I Came To Hear The Music

:::::::::NEW BLOG::::::::::::::::

2010-06-15T01:28:00.000-07:00

The Dalston Howl

http://thedalstonhowl.wordpress.com/

Album Review: Woods - At Echo Lake

2010-06-04T05:34:00.000-07:00

I should be freaking out about being practically unemployed. Instead I am joyfully sitting in the sunshine outside Cafe Oto in Dalston lingering over a latte and listening to Woods. It's almost impossible to freak out listening to At Echo Lake. The album is released on the Woodsist label, the same stable that brought us Real Estate, Kurt Vile and Blank Dogs. The words bandied about here are lo-fi, psychedelic and noise pop. It's all about the homespun vibe, with the label being one of the first to resurrect the cassette tape as a means of promotion and album covers embracing the 'look what I made at school mommy' aesthethic.

Unlike darker labelmate Blank Dogs, Woods eschew the more dirgeful sounds in favour of lighter, spanglier tambourine sounds. Although indisputably melancholic, it's a summer Pet Sounds kind of melancholy that we find here. Death Rattle contains the phrase 'god only knows' which I assume is a direct reference to the seminal Beach Boys album. The Brian Jonestown Massacre influence is also undeniable. The track I Was Gone commences with a count off that could have come straight off BJM album Thank God For Mental Illness.

At Echo Park really comes into its own when slides into psychedelic instrumental reminiscent of artists such as Captain Beefheart and Donovan. The track From The Horn is a perfect example of this, building slowly into sonorous psychedelic trip.

Lyrics like 'we can fuck ourselves to sleep'(if my ears serve me correctly)and 'who knows what tomorrow might bring?' set the narrative tone of the album.

Woods meld their influences to create a warm fuzzy lo-fi sound that evokes sea, picnics and sunshine. Job? Who needs a job?

Micah P. Hinson @ Union Chapel 2/06/10

2010-06-03T04:30:00.000-07:00

A frail troubadour wanders on stage sporting a white jacket and black glasses, recalling a young (but infinitely weirder) Elvis Costello. He moves with small jerky mannerism, perhaps a product of his degenerative back condition. He carries a small acoustic guitar with a piece of paper bearing Guthrie's famous words 'this machine kills fascists' taped haphazardly to the side. Also taped to the guitar is a photograph of a woman holding a gun. This, he explains, is Kitty LaRoux. She can be found on the cover of his new album Micah P Hinson and The Pioneer Saboteurs. She has nice boobies and more pictures of her can be found inside the record sleeve, as well as other 'sultry things'. He explains all this with mischievous glee of teenage boy who has just discovered his dad's porno stash.

When he opens his mouth to sing his first song of the evening 2's and 3's the sound that comes out is totally incongruous with his delicate frame. It's the kind of sound that can only come from someone strange, troubled and totally at odds with the world. So powerful is this sound that by the second verse I notice a single tear sliding its way down my cheek.

The next song Take Off That Dress For Me serves to further highlight the dichotomy between the manly voice and desire and the boyish frame and fragility. It is this contrast that makes Micah's music so powerful.

Hinson is a consummate raconteur filling the space between songs with engaging stories about his life, peppered with equal measures of humour and sadness. He explains that it is on this very stage at the Union Chapel that he proposed to his wife three years ago. His wife is sitting in the front row and the love between them is self-evident. As a testament to it he dedicates I Keep Having These Dreams to her

Other stories include an adolescent attempt to swallow bleach followed by a visit to the mental institution. He manages to somehow make this funny with a quip about another patient stealing his bacon and eggs with his bare hands. The song Seven Horses Seen Or Through The Hours, Still Comes Another Day is about a handsome young friend with blue eyes who 'got all the chicks' but spent his adolescence in an out of prison and ended up shooting himself in the face.

I read an article questioning Hinson's authenticity. The gist of it was that the writer believes that Hinson hams up his suffering and that, in effect, he hasn't actually suffered any more than any of us. He argues that dalliances with drugs and destructive romances are standard experiences and that Hinson is just playing at the role of tortured artist. While all this maybe true, for me, the authenticity comes not from his experience, but from his whole being. Some people are fragile souls, almost too delicate for this world. Micah is one of those souls.

Primavera - Day 3

2010-06-02T06:51:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning found me a tad jaded. I'd missed a whole load of bands and the line up for Saturday night didn't look too hot. With Pet Shop Boys and The Charlatans headlining the main stage the festival was ostensibly over. Or so I thought...

What looked like a sparse line up on paper was actually a line up that gave us the breathing space to savour the bands who were playing. Starting with Atlas Sound, the side project of Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox, on the intimate Pitchfork stage, things were suddenly looking up. The Spanish sunshine married with his gorgeous, spangly, psychedelic sounds made for a blissful combination. Then on to Bundles who appeared to make no reference to the conspicuous absence of Kimya Dawson. The highlight was a Travelling Wilburys cover which was an optimistic allusion to the band's status as a supergroup. Credit to Jeffrey Lewis who got the weary crowd up and dancing.

