All You Can Art Dubuffet

The second consecutive review where I've referenced Stewart Lee.  Perhaps I secretly want to be a comedy reviewer.

ART BRUT/ CASSELS/ HERE ARE THE YOUNG MEN & UNCLE PEANUT, Crosstown, Bully, 18/2/19

Here Are The Young Men & Uncle Peanut are very upset with an old review in this very periodical, and have written the song “The Day The Hipsters Stole Our Look”, to prove that they look stupid on their own merits.  In fact, they don’t really look like hipsters, they look like lorry drivers suffering PTSD from a particularly harrowing ghost train.  Sour grapes aside, they’re great fun, each track a garish punk-hop rant rarely breaching two minutes.  Fans of Oxford’s Restructure will find plenty to enjoy, especially in their tale of brash kids who think they’re pop stars cluttering up a perfectly good pub.  Far more amusing than a band with such an infuriating name has any right to be.

Fun not being something Cassels are supposed to be.  They’re all math-grunge settings of 5000 word essays on neoliberalism and voting habits in the Cotswolds, aren’t they?  Well, yes, but tonight, they find time for a few jokes and a surreal discussion on relative drum popularity (snare for the square, rack tom for the maverick).  Also, angular as the songs might be, they no longer seem to be played by the sort of hyperactively awkward kids who get holes in their blazer elbows before the first week of term is out, but by a couple of riff-sucking rock heavies with a taste for both Sabbath and Shellac.  This feels like a new version of Cassels.  We really like them both.

“Popular culture no longer applies to me”, intones Eddie Argos toward the end of Art Brut’s fascinating set, a return to touring after 7 years, and nearly twice that since they were famous.  The question is, what does someone clearly in love with the magic of pop do when then they lose track of it entirely, and what does an absurdist do when our media landscape is more absurd than any fantasy.  The answer is, just admit it, play everything twice as loud and for twice as long and see what happens.

With their spoken and barked narratives and chugging, minimal rock, Art Brut are The Nightingales without the Beefheart abstraction, The Blue Aeroplanes without the well-thumbed paperbacks, Ten Benson without the Wire write-ups, and a comedy band without any jokes.  In fact, the best parts of this set are two long wayward monologues that are purest Stewart Lee (“You think I’m improvising this, but you can buy a CD of me saying the whole thing...even that bit, about the CD”).  Let’s be honest, a lot of the songs are pretty crap, but the experience as a whole is irrepressibly gleeful, and, at the end of the last song, as we all raise our hands as one to a bit nicked from “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide”, suddenly it’s all oddly moving.  How did that happen?  Wasn’t this all a joke?  Does it matter that Argos and Emily Kane are now Facebook friends?  When did the hipsters steal out look?  Where the hell did all those years go so quickly? 

Delaware Soul

MUNCIE GIRLS/ CASSELS/ KANCHO!, Future Perfect, Cellar, 15/2/17

A few years ago any hipster worth their rosemary-infused artisanal salt was in a bass and drums duo.  That time has passed, perhaps because of fashion’s restless vicissitudes, or perhaps because people realised that economy of musical means demands increased precision, or at the very least a little effort put into arranging.  Kancho!’s two man tirade is built from crisp, incisive drums and rough blocks of bass granite, but they know that simply throwing everything in at once wouldn’t cut the triple strength septum-melting mustard for a full half hour, and have addressed their attentions to hooks, dynamics and slightly silly jokes.  Not that they’re preciously twiddly, any self-conscious mathy opening riff is just a disguise for old fashioned amp blasting, quickly discarded (“It is I, Leclerc; let’s rock!”).  This is an excellent set, possibly the best we’ve witnessed by them...just in time for them to split up.

Not since The Cellar Family has any Oxford-connected band brought the aesthetics of disgust to their music like Cassels.  Another skins and strings duo, albeit one with more intricate fluidity to their pummelling, Cassels ricochet between splenetic ire, mordant humour and defeated resignation, wrestling global and personal politics into punk straitjackets.  At their best, such as recent single “Flock Analogy”, a twitchy tattoo bolsters howled poetry and impassioned broadsides that reveal a burgeoning poetic sensibility.  There are lyrical missteps – describing the world as a “Huxleyan nightmare” doesn’t sound any less sophomoric just because it’s now true – and the set is oddly hesitant and apologetic when it should be declamatory, but Cassels are still something special.

