Spinnerette Brody Bares All
F*ck Buttons Swear Bears
Atlas Sound Bigmouth Strikes Again
£3.50 November 2009 www.iheartau.com
Har Mar Superstar Renaissance Man
BIFFY CLYRO
Iss
60
Talkin’ ‘Bout A Revolution
& Yo La Tengo / Girls / Nick Cave / The Twilight Sad / Maps / Dawn Landes / Monty Python / Hard Working Class Heroes / Pocket Billiards / Lloyd Cole / The Polyamorous Affair
—1 AU Magazine—
my inspiration The Boxer Rebellion
Oh you wouldn’t want an angel watching over surprise surprise they wouldn’t wanna watch another uninnocent elegant fall into the unmagnificent lives of adults The National
Mistaken For Strangers (taken from the album Boxer)
UNION by The Boxer Rebellion Out now at hmv stores and hmv.com
Photography by Tessa Angus
—2 issue 60—
MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS. Words and Music by Matthew Berninger, Aaron Dessner and Bryce Dessner © 2007 VAL JESTER MUSIC (ASCAP), ABD 13 MUSIC (ASCAP) and HAWK RIDGE SONGS (ASCAP). All Administered by BUG MUSIC. All Rights Reserved Used by Permission
Iss
AU Magazine —Feature Contents
60
—38 Spinnerette “As soon as things start feeling safe and familiar then you know your band has turned to shit.”
—42 Fuck Buttons “When I was a child it was the most comfortable time, having all this stuff around you so you could just choose what you wanted to play with, whenever you wanted to. I think that’s what we do.”
—44 Biffy Clyro “We’ve always had an outrageously good fucking show in Belfast.”
—50 Atlas Sound “I ever see him, I’ll fucking rip out his pelvis. Through his ass.”
—52 Har Mar Superstar “There are so many girls that you meet on tour who have boyfriends and you don’t want to cross any lines, or at least I don’t want to, not if it’s gonna get you punched in the face”
Upfront —11 Dawn Landes
—3 AU Magazine—
Editorial It seems the milestones are coming round quicker and quicker these days. Apparently time moves more quickly as you age, but it really doesn’t feel like a full year since we were celebrating reaching our halfcentury. Now we’re on our sixtieth issue and we’re still hurtling along at breakneck speed. If this were a marriage, this anniversary would be our diamond one. And to be fair, diamond is an apt description of the current state of the magazine. Each issue we’re still pulling in the best big names, the hottest new talent and the rising stars of Irish music. Where else would you get Biffy Clyro rubbing shoulders with The Polyamorous Affair, Fuck Buttons and The Continuous Battle Of Order? That’s why we still do what we do after all these issues. There is a great pleasure in being able to place our best homegrown talent and our favourite underground names alongside the biggest acts in the business, issue after issue. We think the unsung and the new deserve as much attention as the established, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.
Stupid Things Evan Dando Said This Month - usually this space is reserved for stupid things our staff and friends have said, but during a AU TV session, Evan supplied enough to fill this whole space. Mentalist.
AU IN ASSOCIATION WITH OH YEAH PRESENTS
THE HALLᏫWEEN BALL
Featuring:
SUPER EXTRA BᏫNUS PARTY
Plus YES CADETS & DJ JONNY TIERNAN
Saturday Ꮻctober 31 The Oh Yeah Centre Gordon Street, Belfast Doors: 9pm – late (full bar and late licence) Tickets: £8 advance (from Oh Yeah or AU) or £10 on the door
Does this go out all over New Zealand? Oooh, that’s a fancy mic. I’m writing a children’s book based on acronyms of the word pesto. Some of my best friends are racists. It’s OK, I can do this. I’m a professional, right? Do you know any doctors? Or opera singers? I thought I felt something pop in her neck, but it was just my thumb. Our manager wouldn’t let us have the John McEnroe album. She was Chairman Mao’s doctor’s granddaughter. I was on a flight to Sweden when I found a pair of her underwear in my pocket.
—Issue 60 Contributors Publisher / Editor In Chief
Jonny Tiernan
Editor
Francis Jones
Sub Editor
Chris Jones
Contributing Editor Ross Thompson Senior Contributor
Edwin McFee
Contributors
John Calvert, Neill Dougan, Mickey Ferry, John Freeman, Lee Gorman, James Gracey, Lisa Hughes, Aaron Kennedy, Adam Kula, Ailbhe Malone, Nay McArdle, Gerard McCann, Kirstie McCrum, Paul McIver, Tom McShane, Kenny Murdock, Joe Nawaz, Steven Rainey, Jeremy Shields.
Design/Illustration
Stuart Bell, Luke Carson, Tim Farrell, Neil Gillespie, Elissa Parente, Mark Reihill
Photo Editor
Richard W Crothers
Photography
Alan Maguire Matthew Alexander Patton
Kim Barclay Promotions And Marketing Assistant
—4 issue 60—
AU Magazine —Contents (continued)
6 7 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 18 20 22 24
The AU Stereo – Hard Working Class Heroes The Polyamorous Affair Dawn Landes / Kid Harpoon The Twilight Sad / Dot Allison The Continuous Battle Of Order Maps / We Must Hide In The Studio: Strait Laces Five To One: Celebrity Animals / Aliens Incoming: Pocket Billiards / Girls Breaking Through: Brother Ali / Junior 85 / Wounds MAY 68 / Washed Out / Mount Kimbie Hey You! What’s On Your iPod? On The Road With The Answer
25 26 30 34 36
Flashback: The Debut Of Monty Python’s Flying Circus History Lessons: Yo La Tengo A To Z: Sidekicks Respect Your Shelf: Nick Cave Classic Album: Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
55 Album Reviews 62 Unsigned Universe 63 Live Reviews
Sc
71 74 75 76 77 78 80 81
Most Wanted Screen Games Books Comics Back Of The Net In Pictures: Laura Marling / The Cribs The Last Word – Editors
To advertise in AU Magazine contact the sales team Tel: 028 9032 4888 or via email jonny@iheartau.com The opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the editor or the publisher. Copyright remains with the author / photographer / designer. Send demos / mail / material to: AU Magazine, 56 Bradbury Place, Belfast, BT7 1RU For more info contact: info@iheartau.com For all general and editorial enquiries call: 028 9032 4455 AU Magazine graciously acknowledges funding support from the Arts Council Of Northern Ireland
—50 Atlas Sound —5 AU Magazine—
Upfront
The AU Stereo
The AU Stereo
Annie
The Sounds Rockin’ The Office Airwaves This Month...
Marie Cherie
(Totally/Smalltown Supersound) What is it about those Scandinavians and their aptitude for sheer pop genius? Some evolutionary quirk, some genetic predisposition? Whatever it is, Annie has certainly inherited the trait. As her 2004 debut album Anniemal confirmed, the Norwegian popstress excels in crafting hyper-addictive melodies and synthetic hooks galore, whilst still showing more heart than a presentation at a cardiologists’ convention. Belated second long-player Don’t Stop features plenty of delicious morsels, but the hazy electro-pop of ‘Marie Cherie’ proves the pick of the platter. FJ
Kings Of Convenience Rule My World (Astralwerks)
Mild-mannered harbingers of the short-lived ‘quiet is the new loud’ movement, Kings of Convenience return to the mellow fray with Declaration of Dependence, their first album since 2004. Eirik Glambek Bøe and Erlend Øye have spent much of the intervening years working independently on projects both personal and professional, the former concentrating on family, the latter developing indie-electronica project, The Whitest Boy Alive. The new album title reiterates their mutual respect and reliance upon one another. Here, the pair carry us along on a wave of gentle guitar ripple, the voices whispering in sweet unison. It is music to soothe the soul. FJ
MASSIVE ATTACK SPLITTING THE ATOM (VIRGIN) Trip-hop trailblazers and electronic music icons, Massive Attack return this month with the Splitting The Atom EP, their first new material in some three years. Time has clearly not diminished their ability to foster a suffocating ambience, with the title track brimming with all the menace and volatility of an unpinned hand grenade. Featuring appearances from Damon Albarn, Guy Garvey, Tunde Adebimpe and Hope Sandoval, the fulllength album will follow in early 2010. Consider our appetites well and truly whetted. FJ BIFFY CLYRO BUBBLES (14TH FLOOR) Oh yes – the boys are back and in rude health. ‘Bubbles’ is just one Biffy classic-in-the-making plucked from their new album Only Revolutions. A deadpan Simon Neil muses his way through five minutes of contemplative menace, fuelled by Josh Homme’s iridescent guitar, which brings the track to a jolting, cathartic finale. We’re especially
—6 issue 60—
intrigued by the line, “You are creating all the bubbles in life.” Ahead of album number five, all is looking good on Planet Clyro. JF RAMS’ POCKET RADIO DOGS RUN IN PACKS (WHITE) So, let me tell you about this one. It’s the latest initiative of one Peter McCauley, formerly the drummer with the late and much lamented Ego. Here, McCauley strides out from behind the drumkit and positions himself centre-stage to awing effect. The vaunting piano-led melodies on the My Friend, Peter EP evoke the glory days of Ben Folds, or a less baroque Dresden Dolls – rhythms seethe, the voice is flooded with emotion and the lyrics bite harder than a pool full of piranhas. As assured as any first outing this year. FJ THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART HIGHER THAN THE STARS (FORTUNA POP) Not content with producing one of the year’s finest albums, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart have now released an EP containing four brand
The Bloody Beetroots Romborama
(Dim Mak/Cooperative) Top DJ duo Bobby Rifa and Tommy Tea, aka The Bloody Beetroots have taken their time in committing their electro lunacy to record. The wilfully lurid album art only begins to hint at the deranged delights contained within their first long player. Romborama’s schizoid assault on the senses commences with the filthy barrage of the title cut, added venom provided by the guesting All Leather. From here we’re cast adrift on a 20-track odyssey that takes in everything from punk to techno, Italo disco to classical. Seatbelts on, it’s gonna be one hell of a ride. FJ
spanking new tunes. ‘Higher Than The Stars’ is the title track – a dreamy, psychedelic keyboard-led delight with Kip Berman’s breathless whispers drifting skywards. Untethered from their usual fuzz, ‘Higher Than The Stars’ is more Screamadelica than shoegaze and provides a glimpse into infinite possibilities. Not even the sky is the limit. JF THE JAPANESE POPSTARS FACE MELTER (LIVE) (GUNG-HO!) The behemoths of Northern Irish dance have taken the visceral, senses-flooding thrills of their legendary live shows and distilled them onto disc for new album, We Just Are: Live. We’re particularly taken with the no-holds-barred ‘Face Melter’, the Japstars surging fluidly from one beats-capped peak to another. So powerful is this serotonin booster, it could probably be prescribed by the NHS as a cure for lethargy. FJ SILVER COLUMNS BROW BEATEN (JOE GODDARD REMIX) (WHITE) The unknown holds great allure. Silver Columns
know this, hence why the duo have deliberately cultivated a sense of mystique, hiding their identities from prying eyes. That they sound like Bronski Beat produced by DFA head honcho James Murphy is intrigue enough for us. Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard gives the anonymous electro-poppers a glorious makeover on this remix of their debut single. Caught in an explosion of beats, the synth begins to stagger like a gutter drunken as the singer croons in sweetest falsetto. FJ EDITORS PAPILLON (COLUMBIA) You think you know Editors? Think again. The former purveyors of gloomiest indie-rock have metamorphosed into practitioners of sleek electropop, albeit with a dollop of doom on the side. Still, this taster for In This Light And On This Evening is damn impressive, and the rest of the album isn’t too shabby either, mixing the dark bombast of Depeche Mode with Associates glacial melancholy. FJ
Upfront
Lead News
JAPE
Different Class The Rise And Rise Of Dublin’s Hard Working Class Heroes Festival “If you want to be a hero, well, just follow me,” sang John Lennon after leaving The Beatles in 1970. True to form, his words struck a chord, and more than 30 years on lent their name to Hard Working Class Heroes. What began as the mission of a man who saw that new musicians were the unsung heroes of the arts in Ireland has grown into the ultimate new music festival with its sights set on the world at large.
Words and Photos by Nay McArdle
Running across several city centre venues over three days from October 16-18 this year, HWCH has made a name for itself as a staple of the live music calendar since its inception in 2003. After a summer of touring bands outdoors, the cheaper and more cheerful autumn weekender presents the chance to unwind on a homely vibe, not least because there isn’t a tent in sight. Instead, all the performances take place at night on familiar stages, presenting music in its natural environment: the gig. Informal and friendly, equal parts showcase and celebration, the event fulfills several requirements under one single awning; music for people, opportunities for artists, talent for the industry, fuel to keep the cultural flame alight. Every musician with a demo is welcome to apply and so the full diversity of the music community behind it has given Hard Working Class Heroes its genuine edge. Thousands have entered and, to date, over 700 have performed across its stages. Billings are blended in order to present a new sound or artist playing alongside trusted favourites, building confidence for both fan and musician. By way of a €40 weekend wristband or single-night ticket at €18.50, music enthusiasts can tailor their own list from a wide choice of bands and venues within walking distance of each other. Like a net trailing behind the musical ship, HWCH not only catches those who made waves throughout the year but also brings to the surface some unusual specimens that may have otherwise gone undiscovered. Past performers Fighting With Wire, Jape, Duke Special, Fionn Regan and Iain Archer all played the festival as relative unknowns and went on to wide-ranging success, a fact the organisers are proud of. To them, success is an important result. The festival itself is their reward to the doers and triers who book their own gigs, do their own promo, get heads up and bodies shaking at shows. For one weekend a year, bands can leave their phones off the hook and the van at home, slip free of the pressure to succeed and just concentrate on what they love best: the music. Interestingly, Hard Working Class Heroes has returned to a purely Irish line-up after previous years were punctuated with international curations from far-flung
places such as Canada and Scandinavia. Closer to home, in 2008 Sons & Daughters hand-picked nine exciting new bands including Frightened Rabbit and DeSalvo to represent the Scottish Invasion, but without a doubt, the most memorable guest was Peaches who bawled ‘Fuck The Pain Away’ while straddling a giant inflated penis during her 2006 closing slot in Meeting House Square. In 2007, Fight Like Apes almost incited a riot when Crawdaddy packed to the rafters in minutes and last year, the Nintendo-mental Vinny Club leapt into the crowd to play along to his tracks on a modified Guitar Hero controller when he was chosen to finish off the festivities in Dublin’s famous after-party joint Eamonn Doran’s. Having hardly stopped since, this October sees Vinny return with his band Adebisi Shank, one of the many debut HWCH appearances this year that include A Plastic Rose, Not Squares, Only Fumes & Corpses and Hunter-Gatherer. Returns are also due from Villagers, Dark Room Notes, The Brothers Movement, Ham Sandwich and Super Extra Bonus Party. This format of new and old artists showcases development and progression as each year passes and means the organisers re-establish their support, introducing more bands to a wider audience in a relaxed setting. Gavin Elsted is looking forward to a third consecutive appearance with his band Super Extra Bonus Party and knows the event is seen as crucial by bands and industry scouts alike. “We are at the stage now where HWCH is a springboard for meeting booking agents and management. You really do have to make yourself visible because Dublin is such a microscene it’s unreal. This is hopefully the year when we pummel the gig into submission! We really have something to prove... we can but try!” Such ambition is inspired across the board as autumn approaches each year. One of the more diverse bands on 2009’s line-up, SEBP are themselves a barometer of Hard Working Class Heroes’ evolution. While it began as a rock festival, the line-up now caters to as many new sounds as possible, having extended a welcome to the fringe artists of electronica, disco, folk, punk and thrash.
—7 AU Magazine—
Lead News
Upfront
As the music exceeded its boundaries, so did the festival itself; from its roots in just live music, it’s grown into an official music summit featuring music photography exhibitions, specialist advice seminars and mentoring sessions from music industry experts.
FIO N
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“For those few nights a year, the visitors and by-standers in the streets get a real earful of what we sound like now”
AU Recommends The Top Five Gigs At HWCH09
There have also been more subtle changes; this year, bands entered the selection process by building their own profiles on www.breakingtunes.com, resulting in a record number of over a thousand entrants. 2007 saw the experimental decision to contain the entire event in the six-roomed POD complex instead of usual separate city venues and while the general reaction was positive in terms of accessibility, there was a sense of something lacking: the vibe itself. Flaunting the bands across the different pubs and clubs of Dublin bestows a magic badge of pride on all in the vicinity and for those few nights a year, the visitors and bystanders in the streets get a real earful of what we sound like now. Traditionally, the reverbs of Thin Lizzy, U2, Rory Gallagher and Van Morrison brought droves of new feet across the city’s cobbles. Certainly inspirational figures in Irish rock history, these icons were beyond the reach of the new generation and fresh examples were needed. It was Brian Carroll, a Dublin musician, who saw the need for a hands-on approach in 2003. A member of indie outfit The Marshals at the time, he realised that the intense energy and solidarity of the new music scene was an untapped reservoir deserving proper exposure and so set about booking 40 new bands to play over two nights. The reaction was immensely positive and when Brian landed a new job shortly afterwards, he found the ideal partners willing to help. The company was First Music Contact, an information resource charged with the task of nurturing emerging Irish talent. Hard Working Class Heroes is seen as a springboard for new and existing acts to up their game and over the last few years, many bands have had the chance to break out of the home circuit
Talulah Does The Hula Fresh from recent stints in Belfast and Dublin, including support to The Cribs, Talulah Does The Hula play the Twisted Pepper on Friday October 16. With four out of five members bearing the XX chromosome, all eyes will fall on the ex-Chalets and Neosupervital women, who as their prerogatives suggest, change their mind and instruments all too regularly. Their songs are upfront, hip-swinging and sexy, empowered pop. They’re a bright entreaty built on strong female harmonies and held together by one widely-envied drummer.
thanks to successful HWCH performances. Angela Dorgan, CEO of First Music Contact explains. “We have played host to the director of A&R Worldwide, the guys and girls from South by Southwest, Canadian Music Week, CMJ, The Great Escape, Glastonbury and many more international festivals and organisations. One year, the founder of eMusic arrived on Friday worth over $80m and left worth not even a million after the stock market crashed during the weekend! “Every year, applications exceed the 700 mark, showing a lot of new and existing acts pushing to be involved. When Brian first came to FMC with Hard Working Class Heroes, we jumped at the chance. What we now had between us was a great idea and the tools needed to develop it into a stronger, nationalised event. “Seven years on, the elements FMC have added (industry panels, mentor sessions, the photographers’ exhibition and international invasions) have all proved phenomenally successful. But one of the most important things about the event is that along the way bands from all parts of Ireland have connected with each other through the festival – swapping numbers, exchanging ideas and introducing each other to new audiences. They are planning tours together and in the end everyone, including audiences and the industry in general, is winning.” HARD WORKING CLASS HEROES 2009 RUNS FROM 16-18TH OCTOBER IN VARIOUS DUBLIN VENUES WITH MORE DETAILS STILL TO BE CONFIRMED. TICKETS START AT €40 FOR A WEEKEND PASS OR 18.50 PER SINGLE NIGHT (INC. BOOKING FEE) FROM WWW.TICKETS.IE. WWW.HWCH.NET
together some incredibly strong musical talents under one roof. The impressive first half boasts the ambient, immersive sounds of C!ties, Holy Roman Army and what we can only hope will be a stunning show by Valerie Francis, while the night continues shortly afterwards with The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock’s haunting posttraditional dirges, culminating in a long-awaited live performance of Hunter-Gatherer’s ardent electronica.
TH
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Villagers Newly signed to Domino Records, Villagers headline Andrew’s Lane Theatre on the Friday night, a welcome return for Conor J. O’Brien, fine guitarist and bard of gentle story-songs that lace the atmosphere with a compelling sincerity. Since releasing his Hollow Kind EP earlier this year, the ex-member of The Immediate has found enraptured audiences at sold-out gigs all over the country. This festival slot followed by his first single ‘On a Sunlit Stage’, due for release in October, threw light on a callow singer-songwriting talent to be proud of. —8 issue 60—
ES
Adebisi Shank TA L U
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ES T HE H U LA
On The Record Instead of an International Invasion, this year at Hard Working Class Heroes sees Choice Prize founder and Irish Times blogger Jim Carroll curate a special Saturday night in the Twisted Pepper. Known as a journalist of unpredictable taste, his eclectic choice of billing brings
Akin to going straight in the album charts at #1, the Richter Collective dynamos make their Hard Working Class Heroes debut as a headline act on Saturday October 17. In just a year since their first LP This Is The Album Of A Band Called Adebisi Shank, they’ve toured Japan and were recently hand-picked as the Irish support to Faith No More, one of the most iconic bands in the world. Those present in ALT will realise Ireland’s best-kept secret is this trio who crank out springy, stinging mathrock songs at 90mph. May justice be swift.
Lead News Super Extra Bonus Party Third year lucky for the Kildare noiseniks, as Super Extra Bonus Party return with a brand-new album Night Horses for a headline slot in ALT on the Sunday night. Since their first appearance in 2007, the highlyeclectic, fun-loving group found themselves the unofficial Hard Working Class Heroes of the alternative Irish music scene. They won the Choice Prize for Best Album of the Year, remixed it to high heaven with every exciting young DJ in the country, roused both rockers and ravers and generally made more friends than a golden labrador puppy in a silk bow carrying a basket of heart-shaped chocolates through an old folks’ home. They’ve earned the praise and criticism in just about every public forum, have a vision to put their band on the map and represent the everchanging, always-cheerful nature of independent music in Ireland today.
SU P
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ADEBISI SHANK
—9 AU Magazine—
News
Upfront
All You Need Is Love The Polyamorous Affair Get Frisky
Eddie Chacon has led a much storied life and career. He was in a metal band with Metallica’s Cliff Burton and Faith No More’s Mike Borden, he later worked on 2 Live Crew’s infamous cut ‘Me So Horny’ and, most famously, performed as one half of new-soul duo Charles and Eddie, scoring a massive worldwide hit with ‘Would I Lie To You?’. In later years he would lend his writing and production talents to an incongruous mix of acts that included The Dust Brothers, Eternal and S Club 7. In the midst of all that, Chacon also dedicated seven years to studying acting and dabbled with Scientology. Suffice to say, Eddie has most definitely been around. The latest chapter in his ongoing adventures is the discoglam extravaganza of The Polyamorous Affair; the twopiece populated by Eddie and his wife, the sultry Sissy Saint-Marie. In case you were wondering, yes, they are practicing polyamorists. As Eddie admits, sharing his career and life with Sissy has both its positives and negatives. “It’s a benefit for the band, but I think it’s not entirely the best thing for a marriage. It all comes out of an excitement for us, though. We’re compulsive about it and so it’s non-stop.” Recently the pair released their second album, Bolshevik Disco. Both the album title and the song ‘Face Control’ were inspired by a real life incident, as Eddie relates from his LA home. “This friend of mine had gone to Moscow on vacation with his girlfriend and they told me this story about going to this nightclub where you had to pass this thing called ‘face control’. Basically, if you weren’t beautiful enough then you’d be passed through the front door and then through a second door that left you straight back outside again, in the snow. We just thought that this was insanely ridiculous.”
By comparison, The Polyamorous Affair open their arms to all and sundry, bidding us enter their “dark, disco, fairytale, fantasy world”. As Eddie is keen to assert, “We’re very anti-exclusivity. It’s one of the things that drives us insane, we’re the opposite of that. We just want to get the music out there and connect with people.” Alas, they’ve yet to play Ireland, but reports suggest the band’s live shows are quite the spectacle, a mindbending blend of sound and vision. As Eddie confirms, their performances are true multimedia affairs. He namechecks Warhol and talks of the way John Lennon and Yoko Ono sought to bring art and music together. For The Polyamorous Affair, film and the visual arts are as important a source of creative stimulation as music. “Sissy is an art-school grad and I’ve learned so much from her. Live, we have a visual artist, Mr Cocoon, and then our DJ, DeJa François. When we first met them they were having this great success with an underground speakeasy and they were already throwing these insane parties every Friday night. We got inspired then. It was super-important that people walked out of our shows exhausted and freaky.”
Hello My Name Is
With its lustrous melodies and propulsive beats, the new album seems custom built to fulfil the band’s desire to “get people up and off their asses, getting them to go crazy and have an amazing time.” A true music anorak, Eddie’s many musical infatuations are apparent in Bolshevik Disco’s Technicolor traversing of style and genre. “Initially, our sound was coming out of a love for Roxy Music, T-Rex and Mott The Hoople. However, we were pretty influenced by Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder as well.” Right now, Eddie is relishing his role in The Polyamorous Affair, but he professes not to know, or particularly care, what the future holds. “It’s important to be a little bit lost and not know exactly what you’re doing. If you know exactly what you’re doing then you just become a persona, whereas in the other instance you’re like a kid playing in the sandbox. I prefer to keep it light-hearted and fun.” Francis Jones BOLSHEVIK DISCO IS OUT NOW ON MANIMAL VINYL WWW.THEPOLYAMOROUSAFFAIR.COM
Heartwork
Hello My Name Is... Blind Melon Back when Shannon Hoon was growing up in Lafayette, Indiana, ‘blind melon’ was a term used to describe the unemployed, hippies, or those considered unlikely to succeed, or accomplish much in life. The term was much favoured by Hoon’s father, Richard, who applied it to the neighbourhood stoners. Moving to LA in an attempt to make it in the music industry, Shannon recalled the term when he was looking for a name for his new band.
Heartwork In Praise Of Random LP Art
Scorpions - Lovedrive —10 issue 60—
This deranged slice of artwork is actually a product of the legendary British design studio Hipgnosis, who are responsible for millions of iconic album covers. However, the fact that they’ve created recognisable and lauded works doesn’t excuse or explain this sleeve. What is the message that they are trying convey? Perhaps the woman is a call girl, and the man is her client for the night, and his weird fetish is that he likes to chew loads of gum, then ball it up and attach it to a woman’s breast. He also requests that she look completely disinterested, as if she is almost unaware of what is going on. Or perhaps it’s a commentary on the proliferation of plastic surgery women undergo to improve their figure, and how if you’re not careful they can just come right off on your hands. Whatever the idea behind it, it’s just plain weird.
Upfront
Do You Remember What The Music Meant?
With: Kid Harpoon What is your earliest musical memory? Probably singing at my junior school, in assembly. I did it a couple of times singing ‘Wild Thing’, and a Tom Petty song about smoking weed. I had no idea what I was singing about, so I’d love to have seen it. A 10-year-old boy in front of his school and teachers singing “let’s get to the point, let’s roll another joint.” Would have been funny to watch.
Photo by Alex Solmss
One For The Rodeo
Dawn Landes Goes Back To Her Roots On the back of a wooningly good new album, Sweet Heart Rodeo, AU shoots the breeze with our favourite Kentuckian, Dawn Landes. Although she now resides in Brooklyn, it seems you can take the girl out of the Midwest but it only takes an outbreak of genealogy for her roots to provide the inspiration for new songs. “The first track I wrote [for the album] was ‘Sweetheart Of The Rodeo’ which is a true story about my grandmother,” Dawns tell us in a break during the soundcheck for that evening’s show at Manchester’s compact Club Academy. “In the past year or two my mom has gotten really into family history – she went on this search for my missing great-grandfather, as he changed his name and kinda left the family. As the song says, my grandmother was four years old and my greatgrandfather cracked open her piggy bank, took all his daughter’s money, and left and joined the rodeo. “So, I started to get obsessed with rodeos myself; I went to a couple and just loved it. Imagine a bullfight but more humane, and more fabulous. It’s dangerous and it’s manly, but it’s glamorous – the cowboys in their costumes almost look feminine, like bullfighters.” But Dawn doesn’t stop there – there’s a deep meaning too. “There’s the whole thinking about a rodeo as a metaphor for a relationship – getting thrown off one and trying another one, and then getting thrown off that.”
Later that evening, Dawn’s graceful set demonstrates her versatility and easy charm. The new tracks expand Landes’ musical vision; ‘Young Girl’ is a muddy rock song, while the delightful ‘Clown’ is stripped down pop aided by a handclap and a smile. But at the heart of Sweet Heart Rodeo are simple, traditional songs, crafted from a love of Appalachian folk and gothic country. Now based in New York, how does a country girl exist in the big, bad city? “Well, I live in Brooklyn and play music in Brooklyn, but I also feel really at home in the Midwest. Something happens to me when I’m in an airport there – this weird chemical reaction – and I respond to it, in a way that I don’t respond to the city. It’s a mental thing – mind versus heart.” Dawn recently married fellow alt. country star Josh Ritter and AU asks if absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder? “Yeah, we’re both on the road a lot. He’s starting a tour up, so we’re gonna meet up somewhere along the way.” So why not make an album with him, and then you could tour together? “We’ve talked about it, actually. Inevitably we end up at parties playing songs together. I’m sure it will happen – it would be so easy.” And would there be any marital arguments if she tried to write with her husband? “For sure, but tension yields the best songs,” laughs Dawn in a sweet but ever-so ‘let-that-be-awarning-to-you-Josh’ sort of way. And for those who can’t get enough of Landes, she’s only gone and formed a new group. “I’ve started a girl band called The Bandana Splits. We’ve recorded an EP – it’s just me and two of my friends. We had fun singing together and its like Sixties pop. We have to decide if we’re gonna release it, but it’s on MySpace!” John Freeman THE ALBUM SWEET HEART RODEO IS OUT NOW ON COOKING VINYL WWW.DAWNLANDES.COM WWW.MYSPACE.COM/THEBANDANASPLITS
Shorts Belfast band Cutaways are about to jet off to Toronto, where they will take part in the Indie Week festival. It’s a hugely exciting coup for the band and for Irish music in the wider context. “We were really pleased to be chosen for this,” says co-vocalist Paul McIver. “It’s a great opportunity to make new friends and spread our wings a bit. Many of our favourite bands are Canadian, so it’ll be great to play over there and see what the venues and audiences are like. We’ll have a lot
of fun doing it, I’m sure.” Fair play to Cutaways, who were plucked from a plethora of bands who featured in showcases in Dublin, Galway and Cork, where they busted out sparky material from their debut proper, Earth And Earthly Things. They jet off to the City of Glass early this month. Indie Week runs from October 7th to 10th. Rambling troubadours The Lost Brothers’ take a trip to Auntie Annie’s in Belfast on October 21st.
The cryptic duo’s dark tinged folk has seen them attract luminaries such as producer Mike Coykendall (M.Ward, Bright Eyes, She and Him), Justin Townes Earle, Lee Mavers and Jolie Holland to either plaudit or play with the Brothers. This Auntie Annie’s gig comes as part of a 22 date Autumn tour which takes in gigs across the length and breadth of the UK, including a personal invitation to support Richard Hawley in the
Olympia in Dublin and an extended support residency with The Swell Season on their UK tour. AU office faves and Electric Picnic star turns, The xx have been confirmed for a December 2009 Irish tour. The excellent London quartet will appear at the Speakeasy, Belfast on the 15th, Roisin Dubh, Galway on the 16th, the Pavilion, Cork on the 17th and The Button Factory, Dublin on the 19th.
Who was the first band you saw live? Well, my Dad took me to see a lot of blues gigs, but the first gig I really remember being significant was Portishead. We saw them in a small hall somewhere in Dublin, just after Dummy had been released. There was about 30 people there and it was really amazing. I’d never seen anything like it and the guitarist was doing some really interesting things to get his sounds. It was a real eye opener. Who was the last band or artist that you became obsessed about? Probably Tom Petty – I have been obsessed with him for ages, and was listening to him a lot when we made my album. I think his records are beautifully crafted and everything is worked so that it supports the song. For anyone looking to get into him, I’d start with Damn The Torpedoes, which is my favourite. Wildflowers, produced by Rick Rubin, is also brilliant. More recently, I’ve been a bit obsessed with the Miike Snow album. Again, the songs are great. What would be your desert island album? That’s such a hard question. Astral Weeks, maybe? Tom Petty’s Greatest Hits? Would I be able to take my own album? I had such a good time making it, it reminds me of all of the process. If not, I’d probably say Astral Weeks. I saw Van Morrison play it live, and even he couldn’t recapture it, it’s such a moment in time. I’d say it’s quite unique in that respect. What record would you use to seduce someone? Guns N’ Roses – Appetite For Destruction. If you can seduce someone with that album, then you’re in for a great time. It says something about a person. If you start playing Bridget Jones soundtracks, then you’re a goner. My fiancee loves Queens Of The Stone Age. What one song best captures your character? Wow! What a question. I really don’t know where to start. I’m somewhere between Leonard Cohen and Fatman Scoop. Like everyone, I go from being intense and downbeat to life of the party. I think Jamie T – ‘Sheila’ has got a bit of everything, so maybe that. Who is your all-time favourite artist? Probably Jimi Hendrix. He was a massive influence on me as a kid and I still love him. I don’t listen to him anywhere near as much as I used to, but he’s still so exciting to watch and hear. What piece of music moves you to tears? Leonard Cohen – ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’. It’s such a sad song, and one he sings so well. It’s about a friend stealing your girlfriend. I don’t think it was written about anyone in particular, but the lyrics have so much depth and so many intricacies. It really is a masterclass in storytelling, but first you have to get past how sad the song is. KID HARPOON’S DEBUT ALBUM ONCE IS OUT NOW ON XL RECORDINGS WWW.KIDHARPOON.NET
—11 AU Magazine—
Upfront
News
Dawn Breaks On Twilight
“Our brake lights on our trailer aren’t working. We’ve had trouble since we got here with our equipment, bass amps and... nothing seems to be working for us at the moment,” a strong Scottish accent sighs heavily. “We’re all pretty jetlagged as well, which isn’t helping.” As we collar frontman James Graham 100 miles from Boise, Idaho, The Twilight Sad are in conquering form a few days into their sixth visit to America. No, really. It’s just the logistics of life on the road that seem to be a problem. “We’re at a truck stop with a lot of big, scary-looking guys. I’m hiding at the back.”
The Twilight Sad Release "More Intense" Second Album
After triumphantly conquering Salt Lake City, Utah the night before, James is in buoyant mood, despite technical difficulties which are hampering even their viewing pleasures. “I just bought a Denzel Washington double feature to keep me busy for the van because the TV’s not working, so we’re just going to have to watch DVDs from now on.” Stuck on a bus in the middle of nowhere, then – it’s a clumsy metaphor for any band, and an entirely erroneous one for the four-piece from Kilsyth, Lanarkshire. On the eve of the release of their second album, Forget The Night Ahead, the music and attitude on display have taken a leap forward from 2007’s debut, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters. “I think that the main thing that we didn’t want to do was to clean anything up and polish it up and make a nicesounding album – we wanted to make it that bit more intense and to challenge ourselves and challenge the person that was listening to us. Maybe that will put some people off that were into the nice warm sounds that were on the first record, but that’s just not who we were. We wanted to write a sort of dark, noisy, different record to the first one. It’s a lot rougher round the edges, but it’s maybe even more melodic than the first one, it’s just we’ve all moved on and written better songs.” If you haven’t heard the album yet, James says it’s best summed up as “striking that balance, getting the power of the noise but trying to let the songs break through too.” The Twilight Sad aren’t resting on their laurels, mind. “We’ve
already started working on our new record – I think we’re going to try some new things and maybe surprise a few people.” James says that they also plan to release a 12” single of a song that didn’t make it onto Forget The Night Ahead. “It was a song that was strong enough to be on the record,” he says, “but it just didn’t fit. We just want to get it out there and it’s too good for a B-side, so we think we’re going to get some other friends to remix the song as well for us.” Staring down the barrel of two more years of life on the road and its attendant mechanical failings, James is pretty upbeat. “We’re just going to play as much as we can, in front of as many people as we can – doing the best that we can in this mad music business that we’ve got ourselves involved in.” There you have it. The Twilight Mad. Kirstie McCrum FORGET THE NIGHT AHEAD IS OUT NOW ON FAT CAT RECORDS. WWW.THETWILIGHTSAD.CO.UK
Allison has little need to strive for love, garnering all sorts of acclaim from both critics and contemporaries. Indeed, she seems to be one of the most eminently well-connected musicians we’ve spoken to. However, she’s keen to dispel any notion that she has made capital out of her acquaintances. “People always seem to mention those famous friends, but really I’ve met all those people through music. Pete Doherty and Paul Weller both approached me. I haven’t really played the music industry game, be it in marketing, or how I’m presented, especially with how women are presented in the industry, cavorting about in a bikini, or whatever. I’ve never done any of that. More by accident than by design, I’ve ended up doing my own thing. And I’ve had a degree of longevity to my career.”
Song Of The Siren
Dot Allison Delivers Collaborator Packed New Album Throughout her career, celestial chanteuse Dot Allison has snared a vast array of admirers. Past conquests include Massive Attack and Kevin Shields, whilst her new album, Room 7 ½ features collaborations from Paul Weller and Pete Doherty. Listening to the record you can understand why so many were so smitten. Produced by Rob Ellis, Allison’s luscious vocal is showcased to marrow-piercing effect across a series of deeply emotive tracks. Speaking to —12 issue 60—
AU shortly after the release of the album, Dot is keen to stress the important role played by Ellis. “He was co-creator of the sound on the likes of ‘Horses In My Dreams’, my favourite Polly [Jean] Harvey track. And he plays piano on it. I just thought that I’d love to be involved with someone who’s part of that world and Rob also put me in touch with Mick Harvey [who features on the album alongside the likes of Terry Edwards and fellow Bad Seed, James Johnston]. Rob managed to make my suggestions reality; be it if I said I wanted a song to sound a particular way, or that I wanted to work with certain people. He pulled the whole thing together.” Another element pulling the whole album together is Allison’s belief in the all-encompassing power of love. Call it naïve, but, in these cynical times, her worldview is quaintly charming. “For me, the common denominator in everything is love,” she says, unequivocally. “I feel like it’s at the root of everything, and life is about that desire for attachment, that need for love and how we strive for it.”
