The World Of Kitten Painting: Collected reviews November 2003 - July 2005
Setlist
page 2 l a v ti es F it ru 6 Strange F nter 1 ri p 8 S r Winte 2 r te n ri p 10 Winter S s er g 12 Twilight Sin wn Massacre to es 14 Brian Jon 16 The Seeds 18 Le Tigre 20 Cribs 22 JoyZipper en 24 The Frenchmal 04 (day 1) v ti 28 Truck fes al 04 (Day 2) 32 Truck festiv ds en ri 34 The Boyf 36 Luxembourg Animals y rr 38 Super Fu 40 The Fucks 42 The Loves d 44 Trail Of Dea umbers N 46 ic The Mag es ti li a n o s er 50 Television p ndes lo B 54 g The Lon 56 The Pipettes d / The Organ n a 58 b The Fog 6 le p eo P 62 Pow! To The rg 64 u o Luxemb cre a s s a M n w to 66 Brian Jones 68 er Joyzipp cre a s s a M n w to 72 Brian Jones Animals Super Furry
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Strange Fruit Festival: Schwervon! / Free Loan Investments / Vermont / Thomas Truax Bush Hall 21 November 2003
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hepherds Bush - worra dump, eh? But lo! Looming up out of the damp, rubbish-strewn, potholded streets is that delightfully velvety venue Bush Hall. And look! thanks to Strange Fruit its crammed full of popmusictunes and swinging kids who’re hip to the beat. Tripping through the doors clutching vodkatonics we find the engagingly shivery croonings of Thomas
tales. There’s madness in them there blue eyes. Thomas has an intriguing set of ingenious home-made Heath Robinson type ‘instruments’. There’s Sister Spinster - a primitive but beautiful drum machine, spinning and clicking out a beat. Then there’s the Hornicator. It’s, um, like the horn bit from an old gramophone
”There’s madness in them there blue eyes” Truax are in full flow. He’s Nick Cave x Rich Hall, growling out woozy bluesy
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(the bit the HMV dog used to look down) with wires and pick ups and stuff. Obviously I know exactly how it works, but I’m not sure you’d be able to understand my technical explanation, so let’s just say Thomas uses it to produce a selection of exotic sounds, looping and buzzing and twining around his songs. ‘Prove
It To My Daughter’ has a backing like the wailing of a ghost chorus, or is it just the wind in the eaves? For his final song, Thomas takes his Hornicator on a trip around the auditorium collecting quavering vocals from audience members to add to the mix. Then he continues on out to startle folks in the bar and upstairs on the balcony as his music stomps and trembles around the room.
with ursine confectionery, including delicately placing Gummi Bears on the Coin Op keyboard keys whilst Mr Coin Op was trying to play. How we all laughed as Simon had to be restrained. Not tonight though, ‘cos there’s a whole lotta shakin’ going on. Captain of keyboards, Adey, divides his time between onstage bonkers electronics and fine baby grand tinkling offstage. He
Vermont are the reason we’re here. We have to get our Vermont kicks where we can these days since Sabine and Colin have moved to Dresden, so hurrah for this fantastic thrill
”hurrah for this fantastic thrill spilling set” spilling set. They’re hampered by somewhat dodgy sound for the stampingly splendid ‘Bullfight in Bogna’ which comes out sounding rarver ruff. But then everything settles down into a demented motornik groove and all is ace. Watching guitarist Simon losing the plot, swinging those strings all over the shop causes repressed memories of the Strange Fruit Gummi Bears incident to suddenly flood back. This incident involved a mightily refreshed Simon going wiulld to Coin Op and showering them
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adds to the general air of hecticness by dashing wildly between the two instruments several times in the course of a song. New tunes get aired and sound marvy, walking the line between cute and chaotic as Sabine rolls her eyes to the sky and Colin takes a dive. Here’s hoping their new longdistance longplayer won’t be a long time coming. Free Loan Investments come
with their own wriggling jiggling following of fringed-up polkadotted Swedish fey kids. It’s all incredibly (look out here comes
”What exactly is going on in Sweden?” that word) TWEEEE! What exactly is going on in Sweden? They seem to have a huge jangley/cutie band stockpile and
every now and then one of these bands tumbles down from the pile and rolls into our curious British laps. “Oh look” we say, “Out of breath, babbly girl vocals ‘n’ handclaps. And almost illegally JANGLEY guitars. Wrapped up in strawberry-shortcake-sweet two minute bursts of exuberant pop” And we smile indulgently thinking “It’s sooo TalulahGoshBubblegumSplashRosehips with a bit of Chesterfields bunged in” and in our minds eye its still 1987 and we adore this stuff.
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Free Loan Investments (The Freebies? The Loanies? The Vesties??) do the indie swing-
”reminds us of a longlost Talulah Gosh-song” shuffle with a rumble-thump beat and have a song called ‘Kick His Balls Out’ Oof! That juxtaposition of the fey and the vicious reminds us of longlost Talulah Gosh-song ‘I Don’t Want To Have
To Break Your Face.’ They play a charming spiralling beatpopsong which may be called something like ‘Summer Time High’ or I may have just made that title up, but it fits dunnit? So leaning back against the wall with our vodka and coke (having guzzled the vodkatonics) we concede the floor to the squiggling, twitching Swedes. Somewhere in their midst the monkey-booted ghosts of our past are jumping for joy. Schwervon! offer us a fine example of how to keep it swinging in the kitchen. On ‘Dinner’ the domestically entwined Nan Tucker and Major Matt Mason USA make singing for their supper both funny and sexy. ‘Let’s make dinner tonight’ / ‘I’ll boil some water’ / ‘ Let’s make dinner tonight’ / ‘You chop the carrots’ / ‘Sex on the table is not very stable so let’s make dinner tonight.’ With Matt on clanga clanga gui-
tar and Nan on rattleclash drums, Schwervon! show us fifty ways to sing with your lover on their clockwork chiming Velvety sparkling songs. There’s Beat Happening stripped down simplicity and Pixies eerie awkwardness. Nan has a fantastic voice, kind of Kim Deal and Corin Tucker, cute, but with a fine womanly punch.On ‘American Girl’ she hollers ‘At my very best I can
”deliciously mesmeric; ebbing and flowing like Galaxie 500” look my worst’, whilst Matt’s voice edges in underneath, ‘You look just fine to me’. In fact she kind of looks like Anya off ‘Buffy’ to me, but that might just be ‘cos
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it’s on three times a week at the moment and my mind wanders briefly to contemplate an alternate Schwervon! featuring Anya and Xander…hmm, feisty. ‘Holy Cat’ includes driver Alun on drums, and is deliciously mesmeric; ebbing and flowing like Galaxie 500. Then there’s band rallying cry ‘Schwervon!’ Cue hop skip jump guitar, Matt: ‘Schwerve…’ Nan: ‘On!’ Matt: ‘Schwerve…’ Nan: ‘On!’ Matt: ‘Schwerve…’ Nan: ‘Oooonnnn!!’ It’s energetic and endearing and er, effervescent and eeeeee right lovely. Get yer Schwervon! indeedy. After this The Lucksmiths couldn’t possibly compete so we go home. Sorry. I know loadsa people swear by their summerpop melodies, but so far they leave me cold. Plus I find that bloke that stands at the front drumming and singing kind of disturbing. Night Night.
Winter Sprinter: The Essex Green / Herman Dune / St Thomas / James William Hindle Water Rats 7th January 2004
J
anuary eh? What’s the point? There’s not even any snow to liven things up a bit, just incessant pishing rain. The best you can do is stick The Tyde on yer headphones and be thankful that the bus windows have steamed up so you can’t see the grim and greasy London streets sliding by outside. Big New Year’s cheers then to Track & Field for having the nous to gladden these dark days with their annual Winter Sprinter, now into its fifth cockle-warming year. It looks like everyone’s in need of some guitarry goodness ‘cos tonight’s sold out with a waiting list of 30 sorry souls hoping to get in. Oh you silly people, you should have got yourselves Winter Sprinter season tickets. £12 for three nights. That’s £1 per band – bargain! We ensconce ourselves in a corner and let the folky meanderings of James William Hindle twangle around the room. I’ve risen from my sickbed to be here and am feeling rather temperaturey, a fact not helped by the rising sweatiness in the room. Remembering my tendency to faint in such conditions, I prop myself against the wall and let the Hindleness trundle on pleasantly. I’ve seen JWH a couple of times before, but I can’t even remember what he looks like, let alone individual songs. Still, he’s the greatest folk singer from West Yorkshire. Ever, apparently. I don’t know, I haven’t done a survey.
cute melodica girl building into sweet sway-along anthems. Thomas’ voice is both plaintive and powerful. First song ‘Winter Sprinter’ (hey..!) seems to be about going out in the snow and having some fun and makes me think of the book I’m reading, ‘Popular Music’ by Mikael Niemi (I know it’s about Sweden/Finland, but it’s all Scandinavian innit?). ‘I started writing down English pop songs by listening to the Top Ten…I still didn’t understand the words, and had to write phonetically, learn them off by heart and then sing songs such as ‘Ollyu Nidis Lav’ and ‘Owatter Shayd Ovpail’*. Not that Thomas’ English is that dodgy, although he raises some laughs with his (accidental?) comedy Scandinavian routine. He has the audience eating out of his hand, not least because there seem to be some hardcore fans here. Judging by the cheery campfire glow in the room, he’s just won himself a few more. An audience realignment takes place; glamorous Scandinavian boys are replaced with shuffley blokes for the mighty Herman Dune. It’s almost unbearably
St Thomas is a new signing to the impeccable Track & Field roster. Main man Thomas Hansen is a curious little Norwegian mod-guy who offers up some of the best onstage capering since Stuart Murdoch threw down his northern soul moves. The music is not for giggling at though. Simple strummy songs played on guitar and banjo with boomker-tish drums and obligatory
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hot, but everyone’s packed in for some home-baked backwoods indiefolk rumblerock. David Feck leads David-Ivar Herman Dune onstage and at first we fear the worst, might The Dune be undermined by Comet Gain style ramshackle drunkenness? No, it’s okay, they launch into a mesmerising droney song followed by a wee country-crossedwith-‘Roadrunner’ number (the Jonathan Richman song, not the cartoon bird) and we all settle down for our trip to planet Herman. Requests are taken, new songs are played. Warm, slow, lazy, twanging. Cracked vocals
and sweet sounds. Andre, bedecked in a fine ‘Girls & Sports: A Winning Combination’ t-shirt, miraculously takes his everpresent shades off, though his roll-up never leaves his lips even when it’s his turn to sing. Meanwhile, centre-stage, sister Dune, Lisa, dances to a different drum, occasionally singing, but mostly just feeling the groove and wriggling out her own dance routine. She doesn’t seem bothered that her own private dance floor is the stage and this fits in perfectly. When David-Ivar takes out a ukelele for some off-mic songs, Lisa sings out backing from beside the drumkit, her voice morning-dew-clear. It’s simple, spare and moving. Herman Dune yodel ‘I would never ever, ever hurt you baby’ whilst the bass drum goes kerbOOmf! in our hearts. They do a Velvetsy tumble and sing, ‘We are zombies. Yeah living dead’ They’re not though, this band is about the deliciousness of feeling alive; scratching your head, stretching
your arms and wriggling your toes. As some kind of freakish, heavyhanded living metaphor, the air-conditioning finally kicks in for the Essex Green and their breath-of-fresh-air breezy AM pop. It’s still sweltering enough in the room for the band to ponder why its hotter than when they played here in August, but we’re soon off and swinging down tree-lined avenues to their grassy sounds. According to Elephant 6 band lore, Rob 14 Iced Bearman is in attendance. It’s a little known fact that bands of this ilk aren’t actually allowed to play a note in London until Rob has shown up and skinned up. He’s going to be kept busy, because over the course of the Winter Sprinter The Essex Green warp and mutate to become The Finishing School and then The Ladybug Transistor, each band with a slightly altered line-up (undetectable to the untrained eye) playing their version of shimmery, folk-dappled mellowed out pop from another era. The
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Essex Green’s take on proceedings is led by singer/guitarist Christopher with added ice-pure vocals from Sasha Bell, looking 60s secretary chic in buttoned-up tweed behind her Korg keyboard. Think radio-friendly radiance, think The Carpenters cutting loose with big-hearted guitar solos, think tripping down the street in the morning swinging your handbag (boys too). Stand out song is the gorgeous ‘Our Lady in Havana’, a throw-open-all-thewindows epic of swooniness. The sunbeam harmonies of ‘The Late Great Cassiopia’ swirl around the room bringing proceedings to a close. As the band twitch and swivel, I decide the icing on the cake would be some pop-art projections to up the grooviness factor to the correct level. When you sound this perfect, you need to look good too. * ‘All You Need Is Love’ and ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ – get it?
Winter Sprinter: The Projects / The Loves / James William Hindle / Kicker Water Rats 9th January 2004
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ere she comes again with vodka in her veins… It’s Friday and the Winter Sprinter finale, but throughout the day, reports have been reaching us that suggest all may not be quite right on the night. Tompaulin have had to cancel due to a bereavement, The Loves are two band members down; Catrin’s gone to see Justin Timberlake and Pnosni is er… Kicker have been reduced to a boyband three-piece, because singer Jill has the lurgey. But never fear, despite not having the extra edge of Soul that Jill brings, Kicker sound fantastic. Hurrah! Drummer Phil takes over main vocal duties, his voice deep and croony, reminiscent of Laurence from Felt. Adding to the Felty-ness is Ben’s sparkling guitar, sometimes jangley,
sometimes West Coasty country rockin’. On bass is Andy, his missus, Sarah, is fiddling with a digital camera, trying to capture some Kicker action on moving film. When she shouts up at the stage for camera advice, Andy says, ‘I’m a bit busy right now.’ And so he is, adding fuzzedup bass to the songs, creating bundles of buzzing indie loveliness. This is great, things are looking up. James William Hindle gets drafted in as an eleventh hour replacement, I listen for a while. An
Australian girl tells me she thinks he sounds like Darren Hanlon. Oh yeah, he does a bit. Hmm. I wander off to the bar to marvel at how Steven Track & Field Drew and the bloke from The Cutouts look exactly the same. The Loves arrive. They’re on next. Hang on, two of The Loves arrive, the other two are in Camden or something. We take up positions in front of the stage anyway. Then, by the skin of their teeth, all The Loves are on stage. They are totally magnificent, splurging out a joyous helping of infectious goodtime bubblelicious pop-rock. The thing about The Loves is they wear their record collections on their sleeves, plundering left, right and centre, shamelessly nicking all the good bits. They have the courage of their convictions and it works fantastically. Simon Love even manages to get in a bit of audience participation with a clap-along, chant-along to ‘Depeche Mode.’ Audience: ‘My baby got…’ Simon: ‘Flowers in her
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hair’. Audience: ‘My baby got…’ Simon: ‘USA swimwear’ Audience: ‘My baby got…’ Simon:
”they pilfer
from the pop culture dressing up box.” ‘A mobile phone’ Audience: ‘My baby got…’ Simon: ’Depeche Mode!’ The Loves:‘Biff bash, squoogle, plink, kerchoinggg!’
The other thing about The Loves is that they pilfer from the pop culture dressing up box to great effect, always looking like the perfect bubblegum gang. Stitch that, stylists. The setlist seems to have gone to pot in the excitement, but mixed in with fab faves like ‘Boom-a-Bang-BangBang’ and ‘Little Girl Blues’ there’s the excellent ‘Xs and Os’ and ‘I My She Love You’. It’s all over far too quickly but we can see unplayed songs on the (abandoned) setlist. The audience demands satisfaction and we get the heel-kicking fuzzpop splendour of ‘Fucked
Up’. Everyone wigs out. We love The Loves. After such sweet sticky thrills, how can The Projects compete? They’re like Stereolab, but not so good aren’t they? Well, no, egged on by intense audience enthusiasm, they play a blinder. Theirs is a more eighties bloopy, funky take on the krautrock groove, just check out singer Lisa’s ruched boots. The Projects are employees of the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop hanging out in Sheffield in 1982. They power through songs like the brilliant single ‘Entertain-
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ment’, guitars going spiral, spiral, crunch, Lisa’s voice doing the glacial European cool thing, Morgane doing her poker-faced keyboard maiden number. It’s all eminently danceable, too, as the front of the stage becomes a maelstrom of gleeful bodies. There seems to be a high proportion of bald men with beards whirling around in there. It’s all thoroughly invigorating. Beaming, sweaty punters shuffle their way out and what at the beginning of the night seemed like it could be a bit of a limp past the finishing post has turned out to be an almighty triumph. Do you believe in Track & Field? Of course you damn well do.
The Twilight Singers Islington Academy, 28th January 2004 for two exhilarating hours. His voice, a blistering howl, is kept primed courtesy of a constant stream of Marlboroughs and Makers Mark. He is a master in the art of posing and punctuating with a cigarette.
” His
voice, a blistering howl,” At one point, a lit one is thrown onstage from the audience, he catches it (told you he was cool) and takes a drag.