Catch a few lyrics and you’ll realise that Exeter’s Muncie Girls are as politically charged as Cassels, but choose a less abrasive method of delivery.  Their perky punk pop has its roots in C86 fizz, and borrows its fat amped attitude from that early 90s lacuna between grunge’s early influence and Britpop’s colourful trade fair.  Their melodic vocals glide whilst the music canters in a way that resembles a less self-conscious Wedding Present or even a souped up version of The Sundays (The Sundays Before Bank Holiday Monday, probably).  It’s all good bouncy fun, and we can’t say a word against their opinions or general charm, but if Muncie Girls play a better set than Cassels, it’s the latter that have hooked our attention, and will drag us back for another visit. 

Punt Up Emotions

Most of this review appears in the current issue of Nightshift.  The new bits are mainly the bits where I say people are not so good - fair enough, as Nightshift booked the event.  So, read on if you are hoping for some negativity to leaven what you've already read.

PUNT, Cellar, PT, Wheatsheaf, White Rabbit, Turl Street Kitchen, 13/5/15

The stage at the Purple Turtle is dedicated to the late sound engineer, blues fan, musician, husky owner and huskier singer, Tony Jezzard.  If his spirit dropped by tonight, it would certainly appreciate the volume levels on display, but more likely his spectre would smile wryly at the tales of a locked venue, a PA shoved together at break-neck speed, and an electrocuted soundman.  After such a start to the proceedings, it seems churlish to moan about the stage running late when James Serjeant has had the national grid pumped through his skinny frame, so we start our night at the Cellar, with only the most cursory grumble...just for the sake of form, you understand.

There, Balkan Wanderers are kick-starting the night with more crackling energy than James Serjeant’s first piddle of the night (yes, yes, we’ll stop now), buoying the crowd with spicy East European pop, and inspiring some surprisingly early hedonistic dancing, considering it’s Oxford on a Wednesday and most of us are still digesting our burritos.  Superficially they resemble gypsy punk rabble rousers Gogol Bordello, but listen carefully beyond the thumping drums and shoutalong choruses, and you’ll find that Balkan Wanderers have replaced the wild aggression with chirpy, quirky mid-80s indie pop, in the vein of Grab, Grab The Haddock, or even Stump.  This allows the band’s secret weapon, the conversational intimacy of Claire Heaviside’s clarinet, to slowly steal the show.  In what will become a leitmotif throughout the evening, we overhear someone saying the band should have finished the Punt.

Back at the PT, The Shapes have now taken the stage, offering a breezy cocktail of Radio 2 melodies and light rock styles.  They have a track that resembles The Beautiful South, they have a tune that sounds like Tom Petty, they even have a song called “Tom Petty” that sounds a wee bit like 10cc and a wee-er bit like Darts.  In many hands this would all be pretty generic fluff, but there’s a mercurial, alchemical sensibility at work that keeps the music interesting; take “Mr Sandman”, a mash-up of The Beatles’ “Something” and Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage”, with keyboard player Colin Henney throwing properly loopy jazz-dance poses as he doles out elegant fruity chords.  You’ve heard of Dad rock, but this is more like Eccentric Uncle rock – enjoy it, but don’t sit on their knee.

Entering The Wheatsheaf’s upstairs room, you can really tell that this is the only Punt venue that exists solely for listening to live rock, such is the room’s dinginess, the cosy crush of the crowd, and the full-fat glory of the sound.  It’s a sound that suits Ghosts In The Photographs, who open the dam to wave upon wave of Explosions In The Sky styled guitar noise.   Perhaps we’ve come across this tumescent post-rock business before, and Ghosts do nothing new, but who ever complained that a sunset was unoriginal, eh?  Imposing, impressive stuff.

“Money is the devil’s pie”.  Did Rhymeskeemz really just say that?  Let’s assume we misheard.  Ah, now, he certainly did just slip “I’m sick of my dad’s impressions” into a litany of politico-social criticisms, which we like a lot.  Yes, there’s a lot to enjoy about this rapper, who has a vibrant wit that keeps his bars the right side of cliché, and a nice rhythmic variation.  But the vocals just don’t seem to bear any relation to the music, as if the backing tracks were composed in isolation, and DJ Bungle has just unleashed them for the first time.  An enticing new discovery, but a frustratingly unconvincing set.

Outside The White Rabbit, a morris side is giving it the full hanky.  Considering it’s as close as we can get to a native Cotswold music style, there really should be some morris on the Punt bill one day.  Get your applications in for 2016, chaps!  Inside, things are less old-fashioned, but sadly, rather more dated.  White Beam, featuring local band veteran Jeremy Leggett, are certainly not too bad, but hark back to 1991 or so, when indie dance has dissolved into lightly funky, floppy rhythms and thin, fuzzy guitar provided a sickly European cousin to grunge.  Probably, lots of older Punters feel a warm glow of the post-Ride Oxford sound displayed here, but it simply reminds us exactly why Britpop happened.

