UB40

oc o O s a r o o o oo

Factory flooring it: Dwyer and co achieve takeoff in lockdown

OSEES

LevitationSessionsII,Los Angeles, April 10

John Dwyer’s psych outlaws stage a raucous showdown in an abandoned factory

THElateafernoonsun streamsthroughthe windowsoftheold industrialbuildingin LosAngeleswhereJohn Dwyer’sOSeeshave setupfortheirlatest livestream.Dwyerhasselectedaseries ofstrikinglocationsfortheseshows:a frontiertowninthesouthernCalifornian desertoroutsidetheHenryMillerLibrary inBigSur.Onthisoccasionhe’smoved indoors,andthecavernousbrickwalls andconcretefoorofthefactoryadda thundering,industrialsheentoaset crammedwithspringyOseesrockers like“TidalWave”,“Snickersnee”and “PoisonedStones”.Songslikethese havepouredrelentlesslyoutofDwyer’s singularimaginationformorethana decade,andthissetfndshimreaching deepintohispastforamixtureofrippers, deepcutsandcovers.

Dwyer’slockdowngoatee,asglimpsed intheirpreviousLevitationSession,is nowteamedwithafullermoustache, resplendentquifandausterespecs. Evidently, the factory isn’t too warm and Dwyer is wearing trousers rather than his trademark shorts, which is a bit like seeing Angus Young in jeans – but that just gives more reason to raise the temperature with a sweatily riotous performance. With keyboard player Tomas Dolas at the back, the rest of OSees stand in a solid line like an army about to assault enemy lines. There will be no holding back. 2009 single “Tidal Wave” makes for a thrilling opener, emphasising the surfy elements that can occasionally be detected beneath the unique OSees sound. The cameras swoop around with an energy that almost matches that of the band, and there’s an additional 360 camera that places the viewer right between twin drummers Dan Rincon and Paul Quattrone, from where you can scan

SETLIST

1 Tidal Wave 2 Grown In A

Graveyard 3 The Dream 4 Stinking Cloud 5 Enemy Destruct 6 Poisoned Stones 7 Spider Cider 8 It Killed Mom 9 Meat Step Lively 10 Snickersnee 11 Destroyed

Fortress

Reappears 12 Web 13 Encrypted

Bounce 14 Beat Quest

ENCORE

15 Chromosome

Damage 16 ST33 17 Looking For

Your Door 18 SS Cygni what’s happening in every direction.

Dwyer ofers outstanding work on guitar – his supercharged solo on “The Dream” is an early highlight – and employs a rangeofvocalstylesfromtheneo-croon of2011’s“StinkingCloud”tounintelligible hardcoreraging.Notthatlyricsarereally thepointofOSees–thisisn’tabandyou singalongtoasmuchasabsorbthevibe andrevelintheadrenalin.Dwyerhas stayedbusyduringlockdown,releasinga fewjazz-progexperimentalalbumsunder variousmonikers,andwhilerockers dominatetonight,OSeesaren’taverseto long-formnoodling.“DestroyedFortress Reappears”and“EncryptedBounce”both visitstrangeplaces,withDwyerrotating throughanarrayofefectspedalsforthe latter,whileRinconandQuattronepound abeatthatbuildslikeaboilingkettle.

Bynow,nighthasfallenandthefactory islitbyfoodlights.OSeessignofwithan unexpectedencoreoffoursongsbySan Franciscopost-punksChrome,whose penchantforsci-f,psychanddistortion alignsthemneatlywithDwyer’sown tastes.Asfunkyoddball“SSCygni”draws toaclose,thebandstrikeupachunky glam-rockrhythmandthecameraman takesusoutsideintotheLAevening, whereanunexpectedrainfallhelpswash awaythevirtualsweat.It’sbeenthemost intense90minutesinaderelictLAfactory sinceReservoirDogs. PETER WATTS

Watch OSees’ session at levitationaustin.com until April 18; or there’s a limited-edition 2LP of the show with proceeds going to five LA charities

REVIEWED THIS MONTH

MY ROCK’N’ROLL FRIEND

TRACEY THORN

CANONGATE, £17

8/10

LAST CHANCE TEXACO

RICKIE LEE JONES

BLACK CAT, £20

8/10 GO-BETWEENS drummer Lindy Morrison clattered into Tracey Thorn’s dressing room in March 1983, when the future Everything But The Girl star was preparing to support Orange Juice at London’s Lyceum with her frst band, the Marine Girls. Eleven years Thorn’s senior, and a good deal more forthright, Morrison introduced herself with a bellow: “HAS ANYONE HERE GOT A LIPSTICK I CAN BORROW?”