Next up Grizzly Bear. I have a complicated relationship with Grizzly Bear. The first time I listened to Yellow House I was in an art gallery surrounded by strange and macabre taxidermy. I'm not exaggerating when I say the combination sent me under for about two weeks. I'm all for melancholy but I found the album a bridge too grizzly. I was in two minds about going to see them on the Ray Ban stage but decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. What I discovered was that the recorded sound, which seemed to me so heavy and oppressive, was completely transformed in a live setting. With all the space of Parc Del Forum the melodies soared above the heavier elements of the composition and created the perfect juxtaposition of light and dark. The result was that I left Grizzly Bear feeling serene and euphoric.

Owing to my tranquil state I opted for Built to Spill over No Age. Built To Spill rocked the ATP like a gentle wave.

Next came Dum Dum Girls who, in their co-ordinating sheer tights, could almost convince me to give up carbs forever. With red lipstick, scant skirts and matching fringes they were an indie boy's wet dream. Frontwoman Dee Dee Penny's moves suggested an adolescence studying Blondie tapes but I couldn't help wishing that she'd channeled some of Debbie Harry's fire. The band name is a reference to Iggy Pop's Dum Dum Boys but I could never imagine Iggy being so passive. Although I love the sound I yearn to see some feistier females at next year's Primavera.

It was a long wait until HEALTH on the Vice stage at 3am but my final gig of the festival also turned out to be one of the greatest performances. HEALTH sound like no other band. Moving deftly between metal, rock, grunge and electronica it is almost impossible to classify them. With vocals reminiscent of PJ Harvey and moves reminiscent of 80s hair metallers it was triumphant close to the festival.

After HEALTH I stumbled off to the ATP stage where I found myself dancing until sunrise to a dj playing songs from Sonic Youth Kool Thing to Judas Priest Breaking The Law. If only everyday could be like this.

Primavera - Day 2

2010-05-31T06:09:00.000-07:00

We've all heard the story about the fat kid who gets his hand stuck in the sweet jar because he's not willing to let go of any of the sweets. Well on Friday night I was that kid. The line up was epic and there were at least fifteen bands playing that I deemed totally unmissable but inevitably I had to miss some. So even with my handful of sweets I found myself pining after the sweets that were still in the jar.

Even though I saw some amazing things I still can't help thinking of all the bands I missed. The line up clashed horrendously, to the point where I thought the schedulers might have done it to deliberately torture me. At around 11pm Wilco, Les Savy Fav, Japandroids, Wire, Panda Bear were all clashing and overlapping all over the place. In the end I opted for Wire and Panda Bear as Person Pitch and Pink Flag are two of my favourite albums of all time. Wire delivered a pounding performance clad in 12 X U t-shirts but were reticent about playing the old stuff. Shouts of 'Start to Move!' and 'Three Girl Rhumba!' were met with 'We'll play what want' but what they wanted to play did not disappoint. Earlier in the evening I caught them doing an acapella number in the tiny acoustic tent. I lingered around because I wanted to tell them that this performance of Heartbeat is one greatest things I've ever seen on Youtube but then I bottled it and scuttled off to the next gig:

Panda Bear started out densely experimental and with my body full of beer I found him inaccessible. I had waited so long to see Panda Bear live and now here he was, and yet again, I had peaked too soon. With so many other gigs going on I headed off to find Les Savy Fav but by the time I got there it was game over. So I decided to return to the bean bags and regroup in time for Pixies.

A sea of people congregated in front of the San Miguel stage for the Pixies but as the band strode on stage I knew I was headed for disappointment. Yes - they sounded tight. Yes - the songs are amazing but no - they didn't rock my world. Watching them on the big screen (there was no way of getting anywhere near the stage) I could tell that their hearts weren't in it. They barely communicated with one another and there was a definite lack of passion. Black Francis's expression barely changed or registered an ounce of emotion during the entire set. I felt like I could have created a better Pixies experience for myself in my living room with a Doolittle record, a Surfer Rosa record, a bottle of tequila and ten of my closest friends. What's the point of a live performance if it doesn't bring anything new to the plate? Is it just so you can say, been there, done that bought t-shirt?

In the end, the unexpected highlight of Friday turned out to be Scout Niblett. I only own one of her albums and I confess that it never particularly grabbed me but when I stumbled upon her on the ATP stage I was completely blown away by her voice and her stage presence. She's 36 but on stage she looked about 21 and the strange mix of childlike innocence and womanly knowing made for a powerful combination. Laying haunting and ethereal vocals over metal and blues guitar riffs created a sound that was raw, dirty and beautiful all at the same time.