The durable songstress has travelled far in her musical life, from the early Nineties when she was one-third of dance act One Dove, onto a solo career that has seen her appear onstage in Scott Walker’s Drifting & Tilting – “That was very challenging, singing avant-garde classical music in front of an orchestra” – to having her voice and music feature in an international Levi’s ad campaign and in films including Forgetting Sarah Marshall and 40 Year Old Virgin. It’s been a diverse career and Dot talks excitedly of potential new chapters. Whatever she turns her talent to, she promises to bring no end of passion. “I think that the common thread that runs through all my work is a sense of heartbreak. If somebody likes heartbreak and emotion in their music then, hopefully, my music can touch them.” Francis Jones ROOM 7 ½ IS AVAILABLE NOW ON ARTHOUSED WWW.DOTALLISON.COM
News
Photo by Alex Donald
Jazz Rock, Don't Stop The Continuous Battle Of Order Prepare To Release Debut Album, Second Record Already Underway
you hear on the record is exactly what happened in that room, on that day.” “Breaking sticks sucks,” says Kearney. “But it happens for a good reason. Because I play a lot of grace notes, I need to counteract with a fat backbeat. You can do this by playing rim shots, which involve striking the stick’s body on the snare’s rim as well as on the head of the drum. The continuous metal-on-wood action takes its toll. But it’s an acceptable loss, for the sound.”
Less than a year after their first performance, Belfast’s busiest polyrhythmic duo The Continuous Battle of Order are preparing to release their debut album on December 1. The band, consisting of drummer Craig Kearney and guitarist Hornby, recorded the eighttrack CD in Belfast with engineer Dave McCullough. Mastered in New Jersey by James Plotkin (who has worked with heavyweight acts like Sunn 0))), Isis and Pelican), the album is released by Dublin label The Richter Collective.
Formed in January 2009, The Continuous Battle of Order sprang up after the dissolution of tap-happy Belfast trio We Are Knives, described by Kerrang! as “simply stunning”. Irreplaceable bass player Steve Anderson chose to take a break from music, leaving Kearney and Hornby at a crossroads. Responding positively and creatively, both have played with the Belfast Guitar Dectet, while Kearney has performed with Japanese noisemaker Damo Suzuki. Hornby plays western swing with Tom McShane in the quartet Swell Time. Under the name Selaah, he has recorded an album of solo improv, with a Selaah/Slomatics split CD planned for release. Laptop trio Misaligned Men of Automaton offers a break from the guitar. However, Continuous Battle remains the main concern.
In typically cerebral style, the album’s title presently exists only in Morse code. .--. .- - - . .-. -. / ... . . -.- . .-. ... captures Continuous Battle’s thrilling live set which includes samples, riffs galore, a hi-hat solo and climactic drum duels. Guitar strings snap and drumsticks break. Performing in the boxing ring of the Belfast Docker’s Club, headliners LaFaro dedicated their own set to the pair.
“I haven’t been happy with any of my previously recorded output,” he says, “but I am utterly thrilled by the upcoming album. I think we’ve made a record we can hold up for the rest of our days. That said, in 2010 we want to play as much as possible. Push ourselves to every extreme and create music to frighten and inspire. Album number two is already underway.” Kiran Acharya
“It’s hard at the best of times to capture the ‘live performance’ on record,” says Hornby. “But we set up in the studio just as we do live, facing each other with my pedal board touching the front of the kick drum. The parts without a defined structure or length used all the vocal and visual cues which anybody that’s seen us play would recognise. I was reminded of the process for my favourite jazz albums, specifically those of John Coltrane. What
.--. .- - - . .-. -. / ... . . -.- . .-. ... IS OUT ON RICHTER COLLECTIVE ON DECEMBER 1. THE CONTINUOUS BATTLE OF ORDER PLAY A SPECIAL RELEASE SHOW AT THE BLACK BOX, BELFAST, IN DECEMBER. WWW.MYSPACE.COM/ CONTINUOUSBATTLE
ARTITUde
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Tattooed Art
ART TATTOED
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO A MONTH-LONG EXHIBITION OF RENOWNED ARTISTS, DESIGNERS AND ILLUSTRATORS COMMISSIONED ARTWORK THAT WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE FOR EXCLUSIVE TATTOOING BY BELFAST CITY SKINWORKS
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
launch night
featuring live music and entertainment: saturday november 7, 8pm, The black box, belfast
—13 AU Magazine—
We Must Hide
Upfront
Love Hertz
Electro-Gaze Progenitor Maps Dabbles In Dance
We Must Hide... Kanye West (Again)!
Maps, aka James Chapman, takes a knee with AU to discuss the making of his follow-up to 2007’s Mercury Prize-nominated We Can Create, a major statement in the recent shoegaze micro-revival. Speaking from his family home in Northampton, Chapman is happy to discuss the new direction he has taken on Turning The Mind. “Many of the tracks have the classic four-to-the-floor beat, which I never really considered before. I’ve been listening to a lot of techno and there’s definitely a clubbier feel to the album; it’s all about stimulated minds. For our live show we’ve revamped the old material to fit in with the new stuff, which was great fun to do at Offset [Festival] there.” Mothballing swooning guitar wash in favour of an array of house tics, Chapman joined forces with Death In Vegas’s Tim Holmes, a decision that he claims was something of a no-brainer. “He’s always turned up on the sleeve notes for all my favourite albums,” says Chapman. “With Death In Vegas, I became even more intrigued. We hit it off immediately. I actually considered Tim for We Can Create and in fact he told me that he left a message on my MySpace site at the time, asking me to work with him, which I never responded to, which is probably true. He’s easily the best person I’ve ever worked with.” As a result, the tunes came in a torrent. Considerably longer than We Can Create, the sequel nears the one-hour mark. “Yeah, I mean Daniel [Miller, founder of Mute records] came down to the studio and told us he’d passed a law at Mute that no one could release albums that were longer than 10 tracks. We ended with 12 so we scuppered his plans immediately. But he’s still pleased.” As well as a wily stab at igniting British dancefloors, the —14 issue 60—
nocturnal, more severe sound is reflective of a change in subject matter. “The album is about mental states. The title is taken from a cognitive therapy regime called ‘mindfulness’, where you condition your mind to turn automatically to the positive, so you can accept reality. It was a cathartic album to make, like a journey. It was also a more personal album. I got a lot of stuff out that I’d been going through.” When asked if he wants to elaborate, Chapman is markedly candid. “I don’t mind talking about it, you know. I’ve been on anti-depressants since I was 19. I’m 30 now. I’ve kind of had a few ups and downs with my own mental health, really. I’m on a shitload of medication, but I’m hoping to get off it, slowly.” On ‘Nothing’, it was time to face facts. “I had quite a drink problem for a while and, well, I’ve never had much luck with woman,” he chuckles, “so when I was drinking I would blame them, but really I was to blame. A girl did really, really hurt me recently though, I did some venting on that.” Closing track ‘Without You’ has Chapman putting his past to rights, ending on a note of hope. “It sounds like a break-up song but it’s actually about leaving the drugs and booze behind.” He recites the opening lyrics pensively – “It’s taken all my life / To learn so much about you / If all I know is right / I’ll go on without you.” But, much as he is with his music, Chapman is forever mindful of the chance for a brighter future. “I don’t remember much of my twenties, but to be honest I want to remember my thirties.” John Calvert TURNING THE MIND IS OUT NOW ON MUTE WWW.MAPSMUSIC.COM
Meek. Withdrawn. Polite. Not adjectives you would immediately associate with sky-touching, auto-tuning, stage-crashing bad boy Kanye West. Even after you had a few moments to think about it, you still wouldn’t call him a shrinking violet. In fact, if you placed Kanye in a room with a can of peaches, he’d still find cause to make a prize tool of himself. After roughly 30 seconds, he would mount the table, claim he invented peaches and loudly exclaim, “They ain’t be going in no chap ass can, yo!” Shortly after his recent appearance at the MTV Video Awards, at which he achieved the impossible by making you feel sorry for Taylor Swift, Sissy Sourbake turned up at the World Compass Society’s annual convention. During the gala dinner, he stormed the podium, grabbed the mike and shouted that the cardinal points should be renamed North, South, East and Kanye West in his honour. “It’s my magnetic personality, homes!” he shouted, before being dragged out the back of the building for a nice chat with Mr Truncheon and Mrs Taser. He’s so annoying even the unflappable Barack Obama dissed him. We tried to hide Kanye earlier this year, but feel that it’s our civic duty to give it another shot. It’s unlikely you’ll spot him, however, as the eyes of mere mortals are not worthy to gaze upon his perfection. Send your contact details along with a description of where, and on what page, you spotted Kanye to info@iheartau.com The winner will be chosen at random from all correct entries received.
TOP TEN SONGS FOR KANYE WEST 1. THE BEACH BOYS HANG ON TO YOUR EGO 2. BECK JACKASS 3. THE WHITE STRIPES I’M FINDING IT HARDER TO BE A GENTLEMAN 4. WEEZER I AM THE GREATEST MAN WHO EVER LIVED 5. CHRIS BELL I AM THE COSMOS 6. MASTA KILLA GRAB THE MIC 7. BIG STAR MAKE A SCENE 8. RADIOHEAD NOTHING TOUCHES ME 9. CLEM SNIDE MESSIAH COMPLEX BLUES 10. THE WHITE STRIPES I JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF
Upfront
In The Studio - Strait Laces
In The Studio Strait Laces WHAT: TBC, possible EP TITLE: TBC ENGINEER: Joe Fields STUDIO: Roundhouse Studios, London. TRACK TITLES: ‘ Away To Escape’, ‘Kissing In The Reichstag’, ‘Where The Wolf Roam’, ‘Your Fearful Admirer’. RELEASE DATE: Early 2010 LABEL: Bruised Fruit Records
At the start of September, fast-rising indie-rockers Strait Laces took their trusty Citröen Picasso off to England and played a couple of gigs in London. However, that was just the cherry on top – the main reason for the trip was that they had won a free day’s recording at Roundhouse Studios in Camden, courtesy of EMI Records and presided over by an engineer who has worked with Paul McCartney, Cat Stevens and Placebo. On their return, David and Jonny from the band called into the AU office to tell us about their fruitful day. Words by Chris Jones
How did the session come about?
How was your time in London overall?
Jonny Creelman (bass): Our manager, Jen [McCullough] from Bruised Fruit Promotions, entered us in a competition online and kind of forgot about it. One day Dave got a call from her and she explained that we’d won this competition for a day’s recording in Roundhouse Studios in Camden. It was a big surprise – doubly surprising because we didn’t even know we were in the competition!
Jonny: We saw Amy Winehouse! She just walked past, I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a lookalike. But the studio, it was such a good experience. The sound was amazing. It was so good. I can’t believe the quality we got from a live recording. I said to the engineer, ‘Would there be any advantage in us doing single tracks, because I can’t imagine it sounding better than this?’. It was above and beyond what I expected the day to be – getting five tracks done at that sort of quality, I was well chuffed.
David Hanna (vocals, guitar): Demos were sent in and they picked 30 bands, so each band got a day in the studio. Had you been planning to go into the studio before this opportunity came up? David: From the start of July, we said that we’d take six weeks off to write and record demos and not play gigs – just to practise as much as we could. And we’d done that – it was only mid-August when we found out about this competition. We didn’t really plan on recording, but we were probably the most ready for recording that we’ve been as a band. Were you able to do much in a day? David: We decided to record all the instruments live and do the vocals afterwards. We went in and got four songs done – brand new ones that we didn’t even plan on recording – with vocals as well. We had an hour left at the end so we set up a video camera and recorded an older song live, so we’re going to sync the music to the video. We ran out of new stuff to record!
WWW.STRAITLACES.COM RECORDING IN PROGRESS They are bona fide rock legends and after spending the last couple of years touring all over the world to great effect, the mighty Devo are still working on a new album, which would be the first since 1990’s Smooth Noodle Maps. Indicating recently that they are interested in working with modern artists like OutKast, LCD Soundsystem and Justice, frontman Mark Mothersbaugh told Rolling Stone, “The new challenges... are interesting to us. With the business turned upside down like it’s been in the last couple years, we’re looking for ways to use new technology that wasn’t around when we did this the first time.” The album, working title Fresh, is expected some time next year.
What are you planning to do with the songs you recorded over there?
Phil Selway is set to become the third member of Radiohead to release a solo album, following in the footsteps of Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke. The drummer has yet to confirm a name, release date or release method for the album, but we do know two things – he sings on it, and celebrated guests include Wilco members Glenn Kotche and Pat Sansone and solo artist Lisa Germano.
David: There’s a few ideas floating around. We’re releasing a single on November 2. We recorded it a year ago and we’re waiting for the right time to release it. The launch date is the Friday before [October 30] with The Cities We Captured. Then we started looking at releasing an EP in January/February. If we got back into the studio again, we’d have quite a lot of songs done, so it’s deciding whether to call it a four-track EP or put six or seven songs in. We’re not fully sure yet.
He’s only just released The Blueprint 3 – to huge sales but a lukewarm critical reception – but Jay-Z has already announced that he’s working on his next album, and he vows that it won’t hit the same commercial heights. Which seems unlikely, to be honest. Speaking to MTV.com, the Jigga man said, “My next album, which I’m working on now, is not gonna be a Number One album. That’s where I’m at right now. I wanna make the most experimental album I ever made.” Could go either way, really. —15 AU Magazine—
Five to One
Upfront
5 to 1
TH
Celebrity Animals
Aliens
Words by Jonny Tiernan
Eddie from Fraser People often comment on how Eddie is the best canine actor that has ever lived. The breadth of emotion he can display and the depth of character he achieves is worldrenowned. But what people don’t know is that Eddie is actually a severely deformed and very hairy dwarf and not a dog at all, and that’s the real reason that he can act so well. Eddie keeps his secret safe by viciously lacerating the ankles of anyone who lets it slip.
Mork As far as aliens go, Mork is pretty lame. He has no special powers, and arrived on Earth in an egg. Plus he ages backwards, which is definitely a problem for an alien living on earth. Oh yeah, and he got married to an earthling in the final series. How inconsiderate is that?! Like, at some point in the reverse aging process his wife is going to have to consider sex with a young boy, who is actually her old husband. Altogether now ‘Ewww’!
TH
Snoopy You might think that Peanuts is an innocent comic strip focussing on Charlie Brown and his gang’s japes and antics, but scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find a tale of drugs and crime to compete with the toughest Baltimore corners. Charlie Brown is actually so-called because he specialises in cocaine (Charles) and heroin (Brown). Snoopy is his faithful lookout, who sits atop his hutch, ever vigilant for signs of the five-o and rival gangs.
Superman It’s easy to forget that Superman was actually an alien because, like Mork, he has a human form. Unlike Mork, Superman is actually good for something. He used his array of superpowers to help humanity. People argue endlessly over what his best superpower is. For some, his ability to fly is number one, for others his super-strength comes out on top. However, for us the most impressive power is his ability to disguise himself successfully as Clark Kent using only a bad suit and a pair of glasses.
RD
Lassie There is no single dog that can take credit for the legend of Lassie. No less than 10 descendants of the original animal have portrayed the famous canine on screen. According to inside sources, each successive dog actor is chosen from the litter by a complicated ritual involving the blood of a fox, a pillar of smoke and the hair of dog whisperer Cesar Millan. And the less said about the bizarre mating practices, the better.
ALF Not many people are aware of this, but ALF’s real name was Gordon Shumway, with the nickname ALF being given as he is an Alien Life Form. That seems to make sense. What doesn’t make sense is that an alien from the planet Memac would be called Gordon at all. I mean, did the creators of the show just have a severe lack of imagination? Picture that meeting ‘Let’s call the alien Thwockzar Saquoil’, ‘No, let’s call it Xcrabpol Kevmir’, ‘Wait, I’ve got it – Gordon Shumway!’. Lack of genius.
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Bubbles Poor Bubbles. Unlike the other animals on this list, he isn’t actually famous for doing anything. This has led to him becoming the object of ridicule among the rest of the celebrity animal world. Some snarky commentators have been heard to utter the phrase ‘No better than Paris Hilton’. The pressure got too much for the wee chimp, and he actually attempted to commit suicide in December 2003. Bizarrely, that last fact is the only true thing we’ve written here.
Prawns The newest entry in this list of aliens, and stars of the particularly brilliant District 9, these alien ‘prawns’ are akin to humans in the sense that they too can vary wildly along a spectrum of intelligence, ranging from full-on smarty-pants to brain-smashingly dim. The one thing all prawns share though is a complete obsession with cat food, and they would pay just about anything for cans of it. This in itself undermines the supposed cleverness any of them might possess. Like, they can create the most advanced weapons ever conceived, but they can’t manufacture cat food. Flipping wasters.
Flipper People say that dolphins are as smart as humans. This might be true, but they’re definitely not as versatile in the acting department. After the cancellation of the seminal Sixties TV series, Flipper (real name Suzy) found it impossible to find work. Unable to cope with the stress of being unemployed, Flipper went off the rails and turned on everyone close to her. Eventually ostracized by her own family, Flipper was last spotted befriending some tuna off the coast of Mexico and talking about ‘the glory days’.
E.T. Did you know that E.T. wasn’t a robotic puppet, as you might believe, but actually a celebrity hungry alien who wanted nothing more than to become a Hollywood star, and who travelled to Earth to fulfil his ambition? He was close to realising his dream when his self-titled debut became a blockbuster smash, but before he could follow up on its success his mum called him home for dinner and no one heard from him again.
ST
—16 issue 60—
—17 AU Magazine—
Pocket Billiards
Incoming
Photo by Matthew Alexander Patton www.pavelware.com
Pocket Billiards Members: Formation: For Fans Of: Check Out: Website:
Savage (guitar, vocals), Chuck (guitar, vocals), Steve (keys), Anto (bass), Jim (drums), Joe Monk (trumpet), Elaine (alto sax), Slow (tenor sax). Belfast, 2002. The Slackers, Voodoo Glow Skulls, The Clash. Debut album Pocket Billiards is out now. www.pocketbilliards.co.uk
Ever since their inception at the start of the decade, it was clear that Belfast based ska-punks Pocket Billiards were something special. Even during those early days when their line-up had more changes than the Sugababes, you could always guarantee that a Billiards show would be a fun night out and over the last seven years they’ve matured into one of the country’s best acts. This month, they capitalise on all that talent by releasing their selftitled debut album, recorded by Oppenheimer’s Rocky O’Reilly at Start Together Studios, and it was a labour of love for the nine-piece. “It was brilliant finally getting a recording that really gets across the energy and sound of the band,” says frontman Chris Savage. “We’d previously recorded a demo way
—18 issue 60—
back and then produced an EP in a bedroom, that sadly didn’t sound so good, and I think we wanted to prove to ourselves that we could make a good record. Rocky was great to work with and was as willing to experiment with different effects as I was and it allowed us to capture the sound that we had always wanted.” With morale at an all-time high, Savage and co. decided to finally take the plunge after meeting Rocky at this year’s And So I Watch You From Afar Mandela Hall show, and after listening to the high-octane release, we’re glad they did. “I just thought the time was right to make this album. We took a bit of a break over the last few years as a number of band members, including myself, became parents and after the Billiards’ baby boom, we felt that we wanted to get back to playing shows and having fun. We picked up some good support slots, had written a load of songs and finally had a stable line-up, so we felt it was time to get the music recorded. “The actual recording all seems a bit of a blur to me now,” he continues. “As we were pressed for time we worked pretty hard for most of it. I remember the rest of the guys laughing at me because at times I was really losing my temper and getting a bit of a huff on. I’m surprised they could put up with me!”
One of the best aspects of the record is the fact that they write about where we live. Tracks like ‘SPIDE’ and ‘Belfast Town’ are not only kickass ska songs, we can relate to them too. “I can’t stand it when artists sing in the generic ‘American’ accents or write lyrics about things they are totally detached from, just because it may be deemed cool,” he offers. “I try to write about things I have experienced or witnessed and feel strongly about, such as my daughter being born two months premature, the nonsense of musical cliques, or watching your mate become a drunken fool on a night out. At the same time, I feel it’s important for me not to take myself too seriously and a bit of humour is certainly something that goes hand in hand with Pocket Billiards. I suppose that’s where songs like ‘SPIDE’ come from. For me, lyrics don’t have to be sublime pieces of poetry, if they are honest and sung with feeling then it’s more natural. “To be totally honest, I have no idea what people’s reactions to the album will be,” he concludes. “The record is loud, energetic and catchy as hell and one thing I know is that this isn’t just for ska lovers. The album is packed full of heavy riffs, powerful brass lines and singa-long choruses. I just hope that people give it a shot and enjoy it.” Edwin McFee
Girls
Incoming
Girls MEMBERS: FORMATION: FOR FANS OF: CHECK OUT: WEBSITE:
Christopher Owens, Chet ‘JR’ White. San Francisco, 2006. The Beach Boys, Elvis Costello, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. Debut album Album, out now on Fantasytrashcan / Turnstile www.myspace.com/girlssanfran
“Hellooo…” The second syllable tapers off towards the far horizon. There’s an indecently long pause. The voice at the other end of the line sounds groggy, a little dazed and confused. Oh dear, it seems that all those lurid articles I’d read were true, that Girls are spectacular drug fiends and I’d interrupted their stoner reverie. The truth, though, is somewhat more prosaic. “I’m sorry man,” continues Christopher Owens in exquisite slacker drawl, “just a little distracted here, I can’t get this other phone to work properly. It’s making a funny noise.” We wrest Christopher’s attention round to the subject at hand, Girls. The San Fran duo comprising songwriter Owens and his production partner and drug buddy Chet ‘JR’ White have been garnering numerous magnificent write-ups in recent months and not all of them music
inspired. The emotional honesty that is apparent in Girls’ songs is equally evident in Owens’ dealings with the press. Ask him a question and he’ll furnish you with the unvarnished truth. He admits to his many chemical misadventures, but challenges the conception of Girls as a druggy band. “It [drugs] was something that we were already doing. Do drugs have an influence on the sound? Maybe. But, the songs themselves, they’re about feelings, personal things, about life experiences. It’s not druggy music, we’re not like [shrieks] ‘Get high, get high!’” Aside from their admissions that they have a penchant for illicit substances, much has also been made of Owens’ upbringing in the controversial Children of God cult. He says he was embarrassed for years to talk about his unconventional childhood, but that those early days have had a negligible influence on his music. “It could have something to do with the structures of the songs,” he muses, “something about sitting around in big groups and singing inspirational music with choruses that everybody can sing along to, but as far as the sensational side of the story, well, I’ve moved on.” That much of the attention the band receives is focused on Owens’ intriguing back-story and the duo’s wayward lifestyle is unfortunate. For peer through the narcotic haze that has enveloped the band and you’ll find they are
consummate pop classicists. “The things I’ve always liked were very melodic,” Christopher states. “I also love movie soundtracks. I remember this film on Elvis, where Kurt Russell played him [Elvis – The Movie, 1979]. There was this one scene where Elvis climbs out of his window and sits on the roof and there’s a girl sitting out there. He plays ‘Love Me Tender’ on the guitar. Little things like that move me.” Girls’ music thrives on such small and, to less sensitive eyes, seemingly inconsequential details, its passages of tender reflection seizing on the drama of intimate moments. On Album, Owens ploughs unrequited love’s lonely furrow and expresses an unquenchable yearning for a better day. More specifically, the record is the product of his ill-fated relationship with Liza Thorn, his former girlfriend and partner in the band Curls. Many of Album’s songs were originally intended for Curls before Thorn dissolved the band and discarded Owens. For Christopher it was cathartic to memorialise such painful episodes in song. “The act of writing the songs gives me a really good feeling. I hope to communicate something to other people and to have them relate to it and get some good feelings out of it, some good vibrations, and that they’d want to have my music in their lives.” Francis Jones
—19 AU Magazine—
Breaking Through
Incoming
Brother Ali »
Wounds »
Photo by David Sexton
Photo by Julian Murray
Junior85»
Photo by Yvonne Ryan
Brother Ali
Junior85
Wounds
REAL NAME: FORMATION: FOR FANS OF: CHECK OUT: WEBSITE:
REAL NAME: FORMATION: FOR FANS OF: CHECK OUT: WEBSITE:
MEMBERS: FORMATION: FOR FANS OF: CHECK OUT: WEBSITE:
Ali Newman Minneapolis, 1999. Atmosphere, Rakim, KRS-One. New album Us, out now on Rhymesayers Entertainment. www.brotherali.com
What with Jay-Z’s recent messianic pontifications and the genre’s ever-enterprising attempts to sink itself on the rocks of self-parody, you’d be forgiven for thinking that rap was approaching its ‘end of days’. However, evidence of creative green shoots can be found in the most unlikely of places. White albino Muslim rappers from Minneapolis aren’t exactly a dime a dozen. White albino Muslim rappers who are lyrically fearless and endlessly inventive are in a minority of one. Welcome then, Brother Ali who, with his fourth album, the excellent Us, makes as strong a case as any for the hip-hop restoration. A soulful, searching and scintillating work, with Us Brother Ali mines the political and the personal with a disarming vulnerability and, like the best rhymers, his voice is compellingly that of the righteous outsider, and understandably so. Born with albinism, Ali was ‘outed’ a number of years ago as white, rather than the black albino many had perceived (or hoped) him to be. Black or white, Brother Ali’s willingness to single out social and political issues as much as documenting the ‘good times’ is what sets him apart from many of his contemporaries, and Us tackles issues such as drug abuse and homophobia head on. His fearless attitude to the wrongs in society may land him in trouble, but suggest an integrity matched by ability. As Ali himself says, “If you follow my tapes then you know what I’m about. If something comes up then it must come out.” Joe Nawaz
—20 issue 60—
Tony Higgins Galway, 2009. Boards of Canada, The Books. Wiiiiiide Awake EP, available on MySpace www.myspace.com/roadsignsofourage
Thoughtful sentiment comes as standard with the oddness of Junior 85’s music; ‘Indie Cool Pretty of Today are the Plastic Surgery Disasters of Tomorrow’ opens the Galway musician's new EP, and it's all free. Tony Higgins secretly believes that no one would pay money for his songs, but there have been over 1000 downloads from his site since the first EP Sleepy in February. Formally educated in Music Technology but a self-taught musician, Tony is primarily known as a promoter and for his drumming with bands like So Cow and Vince MackMahon. Junior85 began early this year when he set himself the task of creating one new EP a week, themed to a title. A little ambitious but fair play all the same – so far this year, five EPs have surfaced, with two more works in progress. There are sounds of sleep, anxiety, generosity and bewilderment, like listening to thought-waves. Much of his work can be labelled ambient electronica, and many of the sounds within lead to strange moments of eerie tension like the more experimental works of Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin. Galway is home to a thriving electronica scene and Cian Ó Cíobháin has featured Higgins' work on his cult An Taobh Tuathail radio show. Wiiiiide Awake is the strongest offering to date and certainly the most accessible. Not for those who enjoy regimented instrumental jangles or soundtracks, Junior85 has a genuine sense of individuality. Nay McArdle
Rob Horan, Aaron McGrath, James Coogan, Aidan Coogan. Dublin, 2008. Pissed Jeans, The Rapture, Melt Banana. Their ‘dead Thatcher’ t-shirts. www.myspace.com/thewoundsband
Suckling songs slowly but surely from a secret lair, Wounds are seeping into the scene with the minimum of effort to maximum effect, cutting a snarling swathe across disco dancefloors. They turned up one night last winter to support BATS and I remember standing on the sidelines thinking, ‘You won’t get away with this every time you play, fledgling band. You’re too young and skinny, you wear too much black. You’re raw and punky, too real for words’. They look like street kids and play like maniacs, yelping and writhing, aching with effervescent anger, wielding music like axes in the hands of psychopaths. About time; great sounds abound from the hands of solemn minds but we’ve been in need of some bodies to come along and give the Irish scene a hefty kick in the tender bits. Wounds do that and more. Most new bands would gnaw their right arm off for a taste of the gigs this band are pulling in – support slots to Crocodiles, Gallows, HEALTH. We depend on zeitgeist artists to tell us where it’s at with the outside world – who will ever come back if these unreleased rascals outshine every punk and hipster passing through town? Rumour has it that sexy record labels are sniffing around, based on a few pungent MySpace demos and a handful of live dates in Ireland and the UK. Expect nothing from them except big things. Nay McArdle
May68 »
MAY68 MEMBERS: FORMATION: FOR FANS OF: CHECK OUT: WEBSITE:
Jude Wainwright (vocals) Matthew Dutton (keyboards), Owen Manns (bass), Jonny Sture (guitar) Camille Bertin (drums). Manchester, 2007. Chew Lips, Friendly Fires, Daft Punk. The track ‘Carla’ is available as a free download from the band’s website. www.may68.com
Named after the Parisian student demonstrations during the late spring of 1968, this Manchester five-piece are mapping out a dance revolution of their very own. With less than 20 gigs under their belt, MAY68 are already quite a live spectacle. Frontwoman Jude Wainwright is a bundle of nervous energy, while her soaring voice is ably backed by the frenetic athleticism of drummer/backing singer Cam Bertin. The sound is a mash-up of electronic disco-punk, served up with a slug of dry ice and Jonny Sture’s fine guitar. Jonny explains that Jude was the last piece of the MAY68 puzzle. “Three of us started writing in 2007, and then we got Matty on keys and jammed without a singer. We were into French dance and we wanted something electronic and danceable, but we also wanted to be exciting live, and not just lads playing laptops or decks. We were looking for a female vocalist to do a call-and-response thing with Cam, and recreate that kind of Eighties dance feel. We came across Jude, and she joined in the summer of 2008.” And Jude seems happy with her lot. “I love being in a band with four boys – they’re like big, powerful brothers,” she says. MAY68 may have taken their name from the esprit de corps of yesteryear (“We came at it from less of a political standpoint and more of a cultural standpoint,” explains Cam), but they have taken the synth-pop vibe of 2009 and moved it a significant step forward. Vive la révolution! John Freeman
Washed Out REAL NAME: Ernest Greene FORMATION: Georgia, USA, 2009. FOR FANS OF: Yazoo, Walter Jones, Junior Boys. CHECK OUT: Life Of Leisure EP, out now on Mexican Summer. WEBSITE: www.myspace.com/thebabeinthewoods Apt artist names are always strangely satisfying, as if the perfect marriage of words and music elevates the whole package. And when a fitting visual image is thrown in too, well, it’s an open goal for the artist in question. So it is with Washed Out, the inspired alias of a young gent by the marvellous given name of Ernest Greene. Greene’s debut EP, the bewitching Life Of Leisure, is a hazy, soft-focus confection that draws on Eighties synth-pop and slo-mo disco, and key to his success is the wholly original sound he’s managed to come up with, drenching his solidly lo-fi productions with some soporific synths and dreamy, half-heard vocals. You could try dancing to it, but what we really want to do is listen on headphones while walking around San Francisco on a summer’s evening, the sun still an hour from setting and the air warm and soft. It seems like it would fit, somehow. Chris Jones
Mount Kimbie MEMBERS: FORMATION: FOR FANS OF: CHECK OUT: WEBSITE:
Dom Maker, Kai Campos (both production) London, 2008. Flying Lotus, Burial, Hudson Mohawke. Maybes and Sketch On Glass EPs, out now on Hotflush. www.myspace.com/mountkimbie
You’ll be hearing a lot more from these two young Londoners. As Mount Kimbie, they emerged from nowhere at the start of the year with one of the finest electronic releases of late, debut EP Maybes. And then in the summer, they followed it up with a confoundingly different followup in Sketch On Glass. Four tracks on each and not the merest hint of a dud. But why so good? Well, despite the handy little For Fans Of line up there, they really don’t sound like anyone else. Maybes, especially, is a revelation. Heart-stoppingly beautiful, it touches on dubstep, hip-hop and electronica but winds up inhabiting a space all of its own, where found sounds mingle with rich basslines and skittering beats, all overlaid with haunting, near-imperceptible vocals and seemingly submerged underwater. It’s quite extraordinary. Sketch On Glass changes things up with bright synths, harder hitting grooves and instant gratification, but we must evangelise no further, and rather insist that you proceed forthwith to your favourite vinyl or download retailer and buy both. Right now. Chris Jones —21 AU Magazine—
Hey You!
Upfront
Words and Photos by Colette McHugh
Rachel Given Calvin Harris – I’m Not Alone The Smiths – Panic Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps
What's on your iPod?
Interesting Fact – Rachel is the proud owner of half of a Morrissey T-shirt after a scramble for it when The Smiths front man threw it into the crowd in Dublin.
What’s On Your Mind? Insight and Insanity From the AU Forum RE: RED ORGAN SERPENT SOUND? Penfold says: What happened? They were amazing as Spiderhand and then it went all quiet and they came back with a bang as ROSS and then it went quiet again. I’ve heard rumours that there’s an album in the bag. Will it ever see the light of day? Cake says: A long and libellous tale awaits. Maybe some day it’ll see light of day.
Justin Logue
Christopher ‘Hen’ Henry
Adrian Kennedy
The Pogues – Rain Street The Dubliners – Bank of the Roses The Clash – Bankrobber
A-ha – Lifelines Mansun – Six Talk Talk – It’s My Life
REM – Nightswimming Tom Waits – Jersey Girl Bruce Springsteen – Thunder Road
Interesting Fact – Justin once ran around Ian Paisley naked. Justin doesn’t explain why! Hmmm...
Interesting Fact – In Hen’s humble opinion, Chuck Norris would beat Jack Bauer in a fight any day. (We agree).
Interesting Fact – Adrian has seen Mr Springsteen four times in concert now. True fanboy.
Phily says: 1 good tune + bondage + piss soaked photographer + mental dustbin of a singer = A bright future JohnnyHollywood says: So why aren’t Colenso Parade on a world tour with an equation like that? Desus says: Because they haven’t written a decent tune yet. ZING!
RE: AU MAGAZINE IN FINANCIAL TROUBLE Desus says: Getting your own cover stars to pay for copies of the magazine? :D Jenny Atcheson
Tom McHale
Caoimhe McCrystall
Death In Vegas – Dirge ASIWYFA – Set Guitars To Kill Depeche Mode – In Your Room (Portishead Remix)
The Frames – What Happens When The Heart Just Stops Duke Special – Freewheel Taylor Swift – You Belong To Me
Pink – Glitter In The Air La Roux – Bulletproof The Script – The Man Who Can’t Be Moved
Interesting Fact – A year today Jenny was rushed to hospital with a broken ankle and dressed as a pirate. Maybe those themed parties aren’t such a good idea after all.
Interesting Fact – Tom is in the Swift camp when it comes to this whole upset with the VMAs and has learnt ‘You Belong To Me’ as a protest song against Mr. West
Interesting Fact – Caoimhe has the honour of being told by Calum Best that she has nice boobs. We have a feeling she may not be alone there.
Jonny AU says: Here, Mr Marr can afford it! Turns out that Francis actually had four copies, but he got one signed. So the only one of the Cribs without a copy was Marr. Burn! I sorted them out though ;) RE: COBAIN AVATAR IN GUITAR HERO 5 Steven Dedalus says: Apparently you can unlock a Kurt Cobain character and make him do songs by Bush. Grohl and Novoselic claim it’s Courtney love’s fault for authorising it, she says she didn’t, and the peeps at the computer game company say she signed an agreement allowing them to do it.
Megan Maybin
Davog Bryne
Joe McGarrigle
Alexisonfire – Young Cardinals All That Remains – Whisper (I Hear You) Kings Of Leon – Taper Jean Girl
Nick Cave - Dig!!!, Lazarus, Dig!!! The Modern Lovers – Im Straight Iron Maiden – Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter
Oasis – Sunday Morning Call Bob Dylan - Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts Take That – Rule The World
Interesting Fact – Megan is having surgery soon on her foot due to an injury sustained on a trampoline. Ouch.
Interesting Fact – Davog has been cursed with the disability of not being able to burp.
Interesting Fact – Joe was given the good news yesterday that he has beaten cancer!
—22 issue 60—
Ant says: Too funny, the Nirvana “kurt is my hero” die hards will not be happy... or they will “sell out” and get to be their hero on a hdtv.
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WWW.TWITTER.COM/WICHITARECS —23 AU Magazine—
Upfront
The Answer Tour Diary
On The Road With The Answer
From trigger-happy locals and ludicrous sound regulations to packed-out clubs and a military flypast, The Answer drummer James Heatley talks us through some of the very best – and worst – of the last 12 months’ touring. This month sees us celebrate one year on the road with AC/ DC. A year! They say time flies when you are having fun. Well, we must have been having a lot of fun, because that year seems more like just a few weeks. During this time, people always ask us, ‘Which do you prefer, the big arenas and stadiums with AC/DC or your own club gigs?’. To be honest, both have their ups and downs.
all about! Big and loud and, dare I say it, over the top. The crazy thing was, looking out at the crowd I may not have been able to see into their eyes (they were too far away) but I could recognise faces of many people who had been at our show the night before, still singing every word and, even better, countless Answer T-shirts in the crowd at an AC/DC concert – flying the flag. It was overwhelming.