It was the beginning of an unlikely friendship, which Thorn has documented in all its messy details in My Rock’n’Roll Friend. A hippie radical turned punk hellion, Morrison spotted the potential in The Go-Betweens’ bookish twin songwriters, Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, when she saw an early incarnation of the band. The way Thorn tells it, Morrison proceeded to literally drum them into shape, helping to ground their wistful songs and, as Forster’s partner, inspire much of the material that graced their six 1980s albums. “Robert and Grant were cool, and she brought heat,” Thorn writes. “They were cerebral and she brought physicality.”

“Two wimps and a witch” – as Morrison dubbed them – The Go-Betweens were rarely a happy band. McLennan loathed Morrison, possibly stemming from an incident soon afer they met when she dropped a book he had loaned her into the bath. The drummer bridled at always having to be the adult in the room during the band’s career, as well as the drudge at the London hovel she shared with Forster and fellow Australians The Birthday Party. The brilliance of Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express and 16 Lovers Lane was widely acknowledged, but the only time interviewers showed any interest in Morrison was to ask what it was like being a girl in a band. As Thorn puts it, “I’m surprised she didn’t spend the whole of the ’80s punching people.”

Thorn is dismissive of the reformed version of the band that ran until McLennan’s death in 2006, and of Forster’s attempt to write the band’s history as a beautiful bromance in his 2016 memoir Grant And I. “They are a classic trio whatever anyone might say later”, she writes pointedly. It gets ugly at times – Morrison recalls that she knew Forster was falling out of love with her when she looked up during an intimate moment to fnd that he was “watching the tennis on TV” – but Thorn writes with real drive, illuminating the story of a woman who continues to live, in the words of The Apartments’ Peter Walsh, “EXCLUSIVELY IN CAPSLOCK”.

AS she photographed Rickie Lee Jones for the cover of the August 1979 issue of Rolling Stone, Annie Leibovitz paid the “Chuck E’s In Love” sensation what she thought was a colossal compliment, saying: “You are the sexiest person I have ever photographed, next to Mick Jagger.” On the high of her life at 24, Jones felt a little nonplussed: “I remember thinking, I am way sexier than Jagger.”

In her action-packed memoir Last Chance Texaco, Jones portrays herself as a teenage hippie renegade who was drawn to what she calls “the jazz side of life”. She just about survived on her wits in Los Angeles, before convincing Little Feat’s Lowell George, Dr John and – most famously – her on-of boyfriend Tom Waits of her songwriting genius. Despite being an increasingly committedheroinuser, Jones became a sudden, global success with her self-titled debut LP, and hit an artistic peak with 1981’s lovelorn Pirates.

Afer the messy upbringing and the misadventures in the counterculture that led her to follow her muse down whatever dark side roads it took her, Jones admits that she never took stardom that seriously, writing wistfully of her peak years: “I lived like I just didn’t care. I guess I thought the money would never end.” She straightened up in due course, but hers is a thrillingly crooked tale.

SENT to make their frst studio recordings by amoral hustler Kim Fowley, The Mamas & The Papas were convinced by a more established mogul, Lou Adler, that they would do better under his aegis. A friend was lef to phone Fowley and tell him that the future folk-rock superstars simply hadn’t turned up for their session. “Where are they?” Fowley asked. “Maybe somebody else grabbed them.”

Such skulduggery abounded in the gold rush years of the LA music industry, as Joel Selvin’s entertaining history Hollywood Eden shows. With the big labels still based in New York, a bevy of small-timers – many of them former schoolmates – scratched around for hits in what was a tiny California scene, before the homegrown successes of Jan & Dean, Sandy Nelson and The Beach Boys lured the big labels, and accompanying sharp practices, westward. The beach, the freeways and the “Surf City” dream of “two girls for every boy” cametodefneUSpopofthe1960s and beyond;Selvindelightsingivingthe era’s heroesandvillainsaliketheirplace in the sun. JIM WIRTH

“She brought heat”: Lindy Morrison and (right) Tracey Thorn, Hampstead Heath, 1987

Indie black comedy, Creation’s hectic track record, female music pioneers, Greek drama and literary legends

