The Stool Pigeon Music Newspaper Issue 025 by The Stool Pigeon

NUMBER 25

MARCH 2010

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INSIDE XXV, March 2010

WELCOME, WELCOME TO THE FIFTH A N N I V E R S A RY, 2 5 T H I S S U E ! And we begin with a short tale of a most mysterious man...

Brighton’s Sticks keen to have a sound that’s never carved in stone

Words by Thomas A. Ward Y HIDING BEHIND A TRIBAL MASK AND A PSEUDONYM THAT READS MORE LIKE TEXT ABBREVIATION, SBTRKT IS ATTEMPTING TO KEEP HIS CARDS CLOSE TO HIS CHEST. “I LIKE TO SEPARATE MY MUSIC FROM MY PERSONAL LIFE,” HE SAYS WHEN ASKED TO REVEAL HIMSELF. “I’VE ALWAYS LOOKED AT ARTISTS

and I don’t see how their personal life really fits in. It always seems quite bland compared to what your persona as an artist is.” SBTRKT is selling us a story; SBTRKT is selling us an image; SBTRKT is selling us a lie. He does not wish to remain anonymous to save his personal life from being uncovered; he wishes to remain anonymous in order to re-establish his professional career - to start afresh. “I don’t find what I have done in the past relevant to how my music sounds now,” he stuff that people are more accepting adds. “I released a few records of now than in the past,” he explains. “I don’t want to be an artist that’s before I found SBTRKT.” stuck in a genre and forgotten about

by BEN GRAHAM

righton’s Sticks are putting skewed pop back into the lo-fi improv scene by fusing trebly sixties garage surf, scratchy seventies post punk and their own happy accidents. They were formed six years ago by James Tranmer and Stuart Cartland, equipped only with a guitar, a bass amp nicknamed Merlin, a snare drum and “a plastic tub”. Neither had any previous musical experience. “We were quite experimental, in a non-intentional way,” James deadpans. “I was always into making music with whatever I had available at the time. Guitars always seemed quite daunting, so we were definitely at odds with our instruments. We managed to come out with a few...” “...a few clangers,” Stuart finishes off. Current third member Iain Paxon first joined the band onstage dressed as a Red Indian chief and doing a war dance, then he would turn up to play drums for a few songs while James and Stuart both got to grips with guitars. These days, although they occasionally still play as a duo, he’s more or less a full-time member, with continual instrument-swapping at the heart of the Sticks’ ethos. “When we’ve played recently, I’ve started off playing the drums and I’ve felt quite tired,” Iain says. “So it’s nice to then play the guitar, you know?” “It would be tiring to play drums for the whole set,” Stuart agrees. “I wouldn’t be able to do it.” If this makes the band sound wimpy, it shouldn’t: The Sticks live sound is a thunderous, chaotic nexus of raw primitive energy condensed into one or two minute songs. Taking

SBTRKT is actually producer Aaron Jerome, but it’s as SBTRKT that he’s become the darling of the electronic airwaves, and not for the fact that he wears a tribal mask when performing, or for answering only to a cryptic pseudonym. He has enormous levels of talent and imagination that he’s using to carve out a new path in dance music that cross-references garage, electro, house, 2-step, new wave and indie. “Everything kind of fits in place like a big puzzle and I’m enjoying all the influences and the freedom to write

in two years.” Unquestionably, SBTRKT is the man of the moment. And by unleashing revered remixes of Radiohead, Basement Jaxx, Portico Quartet and Goldie on much-soughtafter sessions with Radio 1’s Annie Mac, Mary Anne Hobbs and Gilles Peterson, he’s given himself the platform for his own material to flourish. Debut single ‘Soundboy Shift/Rundown’ gets a release on March 15 and it looks set to unmask the next era of electronic music; one that’s free from restraint.

03 09 17 18 20 22 23 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 41 50 55 58 60 62 64 65 66 72 74

pains to capture this fury on their debut album - 10 songs spread across two 7”s - they recorded it live at the West Hill Hall community centre where they also rehearse, keeping things as analogue as possible. “We wanted to represent the space of the hall - we didn’t really want a studio sound,” says James, who also produced the record. “We’re very into using what stuff we have. That’s the whole thing with The Sticks - it’s a thoroughly DIY affair.” They’ve got a European tour set for April and have been personally invited to open for Ian Svenonius’s new band, Chain And The Gang, for their UK dates around the same time. A new EP on M’lady’s Records is on its way too, and they have a second

album due out on Angular in the summer. After that, they’re looking forward to getting experimental again, exploring different approaches to making music in order to keep it fresh. “There is a sort of formula to how we write songs, but if we keep swapping around it stops it all sounding the same,” Iain says. “James is quite good at playing guitar in a certain way, but if I play guitar it’s going to come out very differently.” “It would reach the end of the road quite quickly if we all stuck to the same instruments,” Stuart agrees. “It would get too mechanical,” Iain says. “You’d almost get a bit too good at what you do.”

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SONGBIRDS MIAMI VICE SHOREDITCH, London. No Christmas bonus for the single employee here at The Stool Pigeon, nor for the two guvnors. Hell no. However, we hear things were different at fellow freebie title Vice where the staff were generously given a gramme of coke each to help them through the festive period. “What year do they think it is!?” our mole justifiably asked, before adding: “My friend reckons they re-bagged it so it was more like 3/4 of a gramme each.”

GRAB BAG MINEHEAD, Somerset. Could it be that Andrew W.K. condones shoplifting? At All Tomorrow’s Parties in Somerset last December, the American rocker clocked a Stool Pigeon reader freely helping herself to an ample supply of Cadbury’s Creme Eggs from the on-site, over-priced shop. He simply said, “Nice,” and wandered off. “That was funny,” our light-fingered friend tells us, “but not as funny as the fact that he was wearing a tracksuit and carrying a branded Andrew W.K. bag.”

FACE OFF WEST END, London. It’s become the cheapest shot in music journalism to have a pop at poor Florence Welch. Cheap is neat, so read on: Some years ago, when Flo was involved in a project with Lightspeed Champion, a London-based fashion magazine decide to feature her in their music pages. “I’ll do the interview,” offered an in-house writer who also happened to have a massive crush on the singer. He departed their meeting traumatised. “She has cellulite on her face!” he shrieked, forcing the mag’s art department to retouch every photo they took for the piece.

OCEANS APART MANCHESTER, Greater Manchester. Those Mancunian boys Delphic might make painfully dull music, but they certainly get animated when talking about us tossers down here in London. Fine by us, especially if you’re funny, like the band’s Richard Boardman can be: “When we did our first gig in London, the audience were posing, all dressed up as sailors or something, looking like idiots,” he said recently. “We knew then that we didn’t want to live there. I don’t think bands need to be based in London anymore.”

COVER OVER HACKNEY, London. People have been going bat-shit-crazy for recreational nose-fire mephedrome, or plant food as it’s also called. Or they were last year. But you know it’s all over for new party powders when the NME splashes with, “Plant Food: The growing pains of the nation’s new favourite drug.” Props, then, to Pigeon reader Jodi who, noticing that The xx were on the cover of the same issue of NME, two months after we did them, emailed in this gem: “People still do plant? So last year! NME - so late on ery’thang!”

BITCHES NOT FANS OF LICKING BALLS Huw Nesbitt, London, Monday, Feburary 8

is a big hairy man from B LAKE Oxford who plays bass and makes music with his drummergirlfriend Staz in a two-piece band called Bitches that sound like they’ve got a fixation with Black Flag and Hiroshima circa August 6, 1945. And today he is pissed off. “The situation that we’re dealing with in music is one where ball lickers ball-lick their way to credibility,” he spits. Yes that’s right, cultural democrat, internet addict and talentless lo-fi scenester - we are talking about you. “What happened to people learning how to play their instruments?” he continues. “Whatever. I have trouble being horrible. My old band got some nice gigs because we knew some people. Others moaned. That’s just the way of the dragon. Get on the boat and lick some balls, I guess...” Before Blake and Staz moved to London, Blake was in a band called the Walk Off that blended the dissonant trance of Space Streakings with Steve Albini’s ever-fissuring anus. Didn’t work out, so Blake and Staz formed Bitches in 2008, as “a compromise to having an expensive child”. They’ve achieved quite a lot, too, including doing a DIY tour of America. And today they’re preparing to deploy their maiden single, ‘Winner’, into a landscape dominated by numpties in plaid shirts promoting nights with quaint monikers such as ‘Czechoslovakian Dog Trader’ and ‘I Can Suck My Own Dick - Watch!’ Prey ye for a quick death. “These days, people want stuff that doesn’t intimidate them,” Blake says. “Not weird Iggy Pop - we want Susan Boyle! Or the kind of music that you can shit to! I don’t know if that’s the internet’s fault. Maybe it is. It’s a piece of the machine, churning our collective brains into thick butter, till we’re text voting for Wayne Rooney to become President of the World.”

Nedry united and ready for flight By John Doran

WO-THIRDS of Nedry, Matt Parker and Chris Amblin, have just had some good news. They’ve found out that their singer Ayu Okakita has secured a visa to return from Osaka, Japan and rejoin the band in London. “Between September and January she wasn’t allowed to apply for it,” Matt explains. “So there was a little bit of tension, with us thinking, ‘Shit, we really hope this comes together.’ I’m glad she’s getting it, otherwise the band would be screwed. We’ve kind of put all our eggs in one basket with this.” They’re celebrating with a very unsatisfying-looking hamburger and bacon sandwich in a greasy spoon in Hackney. But they could be eating beluga caviar for all you can tell. These complications seem to have given the trio a firm sense of purpose - one that can’t have

hurt them while making their beguiling debut, Condors. “At the start, in 2008, we were trying to figure out how to do things as live as possible using computers on our own,” Chris says. “When Ayu came back into the fold in 2009, we started working on material and we knew that at the end of August her visa would run out, so we worked really hard. We did as many gigs as we could and recorded the entire album so it was ready to go.” While far from scrappy or ostentatiously DIY, Condors has an urgency to its delivery and recording that is entirely consistent with its free thinking. Okakita’s voice comes fullyformed and has already drawn justified comparisons to Bjork and Beth Gibbons. The music weaves together the sounds of early Mogwai guitar work, Pinch-like bass wobble, King Midas Sound neo trip hop and late-period Radiohead stadiatronica. But it is Chris and Matt’s wideeyed yet respectful sonic approach which sees them sidestep any accusations of dilettantism or opportunistic genre mangling. For example, talking

The ICA have launched a new exhibition celebrating the Pigeon’s prolific poet in residence, Billy Childish. It’s the first time a public institution has assembled a collection that can adequately encompass a career that has produced over 100 independent LPs, 40 poetry books, four novels and 2,500 paintings. In addition to a series of revealing self-portraits, one room focuses on Childish’s music, while another features an archive of his writings, from woodcuts to campaign literature. Unknowable But Certain runs from February 17 to April 18.

about dubstep, Matt says: “We take elements from it but we’re more of a fusion band. I can’t imagine us playing on the same stage as Skream and Benga or something like that.” “So many bands take it on as a novelty,” adds Chris. “They say, ‘This is the dubstep bit.’ Whereas we’re not trying to separate it. We want to use heavy bass sounds and rhythms as part of our palate.”