O
nce upon a time, at a loose end, I wandered along to see The Afghan Whigs. I didn’t know much about them, but I had nothing better to do. They blew my mind, I was hooked. Every time they came to town, I’d be there getting my fix of bruisingly sublime, smouldering rock ‘n’ soul. All good things must come to an end though, and the Whigs bowed out. End of an era. Then lead Whigster, Greg Dulli, formed a new band, The Twilight Singers. As their name suggests, their records are softer, still black, but more contemplative. Tonight London is sulking under
a thick layer of gooey snow and Greg Dulli is back in town with the Twilight Singers. I’m expecting a toned down band, quieter sounds. It’s not really going to be like it used to be. The Twilight Singers have played about two seconds of their first song ‘Esta Noche’ and it’s exactly, fantastically as ravishingly ravaging as ever. Break open the gaspers and chug that bourbon, it’s time for some proper rock ‘n’ rollin’ with the Gentleman himself. I come over all emotional and want to laugh and cry at once. Mr Dulli is, as ever, the coolest of the cool, a suave dark star pulling us into his orbit
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The first half of the set bleeds and blisters through a selection of Twilight Singers songs, powered up live into exclamations of visceral, ear-shattering beauty. There’s ‘Twilite Kid’, ‘That Bird Sings’, ‘Love’ (slipping into a shivering verse of The Beatles ‘All You Need Is Love’) and the fearsome ‘Annie Mae’ all from first album ‘Twilight’ mixed with tracks from newie ‘Blackberry Belle’ that make me decide I have to get it immediately. They finish with ‘Black Is The Colour Of My True Love’s Hair’ and a question, “I was thinking, what if Dean Martin was the lead singer of the Zombies?” Good point, what if? Dulli proceeds to show us with a devilishly debonair version of ‘Time of the Season’. Is that it then? Of course it bloody isn’t. Dulli returns alone and settles in behind the keyboard, flinging out a selection of covers which segue from the sublime to the ridiculous like There’s Outkast’s ‘Roses’, fol-
lowed by a warning, ‘Now this is going to turn into a Stevie Nicks song, so don’t be alarmed when that happens.’ Sure enough, three Stevie songs turn up at once, ‘Sara’, ‘Gypsy’ and ‘Rhiannon’ which spins on the word ‘darkness’ to become briefly, oh yes, ‘Get Your Hands Off My Woman’ and ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’. The rest of the band reappear to rip through old Whigs song ‘Uptown Again’ and I’m beside myself with joy. The covers-fest continues with an audience-thrill-
”even the
security bloke is grinning.” ing version of Outkast’s ‘Hey Ya’, even the security bloke is grinning. Dulli, modest as ever, insists that he wrote ‘Hey Ya’ ‘about five years back, as I shall now demonstrate’. He proceeds
to sing ‘Hey Ya’ over Whigs track, ‘66’. It works, the man’s a genius, a fact confirmed as the band hammer out a simultaneously touching and thunderous version of Kate Bush’s ‘Cloudbusting’. By now the band can’t fail and they wipe the floor with us, throwing in two final Afghan Whigs songs, the voluptuous ‘Crazy’ and the devastating ‘Faded’. We’re exhilarated and exhausted, this is how rock music is meant to be. Gig of the year already?
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The Brian Jonestown Massacre / The Mutts The Garage, 26th February 2004
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amden Town 1997, I keep coming across round black stickers dotted in odd places. They bear the legend ‘The Brian Jonestown Massacre’ wrapped around the sneering face of Mr Jones himself, hmm... A few weeks later a friend is telling me about this daftly named band he saw, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, they were pretty cool, I should check them out. Years go by, I still haven’t seen BJM, but The Lollies have a song called ‘Jonestown Mascara’ and seem pretty enamoured of their dronerocking ways. Sometime BJM pals The Dandy Warhols ride the ad sound-track cash cow to fame and fortune. Fellow LA scene Bomp artistes The Warlocks fuzz and rumble their way to the UK and into my affections. Now, finally on a f..f..freezing February night I get the chance to see The Brian Jonestown Massacre, nine albums into a thirteen year career. I may have some catching up to do. First things first though, support band The Mutts. Jesus, another g*rage band pulling the heavee Led Zep riffin’ schtick. Hang on
though, this is pretty entertaining rockstuff. I catch the title of one song that kind of says it all, ’Hard On For Jesus’. Cheers. The band splurge out low down ‘n’ dirty fuzzy rawk, it’s pretty riff-tastic and rhythmic, not a bad way to warm up a cold Garage, but The Mutts U.S.P. is singer Chris. Looking like a cross between Joey Ramone, Mick Jagger and Bobby Gillespie if his sense of rhythm ever caught up with his body, Chris has the art of rock movement honed to perfection. Every Robert Plant move ever is flung out with utter style and conviction, it’s a joy to behold. From behind the floppy mop and lanky frame rattles a lusty growl, the man’s a star. Even during the final song when the mic lead drops out of the mic. So, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, finally we meet. I’m
kind of expecting some looong, meandering dronerock, possibly a bit shabby and falling apart in places, but no, we get a set of mighty together, instantly delicious chiming spacerock. It’s gorgeous, just the kind of thing I love. The sound is lifted up by a dual 12-string attack provided by guitarists Ricky (observing the sixties trouser rule in white cords, but let down by dodgy hair) and (oh yes!) Frankie Tear-
”instantly delicious chiming spacerock” drop (sixties trousers: stripey, hair: excellent). Aah bliss. 24 strings are always better than 6 and with BJM mainman Anton’s contribution the final count is up to 30 (not counting bass and viola also swirling round in the mix). And look! It’s a fabled* Vox Phantom 12 string, isn’t it lovely? Later on there’s (mmm) a Vox Teardrop 12 string, which becomes the centre of some controversy. Now, controversy, or FIGHTING and SWEARING and general Page 12
BOLSHINESS are a bit of a BJM motif. Do a little Googling and you’ll soon find references to Anton’s antagonistic ways. Indeed, pre-gig in the pub, we stand right next to him, without actually knowing who he is (hey, the website photos are pretty shady) and I immediately think, ‘Hmm, he seems like a birrova wanker’
in the way you do when you can sense it could all kick off around certain individuals. We move to the other end of the pub. So, BJM are hurling out these sparkling sonic gems of buzzing beauty, viola spiralling, added undertones of drone emanating in waves from an unattended keyboard stage right. In places it’s more shoegazey than I’d imagined (is ‘shoe-gazing’ still a rude word?), there are Ride-bits. You know how The Dandy Warhols co-opted that sound, all pie-eyed floating chords and lackadaisical vocals? Well, BJM do it without being mind-numbingly tedious, they do it with conviction. Anton’s swigging from a bottle of Smirnoff (it occurs to me that you could rock the whole hardcore spirit guzzling look by filling a vodka bottle with water, just don’t offer it around) and is starting to
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get a little feisty. First we hear how some halfwitted shop assistant wouldn’t accept his Scottish fiver (shouts of ‘Tourist!’). Then his guitar strap snaps, guitar tumbling to the floor and getting knocked out of tune. He commandeers the Teardrop, but it’s got a bust string, cue haranguing of bandmates. There’s a rant about playing Brixton Academy and only getting paid £30. Cue heckling from the audience. He snaps at Frankie, sneering ‘We don’t need three guitars’ and takes over on 12 string. The atmosphere gets lumpy, but the tunes stay smooth. Song titles I catch, ‘Satellite’, ‘Prozac vs Heroin’ and forthcoming single, ‘If Love Is A Drug Then I Want To O.D.’ Gaps between tunes get longer, but each time they drop into a song The Brian Jonestown Massacre soar. Eventually, over time, they stumble offstage, leaving viola player Zy Lyn to pay eerily keening sounds over a taped down keyboard drone. We drift outside into the heartless cold, glowing inside.
The Seeds Borderline 31st March 2004
I
t’s 1988 and Kitten is expanding her musical horizons beyond the fizzing indie faves du jour. Thanks to the likes of Bobby Gillespie (he always did talk good record) the Kitten Kollection is starting to swell with a selection of exotic sixties stuff. The latest addition is a Seeds compilation ‘Fallin’ Off The Edge’. It’s perfect, exactly the sound Kitten always thought should be ripping up the room as the oil-wheel swirled and the psyche-out kids shook their hair and lost their minds in the tripped out ‘60s scene of her imagination. Singer Sky Saxon has an odd child-like whine - the perfect topping to the frantic freakbeat being whipped up by The Seeds’ heavily fuzzed guitars and deranged keyboard hammering. On the sleeve the band have perfect bobhead bowlcuts, pointy boots and stripey trousers – the epitome of cool in Kitten’s 1988 world (actually it still is now). Could this be the perfect band? Hmmm… So here we are in 2004 and The Seeds are playing at The Bor-
derline, which is small enough and shabby enough for me to feel comfortable with revisiting the past. Ever since I got my ticket I’ve been getting the line about ‘Sky Saxon solo albums’ from ‘On Tape’ by The Pooh Sticks running through my mind, which is obviously quite disturbing in itself. It’s always a bit dodgy when bands try to return to former glories, and I’m a bit concerned that this is going to be an appalling shambles. It isn’t really the proper Seeds playing, only Sky Saxon (oh that name, even better when he changed it to Sky Sunlight Saxon) remains, having reformed with a gaggle of pseudo-Seeds. The Borderline fills up with a curious mix of old biker dudes, eternal psychedelic types, European mods, balding men in their work clothes, the odd face from Kitten’s garage scene youth, the obligatory Rob 14 Icey and otherwise sane-looking types who proceed to sing along to every word once the band gets going. There’s a friendly, antici-
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patory atmosphere, as folks start wiggling to the top garage tunes revving from the P.A. (and bloody ‘Psychotic Reaction’ again, one day I’ll go to a gig where this doesn’t get played). The Seeds amble on. Blimey, check out Sky Saxon – a jumble pile of hippy scarves, silky combat trousers, studded belt, woolly hat and wraparound shades, not quite the booted up hipster of those old record sleeves, but definitely a psychedelic grandfather. Apparently he’s clocked up time in his own drug-addled, pan-handling wilderness, a la Roky Erikson, but he seems
”the trademark nasal yowl has gone, replaced by a gruff grumble” on pretty good form now. The major disappointment is that the trademark nasal yowl has gone, replaced by a gruff grumble, which I suppose is only to be expected. Still, it’s not quite the same without that freaky wail,
especially on ‘Can’t Seem To Make You Mine’ whose genius is built around this odd vocal creak. When it gets played tonight, Sky Saxon rumbling his way through the words, it’s like there’s an old friend missing from the party. But that’s just being picky, we get a fantastic classic Seeds set, ‘Nobody Spoil My Fun’, ‘No Escape’, ‘Wind Blows Your Hair’ and of course their bone fide HIT ‘Pushin’ Too Hard’. They play a few ‘new songs’, usually a concept that strikes fear into the heart of even the most die-hard of fans, but these turn out to be excellent, not straying from the blueprint of pummelling guitar fuzz, crazed Farfisa snortings and ‘Na na na na’ backing vocals. The band know their Seedy stuff alright, giving the songs a good pasting, rattling
them out lustily as Sky Saxon wibbles around the tiny stage,
”Sky Saxon wibbles around the tiny stage” gradually shedding his hat and shades. The highlight is old fave ‘Evil Hoodoo’ which whips up a heavy cyclone of stomping sound that makes me shiver with excitement. Oh garage so-called bands of today you might as well sod off home, you aren’t going to top this with your weedy sub-Stooges riffs. No really, you aren’t. Back for an encore, Mr Saxon decides he wants some female company onstage. Five intrepid girls, including two from Velvet Illusion (fab Aladdin’s cave of ginchy sixties gear in Camden),
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clamber aboard to shake their thang to ‘Girl I Want You’. Sky Saxon appears to be providing a literal interpretation of the lyrics, grabbing at on of the V.I. ladies in a rather queasy pervy old man way. Groo. Like a friend says when I tell her about this unpleasantness, ‘That’ll be the sixties hangover.’ Proceedings are pulled back to a dignified close with a galloping version of ‘Tripmaker’ though sadly it’s minus the fantastic wheezing ‘wheeeee!’ noise of the original that had the youthful Kitten rolling on the floor with gleeful hilarity when she first heard it. Tonight has been a curious excursion into the past, but I’m glad I came. The Seeds aren’t the perfect band, but they’ve got some songs that are damn near close to buzzing sonic heaven.
Le Tigre / Erase Errata / KaitO The Astoria 5th April 2004
‘E
very time you turn on the TV or open Spin, or any kind of mainstream shit, what you see is just this rampant misogyny being sold as if it’s the new rebellion, as if feminism completely took over and now these people are reacting against this new feminazi fascism that supposedly exists.’ – Kathleen Hanna, Ms Magazine, 2000.
Normally, venues fill slowly, punters trickling in as the support bands play, gradually adding to the atmosphere. Tonight though, The Astoria is ridiculously packed out long before any band steps onstage. There’s a palpable excitement in the air and every where you turn, you catch a glinting female eye. For once this is a rock venue full of women with a few of those men things thrown in. It’s nice to be part of a majority for once and it certainly smells a lot sweeter, of lipstick and clean hair. A seething mass of eager ladies swarms around the merchie stall. “Ooh we’re at a gig but we can do shopping! And look - lavender tee-shirts, bright pink badges and cute tote bags!” Ace. I join the scrum. Last time I wrote about KaitO, guitarist Dave sent me a nice email telling me the names of all his cats. This obviously makes KaitO great. What also makes KaitO great is the way they can now flex their musical muscles
effortlessly, kranking out their fantastically deranged squonky sounds like they were flicking dust from their lapels. Oh hang on, I described their music as squonky last time, hey, it’s good to be consistent. They look right at home on the big old Astoria stage. Nikki snaps out incomprehensible lyrics laced with vocal tics that turn her voice into another skewed instrument to layer into the mix of battered drums (mmm, I’ll have mine with chips please) aircrash guitars and assorted unidentified noises. Gemma does her secretly amused smile from behind her bass and flings in a scattering of yelping vocals. Whilst Dave bends double over his effects pedals and Dieter scrambles lankily around a tiny drumkit, the two women look almost serene up there, at odds with the angularly poppy scrawls of noise shattering around the gaff. They look like they know that one day soon they’re going to be the ones headlining. It’s just a matter of time. Erase Errata are thrilling. The reviewer from The Guardian reckons they ‘inhabit the more demanding end of the punk-funk spectrum’ and that’s what I’d been expecting, tricksy time changes and the sort of music you listen to with a pained smile on your face. But reviewer from The Guardian - you a big girl’s blouse, for this is tremendously funky, shake yer hips fun. It’s all about catching the rhythm ‘n’ riding it down the high-street, rather than
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rolling along on a melody. And look, you need a beat? There are two drumkits! Singer Jenny lurks behind one of these declaiming in strident Siouxsie-esque tones. Now and then she emerges, leaving the percussive dips and swoops to drummer Bianca so
”Later she’ll declare that she’s a human/ robot hybrid” she can concentrate on stalking the stage and hollering, light glinting from her large owlish specs. This is cool. Later she’ll declare that she’s a human/robot hybrid incapable of experiencing emotion before launching into a Yoko Ono song that manages to sound wistful. At the end she says, ‘I don’t really know what that song was all about.’ Meanwhile Ellie is rumbling out a bass storm from behind a hair tornado whilst Sara in her newwave white glasses whips up a scratchy guitar maelstrom. If you thought this place was
packed earlier, now it’s time for the ridiculous crush to begin. Girls worm their way into tiny gaps in the crowd, boys try to push past wailing, ‘But my girlfriend’s in there!’ My arms are pinioned to my sides, I can’t move, but hey I can see! This
”I can’t move, but hey I can see!” doesn’t happen often and I drink in the vista, marvelling at the wonder of being able to see over the top of other people’s heads rather than having to peer through the gaps between sweaty shouldered blokes. Le Tigre run on cheerleader-style singing an electro-crunch version of The Pointer Sisters’ ‘I’m So Excited’. The screens flash and their outfits match. And everyone is REALLY EXCITED to the point that they seem to forget to dance, which is insane, even though the sound’s a bit dodgy. It’s a high-octane performance, utterly stylish, thoroughly involving, impossible not to shake yer hips. The backing track booms out delirious heart-skipping beats as Kathleen (one shouldered dress), Johanna (shirt-dress) and J.D. (shirt, trousers, headband)
trade vocals, guitar, keyboards and the occasional trumpet blast. They’re constantly on the move throwing down discombobulating dance routines and generating enough energy to power several thousand motionless mumbling bloke-bands for millennia (not that you’d want to, mind). We get a bumper-pack of old faves (though no Kitten fave, ‘On Guard’), ‘What’s Yr Take On Cassavetes?’, ‘The The Empty’, ‘Metrocard’, ‘Mediocrity’, Keep On Livin’, clubrr-grrrl classic ‘Hot Topic’. The crowd picks up their cues without missing a beat, gleefully yelling out lyrics, ripping into ‘F.Y.R’ with gusto, ‘Feminists we’re calling you. Please report to the front desk. Let’s name this phenomenon. It’s too dumb to bring us down.’ It sounds fantastic to hear a massed chorus of female shouts. And of course
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there’s Kathleen Hanna’s voice, like a bomb going off, firing out rockets of righteous energy, keeping you on your toes, keeping you thinking. New songs leave you thrilling for the next album, especially one sung by J.D. about ‘butch lesbians’. A constant barrage of imagery flashes across the stage backdrop, including the excellent dumb office video to accompany ‘Well Well Well’ and of course the Aerobicon dancers for ‘Deceptacon’. Ah, ‘Deceptacon’, you knew it had to happen. It’s the last song tonight (minus brief encore) and the place erupts, ‘Wanna disco? Wanna see me disco?’ Well here y’are then, hundreds of female feet pound the Astoria floor. Everywhere, including the balcony, there’s a sea of bouncing heads and riotous grins. This is just as it should be.
The Cribs / Comet Gain 100 Club 11 May 2004
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ound One: The Cribs play a kick off yer jim-jams, wake up call of a set slap bang in the middle of Pow! To The People. What was that? Round Two: Gary Crib nominates Comet Gain’s ‘Realistes’ as his fave underrated record. Oh yes, this man has taste. ‘Elephant’ is deemed over-rated, ‘If I want to listen to songs influenced by that whole stripped back blues thing I’d much sooner play The Gossip’. Hey The Cribs - I like your style.
ness. Sometimes they’re not sure if they can remember how songs go. Sometimes they’re making it up as they go along. It doesn’t matter, they’re still 10,000 times more vital than er…anything really. This is pop as a way of life, fizzing through your bloodstream as you run for the bus. Feck yeah!
