Today's entry is dedicated to Oxford music photographer Johnny Moto. Not that he's dead. Or, I guess he might be, he doesn't check in with me every hour, so how would I know? God, I hope he's OK. No, hang on, let's assume he is.
Anyway, Mr Moto gave me a pen when I was writing my first review of this year and the venue was so damned cold the ink froze solid in my ballpoint. I never gave it back. Anyway, whilst writing this review I dropped said pen and said Johnny trod on it. He was so apologetic he bought me two new pens! So, now I'm in his debt to the tune of three pens (and each pen rather niftily had four differently coloured nibs, so perhaps it's more like twelve pens - although they were short pens, so let's call it six on aggregate). Still, he's dead now, so I suppose I'm off the hook...
CATS IN PARIS/ UTE/ COLOUREDS, Pindrop, Cellar, 16/9/10
The surprising thing about electro duo Coloureds – aside from the hand-crafted face masks that make them look like Ray Harryhausen’s Michael Myers maquettes – is how much contemporary club music seeps through their distorted, jittery IDM. Just as Funkstorung a decade ago took hip hop rhythms and twisted them into Wire pleasing glitchfests, so Coloureds seem to have taken garage and funky as their base metals, to be experimented upon ruthlessly. The music is all about texture, and there isn’t much in the way of theme or melody (although the odd arpeggio recalls Orbital, and a scuzzy three note organ breakdown sounds as though Philip Glass tried to create one of his scores on an Etch-a-sketch), but the rhythmic intensities, the subtle twists and the theatrical performance make this set musically captivating as well as pummellingly excoriating.
We’ve vacillated in our opinion of local trio Ute, and tonight we find ourselves doing so mid-set. The first half is all keening vocal lines and twitchy semi-acoustic rock, and it’s fine, but apart from the excellently regimental drumming, doesn’t truly excite us: at its best it’s Radiohead enveloping Robert Wyatt, but at its worst it sounds like a generic copy of any lightly groovy artrockers (and does the refrain “Psycho killer” suggest anyone, hmmm?). But then, suddenly they win us over again, with loud and well thought out rock songs, one boasting a bass that impersonates a truck burping, and one which is a manic grunge thrash, like a skiffle Mudhoney. Most importantly, the vocals switch from annoying self-conscious wheedle, to an effective growl that drops into unexpected valleys of delicate harmonising. If this gig were a football match, you’d assume the half time talk had been ruthlessly galvanising.
Manchester’s Cats In Paris also rise in our estimations, but this is probably because it took us two songs to calibrate ourselves. What does one make of their maximalist maelstroms, where jazz funk bass meets keyboards from a budget ELP and vocals from a literary EMF? But, once the fluent violin came in, the power of the rhythm section became apparent, and the joyful refrain “This is modern British cooking” had invaded our mind, we decided their Zappa child grab bag of pop oddity was something to be cherished, and in retrospect the fact that opener “Chopchopchopchopchop” sounded like a mixture between “O Superman”, the theme from Let’s Pretend and Flaming Lips made perfect sense. They didn’t fulfil the promoter’s description of their sound as “electro spazz swing”. They surpassed it.
Wednesday 22 September 2010
Friday 17 September 2010
Brook Shields Required?
Here's the game: 1) choose a composer 2) imagine what their most incongruously named offspring might be, eg Wayne Tchaikovsky. Playing this led me to the realisation that "Terence Trent Wagner" is the funniest group of five syllables I've ever heard.
Warning: preposterous PJ Harvey/prefix pun contained below.
SPRING OFFENSIVE – THE FIRST OF MANY DREAMS ABOUT MONSTERS
Unlike some drunken old colonels, we don’t lose any sleep over the way the word “gay” has changed its meaning. Unlike one of our old English teachers, we aren’t upset by current usage of the word “nice”. She used to get riled because the word was supposed to mean fastidious. Yeah, in the seventeenth century, when lest we forget, “healthcare” meant “being bled by your hairdresser”. In English, words mean pretty much whatever we want them to mean; unlike in France, the British government does not officially control the language (Jesus, can you imagine if it did? Three year waiting lists for the subjunctive, datasticks full of pronouns left in bars, creeping privatisation of the irregular verbs).
And yet, we still get miffed at the way “pretentious” is used. To us, it will always imply someone simply making a pretence. Therefore, in rock terms, it would be pretentious to hide your Eton accent with ersatz glottal stops whilst preaching revolutionary punk politics, and it would be pretentious to dress up in flimsy scraps of leather and prance round the stage looking like you want to fellate any passing roadie in a paddling pool of Jim Beam, when you actually prefer an early night with a mug of Horlicks, but it would not be pretentious to make a 14 minute single based on Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and her five stage Grief Cycle.
