have I told you about my mate Jack?” Now, perhaps there are some lyricists who could make something of that woefully underpowered salvo: Suggs in his classic era, maybe, or The Small Faces, or perhaps even Mike Skinner, on a good day. But The Keyz are none of these, and this pedestrian opener simply illustrates that The Keyz are a band who have never had an idea of their own – and if they have they’ve quickly covered it up with a guitar overdub lest anyone should point and laugh at them for standing out from the cold grey crowd. Only some fluent piano lines gracefully swooping at the fringes can raise this song from a million others.
At this point we begin to worry that we’re being unfair to a perfectly able band, but the last two tracks take the EP on a shocking downward curve: “Them & Me” starts with the sound of the Bernie Inn pianist having a crack at Michael Nyman, before swamping even that in faceless mid-tempo mush, whilst the title track is like an anodyne advert for life assurance that goes on for over six minutes. We appreciate we sound jealous of The Keyz – and fuck it, we are! Fifteen grand would be appreciated at any time, and we’d be especially chuffed if we were given it for being the best at being average. Of course, they presumably won the prize – voted for blind by the public, I might add, so it’s all above board, unlike many another battle of the bands scam – because they can play. And they can, they can play just fine, so long as your criteria for “fine” don’t stretch beyond the ability to keep in time and balance your volume levels. The Keyz are better than many a band chugging away in the provinces, but a classical musician playing with this little flair and attention would have trouble getting a gig at the WI.
But, hell, if being able to perform the basics of music, without the necessity to come up with anything that demands performance is what you desire, here’s The Keyz. If you fancy awarding the Booker Prize to the writer who can spell the best, knock yourself out. If you want to give Michelin stars to any chef who can prepare food to the basic requirements of the human digestive system, go ahead…but be aware that some of us won’t be joining you in this brave new world without a serious fight.
THE KEYZ – SUPERSTAR GAZING (demo)
At first sight we hated this CD – a combination of the cover, which looks like a nineteenth century consumptive has coughed blood all over a Turner tea towel, and that ugly crass Z in the name turned our stomachs. Almost immediately, we opened Nightshift to discover that this Banbury band has won a juicy £15, 000 to spend on recording through www.slicethepie.com. Interest is immediately piqued; it has to be worth hearing, if they’re flying the local flag so successfully. It’s a crying shame, then, that we hate it just as much after playing the bloody thing.
It opens intriguingly enough, “Monkeyfish” wafting out a highly polished guitar swirl that could be from some mid 80s Eric Clapton LP, primed to explode into vastly expensive, sleek pomp rock and supersized blues. Tragically, it just flops into a puddle of laddish ska punk instead. It’s not the worst ska punk we’ve ever heard by a long chalk (it’s a pretty benighted genre, let’s be honest), but it doesn’t have much to say, and even less in the way of character. Apart from sending us scuttling to dig out Twizz Twangle’s evergreen “Monkey Dog”, there’s no real reason for this song to exist on record. Live, maybe; a few beers, a loud enough PA, a frustrating failure to cop off, could all make this third hand bounce sound enticing, but a well played yet vapid studio performance has leeched any tiny fragment of life it may have had.
The next tune starts with the line, “Have I told you about my mate Jack?” Now, perhaps there are some lyricists who could make something of that woefully underpowered salvo: Suggs in his classic era, maybe, or The Small Faces, or perhaps even Mike Skinner, on a good day. But The Keyz are none of these, and this pedestrian opener simply illustrates that The Keyz are a band who have never had an idea of their own – and if they have they’ve quickly covered it up with a guitar overdub lest anyone should point and laugh at them for standing out from the cold grey crowd. Only some fluent piano lines gracefully swooping at the fringes can raise this song from a million others.