Over at the Turl Street Kitchen, 18 year old Katy Jackson is pulling the carpet from those over twice her age with some delicately tuneful acoustic ditties.  The first impression is of Joni Mitchell without the paranoia and patchouli, but it soon becomes clear that there’s a sardonic side to Katy, as if she’s looking askance at her melodies and raising her eyebrows at her own undoubted ability.  Our next reference point is the smooth cynicism of Evan Dando, and before we know it we’ve spotted a Lou Reed influence in the vocal delivery.  We’ll definitely be revisiting this songwriter at a less hectic date.

But for now there’s a pint to be tossed back, and a wobbly jog back to The PT on the cards, to check out another very young act, fraternal duo Cassels, who take the flea-bitten sneer of early Sebadoh and weld it messily onto the fuzzy tuneful surge of The Pixies.  They’ve got the ‘flu today, apparently, and if so, we’re quite excited to see them at peak fitness.  Apparently, we hear, if they were feeling better, They Could Have Closed The Punt (mark 2).

At every Punt there’s one act that ends up with a crowd that’s just a little too large.  Sometimes it’s a band that just proves too big a draw, as anyone who stood craning at the doorway to see The Young Knives or Little Fish in earlier years will attest, but often it’s a quieter act who can’t battle past the increasingly, ahem, relaxed crowd.  Whilst Water Pageant might not have been quite as up against it in the volume stakes as The August List a few years ago, we can’t really hear anything from the back of the White Rabbit but some pleasant vocal fragments and what sounds like a mellotron.  A couple of tasty ingredients, doubtless, but we can’t really judge the dish.

Sometimes we worry that the Turl Street Kitchen is a little too refined for the maelstrom of spilt pints and tinnitus that is The Punt.  In about three minutes flat Despicable Zee has destroyed that notion by calling the audience grumpy, and starting a good natured argument.  Then again, Zahra Tehrani, of Baby Gravy/BG Records fame, probably starts an argument at every rehearsal.  And she’s the only band member.  Beyond acting like a surly drumming Jack Dee, her music stretches from drunken clockwork electro in the style of Plone, through MIA flavoured attitude pop and a kind of Capitol K home-made doodling, to a beery hip hop barn dance featuring various local MC luminaries...some of whom may have even known how the track goes.  This is messy, abusive, unfinished music, of the sort that dodges every traditional indicator of quality.  It’s almost certainly the best set we see all night.

Zaia and Maiians on at the same time?  Don’t the organisors realise how confused we are by this point?  How about some other vowels to help us get our bearings?  The former are a phenomenally slick reggae band, with plenty of juicy bass and stabbing brass, who sound wonderful in the Cellar’s resonant gig space.  Strictly, this is the sort of band you want to listen to at a festival, in a set long enough to allow you to take all the substances, read a book, fall in love, start a political party with a stranger and still have time to nip to the cake stall a few times, but our brief exposure tonight leave us impressed.  Maiians are equally bouncy and dancefloor-focused, but a little more ornate, with their excellent cross-rhythms and organic kraut-electronica keyboard lines.  Those who discover the band tonight will go home very happy, we suspect.  These are two acts that exemplify the observation that crowd-pleasing isn’t always the same as stupid.

And, incidentally, we hear they both Could Have Closed The Punt.

Like Cassels, Esther Joy Lane has apparently climbed from her sick bed to play for us.  Seriously, we’d never have known.  The trick of unfurling rich reverbed vocal melodies over freeze-dried beats suggests a strong Grimes influence (as does the T-shirt Esther wears on her Soundcloud page), but there’s a sultry steeliness to the delivery that contrasts with Grimes’ pastel comedown haze.  If this set might have been suited to a PA bigger than what could be squeezed into the corner of a city pub, in quality it cuts easily through sonic paucity. 

Sadly, we don’t make it back to Turl Street to catch Adam Barnes, having got confused, lost a notebook and accidentally drank some beers, but we’re present and correct for Rainbow Reservoir back at The White Rabbit.  The trio play a punky pepped-up pop racket, with a devil take the hindmost insouciance, but without any vestige of aggression.  In this sense the band reflects the singer’s American roots, harking back to US college keg parties rather than British commuter town basements, red cups hoisted rather than glasses in the face, and if the wordy songs sound a bit like Kim Deal reading out her PhD, the best of the tunes are packed with fire, fun and energy. So much so, we think the band Could Have Closed The Punt.

Oh, wait a minute.  They did.  Right, is the bar still open?