Rejected alternate titles for this piece were Reed It & Weep, Metal Mickey Take, and Velvet Underwhelmed.
METAL MACHINE TRIO, AMG, Academy 18/4/10
What with the O2 Academy, Cornbury, Cropredy and Brookes, Oxfordshire gets its fair share of big names, if that sort of thing matters to you, but it’s not often the area plays host to a musician as celebrated and influential as Lou Reed. Tonight his Metal Machine Trio is playing homage to his infamous Metal Machine Music LP, quite possibly the archetypal “difficult” album for rock fans. Theories abound that MMM was variously a joke, a stoned indulgence, a vicious contract breaker or a serious work of avant garde composition, but the fact that Reed has resurrected it as the inspiration for a live show so long after the furore has died away tends to edge us towards the latter suggestion…although with Reed’s scabrous prankster image, who really knows? The truth is that we weren’t sure what to expect from this concert, but the one word we didn’t expect to use about this single ninety minute piece was “average”.
The trio is a decent little unit. Self styled “electronic alchemist” Sarth Calhoun (did his parents’ decision to name him like an extra from a David Eddings novel inspire him to come up with such a ridiculous job title?) used two laptops and an array of electronics to sample and treat the sounds made by his colleagues, and he’s clearly a quick thinking musician, although his predilection for cacky drum pad sounds did make the opening twenty minutes sound like duff Pete Namlook. Ulrich Kreiger’s saxophone playing is meaty, and he came up with some surprisingly jazz-inflected lines later in the performance; to be brutally honest we would rather have listened to him playing solo for the duration, although the suspicion remains that someone like John Butcher could blow him off the stage.
And then we come to Reed. We’ll give him two pieces of advice for free: a) get a jacket that’s actually big enough so you don’t look like an aged kiddy-fiddler, and b) if you’re going to make music based upon sounds of feedback, why not try to arrange it so you sit where you can reach your fucking amp, so you don’t have to shout at some brow-beaten roadie to run on and make adjustments every few minutes? Are you trying to teach the concept of latency to pre-schoolers, or something? Beyond this, it’s tough to tell what the brittle little despot actually does. Now, we’re perfectly aware that this is Reed’s music, he doesn’t have to embody it onstage, and we’re wary of being the person who states “I went to see Otto Klemperer and all he did was wave his arms about”, or “What’s so great about that Hitchcock guy, he just walks about a bit in the background?”, but every time it became possible to pick out Reed’s contributions, he seemed to be playing some clumsy and facile guitar phrase, or giving a mike a desultory grunt.
The fascinating thing about MMM is precisely how much it enraged listeners, critics and, most importantly, bloated 70s record execs. The thing is, the music world has moved on, and whilst there may have been one or two unhappy Academy punters hoping for a trundle through “Perfect Day” – and we salute the unbounded optimism of two lads who started clapping along to a repeated guitar motif about an hour in – we suspect most of those at the Academy had a decent enough grounding in leftfield music to know that what they were witnessing was pleasant but (and here it comes) average.
So, we’re not iconoclastic enough to state that the gig was rubbish. It wasn’t. It was alright, and had a few searing moments - mostly when Krieger was on a roll - and a surprisingly satisfying conclusion; but, there are any number of Oxford improvisors who could cook up something equally interesting (we spotted the excellent Alex Ward in the crowd, for example), and we’re not overstating the case to say that our very own Euhedral can make far more immersive drone music with a guitar, a violin bow and a cheap amp. And for less than twenty five quid, too.
It wasn’t even that bloody loud.
Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Saturday, 26 June 2010
You! Me! Lancet!
This is only my second record review for Nightshift. Normally the editor does them all, but perhaps he just ran out of inspiration this month; or maybe he didn't want to give this record a bad review as Chima Anya lives down the road. Of course, now I've given him a lukewarm write up anyway, so Ronan had better hide - if Anya's a doctor he probably knows exactly where to hit to hurt the most.
CHIMA ANYA – NEW DAY (own release)
Rap is “CNN for black people”, claimed Chuck D. It’s a killer line, but too often listening to a bloated, second tier hip hop LP is like watching the endless, fumbling footage of a rolling news team stuck outside closed courtroom doors elaborating on nothing, or desperate commentators filling time during a scrappy no score draw. GTA member Chima Anya is a great example: he has a superb delivery and some decent lines, but this record could do with some focus, too many tracks drift off halfway through, or end up a smidgen trite.
Sonically the tracks are solid, and if Astrosnare’s production is rich it isn’t always astonishing, “Eye Choose You” being built on a bubbly electro swagger, and “Spell It Out” having cheery funk loops that wouldn’t have been out of place on some smiley faced Monie Love track from the Native Tongues era. The lyrics tend to reach the same level, often tidy and effective, but also clichéd. Things change vastly in the final two tracks, meditations on mortality and the complex role of the healer in society (Anya is a practising doctor, though some of his patients might be concerned by his playground talk of ho’s and people being “too gay”). We wish Anya could produce more music like this, fraught with honest emotion, shining his lyrical sensibility onto interesting subjects, rather than talking about women “eyeing on my tool”. Despite quality moments, this is just another talented local rapper who has produced an uneven album. And that ain’t news.
CHIMA ANYA – NEW DAY (own release)
Rap is “CNN for black people”, claimed Chuck D. It’s a killer line, but too often listening to a bloated, second tier hip hop LP is like watching the endless, fumbling footage of a rolling news team stuck outside closed courtroom doors elaborating on nothing, or desperate commentators filling time during a scrappy no score draw. GTA member Chima Anya is a great example: he has a superb delivery and some decent lines, but this record could do with some focus, too many tracks drift off halfway through, or end up a smidgen trite.
Sonically the tracks are solid, and if Astrosnare’s production is rich it isn’t always astonishing, “Eye Choose You” being built on a bubbly electro swagger, and “Spell It Out” having cheery funk loops that wouldn’t have been out of place on some smiley faced Monie Love track from the Native Tongues era. The lyrics tend to reach the same level, often tidy and effective, but also clichéd. Things change vastly in the final two tracks, meditations on mortality and the complex role of the healer in society (Anya is a practising doctor, though some of his patients might be concerned by his playground talk of ho’s and people being “too gay”). We wish Anya could produce more music like this, fraught with honest emotion, shining his lyrical sensibility onto interesting subjects, rather than talking about women “eyeing on my tool”. Despite quality moments, this is just another talented local rapper who has produced an uneven album. And that ain’t news.
Thursday, 24 June 2010
Like It Or Lamp It
Hello again, and a special welcome to anyone who has found themselves here by clicking my link after getting embroiled in the somewhat inexplicable furore following my latest Riverside Fesitval review on Oxfordbands. Get involved and post messages here, why don't you? Love, hatred or stuff about arboreal nursery, I'm pretty easy.
This is a review I did with a reviewer named Sarah Morton. We wandered into a gig together and decided to write a review. She wrote most of it, I probably did 20%. I'll leave you to guess which parts were mine.
TREVOR MOSS & HANNAH-LOU/ THE LANTERN PLAYERS/ DUSTY/ THE SELENITES, The Lantern Society, Wytham Village Hall, 19/2/10
There's something perverse about a London folk club putting on a tour of countryside village halls, and it seems that if there were to be a natural exchange of folk music between rural and urban environments it probably wouldn't be passed in that direction. At tonight's show in the delightful bunting-decked Wytham Village Hall (seating 60 at a push) there is a slight feel of the Londoners coming down from the mountain and it's a more elaborate performance than seems appropriate for such a low-key environment where perhaps a more relaxed session would be the ideal. Though when The Lantern Players are playing they guest on-stage for each other's sets, all of which almost adds up to a strange display of formal informality, particularly when one musician's backstage practicing is audible from the stage. Nevertheless, it's a relaxed evening in a delightful environment and adds up to a show well worth making the effort out of town for.
The Lantern Players - Pepe Belmonte, Benjamin Folke Thomas and Jack Day - seem to be the in-house regulars of the Lantern Society, and each play a solo set which concludes with a sing-and-play-along from all three. Since the closing songs are the best in each set it would probably have made for a better gig if the three had played together from the outset, taking it in turns to play their solos and backing each other up, instead of spreading it all out to a six-band bill. Of the three Pepe Belmonte is probably the strongest, playing and singing blues in a Bert Jansch style with unobtrusive harmonica complementing a gentle voice. Jack Day has a striking blues-gospel sound with a put-on gravelly voice like a grizzled prospector which nevertheless doesn't feel out of place with the rolling freight-train blues style, and which lends him a Cat Stevens air in his slower songs. Benjamin Folke Thomas's reach slightly exceeds his grasp, with his aggressive guitar finger-picking not offsetting particularly well his muffled Swedish accented baritone, which is better suited to the slower, delicate songs where it has a weary sophistication redolent of Kris Kristofferson.
Of the two local supports the first, Half Moon regulars Alice Little and Danny Chapman as The Selenites, are by far the better act. Tonight they are a viola and concertina duo, and they give a strong performance of traditional folk tunes and songs in a reserved chamber style. The music is good, but the formality of the performance and the precision of the playing tends to make things a bit dry, and Little’s reticent voice, which makes her seem like a shy Edwardian spinster forced to do a turn at harvest festival, can suck some of the presence from thoughtful arrangements. It's admirable, but occasionally somewhat lifeless.
It would be kind to say as little about the second local support act - Goldrush's Robin Bennett as Dusty - as possible, as it was a truly awful performance of sub-Dylan clumsy guitar strumming, adenoidal busking and woefully clunky songwriting. The blues-style harmonica is often evocative of the freight train's whistle, but in Dusty's mouth it reminds us more of having got on the stopping train from Paddington by some horrible mistake; “42 Days” is a lamentable political ballad, but it makes us feel as if our train has been delayed by that long outside Reading. His last piece was apparently written for a “computer game about the environment”, but it would be more suited to Advanced Waiting Room Simulator or Catatonic The Hedgehog, such is its leaden dirge. Grand theft evening.
As can often be the case with bands who book their own supports, the top billing are head and shoulders above the rest. At the start of their set it's difficult to tell which of Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou is singing which parts as their voices blend beautifully in the high alto register, with Moss's voice standing out with a clear reedy tone which complements Hannah-Lou's softer timbre. It's clear they've been singing together for a long time, and the guitar playing from both of them is restrained and almost transparent to foreground the voices. For folk promoters it's perhaps surprising that they aren't playing traditional songs, but they are playing songs written to traditional themes, and the whole feels very English, evidenced by the facts that “Deptford Market” is about timeless London locales, and that Moss looks like an extra from Oliver! They’re clearly the standout act, though with tired ears it's not inspiring us enough to want to take their music home. The night was good honest entertainment, but it was a pleasant quiet night out rather than a musical epiphany…which is perhaps what acoustic nights in Wytham Village Hall ought to be.
This is a review I did with a reviewer named Sarah Morton. We wandered into a gig together and decided to write a review. She wrote most of it, I probably did 20%. I'll leave you to guess which parts were mine.
TREVOR MOSS & HANNAH-LOU/ THE LANTERN PLAYERS/ DUSTY/ THE SELENITES, The Lantern Society, Wytham Village Hall, 19/2/10
There's something perverse about a London folk club putting on a tour of countryside village halls, and it seems that if there were to be a natural exchange of folk music between rural and urban environments it probably wouldn't be passed in that direction. At tonight's show in the delightful bunting-decked Wytham Village Hall (seating 60 at a push) there is a slight feel of the Londoners coming down from the mountain and it's a more elaborate performance than seems appropriate for such a low-key environment where perhaps a more relaxed session would be the ideal. Though when The Lantern Players are playing they guest on-stage for each other's sets, all of which almost adds up to a strange display of formal informality, particularly when one musician's backstage practicing is audible from the stage. Nevertheless, it's a relaxed evening in a delightful environment and adds up to a show well worth making the effort out of town for.
The Lantern Players - Pepe Belmonte, Benjamin Folke Thomas and Jack Day - seem to be the in-house regulars of the Lantern Society, and each play a solo set which concludes with a sing-and-play-along from all three. Since the closing songs are the best in each set it would probably have made for a better gig if the three had played together from the outset, taking it in turns to play their solos and backing each other up, instead of spreading it all out to a six-band bill. Of the three Pepe Belmonte is probably the strongest, playing and singing blues in a Bert Jansch style with unobtrusive harmonica complementing a gentle voice. Jack Day has a striking blues-gospel sound with a put-on gravelly voice like a grizzled prospector which nevertheless doesn't feel out of place with the rolling freight-train blues style, and which lends him a Cat Stevens air in his slower songs. Benjamin Folke Thomas's reach slightly exceeds his grasp, with his aggressive guitar finger-picking not offsetting particularly well his muffled Swedish accented baritone, which is better suited to the slower, delicate songs where it has a weary sophistication redolent of Kris Kristofferson.