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That’s the Spirit! S RAL T C SPE

NO missing him: a 20-year-old Yorkshireman tends to T HERE’S stick out among the company of West Coast garage revivalists Thee Oh Sees and Ganglians. But Captured Tracks, a Brooklyn label dedicated to lo-fi releases, made an unusual discovery in Spectrals’ one-man band. They found a proper Northerner determined to unravel Phil Spector’s sugary production secrets. “I like things that sound old,” says By Cian Traynor Louis Jones. “I suppose it’s to do with nostalgia and not quite knowing how things ended up sounding the way when I was younger and almost they did - the mystery of it. With Phil dismissed them. Then I heard the Spector’s stuff, there’s so much going song ‘I Wonder If I Care As Much’. on; there’s a warmth to it. It’s pop Everything about the way it’s put music but it’s also slightly messy. It together - the tone, the production, doesn’t sound like anything we have the lyrics, the atmosphere - I wanted today. I’m really into creating that it for Spectrals. But I’ll probably within my own means.” never be as good as that, so I got Jones, who spent his teenage years obsessed with it. That song has playing in hardcore bands inspired by become a marker for my own stuff. I the likes of Cro-Mags and Leeway, try to capture something about it remembers being floored by The not to copy, but to reflect how I felt Ronettes’ ‘Be My Baby’ after hearing when I heard that song.” it in the opening sequence of Martin Until recently, Jones’s recordings Scorsese’s Mean Streets. It was a were limited to fiddling about with a jarring experience: suddenly all the friend’s equipment. It was mostly influences he’d been exposed to as a computer-based and required huge kid (The Beach Boys, Motown, early effort to recreate the warmth he was Stones) gained a new relevance. They after (“It was like a backwards way of all shared a quality that began to working,” he says). But as the 7” keep him awake at night. sparked a buzz around Leeds, Jones “I heard The Everly Brothers was encouraged to seek out producer

LEEDS MAN DOESN’T SEE THE WRITING ON THE WALL OF SOUND Richard Thornby, former guitarist for Spectrum, the group that Sonic Boom launched after Spacemen 3. Together they’ve been using sixties gear and reel-to-reel taping to record what will be Spectrals’ debut LP, which Jones hopes to release later this year. Now he’s so close to realising his dream of playing America, he has “unofficially” dropped out of university, but feels apprehensive about what the future holds. “I’m in a weird place at the moment,” he says. “I want to do this, but I don’t want the decisions I make to be driven by my hopes for Spectrals. If I tie my future to one thing, then I’m more likely to disappoint myself. An album might not be well received. I’d love to be doing records forever, but it might not happen. So I’m just going to see how far I can push my luck.”

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HOTLY-TIPPED

JONQUIL DUE A LION’S SHARE BY CIAN TRAYNOR

in a while an album will come along, mesmerise a few and then, inexplicably, go unnoticed. Such is the case w i t h J o n q u i l ’ s Lions : a bedroom masterpiece, teeming with character and buoyed by a complete lack of expectation. Crowded around the open doors of a borrowed van, the Oxford sextet pinch at clusters of rolling tobacco and tell the story of their forgotten opus. Originally inspired by ambient Kranky records, their debut, Sunny Casinos , focused more on atmosphere than anthems, fleeting moments of field recordings and obscure sound bites. But as soon as they started trying to reproduce it on stage, they realised it wasn’t them. It was only when lead singer Hugo Manuel had some time alone that he discovered something else. “I was house-sitting on the outskirts of Oxford. White walls, no furniture, nothing,” he explains. “It had been squatted in so I was hired to ward off anyone trying to spray paint the place. After a week of just going crazy by myself, I thought, ‘Fuck it, let’s just get everyone down and record.’ We got together and assembled our own little choir... effectively putting the fun back into Jonquil.” Before Beirut found success in recycling gypsy folk, Jonquil had been busy developing a softer-sounding ensemble with just as much charm and warmth. Manuel spent his gap year collecting musical oddities, harvesting eBay for Nepalese singing bowls and scouring Bulgarian flea markets for tattered accordions. But after re-releasing Lions and touring the arse out of it across Europe for the last two years, the lads have realised it’s time to move on. They’ve been recording a new album of “rainbow pop”, set for release later this year, and despite it all their enthusiasm hasn’t dulled: “It is a learning experience,” says drummer Kit Monteith. “But something about it just feels... right.”

Once

BUT

NOT

INCLINED

TAKE

THE

PLUNGE

Gloomy Veronica Falls on the rise

ambition has man not man ambition to have ambition surgests that we somehow are in control or command of it rather than ridden by it like a surpent coiled in the mind like an anaconda in a hot swamp green as greed be it overert or hidden it sits king - like

Words THOMAS A.WARD Photo ERIKA WALL

T HbEelpiervesestrhealteaLsoenwdoounl’sd Vhaevreonyiocua Falls are the luckiest band in e x i s t enc e : “ [ I n a ] t wi s t o f p e r f e c t serendipity, the band had their MySpace site up for only an hour before they were contacted by Black Dogs kingpin Mike Sniper, who quickly snapped up the band to his much revered Captured Tracks label in the US.” You’d think that lead singer and guitarist Roxanne Clifford would feel excited, even humbled, by such circumstances. “I suppose so,” she offers, contentedly. “The thing is [Sniper] kind of knew Patrick [Doyle, drums] from New York, so that helped. I’m sure they liked the music as well, but I think it was kind of inevitable before we even put the songs up. He will literally put anything out.” We’ll presume apathy, arrogance and an industrious amount of nepotism instead, then. What about guitarist James Hoare, also of Your Twenties fame? You must be content with the situation? “The lead singer [Gabriel Stebbing, also of Metronomy] kicked me out of Your Twenties because my level of commitment was not strong enough,” he manages. So you’re pretty pissed off, then? “I was pretty pissed off in terms of knowing him for 16 years and him not asking me to leave. It was quite severe, actually.” So you’re bitter, then? “You can

and if we dare actualy look at this surpent actualy peer into our own mind as it were and poke ambition with a long stick we will see that this mear looking and enquiry is enough to set the mind into a wrything rage and it will wrestle us down till we submite to its false promiss and others will be outraged that we should have dared question ambitions virtue and integrity or surgest ambition is riddled and selfish and feared of the lite of god

print that. It’ll make him feel bad.” Not one for ‘toeing the line’ with press relations, Veronica Falls are not great at selling themselves when quizzed. The band formed over a year ago when Roxanne and Patrick moved from Glasgow to London in the wake of their previous bands The Royal We and Sexy Kids. “We broke up before the [Royal We] album came out,” explains Roxanne. “Sexy Kids was just a bit of fun with friends.”

The pair were introduced to James Hoare (guitar) at a Comet Gain gig and bonded over a shared love for the quasi-punk band. After press-ganging their friend Marion into the band by teaching her to play bass in a month, they set about to “start a band that sounded like Galaxie 500”, explains Roxanne. “A bit shoegazey; Velvet Underground sort of drums. Quite simplistic. I don’t think it sounds much like them, but we’ve made it our own.”

This they have, and if anything has been learnt, the quartet can at least rely on the rhetoric of their debut UK single ‘Found Love In A Graveyard’ to speak volumes above their inability to sell themselves verbally. Imagine the urgency of The Shop Assistants, the spectres of C86-era jangle pop, with Roky Erickson-inspired lyrics, and they are a band to get listening to... even if they can’t convince you themselves.

“Peckham pair Mount an attack on dumbstep” Mount Kimbie were told that Mary Anne Hobbs would be dropping their breakout song ‘Maybes’ on her Experimental show, they invited half of Peckham round for chemicals and camaraderie. But after kicking off celebrations in the early eve, the pair forgot that the show airs in the wee hours. “By the time it was played, most of us were absolutely battered,” says Kimbie’s Dom Maker. The fledgling duo write atmospheric dubstep with subtle, ravey undertones. Burial-esque drone mantra ‘Maybes’ has already been thoroughly rinsed by the likes of Ramadanman, Untold and Scuba,

When

while their remix of The xx’s ‘Basic Space’ was included as part of the single’s release campaign last year. After meeting at an art school in South East London, the duo, both 22, began blending their idiosyncratic formulas in their home studio. “When I produce anything that isn’t deleted with haste,” says Maker, “the last thing I want on my mind are the sounds that I’ve heard before. It’s very frustrating, but occasionally I catch my memory off-guard and something that resembles a fusion of various alternative sounds appears on screen.” The duo recorded two wellreceived EPs in rapid succession last year and have since toured some of Europe’s oddest venues, including

the St Jakobskirken Church in Oslo. “The whole attitude towards live music is different in Scandinavia. When we were playing people were going, ‘Sshhhhh!’ if anyone spoke. The fact that the gig was held in a beautiful church, which was filled with smoke, dim lighting and drone music between acts was just incredible.” Since then, Kimbie have played with the likes of Joker, Four Tet and 2562 at the WMF in Berlin, and The Bug and Flowdan at Impakt, an audio visual festival in the Netherlands. “Two of the most stressful hours of our lives came before that gig. We were still fixing stuff when a curtain got pulled back and we had to play,”

explains Kai Campos, the coyer of the two. “After playing a slightly strained and anxious 40 minutes, The Bug came on and just killed it. My favourite set of 2009 by a fair distance - The Bug’s, not ours!” They plan to steer their live performances in a new direction, with the addition of varied instrumentation, vocal sampling and found sounds. “We now use guitars, a snare drum, a ride cymbal and some pieces of hardware,” explains Maker. “There’s a bit more guitar now but not in a Fennesz way,” adds Campos. “...Closer to a shit Ramones covers band.” The act, signed to Hotflush, are currently working on an LP, planned for release later this year. Jack Mills