Downers – you have to play what musicians commonly refer to as the ‘toilets’ of the touring world. There are numerous reasons why these places are hated so much; the stage and PA are usually miniscule or sometimes nonexistent. It’s dirty and seedy and very often, there’s no dressing room, no shower and ironically no toilet! But some places go even beyond that.
Earlier that week (26/8/09) we had the best intro to a gig ever. Bizarrely, it was in Edmonton, Canada. As we stood backstage ready to go on, three fighter jets from the Canadian military display team The Snowbirds flew over the stadium. In the distance they turned around and as the crowd stared up at them coming back we walked on stage. When the jets flew over the top of us and the crowd’s eyes followed back to the stage, we were in position, Paul hit the opening note and away we went.
At our show in the Triple Rock Club in Minneapolis (20/8/09), we exited the tour bus in what seemed like a pretty dodgy part of town and were greeted at the door with a sign warning us that the club bans guns on the premises. I should bloody well think so! At another headline show in The Red Devil in San Francisco (3/9/09), during soundcheck we were informed there was a noise limit of just 96db. For most musicians that simply means turning your amp down, but for a drummer this is possibly one of the worst things you could say – especially considering I have spent most of my life learning to play with as much power and energy as I could. Still, the show must go on... I hold back for the first few songs and then let all fucking hell break loose, and afterwards the manager and promoter come over and thank me for it! One of the best shows we played was at the Media Club in Vancouver, Canada (28/8/09). The day started good – no reasons for a gun ban, no noise restrictions, an interview and plug on the Canadian six o’clock news and the show was already sold out. Then, just before we went on, an 80-strong AC/DC crew arrived at the door, the promoter having promised anyone with an AC/DC tour laminate free entry. The room was over-filled and the doors ready to burst open, people standing on the side of the stage just trying to squeeze in and be a part of it. This is why you go on tour – to get to play your songs to people who really want to hear them and to get to look the fans in the eye as they sing every word back at you. But (and there’s always a but) how can I deny it – the excitement and adrenaline when the next night (29/8/09) we got to play to 50,000 people in the BC Place Stadium, Vancouver, opening for AC/DC. This is what rock n’ roll is
—24 issue 60—
Where else would you get it? Only rock ‘n’ roll allows such enormity and extravagance (unless you are at an air show). I guess a year spent in the presence of the biggest rock band on the planet has done us good. It has given us new aspirations. Taught us not to hold back and to think bigger than we could ever have imagined. It almost seems like you can have it all – anything is possible. Well, I can dream, can’t I? And for now we have the best of both worlds. James Heatley WWW.THEANSWER.IE
Flashback
Rewind
The Debut Of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, October 5, 1969
35
Years ago
Aren’t you sick of hearing about the Sixties? Maybe it was great if you were there, but it gets a bit much being told about peace and love and revolution every single day. But there’s one part of that fabled decade that still retains its potency – the ugly child who is still somehow making things different. Ladies and gentlemen, roll up! Roll up! The circus is in town… Words by Steven Rainey. Illustration by Elissa Parente.
The Sixties was the decade where 20th Century culture came of age. Things that had been brewing for years finally came to a head, with the world exploding into Technicolor, forever leaving behind the grey shades of the pre-war period. Music was changing, films were changing, and people were changing. And one of the most important changes took place within the hallowed halls of the BBC, when a bunch of graduates from Oxford and Cambridge got together, dragged surrealism and anarchy out of academia and textbooks, and dumped it right into the living rooms of the British public. The rulebook had been ripped to pieces, and nothing would ever truly be the same again. Michael Palin and Terry Jones had met whilst at Oxford University, whilst Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Eric Idle had emerged from Cambridge. After a fledgling career in theatre, as well as writing and acting credits in both radio and television, the five men found themselves being courted by both the BBC and ITV. A desire between Cleese and Palin to work together led to them taking up the BBC’s offer, and so they commenced work on developing something which would revolutionise the presentation and style of comedy, a brave new world where anything was possible. When Monty Python’s Flying Circus made its debut on October 5, 1969, nothing could prepare viewers for the shock. Here was a programme which broke down all the established rules of what a television comedy could do, having more in common with a piece of avant-garde art than a simple comedy show. The series ignored all sense of convention associated with narrative, framing, and presentation, creating a bewildering journey where the actors would address the camera, draw attention to the fact that this was a television programme, and the beginning and ending credits could appear on screen at any point during the programme’s broadcast. Clearly, this was something completely different, and audiences were quick to pick up on this new breed of comedy. For many, the Pythons were doing to comedy what The Beatles had done for music, providing a new lexicon to work with, and breaking down the
boundaries of what could be accomplished. Between this beginning and the final episode airing on the December 5, 1974, the Python team remained the benchmark for progressive and engaging new comedy, with each member of the team bringing something unique to this melting pot of personalities. Ostensibly, John Cleese appeared to be the ringleader of the group, his loud, indignant persona dominating the proceedings. In complete contrast, Eric Idle was the cheeky chappie; Graham Chapman the straight man who was nevertheless key to what was quintessentially ‘Python’ about the group’s work; Terry Jones, who contributed the ‘stream of consciousness’ format; Michael Palin who possessed the widest acting range in the group; and the last to join, American animator Terry Gilliam, who brought the visual flair and unique style which gave the show its identity and, arguably, the group its ‘brand’. The final episode was broadcast on December 5, 1974, but the seeds had been sown for a comic revolution. The term ‘Python-esque’ gets bandied about with alarming regularity, whilst we as viewers are perfectly prepared to swallow any comedic conceit, no matter how outlandish or impenetrable. Its success led to four feature films, with the high watermark being 1979’s The Life of Brian, a satire on… well, everything really, which was lambasted by extremist religious groups as being blasphemous, and banned in many countries, showing that the Pythons had lost none of their anarchic inclinations, nor their desire to push the barriers of what is acceptable. The film itself is a masterpiece, a perfect balance of heavyweight intellectualism, slapstick comedy, and quickfire wit. Chapman’s death in 1989 officially ended any prospect of a reunion, however their legacy lives on both in a spirit of innovation, and more derivative imitators than you can shake a fish at. Monty Python showed us that the highbrow and the lowbrow can merge together in perfect brilliance, but they also demonstrated how much skill it takes to make that balance. Perhaps reflecting their academic background, the Pythons proved that it took serious smarts to be that silly.
—25 AU Magazine—
History Lessons -Yo La Tengo
—26 issue 60—
Rewind
History Lessons - Yo La Tengo
—Next year, Yo La Tengo turn 25. In the quarter of a century since their humble beginnings in Hoboken, New Jersey, the band have become one of the mainstays of US indie music, as influential as they are prolific. But as guitarist/ singer Ira Kaplan explains, back in 1984 even a modest level of success was far from assured and, for him, hard to imagine. Indeed, before Yo La Tengo, Kaplan was more comfortable writing about music than playing it.
“I was the cliché of the music journalist who would much rather be a musician,” he admits. “But I was shy about it; although I would read articles about how punk rock demonstrated to people that anyone could be in a band and despite looking at the music of that era quite intently, somehow that message was being lost on me. To me, being in a band seemed about as likely as becoming an astronaut. The idea of forming a band with strangers; that never could have happened.”
Words by Tom McShane
Things changed, however, when Ira met his now wife, Georgia Hubley, through the New York and New Jersey music scenes. “We were fans of the same groups, we’d go to the same shows so that was how we met each other. She had a drum set and I had a guitar and neither of us were doing very much with either of those things. We were shy about playing for people, but I think it was a good match; we were able to play with each other.” Working together and providing encouragement to each other, Georgia and Ira’s confidence slowly increased and they soon sought to expand the line-up. Following an advertisement placed in the Village Voice, Dave Schramm and Dave Rick were recruited on lead and bass guitar respectively. They were the first in what was to become a rolling cast of musicians who would help Georgia and Ira in the early years. After the release of their debut single, ‘The River of Water’ (1985) the band were picked up by Coyote Records. However, Kaplan seems to have mixed feelings about their first two albums for Coyote, Ride The Tiger (1986) and New Wave Hotdogs (1987). Ride The Tiger is the sound of a band taking its first steps, though Ira acknowledges that he learned much from that period. “Even to this day, when talking about music, it seems to me there are people who are much more analytical than I am in terms of how a record’s being put together. I think it really took being in a room with Dave Rick and Dave Schramm and watching how they were playing things to allow me to get some kind of clue how to accomplish things. “If New Wave Hot Dogs had any achievement at all, it’s that Georgia and I weren’t hiding behind as many people. I think we felt in the case of Dave Schramm leaving the band, that it challenged us to not just rely on him to fix problems. It’s the only record we ever credited ourselves with producing; it was us seeing what we could do left to our own devices and I think the answer was, ‘need to work a little harder’. “I think it was with President Yo La Tengo [1989, the band’s third and final record with Ceyote], “where we got a little closer to something we’d feel good about. I feel better about that record than I do either of the first two.” The band sounded more confident and assertive here than before. From opener ‘Barnaby, Hardly Working’ through the raucous and pounding ‘Drug Test’, the tender ‘Alyda’ to the 10-minute, feedback driven freakout, ‘The Evil That Men Do (Pablo’s Version)’, Yo La Tengo seemed to be finally finding their feet. “That was the first time we worked with Gene Holder of The dB’s as our producer. The dB’s were one of the bands that Georgia and I both liked before we met each
other and those guys were extremely supportive of us when we were forming a band and throughout the early years. But Gene’s response to the songs, particularly ‘Barnaby, Hardly Working’, was so supportive; he was telling us the songs were great in ways I certainly didn’t have the confidence to believe at the time. His whole production approach was unlike anything we’d ever done before, it was a huge step.” In spite of the creative success of the album, Yo La Tengo was still without a permanent line up. “The personnel of our band at that time had been extremely volatile; there’d been a period when there was just the two of us and we went on tour playing mostly things that would lead to the record Fakebook [1990].” The result was an album entirely different to any of the previous albums in the Yo La Tengo catalogue. Fakebook, released on Bar/None Records, was folksy, acoustic and, with but a few exceptions (most notably the heavenly ‘The Summer’), composed almost completely of cover songs. But, as Kaplan explains, this change in direction was not a conscious choice. “We don’t make a lot of choices. That persists to this day, we just kinda look [at] what’s around us and deal with the situation the best we can. Once again, we had no band but we had this repertoire of songs and we wanted to make a record.” By happy accident, their tours as a two-piece had brought to the fore what would be the principle revelation of this album and a key feature of all of the band’s subsequent releases; “The fact that Georgia sang so much on those Fakebook songs; we really liked that and we started to play that way a lot.” The next record, May I Sing With Me (1992) saw the band return to noisy guitars and crashing drums and introduced a key player into the story of Yo La Tengo, as bass player James McNew came on board and completed the band’s permanent three-piece line-up. Ira explains, “Even though James is on May I Sing With Me, he’s on it in the way that other people are on earlier records. He was not really a member of the band until Painful [1993] – initially, he was just a guy helping us out. Though at that time he’d been helping us out for longer than anyone else who’s been in that position, but he was still a member of Christmas and there was always the expectation that he’d return to that group.” But James didn’t return to Christmas. “He was just too stupid to quit,” Ira laughs. “We weren’t in the habit of kicking people out of the group because it wasn’t working out. It was always because people had other projects they were more committed to. And there was never any bitterness about that. When people like Gene Holder played bass for us there was always the understanding that they were doing it as a favour and when James joined the expectation was the same. That’s why we make such a distinction between those two records; Painful was James’ record as much as it was ours; the same couldn’t have been said for May I Sing With Me.” With Painful, the band, who had now found a home
—27 AU Magazine—
“I think that’s why we’re here right now; because we didn’t plan to be”
—28 issue 60—
History Lessons
Yo La Tengo
at Matador Records, were able to change their entire approach to making records.
‘Does it sound like the original version of the song?’ – then it’s a complete failure,” he laughs, “and when we put out the record I wrote some liner notes explaining why the song titles aren’t listed on the back. I thought that to see what songs we were attempting to play would give an inaccurate impression of what this CD might sound like.
“James decided to become a full member of the band and moved down to Brooklyn from Providence, Rhode Island, and that gave us the opportunity to rehearse in a way we couldn’t before. We would experiment with the songs in lots of different ways; we were struggling to find what worked best about them. We put a lot of effort into that. And when we met Roger Moutenot [co-producer of Painful and producer of all Yo La Tengo’s subsequent albums], it was really the first time we made a record in which that process was continued.” The album was a critical success, seen as a giant leap forward and over the next two albums produced by the creative team of Ira, Georgia, James and Roger, Electr-O-Pura (1995) and I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One (1997), the band’s critical reputation and fan base expanded. These records were overflowing with ideas; the range of genres and influences displayed from one song to the next could so easily have made for jarring, incoherent records but the results were instead exciting and remarkably cohesive. Many were surprised, then, by the release of And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (2000). In contrast to what had come to be expected of Yo La Tengo, this album had one uniform sound. Instead of genrehopping from song to song, here the band’s influences were merged and blended within each track. And, most noticeably, Kaplan’s loud, frenetic guitar playing was almost entirely absent. Yo La Tengo again sounded like a band transformed, but what was the reason for such a seismic shift? “The slightly glib answer, but I think the group has come to believe this, is that it had a lot to do with a rehearsal space the band moved into in Jersey City, the next town over from Hoboken. When we would play loud in that room we just didn’t like the sound as much and as I described before, a lot of what we do is really just trying to pay attention to what’s working. It isn’t that we decided to make a quieter record, we just kept playing the things that sounded good to us. The process I described with Painful really hasn’t changed that much; we still try songs in lots of different ways and it just seemed with these songs the quieter we got the more we liked it. “But it wasn’t until we moved into the rehearsal space we’re in now in Hoboken [where the band wrote and rehearsed I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (2006) and their latest album Popular Songs (2009)] magically loud songs sounded good to us again, that we started to think that maybe it wasn’t a phase we were going through and maybe it was just a function of what we were hearing in the room.” As for Summer Sun (2003), to the dismay of some and the delight of others, it was even quieter than its predecessor. “To an extent, that was done on purpose more than And Then Nothing…. We had recorded three louder songs in those sessions, which ended up on the Today Is The Day EP, that we decided to leave off Summer Sun to keep it more straightforward in mood. By choosing different songs, that could have been a pretty different record. I think we liked the idea of not making And Then Nothing… look like a complete aberration and I thought in some ways [that] we were showing respect for that record by giving it a brother.” He pauses and laughs. “But like a lot of households, two children is enough.” In 2006, the band released Yo La Tengo Is Murdering The Classics, a compilation of live tracks performed on New Jersey’s WFMU radio station for their annual fundraisers. During these fundraisers, listeners call the station to pledge a donation and can then request a song. Yo La Tengo, along with their friend Bruce Bennett on additional guitar and vocals, have to spontaneously perform a version of the song. The album received decidedly mixed reviews but to Ira it seems some people have missed the point. “Well, a lot of it depends on your definition of success; if you define it as how well the song is being played –
“But what we do love about it is that the CD is an accurate depiction of what it means to grow up obsessed by music, and that doesn’t mean we have photographic memories or that we can just recreate anything we want. But it does mean that these songs are in your brain somewhere and I think, hopefully, that the way they get distorted as they work their way from the brain to the finger and mouth is interesting and entertaining. “It’s a crazy thing to try to do and that’s one of the reasons we do it every year, I mean, we love supporting the station but it is an experience unlike any other one we ever have; you feel like you’re on a rollercoaster that won’t stop going up and down. I’ve never defined it as working or not working based on how well we remembered something; it’s more about how we convey the feeling, the collective memory of the four of us and the audience.”
COVER TO COVER A band who revel in reinterpretation; here are some of our favourite Yo La Tengo cover versions.
You Can Have It All (George McCrae)
Written by the legendary Harry Wayne Casey of K.C. and the Sunshine Band and a hit for George McCrae, with this cover from And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, Yo La Tengo somehow manage to keep it disco and transform it into something transcendent. Watch out for the dance routine in the live show.
Nuclear War (Sun Ra)
Yo La Tengo’s love of movies is no secret; from referencing Pauline Kael’s Deeper Into Movies anthology on I Can Hear the Heart… to the references to British films of the Swinging Sixties in Electr-O-Pura’s ‘Tom Courtenay’, their work is littered with allusions to cinema. It is hardly surprising, then, that the band have been keen to become more involved in soundtrack work.
A live favourite for some time, Yo La Tengo recorded four distinct versions of this Sun Ra cover for their 2002 Nuclear War EP. ‘Version 2’ is perhaps the most disarmingly disturbing, with children’s voices singing Sun Ra’s mantra-like refrain.
“We are big movie fans and Georgia in particular was always a big fan of movie soundtracks. Hal Hartley was a huge part of our life for a while, he used so much of our music and so many people were introduced to our music through his films. But that was almost entirely material from our records; he did his own score music.
Yo La Tengo turned the Beach Boys ode to a “groovy little motor bike” into something meaner and harder for I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. There’s just something effortlessly cool about the way Kaplan sings, “When I go into the turn, lean with me, hang on tight.”
“Over the years a variety of people had approached us about doing something but for a variety of reasons it didn’t come through. Then an old friend of ours, Phil Morrison, who has directed the majority of videos we’ve ever made, he asked us about scoring his movie Junebug [2005] and coincidentally at the same time, Michael Hoffman approached us about Game 6 [2005]. And because it was something we’d been wanting to do for so long, we didn’t really want to turn either of them down; we didn’t know if we’d ever get another chance to do it. So, having never done a score before, at that point we decided to do two simultaneously.” Since then, the band have gone on to score several other films including Old Joy (2006), Shortbus (2006) and Adventureland (2009) and have released a selection of their film compositions on their album They Shoot, We Score (2008). Yo La Tengo’s new album, Popular Songs entered the US Billboard Chart at #58, their highest ever entry, and has been warmly received by music critics. I ask Ira if the band had considered where they might go from here? Nearly 25 years on from the band’s inception, does he imagine there’ll be a time when he wouldn’t want to continue with the band? “It’s the ‘making it up as we go along’ aspect of what we do that we all love,” he reflects. “I think that’s why we’re here right now; because we didn’t plan to be.” Popular Songs is out now on MATADOOR. Yo La Tengo play Tripod, Dublin on November 5. WWW.YOLATENGO.COM
Little Honda (The Beach Boys)
Speeding Motorcycle (Daniel Johnston)
More motorcycles! Yo La Tengo originally covered this song on their Fakebook album. They released a second version as a 7” single. It’s part cover/ part collaboration with Daniel Johnston, recorded at a WFMU session where the band performed at the station and Johnston sang his contribution via telephone.
Cast A Shadow (Beat Happening)
This was released as a B-side to their 1991 7”, ‘Walking Away from You’. With Georgia’s singing and the help of friend/sometime collaborator Tara Key’s guitar playing, they build the lo-fi beauty of the original into something close to a shimmering Fifties pop song.
I’m Set Free (The Velvet Underground)
Yo La Tengo recorded this for the soundtrack to Mary Harron’s Valerie Solanas biopic, I Shot Andy Warhol (1996). Unhappy that the movie was being made, Lou Reed reportedly vetoed the inclusion of his music. Yo La Tengo (along with Tara Key) appeared in the movie as The Velvet Underground, performing at a Factory party, but they were credited simply as ‘Party Band’.
By the Time It Gets Dark (Sandy Denny)
This Sandy Denny (of Fairport Convention) cover appears on the Little Honda EP and has to rank among the prettiest of Yo La Tengo’s covers. Georgia and Ira’s vocal harmonies are at once sublime and moving as they sing, “Maybe, by the evening we’ll be happy. Just wait and see all the changes there’ll be by the time it gets dark.” But just maybe.
—29 AU Magazine—
AZ to
Sidekicks —The lot of a sidekick is not an easy one. Basically a crony whose sole purpose is to make someone else look better, they're usually less dashing, less intelligent, less charismatic and – let's face it – less physically attractive than the main character. Kinda sucks, huh? For all that, the humble sidekick is usually doughty, steadfast and reliable. And they're usually pretty funny too (albeit often unintentionally). So let's give it up for these unsung, redoubtable comrades who selflessly step aside and let some glory-hog grab all the headlines. God knows they deserve their moment in the sun.
Words by Neill Dougan Illustration by Elissa Parente —30 issue 60—
Rewind
A to Z - Sidekicks
A IS FOR AL GORE
Big Al (as he’s probably known) was Bill Clinton’s Vice President from 1993 to 2001, and firmly hammered home his ‘sidekick’ credentials by losing the 2000 Presidential Election (or rather, by having it stolen from him by George ‘Satan’ Bush). Then, to the surprise of absolutely everyone, he became an environmental activist and subject of the Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth. He even won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. All of which is probably still no consolation for being married to Tipper Gore, the nasty procensorship lady who slaps ‘Parental Advisory’ stickers on all your favourite rap records.
B IS FOR BEZ
Party monster Bez ‘Bez’ Bez was the mascot (for want of a better word) for Manchester lunatics Happy Mondays (and later Black Grape), providing a ludicrous counterpoint to the rest of the band’s funknoir with his self-styled freaky dancing. Maintaining his mojo with a steady diet of illegal narcotics, images of the goggle-eyed, maraca-shaking, slack-jawed scally shaking his thing remain some of the most iconic in all of British pop. Sadly, the years of hard living have taken their toll and these days the man christened Mark Berry is a walking advertisement for the virtues of staying the hell away from any and all drugs.
C IS FOR CHEWBACCA
Han Solo’s partner in crime, Chewbacca is a wookiee, a seven-foot-tall native of the planet of Kashyyyk who’s hairier than an Afghan hound and generally angry as hell. An ace fighter pilot and a crack shot to boot, ol’ Chewie’s a handy man to have around in a rumble. But having a wookiee as your best mate is a fraught business, as he’s as likely to cuff you round the ear with his massive paw as take out a few storm-troopers. In addition, his trademark exclamation of “Raaaawwwwwrraogh” does tend to grate after a while.
D IS FOR DONKEY
In the magical world of the DreamWorks animation company, it makes perfect sense for a green-skinned, dubiously-accented ogre to have a talking, AfroAmerican-sounding donkey as his main accomplice in a magical romp through a wonderful land of fairytales. Sounds like a right laugh, eh? Yeah, you’d think so, but in fact each of the Shrek movies is more vastly over-rated than the last. For all that, the part of Donkey is still the nearest thing Eddie Murphy has got to an amusing role in the last 20 years. He’s really not very good any more.
E IS FOR BRIAN EPSTEIN
Well-to-do Merseyside entrepreneur Epstein had the vision to look at four scruffy, uncouth mop-tops and see their potential for greatness. Epstein took the then-unknown Beatles, cleaned them up a bit, got them to stop smoking onstage and basically moulded them into a presentable outfit. Good work, but he was also indirectly responsible for the phenomenon of the pop svengali. So we have him to thank for the likes of Louis Walsh (Boyzone, Westlife), Tom Watkins (East 17) and even Jonathan King (10cc, sex offender). So, er, cheers for that Brian!
F IS FOR FLAVOR FLAV
You might call Flavor the Bez of hip-hop, and with some justification, since he – like his Manchester counterpart – was basically there to provide comic relief, his pronouncements on the Public Enemy records being largely limited to enthusiastic exhortations to get down.
While wearing a giant clock round his neck. Having said that, he also rapped on one of the all-time great hip-hop singles, 1990’s ‘911 Is A Joke’, for which we’d forgive him almost anything. Even his reality TV show Flavor of Love. Well, ok, not that.
G IS FOR
SAMWISE GAMGEE
True friendship is worth more than all the gold in the world, and AU can only express our fervent wish that someday we, like Frodo Baggins, will have a companion as loyal and steadfast as Samwise, a hobbit who would gladly walk through the fires of Khazaddoom (or wherever) to see his dear ‘Mr Frodo’ safe and sound. And it’s a perfectly platonic friendship too, we might add, with not even a hint of a blatantly homoerotic subtext. Oh no.
H IS FOR HYPE MEN
The concept of the ‘hype man’ in hip-hop is quite bizarre. Basically, an accomplished MC gets a lessertalented acolyte to prance about onstage constantly bigging him up. Not much dignity in that job, you would have thought (you try walking around with your more successful mate all day constantly telling everyone how great he is. You’ll be topping yourself before lunchtime). Occasionally hype men can make good (see ‘Flavor Flav’) but most – like Sen Dog (Cypress Hill), Spliff Star (Busta Rhymes) or all of D12 – are just, y’know. A bit crap. Sorry guys.
I IS FOR
ARMANDO IANUCCI
The fancily-named Armando is a successful, not to mention rather amusing, writer and performer in his own right (hosting his own show in 2001 and also writing chucklesome satire The Thick Of It, as well as his first movie In The Loop earlier this year). Nonetheless, he will surely be best remembered as a behind-the-scenes comedy fixer – it was he, as producer of early-Nineties radio show On The Hour (which later became The Day Today), who first brought together the talents of Chris Morris, Stewart Lee, Steve Coogan and Richard Herring. Which essentially makes him some kind of God.
J IS FOR THE JACKSONS Sibling soul band the Jackson 5 may have started off as a combo in which each of the members was more-orless equal, but once youngest brother Michael began to exhibit an extraordinary talent, it was really all about him. By the time they dropped ‘I Want You Back’ in 1969, all bets were off – it was MJ plus four others. They struggled on into the Eighties, but by then Mike was a massive star and the rest of The Jacksons (as they had been renamed) were, er, not. But, hey, the most important thing is that they all ended up as perfectly normal, well-rounded blokes. Uhm…
K IS FOR GARETH KEENAN
Military-obsessed “assistant to the Regional Manager” in The Office, Gareth – portrayed with some panache by Mackenzie Crook – is an annoying, slimy, toadying, selfimportant geek, who loves boss David Brent so much that he actually bursts into tears at the prospect of being parted from him. Gareth is also the perennial butt of Dawn and Tim’s practical jokes, all of which manages to make working in an office look kind of hilarious. Here’s a little tip for you, kids: it’s not. It’s bollocks.
L IS FOR LITTLE JOHN
Second-in-command to Robin Hood in his band of merry men, the ironically-named Little John was – by repute – some seven feet tall, cunning, resourceful and possessed of immense physical strength. Disney dropped a massive clanger when they made their anthropomorphic animated version of Robin Hood, by making Robin a fox and Little John a bear. As if a bear would ever be content to play second fiddle to a fox. Just wouldn’t happen.
M IS FOR MONEY MARK
The keyboard wizard born Mark Ramos-Nishita is a successful solo artist in his own right (his 1998 album Push The Button is a particular belter), as well as playing with Beck (his keyboards underpin ‘Where It’s At’) and, er, Jack Johnson. But he’ll be best remembered for his work with the Beastie Boys, tinkling the ivories on landmark albums Check Your Head, Ill Communication and Hello Nasty. And yet they still wouldn’t make him a permanent member of the band. Utter bastards. —31 AU Magazine—
A to Z
Sidekicks
N IS FOR NOO-NOO
Teletubbies. Insane programme, absolutely insane. Essential viewing for people under the age of four, and massively irritating for everyone else. NooNoo is the guardian-cum-housekeeper to the four main characters, and bizarrely resembles a vacuum cleaner. Instead of speaking, moreover, he (she? it?) communicates through a series of strange sucking noises. Tell you what, there must have been some good LSD in the water-cooler the day they came up with this madness.
O IS FOR ORKO
The archetypal bumbling sidekick, unusual floating wizard-type character Orko provides a spot of comic relief in the otherwise unrelentingly gritty and realistic He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe. Although he is a member of a race of powerful magicians ('Trollans', if you're interested), any spell the hapless scarf-wearer attempts inevitably backfires in amusing fashion. Oh, the hilarity.
P IS FOR SANCHO PANZA
Faithful squire to the loopy Don Quixote in Don Miguel de Cervantes’s classic novel of the same name, Panza is a rotund, earthy, illiterate peasant of dubious intelligence. As a result of his master’s slightly eccentric behaviour, the pair suffer various injuries and humiliations, the worst of which befall poor ol’ Sancho. Classic sidekick material, in other words. All he’s really missing is a daft costume.
Q IS FOR CARLOS QUEIROZ
Some people were born to be a number two. Nowhere is this more cruelly illustrated than in the brutal world of professional football, which is littered with examples of successful assistant managers who have fallen on their face when they attempt to go it alone. Exhibit A: Carlos Queiroz, a man who enjoyed large amounts of success during two spells as Sir Alex Ferguson’s righthand-man at Manchester United. However, he was sacked as Real Madrid boss after an ill-fated 10-month spell in charge in the 2003-4 season, and in his current role as Portugal manager is seemingly doing his utmost to ensure the team doesn’t qualify for the 2010 World Cup. Know your place, Carlos!
R IS FOR ROBIN
The archetypal sidekick, the ‘Boy Wonder’ helps his older taskmaster Batman clean up the mean streets of Gotham City. This being the world of comic books, the character has a torturously labyrinthine back story, and in fact several different people have donned the black mask and figure-hugging red uniform, among them Dick Grayson, Jason Todd and Tim Drake. There have been others, including a few female Robins, but for the most part it’s young boys who the caped crusader has traditionally selected to be his crime-fighting companion. Anyone else find that a little bit odd?
S IS FOR SNOWY
What do dogs offer that people don’t? Unconditional loyalty and affection, that’s what, so it seems perfectly natural that crime-fighting Belgian detective Tin Tin would have as his most trusted companion his faithful mutt Snowy. Whether he be gnawing through his master’s bonds (after the spiky-haired idiot has gone and got himself captured again) or just nipping at a villain’s rear end, like the best sidekicks Snowy is valiant, dedicated, true of heart and (as a bonus) is more than fond of the odd slug of whiskey. Also does a nice line in dry wit, which unfortunately none of the other characters can hear or understand. Because he’s a dog.
T IS FOR MR T
The A-Team were ostensibly a squad of equals, but let’s face it, Hannibal was the brains behind the operation, while T was little more than muscle. Sticking closely to the unwritten law stating that the sidekick must offer maximum comedy value, the big man is bizarrely-coiffured, dripping with gold —32 issue 60—
and possessed of a hair-trigger temper. Today, Mr T is reduced to hocking sickly sweet chocolate treat Snickers from onboard a helicopter – a far cry from his Eighties hey-day, and a cruel fate indeed given his chronic fear of flying.
U IS FOR ULTRA MAGNUS
Sad and pathetic it may be, but AU has never entirely grown out of its childhood fixation with Transformers. It goes without saying that they were all awesome, but one of the very best was Ultra Magnus, a fearless soldier and loyal lieutenant to Autobot leader Optimus Prime. Also transformed into a massive lorry, which was quite magnificent. And on that note, your correspondent will stop nerding you out forthwith.
V IS FOR MILHOUSE
VAN HOUTEN
Sorry latchkey kid Milhouse is Bart Simpson’s trusty, if somewhat clueless, adjutant. Likes to refer to himself as ‘Thrill-house’ when playing video games, but sadly Homer’s various terms of address for him (which include “Poindexter”, “the little weiner” and “the sad, weird kid” ) are more apposite. Interestingly, this perennial sidekick actually becomes a proper superhero’s partner in the vein of Robin when he lands the part of Fall-Out Boy in the Radioactive Man movie. Milhouse being Milhouse, it doesn’t work out, but it’s okay, better times are just around the corner. Or not.
W IS FOR MIKE WATT
No, not the Minutemen bassist. We’re talking about the army-and-Robot-Wars obsessed character from winning sci-fi sitcom Spaced. The lovable Mike is a dedicated buddy to his childhood friend Tim Bisley, standing by him through thick and (mostly) thin. Tim and Mike
are played by real-life best mates Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, which is handy for Frost as he gets to act in all the movies Pegg writes. Can’t beat a bit o’ nepotism.
X IS FOR X-KIDS
What is it with these superheroes and their suspiciously youthful accomplices? Even the X-Men are at it, roping in a slew of nubile teens – the X-Kids – to help in their battle against Magneto and his lot. Thanks to the movies, the best known of these are Rogue and Iceman, but there are loads of others like Wolf Cub, Rockslide, Hellion et al. All very exciting, of course, but AU has to wonder when the child labour folks will step in to put an end to this travesty.
Y IS FOR YELLER
Yeller (Or ‘Old Yeller’ as he’s more commonly known, due to the fact that he’s, er, severely aged) is the titular star of the 1957 Disney movie about two brothers, Travis and Arliss, and their trusty hound. Sentimental slush it may be, but the heartbreaking denouement – when Travis is forced to shoot the poor mutt, who has contracted rabies – can still reduce grown men to floods of tears. Er, not AU though. Seriously, we never cry. Honest.
Z IS FOR ZEBEDEE
Yet another example of drug-inspired lunacy masquerading as children’s entertainment, The Magic Roundabout was truly something to behold. Take Zebedee, for example, a moustachioed, talking, faintly disturbing jack-in-the-box who was known primarily for the phrases “Time for bed!” and “Boing!” Forget The Grateful Dead and The Doors. If you want to get really psychedelic, The Magic Roundabout is where it’s at. Although Zebedee is likely to freak you out a bit.
“Soulful and bursting with with folk-country melodies, enveloped in a deep Delta blues sound....” – AU “Their’s is a vibrant blend of The White Stripes, barn dances and the Stephane Grappelli – like fiddle-frenzy jazz/blues” – Q
On tour throughout October:
Debut album out 5th October “A hook-laden riot...big things may be coming their way” – NME “Demands attention from the off… the strength and depth of their songs belie their age” – Clash
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BATH Moles MANCHESTER Night 'n Day CARLISLE Brickyard YORK City Screen Basement EDINBURGH Cabaret Voltaire GLASGOW Captain’s Rest DERBY Rockhouse OXFORD Jericho Tavern BIRMINGHAM Hare & Hounds GUILDFORD Boiler room LONDON Lexington SOUTHAMPTON Hamptons
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THE FRONT PAGE Come Together
Fridays At The Front Page
Featuring live sets from local bands and artists and a DJ set of psychedelia, rock and dance music from the last four decades.
OCTOBER:
2nd The White Art Hippies 9th Trippy Heads 16th RED Rasta Sound System - birthday party 23rd Trippy Heads 30th Electric Circus Doors: 9pm -1:30am / Tax: £4 (ConCession £3) The Front Page Bar 108 Donegall Street, Belfast.
Thursdays: Upstairs URBAN ARTS CENTRE - FOLK NIGHT Antrim Lancers + guests and Set Dancing Fridays: Downstairs TRAD SESSION 9pm Saturdays : Downstairs KARAOKE 9pm Saturdays: Upstairs 3rd Oct DRUMOLOGY (DRUM + BASS) Paul Turley 10th Oct DANCE / TRANCE with Jonathon Moss 24th Oct POLSKI HIP-HOP (DRUM + BASS) with Tomasz
Respect Your Shelf The AU Buyers’ Guide Nick Cave —Rock music is inherently stupid; a celebration of the idiotic, a battle hymn for the moronic. So for someone to come along and attempt to inject an almost academic level of seriousness to it is something ambitious indeed. Not that you’d think it by how easy Nick Cave makes it look. An intellectual titan, Nick Cave and his not-so-merry band of musical adventurers have been giving rock music a kick in the mind hole since the late 1970s, and with a new book just released, a film script completed, and who knows what manner of musical delights on the horizon, he doesn’t look like he’s ready to stop any time soon. It’s a cliché, but Nick Cave is rock and roll’s genuine renaissance man, and AU is going to do its best to prove it. Words by Steven Rainey
—34 issue 60—
Rewind
Respect Your Shelf - Nick Cave
The Early Years
The Gothic Bluesman
The Novelist
The Birthday Party – Mutiny / The Bad Seed
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds – The Firstborn is Dead
Nick Cave – And the Ass Saw the Angel
After a thrilling career that saw Nick Cave, Mick Harvey, Rowland S. Howard, Tracy Pew, and Phill Calvert cross the world from their native Melbourne to a grimy post-punk London, The Birthday Party had de-camped to Berlin, finally finding an outlet for their increasingly gothic brand of post-punk blues. From the twisted surrealism of their first album, Prayers On Fire (“My body is a monster driven insane / My heart is a fish toasted by flames”) to the jagged and demented violence of Junkyard (“I stuck a 6” gold blade in the head of a girl / Her: lying through her teeth, him: on his back.”), that band had been careering further and further out of control, and that chaos is crystallised on the Mutiny and Bad Seed EPs. The band are tightly coiled and ready to strike, sounding like they’re on the point of total collapse, and exploding in all directions at once. Howard’s guitar sounds like it’s scraping the roof off hell, whilst Pew’s bass is so low and dirty that it sounds like one continuous pelvic thrust. But the true lasting strength of the records is in Cave’s songwriting, which had finally blossomed from a bad seed into a magnificent dark flower.
It’s tempting to look at Cave’s musical career as being split into two halves: The Old Testament-style retribution of The Birthday Party, and the New Testament-style redemption of his solo career. However, lurking at the dark heart of his post-Birthday Party oeuvre lies The Firstborn is Dead, his 1985 Southern Gothic odyssey. Leaving behind the noisy clutter of his solo debut From Her To Eternity, and a million miles away from the stately balladeering of his later albums, Firstborn is a hushed masterpiece. Almost silent in places, with instruments implied rather than heard, the album finds Cave delving into the roots of America, and sticking knives into its heart. The album is populated by preachers, prison convicts, and criminals, and there is no sense of hope for any of them; the world will perish in a great flood, and God is apparently not listening. The highlight of the album is ‘Tupelo’, a rumbling and ominous portent of doom, which contrasts the birth of Christ with the birth of Elvis Presley. “You can call these streets a river, you can call these rivers streets / You can tell yourself you’re dreaming, buddy, but no sleep runs this deep,” spits Cave through gritted teeth, and it’s difficult not to believe him.
