Walters, Duly

I typed "numbly undercut" instead of "nimbly" when I submitted this.  Actually kind of makes sense.  Decided to leave it at MIO, but have corrected here.  One for the future doctorates, I'd say.

RICHARD WALTERS – YOUNG TREES (self-released download)

As the 1980s collapsed into the 1990s in a fluorescent, floppy ball of smiling inanity, there was an intriguing trend amongst a certain breed of “inky” journalist (don’t forget, NME, Melody Maker and Sounds were all smudgy doorsteps of respectable opinion in those days).  As if in reaction to the laddish euphoria of the nascent baggy scene, or the crusty simplicity of post-acid dance music, a select coterie of writers retreated into a safe cocoon of poetic intensity.  In their reviews every keyboard was “ethereal”, every voice “lusciously evanescent”, and every guitar touched by man, child or beast turned out “coruscating”.  By the time Brit pop turned up, these guys must have either retreated sadly to their 4AD bowers or shrugged and joined The Wire, deciding that Derek Bailey was where it was at all along.  But we bring it up because we’ve been sitting on this record for weeks, wondering what critical vocabulary we have left to describe Richard Walters after years of lavish praise for his, ahem, lusciously evanescent voice.

Do people get bored of hearing Walters’ voice described as beautiful and delicate?  Hell, does he?  And, like a man who’s bored with paradise, like Oscar Lomax throwing his precious Snappy toy into the sea, can it be possible that we can get bored with music as wonderful as this?  Well, perhaps.  Two of the songs on this EP, whilst being jaw-droppingly lovely, are also a little par for the course.  “Infinity Street” does a nice line in breathy confessional – and probably no singer in the history of Oxford city can deliver a line as intimately as Walters – but never quite finds that Stina Nordenstam zone of disquieting secrecy; and “Dandelions” moves from pizzicato melancholy to mini-epic perfectly...almost too perfectly.

But, just as we’re getting jaded, this record hits us with some elegantly emotional songs to remind us why Walters is such a local treasure.  “Regretless” is a washed out ghost of a gospel celebration, a sort of teary-eyed opposite to blur’s “Tender”, and is beautiful, but the title track eclipses it, allowing a mournful cello and some typewriter percussion to embrace Walters, whose voice flutters round the notes as if it’s trying to keep from floating away, an Aspirin desperately trying not to dissolve.  Some backing vocals, like Disney bluebirds, step in, only to be nimbly undercut by lines like “I talk in platitudes”, that would give Walt the shivers.

And yet the closing number, “Bring On The Dancing Horses” stands above even this.  It’s a wan, spectral valediction, glistening guitars and bodiless backing vocals keeping the song balanced between bottomless despair and rough victory.  Yes, it’s a mystery that this record isn’t making waves at grown-up magazines like Uncut, but more importantly, Walters at his best makes us want to tumble into a weeping huddle one second, and leap into air, fists aloft the next. 

You can’t get much less bloody ethereal than that, eh?

The Joker In The Decade

Funny thing: when The Jukes sent an email to the Nightshift editor about my review, one of their points was that this website wasn't very popular. Since then, the review in question has comfortably become the most viewed page on here in recent memory, and most people seem to have been linked ffrom Facebook. The Jukes' Facebook? Or just a coincidence? I've no idea, but it's sort of intriguing.

Oh, and yes, I am unpopular. That's how you can tell I'm good.


SMILEX/ THE CELLAR FAMILY/ DEER CHICAGO, Coo Coo Club, Jericho, 2/3/12


We saw Deer Chicago a few years ago, and were impressed. Since then they’ve delivered on their potential, and got very slightly worse. Their sound has improved enormously, and is now a huge cascade of emotive noise that fair tumbles out of them. They’re capable of glistering crescendos, but sometimes we wish they’d vary the dynamics, and step away from the screaming stadium in their minds, to regain some of the subtlety of old. All this epic swooning is like super-strong Bavarian lager they sell in your local dodgy cornerstore: doubtless intoxicating, but not big on delicate flavours. A very good band, then, but perhaps not the one we expected them to become, which is out fault, not theirs.