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Heat’s on for Summer Camp now they’re out the closet hazel sheffield SUMMER CAMP are Elizabeth Sankey and Jeremy Warmsley. They are: the comedy-actress editor of sensationalist youth zine Platform and a half-French reformed folkie with two albums to his name, respectively. They are not: a seven-piece from Sweden. They did not meet at summer camp when they were 14, despite what you might have read. “The whole secrecy thing wasn’t ever deliberate,” Elizabeth says after introducing herself as Summer Camp. “It was a happy accident more that we haven’t told anyone than that we’re actually keeping it a secret. If anyone asked us outright, then we’d probably tell them.” “We just don’t want it to be like we’re jumping out of a cake,” Jeremy adds. Presumably they’re not sitting in gateau. Who are they? Elizabeth: “It’s something that we don’t really want to talk about because...” Jeremy: “We met in prison.”

ordon Brown, Labour Britain’s identity, even the ones MY Party. Brown not only that sound Japanese, as “the listens to the Bee Gees “every truth is that the decisions are day” but has used his power to made by Jews”. become their ultimate groupie by holidaying in the home of ev. George Hargreaves, Robin Gibb. Has a tendency to Christian Party. tear-up whenever the band Ain’t no party like a political party. The are mentioned, describing Astonishingly, he wrote and leaders and their taste in music. them as “absolutely timeless”. produced Sinitta’s gay euroAfter being advised to appear “current”, disco anthems ‘Cruising’ and ‘So Macho’ Brown has feigned interest in Amy for “the gay scene to go mad to on avid Cameron, Conservative. poppers”. Despite believing that Winehouse and Arctic Monkeys. Though Nicknamed ‘Indie Dave’ for his love homosexuality is a sin, Hargreaves claims unable to name any of their songs, Brown claims the Arctics “really wake you up in of Modest Mouse, The Smiths, The Jam there are no double standards in his and The Killers. However such public allowing Hallmark to use ‘So Macho’ on the mornings”. displays of affection have drawn criticism its greeting cards, as he insisted on the from Morrissey and Paul Weller, the one condition: that all well-wishing should ick Clegg, Liberal Democrats. latter adding, “Is he thick? He probably remain resolutely heterosexual. Drew complaints from radio thinks ‘Eton Rifles’ is a song about him listeners after claiming that the Bowie and his mates at school.” Cameron once ndrew Robinson, Pirate Party. song ‘Changes’ was his favourite album. claimed that Radiohead played ‘Fake Other music-related gaffes include Plastic Trees’ just for him during a charity Leave it to a part-time musician to bringing in Brian Eno to capture the show. The band hurriedly denied this. take down the system from the inside. youth vote, and admitting that he’s Having been unable to launch a music never heard of the song ‘Fairytale of career through MySpace, Robinson now ick Griffin, BNP. Massive racist hopes to win around five per cent of the New York’. Fortunately for Clegg, LibGriffin is big into folk and has even proportional representation vote in the Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb is nicknamed “the prince of grime”, having penned an album of nationalist songs next election, giving him the balance of been involved in launching Tinchy entitled West Wind for the BNP’s record power between two major political blocs. Stryder’s career. “It’s been the central label, Great White Records. This is as “That would mean we would get to sit part of our lives for the last three years,” pure as it gets for Griffin, who believes down and play Who Wants To Be Prime that every other label undermines Minister,” he says. Oh dear. Lamb said. “We’ve lived grime.”

6 OF THE BEST

Summer Camp spend a lot of time talking about why they’ve chosen to remain anonymous, and justifying a few fibs. At one point Elizabeth says she “nearly had a breakdown” after people started writing to them from Sweden, in Swedish, asking when they could see them play live. They took the Swedish part off their MySpace profile after that. Their

MySpace URL is Morgan Waves, as Morgan is Elizabeth’s middle name and at one point that was going to be their band name. No one knows why Morgan is waving, but she was probably heavily disguised at the time. Their MySpace and blog is full of old photography - the kind of universally familiar, musty-coloured snaps that usually reside in your

parents’ college albums. It goes with their songs, deliberately fuzzy from Elizabeth’s love of lo-fi, and lovingly assembled by Jeremy in his home studio. That’s where they are for this interview; that’s where they probably are now. “Every day is a work day,” says Elizabeth cheerfully. Summer Camp insist that they never intended for people to hear

about them so early on and that they’ve no idea how new music blog Transparent found their MySpace last October, nanoseconds after they’d posted one recorded track for ‘fun’ (a cover of The Flamingos’ ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’). It happened, though, and now it has, they’re working hard, not about to fob people off with excuses like so many of their blog-hyped contemporaries. “It’s such a cliché to say, ‘we’re just making music for ourselves and if anyone else likes it, that’s nice,’” says Jeremy. “It’s an easy way of dodging a difficult question, which is ‘do you care what other people think of your music?’ The answer is yes, of course we do; we want to make music that other people will like.” They shouldn’t be so worried people don’t just like this band, they love them. The music they have put online to date is unusual and enchanting. It’s lo-fi but not claustrophobic or pretentious, kitsch but not cheap, pop but not perfect. “Our songs aren’t about our own experiences,” says Jeremy. “They’re like stories or narratives. We’re trying very hard to create a world that is consistent and that people can fall in love with.” It’s working. And they say who they are, eventually. Jeremy accidentally drops Elizabeth’s name into conversation, prompting a dispute, which they both politely apologise for when they remember there’s a journalist listening in. “I thought we were going to say first names! I don’t think it’s a big deal!” says Elizabeth. “Right,” he answers, finally. “Well, my name’s Jeremy. Nice to meet you.” Nice to meet you, indeed.

Home news

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

Giving Static The members of FACTORY FLOOR are as highly charged as the industrial noise they manufacture Words by Niall O’Keeffe

Photograph by Dave Ma

There are many layers to the glorious noise generated by East London’s Factory Floor. There’s the haunting, Mittel-European vocals of Nik Colk, not to mention the squalling and screeching of her guitar as she assails it with violin bow or drum stick. There’s the crunching electronics, marshalled by machine man Dom Butler. There’s the restless, inventive drumming of Gabe Gurnsey. Louder than any of this, though, is the crackle of tension. At the live shows, it’s a deafening roar. Supporting Martin Rev in London last November, they produced a murderously intense performance but were cut dead by a blown socket barely two songs in, yielding a silence ruptured by Gabe’s Yorkshireaccented swearing. At a January gig at Shoreditch venue Cargo, Factory Floor went one better: bringing a power outage to the entire street with a set-closing storm of feedback. “All the dudes that run the place were running round with torches, looking at us with evil eyes,” Butler recalls. Simmering tension underpins every note of Factory Floor’s imminent double A-side ‘Lying’ / ‘A Wooden Box’. The former track offers a propulsive two-note synth riff, intermittent shocks of guitar noise, whirlwind percussion, and an ominous, death-obsessed lyric (the title refers to being in a prostrate position, rather than telling untruths). ‘A Wooden Box’ likewise focuses on death, albeit in more terror-stricken fashion, with Nik and Dom trading urgent whispers over a pulverising house track. Questioned about the lyrics of ‘A Wooden Box’, Dom freezes, as if he’s been asked to reveal his darkest personal secret. Eventually he dissembles about the lyric changing all the time. The single reunites Nik with Blast First Petite boss Paul Smith, who signed her last band KaitO, a Norwich quartet trading in noisy indie-punk. ‘Lying’ / ‘A Wooden Box’ won’t be the first Factory Floor record - it follows a

debut 7” and the ‘Planning Application’ EP - but it will be the first since Nik’s recruitment, which all agree has heralded a new dawn for the shape-shifting band, of which Gabe is the longest-serving member. In addition to her voice and guitar wizardry, Nik has brought poise and charisma to a band that previously offered a limited spectacle: that of unassuming blokes indulging a shared interest in clanking sounds. As interviewees, Factory Floor are charming but prone to bickering among themselves. That crackle of tension is right there in the dictaphone. It flares first when Nik recalls her initial contact with the others, via e-mail. “They asked me to do some singing on a track,” she remembers. “But they wouldn’t let me go down to their rehearsal room, which was really frustrating.” Eventually, she spoke to them at a show at east London’s Old Blue Last. “I made a conscious effort to go and

meet them, and then it went from there... They reeled me in.” Gabe: “That’s a whole lie, all of what she just said.” Dom: “We didn’t reel her in, she sneaked in. Like a snake under a door. With a top hat on.” Nik: “Now we work together, I know how they don’t like other people involved, musically, in what they do. So I’m actually amazed that they let me in.” The boys’ interest had been piqued by electro-pop songs Nik had posted on MySpace under the name Nik Void. Gabe: “It’s the tone of her vocals that I’ve always really liked.” Nik: “What about the songwriting and all the programming?” When Nik eventually joined, Factory Floor assumed a year-zero mentality. “If you walk forward and you’re constantly looking back, you just knock into things,” proclaims Dom. Momentum built quickly. Shortly after coalescing, the new

line-up made a fruitful connection with The Horrors, which led to support slots on UK and European tours. Joining Factory Floor required Nik to overcome misgivings. The demise of KaitO had left scars. “After that experience, I didn’t want to be involved with a band,” she says. “I wanted to start anew and not look back. But I don’t feel like I’m looking back with this. I don’t feel I’m regurgitating what I used to do... I took two years out and now I’m starting again. And I love it again.” Post-KaitO, Nik has changed the style of both her vocals - lower register, fewer words - and her playing. “[With KaitO] it was a lot about riffs. Now, it’s more assault on the guitar and making different sounds. Being more experimental, but still trying to control that feedback.” The shared urge to experiment has led Dom and Gabe to acquire a Russian drum machine and a range

of analogue synths. “I just really enjoy an analogue sound because it’s alive,” says Dom. “So many bands use these MiniKorg things that are just digital representations of analogue, and it’s just a shame.” This wariness of conservatism is a recurring theme with Dom. “A lot of bands have preconceptions and they can’t break away from them. They don’t say, ‘Let’s see what happens here.’ I dunno, it seems to work with us. If it sounds shit... we just laugh at it. And I crumble and cry.” Nik: “And sulk for a couple of days.” Dom: “You’re the sulker!” Before the dictaphone clicks off, there’ll be time for one more argument. Gabe will say, “They fucking hate me, these two: I’m going, ‘We’ve got to write!’” and Nik will respond, “Oh excuse me! I’m the one who said it ages ago! You just say it, you don’t act. You’re all mouth.” And so the tension keeps building and building, until the next glorious explosion.