At this point we begin to worry that we’re being unfair to a perfectly able band, but the last two tracks take the EP on a shocking downward curve: “Them & Me” starts with the sound of the Bernie Inn pianist having a crack at Michael Nyman, before swamping even that in faceless mid-tempo mush, whilst the title track is like an anodyne advert for life assurance that goes on for over six minutes. We appreciate we sound jealous of The Keyz – and fuck it, we are! Fifteen grand would be appreciated at any time, and we’d be especially chuffed if we were given it for being the best at being average. Of course, they presumably won the prize – voted for blind by the public, I might add, so it’s all above board, unlike many another battle of the bands scam – because they can play. And they can, they can play just fine, so long as your criteria for “fine” don’t stretch beyond the ability to keep in time and balance your volume levels. The Keyz are better than many a band chugging away in the provinces, but a classical musician playing with this little flair and attention would have trouble getting a gig at the WI.
But, hell, if being able to perform the basics of music, without the necessity to come up with anything that demands performance is what you desire, here’s The Keyz. If you fancy awarding the Booker Prize to the writer who can spell the best, knock yourself out. If you want to give Michelin stars to any chef who can prepare food to the basic requirements of the human digestive system, go ahead…but be aware that some of us won’t be joining you in this brave new world without a serious fight.
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
A Good Hard Rogeting
Two points of interest about this review:
1) I don't know of whom I was thinking at the time, but having since heard a decent amount of The Sensational Alex harvey Band, I reckon they're pretty ace.
2) My ex-editor at BBC Oxford disliked this review so much he parodied it in an online review of Foxes! a few weeks later: "There was no chicanery here, it was just three bonhomie types all coeval physically and mentally. They peeled back the patina of the night and enticed the salmagundi of striplings to take their caution and defenestrate it. The lead singer may have been a hobbledehoy - there was something of that about the whole band - but I still found it daedal and not in the slightest rebarbative. Sorry if I've been a little fustian but they deserve the effort". Absolutely wonderful stuff, I was proper chuffed (although "bonhomie" isn't an adjective, and you can't really peel back a patina, if you're reading, Tim).
EMMY THE GREAT/FOXES!, My Analogue, Port Mahon, 6/06
It was once said of Clinic that they make the music that might spring up if The Beatles were wiped from the musical annals, reference points leaping from scratchy blues and lush Phil Spectorisms to Velvet Underground chug and new wave irascibility. A similar thing could be said of newish local act, Foxes! Their set is a rough mix of lindyhopping naivete, ebullient garage bash and no wave loft experiment as performed by local oddballs at some fleabitten village fete. In other words, hugely entertaining, if a tiny bit messy round the edges, with a surprising ear for a tune in evidence, too. John, Paul, George and who?
If ever there was a frustrating genre moniker, it’s “anti-folk”. Coined in earnest, we dare say, but generally read by gig-goers nowadays as “acoustic performer with minimal vocal ability and possible funny trousers”. Despite a couple of breathy quirks in the vocals we’re pleased to announce that London’s Emmy The Great is a long way from this deadening bunch, and is really a straightforward and enormously talented poetic singer-songwriter, who manages to keep a tired and parboiled Port audience in rapt attention. There are a few oddities in the subject matter, but the structure and delivery is as traditionally intimate as any old folkie’s. Imagine a cubist Michelle Shocked.
Admittedly, lines like “a million shadows will all become pregnant or diseased” are more intriguing than they are, err, good, but the majority of Emmy’s compositions are lucid and lovable, and she pulls off the golden songwriter’s trick of sounding completely original and universally relevant at the same time. It’s often patronising to call a performer “charming”, especially if they’re female, but Emmy’s charming set was less like a performance and more like a friendly musical chat in which one participant just happened to stand at the front of the room. Unlike The Sensational Alex Harvey Band or The Legendary Pete Fryer, Emmy The Great has picked up an adjective that we’re not arguing with at all.
1) I don't know of whom I was thinking at the time, but having since heard a decent amount of The Sensational Alex harvey Band, I reckon they're pretty ace.