The Cellar Family are less a band, more an annoying muscular twitch in sonic form. Tonight, they play beautifully, lancing their music’s scabrous boils with razor punk incisions, and flooding The Jericho with horrific, visceral imagery delivered with scientific coldness. It’s like a cross between Weird Tales and The Lancet, all buoyed aloft by wittily slurred guitar and snidely forceful rhythms. Humdrum punks take note: everyone can sneer, but only a band like this can actually communicate disgust.

Smilex are celebrating a decade of nefarious activity, balancing on a latex tightrope strung between twin poles of grubby punk sleaze and dumb cock rock preening. Whilst it’s tempting to dismiss Smilex as an eager panting puppy amongst rock beasts – gags like Motley Cruecut and Judas Verger would be almost too easy – tonight’s gig reminds you of just how good they are. Lee Christian, of course, embodies his stage school punk persona, dressed as Kenny Everett in the Blue Oyster Club, but his vocal yelps and drawls really do carry the songs well. The band spends a lot of time throwing rock shapes that probably moved from parody to habit nine years ago, but by Christ they can kick out a squall. As with Deer Chicago, it’s always best to take Smilex on their own terms. The way to have a bad time at their gigs would be to imagine what a band of this much ability and stage presence could achieve if they had any taste. The way to have a good time is to neck a crème de menthe spritzer and dive into the nearest wall of flesh. Who could complain about ten years of that?

Supple Be The Dye

Two reviews in this month's Nightshift, here's the first. In other news, I ordered a new turntable today, looking forward to some crisp vinyl sounds for the first time in a while.



COLOUREDS – ELASTIC EP (Download)


Diversity is a wonderful thing, of course, but we’re pretty sick of bands trying to cover a vast range of stylistic bases, as if they were investors diversifying their portfolios. It’s doubtless fun to be a polymath, but to be honest we’d prefer most musicians to stick to what they’re good at, and stop chasing public acceptance at every turn. After all, John Lee Hooker only needed three chords and an amplified boot to make some of the great twentieth century music. Over and over again.

No surprise, therefore, to find that we respect Coloureds. They have found a sound they are great at making, and are doggedly sticking with it, tonal development be damned. This EP consists of three separate tracks, but frankly they all sound like tiny variations on the single pulsating mutant anthem at the heart of all Coloureds tunes. As on previous releases, Elastic is a neat balance between the hulking and the intricate, chunky Duplo blocks of bass and gambolling percussion topped with jittering treble flecks and tiny vocal blips. It’s like an old Bitmap Brothers computer game remixed by a French house act with a taste for chubby disco grooves.

There are three additional remixes, that are decent enough, but in essence this EP should be filed under More Of The Same, with a cross-reference to Spazz Bounce Electro Euphoria. It’s a gorgeous record, and we hope Coloureds don’t go trying to catch the latest dancefloor fashion. A chameleon is wonderful beasts, but a blank-eyed alligator would crush its tricksy little body in unevolved saurian jaws in a micro-second. All hail the crocodile rock.

That Juke Isn't Funky Any More

This review appears in the current issue of Nightshift. The editor forwarded me an email that one of the musicians sent him, making their feeling clear about this review. I was tempted to post it here, but then I though, let's not. After all, I'm not here to argue with anyone, and if someone doesn't like my tastes and my writing style, good on them. So, some truly mystifying punctuation aside, I'm happy enough with the email.

There are two issues that are interesting, though. Fristly, our chum (who shall remain anonymous), wrote, "Slating every band is quite easy to do, so i will look forward to reading a hyped review. But first, a bigger, better magazine must approve of the act. Then he can make a u-turn and try and keep up as much as his acute and narrow mind will allow. Enthusiastically claiming to have supported said act from the very beggining. I could be wrong, but this tends to be the case with small time talentless writers", and followed it up with, "Writing in magazines such as Nightshift isn't i imagine at the top of his ambitions, but he has punched well above his weight to even get that far".