Of the two local supports the first, Half Moon regulars Alice Little and Danny Chapman as The Selenites, are by far the better act. Tonight they are a viola and concertina duo, and they give a strong performance of traditional folk tunes and songs in a reserved chamber style. The music is good, but the formality of the performance and the precision of the playing tends to make things a bit dry, and Little’s reticent voice, which makes her seem like a shy Edwardian spinster forced to do a turn at harvest festival, can suck some of the presence from thoughtful arrangements. It's admirable, but occasionally somewhat lifeless.
It would be kind to say as little about the second local support act - Goldrush's Robin Bennett as Dusty - as possible, as it was a truly awful performance of sub-Dylan clumsy guitar strumming, adenoidal busking and woefully clunky songwriting. The blues-style harmonica is often evocative of the freight train's whistle, but in Dusty's mouth it reminds us more of having got on the stopping train from Paddington by some horrible mistake; “42 Days” is a lamentable political ballad, but it makes us feel as if our train has been delayed by that long outside Reading. His last piece was apparently written for a “computer game about the environment”, but it would be more suited to Advanced Waiting Room Simulator or Catatonic The Hedgehog, such is its leaden dirge. Grand theft evening.
As can often be the case with bands who book their own supports, the top billing are head and shoulders above the rest. At the start of their set it's difficult to tell which of Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou is singing which parts as their voices blend beautifully in the high alto register, with Moss's voice standing out with a clear reedy tone which complements Hannah-Lou's softer timbre. It's clear they've been singing together for a long time, and the guitar playing from both of them is restrained and almost transparent to foreground the voices. For folk promoters it's perhaps surprising that they aren't playing traditional songs, but they are playing songs written to traditional themes, and the whole feels very English, evidenced by the facts that “Deptford Market” is about timeless London locales, and that Moss looks like an extra from Oliver! They’re clearly the standout act, though with tired ears it's not inspiring us enough to want to take their music home. The night was good honest entertainment, but it was a pleasant quiet night out rather than a musical epiphany…which is perhaps what acoustic nights in Wytham Village Hall ought to be.
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Automatic For The Steeplechase
I wrote this for a magazine called Oxfordshire Music Scene, which I'm told has just folded. Well, I shan't mourn too much, as they were too chirpy for my liking, and had too many pictures, and not enough naughty words. Ah well, they were harmless enough. I wasn't planning on writing much for them. Still, their loss is your gain.
Edit: Oh, apparently OMS is still going, but they're going to skip an issue whilst the management changes. OK, let's be positive and wish them luck.
WYCHWOOD FESTIVAL, Cheltenham Racecourse, 4/6/10
What, precisely, is a boutique festival? It’s not musical obscurity or even sponsorship by left-leaning broadsheets or overpriced music mags that defines things, but a self-imposed intimacy, the implication being that the organisors could have sold five times as many tickets, but have chosen charm over profit. Wychwood, in the handy but uninspiring environs of Cheltenham racecourse certainly has a family-friendly warmth, and falls somewhere between the village fete ambience of Truck and Cornbury’s sedentary wine-cooler and canapé air. We’ve always been uninterested in non-musical festival trappings, and whilst we’re cynical about children’s swings and Waitrose smoothie bars, they’re a nice change from the hemp weaving and pubescent drug-pushing we associate with festivals.
Wychwood’s music might not be pulse-quickening, but it is solid. The Leisure Society sprinkled their refined pop with ‘cello and flute, sounding at their best like The Divine Comedy when they were on the cusp of dispensing with the clever lyrics and intriguing arrangements (but that’s what you’re good at Neil!), whereas the BBC Introducing Stage, featuring acts from many counties - generosity of spirit, or tacit admission that there aren’t many good Gloucester musicians? – hosts a cheery set from spry fiddle-flecked folk trio Roving Crows.
At the other end of the spectrum, Justin Currie sounds drably like Elvis Costello & The Attractions without Elvis Costello. Or any of The Attractions. We’re later told he was in Del Amitri – do the math. The Tunnelmental Experimental Assembly are deeply disappointing, ruining harmless big-boned indie by giving some office joker in a hideous waistcoat a mike: it’s like mid-period R.E.M. gatecrashed by Pat Sharp. The Levellers’ folkstival headline set is popular and functional, but Jim Lockey & The Solemn Sun have more intriguing folk melodies to bash out.
We didn’t want Oxfordshire Music Scene’s visit to Gloucestershire to turn into a West Side Story turf war, but the fact is locals The Epstein are comfortably the best act we see. They open with a glacial waft recalling the Erased Tapes roster, and proceed with a more spectral, delicate version of country than in previous incarnations. Olly Wills’ voice is gorgeous and perfectly pitched emotionally, Jon Berry’s bottleneck interjections spice things up, and a new keyboardist dusts the songs with icy synths and reverbed Twin Peaks piano. They’re also the only band the omnipresent kids enjoy, a small group crawling frantically in front of the stage: call it toddlemosh.
A local couple explain their love of the festival with tales of returning laden with new CDs. Perhaps Wychwood is aimed at professionals and parents who don’t have time to follow trends, but who still want to broaden their horizons, which is nothing to be ashamed of. Oh, and a mad Mancunian rants about the toilets’ cleanliness, as he had mislaid his shoes and gone in barefoot; it’s a good weekend for the hygiene-conscious drug-addled loon too.
Edit: Oh, apparently OMS is still going, but they're going to skip an issue whilst the management changes. OK, let's be positive and wish them luck.
WYCHWOOD FESTIVAL, Cheltenham Racecourse, 4/6/10
What, precisely, is a boutique festival? It’s not musical obscurity or even sponsorship by left-leaning broadsheets or overpriced music mags that defines things, but a self-imposed intimacy, the implication being that the organisors could have sold five times as many tickets, but have chosen charm over profit. Wychwood, in the handy but uninspiring environs of Cheltenham racecourse certainly has a family-friendly warmth, and falls somewhere between the village fete ambience of Truck and Cornbury’s sedentary wine-cooler and canapé air. We’ve always been uninterested in non-musical festival trappings, and whilst we’re cynical about children’s swings and Waitrose smoothie bars, they’re a nice change from the hemp weaving and pubescent drug-pushing we associate with festivals.
Wychwood’s music might not be pulse-quickening, but it is solid. The Leisure Society sprinkled their refined pop with ‘cello and flute, sounding at their best like The Divine Comedy when they were on the cusp of dispensing with the clever lyrics and intriguing arrangements (but that’s what you’re good at Neil!), whereas the BBC Introducing Stage, featuring acts from many counties - generosity of spirit, or tacit admission that there aren’t many good Gloucester musicians? – hosts a cheery set from spry fiddle-flecked folk trio Roving Crows.
At the other end of the spectrum, Justin Currie sounds drably like Elvis Costello & The Attractions without Elvis Costello. Or any of The Attractions. We’re later told he was in Del Amitri – do the math. The Tunnelmental Experimental Assembly are deeply disappointing, ruining harmless big-boned indie by giving some office joker in a hideous waistcoat a mike: it’s like mid-period R.E.M. gatecrashed by Pat Sharp. The Levellers’ folkstival headline set is popular and functional, but Jim Lockey & The Solemn Sun have more intriguing folk melodies to bash out.
We didn’t want Oxfordshire Music Scene’s visit to Gloucestershire to turn into a West Side Story turf war, but the fact is locals The Epstein are comfortably the best act we see. They open with a glacial waft recalling the Erased Tapes roster, and proceed with a more spectral, delicate version of country than in previous incarnations. Olly Wills’ voice is gorgeous and perfectly pitched emotionally, Jon Berry’s bottleneck interjections spice things up, and a new keyboardist dusts the songs with icy synths and reverbed Twin Peaks piano. They’re also the only band the omnipresent kids enjoy, a small group crawling frantically in front of the stage: call it toddlemosh.
A local couple explain their love of the festival with tales of returning laden with new CDs. Perhaps Wychwood is aimed at professionals and parents who don’t have time to follow trends, but who still want to broaden their horizons, which is nothing to be ashamed of. Oh, and a mad Mancunian rants about the toilets’ cleanliness, as he had mislaid his shoes and gone in barefoot; it’s a good weekend for the hygiene-conscious drug-addled loon too.
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Come Nine With Me
I got a message through Nightshift yesterday. Ulysse Dupasquier, who was reviewed previously here. He asked that I remove his name from the review, as it's the only thing that comes up if you Google his name, and he's a bit embarrassed. Well, I'm not going to rewrite history, but now I've written this, it should be the second page in a websearch, so if you've just read read how rubbish Ulysse once was, you can now read this and be reassured by him that he's much better.
There. Call it being neutral...
NUMBERNINE/ TURBULENCE/ PATSY DECLINE, Klub Kakofanney, Wheatsheaf, 3/6/05
Long ago, in that fuzzy magazine clipping of musical history called the indie eighties, The Jazz Butcher sang about the "Southern Mark Smith". Patsy Decline goes one better. She's the Southern female Mark E. Smith. It's all there: the fag, the slouch, the drawling goblin brainpunk delivery, the lyrical obtuseness (featuring ignorant astronauts and a factory of lies).
To complete the illusion, accompanist Twizz Twangle spends the majority of the set fiddling ineffectually with leads and amp dials, recalling the dark side of Smith's stage persona, and the backing track (whcih completely drowns out anything Twizz actually plays) boasts a throbbing drum machine and insistent bass that wouldn't have been out of place on I Am Kurious Oranj. Naturally this sort of thing is flawed and unfinished, but Patsy's restless energy is enough to carry the show. Much ink has been spilt on the social, political and aesthetic legacies of punk, but the anarchic brio of Patsy's set recalls a John The Postman era when everything was valid and, what's more, everything was a bloody good laugh.
Full marks to Turbulence for having the guts to play after their singer was refused entry at soundcheck because he's barred form the venue...and nul points to the singer himself, who must have suspected that this might happen. And him a promoter too. Tut. Anyway, for grabbing the bull by the horns and general the-show-must-go-on trooperdom, I shall forever defend the boys from Turbulence. Which is lucky, because musically they're absolutely dire.
We'll forgive the fact that the guitarist can't sing, and knows none of the words, as it's not his job. We'll forgive the hesitant performance, because presumably the entire band dynamic has taken a hefty knock off kilter. What we won't forgive is that they aim for a sort of muso psychedelia, but what they hit is about as cosmic as a pile of nail clippings on an Oasis tab sheet, and the fact that then horrible keyboard patches make The Krypton Factor theme sound like Klaus Schulze. Let's just stick our fingers in our ears and ruminate on what great sports they are, eh?
Anything would sound powerful after that, but numbernine's amphetamine Britpop packs a fair wallop. Soaring choruses, songs about London, jaunty new wave music hall breaks - by rights this should sound anachronistic and tired, yet somehow numbernine are giving this dead horse one more gallop round the steeplechase. Roaring tracks like "365" and "Talk" recall a particularly bellicose version of The Longpigs, and if a couple of the weaker moments recall Menswe@r, at least the emphasis is firmly on the "swear".
numbernine's main strength is surely the twin vocals, which have a punchy presence, but are capable of delicate close harmonies when necessary. The rhythm section is pleasingly tight too. Despite this glowing review, there's still a little something missing from numbernine: musically speaking, perhaps they need to add a few personalised accessories to their second hand clothes. Still, the foundations of a good local band have been laid. Let's see if they have the dedication and ideas to finish the job.
There. Call it being neutral...
NUMBERNINE/ TURBULENCE/ PATSY DECLINE, Klub Kakofanney, Wheatsheaf, 3/6/05
Long ago, in that fuzzy magazine clipping of musical history called the indie eighties, The Jazz Butcher sang about the "Southern Mark Smith". Patsy Decline goes one better. She's the Southern female Mark E. Smith. It's all there: the fag, the slouch, the drawling goblin brainpunk delivery, the lyrical obtuseness (featuring ignorant astronauts and a factory of lies).
To complete the illusion, accompanist Twizz Twangle spends the majority of the set fiddling ineffectually with leads and amp dials, recalling the dark side of Smith's stage persona, and the backing track (whcih completely drowns out anything Twizz actually plays) boasts a throbbing drum machine and insistent bass that wouldn't have been out of place on I Am Kurious Oranj. Naturally this sort of thing is flawed and unfinished, but Patsy's restless energy is enough to carry the show. Much ink has been spilt on the social, political and aesthetic legacies of punk, but the anarchic brio of Patsy's set recalls a John The Postman era when everything was valid and, what's more, everything was a bloody good laugh.
Full marks to Turbulence for having the guts to play after their singer was refused entry at soundcheck because he's barred form the venue...and nul points to the singer himself, who must have suspected that this might happen. And him a promoter too. Tut. Anyway, for grabbing the bull by the horns and general the-show-must-go-on trooperdom, I shall forever defend the boys from Turbulence. Which is lucky, because musically they're absolutely dire.