2) My ex-editor at BBC Oxford disliked this review so much he parodied it in an online review of Foxes! a few weeks later: "There was no chicanery here, it was just three bonhomie types all coeval physically and mentally. They peeled back the patina of the night and enticed the salmagundi of striplings to take their caution and defenestrate it. The lead singer may have been a hobbledehoy - there was something of that about the whole band - but I still found it daedal and not in the slightest rebarbative. Sorry if I've been a little fustian but they deserve the effort". Absolutely wonderful stuff, I was proper chuffed (although "bonhomie" isn't an adjective, and you can't really peel back a patina, if you're reading, Tim).
EMMY THE GREAT/FOXES!, My Analogue, Port Mahon, 6/06
It was once said of Clinic that they make the music that might spring up if The Beatles were wiped from the musical annals, reference points leaping from scratchy blues and lush Phil Spectorisms to Velvet Underground chug and new wave irascibility. A similar thing could be said of newish local act, Foxes! Their set is a rough mix of lindyhopping naivete, ebullient garage bash and no wave loft experiment as performed by local oddballs at some fleabitten village fete. In other words, hugely entertaining, if a tiny bit messy round the edges, with a surprising ear for a tune in evidence, too. John, Paul, George and who?
If ever there was a frustrating genre moniker, it’s “anti-folk”. Coined in earnest, we dare say, but generally read by gig-goers nowadays as “acoustic performer with minimal vocal ability and possible funny trousers”. Despite a couple of breathy quirks in the vocals we’re pleased to announce that London’s Emmy The Great is a long way from this deadening bunch, and is really a straightforward and enormously talented poetic singer-songwriter, who manages to keep a tired and parboiled Port audience in rapt attention. There are a few oddities in the subject matter, but the structure and delivery is as traditionally intimate as any old folkie’s. Imagine a cubist Michelle Shocked.
Admittedly, lines like “a million shadows will all become pregnant or diseased” are more intriguing than they are, err, good, but the majority of Emmy’s compositions are lucid and lovable, and she pulls off the golden songwriter’s trick of sounding completely original and universally relevant at the same time. It’s often patronising to call a performer “charming”, especially if they’re female, but Emmy’s charming set was less like a performance and more like a friendly musical chat in which one participant just happened to stand at the front of the room. Unlike The Sensational Alex Harvey Band or The Legendary Pete Fryer, Emmy The Great has picked up an adjective that we’re not arguing with at all.
Saturday, 10 October 2009
Render Unto Cesar Romero...
The last BBC review I have in my annals. There may be more I've lost; if you find one that I haven't posted, blah blah, who the fuck am I kidding? Anyway, it's not that good, except for the line about Hannon, N. & Pop, I. that I shamelessly recycled for a recent Smilex review.
SMILEX/AT RISK, Cellar, 11/04
At Risk certainly took me back. The play just the sort of music that lttle local bands used to play when I first sneaked underage into gigs some years ago. Sadly, I thought that this harmless, ever-so-slightly gothic, indie rock was dull at the time, and the intervening years have done nothing to change my opinion. At Risk are just very dull, unfortunately. They're not terrible, and they're no worse than any number of bands, but there isn't much to say about them. I fear that the songs are non-starters, but it may help if they played a little less sloppily and if the singer didn't employ an odd strangulated tone (imagine Avril Lavigne having a crack at Mark & Lard's tight-throat style). I need something exciting after that...I wonder whether Smilex will do the trick...?
I heard the recording of Smilex' "Sex 4 Sale" and I confess it didn't grab me. People told me that when I saw the live show I'd understand, and the Lee was an astounding frontman. Again, I'll admit to having my doubts: taking your shirt off and jumping about have pretty low mileage with me.
Anyway, I'm proud to admit I was completely wrong. Lee's antics are original and, seemingly, spontaneous, as he throws himself around the room, drenching the audience with water, looking like a tiny, horrific cross between Neil Hannon and Iggy Pop. Still, these shenanigans are really only a mild distraction, when there's music of such sleazy quality.