March 2010 The Stool Pigeon

International news Sea Change Baltimore two-piece BEACH HOUSE have coasted into new waters, but they’re still dwelling on issues of the heart. Words by Cian Traynor

Photograph by Jason Nocito

There’s a knock at the door. A German-sounding man in his fifties politely asks For As

if Beach House would mind letting two crack-smoking sisters use their dressing room for a while. Tensions are high. It’s late 2007 and Baltimore’s dream-pop duo are topping a variety bill that has attracted only a handful of people to one of London’s smallest venues. For a littleknown band, this does not feel like an auspicious beginning.

forward a few years: there are more albums, more scars, a different sound and a different outlook. Victoria Legrand even has some words of advice to give her old self, if she could. “I’d say, ‘Things are going to happen that you won’t want or expect, but it’s for the better. It’s going to allow you to make room for the more important things in your life. So chill out.’ But I say that to myself now, too. I say, ‘Victoria, you just need to take it easy and stop being so neurotic.’”

Fast

is sitting in the passenger seat of an old Toyota parked within a gated community in Towson, just outside Baltimore. It’s cold. She bites her words at first, but it doesn’t take her long to warm. She knows how to steam up those windows.

Legrand

the last year, Legrand and Alex Scally have put everything into making Teen Dream, an album already tipped for 2010’s best-of lists. There is no personal life anymore, she says, just Beach House. The day job is long gone. “I would bartend and usually someone would come in and tell me way too much information. But you give them back energy because you don’t want them to go and kill themselves. I don’t really miss that.”

much as 2010 is expected to be a breakthrough year for Beach House, the pair have routinely maintained that this is just the beginning. And, of course, you would as well. But what if this is their peak? What if, in 15 years time, Beach House find themselves playing Teen Dream as part of ATP’s Don’t Look Back series?

can’t control what happens to you in life,” Legrand

whim after becoming disillusioned with acting. Born in Paris to the brother of French composer Michel Legrand, she grew up between Maryland and Philadelphia before returning to Paris to study theatre at the International School of Jacques Lecoq. After meeting Scally through a mutual friend, the two decided to combine her classically trained piano and operatic singing with his still-fledgling guitar playing. They spent the summer of 2005 holed up in a

songwriting and production, certain things remain: the tension of infatuation and the pitfalls of love.

basement where intense writing sessions utilised the antiquated feel of their instruments: the rich tones of nearbroken amps, old organs, a “strange archaic beat machine” and the sleepy drone of Scally’s slide guitar.

dangerous love: ‘I’m not supposed to do this’ love; ‘I’m not supposed to love you’ love; ‘you’re the wrong person to love!’ But when you experience heartbreak, you come out the other side of it and you’re stronger. And the next love you experience will be more intense and even better. Because you allowed yourself to fall on your face and you gave yourself completely. In some ways, being in Beach House is a similar feeling. You throw yourself wildly into something, very passionately. The rupture between that and a domestic life of nine-to-five... there’s a heartbreak that occurs. And, like love, sometimes it lasts years, sometimes it may come back to haunt you.”

not melancholic people but I think there’s definitely a colour in our music that’s always there. Heartbreak, I think, comes when you just love uncontrollably; when you take risks. Some people get real into comfort and, sure, it is a form of love. It is. But then there’s

“We’re

“You She has trouble remembering what year it is, having spent just one month out of the last 12 at

home, and relationships have suffered. “We were forced to let things go. If you have a loved one, it’s hard to say goodbye. But it’s okay, you know? You grow and you change. I feel like we’re slightly different people now. Our obsessions are more intense. We’re both really high-speed people in so many ways - mentally overactive and, at our worst, dissatisfied. It’s like trying to stay calm in a hurricane. So a lot of silly things just filter away, but it’s all been very natural. You can’t have everything in life.”

says. “It’s like when you get on a plane and you go, ‘Have I had a good life up until this moment?’ So, if the plane goes down, you know you have. That’s very much how I feel. All the work I’ve done up until this record, I’m proud of. And it’s been difficult. Some of it you doubt, some of it you’re happy with, but you believe in it all. As long as you keep having those feelings, I’m not fearful of what will happen. But it’s an interesting place to be: to realise that a moment in your life is the best moment. It doesn’t have to be depressing or embarrassing or humiliating. That’s just how life is. It’s brutally honest.”

Legrand

, now 28, moved to Baltimore on a

still have the “same shitty instruments” and they’ve kept that simplicity intact. But just as Beach House have a fixed idea of what they want from the music, so too do the audience. Until now, the feedback has remained consistent: the same touchstone adjectives keep appearing. And maybe they’re right, Legrand admits. Even now, disrupting the template with more complex

They

International news

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

Moving to Berlin makes for a happy appendix to Emika’s story Words danna hawley life just takes o u somewhere, and you go with it,” says electronic artist Emika. One day she was re-emerging into the world after botched appendix surgery left her bed-ridden for eight months in a Bristol hospital; the next, she scored a free plane ticket after signing up for a bank account, providing an unplanned escape to Berlin. “I fell in love with myself again in Berlin,” she says. “So

“Somehow y

THE NON-DRAMA QUEEN INTRODUCING

CAITLIN ROSE WRITTEN BY ALEX MARSHALL

There are many things to love about Caitlin Rose, a 22-year-old country singer from Nashville. She’s incredibly charismatic on stage, full of self-deprecating asides and quick to launch into a cappellas. Her songs are just as striking - all honky-tonk numbers about shotgun weddings and heart-stricken ballads, as seen on her new Dead Flowers record. Then there’s her voice. On the face of it, it’s nothing special crystal clear, with a light Tennessee twang - but when she sings, there’s seriously nothing else in the room. Speaking to her on the phone, it turns out she even has that rarest of talents: the ability to give a good interview. Take this, her explanation of how she fell for country, aged 18: “As soon as I started to listen to it, it was like the way 14-year-old

girls feel about Backstreet Boys. I was completely intrigued by it, then I figured out I could do it, and I liked it even more. For some reason I just identified with songs about 40-year-old men drinking.” She’s happy to talk openly about anything, from her country music business parents (“I’ve never been the kind of thing they could have taken down to Music Row and tried to get a publishing deal for. I don’t even think they knew I made music until I was 20”), to why all her songs are about heartbreak. “I don’t like drama,” she says, “but I feel like I’m getting into a pattern where you date someone, they leave and then you can suddenly write 10 songs. It almost seems like a necessary evil at this point in my life.” But she’s best when we get onto the subject of that voice. “I actually hate it,” she laughs. “When I’m listening to a recording, I

“I JUST IDENTIFIED WITH SONGS ABOUT 40-YEAR-OLD MEN DRINKING” get chicken skin. There’s just something about it that rubs me up the wrong way, like I was playing at this jean store the other day and they were like, ‘You should try on some of our clothes.’ This store is well known for having the tightest pants in Nashville, so I’m trying to pull on this pair that are two sizes too small and they start playing Dead Flowers. All of a sudden it’s just that banging tambourine and my voice singing, ‘Gorilla Man, Gorilla Man...’ I almost had a panic attack in the changing room. I feel like that’s why I keep smoking. I’m hoping it’ll calm it down.”

A LADY IN BLOOM

S D R I B G N SO FEVER BITCH

I followed that feeling. I signed up to an au pair website and gave away all my stuff. I put my piano in the street in Bristol! I came back here and redefined myself again.” Two years later, the 24-year-old is challenging the definition of electronic music, using otherworldly melodies and tight productions to stomp through any notion of genre. Between the brutal force of dubstep and the bounce of techno, the dramatic crescendos of classical overtures and the spaciousness of ambient, Emika’s secret weapon is her unique vocal delivery (think a husky, breathy Aaliyah covered in shadows). Hearing and feeling music has always been crucial to Emika. She grew up as a pianist who detested “the whole paper thing”. But acquiring a music technology degree in Bristol heightened things further. “The degree taught me to hear sound. I hadn’t really ever considered sound, like the sound of a car or a radiator,” she explains. “When I did the degree I didn’t make any music because I didn’t understand it anymore. It wasn’t about melody, it was about sound and frequencies. A whole new world opened up before me.” Emika places a sharp focus on sound in her first single, the haunting and allencompassing ‘Drop The Other’. It’s equal parts tough and sinister: shrill piano lines float through dark cinematic soundscapes, with sharp beats dancing in-between devastatingly low bass frequencies. Mystifying as it may be, she believes her creation remains remarkably accessible. “It’s so exciting to realise that my music makes sense to all kinds of people with all kinds of cultural influences and backgrounds. I’m pleased that I’ve made a track that’s independent of a particular scene or a particular attitude. It’s about time there was a big experimental period in music that really questions everything.” Emika fans include bass leaders Pinch and Mary Anne Hobbs, pop starlet Florence Welch, 4/4 scenesters My My (with whom she recorded the housey ‘Price Tag’) and even Ninja Tune, who are releasing her debut album this summer. “This album,” she says excitedly, “is like a business card in a sense. I really want to produce music for other people and carry on developing as a producer.”

Gothenburg, Sweden. A YouTube clip of Fever Ray’s acceptance speech at Sweden’s P3 Guld Awards (gorgeous Klansman’s costume, putty on face, no words but curious noises) caused quite a disturbance among posters, mostly along the lines of, “What absolute fucking nonsense is this?” However, it was ‘mattgetssit’ who picked up on the real horror of the clip: that Karin has taken to sporting peroxide natties. “Ew! Nasty-ass dreadlocks much!” he exclaimed.

BACKSEAT BOYS Baltimore, Maryland. Electronic duo Matmos explain how they can’t stay in each other’s good books. Martin: “Sadly, a lot of people who otherwise would not have seen a gay bitch fight get to see one. There’s always bound to be drama, like, Drew sitting in the passenger seat and me driving. Now imagine there’s a band in the backseat, watching!” Drew: “We’ve had some domestics during sound checks where people at the venue have to listen to us bitterly snipe at each other over who gets which table or where the monitors should be.”

FISHY BEGINNINGS Baltimore, Maryland. It gets better: Matmos explain how they first met. Drew: “I was go-go dancing on a bar and wearing a plastic fish jockstrap and he came up to talk to me.” Martin: “...like, ‘I have five dollars. Do you want it?’” Drew: “Yeah, he put a dollar in my jockstrap. And a band was born.” Martin: “We’ve been together for 18 years.” Drew: “In gay, that’s like 100 years. Martin: “Don’t make me calculate it out in gay years.”

FUR FLIES New York, New York: Kanye West hilariously hits out at PETA after he and his girlfriend Amber Rose were criticised for wearing animal pelts during a recent fashion show in Paris. “I’m briefly saddened by negative comments,” West wrote on his blog. “But I have to remember those people are scared, incapable or just plain idiots. We are the fucking rock stars, baby.” He continued: “At the end of the day, who are we hurting? Since Barack is president, blacks don’t like fur coats, red leather and fried chicken anymore?”

