Sleeping Partner

I'm hungry.  Might eat something.

DREAM WIFE/ VIENNA DITTO/ SUZI WU, Heavy Pop & Dork, Bully, 16/10/17

We’re a little confused.  We’re sure Suzi Wu says onstage that it’s her debut gig, but there’s already stuff on the merch table, the promoters felt unable to announce her presence beyond special guest, and she enters to a sprightly little bass and drums riff like a conquering hero.  Perhaps the last of these is just stagecraft, as Suzi certainly squeezes the maximum live impact from her bouncy dub pop.  At her best, such as an intriguingly asymmetrical Tom Waits cover, she sounds like Tricky channelling Gwen Stefani’s sassy nous, but at other times we’re kicked queasily back to 1994, and a well-meaning but ill-conceived crusty knees-up featuring Nicolette and Back To The Planet.

Good advice to a new band is to play every gig like you’re headlining Glastonbury, no matter how small.  Even better advice to a band that has won its spurs is to play every gig like you’re performing direct to your mates, to avoid the pratfalls of pomposity and choreographed bombast.  Vienna Ditto are so relaxed and unhurried during this set, they only actually manage to play 4 songs, spending more time laughing with the crowd, vainly poking at a drum machine trying to get it to make the right noise, and looking like a Dickensian urchin and Chicago blues singer had met each other in a time warp and decided to get stoned instead of trying to work out how.  All very unprofessional, maybe, but the second of these 4 tracks is a glorious 10 minute reading of old favourite “Long Way Down”, which is half enticing torch song and half sonic abrasion, complete with rando-speed breakbeats and a guitar rubbed against the stage barrier.  The best possible advice for an aspiring band?  Be Vienna Ditto.

If Vienna Ditto look mismatched onstage, two of Dream Wife seem positively polar, the guitarist sporting an austere white bowl cut, like Joan of Arc meets Mr C from The Shamen, and the vocalist stalking round the stage in a tied off shirt looking like a 50s cheerleader gone horribly wrong.  Or, we should say, horribly right, as Dream Wife is a band that marries feminist ire to well-honed tuneful garage, and any soda fountain pin-up would be the better for sneering their way through new wave anthems and hand-picking a coterie of moshing “bad bad bitches”.  If there’s one criticism to make of this pleasing set, it’s the they never quite lived up to the promise of their opener, where the vocals were all taut, Talking Heads supercilious intonation, and the band pummelled poppily, like a whipped cream Ramones.  There’s a new strategy, get the patriarchy to dance themselves into submission.

When I Punt My Masterpiece

This morning I really like Sleaford Mods and Georg Philipp Telemann.

PUNT FESTIVAL, Purple Turtle/ Cellar/ Wheatsheaf/ White Rabbit/ Turl Street Kitchen, 14/5/14

The Punt is an endurance test of pop music and beer, it helps to line the stomach first.  We’ve just finished a big bowl of salt and carbs in a noodle bar, and are cracking open our fortune cookie, to find the legend “Soon one of your dreams will come true”.  Hey, that’s remarkably similar to the sign-off on our handy Punt guide, “may all your musical dreams come true”.  This looks to be a cosmically blessed event, quite possibly the greatest night in cultural history; and, look, we didn’t even get any sauce on our shirt.

The Purple Turtle brings us crashing back to mundane reality, starting 20 minutes late, whilst bits of the PA are hastily tinkered with.  This means we only get to see about 15 minutes of Hot Hooves – which is about 7 songs, of course.  Although he’ll doubtless hate us for saying so, their lead vocalist seems to be slowly morphing into Mac E Smith, drawling and chewing his way through acerbic songs over taut and unvarnished pub punk, and spending most of the space between tracks shouting about the venue’s lighting: plus can anyone really deliver lines like “attitude adjuster plan” and not sound a little bit MES?  Unlike their well-turned records, the songs in this set are almost smothered by their own energy, “This Disco” especially is reduced to a heavy thrum through which Pete Momtchiloff’s vocals barely penetrate.  Pop will erase itself, perhaps, but it sounds bloody good whilst it does so.