The rhythm section grabs every track with the insane ferocity of Cujo in a butcher's warehouse, providing a tight springboard for the eyeball-popping vocal howls. The real star, however, is the guitarist, who throws out squalls of sound that seem uncontrolled, but weave beautifully into the rhythmic twists of the songs. It's a paradoxical effect, like watching tornado with right angles. The audience soon forget the liquid being sprayed over them by an over-zealous singer, and concentrates on the searing rock missives.
Let's be realistic, this band won't change your life, but for 45 minutes they will make it much, much more fun. And probably much more damp.
SMILEX/AT RISK, Cellar, 11/04
At Risk certainly took me back. The play just the sort of music that lttle local bands used to play when I first sneaked underage into gigs some years ago. Sadly, I thought that this harmless, ever-so-slightly gothic, indie rock was dull at the time, and the intervening years have done nothing to change my opinion. At Risk are just very dull, unfortunately. They're not terrible, and they're no worse than any number of bands, but there isn't much to say about them. I fear that the songs are non-starters, but it may help if they played a little less sloppily and if the singer didn't employ an odd strangulated tone (imagine Avril Lavigne having a crack at Mark & Lard's tight-throat style). I need something exciting after that...I wonder whether Smilex will do the trick...?
I heard the recording of Smilex' "Sex 4 Sale" and I confess it didn't grab me. People told me that when I saw the live show I'd understand, and the Lee was an astounding frontman. Again, I'll admit to having my doubts: taking your shirt off and jumping about have pretty low mileage with me.
Anyway, I'm proud to admit I was completely wrong. Lee's antics are original and, seemingly, spontaneous, as he throws himself around the room, drenching the audience with water, looking like a tiny, horrific cross between Neil Hannon and Iggy Pop. Still, these shenanigans are really only a mild distraction, when there's music of such sleazy quality.
The rhythm section grabs every track with the insane ferocity of Cujo in a butcher's warehouse, providing a tight springboard for the eyeball-popping vocal howls. The real star, however, is the guitarist, who throws out squalls of sound that seem uncontrolled, but weave beautifully into the rhythmic twists of the songs. It's a paradoxical effect, like watching tornado with right angles. The audience soon forget the liquid being sprayed over them by an over-zealous singer, and concentrates on the searing rock missives.
Let's be realistic, this band won't change your life, but for 45 minutes they will make it much, much more fun. And probably much more damp.
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Cardioplosive
I've been teaching myself to touch type with an online course. Well, I already can touch type, but I only use 4 digits - I figure there must be a more efficient method, and I'm starting to get RSI in my right index finger. But, with years of bad habits, it's bloody hard. I sit there typing in groups of 4 specilaly selected letters & trying to get a high enough score to progress to the next lesson. It's a like a highly frustrating, and deeply boring, computer game. But, then all the computer games I grew up with basically boil down to pressing groups of letters at just the right times - amazing what you can do with a few blocky sprites and bleepy noises, eh?
JUNKIE BRUSH - HEARTS & MINES EP (Rivet Gun Records)
Considering that punk was always supposed to succeed on enthusiasm rather than musicianship ("Here are three chords: now form a band"), it's strange how rarely we come across a convincing punk group. Luckily the Green Day breed of Play-Doh punkers are now fading away, but even the more traditional bands tend to lack bite. Is it because this musical primitivism is ultimately pretty boring ("You've got no ideas: now stop the band"), or is it just that nobody round here has the same sort of nihilist anger that seemed to be common currency in the late '70s?
Whatever the answer, Junkie Brush are definitely in the running for best local punk act. Oddly, though, their greatest strength seems to lie in their exactness, attention to detail and their ability to hold back and control their performances, none of which are generally recognised punk values. This new EP, which is by far the closest they've got to capturing the menace of their live shows, has plenty of punk energy in approach, but is incredibly precise in construction. Somehow, that's a contradictory mixture, like a gleaming and lovingly personalised getaway vehicle. So every time we call Junkie Burhs "punk", it should be understood that there are a definite flavours of clinical US hardcore in the blend.