After the literary brilliance of his songwriting, it seemed only natural for Cave to turn his hand to a full-length novel. Emerging in 1989, the book confirmed that Cave was the real deal, a true original, and not just another rock singer aspiring for some kind of serious credibility. It tells the tale of Euchrid Eucrow, an inbred mute who develops his own language and can communicate with his dead twin brother. Sinking slowly into a swamp, with a crow gazing down in to the blackness of his eyes, and pursued by those who would seek to destroy him, Eucrow recounts the story, distorted by his own twisted worldview, whilst hell erupts around him. Unfathomably dark and disturbing, Cave’s masterly use of language and form caused the literary world to sit up and take notice – finally, the punk was being brought into the establishment.
Best Bit: ‘Jennifer’s Veil’, where Cave paints an entirely unsettling and compelling portrait of some kind of unpleasantness. It’s never fully explained what’s going on, but the sense of dread is palpable.
Best Bit: A sustained feeling of tension hangs over the whole album, but ‘Knockin’ on Joe’ is a masterpiece of gothic storytelling, Cave perfectly capturing the last moments of a Death Row inmate laughing in the face of his captors, even as he knows he faces the end. “Grave robbers at my coffin, before my body’s even cold…”
Best Bit: Cave’s debut novel is a linguistic tour de force, with Euchrid literally having to create his own language in the void of his enclosed world.
La Trivata: Einstürzende Neubauten’s Blixa Bargeld added guitar on the last ever Birthday Party recording, unintentionally providing a link between Cave’s past and future, as he later became a founder member of the Bad Seeds.
La Triviata: The Bad Seeds were originally to be called Nick Cave and the Cave Men, but thankfully common sense prevailed, and one of the all-time great band names was created.
La Triviata: The book was written over a series of years, and a keen-eyed reader can detect elements of some of Cave’s songs running through the novel, beginning with The Birthday Party’s ‘Swampland’, which provides the central image of Euchrid slowly sinking into the swamp.
The Scriptwriter
The Academic
GUIDED BY CHOICES:
The Proposition
Nick Cave – The Secret Life of the Love Song / The Flesh Made Word
THE AU DEFENCE
After a long association with film, which found him appearing in cult films such as Johnny Suede and Ghosts… of the Civil Dead, it seemed only a matter of time before Cave wrote a film of his own. And when it finally arrived in 2005, it was instantly hailed as another triumph for the man who could seemingly do no wrong. The Proposition takes place in the Australian outback of the 1880s, putting a wonderful spin on the traditional western. A harrowing tale of violence and revenge, the film drew acclaim for its script, as well as its historical accuracy. The film is also noteworthy for how it manages to draw from a variety of different themes, all of which are distinctly Cave-esque, but also manage to take Cave’s writing in new directions. Around the same time of the film’s release, it emerged that Russell Crowe had asked Cave to write a screenplay for a sequel to Gladiator. The studio rejected the film, however a leaked script synopsis suggested the indignities Crowe’s Maximus would have been subjected to by Cave… Best Bit: The brutal flogging scene is perhaps one of the most harrowing in film history. I dare you to watch it without flinching. La Triviata: Cave and The Dirty Three’s Warren Ellis provided the soundtrack for The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, and Cave has a wonderful cameo at the end as a wandering minstrel.
In 1999, Cave issued a beautifully packaged recording of two lectures, one from the Vienna Poetry festival, and the other from a BBC religious programme. Once again, Cave proved his versatility, delivering an absolutely unforgettable collection of insights into the nature of the love song. Probing under the skin of his songwriting, and examining all the little creatures that emerged, the highlight of this gripping lecture comes when Cave recites the lyrics to Kylie Minogue’s ‘Better The Devil You Know’, transforming the sugary pop nugget into a chilling tale of abuse and desire. The second lecture was no less interesting, with Cave examining the religious element to his own songwriting, and looking at his relationship with his father. Along the way, we were treated to tantalising glimpses of some of the songs that would appear on his next album, 2001’s No More Shall We Part, with ‘Love Letter’ in particular sounding hauntingly beautiful, perhaps even more so than the finished version which appeared on the album. Best Bit: No one could have ever imagined that Kylie Minogue’s ‘Better The Devil You Know’ was so dark, but then Cave could take the “dark of the daytime, and paint the daytime black”, as Bob Dylan once sang. La Triviata: Cave’s academic credentials are reinforced by the fact that he keeps an office and works 9–5 every day, crafting songs, and having an hour’s lunch break in the middle. Rock and, indeed, roll.
All of The Birthday Party’s albums are worth investigating, but they’re not for the faint-hearted. Always operating at the more extreme end of post-punk, it’s difficult to equate the magisterial ballads Cave is associated with now to the howling cacophony of The Birthday Party. Junkyard (1982) in particular is crammed with classic moments, but may well be one of the most horrible sounding albums ever made. Cave’s post-Birthday Party work treads a different path, with the anger of yore eventually thawing and being replaced with a stately grandeur, the Bad Seeds becoming the ultimate backing band capable of translating Cave’s every whim. Beginning with The Good Son (1990), Cave has steadily mellowed to the point where occasionally his albums sound more like an academic exercise than the visceral thrashing of yore. Grinderman was an attempt to reclaim some of that intensity, but it would appear that the Nick Cave of today is a settled intellectual, rather than the howling prophet of doom he used to be. That’s not to say that he’s lost his appeal, far from it, but perhaps there’s something to be said for a little danger in the music. Either way, he remains a genuine original, and someone whose consistency shows no sign of slackening. At the beginning of this year, Cave parted ways with long-time collaborator Mick Harvey, bringing to an end a partnership that had lasted since the late Seventies. Whether this will usher in a new era for Cave remains to be seen, but as with everything he turns his hand to, the results should be worth keeping an eye out for.
—35 AU Magazine—
Rewind
Classic Album - Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
Classic Album Lloyd Cole and the Commotions – Rattlesnakes (1984)
Some things can defy the ravages of time – this month marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Rattlesnakes, the shimmering debut from Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. The music of Rattlesnakes has stood the test of time, a mix of bedsit introspection, elegant guitar jangle and a nod to a more soulful side that fully vindicated Cole’s desire to create a cross between Bob Dylan and Booker T. & the M.G.'s. Derbyshire-born Cole himself remains as fresh-faced today as he did in 1984, a Dorian Gray-style portrait surely stashed away in his Massachusetts home. AU asks him to take a step back in time. Words by John Freeman Illustration by Elissa Parente
Although ‘conceived’ in Glasgow, Rattlesnakes was recorded in early 1984 in two batches at London’s Garden Studios, providing Lloyd with a mixture of memories. “I remember that ‘Charlotte Street’ and ‘2CV’ were not completely finished; I seem to recall working on them travelling up and down from Glasgow to London. We ate at a transport cafe just about every day, because East London back then was pretty bloody grim. One day Tom Verlaine of Television came to visit the studio. It was kind of fantastic, but by 1984 Tom was kind of a withered old guy. I think we all looked at each other and thought, ‘I hope we don’t turn out like this’. The album’s two most famous songs are ‘Perfect Skin’ and ‘Are You Ready to be Heartbroken?’ The jangling swagger of the former sparked a generation of teenage boys to search in vain for a girl with “cheekbones like geometry and perfect skin”. Lloyd chuckles at the thought, “It was our manifesto song, our first single, and I think I just tried to put anything into the song that I thought was amusing or clever. It was our ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’.” The latter, a beautiful ballad, was almost an afterthought. “It was the first good song we ever wrote. ‘Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?’ was originally written to be a B-side for a single we nearly released, before we signed with Polydor, and it took us all a couple of weeks to admit that it was infinitely superior to the A-side. Eventually it became one of our key songs.” There is a freshness that remains on Rattlesnakes, Paul Hardiman’s tight production providing a backdrop for a band gradually realising how good they were. Lloyd agrees, “We were very, very lucky in that we were a new band, and we didn’t slog away playing clubs for years, and we were in no way jaded. We were all just very excited that the combination of the five of us made this sound that we were happy with. There was a real joie de vivre about the Commotions. I think, probably, the freshness comes from that.”
—36 issue 60—
Lloyd Cole studied English and philosophy, and was happy to litter Rattlesnakes with mentions of literary greats. The title is a nod to Joan Didion’s novel, Play It As It Lays, while lyrical name checks to Norman Mailer and Simone de Beauvoir cast Cole as a bright boy. “It was possibly subliminal for me – the chance that I wanted the names to be in there so that people would think I was clever, but I hope not,” Lloyd admits. “All of the characters are in there for a reason. Mailer was in [‘Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?’] because he represented what I considered to be a quintessential masculine writer (“If you really want to get straight / Read Norman Mailer”). It was a device to get more information using less words into songs.” A number of seminal bands came to the fore in 1984 – The Smiths, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Everything But The Girl all made their mark. But Lloyd was quite confident that Rattlesnakes could compete. Just don’t mention Aztec Camera. “When the album came out we were very happy with it, but we had no idea about what a success it would be. It never got higher than Number 10, but it just stuck around and didn’t leave the Top 100 for a year. We then realised we’d made one of the records of the year. Even The Smiths’ debut album was somewhat disappointing, so I think it was just Prince and us who were on top form. I never really understood how Aztec Camera got the time of day from anybody. For 25 years I’ve heard our name with theirs and never quite understood it!” Predictably, and understandably, Cole is proud of the veneration his defining album has attained. Perhaps what is surprising is his one personal irritation, “I wish there wasn’t so much vibrato on my voice. On Rattlesnakes all anyone tried to do was to get me to sing in tune. Maybe the way I sing on the record is jarring to me, but it doesn’t seem to jar with anyone else.” WWW.LLOYDCOLE.COM
—37 AU Magazine—
—38 issue 60—
Spinnerette
Dalle Parts
Dalle Parts
Over the last decade, former Distillers frontwoman Brody Dalle has been demonised by the press and seen countless band members leave her in the lurch. Undeterred, she’s continued making great music for her devoted fans and has come back stronger than ever with her new outfit Spinnerette. In a rare interview, Brody bares all and tells us how 50-year-old men can be punk, why pissing in the wind is the coolest thing a girl can do and insists that nice and tight beats sloppy and sexy any day of the week. Words by Edwin McFee “Punk rock can be pretty safe these days,” begins Spinnerette über vixen Brody Dalle. “If you’ve got little grannies saying how nice your tattoos are in the fuckin’ grocery store, there’s something wrong.” This, in part, explains why the singer has left behind her trademark brand of buzzsaw punk and come back into the limelight with her slinky, sexy new project Spinnerette. Gone are the choppy power chords and Discharge-inspired riffs and in their place are handclaps, electronic pulses, yelps and a guitar sound that owes a little bit to Queens Of The Stone Age. But then, Josh Homme is her husband after all and anyone who won’t accept that the pair will influence each other’s music is as deluded as a tent full of Sammy Wilson clones. “The change in sound has been a long time coming,” coos the 30-year-old. “It doesn’t mean I’ll never play punk rock again, it just means this is what I’m doing now. I don’t want to censor myself or not play a certain song because it doesn’t fit into a certain genre or style. I kinda wanna go into other territories and push some walls down.” And Brody is doing exactly that. While she still sounds like she gargles glass like mouthwash, everything else around her has softened and she says she owes it all to former QOTSA member Alain Johannes. Alain, who is one of the few constants in Spinnerette’s rotating cast of band members, has apparently helped Brody refine her rougher edges. “Spinnerette is both of our music juices mixed together in a cocktail, I guess,” she laughs. “I wrote a lot of these songs when I was in The Distillers but they just didn’t seem to work. We would try and play them but they sounded so strange and I think it needed Alain’s finesse to make it a little more sophisticated. The way that Al plays, all the guitar work that you hear – ‘cos I just play power chords; I can play a fuckin’ Ramones song in my sleep but I can’t do crazy leads and shit like that – is so innovative and he’s such an incredible player that brings a sophistication to the record that wasn’t there before. If you heard the original demos you’d see instantly how much of a difference he’s made because they were just really stripped down, slower, kind of groovier Distillers songs.” Despite the change in sound suggesting it’s anything but, Brody believes this new approach is more “punk rock” than anything she’s done before.
“I never thought about what style it is or [that] maybe we shouldn’t do this – it never ever was a concern. It just happened the way it did and it was really exciting. To me, sometimes it sounds more punk in a sense than anything The Distillers did because it’s a little bit boundary-less and that’s the way it should be. Here’s an example. We’ve got this 50-year-old guy who comes to every London show we do and it’s so cute. He’s 50 years old and he’s bopping his head in the front row – it’s not a bad thing. He’s like the punkest person in the crowd because he’s so out of place. I love him. He doesn’t fit in and he doesn’t care and that’s the way Spinnerette is.” Back in March 2007, Brody announced that yes, the rumours were true. Her old band-mates in The Distillers had indeed gone their separate ways after three albums. The previous few years were a tough time for the Australian. She’d undergone a very public split from her husband Tim Armstrong from Rancid, then hooked up with Homme and hung up her mohawk for good in favour of a more feminine, (arguably) fashion-conscious look as her band became unwitting indie pin-ups despite sounding as far removed from your average shoe-gazing act as you can get. She lost some old fans, gained a whole bunch of new ones and it seemed like the press were willing her to become this generation’s Courtney Love. Thankfully Dalle was stronger than that and instead of courting the attention, she left the limelight to start a family and to get over the break-up of yet another group. Now with her daughter (Camille Harley Joan Homme) three years old, she feels comfortable within herself and sees releasing the Spinnerette album as a sort of exorcism. “It’s such a relief to have the album out there,” she confesses. “We’ve been working on it for a couple of years now and it’s not healthy for an artist to live with a record for that long. You just end up constantly tinkering with it and changing things. I think the original imprint is so beautiful, you shouldn’t keep distorting that. But it’s such a relief for it to come out. At the start we had to find someone to put my records out and find management and that took a full year on its own. Honestly, it took so long, it was a drag, but now that’s in place it’ll be like old times – we made the record and it’ll come out three months later.” In fact, Brody exclusively reveals that she has already laid the groundwork for the follow-up to Spinnerette’s self-titled debut.
“We actually start recording in September. We’ve tons of material all good to go and songs left over from the first album that we didn’t put on because we didn’t have the room. No-one wants to hear a fuckin’ double album of music, right? So, yeah, we’ve lots of stuff to work with. I’m ready to make another record now too. It won’t be too long before you hear new stuff because we’re really back in action.” If Brody sounds comfortable and at home with herself, well that’s because she certainly seems to be. It looks like motherhood has genuinely changed both her and her music (one of her new songs ‘Geeking’ actually started out life as a lullaby she sang to Camille). Her days of being an angry young punk fronting Sourpuss and then The Distillers may be behind her, but she admits she still gets the odd dose of stage-fright every now and then. “Every night I play, I keep telling myself, ‘Don’t fuck it up, Brody, just don’t fuck it up’. I gotta put on a good show for everyone who bought a ticket and came to see me.” At the time of our interview, Dalle is in the middle of a soundcheck, preparing for her first tour in years. When AU asks her how she finds being out on the road these days, she appears conflicted. “It’s definitely a lot harder now I have Camille,” she says emotionally after a long pause. “The first three days you’re like, ‘Wow, this is awesome, it’s like a party and I can sleep and drink and do what I want’, but then after that I’m like, ok, I miss my child and… [she pauses to fight back the tears]… you have to get through it. But now I’m only three days away from going home for a little while and I’m really excited to be going back. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to play shows too, it’s just hard dividing your time. But when I go onstage it makes sense and I realise that this is what I’m here for, you know?” In a bid to cheer the singer up (hey, we might be mean but we don’t want to make people cry, now do we?) we distract her by asking about Spinnerette’s rather ramshackle performance at Oxegen this year. Clearly more than a little merry thanks to one too many light ales, Brody announced onstage that she was in love with the festival and declared that bumping into some girls, um, getting back to nature and taking a toilet break sans the toilet was the coolest thing she had ever seen. —39 AU Magazine—
Spinnerette
“Every night I play, I keep telling myself, ‘Don’t fuck it up, Brody, just don’t fuck it up’”
Dalle Parts
“That was awesome, dude,” she laughs, perking up at the mention of the frankly horrific image of GAA jersey-clad culchies with their cacks around their ankles. “It was the coolest thing ever. No cares in the world, just pissin’ in the wind. I love it! I think the Oxegen set was fun, but we could’ve done better. It was a bit rough I think and it was sloppy because it was our first show. I prefer it when we get nice and tight, but sloppy and sexy can be really good too, right?” As AU takes a second to collect our thoughts thanks to Brody being a brazen flirt, she mercifully saves our blushes. “You know something? This [being in a band] doesn’t have to be so serious. It’s just rock ‘n’ roll. It’s supposed to be fun, it’s supposed to be crazy – it’s supposed to be fucking dangerous. As soon as things start feeling safe and familiar then you know your band has turned to shit.” Part of the reason why the singer feels this way can be attributed to the break-up of her old group, which appears to have hit her harder than she lets on. Although she tries to lead us to believe otherwise, it’s clear that The Distillers family going their separate ways has hurt her quite a bit, so much so that these days she sees Spinnerette’s live band as being a loose collective, rather than a close knit unit. “Life doesn’t have to be so serious,” she begins. “Now I’m a little bit older I can take things easier. When I was 24 and 25 it was like a life or death thing for me. You’re part of a family and you take it so seriously, so when a band breaks up or someone wants to leave you get so hurt, y’know? There’s too much heartbreak involved and this time around I wanted a looser vibe. If people weren’t happy or wanted to take a break or move on then it was understood that you could just come and go.” Judging by the scenes at the signing tent at Oxegen this year, though, it clearly is still life or death to a lot
—40 issue 60—
of Brody’s fans who were actually in tears over finally meeting their idol in the flesh. We reckon the last time the world has witnessed that much smudged mascara was during an onion peeling contest at a Fall Out Boy convention. But we digress… “Having people, mostly females, come up to me and tell me my music changed their life is partially why I do what I do. That, to me, is why meeting fans is such a deep and meaningful thing because that’s what music is supposed to do. It’s meant to make you change how you look at the world. It chronicles your life and punctuates events in your life and helps you get through shit. I really think it’s super-cool that I can help people in any way possible.” So that’s Brody Dalle, then, 2009’s most unlikely agony aunt. As we finish our chat, our talk turns to the future and how she sees herself in the world. Not surprisingly, she hasn’t the slightest idea what life may bring her but she’s willing to take on any challenges that come her way. And hey, she can put up with all the bullshit of the past few years, she’s as tough as they come. “Despite all the crap I’ve put up with, I don’t think it’s ever a negative thing to make music for a living,” she concludes. “I’m really lucky to be in this position and I wouldn’t want to do anything else. The only downside is that I’m away from my kid. That’s the only bad thing for me right now. However, if I could give the old me some advice I’d probably tell her to just relax and don’t take everything so seriously. Try and enjoy everything that comes your way and don’t get too stressed out when you meet assholes, ‘cos you’ll meet a lot of them. Nowadays, I don’t plan too far ahead. Life’s more of an adventure that way.” SPINNERETTE’S DEBUT ALBUM SPINNERETTE IS OUT NOW ON HASSLE RECORDS WWW.SPINNERETTEMUSIC.COM
—41 AU Magazine—
Swear Bears
Fuck Buttons
FUCK BUTTONS The day before we finally pin Fuck Buttons’ Andrew Hung to a phone line, his band’s new album leaked in a big, messy splurge all over the internet. Or at least, that’s what it seemed like, since regular visits to the band’s last.fm page over the preceding weeks had yielded comment after comment from fans frothing at the mouth, thrilled by the video for first single ‘Surf Solar’ and desperately pleading for a leak of the whole album. And then, one Monday in September, BAM! The same page was suddenly full of those selfsame fans falling over themselves to declare that album, Tarot Sport, a masterpiece. So, given the timing of our interview, it’s tempting to quiz Hung on the fans’ reaction so far. And, as we suspected, he has been keeping an eye on it. However, he insists it’s had zero effect on him and bandmate Benjamin Power. “Yeah, it’s really pleasing to hear,” he allows, “but it’s just been important for us to enjoy this time and to appreciate what we’ve done, so at the moment we’re not really taking in all the criticisms or praise.” Perhaps, we are forced to wonder, it’s just that Hung and Power don’t care what anyone else thinks. “I can’t really remember anything that’s had any lasting impact on our working practice,” he says. “For one reason, it might not be beneficial for us to take in criticism because I guess the work is more to do with us than other people. For sure, we do listen to everything, but I’m not sure how much impact it’ll have in the long run.” Hung may be unmoved so far, but it must be said that the fans aren’t far wrong. Though it’s easy in hindsight to downplay the significance and originality of last year’s debut album Street Horrrsing, Tarot Sport feels like a major step forward. Street Horrrsing, though superb, was a difficult beast. Though the band have only rarely indulged in the all-out noise they are often associated with, the debut was noted for its huge waves of fuzz, synths piling on top of one another in a wall of disorienting sound. The lack of any beats on several tracks heightened the effect, and the vocals, screamed by Benjamin Power into a cheap toy karaoke machine for added lo-fi value, sealed the deal. So if Street Horrrsing was a great but potentially impenetrable debut, Tarot Sport addresses that balance, coming on like some sort of mutant techno record, and the aforementioned ‘Surf Solar’ is a perfect example of that. ‘Epic’ is a word too often used to describe music, so we do it advisedly, but it’s impossible to avoid here. A twitchy synth is joined by the relentless thump of a kick drum, and eventually by a sweeping synth melody the size of a Midwestern sky. Which is then joined by another, even bigger one. This is huge, dramatic music, with song titles to match – ‘Olympians’ and ‘Flight Of The Feathered Serpent’ (we know, worthy of Yes) are similarly unstoppable, both pushing the 10-minute mark and never shy to throw their weight around. Four-to-the-floor beats dominate, vocals appear to be completely absent, and the sound palette is infinitely more rich and varied than the debut, as repeated listens bring out motifs and sounds that you’d never noticed before. Sure, it’s long (seven tracks in almost an hour) and fearsomely intense, but it’s also – whisper it – tuneful and even danceable.
—42 issue 60—
Back for another assault on our ears with a towering second album, erstwhile noise duo Fuck Buttons tell AU about working with Andrew Weatherall, ignoring the hate and the love, and why making music is nothing more than child’s play. Words by Chris Jones
“I don’t think there were any conscious decisions with regard to the aesthetic of the music,” says Hung, acknowledging the new sound but denying any new approach. “I mean, we were aware of not wanting to produce the same document as Street Horrrsing, but that was our only consciousness this time round.” With a bit more prodding, though, Hung outlines his own reaction to the record, and why it sounds as it does. He argues – not wholly convincingly, it must be said – that it’s more a case of other sounds and ideas coming to the fore than the distortion and aggression of Street Horrrsing being jettisoned completely. “I think there are components of the last record that are present in this one,” he says carefully, “but I don’t think they are given the prominence that they had [on Street Horrrsing]. I think this record is a multi-limbed kind of [production], whereas on the other album there was a lot of space that surrounded the sounds. So I guess other elements are placed with equal prominence to the components from the first record. But they’re still present, I think.” Beats weren’t completely absent on the first album. The formidable ‘Okay, Let’s Talk About Magic’ was driven by a strangely lurching snare tattoo, while the closing duo of ‘Bright Tomorrow’ and ‘Colours Move’ started to hint at what Fuck Buttons might do next. But, to the outsider, the most obvious bridge between the two records came with another man’s production – Andrew Weatherall’s remix of Street Horrrsing opener ‘Sweet Love for Planet Earth’. It was the first time a steady techno pulse had been anywhere near a Fuck Buttons track, and it suited it rather well, marrying a utilitarian thump to the original track’s shape-shifting momentum. It also went off in the clubs – when David Holmes played it at Belfast’s Radio K club one night last summer, the place went ballistic. So when news emerged of Weatherall’s involvement in Tarot Sport, the portents were good. Hung says of Weatherall that the remix “highlighted his ability” and prompted the Bristol pair to approach him about working together, but the veteran’s vast back catalogue as a producer of other acts (including Primal Scream’s era-defining Screamadelica) and his own projects Sabres of Paradise and Two Lone Swordsmen – not to mention a legendary reputation as a DJ of everything from techno to rockabilly – should have been enough to recommend him. “The sound was going to be a little bit more complex,” says Hung, “so we knew Weatherall would have a good idea how to embellish those textures, and also he was extremely sensitive to keeping intact the vision which we thought he would understand, and he did. It was just a really satisfying experience working with him.”
ideas off each other. It made for an exhausting experience because we could work at tremendous speed, but at the same time it was extremely satisfying as well. “He didn’t radically change the music – the vision was kept intact, like I said before – but it’s like what he said – if there’s a person in the studio, then they’re going to affect the dynamic of the working relationship, and he was a really good person to be in that environment. So he definitely left his mark on the work, but I couldn’t give you specifics.” Although Hung is serious and thoughtful in conversation, it’s obvious to anyone even vaguely familiar with Fuck Buttons that they are a playful band. The name is the first clue – combining the shock of the expletive with such a prosaic word, conjuring some surreal and confusing images. Is ‘fuck’ a verb – do they hate buttons? Are the buttons pornographic? Is it just supposed to be a weird juxtaposition, or a childish statement? Then there’s the artwork for both albums, lovingly crafted by Power himself – psychedelic and completely original. And, of course the music and the means of making it – the band are well known for their kleptomaniacal approach to amassing musical machines, including children’s toys. And it seems that that’s no accident. Hung confirms that playfulness is “a very important component” in how he and Power make music, and he goes further. “Recently, I’ve noticed it’s how children play with their toys,” he says. “They have all these toys spread around them, and I remember when I was a child it was the most comfortable time, having all this stuff around you so you could just choose what you wanted to play with, whenever you wanted to. I think that’s what we do, to put it in really simplistic terms. I’ll sit on the floor and Ben sits on the couch because he uses his feet for the pedals, and we surround ourselves with everything we’ve accumulated recently, and just play around with things. We’ve got our ears on the sounds we’re individually making and also the other person’s. And eventually, with our ears open, we’ll be able to find something.” It’s a completely anti-intellectual, non-analytical approach to making music, whereby Hung and Power rely solely on their ears and instincts. That, rather than any kind of deep and meaningful manifesto, is the “vision” that Hung alludes to. “I think it’s really important for us to be satisfied with the work in a non-conscious way before and during the working process,” he says. “It’s really important that we don’t intellectualise anything or labour over anything, so that’s something that we place great importance on.” To deal with things on a primal level? “Absolutely, that’s it.”
Hung insists, however, that Weatherall’s role was as much as a sounding board and ideas man than the kind of producer who would leave his stamp all over the record. “He certainly contributed a lot of ideas and it was great to work with him in that respect. There were three people in the room articulating with each other, and with that came the possibility of not needing as much space and time to discern what was good or not, because we could bounce
Loud, urgent and impossible to ignore, primal is exactly the kind of response that Tarot Sport demands. TAROT SPORT IS OUT OCTOBER 19 ON ATP RECORDS WWW.MYSPACE.COM/FUCKBUTTONS
“It’s really important that we don’t intellectualise anything” —43 AU Magazine—
—44 issue 60—
The Revolution Is Imminent
Words by John Freeman Photos by Kevin Westenberg
—45 AU Magazine—
—46 issue 60—
Biffy Clyro
The Revolution Is Imminent
Biffy Clyro – there’s a name to conjure with. Ever since the release of their debut single 10 years ago, the Ayrshire trio have followed a steady upward trajectory, gathering fans and plaudits on the way like uncontrollable kleptomaniacs. Next month sees the release of their new album, Only Revolutions, which succeeds in combining Biffy’s desire for experimentation with a bigger, more extravagant, sound. Frontman Simon Neil guides AU through their ragged rock revolution.
When AU catches up with the singer he’s fresh from soundcheck for an intimate Edinburgh gig that night. Several new songs will be aired and Simon is clearly excited by the prospect of unleashing Only Revolutions on an expectant public. “We’re absolutely buzzing about it. We got the final mixes about a week ago.” However, as with each Biffy Clyro album, don’t expect to hear the same. Replete with strings, keyboards and an all round more expansive sonic palette, album number five is a confident and ambitious next step.
Lyrically, a number of new tracks dwell on the singer’s relatively recent marriage to English teacher Francesca Pieroni, and so the album has been described in some quarters as Biffy Clyro’s ‘relationship record’. Simon is quick to add some context. “It’s not quite like Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde – it’s not up there with that one! I don’t want to be narcissistic or self-indulgent, as it seems all I ever do is write about myself and my relationships with people. But it is more about my relationship with my wife and the ups and downs of that over the last few years.”
“It’s quite different to [2007’s] Puzzle. It’s definitely got the big riffs in it and it sounds like a Biffy Clyro record, but it does sound different to our previous four albums,” Simon explains. “We worked with a guy called David Campbell who did the strings for bands like Metallica and Green Day. We asked him very early on in the [writing] process and he seemed to be interested in our songs. He’s got a really musical ear and he just really clicked into our way of thinking. We’ve also got a song called ‘Born On a Horse’ which has got a big keyboard sound in it, which is something we’ve not done before.”
So how does Mrs Neil react to being the subject of such lyrical scrutiny? “She is sanguine about it,” Simon reveals. “I guess she’s used to it now. There are definitely a few lines in the record that make her roll her eyes a wee bit, you know? But she knows me better that anyone, and she knows that I love her even if certain lines [of songs] say otherwise. We have a very passionate, intense relationship and she inspires me to create, so I guess she must be happy with it.”
A fine example of this evolutionary step is the track ‘The Captain’; it’s a twisted, contorted pop song on which giant, scary slabs of guitar are wrestled to the floor by a beefy brass section and a raging string accompaniment. Within this whirlwind, an electrified Neil requests, nay, pleads, “Someone help me sing.” And it works; it really, really works. But before Biffy’s fanbase keel over in collective despair, Simon assures us that the band haven’t turned into an eerie incarnation of ELO. “We’re still a fucking rock band even though we’ve got lots of strings on the album. Some bands may put strings on because they think it may make a better song. We just tried to colour our songs. We’ve got lots of unique instrumentation that not many rock bands would necessarily want to do. The best thing I can say is that it still sounds like us but hopefully it sounds a lot bigger.”
Only Revolutions has a lighter feel to its predecessor; Puzzle was written in the aftermath of the death of Neil’s mother, an event that inevitably saw the band (twins James and Ben Johnston play bass and drums, respectively) retreating into themselves. “When we did Puzzle it was really heavy going,” explains Simon. “It was the first album that was hard [to do], and it was the first album on a major label. Everything about it meant so much to us that it was all a bit too much for us to deal with at the time, and I think we closed in on ourselves. We’ve always been a tight band, but looking back we didn’t want anyone else involved.” Sunshine might have created a brighter mood as well. This time around, the band decided to record in Los Angeles, and it’s a long way from South Ayrshire to Southern California. “When you wake up in the morning and the sun is shining, you just feel a bit more motivated, you know. Previously we had made records in Milton Keynes [2003’s The Vertigo Of Bliss] and even when we were in Vancouver [for Puzzle] it was the rainy season. Puzzle was just so intense, as it was the period in which my mum passed away, and I just wanted everything to be perfect. But this time, we were really just trying to get into the mindset of the first three albums – we had a spring in our step and we were really keen to work hard every day when we got up.” And can AU assume that Biffy Clyro enjoyed the nightlife along the Sunset Strip? Simon laughs, a little too heartily perhaps, before setting us straight. “Well, we sat down last year to think about where to record [the album]. We initially thought LA might distract us, but it’s actually a really relaxed place. We weren’t really dragged into the glitz and glamour.” May wonders never cease.
The album title takes a nod from this intense two-way dynamic. It’s nicked from one of the band’s favourite books, Only Revolutions by Mark Danielewski, a fascinating and challenging tome which forces, indeed physically forces, the reader to accept a story from two different angles. “He wrote this book written from the perspective of two people,” Simon explains. “You read one narrative, and then flip the book upside down to read the other character’s perspective. The idea of a story told by two people seemed to fit in with this record.” Production duties once again fell to Garth Richardson, with Simon happy to adhere to the ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mantra. “When we worked with Garth last time it was a new thing. This time there was a lot more trust going around because he knew we were happy with the results. With Puzzle, we were really chuffed with the way it sounded, when Garth recorded it and Andy [Wallace] mixed it.”
Conversation turns to the varying levels of artistic input offered by producers. Simon mentions legendary knob-twiddler Steve Albini, who refuses to be cited as a ‘producer’ on any record he works on, preferring the term ‘engineer’, largely due to his belief that only bands produce music. “I agree with Albini on that,” says Simon. “I’m sure there are some producers that almost co-write songs with bands. It’s really up to a band to change their sound on each record. A producer is just there to make what you record sound amazing. We knew Garth could make it sound amazing and we were confident in the songs, so there was no point in changing. A lot of bands seem to run out of ideas and go to a different producer so he can maybe make them feel a bit more creative. We’re really strong-minded and we knew what album we had up our sleeves and just needed Garth and Andy to make it come together.” During the last couple of years, Biffy Clyro have mixed headlining their own gigs with support slots for some seriously major bands including Muse, The Rolling Stones, Red Hot Chili Peppers and, er, Bon Jovi. Such endeavours have proved fruitful; a standout track on Only Revolutions is ‘Bubbles’, which includes a guest appearance from one of Simon’s heroes. “Josh Homme plays guitar on that song,” he almost gushes. “We’ve played with Queens Of The Stone Age quite a lot over the last couple of years, and as we were in LA, we gave him a call. He put his new baby down and came over, and laid down this really amazing guitar track. He’s such an amazing fucking guitar player and such a fucking legend. Josh can hit it out of the park – no one can play guitar like Josh. I’ve loved [QOTSA] forever; I saw them in The Cathouse in Edinburgh in 1997.
—47 AU Magazine—
Biffy Clyro
“We’re still a fucking rock band even though we’ve got lots of strings on the album”
The Revolution Is Imminent.
It’s hard to believe [that] now, 12 years later, he’s played on our new record.” Supporting major bands may become a thing of the past. Simon is confident that Biffy Clyro can hold their own (“I think we can go pretty much anywhere and play our music”) and he is aware that the only true way to the public’s heart is by playing your own shows. “That’s when you really connect with people. People can admire you as a support band, but they can only really love you when you’re a headliner. That’s how I fell in love with my favourite bands.” Only Revolutions contains Biffy Clyro’s two Top 10 singles – last year’s mammoth ‘Mountains’ and the recent ‘That Golden Rule’. The latter harks back to the fascinating constructs favoured on earlier albums, with its darkly understated chorus and riffed finale. The great news is that Only Revolutions contains further evidence of their burgeoning songwriting prowess. The Homme-enhanced ‘Bubbles’ is a delight; Neil’s half-sung, half-spoken vocal works its way through a brooding opening passage before the QOTSA frontman unleashes a hysterical guitar solo. ‘God & Satan’ is even better; a beautifully formed semi-acoustic ballad finds the singer on familiar lyrical territory – wrestling with his demons – “I savour hate as much as I crave love / I’m just a twisted guy,” is the almost wistful refrain. There is a maturity about these new songs that seem born out of both the confidence brought by success, and the personal loss that has weighed heavily. Simon agrees: “When you’re younger you can imagine your life settling into a groove, where you’re really content all the time. The older you get, you realise that good times come and bad times come and you just have to go with it.” Neil has been a busy boy during 2009. As well as completing the album, Biffy produced the obligatory ‘extra’ tracks. “We’ve got about 12 songs recorded for B-sides and EPs. I hate it when bands put singles out with just a live version of a song.” Aside from Biffy duties, his other band, the gimpmasked, concept-rock duo Marmaduke Duke, released their second album in April.
—48 issue 60—
HOMMEWORK THE MANY FACES OF ONLY REVOLUTIONS’ STAR GUESTS QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE – Homme is the sole remaining original member of the rock titan that is QOTSA. Bonding hard rock with edgy experimentation, QOTSA are arena-filling, Grammynominated, platinum-disced motherfuckers. EAGLES OF DEATH METAL – As if fronting one of the world’s biggest rock bands wasn’t enough, Homme created EODM in 1998, to whittle away those lonely days – initially as the drummer for their desert-rock sound. Shockingly, when EODM play live, Homme is sometimes absent. The lazy bastard. THEM CROOKED VULTURES – Bored of his empty life and the wasted hours spent surfing daytime TV, Homme recently formed a new band, Them Crooked Vultures, with Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones. Cue general delirium and the inability for any description of them not to contain the word ‘supergroup’. Damn it, we were so close. THE DESERT SESSIONS – Homme concocted the concept – a fluid collective of his musical chums kicking back at his Joshua Desert hideout. Even grumpy PJ Harvey has joined Josh for a beer and a strum. We’re assuming he sees this as chill-out downtime. PRODUCING – Homme is now flexing his production muscles, recently overseeing much of the Arctic Monkeys’ Humbug, which saw the Yorkshire lads head out to the desert, grow their hair and go all mature on us. Way to go, Josh. PROCREATING – Homme has nobly found time to father a daughter with his missus, that most downtrodden and subservient of girlies, Brody Dalle. She is the definition of sloth, fronting only one band (Spinnerette), leaving Homme up to his elbows in Pampers.