A valuable lesson was learned on Friday. Pace yourself. Stay off the Jager. And don't always pick the headliner. Luckily I implemented my new found knowledge on Saturday but more on that later...

Primavera Sound Festival - Day 1

2010-05-28T04:31:00.000-07:00

It is inadvisable to read a Courtney Love biography on the flight over to a music festival. Tales of this formidable woman's exploits got me psyched up for danger and I could feel my inner Jager beast rising to the surface. It´s been a long time since something lit a fire under my ass and I was hoping Barcelona would be the place. Unfortunately, last night, my visions of bloody crowd surfing and tequila snorting did not materialise. Day one of the Primavera festival proved relatively tame inspite of a promising start.

First gig of the evening was Monotonix who put on a glorious floor show. Crowd surfing, climbing on drums and general acrobatics. Their front man had all the energy of Iggy himself and it was the most exciting thing I saw all night. However, there was a definite trade off between music and showmanship which is a shame because from what I could hear their music sounded bloody good.

Next The Fall. Mark E. Smith strode on stage looking like Del Boy Trotter at gurning contest but as always he delivered the goods. Their new material sounded brilliant. To quote the massively over quoted John Peel quote, 'always different always the same'. The only problem with such a prolific band is that you never get to hear the songs you really want to hear but they gauged the crowd perfectly when they performed their cover of Strychnine. Garage rock and proto-punk is big here in Spain.

My first ever encounter with The Smith Westerns was on the Pitchfork stage. Rudimentary indie from long haired adolscents who had me wanting to shout 'more than words!' owing to their uncanny resemblance to nineties band Xtreme.

Last night also saw my first gig encounter with Broken Social Scene and although friends have assured me of their brillance I somehow managed to miss the boat. Even when Spiral from Pavement join them on stage I failed to feel any stirrings.

The night culminated with Pavement. The atmosphere in the crowd was electric and by the time they played Cut Your Hair the crowd was in a frenzy but by then I had heartburn and was a little too drunk so I had to retreat to the bean bag area halfway through and only caught my favourite Shady Lane on a big screen.

Oh festivals, why do I always peak to soon? I bet Courtney would have never retreated to a bean bag. Still, there's always tonight.......

Let's Have A Party! Wanda Jackson At The Luminaire

2010-04-23T04:35:00.000-07:00

In the late nineties Rick Rubin lifted the long forgotten Johnny Cash out of relative obscurity and thrust him back into the limelight with the American Recordings. Jack White is about to do the same for Wanda Jackson. Jackson will soon be releasing an album of cover versions including contemporary songs and classic rockabilly on White's Third Man Records. Wanda dated Elvis briefly in the fifties and she has been aptly dubbed the Queen of Rockabilly. She was keen to talk about her associations with The King during last night's gig at The Luminaire but in my view there are more parallels between Wanda Jackson and Johnny Cash. What I have always adored about Cash and Jackson is their ability convey their personalities in their music and their ability to inject warmth and humour into their songs. To quote The Man in Black,
“You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut...They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.”

Wanda sings from the gut. In the fifties, an era when woman were expected to be coy and demure, Wanda was feisty, sexy and funny. Last night Jackson had the audience in thrall with her wonderful stage presence, her wit, her unique voice and her boundless energy. At 72 years old she look fabulous in white tassels and diamante. She was ably supported by the beautiful Imelda May and she joked that although her and May were both wearing tassels she has to have her tassels in different places these days.

Although she started off a little raspy with Mean Mean Man her voice soon returned to its fabulously expressive form. She sang hit after hit and engaged with audience all the way through. A spirited tongue and cheek cover of Winehouse's You Know I'm No Good gave a preview of what we can expect of the Jack White collaboration.

She followed it with another of the songs selected for her by White, a cover of Johnny Kidd and The Pirates' Shaking All Over and she sure did shake it all over.

When Imelda May's guitarist husband strapped her into her kitschy feminine pink guitar she quipped, 'He's cute. Watch out Imelda!'
The blushing guitarist was clearly chuffed to have a rockabilly legend flirting with him and Wanda proved that although she maybe advancing in years she still has no trouble charming the gentlemen.
She went on to explain her guitar was specially crafted for ladies with a groove 'in just the right place' she said, pointing cheekily to her bosom.

She invited Imelda May back on stage for Riot in Cell Block Number Nine. A song with controversial lyrics about female inmates eyeing up prison guards.

The set also included Funnel of Love, Rock Your Baby, Hard Headed Woman, Fujiyama Mama and and a rousing, if slightly evangelical, cover of Hank William's I Saw The Light.

The evening culminated with an energetic sing along to Let's Have A Party. After the show Wanda was gracious enough to stay and chat to fans and sign CDs and photographs. I predict that once Mr White has finished having his way with her she'll be far too busy for such things.