The intriguing truth si that, irrespective of whether inability woudl preclude it, I have literally no desire to write for a "proper" magazine. Writing for Nightshift is the perfect job, precisely because I never have to worry about the kind of editorial or self-imposed volte faces alluded to in the first point. Unfortunately, no matter whether they were the most lauded act in the country, three of the acts in this review would be poor (although they range from lovably not quite there to hilariously atrocious), and it's great to be able to write for people who let you writer about no-mark Oxon acts and huge touring beasts and judge them in the same fashion.

Course, the thing that annoyed me about the review was that the editor got Artclasssink's name wrong. Typical.

There you go, a rather serious intro today - normal service shall resume. In fact, I'm just listening a K-Tel disco comp from a stack of vuinyl I have been gifted: "Naughty Naughty Naughty" by Joy sarney has a part for Mr Punch. Classy.




NUCLEAR SKYLINE/ VERY NICE HARRY/ ARTCLASSSINK/ THE JUKES, It’s All About The Music, Bully, 9/2/12


It’s All About The Music, as the promoter’s name would have it. Watching a band like The Jukes, you wish it were about something else, for once. Lightshow; dancing gimps; contentious race politics. Anything to distract from their atonal chugging guff, that’s like the Portsmouth Sinfonia playing Franz Ferdinand. A trumpet adds a little James-esque flourish, but the gig is unsalvageable.

“It’s a very very very nice song”, announce Artclasssink, before launching into something. They’re confident and audacious, we like that. They’re also wrong, of course. Like a desperate pool player, smacking the white up the table in blind hope, they shoot at various styles – Psych? Funk? Skank? Shoegaze? – but tend to end up muddled after a minute or so, looking to the incomprehensible vocal yelps to drag the song home. Yet there’s something lovable about this band, not least their evident self-belief. We feel musicians should grow up in public, so good on you, Artclasssink. Now get better.

Very Nice Harry shine in this company, with a highly polished melodic set of energetic, atmospheric pop. They’re at their least convincing when trying to be Foals (as is everyone except Foals, let’s be honest), but when they create more space in the music, with some neat delay pedal use, and drizzle it with Blake’s 7 synths, they boast some really quite impressive, dynamic songs, allowing Sam McNeill’s lithe, clear vocal lines a chance to unfurl. Very promising. Do you know what I mean, Harry?

Nuclear Skyline look excitingly like a greasy rockabilly bassist has gatecrashed a teenage grunge act, but they sound like any other clod-hopping, inexperienced punk band. Good spirited fun, of course, but lacking in anything memorable to balance the lack of musical prowess. Currently it’s brash and ballsy but not very interesting. They’ve got a Black Flag T-shirt and a shiny double bass, though. We’re sure they’ll come up with something, given time.

Quicksilver Medal

In one of the worst lyrics I've ever heard, John Lennon states, "a working class hero is something to be". I guess, but so is a lollipop lady, a rapist or an Iberian ribbed newt. He may as well have said, "a noun is a word that repesents a person, concept or thing". Anyway, here's an unrelated review.


THE WILD MERCURY SOUND/ DANCE A LA PLAGE/ LEWIS WATSON, Daisy Rodgers, Jericho, 24/2/12



Daisy Rodgers is doing something special. Every month their events, centred round the more accessible end of indie rock, are not only well-constructed and friendly, but encourage packed houses that must make musicians, customers and other promoters happy, surprised and murderously envious respectively. Tonight’s gig is no exception, a cohesive, amiable concert with a spectacular turnout, marred only by the typical Jericho curse of ceaselessly yabbering punters drowning out the quieter acts. So, we push to the front of the newly painted venue (now with the added vibe of a 1970s mental hospital), to hear Lewis Watson.

This young singer has apparently achieved over two million hits on YouTube. We admit to finding this slightly mystifying, but then again, we don’t quite see the attraction of Charlie’s finger appetite either. Lewis certainly has a very strong voice, with an impressive ability to phrase lines mellifluously, adding a little portamento at emotive moments. It’s a likable set, and impressively a Paolo Nutini cover fits snugly next to his own songs; on the down side, of course this means his songs sound like Paolo Nutini’s. Watson has a very significant talent, and we look forward to seeing him develop, but at the moment his music sounds too much like a Starbuck’s playlist to truly excite us. It’s early days, we could well be eating our words in no time.