PODC
AST
Hello. The AU Podcast just keeps on trucking. For the latest instalment we have some sweet and tasty music to keep you nourished through the onset of winter. Expect goodness from Frank Turner, Girls, Band Of Skulls, Rams’ Pocket Radio and loads of other stuff. It will be available to download from mid-October, and the best thing you could do right now is subscribe via iTunes. Do it. Lethal.
FR AN K TURNER Now back on full-time duty with Biffy Clyro, he’s preparing to begin another mammoth tour, taking in some new places as well as playing to old faces. “Our first show is in October in Belfast. We’ve always had an outrageously good fucking show in Belfast. We’ve been lucky enough to play there on the last few records and people always seem happy to see us. Then we’re going to Poland and the Czech Republic for the first time, and in the New Year we’re heading to the States.” Intriguingly, Simon is already formulating plans for what might come after Only Revolution. “With people in bands, as soon as [you’ve] finished recording suddenly you get a barrage of ideas for the next one,” he says. And, as is becoming the norm for Simon Neil, it’s not what you might expect. “I really want to do this kind of huge, long musical-type song, which sounds really beautiful. Everyone loves musicals, I think. I have this song, which is about 10 minutes long and has all these different parts. I’ve got that in my mind, and I’ll try and piece it together when I’ve got the time at home. When I’m going to sleep, my mind has a million ideas. By the next morning I’ve forgotten them apart from the best ideas. We’ll see what happens – it might become a record or I might just devote the rest of my life to it!”
record!’ For Only Revolutions, it’s only a week old so we’re still really buzzing off it. You have to relish the challenge. With your first few records it’s about showing what you can do. With each album you make, it is more liberating, but you have to work a lot harder to make sure that you’re better than previous albums.” And although he is happy with the results, the singer is well aware that only the fans know the truth. “That’s the fun part of music, I never know if there are any great songs until I hear them. There may be only shit songs. This record might be full of shit songs, but in my mind it’s really good.”
B A ND O F S K ULLS
For this revolution, judgement day is imminent. THE ALBUM ONLY REVOLUTIONS IS OUT ON NOVEMBER 9 VIA 14TH FLOOR BIFFY CLYRO PLAY ST. GEORGE’S MARKET, BELFAST ON OCTOBER 28 & OLYMPIA, DUBLIN ON OCTOBER 29 WWW.BIFFYCLYRO.COM
RA MS ’ POC KE T RA DIO
Only time will tell if Only Revolutions propels Biffy Clyro to the next level and makes them one of rock’s true heavyweights. And while Simon is excited, he’s astute enough to realise that for the group to progress, each new album must surpass the last. “You kind of get to that stage where you say, ‘Wow, we’ve made a great
—49 AU Magazine—
Atlas Sound
The Night Of The ‘Hunter Words by Neill Dougan Photo by Lokett Pundt
Bradford Cox looks like a man in need of a holiday. Reclining wearily on a tatty sofa backstage at Whelan’s in Dublin (where his band Deerhunter have just delivered a towering set), towel draped over his head for the entire duration of our interview, munching manfully on a sorrylooking hamburger like it’s his first meal of the day, poor ol’ Brad seems totally knackered. Presumably it’s been a long tour, then? “Yeah, it’s pretty much done,” he sighs. “But it’s been fucking hellish. We’re going to take a break. Not a long break. But we just have no time to ourselves. I don’t complain, I mean I love my home, but it’s a really great opportunity to play music to people who want to hear it, so I consider myself lucky.” Ah, the music. That would be the thrilling art-rock of Deerhunter, a band whose last two albums (2007’s Cryptograms and last year’s Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.) are salutary lessons in how to seamlessly meld ambient, experimental passages with downright great pop tunes. Then there’s Cox’s solo work as Atlas Sound. 2008’s Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel was an insular, reflective and somewhat unsettling listen. He follows it this month with the rather more succinctlynamed Logos. As if to reflect the title’s newfound conciseness, the music therein is entirely more immediate, accessible, and even – on occasion – upbeat. Was this a conscious change in direction? “I think it’s less boring”, declares Cox. “I thought the first one was a little boring. I mean I loved it, personally, but I guess this one is a little bit more diverse. Was it something I intended? No. How predictable would it have been if I’d put out another ambient [record]? I’d rather fail trying something new than just kind of amble on doing the same thing over and over. I’d rather take some risks.” One new feature on Logos is the presence of guest vocalists, on two of the album’s stand-out tracks. Noah Lennox, aka Panda Bear from Animal Collective, sings on ‘Walkabout’, a track which constitutes a real musical departure for Cox: a sunny, sample-based sing-along that wouldn’t be out of place on Merriweather Post Pavilion. Meanwhile Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier contributes vocals to the outstanding ‘Quick Canal’, a luscious, eight-and-ahalf minute epic driven by a relentless motorik beat. What was the thinking behind these collaborations? “They’re just friends,” he says. “I collaborate with people who command my respect. Noah, along with the rest of his band, and also each of those guys on his own, are some of the most respectable musicians I know. Totally honourable dudes in every way. It was an honour to collaborate with him. Same with Laetitia. I’d love to collaborate with anyone that it works with, y’know? I’ve done a lot of collaborations that failed.” Cox has a well-established reputation as a forthright, amusing and occasionally outrageous interviewee. So far in our discussion – perhaps due to fatigue – he’s been, by his standards, uncharacteristically reserved. But as we progress, it’s clear he’s perking up a bit. When AU ill-advisedly refers to his success in the field of – for want
—50 issue 60—
The Night of the ‘Hunter
In a world where too many popular musicians are content to play it safe and toe the party line – one eye on their sales figures, the other on their bank balance – it’s refreshing to know that characters like Bradford Cox remain at large. Attracting controversy like bees to honey, the Athens, Georgia songwriter is effortlessly opinionated and unapologetically outspoken. Oh yeah, and his music’s not half bad either. On the eve of the release of his fantastic second solo album Logos, the Deerhunter frontman talks collaborations, album leaks and digging Coldplay. of a better description – ‘indie rock’, he’s suddenly more like his old self. “Y’know, you used the words ‘indie rock’ – I hate that term. I just like ‘rock ‘n’ roll’, the classic, old-school way of looking at things,” he declares. “I kind of mentally keep myself in the Seventies. ‘Indie rock’ is just so… y’know, trying so hard to look effortless. I don’t relate to ‘indie rock’ and I don’t want to be a well-respected ‘indie rock’ musician, I want to be a well-respected ‘rock’ musician but, y’know, seeing as rock music these days is, like, Coldplay… I mean, I’m not dissing them, I can dig Coldplay now and again. They’re a pop band; they write good songs sometimes, I’ve nothing against them. It’s certainly not my, uh, field of interest, but neither is being some kind of hipster. I don’t want to get name-dropped at coke parties.” Nonetheless, the positive critical response to your music over the last few years must be gratifying? “I don’t really care.” Do you read your reviews? “Some of ‘em.” How do you think the new album will be received? “A lot of people are going to call it bullshit, a lot of people are going to say it’s trying too hard. To those people I would say: Download somebody else’s album.” Funny that Cox should mention downloading, as he’s better placed than most to comment on the effect of piracy culture, having become embroiled in several on-line controversies. Most recently, an early, unmastered version of Logos was leaked last year when Cox inadvertently posted a link on his blog to an online folder where the songs were stored. A chaotic row ensued and, when asked how he feels now about the brouhaha, he replies with one of the most downright entertaining rants this interviewer has had the pleasure of transcribing. Take it away, Bradford… “I think people are pussies,” he begins. “Everyone involved. The people downloading the records are pussies. I’m a pussy for apologising for being angry that people were being dicks. It wasn’t even so much about the music, or the downloading, y’know? It’s like, that’s a fact of life, music is downloaded, I don’t mind. It’s the fact that people were cocky about what they were doing. They were so happy that they had exploited my weakness.” Getting into his stride, he continues: “To me it’s bullshit, and a lot of people take it up the ass, y’know? I read all these interviews with other people, even friends of mine who I’m not going to name, and they’re all like, ‘Oh, you know what? Leaks help! I like it when my album leaks, blah blah blah’. And what they’re trying to do is this ‘Power to the People’ bullshit. Let’s be totally straight here, I don’t mind people downloading music. It’s downloading music that hasn’t been released yet, that’s the problem, because I haven’t even had a full chance to decide how I’m going to present this album. So to have it leaked and shared… When it leaked, it wasn’t even finished. Anyone who wants to come to me and tell me that they have the right to leak and share my unfinished work, even if they got it through my mistake – I accept that, I’ve admitted a thousand times that it’s not your fault that I made a mistake.
“But it’s your fault that you’re a fucking asshole and you’re going around bragging on messageboards about how you found this horrible mistake I made and everyone should take advantage of it – like, ‘It’s his dumb-ass fault for leaving it up on a website that people could download it from’. Well, actually, suck my dick! You don’t buy my records anyway, I don’t make any money off you, I don’t care about money, I don’t need to make money off records anyway. I have a college degree and I have a history of working in jobs for many years and having a perfectly fine existence. “I just don’t appreciate people acting like dicks, and it’s nothing to do with the music. And everybody always acts like I’m attacking my fans – these people are not my fucking fans. And the people that leak all these other bands’ albums – they’re not fans. They’re fucking pests. And everybody knows it! I talk to everyone! I talk to all these other musicians like myself, I’m not going to name any names, but they all think the same thing. They might sit there and try and put on this happy face, and then it’s like, ‘Oh, Bradford’s such a dick, another interview and he’s talking about this, blah blah blah, he’s such a curmudgeonly little prick’. It’s like: get real! Y’know, if you told me, ‘I’m making this album but I don’t want you to hear it yet’, and then you leave it on your kitchen table, I’m not going to fucking sneak off with it and copy it, much less am I going to fucking take it from you and then go and brag to all my friends and try and be the cool guy and then fucking tear you down when you call me out on it.” Unstoppable now, in full flow, an animated Cox goes on: “And that’s another thing: A lot of people said that I called my fans ‘cunts’ and that I said, ‘I can’t believe you, how do you go on living?’ and all this kind of stuff. That was directed at one person, who mocked one of my best friends who died, who played bass in Deerhunter [original bassist Justin Bosworth, who died of head injuries in 2004 following a skateboarding accident]. This guy had ‘Justin Bosworth’s Corpse’ as his username and then he posted a link to the album. That guy’s a cunt, and if I ever see him, I’ll fucking rip out his pelvis. Through his ass. Know what I mean? I’ll break his fucking face. But he’s a pussy. He’ll never present himself to me. People are pussies on the internet. They’re anonymous, cruel. And I don’t give a shit about it, y’know? I have real life things to deal with, I don’t feel the need to lower myself. I’d rather go back to the day job.” Phew. And, with that, our time with one of indie rock’s – sorry, rock’s – true characters draws to a close. A man who churns out great songs almost as often as he lets fly a memorable soundbite. The scourge of illegal filesharers and the creator of one of 2009’s most beautiful albums. Bradford, it was truly a pleasure. LOGOS IS RELEASED ON OCTOBER 19 ON 4AD WWW.MYSPACE.COM/BRADFORDCOX
Atlas Sound —51 AU Magazine—
Har Mar Superstar “Britney was unstable mentally, so it was probably right that they turned down a song which was a double entendre for drinking tall cans of beer”
—52 issue 60—
Har Mar Superstar
Pop Culture Polymath
— Pop Culture Polymath
With his grubby little fingers fondling all manner of pies, Sean Tillman aka Har Mar Superstar is something of a 21st century Renaissance man. Having spent the last half a decade working variously as a musician, producer, screenwriter and actor, it’s little wonder that he’s taken so long to deliver new studio long player Dark Touches. Never less than forthcoming, Sean tells us all about his new album, making movies with Drew Barrymore and getting rejected by Britney.
Words by Francis Jones
Sean Tillman is in LA and he is, to adopt his own parlance, “psyched”. Over the last few years, Tillman could most frequently be found sharing other people’s records and stages, but he is now, at last, set to release the follow-up to 2004’s The Handler. The new album is titled Dark Touches and, as far as Sean’s concerned, it’s his best yet. “Of all the records I’ve made, it’s definitely my personal favourite. It mixes up the electro style of You Can Feel Me with the weird pop stuff of The Handler. I think it’s a good mix of everything and has something for everyone, y’know?” It is an eminently eclectic collection alright, including glossy pop (‘Sunshine’), synth-charged hip hop (‘Game Night’), dashes of funk (‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’), and glossy soul with a Jackson 5 flavour, (‘Dope, Man’). The diversity of sound can in part be attributed to the wide range of collaborators and guests who have contributed to Dark Touches. Another factor that helps account for the album’s kaleidoscopic sound is the sheer breadth of experience that Tillman is bringing to it, not least his recent adventures with Gruff Rhys and Boom Bip in psychedelia-tinged electro outfit Neon Neon. “Working with Boom Bip, in particular, that’s really helped me a lot,” Sean stresses. “We’re really good friends and we hang out a lot. It was also definitely a good thing meeting the guys from Flowers of Doom, who I did three or four songs on the album with. Also, Jo [Josiah Steinbeck] from Heavens, and Cornbread [Compton] from Engine Down, they had a little production team going and recorded a bunch of stuff with Simon Lord from Simian. It was a tight little crew.” Aside from the aforementioned, Har Mar was also facilitated on the record by the likes of John Fields (Andrew WK, Jonas Brothers), The Faint’s beat maestros Clark Baechle and Jacob Thiele, alt-hip hop hero P.O.S. and lovable goofball Adam Green. The album even features the talents of The O.C.’s Samaire Armstrong on ‘Dope, Man’. Usually so many cooks would be a recipe for disaster, but from start to finish Dark Touches ladles out mighty satisfying fare. Like his many musical and celebrity acquaintances, the songs themselves have been gathered together over a number of years. Sean confirms that a number of the tracks date from several years ago, that he didn’t start concentrating seriously on the album until two years back and – had the record industry not “started to whimper” – he could have released it back in 2008. What’s more, not all the songs on Dark Touches were originally designed with Har Mar in mind. “Originally, we wrote ‘Tall Boy’ for Britney and her 2007 album Blackout. It’s one of those things where the story definitely got spun. It was said that the song got rejected by [her] management – technically it was, but at the same time, people haven’t really commented on the fact that it was written for her when she was pregnant with her first kid and was, y’know, a little bit batty and was just about to shave her head. That stuff was about to happen and Britney was unstable mentally, so it was probably
right that they turned down a song which was a double entendre for drinking tall cans of beer.”
par excellence. However, for the man himself, the issue of artistic merit isn’t even worthy of consideration.
‘Tall Boy’ may not have been right for batty Britney, but Sean recognised that the song he’d co-written with The Bird and The Bee’s Greg Kurstin was too good to go unrecorded. “I loved the song,” he gushes, “I did think about changing the lyrics, but then I was like, ‘nah’, I liked the ambiguity of it. I really didn’t change anything, just did more mixes of it. I went in, Greg had a beat and I went, ‘Yeah, we’ll work on that one’. I went away, wrote the lyrics and came back and recorded a vocal. And by the end of the afternoon I was like, ‘Yeah, I have it and it is awesome’.”
“I don’t sit around thinking about my talent. If somebody can’t have a good time, or realise the work that goes into my music – work that they probably couldn’t do – well, it’s not gonna bum me out. I’d just tell ‘em to move along and go listen to Sigur Rós, not that I don’t like them, but y’know people get really precious about music.”
Another standout track, ‘Girls Only’, found its way onto Dark Touches by a similarly circuitous route. “I wrote that song for a band called The Cheetah Girls [all-girl US pop group manufactured by the Walt Disney Company] – I don’t know if they’re big across the pond, but Disney is everywhere, right? Anyway, we heard that they were looking for a song and we were in the studio already, so we thought, ‘OK, let’s try it’. And we did and it was fun. We were waiting on a response from them and we’d been playing the song live in the meantime and I was thinking, ‘This song is amazing’. At the back of my mind I was asking myself, ‘How much creepier would it be if I sing it?’ But, I feel like I get so much space compared to other artists that I have to push it as far as I can.” Suggest that Har Mar seems to enjoy indulging his feminine side a little too much on ‘Girls Only’ and Sean will laugh sheepishly, before pleading guilty as charged. “You know it happens more often than you’d expect, so I might as well just be upfront and transform those experiences into an all out party jam.” Of course, subversive and/or risqué lyrics are what we’ve come to expect from the man who’s penned spectacularly obscene ditties of the calibre of ‘One Dirty Minute’, but his latest opus still has its jaw-dropping moments, not least ‘I Got Next’. The track outlines a certain practice Sean has of getting attached, but attractive, girls to sign a contract stating that he’s next in line for some lovin’ should they leave their current partner. We can’t help but scoff, and suggest that no sane woman could ever fall for such a move. “It does work,” states an indignant Har Mar. “You put in the groundwork, forget about it, but then sometimes it pays off. There are so many girls that you meet on tour who have boyfriends and you don’t want to cross any lines, or at least I don’t want to, not if it’s gonna get you punched in the face. So you bide your time and have them sign a little contract saying that I got next.” With such seemingly ludicrous lyrics, not to mention Har Mar’s habit of wiggling suggestively and stripping down to his garish Y-fronts during live performance, it’s all too easy for critics and music fans to overlook the genuine talent that Tillman possesses. Look beyond the occasionally facile lyrics and you’ll see a pop-composer
In any case, Sean just doesn’t have the time or energy to waste thinking about how he’s perceived by the self-appointed arbiters of musical taste. Aside from his music – which includes not only Har Mar Superstar and his myriad collaborations, but also his releases under the pop-rock alter ego Sean Na Na – Tillman has been gradually ingratiating himself into the television and movie industries. A brief cameo as Dancin’ Rick in Starsky & Hutch (2004) will be followed by a similarly brief appearance as Coach Jeff in the forthcoming, Drew Barrymore helmed, comedy Whip It. “Drew’s like one of my best friends, we’ve known each other for about six years. We were filming in Detroit, I went down for a week, hung out on set and happened to know a lot of the cast already and made a bunch of good friends there. It was a real fun roller derby move. I’m the coach of one of the roller derby teams that takes on the main team. It stars Ellen Page and Alia Shawkat, who are two of my best friends and we’re writing stuff together. A lot of amazing girls are in it, like Kristin Wiig from Saturday Night Live and the rapper Eve is in it. It felt like a real family affair.” However, it is as a screenwriter, rather than as onscreen talent, that Sean is next hoping to make his inimitable mark. He says that he is working on various concepts and scripts, but is deliberately vague on the details. “I’m writing a lot, but TV and film is an even longer process than putting out an album. It’s a very shaky process. All along the way, anything can derail it. But, there’s some shit that I’m definitely hoping will make it, ideas for full-length features and stuff that we’re developing right now with the networks. If any of them do make it to the screen it’d be amazing.” With so many facets to his career, we wonder what Sean describes himself as these days – musician, actor, writer, producer? “Ah man, I dunno, it’s kind of weird. I guess I am all those things, but I feel like all those titles are kind of bullshit. I like the term ‘performer’ best actually, that kind of encapsulates all those other things. Yeah, call me a performer.” DARK TOUCHES IS DUE FOR RELEASE IN NOVEMBER 2 ON DILETTANTE WWW.HARMARSUPERSTAR.COM
—53 AU Magazine—
Reviews
Girls – Album
pg 54 Record Reviews | pg 62 Unsigned Universe | pg 63 Live Reviews
Illustration by Mark Reihill WWW.MARKREIHILL.COM
Girls Album FANTASYTRASHCAN/TURNSTILE
By now, you may well be familiar with the backstory of this San Fran duo (and if not, get thee to our Incoming piece on p. 19), but while it’s a ripping – and harrowing – yarn indeed, it doesn’t deserve to cast too large a shadow over the music on this splendid debut, already dubbed “a lo-fi Pet Sounds” by The Guardian. The pair are led by one Christopher Owens, a quintessential Californian longhair that bears ample resemblance to one of Wayne and Garth’s mates in Wayne’s World. He also has the faraway look of a man who inhabits a different world to the rest of us, which makes sense when you discover where he came from – a childhood stolen from him by the Children of God cult, before escaping to spend his late teens cultivating a fearsome drug habit in Texas, then being taken under the wing of a rich philanthropist who put him on the straight and narrow before he decamped to the bright lights of San Francisco, formed a band called Curls with his then—54 issue 60—
girlfriend, and then, when she left him, Girls with best bud and recording whiz Chet ‘JR’ White. All of which would suggest that Owens and White are now fine, upstanding young men, perfect role models and pictures of sobriety. Not a bit of it. Their MySpace page lists the band’s official website as Drugs.com’s handy pills identifier, where you can input the code of whatever disco biscuit is in your clammy hand and instantly find out what’s in it. And in interviews, they’re not shy about their genuine love of prescription drugs, even going so far as to complain that they were stuck with ketamine during their first trip to the UK. Stoned slackers they are, and stoned slackers they sound, but to good effect. Album wears its influences on its sleeve, jumping about from sun-kissed Californian pop to fuzz-drenched shoegaze and from Beach Boys-style surf to nervy nerdrock, a comparison that’s helped no end by Owens’ Elvis Costello-style vocal tics – though he couldn’t look more different if he tried. Opening track ‘Lust For Life’ is a classic, happy-sad pop song in which Owens’ deals with the lack of a father figure in his childhood, declaring that “Now I’m just crazy and totally mad / Yeah, I’m just crazy and fucked in the head.” There are also references to the end of a relationship – probably the one that ended before Girls began – but it’s not a maudlin song. The melody is exquisite and the arrangement weightless, skipping along on a bed of tambourine and handclaps. The nostalgic, hedonistic video is a treat, too. ‘Laura’ and ‘Lauren-Marie’ are gorgeous, yearning love songs, but the very first single, the awkwardly titled ‘Hellhole Ratrace’ is the real jewel in the crown, a seven-
minute epic that starts off at a gentle strum before exploding into life as a glorious, life-affirming hymn to sucking up your problems and getting on with enjoying life. Spiritualized, with their Royal Albert Hall-sized, narcotised take on gospel, loom large. Elsewhere, ‘Morning Light’ would sit well on The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart’s album with its frantic, soaring shoegaze, while ‘Big Bad Mean Motherfucker’ and ‘Headache’ are straight out of the early Sixties, the former a fuzzed-up ‘Surfin’ USA’ and the latter a rich croon, complete with wall of sound backing vocals. Although defiantly lo-fi and a touch scattershot, the whole thing sounds gorgeous. White, whose brief it is to commit Owens’ songs to tape and silicon, has worked wonders – though Album is never quite sure what type of, er, album it wants to be, there is a measure of cohesion here. It sounds rich and aged, like it could scarcely have been made anywhere but San Francisco – all sunshine, warm breezes and the sweet smell of weed smoke. But if it does fall down, it’s in a few overlong songs and the constant flitting between genres. This is a debut and it sounds like it – the aesthetic and songwriting chops are there, but the vision and focus haven’t quite turned up yet. If they do, then we really could have a successor to Brian Wilson on our hands. Until then, enjoy a promising debut. Chris Jones
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘LUST FOR LIFE’, ‘HELLHOLE RATRACE’. ‘LAURA’. FOR FANS OF: ELVIS COSTELLO, THE BEACH BOYS, THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART.
Kill It Kid Kill It Kid ONE LITTLE INDIAN Despite hailing from Bath, five-piece Kill It Kid sound like they’ve just crawled out of some long forgotten, god-fearing and sweltering bijou. With a raw and powerful sound, they readily conjure up the American South; so stifling, smoky and evocative you can almost smell it. This, their debut album, features a collection of songs that veer from slow, sweaty southern drawls to rampageous, partner swinging sing-alongs in a heartbeat. Whilst lead singer Chris Turpin possesses all the gruff, dark swagger of Nick Cave, his voice exhibits a tremulous characteristic more akin to Antony Hegarty. Turpin is accompanied by fellow vocalist – the deliciously husky Stephanie Ward – and their voices coil around each other in an edgy courtship tinged with a bewitching power that gushes out from the riotous compositions. From the stomping gusto of the barnswinging and Elbow-like ‘Heaven Never Seemed So Close’, with its cacophonous drums, hand claps and electrifying riffs, to the rich, folk-drenched ballads ‘Fool For Loving You’ and ‘Private Idaho’, Kill It Kid effortlessly combine elements of blues, country, jazz, good old fashioned rock‘n’roll and folk, to produce a living, breathing and utterly idiosyncratic sound guaranteed to get your toes a-tappin’. With Kill It Kid, the blues have never sounded so red hot. James Gracey
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘SEND ME AN ANGEL DOWN’, ‘BURST ITS BANKS’, ‘DIRTY WATER’. FOR FANS OF: ELBOW, TWO GALLANTS, TOM WAITS.
Atlas Sound Logos 4AD
Muse The Resistance WARNER They don’t do things by half, Muse. If Black Holes And Revelations was a leap into the musical stratosphere, on The Resistance the trio are in danger of leaving Earth behind altogether. You want conspiracy theories, classical motifs, the resurrection of Freddie Mercury? It’s all here and more, laced through the strongest and most cohesive set of songs the band have ever composed. The title track and ‘United States Of Eurasia’ recall Queen in their pomp, but with added contemporary
studio crunch. The robotic shuffle of ‘Undisclosed Desires’ and opening glam stomper ‘Uprising’ trump their previous best pop moments with ease, while ‘I Belong To You’ switches seamlessly from sleazy barroom romp to soaring French-vocal ballad. You couldn’t make it up, unless your name is Matt Bellamy. Most jawdropping of all though is tripartite closer ‘Exogenesis’, a full-blown rock/classical crossover symphony to make Green Day weep. 2009 has seen plenty of worthy contenders for album of the year, but we suspect that for many the issue just became academic. Lee Gorman
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘UPRISING’, ‘EXOGENESIS’, ‘UNDISCLOSED DESIRES’, ‘RESISTANCE’. FOR FANS OF: QUEEN, THE MARS VOLTA.
Let Our Enemies Beware Against Karate
Throughout his career with Deerhunter and in his solo guise as Atlas Sound, Bradford Cox has successfully merged melodic nous with his more wilful, experimental urges; with Logos, he may well have come as close as he ever will to perfecting his art. In one sense, the album sees Cox at his most straightforward: it’s certainly much more immediate and inviting than his first solo record, the fractured and disquieting Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel. It also has two stand-out gems – neither of which, intriguingly, feature Cox on vocals. ‘Walkabout’, featuring Panda Bear, is a blissfully catchy, uncharacteristically optimistic romp, while Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier lends her languid tones to the dreamlike sprawl of ‘Quick Canal’. Cox being Cox, however, nothing is straightforward. Even at their most accessible, his songs come frayed at the edges. Opener ‘The Light That Failed’ is a case in point – an unbearably delicate acoustic ballad, it constantly teeters on the brink of collapse. ‘An Orchid’ is another pretty, acoustic lament which, like much of the album, utilises double-tracked, effects-laden vocals to create an atmosphere of distinct unease. Pop, then, but not as we know it – and all the better for it. Neill Dougan
Cloaking themselves in a squalling maelstrom of noise come Chatham renegades Let Our Enemies Beware. This debut teeters deliciously between the suffocatingly precise and moments of raw mayhem. ‘Personal Space Invaders’ is all slow release menace, the measured postrock rhythms leading us towards yawning, mantrap choruses. The corrosive ‘Fools! Philistines! Heretics And Whores!’ finds guitars chopping out serrated edge riffs as Shareef Dahroug howls like the freshly bereaved. Stirring indeed. Elsewhere, ‘Between Us And The Sun’ makes a thrilling transition from eerie atmospherics to abattoir howl, guitars slowly running amok. Even the song titles – notably ‘Noise Equals Death’ and ‘I’m Not Laughing I’m Choking’ – are worthy of commendation. From first to last then, Against Karate is a no-holdsbarred excursion into rock’s more inventive and exhilarating territories, as unrelentingly inspired as it is unforgettable. Francis Jones
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DOWNLOAD: ‘WALKABOUT’, ‘THE LIGHT THAT FAILED, ‘ATTIC LIGHTS’, ‘QUICK CANAL’. FOR FANS OF: DEERHUNTER, ANIMAL COLLECTIVE.
DOWNLOAD: ‘FOOLS! PHILISTINES! HERETICS AND WHORES!’, ‘BETWEEN US AND THE SUN’. FOR FANS OF: SHELLAC, BATS, MOGWAI.
SMALLTOWN AMERICA
Efterklang & The Danish National Chamber Orchestra Performing Parades THE LEAF LABEL With all the swooning wonder of Sigur Rós and the harmonious vocal attributes of Fleet Foxes, this is the Danish collective’s well-received 2007 album Parades performed in full, capably aided by the Danish National Chamber Orchestra. Now hear this – it’s unusual, and you might be scared, but the classic musicianship snugly envelopes the ethereal soul of Efterklang like a great blanket of soot. There is bleakness and darkness, as on ‘Frida Found A Friend’, but also lightness and youth exposed, particularly on ‘Mirador’. If the comparisions to the aforementioned Icelandic postrockers bring forth yawns, then how about this – the tragic depths of Arcade Fire with an unwieldy orchestral heft. Every one of the 11 tracks on show here is a rousing epic, spaces filled with ecclesiastical chants and slathered with a Nordic sensibility. The accompanying DVD is a nice window into the Efterklang mind, but seeing them in coneshaped gnome hats with painted cheeks does slightly taint the musical magic. Kirstie McCrum
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘MIRADOR’, ‘MIMEO’, ‘MAISON DE REFLEXION’. FOR FANS OF: SIGUR ROS, ARCADE FIRE. —55 AU Magazine—
Reviews
The Vals Sticks And Stones ELECTRIQUE MUD Recorded over a three-day period, Sticks And Stones is the sound of four Belfast lads indulging their retro urges playfully for 72 hours, producing one very complete album in the process. From opener ‘Too Many People’, which recalls the finer moments of guitar-led Britpop, with a good-spirited additional spit of brass throughout, to the beautifully tender ‘Things Will Always Be The Same’, to the unapologetically Beatles-coloured ‘Yesterday Today’, The Vals have created an album that always changes to the appropriate gear when required, making the 12 tracks a very inviting listen from start to finish. Catchy, melodic and well flavoured with a familiarity that’s comforting, Sticks And Stones may say nothing new but some things are worth repeating. Mickey Ferry
effect here, although the omission of ‘Delboy’s Revenge’ and ‘Dr. Frenchy Bernard’ are sadly noted. Scalding beats spray forth like an eruption from an electronic geyser as ‘Total Distorted Mayhem’ and ‘Face Melter’ make good on their titles. A remix of Benni Benassi’s ‘Electro 16’ hits home with crushing force before we fall under the spell of the rhythmically mesmerising ‘Kid Rappongi’. The unstoppable momentum of ‘Rise of Ulysses’ brings us it all to a juddering, utterly spent close. Phew. As good as being there in person? Of course not, but that they get within touching distance ensures that this is a formidable record. Francis Jones
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Do Make Say Think Other Truths CONSTELLATION On their sixth album, Canadian instrumentalists Do Make Say Think have decided to name each of its four tracks eponymously, but beyond the gimmick Other Truths is an interesting concept where sparse and skeletal guitar riffs are built upon with the help of an inspired horn section, most effective on ‘Say’. When the prowling, brush-drummed jazz at the beginning of ‘Do’ gives way to a passage of widescreen Ennio Morriconeinspired wonder, it is hard to be unimpressed by their versatility and ideas. However, if this album were a pizza it would have been more enjoyable sliced into eight rather than a stodgy four. Gerard McCann
Band Of Skulls Baby Darling Doll Face Honey YOU ARE HERE Southampton trio Band Of Skulls are not without their fame – iTunes and Zane Lowe have hollered their praises far and wide. But don’t let that put you off – they’re a wee gem for the disenchanted indie rock fan. Flitting from ‘Cry Myself Blind’-era Primal Scream on ‘Cold Fame’ to Kills-style scuzz rock (complete with male/female vocal) on ‘Blood’ to the almost Turin Brakes-esque ‘Honest’, they are chameleonic and delicious. Schizophrenic and uncompromising, singer Russell Marsden boasts a chart-friendly Radio 2 vocal on some tracks – as on the anthemic ‘Fires’ – but the addition of some dirty guitars and the suggestive vocal of bassist Emma Richardson as on ‘I Know What I Am’ swathes their sound in staccato axe cool, modern with a nod to the classic. With all the confidence and swagger of a collection of hoary old American rockers on show, they’re never the same band twice. Bliss. Kirstie McCrum
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: BLOOD’, ‘FIRES’, ‘LIGHT OF THE MORNING’. FOR FANS OF: THE KILLS, THE WHITE STRIPES.
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GUNG-HO! It’s been an incredible 15 months for The Japanese Popstars. In that time, the Derry trio have released their debut album We Just Are and attained a reputation as remixers extraordinaire, securing high-profile work for the likes of The Ting Tings, Beyoncé and Depeche Mode. However, no matter how great their recorded and remix material – and a slew of music press accolades and gushing reviews attests to their excellence – it is as a live proposition that The Japstars come most fully into their own. We Just Are: Live attempts the nigh-on impossible, then, to distil the visceral shock and awe of their award-winning live performances onto disc. Much of their first album is replicated to senses-blasting —56 issue 60—
DOWNLOAD: ‘TURNING THE MIND’, ‘EVERYTHING IS SHATTERING’, ‘THE NOTE (THESE VOICES)’. FOR FANS OF: M83, ASOBI SEKSU, DAFT PUNK.
Part Chimp Thriller ROCK ACTION Thriller is the third full-length to come from the gnarly South London noise-rock ensemble Part Chimp. The initiated may not have considered that their ears might register any increase in blisteringly dense white noise after 2005’s brutal I Am Come – surely the pool of blood on the floor beside your head testified to this? Think again my friends, think again. Not only have the Chimp succeeded in tapping into a fresh seam of primordial musical sludge, they have created an even louder blend of solid grooves, timber shiveringly-loud guitars and droning melodies. Opener ‘Trad’ a pastiche of the stoner rock genre, is no less of a satisfying melodic drone-fest for being a piss-take. ‘Dirty Sun’ is a grimy, epic strut that sees them indulging in some reframed Sabbathlike tropes. Released on Mogwai’s Rock Action label, the album represents something of an evolution in their noisemongering ways – a progression from their indie/grunge roots to sludgier, stonier ground. If bleeding ears is your thing, Thriller is worth checking out. Aaron Kennedy
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘TRAD’, ‘DIRTY SUN’. FOR FANS OF: JESUS LIZARD, MELVINS, HARVEY MILK.
The Destroyers Out Of Babel
Maps Turning The Mind
DOWNLOAD: ‘DO’, ‘SAY’, ‘MAKE’. FOR FANS OF: TORTOISE, A SILVER MT. ZION, GODSPEED! YOU BLACK EMPEROR.
The Japanese Popstars We Just Are: Live
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DOWNLOAD: ‘TOTAL DISTORTED MAYHEM’, ‘ELECTRO 16 (THE JAPANESE POPSTARS REMIX)’, ‘FACE MELTER’. FOR FANS OF: UNDERWORLD, DIGITALISM, JUSTICE.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘WHERE I’M MOST ALIVE’, ‘THINGS WILL ALWAYS BE THE SAME’, ‘YESTERDAY TODAY’. FOR FANS OF: THE BEATLES, SUPERGRASS.
dynamics and borrowed ideas it’s when the album sounds most like the work of a bedroom producer, more so than at any point during his D.I.Y. debut. Nevertheless, the appealing melodies remain and there seems no shortage of majesty, so fans should find that a warm bed of familiarity awaits them. John Calvert
DESTRUCTION MUTE James Chapman’s ‘nu-gaze’ debut charmed absolutely. Cathedral-organ synths, pretty melodies and – kissed by Chapman’s diaphanous vocals – the astral wake of processed guitars. While its sequel stops to absorb house beats and Eighties electronica as a variation on the soft-focus distortion, Turning The Mind is essentially a re-run, grounded in the same simplistically wispy formula which isn’t quite so enchanting when repeated all but verbatim. Whilst Chapman never had much use for diversity, for him to endure with such unembellished duplication renders his template one-note, plain and facile; stagnant, even. The unrelenting loveliness is sickly, like being suffocated with a candy-floss pillow. Part of the problem is the omnipresence of Chapman’s voice, amalgamating the songs into one big synthy mass. Even the floor-fillers retain a vaporous consistency. Serviceable as they are, the mood is vaguely passive and what with the shaggy dog composition, creaky
Playing Out Of Babel is akin to having a collection of Cossack musicians set up shop in the kitchen with your eccentric uncle from Sligo as frontman, hogging the microphone and uttering incantations on world affairs and the price of coffee in Brazil for an hour. The Destroyers don’t make for a relaxing listen. Their very existence is aimed at disturbing your mind with tales of eccentric professors being buried alive in glass coffins and harrying your feet into performing excessive, confused dance steps. ‘Where Has The Money Gone?’ is a rumination on the credit crunch, which should be played over a montage of Lehman Brothers employees clutching boxes of their desk ornaments for full effect. Undoubtedly destined for the world music stage at upcoming festivals, The Destroyers offer a fun but disconcerting listen. Jeremy Shields
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘OUT OF BABEL’, ‘WHERE HAS THE MONEY GONE?’. FOR FANS OF: DUKE SPECIAL, DIVINE COMEDY.