Girls

2010-01-25T03:47:00.000-08:00

I'm hooked on the melancholic surf sounds of Girls at the moment. They'll be playing the Scala in London on February 23rd and I suggest that you check them out if you get the chance. This Pitchfork review gives some fascinating insight into the band's origins:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13477-album/

http://www.myspace.com/girls

Highs and Lows

2010-01-17T14:31:00.000-08:00

Jay Reatard (May 1, 1980 – January 13, 2010)

2010-01-13T17:11:00.000-08:00

I saw Jay Reatard play at The Underworld in November. It was a strange gig, madly intense but over in a flash. I decided not to write about it at the time because I couldn’t quite decide what to say about it. The music was amazing but there just wasn’t enough of it. Jay whipped the audience into a frenzy and then wondered off stage abruptly and wordlessly. There was no encore and no explanation. We speculated on what could be wrong. Was he pissed off with the venue? To put it bluntly, The Underworld stinks of shit. Or was he pissed off with touring the UK in general? He opened the show by asking, ‘Have any of you guys ever been to Birmingham? Well don’t go there. It’s a shit hole.’ Looking back, I guess it was the fact that he was just so very weary.

Photo from Camden Underworld gig

The songs he did play were amazing. Oh It’s Such a Shame and My Shadow left us all bruised, concussed and euphoric but you could tell that his heart wasn’t in it.

When I heard, this evening, about his death at the age of 29 it all suddenly began to make sense.
His ‘about me’ box on Facebook reads ‘(Jay Reatard) is sick and tired of being sick and tired of you!’
It’s not a wonder that Jay was sick and tired, he was a wildly prolific artist, who began recording music at the age of 15. His live performances were filled with an unsustainable amount of energy and power. Jay Reatard was the embodiment of garage punk in the noughties and his genius for creating raw, powerful, torment laden music stands with the likes of Iggy Pop and Kurt Cobain. He may not have received the recognition he deserved in his lifetime but his legacy will live on forever. RIP Jay Reatard.

Waiting For Something - a short documentary about Jay Reatard

Jay Reatard | MySpace Music Videos

Cover Versions

2009-12-23T06:41:00.000-08:00

I've recently been Djing at my friend's awesome night Re-Cover (a night dedicated to the art of the cover version). So here's a list of some of my favourite cover versions. Enjoy!

Box Elders @ Barden's Boudoir 04/12/09

2009-12-04T06:23:00.000-08:00

Bardens touts itself as a ‘boudoir’ as if suggesting that it’s some kind of velvet covered, perfume soaked utopia. Of course it is nothing of the kind, it’s actually is a dingy dive with sweat dripping off the walls and a selection of flat beers served in plastic cups. The only nods towards the Louis XIV opulence that the name implies are a couple of leather armchairs at the back. Dave Goldberg, Box Elders’ multi-talented drummer and keyboardist, explains to me that this particular style of armchair upholstery is known as ‘diamond tuck’. I’m mildly impressed with Goldberg’s command of upholstery terms but not nearly as impressed as I am with his ability to play the drums, the keyboard and shake his maracas all at the same time.

Some bands like to express their collective ethos by wearing matching sharp suits and making similar dance moves. The Box Elders are not one of those bands. In fact, the three members of Box Elders don’t look like they should be in a band together at all. Bassist Clayton McIntyre, with his long flowing blonde mane and his tasselled leather waistcoat, tells me that he is the reincarnation of original Metallica bassist Cliff Burton. A little spooky when you discover that he was born on the day Cliff died. Clayton rocks and headbangs his way through the set while brother Jeremiah, on lead guitar looks a little more subdued in a Tom Waits-esque fedora. At the back Goldberg sweats it out with his multi instrument ensemble giving a performance that is so energetic it would be equally at home on the Baltimore electro scene.

Cliff Burton:

It is a pleasure to watch the Box Elders performing their lo-fi, ramshackle brand of noise pop. Although incongruous each member brings their own unique energy to the band. The songs have a tongue and cheek irreverence about them and Jeremiah introduces one song by explaining, ‘This is a sad song about loving someone who can’t love you back. It’s called necrophilia.’
The song Dave samples Jonathan Richman’s Egyptian Reggae and, like Richman, the Box Elders make smile inducing, quirky and uplifting music.

They ended the set with cover of Teenage Kicks by The Undertones which they dedicated to their road manager ‘who hates everything apart from this song'. It was a brilliantly upbeat cover that was bound to raise a smile out of even the most hard to please of roadies.

http://www.myspace.com/boxelders

When The Going Gets Tough - Ten Songs To Save Your Life

2009-11-29T13:49:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween! How The Cramps put the Psycho into Rockabilly

2009-10-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

Formed in 1976 by husband and wife duo Lux Interior and Poison Ivy, The Cramps pioneered a ghoulish new brand of rock 'n' roll known as psychobilly. They took all the best elements of rockabilly, garage and surf music and steeped them in fetishism, Horror, 50's kitsch and B-movie clichés.