This isn't to say that Junkie Brush don't have a taste for the brash, absurd and cartoonish that personifies punk - the hilarious title of the first track, "Exhume His Corpse (And Make Him Dance For Money)" makes this clear. And if "Now She's Dead" gets a bit two-dimensional in its childish refrain of "I don't give a fuck, you don't give a fuck", the sneering chorus of "Yes, she was an animal" brings forth pleaant memories of The Sex Pistols on "Bodies".
To show that they have a bit of variation to their repertoire, "Find Another Way" lurches long with a blooze swagger, and the Nicole Steal remix of old favourtie "Monkey Grinder" brings an unexpectedly screamadelic baggy sound to the fore. Simplicity and directness are still the order of the day, however, and this record reminds us that sometimes that's all you need. So long as it's honest. And very very loud.
JUNKIE BRUSH - HEARTS & MINES EP (Rivet Gun Records)
Considering that punk was always supposed to succeed on enthusiasm rather than musicianship ("Here are three chords: now form a band"), it's strange how rarely we come across a convincing punk group. Luckily the Green Day breed of Play-Doh punkers are now fading away, but even the more traditional bands tend to lack bite. Is it because this musical primitivism is ultimately pretty boring ("You've got no ideas: now stop the band"), or is it just that nobody round here has the same sort of nihilist anger that seemed to be common currency in the late '70s?
Whatever the answer, Junkie Brush are definitely in the running for best local punk act. Oddly, though, their greatest strength seems to lie in their exactness, attention to detail and their ability to hold back and control their performances, none of which are generally recognised punk values. This new EP, which is by far the closest they've got to capturing the menace of their live shows, has plenty of punk energy in approach, but is incredibly precise in construction. Somehow, that's a contradictory mixture, like a gleaming and lovingly personalised getaway vehicle. So every time we call Junkie Burhs "punk", it should be understood that there are a definite flavours of clinical US hardcore in the blend.
This isn't to say that Junkie Brush don't have a taste for the brash, absurd and cartoonish that personifies punk - the hilarious title of the first track, "Exhume His Corpse (And Make Him Dance For Money)" makes this clear. And if "Now She's Dead" gets a bit two-dimensional in its childish refrain of "I don't give a fuck, you don't give a fuck", the sneering chorus of "Yes, she was an animal" brings forth pleaant memories of The Sex Pistols on "Bodies".
To show that they have a bit of variation to their repertoire, "Find Another Way" lurches long with a blooze swagger, and the Nicole Steal remix of old favourtie "Monkey Grinder" brings an unexpectedly screamadelic baggy sound to the fore. Simplicity and directness are still the order of the day, however, and this record reminds us that sometimes that's all you need. So long as it's honest. And very very loud.
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Getting The Pip
I quite like this review, it manages to review 4 acts & make some broad observations within a pretty tiny wordcount. I wonder what Sac & Pip are doing no...they shold by rights be doing something amazing, but I hope they didn't blow it all with one good LP.
DAN LE SAC Vs SCROOBIUS PIP/ GIDEON CONN/ PRODUCERS WITH COMPUTERS/ RIZ MC – The Zodiac Apr08
“Thou shalt not create thy own Zwinky”
It’s easy to create new lyrics for Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip’s ‘net hit “Thou Shalt Always Kill”, because, like all great satire it simultaneously feels like self evident truth and a highly original creation. “What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed,” as Alexander Pope put it. Naturally it receives a riotous reception tonight, but the cabaret laptop rap recital we witness reveals Dan and Scroob to be more than a one click pony.