We'll forgive the fact that the guitarist can't sing, and knows none of the words, as it's not his job. We'll forgive the hesitant performance, because presumably the entire band dynamic has taken a hefty knock off kilter. What we won't forgive is that they aim for a sort of muso psychedelia, but what they hit is about as cosmic as a pile of nail clippings on an Oasis tab sheet, and the fact that then horrible keyboard patches make The Krypton Factor theme sound like Klaus Schulze. Let's just stick our fingers in our ears and ruminate on what great sports they are, eh?
Anything would sound powerful after that, but numbernine's amphetamine Britpop packs a fair wallop. Soaring choruses, songs about London, jaunty new wave music hall breaks - by rights this should sound anachronistic and tired, yet somehow numbernine are giving this dead horse one more gallop round the steeplechase. Roaring tracks like "365" and "Talk" recall a particularly bellicose version of The Longpigs, and if a couple of the weaker moments recall Menswe@r, at least the emphasis is firmly on the "swear".
numbernine's main strength is surely the twin vocals, which have a punchy presence, but are capable of delicate close harmonies when necessary. The rhythm section is pleasingly tight too. Despite this glowing review, there's still a little something missing from numbernine: musically speaking, perhaps they need to add a few personalised accessories to their second hand clothes. Still, the foundations of a good local band have been laid. Let's see if they have the dedication and ideas to finish the job.
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Down Osculator
This is a weird little extract from the acrhives. It's a review of two acts I saw at my first ever Punt - or rather, my first semi-Punt, at which I watched the free acoustic acts at the start of the night, before having some dinner, chatting to one of the engineers at another venue who let me in for free, and going to see some bands at a final venue, the slightly rubbish and long gone Kiss Bar. Fragments of this were used in Oxfordbands gestalt review that year (and which year it was, I can't tell you). I thought I'd reviewed more than this, but I can only find thoughts on these two acts. Still, enjoy what I've found (for a given value of "joy").
HARRY ANGEL/ TV BABY, The Punt, Kiss Bar
The very short review of TV Baby: "Wire. And not a very taut one".
But in fairness, there's more to them than that. Admittedly, when I walked into Kiss halfway through their set, the sparse, jerky new waves that washed over me immediately brought to mind Pink Flag references, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I hasten to add for any impressionable youngsters. The trouble is, when subscribing to this "less is more" philosophy, one finds that, no matter how hard one tries, Wire's less is always more than your more could ever be.
Beyond this TV Baby are a useful little spasming pop-punk band, who get extra special marks for the yobbish Dalek mantra of "'Cos I Love The Money", which marches on forever like Sham 69 stuck in a krautrock bootcamp.
Having seen Harry Angel recently and been very impressed, tonight's set was a slight disappointment. To be honest, I think it was down to the muggy compressed sound in Kiss rather than the band themselves (which means I may have to pay TV Baby another visit).
Despite this the set went well: the drums rattled away like a Gatling gun, the bassist dug right into the foundations like a frenzied miner, and the enormous fidgeting Chris Beard still occupies the front slot well, leaning into the mike feverishly and looking like a werewolf stuck in the moment of transmogrification. A werewolf with a fair few goth records, I'll wager.
Lycanthropop, your new sub-genre for the week!
HARRY ANGEL/ TV BABY, The Punt, Kiss Bar
The very short review of TV Baby: "Wire. And not a very taut one".
But in fairness, there's more to them than that. Admittedly, when I walked into Kiss halfway through their set, the sparse, jerky new waves that washed over me immediately brought to mind Pink Flag references, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I hasten to add for any impressionable youngsters. The trouble is, when subscribing to this "less is more" philosophy, one finds that, no matter how hard one tries, Wire's less is always more than your more could ever be.
Beyond this TV Baby are a useful little spasming pop-punk band, who get extra special marks for the yobbish Dalek mantra of "'Cos I Love The Money", which marches on forever like Sham 69 stuck in a krautrock bootcamp.
Having seen Harry Angel recently and been very impressed, tonight's set was a slight disappointment. To be honest, I think it was down to the muggy compressed sound in Kiss rather than the band themselves (which means I may have to pay TV Baby another visit).
Despite this the set went well: the drums rattled away like a Gatling gun, the bassist dug right into the foundations like a frenzied miner, and the enormous fidgeting Chris Beard still occupies the front slot well, leaning into the mike feverishly and looking like a werewolf stuck in the moment of transmogrification. A werewolf with a fair few goth records, I'll wager.
Lycanthropop, your new sub-genre for the week!
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Plastic Bauble Of The Universe
Xmas Lights are sadly no more, though some of them play in the appallingly monikered Coloureds, who are garnering a very good response for themselves, though I'm yet drop into their sphere of influence.
Sorry, I don't know why I'm talking like this. Somebody bought me a square foot of the Highlands today, perhaps the power has gone to my head. I've rethought my stance on metal singing since this review was written in january 06, I can now quite enjoy that death metal gargle...if it's done very well indeed.
XMAS LIGHTS - ENRON ATE MY BABY (demo)
One can easily imagine a comic strip of the old school, perhaps in The Beano, about the singer in a heavy metal band. Throughout the day he'd be trying ever so hard to find time to pen some lyrics for the group's new song, yet little things will keep popping up and distracting him, and the task is never completed. Onstage, in the final frame he winks: "Chortle! Thanks to this ridiculous growly voice I'm putting on, nobody can tell I'm singning absolute nonsense. Rock on, eh readers!".
Call it a pet hate, but the rasping grind-your-bones-to-make-my-bread approach to metal vocals only ever sounds childish to these ears, and almost entirely eradicates any chance of diversity, expression or individuality in a front man. As Xmas LIghts spring from the darker end of black, it's unsurprising that their demo boasts plenty of unedifying and indecipherable roaring. However, as this is definitely the only criticism to be made of this hugely impressive and entertaining recording, perhaps we'll agree to let it ride. Just this once, mind.
The first thing to hit you is Xmas Lights' control of atmosphere. Nearly every metal band thinks it can create an unsettling air simply by turning up the amps and pulling a nasty face, but Xmas Lights employ electronic tones, heavily treated guitars and illbient production techniques to construct a dark feeling of paranoid claustrophobia. Opening track "Digital List Of Lights", for example, begins with vocal samples fuzzy enough to sound as though they've been under the bed for a few months, before introducing some Godsped tumescent guitar lines dusted with dissonant overdubs. At this point you'd be forgiven for supposing that Xmas Lights were a slightly neater version of local art droners themonroetransfer, until the metal rhythms crash in like an uninvited troll after six and a half minutes. Elsewhere on the demo, glistening keyboard sounds weave through the bludgeoning noise like golden thread in a black tapestry. Perhaps the greatest achievement is "Open Till Late Seven Days A Week", which squeezes queasy, compressed vocal samples from some horribly overbright advertsiing voiceover through a greasy sonic mangle. It brings to mind Orbital's "Philosphy By Numbers" or Aphex Twin's tampon ad lampooning classic "Tamphex".
Lest there be any confusion, though, let's be clear that this demo is not simply an exercise in dark ambient drifting - there's a healthy dose of manic, jittercutting metal assaulting our ears too, you know. "Freaking Out In A Maze Of Mirrors" (a reference to mad Japanese gameshow Takeshi's Castle? Probably not) sounds like the remnants and offcuts from a Finnish metal workshop, squashed together with a Zappafied ear for the complex and absurd, whereas the closing track marries shimmering guitars and nagging bell chimes with brutal and intricate drumming that sounds as though it's from a different song altogether. Or maybe four or five different songs.
Perhasps you get the idea that there's far more going on here that can be described in a few paragraphs. What's impressive is the way Xmas Lights continue to pile on time changes, baroque variations and assorted sonic oddities without losing the sense of being roundly bashed by a railroad spike that all good metal supplies. If the band can replicate this intensity live, they have to be worth investigating. Best order a nice stiff drink beforehand, though.
Sorry, I don't know why I'm talking like this. Somebody bought me a square foot of the Highlands today, perhaps the power has gone to my head. I've rethought my stance on metal singing since this review was written in january 06, I can now quite enjoy that death metal gargle...if it's done very well indeed.
XMAS LIGHTS - ENRON ATE MY BABY (demo)
One can easily imagine a comic strip of the old school, perhaps in The Beano, about the singer in a heavy metal band. Throughout the day he'd be trying ever so hard to find time to pen some lyrics for the group's new song, yet little things will keep popping up and distracting him, and the task is never completed. Onstage, in the final frame he winks: "Chortle! Thanks to this ridiculous growly voice I'm putting on, nobody can tell I'm singning absolute nonsense. Rock on, eh readers!".
Call it a pet hate, but the rasping grind-your-bones-to-make-my-bread approach to metal vocals only ever sounds childish to these ears, and almost entirely eradicates any chance of diversity, expression or individuality in a front man. As Xmas LIghts spring from the darker end of black, it's unsurprising that their demo boasts plenty of unedifying and indecipherable roaring. However, as this is definitely the only criticism to be made of this hugely impressive and entertaining recording, perhaps we'll agree to let it ride. Just this once, mind.
The first thing to hit you is Xmas Lights' control of atmosphere. Nearly every metal band thinks it can create an unsettling air simply by turning up the amps and pulling a nasty face, but Xmas Lights employ electronic tones, heavily treated guitars and illbient production techniques to construct a dark feeling of paranoid claustrophobia. Opening track "Digital List Of Lights", for example, begins with vocal samples fuzzy enough to sound as though they've been under the bed for a few months, before introducing some Godsped tumescent guitar lines dusted with dissonant overdubs. At this point you'd be forgiven for supposing that Xmas Lights were a slightly neater version of local art droners themonroetransfer, until the metal rhythms crash in like an uninvited troll after six and a half minutes. Elsewhere on the demo, glistening keyboard sounds weave through the bludgeoning noise like golden thread in a black tapestry. Perhaps the greatest achievement is "Open Till Late Seven Days A Week", which squeezes queasy, compressed vocal samples from some horribly overbright advertsiing voiceover through a greasy sonic mangle. It brings to mind Orbital's "Philosphy By Numbers" or Aphex Twin's tampon ad lampooning classic "Tamphex".
Lest there be any confusion, though, let's be clear that this demo is not simply an exercise in dark ambient drifting - there's a healthy dose of manic, jittercutting metal assaulting our ears too, you know. "Freaking Out In A Maze Of Mirrors" (a reference to mad Japanese gameshow Takeshi's Castle? Probably not) sounds like the remnants and offcuts from a Finnish metal workshop, squashed together with a Zappafied ear for the complex and absurd, whereas the closing track marries shimmering guitars and nagging bell chimes with brutal and intricate drumming that sounds as though it's from a different song altogether. Or maybe four or five different songs.
Perhasps you get the idea that there's far more going on here that can be described in a few paragraphs. What's impressive is the way Xmas Lights continue to pile on time changes, baroque variations and assorted sonic oddities without losing the sense of being roundly bashed by a railroad spike that all good metal supplies. If the band can replicate this intensity live, they have to be worth investigating. Best order a nice stiff drink beforehand, though.
Saturday, 12 June 2010
Hit (South) Parade
Something different today, my favourite Oxford records of 2009, as published with other selections on Oxfordbands. The text style of the first line refers ot the fact that Alphabet Backwards' bassist, Josh, was smothered all over billboards, buses and TVs in 2009 as part of one of those infuriating mobile phone ads, in which he talked guff about starting a "super-band", or something equally facile. He is actually a very good musician, but from the ads you'd assume he was just a twat who clumps along to "Smoke On The Water" in his Mum's attic. Hopefully the phone company paid him handsomely for his time, but sadly I imagine he did it for free, the starry-eyed pop flump.
Alphabet Backwards: Alphabet Backwards
gr8 bnd v g pop lol [send to entire address book]
A Scholar & A Physician: She's A Witch
The funnest ball of funny electro fun anywhere in the world this year, from Truck's production go-to boys.
Borderville: Joy Through Work
"A band's reach should exceed its grasp/ Or what's a heaven for?" - Robert Browning (nearly)
Les Clochards: Sweet Tableaux
Oxford's wry Gallic cafe indie children deliver a blinder. Sounds like fat Elvis twatted on creme de menthe and blearily stumbling round the Postcard Records' bordello.
Hretha: Minnows/ Dead Horses
Orthographically frustrating upstarts produce clinical post-rock excellence.
Mephisto Grande: Seahorse Vs The Shrew
A revivalist hymn meeting seen through Lewis Carroll's mescaline kaleidoscope.
The Relationships: Space
Beuatiful chiming indie pop coupled with the most articulate lyricist ever to have flaneured the Cowley Road; think R.E.M.'s Reckoning crossed with Betjeman's Banana Blush, record collectors!
Mr Shaodow: R U Stoopid?
Serious messages, approachable humour, lyrical dexterity. His best yet, and that's some benchmark.
Stornoway: Unfaithful
The startled bunnies of lit-pop had a meteoric year. Let's be honest, you won't get long odds on their debut LP featuring in this list next year...