Round Three: I buy The Cribs album. You know when you’re a kid and you keep playing your fave pop song over and over and you get excited about going home to listen to it some more? It’s like that. So here we are at the 100 Club where Gary’s wearing his Comet Gain-shaped heart on his sleeve, getting his heroes in as support. David Feck and his gang of giggling reprobates charge headlong into a rollercoasting set of pop wonderous-
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The Cribs have got to follow that now. Here are Gary and Ross ready to go, but no Ryan. Cue irritated swearing at the missing brother. He seems like a bit of a one does Ryan. During the set he continually loose-canons around the stage into Gary, tips a can of lager down his throat in one almighty gulp and admonishes the audience (who are being very London) for not dancing. Whilst Ryan slithers about in a pool of lager, Ross opts to clamber atop the bassdrum before throwing in his party piece of like, standing on the drumstool to play. Meanwhile Gary seems to be attempting to maintain some kind of control over proceedings, cutting a comparably restrained figure amidst this three way brotherly love-in/ruck. Kicking off with the tumbling ‘The Lights Went Out’ with it’s supremely nagging chorus, the enthusiastic momentum of The Cribs’ music rolls us rattling through a short, sweet set of short, sweet
pop. ‘You Were Always The One’ always summons up visions of that Freddy & The Dreamers performance on Blue Peter where Freddy does that silly kicking up his heels dance, before serenading Petra the dog. This is obviously exactly the kind of thing a pop song should be summoning up. When done well, sing-along scrabbly pop hammered out by scruffy, greasy-mopped indie monkeys is a very fine thing and The Cribs’ are perfect for the moment with their stupid-cool moves. Gary and Ryan (showing impeccable taste in a Bangs and a Slant 6 t-shirt respectively) do the age old bruvvers-in-rockcraning-together-round-a-singlemic pose. And get away with it.
like it was designed especially as a soundtrack for the brothers to fuck shit up. Ryan rises to the challenge, shoving on a pair on new-wavetastic shades before hurling himself through the air at Ross
Ross is a star turn, ensuring he gets his fair share of attention with his dumb-drummer acrobatic antics. It has to be said there’s a certain Strokes-ness to the songs, ‘Things You Should Be Knowing’ being the most obvious candidate. But hey, it’s not like The Strokes invented the irresistible guitar-pop song and anyway, they’ve gone all irrelevant. The Cribs are way more fun, not least because they have the fantastic ‘Another Number’, its minimal cheeping guitar laying bare the blueprint that underlies these itchily joyous tunes. Set closer is the mutant ‘Third Outing’ strangulated and careening into scribbly chaos, it seems
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behind his drumkit. He lands cradled in Ross’ arms like a ridiculous lager addled baby. It’s a great ending. Round Four: The Cribs rule, yeah!
Joy Zipper / Lucky Jim 100 Club 13 May 2004
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’ve heard good things about Lucky Jim so I have a look at their web site. It includes a great photo of them crouching up a tree, barely visible, plus some tunes that are okay in a pleasant country-tinged rock kind of way. Doesn’t really rock my socks though. Maybe they’re better live. Let’s see…hmm, Charlie of off ‘Corrie’ seems to be their singer. Interesting. There’s a lot of manly guitar strumming of solid but not sparking songs. This could all get a bit Ocean Colour Scene if we’re not careful (only inna country stylee, not ‘mod’ or whatever OCS were meant to be). Umm…sorry not really getting this…then ‘Charlie’ sings (I swear) ‘I’m riding with my lady…’ Aieeee! Wha?? Christ On A Bike. I go and ensconce myself in front of the merchie stall, spending a happy ten minutes choosing from Joy Zipper’s mind-boggling selection of tee-shirt colours. And so to Joy Zipper. I’ve been
looking forward to this gig SO MUCH, ‘The Stereo & God’ and ‘American Whip’ have been comforting cotton wool worlds for my ears to nestle in on the bus to work for the last few months. (Incidentally, how come Americans ‘ride the bus’ where as we ‘catch the bus’? Maybe you can only truly ‘catch the bus’ if it involves hurling yourself onto the back of a speeding Routemaster whilst the conductor yells, ‘Run faster! Very good running!’ like what happens here.). Joy Zipper clamber aboard the 100 Club’s long skinny stage to the groggy
strains of ‘Sunstroke’. There’s no sign of Vinnie. Tabitha calls him over the mic…the intro music starts up again…and again…and he eventually emerges seemingly quite ‘refreshed’, although maybe it’s just goofy Yank charm or something.Vinnie looks like someone drew a diagram of the epitome of indie bloke shaggy gloriousness: here’s the mop designed to invite ‘get a haircut!’ shouts from beerboys, here we’ll sketch in the requisite cheekbones onto the pasty face, add a dusty velvet jacket, cord jeans and scuffed black trainers, voila! Tabitha looks like a doll, tiny, with shades clamped on top of long blonde hair, and a red t-shirt dress with a picture of a panda worn over jeans. They’re the perfect yin and yang/light and
”Vinnie mutters that he’s having the best night of his life,” dark couple. Or at least that’s the illusion they’re creating. When Vinnie mutters that he’s having the best night of his life, Tabitha Page 20
assures us that, ’He doesn’t say that lightly.’ Vinnie makes us applaud the splendid Tabithaness of Tabitha whilst she blushes. We get a sundazzled set mixing first and second album songs starting with the Spacewoman drone of ‘Out Of The Sun’. Everything’s unhurried, adding to the sensation of blissed out sunkissedness. Basking in the glow of the delectably languor-
”Where MBV gorgeously bludgeoned, Joy Zipper caress.” ous ‘Christmas Song’ I feel like a blob of ice-cream melting in the sun, ‘I love you more than a thousand Christmases…’ On record Joy Zipper summon up the benign spirit of all the My
Bloody Valentine records on my shelf, but live the similarities fall away, only ‘Baby You Should Know’ comes shimmeringly close. Where MBV gorgeously bludgeoned, Joy Zipper caress. Theirs is a cool and lovely woozepop that on ‘33x’ asks you to waltz barefoot on the lawn. So the songs are things of drowsy splendour. The band (Vinnie and Tabitha augmented by drummer and bassplayer) judging by the skinny white wires snaking out of their ears are perfectly formed dazepop androids. What’s the catch? It’s not often you’ll catch me saying this, but this sticky floored underground venue isn’t working. The music needs a larger space to stretch out in, room to blast and swirl and fill up every inch of your consciousness. It needs to leave you shaken not just stirred. Time runs out on the band, after
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they’ve frittered precious minutes discussing whether they still have enough time to play ‘One’ and ‘Baby You Should Know’ (they make the time anyway) they hit their curfew without getting to do the planned encore of ‘Two Dreams I Had.’ The fans demand satisfaction and eventually, after much arsing about which drives the man from the 100 Club to snap, ‘Tell them to bloody get on with it then or I will pull the plug’, Vinnie reappears to knock out a lulling acoustic version of ‘Valley Stream’. Tabitha joins him pointing the mic into the crowd to initiate a looong singalong coda of ‘You’re the sun / I’m the moon.’ We tiptoe away up the stairs leaving them to their addled mantra. They might still be down there singing.
The Frenchmen / Pipas / The Cut-Outs Betsey Trotwood 21 July 2004 former life on The Fat Tulips web site. There are swell girl vocals from Marisa (?), ‘60s picture perfect in flipped hair and neato red dress with matching hairband, earrings and tambourine (always accessorise, ladies). There is the excitement of a brand new beater being used by the kickin’ girl drummer (and some-time Actionette). Pop fun on a stifling summer night. This is the sort of music that’s meant to be heard echoing from a basement and out into the sunshine.
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or! It’s like 1988 onwards never happened. We’re squished up against bowlcuts ‘n’ hairslides ‘n’ bobheads in the fearsomely sweaty Betsey basement as through the speakers The Weather Prophets follow The Soup Dragons follow The Motorcycle Boy and as always my heart skips to the first beat of ‘Get Out Of My Dream’ by The Clouds.
There are cracked boy vocals courtesy of Paul (Steven Drew lookie-likie el supremo) who is no longer rocking the startled rabbit look that has been a feature of past Cut-Outs gigs. He’s obviously recovered from the shock of seeing photos of himself in a
Fortuna Pop! have fixed it for us to shimmer like it’s 1987with three bands of sha la loveliness. First up it’s The Cut-Outs; popkids bringing us old-school thrills aplenty in the form of nobass shamble beat with scritchy scratchy guitars, tootling fake-fur clad keyboards and fab rat-a-tat drums. Think Beat Happening or The Pastels in the olden days before they got all sophisticated like and started writing film soundtracks.
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You have to love Pipas, Mark and Lupe are wrapped up in their own world of fragile beats and thoughtful tunes, strummed out against backing tracks that sound like a bedroom Saint Etienne. They play my fave ‘Bitter Club’, breezily wistful, a delicate slip-sliding cousin to Mint Royale’s ‘Don’t Falter’. Lupe swaps the keyboard she’s clutching to pluck at an acoustic guitar, adding to the gorgeous swathes of sound with sing yer heart out in the kitchen vocals. It’s sweet and mesmerising and for a while I forget I’m in a sweltering cellar under grimy London pavements and instead picture sunlight flickering through the trees on a hazy afternoon. The Frenchmen play fast ‘n’ joyful hit-my-summer buzzsaw popsongs and would fit perfectly onto one of those old Subway Records compilations
its heels. Wheee!
alongside Bubblegum Splash and The Groove Farm. Songs rattle by, tunes surfing atop the buzzfuzz noise and what in the old days we always referred to as (technical term this) bumbum dap drumming. There’s a whole heap of bababababababaa-ing not least on the groovy ‘Crimes of Fashion’. Songs are divided up into those sung in a flat boy voice (in a good way) and those
with girl next door vocals. There is much giggly jokery between songs, the drummer makes rubbish quips and their mate (dancing wildly and nearly having my eye out) gets up to sing ‘Frantic Romantic’ by The Scientists and sounds ace. It’s all belted out in a slowdom’s boredom pell-mell frenzy, no time to get tired of one chirpy tune ‘cos here comes another hot on
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Now, I find indie-minded Americans’ on-going worship of shoegazing (not to mention their taking it seriously as a genre title) a trifle bewildering. In the same way I’m quite bemused by the glut of U.S. bands that seem to be intent on replicating the stuff I used to tape off Janice Long in the late eighties (and let’s not forget those Scandinavians –jeez!). Apparently, The Frenchmen used to be a Talulah Gosh covers band? There’s certainly a fuzztastic version of ‘Steaming Train’ on their web site (true fakt: in days gone by Kitten has been known to dance all around the house with her chums in a conga-stylee shouting along to ‘Steaming Train’ - aah the things we do for pop). Listen to ‘Hey Amelia’ and its like the Gosh never went away. In fact, over in the corner, bouncing about, there is Amelia Fletcher. Like I said, it’s like 1988 onwards never happened. Hang on, I’m starting to feel dizzy…
Truck Festival - Day One Hillside Farm, Steventon 24th July 2004
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mm…Reading Festival. It’s gone a bit crap lately hasn’t it? We can’t be bothered with it all anymore. If only there was a festival packed full of musical goodness that wasn’t associated with the Mean Meany MEAN Fiddler and didn’t bombard you with adverts for rubbish lager* and wasn’t sponsored by tedious magazines** and crappy over-priced record shops***. And if only this festival was located in a beautiful corner of the English countryside and had a small (say about 3,000 people) friendly audience that didn’t spend their evenings building fires that belch out carcinogenic fumes. What if the general ethos behind this festival was ‘There is no cut throat capitalism, no huge entry fees, and no inappropriate huge advertising boards It’s a nice day out in the countryside with a few beers and a plethora of bands.’? Aah, the stuff of fantasy, no? No! For here we are on a bright sunny morn tripping along an ancient, tree-lined cobbled path (no we ARE!) to be welcomed into the cheery arms of the Truck Festival folk. We get a groovy free programme and it’s all a million miles from the grim trudge
along that stinky road in Reading. (*Carling **NME ***HMV - credit where credit’s due, eh?) When the festival is declared open, we happily scurry along the edge of a large crop of maize (possibly) to the main field where most of the top pop action is, like ready to rock field-mice. We decide to take stock and flop down on the grass (which will
remain unsullied by noodles for the whole weekend) in front of the main stage, this consists of two large flat-bed trucks (can you see what they’ve done there?). Time to crack open the vodka and peruse the programme as
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the pleasant enough chiming poppety-rock of Toulouse helps us to acclimatise. As I stretch out in the sun, Danny from the September Gurls joins Toulouse and they belt out their last song, sounding summery joyful, but I’m distracted. Is that really a minute Tigger pottering about in front of me? Yes it is, for this is the sort of place that people bring their small children (dressed as Disney characters) to. It’s fun for all the family, behind me is an elderly woman (kids! I’m talking granny-stylee here, not someone in their forties) carefully scanning her programme for Electric Eel Shock (probably). As Tigger unearths and spills a packet of bourbons from mother’s bag, Glaswegian strummers Vera Cruise step up. I’m thinking Thirteen Wheeler, I’m thinking Urusei Yatsura without the raygun fizz, I’m thinking this kind of band was ten-a-penny circa 1991, it was all check-shirted melodicrockin’ with Dinosaur tinges in them days. I’m thinking there’s a spider climbing up my cup. Do spiders get drunk?As the tunes amble by, I survey the field. In the corner there’s a hastily erected screen of plastic sheeting. Men go and wee behind this. I avert my gaze. The September Gurls are on. They seem to consist of Danny from the September Girls and
a Goldrush bloke on woobling keyboards. You can’t help but notice Danny ‘cos he keeps striding about the place in a white cowboy shirt and floppy black hair. His songs are less noticeable, gently pleasing country-rock acoustic thingies. The programme tells us he’s ‘an LA hipster’. Far out. I get amused when I think he sings, ‘You’re a shit-bomb’, but then realise it’s ‘You’re a ship on the ocean.’ Oh well. The rest of Goldrush come on and show us what The September Girls are meant to be about as a whole band, i.e. The Thrills. The sun shines, the same cd that will be played between bands for
”you’ve got to love a festival that plays Thomas Truax as incidental music.” the entire two days completes
its first cycle – you’ve got to love a festival that plays Thomas Truax as incidental music. The Colour of Fire appear on stage. Aah bless, they’re wee skinny boyz playing the kind of big old rock guitars that work in wide open spaces. A bit Ash, a bit emo. The music means nothing to me, but it’s impossibly cute watching them do rock licks ‘n’ everything. I’m sure the kidz’ll love this stuff. ‘This one’s called ‘Second Class Citizen’ shouts the tin-ribs singer. Aww, someone in sixth form’s pissed him off. We try to mix vodka with Panda Pops orange squash. It tastes foul, but there’s vodka in it so we force it down. To take our minds off the taste, we wander over to the Barn
That Cannot Be Named. It’s a cowshed. It smells of cows. But there’s a glitterball hanging from the ceiling. And a band playing on a stage at the far end. This is weird. It’s my childhood reality meets my childhood daydreams. Can you guess which bit is which? My Awesome Compilation are playing melodic, harmonic poppunk. It’s all very tight and well done you kids for making this shiny tricksy popstuff, but it’s all a bit sound-by-numbers. Nonstop XFM playlisting here they come. Wandering blinking into the sunshine, we find The Upper Room doing stand up straight pop on the main stage. ‘All Over this Town’ has driving bass, tumbling guitar and Smithsy phrasing. The singer looks very eighties indie in his leather jacket and look! he’s doing the Tony Hadley polite microphone hold and ooh! there! a Rickenbaker. That’ll be where the jangle is emanating from, coating the small-town, cul-de-sac ennui of the lyrics with a sugary ache. ‘This is a sharp end of a knife’ warbles the singer. It isn’t really though is it? They sound like the kind of alsorans Janice Long played. Like The Submarines or The Corn Dollies. The ones you used to end up taping anyway and sort of loving eventually. Meanwhile, a hippy with an enorm beard and a lovely ribbon holding up his ponytail dances enthusiastically at the front. On his own. Equally charmed and alarmed, we trundle over to the Acoustic stage which has been housed outside of the main (cough) ‘arena’ in
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Them All Behind’ which sound strummily sprightly denuded of their effects pedal layers. Outside again we see one of the Action Men, ‘You’re an Action
”You’re an Action Man!’”
the market field, presumably to enable the acoustic performers a fighting chance of being heard. We snuggle ourselves in a corner of the bijou Acoustic Tent ready for Mark Gardener to whisk us back through the mists of time via the medium of old Ride songs. My favourite Ride rekkid was always ‘Carnival Of Light’ - when it all started going horribly wrong and they weren’t talking to each other and they wore stripy blazers and sat in olden chairs in a lake looking mental. So I swoon merrily to ‘From Time To Time’ its dippy wistfulness chiming perfectly in this pastoral setting. Mark’s rock-
ing a ‘30-something does festival casual’ look in a jacket, jeans ‘n’ flip-flops (yikes!) combo. Hair razed in a severe crop, he isn’t the floppy indie moppet of 1990, but then, who is? Joining him as he spangles on his twelve-string is Nick Moorbath, owner of the Zodiac, plus That Goldrush Bloke again, how very Oxford. There are fiddle bits and trumpety bits and new stuff gets mixed amongst the olden tunes. ‘Beautiful Ghosts’ breezes along with that familiar melancholy yearning, ‘Magdalen Sky’ has a bombastic loveliness. The indie kids squirm joyfully to ‘Dreams Burn Down’ and ‘Leave
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Man!’ I tell him eruditely, pointing rudely. He does a brief dance move to confirm that I am correct and tells us we should see The Brakes. So we do. In the Lounge Tent (so called ‘cos there’s a settee in one corner). Cor! It’s a bit sweaty in here, everyone’s squished in to marvel at the little moustachey bloke from Electric Soft Parade passing a joint to his fellow band members who include Eamon from British Sea Power being scary on vocals. They play lots of stumpy stunted alarming songs that are not so much quirky as demented – this is an ace thing. One goes, ‘Won’t you shut the fuck up, I’m just trying to watch the band’ a sentiment close to my own heart on many an occasion, it lasts for half a minute (ish, I didn’t time it). Another one goes ‘Stop Being Such A Dick!’ That’s it. End of song. Concise and to the point, none of that messing about with choruses and middle eights and
taking it to the bridge nonsense. We hear ‘Quite a negative song about a band’, it goes, ‘I heard about your band/And now you’re in the fucking NME!’ There are ripsnorting riffs and Eamon looks rather angry about things, but then they cover The Jesus And Mary Chain’s ‘Sometimes Always’ lobbing a loopy guitar solo into its midst as Eamon plays the parts of both Jim Reid and Hope Sandoval. This is the best fun so far. Intrigued by the name Tiger Club, we pace the ten metres across the field to the Trailer Park Tent only to find two nondescript geezers singing meaningful harmonies against lush keyboards and guitars. It’s kind of ‘Carnival of Light’-lite, wist-pop stuff. Without the sitting in a lake bit. A girl who looks like you could copy your homework off her sits behind her keyboard, hands folded in her lap, grinning at her mates in the audience. Oh the unattainable glamour. We stagger out to grab ourselves chairs (wow! civilised sitting down on real furniture) in the Acoustic Tent. Everyone is happily sitting ensconced until a gaggle of folks stride in and
stand slap bang at the front. The formerly mellow floor-dwelling crowd becomes disgruntled, muttering occurs, shouting starts, stuff is thrown. Joe Sgt Buzfuz (for ‘tis he!) politely asks the view-blocking offenders to sit down and is snapped at nastily. Amidst this simmering, Thomas Truax trundles onstage, bright blue eyes under a mat of black
everyone else? Drama queens.
hair. Complaining happens, Thomas bemusedly asks The Standing People to sit down so the rest of the audience can maybe see him perform. The Standing People take offence and storm out. We all cheer, ‘Hurrah!’ Festival justice is done. Later The Standing People corner Thomas to tell him how distraught they are by this treatment and that they paid £35 just to come here and see him. So why didn’t they just sit down and like, you know, watch along with
turning it into a trampoline. The Truax touring contingent of The Hornicator and Sister Spinster (oddball genius home-made instruments) are joined by the Spinster’s new baby brother, the Backbeater. He’s worn on Thomas’ back like a rucksack and ticks out a monster purring heartbeat to accompany an eerie version of ‘Summertime’. Thomas takes the Hornicator for its traditional stroll around the audience, gathering samples of people’s voices for ‘The Fish’ before playing back our looped applause. We all sound very impressed.