“Thou shalt not vote for us on The Road To V”
Whilst Scroob chats and flogs home made 7”s at the merch, label types hand out fliers offering free ringtones: like many satirists who attack the modes of dissemination, from the aforementioned Pope, to Wyndham Lewis, to Chris Morris, the Pip show has suddenly had to find a way of working with the very industry they’re lampooning. One way of doing this is just be really bloody good, and Dan’s laptop work is crunchy and incisive, whilst Pip’s delivery shows a keen knowledge of hip hop beneath his geeky persona. Witness the power of the bravely dissonant second number, addressing self harm in a blizzard of harsh electronic tones and impassioned intonation, or the subtle “Angles”, exploring the minefield around simple binary ethics.
The downside of youth culture success is having to share a bill with Producers With Computers, two fatuous gabbling striplings who risibly mix Kid ‘n’ Play with Grange Hill (although Riz MC is ace, and Gideon Conn is a likably messy cross between G Love and Twizz Twangle).
“Thou shalt not drink crap lager from a plastic cup at £3.15 a pop”
And yet, no matter how slick and regulated our cultural life may become, great artists always shine through. So long as Le Sac and Pip – and their audience – carry on with this fantastic and intelligent approach, there’s hope for our culture yet.
DAN LE SAC Vs SCROOBIUS PIP/ GIDEON CONN/ PRODUCERS WITH COMPUTERS/ RIZ MC – The Zodiac Apr08
“Thou shalt not create thy own Zwinky”
It’s easy to create new lyrics for Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip’s ‘net hit “Thou Shalt Always Kill”, because, like all great satire it simultaneously feels like self evident truth and a highly original creation. “What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed,” as Alexander Pope put it. Naturally it receives a riotous reception tonight, but the cabaret laptop rap recital we witness reveals Dan and Scroob to be more than a one click pony.
“Thou shalt not vote for us on The Road To V”
Whilst Scroob chats and flogs home made 7”s at the merch, label types hand out fliers offering free ringtones: like many satirists who attack the modes of dissemination, from the aforementioned Pope, to Wyndham Lewis, to Chris Morris, the Pip show has suddenly had to find a way of working with the very industry they’re lampooning. One way of doing this is just be really bloody good, and Dan’s laptop work is crunchy and incisive, whilst Pip’s delivery shows a keen knowledge of hip hop beneath his geeky persona. Witness the power of the bravely dissonant second number, addressing self harm in a blizzard of harsh electronic tones and impassioned intonation, or the subtle “Angles”, exploring the minefield around simple binary ethics.
The downside of youth culture success is having to share a bill with Producers With Computers, two fatuous gabbling striplings who risibly mix Kid ‘n’ Play with Grange Hill (although Riz MC is ace, and Gideon Conn is a likably messy cross between G Love and Twizz Twangle).
“Thou shalt not drink crap lager from a plastic cup at £3.15 a pop”
And yet, no matter how slick and regulated our cultural life may become, great artists always shine through. So long as Le Sac and Pip – and their audience – carry on with this fantastic and intelligent approach, there’s hope for our culture yet.
Saturday, 3 October 2009
Insert Corny Pun Here
I've got to go out in exactly one minute. Here's a shit old review of a great great gig.
HAYSEED DIXIE, The Zodiac, 11/04
The oddest thing about Hayseed Dixie is how much they remind me of crap British comedians. The front man has the sort of rainbow dungarees that the fat one out of Hale & Pace would wear when performing th Playschool sketch, whilst the guitarist on the left closely resembles Bobby Ball doing a gag about Austrian homosexuals. The other two look like they haven't changed haircut since their days in Cambridge footlights. Anyway, this is a response of my twisted mind, and is completely irrelevant.
The point is that hayseed Dixie are a red hot bluegrass fourpiece who turn their attentions upon 70s heavy rock, most notably AC/DC (geddit?). And they're spectacular. I notice that my colleague gave a rave review to Trash Fashion recently. You could apply the same criteria for success to Hayseed Dixie:
1) Make sure that, now matter how deep the irony, the music you borrow is ultimately ace
2) You won't get anywhere in this game unless you can play like the devil
And play they can. Winner by a nose is the electrifying finger-picking of bebereted (it IS a word) banjo player, who could make the very rock Gods who wrote the songs bow their heads in admiration. Thier take on revivalist hymns and traditional Appalachian numbers indicates that, behind the jokes, they could easily have been a straight American roots band.