Vileswarm: Sun Swallows The Stars
An experimental dreamteam of Frampton & Euhedral, offering "doom drone": does exactly what it says on the tombstone.
Alphabet Backwards: Alphabet Backwards
gr8 bnd v g pop lol [send to entire address book]
A Scholar & A Physician: She's A Witch
The funnest ball of funny electro fun anywhere in the world this year, from Truck's production go-to boys.
Borderville: Joy Through Work
"A band's reach should exceed its grasp/ Or what's a heaven for?" - Robert Browning (nearly)
Les Clochards: Sweet Tableaux
Oxford's wry Gallic cafe indie children deliver a blinder. Sounds like fat Elvis twatted on creme de menthe and blearily stumbling round the Postcard Records' bordello.
Hretha: Minnows/ Dead Horses
Orthographically frustrating upstarts produce clinical post-rock excellence.
Mephisto Grande: Seahorse Vs The Shrew
A revivalist hymn meeting seen through Lewis Carroll's mescaline kaleidoscope.
The Relationships: Space
Beuatiful chiming indie pop coupled with the most articulate lyricist ever to have flaneured the Cowley Road; think R.E.M.'s Reckoning crossed with Betjeman's Banana Blush, record collectors!
Mr Shaodow: R U Stoopid?
Serious messages, approachable humour, lyrical dexterity. His best yet, and that's some benchmark.
Stornoway: Unfaithful
The startled bunnies of lit-pop had a meteoric year. Let's be honest, you won't get long odds on their debut LP featuring in this list next year...
Vileswarm: Sun Swallows The Stars
An experimental dreamteam of Frampton & Euhedral, offering "doom drone": does exactly what it says on the tombstone.
Thursday, 10 June 2010
Audioscope 2005 Sunday
Right then. The only good thing about typing this guff out again, is that it involves sitting down and I have a huge blister on my foot.
Bet you thought I was going to say something crude about sailors, didn't you?
And so Sunday's feast begins, with somewhat blearier eyes, but just as much excitement. I'll admit to having seen (and reviewed) The Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element twice previously, and been left uninspired, but since Stuart Fowkes informed me they were probably the two worst gigs he'd ever played, I was happy to give them another shot. This proved wise, as SNSE kick off the day's festivities with a clattering fanfare. Despite a couple of technical hitches the rhythm tracks are crunchily glorious, sounding something like a crackling longwave radio broadcast of a rabble of origami fiends let loose in a Zildjian warehouse. On occasion the guitar parts that overlay them feel like a mildly stodgy attempt to translate studio music into the live arena, but when the penultimate tune seems to be a series of baroque variations on the "I Wanna Be Your Dog" progression, these concerns are put away for another day.
N0ught play an ornate jazz-metal-math hybrid, and they do so incredibly loudly. They've often been described as "difficult" but I actually find them very pleasant to listen to: like a Pollock painting or a dense forest it's impossible to take in all the details individually, but this doesn't necessarily transalate into a challenging experience. Nothing today quite has the sheen and power it did a mere week before when N0ught supported The Fall, but one still feels in the presence of one of Oxford's great art bands. And come on, it's on four pm on Sunday - we're knackered and we've only got to listen to this music, let alone perform it.
Speaking of art rock, what would N0ught sound like if all the musicians were replaced by minor characters from the Super Mario universe? A little like Quack Quack, I'd wager. Their jazzy, slightly krautische instrumentals are played in a crinkly, faltering style and might be the type of thing you'd hear if miniature Neu! members came free with Kinder Surprise. Whilst there is a minor air of the self-congratulatory about it all ("Look! I'm playing my keyboard slightly badly! What do I win?"), they do have some surprises up their sleeves, including the penultimate number, which very strangely threatens to turn into "Morning" from Grieg's first Peer Gynt suite. Quack Quack are hard to categorise and most satisfying.
Call your band Lords and you'd better be good, it's too much of a tempting target if not. Luckily, this Nottingham troupe delivers the goods, along with some unexpected oddments that must have accrued in transit. If you cut "Sweet Home Alabama" into tiny pieces and threw it to some guitar wielding wolves, you might just end up with the opening track. Things continue in a similar vein for thirty minutes, Lords repeatedly sounding like the crippled ghost of a roadhouse boogie band being pummelled by a hardcore wrecking crew, or a post-Shellac trio meeting Beefheart's "China Pig" head on in a messy collision. "Makes you want to dance like a Russian," claims the programme; makes you want to drink like a Texan, too, such is the intermittently exposed bluesy underbelly.
Continuing a recent trend in the larger dance labels of realising that full bands can often get far more toes tappiung than pasty technogeeks, Ninja Tune have picked up Liverpool's Super Numeri. They perform one extended piece with free jazz sax and guitar throwing high end skreeks over a chugging funk backing. At times it does sound like a firy new hybrid of styles, but mostly it just sounds like a busload of seagulls divebombing The Exeter Hall's Sunday jam session. The only proper dud of the weekend.
I thought we might have exhausted the post-rocking guitar instrumental angle by now, but Billy Mahonie spring into life proving me thoroughly wrong once again. Unlike their peers at the festival, Billy's pieces sound like wordless songs, rather than unkempt opuses, and are all the more successful for it. They may not be The Shadows by any means, but there is something of taut funk generals The Meters about the elastic snapping of the guitar lines and the clipped urgency of the rhythm section. The third number (details uncertain from my vantage point, due to the band forgetting to ask for a microphone!) almost sounds like "Take Me Out" might if Franz Ferdinand had spent more time in James Brown's boot camp and less in their publicist's waiting room. Like I say, brains, great hooks and more funk savvy in one snare crack than Super Numeri could manage with a coachload of spangly vests, all adding up to make Billy Mahonie a fierce contender for best set of the festival.
Like a palette cleansing sorbet, there's a wonderfully refreshing quality to Scout Niblett, and it was an audacious move by the promoters to put such a simple act in this slot. Scout herself is on guitar and vocals, knocking out incredibly simple blues riffs with fascinating restraint. It's the sort of distillation of great rock music that PJ Harvey would sell her catsuit to be able to make. When Shellac's Todd Trainer joins her on drums, his relentless style should cut across her songs, but somehow the power of Trainer's parts heightens the purity. It does no harm that he's the kind of superbly natural drummer that you'd happily watch hit a haddock against a brick in 4/4 for twenty minutes. Perhaps there's a hint of contrived coyness about Niblett's music, most evident in her approach to sexual lyrics, but overall she has a huge command over the audience...which comes as a surprise to those of us who have watched her hare round the venue all day in a flourescent jacket looking like a distracted lollipop lady.
In complete contrast to Four Tet's wire strewn table, Luke Vibert is mostly using a laptop balanced on a beer crate. Hell, he doesn't even have a mouse! His set could prompt the typical questions - Is he playing or DJing? Is he doing anything at all? Is it actually him? - but I for one couldn't give a fuck. Listen, I was twelve for most of 1988, and used to tune into fuzzy radio stations, wishing I could sneak off to an acid night. Seeing Vibert, a man whose recordings have brought huge pleasure over the years, playing out some spiralling acid squalches is like the culmination fo a long love affair. For less romantic (read "drunk") people, I'm sure it was just a pleasingly danceable end to a wonderful weekend. If you want details, I'll let you know that Vibert dropped a bit of Kraftwerk, FSOL's evergreen "Papua New Guinea" and Squarepusher's incredible "My Red Hot Car" into the mix, but beyond that I'm far too tired and happy to turn in a meaningful review.
So, a glorious weekend, all in all. Maybe Phil from Fell City Girl is right, and in 2010 Audioscope will be a huge international festival. Somehow, however, I doubt that he's correct in predicting that Bon Jovi will be playing. I like to think we can trust these promoters a little more than that.
Bet you thought I was going to say something crude about sailors, didn't you?
And so Sunday's feast begins, with somewhat blearier eyes, but just as much excitement. I'll admit to having seen (and reviewed) The Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element twice previously, and been left uninspired, but since Stuart Fowkes informed me they were probably the two worst gigs he'd ever played, I was happy to give them another shot. This proved wise, as SNSE kick off the day's festivities with a clattering fanfare. Despite a couple of technical hitches the rhythm tracks are crunchily glorious, sounding something like a crackling longwave radio broadcast of a rabble of origami fiends let loose in a Zildjian warehouse. On occasion the guitar parts that overlay them feel like a mildly stodgy attempt to translate studio music into the live arena, but when the penultimate tune seems to be a series of baroque variations on the "I Wanna Be Your Dog" progression, these concerns are put away for another day.
N0ught play an ornate jazz-metal-math hybrid, and they do so incredibly loudly. They've often been described as "difficult" but I actually find them very pleasant to listen to: like a Pollock painting or a dense forest it's impossible to take in all the details individually, but this doesn't necessarily transalate into a challenging experience. Nothing today quite has the sheen and power it did a mere week before when N0ught supported The Fall, but one still feels in the presence of one of Oxford's great art bands. And come on, it's on four pm on Sunday - we're knackered and we've only got to listen to this music, let alone perform it.
Speaking of art rock, what would N0ught sound like if all the musicians were replaced by minor characters from the Super Mario universe? A little like Quack Quack, I'd wager. Their jazzy, slightly krautische instrumentals are played in a crinkly, faltering style and might be the type of thing you'd hear if miniature Neu! members came free with Kinder Surprise. Whilst there is a minor air of the self-congratulatory about it all ("Look! I'm playing my keyboard slightly badly! What do I win?"), they do have some surprises up their sleeves, including the penultimate number, which very strangely threatens to turn into "Morning" from Grieg's first Peer Gynt suite. Quack Quack are hard to categorise and most satisfying.
Call your band Lords and you'd better be good, it's too much of a tempting target if not. Luckily, this Nottingham troupe delivers the goods, along with some unexpected oddments that must have accrued in transit. If you cut "Sweet Home Alabama" into tiny pieces and threw it to some guitar wielding wolves, you might just end up with the opening track. Things continue in a similar vein for thirty minutes, Lords repeatedly sounding like the crippled ghost of a roadhouse boogie band being pummelled by a hardcore wrecking crew, or a post-Shellac trio meeting Beefheart's "China Pig" head on in a messy collision. "Makes you want to dance like a Russian," claims the programme; makes you want to drink like a Texan, too, such is the intermittently exposed bluesy underbelly.
Continuing a recent trend in the larger dance labels of realising that full bands can often get far more toes tappiung than pasty technogeeks, Ninja Tune have picked up Liverpool's Super Numeri. They perform one extended piece with free jazz sax and guitar throwing high end skreeks over a chugging funk backing. At times it does sound like a firy new hybrid of styles, but mostly it just sounds like a busload of seagulls divebombing The Exeter Hall's Sunday jam session. The only proper dud of the weekend.
I thought we might have exhausted the post-rocking guitar instrumental angle by now, but Billy Mahonie spring into life proving me thoroughly wrong once again. Unlike their peers at the festival, Billy's pieces sound like wordless songs, rather than unkempt opuses, and are all the more successful for it. They may not be The Shadows by any means, but there is something of taut funk generals The Meters about the elastic snapping of the guitar lines and the clipped urgency of the rhythm section. The third number (details uncertain from my vantage point, due to the band forgetting to ask for a microphone!) almost sounds like "Take Me Out" might if Franz Ferdinand had spent more time in James Brown's boot camp and less in their publicist's waiting room. Like I say, brains, great hooks and more funk savvy in one snare crack than Super Numeri could manage with a coachload of spangly vests, all adding up to make Billy Mahonie a fierce contender for best set of the festival.
Like a palette cleansing sorbet, there's a wonderfully refreshing quality to Scout Niblett, and it was an audacious move by the promoters to put such a simple act in this slot. Scout herself is on guitar and vocals, knocking out incredibly simple blues riffs with fascinating restraint. It's the sort of distillation of great rock music that PJ Harvey would sell her catsuit to be able to make. When Shellac's Todd Trainer joins her on drums, his relentless style should cut across her songs, but somehow the power of Trainer's parts heightens the purity. It does no harm that he's the kind of superbly natural drummer that you'd happily watch hit a haddock against a brick in 4/4 for twenty minutes. Perhaps there's a hint of contrived coyness about Niblett's music, most evident in her approach to sexual lyrics, but overall she has a huge command over the audience...which comes as a surprise to those of us who have watched her hare round the venue all day in a flourescent jacket looking like a distracted lollipop lady.
In complete contrast to Four Tet's wire strewn table, Luke Vibert is mostly using a laptop balanced on a beer crate. Hell, he doesn't even have a mouse! His set could prompt the typical questions - Is he playing or DJing? Is he doing anything at all? Is it actually him? - but I for one couldn't give a fuck. Listen, I was twelve for most of 1988, and used to tune into fuzzy radio stations, wishing I could sneak off to an acid night. Seeing Vibert, a man whose recordings have brought huge pleasure over the years, playing out some spiralling acid squalches is like the culmination fo a long love affair. For less romantic (read "drunk") people, I'm sure it was just a pleasingly danceable end to a wonderful weekend. If you want details, I'll let you know that Vibert dropped a bit of Kraftwerk, FSOL's evergreen "Papua New Guinea" and Squarepusher's incredible "My Red Hot Car" into the mix, but beyond that I'm far too tired and happy to turn in a meaningful review.