After this excitement, we’re ready for a trip to Wowtown with Mr Truax, a place where songs like ‘Prove It To My Daughter’ swoop like happy bats out of the twilight. ‘Shooting Stars’ marches, gulps and yodels as Thomas jumps about the incredibly bouncy stage, inadvertently
It’s 7pm, the sun’s low and the wind’s rising. We can’t get into the crammed Trailer Park tent to see Piney Gir, the vodka’s long gone, we’ve sampled the veggie burgers served up by an efficient production line of local Rotary Club jolly old uncle types. Time to get out whilst the going’s good. So we get the bus back to Oxford to drink cups of tea and watch ‘Big Brother’. Victor’s been evicted you know.
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Truck Festival - Day Two Hillside Farm, Steventon 25th July 2004
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efreshed after a good night’s sleep on curiously high beds, we trundle through the sun-kissed Oxford countryside back to Truck to be greeted by the blank eyed stares of those who have spent the night under canvas. People slump wearily on the grass waiting for the breakfast beers to kick in and for The Evenings to prepare toast and jam Live! Onstage! Sadly I miss this crumb-based extravaganza. I’m busy wondering if you can put vodka in a banana smoothie and watching The Relationships strum out their shimmery, spiralling guitar pop. It sounds like 80s Byrdsy janglers (and Kitten homies) The Avons, which is a mighty fine sound to start the day with. At the front a small girl jumps up and
”It’s the most enthusiastic reaction to first-band-on syndrome ever.” down furiously waving a sparkly streamer above her head. It’s the most enthusiastic reaction to first-band-on syndrome ever. She’s joined by the hippy with a ribbon in his hair who seems to swirl on regardless throughout
everything. The Relationships play a song called ‘Living In A House With Brian Jones’. Says it all really. Not sure who to choose to see next, we peruse the programme for inspiration and are intrigued by its description of Chris McMath as ‘one of the most eccentric and imaginative solo performers of a generation.’ Blimey! Over to the Trailer Park tent it is. Now, far be it for me to accuse the Truck programme writers of hyperbole, but all I can see is a nondescript bloke doing quirky solo acousto strummage. S’alright, but nothing spesh. He could at least make us some jam sandwiches or something with The Evenings’ leftover ingredients. There’s still an air of dazed-
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ness to everyone as we tiptoe out the back of the tent and over to the Barn for some kidz poonk rawk shoutyness from Red Shift. They’ve got those guitars that go ggg ggg gggg bludgeon, bludgeon and the singer has a good ‘Yaaarrrr!’ teenage poonk voice. As I’m not a 17 year old boy wearing them baggy trousers it’s not really my thing, but if I was I’d think this Rocked. Dude. Plus it’s quite exciting to be standing in a cowshed on a Sunday morning with a glitterball sparkling overhead and NOISE ricocheting off the concrete floor, rather than stacking bales or something. It’s time we glammed up in this here cowshed, so here come Chikinki with their masht up beats and weirdy weebly keyboard soundz. They sound like they’ve taken the freak-out stratosphere-canoodling bits of Super Furry Animals and built monstrous floor crunching dippy dance pop songs out of them. There are lush melodies and funky bits and bleeps and it’s
the stage, snorting out their tumultuous, exuberant songs. The Cribs are pop stars and their set is over far too quickly for my liking.
all jolly invigorating, although the singer seems to take his strutting hipstered Jaggerism rather seriously. Come on, it’s a laugh mate. Check out your mad scientist bespectacled keyboard man, now there be cool.
The best thing to do now is to immerse oneself in some cabaret rock with lashings of campness, so here’s Do Me Bad Things in the Trailer Tent. They are frankly, horrifying. There are four meat ‘n’ potatoes big hairy rock men ripping out sleazy, scuzzy riffage. So far so what you say, but look closer. The two guitarists who look like they’re from any ten a penny shifty garage combo are wearing bright slashes of red lipstick to compliment their trucker caps and long hair. And argh! What’s this? A skinny
Stumbling out of the barn, we feel like we’ve been to a proper gig, and eagerly look around for the next bundle of pop fun. A fine squonking noise is ratcheting from the Trailer Park tent, so we squeeze our way in to find the Young Knives are curly blokes playing itchy guitars. They belt out scratchy, angular tunes laden with insistently groovy half-witted riffs. The singer has a semi Fear-
”tunes laden with insistently groovy halfwitted riffs” gal Sharkey warble to his voice (but without the Sharkster’s latterday wankerage) and does an ace jump off of an amp, flying high above our heads, but luckily not ripping through the tent’s canvas ceiling. Onwards! Boo it’s started to rain, but then, hurrah! It’s stopped again. To the Barn to dance like a loon as The Cribs throw themselves hither and thither across
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man in the same lipstick and a pink leopard skin shirt is writhing about the stage shrieking in a theatrical manner, the big queen. He’s backed by a motley looking trio of ladies belting it out in a similarly overboard way. Do Me Bad Things seem not so much a band as a theatre troupe and their set has the air of a musical that’s been hi-jacked by rock ‘n’ roll reprobates as the lead vocalists chop and change amongst the nine-strong band personnel. It all looks like ace fun and seems queasily alien in the bright white confines of this tent. Staggering out, we seize upon Kaito’s squeaky beaty fabness to charm our alarmed senses before sheltering in the merch tent, talking to Gary Crib and clutching a falafel (which is eyed hungrily by the Chikinki singer – careful, you won’t be able to squeeze into those hipsters any more). It’s 5 o’clock – time for a bit of class, eh? What could be
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more classy than an orchestra? Unless it’s The Orff Orchestra playing to a crammed Lounge Tent. When I say playing, I mean various drunken Schla La Las clad in evening dress and masks plus a Black Madonna
” A bloke next to me is having problems playing his kazoo” all hollering out spine chilling versions of top pop faves like ‘How Soon Is Now’ to a massed kazoo accompaniment. But hey, this is an equal opportunities song mangling environment, kazoos are handed out to the audience and we’re all ready for a cathartic (in the same way that vomiting can be cathartic) rendering of ‘Daydream Believer’. This is great. A bloke next to me is having problems playing his kazoo, ‘You’ve got it the wrong way round’ prompts an Orffer. He turns it round and blows feverishly before sulkily declaring, ‘This kazoo’s rubbish.’ I consider explaining to him how to play a kazoo, but it’s really not worth it, is it?
ist is rocking the ‘I’m just wearing whatever I grabbed off the floor (in 1984)’ look with a ‘vintage’ (i.e. jumble) Radio 1 tee shirt. But never mind the band, check out the audience. A gaggle of eye-linered young boys bounce their way to the front and start laying down some fine ‘n’ funky ‘interpretative’ dance moves. These are soon augmented with some avant garde stripping. Boy one removes his tee shirt and uses his scarf as a er, bra. Boy two goes for gold and just pulls down his trousers and pants, continuing to jump about all the while. Some Schla La Las (still drunken) join in (the dancing) po-going and punching the air. This is the best audience reaction since the little girl with the ribbon. Time for one more band before we leave this haven of pop non-
The larks continue back in the Trailer Tent with gonzoid sludge rock trio The Black Madonnas. They play big dumb knee-trembling songs of funky shoutyness like ‘Cross Fire’ full of fuzzzz and ‘c’mooaan!!’s and ‘Dirty River’ full of low-down bass and squawling guitar. In his red jacket, the singer looks like a cross between a deranged ringmaster and a batty toff riding out with the hounds. Meanwhile, the guitar-
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sense. So to the Lounge Tent, where a drunk old man is passed out on the settee, for the Youth Club Tape Club Crew. This consists of some Lesbo Pigs, but mainly Winston Echo, a round, curly-haired boy, playing simple sing-song folk-pop on guitar with shamble beat drumming.. There’s a song about being a pirate called ‘Aaargh!’ Which gets the drunk bloke roused enough to shout, ‘Fuck you and your family!’ ‘Thanks!’ replies Mr Echo. This is incredibly funny. We all clap along happily to another song, glad to be doing something useful. The short, sweet set is thoroughly endearing and quite soothing after the preceding chaos. We’re left with the warm glow of community and not having filled the coporate coffers as we amble off over the fields into the sunset.
The Boyfriends Betsey Trotwood 21st August 2004 Janice Long in 1983. The fantastically titled, ‘Brave Little Soldiers’ crashes through with bright splashes of brittle sound. ’Once Upon A Time’ is a nosebleed cycle ride to the shops with racing drums and spidery guitar. ‘Hurrah!’ I write in my notebook. ‘We scheme about/ And dream about/ And we’ve been known to scream about/ That certain thing called
”The sweat sparkles on Martin’s head like sugar on a fruit pastille.”
‘W
e’ve got to have/ We plot to have/ For it’s dreary not to have/ That certain thing called The Boyfriends.’ The Noel Coward song keeps running through my brain whenever I happen across The Boyfriends, showing me up for the fop I am. The band, however, have gone for The Ramones’ ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’ as their intro tape. A perfect piece of bubble-gum to introduce their set of ringing, brooding, bruise-eyed, melodic pop moodiness. The sound bounces all over the bloody show in the Betsey’s sweaty low-ceilinged basement, but it doesn’t matter. The band snap at the heels of the songs,
The Boyfriends.’ The sweat sparkles on singer Martin’s head like sugar on a fruit pastille. No, it really does, that’s what goes through my head as pitching them vigorously across the room, obviously feeling feisty as they’re fresh from a photo-shoot for ‘Boyz’
”I’m gonna be a gay icon!” magazine (‘I’m gonna be a gay icon!’). They rattle through eight pristine tunes, leaving us thrilling in their wake. ‘No Tomorrow’, is familiar from the latest Angular Records sampler, and still the greatest song I never taped off
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I watch. Another thing that goes through my head is: The Boyfriends look like a band, rather than a disparate bunch of blokes who all happen to be playing the same songs. Even upon the sorry excuse for a stage that the Betsey has provided, Martin has the presence of a man who’s thoroughly at ease with being a focal point and it’s kind of nice to hear someone who can sing well without being flashy. During the non-singing bits, he calmly folds his arms, gazing into the middle distance, and because he’s six foot three and wearing a snappy white jacket he still looks commanding. Mean-
”David’s looking like that cool older kid down the village disco circa 1982” while on bass, David’s looking like that cool older kid down the village disco circa 1982 - stickyup hair, skinny white jeans, scrappy tie.Guitarist Richard is the one you don’t usually notice in Vermont (the band not the state) where he’s on bass hidden behind his capering band-mates. With The Boyfriends you get
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to notice his guitar playing and you get to go, ‘Woo! That’s ace!’ at it. Especially on final song, ‘There Is Always Hope’ where he twists and scratches out noise, hunched over like the mighty William Reid. During this last song Martin departs (the effect slightly spoiled by the fact you can see him sitting in an alcove) leaving the band to scrimmage their way through to the end, leaving a screeching guitar and no encore. An excellent exit, ‘We’re blue without/ Can’t do without/ Our dreams just won’t come true without/ That certain thing called The Boyfriends’
Luxembourg / The Schla La Las / The Swear Islington Bar Academy 7th September 2004
I
’ve been playing luxembourg’s ‘What The Housewives Don’t Tell You’ incessantly since it sneaked through my letterbox a few weeks ago, but tonight is the official single launch at the freakishly clean and shiny Islington ‘I’m not dignifying that crappy lager with a name’ Bar Academy. Last week I thrilled to their performance flung out devil may care style in the appallingly carpeted work social club of those dastardly Sounds XP chappies. It was exciting enough to get me rushing back for more five days later. I initially think the between bands music has been especially chosen by luxembourg as a kind of pre-emptive critical strike designed to show off their influences. There’s Suede and Morrissey, er Dubstar and hmm, Sleeper (I’m thinking, ‘Well, could be a kitchen-sink lyrics thing’). Then I realise this must be the venue’s idea of ‘indie’ background music. They’re playing some kind of ‘Best Of Britpop’ nonsense. At least I hope they are. I start feeling queasy at the idea of a band flaunting the combined influences of Echobelly and Skunk Anansie.
a stiff-legged, wobbly-headed quiver dance, like artpunk bands of yesteryear. Funny how small movements can summon up an entire past era. Along with fellow guitarist and singer Tycie, he whips up a sound like a swarm of bees. They pile through a bundle of itchy, twitchy tunes with a spikey boy/girl dynamic, with the emphasis on grrrl. On ‘Japanese Pop Song’ Tycie hollers in a powerful, resonant voice whilst Andrew pitches in more lightly. Best of all is ‘High Rise’ (as featured on the first Angular Records Sampler) which is thundery and spindly, churny and squeaky in all the right places, whipping the backs of your legs with its twitchy towel of rhythm. Now, The Schla La Las are ladies that understand the power
Happily, The Swear show no tendencies towards either of these bands’ oeuvres, preferring to plough that currently popular furrow of jerky, scritchy new wave art pop. Guitarist Andrew does
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of a well-placed accessory. They know that likin’thewayyoulook ’n’ lookin’thewayyoulike does wonders for your confidence and thus gives you top pop performing superpowers. Tonight they’re dressed like rockin’ Pink Ladies in matching (always matching) red shirts and anchor-patterned skirts. The Schla La Las are ladies that understand the importance of making an entrance, ‘Are you ready…let’s go!’ they sing on ‘Get Ready’, as Piney and Katrin hand jive ferociously like rockin’ air hostesses.They then proceed to blast through a delicious selection box of rumbling, roughed up melodies. There’s ace girls’ mag photostory grooviness in one song that goes something like, ‘I don’t care about your bad boy reputation/ I don’t care about your secret situation/ I’m the only one who can make you feel right…baybee come over tonite.’ Another one sung by Vicki and Delia sounds like a cross between one of Lee Hazlewood’s tall tales and a Burl Ives children’s song. Then there’s scuzzy garage that’s filthier than a slick of sump oil, but topped with multiple harmonies sprinkled on like hundreds and thousands. The Schla La Las are ladies that understand that all the best bands have a theme song (e.g. The Banana Splits, Schwervon!) and wind up their show with their mighty, ‘Schlas Theme’.
Sadly there’s no time for it to segue into The Violent Femmes’ ‘Add It Up’ like what sometimes happens, because luxembourg are waiting to play, it would be rude to hog the stage and of course The Schla La Las are (gum-snappin’, wise-crackin’, hop-rockin’, tip-toppin’) ladies. luxembourg are all posture and plenty of substance. Singer David is a bit Jarvis, a bit Morrissey, a bit Brett, but mostly he’s David from luxembourg, perfecting the art of pulling poses. He does a fantastic one during ‘Closecropped’, singing ‘I want your three day old stubble’ (demonstratively holds up three fingers) ‘Dragged across my face’ (drags aforementioned three fingers across face). During ‘Relief’ he croons, ‘Are you aching to get some relief?’ whilst going weak at the knees then falling onto them. Meanwhile, on keyboards, Alex, enveloped in a furry gorilla-glam jacket atop a scrawled ‘Fucking Tourist’ t-shirt (sadly not ‘Fucking Florist’ as certain people misread) has perfected the keyboard
player’s pout of extreme boredom (see also Ron Mael, Neil Codling), breaking cover only to hammer the keys in moments of high drama. The songs are full of the course of love never running smooth, smooth boys running rough, coarse boys roughing
up the smooth. This is precision built pop with a nasty glint in its eye courtesy of Alex’s deranged squealing keyboards and Rob‘s twitching thrusting guitar throttling antics. The squelching flashboy Hi-NRG romp of ‘Success is Never Enough’ contrasts with the delicate, swooning ‘Mishandled’, a song that gazes dry-eyed and sleepless from its tower-block window as David cracks open a fine falsetto. I find myself cocking an ear to catch the words, smart lines stacked up to create vignettes, expressing lust and disgust in equal measure. Don’t you love it when a band really makes you want to hear what they have to say? For encore ‘Making Progress’ with its gleaming chorus and ‘Popcorn’-esque keyboards, David works his way through its extended narrative section. As he laconically enunciates through the maelstrom, it’s impossible to make out this tale of consumerist meltdown, you need to listen to the record to appreciate that, but it’s glorious watching the band explode their way to the ending. In a world of shabby, scabby Libertines-lite interlopers, swoon with joy, for luxembourg are here to wrench you out of the gutter to gaze at the stars in their eyes.