Down the alleyway at the Cellar, another slightly more mature band is showing the youngsters how it’s done, although in a quieter, more introspective fashion.  Only Trophy Cabinet amongst tonight’s acts would introduce a song called “Rant” and then drift away on an airy zephyr of dreamy “ba ba ba”s.  Their classic, refined indie owes a little to James, a smidgen to A House, and a lot to that band from 1986...oh, you know the ones...we can’t recall the name, but we can just visualise the exact shade of lilac vinyl their 7 inch came in.  Sometimes the band keeps everything a little too reined in, when a bit of pop fizz might enliven the show, but they can certainly write some cracking little tunes.

Whilst our Eastern dessert oracle thinks that our dreams are coming true, Aidan Canaday is possibly still asleep.  Looking surprisingly like comedian Tim Key he slurs somnambulistically through lyrics that rarely seem to develop beyond slackly repeated phrases.  This might be quite intriguing, in its way, but doesn’t fit well with the polite salon folk pop the rest of The Cooling Pearls is producing.  And the polite salon folk pop ain’t great.

Neon Violets are an object lesson in why live music in a decent venue is irreplaceable.  We’re just chatting to some old friends at the top of the Cellar’s stairway (The Punt acting like a sort of school reunion for aging pasty-faced scenesters), and we nearly don’t go down: “Sounds alright from here, it’ll only be a bit louder inside”.  Well, that’s where we were wrong, because in close proximity, what sounded like pleasingly chunky blues rock, a la Blue Cheer, becomes a glorious, immersive experience, huge drums ushering you down dark corridors of fuzzy guitar overtones.  The material is relatively simple, but the sound is deep enough to get lost in.  From the doorway, we’d never have dreamed it.

One downside to The Punt is all the bloody people turning up at venues, when we’re used to seeing local acts in a tiny knot of regular faces.  So, although we are in The White Rabbit whilst Salvation Bill is playing, all we can hear from the back of a truly packed bar are occasional bloopy drum machine loops, and tinny fragments of guitar and tremulous vocal.  It sounds as if someone is playing a Plaid remix of Radiohead on a small boombox.  This is actually quite a pleasing sound, but not precisely what Ollie Thomas was shooting for, we suspect.

Hannah Bruce is the only completely unknown name to us on this year’s bill, so we make the effort to watch the entirety of her set.  Having got a little lost in The Turl Street Kitchen, and ended up trying to enter a room in which people were having a quiet meeting (it might have been anything from a divorcees’ book club to the Botley Church Of Satan), we find the clean white space, and settle down on the stripped floorboards for some acoustic balladry – which feels odd as back in the day The Punt would always start with stuff like this, not irascible bald rockers moaning about gobos.  Bruce has some strong songs, but tends to mar them a little by delivering them in a world-weary, battle-scarred voice that droops in exhaustion at the end of phrases, and seems to have eradicated all vowels as excess baggage.  At times this works, the songs like melancholic spectres evaporating from the ramparts as the cock crows, but at other times it all feels kind of half-baked.  One track, in its recorded form, sounds like The Wu-Tang Clan, Hannah observes; forgive us for wishing that we’d heard that, and not another sombre strum.

During some embarrassing joke interviews in this year’s Eurovision broadcast, Graham Norton filled a bit of awkward dead air with the wry observation, “You know, there are 180 million people watching this”.  At 9.30 on Punt night this sort of happens in reverse: Lee Riley performs what is comfortably the most challenging, experimental set of the evening, and for 15 minutes he is the only performer onstage across all 5 venues.  This sort of thing should definitely be encouraged.  As he coaxes sheets of rich hum and harsh feedback from a guitar, people either rush for the exit with a grimace, or stand with their eyes closed looking beatific. This brief drone and noise set may have made some people’s dreams come true, and could feasibly haunt the nightmares of others for decades to come.