BLACK BEAR If you’re a fan of Parks And Recreation, or saw her feature outing Ingrid Goes West, you’ll know Aubrey Plaza as one of the best things in contemporary American comedy – and the owner of the most unnerving eyes in the business, whether they’re suggesting murderous intent or withering snarkiness. Now Lawrence Michael Levine’s indie feature Black Bear takes Plaza way out of her usual comic terrain. She plays Allison, a woman planning to work on a script, who arrives at the lakeside retreat run by couple Gabe (Christopher Abbott) and Blair (Sarah Gadon), a musician and a dancer who have seemingly given up on the city and their careers. From the outset, an air of sexual tension and possibly danger hovers over the trio, and before long, suspicions and accusations have kindled a confrontational bonfre of the egos…

Which is when a second chapter takes a drastic lef turn. Then, what had previously been a controlled, sombre drama – albeit with hothouse tendencies – turns into a self-refexive nightmare farce resembling a mash-up of Robert Altman, John Cassavetes and currently ascendant psychodrama queen Josephine Decker (Shirley). Afer the promising build-up, it feels all the more painfully self-indulgent, but Gadon and Plaza are both terrifcally watchable and, yes, that stare acquires a whole creepy new dimension.

CREATION STORIES Nick Moran’s adaptation of Alan McGee’s autobiography isn’t so much memoir as aide-mémoire – all the way through, it’s a case of, “Hey, remember when this crazy thing happened? Remember when acid house exploded? Remember the story about how I accidentally discovered Oasis?” For anyone invested in the mythology of Creation’s glories, disasters and skin-of-the-teeth scrapes, the flm will resound as a boisterous rerun of a generation’s communal experience.

BLACK BEAR

Directedby Lawrence MichaelLevine Starring AubreyPlaza, Christopher Abbott Streamingfrom April23 CertTobe confirmed 6/10

Just like funny: Ewen Bremner as Alan McGee in Creation Stories

CREATION STORIES

Directedby NickMoran StarringEwen Bremner,Suki Waterhouse Streamingfrom March29 Cert18 5/10

For anyone else – who might chance upon it on Sky Movies, where it’s streaming – Creation Stories may feel a little hermetic, especially with its prevalence of label insider fgures like Ed Ball and Joe Foster. The movie is pitched as the full-tilt memory rush of a chancer who lucked out despite repeatedly staring calamity in the face – and still can’t believe that it all happened. A breathless Ewen Bremner plays McGee, his history emerging amid bursts of archive footage (’70s Scotland to the sound of “Tiger Feet”), vintage TV (the Sex Pistols on Bill Grundy), old NME covers and McGee’s encounters with his signings (Oasis, scufing for a bottom-of-the-bill slot in Glasgow, a sullen Jesus And Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine locking him out of the studio).

Moran made a creditable job of the Joe Meek story in Telstar, but here opts for a cheap and cheerful variant on 24 Hour Party People’s picaresque romp, to sometimes awkward efect. The flm is something of a class-of-Trainspotting reunion (Bremner, exec producer Danny Boyle and co-writer Irvine Welsh, producing a hectic “Then this happened” script) that, perhaps

REVIEWEDTHISMONTH

SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS

Directedby LizaRovner Streamingfrom April23 CertTobe confirmed 8/10 intentionally, doesn’t shake of ’90s nostalgia. It’s not without spark, though: the most bracing musical moment features the Television Personalities, while McGee’s brush with New Labour is handled with a nice queasiness. The best performance comes from Richard Jobson, muscling up to the role of Alan’s disapproving father. McGee’s spiritual gurus are here too, with an unearthly manifestation from Steven Berkof as Aleister Crowley, while Moran himself contributes a ripe cameo as a far more sulphurous fgure: Malcolm McLaren, who else?

SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS The title says it all – although some of these sonic sisters also used fddly lengths of tape and, in the case of Pauline Oliveros, an accordion. Lisa Rovner’s doc Sisters With Transistors is a history of the women who led the revolution in electronic music, from the approachable (Suzanne Ciani, who conquered the world of American TV advertising) to the more radically challenging like Éliane Radigue, who called her works “sound propositions” rather than label them music per se.

Rovner organises her account into chapters,

APPLES

Directedby ChristosNikou StarringAris Servetalis, Sofia Georgovassili Streamingfrom May7 CertTobe confirmed 7/10 TRUMAN & TENNESSEE: AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION

Directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland Streaming from April 30 Cert To be confirmed 7/10