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Super Furry Animals People’s Festival Hall 1st October 2004
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o, I was just going to stick a lovely Underexposed photo up here with a comment along the lines of ‘Woo Gruff’s had his hair cut. Hmmmm…’ But no, what with them releasing a singles compilation (volume one, mind) now is as good a time as any to tarry a while and contemplate the mighty splendour of the Super Furry Animals. Tonight’s celebration of all things furry is entitled ‘Lightning Fryday’. As Gruff later explains onstage, SFA, being admirably republican, wanted to rename the Royal Festival Hall the People’s Festival Hall, but the staff at the RFH ‘said no ‘cos we’ll get the sack’. We wander into the PFH foyer and ponder a motley selection of old SFA t-shirts and random posters advertising their past records. This, apparently, is ‘an exhibition of SFA memorabilia’. Frankly it’s a bit half-arsed. I could have set up a better ‘exhibition’. I’ve got a flier from their first EVAH! London gig at the Water Rats with ‘Wales Takes Drugs in Psychic Defence’ printed on it. My friend Mat has (had probably) the set list from this
gig where after the final song it says ‘Get wasted yeah!’ There’ve been loads of SFA badges down the years that could be displayed here in a pleasing manner, too. Gah! Popart, it’s not as easy as it looks. Moving on, we ensconce ourselves in front of the Ballroom (oooh! state of you!) stage for an acoustic ‘set’ by Gruff and Bunf. This consists of Gruff announcing the line-up for tonight as Bunf giggles, they manage to turn the
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whole thing into an ad-libbed ‘song’ hastily entitled ‘The Ballad of Level 5’. We get an explanation as to why the remaining ‘Radiator’ era inflatable bear is nowhere to be seen – it wouldn’t fit indoors and when they tried putting it on the roof of Queen Elizabeth Hall it nearly blew away to become skewered on Norman Foster’s gherkin (it’s a building). They then strum their way through ‘Fire In My Heart’ and shuffle off somewhat shamefaced. This is all unutterably ace.
Next, we sway gently as Richard James strums delicate folky tunes that are reminiscent of Gorky’s more wistful moments. This is unsurprising as Mr James is in Gorky’s. We bypass the opportunity to enter Howard Marks’ confessional booth (and have the resultant discussion with Wales’ favourite ex-drug-dealer broadcast live on a huge screen in the auditorium). Instead we take our seats (row X cheers) wandering how everyone’s going to deal with dancing without toppling headfirst over the row in front. Super Furries are magnifique. They play a set of two halves. First a selection of quieter, softer songs. This works well, allowing you to sit back comfortably and listen properly without fidgeting. They start with the thoroughly gorgeous ‘Demons’ (the fancy dress brass players wearing monk’s cowls this time). Aaaah, that bit in the middle where we all float away into a melancholy mariachi sunset, still gets me every time. There’s the sparkling, mossy ‘Nythod Cacwn’ that always makes me think of boat trips; ye olde ‘Hometown Unicorn’ transporting me back to those early gigs before SFA had whatever it is they suddenly
got* that transformed them into such a skyscraping live band. We sit in our seats luxuriating in the sound, like wriggling our toes under the duvet on a Saturday morning. Oh, and then they play the sublime ‘Presidential Suite’ and it’s really hard not to blub like a big baby, especially during the ‘When we met/There were fireworks in the sky/Sparkling like dragonflies’ line. I hurriedly sip my ‘special’ coca-cola. This is the good thing about the Festival Hall (as well as the marvy interior design), the nice old ladies on the door don’t rummage in your handbag, so you can bringa-bottle. Cheers. (* I can tell you exactly when this happened – 30th October 1997 at The Forum, they were just suddenly storming, essential.) There’s a fifteen minute interval, everyone storms the bar, then everyone storms back in ready to STAND UP for the exuberant second half of the set. Lots of people bundle dahn the front, but it’s a long way down too many steps so we settle for dancing about happily within our row, every now and then making a foray into the aisle when we feel the need to add bolder moves in order to fully express our joy
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at the sonic loveliness on offer. How we chortle as an overly refreshed friend turns to the stranger beside him and mimes along fervently to the ‘I’m not in love with you’ bit on ‘Juxtaposed With You.’ Super Furries’ singles – you have to admit every one’s a winner, ‘The International Language Of Screaming’, ‘Hermann Loves Pauline’, ‘(Drawing) Rings Around The World), ‘Do Or Die’, glamtastic hair-banging ‘Golden Retriever’, point-in-the-air ‘God! Show Me Magic’, clapalonga ‘Play It Cool’. But what’s this? No ‘Northern Lights’? Instead the eternal live fave ‘Calimera’ (a b-side!) is brought out for a spin, complete with ‘I feel like chicken tonite’ lyric (the aisle is needed for this one). We get an alarming ‘Receptacle For The Respectable’ and a woozy ‘Hello Sunshine’. I’m thrilled to incandescence when they play ‘Ice Hockey Hair’. There’s a palpable sense of mass euphoria, driven to its peak as a teasing intro to, ‘The Man Don’t Give A Fuck’ begins. Can one ever tire of jumping up and down to this song? Of course not. Just like one (if one has any sense whatsoever) can never tire of Super Furry Animals. Roll on volume two.
The Fucks / The Violets / The Vichy Government 7th October 2004 Goldsmiths College
T
he Vichy Government consist of puckish, Dickonesque (if your concept of ‘Dickonesque’ is based around foppishness and peroxide) ‘singer’ Jamie and keyboard bleeper Andrew, whose thoughts are conveyed to us via Jamie. The pair are alarming and endearing in equal measure. Jamie, resplendent in a baby blue placcy mac smoothed over his shirt and tie, curls out polemical tales that toy with the unbearable shiteness of being, politically, historically and hilariously. The beauty of Jamie’s singing technique is that it’s basically him talking, so you hear what he’s saying, none of that slurry rockstar crap here, sonny. What’s more you actually want to hear what he’s saying, it’s sheer bluddy poetry, mate. So we get the likes of ‘Oliver Cromwell in Weimar Berlin’, “Watching the cabaret begin/ Could the ordeal be heaven sent? / What will he say to parliament?” Against Jamie’s sing-song intonation, Andrew pokes at the keyboard, encouraging it to emit squidgey noises that sound like early Depeche Mode plinky plonky breaks taken out of context. The skinny bleeps sound stark and slightly embarrassed shivering in their underpants beside drum machine beats. The audience of students blinks up at the band and Jamie advises them that they might as well hang themselves now, before
they find themselves working in Burger King. “I told them I was warts and all, they thought I was talking genital.” The Violets – I suddenly remember my friend Mary’s pink striped jumper dress, 1981 vintage, that she got from the trendy kids shop ‘Young Generation’. This flashback comes courtesy of Alexis who’s giving it her tough girl slinky-punk best strutting the stage in heels, slithering left and right. I’m thinking Deborah Harry, not just the obvious blondeness, but in the way Alexis fronts up and shimmies. I remember being thrilled by Kim Wilde doing ‘Kids In America’ (more of which later...) listening to it on the radio and trying to scribble down the lyrics as she sang. Damn she was cool, and I couldn’t write fast enough. Whilst all this is scrolling across my memory, the soundtrack is The Violets cranky, angular guitar ‘n’ drums elbowsin-the-ribs beat. The guitar (as
played by Joe in his Mickey Pearce finest) cuddles up to the battering drums as Alexis yelps ‘n’ shouts, wiggles ‘n’ stamps groovily. Best song is the slower, more considered ‘Come In’. I grin approvingly at David Luxemboy next to me, thinking he must be marvelling at this song’s splendour too. He smiles vaguely. The Fucks are here to ‘launch’ their fab new e.p. and are well up for it. George and Jemma, strapped into their guitars like they’re children’s safety seats in the back of a car, know it’s their party and they can act the giddy goat if they want to. They play thumpy, squiggly, charity-shop rock laden with squawky vocals and tinny beats. ‘I Don’t Like It’ comes across like a bratty Schwervon! with George on guitar, Jemma on gut-throttling bass and the keyboard on silly Bontempi beats. ‘I Love NY’ is dedicated to anyone with one of those tee-shirts and features ‘huh? Oh yeah’ chord changes and icky, squiffy vocals. ‘Slash Attack’ is apparently ‘Based on a real-life slashing incident’ and
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features Jemma on scribbly guitar complete with scratchy, snippy solo and ‘80s new waver lady vocals. For the next song, Jemma repairs to the keyboard, smooshing down the keys and making it sound like she has eighteen fingers. The crowd skips and jumps and punches the air, possibly because they’re students, maybe because they’re friends of The Fucks, or perhaps that’s what always happens in South London. Whatever, this is exactly as it should be, this is giggly, wiggly music that demands a jubilantly pissed knees up as a backdrop. The Fucks climax with a scabby, apocalyptic version of ‘Kids In America’, draining it of any ‘relevance’ by yelling, ‘We’re the kids, we’re the kids, we’re the kids in America’ in a thoroughly un-American way. It’s ace. They then close proceedings with a synchronised arm-wav-
ing dance that carries them off stage left, only the kids are having none of it demanding further thrills by chanting, ‘Fucks! Fucks! Fucks!’ So for an encore we get a demented race through ‘Deceptacon’. Exactly a week later, I’m gleefully jumping about in a big crowd of girls as Le Tigre play this song and I’m hard pushed to decide which version’s more exciting. Altogether now, ‘Who put the plink in the rinky dink dink dink?’
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The Loves / Dustin’s Bar Mitzvah / And What Will Be Left Of Them? The Betsey Trotwood 31 November 2004
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nd What Will Be Left Of Them are utterly lovely. Capturing our hearts from the off, they play bouncy, catchy, frisky pop. Singer Lucy careens about cheekily, landing smackers on guitarist Peter’s cheek and waving a severed arm about (it’s Halloween you know). They belt out exuberant, rampaging tunes topped off with a whirligig organ sound, courtesy of Matt. On ‘Vive La Revolution’ they are The B52s doing experiments in the garden shed. Then they’re X-Ray Spex with piercings instead of braces. At other moments their call and response rhyming conjures up Le Tigre with added goofyness. By the time Peter’s shed his top (to reveal a torso grubbily streaked with grey – remnants of last night’s Zombie costume) and Lucy’s taken to the audience to stomp and twist frantically we’re utterly sold. As their pop smash, ‘Where Are You Tonight?’ sagely suggests, ‘It ain’t worth nothing if I ain’t got your heart.”
sneery boys crashing through scabby, snotty, shouty tunes, smirking out from shaggy hair and woolly scarves tied old man muffler style. You can almost smell the old socks and halfeaten pot noodles. They start with, possibly, ‘Somebody Put Something In My Drink’ (is it The Ramones version? Who knows?) Then proceed to crash through a pile up of songs that are equal parts exhilarating and irritating, full of shitty guitars and sulky vocals.
After such a display of unabashed wiggy enthusiasm, Dustin’s Bar Mitzvah come across like teenagers being asked to tidy their rooms. Four Page 40
It’s nasty, half-arsed and brilliantly entertaining. At one point a hissing, whistling noise emanates from the stage. Sulky singerbloke is bemused, ‘What’s that noise?’ It’s feedback, you fool and if you’ve got any clue whatsoever you’ll keep it in. Messy boys making a messy noise. Having cracked apart like a broken heart earlier in the year, The Loves have healed themselves with a change of personnel -
plenty more fish in the sea and all that. So here we are back at The Betsey where our Loves affair first began in 2001, ready to try again. Simon Love (resplendent in eyeliner and polka-dots) and trusty lieutenants Daveon-drums and Pnosni-on-guitar are flanked by a trio of new lady Loves who do the old songs
proud. Tonight’s band dress code is something like ‘dress glamorously for Simon’s funeral’. So Anna, (keyboards) DC Love (bass) and Jenna (extra vocals) surround Simon, shimmying sophisticatedly in black, looking like a mental cartoon version of the ‘Addicted To Love’(s) video. Meanwhile, Pnosni is resplendent in a home-made zombie costume lovingly stitched from bandages, with a papier-mâché mask in a sickly shade of green – at least, I think it was a mask, ho ho. Rather than disorientating us with new songs as well as new members the re-invigorated band are here to canter through a set of Loves classics, every one a perfectly formed iced pop
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gem. The sound may be held together with bits of string, but it’s a joy to hear The Loves rattling through the likes of ‘Little Girl Blues’, ‘Depeche Mode’ and ‘Kiss, Kiss, Kiss’. New girl Jenna takes centre stage (metaphorically, there’s no room for changing position in The Betsey) to sing a shiny version of ‘Chelsea Girl’, although her relief when it’s over is palpable. As the set progresses, the band
”there’s a fizzy, celebratory air to proceedings” hits their stride, so by the time ‘Boom Bang A Bang’ and (Kitten fave) ‘Fucked Up’ swing round there’s a fizzy, celebratory air to proceedings. I’m squished in a corner wiggling about trying not to bash my head on a speaker, feeling like I’m on the set of a dayglo ‘60s film; specifically the groovy party scene – ‘Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls’ maybe? “In a scene like this you get a contact high.” You only get that feeling from The Loves. This is why I’ve missed their fuzzily cute psychedelic bubblegum jangle pop. Never learn not to Loves.
…And You Will Know Us By the Trail Of Dead ULU 2nd December 2004
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ah, my beloved Trail of Dead, the band who meld the visceral with the cerebral - although sometimes you wish the two weren’t so closely connected when you’ve got band members and equipment landing on your head. I’d been a bit uncertain about this gig beforehand, the usual excitement dampened by my being underwhelmed by new single ‘World’s Apart’ (sounds strangely like ‘Waltzing Matilda’) and the fact that bass hero Neil Busch has seemingly gone for good. Yep, things is changing in TOD land. Neil’s bass replacement is mighty, illustrated man Danny Wood of The Rise who has managed to smash the restrictive TOD (lack of) height laws, bestriding the stage as a seven foot colossus. Then there’s the addition of an EXTRA drummer, Doni Schroader from Forget Cassettes. Is there anything finer than seeing two drumkits set up side by side? Squatting silently,
gleaming malevolently, waiting for all hell to break loose. So here I am lined up at the barrier (what’s this? Since when did ULU have a photopit?) getting quite excited now, as the stage goes black and Conrad creeps on to start rattling about spookily on the organ – ooer. The tension heightens until…’We’ll be with you soon, one of the band is outside buying shoes from a homeless person.’ And with that Conrad scampers off again. Then it all kicks off, shadowy figures stalk the stage as the thumping intro to newy ‘Will You Smile Again’ judders around the room. Okay, I’m properly excited now. This is the first of three new songs that get played tonight and it’s littered with glitter stomp (double) drums, raw and sparse, kicking out a marching beat. It’s a fine way to start, slapping a ‘Ha! We’re Back!’ stamp on proceedings from the off. TOD have always been masters of
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the thrillingly portentous song opening, a trick they pull off on several occasions tonight with old faves like ‘Aged Dolls’, and the mighty ‘Mistakes and Regrets’ which, second song in, shakes the crowd from their new song reverie. It’s almost business as usual then as ‘It Was There‘ keeps things sweatily hyper and ‘Homage’ allows Jason his first opportunity to break out and shake loose from behind his drums. Not that he’s letting them confine him; the great thing about having Doni on board is that it allows Jason to rampage round the stage/ audience without the songs missing a beat. During his nonsinging numbers, he still rushes to the front to shout before throwing himself back down for a bit of an old drum. This means we get double the fun with Jason and Conrad dementedly showing out at the front together. Jason does his clambering along the
barrier, hollering thing. Squished underneath a raving, sodden Jason, I exchange excited grins with the girl next to me. Is this what it’s like being 12 years old at a boyband concert? New song number two is ‘Classic Art Showcase’ - straight up rock with a 12 string middle for which, oh joy! Conrad straps on a double-necked guitar and manages to still look cool. So things change, things stay the same. Neil is sorely missed, not because Danny’s not an ace bassman, but because it just doesn’t seem right without Mr Busch balancing the left side of the stage with his amp-toppling, lead-throttling antics. Plus, we presumably won’t get to hear ace Neilsongs like ‘Mark David Chapman’ and ‘Monsoon’ any more. This is not good. So, Kevin takes up Neil’s place, no longer able to lurk at the back smoking up a storm and calmly strangling his guitar. At one point he takes the unprecedented step of hurling his guitar high across the stage, it bounces off a light and narrowly misses Conrad’s head as it plummets to the floor. So, yes some things stay the same, instruments hurtle across the stage, drumsticks (no drum-
kits this time) fly into the crowd, Jason flies into the crowd, at one point I look round and Conrad’s in the crowd, jumping about in appreciation of his own band. Jason stalks the stage again to stampede his way through, ‘Days of Being Really Fucked Up and Killing People Motherfuckers’ which I think has maybe had a title change? As Conrad reclaims mastery of the stage, he’s distraught to find liquid pooling across it, ‘What’s this mess up here? Did you pee?’ Jason, ‘I think I urinated on stage.’ Thus third new song, ‘Caterwaul’ is introduced. Caterwaul sounds like an adjunct to ‘Days…’ which is to say it’s thumpingly ace, stirring shoutalong chorus and all.
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Of the new songs it’s the most immediate and seems to get the biggest crowd reaction, perhaps because it involves Jason clambering up the speaker stacks, sitting, legs swinging like a naughty child/monkey, before plummeting back down onto the stage. That shiny old chestnut, ‘A Perfect Teenhood’ delivers its delirious thrills and spills and the set ends with an extended, ranting, ‘Richter Scale Madness’ with false endings galore. But look! Instruments are still intact here, time to bust out the encores with a swooning version of ‘How Near How Far’ complete with a ridiculous buggering up of the middle bit as Conrad flashes an ‘it’s all gone pear-shaped!’ goofy grin. Thanks to a broken guitar strap, Kevin plays the entire song on his knees, prompting Conrad to ask, ‘Were you having a religious moment there?’ Finally there’s a magnificent, ferocious ‘Totally Natural’ with Jason and Conrad patrolling the lip of the stage, the barriers, the crowd’s heads as everyone loses it big-time and all the equipment gets a thorough duffing up… …scenes of devastation, everything’s scattered in pieces across the stage, in the middle Jason is repeatedly stabbing at a toppled bassdrum, aiming to pierce its skin. Conrad approaches his bandmate, takes him gently by the arm and leads him away.
