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!

Touch The Leisure

Hot, isn't it?

PREMIUM LEISURE/ QUARTERMELON/ MICHAEL FOX, Beanie Tapes, Cellar, 14/6/18

Is Michael Fox his real name?  If so, it couldn’t be more perfect, adding one more late 80s reference to a fog of hazy retro delights.  Although Fox’s voice has a soft, sweet sentimental folk tone, not a thousand miles from Kris Drever, the music is all submarine guitar shimmer and vintage drum machine and synth pad cushioning.  Imagine crossing Black’s “Wonderful Life” with Raze’s “Break 4 Love” under the watchful gaze of The Beloved, and you’re pretty close, although “London Burning” has a gruffer sincerity that’s more “Streets of Philadelphia”.  If occasionally slightly hesitant, this set proves that even today’s teen wolves appreciate a vintage Balaeric comedown hug.

The excellent Quartermelon keep us in the same era, but their Brat Pack party pop, like their palm tree print shirts, is brasher, throwing dumbass jokes and gloriously unnecessary whoops into songs that swoon with a sultry lilt.  Their totally tropical tastelessness is perfect for people who secretly think “Kokomo” is better than Pet Sounds, who know they’d rather sink some tins at a gig than stroke their chins, who want to go home with head full of euphoric tunes instead of wry couplets.  There are doubtless people who’d find songs that sound like Santana played by Wham! crass.  They may be right, but we’re not inviting them round our house Saturday night.  We won’t be in anyway, not if Quartermelon are playing within a ten mile radius.

As if this gig was put together on temporal lines, Premium Leisure move us on a few years, not only adding a soft focus slacker vibe to their eclectic rock that is pure early 90s, but also swapping the adolescent saturnalia of Quartermelon for a more sophisticated muso groove that might entice young professionals looking to kick back from a week of strategy huddles and working lunches.  They’re impeccably tight, yet retain a playfulness that keeps the music light and lithe, as you might expect from a band featuring Willie J Healey (hey, perhaps he could loan that middle initial to Michael Fox to complete the effect), but on occasion the music feels hollow, nothing more than an assemblage of rock references without a joyfully beating heart; for every track with a clattering bleached funk rhythm a la G Love & Special Sauce, there’s an airbrushed blues sting that sounds like a cut scene from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s shelved Seinfeld clone.  The best track is a long multi-riff confection that makes us think of a Hollywood reimagining of Focus in their non-yodelling moments, and overall the set is strong, but they have neither the intimacy or the insouciance of the other acts on the bill.