So, here's a sad day - the very last of the reviews I wrote for OHM. Admittedly, I don't own every issue, so I may have missed one. If you think there's a review from the OHM days I should post, get in touch. Thank you for flying Porcine Airways! Anyway, this is from the very best OHM issue, where we managed to review very nearly every act on the Truck bill in a madly choreographed dance of the notebooks. Sadly, not every act I reviewed is here, since there were some acts that were reviewed by more than one of us, and I've long since lost my original copy (so has Dan the editor) so all you'll get are the bits that saw print. The only good bit I can remember on the discard pile was a review of Red Star Cycle, but I'll keep that to myself as I might use the same gag for some other act in the future! Always recycle, kids!
TRUCK FESTIVAL, Hill Farm, Steventon, 6/04
Heavy rock is more about phrasing and tone than composition, and Days Of Grace are experts. Think the melodic end of metal. Think soaring vocal lines. Don't think emo, no matter what images I'm creating. Think QOTSA play Pantera. Think, "that singer needs to wear a belt".
Developing in oddly contradictory directions, Trademark continue to produce ever more theatrical and elaborate stageshows, and ever more honed and elegant songs. Like breaking your heart whilst appearing on 80s teatime BBC fodder The Adventure Game.
Charming, talented, summery, melodic, the men behind the festival itself - Goldrush are in some ways the best band in Oxfordshire. Yet sadly they bore me rigid. That Travis and The Chills are household names and Goldrush aren't is an injustice; that I'm even mentioning them in the same sentence illustrates the problem. Still, they couldn't play a bad set at Truck if their lives depended on it.
Lucky Benny sounds like a bizarre sexual position, but is actually a jazz-funk outfit. They're sometimes stodgy, sometimes firy. The bassist is good. Err, that's it.
Some huge voiced, super-sincere Dubliner is singing folky dirges about the poor and paeans to positivity, which must be rubbish, right? So why am I almost crying? Either I'm incredibly tired, or Damien Dempsey is a huge talent. Or both.
Tabla? Hurdy-gurdy? Politico-poetry? Some rainy mid-eighties GLC fundraiser is missing Inflatable Buddha! When they get abstract ("Fat Sex") it works wonderfully, when they play straight songs ("White Rabbit") it's flat hippy mulch.
Bert Kampfaert gabba - get in! nervous_testpilot provides the second great performance of the weekend, mangling samples and rhythms into a sproingy tech-tapestry. Slightly too irreverent for me (last year's set had subtle melodies hidden away), but his "action-packed mentalist brings you the strawberry jams" approach satisifes. Bloop.
One year on, Captive State kick even harder. The warm jazz rhythms are bolstered by the meaty horn parts, and draped in fluent rhymes and zig-zag scratch patterns, and the crowd responds rapturously. Forget the slightly crass lyrics, this band is delicious.
Even though they're a pop band, undertheigloo remind me of electronica. Their brittle cramped songs are like the raw material from which Boards Of Canada distill their tunes, or the base ingredient to Four Tet's organic shuffle. Pity they play so clunkily. Maybe next time...
Beware of geeks bearing riffs! A Scholar & A Physician have brung the noise, toybox style. Cutesier than a Puzzle Bobble marathon in a Haribo warehouse, they somehow manage to convince us that if enough people play enough crappy instruments, then even stupid music is a glorious victory. Clever.
There's an angry little New Yorker smoking furiously and telling awful jokes like it's The Improv in 1986; now he's singing a flacid relationship revenge song. Right, I'm off. Hold on, that last bit was funny...now he's singing something incredibly touching. Lach is ultimately moving, likable and acidly funny, but, man, he started badly.
Damn, Thomas Truax is too popular for this tiny acoustic tent. Damn, they're running late. Damn, MC Lars is on in a minute. Let's assume Truax is as much a damn genius as ever.
Showing posts with label Inflatable Buddha. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inflatable Buddha. Show all posts
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Horticulture Club
What can I say about this one? A tiny festival on an allotment, how can you possibly dislike that?
ELDER STUBBS FESTIVAL, ELDER STUBBS ALLOTMENT, 21/8/04
You'd have to boast a heart hewn from cold, unloving rock not to be tempted by a music festival held in a Cowley allotment: if you can't relax with music and poetry amongst the cabbages and frankly terrifying pagan sculptures of Elder Stubbs on a sunny day, I have no hope for you. And at 50p entry, it's something of a bargain!
Skeleton Crew impress immediately with their medieval folk and early music performances. Now, I don't know my sackbut from my serpent, or my pavanne from my galliard, but the sound was enticing, albeit fighting a losing battle with the noise of a bustling cafe.
I'm guessing, from looking at the four of them, that The Noisy Oysters are a family who prefer to play klezmer classics of an evening instead of watching reality TV. Good choice. Their set is somewhat hesitant, but manages ot deliver the goods eventually.
At first glance Jeremy Hughes' guitar instrumentals just sound like somebody practising, doodling around some little trills and getting that muscle memory programmed in. Maybe it was the dappled sunlight and the tin of beer, but today it all made perfect sense, and his cyclical compositions transported us away on light and nimble melodies.
Next up regulars from local pub The Exeter Hall knocked out a couple of tunes each. Quality varied, but the spirit shone through.