It might be a bit bloody silly, but it wouldn’t be pretentious.
Yet, this is precisely what Spring Offensive have done, with their free download track “The First Of Many Dreams About Monsters”, and whilst it might be easy to dismiss behaviour like this as sophomoric, or needlessly ostentatious, but we feel that we can defend them. First up, there’s nothing wrong with shooting high, because you just might make it – we’re surely glad that Brian Wilson tried to make “teenage symphonies to God” and not “a couple of catchy tunes to net me some pussy” – and secondly, the conceptual elements of this song may have been useful for the band in its composition, but really we’d defy anyone in the world to work it out in a blind test. In fact, the handwritten notes that are supplied with the track conclude “we sing about the act of writing about grief”, which shows how far they are from producing Grief! The Kubler-Ross Story On Ice, although we do feel the distancing is a little meaningless, as if their intent was to present us with a concept and then immediately hide it behind layers of obfuscation (“Don’t you wish you’d never, never meta-“).
Add to this the fact that the lyrics are, as ever, wonderfully vague and allusive, having more in common with the imagistic snapshots of William Carlos Williams than your average pop song. “Beware the intruder/ I have scissors in my hand [...] He says he’s an artist” doesn’t give us enough data to construct any real picture, but does make a truly evocative yet unspecified image with a powerful economy of words...which is perhaps what all good pop songs do, after all. And it’s especially effective when delivered with a mixture of reticence and declamation by Lucas Whitworth, whose voice is sounding better than ever on this recording. There are other fantastic elements to this single, especially the guitars’ undulating shimmer in the quieter sections, the wonderful percussive loop at the start that sounds like an old typewriter being pecked at by a fledgling reporter, and the fact that the mammoth song hangs together without ever feeling stretched.
But this impressive release isn’t perfect. The seems a little too much in awe of local heroes Youth Movies in the crescendos, and we can’t help feeling that the rubbery Foals guitar lines and massed choruses are the least exciting part of Spring Offensive, even when they do them incredibly well. So, we urge everyone to download the record, it’s incredibly impressive, and hugely enjoyable, and yes, it’s a bit bloody silly, but the weird part is that Spring Offensive have released what might look like a magnum opus, a career summation, but have in fact revealed how swiftly they are outgrowing the old sound. There’s lots to get excited about here away from the obvious moments, and it could be the first glimpse of enticing new paths and alleys for the band to follow. The first of many, doubtless.
Warning: preposterous PJ Harvey/prefix pun contained below.
SPRING OFFENSIVE – THE FIRST OF MANY DREAMS ABOUT MONSTERS
Unlike some drunken old colonels, we don’t lose any sleep over the way the word “gay” has changed its meaning. Unlike one of our old English teachers, we aren’t upset by current usage of the word “nice”. She used to get riled because the word was supposed to mean fastidious. Yeah, in the seventeenth century, when lest we forget, “healthcare” meant “being bled by your hairdresser”. In English, words mean pretty much whatever we want them to mean; unlike in France, the British government does not officially control the language (Jesus, can you imagine if it did? Three year waiting lists for the subjunctive, datasticks full of pronouns left in bars, creeping privatisation of the irregular verbs).
And yet, we still get miffed at the way “pretentious” is used. To us, it will always imply someone simply making a pretence. Therefore, in rock terms, it would be pretentious to hide your Eton accent with ersatz glottal stops whilst preaching revolutionary punk politics, and it would be pretentious to dress up in flimsy scraps of leather and prance round the stage looking like you want to fellate any passing roadie in a paddling pool of Jim Beam, when you actually prefer an early night with a mug of Horlicks, but it would not be pretentious to make a 14 minute single based on Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and her five stage Grief Cycle.
It might be a bit bloody silly, but it wouldn’t be pretentious.
Yet, this is precisely what Spring Offensive have done, with their free download track “The First Of Many Dreams About Monsters”, and whilst it might be easy to dismiss behaviour like this as sophomoric, or needlessly ostentatious, but we feel that we can defend them. First up, there’s nothing wrong with shooting high, because you just might make it – we’re surely glad that Brian Wilson tried to make “teenage symphonies to God” and not “a couple of catchy tunes to net me some pussy” – and secondly, the conceptual elements of this song may have been useful for the band in its composition, but really we’d defy anyone in the world to work it out in a blind test. In fact, the handwritten notes that are supplied with the track conclude “we sing about the act of writing about grief”, which shows how far they are from producing Grief! The Kubler-Ross Story On Ice, although we do feel the distancing is a little meaningless, as if their intent was to present us with a concept and then immediately hide it behind layers of obfuscation (“Don’t you wish you’d never, never meta-“).