They covered rockabilly standards and masterfully subverted them with lashings of leather, blood curdling screams and the eerily distinctive sound of the psychobilly guitar.

With one foot in the past and one foot in the rock 'n' roll apocalypse they resurrected ? Mark & the Mysterians garage classic 96 Tears in the monstrous form of Human Fly...

...and turned Fever, originally made famous by Peggy Lee, into a haunting graveyard anthem.

With song titles like Bikini Girls With Machine Guns and I Was A Teenage Werewolf The Cramps inhabited a lusty, transgressive, go-go dancing world.

Unfortunately, lead singer, Lux Interior passed away in February of this year but I'm sure that if you look hard enough you'll still be able to find his spirit gyrating at a Zombie Dance somewhere this Halloween....

The Felice Brothers with support A.A. Bondy @ Shepherd's Bush Empire 22nd October 2009

2009-10-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

I'm looking at my gig notes from last night. When I say 'notes' I mean a few words scribbled on a Ticketmaster envelope. Across the top of the envelope my Felice Brothers gig companion has written 'Born fifty years too late'. Her argument is that this is rehashed Dylan 'for the kids' and that The Felice Brothers don't speak from the heart but instead draw upon tired old clichés of whiskey soaked men on the run. Now although lead singer, Ian Felice, has a voice more than a little similar to Dylan's and the influences of The Band, Woody Guthrie and Townes Van Zandt are all patently clear, I think there is certainly a place for The Felice Brothers in the here and now.

My friend argues that Ian Felice does not delve into himself in his writing. She explains that he is simply living out tired old outlaw fantasies. He writes lyrics such as,
'my teenage daughter’s knocked up'
and what would a scrawny twenty year old know about such things?

Conversely, what I love about The Felice Brothers is their ability to deliver lyrically rich songs which address themes that are universal and timeless. Yes there are the usual references to poverty, prison and infidelity but when do those themes stop being relevant? As long as life involves struggle there will always be a place for music like this. Frankie's Gun is a deathbed song about a man who has been shot by his friend, Frankie. Clearly, this is a fictional narrative but it's rich with idiom,
'There's ten or twenty dollars and there ain't no lesser, that's for to take my sister to the picture show.'

and some brilliantly evoked detail about the friendship between the two men,

'Frankie, you're a friend of mine, got me off a bender after long-legged Brenda died'

They are five piece outfit with only two actual Felice brothers. Ian Felice is on lead vocals and lead guitar and James Felice is on accordion and keyboard. They are joined by David Turbeville on drums, a man called Christmas on bass and Greg Farley, a slightly over enthusiastic Marky Mark-esque character, on fiddle and washboard. Their performance at The Shepherd's Bush Empire was passionate and energetic. They were joined on stage mid-way through their set by support act (and Ian Felice's best friend), the wonderful A.A. Bondy.

Perhaps the set was a tad long and could have been broken up with a bit more interaction with the crowd and a more spaced out encore but they delivered an astounding array of songs from their vast catalogue. The set included the blush inducing Ballad of Lou the Welterweight which my friend strongly objected to on the basis of its crude content and lack of relation to personal experience but which I love because of the sepia drenched image of a fallen boxer it evokes in my mind,

'Before the bell would ring he had a way like Errol Flynn as he sauntered to the ring'

They ended with a cover of Two Hands by Townes Van Zandt. This choice seemed perhaps a little too earnest but it definitely ended the gig on an uplifting note.

A.A. Bondy's support set was one of the highlights of evening. He wandered on to the stage, with his harmonica and guitar, sleeves rolled like a young Springsteen. In a dreamy state, eyes barely open he began with the gorgeous Mightiest of Guns

The rest of the set was filled with beautiful and fragile songs such as When The Devil's Loose. At times the floating quality of the music transformed The Shepherd's Bush Empire into a ship on choppy waters. He joked about Alabama having no culture and explained that when people asked whether he'd been to The Tate on his London visit he replied,

'We just sit in our hotel room and watch YouTubes'

Like The Felice Brothers, Bondy is often compared to Dylan. It's easy to label artists with the Dylan tag when they sing heartfelt songs accompanied by a guitar and a harmonica but to me Bondy's music is totally unique. He played an intimate gig at The Social on Wednesday which I missed but I'm sure I'll get the opportunity to seem him perform as the headline act soon.

