A festival in a Christian youth club. A not particularly interesting review with a shit pun for the title. Hardly a marriage made in heaven.
BELOW THE BELT ALL-DAYER, The Mish, 23/11/08
Never let it be said that we don’t enjoy finding new musical experiences, in addition to the usual Friday night down The Sheaf, but who seriously would have thought we’d find ourselves at an all-dayer on a Sunday. In a youth club! Run by a church!! With no bar!!! Once we got over the weirdness of it all, we decided that The Mish, on St Clements, is a rather lovely little place, with a decent sound system and a relaxed friendly atmosphere. It’s like falling into some alternate universe where The Cellar is clean and comfy, and serves mugs of coffee.
G-Block kick things off with panache, but seem to be suffering from that hip hop epidemic, Crewitis, which causes an uncomfortable swelling of the MC roster. There are so many rappers onstage we don’t even notice one of them till he steps from the shadows to take the mike, and although there’s a wide range of styles on offer, not to mention some real talent bubbling under, the entire set feels unfocused and fragmented, with so many vocalists strung together. A jam on a Fugees rhythm, whilst a little too soft-centred to do them justice, shows what G-Block can do when things are tidied up. Ultimately the set tails off, primarily because one unimaginatively strummed guitar can never take the place of a full fat beat, but there’s more than enough potential here to make it worth remembering the name G-Block.
Sadly Vultures don’t reprise their Charlbury set, but instead opt to play in a two guitar, semi-acoustic duo formation that’s relaxing but hardly revolutionary. The vocals are still sweet and catchy, and it sounds not unlike The La’s playing some sort of post-hoedown chill out session, but this is not the sort of stuff to set your Sunday aflame.
The excellent Jon Fletcher revives proceedings with a show that just oozes gigging experience: it’s not just his assured guitar fingering or his loose unhurried vocals that show he’s a past master at this sort of thing, but it’s the off the cuff banter that draws everyone together and manages to make the event feel like an intimate party for the first time that day….which is exactly how a basement full of sofas and hot chocolate should feel on a cold winter’s day. “Hold My Breath” reminds us of Bert Jansch’s unflustered melancholia, and the whole set balances implausibly between introspection and cheekiness in a thoroughly winning fashion.
Excellence of a different sort when event organisers Baby Gravy take the stage, mixing Gang Of Four’s stutter funk with the glorious vacuity of Gwen Stefani’s strip-lit mall pop. There’s plenty of fuzzy early 80s awkwardness here, of the sort you can find clogging the pages of Artrocker, but there’s also an intensity in the performance that other neo-wave poseurs lack (the effect isn’t harmed by the fact it’s bloody loud!). Admittedly the rhythms sometimes stumble when they should bounce, but when the buzzing keyboards stomp inexorably over everything like a giant BBC “B” sprite and the declamatory vocals start thumping at your eardrums, you know that these tiny details don’t matter.
Mr Shaodow pops up unexpectedly to crack out a tune with Baby Gravy, and treat us to his new single, “Grime”. It such a pleasure to see that his confidence has grown to match his wordplay over the past couple of years, and where once we saw him stuttering like an inexperienced comedian between tracks, now we see him working a room to perfection – even if that room is mostly empty and enjoying a nice sit down.
Rambunctious punk pop should have been the ideal chaser to this heady double act, but somehow Among The Giants have missed the target. The lumpy, chugging music is passable, but is let down by the horrible vocal foghorn honking all over it. If he really tried hard, the singer could sound like a bladdered trucker offering you a fight on George Street, but at the moment he’s slightly less charming. Still, nice to have something to aim for, eh?
Just as our thoughts are turning longingly to a Sunday roast, The Repeats cap the afternoon off immaculately. Imagine, if you will, a fizzy pop version of Talking Heads, sprinkled with rubbery bass and spindly guitar that could have been borrowed from Battles or Foals, but reminds us more of Ghanaian hi-life and township jive. There are even some unexpectedly jaunty keyboards that could have come from some ancient stadium gig by Paul Simon, 10CC or even Genesis. Admittedly, The Repeats have so many ideas laying around they do occasionally trip over them, and the vocalist could probably push himself a touch harder but the whole effect is as intoxicating as you’d expect an arch indie band featuring a cowbell and clave breakdown to be. A band to actively seek out.