Add to this the fact that the lyrics are, as ever, wonderfully vague and allusive, having more in common with the imagistic snapshots of William Carlos Williams than your average pop song. “Beware the intruder/ I have scissors in my hand [...] He says he’s an artist” doesn’t give us enough data to construct any real picture, but does make a truly evocative yet unspecified image with a powerful economy of words...which is perhaps what all good pop songs do, after all. And it’s especially effective when delivered with a mixture of reticence and declamation by Lucas Whitworth, whose voice is sounding better than ever on this recording. There are other fantastic elements to this single, especially the guitars’ undulating shimmer in the quieter sections, the wonderful percussive loop at the start that sounds like an old typewriter being pecked at by a fledgling reporter, and the fact that the mammoth song hangs together without ever feeling stretched.
But this impressive release isn’t perfect. The seems a little too much in awe of local heroes Youth Movies in the crescendos, and we can’t help feeling that the rubbery Foals guitar lines and massed choruses are the least exciting part of Spring Offensive, even when they do them incredibly well. So, we urge everyone to download the record, it’s incredibly impressive, and hugely enjoyable, and yes, it’s a bit bloody silly, but the weird part is that Spring Offensive have released what might look like a magnum opus, a career summation, but have in fact revealed how swiftly they are outgrowing the old sound. There’s lots to get excited about here away from the obvious moments, and it could be the first glimpse of enticing new paths and alleys for the band to follow. The first of many, doubtless.
Monday 6 September 2010
Comboverdose
I was going to write you something fascinating, and then settle down to submit another CD review to MIO, but I feel like cack, so I may just take a Night Nurse and go to bed with the Prom. You'll survive.
JUNKIE BRUSH – WHAT YOU SEE, WHAT YOU HEAR (Rivet Gun)
Why does nobody talk about the huge volte face in the history of punk?
How come no one comments on the fact that punks seem to spend most of their time in the company of hippies nowadays? We know that not all punks bought into the swastika-badged, vomit-flecked attempt to bring down civilisation by slightly scaring old ladies, but surely all original punks saw their movement as a tabula rasa for music and culture: no more hippies, no more well-heeled prog indulgences. And yet, sometime around 1985, when the rest of the punks had given themselves up to electronics, black eyeliner or proper jobs, the hardline of believers found themselves in the company of their old enemies, fraternising with hippies, playing free festivals, supporting left wing causes. Of course, by the time the 90s rolled round, with the advent of crusty folk rock and Megadog trance, punks and hippies had lived together for a few years, and already it was impossible to say which was which.
And so it is with Junkie Brush. Despite sounding a lot like the clinical autopsy hardcore of Black Flag at times, you’re more likely to find them playing for genial dopeheads Klub Kakofanney than anyone else, and you’ve a greater chance of finding them on a bill with acoustic strummers and Gong-a-likes at some oddball West Oxfordshire all-dayer than playing to moshing revolutionary youths in some Friday night sweatbox. None of which detracts one iota form the high quality of this new EP, which balances brutality with beery japing perfectly, and may well be the best set of tracks Junkie Brush has put on record, but it is intriguing nonetheless.
There is a picture of a protester winding up to hurl a projectile at a wall of riot police on the cover of the record, but in reality, the politics have no more depth than the inlay card. The title “Problem-Reaction-Solution” seems to hint at revolutionary activity, but doesn’t go so far as to specify anything in particular that’s good or bad about society, and elsewhere phrases like “Don’t you want to destroy the other?” and “You are the enemy” are vague enough to be essentially meaningless. Also, throwing such dumb-ass yelpalongs like “Fucked In The Mind” and “Monkey Boy” onto the EP could be said to detract from any cogent political message that might be lurking somewhere.
The music, on the other hand, is simple, direct and uncontentiously excellent. Marxist - and, like Big Tim from Junkie Brush, Zappa fanatic - critic Ben Watson once postulated that all great rock bands were essentially drum circles, and that all rock instruments should be counted as percussion. If that’s the case, then in “Problem-Reaction-Solution”, Junkie Brush have gone one better, turning a three piece band into one giant bass drum, bashing steadily away as if haranguing some Phoenicians slaves to row a Roman galley. Nowhere on the record does the musical construction get far beyond the rule of “riff, refrain, and slight dynamics”, and is all the better for it. “Sickening” has a sprightly bounce that caries tiny hints of Rage Against The Machine, “Fucked In The Mind” is scuzzier and more leaden footed, and “Monkey Boy” might be paying homage to local punk daddies Headcount, but whatever slight alterations the band makes to their recipe, they don’t diverge too far from insistent, declamatory, hugely enjoyable chants (although “You Are A Target”’s nods towards The Prodigy’s “Poison” are unexpected).