Unlike Lewis, Dance A La Plage sound as though they’re fully developed already, with a supremely confident and veruca sock tight set of bouncy disco indie. This is a band that has clearly identified its sound, and worked hard to hone it in the live arena, with the strident vocals, the rubberised bass and the guitar-to-the-chin twiddles all inch perfect. Pity that it does exactly nothing for us, being not exactly bad, but aridly, sterilely forgettable. When the singer introduces an untitled track with the slip, “This one doesn’t have a song yet”, we conclude that old Freud knew a thing or two. Dance A La Plage clearly hit the spot for a number of people, but to us they’ll forever exist in the long dark Regional Battle Of The Bands Heat of the soul. Fair’s fair, they’d probably walk it.

A fizzing burst of guitar noise introduces The Wild Mercury Sound’s set, and whilst it’s hardly Merzbow, it sounds like pure energy after a polite evening. They play a full-blooded set mixing blues rock tall tales with emotive stadium paeans, and manage to pull off the all too rare trick of sounding enormous without simply turning the volume to the top, and this control allows the excellent, lightly yearning vocals space to soar. Perhaps the young, fresh-faced lads are a little clean cut to make this sort of emotional music work, and sometimes you want less Doogie Howser and more Howlin’ Wolf, but it’s nothing a decade or so of hard living and bad loving won’t cure. A rousing end to a decent night.

Reinventing The Peel

This is the first time I've ever reviewed a piece of theatre. I think it probably shows. And this was mostly a man playing records, God knows what I'd do if faced with Two Gentlemen Of Verona.


JOHN PEEL’S SHED – JOHN OSBOURNE (North Wall)


We first heard “politics” by Girls At Our Best in 1995. Mark Radcliffe opened his Radio One night-time show with that and Wire’s “Our Swimmer” one summer night, we’re pretty certain. We recall it vividly because Radcliffe’s graveyard slot show used to keep us sane when we worked nights in a document archivist’s warehouse. This is relevant because, not only is john Osbourne’s one man show partly about the power of radio to lift the soul whilst doing mindless, poorly paid work, but also “Politics” is the song that’s playing as the North Wall’s house lights go down.

And, yes, frankly any stage show that starts with the performer sitting amongst a carpet of vinyl, spinning tunes whilst the audience files in, and sharing little facts on a vintage overhead projector, is already a hit with us. All these records came from a large box of vinyl Osbourne won in a competition to write a slogan for the John Peel show (including a tantalising LP by Oizone, a punk Boyzone tribute), but anyone dreading – or even hoping for - a Peel-obsessed troglodyte’s celebration of obscure U-Roy versions, or Hefner B-sides, couldn’t be more wrong. Despite the title, this excellent show is less about the great Mr Ravenscroft himself, and more about the importance of radio to people’s lives, and how this cherished medium is rarely discussed or celebrated.

John Peel’s Shed only has a few proper jokes (and one of those was cribbed from Terry Wogan), yet the audience is constantly somewhere between a warm smile and a hearty guffaw, because Osbourne’s delivery is so natural and unaffected: it’s not a slick, predictable comic monologue, it’s more like a cheery chat with someone on a long train journey who unexpectedly shares most of your views. When he stumbles over his words, or fluffs Jo Whiley’s name at a pivotal moment in the script, it only endears him to us more. The only downside of the show is that you want to join in the conversation, and spin a platter of your own.