Without meaning to, we end up shuttling between the White Rabbit and The Turl Street Kitchen for the last 6 acts on our itinerary.  At the latter, Rawz is reminding us of the frustrating dilemma of live hip hop: you can’t have huge booming beats and clear, comprehensible lyrics simultaneously, not unless you have a lot of time and high end equipment.  So, the backing for this set, whilst nicely put together, is relegated to time-keeper not sonic womb, a tinny metronome and not much more.  This is only a minor concern, though, as it allows us to hear every syllable of Rawz’ relaxed but tightly controlled raps.  Previously we’d picked up some of MF Doom’s bug-eyed cut-up logic in the Rawz recording we’d heard, but tonight his delivery brings to mind the understated and thoughtfully clipped style of De La Soul circa Art Official Intelligence.  Seeing Jada Pearl, a talented singer whom we’ve not come across for absolutely years, guesting on one track was bonus, too.

Perhaps it was the fact that he followed Lee Riley, but Kid Kin’s set at The White Rabbit mostly dispenses with this occasionally overly pretty bedroom mood music style, and supplies some crisp, kicking electronica.  The first number is a slow whirlpool of piano chords and clear, forehead rapping drum machine patterns, that reminds us a little of Orbital’s “Belfast”, before some burnished bronze noise overwhelms everything.  The next piece takes a vintage Black Dog beat and adds tidy post-rock guitar, and the set continues in a strong and varied vein.

Juliana Meijer is also expanding the sonic palette in Turl Street, using two guitars and some curlew call synth sounds (courtesy of Seb Reynolds, who has already played once tonight in Flights Of Helios).  The breathy vocals are winning, and remind us a little of Edie Brickell, albeit without the forced chirpiness.  There’s a delightful airiness to the set, but it never becomes mere background music, even if it does briefly skirt cocktail territory at times.

Vienna Ditto is a band in hiding.  They consist of a guitarist, who seems to hate guitar histrionics, keeping his Bo Diddley and Duane Eddy stylings low in the mix, and a torch singer who shies away from the spotlight.  They play electronic music, but tie themselves down to looping most of the drums live, as if in terror of quantised purity.  They play the blues, but are seemingly wary of appearing overly sincere.  They make wonderful, uplifiting pop songs, but tend to obscure them with walls of acidic synth squelch.  They make charming stage banter, but rarely on the mike, so only a handful of the audience ever hear them.  Perhaps this refusal to ever resolve their own paradoxes is the reason we love them, but whatever the reason, they are the perfect conclusion to a very successful Punt, with the talent to fill vast auditoriums, but the love of playing techno gospel burners in the corner of a cramped, sweaty pub on a Wednesday night.  You think this ramshackle duo isn't the best band in Oxfordshire at the moment?  Dream on.

Sungs Frum An Urt Gullery

This is quite a wordy review.  Lots of sophomoric chat about the nature of live performance.  Don't read it if you're hoping I'm going to be describing Grace Exley's bared midriff in great detail, and if you don't like old men moaning about the price of beer.

I listened to Pieces In A Moden Style by William 0rbit (sic) today,. having bought it in a charity shop.  Jesus, it's worse than I expected: how can you make Barber, Cage, Satie and Vivaldi all sound the same?  And so horrible?  If you see it in the charity shop I shall return it to, I advise you leave it on the shelf.  

THE GOGGENHEIM/ THE LAMPOST GULLIVERS/ VIENNA DITTO/ FRANCIS PUGH & THE WHISKY SINGERS, Stone Free, The Jericho, 6/10/12

We’re just buying our first overpriced beer at the Jericho’s main bar, when suddenly a lilting little country ditty, in a sort of cleaned up jugband style, wafts pleasingly past our ears.  It’s Francis Pugh & The Whisky Singers, a quartet that has elected to start its set in the downstairs bar, perhaps hoping to lead the drinkers, Pied Piper style, into the upstairs venue.  Predictably, we are the entirety of their entourage as they take to the stairs.  In the venue, they continue to play unplugged, in the middle of the room, which creates a delightful intimacy, even if they could do with learning how to project the vocals.  The material is enjoyable, high quality country tunes with a small hint of self-effacing wit, as if they know that four young chaps from Oxfordshire can never really play in this downhome style without a sly wink.  The trumpet parts are the secret ingredient, not least because they carry so clearly without amplification; and did we hear an unexpected Handel influence at one point?  It’s a good set, and a friendly introduction to the evening, although part of us thinks that, far from being a mildly diverting novelty, people singing unamplified narrative folk songs belong in a provincial pub far more than squid nibbles and Peroni at four pounds forty a fucking pint.