And sadly, here our festival ended, though there were four acts left to entertain the crowd – which never got particularly large, but never lost its friendly atmosphere – and we leave the Mish hoping that our next Below The Belt experience is not too far away. And features some beer, naturally.
Showing posts with label Baby Gravy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baby Gravy. Show all posts
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Valentine Temple
I've lost not only the Word file for this review, but also the hard copy of the magazine it was in, so I'm typing this from a scrap of A4 paper that I found in the bottom of the reviews vault. Baby Gravy are growned up now, and are very good; Shirley are called Silvanito now, and are still fun; The Brothers never crossed my consciousness again after this night; The Shaker heights still play in Oxford every now and then, but I steer well clear.
SHIRLEY/ THE BROTHERS/ THE SHAKER HEIGHTS/ BABY GRAVY - The Point, The Zodiac
Young people are great. They have such belief that things will work out, no matter how implausible they look. Take teenage band Baby Gravy. They have the youthful fire to believe that they can start a sixpiece melding Sexy Breafast style prog pop with dubby bass, The Psychedelic Furs' sax parts and vocals in the vein of The Slits, and make it work. Of course, it doesn't work at all. It sounds like two bands playing two songs at once. Badly. But sometimes a noble failure is worth a hundred safe successes. Watch out for this lot, they could really surprise us, so long as they don't start taking the easy route.
Much as The Shaker Heights do. they could really use some of Baby Gravy's open-minded outlook. Their chiming, slightly drony rock is a bit like early U2 (if you're being kind) and a bit like The Velvet Underground's Loaded (if you're being saintly). Listening to them is like finding a pebble washed smooth by the sea: immediately pleasant to the senses, but ultimately forgettable and impossible to distinguish from others.
Oxford music is known for many things, but white funnk is not one of them, which makes The Brothers an unusual proposition. They burst onto the stage in a flurry of mid-80s funk rhythms and oodles of glistening Rhodes, headed by a frontman strutting about like a bantam impersonating John Inman. At times it's somewhat uninspired, but the best tracks sound like The Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" played in the style of Beck's Midnite Vultures LP, which is something you don't see every day.
Shirley's music is a frightening mixture of Bryan Adams, Los Lobos and McFly wth occasional Santana guitar solos and fists aloft choreography. Risible on paper, but in a weird inversion of the Baby Gravy principle, Shirley get away with it by putting in the hard work. Thus their songs are impeccably arranged, convincingly performed and all a neat two minutes long, with barely enough space for their adulatory fans to catch a breath in between. Four grown men throwing shapes and singing about their outlaw status is clearly ridiculous, and Shirley's relentless chirpiness is guaranteed to make the more straight-faced music fan physically sick, but I'll admit they made me grin for thrity minutes. Which is no mean feat, when you think about it.
SHIRLEY/ THE BROTHERS/ THE SHAKER HEIGHTS/ BABY GRAVY - The Point, The Zodiac
Young people are great. They have such belief that things will work out, no matter how implausible they look. Take teenage band Baby Gravy. They have the youthful fire to believe that they can start a sixpiece melding Sexy Breafast style prog pop with dubby bass, The Psychedelic Furs' sax parts and vocals in the vein of The Slits, and make it work. Of course, it doesn't work at all. It sounds like two bands playing two songs at once. Badly. But sometimes a noble failure is worth a hundred safe successes. Watch out for this lot, they could really surprise us, so long as they don't start taking the easy route.
Much as The Shaker Heights do. they could really use some of Baby Gravy's open-minded outlook. Their chiming, slightly drony rock is a bit like early U2 (if you're being kind) and a bit like The Velvet Underground's Loaded (if you're being saintly). Listening to them is like finding a pebble washed smooth by the sea: immediately pleasant to the senses, but ultimately forgettable and impossible to distinguish from others.
