Jolly Jack, Ta

"Bank holiday comes six time a year, actually it's seven, and there have been occasions where another has been granted for special occasions, eg the millennium".
"Do you want to have another crack at that, Damon, mate?"

Happy bank hol weekend, you rapscallions.

JACK GOLDSTEIN/ MAX BLANSJAAR/ DESPICABLE ZEE, Beanie Tapes, Deaf & Hard Of Hearing Centre, 12/5/19

Despicable Zee’s recent EP Atigheh is likely to be one of Oxford’s releases of the year when the dust settles, but we were interested to see how Zahra Tehrani would translate its chilly introspection to the live stage.  Tonight’s performance is denser and more oppressive than the original recordings, whether that entails adding an insouciant MIA grove to “Counting Cars”, or smothering sample lattices with drums and synthesised skreek drones.  Electronic drum pads add some salad crisp snare tones, but there are one or two moments when acoustic drums overbalance the sound, reminding of us of that early 90s moment when bands like Pop Will Eat Itself explored building rock songs around sequenced backing, generally ending up with clunk-funk rhythms that didn’t quite gel.  This is a minor criticism, though, and it’s impressive that Tehrani has taken such a strong recording, and created a different, but equally intriguing, performance.

Max Blansjaar’s set is less intense, consisting of primary colour poster paint pop, all light bouncy guitar and smiling vocal lines. Imagine rough demos of 1987 hits by Go West or Wax, and you are in the right zone, although there is a choppier Graham Coxon feel to “You’re Always On My Mind”.  As much as we love Self Help and Easter Island Statues, who provide Max’s rhythm section, the strongest track is a solo piece, which resembles “The Girl From Ipanema” rewritten by Lou Barlow, featuring bonus kazoo.  It’s enjoyable stuff, though we do feel that, for a set of pure pop, there could be more euphoria – we want whoops of wild abandon, not quiet, contented smiles.

Although Jack Goldstein seems to balance sweaty pop abandon with the diffuse reticence of an academic at their first conference on Coptic etymology.  After having the organisors make us all stand up he treats us to a long, rambling monologue about pop tropes and presentation.  We’re not sure whether the message is that lofi artists should admit they’re no different from mega-stage pop Pepsinauts and so make a theatrical effort, or that a classic song will work anywhere so keep things simple. It’s possibly both.  What we are sure about is that Jack, leaping round the venue in a camel tracksuit like a life coach on a busman’s holiday, is always a pleasure, and that backing tracks mixing 80s pop, 90s rave and (inevitably) The Beach Boys sound great anywhere.  The campaign for Goldstein Eurovision 2020 starts now!