DON’T BE SHY Dublin, Ireland. Yusuf ‘Cat Stevens’ Islam was “utterly shocked” by the angry reaction to his concert at the O2 in Dublin. The problems began when, halfway through the show, he decided to introduce a preview of his upcoming West End musical, Moonshadow. By then, some punters had already walked out, hurling abuse at the singer. “My voice doesn’t seem to have altered, which for many fans is already a Godsend,” wrote Islam. “But... [to] demand a ‘Beam me up Scotty’ return to the Cat Stevens persona of yesterday is more than any amount of imagination can hope for.”

Toro y Moi hits the bull’s eye by mistake Words Cian Traynor Bundick’s

voicemail

Chaz makes him sound like

the Zodiac killer. It’s amusing at first - a stoner having a laugh but downright creepy by the umpteenth time you’ve heard it. When he finally picks up, hours later, Bundick asks what day it is and seems unsatisfied with the answer. He sounds nervous; leaving fumbling gaps between his words. This may not sound like someone who has his act together, but Bundick is in the middle of releasing two albums, in different genres, within months of each other. He’s also juggling another band, a modelling career, work as a producer, and preparation for a 35-date tour. So far, the pressure is paying off: his ascent is such that footage of him just bouncing a balloon has warranted thousands of views on YouTube.

Photograph Forest Casey Bundick grew up in Columbia: the small, sprawling college town in South Carolina that Hootie And The Blowfish call home. His parents were music fanatics: mum insisted he learn the piano at age eight; dad made him listen to Sonic Youth and Elvis Costello. He gave up piano for the guitar at 12 and joined a punk band - the perfect escape from turning into a high-school jock. “I started off in my freshman year playing football,” he says. “Finally, I got in for one game and it was a disaster. I was the small kid; too small for anything. So when I joined a band, they said, ‘Dude, you have to quit football so we can practise.’ Thankfully, music was more fun.” Toro y Moi, a title inspired by a family holiday, became the name of his bedroom side-project: collages of synth pop, cut-up beats and floating funk rhythms.

As he pursued a career in graphic design, continuing to play with his friends in a band, Toro y Moi was consigned to hobby status strictly a private outlet. Then, last summer, things changed overnight. Having spent years trying to get his band The Heist and The Accomplice noticed, Toro y Moi enjoyed a comparatively effortless breakthrough. “I didn’t even mail a CD or a

demo kit to a record label; I just sent out MP3s to a couple of music blogs. The intention was just for people to hear it... I wasn’t expecting it to snowball like it did.” Within a month, he signed to Carpark. Suddenly his songs, which are purely autobiographical, were out in the open. Hometown concerts became “awkward”. Singing about all his friends leaving town, for instance, wasn’t well received by those who hadn’t gone anywhere. “I’ve also gotten a bit of heat from my exgirlfriend/lover. A lot of family and friends know what the songs are about, so she’d be like, ‘Why did you do that?’ Hopefully I can move on to a subject that doesn’t embarrass her.”

But it was the laidback, Dillalike feel of what would become debut album Causers of This that captivated everyone else. The ease with which Bundick can adapt his sound around any motif - be it covers of Michael Jackson or Beach House - sent music bloggers scrambling for new genre descriptions. They settled on ‘chillwave’, which seems to have stuck, at least until he drops an album of dreamy garage rock later this year. “I can see why I’ve been lumped in with Washed Out and Neon Indian - we’re all solo artists coming from similar backgrounds of pop and electronic music,” he says. “It’s not a bad thing for me, though. It’s fun to break out of the box that gets put on you.” Though Bundick suspects his second album might turn people off, he’s serious about having separate “profiles” under the same name, even refusing to mix the material at live shows. The music won’t stagnate, he says, if he can keep on changing: “The only thing I want from the future is the chance to put out albums. I’m not looking for financial gain or anything. So if the music world decides to turn on me, I’ll have a good time doing graphic design for a living. I’m just having fun doing this for myself, making songs I like to hear. That’s how it’s always been.”

OUT NOW FABRIC50: MARTYN As an artist whose music has always defied classification, it comes as no surprise that Martyn’s fabric mix tiptoes, straddles and stomps over the notion of genre; fabric 50 is a thrilling, unpredictable portrait of today’s all-embracing and crosspollinating music scenes. Powered only by the common link of bass culture, Martyn fuses the deep impact of 2562 and Kode 9, the funky step of Roska and Uncle Bakongo, wildly imaginative creations from Hudson Mohawke and Joy Orbison, and the cerebral trip of Werk Discs’ Actress. Also glittered with his own 3024 label creations, this is a definitive snapshot of any pulsating, incandescent dancefloor taken over by the Martyn sound.

OUT NOW ELEVATOR MUSIC: VOL. 1 ‘Elevator Music’ is a collation of all the variant strains of dubstep; a completely original and exclusive collection of future bumps that reflects the embracive nature of fabric’s dance floor music policy. Pooling tracks from established producers like Martyn, Starkey, Untold and Caspa & Rusko with a smattering of producers destined for great things come 2010, 'Elevator Music' ticks boxes in categories and niches that don’t even fully exist yet; unifying the vision of 16 producers with one simple passion. Bass.

RELEASED 15TH FEBRUARY FABRICLIVE50: DBRIDGE & INSTRA:MENTAL PRESENT AUTONOMIC Autonomic, the combination of Bad Company’s most musically accomplished member, dBridge, and the single most exciting production outfit to come out of the D&B scene in a decade, Instra:mental, have redefined the notion of drum & bass with FABRICLIVE 50. Appropriately for the 100th title in fabric’s compilation series, this trio have concocted possibly its most revolutionary and forward-thinking collection of tracks. Since drum & bass’ glory days of the mid 90s, a time when the world looked to the UK’s most vibrant and creative indigenous music scene for inspiration, drum & bass has been looking for an artist to break the confines of the sound’s stylistic template, and Autonomic have delivered. FABRICLIVE 50 sums up their last couple of years of work, and represents the work of a collection of producers – many of whom have delivered tailormade tracks for the CD, from ASC to Skream to Actrss to Scuba to Genotype – who are creating music for dBridge & Instra:mental that redefines what the world know as drum & bass, for now, they just call the Autonomic sound.

Forthcoming: DJ T., The Duke Dumont, Optimo (Espacio)

www.fabriclondon.com

Scandinavian news

The Stool Pigeon March 2010 Oh No Ono

sunny side up

THESTOOL PIGEON AT

Palindromic Danes hatch glorious second LP

A Tall Tale by Jo

JOHN DORAN “BLACK METAL isn’t so much of a big thing in Norway,” says Kjetil Nernes, guitarist and vocalist with noise rockers, Årabrot. “There was a three-page interview with Varg Vikernes in a magazine when he got out of jail but nothing more. The black metal scene is so big internationally, though. I used to live in the old part of Oslo near where the Helvete record store [ground zero for Norwegian black metal] used to be. And the people you’d meet would always be Mexican or Brazilian and they would ask for directions to the shop. I would show them where it was. I was like, ‘Wow! These people have come all this way to see this thing which is so old news!’ It’s just a bakery now and it was a hairdressers before that.” But no matter how insular and isolationist Norwegian BM was, they couldn’t contain it. Actually, in some respects it spread because of its exclusionist nature. And while there are now some amazing black metal bands round the globe now such as Wolves In The Throne Room [America] and Blut Aus Nord [France] and while the Scandinavian scene remains as robust as ever, the interesting impact of this genre can be felt elsewhere. In the fringes. From the continued vocal influence on Sunn O)))’s deep drone explorations to the horrortronix and contemporary composition of Gnaw Their Tongues to the caustic literary metal of Cobalt. The influence is also undeniable on Kjetil’s parched and deathlike vocals for Årabrot. That said, apart from a profound love for fellow countrymen Aura Noir, the band don’t even consider themselves black metal black sheep, just nothing to do with the scene at all. Their new album The Brother Seed owes more to the alcohol-twisted noise scene of the late eighties and early nineties: “I learned to play guitar by listening to Amphetamine Reptile bands, The Melvins and The Jesus Lizard.”

ver since William Burroughs wanted to step up his attempts to harness his unconscious and improve his automatic writing through the surrealist cut-up technique, rock stars have been keen to pass the artistic buck by injecting an element of randomness into the art of lyric writing. In music, everyone from David Bowie to Genesis P-Orridge to Thom Yorke have dabbled with the technique. Danish pop prog outfit Oh No Ono have taken their automatic writing a step further by including phrases dreamt up by spambots and spam blockers on the internet. The band’s Nicolai Koch says that using these haphazard combinations as lyrics appeals to the perversity of the group: “Spam seems like, to some degree, the subconscious of the internet. It seems like you will be looking for something specific and then you get hit with all these pop-ups and spam mails which are nearly always about penis enlargement. I think Freud would be very happy about the internet.” In 2006, the quintet released the angular new wave album Yes, but have been wasting little time if their new release, Eggs, is anything to go by. The album was recorded over a not-so-coincidental nine-month period starting on the Island of Mon and finishing up in Berlin. Koch explains that field recordings also played a major role in the process of making the album. “If someone wasn’t taking part in the session or was on a break, they would go out and record different stuff,” he says. “We recorded the leaves rustling; some birds creaking in the eaves of the house. Then we made

oran

some tapes of pygmy-style water drums. We recorded some frogs too. There was a massive frog colony there and they were breeding. There was just one night when they were really mating loudly.” After decamping to a church in Copenhagen to record parts on a huge pipe organ there, the band moved to Berlin and stumbled across the ruins of the Beelitz hospital, a large complex of about 60 buildings, out in the sticks. “It was a military hospital,” says Koch, “used for treating soldiers during the First and Second World War when apparently Hitler came here. Then it got taken over by the USSR as a psychiatric hospital. So it has both German and Russian features to it. There are big Communist statues everywhere. It looks really funny.” When asked if there were any remnants of the hospital still to be seen, he laughs and shakes his head. “No, but there was evidence that it had been used for raves!” This enviable opportunity to record the album in many different locations is reflected by the rich weave of styles on show. The effect is rather like Kimono My House-era Sparks let loose in 2010. Koch says that the wide stylistic approach was a pre-emptive attempt to avoid pastiche. “I think we were imitating styles at first but it was almost too good sometimes. You look for something and then if you imitate it, it never makes you happy, I guess. It sounds like some kind of retro band doing a prog song or a Rolling Stones kind of song, so we’d just do the song and then start looking for what doesn’t fit or what shouldn’t fit. And then programme some more drums or just add some synthesizers that are totally unexpected. Just try to always do something to make it sound unexpected.”