Oxford music is known for many things, but white funnk is not one of them, which makes The Brothers an unusual proposition. They burst onto the stage in a flurry of mid-80s funk rhythms and oodles of glistening Rhodes, headed by a frontman strutting about like a bantam impersonating John Inman. At times it's somewhat uninspired, but the best tracks sound like The Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" played in the style of Beck's Midnite Vultures LP, which is something you don't see every day.
Shirley's music is a frightening mixture of Bryan Adams, Los Lobos and McFly wth occasional Santana guitar solos and fists aloft choreography. Risible on paper, but in a weird inversion of the Baby Gravy principle, Shirley get away with it by putting in the hard work. Thus their songs are impeccably arranged, convincingly performed and all a neat two minutes long, with barely enough space for their adulatory fans to catch a breath in between. Four grown men throwing shapes and singing about their outlaw status is clearly ridiculous, and Shirley's relentless chirpiness is guaranteed to make the more straight-faced music fan physically sick, but I'll admit they made me grin for thrity minutes. Which is no mean feat, when you think about it.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
Scry Me A Riverside
I'm sure I went to the whole of Charlbury weekend in 2007, but for some reason I only reviewed one of the days, can't think why.
CHARLBURY RIVERSIDE FESITVAL, Saturday 16/6/07
“Got midgets on my mind”. “Sitting on a tall cushion”. Well, that’s what it sounds like Dave Ellis is singing, anyway. We can’t be sure, he has this slurred blues style that is as impenetrable as it is attractive. As his husky voice weaves its way around the slapped strings of his trusty guitar, it doesn’t take long to realise that Ellis isn’t doing anything too revolutionary, but it’s a good listen all the same. And, seriously, who doesn’t like that old John Lee Hooker boogie clomp just a little?
It may sound a bit like “You don’t sweat much for a fat lass”, but over on the main stage, Life Of Riley prove them selves to be pretty good for their age. Musically there are no great ideas, but the performance is tight and the vocals are surprisingly strong and melodic. I mean, I can’t remember a note of it now, but it sounded fine at the time.
A sudden downpour means that the Beard Museum tent is packed full for Lagrima, which is exactly the way it should be. You’d go some way to find an acoustic duo in Oxfordshire with more variation: Roz’ vocals can leap from sinister whispers to operatic howls (is she the rootsy equivalent to Ivy’s Itch’s Eliza Gregory, or am I getting carried away?) whilst Gray’s assured guitar work can recall The Cocteau Twins and Andres Segovia in the space of one song. And he has the best reverse reverb sound ever.
Is there anyone left who doesn’t revere The Family Machine? Not only are they movers and shakers behind stage hosts The Beard Museum, but they also write some wry country-inflected pop that can raise a grin and wring the heart simultaneously. Admittedly, there was nothing particularly special about this individual performance, but we can listen to songs like “Lethal Drugs Cocktail” and “Flowers By The Roadside” forever.
A dub band with a Tunisian vocalist singing in Arabic? Implausibly, that’s Raggasaurus. They get a huge response, but what impresses me is the control over their material. It would have been easy just to have everyone soloing at once, and to throw everything at the wall like a million crusty festival reggae bands, but Raggasaurus know exactly when minimalism works, and make sure that very little gets in the way of their taut bouncy rhythms and soaring vocals. OK, it might work a little better in a smoky dive than in a sunny field, and perhaps the keyboard could be toned down a little, but this is good stuff.
When my esteemed colleague Colin saw Earnest Cox recently, all he could see was some pub rock. Well, we heartily disagree, and can say nothing against their simple wired rock, which revels in draping a world weary vocal sneer over glorious endless two chord chugs. The lyrics to songs like “My Favourite Walk” and “State Of That” seem to recall tedious bar room conversations with spitting vitriol, and as ever we’re reminded of an amphetamine version of The Blue Aeroplanes; or we would if the fruity organ parts didn’t sound like they’d come straight from a Stax soul revue. A fascinating band.