Hop 'n' Roll High School - Nobunny Monday 12th October 2009 @ The Stags Head

2009-10-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

Monday night saw me treading the beer soaked carpets of The Stags Head once more, for a transatlantic rock 'n' roll feast. On the bill were Hygiene, Rock 'n' Roll Adventure Kids, The Okmoniks and last but not least the formidable Nobunny

Forget about Thumper, Peter Rabbit, Bugs and all the other innocuous bunnies of last century. Those halcyon days are over people. Was it was myxomatosis that heralded the birth of a new breed of sinister rabbits? I don't know but Nobunny is certainly no huggable fluffy carrot muncher. Think Joey Ramone crossed with Donnie Darko wearing nothing but a pair of red underpants and you're starting to get the picture.

Taking to the stage in a mangy rabbit mask and the aforementioned red briefs Nobunny delivered a set of good old fashioned punk rock with liberal smatterings of garage and psychobilly. With tremendous hooks, brilliant drums and some sweet-ass riffs Nobunny transformed his audience into a whooping, beer soaked, crowd surfing mess.

There is definitely something about donning a mask that gives a man licence to put on a no holds barred performance and Nobunny certainly let rip. Like the Duracell Bunny gone bad he hopped, skipped and hollered and, at one point, he even placed the microphone down his red pants. The evening climaxed with an encore of I am a Girlfriend spliced with I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend by The Ramones.

Little is known of the elusive Nobunny apart from the fact that he hails from Tuscon, Arizona and cites The Ramones, Hasil Adkins and The Cramps as some of his influences but if last night is anything to go by we'll probably be seeing a lot more of him (literally).

http://www.myspace.com/nobunnylovesyou

Bat For Lashes with support Marques Toliver and Yeasayer - Roundhouse 6th October 2009

2009-10-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to make up my mind about Bat for Lashes for a while now. I feel like I should like her. After all, she is a quirky female artist with a great voice and some badass leotard and sequined cape combos, and yet, her performance last night at The Roundhouse has confirmed that I don't. There is something about her non-threatening brand of wholesome sexuality that I find incredibly irritating. I prefer my female artists with a little more fire in their bellies. I like dangerous women like Karen O, Debbie Harry and Patti Smith. Although there is no denying that Bat for Lashes (aka Natasha Khan) is extremely talented she lacks the unknown quantity that I look for in a female solo artist.

Prancing around the stage barefoot and covered in glitter, she behaves like a sixteen year old girl on the cusp of discovering her sexuality but she is, in fact, a twenty nine year old woman. It's as if she inhabits some kind of twee fantasy world where it's acceptable to use a phrase like 'spewing comets' as a sexual metaphor.

If she achieves stellar success, which I'm sure she will, I could see her riding on stage on life size My Little Pony. Everything about her is cutesy, quirky, girl next door and the songs just melded into one big blur mediocrity.

She's been compared to artists such as Kate Bush and PJ Harvey and the influences are clear but with sentimental lyrics like 'heaven is a feeling I get in your arms' and 'I found a home in your eyes' I get the impression that she's never been haunted by the hounds of love or ever had to throw her bad fortune off the top of a tall building. Everything is just too sweet and one dimensional and as much as I'd like to join her in her glitter dipped paradise, I'm afraid I live in the real world.

Monkey Gone To Glasgow (Pixies SECC Glasgow October 4th 2009)

2009-10-06T06:40:00.000-07:00

I remember the first time I heard Debaser, Kim Deal's rumbling bassline combined with Frank Black's screaming vocals just made me want to explode. It was almost as if the feelings this song evoked in me were just too much to contain. I'm the kind person who gets obsessed with a song, listens to it ad nauseam and then goes off it but I have never tired of Debaser and it still the one song that is always guaranteed to get me on the dance floor. In spite of my undying love for the Pixies, Sunday's gig at the SECC was the first time I'd ever seen them live. The first time around my eleven year old self was too busy listening to the Shoop Shoop Song. When they reformed my adult self felt sceptical about paying to see a band (with a well documented history of not being able to stand each other) blatantly milking the cash cow. However, when they announced a tour in honour of Doolittle's twentieth birthday I decided it would be down right rude not to go along and celebrate this fantastic album's conception.

Sunday's show opened with footage from the film that inspired the song Debaser, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali's Un Chien Andalou. I could hear mumbles of 'what the hell is this?' from the crowd but I think it was more a case of fascination than disgust. The dark and surreal visuals put the music into context and set the scene brilliantly. I knew that they would be playing Doolittle in its entirety so I expected them to go straight in to Debaser but instead they started with a Doolittle related b-side Dancing The Manta Ray. This was a great way to inject an element of surprise into the performance as playing an album in order definitely lacks the anticipation department.

After a few more b-sides Weird At My School, Bailey's Walk, Manta Ray they finally launched into Doolittle. The set went by in a flash because I was effectively just listening to an album that I already know inside out. The performance was slick but as is often the case at big arena gigs, I could hardly see the band and found myself watching the visuals on the screen instead of watching the barely visible band. I had a sinking feeling that I could have saved myself thirty quid and listened to the album at home. There were a few quips from Kim but Frank didn't speak to the crowd once and they just plowed through the album with little variation from the original recording.