The Magic Numbers The Borderline 7th December 2004 Legs’ and then a gorgeous duet between Romeo and Angela on ‘I See You, I See Me’. It’s not quite Gram and Emmy…no it’s better, ‘cos it’s here and now and fab.
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uring the summer, I keep hearing whispers about The Magic Numbers, about their lush harmonising and their glittering West-Coast tinged melodies. How they’re lead by beardy boy-wonder Romeo and how they’re capturing hearts whenever they play. Hell, gotta get me a piece of that. So winter rolls around and here I am waiting expectantly at The Magic Numbers’ third and final show of a three-week residency at The Borderline. The adoration that’s built up for this band over the last few weeks is palpable. So are they worth it? The word that keeps springing to mind is
‘sparkling’ - from the fairy lights coiling at either side of the stage to the twinkle in Romeo’s eyes as he regards an audience eager for his songs, to the glinting, glimmering sounds. To Romeo’s left is his sister Michelle swinging her bass and hair like a cheery Janis Joplin, on his right is Angela who adds more luxuriant vocals and percussion. Behind them on drums is Angela’s brother Sean. Yep, it’s a family affair. A lot of grinning goes on onstage, knowing smiles between the band members and joyful beams directed at the audience. It’s all a bit unnerving really, what’s so funny? What do they know? They’re making me paranoid, this is London you know, we don’t do smiling here. Argh. Take deep breaths, here comes the music… Proceedings are kicked off with ‘The Mule‘ which melds The Beach Boys with the Smiths before heading off into the stratosphere, it’s cutely psychedelic, warm and fuzzy rather than stark staring bonkers. There are big smiles all round for ‘Forever Lost‘ - flickering sunshine West Coast rock which wouldn’t be out of place on the Elephant 6 label. We get spangly country swing for ‘Long Page 44
There’s 70s AM radio pop mixed with Love for ‘Which Way To Happy‘, there’s Angela breaking out the violin, then a melodica, then chime-bars; there’s sweetiepie soul, tricksy rhythms and always there are those delicious harmonies. Then there’s ‘Hymn To Her’ the current limited edition single full of swooning loveliness, Flamey Lipsiness and the two girls on a dual chime-bar attack. Set closer, ‘Love Me Like You’ is a masterclass in the artistry of building big towards your chorus
as it explodes in a shower of sparks. There’s just time for an encore featuring a new song and more Gram/Emmy crooning, shimmering duetting for ‘Wheels On Fire’. These are the kind of songs that wrap their arms around you, dry your eyes and take you for a spin, it’s like The Polyphonic Spree developed some finelyhoned song-writing skills, or The Mamas and Papas got airlifted into the 21st Century. The Magic Numbers don’t play the kind of life-changing, goose-bumping, sky-scraping sounds that their hype might suggest, they’re much warmer, more intimate than that. It’s not quite what I’d imagined, but exactly what I’d hoped for.
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Television Personalities / Pipas / Stevie Jackson / Mascott Bush Hall 10th December 2004
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tylishly groovy magazine ‘chickfactor’ sure know how to programme a poptastic weekend, but their sense of timing leaves a little to be desired. Having checked their web site for tonight’s opening time, we arrive at Bush Hall fifteen minutes before the alleged showtime of 7.30pm. Hmm, the bar’s a bit empty. Ah, that’ll be because everyone’s inside watching The Aisler Set’s Amy Linton playing solo. We go in as she comes off stage. Cheers for that. Having squeezed around the lavish Christmas tree and ensconced ourselves in our seats, we admire the paper-cut-out butterflies adorning the room and wait for whoever’s up next. A girl stands onstage apparently playing her violin along to a recording of a girl singing and a piano swirling. ‘Oh, that’s a classy way to fill the gap between acts’, I think. Er, no, it eventually becomes apparent that this is in fact cute Manhattan lady band Mascott, and chief Mascott Kendall is singing at a piano but is obscured by the audience. The two ladies (there’s something prim about them that makes me want to call them ladies – it’s not a bad thing you know), swap between piano and
”The songs are simple, sparse and wistful” guitar with the violin adding a country tinge here and there. The songs are simple, sparse and wistful, like The Would-Be-Goods sipping tea on an icey New York morning. I sit in a dreamy, half-listening haze, admiring the tree’s decorations and breathing in its ace Christmassy smell. Belle & Sebastian’s gentleman mod Stevie Jackson, or Action Jackson as we’ve taken to calling him, turns out to be a bit of a star and all round entertainer. Looking like a groovily geeky lecturer
circa 1966 (hey, it’s a great look) he quips and banters his way around a set full of slyly charming pop tunes. He quickly wins us round by playing Beethoven’s ‘Ode To Joy’ on the harmonica before whipping out his guitar and strumming through a Lee Hazlewood style song, complete with deep lilting voice. Most of Stevie’s songs tonight (sorry kids, no Belle & Seb here, move along) are “About girls. Because I like girls. That’s just the way it worked out.” So there’s strummy acoustic loveliness and the gorgeous folky swing of ‘Portland, Oregon’ about having a crush on a girl, to which everyone sways along happily. There’s the bossonova shimmer of ‘Scandinavian Something’ (can’t read my notes – looks like ‘Crispie’, er…’Groupie’ maybe?)
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during which Stevie swaps guitar for a shaky orange (a percussion instrument - what did you think I meant?) At strategic points, Stevie gets his band to bow on cue, even the legend that is Bill Wells, who’s playing bass. Halfway through Stevie says, ‘Bill why don’t you go and entertain us on the piano?’ So Bill tickles the ivories and Stevie puts on his best lounge singer voice for ‘Phone In My Head’. ‘I Took A Long Hard Look’ features Margaret from Mascott and has a maudlin country twang a la ‘Wild Horses’, which is handy as it’s apparently about heroes “like The Rolling Stones”. There’s added violin for the cowboy pop of “Lonely Pop Star”, which starts off sounding exactly like ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’, a cruel trick that sends a frisson of
excitement round the room. We get a ramshackle tumble through ‘Frosty The Snowman’, which loses it in the second verse with Stevie appealing to Duglas BMX Bandit in the front row (for ‘tis he!) to help him out, he doesn’t know the words either though. The snappy, thoroughly beguiling set is brought to a close with “A touching ballad” (as voted for by the audience) in the form of “A song I learned from Alex Chilton. Not personally y’understand”. This turns out to be ‘A Lot Of Living To Do’ (Duglas shouts out the title first) from ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ played sparse and simple with Stevie’s vocals and finger clicks against Bill’s wine-bar chords. It’s been a pick ‘n’ mix assortment of delights. Utterly charmed, we go and buy rather pricey vodka and oranges. The Pipas, a boy, a girl, their computer and their guitars are their usual lovable, sham-
bolic selves, running through a selection of swoony tunes and delicate beats. A typical song involves them shimmying along, tripping themselves up, giggling and abruptly turning off the backing track to denote the end. That’s not to say they can’t write songs, these are cute electopop anthems for the kids who like to rave in the privacy of their bedrooms, analogue and digital fizzing together merrily. ‘Bitter Club‘ begins with a scratchy recording of an Internet dial-up tone, before Mark’s fragile heartbreak voice sings a tale of unrequited hanging about, “Waiting for your email”. One song called maybe ‘Adios’ fair stomps along with Lupe maniacally gabbling the words. This is the first time I’ve seen Pipas on a large(ish) stage and they suit it, although the ‘electronic mayhem’ that ‘Time Out’ suggested they’d whip up is
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maybe stretching it a bit. I’d go for ‘electronic shivers’. Finally, a girl comes onstage to announce a spurious set of nominations which include The Strokes, The Pastels and The
”…and the winner is…The Television Personalities!” White Stripes “…and the winner is…The Television Personalities! But they can’t be here tonight, so here to collect their award are the surviving members of Queen”. At which point all plans for sitting demurely on seats are abandoned as folks rush to huddle at the foot of the stage eager for the long lost Dan Treacy and chums to be the TVPs again for the first time in eight years.
The TVPs have always held an aura of myth and mystery for me. I stumbled across them during a night of taping everything and anything from John Peel in 1986. They did a session that included ‘How I Learned To Love the Bomb’, ‘Paradise Is For The Blessed’ and the mighty ‘Salvador Dali’s Garden Party’.
”I was thrilled and intrigued by this offbeat, innocent yet sinister singsong music.” I was thrilled and intrigued by this offbeat, innocent yet sinister singsong music. I knew nothing about the band, you never really saw anything about them in the music press. Then I found a copy of ‘Mummy You’re Not Watching Me’ upstairs in the electricity
board shop in Lowestoft, the weirdness of the shop adding to the TVPs mysterious charm. I was hooked, but I never saw them play live. Which brings us to tonight.
Here and now The Television Personalities consist of Dan joined by old ‘comrade’ Ed Ball on bass (complete with ancient mod insignia), Matthew on drums and Victoria on extra vocals and
”doll-like curls and groovily demure dress” looking fantastic with doll-like curls and groovily demure dress. Then there’s the out-of-the-blue addition of ex- TVPs/Jasmine Minks bloke Dave on piano, who apparently just turned up and joined in unplanned. Hmm. So, things kick off gloriously with a cover of The Velvet’s ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ which leads us into a rambling mix ‘n’ match set of olde and new TVPs songs. The new stuff sounds fresh and exciting whilst still very much in the TVPs mould of POP! Art and is seemingly inspired by events of the last few years. There’s ‘The Smack (Get It Back)’ which goes “All the kids on smack/All the kids on crack…they deserve something back” and ‘My Dark Places’ which is naggingly catchy, sticking in my head permanently after this one hearing. Then there’s the extraordinary
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‘No More I Love Yous’ for which Dan shushes the rest of the band so that he and Victoria can sing acapella, voices raw in the hush. It feels like a line has been crossed somewhere, like the boundaries that usually constrain emotions within the context of performance have been well
”It’s thoroughly compelling and almost too excruciating to bear”
The audience holds their breath until it’s over. To a lesser degree, these sensations could apply to the whole set, which lurches from song to song according to Dan’s whim. The set list is abandoned and Dan mutters an apology for having to read lyrics from sheets of paper, “I’ve been ill”. He appears to be enjoying playing his songs, a bit uncomfortable to be on stage again and kind of disgusted by the adulation his presence has summoned up from the indie massive (all the usual suspects present and correct) in the room, spitting out, “Fuck off!”s in answer to song requests.
and truly breached as Dan leads Victoria through what appears to be a very private conversation in song form (“Forget about them. It’s just you and me”). It’s thoroughly compelling and almost too excruciating to bear, too real.
Old songs; a funereal ‘All My Dreams Are Dead’, a sprawling ‘My Very First Nervous Breakdown’, a groovily tumbling ‘Silly Girl’, and a ferocious ‘King And Country’ which despite some drum fuck-ups feels like its about
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to boil over, fizzing through the middle like ‘8 Miles High’. Then there’s the dayglo ‘Salvador Dali’s Garden Party’ with lyrics changed to reflect the times, so we get ‘Franz Ferdinand weren’t there. The White Stripes weren’t. The fucking Strokes weren’t… Guess who was…The Pastels.’ (approving cheers from Duglas BMX). The set finishes with ‘A Picture of Dorian Gray’ and feedback hissing across an empty stage. Dan’s up for encores though, so to get round the ‘only time for one more song’ restrictions he lurches into a curfew-smashing “I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives” which wanders wildly before metamorphosing into “My Generation”. The band is shooed off stage, the house lights go up, and Dan Treacy has well and truly made his mark on our sorry indie hearts.
The Long Blondes / Chuck / Champion Kickboxer Nambucca, 12th February 2005
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hee Sheffield Phonographic Corporationn is a noble record label, notable for releasing delicious looking (and sounding) slabs of thick, coloured seven inch vinyl. Tonight the good folk of TSP are displaying their wares in the form of three bands who’ve recently taken a spin with the label. And what a disparate gaggle of noisters they are, which is no bad thing of course.
”sinister, folky, pastoral with a menacing undertow” First up are Champion Kickboxer – none of whom look like award-winning sportsmen,
but you never can tell. They weave together a curious sound; sinister, folky, pastoral with a menacing undertow, like walking through a forest at dusk. They kick off with their smash hit single (alright their recent single) ‘Like Him and Her and Her and Me’ which winds and curls like strangely scented smoke, lulling you with tuneful melancholy as it tick tocks its way round the room. vocals. The next song is a spangly hey nonny with fairytale keybaords set to ‘harp’ and falsetto vocals – but think Super Furries not Marillion. Then there’s a skipping folky number that excitingly sounds vaguely like ‘Grandad’ but with tricksy keyboard runs, plishy drums and ‘aahhhh’ backing vocals. And so it goes, with a cowbell, worrying keyboard Page 50
sounds, spiralling voices and an effects pedal that accidentally plucks a passing radio station from the ether and transmits it as
”it all adds up to a tumbling, intriguing whole.” part of a song. Its like listening to left over tracks from Super Furry Animals’ ‘Mwng’, other-worldly, at odds with the here and now, ancient, organic. Champion Kickboxer sure are awkward buggers with their creepy crawly time signatures, odd keyboard noises and out of step tunes, but it all adds up to a tumbling, intriguing whole. Between bands, the DJ messes
with my grip on the space/time continuum by playing The Cure’s ‘Fire in Cairo’ and in my head I’m doing homework in my bedroom, listening to ‘Three Imaginary Boys’ over and over. Then ‘Just Like Honey’ gets played and I’m a couple of years older playing my hot off the presses copy of ‘Psychocandy’ and trying to sort out my geography coursework.
Before my life in sound can flash by my ears any further, Chuck come on and suddenly there’s a baldy man in glasses shouting ‘I have no brain!’ inna poppunk stylee. Chuck rampage through a set that includes skanky garage riffin’, foolish punking, gurgling surf tunes, a thunderous, squealing
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Cossack song and a minute long psycho Crampsy sprawl.
”I’m not that taken with it all.’” They’re certainly covering all bases, but I’m not that taken with
it all. Luckily, lots of other folks are, waving their arms in the air to the final horror-rock number and clapping like billyo. I find a comfy chair, where all I can see is a distorted shadow of the band playing on the wall, which makes it all more entertaining somehow. The Long Blondes have tunes built for executing perfect dance steps in pointy shoes. They have
”tunes built for executing perfect dance steps in pointy shoes. ” an air of pristine self-containment and like all the best bands they’ve got that gang thing going on; a three girl, two boy unit swathed in junk shop Biba-esque glamour threads. Tonight’s entrée is the short, sharp ‘Darts’, barked out cheerily
before the main course begins with ‘Autonomy Boy’, much to the delight of the furiously dancing girls at the front. Singer Kate, snappily smart and crisply eye-linered, owns the stage and the crowd – like a strict teacher that everyone fears and adores in equal measure. She is the strutting, stamping, ants in pants wiggling epicentre, cracking out lines about ‘making plans in the back of a cab’ and ‘going to a massage parlour wearing blue mascara’ in a swooning, slingshot voice. Meanwhile, the rest of the band are kicking up a sound-storm of jagged, irresistibly wriggling tunes. Reenie, clad in a turquoise fur stole adds a splendid element of aloofness to playing the bass, beaming out a thrumming undertow to the crunchy jangle whipped up between guitarists Dorian and Emma. The songs are tricksily stylish pop that veers gleefully with unexpected time changes, and a charming fifties swing. ‘Peterbor-
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ough’ gets me every time with its false ending, yeah, yeah yeah. We get the epic ’Appropriation (By Any Other Name)’, the shifty rumbling of ‘Lust In The Movies’ with it’s brattish ‘I just want to be a sweet heart’ chant and the hiccuping ‘Rusholme Ruffians’ rush of ‘Once and Never Again’. Recent b-side ‘Polly’ is a fine sleek thing, turning its ankles to show off the bands fifties influences at their most blatant. Finally there’s much excitement at the soaring single, ‘Giddy Stratospheres’ which crash lands satisfyingly into ‘Separated By Motorways’. ‘We love this song!’
”Blimey, it’s brilliant, isn’t it?’” everyone’s thinking, ‘Blimey, it’s brilliant, isn’t it?’ Then neatly, it all comes to a close. ‘Tish! Tish!’ go Screech’s drums. And with a click of her heels Kate announces, ‘Finished’.
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The Pipettes / Circulus / Kitty, Daisy and Lewis Bush Hall, 4th March 2005
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onight’s fandango is a Turning Worm event, and we all know every good event should have a compere to add a sense of occasion and continuity. Amusingly, the bloke who has taken on this task appears increasingly the worse for drink each time he appears on stage, until he reaches a point at the end of the night where he’s slurringly demanding several thousand rounds of applause for the acts that have gone before. Steady on mate. What’s all the fuss about?