When did you last see a table and sitar duo reviewed in Oxford? Proving that there's more to acoustic music than strumming hippies anbd self-pitying wastrels, Pandit Kailash Pawar & Chris Hills perform an hour of traditional ragas. Again, I'm no expert, but the music was spellbinding, if not always as fluid as it might be. Still, considering they hadn't met till that day, and Hills was playing pieces he'd never heard before, you've got to give them credit.
Mark Ginsberg is wearing a polka dot shirt whilst playing pier-end covers on an antediluvian organ. Clearly it's rubbish, but somehow those old bossa nova rhythm presets really kick, in a hissing Autechral fashion...plus his cover of "Purple Haze" reveals he isn't taking this too seriously either...
If Kenny Everett were recording a sketch about washed up 70s rockers, he'd copy Hawkwind alumnus Hugh Lloyd-Langton exactly. He's got the dangling fag, the Rod Stewart hairdo, the stoned chuckle and the leopard print waistcoat. He appears to be completely wasted. He's also got the bluesy Pagesque technique on his acoustic guitar to just about get away with it. A fine exemplum for the avoidance of drugs; nearly as fine as the surrounding sculptures.
Inflatable Buddha could be astonishing, but they don't know their own strengths. They boast weird instrumentation, a freaky stage presence and a ranting poet, yet they insist on performing rock tunes, despite the fact that the rhythm section has no bite and the vocalist can't sing (also for a poet his diction is awful, but we'll ignore that). "I Met A Girl" might make sense if Dive Dive played it, but Buddha should stick to the acid cabaret they know: "Fat Sex" and the one about boiling frogs, now there's some real character.
In a flurry of fiddle-licked hoedown punk, Some Dogs finish the afternoon. They display far more energy than ability (except for the sizzling violinist) but it seems to fit. As they say, if you don't like it, go ask for your 50p back! Nope, money well spent I say, as was the Le Tigre CD I picked up for 20p on a charity stall. A great day out, and I haven't even mentioned the marrow auction, the Backroom Poets, the Oxford Drum Troupe, the oldest-of-schools electro DJ or the free pinball. Prize produce all round!
ELDER STUBBS FESTIVAL, ELDER STUBBS ALLOTMENT, 21/8/04
You'd have to boast a heart hewn from cold, unloving rock not to be tempted by a music festival held in a Cowley allotment: if you can't relax with music and poetry amongst the cabbages and frankly terrifying pagan sculptures of Elder Stubbs on a sunny day, I have no hope for you. And at 50p entry, it's something of a bargain!
Skeleton Crew impress immediately with their medieval folk and early music performances. Now, I don't know my sackbut from my serpent, or my pavanne from my galliard, but the sound was enticing, albeit fighting a losing battle with the noise of a bustling cafe.
I'm guessing, from looking at the four of them, that The Noisy Oysters are a family who prefer to play klezmer classics of an evening instead of watching reality TV. Good choice. Their set is somewhat hesitant, but manages ot deliver the goods eventually.
At first glance Jeremy Hughes' guitar instrumentals just sound like somebody practising, doodling around some little trills and getting that muscle memory programmed in. Maybe it was the dappled sunlight and the tin of beer, but today it all made perfect sense, and his cyclical compositions transported us away on light and nimble melodies.
Next up regulars from local pub The Exeter Hall knocked out a couple of tunes each. Quality varied, but the spirit shone through.
When did you last see a table and sitar duo reviewed in Oxford? Proving that there's more to acoustic music than strumming hippies anbd self-pitying wastrels, Pandit Kailash Pawar & Chris Hills perform an hour of traditional ragas. Again, I'm no expert, but the music was spellbinding, if not always as fluid as it might be. Still, considering they hadn't met till that day, and Hills was playing pieces he'd never heard before, you've got to give them credit.
Mark Ginsberg is wearing a polka dot shirt whilst playing pier-end covers on an antediluvian organ. Clearly it's rubbish, but somehow those old bossa nova rhythm presets really kick, in a hissing Autechral fashion...plus his cover of "Purple Haze" reveals he isn't taking this too seriously either...
If Kenny Everett were recording a sketch about washed up 70s rockers, he'd copy Hawkwind alumnus Hugh Lloyd-Langton exactly. He's got the dangling fag, the Rod Stewart hairdo, the stoned chuckle and the leopard print waistcoat. He appears to be completely wasted. He's also got the bluesy Pagesque technique on his acoustic guitar to just about get away with it. A fine exemplum for the avoidance of drugs; nearly as fine as the surrounding sculptures.
Inflatable Buddha could be astonishing, but they don't know their own strengths. They boast weird instrumentation, a freaky stage presence and a ranting poet, yet they insist on performing rock tunes, despite the fact that the rhythm section has no bite and the vocalist can't sing (also for a poet his diction is awful, but we'll ignore that). "I Met A Girl" might make sense if Dive Dive played it, but Buddha should stick to the acid cabaret they know: "Fat Sex" and the one about boiling frogs, now there's some real character.
In a flurry of fiddle-licked hoedown punk, Some Dogs finish the afternoon. They display far more energy than ability (except for the sizzling violinist) but it seems to fit. As they say, if you don't like it, go ask for your 50p back! Nope, money well spent I say, as was the Le Tigre CD I picked up for 20p on a charity stall. A great day out, and I haven't even mentioned the marrow auction, the Backroom Poets, the Oxford Drum Troupe, the oldest-of-schools electro DJ or the free pinball. Prize produce all round!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