Lightning Bolt Earthly Delights LOAD I think we all know what to expect from Lightning Bolt by now, and their formula of bass + drums + extreme volume – subtlety has barely changed one iota on this, their fifth album. As usual, the two Brians from Providence, Rhode Island spend a brisk 50 minutes attempting to kick the shite out of you, the listener, with satisfyingly brutal results. It is possible, though, that the band peaked with their last two albums, Wonderful Rainbow and Hypermagic Mountain, especially the latter, because as an overall experience, Earthly Delights is marginally less thrilling. But there’s not a lot in it. Of interest to the hardcore are the few interesting new ideas scattered about, like the weirdly country-ish twang to ‘Funny Farm’, the sludgy, stoner-metal feel of ‘Nation of Boar’ and ‘Colossus’ and the positively jaunty (these things are relative) ‘The Sublime Freak’, which rejoices in some unusually playful drumming – i.e. not completely bludgeoning – from Brian Chippendale. The main selling point, however, is the monstrous 12-minute closer ‘Transmissionary’, which is utterly breathtaking in its audacity and sheer sustained power. It will grind your face to dust. In essence, the message here is that if you like the band and want more, you’ll be delighted. If you’ve never heard Lightning Bolt but you’re partial to a bit of ear-splitting insanity, start with Wonderful Rainbow or Hypermagic Mountain. The rest of you, move along now and leave the rest of us to our deafening fun. Chris Jones
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘TRANSMISSIONARY’, ‘COLOSSUS’, ‘SOUND GUARDIANS’. FOR FANS OF: HELLA, BORIS, BLACK SABBATH.
Various Artists Future Disco: The Extended 21st Century Disco Mix
Phil Kieran Shh COCOON It’s been a long wait for Phil Kieran’s first long-player. Still, the beats maestro behind Alloy Mental, celebrated DJ and remixer has been far from idle in the past decade. Those familiar with the succession of acclaimed 12” recordings Kieran’s released in the preceding years will have picked up a few tell-tale clues as to how this debut would sound. As expected the production is peerless, Shh combining electronic sheen and steely clatter to create bracing, not to mention, atypical techno. Ethereal vocals and spoken word samples weave in and out, the opening splutter of ‘Cut Copy Water’, giving way to the suffocatingly intense ‘Playing With Shadows’ and ‘Barcelona’. The throbbing keys and metallic buzz of ‘World Of TV’ create a scalding ambience that is only emphasised by the following ‘Dirt’. Clanking and slamming like a haunted factory, this is Trent Reznor
NEED WANT With nary a moment to change one’s spangled dance pants between the release of the acclaimed original Future Disco compilation and this snazzy sequel just five months later, it shows if nothing else that the ‘new wave’ of disco has (hot) legs to spare. The same rules apply this time around, with mixer/producer Sean Brosnan gathering an impeccable mix of new disco stalwarts and remixed surprises, lovingly finishing the lot off with a warm, fuzzy old school veneer that’s as much Chic as it is Chicago house. Like the original, it’s seamlessly melded into one glorious whole, meaning you get Snax and Faze Action snuggling up to Shit Robot and Friendly Fires, who make a welcome return to the Future Disco fold. There’s a thesis that suggests that disco prevails in times of social turmoil – that’s clearly nonsense, but societal breakdown is as good an excuse as any to get this album, get with the discopolitik and dance your little socks off. Joe Nawaz
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: IDEALLY BEGINNING TO END WHILE GETTING YOUR GLAD RAGS ON, BUT OTHERWISE: ATMOSFEAR – ‘DANCING IN OUTER SPACE’, FAZE ACTION – ‘I WANNA DANCER’. FOR FANS OF: IMAGINATION, 21ST CENTURY DISCO SERIES, CHIC.
gone techno, drill whine rubbing raw against human moan and snatches of dub. It is brilliant. ‘R.E.S.P.’, meanwhile, does its best to disconcert, initially coming on like the soundtrack to a ‘torture porn’ flick, the throbbing pulse underscoring a man’s groans – of ecstasy, pain, or both we’re not sure. A leavening of tone is marked by the gentle interlude of ‘Raining For Old Friends’, after which ‘Don’t Look Far Away’ floats in on a wave of trance synth, burbling rhythms and chirruping voice. The insane industrial chatter of ‘Bend It My Dear Bend It’ ratchets up the tension again before ‘Past The Present Future’ slams home its bombardment of thudding beats. ‘Foot Of The Hill’ breezes into the epic – and yes, we mean ‘epic’ – ‘Never Ending Mountain’, a suitably herculean conclusion to a heroic debut album. Francis Jones
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘DIRT’, ‘DON’T LOOK FAR AWAY’, ‘FOOT OF THE HILL’. FOR FANS OF: WARP RECORDS, ALLOY MENTAL, UNDERWORLD.
Cate Le Bon Me Oh My
The Boxer Rebellion Union
IRONY BORED
HMV
If this were The Wicker Man’s Summerisle, Cardiff’s Cate Le Bon would be a flaxen-haired harbinger of doom, weaving mystical confusion and murmuring darkly in forests about dire circumstances. She does almost exactly that on the thoroughly unnerving ‘Burn Until The End’ and you are Edward Woodward, all bewitched and enthralled. But it’s not Summerisle, and Le Bon is better than Britt Ekland at singing (and dancing, one hopes). There’s so much great musicianship here, and such great dark lyrics, that picking it all apart is a sin. Just immerse yourself in and enjoy this weird Welsh witchery. Kirstie McCrum
After label troubles and illness stopped debut release Exits in its tracks, The Boxer Rebellion became something of a word-of-mouth cult, and the digital release of Union saw them return triumphantly to the upper regions of the charts earlier this year. Now hitting the physical shelves via a unique distribution deal with HMV, its easy to see what attracted so many to this record’s cause. Swooping and soaring like early Radiohead or even Sigur Rós in places, but with a bite to match Biffy Clyro, Union is epic in scope and execution and is only one or two memorable choruses away from being a genuine alt. rock classic. Lee Gorman
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘HOLLOW TREES HOUSE HOUNDS’, ‘TERROR OF THE MAN’, ‘BURN UNTIL THE END’. FOR FANS OF: GORKY’S ZYGOTIC MYNCI, SUPER FURRY ANIMALS.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘SPITTING FIRE’, ‘SOVIETS’, ‘FLASHING RED LIGHT MEANS GO’. FOR FANS OF: RADIOHEAD, SIGUR ROS, MUSE. —57 AU Magazine—
Reviews
Fanfarlo Reservoir FANFARLO Reservoir is the first LP to come from London-based folkpop band Fanfarlo. Released under the band’s own label, it completes the picture sketched by a bevy of lead-up singles. Produced by Peter Katis (The National, Interpol), and with ringing endorsements from David Bowie and Sigur Rós, this record demands attention.
Basement Jaxx Scars XL In 2006, Basement Jaxx released Crazy Itch Radio, probably their least artistically successful album. After several years as arguably the UK’s most successful dance act – blending commercial smashes and critical kudos like few others – for the first time, it felt like the Brixton duo had something to prove. Happily, to say that they’ve risen to this challenge with Scars is an understatement. It’s a brilliant record, refining to the point of near-perfection the magpie-like, smash ‘n’ grab approach that has characterised their best work.
Kings Of Convenience Declaration Of Dependence SOURCE/VIRGIN Anyone familiar with the Kings’ output over the years should know what to expect here. The duo are past masters of classy, understated folk but Declaration Of Dependence is, as its title suggests, their most intimate and autobiographical work to date. The music is sparse; percussion-free yet customarily rhythmic, for the most part twin acoustic lines tiptoe around each other and focus the listener’s attention on the rapport between the pair’s hushed vocals. Lyrically the album delves deep into the relationship between Eirik Bøe and Erlend Øye, dissecting their friendship and musical alliance in an unflinching, if sympathetic manner. It’s not a commercial record by any means, but the themes the two explore will resonate with anyone ever involved in a close partnership. Lee Gorman
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘24-25’, ‘MRS COLD’, ‘BOAT BEHIND’. FOR FANS OF: BON IVER, TURIN BRAKES, NOAH AND THE WHALE. —58 issue 60—
A stellar list of guest vocalists (de rigeur on Jaxx albums) isn’t necessarily a guarantee of quality, but the cameos on Scars are almost uniformly excellent. Kelis tears into the twitchy, dramatic title track with aplomb, while ‘Saga’, featuring Santigold, is a thrilling, lurching stab of ragga. Sam Sparro gives us his best Prince impression on ‘Feeling’s Gone’, a slab of classic house, and Yo! Majesty enliven the already-deranged dancehall bang of ‘Twerk’. Most surprising of all is ‘Day Of The Sunflowers (We March On)’ which sees Yoko Ono declaim in her own inimitable style over a nagging, insistent bassline and irresistible disco beat. It’s the album in microcosm: startlingly diverse, endlessly imaginative and riotously good fun from start to finish. Neill Dougan
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘DAY OF THE SUNFLOWERS (WE MARCH ON)’, ‘SCARS’, ‘SAGA’. FOR FANS OF: M.I.A, CHEMICAL BROTHERS.
Simon Balthazar’s soulful intonations provide the emotional centre of the record. On the rousing and triumphant ‘Ghosts’ it recalls the ecstatic wailing of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah frontman Alec Ounsworth. The production is a densely layered, kitchen sink affair, lending another gear of compulsion to the sound. Third track, ‘Luna’, drives along like a full force gale, and is saturated with everything from violin to synthesiser parts, and much more besides. On the surface, this is an allround beautiful and absorbing listen. That said, while the vocal is melancholic and possessing of a certain whimsical abandon, it becomes easy to ignore the longer you hear it. Balthazar’s open, almost dispassionate singing style is partly to blame. The disappointment ensuing from a closer inspection of the lyrics explains why it has been recessed snugly into the weave of the mix. While fans of Arcade Fire and Beirut should initially enjoy this album, the discerning devotee will think twice. If you’ll forgive the wordplay, barring a few stand-out tracks Fanfarlo’s Reservoir seems to draw from waters shallower than their better-loved musical progenitors. Aaron Kennedy
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘GHOST’, ‘LUNA’. FOR FANS OF: ARCADE FIRE, BEIRUT, CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH.
The Silent Years The Globe
Bosque Brown Baby GIFT MUSIC
Bosque Brown are centred around Mara Lee Miller, a Texan whose haunting, troubled voice needs little embellishment. On this, their second album, a wisp of pedal steel, a sigh of organ and a glimmer of reverb create an ambience to showcase Miller’s breathtaking vocal. Sounding like Hope Sandoval’s sister from the Deep South, her Texan drawl is soaked in a tender vulnerability as she turns ‘dollars’ into “darl-lurrs” and ‘train tracks’ into “tur-rey-in tray-ee-acks”. ‘White Dove’ traces the outline of lost love, while the majesty and despair of the three-part a capella ‘On And Off’ acts as a crystalline window into torment and grief. By the end ‘Soft Love’ offers hope, but this Baby is late night music for the lovelorn. Utterly spellbinding. John Freeman
The Silent Years have crammed a lot into their four short years. Label hopping, personnel switching and musically restless, they’re a band who always seem to be uneasy about taking the easy path. The one constant has been founder and front man Josh Epstein, a questing lad from Detroit with a locker-full of songs both epic and intimate. He appears to have emptied said locker for The Globe, which boasts a whopping 16 tracks for your listening pleasure and surprisingly little flab. Quite the reverse, in fact, because The Silent Years’ new album is as expansive as its title suggests, sweeping along nicely as a muscular if slightly over-familiar travelogue of panoramic Americana. Special mention should go to the new band line-up though – mainly purloined from fellow Detroiters The Rescue – who sound like they’ve been playing together for years and not mere months. It’s the invigorating sound of a band meeting their potential full-on. Joe Nawaz
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DOWNLOAD: ‘WHITE DOVE’, ‘WHISKEY FLATS’, ‘ON AND OFF’. FOR FANS OF: MAZZY STAR, THE WHISPERTOWN 2000, JOANNA NEWSOM.
DOWNLOAD: ‘HOLLOW TREES HOUSE HOUNDS’, ‘TERROR OF THE MAN’, ‘BURN UNTIL THE END’. FOR FANS OF: GORKY’S ZYGOTIC MYNCI, SUPER FURRY ANIMALS.
FARGO
Baddies Do The Job
a great selection of tracks for the old school techno fan and, for the newcomer, provides an enticing entrée into the back catalogue of a dance colossus. Richard W. Crothers
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 PROPER Recorded at the prestigious Rockfield Studios, the creative space used by everyone from Kasabian to Motörhead, the debut release from the hotly tipped Baddies has drawn comparisons to all the usual pioneers. Although their sound is highly derivative and there is a tendency for the songs to blend into one homogenous heap, Baddies still have enough ammunition to grab your attention. Be warned that tracks like ‘Open One Eye’ and ‘Holler For My Holiday’ will worm their way into your subconscious while ‘We Beat Our Chests’ is a taster of this outfit’s live performance. Baddies’ self-image may be one of snarling punk logic but Do The Job is an album of harmless post-punk revelry with plenty of balls. Lisa Hughes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘TIFFANY I’M SORRY’, ‘COLIN’, ‘BATTLESHIPS’. FOR FANS OF: KAISER CHIEFS, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, THE WOMBATS.
frYars Dark Young Hearts
DOWNLOAD: ‘THE SOLOIST’, ‘TRONIC’, ‘BIG BAD DRUM’. FOR FANS OF: CARL COX, KEVIN SAUNDERSON, SLAM.
Lethal Bizzle Go Hard
frYars is the stage name of self-taught teen prodigy Ben Garrett, and debut full-length Dark Young Hearts succinctly showcases his mischievous, electro-tinged pop vision. First single ‘The Ides’ caused ripples with its arch vocal, layered sounds and stomping piano, and forms the template for much of what goes on here. There’s plenty for the listener to get their teeth into; every track has interesting ideas skittering beneath the surface and there are some great, catchy refrains and rhythms. The problem with Dark Young Hearts is that, despite its author’s youth, it’s too knowing. The vocal delivery is dispassionate and detached; a bit of feeling could really have elevated some of these songs to greatness, and at times the album comes across as too clever for its own good. Lee Gorman
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘LAKEHOUSE’, ‘THE IDES’, ‘OLIVE EYES’. FOR FANS OF: LONELY GHOSTS, FRANZ FERDINAND, PATRICK WOLF.
Samuel L Session The Man With The Case BE AS ONE A hugely respected producer with his own unique sound, Swedish dance giant Samuel L Session is a staple of every worth-their-salt DJ’s record collection. He is, in short, a veritable godfather of old-school techno. The Man With The Case brings together a number of past releases on one compilation. The collection covers different strands of the techno world, but never stretches too far away from what fans have come to expect from SLS. Tunes such as ‘Tronic’ and ‘Big Bad Drum’ seem custom built for the dancefloor, with SLS’s rolling thunder, old-school machine driven noises taking us on a non-stop thrill ride. The Man With The Case is
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘LAY LOW’, ‘BRING ON THE HURRICANE’, ‘CANOPY’. FOR FANS OF: JOANNA NEWSOM, VASHTI BUNYAN, SANDY DENNY.
SEARCH & DESTROY MOBO award winner Lethal Bizzle has unleashed his third album Go Hard in an attempt to encapsulate his riotous live performances on record. Formerly of More Fire Crew, Bizzle is one of the most promising rappers to emerge from the UK underground scene. Despite the hype, Go Hard covers the trademark, unsurprising rap themes (‘Money Power Respect Fame’ says it all, really) and is guilty of often trite and predictable rhymes. On the plus side, the LP does contain some slow burning growers like ‘Can You See Me’ but on the whole, Go Hard is a vibrant, house party soundtrack not to be analysed too deeply. Lisa Hughes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘GO HARD’, ‘THE COMEDOWN’, ‘CAN YOU SEE ME’. FOR FANS OF: GRIME, DIZZEE RASCAL, TINCHY STRYDER.
FRYARCORP
number of isolated places, including the Faroe Islands and an abandoned school in rural Spain. It may be a forlorn and deeply melancholy work, but Wrought Iron refuses to wallow in self-indulgence, as the apparent simplicity of each track contrasts with the rich emotional resonance. When she strays from her piano, Cunliffe explores a strangely seductive and swampy bijou drawl as evidenced on ‘The Act’, with its bluesy, harmonica-backed strut, but she never leaves it too long before returning to the disarming fragility that saturates the rest of the record’s delicate tapestry. James Gracey
Russian Circles Geneva SUICIDE SQUEEZE More aggressive than Tyler Durden and maybe on a par with the Cuban missile crisis for tension, Geneva avoids post-rock clichés and opts for the loud-louder formula for the most part. Even when Russian Circles are at their most contemplative, as on ‘Hexed All’, there is enough of a sinister element to maintain balance with the menacing mayhem that shrouds this album. Producer Brandon Curtis (of Secret Machines) has done a good job as a referee in a fight where the jagged melodies are in danger of being outmuscled by the powerfully sludgy rhythm section. Not for the faint hearted, it’s a bold album where, as Tyler would have it, there are no rules. Gerard McCann
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘GENEVA’, ‘MALKO’, ‘WHEN THE MOUNTAIN COMES TO MUHAMMAD’. FOR FANS OF: ASIWYFA, PELICAN, MOGWAI.
Nancy Elizabeth Wrought Iron
Sleeping States The Gardens Of The North BELLA UNION Our tour guide is Markland Starkie, and he wants to take us on a journey through the English countryside via woods, gardens, beaches and villages while his narrative offers escape from life’s daily rigours. “Is your goal in other places and other times?” he asks in the sparse opener ‘Rings of Saturn’, before song after song unveils more richly thematic lyrical pearls, beautifully accompanied by looped harmonies, spiralling guitars and crashing percussion. His elegiac baritone twists and turns throughout, ‘Red King’ proving that it sits equally well within a Starsstyle indie romp. The journey ends in the city with ‘The Cartographer’, where Starkie finds his sylvan inspiration in memories and dreams. Likewise, we’ve found our inspiration in Sleeping States. Paul McIver
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘GARDENS OF THE SOUTH’, ‘RED KING’, ‘A SPIRAL NOT REPEATED’. FOR FANS OF: BEIRUT, GRIZZLY BEAR, RED HOUSE PAINTERS.
Micah P. Hinson. All Dressed Up And Smelling Of Strangers (Vol. I & II) FULL TIME HOBBY As a stop-gap between albums, Micah P. has recorded two volumes of covers that meant something at particularly difficult times in his life. They range from traditional folk songs (‘Kiss Me Mother, Kiss Your Darling’), through standards (‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’) to more obscure offerings (Pedro The Lion’s ‘Slow And Steady’). Hinson’s voice is unmistakeable. Deep and aged beyond his 28 years, it is undoubtedly his strength but regardless of the personal reasons, some of the choices sound clunky. ‘My Way’ has been covered too much already and ‘In The Pines’ will forever be associated with another troubled twenty-something. Best of all are Centromatic’s ‘Not Forever Now’ and Emmy The Great’s ‘We Almost Had A Baby’. Kenny Murdock
THE LEAF LABEL
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Exploring the sounds of silence and solitude, Nancy Elizabeth Cunliffe wrote the predominantly piano-led follow up to her sublime debut, Battle & Victory, in a
DOWNLOAD: ‘NOT FOREVER NOW’, ‘WE ALMOST HAD A BABY’. FOR FANS OF: KARAOKE —59 AU Magazine—
Reviews
Amanda Blank I Love You CO-OP / DOWNTOWN Springing from the deep well of club trickery that is Diplo’s Philadelphian Hollertronix collective, the ribald Amanda Blank knows more words for a foo-foo than Dr Kinsey and packs something large and twitching beneath her Peachespilfering hot-pants [what, a cock?! – Ed.]. With Blank at once parodying hipster-hop and making a sincere break for the mainstream, Diplo oversees proceedings, with Spank Rock, XXXChange and one David Sitek all contributing to an embarrassment of styles (dancehall, electroclash, crunk, riot-grrl), all shunted into a short running-time. Essentially a producers’ album, little room is left for our resident nymph to contribute a signature flavour, while the overly lewd persona lacks Peaches’ subversive wit, leaving it all sounding a bit crass. Nestled among the eventful production (a little eager, a little stuffy), Blank’s retro delivery, interchangeable with Uffie’s skeezy old-school flow, is just hackneyed by now. Originality is glimpsed, however, in the more unassuming likes of ‘A Love Song’ and an ethereal collaboration with Lykke Li. John Calvert
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘LEAVING YOU BEHIND’, ‘A LOVE SONG’, ‘MAKE UP’. FOR FANS OF: PEACHES, UFFIE, M.I.A.
Kid Harpoon Once XL It’s surprising to realise that Once is the Kid’s debut album, as it seems he’s been around for yonks. Obviously spending the time since his emergence wisely, Tom Hull has honed his songwriting, his bittersweet lyrics now rivalling Alex Turner’s for unearthing poetic meaning in the everyday. ‘Stealing Cars’ and ‘Colours’ are a great opening salvo, the former relentlessly upbeat, the latter an old favourite reworked into a string-heavy acoustic lament. The title track is a swooning, piano and string ballad, forthcoming single ‘Back From Beyond’ sees Hull at his rockiest and ‘Death Of A Rose’ out-vaudevilles Duke Special. It’s not all great, with a few tracks veering toward the cheesiness of Jack Peñate’s early efforts, but overall this is well worth a punt. Lee Gorman
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘STEALING CARS’, ‘COLOURS’, ‘BURNT DOWN HOUSE’. FOR FANS OF: TOM PETTY, DUKE SPECIAL, ARCTIC MONKEYS.
Animal Kingdom Signs And Wonders WARNER At a macro level there’s not much difference between Coldplay and Radiohead. Both consist of earnest blokes who produce their own thoughtful brand of rock music, while selling millions of records and trying to make the —60 issue 60—
world a nicer place. Obviously, closer scrutiny show the ‘Head to tirelessly reinvent and expand their sonic palette while rallying against globalisation, while the ‘Play toil over another soft-rock chugger designed to tempt a fanbase of accountants away from their spreadsheets. Harsh, maybe, but Animal Kingdom’s debut album unwittingly adds evidence to our theory. Signs And Wonders begins sounding like a chintzy version of Chris Martin’s mob but ends up unrestrained, subliminal and displaying infinite potential; ‘Mephistopheles’ has a genuine sadness, while ‘Yes Sir, Yes Sir’ flails superbly like a spiky, contrary Hail To The Thief off-cut. Richard Sauberlich’s fascinatingly nasal vocal further adds to the intrigue – Signs And Wonders has finished something it couldn’t start. John Freeman
on by Ant of Atmosphere fame, the loose, organic and soulful production perfectly supports Brother Ali’s voice. On personal, powerful semi-autobiographical tracks like ‘Slippin’ Away’, Us achieves a moving and dramatic vista that cannot be ignored. Both uplifting and edifying, Us is the sound of an artist on top of his game. Joe Nawaz
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘GODDAM YOU’, ‘BABYGIRL’, ‘SLIPPIN’ AWAY’. FOR FANS OF: KRS-ONE, THE ROOTS.
The Hickey Underworld The Hickey Underworld
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘YES SIR, YES SIR’, ‘MEPHISTOPHELES’, ‘DOLLAR SIGNS’. FOR FANS OF: RADIOHEAD, SNOW PATROL, MERCURY REV.
The Raincoats The Raincoats WE THREE The Raincoats’ seminal 1979 debut album got Kurt Cobain through some tough times and showed Kim Gordon that “ordinary people could make extraordinary music.” While the punk movement gave some ordinary people the chance to make ordinary music, its aftermath, post-punk, gave this all-female London five-piece the opportunity to make a truly original splash in a maledominated puddle. Their primal, inventive and lively folkpunk noise made a lot of friends and rightly so. ‘Fairytale In The Supermarket’ begins auspiciously enough but when the guitars begin to jerk and scrape in a wonderfully wonky manner, something special unfolds. That magic is in the offkilter vocal sparring of ‘No Side To Fall In’; the complex yet playful schizo-bass, jagged guitar-lines and tribal drums of the Slits-covered ‘Adventures Close To Home’; and the introspective, violin-led ‘The Void’. Reissued for the second time, this album is a must-listen. Paul McIver
NAIVE The debut from Belgian bruisers The Hickey Underworld is the aural equivalent of sandpaper: ugly, rough as fuck but extremely useful. They may sport their influences defiantly on their collective sleeve (Dischord Records, early Nirvana and The Jesus Lizard spring readily to mind) but they twist them just enough to avoid easy pigeon-holing. The vocals strike a balance between vitriol and melody that the legions of screamo bands seem incapable of understanding, and the guitars sound huge; squalling and crunching their way around funky bass and percussion-heavy drumming which give Hickey a groove too often missing from post-hardcore. Indeed, the likes of the ludicrously infectious ‘Future Words’ could go toeto-toe with Franz and co on the dancefloor, while ‘Blue World Order’ brings a waltz flavour to punk rock. Mad, but utterly endearing. Lee Gorman
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘FUTURE WORDS’, ‘FLAMENCORPSE’, ‘BLONDE FIRE’. FOR FANS OF: NIRVANA, JESUS LIZARD, FUGAZI.
Kurt Vile Childish Prodigy
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘ADVENTURES CLOSE TO HOME’, ‘OFF DUTY TRIP’, ‘LOLA’. FOR FANS OF: SLEATER-KINNEY, EARLY PAVEMENT, THE SLITS.
Brother Ali Us RHYMESAYERS ENTERTAINMENT Brother Ali’s fourth album Us is a truly wondrous thing. Much has been made of the demise of the genre and its descent into self-parody, but with this atmospheric, breezy and lyrically sharp collection, the good Brother has crafted a hip-hop album with both balls and heart, proving along the way that it is eminently possible to have both. In turns polemical and romantic, the “albino rapper” brings an articulacy and intelligence to the genre that has been sapped for too long by half-arsed chancers trading in the lowest common denominator. Tellingly, none other than Chuck D symbolically starts the album by introducing Brother Ali before stepping back and letting him hold forth. And with beats laid
MATADOR Kurt Vile’s debut Matador release is a mixed bag. As soon as the stock blues-rock riff kicks in on ‘Hunchback’ a question springs to mind: ‘Matador?’ Okay, so there are moments of genuine promise in a trio of songs – the understated ambience and cascading guitar melody in ‘Dead Alive’, reminiscent of Animal Collective minus the toys and plus a languid drawl; the epic boogie monster ‘Freak Train’, where Vile’s über-American bark sounds really at home; and the genuinely intriguing psychedelia of ‘Overnite Religion’. However, by the time we reach ‘Inside Looking Out’, the building discomfort is confirmed by an interminably droning harmonica and Vile’s repetitive drawl. Childish Prodigy depicts an artist with grand ideas but one who perhaps spent too many quarters on the jukebox wearing out the Lou Reed and Bob Dylan albums. Paul McIver
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘DEAD ALIVE’, ‘FREAK TRAIN’, OVERNITE RELIGION’. FOR FANS OF: BOB DYLAN, BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB.
Why? Eskimo Snow TOMLAB Forgive me for diving headlong into the first person here, but I wanted to love this record so much. Maybe too much. Why?’s last album Alopecia was my favourite of 2008 – full of charm, wit, intelligence, raw honesty, unforgettable lyrics and the best marriage of hip-hop grooves to slacker-pop songwriting since Odelay. So when I discovered that another record was to be plucked from the same sessions, my expectations for Eskimo Snow became unattainably high. Or so it has proved, because unfortunately there are only a few songs here good enough to have made it onto Alopecia and that, while acknowledging that the two albums are strikingly different in style, mood and tone (Eskimo Snow is dark and introspective, almost an alt. country record), constitutes a real disappointment. Yoni Wolf is incapable of writing poor lyrics and his unique style, heavy on arresting imagery and dextrous wordplay, is fully intact here, but for large parts the songs are not. In deciding which ones went where, Wolf appears to have overplayed his hand, overloading Alopecia with his best stuff. It’s not all bad news, mind you, because penultimate song ‘This Blackest Purse’ is gorgeous, affecting and one of Wolf’s best, while bookends ‘These Hands’ and the title track are almost painfully tender and ‘One Rose’ and ‘Against Me’ have much to recommend them. But although the two albums share the same genes, it’s clear which one is the black sheep of the family. Chris Jones
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘THIS BLACKEST PURSE’, ‘THESE HANDS’, ‘ONE ROSE’. FOR FANS OF: SILVER JEWS, BONNIE ‘PRINCE’ BILLY, GRANDADDY.
Frank Turner Poetry Of The Deed
Editors In This Light And On This Evening COLUMBIA ‘Editors go electro’ screamed the headlines a few months back, but any visions of Tom Smith pitching up in a La Roux quiff are dispelled within a few seconds of the opening title track. Sinister, throbbing synth layers underpin Smith’s ghostly intonations, building slowly towards a searing climax; it’s about as far removed from ‘Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors’ and crowdpleasing Coldplayisms as you could imagine. The following ‘Bricks And Mortar’ is the Terminator theme
filtered through the prism of Joy Division’s Closer, all icy keys, background interference and distant, juddering drums. Indeed, echoes of the post-punk legends’ final opus abound throughout In This Light… but it’s far from being mere pastiche. Chinks of light peeking through the darkness prevent it from becoming overbearing, and check out the dark twist of Depeche Mode pop running through lead single ‘Papillon’ or ‘The Big Exit’s romantic subversion of their doomy image for evidence that the quartet have added several strings to their bow. Lee Gorman
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘IN THIS LIGHT AND ON THIS EVENING’, ‘PAPILLON’, ‘BRICKS AND MORTAR’. FOR FANS OF: DEPECHE MODE, JOY DIVISION, WHITE LIES.
Zero 7 Yeah Ghost
Port O’Brien Threadbare
EPITAPH Poetry Of The Deed could be described as the sound of Frank Turner maturing, but that must be the last thing he would want people to think. Frank revels in the joys of one’s formative years, when everything seems possible and nothing seems beyond reach. From his roots in festival livewires Million Dead, Frank has moved beyond the acoustic contemplations of his previous album to embrace a fuller, live band sound on his third release. Opener ‘Live Fast Die Old’ sets out his manifesto of living life to the full. Simple lines like “There’s no such things as rock stars, just people who play music” sum up his sentiments to perfection. ‘Dan’s Song’ is an effortless eulogy to the pleasures of drinking a carry-out as the summer fades to autumn. The second half moves into more mellow, contemplative territory, but doesn’t slip into torpor. A man who brandishes honesty like a big stick, grab yourself a bit of Frank if hope is fading and he’ll see you through. Jeremy Shields
ATLANTIC
CITY SLANG
We slipped this CD into our computer expecting what we’ve always got from Zero 7 – some jazz and funk-flecked sounds underpinned by smooth and chilled out beats. Early cut ‘Mr McGee’, with its hazy female vocals, suggests there’ll be no radical changes – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – but then Yeah Ghost begins to unfurl a new facet of Zero 7. The proliferation of fast paced 4 x 4 beats, laced with funky bass and a super strong house vocal begins to push the band’s boundaries. The album continues to unearth intriguingly fresh possibilities, but riddled with the comforting old sound that we’re used to. It’s heartening to hear them try and flex their creative muscles, even if influences such as Leftfield, Portishead and, especially, Groove Armada are apparent. And if Yeah Ghost doesn’t quite live up to our high expectations, it manages to come commendably close. Richard W. Crothers
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Amid preparations for Threadbare, Port O’Brien’s second album, Cambria Goodwin tragically lost her younger brother. Consequently, this record has a much different feel to what the band originally intended. The loose jangle of ‘All We Could Do Was Sing’ is still present, but themes of loss and mortality dominate the lyrics. On ‘Tree Bones’, a Goodwin-penned survivor from early recordings The Wind And The Swell, Cambria ponders how life constantly provides reasons to cry over a jagged rhythm that recalls Modest Mouse. ‘Calm Me Down’ could be an outtake from Neil Young’s Tonight’s The Night, while ‘Oslo Campfire’ bites with cynicism and bile, and throws up the album’s most memorable lyric – “Living in the past, and dreaming through your son / Will get you nowhere fast and leave you fucked.” Port O’Brien combine the energy of Arcade Fire, the inventiveness of the Elephant 6 collective and the assuredness of Yo La Tengo. Threadbare is sombre and beautiful. Kenny Murdock
DOWNLOAD: ‘LIVE FAST DIE OLD’, ‘POETRY OF THE DEED’, ‘THE FASTEST WAY BACK HOME’. FOR FANS OF: NEIL YOUNG, ARCTIC MONKEYS, BILLY BRAGG.
DOWNLOAD: ‘GHOST SYMBOL’, ‘COUNT ME OUT’, ‘THE ROAD’. FOR FANS OF: GROOVE ARMADA, PORTISHEAD, LEFTFIELD.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DOWNLOAD: ‘TREE BONES’, ‘OSLO CAMPFIRE’. FOR FANS OF: ROGUE WAVE, THE DECEMBERISTS. —61 AU Magazine—
Unsigned Universe
Sullem Voe
InProfile ACT: SULLEM VOE LOCATION: DERRY MEMBERS: RORY DONAGHY (VOCALS, GUITAR), JAY DICKSON (DRUMS, SAMPLES), LIAM CRAIG (BASS), CIARAN HASLETT (LEAD GUITAR). FOR FANS OF: FOUR TET, IDLEWILD, RADIOHEAD RELEASE: DEBUT ALBUM ALL NAKED FLAMES, OUT NOW. WEBSITE: WWW.SULLEMVOE.COM Summoning a diverse mix of sounds and styles – from gentle electronica to careworn indie, dynamic rock to widescreen panoramas – Sullem Voe’s music suggests a restlessly inventive imagination. Rory Donaghy, owner of aforementioned imagination, talks Richard W. Crothers through the band’s genesis, inspirations and future plans. Your debut album All Naked Flames seems to be a pick ‘n’ mix of different styles, with different influences from numerous genres at work. Can you name some of the musicians who’ve influenced you?
Orbit, Rush, Massive Attack, Moving Hearts, PJ Harvey...
From start to finish, how long has it taken to create?
When you started the project, did you have a clear idea of the sort of sound you wanted to create, or was it something that just evolved as the work progressed?
About two years on and off. As Dave Stewart once said, you never know when an album is finished, only when to abandon it.
For some of the songs I was certainly “chasing a sound in my head,” as Les Paul so eloquently put it, [but] for others it was more a case of throwing stuff at the canvas and seeing what sticks. I also made a conscious decision not to try and make the record sound cool or contemporary.
There’s a political element to some of your lyrics and samples, and you list the likes of Gore Vidal and John Maynard Keynes as influences on your MySpace. What is the message that Sullem Voe wants to impart?
Have you got any touring or gigging plans for the immediate future? I made the record without the slightest intention of ever playing the songs live. Liam Craig somehow talked me into playing a couple of the tunes a couple of months back and we totally buzzed off it, so much that we have kept at it and will be doing the odd gig in support of the record or whenever we are asked.
No message at all. The songs include stuff that I think is worth saying but they are also usually contradictory and, paradoxically therefore, the only ones I could sing with any measure of conviction or integrity! We are complex beasts, us humans, and at our most dangerous in packs. I also reckon there’s enough love songs out there already. If Sullem Voe could pick any band to support, who would they pick and where would you play?
Off the top of me head, I’d say John Martyn, Public Enemy, Frank Zappa, Kate Bush, Van Halen, William
There has clearly been a lot of time spent of the album.
That’s easy! We would happily be Jinx Lennon’s backing band any place, any time. Now there’s REAL honesty!