Trouble is, if they did that, they wouldn't be able to fulfil their quest to get staggeringly drunk every night, which is a noble quest indeed, There isn't much more to say, in critical terms: Hayseed Dixie came with a job to do, and did it impeccably - "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Walk This Way" being tweo personal highlights. In addition to this the drinks flowed, the Zodiac soundcrew quite rightly got the praise they deserved onstage (the monitors engineer was even handed beers periodically by the band) and the crowd loved it (Oxford pasty, my cotton-pickin' hiney!).
The Dixies offered us the best sort of cabaret: good mindless entertainment that, on closer inspection, turns out to be deeply thought out. Yeehah!
HAYSEED DIXIE, The Zodiac, 11/04
The oddest thing about Hayseed Dixie is how much they remind me of crap British comedians. The front man has the sort of rainbow dungarees that the fat one out of Hale & Pace would wear when performing th Playschool sketch, whilst the guitarist on the left closely resembles Bobby Ball doing a gag about Austrian homosexuals. The other two look like they haven't changed haircut since their days in Cambridge footlights. Anyway, this is a response of my twisted mind, and is completely irrelevant.
The point is that hayseed Dixie are a red hot bluegrass fourpiece who turn their attentions upon 70s heavy rock, most notably AC/DC (geddit?). And they're spectacular. I notice that my colleague gave a rave review to Trash Fashion recently. You could apply the same criteria for success to Hayseed Dixie:
1) Make sure that, now matter how deep the irony, the music you borrow is ultimately ace
2) You won't get anywhere in this game unless you can play like the devil
And play they can. Winner by a nose is the electrifying finger-picking of bebereted (it IS a word) banjo player, who could make the very rock Gods who wrote the songs bow their heads in admiration. Thier take on revivalist hymns and traditional Appalachian numbers indicates that, behind the jokes, they could easily have been a straight American roots band.
Trouble is, if they did that, they wouldn't be able to fulfil their quest to get staggeringly drunk every night, which is a noble quest indeed, There isn't much more to say, in critical terms: Hayseed Dixie came with a job to do, and did it impeccably - "Fat Bottomed Girls" and "Walk This Way" being tweo personal highlights. In addition to this the drinks flowed, the Zodiac soundcrew quite rightly got the praise they deserved onstage (the monitors engineer was even handed beers periodically by the band) and the crowd loved it (Oxford pasty, my cotton-pickin' hiney!).
The Dixies offered us the best sort of cabaret: good mindless entertainment that, on closer inspection, turns out to be deeply thought out. Yeehah!
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Critical Reaction
I've messed up a bit, posting the review of my most recent Gulliver's review first: it's not only the best of the records, but I think it's the best written review. So now you have a long tunnel into a drab past to look forward to, as the archives are raided. Yay.
Tedious explanatory note: Ronan is the editor of Nightshift, if you didn't know.
THE GULLIVERS - CHEMICALS (demo)
Last time we came across The Gullivers on record we surprised ourselves by discerning a little bit of blur in the midst of the punk rabble. Either we hit on something, or The Gullivers have been adapting their sound to reflect what we say in our reviews (don’t do it kids: we reviewers are all 40 year old, washed up alcoholic failed rockers living in Ronan’s basement and we know nothing. It was on the internet so it must be true). Well, we’ll give The Gullivers the benefit of the doubt and assume they have the good sense to ignore every word we say, and conclude that they’re just moving in a more pop direction at the moment. Certainly the three tracks on this EP take a chimpish jaunt through the new wave music hall that housed the best Britpop, all bouncy baselines and chirpy chappy vocals. “Black & White” could well be some deformed sibling of Supergrass’ “Alright”, reared for years in some dark pub back room, fed on driptrays and pork scratchings. It’s ugly, disjointed and gallons of fun.