Osbourne is at his best when he’s passionate about his subjects. His wide-eyed joy at describing Resonance FM’s Me & My Floor, a show in which a child mikes his house carpet for half an hour a day, makes it sound like the greatest piece of conceptual radio ever created. Similarly, Tommy Boyd is someone we have cast into the awkward dustbin of childhood TV memories, along with Gaz Topp and Kate Copstick, and yet Osbourne is such an admirer he’s dubbed Boyd “the Peel of talk”, for his Human Zoo show on TalkSport. You can also feel his disappointment and anger when he discusses second rate, homogenous culture, a trap commercial radio falls into at a depressing rate (although Radio One is far from immune). It made us think of the aftermath of Peel’s death, and the way it was handled by the BBC. Celebrating Peel’s work doesn’t just mean playing “Teenage Kicks” and The White Stripes every ten minutes, and mentioning – but, of course, not broadcasting – The Fall and Captain Beefheart, it means keeping an open mind and a curious set of ears, and ignoring bullshit on every side. For all Osbourne’s celebration of radio, we were reminded that there’s still no substitute for John Peel on national radio, and for anything like his unpretentious inquisitiveness you have to explore Resonance, or perhaps Norwich’s Future FM, where Osbourne broadcast shows exploring the Peel box (download at www.johnpeelsshed.com).

What was the slogan that won Osbourne this vinyl treasure trove? “Records you want to hear, played by a man who wants you to hear them”. It’s actually quite sad that this isn’t the rubric of all music broadcasting, but this wonderful show staves off bland corporate gloss for one more night. Highly recommended.

Basement, How Low Can You Go?

Speaking of Big Bang Theory, as we were, it reminded me of Friends. Not the jokes, just the architecture. Do all apartment buildings in America have a large flat on the left of the staircase, and a smaller one on the right? Seems an odd design. Also, can people weho make their money as waiters, physics researchers, occasional actors, cooks, and so on really afford these lopsided apartments?

And why do they both loook like a set from Space Hulk from the corridor, huge grey reinforced doors and dingy corridors? They look lovely from the inside.

Hmmm....





THE CELLAR FAMILY – FLAB EP (Download)


“I am an anarchist”.

Punk is about the antisocial, whether it’s Johnny Rotten’s heroic, neo-Romantic reactionary stance, painting himself as a twisted urchin version of Milton’s Satan, or your bog standard punk tearaway, using rebellion as an excuse to get smashed and not wash (and the hippies already had that down, ironically). The Cellar Family, comfortably one of the best acts to emerge from Oxford in the past two years, have a far more interesting take. On this EP, from the awkward Thomas the Tubercular Tank Engine chuffing of the opening, to the closing greasy feedback 17 minutes later, the tone is not antisocial, but asocial.

Like Seven’s reverse-Buddhist villain John Doe, or a slightly deranged Nazi scientist, the narrative voice of a Cellar Family song balances visceral disgust with a rigorously dispassionate eye: it’s no coincidence that the EP is bookended by tracks called “Oestrogen” and “Testosterone”. This is not a love song, it’s a bloody biology lesson. Possibly extremely bloody. In a gallery of sociopathic rogues, “My Love Is Everlasting” may well tell of a deranged serial rapist-murderer (whatever, it certainly won’t be on Julio Iglesias’ setlist any time soon), and “Secret Admirer” is a stalker’s paean, crooning “nobody watches you more than I do”, along with a dubious celebration of “child-bearing hips”, which can’t help but bring to mind P J Harvey. Alternating between moments of dark comedy and harrowing viscerality, The Cellar Family has found a new way of embodying punk’s antagonistic stance.

Likewise, the music has more going on than might be immediately obvious in a bludgeoning punk racket. The drums are frantic yet tight, tumbling through the songs like Karl Burns on the early Fall recordings, and the way that Jamie Harris’ guitar slurs and bends the rhythms remind us unexpectedly of Graham Coxon on later Blur albums. This record shows how many more ideas TCF have beyond the punk template. “My Love Is Everlasting” is a spiky update of The Blue Orchids’ spindly groove, whereas “What Did I Ever Do To You?” is a wash of reverse reverb vocals, sub-aquatic bass and misty drums that sounds an awful lot like Pram, until the dyspeptic burst of the chorus rears its head briefly. Whilst Mclusky is still an obvious reference point, The Cellar Family have developed enough to offer a lyrical grimace and musical inventiveness all their own, and have possibly made one of Oxford’s records of the year in the process.