Sullem Voe All Naked Flames
Thrones Of Roll Video Store
Uber Glitterati Demo
The debut from this Derry act opens on a trip-hop vibe with ‘The Lonely Planet’. However, no sooner has the mood and tone begun to settle than we’re firing off on a tangent towards Nineties rock. Each subsequent track seems to offer something new and different. This varied approach can be interpreted either as effortless eclecticism, or the work of a band still striving to realise their own sound. We suspect the latter. Still, the grooving melody and chilled-out ambience of ‘California’ floats our boat and the production is uniformly excellent. What’s more, there’s no denying the abundance of great ideas, sounds and melodies that pepper All Naked Flames. With a little more focus, the next release could prove something special. RC
Packing more muscle than a roomful of steroid abusing bodybuilders, Belfast-based Thrones of Roll are a beefed-up proposition. Within the first 20 seconds of the title track, it’s clear that subtlety is not their forte. This impression is reinforced by the likes of ‘Zoo Keeper’ and ‘Voodoo Period’, songs that don’t so much try and sweet talk you, as whack you over the head with Captain Caveman’s cudgel. However, that’s not to deny their occasionally pleasing way with a riff, the impassioned vocals, or walloping rhythms, merely to suggest that they’ll need to bring a little more originality and finesse to the party next time round. FJ
Silly, pretentious, or both, that name doesn’t bode well. However, the three songs from this Belfast pair are not as ostentatious as we feared. In fact, each of the tracks boasts synth-pop melodies as bright and dazzling as a forest of crystal. The synthetic spectre of the Eighties and early Nineties looms large here, with the streamlined keys dating the sound. The vocal interplay of the female and male duo, their literal and lyrical sparring, is excellent. ‘Little Chances’ suggests a less melancholy Everything But The Girl, whilst ‘Out Of Mind’ evokes the very best of Saint Etienne. In other words, it’s all very impressive. More of this please. FJ
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WWW.SULLEMVOE.COM —62 issue 60—
Photos by Alan Maguire
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SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO
Electric Picnic 2009 Stradbally, Co. Laois It’s 6pm on the Friday and already the muntered masses are giving it stacks to Boy 8 Bit. You have to admire their enthusiasm. After a quick flit round site we’re back in the tent just in time to catch Major Lazer belting out ‘Pon De Floor’. Diplo even gives it a cheeky rewind to hype things up even more. It storms. Next up, more banging dance in the form of Fake Blood. The former Wiseguy has spot on DJ skills as well as tune selection, and the crowd is whipped up to a frenzy in no time. The same can’t be said for the boring MGMT on the Main Stage, but fortunately Buraka Som Sistema deliver jumped up party antics and rip the place up. 2MANYDJS
THE XX
Chew Lips is the first port of call for Saturday, and they provide one of the highlights of the festival. It’s electro-pop of the finest kind, frontwoman Tigs prowling around the stage and bringing an extra dose of style to the proceedings. After a wander around the site, I settle at The Whitest Boy Alive, who are stunning. Next it’s a quick swing across to Klaxons, who seem more ferocious and noisy than ever, and have stepped out of the rave and even more into the rock. If anyone doubted that a DJ duo could work as a Main Stage headliner, then 2ManyDJs blast those doubts out of the park. Quite simply the greatest party DJ set ever, they mash, remix and tweak a gazillion popular hits, with visuals for every track. Incredibly impressive. Sunday evening is all about Passion Pit. Live, the band inject even more energy into their songs, and ‘Sleepyhead’ lifts the roof. A quick scoot to the Little Big Tent means that I catch a good bit of Zombie Nation. I’m a fan of his productions, but live the techno is just too relentless. Luckily, the crazy, Mad Max style Arcadia area provides the rave until 4am. Is there a better way to end a festival than dancing to banging electro beneath a flame-shooting tower? Didn’t think so. Jonny Tiernan
Friday starts at a slow drift. I flit in and out of tents, catching morsels of The Temper Trap, Lykke Li and Major Lazer before settling on Efterklang. Alas, the Danes’ pop symphonies get lost in the tent. ABC fare better – punchy and fun, the Eighties pop icons on stage are at odds with the filthy weather outside. Thereafter, it’s up to alt. rock heavyweights Dinosaur Jr. and techno boffins Orbital – to make the evening. They don’t quite. Dinosaur are bracingly loud in front of their massed amps, but the sound is muddy and some of the material stodgy. Then to Orbital. For an hour, an up-for-it crowd lose their shit to ‘Belfast’, ‘Satan’ and ‘Chime’, but the last half hour drags interminably. They go through the motions, and I slope off to my sleeping bag. Saturday is the pick. Canadian folk-popsters Ohbijou ease me in before The xx arrive in the Electric Arena. It’s too widescreen a venue for their sultry, intimate sound, but they pull it off by playing those glorious songs to perfection. James Murphy and Pat Mahoney kick-start a busy evening with a freshly squeezed DJ set full of classic disco and house. Brian Wilson next, the weirdly immodest legend running through a magical Beach Boys greatest hits set. From Californian sunshine to a Swedish haze, as The Field’s organic, hypnotic hybrid of techno, trance and Krautrock captivates a packed dance tent. Next, Chic elicit grins of pure joy with the gig of the weekend, Nile Rodgers packing in a host of his productions for Sister Sledge, Diana Ross and David Bowie alongside the likes of ‘I Want Your Love’, ‘Le Freak’ and ‘Good Times’. Sunday dawns swathed in mud. Two Door Cinema Club’s perky indie-pop lifts the spirits before The Sugarhill Gang’s farcical karaoke dampens them again. Simian Mobile Disco are the main attraction this early in the day. It’s a slick, dancefloor-ready live set that thrills the glow-stick wielding kids. Later, we dip into The Big Pink in time for a thundering ‘Velvet’, then swoon to Fleet Foxes’ harmonies as they drift over the site. Royskopp are the band of the day, though, trumping SMD. This is a festival dance gig par excellence – pop hits, dancefloor bangers and tons of energy. Next, a disaster, as Skream and Benga’s dubstep gig is thwarted by a blown PA, but that only benefits the safe hands of Erol Alkan. He keeps kids dancing, you know. Chris Jones —63 AU Magazine—
Live Reviews
Bestival
Photos by Adam Kula
Bestival Newport, Isle Of Wight An eruption of flames and fireworks brought three days of Bestival to a close when organisers blew up a giant wooden pyre full of rockets. Run by Radio 1 DJ Rob Da Bank, the festival began six years ago with just a few thousand people. This year, more than 40,000 revellers made the trip to Robin Hill Park outside Newport on the Isle of Wight. But despite its ballooning size, Bestival still touts itself as an alternative, bohemian-style gathering, and the 2009 bill was nothing if not diverse with Massive Attack, Kraftwerk and Mercury-Prize winner Elbow as headliners. Festival-goers could also choose among at least 80 acts each day in stages like the Bollywood Tent, Burlesque Tent, or the outdoor rave arena Afterburner. Among day one’s standouts were guitar mentalists 65daysofstatic, disco-rockers Friendly Fires and the eccentric wiles of Florence and the Machine, the biggest disappointment was MGMT. Their hit ‘Kids’ was being whistled everywhere from the tent to the toilet queue, but for a while it looked as if this hotly anticipated band were not turning up at all. Amid increasingly irritated cries of “Where the fuck are MGMT?” compere Beardyman was beginning to clutch at lyrical straws to stretch his set out (“This is a —64 issue 60—
test of all my powers / I’m not a hippy and I don’t like flowers / Although actually I do / They’re quite nice”) until the band finally appeared 20 minutes after they were welcomed on. It was a respectable set, but their material is still unfamiliar to many and after the frenetic energy of Soulwax they seemed downtempo. Massive Attack, however, were never going to fail to please and the crowd melted off with ‘Teardrop’ and ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ ringing in their ears Day two held its own surprises. Each year, Bestival has a different fancy dress theme, and this year saw literally thousands of revellers take part in a space-based costume parade dressed as aliens, spacecraft, and in one case as the entire solar system. Shortly afterwards, Lily Allen, wearing probably the most revealing skirt the law allows, treated the audience to a drum and bass version of ‘Smile’, but not before a colossal technical cock-up completely cut the sound from the main stage, resulting in the sight of Miss Allen dancing in total silence for about 30 seconds until the sound came back on. This also happened to grouchy old hobo Seasick Steve, who played an otherwise stomping blues set. But the most interesting act of the day – if not the festival – were techno heroes Kraftwerk. Regarded as pretty much the founders of electronic music, the quartet of 60-something Germans stood motionless at computer banks, clad in fluorescent suits, while drum
machines and synthesisers belted out ‘Tour de France’, ‘The Model’, ‘Autobahn’ and other electro staples. In probably their one concession to normality, they returned with an encore – ‘Radioactivity’. A thudding ode to nuclear catastrophes, this finale left a lot of the audience pretty baffled, if not totally freaked out – just as shoulder-pad clad songstress La Roux kicked off late night proceedings in the Big Top tent. Sunday was more sedate, with the choral harmonies and chiming guitars of Fleet Foxes giving way to Elbow, clearly having a whale of a time as they brought the main stage to a close. In an interview with AU on the final morning of the festival, Mr Da Bank said: “Every year I make the mistake of saying we definitely won’t get any bigger. You get a few people on the forums saying ‘Please don’t get any bigger’, but to be honest this feels like a good amount of people and I’ve always said we’ll stop when it feels like too many. It’s not about the amount of people. It’s about who comes.” Anyone who queued for four hours in a densely packed crowd with no obvious escape in sweltering heat just to leave the festival premises might take issue with this, even more so once they realised the buses were leaving less than half full. But this slice of idiocy aside, Bestival remains a draw for those who like a less drugged-up, less stab-happy festival experience. Long may it remain so. Adam Kula
The Bug And Daddy Freddy The Black Box, Belfast
After 10 years on the road you could forgive the EITS boys for maybe feeling a little drained, but towards the end of tonight’s show they disappear from view altogether; whether they are playing while sitting down or having a nice lie down is not possible to tell from my obscured vantage point. Just as well that there is no visual aspect to this show, for this is all about the extraordinary sounds mind-bendingly emanating from the basic instrumentation, to be listened to with full focus and concentration. Greeted by a packed venue (no mean feat on Electric Picnic weekend), EITS open with the beautiful ‘First Breath After Coma’, which perfectly encapsulates the calm splendour followed by apocalyptic loudness that they have mastered over the last decade. ‘Your Hand In Mine’ is simply stunning while ‘Greet Death’ is particularly euphoric with its combination of brutal heaviness and melody making a mostly static crowd move. With no album to promote it is something of a ‘best of’ set for which there are no complaints from the audience. Explosions In The Sky don’t do encores and guitarist Munaf Rayani takes to the stage to inform us that there is no chance of one tonight either, but after this 70 minute celebration of pulsating post-rock, no-one here could deny these tired Texans a rest. Gerard McCann
In our last issue, Kevin Martin (for The Bug is he) promised that the live show would be “fucking all over the shop”, “confrontational” and “physical” but “enjoyable”. He wasn’t kidding, as tonight deserves to go down as one of the gigs of the year. It’s nearly over before it begins, though. A deafening blast of noise announces his arrival and demands attention before Martin, alone behind a desk of equipment at the back of the stage, powers into versions of ‘Angry’ and ‘Poison Dart’ from last year’s extraordinary London Zoo album. And then, as abruptly as it starts, the sound and lights cut out. Oops. 10 minutes of uncomfortable shuffling about later, Martin is back and this time there are no familiar bangers to cling on to. For half an hour until ragga MC Daddy Freddy arrives, it’s a sonic battlefield of harsh noise, dancehall beats and teethrattling bass – aggressive and deafeningly loud, yes, but compellingly danceable as well.
And So I Watch You From Afar Camden Barfly, London
LILY ALLEN LA ROUX
FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE
Explosions In The Sky Spring & Airbrake, Belfast
Camden Barfly is the kind of venue that you imagined bands playing in where you were younger: small, borderline-grotty, and up loads of stairs. Not unlike ‘The Bronze’ from Buffy, actually. Equally, ASIWYFA are the kind of band that you imagined seeing at your perfect first live gig, back when the prospect of seeing music in slightly smelly and small rooms was the height of urban edginess. Luckily, electric, magnetic and as airtight as Tupperware, ASIWYFA play a storming set. Exhibiting new tracks such as ‘Straight Through The Summer’ (almost math-rock) and ‘D Is For Django The Bastard’ (awesome drum solo), the group commandeer the stage. Tracks from their debut full-length are greeted with joy – ‘I Capture Castles’ showcases the power of two lead guitars perfectly in sync, while ‘A Little Bit Of Solidarity Goes A Long Way’ rouses the rabble in a way that only a skittering Vampire Weekend riff over an Animal-from-TheMuppets-drumbeat can. It’s difficult to make wordless music seem compelling, but with complex rhythmic breaks and impromptu yelps, the above is not a problem. Showing real control and restraint, while at the same time tearing Barfly a new one, ASIWYFA play not as a group, but as a band. And that’s really saying something. Ailbhe Malone
Your Twenties, The Brute Chorus, Bridport Dagger The Borderline, London Opening proceedings this evening are the brooding and frenetic Bridport Dagger, a band who take their onerous epithet from a euphemism for noose rope. This three-piece make atmospheric, gloomy, blues-rock tunes that sound totally fresh and yet referential of some of the greats. Imagine Elvis or Orbison teaming up with a grim rock ‘n’ roll reaper; given enough rope, this band could really turn some heads. Second up are The Brute Chorus, a band whose energy isn’t so much brooding in the shadows as it is flaunted in the foreground. Their chaotic, ramshackle Fifties rock sound is ambitious and ballsy, and yet not overt about the careful craftsmanship holding it all together. You might say this band wear their metaphorical cocks on their sleeves – even if that’s a slightly nauseating mental image. Headliners Your Twenties, on the other hand, seem hormonally challenged. Yes, the big tunes do elevate; yes, there are riffs catchy enough to spool out an entire adultsized onesy in the duration of their short set, and yes, the grooves are Solid. As. A. Rock... But there’s just no heart. I want to like this band, but their bloodless performance is all too stiff-upper-lip and too-cool-for-school. Think Kowalski without half the charm and, on average, slightly longer songs. Aaron Kennedy
Eventually, Daddy Freddy does turn up and the mood changes, taking us from confrontation and aural punishment to a chaotic dance party. The familiar tunes are back – ‘Jah War’, ‘Warning’, the peerless ‘Skeng’ and reprises of both ‘Angry’ and ‘Poison Dart’, each with Daddy Freddy completely ignoring the original vocal and letting rip over the top in his own ultra-fast style. It’s a total riot, the MC’s charisma matched to the mood of the crowd and Martin solemnly going about the business of making us move, hard. They are originally scheduled to play for an hour, but once the hour is up the encores begin – largely led by Daddy Freddy, it must be said. Running out of his own material, Bug (as the MC addresses him) starts to DJ, playing fucked-up, noisy versions of dubstep producer 2562’s smooth, spacious ‘Techno Dread’ and even Dawn Penn’s classic ‘No, No, No’. Though you’ve never heard it quite as gnarled as this before. We hit 2am and the lights come up, closing support act Filaria not even getting a chance to play. It’s a shame, but how would you follow that anyway? Chris Jones
The Lemonheads Speakeasy, Belfast “This might be an anecdote,” says an audience member behind me. “20 quid it’s a no-show,” says another, referring to Evan Dando’s infamous non-appearance in Belfast last year. The gig is already running late – not fashionably late, just annoying late – and we’ve already suffered the blandest of support acts, whose idea of fun involved the middling bits of Ride and The Charlatans with The Stone Roses circa The Second Coming thrown in. Cheers. It was bad enough the first time round. When The Lemonheads do eventually slope onstage – without apology, thank you – pigs have flown, the cows have come home, and hell hath frozen over. It’s a token gesture. Evan is not even in the commentary box, let alone in the game. Not so much three sheets to the wind as sailing without sheets altogether, he’s a shipwreck about to happen – or perhaps happening before us. This is without a doubt the saddest show I have ever witnessed, a steady to and fro of incomprehensible mumbling, missed opportunities and horrible sound. Each shimmering gem from the band’s brilliant back catalogue is plunged to the bottom of an ocean – or at least a very muddy lake. It’s the kind of gig that merciful journalists will all too kindly call ramshackle and ragged when they really mean to say rubbish. It speaks volumes that there can be a solo spot in which Evan doesn’t even bother to tune his guitar and uses the microphone as a kazoo for nigh on a minute, and this isn’t the low point. A wasted talent in all possible ways, while he seems happy throwing swine before pearls, the steady exodus to the door illustrates that his fans don’t want to hear their favourite songs ruined by the guy who wrote them. I put away my notepad and follow suit. An anecdote then, but not one I will be telling very often. Ross Thompson —65 AU Magazine—
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ST EW
THE BAD PLUS
A Feast Fit For A Queen It's Festival Time
A RT LE E
It hardly seems like a year since we were last blethering about the Belfast Festival. The months have blurred by like a passing cargo train, lost in a near constant downpour of diagonal Northern Irish rain. The weather, however, has calmed, and our usual dreekit summer has given way to crisp, cosy autumn. It’s time to throw wide the hatches and head outside again. Fortunately, there’s another varied and special line-up gold-spun by our friends at Queen’s to greet us. As ever, the festival organisers have laid on a smorgasbord of performances, readings and installations from the worlds of film, visual arts, theatre and standup. In terms of comedy, sure to be popular is Stewart Lee and his comedy vehicle – an old and surly engine which coughs out acrid smoke at media darlings and celebrity idiots. His adroit wordplay is matched only by the icy, prolonged stare which follows each punchline. Julian Clary, meanwhile, deserves a mention, if only for the title of his show: Lord Of The Mince.
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Music, as is customary, provides the soul of the festival. The Buzzcocks will be rattling through classic albums Love Bites and Another Music In A Different Kitchen, which, given the sugary brevity of their songs, should take them all of 14 minutes. Elsewhere, Josh Ritter reinterprets older material from Hello Starling, The Animal Years and The Golden Age Of Radio whilst showcasing fresh meat from his new record, due out next year. We cannot recommend The Bad Plus too highly. The post-jazz oddballs are known for their skew-whiff interpretations
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of songs by Blondie, Radiohead, Pixies, Black Sabbath and The Flaming Lips, as well as their own highly intelligent compositions. They don’t so much tickle the taste buds as make them explode like pop rocks in a flagon of hydrofluoric acid. To hear their live rendition of ‘Velouria’ is to feel your heart being given a new coat of paint. Like the park after spring, everything smells fresher and tastes newer after you’ve watched them play. The festival always attracts fascinating guest speakers, and this year’s jaunt is no exception. Ian Rankin will no doubt be talking about his acclaimed creation, the bourbon-boiled Scottish detective Rebus. David Peace, author of The Damned United and the Red Riding trilogy, will be chatting about his career to date and offering glimpses of his forthcoming novel, Occupied City. His appearance is complemented by a big screen showing of the Red Riding adaptations. Described in some parts as being just as good as The Godfather parts one and two, this grim but gripping portrayal of murder and police corruption in Yorkshire is about as good as television gets. It’s best described as an English LA Confidential – ee bah gumshoe, if you will – and features an A to Z of the best British actors and actresses: Paddy Considine, Rebecca Hall, David Morrissey, Sean Bean and Maxine Peake all excel as beaten down policemen and journalists tightrope walk the thin blue line. Ross Thompson The Belfast Festival runs from October 16 to 31 www.belfastfestival.com
—67 AU Magazine—
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Most Wanted Armageddon Out Of Here
There have been lots of post-apocalypse videogames in the past, but few of them have created a believable world, let alone moving past the idea that a big bomb had gone off and this was a bad thing. Borderlands, however, promises to rewire that circuitry. It takes place on Pandora, a far flung planet where surviving humans live in disharmony with creatures and space bandits. So far, so Fallout 3, but where Borderlands strides into its own is in its emphasis on customisation. From the thousands upon thousands of available weapon combinations to the umpteen configurable options, it’s a title that will morph with every playthrough – either in a solo run or with the intuitive cooperative mode. Borderlands is released on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on October 23. Words by Ross Thompson
BORDERLANDS
THE SPINNER TAKES IT ALL
IT’S HALL GOOD
Following the global success of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, it was only a matter of time before somebody made an equivalent for amateur DJs. The idea of making a videogame out of what is essentially a skill that involves split second timing, musical knowhow and manual dexterity might sound like gimmickry of the worst kind, but it’s encouraging to see that DJ Hero has been racking up props from Grandmaster Flash and DJ Shadow. DJ Hero comes bundled with a turntable peripheral, which allows you to scratch and crossfade like a pro minus the years of hardcore training in underground clubs. The likes of Eminem, Daft Punk and Cut Chemist make an appearance as playable avatars, so it’s not as if Activision have done the obvious and simply plumped for faceless dudes in Adidas tracksuits. With an eclectic setlist more crowded than a boy scout’s sleeve, DJ Hero is likely to be the party game for the coolest of parties.
When music shows take place at the City Hall, they usually involve an aspiring starlet “as seen on The X-Factor”, an unidentified member of The Corrs, and are compered by Hugo ‘Fiddly Dee’ Duncan. Nein, danke. However, replace those mind horrors with Oppenheimer, Mojo Fury, A Plastic Rose and The Benjamins and you have a gig which does not make you want to run to the nearest nuclear bunker. In association with Across The Line, Oh Yeah and the good and permissive people at Belfast City Council, all four of these sterling acts will be performing at “Take Back The City Hall later this month. And all four should be previewing new material and songs in progress. Better still, at £3 a ticket, you’re essentially paying a quid per act and getting one for free. Frankly, it doesn’t get any better than that, even if the bands involved have never appeared on Simon Cowell’s demonic monkey train.
DJ Hero is released on PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 on October 30. MAKING A RACKET The word ‘auteur’ has come to have negative connotations of a movie ponce stroking their beard. This is a shame, because to say that a director is an auteur really means they make fantastic films. Michael Mann is an auteur in the truest sense: each of his movies are crammed with detail and incident, and shot with confidence and consummate skill. Public Enemies, a sort of biopic of infamous bank robber John Dillinger, is a wonderful example of old school filmmaking. It’s shot on digital, which gives it an uncomfortably intimate, grainy look – at times, it feels like a documentary. Further, Jonny Depp, cut loose from his eyeliner and foppish English accent, is as good as he has ever been. Despite his mythic status, Dillinger wasn’t a nice guy, and Depp fully explores the dark side of the amoral cop-killer. Finally, there’s the sound – or relative lack of it. At times, Public Enemies is totally devoid of incidental music or dialogue. Until the Tommy guns go off – the shock will make you jolt the remote into the fishbowl. DJ H
—68 issue 60—
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Public Enemies is released on DVD on November 2.
Take Back The City Hall takes place on October 17. PUSHING ALL THE RIGHT BUTTONS Looking like a cross between an iPod, a stick of chewing gum and the cool musical toy Little Boots uses, the Asus Eee keyboard has just wowed punters at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The metal control panel also contains a touchscreen display, wireless HDMI and multiple USB ports. It’s essentially a fully functioning PC, but much easier to pack into your day bag. Boys generally like gadgets, and girls generally like shiny things, so it should bridge the gender gap too. The Asus Eee keyboard should be on sale later this month.
Most Wanted
FANTASTIC MR. FOX
Dot Dot Dot... The Best Of The Rest In Live Music Tuesday, October 6 King Khan and the Shrines Black Box, Belfast (October 7, Whelan’s, Dublin) Jonathan Richman The Village, Dublin (October 7, Cyprus Avenue, Cork) Wednesday, October 7 Editors, Wintersleep St. George’s Market, Belfast
CRIME IS ON MY SIDE James Ellroy, the so-called “Demon Dog of American crime fiction”, may be in his 60’s, but he still rallies against political corruption with the same fervency as he did in his pomp. Blood’s A Rover, the third and final part of Ellroy’s ‘Underworld USA’ trilogy, is another semifictional take on the country’s troubled history. Like its predecessors, it is bursting with conspiracy theories and scandals, and peppered with cameos from fallen angels like Howard Hughes and Richard Nixon. Ellroy’s prose may seem laden with violence and profanity, but beneath its bloodstained jacket beats a powerful heart. It speaks of the magic and loss of American life with unrivalled candour and precision. Blood’s A Rover is published on November 5. PAWS FOR THOUGHT Fans of director Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic) should immediately recognise his whimsical, surrealistic visual style. He doesn’t so much make films as craft them – each looks like a children’s storybook, where you can almost see the dog ears and page tears at the corner of the screen, so it should not come as a great shock that his latest movie is based on a children’s storybook. Anderson has adapted Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox for the big screen, but as is his wont has decided to take the cinematic road less travelled by shooting it in stop frame animation. The story, which largely involves the eponymous vulpine mammal outwitting a trio of stupid farmers, takes second place to the glorious trailer – it looks like a party in a taxidermy shop. With a voice cast headed by George Clooney and comprising Anderson regulars Owen Wilson and Bill Murray, Fantastic Mr. Fox seems funny and just about as cute as a carnivore who slaughters chickens can be.
between sombre moments and scenes of camp horror and seedy sex. The blood and whiskey doesn’t always quite mix, but once you’ve tasted the good stuff, you’ll be hungry for more. True Blood is released on DVD on October 26, and is broadcast on Channel 4 from October 7. YOUNG GUNS GO FOR IT Upon hearing that fledgling indie-popsters General Fiasco had been booked to headline the Ulster Hall, AU was somewhat flabbergasted. Why flabbergasted? Well, it seemed so darned audacious, so before its time – this, after all, is a band yet to release its debut album. Normally the domain of the Ulster Orchestra or big-league touring acts, there are relatively few NI bands capable of filling the esteemed venue. So, the sheer fact that an up-and-coming local band has the self-belief, and enough people who believe in them, to secure this booking is an achievement in itself. We’re mightily impressed by the sheer chutzpah of it all; in fact we haven’t witnessed such a gung-ho endeavour since watching Field Of Dreams – “If you book it, they will come.” Ok, I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea. Here’s hoping that, cometh the hour, the boys deliver with aplomb. Francis Jones General Fiasco play the Ulster Hall, Belfast on October 31. Support from Six Star Hotel, Jody Has A Hitlist and The Good Fight. New single ‘We Are The Foolish’ released October 19
The Rza Button Factory, Dublin Friday, October 9 Obits, The Dudley Corporation Black Box, Belfast (October 10, Twisted Pepper, Dublin; October 11. Crane Lane Theatre, Cork) Saturday, October 10 Sic Alps, Weil Rats, Girls Names Menagerie, Belfast Pocket Billiards (album launch), Team Fresh, Axis Of, Aggressors B.C. Black Box, Belfast Delorentos (then touring) The Stables, Mullingar Tuesday, October 13 Peter Doherty Mandela Hall, Belfast Wednesday, October 14 Frank Turner Stiff Kitten, Belfast Thursday, October 15 Radar/BBC Introducing: Team Fresh, NI Soul Troop, Axis Of Speakeasy, Belfast
Fantastic Mr. Fox is released on October 23.
Saturday, October 17 Deadmau5 Lush, Portrush
FANG OUT OF ORDER The Twilight series of books and films continues to make teenage girls go a bit gooey at the knees, thanks to its presentation of vampires as seductive but generally quite pleasant creatures. They may shirk from the sun and favour sleeping in coffins, but they’re nice people once you get to know them. Offering a much less tame take on the genre is Alan Ball’s True Blood, which features all sorts of steamy shenanigans going down in the Deep South. The series is odder than a page of prime numbers, and swings wildly
Thursday, October 8 Radar/BBC Introducing: Yes Cadets, The Flaws, Before Machines Speakeasy, Belfast
Sunday, October 18 Jack Peñate Spring & Airbrake, Belfast
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Thursday, October 22 Radar/BBC Introducing: Cutaways, Robotnik, Rams’ Pocket Radio Speakeasy, Belfast
Friday, October 23 Jamie T Limelight, Belfast DEAF: Modeselektor (Live) Button Factory, Dublin Saturday, October 24 The Big Gig: Adebisi Shank, We Are Resistance, Axis Of Spring & Airbrake, Belfast Stiff Kitten’s 4th Birthday: Josh Wink, Phil Kieran, Miniminds, The Stiff Kitten Bar Allstars Stiff Kitten, Belfast No Age Crawdaddy, Dublin Monday, October 26 Handsome Furs Spring & Airbrake, Belfast (then touring) Tinchy Stryder Limelight, Belfast (October 27, Lush, Portrush) Wednesday, October 28 Biffy Clyro, Manchester Orchestra, Pulled Apart By Horses St. George’s Market, Belfast Friday, October 30 Strait Laces (single launch) Auntie Annie’s, Belfast Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions Cyprus Avenue, Cork Saturday, October 31 Shine’s 14th Birthday: DJ Sneak, Paul Woolford, Alan Simms, Pendulum (DJ Set), Skream, Space Dimension Controller, Jesse Rose, Timmy Stewart QUBSU, Belfast Sunday, November 1 Grizzly Bear, St. Vincent Vicar Street, Dublin Tuesday, November 3 Nakatomi Towers, The Flora, The Fauna, Uber Glitterati Auntie Annie’s, Belfast Thursday, November 5 Yo La Tengo Tripod, Dublin
—69 AU Magazine—
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Little Screen Bringing Down The Dollhouse
DOLLHOUSE
As Joss Whedon returns from the wilderness, Ross Thompson examines a turbulent back catalogue and a career-saving hit.
“Whedon casually tosses ideas about like a monkey throwing aside bananas before they are fully eaten” —70 issue 60—
Once upon a time, Joss Whedon was the golden boy of La-La Land. A script doctor for hire, he added his trademark one-liners and self-referential zing to the likes of Speed, Toy Story, X-Men and Waterworld – one to leave off the résumé, perhaps. But he really cut his teeth – pointy, bloodsucking teeth – on a silly, knockabout show called Buffy The Vampire Slayer, spun off from a sillier, more knockabout film. On paper, its central conceit redefined high concept: a teenage girl discovers she is the ‘chosen one’ – not to be head prefect, but to protect the world from the powers of darkness – and bunks off double chemistry to go demon hunting. But by virtue of stakesharp writing and a young, sympathetic cast, it became one of the most likeable programmes on television. Early episodes suffered from being trapped in the creature of the week format, with Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar, the face that launched a thousand bedroom walls), not just slaying vampires, but demons, zombies and, yes, a giant praying mantis. However, as word spread, the budget grew, and so did the fanbase. The scripters became more confident, placing Buffy and her ‘Scooby Gang’ in more outlandish situations. In Season Four’s almost entirely silent ‘Hush’, the Gentlemen – a group of suited, razor-fingered monsters so vile they would give Freddy Krueger the willies – steal the voices of the occupants of Sunnydale, before cutting them to ribbons. Meanwhile, Season Six’s ‘Once More With Feeling’ went the other way, with the entire troupe camping it up in a full-blown musical. If there’s one reason why Buffy grew from such small acorns into a knotty tree of irreverent fun, it’s because most people could relate to it. Your average high school may not be built upon the mouth to Hell, but it can still be the apex of evil, where wedgies and toilet bowl dunkings are as regular as the bells before each period. Rather than drafting in the thinly sketched bunch of beautiful but vacuous people who usually populate horror movies (and the dreams of pubescent boys), Whedon and his team created a rich and varied dramatis personae
of believable characters. Each of them hid dark, witchy, werewolfy secrets, but they were normal. It was this clever dynamic which allowed Buffy to deftly play with the idea of being a high school outsider – unless you were the one doing the wedgying and the dunking, that is. It ran to seven seasons and 140 episodes – come the tearful, bittersweet end, you felt as if you had watched your closest friends grow up. It was a groove which Whedon struggled to get back. Sadly, Angel was as one note as its leading man, David Boreanaz, whose acting prowess ran the gamut from scowling to frowning. It had the promise to be a less fluffy, less cuddly version of Buffy, but there is only so much gold you can weave from a show in which your main character cannot go out during daylight. Most of the plotlines involved the surly vampire bouncing in and out of Hell – not rehab hell, or Pringles hell, but actual Hell. It quickly became stale and repetitive, as did its reliance upon diluted versions of characters from Sunnydale. Angel felt just like Buffy, but maybe that was its problem. Whedon was trudging old ground: a graveyard where all the plots were empty. Later, Firefly promised to be what critics fondly call a ‘return to form’, when they can’t think of another suitably descriptive phrase, coming on like a red-headed stepchild of the SF and western genres. Set in space, but on planets where gunslingers and sheriffs rule the roost, it used the same colours from Whedon’s palette – a ragtag posse of feisty, independent women and hard men with soft centres crack wise while popping bad guy clogs – but it was fresh and engaging enough to warrant another spin round the universe. The financiers, however, didn’t agree. Despite the protestations and petitions from ‘Browncoats’, the leagues of Whedon fans, the Fox network cancelled Firefly without broadcasting its entire run. A film, Serenity, both tied up loose ends and opened up intriguing possibilities, but it was the show’s last gasp, and a damp underperformance at the box office was its death rattle.
Screen For a long time, it seemed that another smash hit was to be Whedon’s Moby Dick: he would either harpoon the cash whale or drown in the process. A protracted attempt to bring Wonder Woman to the big screen proved particularly calamitous, and it remains unmade. Kudos then, for gathering up the guts to have one last lick at the sour candy apple. The resultant show, Dollhouse, may feature familiar Whedon motifs (a spirited heroine, shady bureaucrats, high-kicking action sequences), but it pulses with a pretty compelling, if slightly daft, premise. Without giving too much away, it’s kind of like The Island meets The Stepford Wives – and a handful of cast members is not the only thing it shares with Battlestar Galactica. The sinister Rossum Corporation has made an awful lot of money out of a strange kind of temporary human trafficking: brainwashing adults and then imprinting them with new identities: the ability to negotiate with kidnappers, speak French, lapdance etc. There are a lot of people willing to pay top dollar for an escort, nanny, girlfriend or undercover agent for the evening. And if you can wipe that person’s memory and place them back in a doll box at the end of the date, well… where’s the harm in that? What is most intriguing about Dollhouse is that, in spite of the confines of the network (ironically, it’s Fox holding the strings), the show walks a pretty fine line between entertainment and slightly dodgy male fantasy. The ‘Dolls’ – or ‘Actives’, to use the correct parlance – are essentially prostitutes. Their ‘assignments’ may not always be sexual, but they are still being sold, so the idea is largely the same. All knowledge of seedy events may be erased post coitus or post fight-us, but this hardly makes it any more palatable. It’s a difficult concept with
which Dollhouse deliberately flirts. Just because an Active has signed their life away, does that really make them another person’s plaything? When not out on a job, these zombies shuffle around in a childlike state, entertained by spas and yoga sessions and lollipops, so you could argue that all their needs are being catered for – except free will, of course. It gives the show an edge, a somewhat dubious ethos for which it never apologises. What also makes Dollhouse so persuasive is its speed. Well aware that he is drinking in the last chance saloon, Whedon casually tosses ideas about like a monkey throwing aside bananas before they are fully eaten. It gives the show a sense of urgency that you rarely find in modern television. Whereas other shows are quite happy to tootle along towards nowhere in particular (hello trees, hello hatch, hello Sawyer), Dollhouse whips along like a cheetah on a treadmill. As with Buffy, the early episodes are weaker (nutjob of the week this time), but the season’s latter half introduces a killer subplot about a serial killer, and revelations which continually turn the story inside out. Yes, it’s derivative, and yes, it relies pretty heavily on the various ways of getting its female characters into their underwear – lead actress Eliza Dushku may bleat about the weighty philosophical questions underpinning the show, but that doesn’t mean there is no room for umpteen cleavage shots.
“Most people could relate to Buffy. Your average high school may not be built upon the mouth to Hell, but it can still be the apex of evil.”
Small quibbles aside, Dollhouse remains a hugely affable and addictive slice of contemporary SF hokum. If more television programmes were made on borrowed time, then maybe more would turn out this good.
DOLLHOUSE SEASON ONE IS OUT NOW ON DVD.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Big Screen Shorts Piano man… Matt Damon has bravely stepped up to the diamondencrusted music stool for Steven Soderbergh’s biopic of Liberace. Damon won’t play the flamboyant entertainer – those slip-ons have been filled by Michael Douglas – but it is likely that he is pegged as Scott Thorsen, who effectively outed Liberace in the early Eighties. I see dead people… You would think that George Romero would run out of new places for zombies to run amok. But apparently not: Survival Of The Dead, due out next year, sees gorgeous young folks running away from chomp happy deadites. Kind of like Channel 4’s Shipwrecked,
but without an irritating Steve Jones voiceover. I see more dead people… Never an industry to let something as inconvenient as someone dying get in the way, Hollywood has made This Is It, a documentary charting the lead-up to Michael Jackson’s 50 concert swansong from show-business. Apparently, the film has been rated PG for “some suggestive choreography” and “scary images”. That punch line writes itself… I see dead people again… There’s a running theme this month. Or rather, a shambling, shuffling theme, as the Resident Evil franchise has bagged another sequel.
Subtitled Afterlife, it will see Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter (Heroes) and Wentworth Miller (Prison Break) competing to see who can be the most wooden and lifeless: them or the zombies. Licensed to quill… Strange but true: Timothy ‘The World’s Least Favourite Bond’ Dalton is set to voice a hedgehog called Mr. Pricklepants in the long awaited Toy Story 3. Imagine the puns if Pierce Brosnan had taken the role! He’s like the wind… Sad news this month: Patrick Swayze finally succumbed to pancreatic cancer at the age of 57. Though he will be remembered equally for roles
in the ridiculously masculine Point Break and Road House and the lady-pleasing Dirty Dancing and Ghost, he should be commended for his unsettling turn as a creepy self-help guru in Donnie Darko. The mind boggles at what other roles he might have accepted had they been fired his way. While alive, the actor and dancer was often the target of ridicule, but he shook off any jibe with good humour – in fact, he took up the same attitude when talking about the illness which would eventually claim his life. To quote Swayze’s most iconic character, Point Break’s surfing bank-robber, Bodhi: Life sure does have a sick sense of humour, doesn’t it? —71 AU Magazine—
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Console Yourself!
Our regular roundup of the new releases: which involves Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins and which is a load of old Ghoulies… Words by Ross Thompson
BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM
“Cursed Mountain certainly scores style points for atmosphere: the craggy, icy wastes of Chomolonzo are so unpleasant not even Bear Grylls would holiday there”
W ET
—72 issue 60—
BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM (Eidos, PC / PS3 / Xbox 360)
over for the inevitable sequel), but they do appear in other, more subtle ways.
Criminally good… This, to paraphrase Frank Miller’s seminal graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, should be agony. Millionaire orphan Bruce Wayne has devoted his life to ridding the streets of Gotham of mutant psychopaths, but his true enemies have been the designers and writers that have churned out one uninspired, uninspiring Batman tie-in after another. Few stories have as much potential to engage gamers with the same grit and pathos as Wayne’s tragicomedy, and few contain such a rich universe of damsels, freaks and supporting characters, but they have been lost in a mire of feckless platformers and beat-em-ups. Arkham Asylum has changed that. It is, to continue Miller’s monologue, a baptism: Batman is born again. From the opening cinematic to its closing credits, the previously unremarkable Rocksteady Studios go all out to provoke, rouse and challenge the player. An interactive prologue sets the scene nicely, in which arch nemesis The Joker unleashes hell by setting free the titular hospital’s residents, each of whom is a few chocolate chips shy of a full Hobnob. This rogues’ gallery of baddies past and present are as cold and twisted as a branch in winter, and would like nothing more than Bat kebabs for their supper. It’s your job to bring them down one by one – Bane, Mr. Zsasz, Killer Croc et al – before squaring off against the Clown Prince himself.