“Dilemma” does the Lambeth walk even further down the geezer trail, sounding like a slightly punch-drunk Madness, the “sign on the dotted line” refrain recalling the patriarchal advice on their NHS satire “Mrs Hutchinson”. Again we’re reminded of blur, albeit their very earliest fumblings, such as “Come Together” or “Day Upon Day”. In short, there’s something wonderfully unpretentious about The Gullivers, and we can’t help but warm to their ramshackle refrains. Also nice to see they’ve finally put the last of their Arctic Monkeys/Babyshambles influences to bed, and are making much more interesting music for it.
It’s a pity that the messy “Needless To Say” has to finish the CD. Like an old man groping for his glasses after a nap, this sounds like a song bumbling about in search of a melody. For the first time on the demo the vocals stop sounding refreshingly unaffected and honest, and just sound atonal and lazy. Like Michael Stipe, it would seem that Mark Byrne sounds more assured the lower in the mix he is, and somehow the spell gets broken when the vocals take centre stage; he could also do with sticking to the shorter phrases of “Dilemma”, which allow his yelps to flit in and out without having to tackle tuning issues.
So, there’s still some work to be done, but The Gullivers keep knocking out demos at a respectable velocity, and each one is definitely better than the last, so here’s to them: hey, if they keep improving at this rate, they’ll be the best band in the history of music by 2027. Go see them now and you’ll have the best “Saw them before they were famous” story ever!
Tedious explanatory note: Ronan is the editor of Nightshift, if you didn't know.
THE GULLIVERS - CHEMICALS (demo)
Last time we came across The Gullivers on record we surprised ourselves by discerning a little bit of blur in the midst of the punk rabble. Either we hit on something, or The Gullivers have been adapting their sound to reflect what we say in our reviews (don’t do it kids: we reviewers are all 40 year old, washed up alcoholic failed rockers living in Ronan’s basement and we know nothing. It was on the internet so it must be true). Well, we’ll give The Gullivers the benefit of the doubt and assume they have the good sense to ignore every word we say, and conclude that they’re just moving in a more pop direction at the moment. Certainly the three tracks on this EP take a chimpish jaunt through the new wave music hall that housed the best Britpop, all bouncy baselines and chirpy chappy vocals. “Black & White” could well be some deformed sibling of Supergrass’ “Alright”, reared for years in some dark pub back room, fed on driptrays and pork scratchings. It’s ugly, disjointed and gallons of fun.
“Dilemma” does the Lambeth walk even further down the geezer trail, sounding like a slightly punch-drunk Madness, the “sign on the dotted line” refrain recalling the patriarchal advice on their NHS satire “Mrs Hutchinson”. Again we’re reminded of blur, albeit their very earliest fumblings, such as “Come Together” or “Day Upon Day”. In short, there’s something wonderfully unpretentious about The Gullivers, and we can’t help but warm to their ramshackle refrains. Also nice to see they’ve finally put the last of their Arctic Monkeys/Babyshambles influences to bed, and are making much more interesting music for it.
It’s a pity that the messy “Needless To Say” has to finish the CD. Like an old man groping for his glasses after a nap, this sounds like a song bumbling about in search of a melody. For the first time on the demo the vocals stop sounding refreshingly unaffected and honest, and just sound atonal and lazy. Like Michael Stipe, it would seem that Mark Byrne sounds more assured the lower in the mix he is, and somehow the spell gets broken when the vocals take centre stage; he could also do with sticking to the shorter phrases of “Dilemma”, which allow his yelps to flit in and out without having to tackle tuning issues.
So, there’s still some work to be done, but The Gullivers keep knocking out demos at a respectable velocity, and each one is definitely better than the last, so here’s to them: hey, if they keep improving at this rate, they’ll be the best band in the history of music by 2027. Go see them now and you’ll have the best “Saw them before they were famous” story ever!
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