So, a glorious weekend, all in all. Maybe Phil from Fell City Girl is right, and in 2010 Audioscope will be a huge international festival. Somehow, however, I doubt that he's correct in predicting that Bon Jovi will be playing. I like to think we can trust these promoters a little more than that.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
The Shelter Frequency
Here's another great big festival review that I'm having to type in all over again, so I think I'll do it in two halves again. I'm that lazy. Plus I'm running out of archive material, so I have to spin it out a bit; heaven forfend I think of something new to say.
First paragraph's boring, isn't it? Second is no great shakes, either. Gets going a bit later on.
AUDIOSCOPE, The Zodiac, 29-30/10/05
Is it really possible to give an objective review of Audioscope here? After all, it's a longstanding, well respected charity event, and what's more the Oxfordbands crew are behind it all. Then again, art is nothing without a response and, being a white hot ball of opinion with few friends left to try them out on, it's the internet for me. Suffice to say that, whatever anybody's tastes and reactions, nobody can deny the vast amount of energy expended in organising Audioscope, nor can they balk at the huge sums raised over the years for Shelter. All of which sounds rather liek the preface to an admission of a bad weekend, whereas nothing could be further from the truth.
Like finding a tenner in a coat you haven't worn for a while proceedings start with a pleasant surprise. Excepting a couple of drizzle-flecked songs at Truck, it's been a year since I last saw Fell City Girl live, and in my memory they've been filed away as "impressive, but not revelatory". A week may be a long time in politics, but this last year has seen some incredible changes for FCG, progressing to bigger and better things on a seemingly monthly basis. Whether my memory is faulty or whether the hard work has paid off is unimportant, FCG are now a live force to be reckoned with. Or perhaps surrendered to in awe. Naturally lots of attention is given to Phil McMinn's cracked angel voice, but for me it's Shrek's drums that catch the ear, intelligently undercutting songs that threaten to turn into bombastic Muse stomps with brittle, icy rhythms. A beautiful opening set, and one that asks the question, "What will 2006 hold for them?". To be frank, no reply seems too grandiose. Oxford act of the year, no competition.
The question that Bullet Union's set raises is "Just what is alternative music, anyway?" We've just heard some potential Top 40 botherers from FCG, and wandered past a gigantic queue of people eager to collect tickets for a sold out Zodiac. Is there really any such thing as leftfield rock anymore? If there is, it certainly ain't Bullet Union, who are only a couple of jerky corners away from being a stright up melodic punk band. Which doesn't mean, of course, that they are a bad band by any means, just not a vastly moving one. Perhaps this set, complete with broken strings, isn't the ideal one on which to judge them, but by the end of the weekend BU had become a pleasant yet nondescript haze in the memory's mniddle distance, obscured by superior acts.
One of whom are Bristol's Ivory Springer. Drafted in at late notice to replace Giddy Motors who split up after the lineup was annoucned (Hey, it's a charity gig, they should be forced to play by Dickensian officials!) Ivory Springer add a dash of wit to the still half-empty Zodiac. Well, the "Four Tet only" brigade have missed out and no mistake, passing up half an hour which is as intelligent and amusing in its musical angularity as in its hilarious ad libs. Admittedly the format isn't revolutionary, and I overheard the name Big Black being spoken behind me at least once, but there's an undeniable force and character to their three-piece bludgeoning that ensures a warm reception.
As well as being the feeling brought on by standing in the dingy confines of The Zodiac drinking expensive cheap lager for two full days, Ill Ease is also the name of a sassy New York one woman band. Structuring rootsy new wave tunes from a series of fuzzy guitar and drum loops, Elizabeth Sharp delivers a yelpingly idiosyncratic set that is equal parts Dylan and Peaches. There is a slight fear that this is only interesting because there's just one of her, and that a full band would reveal the limitations in the songwriting, but it's still a barrelfull of fun, which thankfully throws a little NYC swagger into a bill mostly populated by awkward avantniks.
The demands of a hungry stomach and an eight o'clock pass out limit meant that I sadly missed most of Shooting At Unarmed Men. The five minutes I caught at the end appeared to offer the fine balance of humour, bile and naked agression that characterised John Chapple's previous band, McLusky, but perhaps that's not award winning journalistic insight...
There's a certain type of aged female relative that only ever says two things. First off, they'll meet you at birthday parties with the stalwart, "My, haven't you grown?", whereas in later years, you'll bump into them somewhat less frequently at funerals to be greeted with "My, you haven't changed a bit". Data Panik, effectively the new face of Bis, inspire both of these reactions simultaneously. Haven't they grown: the once smug and tinny rhythms have been replaced by a muscular rock attack. They haven't changed a bit: the songs are still hung on playground-simple vocal lines screamed out in the style of the Tantrum Tartrazine Vocal Consort. Perhaps wordy verses would be better served by being performed by one person at a time, so that we had some tiny idea of what the tunes were supposed ot be about, but overall Data Panik sent a mighty streak of joyful pop music over a somewhat obtuse weekend, like a splurge of squirty cream over elaborate confectionary.
Explosions In The Sky's first number opens with a langurous, glistening guitar part sounding something like Another Green World-era Eno taking on a lost track from The Bends. Sadly, this beautiful beginning decays into a dull, foursquare post-rock trudge, If MFI sold neo-Mogwai instrumentals they'd sound like this. In fact they'd sound slightly more intriguing, as there'd probably be piece that wouldn't quite fit that you'd have to hammer in with the end of a screwdriver, whereas EITS are spotlessly, tediously neat and tidy in their predictable guitar peaks and troughs. Maybe they'd work better if I came to them with fresh easr and unscrawled notebook, maybe I'm not in the mood, maybe 75% of The Zodiac, who are clearly loving every minute, are more discerning than I, but my attentuion soon wandered. Unfortunately for my general health, it wandered to the bar.
Four Tet's earkly work was a highly original melange of electronically treated folky offcuts, like The Infredible String Band's knuckles and kneecaps tossed into a techno bucket. His more recent material has developed in a chunkier, more organic direction, without losing any of the individuality. In a live setting the elctronica element is naturally foregrounded, though Kieron Hebden's abiding interest in jazz and improv means that we get something far more engaged and mutable than most mouseclickers can offer. This is both Four Tet's strength and his weakness, in that every show has an entirely different shape and texture, with long extemporised passages growing from the familiar material, but also in that there is the occasional longeur during which it sounds like Hebden is twiddling one of his knobs back and forth waiting for the next flash of inspiration. The conclusion to be drawn is that it's tough to be a solo improvisor, whether you've got a rack of machinery or a battered banjo, and that Hebden is good, but not yet up with the greats. Let's not forget, however, that this is ultimately techno, and there are some lovely post-electro 909 passages pumping that last dram of energy from our tired frames. There's a tiny part of me that worries that anything with a vaguely insistent beat would sound like manna by this point in proceedings, but that's not important right now. What's important is that we just witnessed some truly live electronica that, despite some limp moments, has kept us fully intrigued. He move we? Just about, just about.
First paragraph's boring, isn't it? Second is no great shakes, either. Gets going a bit later on.
AUDIOSCOPE, The Zodiac, 29-30/10/05
Is it really possible to give an objective review of Audioscope here? After all, it's a longstanding, well respected charity event, and what's more the Oxfordbands crew are behind it all. Then again, art is nothing without a response and, being a white hot ball of opinion with few friends left to try them out on, it's the internet for me. Suffice to say that, whatever anybody's tastes and reactions, nobody can deny the vast amount of energy expended in organising Audioscope, nor can they balk at the huge sums raised over the years for Shelter. All of which sounds rather liek the preface to an admission of a bad weekend, whereas nothing could be further from the truth.
Like finding a tenner in a coat you haven't worn for a while proceedings start with a pleasant surprise. Excepting a couple of drizzle-flecked songs at Truck, it's been a year since I last saw Fell City Girl live, and in my memory they've been filed away as "impressive, but not revelatory". A week may be a long time in politics, but this last year has seen some incredible changes for FCG, progressing to bigger and better things on a seemingly monthly basis. Whether my memory is faulty or whether the hard work has paid off is unimportant, FCG are now a live force to be reckoned with. Or perhaps surrendered to in awe. Naturally lots of attention is given to Phil McMinn's cracked angel voice, but for me it's Shrek's drums that catch the ear, intelligently undercutting songs that threaten to turn into bombastic Muse stomps with brittle, icy rhythms. A beautiful opening set, and one that asks the question, "What will 2006 hold for them?". To be frank, no reply seems too grandiose. Oxford act of the year, no competition.
The question that Bullet Union's set raises is "Just what is alternative music, anyway?" We've just heard some potential Top 40 botherers from FCG, and wandered past a gigantic queue of people eager to collect tickets for a sold out Zodiac. Is there really any such thing as leftfield rock anymore? If there is, it certainly ain't Bullet Union, who are only a couple of jerky corners away from being a stright up melodic punk band. Which doesn't mean, of course, that they are a bad band by any means, just not a vastly moving one. Perhaps this set, complete with broken strings, isn't the ideal one on which to judge them, but by the end of the weekend BU had become a pleasant yet nondescript haze in the memory's mniddle distance, obscured by superior acts.
One of whom are Bristol's Ivory Springer. Drafted in at late notice to replace Giddy Motors who split up after the lineup was annoucned (Hey, it's a charity gig, they should be forced to play by Dickensian officials!) Ivory Springer add a dash of wit to the still half-empty Zodiac. Well, the "Four Tet only" brigade have missed out and no mistake, passing up half an hour which is as intelligent and amusing in its musical angularity as in its hilarious ad libs. Admittedly the format isn't revolutionary, and I overheard the name Big Black being spoken behind me at least once, but there's an undeniable force and character to their three-piece bludgeoning that ensures a warm reception.
As well as being the feeling brought on by standing in the dingy confines of The Zodiac drinking expensive cheap lager for two full days, Ill Ease is also the name of a sassy New York one woman band. Structuring rootsy new wave tunes from a series of fuzzy guitar and drum loops, Elizabeth Sharp delivers a yelpingly idiosyncratic set that is equal parts Dylan and Peaches. There is a slight fear that this is only interesting because there's just one of her, and that a full band would reveal the limitations in the songwriting, but it's still a barrelfull of fun, which thankfully throws a little NYC swagger into a bill mostly populated by awkward avantniks.
The demands of a hungry stomach and an eight o'clock pass out limit meant that I sadly missed most of Shooting At Unarmed Men. The five minutes I caught at the end appeared to offer the fine balance of humour, bile and naked agression that characterised John Chapple's previous band, McLusky, but perhaps that's not award winning journalistic insight...
There's a certain type of aged female relative that only ever says two things. First off, they'll meet you at birthday parties with the stalwart, "My, haven't you grown?", whereas in later years, you'll bump into them somewhat less frequently at funerals to be greeted with "My, you haven't changed a bit". Data Panik, effectively the new face of Bis, inspire both of these reactions simultaneously. Haven't they grown: the once smug and tinny rhythms have been replaced by a muscular rock attack. They haven't changed a bit: the songs are still hung on playground-simple vocal lines screamed out in the style of the Tantrum Tartrazine Vocal Consort. Perhaps wordy verses would be better served by being performed by one person at a time, so that we had some tiny idea of what the tunes were supposed ot be about, but overall Data Panik sent a mighty streak of joyful pop music over a somewhat obtuse weekend, like a splurge of squirty cream over elaborate confectionary.
Explosions In The Sky's first number opens with a langurous, glistening guitar part sounding something like Another Green World-era Eno taking on a lost track from The Bends. Sadly, this beautiful beginning decays into a dull, foursquare post-rock trudge, If MFI sold neo-Mogwai instrumentals they'd sound like this. In fact they'd sound slightly more intriguing, as there'd probably be piece that wouldn't quite fit that you'd have to hammer in with the end of a screwdriver, whereas EITS are spotlessly, tediously neat and tidy in their predictable guitar peaks and troughs. Maybe they'd work better if I came to them with fresh easr and unscrawled notebook, maybe I'm not in the mood, maybe 75% of The Zodiac, who are clearly loving every minute, are more discerning than I, but my attentuion soon wandered. Unfortunately for my general health, it wandered to the bar.