We’re big admirers of Baby Gravy’s cubist prog-punk melange, but perhaps a balmy afternoon in Charlbury isn’t the ideal place to experience it. Iona (who may have had a couple of shandies) is swearing and insulting the crowd, desperate for a reaction, but ultimately we’re just too relaxed to plug into Baby Gravy’s abstract new wave. However, stick us in The Cellar and fuel us with cheap lager and we’ll be up there with the best of them.
Is it patronising to call a band “charming”? Well, fuck it, we don’t care, because we’re always charmed by Foxes!, especially Kayla’s honest and unadorned vocal. They have a home made bass, and in fact, the entire band has a wonky, school woodwork project feel, all odd angles and unplaned surfaces. But beneath all this lie some beautifully constructed melodies and a quiet sense of rock dynamics. Foxes! Is a band that has unobtrusively grown in stature to become one of Oxford’s favourites. We shall miss them when they move away later in the year.
If Foxes! slid into our consciousness slowly, then Witches did the opposite, bursting onto the scene with the whole package intact: baroque pop arrangements, dense and forceful live shows and even beautiful collaged record sleeves. By rights the prominence of the cabaret mariachi trumpet should become cloying, but somehow Witches never crumble under the weight of their own ornamentation. It’s odd to watch a live show with such a black density of sound, and still walk away humming the melodies.
Fearing we’d neglected the main stage, we leave the fine This Town Needs Guns to their own devices and investigate Souljacker. What we find is a bunch of young groovers giving it some chest beating wah wah rock action. They sound like Free, but they should be locked up. Ah, well, it’s a festival, let’s cut them some slack – plus they have a tune called “Jimmy Page Drank My Tea”, so at least they don’t take themselves too seriously. They’re perfectly good players, but it’s all somewhat stodgy, and we don’t imagine they’re a band who’ll be troubling us again soon.
Just goes to show, Charlbury is a fine day out, but the Beard Museum is the reliable option.
CHARLBURY RIVERSIDE FESITVAL, Saturday 16/6/07
“Got midgets on my mind”. “Sitting on a tall cushion”. Well, that’s what it sounds like Dave Ellis is singing, anyway. We can’t be sure, he has this slurred blues style that is as impenetrable as it is attractive. As his husky voice weaves its way around the slapped strings of his trusty guitar, it doesn’t take long to realise that Ellis isn’t doing anything too revolutionary, but it’s a good listen all the same. And, seriously, who doesn’t like that old John Lee Hooker boogie clomp just a little?
It may sound a bit like “You don’t sweat much for a fat lass”, but over on the main stage, Life Of Riley prove them selves to be pretty good for their age. Musically there are no great ideas, but the performance is tight and the vocals are surprisingly strong and melodic. I mean, I can’t remember a note of it now, but it sounded fine at the time.
A sudden downpour means that the Beard Museum tent is packed full for Lagrima, which is exactly the way it should be. You’d go some way to find an acoustic duo in Oxfordshire with more variation: Roz’ vocals can leap from sinister whispers to operatic howls (is she the rootsy equivalent to Ivy’s Itch’s Eliza Gregory, or am I getting carried away?) whilst Gray’s assured guitar work can recall The Cocteau Twins and Andres Segovia in the space of one song. And he has the best reverse reverb sound ever.
Is there anyone left who doesn’t revere The Family Machine? Not only are they movers and shakers behind stage hosts The Beard Museum, but they also write some wry country-inflected pop that can raise a grin and wring the heart simultaneously. Admittedly, there was nothing particularly special about this individual performance, but we can listen to songs like “Lethal Drugs Cocktail” and “Flowers By The Roadside” forever.
A dub band with a Tunisian vocalist singing in Arabic? Implausibly, that’s Raggasaurus. They get a huge response, but what impresses me is the control over their material. It would have been easy just to have everyone soloing at once, and to throw everything at the wall like a million crusty festival reggae bands, but Raggasaurus know exactly when minimalism works, and make sure that very little gets in the way of their taut bouncy rhythms and soaring vocals. OK, it might work a little better in a smoky dive than in a sunny field, and perhaps the keyboard could be toned down a little, but this is good stuff.