Finally, there is Arkham itself. This hulking Gothic monstrosity is the perfect metaphor for the splintered minds of the ghouls who abide there. Wonky, bloodstained corridors and crumbling, medieval dungeons give the feeling that the whole building is sinking into the earth. It’s an exquisitely rendered stone and masonry ghost ship with bundles of secrets, concealed ledges and hidden corridors. Better still, it’s your choice how you approach this environment: you can sneak along its hallways, surreptitiously swinging from one gargoyle to another, or you can melee and combo your merry way from one platform to the next. Rocksteady have made no concession to the kiddies, as Arkham Asylum is about as macabre as videogames get, with The Joker given free reign to wax lyrical about murder and mayhem. It all adds up to what is arguably the finest title released this year. The Dark Knight has returned, and he’s back with a vengeance.
Evenly split between solving puzzles and fighting goons, Arkham Asylum cribs elements of Castlevania and Metroid, but it still feels fresh as lemony dew. Several things raise it above a carbon copy of games you will have played before. The voice acting, particularly from Mark Hamill as The Joker and Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn, is tremendous. When you die – and you will die – your foe taunts you by blowing raspberries at the camera or pummelling your body as the screen fades to black. It’s just one of the ways in which it reaches for total immersion – also watch out for how your armoured bodysuit and cape grows progressively more scuffed and torn. Further, Rocksteady have clearly done their research: Arkham Asylum abounds with nods and sideways glances towards the tangled history of Bat-lore. Sure, you could bemoan the physical absence of Catwoman, Penguin and Two-Face (hopefully they are being held
WET (Bethesda Softworks, PS3 / Xbox 360) Jump and grind… Rubi Malone, the go-getting heroine in Wet, has a potty mouth like a Mexican sailor, and her temper isn’t much better. By day she hangs tough in her abandoned airfield home (it’s all about the location, location, location), and by night she’s a badass fixer – she’ll hunt down the ‘package’ for the right price, cheerfully dispatch dozens of anonymous henchmen, and not ask any further questions. Wet pins its colours to your forehead from its menu screen onwards. The whole thing is painted with the same grindhouse aesthetic as seen in Sega’s recent House Of The Dead revamp, so your eyeballs are doused with an overly familiar scratchy screen filter. The faux B-movie styling even extends to the between level loads, which are cunningly disguised with intermission adverts. The whole thing reeks of the saccharine smell of toffee popcorn and cigarette smoke, not to mention the coppery aroma of blood. Wet is chock-a-block with exploded craniums and severed limbs – Rubi can dual wield weapons, and when she pumps the trigger the game enters a slo-mo bullet time to make wreaking havoc easier. Spill enough blood, and the screen jars into stark
Games red, black and white à la the video for Queens Of The Stone Age’s ‘Go With The Flow’. The action zips by like Arlene Phillips to the job centre, soundtracked by a mix of scuzzy psychobilly and mariachi punk, but at times it feels held together with silly putty rather than crafted with real care. In the end, Wet is like a log flume: the ascent is exciting but brief, and the descent leaves you feeling slightly damp. MINI NINJAS (Eidos, DS / PC / PS3 / Wii / Xbox 360) The Seven Inch Samurai… Most modern games are about as fun as being the third Sugababe: they look, feel and sound just like the last one, and are quickly forgotten once they are inevitably traded in for a newer model. The games charts are full of insipid look-and-sound-a-likes, most of which involve boosting cars and shooting alien life forms. Those who fancy a change of pace – and a welcome respite for their trigger finger – will find plenty to love about Mini Ninjas, which reaches a Zen-like state of tranquillity in its laidback attitude. You might be thwacking samurai, but you’re doing it in the most peaceful of ways: once thwomped, the bad guys in black burst into a puff of smoke, from which bounds a cotton-tailed bunny or slinky squirrel. It might sound odd, but playing Mini Ninjas is incredibly relaxing. Whether you’re drifting downstream in an oversized hat or possessing a wild boar and ramming enemies, the game has an easygoing, ambling charm which is quite infectious. The graphics, meanwhile, are beautiful in the same way that The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker or Okami are beautiful: each level looks like a centuries old Japanese painting has been turned into anime. Mini Ninjas won’t be every gamer’s cup of steaming lava, but there is much to cherish here. CURSED MOUNTAIN (Deep Silver, Wii) Mountain tension… Wii exclusive Cursed Mountain starts with a hugely promising premise: after his brother goes missing whilst on a jaunt up the Himalayas, experienced climber Eric Simmons goes looking for him, little knowing that he is entering the ‘Bardo’, a sacred area which borders the real world and the spirit plain. And he’s doing so without a written invitation: the undead inhabitants of this otherworld are, to say the least, miffed. Cursed Mountain certainly scores style points for atmosphere: the craggy, icy wastes of Chomolonzo are so unpleasant not even Bear Grylls would holiday there. As in Silent Hill, much of your time will be spent wandering through pea-soup fog and mist, trying not to be unnerved by the
disembodied voices and heavy breathing wafting on the chilly wind. Deep Silver deserve big claps for pulling such ambience out of the less technically capable Wii. The palpable isolation can at times be disquieting, but this also leads to the game’s main criticism: occasionally, this sense of dread outweighs actual action. That aside, Cursed Mountain is a bold and original release GUITAR HERO 5 (Activision, PS2 / PS3 / Wii / Xbox 360) Top scores… Playing Guitar Hero is nothing like playing an actual guitar. But that’s the entire point: if you could play an actual guitar like Tom Morello or Johnny Marr, it would be unlikely that you would be sitting at home playing a fake plastic one. Music and console purists alike will scoff at the growth of music gaming, but then they have probably never tried their fret hand at Guitar Hero or Rock Band. All snobbery goes out the window when you hook the Les Paul peripheral over your shoulder and start jamming along with tracks by Muse, My Morning Jacket, the Beastie Boys and Wolfmother. The Guitar Hero franchise has always done what good gaming should do: be slightly silly, infernally addictive and, most importantly, fun. The fifth instalment does all these things with considerable panache. It adds new features, playable characters (Johnny Cash, Shirley Manson and Kurt Cobain – replete with Daniel Johnston ‘Frog’ t-shirt) and multiple unlockables, but it retains the thing that made it great in the first place: a fantastic soundtrack. Pretending to be Carlos Santana might be a guilty pleasure, but if you’re going to have the guilt, you might as well have the pleasure. Get ready to wield your axe.
“The Guitar Hero franchise has always done what good gaming should do: be slightly silly, infernally addictive and, most importantly, fun”
MADDEN NFL 10 (EA, PS2 / PS3 / PSP / Wii / Xbox 360) Hut, hut, hut! Electronic Arts have, pardon the pun, cornered the sports game market. It’s hardly surprising: they continually make user-friendly titles which have depth but still manage to demystify the intricacies of golf and American football for the uninitiated. The Madden series tries to please old hands and newcomers, coupling up-close-and-personal sacking action with detailed player stats and a wide range of commands and moves. Obviously, how much the tenth Madden season will tickle your pickle very much depends on how much you like the idea of men putting on shoulder pads and helmets and running into each other at speed. The inherent machismo of the game is significantly boosted by the appearance of songs by Black Sabbath, Mastodon and Pantera on the soundtrack. Good, mucky, crunchy fun.
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—73 AU Magazine—
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RAMONES
Punk, Publishing and Perry The Legend Of Sniffin' Glue Words by Francis Jones
“When the straight press picked up on it they accused me of encouraging people to go out and sniff glue” —74 issue 60—
First appearing in July 1976 and lasting for little more than a year, punk fanzine Sniffin’ Glue remains the essential document of the movement’s golden period. Growing from a print run of 50 to a readership high of 15,000, its influence would long outlast its 12th and final issue. Assembled in rudimentary fashion, the zine would become an indispensable source of information on a form of music that initially existed on the periphery of the music industry and mainstream press. With the original issues reproduced in their entirety in a new collected edition, Sniffin’ Glue creator Mark Perry talks us through the history of a “publishing legend”. What was your first experience of punk? I had already been into rock music in general and bought the NME and Melody Maker every week. I remember, in early 1976, reading a lot of reviews that were coming out of New York, of bands like Television and the Ramones. The thing that really inspired me was a review of the first Ramones album. It had just come out in America on Sire and Nick Kent reviewed it for the NME. I bought that first album and that was it, it literally changed my life. What was it about the Ramones that so grabbed you? It was so different. Prog-rock was already on the wane; people like Pink Floyd were past their best. There just didn’t seem to be anything new in rock. When you heard the Ramones, though, it was something really new, it truly seemed to come out of nowhere. OK, in a way, it was quite nostalgic, looking back to a time when rock was more straightforward and simpler, but there was also a new energy to it. I was only 19 when I heard this and that’s why it was such a revelation. What moved you to start the fanzine, did you think that punk bands weren’t getting the coverage they deserved elsewhere? It’s hard to look back and understand what was in my mind. I’d never put a magazine together before, so a lot of it was just about taking a chance. I was so excited
about it. I didn’t sit around deciding that this would be a different thing from what had gone before. It was quite natural. At first, if you look at the early issues, you’ll see that we wrote about Todd Rundgren and Blue Öyster Cult. Within a few issues, though, we started to clearly define what was and wasn’t punk. The confrontational nature of the title seemed to suggest something of punk. I wasn’t a glue sniffer meself! Obviously the Ramones song was a reference, but also Lenny Bruce. I was a big fan. I got into Bruce through Frank Zappa. I liked Zappa and he put out a Lenny Bruce album through his label. Bruce had this marvellous sketch about glue sniffing, where a kid comes into a model shop and buys all this glue and he’s obviously using it for a lot more than putting his toy aeroplanes together! Later on when the straight press picked up on it they accused me of encouraging people to go out and sniff glue, which was quite odd. I guess, for the older audience, it must have been a quite shocking title, but I wanted it to be confrontational. Sniffin’ Glue was never polite, it told people, ‘Don’t believe what we write, find out for yourself, go out and start your own fanzine’. It was quite encouraging in that way, confrontational in a healthy way. And the actual way the magazine was put together was very much in keeping with the punk ethos. I didn’t sit down and think that it must be like that, it was just circumstance – this was the age before computers. It was like doing a school project, or a scrapbook. You cut and paste, that was all that I had at my disposal. Obviously Sniffin’ Glue went on to become an influential part of this movement and way of life, but what were your initial aspirations? I used to talk to some guys in a record shop, Rock On Records in Soho. It was a guy from there who said, ‘Why don’t you have a go at doing something?’ Really,
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“It was like doing a school project, or a scrapbook. You cut and paste, that was all that I had at my disposal.”
the first issue was just to please those guys. They said it was great, bought 50 copies and gave me an advance to go and do some more. It was like, ‘Wow, other people like it’. But, to begin with, I didn’t have any aspirations. I was working as a bank clerk at the time, didn’t like it, but it was a job and gave me money for gigs and records. Then I started getting phone calls from the likes of Eddie and the Hot Rods’ manager and once you get that feedback you start to realise that maybe it could turn into something bigger. Within a few months I’d chucked my job in. I was so into rock music, to be given an opportunity to become part of that scene, well, it was incredible. Early on, you interviewed The Damned and then acts like The Clash. Were you surprised at how quickly you were making your reputation and that the bands were readily giving you access? If something like that happened now, I’d probably over analyse it, but being a punk then you just went for it. A lot of it was just off the cuff, same as the bands. I’m sure The Clash weren’t thinking about every last detail. You just get caught up in the excitement of everything. You start off this quiet boy from Deptford and then suddenly you’re being asked these questions and being
interviewed by Sounds and Melody Maker – ‘What’s punk all about, Mark?’. There’s no use coming across as shy then, you’ve just got to go for it, like the bands do on stage, you step up to the plate. There were some key contributors to the publication, Danny Baker on the writing side and also photographers like Pennie Smith and Sheila Rock. Because Sniffin Glue’ quickly became the most important publication and was covering the most important bands, such as the Sex Pistols, we suddenly had loads of people wanting to contribute, all these budding writers wanting to submit articles. I told them to go and start their own fanzines, hence all the subsequent publications. As regards the photography, we had people who were being paid by the NME or Melody Maker et cetera, and Jill Furmanovsky – the staff photographer for the Rainbow Theatre – she was happily giving me photographs for nothing, likewise Sheila Rock and Pennie Smith. They got credibility, if they tried to get backstage at a Clash show they could say they were doing stuff for Sniffin’ Glue. We had an incredible amount of credibility, something that it retained because of the fact that we ended after 12 issues.
Shorts No self-respecting Greatest Albums of All Time list would be complete without an appearance from London Calling. Now The Clash’s greatest achievement gets the biographical treatment it deserves in Marcus Gray’s magnificent Route 19 Revisited: The Clash and London Calling. Since his debut in 1984, with literary nasty The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks (or Iain M Banks in
his sci-fi guise) has continued to stir the intellect with his challenging mix of ideas and emotion. New novel Transition straddles the divide between his future fantastical and mainstream work, provoking readers with its labyrinthine plot lines and entry into a multiverse where the ominously named Concern wield power. The peerless Paul Auster is set
to return in early November with Invisible, a tale of violence and sexual intrigue. Spanning the years 1967 to 2007, the threepronged narrative focuses on young student Adam Walker and his relationship with mysterious Frenchman Rudolf Born and his quietly alluring girlfriend Margot. Not content with being the single coolest motherflipper in
rock, Nick Cave makes further inroads into the literary world with his second novel, The Death of Bunny Munro. Lashings of love, sex, death and booze abound as we follow the titular Bunny – a salesman whose wife has recently committed suicide – as he sets out on a fateful last journey along the English south coast accompanied only by his demons and young son, Bunny Junior.
Did you become disenchanted with punk’s eventual drift towards the mainstream? Punk got into the charts, but it hadn’t done what I’d hoped. In the early issues we were all about stirring up the music business, so I was disappointed about The Clash signing to CBS, even though I loved the actual music on the record. It was about their business decision. I thought that the future of the music business lay in the independent sector. I was right in some ways, looking at Rough Trade and the likes. Things changed, though. At the start, you could ring Joe Strummer and meet him down the pub, whereas by the time we finished you had to go through the CBS press office to chat to him. At the start of punk, the bands were part of your life, they were your mates and then you had this separation again. You say in the introduction that once you began taking adverts that was the beginning of the end. Did you feel that the purity of the project was compromised? If you look at the last three or four issues you can see that it’s gone off the boil a bit. The scene was growing, major record companies had signed up a lot of the bands and everything started to dissipate a bit. The last three or four issues, we were coasting. We obviously wanted to keep the magazine going, but if you read through them you sense that some of the excitement has gone. There was no need for it anymore and I didn’t want to be a magazine editor for the rest of my life. With the advertising, well, there were people queuing up to get their advert in. We could have had an advert on every page. People wanted to jump on the bandwagon and that wasn’t what I was into. I never wanted Sniffin’ Glue to become a glossy magazine. It needed to end. If it had gone on it would have become boring and might not have retained that status. That’s why it’s a publishing legend. SNIFFIN’ GLUE: AND OTHER ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HABITS BY MARK PERRY IS AVAILABLE NOW (OMNIBUS PRESS) WWW.MARKPERRY.FREEUK.COM —75 AU Magazine—
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Comics
Smells Like Green Spirit The Return Of The Hulk This December, the socalled Hulk brain-trust unveil their latest epic – World War Hulks. Featuring multiple She-Hulks as well as the Red Hulk, the mini-series promises to be a smash-fest of seismic proportions, so we sat down with writers Greg Pak and Jeph Loeb to hear all about their plans for ol’ Green Genes, MODOK, Marvel’s Intelligencia and more. Words by Edwin McFee First off guys – who are the Intelligencia? Jeph Loeb: “They’re a group that have been waiting patiently, studying nearly every battle-defeat as well as the victories and are getting ready to make their move. It’s been said that the best battle plan is one that wins the war before it ever begins and that is their strategy. The Intelligencia grew out of a mini-summit where the Hulk Group: Greg Pak, myself, Ed McGuinness, Jeff Parker, Fred Van Lente and editors Mark Paniccia, Jordan White and Nate Cosby, spent a few days in New York working out the big beats to World War Hulks. It was this amazing opportunity for us to all sit together and flesh out all the things the books have been heading toward since World War Hulk. On the last day we brought it before the committee of Joe Quesada, Dan Buckley, Tom Brevoort and Axel Alonso for their input and blessing and it was awesome.” So what else can you tell us about this group then?
“It’s been a heck of a ride, and it’s about to get even crazier”
—76 issue 60—
Loeb: “During those discussions, Greg and I hit on this idea – a kind of ‘What If?’ idea – where you ask a hypothetical question. This happened to be about what the inciting incident of World War Hulks was and we came to the conclusion that much like the Illuminati fit neatly into the major pieces of Marvel continuity, here was a chance for a different group, made up of established characters who might have been working behind the scenes since very early in the Marvel Universe to take their chance. This isn’t some great big continuity change up, but it created a way for the battle plan to be drawn up for World War Hulks by these behind-the-scenes characters. Who has the capacity to create such a library, much less understand it all and then make use of it? Well, we’ll find out soon enough. The adage is ‘Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it’. The Intelligencia has no intention of repeating the mistakes of the past.”
How is the mini-series structured and what’s the deal with World War Hulk: Alpha and Gamma? Loeb: “WWHS: Gamma is the actual flashpoint of the War. There is a single stunning incident that will bring everyone into play including the three Hulks (Green, Red and Son) and three She-Hulks (Jen, the new Red She-Hulk and the new Savage She-Hulk). As this family has expanded, this gigantic confrontation became inevitable.” Greg Pak: “We had a long term plan that we certainly hoped we’d be able to play out all the way through, so I’d just like to say thanks to the many, many readers and retailers who bought so many books and allowed the franchise to keep Hulking out! I remember trading excited phone calls with Hulk editor extraordinaire Mark Paniccia as we realised the circulation numbers were actually increasing during the Planet Hulk run. It’s been a kick to see the character continue to garner new fans and expand his universe in some pretty radical ways. Mostly I feel lucky to have been pulled on board at a time when the Green Goliath was ready to cut loose. It’s been a heck of a ride, and it’s about to get even crazier.” At the moment there are two Hulk books (Loeb’s Hulk and Pak’s Incredible Hulk). Was this always the plan or was it something that just happened along the way? Loeb: “Greg, Mark and I starting talking about this during World War Hulk. We have worked side by side establishing new characters (which is always a daunting task) such as Red Hulk and Skaar. Together, we laid the groundwork that built to Issue 600. From there the books would split into two – Hulk starting with Hulk #13 with myself and my awesome partner Ed McGuinness; and Incredible Hulk #601 with Pak and astonishing artwork by Ariel Olivetti. I think it’s working out great.”
Comics The idea of having a Hulk family is kinda cool... Loeb: “Greg took a very bold step in creating Skaar. Now there is a Son of the Hulk. At the same time, McGuinness and I introduced Red Hulk which allowed us to see a different Hulk who we hadn’t seen before. As we all hoped, both characters clicked. While this was happening, the stories lent themselves to looking at SheHulk/Jen Walters and trying to do the same thing – create new ways of telling stories with the She-Hulk concept. Out of that grew Savage She-Hulk and Red She-Hulk. That’s really the core group.” A question that most fanboys are asking at the moment is will we ever find out the identity of the Red Hulk? Loeb: “Yes, it’ll be revealed in World War Hulks. However, Ed and I have always said that the Red Hulk’s identity isn’t nearly as important as his origin and agenda. Ben Urich says it best in Incredible Hulk #600 by tying it to Watergate. If you focus on the break-in, you’ll miss the big picture. There is a war coming. MODOK has reactivated the terrorist organization A.I.M., General Ross has committed treason, there’s a very real gamma super soldier program now. These are not small things to be overlooked and it’s all very much tied to the end of World War Hulk!” Can we expect the return of Rick Jones et al? Loeb: “The supporting cast has been there for years and like many iconic characters, we had no intention of leaving them behind. Rick Jones, General Ross and Doc Samson are wonderful characters who provide us with different viewpoints and subplots. Having Rick become A-Bomb and Doc Samson dragged to the dark side while Ross has thrown in with some very bad guys tied together the major storyline we’ve been building. And as it should be, this is a Bruce Banner story. The Hulk began with him after all.”
How do you feel about being writing partners? Is it fun? Loeb: “I’ve got so much respect for Greg and what he accomplished with World War Hulk and everything he did that led up to it. Our mission is to match or possibly even top WWH. Fortunately, I have the WWH architect as my partner, so I think we’ll be fine!”
My Favourite Comic Jesse Lacey
Pak: “It’s been a blast working with Jeph. He’s incredibly supportive, hilarious, and full of insane ideas and a deep love of these characters. What I love about the story we’re building with World War Hulks is that it may have more smash than any Hulk story ever told, but it’s also a massive emotional story with world-changing consequences for every member of the Hulk family. We’re smashing things up in ways that provide massive emotional closure but lay incredibly rich groundwork for the future. In short, add it to your pull list, baby!” WORLD WAR HULKS BEGINS THIS DECEMBER AND IS PUBLISHED BY MARVEL COMICS.
“It may have more smash than any Hulk story ever told, but it’s also a massive emotional story with world-changing consequences”
“Back in the day, I loved the Infinity Gauntlet mini-series. There’s one particular cover that has Thanos floating in space saying ‘Come get me’ and at the time I didn’t know who he was and I didn’t know he could fight every single hero at the same time, but it seemed like a brilliant idea so I picked it up. To this day, Infinity Gauntlet is actually one of my favourite comic stories. “Daredevil is probably one of my favourite characters of all time, though. I think the whole flawed nature of his character can appeal to everyone. He’s a devout Catholic but dresses up as a devil, he’s a lawyer but takes the law into his own hands as a vigilante... He’s such a rich character. My favourite storyline was ‘Born Again’. John Romita Jr. was looking after the art at that stage and they were just giving him the worst day possible. I loved it.” JESSE LACEY PLAYS GUITAR AND SINGS WITH BRAND NEW. THEIR NEW ALBUM DAISY IS OUT NOW.
Shorts It looks like anyone expecting a new Superman film will have to wait a while as production has been halted thanks to the family of Supes’ co-creator Jerry Siegal. The Siegal estate are currently challenging DC for the rights to the character, so if you were a fan of the recent Superman Returns (yes, all three of you) then we suggest you don’t get your hopes up for a sequel anytime soon... Staying with the native of
Smallville for a sec, DC head honcho Dan Didio has told fans that the Superman/Batman comic will be undergoing some big changes over the next year. Plans are afoot to have the title brought into line with the rest of the DC universe, so expect future copies to fly off the shelves. As it’s nearly Halloween, we thought we’d bring you some news about a new graphic novel written by Tony Lee called
From the Pages of Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Harker. Published by AAM/Markosia, the trade paperback will adapt elements of the legendary novel and it begins six months after Dracula dies and ends on the anniversary of his death. In the middle of all that there’s the birth of Jonathan and Mina’s son Quincey too and we’re keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn’t suck (see what we did there?). The book is slated to ship in early November.
Finally this month, we’d like to take this opportunity to plug the Belfast-based podcast Sunnyside Comics. Initially cooked up by Ron Abernethy (of Black Bear Saloon fame), Scott Ferguson and PJ Holden, the three amigos upload all of their output (basically them righting the wrongs of comicdom from their comfy sofas) via www.sunnysidecomics.com. So if (heaven forbid) you don’t get enough comics info from your ol’ pals AU, then check it out.
—77 AU Magazine—
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Here's Looking At You(Tube) / Weird Wide Web
Words by Neill Dougan
Here's Looking At You(Tube) Let's Dance
It’s a sad fact that, when it comes to dancing, your humble correspondent is possessed of two left feet. Rather than a joyous expression of freedom of movement and love of rhythm, when this writer shuffles reluctantly onto the dancefloor it’s usually with feelings of mild embarrassment that often degenerate into anger, guilt and shame, usually accompanied by physical injury to at least one innocent bystander. Most of the time we don’t care, there being much more important things to worry about (like football and when the new Fall album is coming out). But then we see these guys shaking their thing and we feel utterly rubbish.
THE JACKSON JIVE Here’s a startling clip of the Jackson 5, featuring a 10year-old Michael, auditioning for Motown Records in 1968 with their version of James Brown’s ‘I Got The Feelin’. The sound quality is appalling but check out the young Jacko’s incredible dance moves. Proof – if any were needed – that the shape-throwing skills for which he was later to become world-renowned pretty much came naturally to him from the start. A lot of his famous moves including the ‘spinning around fast’, the ‘hitch up trousers to allow greater dancing freedom’ and – yes, perhaps, just a hint of it – the ‘moonwalk’ were in place long before he hit the big-time. WWW.TINYURL.COM/JACKOMOTOWN BROWN BOOGIE And here’s where MJ got his moves from. There are many compilations on YouTube of James Brown dancing, but this one is handy because it takes in all periods of his career, from lithe, snake-hipped youngster to paunchy, jump-suited middle-aged bloke. The waistline, haircuts
Weird WideWeb
Surf! Or Lever Brothers Will Give You Your Money Back SWEET LITTLE LIES You know those massively annoying chain mails and viral messages you get about 10 times a week? The ones that purport to unveil some massive conspiracy or illuminate some startling historical fact? Well, apparently they’re called ‘Lie Pies’. That’s according to the folks at liepie. com, who seek to collate these tall tales and highlight them for the scare-mongering nonsense that they are. So we have classics like the “Obama is the Anti-Christ”, the “Forward to receive money from Microsoft” and the “Your cell-phone is an instrument of death”. Quality bullshit-detection. WWW.LIEPIE.COM —78 issue 60—
WIDE OPEN SPACE May as well mention from the off that this isn’t some flippant slice of frivolity (for once) but instead a rather contemplative collection of text and photos on the world’s loneliest places. A whole heap of once-populous locations that have been abandoned because of such disasters as underground mine fires, nuclear leaks or – in the case of Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong – because the authorities deliberately evacuated it due to rampant levels of crime and debauchery. The stories behind the empty spaces are interesting, but the real beauty is in the eerie, stark and desolate images. WWW.DIRJOURNAL.COM/INFO/ABANDONEDPLACES-IN-THE-WORLD HEAD ON This site was brought to our attention by an acquaintance who declared: “An amazing game! It’s like taking drugs!” Now, obviously, AU cannot confirm or deny this claim (being thoroughly moderate in our habits), but our excitable friend was certainly on the money regarding the game’s quality. It’s almost indescribable in its Pythonesque weirdness (there’s nothing so prosaic as scoring points or getting to new stages), but, in a nutshell, there’s a big blue head and you can make it do lots of weird and freaky stuff. As strangely addictive as heroin is, probably. WWW.FEEDTHEHEAD.NET
and uniforms may change, but the one thing that remains is the fact that the man was bloody amazing on the ’floor. Splits, proto-moonwalk shuffles, elaborate microphonestand-juggling routines… the Brown boy could do it all. And, while it might have been painstakingly rehearsed, it never looks anything less than off-the-cuff and natural. Sexy bastard. WWW.TINYURL.COM/JAMESBROWNMOVES ’FIRES IN THE DISCO Judging by the amount of videos on YouTube dedicated to the subject already (not to mention the lascivious comments that accompany the clips), the uninhibited dancing of Friendly Fires frontman Ed Macfarlane is causing a bit of a stir. And here’s why. It may be barely a minute long, but this excerpt of Ed ‘giving it large’ at the Black Cat nightclub in Washington DC is veritably hypnotic in its groin-swivelling glory. It’s one way to get yourself noticed, that’s for sure, although he’s a cert for a hip replacement in a few years if he carries on at this rate. WWW.TINYURL.COM/EDSHAKES
Story Of The Video / Get Your Clicks
Get Your Clicks Our Guide To The Best Online Places For The Things You Need THIS MONTH: HALLOWEEN COSTUMES Words by Neill Dougan BUY COSTUMES
Story Of The Video Golden Silvers
TITLE: ‘PLEASE VENUS’: DIRECTORS: GABRIEL BISSET-SMITH AND GRAHAM TURNER
We’ve seen Technicolor illustrations on top of live action before (Flying Lotus’ ‘Parisian Goldfish’ video, that hilarious porn/not porn thing online), but never mixed with stop motion too. The new video from London trio Golden Silvers does just that, chronicling a train ride to Brighton in search of the elusive Venus. Frontman Gwilym Gold spoke to AU about how it was made.
What made the band decide on a stop motion video? The idea mainly came from some stop motion videos GT (one of the directors) had been doing of some of our nights out and stuff which had come out really well. We were also watching a lot of half-animated videos at the time and thought it could work really well to combine both these styles... The video has some animation laced through it – are the band fans of animation? Yeah, I think some of our favourite recent videos have been animated and especially ones that mix animation with real video. Also, Colin Henderson, who designed our artwork, had been working on some ideas where he’d been illustrating over our photos. We thought it would be interesting to apply this to the video. You can see a few of the inspirations online at a blog we did about the making of the video – www.bronzeblog. com How much input did the band have? Of the three videos we’ve done, this was the one on which we’ve had the most input. Although the ideas were coming from the directors, everything was passed by us at every stage to make sure we were pleased with it.
The Witching Hour is nearly upon us – Halloween, when otherwise sensible people dress up in outlandish disguises and go ducking for apples and trick or treating. Get into the spirit of things at buycostumes.com which, as the name suggests, should see you sorted for an outfit worthy of the ‘Best Costume’ prize with ease. A startling array of outfits for men, women and kids. Only delivers to the UK, so if you live in Republic of Ireland get it sent to your Brit mate. Sorted. WWW.BUYCOSTUMES.COM
PIMP COSTUMES Ah, prostitution – isn’t it great? Celebrate the world’s oldest profession by visiting pimpcostumes.com this Halloween, where you can pick up a whole range of ghetto-fabulous pimp get-ups, including the ‘70s pimp’ and the ‘Supafly pimp’. Also available are ‘Deuces’ outfits which, for the uninitiated, are matching his ‘n’ hers, pimps ‘n’ hos accoutrements, so you and your better half can go to that fancy dress party looking truly classy. WWW.PIMPCOSTUMES.COM
PIERRE SILBER
Well, I was pretty involved, mainly because I actually live with one of the directors, so I couldn’t really avoid it!
Oo-er, a bit risqué, this one. Pierre Silber (whoever he may be) peddles “high heels, lingeries and sexy Halloween costumes” so if you’re really feeling in exhibitionist mode (and a standard prostitute outfit just isn’t naughty enough for you), here you can get togged out as a sexy gangster, a sexy nurse, a sexy sailor, a sexy farmer’s daughter, and any number of other disguises beginning with “sexy”. Especially handy if you suspect that your Halloween get-together might develop into a full-blown, no-holds-barred, car-keys-in-the-bowl swingers party. Could happen.
How long did it take to shoot?
WWW.PIERRESILBER.COM
Is there a particular member of the band that got more involved than the others?
It was only really one day’s shoot which did involve walking into the cold Brighton sea fully clothed! I think a lot more time was spent on it after the photos were taken. How many single shots are there in the whole video? You’d have to ask GT for an exact number but I do know it was well, well into the thousands. WATCH THE VIDEO ONLINE AT WWW.BIT. LY/GOLDENSILVERS WWW.GOLDENSILVERS.COM Interview by Richard W. Crothers —79 AU Magazine—
Sc In Pictures
Open House Festival (Final Night) @ Custom House Square, Belfast
Alison, Denise, Kate & Declan
Laura Marling
Alan, Amy & David
Kirsty, Julie, Shelly, Hanna, Rebecca & Faye
Open House Festival: The Lowly Knights, Mumford & Sons, Laura Marling Custom House Square, Belfast
Chris, Michael & Hannah
Helen & Amy
Jason & Sarah
Lara, Jordan & Laura
Fergal, Brendan, Olivia & Megan
Niamh, Laura, Helen & Bella
Custom House Square is fast developing into one of Belfast’s niftiest music locations. The space was also used to good effect for Chillifest, a celebration of all foods Cajun and fiery. Once the spicy foodstuffs had been stored away, it was time for some equally piquant music. The Lowly Knights opened proceedings, unveiling their trimmed down line-up to a warmly welcoming audience. Next up were the much-touted Mumford & Sons, the London folksters bringing a bit of vibrancy to the evening. Unfortunately the excitement somewhat dissipated with the arrival of Laura Marling, the songstress playing mostly new material to a mostly disinterested audience. Still, it was only a minor blot on the Open House Festival’s gleaming copybook. Words and Photos by Richard W. Crothers
—80 issue 60—
The Cribs @ Mandela Hall, Belfast
The Cribs Mandella Hall, Belfast It was The Cribs first headline gig in Belfast and an opportunity too to see what their latest recruit – that young whippersnapper Johnny Marr – added to the Wakefield outfit. No wonder it was one of the year’s most anticipated shows. We opened, though, with Talulah Does The Hula, an act who, disappointingly, delivered more style than substance. Penultimate performer Adam Green proved a serious crowd pleaser, his mix of indie-rock and lounge style tunes – not to mention those dance moves – setting the audience nicely a simmer. At last, though, it was time for The Cribs to take the stage, tearing into material from new opus Ignore The Ignorant and a helping of back catalogue classics.
Claire & Catherine
Eimhear & Maria
Jamie & Sarah
Words and Photos by Richard W. Crothers
John & Kerry
Jenni & Emma
Kerry-Ann & Glenda
Natasha & Jemma
Nigel & Gavin
Hannah & Ross
The Cribs
Kelly
—81 AU Magazine—
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The Last Word
The Last Word
With Chris Urbanowicz of:
Editors
"The only thing I get really angry about is when things stop working for no reason. Unfortunately working with technology means this can happen a lot.”
When was the last time you were in hospital? Last year. I’m allergic to nuts and had a reaction. I was rushed to hospital to get a shot of adrenaline and made it back an hour before we were due on stage in Munich. What was the last thing you laughed out loud at? We just did a Zane Lowe interview, he always makes me laugh.
Famous Last Words Louis XVI of France (1754 - 1793) “I die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge; I pardon those who have occasioned my death; and I pray to God that the blood you are going to shed may never be visited on France.” (Before his execution by guillotine.) ‘Spider’ in Goodfellas “Why don’t you go fuck yourself, Tommy?” (He is then shot by diminutive madman Tommy DeVito, played by Joe Pesci)
This Issue Was Powered By... Late summer blowouts, oceans of mud, 96th minute heartbreak, The Bug live, The Cribs live, end-of-month poverty, Derren Brown debate, getting back in the groove, cooking adventures, gazing out the window, an extra shot.
—82 issue 60—
Who is the last person you would want to be stuck on a desert island with? Chris de Burgh. If you were on death row what would you want for your last meal? A lamb madras from Kababish in Moseley, Birmingham. I ate there a lot when I lived in Birmingham and try to go whenever I return to the city. When was the last time you cried? I welled up yesterday on the plane. I’m tired. What was the last thing you won? A game of Monopoly. When was the last time you got angry? About two hours ago. The only thing I get really angry about is when things stop working for no reason. Unfortunately working with technology means this can happen a lot. Where did you go on your last holiday? I can’t remember the last holiday I had. I’m planning on going to Tokyo soon though. We’ve been a few times for shows but I want to go back and properly investigate, it’s an absolutely amazing place. What was the last thing that made you proud? Hearing the completed record. When was the last time you were ashamed? I hear some remixes and feel ashamed.
When was the last time you threw up? A couple of weeks ago, I ate too much. It wasn’t pretty. What was the last good thing you saw on television? Match Of The Day 2. I’m a big Nottingham Forest fan... Ed and I were just on Mark Clemmitt’s Football League show on 5 Live – we were the first musician guests he’d had on which was pretty cool. What was the last thing you downloaded? Match Of The Day. Being able to watch Match Of The Day in whatever country you are in is a wonderful thing. What was the last good book you read? Have A Nice Day by Mick Foley. It’s the autobiography of a pro-wrestler who became the WWF World Heavyweight Champion, losing his ear and fighting in some crazy hardcore matches in Japan along the way. What does the last text you received say? 12:53 Your Addlee car has arrived. If necessary feel free to contact your driver on his mobile 0705******9 Vehicle VOLKSWAGEN SHARAN. What was the last bad job you had? Sometimes this one. The rest of the time it was the last job I had before we released our first album. I sold shoes. When was the last time you broke the law? Yesterday. I think I’ve got away with it, we’ll see. If the world was about to end, what would your last words be? Uh oh! EDITORS PLAY ST. GEORGE’S MARKET, BELFAST ON OCTOBER 7 (DJ SET POST-GIG AT THE STIFF KITTEN), OLYMPIA, DUBLIN ON OCTOBER 8 AND DOLAN’S, LIMERICK ON OCTOBER 9. NEW ALBUM, IN THIS LIGHT AND ON THIS EVENING IS RELEASED OCTOBER 12 ON COLUMBIA
—83 AU Magazine—
WORKING CLASS HERO.
WWW.TOMMYGUNNS.CO.UK 33A QUEEN STREET, BELFAST BT1 6EA PHONE::
028 9032 9146 OPENING HOURS: —84 issue 60—
11.00AM - 8.00PM MON-SAT OPEN SUNDAYS 12.00PM-5.00PM