Four Tet's earkly work was a highly original melange of electronically treated folky offcuts, like The Infredible String Band's knuckles and kneecaps tossed into a techno bucket. His more recent material has developed in a chunkier, more organic direction, without losing any of the individuality. In a live setting the elctronica element is naturally foregrounded, though Kieron Hebden's abiding interest in jazz and improv means that we get something far more engaged and mutable than most mouseclickers can offer. This is both Four Tet's strength and his weakness, in that every show has an entirely different shape and texture, with long extemporised passages growing from the familiar material, but also in that there is the occasional longeur during which it sounds like Hebden is twiddling one of his knobs back and forth waiting for the next flash of inspiration. The conclusion to be drawn is that it's tough to be a solo improvisor, whether you've got a rack of machinery or a battered banjo, and that Hebden is good, but not yet up with the greats. Let's not forget, however, that this is ultimately techno, and there are some lovely post-electro 909 passages pumping that last dram of energy from our tired frames. There's a tiny part of me that worries that anything with a vaguely insistent beat would sound like manna by this point in proceedings, but that's not important right now. What's important is that we just witnessed some truly live electronica that, despite some limp moments, has kept us fully intrigued. He move we? Just about, just about.
Saturday, 5 June 2010
Truck 05 Sunday Cont.
If someone unearthed some footage fo Alec Empire's 6th form revue, I'm sure it would look just like a gig by The Walk Off. As they generally consist of a bunch of people arsing about and screaming over a breakcore backing track, it's tough to say whether this is a good performance or not. All I do know is a) it's jolly good fun, and b) whatever they pay that dancing bear, it ain't enough.
The Rhonda Valley are alright if you want a slightly sloppy, slightly out of tune version of The Epstein. I'm sure they'd fare better if they weren't clashing with The Magic Numbers and we weren't all victims of Sunday evening exhaustion.
nervous_testpilot has been making music for a computer game. I suppose this explains why this year's set is straightforward and foursquare compared to others. Still, if you're going to hear some banging acid trance, best have it made by a master craftsman, I say.
This is dance music in the truest sense, and a packed Lounger Tent is on its feet and frugging furiously. If the unwelcome ghost of Josh Wink's "Higher State Of Consciousness" was raised one moment, this was more than offset by the happy memory of The Scientist's "The Exorcist" the next. Sadly licensing restrictions meant we were denied the encore for which we bayed, but what better way is there to end a great festival, than to leave wanting more?
See you next year, then.
The Rhonda Valley are alright if you want a slightly sloppy, slightly out of tune version of The Epstein. I'm sure they'd fare better if they weren't clashing with The Magic Numbers and we weren't all victims of Sunday evening exhaustion.
nervous_testpilot has been making music for a computer game. I suppose this explains why this year's set is straightforward and foursquare compared to others. Still, if you're going to hear some banging acid trance, best have it made by a master craftsman, I say.
This is dance music in the truest sense, and a packed Lounger Tent is on its feet and frugging furiously. If the unwelcome ghost of Josh Wink's "Higher State Of Consciousness" was raised one moment, this was more than offset by the happy memory of The Scientist's "The Exorcist" the next. Sadly licensing restrictions meant we were denied the encore for which we bayed, but what better way is there to end a great festival, than to leave wanting more?
See you next year, then.
Truck 05 Sunday
Right, I'm ready for the second part of the typing. I've been reading my complete Shakespeare, seeing as I thought I ought to fill up the gaps in my knowledge. An Act a day over breakfast. Having read Two Gentlemen Of Verona (unfunny) and The Merry Wives Of Windsor (mostly jokes about "amusing" accents, a bit like an Elizabethan Mind Your Language) I'm beginning to worry that I've already read all the good bits.
But none of this is getting Truck reviews typed up, is it, sirrah?
Having thankfully dropped the lacklustre vocalists in evidence last time I saw them, Scratch & Sniff bring a little bucolic sunshine into the lives of a tent full of tired, rain sodden campers with a clutch of good old squeezebox instrumentals. Slightly frayed round the edges, perhaps, but aren't we all at this time of the morning? Had this set been later in the afternoon there would have been do-si-doing, I guarantee.
Odd to see Trademark in the rock kingdom of The Barn. Evidently they've gone for an upbeat kickdrum heavy set in order to fit in. Perhaps the cavernous acoustic reveals some of the limitations of Oli's vocals, but Trademakr are as impressive as ever, boasting plenty of vim: hi-NRG newie "Stuck In A Rut"sounds like a lost Sonia single, for God's sake.
"Whisky In The Jar" continues their tradition of Truck exclusive cover version finales, and whilst it's not as good as "God Only Knows", it's worth remembering that very little on the face of this earth actually is...
I'd gove The Drugsquad a definite hats off, if it didn't mean my head would get so wet. There aren't many local bands who could turn a smattering of frowning drenched punters into a crowd of happy skankers, but The Drugsquad is one of them. OK, it's ska punk not rocket science. But who ever danced to rocket science? An impressive performance.
According to their website it's a regular occurrence, but I'm unsure how to describe Earnest Cox. The best I can offer is a tentative "Raqdio Two Punk". They roughly alternate between a mantric magaphone led rant, redolent of Frenz era Fall, and two chord wordy slowburns that bring to mind Swagger era Blue Aeroplanes. Bloody great indie rock, in other words, with plenty of Farfisa-like organ over the top. I guess if Chamfer swapped Bollywood for biliousness they might sound very slightly like this.
If anyone had any lingering doubts that Fell City Girl are an incredible Oxford band, this Truck performance will have dispelled them. They don't even look like they're trying very hard, and yet the music is faultless. My only criticism is that they rather over use the epic crescendoes that clearly come so naturally to them. They're already better than Muse or any of those post-Radiohead emotirock bands, and I suppose that by the time Truck 2006 is up and running we'll have had a taste of what they can really do.
Haing nipped into the theatre tent only to find it deserted, I try the acoustic tent again. I presume the goth-dusted light rock act is Susan Hedges. One song makes exactly no impression on me. Oh look, the sun's come out. Bye.
Tragically The Black Madonnas aren't old teatime TV staples The Black & White Mistrels doing a cover of "Vogue", but handily they are a prety nifty swamp blues trio. Surrounded by grubby and steaming people in a barn that smells distinctly of manure, this seems to make all sorts of sense. "Dirty Roier"? I hear you, boys.
After that earthy display I feel the need for some seedy and amatuerish gay rock and roll about nightclubbing underbellies and hating your Granny. Well blow me (ahem) if it's not The Open Mouths, providing just that. It's pretty enjoyably petulant stuff, and the ironic domestic violence balld "No Means Yes" is a slice of comedy genius to rival the great Otis Lee Crenshaw.
Why do I love The Epstein so much? Light, breezy country pop is the sort of thing that snoozes are made of round our way. I suppose it must be their fantastic musical ability and generous helpings of natural charm. That and the Russian waltz about bearmeat. It's a true achievement to weave such a profound spell on the main stage with a delicate and wistful number like "Leave A Light On".
No Truck is complete without some musical revelation or other. This year it's Chip Taylor, playing some relaxed bluegrass tunes. Think that sounds a bit uninspiring? Well, he wrote "Wild Thing" and you never, so shut up and listen! Ably assisted by Carrie Rodriguez, she of the delicious syrupy vocals and scorching fiddle, Chip has the small crowd entranced in no time, despite a somewhat wayward mix. The heavily bearded bassist deserves a mention too, cramming more technique and ideas into an eight bar solo than lots of bands manage in a full show. We could have listened all afternoon, quite frankly.
Ever wanted to know what nervous_testpilot's nightmares are like? Robochrist is the answer. His show's essentially one strangely made up leather-clad man miming to a tape of gabba metal covered with plunderphonic goodness (making espeically good use of samples from Prefab Sprout and Family Fortunes), and it's entertaining enough. Trouble is, an act called Robochrist is never going to be as good in the flesh as it is in your head, is it?
Damn you, Scissor Sisters! Damn you for making all this ironic, drama school pop crap acceptable. Do Me Bad Things are like a horrific cross between The Darkness, Wham! and Soul II Soul...but not nearly so interesting. With wailing guitar solos, stadium drums and camp Mercury poisoned vocals, it's inch perfect and impeccably put together, but then again, so is a fitted carpet. Drivel. Smug, overly honed drivel, which is always the worst sort.
But none of this is getting Truck reviews typed up, is it, sirrah?
Having thankfully dropped the lacklustre vocalists in evidence last time I saw them, Scratch & Sniff bring a little bucolic sunshine into the lives of a tent full of tired, rain sodden campers with a clutch of good old squeezebox instrumentals. Slightly frayed round the edges, perhaps, but aren't we all at this time of the morning? Had this set been later in the afternoon there would have been do-si-doing, I guarantee.
Odd to see Trademark in the rock kingdom of The Barn. Evidently they've gone for an upbeat kickdrum heavy set in order to fit in. Perhaps the cavernous acoustic reveals some of the limitations of Oli's vocals, but Trademakr are as impressive as ever, boasting plenty of vim: hi-NRG newie "Stuck In A Rut"sounds like a lost Sonia single, for God's sake.
"Whisky In The Jar" continues their tradition of Truck exclusive cover version finales, and whilst it's not as good as "God Only Knows", it's worth remembering that very little on the face of this earth actually is...
I'd gove The Drugsquad a definite hats off, if it didn't mean my head would get so wet. There aren't many local bands who could turn a smattering of frowning drenched punters into a crowd of happy skankers, but The Drugsquad is one of them. OK, it's ska punk not rocket science. But who ever danced to rocket science? An impressive performance.
According to their website it's a regular occurrence, but I'm unsure how to describe Earnest Cox. The best I can offer is a tentative "Raqdio Two Punk". They roughly alternate between a mantric magaphone led rant, redolent of Frenz era Fall, and two chord wordy slowburns that bring to mind Swagger era Blue Aeroplanes. Bloody great indie rock, in other words, with plenty of Farfisa-like organ over the top. I guess if Chamfer swapped Bollywood for biliousness they might sound very slightly like this.
If anyone had any lingering doubts that Fell City Girl are an incredible Oxford band, this Truck performance will have dispelled them. They don't even look like they're trying very hard, and yet the music is faultless. My only criticism is that they rather over use the epic crescendoes that clearly come so naturally to them. They're already better than Muse or any of those post-Radiohead emotirock bands, and I suppose that by the time Truck 2006 is up and running we'll have had a taste of what they can really do.
Haing nipped into the theatre tent only to find it deserted, I try the acoustic tent again. I presume the goth-dusted light rock act is Susan Hedges. One song makes exactly no impression on me. Oh look, the sun's come out. Bye.
Tragically The Black Madonnas aren't old teatime TV staples The Black & White Mistrels doing a cover of "Vogue", but handily they are a prety nifty swamp blues trio. Surrounded by grubby and steaming people in a barn that smells distinctly of manure, this seems to make all sorts of sense. "Dirty Roier"? I hear you, boys.
After that earthy display I feel the need for some seedy and amatuerish gay rock and roll about nightclubbing underbellies and hating your Granny. Well blow me (ahem) if it's not The Open Mouths, providing just that. It's pretty enjoyably petulant stuff, and the ironic domestic violence balld "No Means Yes" is a slice of comedy genius to rival the great Otis Lee Crenshaw.
Why do I love The Epstein so much? Light, breezy country pop is the sort of thing that snoozes are made of round our way. I suppose it must be their fantastic musical ability and generous helpings of natural charm. That and the Russian waltz about bearmeat. It's a true achievement to weave such a profound spell on the main stage with a delicate and wistful number like "Leave A Light On".
No Truck is complete without some musical revelation or other. This year it's Chip Taylor, playing some relaxed bluegrass tunes. Think that sounds a bit uninspiring? Well, he wrote "Wild Thing" and you never, so shut up and listen! Ably assisted by Carrie Rodriguez, she of the delicious syrupy vocals and scorching fiddle, Chip has the small crowd entranced in no time, despite a somewhat wayward mix. The heavily bearded bassist deserves a mention too, cramming more technique and ideas into an eight bar solo than lots of bands manage in a full show. We could have listened all afternoon, quite frankly.
Ever wanted to know what nervous_testpilot's nightmares are like? Robochrist is the answer. His show's essentially one strangely made up leather-clad man miming to a tape of gabba metal covered with plunderphonic goodness (making espeically good use of samples from Prefab Sprout and Family Fortunes), and it's entertaining enough. Trouble is, an act called Robochrist is never going to be as good in the flesh as it is in your head, is it?
Damn you, Scissor Sisters! Damn you for making all this ironic, drama school pop crap acceptable. Do Me Bad Things are like a horrific cross between The Darkness, Wham! and Soul II Soul...but not nearly so interesting. With wailing guitar solos, stadium drums and camp Mercury poisoned vocals, it's inch perfect and impeccably put together, but then again, so is a fitted carpet. Drivel. Smug, overly honed drivel, which is always the worst sort.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Truck Saturday 2005 pt 2
Right, I'm not typing up Sunday;s review too, I'm too tired. I'll do it Saturday, deal?