Vienna Ditto may have a sound based on synthesised beats and fuzzy electric guitar, but they retain the unhurried ramshackle air of the Whisky Singers.  Many of their songs marry chunky electro-disco to rockabilly, in a space somewhere between Goldfrapp’s steely sensuality and Imelda May’s glossy gutsiness, with the merest whiff of turn of the century pop sophisticates Shivaree.  This is all well and good, but what truly makes them special - aside from Hatty Taylor’s rich, chanson-style voice – is their relaxed, handmade approach.  Whilst many bands with gorgeous, arcing pop songs like this would have rehearsed them to the hilt and found some session rhythm section types to fill up the sound, Vienna Ditto spend most of the set huddled together over a keyboard and electronics set up, pushing buttons and giggling, like a drunk couple trying to knock up a post-pub dinner on a camping stove.  Writing epic pop songs is a skill; performing them so they feel like wonderful secrets whispered into the audience’s ear is sheer talent.

Speaking of talent, at the beginning of The Lampost Gullivers’ set, we begin to worry that former Suitable Case and Mephisto Grande vocalist Liam Ings-Reeves wasn’t the excellent musician we had him down as, but a cabaret blues growler whose music had been getting slowly less interesting over the years.  Bash bash bash went the bass and drums, snarly-warl went Liam, in his best zombie Tom Waits voice, and it was all perfectly diverting, but not vastly exciting.  About a third of the way into the set, however, we quickly moderated our opinion.  Suddenly, the music took on a lithe, tensile quality, replacing the cartoon bluster of the opening numbers with hypnotic, rubbery rhythms, turning the preacher-rock hollers into sticky, deep-fried krautrock.  By the end of the set, our faith is firmly restored, and we can hear the deft muscularity underpinning even the dirtiest blues clatter.

Pop music, ladies and gentlemen, is and always has been, at least partly, about dressing up funny.  So, fair play to The Goggenheim, who are all garbed as Alex James (possibly), with nice clean flat caps, and are fronted by Grace Exley, in glittery silver affair with vast head-dress, looking like a dancer from a Busby Berkeley musical about Ra the sun god in New York.  Sonically they’re equally theatrical, laying Gong wooziness and affected vocal declamations over thumping drums and disjointed guitar.  At their poppiest, on “Moth”, they sound rather a lot like 80s oddballs Stump, but at their most outlandish they’re simply mystifying: “Ah Samina” consists of an unfathomable chant with false vibrato created by manually wobbling the throat, like a 70s schoolchild pretending to be a Silurian.  It’s not all arsing about, though, and the music would be infuriatingly wacky if it weren’t played so well, with some outstanding metronomic drumming.  You also get the feeling that Grace is continually embodying different characters, rather than just putting on silly voices.  In one song she seems to be subtly detourning blues chauvanism with the words “Gonna see my woman, but she’s a cow”, and in “Housten” she might be cocking a snook at lachrymose country tunes about misfortune and loss by singing of salvaging nick-nacks from a crumbled life.  But, equally, she might not.

The Goggenheim are a fascinating, exciting mix of performance art, punk pop and psychedelia who have tailored their performance to the artificiality of the concert environment: their music thrives on the distancing effect of the boundary between stage and audience as much as The Whisky Singers’ feeds from its removal.  This gig, curated by local music photographer Johnny Moto, seemed designed to explore different ways performers relate to a crowd.  Whether the musicians joined us, engaged us in conversation, gave us antagonistic stares or foxed us with surreal spectacle, we were constantly reminded just what a gig in a small venue can do that no volume of free MP3s and YouTube videos can.