Although, I was feeling content about having finally seen the Pixies live I was definitely not as elated as I hoped I would be. I found myself desperate to hear songs from Surfa Rosa and Come on Pilgrim so I was a tad disappointed when they returned for an encore of Wave Of Mutilation (UK Surf) and Into The White. I mean, Wave of Mutilation is a great song but how many versions of it do you need in one set?

What I didn't anticipate was the second encore. This was where my beloved Pixies really delivered the goods. I expected them to take the cash and run so when the strode back on stage the most I was hoping for was Where is my Mind? Instead they played, The Holiday Song, Nimrod's Son, Caribou, Broken Face, Something Against You, Vamos, Isla De Encanta and finally, Where Is My Mind? The second encore completely blew me away and hearing my unexpected favourites Caribou and Broken Face live finally soothed my cynical soul. After twenty years Frank can still scream like tormented male banshee and Kim Deal is still the coolest woman ever to hold a bass guitar.

Some folks like water, some folks like wine, I like the sound of The Incredible Staggers and The Vinyl Stitches

2009-09-30T16:23:00.000-07:00

Tucked away somewhere off Kingsland Road is a pub called The Stag's Head. It's an authentic East End boozer smattered with the usual trappings of hipsterfication including an eighties jukebox, taxidermy stags and a threadbare barf design carpet. There's also a very small stage which last night played host to The Incredible Staggers and The Vinyl Stitches.

It was the Vinyl Stitches who lured me to the gig because I have a penchant for all things retrospective and I love their authentic sixties style. The lead singer, John-Claws, is a young Pete Townshend who has perfected the scream of Gerry Roslie from The Sonics. On bass there's Vinn-Sinister who has taken an Addams Family slant on The Monkees and on drums, the awesome Sam Bam, a lady drummer with a blonde beehive and enough eyeliner to put Dusty to shame.

One thing The Vinyl Stitches have succeeded in doing is perfecting the art of emulation. They've copied the masters and they've done a brilliant job of it but it would be great to hear them evolve their own sound. Throughout their set I kept getting the niggling feeling that I’d heard their songs somewhere before even though they were playing their own material. They started with a surf number which was a perfect homage to Link Wray. Later, the lead singer sang the line 'you're the best girl I've ever had' and it bugged the hell out of me until I realised it was a line lifted straight out of Psychotic Reaction. There were riffs lifted from Brand New Cadillac, Jean Genie and All Day and All of The Night to name but a few. It's hard to sound unique when you're also trying to recreate a sound that's been around for over forty years but I think that The Vinyl Stitches could be the toast of the garage scene if they managed to put their own stamp on garage rock sound that they're so good at recreating. They look great and they sure can play their instruments but they need to inject a healthy dose of originality in order to take their band to the next level. Having said that they put on a rocking show and are well worth the price of a gig ticket.

It is possible to stay true to the garage sound while putting your own stamp on things, as was deftly demonstrated by headline act The Staggers. The Staggers started their show playing from behind a worn out velvet curtain and from the minute they started playing it was obvious that the tiny stage The Stag's Head was not going to big enough to contain them. The curtains opened to reveal a small Austrian frontman with thick black rimmed glasses who strode confidently into the crowd shaking his tush like Lux Interior's schnitzel eating cousin. Initially I thought the Austrian thing was just a brilliant gimmick but I soon realised that they were the real deal. They played a blistering garage and surf set complete with dancing from a voluptuous Canadian go-go girl. The evening culminated in a brilliant cover of Screaming Lord Sutch's Jack The Ripper and some amp climbing and more tush shaking from frontman Wild Evel.

Check out The Vinyl Stitches here:

http://www.myspace.com/thevinylstitches

Check out The Incredible Staggers here:

http://www.myspace.com/staggers

Check out the original Jack The Ripper here:

And The Sonics who inspired The Vinyl Stitches here:

Good Golly Mr Bolly! - King Khan and The Shrines at Cargo

2009-09-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

King Khan and The Shrines is what would happen if you stuck Captain Beefheart, James Brown and Little Richard in blender with a shaman, a seventies Bollywood heartthrob and a splash of the Brian Jonestown Massacre. King Khan strides on stage wearing a cream flared suit, a native American headdress and a shark tooth necklace. Judging by his rip-roaring performance he has also summoned the voodoo gods of funk, soul, garage, punk and kitsch.