When my esteemed colleague Colin saw Earnest Cox recently, all he could see was some pub rock. Well, we heartily disagree, and can say nothing against their simple wired rock, which revels in draping a world weary vocal sneer over glorious endless two chord chugs. The lyrics to songs like “My Favourite Walk” and “State Of That” seem to recall tedious bar room conversations with spitting vitriol, and as ever we’re reminded of an amphetamine version of The Blue Aeroplanes; or we would if the fruity organ parts didn’t sound like they’d come straight from a Stax soul revue. A fascinating band.
We’re big admirers of Baby Gravy’s cubist prog-punk melange, but perhaps a balmy afternoon in Charlbury isn’t the ideal place to experience it. Iona (who may have had a couple of shandies) is swearing and insulting the crowd, desperate for a reaction, but ultimately we’re just too relaxed to plug into Baby Gravy’s abstract new wave. However, stick us in The Cellar and fuel us with cheap lager and we’ll be up there with the best of them.
Is it patronising to call a band “charming”? Well, fuck it, we don’t care, because we’re always charmed by Foxes!, especially Kayla’s honest and unadorned vocal. They have a home made bass, and in fact, the entire band has a wonky, school woodwork project feel, all odd angles and unplaned surfaces. But beneath all this lie some beautifully constructed melodies and a quiet sense of rock dynamics. Foxes! Is a band that has unobtrusively grown in stature to become one of Oxford’s favourites. We shall miss them when they move away later in the year.
If Foxes! slid into our consciousness slowly, then Witches did the opposite, bursting onto the scene with the whole package intact: baroque pop arrangements, dense and forceful live shows and even beautiful collaged record sleeves. By rights the prominence of the cabaret mariachi trumpet should become cloying, but somehow Witches never crumble under the weight of their own ornamentation. It’s odd to watch a live show with such a black density of sound, and still walk away humming the melodies.
Fearing we’d neglected the main stage, we leave the fine This Town Needs Guns to their own devices and investigate Souljacker. What we find is a bunch of young groovers giving it some chest beating wah wah rock action. They sound like Free, but they should be locked up. Ah, well, it’s a festival, let’s cut them some slack – plus they have a tune called “Jimmy Page Drank My Tea”, so at least they don’t take themselves too seriously. They’re perfectly good players, but it’s all somewhat stodgy, and we don’t imagine they’re a band who’ll be troubling us again soon.
Just goes to show, Charlbury is a fine day out, but the Beard Museum is the reliable option.
Friday, 1 January 2010
Postcode Rock
One of many festival reviews that I'll be posting from the archives in the next couple of weeks. Elements from this were used in Nightshift, but the tone of the printed review was rather different. I'm more cynical, essentially. But that's how you like it, you slavering dogs. Oh, happy new year, by the way.
OX4 (You! Me! Dancing! & Truck), Various venues, 10/10/09
When picking up our tickets, we ask whom to seek out. “Dalek.” Uh-huh. “Or The Big Pink”. So much for “a celebration of the artistic talents of OX4”, then. Later, The Scholars (who were very impressive, though we cruelly dub them The Sub-Editors) ask “Have you all seen loads of bands today?” to a response of awkward silence. Yes, we might wish our scene were a huge healthy exploratory organism, lapping up different sorts of music, but the truth is that people generally stick to what they know, and you need big names to get a big crowd. Still, if there was minimal cross-fertilisation between the evening audience and the Folk Festival's afternoon crew, the latter did book some excellent acts, highlights being The Reveranzas’ caffeinated singsong, and The Selenites’ attentive and surprisingly Victorian sounding parlour string arrangements.