Well, first there’s Kitty, Daisy and Lewis who immediately win the crowd over because they’re three incredibly confident kids (I can never tell how old children are) thumping out chunks of rockabilly with country tinges. It’s like the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties happened and then got dismissed as stale daddio. The immaculately pompadored Lewis curls round his guitar like a minipops (minus the unpleasant associations) Elvis, shaking his be-chinoed legs, whilst Kitty and Daisy swap instruments and vocals with alarmingly practised ease. Mum and Dad fill out the sound on double bass and rhythm guitar. It’s cool to see the kidz a -rockin’ like this, but there’s also something a bit off about it. Shouldn’t being a kid in a band be all about annoying the oldsters and finding scary new ways of making a noise? There’s nothing very fresh
or youthful about the way Kitty and Daisy holler like raddled 40-a-day floozies. Hey you’re young, you’re confident, you can certainly play, (Kitty’s harmonica action is blistering), rip up the past and create a shining new future whilst you still can kids! Milling about Bush Hall we notice a man dressed in a style that would see him fitting in perfectly with the cast of ‘Look Around You’ – snappy brown, possibly corduroy, 70s threads. This man turns out to be the singer bloke in Circulus, although it takes a while for us to recognise him. Why is this? Because onstage, he is sporting a floor-length gold lame tube dress and a Quaker style brimmed hat and stiff black coat. How can you not admire a band that features a front-man dressed thus? The rest of Circulus are no sartorial slouches, all splendidly rocking the medieval minstrel meets 70s weirdybeardy folkster look. The singer lady has on a magnificent, alarmingly patterned frock that would do Margot Leadbetter proud. Then there’s the pointy-hooded monk on bongos (and, sadly, that’s not a sentence I have to type often). So Circlus have won me over on visuals alone, what in God’s name do they sound like? Simple, they sound like their clothes, so proceedings are kicked off with a Moog-generated drone and the band gathered front of stage for a bout of closeharmony chanting, before they
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rip into some prime psychedelic folk-prog with added antiquarianism. Wow. It certainly beats watching yet another bunch of chancers pretending it’s the 1980s. Why not pretend it’s the 1380s instead? If this was 1972 you’d be lapping it up. Why trust one era and not the other? That’s politics, isn’t it? We get swooping, fiddly, dronetinged rock with piping wind instruments. It’s a bit Pentangle, but more widdly. One song in particular is fantastic, total powered up melody with hints of west coast pop, only medieval, innit? At one point some kind of lute thing (look I’m not well-versed in ancient forms of instrumentation) makes an appearance and I get very excited at the loopy sonic possibilities this suggests, but damn! it’s broken. Never mind, Circulus carry on regardless. Forsooth, they rocketh verily. The Pipettes are three ladies clad in home-made, matching, polka-dot dresses. The dresses are very short. Suddenly, I seem to be surrounded by old blokes with cameras. Far be it for me to cast aspersions on their photographic motives, but it’s vaguely discomfiting. It’s a relief then when the front line of the audience transmutes into a gaggle of finger-clicking, leg-waggling, beaming dancers. It seems rude to hold back, especially in the face of The Pipettes’ demands that we all cut a rug, so I shimmy about gleefully. This is the best way to enjoy The Pipettes, jig-
ging joyfully, throwing notions of cool to the wind.Band theme song ‘We Are The Pipettes’ bookends the set, veering from buzzing bubblegum garage to that cool children’s tv tune that’s lurked half-remembered in your head since you were nine years old. “We are the Pipettes and we’ve got no regrets/ If you haven’t noticed yet we’re the prettiest girls you’ve ever met”. Songs come and go in the blink of a false eyelash, fizzing fast and bright. ‘One Night Stand’, ‘Dirty Mind’, ‘It Hurts to See You Dance So Well’; it’s sugar pop heaven with a strychnine streak, the cute dance routines and hand-jiving
belying the wry lyrics. This is post-feminist girl-group pop, with songs like ‘Tie Me To The Kitchen Sink’ being musical versions of those cards featuring peachy ‘50s housewives labelled with caustic slogans (though infinitely more entertaining, obviously). As the ladies storm their way through a multitude of effervescently thrilling sticky pop delights, garnering all the glamour with their ferocious formation singing, behind them their band The Cassettes tumble out the backing. The Cassettes are a gaggle of skinny boys dressed Page 55
alike in geeky-cool college boy cardies. They look the part, fags clamped in mouths as they get on with churning up a doo-lally doo-wop sound. But hey, never mind them, skinny boys with guitars are ten-a-penny. It’s The Pipettes who’re the stars here and we’re not likely to forget it as we wiggle and shimmy and it’s over all too soon. Though not before a rousing encore of ‘I Like A Boy In Uniform (School Uniform)’ with its twisty tale of girl likes boy, but boy likes boys, so girl decides to ‘go with the flow’ and ends up liking girls as well. Look, it makes sense if you listen to the song. And if it doesn’t, just dance.
The Fog Band / The Organ Artrocker at The Buffalo Bar, 5th April 2005 Although you’d never guess it if you lived solely on a diet of mainstream music press, there’s a heaping helping of tip top rockin’ females out there at the moment. All the best current bands have strong lady elements – The Schla La Las, The Pipettes, The A-Lines, The Long Blondes, The Violets. And now here are The Organ who are everything those dumb boys in bands cranking out eighties facsimiles think they are but are falling hopelessly short of. Where the boys bluster bombastically, The Organ are unafraid to introduce an element of fragility to their mournful ponder-rock sound. Pre-gig I have no idea what The Organ are like apart from the fact that Alistair Fitchett has been raving about them on Tangents which is always a good sign. I
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urrah! It’s The Fog Band in all their dapper tappytoed glory. In deference to the fact that they’re playing the mighty Artrocker night, they come over all contrary and choose to stick to their more subdued numbers. This is kind of a shame, ‘cos The Fog Band are fab, but tonight they’re not as fab as they can be, which is to say they’re still fabber than Fabrizio Moretti eating a Fab ice-lolly and
”More Converse per square foot of floor than a Ramones Fancy Dress Party” reading an issue of ‘Fab 208’ whilst wrapped in fablon. Singer Bobby Grindrod looks as impeccable as ever, in his snappy suit he really is the most perfectly put together young
” I have no idea what to expect” man you’re ever likely to meet, especially in an environment that boasts more Converse per square foot of floor than a Ramones fancy dress party. Kicking off with the scratchy ‘Bachelor Section’ The Fog Band perambulate through a clutch of songs that twist and jog, but never quite catch. Meanwhile, the razor-sharp creases, the subtle tie, the purple cufflinks are all quite mesmerising. We get marvy new single, ‘The Law of the Sea’, we get folktinged bits and bluesy echoes. There’s a throwaway version of their roaring take on ‘These Boots Were Made For Walking’ and a snippy encore of ‘There’s A Ghost In My House’. More please.
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have no idea what to expect. So they slide onstage, play a mere few notes and I’m immediately in love with these serious looking girls and the noise they’re
making as they unfussily push out this lush, gorgeous sound. It’s bursting with references but in a head-swimmingly delicious way. The most obvious and most appealing to me is the warmly desolate shiver of The Cure circa ‘Charlotte Sometimes’ or ‘Just One Kiss’. Nights spent wrapped around ‘Concert and Curiosity’ and ‘The Walk’ E.P. flood my memory, this is weird. Songs and sounds that I haven’t thought about in years reawaken from where they’ve lain dormant in distant cells of my body and infuse my system with essence of teenage brooding. The band’s eponymous organ, played by Jenny, has a gravely quavering tone and adds a stately grandeur to the songs. Blank-eyed, dead-pan guitarist Deborah, plucks out icily pristine notes that shiver against the warmth of the organ sound,
twinkling points of noise that hang like brittle stars in a frosty sky. The bass sound is colossal, a nod to Hooky, powering the whole thing up and adding the hip-twisting funkiness that pulls it all together. At first the bass keeps cutting out, a song is brought to an abrupt halt as repairs are run. Everything fixed, the bass almost becomes too much, an overbearing presence threatening the delicate balance of the songs. Ha, the songs! We get a selection taken from 2002’s mini LP ‘Sinking Hearts’ and from newie ‘Grab That Gun’. ‘No One Has Ever Looked So Dead’ sparkles and quivers like ‘The Hand That Rocks The Cradle,’ its ”In the backseat of your car you showed me every star” line reminiscent of ‘That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore’. ‘Brother’ with its ‘we have got to take cover’ line is urgent
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and ravishing. So we’ve got this lush, shivering sound that nods to all your eighties teenage favourites; The Smiths, The Cure, Joy Division, but it’s singer Katie Sketch who seals the deal. Her voice has a lilting seriousness, an echoey one-tone vocal beamed in from a distant star, soaring and aching. Moving about the tiny stage, she’s the epitome of self-containment, wrapped up in the music and the moment, her eyes remain shut, but somehow it’s a captivating performance. Tonight, effortless cool is a brown tee-shirt, slipping down jeans, short, tousled hair that’s never seen a pair of straighteners (the devil’s own ‘beauty’ implement), and make-up free luminosity. Isn’t it great when you lose your heart when you least expect it?
Pow! To The People 6 Camden Barfly, 1st May 2005
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tock up on ‘special’ coca cola, grab your complementary Tompaulin single on the door and hide inside from the first warm sunny day in weeks ‘cos once again it’s time for the sparkling pop parade that is Pow! To The People, now in its sixth magnificent year! courtesy of Track and Field. Wintergreen are first up and by way of keepin’ it real inna indie stylee they manage to reach levels of shambolicness previously unseen even here in NW1. To be fair the first few songs are breezy and bleepy and trundle intriguingly. Jona on bass does a great ‘Thurston Moore’s confused young nephew’ act, whilst centre stage skinny indie boy and wholesome indie girl hunch side by side prodding at keyboards to create pleasing noises. Single ‘Clockwork Mice’ charms despite some exceedingly dodgy backing vocals and then it all goes
pear-shaped. Maybe the band is being over-ambitious, technology overload. There is much lap-top fiddling as technical hitches abound and onstage tempers fray, band members getting snappy with one another.
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anyway?
It’s a shame ‘cos there are obviously plenty of ideas flying about up there and what they’re trying to do could be interesting. There is head-shaking and wincing as bum notes are hit, too much fiddling and not enough flying. Happily redemption shines down at the eleventh hour for ‘The Magic Road’ which is marvy, driven and thundering with an appearance from that obligatory indie instrument, the melodica. See, who needs a laptop
Topping up our glasses we watch bemused as approximately 4000 guitars are set up for Goldrush. I’ve always found this band kinda
tedious, but this afternoon their straightforward country jangle sounds right, sparkling and swooning in all the proper places. All those guitars and the band’s serious-faced rocking suggest Goldrush are trying to be all manly, but really that’s not going to happen with the baby-faced doe-eyed Bennett brothers leading them. Mind you, there are two token band hairies (one on groovily swirling organ) for that authentic kickin’ back on the West Coast circa ’68 look. There’s delicious Rickenbacker spangling and a nice boomy kick-drum that makes your heartbeat thrum in time to the music. Then, grrrr, Goldrush get all feisty with an anti-war song which tumbles into a feedbacky ending as singer Robin er, forgets a verse. There’s some nice slide-guitar action for the pattering ‘24’ about ‘being up drinking for twenty-four hours’
apparently. And then, just to ensure you know where Goldrush are coming from, a cover of The Byrds’ fabby ‘100 Years From Now’ (the Gibson is needed for this, guitar-watchers) complete with cack-handed reworking of the guitar solo. Cheers. Next up, it’s The Eighteenth Day Of May whose line up is a veritable who’s who (no really, who??) of shmindie. There’s a Kicker on guitar, a Saloon on viola, two Of Arrowe Hills (drums and bass), er a bloke from a certain record shop (guitar/vocals)
and a Southern Belle singing. The latter is quite odd, as The Eighteenth Day Of May mix up a very English style of folk with their jangle-psyche sound. Think of The Pentangle and their crystal harmonies and exploratory hippy-jazz takes on traditional folk-songs (hey, I grew up listening to ‘Basket Of Light’ it’s no bad thing). Actually, the first time I saw EDOM they covered Bert Jansch’s ‘Deed I Do’, so they’re obviously thinking the same thing. (Also, is it just coincidence that there’s a nice display of Pentangle/ Jansch stuff in the certain record shop?) Anyhow, as the brown vodka kicks in and the band kick off with the chiming ‘18 Days’ a warm blanket of luciousness descends. They sound perfect, not as psychedelic as during their recent Olivia Tremor Control support slot (a mighty performance), but swingingly gorgeous, drowsily droney. ‘The Highest Tree’ kicks its heels in a courtly manner, jangling around singer Alison’s honey-toned vocals and swooping flute. For ‘Cold Early Morning’ Alison takes up a dulcimer, managing to make it look sexy; part Audrey Hep-
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Cassette are dressed up in their summer uniform of tank tops and shirtsleeves and its all wonderfully groovy…but what’s this? There’s a new Pipette! Where did she come from? Where’d the old one go? It’s like when Siobhan left Banarama or when er, Siobhan left the Sugababes. Hmmm, still the new girl’s got it all down, and look Simon ‘Gummi Bears’ Tbilissi is kicking it big time down the front with some happening moves. From where I’m standing everyone’s having fun and that’s before they play ‘I Like A Boy In Uniform (School Uniform)’. Magoo – hmm, I’ve scribbled some interesting looking stuff down about them, but I sure as hell can’t read it and my memory for this part of the day seems to have been erased. Vague recollections involve a man in an orange shirt wanging about the stage alongside a girl on bass and much trip-you-up fizzing guitar noise. I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it all anyhow.
burn singing ‘Moon River’, part insouciant rock cool. But hey, it’s not all ancient old folk stuff round here, EDOM do a swirlingly pastoral version of The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s ‘Dawn’ which will make you (well, me) go back to the original and go ‘Damn, that Anton Newcombe’s good’. Time for some boy vocals courtesy of Richard who twangs out a chewy cover of ‘Codeine’. I love this song, Ultra Vivid Scene did a magnificent Velvety version, it’s a shame EDOM don’t make use of their viola here, it seems to be begging for a bit of lush droneyness, especially as this version goes a bit ‘Black Angel Death Song’ mental at the end. And then, hey, it is all ancient old folk stuff round here as the band ends with the trad. ‘Lady Margaret’ giving it cut glass vocals and a truncated wig-out worthy of Spacemen 3. Blissed out, now would be a good point to go and lie in the sun, but no time, no time for here
are The Pipettes (‘the prettiest girls you’ve ever met’) which means we need to shimmy and hand-jive to their candy-striped girl-pop sounds. You must know about The Pipettes by now, how they force-feed you sugar with a glint in their eye until you either succumb and start fizzing round the room or keel over in disgust at their matching polka dots and wobblyslick dance-routines. There’s ‘One Night Stand’ that sounds like ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’ and there’s ‘Why Did You Stay’ and yes! my heart loops the loop for ‘Judy’ and for ‘It Hurts To See You Dance So Well’ oh, and ‘Dirty Mind’ which sounds like Big Audio Dynamite’s ‘E=MC2’ (a good thing). Backing boy band The
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Something tells me we’re not in Kansas (City) any more. KC girl Piney Gir takes to the stage dressed up for the prom in a satin frock and ruby red glitter heels and proceeds to scatter magic dust around this black and sticky hellhole. Swinging her keyboard strap across her shoulder for the stately, twinkling intro of
‘Que Cera Cera’ Piney whips us off to her own private Oz, a world where spaced melodica heartbeat dreampop, countrytweaked electro and bossonova Saint Etiennesque ditties swirl through the skies. In between songs, Piney jokes and charms, sings a birthday song for one of her musicians and gets a Scottish pal up to explain about porridge (or ‘oatmeal’ as Americans call it for some reason) stirring sticks (?). It’s like being at a party hosted by an excitable little girl, especially when she blasts squawkily on a recorder like my kid brother used to when he got fed up with learning to play properly. There’s a special party guest in the form of a slyly smiling Gemma Kaito who duets with Piney on ‘Nightsong’ like they’re a ritzty rinky-dink Casiotoned Frank Sinatra and Doris Day. Finally, there’s the sublime funky space-country blues drone of ‘Greetings, Salutations, Goodbye’ as Piney picks a fine time to leave, vanishing like the good fairy of electro indie. Okay, time for a sublime/ridiculous interface. It’s Misty’s Big Adventure cranking out their parpy, alarming monster mash of sounds; punky, funky, jazzy, spazzy. I stick around long enough to note that their blue meanie dancer has got a new outfit – the gloves look like they’re made of fuzzy fabric
– none of yer cheap Marigold shit like he used to have. Is this the big time for Misty’s? I don’t know, time for a sit down. Refreshed by our sojourn to the bar downstairs, we return primed for some Tompaulin action (having handily accidentally missed The Broken Family Band Rolling Revue). This evening Tompaulin are a mighty force of stubborn splendour, playing beautifully constructed songs riddled with bitterness. Singer Stacey, clad in cut-off denim skirt and clutching a can of Stella, is a folk singer for these concrete coloured times of desperate drinking and hard faces in the
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street. Simon is master of artfully controlled feedback. Tompaulin present a front of defiance, disappointment and disgust and at the same time swooningly break your heart. “There are no diamonds under ground/ There is no silver in this cloud” goes ‘Promised Land’ over banjo and melancholy parps of melodica, whilst the country-tinged ‘This Desire’ feels like rolling on the ocean. There are old faves like ‘Slender’ and the sly made-in-Britain-pop of ‘Give Me A Riot In The Summertime’ and there are moments of pure wonder. ‘The Boy Hairdresser’ slyly rips what’s left of your heart out, rising and falling around Jamie’s plaintive vocals and sadly fuzzing guitar noise. As the song ends, it feels like a respectful silence has fallen on the crowd and Tompaulin must know they’ve effortlessly stolen the day.
Luxembourg / Rhesus / Video Club / International Karate Plus / Baby Shambles The Metro, 4th June 2005 thy-disco-beaty stuff. Ho hum. Remember when synth-pop was a slinky, sleazy, dirty, dangerous thing? When people were reaching for the future, trying to be challenging? They looked really daft, but at least they weren’t sneering. And what have the new generation made of it? Way to drop the baton and tread it into the sludge of cynicism, kids.