King Khan is blessed with boundless energy and the rare ability to whip a crowd into a frenzy. The music is a heady mixture of all the best stuff with a splash of Khan's own personal panache. He's backed by the mighty Shrines, an 11-piece band including a blinding horns section, a drummer who has played with Curtis Mayfield, Ike and Tina and Stevie Wonder and a French maverick on the organ who has been known to climb on top of his instrument and teeter precariously above the crowd.

The set list includes a 'psychedelic erotic gospel' song about swimming inside a vagina, a rousing homage to transsexuals entitled I Want to be a Girl and as an encore, a belting cover of Suicide's Ghostrider.

Last night King Khan and the Shrines made Cargo shake with sheer magnitude of their performance. It's a unique and unmissiable show (albeit one not recommended for those easily offended or people of a nervous disposition). All hail King Khan and the Shrines!

You're The Only Ten I See - Slightly more than ten songs mentioning Tennessee

2009-09-29T05:15:00.000-07:00

Raw Power

2009-09-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

The Stooges have announced that they will be performing Raw Power at The Hammersmith Apollo in May. I don't need an excuse to wax lyrical about the album but this does seem like the perfect opportunity. Virtually ignored on its release in 1973, Raw Power's perfect encapsulation of anger, disillusion and self-destruction went on to become the template for a generation of punk albums to come.

Never has an album been more aptly titled than Raw Power. Iggy's searing vocals combined with James Williamson's lead guitar, Ron Asheton's distorted bass riffs and Scott Asheton's drums make for one of the most explosive albums of all time. Raw Power begins with the track Search and Destroy and from the very first line 'I'm a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm' Iggy and the boys begin to drop aural bombs.

The second track on the album is Gimme Danger and true to their word, The Stooges deliver danger by the bucket load. Themes of sexual involvement are laced with self-destruction in Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell, Penetration and I Need Somebody where Iggy explains, 'I'm losing a lot of my feelings and I'm running out of friends'

In Shake Appeal Iggy hollers 'baby with your fists so tight...realize you gotta fight' and in the eponymous Raw Power he delivers the line 'Everybody's always tryin' to tell me what to do... Don't you try to tell me what to do' which is a simple defiant precursor to all punk.

Exploring themes of passion and violence, this is the kind of music that strikes terror into the heart of repressed middle class suburbanites. This is Iggy, at the height of his heroin addiction, sublimating his volatile state in order to create a powerful, exciting and provocative new sound.

Like all things avant-garde it took the rest of the world a while to catch on and that's why thirty-six years on this album still sounds so original. I for one can't wait to see them at The Hammersith Apollo in May.

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/59937

Iggy in his own words:

Eagerly Awaiting the New Yeasayer Album

2009-09-18T07:29:00.000-07:00

I remember a time when all I wanted to listen to was thrashy guitars and shouty vocals. Harmonies were for wimps and The Beach Boys were for Mini Babybel adverts but somewhere along the line something changed. Maybe I mellowed, maybe I got bored, maybe I jumped on the bandwagon but suddenly I found myself rediscovering my love for a good vocal performance.

There is an array of top notch harmonizers out there at the moment; Fleet Foxes, Panda Bear and Dirty Projectors to name but a few, but the band that's really getting my knickers in a twist at the moment is Yeasayer. Yeasayer audaciously describe their music as 'Middle Eastern-psych-snap-gospel'. Surprisingly this ostentatious labelling pretty much hits the mark. Mixing synths, cymbals and tribal drums with flawless vocal arrangements Yeasayer's music is some of the most uplifting and life affirming music that I've heard in a very long time. The first album All Hour Cymbals was released over a year ago and the new album is due out within the next few months. They recently contributed the epic 'Tightrope' to the Dark Was the Night compilation. If the rest of their new material is up to this standard then the new album is bound to be a mindblower.

Check out Tightrope here:

Sunrise:

And listen to their Daytrotter Studio session here:
http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/dt/yeasayer-concert/20030157-110837.html

William Elliott Whitmore

2009-09-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of seeing William Elliott Whitmore perform twice this week. Once at The End of the Road festival and once at The Relentless Garage in London. Both times he blew the audience away with his remarkable voice, his stripped down blues guitar and banjo and his Iowa farm boy charm. Like Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and Mississippi John Hurt before him, Whitmore makes the best kind of blues. The powerful, simple and heartfelt kind. It's rare and exciting to find this brand of authentic folk blues music being made today.

Whitmore, who began his career supporting hardcore punk bands, is a contemporary blues voice for our times. He has the demeanour of a man who thinks and feels deeply and he obviously has the gift of being able to distil these feelings into his music. With his tattooed arms and his anti-establishment lyrics he creates a bridge between traditional blues folk and modern punk and alternative music culture.

For those of you who missed it check out his Daytrotter Studio recording here: http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/arr/william-elliott-whitmore/110354.html

and his mighty Jools Holland appearance here:

Addicted to Heavy Basslines

2009-09-03T15:53:00.000-07:00