Anther good find were The Dead Jerichos, who spice their Fred Perried lad garage with the bits they like from Foals (disco hi-hat, rubbery bass) whilst completely ignoring the bits they don’t (preening, reading books). At an unusually busy Bully Stricken City make with the 80s chant pop, a little like The Sugarcubes and a lot like Bow Wow Wow without the wow, and at a weirdly empty Academy Charlie Coombes doles out chirpy 70s pop, which is fun aside from one Stilton John piano ballad. Mr Fogg’s subtle show is the surprise of the day, balancing trombone, harp and electronics to sound like “Hunter” era Bjork played by Peter Gabriel and Radiohead – a long way from the stadium bombast we saw last month.
Action Beat bring four drummers and four guitarists. Start. Chug. Crash. Stop. Joyous. The Big Pink pull the healthiest audience, and sound like The Jesus & Mary Chain covering Ultravox; they’re decent, but Baby Gravy’s mess of strip-lit mall pop and new wave fuzz is more enticing. Dalek’s muffled set sounds like Ice Cube jamming with Neubaten, which would be good if it didn’t sound as if they were playing next door. It’s left to local evergreens Witches and Mr Shaodow to play our night out in style.
OX4 was a huge success, so congratulations all round. However, it seemed to have a Lamacq/Barfly air of “Isn’t music just great?”. Well, yes, of course, but it can also be petrifying, delicate, mysterious and downright hilarious, and we didn't find any evidence of that. We look forward to next year’s OX4, but our local festival would involve giving a single venue to Kakofanney, The Spin, The Famous Monday Blues and Off-Field and making them wrestle until they’d come up with a line-up. For that, we’d pay any money they asked.
OX4 (You! Me! Dancing! & Truck), Various venues, 10/10/09
When picking up our tickets, we ask whom to seek out. “Dalek.” Uh-huh. “Or The Big Pink”. So much for “a celebration of the artistic talents of OX4”, then. Later, The Scholars (who were very impressive, though we cruelly dub them The Sub-Editors) ask “Have you all seen loads of bands today?” to a response of awkward silence. Yes, we might wish our scene were a huge healthy exploratory organism, lapping up different sorts of music, but the truth is that people generally stick to what they know, and you need big names to get a big crowd. Still, if there was minimal cross-fertilisation between the evening audience and the Folk Festival's afternoon crew, the latter did book some excellent acts, highlights being The Reveranzas’ caffeinated singsong, and The Selenites’ attentive and surprisingly Victorian sounding parlour string arrangements.
Anther good find were The Dead Jerichos, who spice their Fred Perried lad garage with the bits they like from Foals (disco hi-hat, rubbery bass) whilst completely ignoring the bits they don’t (preening, reading books). At an unusually busy Bully Stricken City make with the 80s chant pop, a little like The Sugarcubes and a lot like Bow Wow Wow without the wow, and at a weirdly empty Academy Charlie Coombes doles out chirpy 70s pop, which is fun aside from one Stilton John piano ballad. Mr Fogg’s subtle show is the surprise of the day, balancing trombone, harp and electronics to sound like “Hunter” era Bjork played by Peter Gabriel and Radiohead – a long way from the stadium bombast we saw last month.
Action Beat bring four drummers and four guitarists. Start. Chug. Crash. Stop. Joyous. The Big Pink pull the healthiest audience, and sound like The Jesus & Mary Chain covering Ultravox; they’re decent, but Baby Gravy’s mess of strip-lit mall pop and new wave fuzz is more enticing. Dalek’s muffled set sounds like Ice Cube jamming with Neubaten, which would be good if it didn’t sound as if they were playing next door. It’s left to local evergreens Witches and Mr Shaodow to play our night out in style.
OX4 was a huge success, so congratulations all round. However, it seemed to have a Lamacq/Barfly air of “Isn’t music just great?”. Well, yes, of course, but it can also be petrifying, delicate, mysterious and downright hilarious, and we didn't find any evidence of that. We look forward to next year’s OX4, but our local festival would involve giving a single venue to Kakofanney, The Spin, The Famous Monday Blues and Off-Field and making them wrestle until they’d come up with a line-up. For that, we’d pay any money they asked.
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