WE BE CLUBBIN’ AT THIS YEAR’S SCANDINAVIAN MUSIC SHOWDOWN, TAKING PLACE IN OSLO FROM FEBRUARY 18. HERE’S OUR PARTY LINE-UP.

UNGDOMSKULEN

1. BERGEN’S UNGDOMSKULEN RECENTLY SUFFERED A SETBACK AFTER THEIR RECORDING STUDIO, INSTRUMENTS AND LIVING SPACE PERISHED IN A FIRE AFTER AN “ITALIAN SUMMER WORKER” LEFT A PIZZA IN THE OVEN... RIGHTEOUS. SINCE THEN, THE TRIO’S HEAD-FUCK TONIC OF PARTY PROG, PUNK AND POP HAS BEEN REVITALISED WITH BRAND NEW GEAR AND FRESH-OFF-THE-CUTTING-BOARD GADGETRY THAT THEY ARE BURSTING TO SEX-UP FANS WITH ONSTAGE.

MANHATTAN SKYLINE

2. MANHATTAN SKYLINE WRITE FRANTICALLY FICKLE METAL, DOUSED WITH ATMOSPHERE, IMPOSSIBLY FRACTURED RHYTHMIC STRUCTURES AND CRYPTTASTIC VOCAL WARBLES. GUARANTEED TO BLAST SADINDUCED BLUES BACK UNDER THE RUG WITH THEIR VERY OWN TAKE ON THE GENRE, THE FIVE-PIECE HAVE GARNERED GLOBAL SUPPORT. AFTER SUFFERING A STRING OF MISFORTUNES, THESE AXE VULTURES ARE SET TO SHOW AUDIENCES WHY THEY ARE ONE OF THE MOST INTRIGUING BANDS IN NORWAY.

OH NO ONO

This through line of clangourous and serrated inspiration led them to Steve Albini and Bob Weston at Chicago’s Electrical Audio studios, where they recorded their third album (their first release in the UK, on Norway Rat records). And this sonic document certainly captures the punishing live element of the band: sleazy atonal guitar progressions, thuggish drums, pylon cable bass-playing and recently reanimated zombie vocals. However, the trio are constantly evolving and their most recent recordings are those that give some idea just how good Årabrot are becoming. The title track from the ‘I Rove’ EP is a 20-minute exercise in grizzly endurance which takes one disgustingly abrasive bassline and pushes it slowly through various unfolding genres, sounding like Noxagt then the Birthday Party then The Cure then Shellac before falling to pieces in chaos. Track it down. Another thing it seems we don’t have to worry about is their moniker which “doesn’t really mean that much”, explains the singer: “Årabrot is the name of the place right outside of Haugesund, where we grew up. It’s the local dump. And when we started the band, as young punks, we wanted to name the band after the local dump, of course! But out there, there is also this kind of alternative school for kids who have behavioural problems with the same name. We didn’t go there but our drummer has a few friends who did. It’s a local phenomenon.”

3. CURIOUS, OFF-KILTER MELODIC MEANDERINGS PAINT OH NO ONO’S SLANTED SKYLINE. DESPITE CLAIMING THE FUNNIEST ALT. ROCK MONIKER IN THE WORLD, THEIR MUSIC IS SELF-CONSCIOUSLY POLYMORPHOUS. THIS COPENHAGEN TRIBE, WHO USE OBJECTS AND SURROUNDINGS TO RECORD SOUND EFFECTS, WILL BE RECONSTRUCTING THEIR UNISEX, DEERHOOF-INSPIRED TUNES TO A LEGION OF FANS AT BY:LARM. DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT THOUGH, READ THE FEATURE ON THE LEFT.

CHROME HILL

4. OSLO’S CHROME HILL WRITE FUZZ-JAZZ INSTRUMENTAL MOVEMENTS WITH PROGGY AWARENESS, NODDING OCCASIONALLY TO POST-ROCK AND EIGHTIES YAWNINGBASS DINNER PARTY POP. THEY’RE AWESOME. THE QUARTET HAVE BEEN TUNING THEIR LIVE PERFORMANCES SINCE THEIR INCEPTION NEARLY TEN YEARS AGO, AND WITH THE RELEASE OF THEIR MOST RECENT LP, EARTHLINGS, THEY ARE AN EXCITING LIVE PROSPECT, ESPECIALLY IN THE HANDS OF VIOLENTLY TALENTED GUITARIST ASBJORN LERHEIM

ALTAAR

5. ALTAAR SITE DREAM-POP LEGENDS SLOWDIVE, seanreynard.com

ÅRABROT PROVE IT’S A LONG WAY TO THE TIP IF YOU WANNA ROT’N’ROLL

by:Larm

DEATH METAL OVERLORDS BATHORY AND PHILIP GLASS AS INFLUENCES, AND WITH THEIR SHEET METAL VIOLENCE AND DEPTHY DARK-AMBIENT EXPLORATIONS IT’S NOT HARD TO SEE WHY. HAVING PLAYED WITH THE LIKES OF SUNN O)))’S STEPHEN O’MALLEY, THEY HAVE TURNED INTO ONE OF SCANDINAVIA’S ESSENTIAL EXPONENTS OF SONIC DISOBEDIENCE - CATCH THEM IN THEIR FULL, DISENCHANTED GLORY LIVE.

International news

March 2010 The Stool Pigeon

purveyors OF

Bunker Rock. THE BESNARD LAKES. “I love sounds that are WOBBLING or coming out from the distance.” Multi-instrumentalist, ---MR. JACE LASEK,

The brains behind thoughtful Quebecois rock troupe The Besnard Lakes is the tall, amiable Jace Lasek. And Jace

Lasek tends to shut himself away from the world. Kate McGarrigle dies and Montreal’s music community is

Interview conducted via TRANS-ATLANTIC wire communications by Mr Barnaby Smith.

sent into a state of pervasive grief, but Lasek doesn’t find out until nearly a week later, on a rare foray out into the world from the city studio where The Besnard Lakes’ excellent new album The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night was laid down. “To tell you the truth I only just heard,” he says. “When I’m in the studio I don’t get any news, and when I get up in the morning I come straight to the studio. I don’t really talk to anybody. I live in a bubble, and I’m the wrong person to ask.” He may be a recluse, but Lasek is no misanthrope. Jovial and involved, he is simply a man who knows what his passions are (he gleefully tells the story of his favourite toy: a 1968 recording console used by Led Zeppelin on Physical Graffiti). Joining him in his bubble is his wife Olga Goreas and backing musicians Kevin Laing and Richard White. Together they have crafted an album of impressive ambition, melding long and often cumbersome instrumental passages with darts of moving, accessible songwriting. The mild shoegaze feel to their previous album, The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse, has been juxtaposed with something more imaginative, and it works to startling effect. “I collect a lot of seventies rock and pop,” Lasek explains, “and I really like the idea of mashing up the sound of shoegaze with Brian Wilson, ELO and Alan Parsons. But I guess we wanted to make something a little less pop and a little more rock; more ballsy and guitar-oriented.”

Lasek and Goreas moved to Montreal from Vancouver in 2000 and, after several years of struggle that saw them taking odd jobs and scraping by in what was then an admittedly cheap city to live in, they were eventually able to buy their own studio. Nowadays, Lasek earns a living by locking himself away there and recording other bands, when not recording his own. While The Roaring Night is a sure evolution for The Besnard Lakes, one constant is Lasek’s curious lyrical themes. Ever since their first album, Volume 1, the Canadian has held a fascination bordering on obsession with espionage and general undercover shadiness. Lasek has worked out a whole narrative that crosses the band’s three LPs, reflected in the mood of songs. “We try to make sounds that come from the idea that you’re sitting in a burnt-out bunker listening to a transistor radio or a broken tape machine. I love sounds that are wobbling or coming out from the distance. I think the sound creates a really cool and mysterious imagery.” As for the spy story itself, that comes from, inevitably, an imagination that thrives on isolation. Lasek gets his fair share of the latter. “I have these two spies who follow each other around,” he says, “and there’s imagery of the world wars, post-war and cold war, espionage... It’s there to give me something to write about. My life’s pretty boring because I spend it all in the studio. I don’t have many life experiences.”

FEELING PECKISH. Daniel Johnston’s MUD COOKIES Makes two dozen cookies

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WORD OF MOUTH. WE DEPEND ON IT.

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International news

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

Ghost of a chance at

The MINAH Bird.

making

probably Julian Gross ofwon’t piss too many people off to suggest techno has got aWords bit louise boring. Dry brailey LIARS functionality has become the default background noise for K’d up on marijuana scenesters in sunglasses. Bored with

Puerto

Muerto talk

waiting for the hundredth pitchWe all garden. Aaron’s the rose guy, shifted vocal to kick in? Console and I probably grow more vegetables yourself with the new wave of than Angus. He and his girlfriend contrived deep house, cozening you harvested a huge pumpkin this year, in a cushion of sustained synth pads and some marijuana. It’s legal here. and mediocrity. Great.

Muerto were married in a h a u n t e d mansion. For a band that devised an album as an alternative soundtrack to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, that’s the kind of biographical gem most publicists dream of. But after 12 years and just as many releases together, somehow it’s gone unmentioned. Maybe it’s because Puerto Muerto don’t usually do interviews. Or maybe it’s because Tim Kelley, one half of the Chicago-based indie duo, just isn’t a talker.

Puerto

There’s one hoop you have to jump through, but after that it’s easy: you just look in the back of the free papers, where they advertise all the shady shit. At the doctors, you ask specifically for a marijuana prescription. They ask you what you want it for. For me, it helps me sleep when I’m on tour and I’m playing a lot and my body’s hurting, though I don’t know why I’m convincing you! You get a card for a year, and for that year you can go to a dispensary and buy doses of weed. You can have 12 plants at home. But if I move from LA, I don’t think I’m going to smoke weed any more.