A U.S. sitcome writer couldn't have imagined it better: geeky, bookish High School student MC Lars has become hugely popular main stage graduate rapper simply by putting in the effort and being himself. He certainly deserves it, working the crowd effortlessly with a light humour and a pounding laptop, and showing how far he's come in the two years since he first visited Oxford. And if you perhaps wish he could discover some other poetic metre than the rhymed couplet, you have to admit that "Rapbeth" is a classic, and that "hubris really stinks" is the best encapsulation of the tragic ineluctability of Moby Dick's denouement ever heard in a hip-hop dong.
The Raveonettes sound like The Jesus & mary Chain having a crack at some old tin pan Alley numbers, and as such they're a sort of Primitives for our times. Albeit without the tunes. Some of the tremolo-heavy passages recall early Madder Rose, and of course, The Velvet Underground references are never far away (they made a record with Mo Tucker, you know), but if The Raveonettes are a long way from unpleasant, they're sadly equidistant from fascinating. Without wishing to sound too Oxcentric, The Factory sounded as good as this after half a dozen gigs, and it's a pity The Raveonettes don't have an ything else up their sleeves, as they started so promisingly.
Whilst we're bashing the big names, let's have a pop at Biffy Clyro, shall we? A blooming age setting up + songs that sound like The Foo Fighters + an opening number that resembles a flabby Placebo. Not a recipe for a great headline slot, I'm afraid.
I'll admit that I left before the end of the set. You'll have to make your own minds up whether that makes me a bad reviewer, or wether it makes Biffy a boring band. So ended something that I'd never experienced in 5 years, a disappointing day at Truck. Luckily, Sunday more than compensated.
A U.S. sitcome writer couldn't have imagined it better: geeky, bookish High School student MC Lars has become hugely popular main stage graduate rapper simply by putting in the effort and being himself. He certainly deserves it, working the crowd effortlessly with a light humour and a pounding laptop, and showing how far he's come in the two years since he first visited Oxford. And if you perhaps wish he could discover some other poetic metre than the rhymed couplet, you have to admit that "Rapbeth" is a classic, and that "hubris really stinks" is the best encapsulation of the tragic ineluctability of Moby Dick's denouement ever heard in a hip-hop dong.
The Raveonettes sound like The Jesus & mary Chain having a crack at some old tin pan Alley numbers, and as such they're a sort of Primitives for our times. Albeit without the tunes. Some of the tremolo-heavy passages recall early Madder Rose, and of course, The Velvet Underground references are never far away (they made a record with Mo Tucker, you know), but if The Raveonettes are a long way from unpleasant, they're sadly equidistant from fascinating. Without wishing to sound too Oxcentric, The Factory sounded as good as this after half a dozen gigs, and it's a pity The Raveonettes don't have an ything else up their sleeves, as they started so promisingly.
Whilst we're bashing the big names, let's have a pop at Biffy Clyro, shall we? A blooming age setting up + songs that sound like The Foo Fighters + an opening number that resembles a flabby Placebo. Not a recipe for a great headline slot, I'm afraid.
I'll admit that I left before the end of the set. You'll have to make your own minds up whether that makes me a bad reviewer, or wether it makes Biffy a boring band. So ended something that I'd never experienced in 5 years, a disappointing day at Truck. Luckily, Sunday more than compensated.
Stars Of Truck & Field
I heard one of those phrases today that send me into an irrational rage. "We're going through it with a tooth comb". You mean "fine-tooth comb", you cretin; all combs have teeth, otherwise they'd be fucking sticks.
TRUCK FESTIVAL, HILL FARM, STEVENTON, 7/05
Apart from the fact that they seem to have Marcella Detroit on bass, the most unusual thing about The Spiralist is that they play their rare groove acid jazzery with such a deadpan air. In a genre which is overloaded with forced smiles and positivitaaaay, this is refreshing indeed. As such their understated funk reminds me far more of Chic than The Brand New Heavies. Like a sticklebrick Matterhorn, the music may be a little blocky, but it's certainly imposiong and tightly knit.
Two drum kits, heavy on the cowbell. This is how you do main stage good times, I hope everyone is paying attention to this Mystery Jets masterclass. With lots of springloaded silliness and new wave bounce it's reminiscent of the roster of Wrath records (some of which is in evidence elsewhere during the weekend), which must be a point in their favour. Also, "You Can't Fool Me, Dennis" is my favourite song title of the festival. I leave after about half an hour, when they inexplicably and unexpectedly start sounding like The Cure.
"Hip Hop is the new stadium rock: Discuss with special reference to Solisai". Well, their introduce-the-band outro gets cut short when it threatens to extend into the middle of Sunday afternoon, and their soundfield as a whole is a bit unsubtle and clogged (come on, guys, does that tune really need four vocalists, three keyboards and two guitars?), so there is a whiff of 1985 Sting all-daywers to proceedings...no, not that sort of Sting all-dayer, you pervert. There's also far too much comping and water treading in the middle of the compositions, and a slightly rubbish sax solo to seal the deal.
Still, beneath all this is the seed of an excellent hip-hop group, all the MCs pulling off that difficult balance between lyrical flow, rhythmic ingenuity and - most often forgotten - simple enunciation. Add a powerful rhtythm section, on loan from Mackating, and a storming ragga showpiece, and you could conclude that Solisai is a name to watch out for in the future.
It's one of Oxford's great musical disappointments that when undertheigloo play live, they somehow manage to turn all their records' brittle, icy and enticing rhythms into a mildly bleepy indie stumble. They fare better this year than last, but something still gets left behind when they leave the studio. The sound of Sexy Breakfast in full flow bleeding through the tent doesn't help matters, either.
worthless_testpilot. OK, OK, that's not really fair, but I couldn't resist it. Pedro makes all the right noises (free jazz sax, exotica-tinged breakbeats, laptop scrunchtones) but for some reason they just won't fit together. Hopefully it's just an off day. As a work in progress this is very promising indeed, but as a finished product it's sadly a bit of a mess.
If there were such a thing as a cross between Quentin Tarantino and Crossroads, then The Schla La Las would surely be playing in the background whilst a coachload of ninjas fought over the last mini-Mowbray. Five feisty outfit coordinated ladies playing 50s bubblegum and surf will never stop being fun, no matter what vast muscial empires rise and fall along the way, and this Piney Gir led ensemble are no exception. It's a pity the performance isn't as good as the couture, but who cares: the sun's come out and they'r eplaying a song based on German menus. Einfach klasse!
Stoney are on in the barn. Stoney play a mixture of 70s glam pop and lightweight cock rock/ Stoney do it incredibly well. I wonder if Stoney feel deep down, as I do, that this music is just pretty rubbish no matter how good the band is?
Sadly I can't take credit for the phrase "A one man Muse", the chap next to me came up with it, but when talking about the piano and emotive falsetto of Patrick Wolf it's dead on the money. You can't deny that Wolf attacks the songs with every ounce of his soul, but you aslo can't deny that sometimes they sound a little like Elton John. With his pale, lanky, long-haired frame and general nocturnal demeanour, he's the sort of person who might do incredibly well if they had Fame Academy for vampires. It's an exemplary performance, but unfortunately one that leaves me completely unmoved.
Did you ever see that episode of Duncan Dares where he had a week to start up a homonazi electrogoth band? I fear it may only exist in my head, but watching the farrago that is Motormark's never-ending soundcheck is not at all dissimilar. When they do get going, yelping and pogoing away to some cheap industrial beats, the effect is quite entertaining, moderately samey, and so very, very gay. If Altered Images spent an evening injecting demon's blood and Buckfast they would probably sound something luike this. Good stuff, in other words.
One day the musical public will realise that folk can boast just as much drama and balls as the most theatrical death metal band. Until that day, Jim Moray will continue to entice the non-believers into investigating the genre. He plays traditional tunes in a contemporary style...by which I mean he approaches them as if he were a stadium-sized singer-songwriter, not that he puts lame trance beats behind them.
Sadly his set, whilst impressive, doesn't live up to his first "acapella laptop" number, on which he hamonised with samples of himself triggered from a handheld joypad, to hair-rasing effect. Probaby the best track of the day.
"You hate us 'cos we're feminists!" chant Malmo's Radical Cheerleaders. No we don't hate you, we're just a bit bored with you because you don't have any discernible act beyond shouting your sexual politics at us whist failing to hop about in unison. Gimme a D! Gimme a U! Gimme an L! Gimme another - ah, you're way ahead of me.
I'll assume that you've never read any local publications, and also that you've been avoiding the national music media for a while too, and inform you that The Young Knives play the sort of wonky new wave disco that will raise a smile and trouble your best tapping foot. Years spent playing together and extremely hard work have also turned the band into a super-slick rock unit and they turn in what must be the tightest set of the festival. Sadly, an airless tent full to bursting, and a sound composed almost entirely of treble mean that lasting the duration of the gig is hard work for the fatigued. No matter, they'll be playing much bigger gigs in the very near future, I suspect.
In contrast to their recent glorious Cellar gig, The Ralfe Band's folk-pop set doesn't seem to quite come together. Maybe it's because, in the tiny Lounge tent, the sanre drum played like a timbale feels like the loudest thing on God's earth and my ears start to bleed.
TRUCK FESTIVAL, HILL FARM, STEVENTON, 7/05
Apart from the fact that they seem to have Marcella Detroit on bass, the most unusual thing about The Spiralist is that they play their rare groove acid jazzery with such a deadpan air. In a genre which is overloaded with forced smiles and positivitaaaay, this is refreshing indeed. As such their understated funk reminds me far more of Chic than The Brand New Heavies. Like a sticklebrick Matterhorn, the music may be a little blocky, but it's certainly imposiong and tightly knit.
Two drum kits, heavy on the cowbell. This is how you do main stage good times, I hope everyone is paying attention to this Mystery Jets masterclass. With lots of springloaded silliness and new wave bounce it's reminiscent of the roster of Wrath records (some of which is in evidence elsewhere during the weekend), which must be a point in their favour. Also, "You Can't Fool Me, Dennis" is my favourite song title of the festival. I leave after about half an hour, when they inexplicably and unexpectedly start sounding like The Cure.
"Hip Hop is the new stadium rock: Discuss with special reference to Solisai". Well, their introduce-the-band outro gets cut short when it threatens to extend into the middle of Sunday afternoon, and their soundfield as a whole is a bit unsubtle and clogged (come on, guys, does that tune really need four vocalists, three keyboards and two guitars?), so there is a whiff of 1985 Sting all-daywers to proceedings...no, not that sort of Sting all-dayer, you pervert. There's also far too much comping and water treading in the middle of the compositions, and a slightly rubbish sax solo to seal the deal.
Still, beneath all this is the seed of an excellent hip-hop group, all the MCs pulling off that difficult balance between lyrical flow, rhythmic ingenuity and - most often forgotten - simple enunciation. Add a powerful rhtythm section, on loan from Mackating, and a storming ragga showpiece, and you could conclude that Solisai is a name to watch out for in the future.
It's one of Oxford's great musical disappointments that when undertheigloo play live, they somehow manage to turn all their records' brittle, icy and enticing rhythms into a mildly bleepy indie stumble. They fare better this year than last, but something still gets left behind when they leave the studio. The sound of Sexy Breakfast in full flow bleeding through the tent doesn't help matters, either.
worthless_testpilot. OK, OK, that's not really fair, but I couldn't resist it. Pedro makes all the right noises (free jazz sax, exotica-tinged breakbeats, laptop scrunchtones) but for some reason they just won't fit together. Hopefully it's just an off day. As a work in progress this is very promising indeed, but as a finished product it's sadly a bit of a mess.
If there were such a thing as a cross between Quentin Tarantino and Crossroads, then The Schla La Las would surely be playing in the background whilst a coachload of ninjas fought over the last mini-Mowbray. Five feisty outfit coordinated ladies playing 50s bubblegum and surf will never stop being fun, no matter what vast muscial empires rise and fall along the way, and this Piney Gir led ensemble are no exception. It's a pity the performance isn't as good as the couture, but who cares: the sun's come out and they'r eplaying a song based on German menus. Einfach klasse!
Stoney are on in the barn. Stoney play a mixture of 70s glam pop and lightweight cock rock/ Stoney do it incredibly well. I wonder if Stoney feel deep down, as I do, that this music is just pretty rubbish no matter how good the band is?
Sadly I can't take credit for the phrase "A one man Muse", the chap next to me came up with it, but when talking about the piano and emotive falsetto of Patrick Wolf it's dead on the money. You can't deny that Wolf attacks the songs with every ounce of his soul, but you aslo can't deny that sometimes they sound a little like Elton John. With his pale, lanky, long-haired frame and general nocturnal demeanour, he's the sort of person who might do incredibly well if they had Fame Academy for vampires. It's an exemplary performance, but unfortunately one that leaves me completely unmoved.
Did you ever see that episode of Duncan Dares where he had a week to start up a homonazi electrogoth band? I fear it may only exist in my head, but watching the farrago that is Motormark's never-ending soundcheck is not at all dissimilar. When they do get going, yelping and pogoing away to some cheap industrial beats, the effect is quite entertaining, moderately samey, and so very, very gay. If Altered Images spent an evening injecting demon's blood and Buckfast they would probably sound something luike this. Good stuff, in other words.