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h the joyous jolt of the unexpectedly brilliant support band! International Karate Plus – hmm the name vaguely rang a bell, but you know, first on, playing to a sparse, none to interested audience – pfft, whatever. But hey! International Karate Plus defy all the odds and are brilliant. After two songs, I’m grinning happily, they’ve made my night already. It’s obvious that these three blokes in their specially matching tee-shirts (which spell out ‘I’ ‘K’ and ‘+’) know what the damn hell they’re doing, something you’d think was a prerequisite for climbing onstage, but scarily often isn’t. It’s a relief to find a band with a grip. First off, we’re bludgeoned by a scratchy, chunkily riffin’ ditty that brings to mind The Yardbirds ‘Stroll On’. Then there’s an itchy poppy song (Glances’?) with rumbling, circling bass that makes me think of The Jasmine Minks, righteous intentions and fired up tunes. The IK+ sound is a perfect hybrid between scuffed mod-pop (Jasmine Minks, Television Personalities) and scuzzing Yank grunginess. There are some very Dinosaur Junior moments (check out ‘Ghosts’ for a pure ‘Bug’-era sparkling slacker buzz), not least due to Richard Arnold’s Mascis-type whine. These are hardcore kids with a
canny knack for sly pop tunes, veering between The Buzzcocks and The Pixies by way of Husker Du. Single ‘Nexus In A Chain Of Thought’ see-saws and swoons so cutely that at the end we rush to buy it and take turns clutching it to our hearts. Best of all, it still sounds great the next day. Yeah IK+! I found a new band to like. From the sublime to the ridiculous. Video Club are various Art Goblins johnnies, there’s that one who looks like Jamie Theakston’s evil goblin soul made flesh and that chubby one with curly hair, and a bloke in a creepy plastic mask that makes him look like Begbie from Trainspotting. Maybe it’s a Begbie from Trainspotting mask. They dress in frock-coats and frills and term themselves ‘Regency Hardcore’. This is a great phrase and frock coats are always cool. These are Video Club’s good points. The music is arched eyebrow crappo moogy-synPage 62
Rhesus are Rhesus are Rhesus. They do what they do, which is competent, feisty punkpop, but it just never connects with me. Oh well. Luxembourg are, in the words of the esteemed David Boyfriend Barnett, “on fire tonight!” they rattle through a set of ‘Ooh I love this one! Ooh and this one!’ songs, smart and snappy as you like. There’s the bouncily cheeky ‘Let Us Have It’ and the mournful treasure of ‘Mishandled’. Hiptwisting rabble-rousing someday single ‘Luxembourg versus Great Britain’ always conjures up the British sea-side, cheap ice-creams and lardy men with union jack handkerchiefs on
their heads. It’s fab. David B., unable to contain his excitement, says ‘I’m going to the front!’ We’re about eight feet from the stage, so he takes a couple of steps forward. Luxembourg play ‘Close-cropped’ and we jiggle with joy. Luxembourg play ‘What The Housewives Don’t Tell You’ and we unleash our unsteadily dancing feet, but where are the adoring hordes flinging themselves at the stage? We get the fizzglam disco of ‘Success Is Never Enough’ and that’s it, Luxembourg have to clear the stage for some bunch of chancers who’re playing a sneaky gig later on. Its Baby Shambles. Shamefaced with curiosity we
hang around for a butchers as Blow Up club-night grinds into gear. Waiting for Doherty to appear, tapping a toe to the soul grooves, I muse on the nature of Blow Up. I remember this club when it was a snot-nosed preBrit-pop upstart initially called ‘Londinium’ and based at the Laurel Tree in Camden. Then it changed its name and you got given a little membership card that let you jump the queue and there were blokes doing slippyslidey Northern Soul dances and Spanish mods who wanted to discuss Vespas with you. Oh yeah, and Menswe@r before they suddenly decided they were a ‘band’. And now Blow Up is this sort of student/tourist trap, tonight gradually filling with blank-eyed kids who slump down
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at the foot of the stage waiting for Peeeete! Oblivious to The Sonics wreaking a meltdown through the sound-system. So at about 12.30am, Baby Shambles come on and do their thing. It’s alright, doesn’t really float my boat though. Pete sort of mumbles over this scuzzy indie backing, leaning out over a crowd that’s shouting unpleasant things about drugs at him. Nice. At one point he smashes a light above the stage that’s been shining in his face. Glass crashes, it goes a bit darker. More songs. It all seems kind of desperate and sad, no sense of joy in the music or community amongst the kids. Maybe it’s just a bad night. Can we have the first band back please?
The Brian Jonestown Massacre Queen Elizabeth Hall, 11th June 2005 places of work to yell at them “when you’re on the till in Boots!” There’s also some entertainingly random slaggage of Jet along the lines of “you send your criminals over to Australia and what do they send back?”
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limey! This is a turn up. Patti Smith in her infinite all-seeing woman of ye olde punk bohemian wisdom has selected beatific spaced out psyche pirates The Brian Jonestown Massacre to play at her immaculately put together Meltdown festival. Has she been watching ‘Dig!’ and had a good old chuckle at Anton’s mental antics? Or does she recognise an eccentric song-writing genius when she sees one? Who knows, we’re just thrilled to be seeing the band in such rarefied surroundings. As are various tightly trousered, pointy booted, shaggy maned beat types who mill around the venue. Also in attendance are wondrous psychefolksters The Eighteenth Day of May and er, ex-Banana Siobhan Fahey. The whole shindig has Pop Event written all over it.
BJM’s on-stage set up is sparse, members of the band scattered across the large space interspersed with vintage amps and gorgeous 12 string guitars. Anton is looking Sonic Boom-tastic with his poker straight bowl-cut and shades. But that’s not all. For one nite only BJM are graced with the presence of everybody’s favourite shock haired, bug-eyed tambourine joker and ‘spokesman for the revolution’ (heh!) Joel Gion who’s been invited to share in this particular BJM highpoint. Joel’s rocking his feted ‘world’s most disdainful percussionist’ look from beneath a wooly hat and a beardy chin so his whole drug-deranged groover and shaker shtick is slightly diminished, but hey it’s great to see him up there. reined himself in and is letting his music speak for itself. This is a grand thing, Anton’s music is eloquent, resplendent…the guy can write a song innit? Despite numerous antagonistic tosspots shouting out wind-ups from the safe anonymity of the audience, Anton restricts himself to pointing out that he doesn’t come to their
Okay, so Anton may be a bit of a head the ball, but tonight, seemingly out of respect for his hostess Patti Smith, he’s
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Blasting on despite Frankie Teardrop’s problems with a dodgy amp (a knackered fuse), BJM hammer out a masterful ‘greatest hits’ set that draws on tracks from ‘Tepid Peppermint Wonderland’ their delicious new retrospective album. They sound immaculate, like the greatest, coolest piece of musical pop-art
you’d always imagined never really quite happened in the sixties. It’s The Velvets resplendent in a bohemian West Coast pad, rather than being uptight in NYC. It’s Syd maintaining a grip and showing Keef a thing or too. It’s a fast-driving rave-up alright, but we the audience are confined to our (actually jolly comfy) seats, so we have to do the whole head-noddy confined freak-out thing like in old clips of Beatles audiences. Songs hit the perfect point between sparkling sixties-grooves, olde English psychedelia and the blissful white-out of (for want of a better phrase) shoe-gazeyness. ‘Hide and Seek’ circles and buzzes like a hive full of spaced bees. ‘Telegram’ is the Teardrop Explodes refracted through a cute Byrdsian jangle whilst ‘This
Is Why You Love Me’ whips The Byrds ‘I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better’ and twists it into odd new shapes. ‘Who?’ is a clattering,
saucer-eyed freak out and ‘Going To Hell’ shakes its hips, licks its lips and absolutely demands that you gogo on a tabletop. ‘Sailor’ sets you adrift on a gently lulling dreamscape, ‘Jennifer’ is sweetly strummy and ‘When
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Jokers Attack’ is a strident blast of fuzzy riffing. Support act Ed Harcourt makes an appearance on ‘Here It Comes’ and shares the mic and a kiss with Joel. Such is the mightiness of the BJM back catalogue that each song has you thinking, ‘Ohh I love this one!’ Time flies and we’re all too soon reaching set closer ‘Swallowtail’. It’s utterly gob-smacking. Each layer of spinning chords settles on top of the last allowing you to sink into this deep drift of oscillating noise until you want to stay balanced there forever. In reality the song lasts nearly 15 minutes and it truly doesn’t feel like long enough. This is something else. Forget ‘You broke my sitar motherfucker!’ and Anton dissing the Dandys on rollerskates. Plug yerself into the BJM now.
Joy Zipper Koko 17th June 2005
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o for the first part of the evening we’re at Camden Palace (now absurdly renamed ‘Koko’ – why? Is it like an ironic take on provincial niteclubs called Ritzys and stuff?) to see Joy Zipper. An unpleasant pall is immediately cast over proceedings by the excruciating support band Kubb. Argh, even the name sets my teeth on edge. You can imagine what they’re like I sure ain’t giving them the oxygen of publicity. Gulping hard, I swallow down my revulsion and settle in for the obligatory, inexplicably loong wait for Joy Zipper. When they come on, oh joy! they’re swaddled in the halo glow of a zillion heartshaped fairy lights curling across the stage. So that’s alright then. As ever, they’re fuzzily lovely, twirling out a selection of songs from new LP ‘The Heartlight Set’ plus yummy oldies (though no ‘Check Out My New Jesus’ boo). But there’s something not quite connecting. Things start with the snappy clappy shuffle beat of ‘Go Tell The World’ and we’re all wiggling fingers in our ears ‘cos the sound is WELL DODGY
(more minus points for ‘Koko’). Next up is ‘Baby You Should Know’ which should swoop and shimmer in all the right places but just doesn’t. Hmmm. RockDove’ is droopily dreamy with Vinnie blurring out the words against a rather ott bass sound. Mmm Vinnie, still rocking the spaced indie guitar boy thang to perfection beneath shaggy dark hair that sort of curls, ish. Yin to his Yang, Tabitha coos (in a good way) from behind her glowing keyboard and long blonde hair. They’re so perfect together, if they didn’t exist you’d have to invent them and make a comic book about their crazy rock ‘n’ roll adventures. The new songs have apparently been consciously designed to work live, they’re simpler, less lusciously layered than previous sets. It feels like a backwards step to me. They sparkle poppily and growl rockily but never take off and spacily morph the whole room into a single pulsing entity. Not from where I’m standing anyway. Take forthcoming single ‘1’ for example, where once it buzzed woozily, now it fair rol-
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licks along, it’s kind of…jovial. Still, there are delicious little moments. ‘You’re so Good’ fizzes glammily before crashing into a summery swoon of a chorus. ‘Anything You Sent’ bustles cutely like ‘Summer in The City’. ‘For Lenny’s Own Pleasure’ has Tabitha summoning the ghost of Lenny Bruce via immaculately articulated imagery. She breathes in air and breathes out light. The best comes last, or maybe we’ve just all warmed up. Encoring with olde favorites ‘Christmas Song’ and ‘Window’, finally Joy Zipper glow like warm embers in your heart. Ultimately, there’s a sense of corporate oars being stuck in where they’re not wanted that’s detracting from the shiny marvel that Joy Zipper can be. Their web site offers the chance to sign up and ‘receive updates about new releases, preferential ticket purchase opportunities, PA’s, exclusive competitions… blah blah’ which sounds like so much grim marketing hooey to me. I know bands need to make a living, but jeez where’s the magic?
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Brian Jonestown Massacre / The Ponys / London Dirthole Company Dirty Water Club 17th June 2005
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eaving the horrors of ‘Koko’ behind us, we hare up the Northern Line, we stumble through the doors of the Dirty Water Club and get hit in the face by a fuggy wall of perspiration (well, okay, sweat) and fine beaty noise. Onstage is a scary line-up hammering out bursts of scritchy garage rock splendour. This is Dirthole, cranky and Fall-ish, in the same way Ikara Colt were Fall-ish. A man with two haircuts on just the one head stumbles to and fro ranting Mark E. Smithly, whilst two girls in lopsided retro granny dresses lay into a pair of stand up drumkits. Dear God, is there anything finer than a stand-up drummer? Well yes, that would be two stand-up drummers! At the same time!! Meanwhile a down’n’dirrty scuzz garrrage groove slimes its way
round the skirting courtesy of some guitar blokes and bassy chaps , it’s all mighty fine. Next up it’s The Ponys. Ooh
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goody, I’ve been wondering about this lot, their name keeps cropping up all over the shop lately. So they come on and it’s
‘hell yeh!’ file alongside The Organ under instant-whip band love. The Pony’s are all groovily intense and intensely groovy. There are scrawny guitar blokes and a coolaskimdeal black-eyed bass girl. They stamp their shiny little hooves and kick up a ferocious dust-storm of scrubbing guitars and battered drums. This is where Television meet The Cure, have a bit of a ruck then go and discuss Pixies over milkshakes (Tom Verlaine chooses strawberry flavour, Robert Smith spills his all over the table). ‘We Shot The World’ = ‘A Forest’ with cool chanty deadpan girl backing vocals. Then there’s ‘Get Black’ Yeeow! It’s the sound of dancing over beer bottles on hot sticky streets, ‘Saving all my pennies up trying to get some cigarettes’ time to go-go on the table tops. ‘She’s Broken’ starts off like a starkly ringing ‘Pictures Of Matchstickmen’ (no really, try listening to that intro without getting yer early Quo in your head), before tumbling into a momentum-gathering
spitball of splendour. Melissa’s spiky girl vocals yowling ‘I walk away’, guitars bouncing off ice walls, echo meeting echo. At the end I buy the LP, run through the streets and glue it to my hi-fi. They have cool t-shirts too, but what am I? Made of money? It’s midnight, Frankie Teardrop has read his way through every flier in the place, waiting to be called into action, and we’re kicking around, swigging cider, debating the merits or otherwise of ‘Dig!’ with Richard of the fab Eighteenth Day Of May. Finally BJM, or rather Anton, decides the time is now. Having seen
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him careening drunkenly around the place earlier we express our, uh, concerns over the forthcoming performance, but you know what? despite the gallons of al-
cohol disappearing down Anton’s neck BJM still RULE. Kicking off with the drowsily swaggering groove of ‘Whoever You Are’ Anton snaps to it and the tunes unfurl their magic. There’s the Bunnymen-ish ‘Nevertheless’ and the English
tea psyche of ‘Hide and Seek’. It’s a similar set to the Meltdown show, but it’s late, a lot of alcohol has flowed, and it’s kinda hot in here. BJM aren’t the guests of a legendary punkpoetess queen tonight so P and Qs no longer need to be minded. Anton can’t Page 70
deal with the heat (this is what happens when you get mollycoddled with planet-wrecking contraptions like air-conditioning) snapping something about if the stage lights don’t get turned off he’ll smash them. The lights get turned off. It’s till too hot, the
back door is opened. It’s still bloody hot. The gaps between songs get longer, Anton goes to hang out in the lavs whilst the rest of the band gamely carries on. Eventually it’s decided that a fifteen minute break will enable us all to cool down. We figure this to be the end of things, but no, true to Anton’s word, the band soon clamber back onstage. When
they play all the other shit falls away and its great to be here in this sweatbox, the tunes breaking over your head in waves. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last long. There are arguments with the audience, waspish bullying of the rest of the band (poor old Frankie), scathing remarks aimed at the terrified looking DJ girls and a general lack of music. I wander off to the bar feeling
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lucky to have heard a few songs at least. Then, miraculously, ‘Swallowtail’ shivers into life. It’s one of those songs where when the first chords kick in it feels like coming home, a few brief minutes of perfection that melt through your synapses until you’re hearing a hundred and one guitars at once. It doesn’t even matter that Anton spends the song giving the entire room (world?) the finger.
Super Furry Animals Somerset House 8th July 2005 turning a funny colour. It’s not really like a festival apart from the fact that you have to queue for ages for some rubbish beer. Zabrinski play a set of sub-SFA songs, probably quite rip-roaring numbers when taken on their own, but really what’s the point when we’re all waiting for the real thing?
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t’s the evening after the day before. London is in a weird twilight state, quaveringly licking its wounds and defiantly getting on as usual (after the bombings, a message on the intranet at work tells me that we’re all expected to show up on time for work the next day– no excuses). We shuffle along to Somerset House, generally the scene of sedate art exhibitions (although I once saw some Picassos here – yowser!) and kids drenching themselves in the decorative fountains. Tonight there are no old masters or water-based larks to be had. Instead there are strange rules about not bringing in your own food and drink; a bottle of home-made vod and coke is fine as long as you
SFA shamble on clad in sort of anti-radiation, hooded boiler suits. They proceed in a drifty, woozy manner with ‘Slow Life’ and a subdued ‘Rings Around the World’. Maybe they’re a bit uncertain how to set the tone after yesterday, but then we’re all feeling somewhat shell-shocked; facilitating between horror, confusion, disgust, anger and that good old British response of wanting to blot the whole thing out with alcohol, jump up and down and go waaarrghh! Which is where Super Furries come into their own. It’s a set of two halves. We’re treated to a selection of songs from the forthcoming ‘Love Kraft’ album including the yummily glammy buzz-fest of ‘Lazer Beam’, twisted folk of ‘The Horn’ and the curious triptych (something about locusts?) ‘Cloudberries’. ‘Frequency’, ‘Zoom!’, ‘Atomic Lust’ , ‘Ohio Beat’ all whet the
remove the lid, thus disabling it as a stagebound missile, sandwiches are The Devil and on no account allowed in, despite the fact that food isn’t being sold on the premises. Plus, big excitement, there are zillions of toilets for all! So here we all are in the windswept, cobbled courtyard with the sky
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appetite for ‘Love Kraft’ by all sounding fantastic. At some point in proceedings as the light dims, the Super Furries’ suits start to glow in the half-light like they’re picking up radioactive particles. We’re all doomed, but hey lets not freak out, eh? Gruff attempts to address the situation that’s hanging over the whole event by introducing ‘Fire In My Heart’ with “… I suppose that’s the problem when you declare war on terror - people are going to start fighting back.” He has a point, but the statement is unsurprisingly met with a mixed reaction. Still, under
tonight’s circumstances the song somehow shakes off the corniness that’s atrophied around it (as Gruff says, they don’t play it very often as it tends to ‘induce vomiting’) and becomes quite moving. Then there’s ‘Run Christian Run’. Oh god, everything’s getting a bit meaningful. Luckily we’re soon into the wave yer hands in the air section of crowdpleasing stormers. Really, the SFA back-catalogue is such a vast and pleasing one that they have infinite set list possibilities, but the band plump for timehonoured faves like ‘Juxtapozed With U’, ‘Do Or Die’ ‘Play It Cool’ (clap clap), ‘Something For The
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Weekend’ and the eternally delightful ‘Demons’ (perfect for gazing up into the pinky skies). Then they play ‘Ice Hockey Hair’ and I pretty much lose it. Good God it’s mind-bogglingly, sunkissingly perfect. Of course the grand finale is ‘The Man Don’t Give A Fuck’. Can one ever tire of jumping up and down shouting along to this? No, one can’t. I’ve been doing it for nigh on ten years now (off and on, obviously) and the joy of throwing oneself about in disgust at ‘the man’ never palls. In fact tonight it takes on a whole ‘nother nuance.
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The World Of Kitten Painting: Collected reviews November 2003 - July 2005