Ghoulish Image

As told to Luke Turner

hat does silence sound like? Tumble down the rabbit hole of philosophical inquiry or reply “tinnitus” if you wish, but science has already given it a name: black noise. Definitions include phrases like ‘power density’ and ‘frequency spectrum’, and although you’d expect a techno bod to dig this technical porn, Pantha du Prince current alias of Berlin’s Hendrik Weber - is drawn to more metaphysical connotations. “I think there’s a poetic meaning. What do you hear when you hear nothing?” he ruminates. “There’s still something there, but where is it, and what is it, and how can I tell the story of this nothingness?” Pretty deep, huh? But Weber has an almost-Zen way of wrapping his mind around the right angles of abstraction. Indeed, it makes perfect sense that it was while he was holed up in the Swiss Alps with a couple of friends that he began to fetishise the sound of nothing. The plan was to mine some fresh source material away from civilisation, but it was the simple fact that they were in a mountain slide area that provided the conceptual impulse to set the album in motion. “It was a bit like a fairytale - a lot of rocks lying around and trees growing again after 200 years,” explains Weber. Suddenly, a lingering interest in the term ‘black noise’ was vindicated; natural occurrences like these being closely related to the phenomenon, best illustrated by the eerie silence that falls before avalanches, or mountain slides. “We took our instruments to the

CIAN TRAYNOR

Pantha du Prince charmed by sound of silence Words louise brailey

Photograph heike scheider-matzigkeit

woods,” Weber continues. “We were just trying to hear what was going on - to collect certain moments.” Upon returning, he sieved through the field recordings, using the most intriguing as the basis for the tracks on Black Noise. “It was inspirational to have this material - little gems and fragments of things,” he says. “It’s microscopic, like bacteria that’s growing.” This prized organic quality is what sets Hendrik Weber apart from so many producers. Utterly dislocated from techno’s remit of functionality and synthetic discipline, a Pantha du Prince record shimmers and sprawls, uncoiling like an ambient album even when anchored to a 4/4 kick. The layers are so intricate, with rough polyps of concrete augmented with

glassy synths, that it’s disorientating. You don’t really know in which direction the sound is moving, but that’s cool - Weber doesn’t know either. “It’s just what has to be told the sounds are just trying to get attention!” he says. “I just follow them - I don’t do very much on my side.” In spite of this claim, Weber’s history in Berlin’s techno scene, back when parties represented a counterpoint to the city’s fractured cultural landscape, suggests he’s far more considered about what sounds capture his attention. “When we started with Dial, it was in little fucked-up punk bars, because the punks were getting on our nerves. We wanted to try and do something else and electronic music was the way to do it.”

Was it a wrench, then, to make the transition from Dial, a defiantly underground electronic label based in Hamburg, to Rough Trade? He reels off a list of indie bands that he listened to as a teenager, including The Smiths, Arthur Russell, Young Marble Giants and Robert Wyatt. “It was a natural next step for Pantha du Prince,” he qualifies. But surely it’s strange following up This Bliss - a massive hit for Dial and arguably one of the last decade’s best electronic albums - when you know a far wider audience will be listening? Weber remains philosophical: “When This Bliss came out we didn’t expect it to do well at all. I don’t pay much attention to those things, I just follow the music somehow.” And, presumably, the silences as well.

“We have pictures from our wedding with what looks like the face of a ghost looming over us,” he mumbles. And that’s all he has to say about that. He’s still in bed. He met his wife, Christa Meyer, after commenting on her shoes as she passed by one day. They began seeing each other but didn’t think to merge their music careers. Meyer was in operatic productions around Chicago; Kelley was in a band called The Darlings. When the group went nowhere, the couple headed to St. Louis and the move inspired them to collaborate.

Unexpected Laughter Asked if they ever questioned whether it was sensible to mix their personal and professional lives, Kelley bursts into laughter unexpectedly. “I never really thought about that,” he says, sounding surprised. Silence. It did, however, feel more rewarding than any other musical partnership they’d been involved with. So when they hit a stride, the material took on a character they’ve remained faithful right up to the release of their new album, Drumming For Pistols. “When we work together, the music manages to be darker. I like to write typical pop songs that are cheery and upbeat, but Christa tends to be on the dark side, so we consciously tap into the macabre.”

Horrible People Within that darkness, boundaries are essential. It’s never a good idea, for instance, to communicate with your lover through lyrics. “We have to be careful because no one wants hurt feelings,” he says, adding another unexpected laugh. “Because there have been times. If it is about that person and it’s negative, you have to say, ‘Oh, no, it’s about a horrible person I know down the street.’ It’s difficult, but if we want to keep working together, we have to figure out a way to let it work.” And that’s all he has to say about that.

AMERICAN GONG

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COCONUT is a modern psychedelic testament delivering a visceral shot of pleasure. With recording sessions in London and Benton Harbour, Michigan and production from DFA’s Tim Goldsworthy (LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture, Hercules & Love Affair) COCONUT is an album bursting with warped inventiveness and sonic intent.

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Figure OF

Speech No longer a teenager and suddenly sure of herself, folk star

L AU R A M A R L I N G is a woman who has found her voice. Words by Hazel Sheffield [Photograph by Rebecca Miller]

here’s still footage of it on YouTube: a blonde, scruffy 17-year-old barred from her own gig for being underage. Instead of packing up and going home, Laura Marling is busking on the street outside the London venue, surrounded by a huge crowd who don’t yet know who she is but are rooted to the spot. Even then there was something mystical about her bare face and low voice. Those who heard her fell in love, and the interest only grew when it emerged that she was often a reluctant interviewee. Awkwardness seemed to preface much of the early press coverage. Skip forward a year to 2008 and Marling is to be found watching the Mercury Awards ceremony from the balcony, instead of from the floor with her fellow nominees. Her debut album, Alas I Cannot Swim, has been shortlisted for the prize, and though she’s turned up in a dress - quite something for a girl who used to wear boys’ clothes as a statement against female sexualisation - she is not quite sure what she has dressed up for. That, and she is so nervous she can barely speak. “I’ve no idea what this [ceremony] is all about,” she mumbles reluctantly, when asked. “It’s a huge commercial deal. It’s great for British pride. It’s... weird.” She didn’t win the Mercury in 2008; Elbow did. Which was great for British pride, the underdog, and the empire, apparently. Laura Marling and her Song Box - her special collectors’ album containing artwork and other extras - fell from the headlines, though she never stopped gigging as part of the much-hyped ‘nu-folk’ scene, alongside Noah And The Whale, Mumford And Sons, Johnny Flynn and others. These are her peers. But Laura Marling has always followed her own path; she just never quite managed to say where that path led, or why. Now, weeks from the release of her own second album I Speak Because I Can, Marling is ready for the attention that a new body of her strangely hypnotic songs will attract. Sat in a family friend’s house in Shepherd’s Bush, dwarfed by a boy’s green sweater with her newly-darkened hair pulled from her pale face, she might still look like a child, but her sense of self is fully grown. Her words are no longer pithy, guarded or defensive. She’s 20, and glad to leave her teenage years behind. “For the first album I felt like a girl,” she says, “but when I wrote this album I was two, maybe even three, years older, and for any person my age that is a big step, growingup-wise. I got older in a very natural way, but I think it was also a conscious decision.” Conscious because, ever since she could play, Marling has written beautiful, intricate folk songs, pinned to lyrics that journeyed in the mind and connected to so many who heard them. So to have her music defined by her youth - to hear critics endlessly laud it for its unusual maturity rather than on its own merits - must have felt more than a little derogatory. “What I’ve had to adjust to is forgiving myself for being young, like you would anybody else,” she explains. “I was very young when I got on the stage. I had lots of opinions, but I was obviously still learning. Some of my principles are still the same, but some of them were teenage arrogance: ‘I’m right and the world’s wrong.’ Now as long as I know that whatever I’m saying, I’m saying honestly, then that’s okay.” Like all good coming-of-age tales, Laura Marling’s story started in Elysian Fields. Her parents ran Woodcray Manor, a pick-your-own-farm-cum-residential-recording-

studio in the Reading countryside. Her mother ran the farm shop and her father the studio, working with artists including Phil Collins, Black Sabbath, and The La’s, who recorded their album there. But by 1990, when Marling became the youngest of three daughters, the studio had to be closed down. “I guess there was just no money in it,” she explains. “But this is where I come in. We had all this amazing analogue equipment around our house when I was growing up - I think they sold the last piece when I was 14. I had quite an interest in analogue. When digital came in, my dad got really into digital and I stayed quite true. That’s why we did the Song Box actually, because I thought the recording process needed a physical showing.” (These days she admits to using digital, “just because it’s fucking useful!”) Her home life sounds idyllic, but school was a different matter. “I was weird and very shy - quite an awkward teenager,” she remembers, sucking on a cigarette. “I just couldn’t fit in for some reason. I really need straight-downthe-line structure or totally my own way. School was a bit in-between, so it didn’t work for me.” She says did alright in those GSCE exams she “turned up to”, but by the time her AS-Levels started, London was calling. “I’d just joined Noah And The Whale, so I was doing gigs every night. I loved it, but I needed to be in London. It was maybe boredom as well, from living in the middle of nowhere.” And her parents didn’t mind? “I don’t think so.” Do they ever speak of it? “No. But maybe that’s why I get on so well with them now. There’s still a little bit of arrested development there.” There’s some arrested development in her education, too. “I’m not stupid, never was,” she says matter-of-factly. “I would like to go back and do my A-levels for sure because I think I have a bit of a hang-up about it.” It’s a hang-up that flashes in her eyes when she turns the questions round to ask about university, where most other girls her age were, while she was touring festivals with Noah And The Whale or writing folk songs from a lodging room in Kew. Those early songs from Marling’s first album exist in a claustrophobic place, trapped by youth and circumstance. “Look down on the body that you have grown / Mountains surround you, they’re not your own,” she sang on ‘You’re No God’. Her songs were full of deceit and fear; she was persecuted by demons in dreams and sought solace in sunlight and birdsong. I Speak Because I Can rings with both of these things. Older and more secure in herself, Marling’s new album is steeped in an optimistic realism that came to her in the interim years. She knows she can go back to where she came from just as she sings in ‘Made By Maid’: “Crawled out of the fog, found a river, found a log and floated away.” And she says she’ll return to the countryside one day: “For me, everything makes sense in the country. Everything’s very logical, and here [London] it’s manic all the time and nothing makes sense and there’s nowhere to rest; there’s nowhere to have sanctuary.” The demons still hover at the edges of her new songs, even though Marling no longer feels so trapped. She knows she can escape; it’s her friends and her colleagues - the people that drew her to London in the first place - who keep her here for the time being.