One day the musical public will realise that folk can boast just as much drama and balls as the most theatrical death metal band. Until that day, Jim Moray will continue to entice the non-believers into investigating the genre. He plays traditional tunes in a contemporary style...by which I mean he approaches them as if he were a stadium-sized singer-songwriter, not that he puts lame trance beats behind them.
Sadly his set, whilst impressive, doesn't live up to his first "acapella laptop" number, on which he hamonised with samples of himself triggered from a handheld joypad, to hair-rasing effect. Probaby the best track of the day.
"You hate us 'cos we're feminists!" chant Malmo's Radical Cheerleaders. No we don't hate you, we're just a bit bored with you because you don't have any discernible act beyond shouting your sexual politics at us whist failing to hop about in unison. Gimme a D! Gimme a U! Gimme an L! Gimme another - ah, you're way ahead of me.
I'll assume that you've never read any local publications, and also that you've been avoiding the national music media for a while too, and inform you that The Young Knives play the sort of wonky new wave disco that will raise a smile and trouble your best tapping foot. Years spent playing together and extremely hard work have also turned the band into a super-slick rock unit and they turn in what must be the tightest set of the festival. Sadly, an airless tent full to bursting, and a sound composed almost entirely of treble mean that lasting the duration of the gig is hard work for the fatigued. No matter, they'll be playing much bigger gigs in the very near future, I suspect.
In contrast to their recent glorious Cellar gig, The Ralfe Band's folk-pop set doesn't seem to quite come together. Maybe it's because, in the tiny Lounge tent, the sanre drum played like a timbale feels like the loudest thing on God's earth and my ears start to bleed.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Climate Of Punter
The majority of this review makes up about 50% of the Punt review in the latest Nightshift. In other news I saw Acid Mothers Temple on Sunday night, and I think I'm only just coming back to a normal serotonin level now. Truly outstanding psychedelia.
PUNT, Malmaison/ Purple Turtle/ Cellar/ Wheatsheaf/ Coco Royal, 12/5/10
Musically the Punt might be an eclectic mix, but it’s worth noting what a range of atmospheres the venues have too. In a few scant hours we’ll be swilling lagerpiss from a plastic skiff in the Cellar, but we start the night with cocktails in the plush, velvety Malmaison bar. And in refined environs we find a delicate and subtle artist. Helen Pearson’s light, airy songs are lovably idiosyncratic without falling into the anti-folk trap of self-conscious tricksiness. There’s a moment mid-set when the music becomes somewhat trite, but the gig is bookended beautifully by “Labrador Song”, essentially an Alan Bennett stage direction set to hazy guitar plucking, and a wonderful closer about boxers, which is so gorgeous we feel bad about slurping the last of our G & T through a straw…but at these prices we’re determined to get every single drop!
There are two elements to The Anydays. On one hand they are three middle-aged men trying to capture rock hedonism with skinny jeans, leather jackets and a Camden desperation (shades indoors is heinous enough, but shades in a basement? There ought to be a law), but luckily this is vastly overshadowed by the summery tunefulness of their songs. There are elements of 90s fuzz rock such as The Wannadies in the mix, but the real influence seems to be The Kinks – one song reminds us happily of “Sittin’ On My Sofa”. There are echoes of all your favourite good time rock songs floating about, from “Louie Louie” to “No Fun” but, like the Crabbie’s alcoholic ginger beer we discovered at the Purple Turtle, The Anydays are a new twist on classic flavours.
Message To Bears are even more hushed and controlled than last time we saw them. Their bucolic compositions swell and glide with great precision, and if their clockwork countryside feel marks them out as Mogwai for Young Conservatives, the set is astonishing, the twin violins adding a richness that draws us in from the outset. The vocals might be superfluous, but Message To Bears have quietly become our favourite act of the evening.
Waiting for Beard Of Zeuss to come on gives us a chance to investigate the Cellar’s recent mural, which turns out to be a crass mix of Keith Haring and Inca art. Almost makes The Jericho look acceptable. Then suddenly all thoughts of interior décor evaporate, as all our concentration is needed to deal with what feels like being kicked in the chest by a randy camel. Beard Of Zeuss are sludgy, greasy and definitely bad for you, and their uber-stoner thump is the sonic equivalent of injecting an all day breakfast directly into your left ventricle. New drummer Frank might not be the most intricate sticksman at the Punt, but every pummelling rhythm feels like a breezeblock cocktail. Down in one!
Having been forced to show our driving license to enter The PT the second time (not because we look young, but just to “see who’s coming in” – does this cock of a bouncer have a photographic memory for photographic ID or something?) it’s back to the Crabbie’s. The crowd is sadly sparse for Sealings, but then, so is the music. Bleak drum machine rock that recalls pre-cabaret goth is tempered with the odd fleck of grunge insouciance. Hang on, slacker nihilism, does that work? The music is a blast whatever, although we lose interest very slightly before the set shambles to a conclusion. Perhaps not quite the finished product, but a great start.
We catch a song and a half from Ute, and they sound wonderful, perhaps primarily because The Cellar’s engineer Jimmy Evil has made the drumkit sound like an 808. The opener makes excellent use of the effect, with an intricate percussive paean that reminds us of Spring Offensive’s excellent “Every Coin Must Be Swallowed” with lyrics by 90s Dylan (assuming Dylan knew what Mr Whippy was, which is doubtful), whilst the rousing second track is post-Radiohead in all the right ways. Clearly a band who are improving steadily.
If Beard Of Zeuss boiled metal’s flayed carcass to nothing and served us the greasy residue, Risen In Black are the pure distillation of thrash collected from the escaping vapour. The vocals might be slightly unconvincing, but the rest of the band is as tight as all hell and this sort of music will always be fun. Their defiantly unreconstituted metal sound reminds us of those throwback political parties who refuse to acknowledge the existence of New Labour or post-Thatcher Tories; you’re glad they exist, but you still wouldn’t vote for them.
Taste My Eyes, on the other hand, have an astonishing vocalist, screeching and growling like a velociraptor trapped in a rusty cement mixer. The riffs churn and bludgeon beneath him gloriously and we decide, if Punt is any indicator, that the city’s metal scene is as healthy and diverse as it was a decade or so ago.
After the seemingly endless walk (“Are we in Reading yet?”) we reach Coco Royal. We had our doubts about this as a Punt venue, what with it being out of the way and, essentially, a restaurant, but we find ourselves instantly relaxing in a room that looks like the Mos Eisley cantina remodelled for a Roxy Music video, and a fair few customers are listening intently to Welcome To Peepworld. At first we have their ultra-polite ditties pegged as Nothing, Nor The Girl, but we soon warm to Fi McFall’s sweetly expressive vocals – touches of Beth Gibbons at times – and by the end of the set we’re caught up in their melodic snares. They could probably do with a bigger PA to make the most of the subtleties, though.
Somehow, even with the leggings, bombast and glam guitars Barbare11a don’t make much impression tonight, but The Vicars Of Twiddly hit the spot perfectly, tossing cheap surf instrumentals out to the audience with a cheeky grin. Never mind the cassocks, the organ drenched music is addictive fun on its own, even if they aren’t the tidiest band on the bill, and if anyone tries to tell you this isn’t ten tons of fun, they’re talking papal bull. Of course, the other great thing about the Vicars is that they allow third rate music journalists to make terrible puns, so let’s just say Automatic For The Wimple! Nun more black…
PUNT, Malmaison/ Purple Turtle/ Cellar/ Wheatsheaf/ Coco Royal, 12/5/10
Musically the Punt might be an eclectic mix, but it’s worth noting what a range of atmospheres the venues have too. In a few scant hours we’ll be swilling lagerpiss from a plastic skiff in the Cellar, but we start the night with cocktails in the plush, velvety Malmaison bar. And in refined environs we find a delicate and subtle artist. Helen Pearson’s light, airy songs are lovably idiosyncratic without falling into the anti-folk trap of self-conscious tricksiness. There’s a moment mid-set when the music becomes somewhat trite, but the gig is bookended beautifully by “Labrador Song”, essentially an Alan Bennett stage direction set to hazy guitar plucking, and a wonderful closer about boxers, which is so gorgeous we feel bad about slurping the last of our G & T through a straw…but at these prices we’re determined to get every single drop!
There are two elements to The Anydays. On one hand they are three middle-aged men trying to capture rock hedonism with skinny jeans, leather jackets and a Camden desperation (shades indoors is heinous enough, but shades in a basement? There ought to be a law), but luckily this is vastly overshadowed by the summery tunefulness of their songs. There are elements of 90s fuzz rock such as The Wannadies in the mix, but the real influence seems to be The Kinks – one song reminds us happily of “Sittin’ On My Sofa”. There are echoes of all your favourite good time rock songs floating about, from “Louie Louie” to “No Fun” but, like the Crabbie’s alcoholic ginger beer we discovered at the Purple Turtle, The Anydays are a new twist on classic flavours.
Message To Bears are even more hushed and controlled than last time we saw them. Their bucolic compositions swell and glide with great precision, and if their clockwork countryside feel marks them out as Mogwai for Young Conservatives, the set is astonishing, the twin violins adding a richness that draws us in from the outset. The vocals might be superfluous, but Message To Bears have quietly become our favourite act of the evening.
Waiting for Beard Of Zeuss to come on gives us a chance to investigate the Cellar’s recent mural, which turns out to be a crass mix of Keith Haring and Inca art. Almost makes The Jericho look acceptable. Then suddenly all thoughts of interior décor evaporate, as all our concentration is needed to deal with what feels like being kicked in the chest by a randy camel. Beard Of Zeuss are sludgy, greasy and definitely bad for you, and their uber-stoner thump is the sonic equivalent of injecting an all day breakfast directly into your left ventricle. New drummer Frank might not be the most intricate sticksman at the Punt, but every pummelling rhythm feels like a breezeblock cocktail. Down in one!
Having been forced to show our driving license to enter The PT the second time (not because we look young, but just to “see who’s coming in” – does this cock of a bouncer have a photographic memory for photographic ID or something?) it’s back to the Crabbie’s. The crowd is sadly sparse for Sealings, but then, so is the music. Bleak drum machine rock that recalls pre-cabaret goth is tempered with the odd fleck of grunge insouciance. Hang on, slacker nihilism, does that work? The music is a blast whatever, although we lose interest very slightly before the set shambles to a conclusion. Perhaps not quite the finished product, but a great start.
We catch a song and a half from Ute, and they sound wonderful, perhaps primarily because The Cellar’s engineer Jimmy Evil has made the drumkit sound like an 808. The opener makes excellent use of the effect, with an intricate percussive paean that reminds us of Spring Offensive’s excellent “Every Coin Must Be Swallowed” with lyrics by 90s Dylan (assuming Dylan knew what Mr Whippy was, which is doubtful), whilst the rousing second track is post-Radiohead in all the right ways. Clearly a band who are improving steadily.
If Beard Of Zeuss boiled metal’s flayed carcass to nothing and served us the greasy residue, Risen In Black are the pure distillation of thrash collected from the escaping vapour. The vocals might be slightly unconvincing, but the rest of the band is as tight as all hell and this sort of music will always be fun. Their defiantly unreconstituted metal sound reminds us of those throwback political parties who refuse to acknowledge the existence of New Labour or post-Thatcher Tories; you’re glad they exist, but you still wouldn’t vote for them.
Taste My Eyes, on the other hand, have an astonishing vocalist, screeching and growling like a velociraptor trapped in a rusty cement mixer. The riffs churn and bludgeon beneath him gloriously and we decide, if Punt is any indicator, that the city’s metal scene is as healthy and diverse as it was a decade or so ago.
After the seemingly endless walk (“Are we in Reading yet?”) we reach Coco Royal. We had our doubts about this as a Punt venue, what with it being out of the way and, essentially, a restaurant, but we find ourselves instantly relaxing in a room that looks like the Mos Eisley cantina remodelled for a Roxy Music video, and a fair few customers are listening intently to Welcome To Peepworld. At first we have their ultra-polite ditties pegged as Nothing, Nor The Girl, but we soon warm to Fi McFall’s sweetly expressive vocals – touches of Beth Gibbons at times – and by the end of the set we’re caught up in their melodic snares. They could probably do with a bigger PA to make the most of the subtleties, though.
Somehow, even with the leggings, bombast and glam guitars Barbare11a don’t make much impression tonight, but The Vicars Of Twiddly hit the spot perfectly, tossing cheap surf instrumentals out to the audience with a cheeky grin. Never mind the cassocks, the organ drenched music is addictive fun on its own, even if they aren’t the tidiest band on the bill, and if anyone tries to tell you this isn’t ten tons of fun, they’re talking papal bull. Of course, the other great thing about the Vicars is that they allow third rate music journalists to make terrible puns, so let’s just say Automatic For The Wimple! Nun more black…
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