But none of this musical dissection can actually capture the sense of barely controlled rage that Junkie Brush embody. The vocals have a reedy, Dead Kennedys intensity, which is offset by the roiling sea of guitar noise, and drums that sound like deep-fried cannonballs being dropped onto your ears from an Olympic diving board; Jim, formerly of mildly convincing artrockers City Lights Just Burn seems to have found his spiritual home hitting things in Junkie Brush. Come to think of it, there’s another difficult truth about punk that doesn’t get aired often enough – when it’s done as well as it is here, it still sounds miles better than most of the turgid guff that passes for rock and roll. This EP made us want to smash the nearest radio and jump up and down on every half-arsed Myspace band in existence, which can only possibly be an enormous mark in its favour.
JUNKIE BRUSH – WHAT YOU SEE, WHAT YOU HEAR (Rivet Gun)
Why does nobody talk about the huge volte face in the history of punk?
How come no one comments on the fact that punks seem to spend most of their time in the company of hippies nowadays? We know that not all punks bought into the swastika-badged, vomit-flecked attempt to bring down civilisation by slightly scaring old ladies, but surely all original punks saw their movement as a tabula rasa for music and culture: no more hippies, no more well-heeled prog indulgences. And yet, sometime around 1985, when the rest of the punks had given themselves up to electronics, black eyeliner or proper jobs, the hardline of believers found themselves in the company of their old enemies, fraternising with hippies, playing free festivals, supporting left wing causes. Of course, by the time the 90s rolled round, with the advent of crusty folk rock and Megadog trance, punks and hippies had lived together for a few years, and already it was impossible to say which was which.
And so it is with Junkie Brush. Despite sounding a lot like the clinical autopsy hardcore of Black Flag at times, you’re more likely to find them playing for genial dopeheads Klub Kakofanney than anyone else, and you’ve a greater chance of finding them on a bill with acoustic strummers and Gong-a-likes at some oddball West Oxfordshire all-dayer than playing to moshing revolutionary youths in some Friday night sweatbox. None of which detracts one iota form the high quality of this new EP, which balances brutality with beery japing perfectly, and may well be the best set of tracks Junkie Brush has put on record, but it is intriguing nonetheless.
There is a picture of a protester winding up to hurl a projectile at a wall of riot police on the cover of the record, but in reality, the politics have no more depth than the inlay card. The title “Problem-Reaction-Solution” seems to hint at revolutionary activity, but doesn’t go so far as to specify anything in particular that’s good or bad about society, and elsewhere phrases like “Don’t you want to destroy the other?” and “You are the enemy” are vague enough to be essentially meaningless. Also, throwing such dumb-ass yelpalongs like “Fucked In The Mind” and “Monkey Boy” onto the EP could be said to detract from any cogent political message that might be lurking somewhere.
The music, on the other hand, is simple, direct and uncontentiously excellent. Marxist - and, like Big Tim from Junkie Brush, Zappa fanatic - critic Ben Watson once postulated that all great rock bands were essentially drum circles, and that all rock instruments should be counted as percussion. If that’s the case, then in “Problem-Reaction-Solution”, Junkie Brush have gone one better, turning a three piece band into one giant bass drum, bashing steadily away as if haranguing some Phoenicians slaves to row a Roman galley. Nowhere on the record does the musical construction get far beyond the rule of “riff, refrain, and slight dynamics”, and is all the better for it. “Sickening” has a sprightly bounce that caries tiny hints of Rage Against The Machine, “Fucked In The Mind” is scuzzier and more leaden footed, and “Monkey Boy” might be paying homage to local punk daddies Headcount, but whatever slight alterations the band makes to their recipe, they don’t diverge too far from insistent, declamatory, hugely enjoyable chants (although “You Are A Target”’s nods towards The Prodigy’s “Poison” are unexpected).
But none of this musical dissection can actually capture the sense of barely controlled rage that Junkie Brush embody. The vocals have a reedy, Dead Kennedys intensity, which is offset by the roiling sea of guitar noise, and drums that sound like deep-fried cannonballs being dropped onto your ears from an Olympic diving board; Jim, formerly of mildly convincing artrockers City Lights Just Burn seems to have found his spiritual home hitting things in Junkie Brush. Come to think of it, there’s another difficult truth about punk that doesn’t get aired often enough – when it’s done as well as it is here, it still sounds miles better than most of the turgid guff that passes for rock and roll. This EP made us want to smash the nearest radio and jump up and down on every half-arsed Myspace band in existence, which can only possibly be an enormous mark in its favour.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)