That’s the thing about folk music: it exists as a conversation between musicians and in music passed through time. It has afforded Marling room to develop within its parameters in a way that other genres never could have. Traditionally, rock and pop music runs on the commercial principles of a democracy - bands earn their stripes gigging in venues, work to get record deals and notoriety, often in fierce competition with their peers. The last decade has seen the rise of the bedroom dictatorship - lone musicians with little connection to the outside world making their music in isolation and releasing it through blogs. But folk music especially ‘British nu-folk’, as Marling and her peers were named - is a socialist state, where sharing and collaborating is normal. Marling came of age with this kind of support. Early performances with Noah And The Whale put her on a stage. The Fee Fie Foe Fum tour of the US with Mumford And Sons and Johnny Flynn in 2008 saw her travel with bandmates and fellow musicians to shows that were dubbed ‘The British Folk Invasion’. Most recently, she went to India with the Mumford boys, an experience she describes as both exhausting and exhilarating: “I felt an enormous sense of relief when I got back from India. I’ve never been so pleased to see home!” Even today, in the room adjacent to our interview, Marling has recording equipment set up from sessions with Alessi’s Ark, another young female folk singer who will support her on tour this year. “I like it that way, I like doing it collaboratively,” she says. “The album is a mix of all of them. That’s how music is best made.” Working with so many men has also meant she’s learned to stand up for herself. “I was in the studio with eight men and I found it really tough. I find it really tough to say what I mean anyway and if you don’t say what you mean, it will never be done. It did make me think a bit about how I’ve had to adjust.” For all these symbiotic encounters, the closeness of the relationships in nu-folk has had its downsides. When Marling left Noah And The Whale, and her boyfriend their frontman, Charlie Fink - he devoted his second album to their break-up. “Tell Laura I love her - at least I used to,” one particularly personal Guardian headline proclaimed. “I heard about that,” Laura responds vaguely, asking about the interview’s contents, and whether she wants to know. She doesn’t. She says they still talk though, and that she listened to and loved the album Fink sent her. These days Marling is seeing another of her peers: Marcus Mumford. “He was my drummer for two years before we got together,” she says. “We’re both quite laid back which really helps, and we’re both doing alright. It would be dreadful if one of us was really not doing well or not doing what they wanted to be doing.” Luckily, she doesn’t need to worry. Mumford And Sons’ debut album peaked at number 7 in the UK charts last year, no mean feat for banjo-toting folk in electronic times. Whether I Speak Because I Can will rack up similar album sales is yet to be seen. Marling doesn’t think too much about such things. She is no one but herself: a singular talent in a wave of revivalist folk. And though she took the long route to get here - through the country highways and off the beaten track - she’s found her way. “I’ve found my place in the world a little bit,” she says. “I know who I am, whether I’m good or not. That’s been quite a relief actually: I’m not worried about that anymore.”

will scratch off the resin of microchip filth in your ears.

EQUALLY ANGRY AS MYSTICAL, GONJASUFI

DESERT STORM

Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so little known about the dystopian warrior poet Gonjasufi that research is all but impossible,

Photograph Alex Rapada

It doesn’t take long to register the album’s strong religious undercurrent, but to see it as specifically Islamic in origin is to underestimate the scope of Sumach’s spiritual reach. Born into a family of Coptic Christians in San Diego, Sumach first studied Islam at college, but became turned off by the fundamentalists and attracted to the pursuit of divine unity pioneered by Sufi mystics; on top of that he has studied the Rastafari movement and the teachings of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. Yet despite the religious diversity of the album from the whirling Hindu beats of ‘(Bharatanatyam)’, to the maddening dervish chants of ‘Kowboyz&Indians’ it’s the affiliation with Islam which America hears above all else. “The truth is very watered down on this side of the

I came with hearts while you came with weapons I came with God whom you are forgetting Don’t aim your problems in this direction Don’t blame Allah for your misconception

and I’m forced to email Warp records after our chat to clear up a few points I never got to raise in the interview. What is his real name? How old is he? Does he really live in a shack in the Mojave Desert? And is he really a reformed junky? Two hours later I’m on the receiving end of an email from the man himself, who addresses my points one by one. His birth name is Sumach - after the flowering plant used to flavour Middle Eastern cooking and so beloved of his jazz fanatic father - and he is “his present age”. Yes, he lives in the desert, on the outskirts of Las Vegas, though he says he has visited the Strip only a handful of times. And yes, he is a recovering addict, though he says that his love for yoga, his children and his music has a stronger pull than any drug ever could, bringing him closer to himself and closer to God. It’s an unusually frank insight into the man behind the Gaslamp Killer-, Flying Lotus- and Mainframeproduced A Sufi And A Killer, though one that only serves to further highlight his inherent spirituality. Sumach’s mystical, whispered musings run through the album like silver threads, binding together ragged fabrics of blinding psychedelia, haunting desert laments and hypnotic Hindi chants. Warp have even been kind enough to compile a small green- and gold-bound ‘prayer book’ of lyrics in the form of poems, in which the album’s themes come rushing into focus. On ‘Kobwebz’, for example, Sumach reverently intones:

world,” he says. “Americans think these people blowing up buildings and setting off car bombs are Muslims. To me, they’re as much Muslims as these Catholic priests that molest kids are Christians. A true Muslim and a true Christian are the same thing: they worship one god. But America doesn’t want to hear that shit. The crazy thing about this record is that I had to get it to the US listeners via London. I’ve been living here for more than 30 years, and it took London ears to pick me up.” It’s when talking about such matters that Sumach’s cadence - blunted at the best of times, all sawn off vowels and bullethole pauses - takes on a menacing snarl, revealing flashes of the aggressive tendencies I’d been warned of before the interview. Sumach himself admits that he’d be “a dangerous man” without music; that writing is for him “a vehicle to channel all this frustration and pain”. As such the album serves as a window into the two contrasting personalities fighting for possession of Sumach’s soul: the Killer on the one hand, the Sufi on the other. It’s a complex inner dialogue that offers both moments of benevolence, such as on ‘Advice’ (“It’s your only life / So it’s only right / To take your own advice”), and raw brutality, as on ‘DedNd’ (“I got the trigger cocked back / Watch these devils drop back”). Yet it’s a disparity most accurately embodied on a single standout track, the Gaslamp Killer-produced ‘Sheep’, which swings between Blakean ideals of Innocence and Experience in four short minutes. Over lilting acoustic guitars and bucolic female vocal samples, Sumach begins by reflecting, in an even more stonedsounding trance, than usual how he wishes he was a sheep, if only “because I wouldn’t have to kill to eat”. Moments later he’s lurched into the voice of the lion: “Feeding off sheep that graze / Off the leaves and blades / I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Luckily, says Sumach, the recording process lent itself well to the long periods of isolation required to channel such contrasting emotions: Gaslamp, FlyLo and Mainframe would prepare snatches of samples and beats from their LA studios before mailing them out to Sumach in the Mojave, where he could board himself up uninterrupted for days on end with just a pen, a pad and a microphone for company. Equally important was that digital production techniques were kept to a minimum, something Sumach feels strongly about. “I’m not really into the way computers filter out the power of a soundwave, which is why I only use analogue mics and tape when I record. On tape it resonates; you get more of the air and the environment captured on the

recording. You listen to old Miles Davis and Charlie Parker records, and you can hear the cigarette smoke swirling around the room. I want all that to come across in my own recordings: the weather, what I was feeling, how much I was sweating.” Sumach believes that digital production flattens out the rough edges and harsh frequencies that make great records. For this reason he insisted on travelling to LA for weeks at a time to sit in on the eight-month mixdown - a process that, needless to say, took place on an analogue desk. “The sound wave itself has become so thin that kids these days subconsciously expect everything to have a softer, more accessible sound; their ears have become tuned to it. With this record I wanted to almost hurt the ear: to shock people with something raw, something hard, something that’s capable of cutting into the eardrum and scratching off the resin of that microchip filth.” There’s something of Blake here also - of cleansing the ears of perception, so to speak, until man hears things as they truly are: infinite. Such ideas tie neatly into the notion of the desert landscape that surrounded Sumach during recording, and which seems constantly on the verge of reclaiming the album. The track ‘Ancestors’, for example, with its haunting refrain of “ancestors, take my hand”, seems to suggest that Sumach’s analogue mics may have been picking up more than the sound of sweat and cigarette smoke alone... “This is all Mexico, really, and the echo of the slaughter of the so-called Indians is present to this day. If you tap into its vibration then it’s there to be captured, it’s just that most people are too busy talking on cellphones or watching TV. Most people don’t give a fuck, man. But this is sacred burial ground, and people are driving their cars over it and mad-dogging each other, and it’s sad to see, because they’re ignorant of what lies beneath. And the crazy thing is that it’s all going to be burial ground again in a minute, and these cats are going to get buried, and their cars will be their caskets.” There’s certainly a sense of impending doom running through the record, but it’s rooted more in despair at the human condition than in abstract revelations or religious iconography. Sumach says that the collective power of mass thought cuts both ways: that if everybody is simultaneously tuned into a television telling them that Armageddon is going to happen, then that’s what is going to happen. By contrast, if music like his can reach millions of people at the same time, then there’s no telling what it might yield in terms of salvation. His greatest dream, he

RAW LIKE SUFI

WRITTEN by Cyrus Shahrad

says, is to hold a concert in the Gaza Strip: to focus all the world’s minds at the same time in an attempt to bring about peace. “That was what I kept thinking about when I was making this record: not making money, or scoring a record deal, or getting famous. Those things couldn’t have been further from my mind.” Which makes it all the more galling when he turns on his television and sees rappers he grew up alongside in the nineties hip hop scene banging and bragging about who makes the most money, not least because hip hop itself was a movement founded on social upheaval and airing the voices ignored by mainstream politics. “I watch the Discovery Channel and find out that 75 per cent of the population has no running water, then I turn over and there are these cats bragging about who owns the most cars. Some of these guys are straight up rap billionaires, and what are they doing to make a difference? There should be a rule: if you make more than a certain amount of money each year, then a percentage of that has to go towards getting running water and food to places that need it most. It’s sickening man. I mean, how did we get from Public Enemy to this?” Yet while A Sufi And A Killer is undoubtedly an angry record - one splitting at the seams with indignation for a society that Sumach says is “eating itself alive” - it is also an album shot through with hope. It’s a hope that has helped him overcome problems of his own, and his belief that it may yet help others remains the greatest reward for having made it. “Energy is energy. A lot of this record is about me taking all the negative emotions that I have as a result of the world’s ignorance and hatred and racism, and dealing with them by turning them into something good. For me this record is a call out to people who feel the same way, but if they’re going to listen to what I have to say and follow me, then ultimately all I want to do is lead them back to their true selves. That’s what I’m channelling when I’m making music: the idea that we can all realise ourselves in our fullest potential. That’s what I think it’s all about.”

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

Words by Cian Traynor Photography by Phil Knott

There’s more formula to the idiosyncratic pop of YEASAYER than you might imagine, and looking bad for them is always a no-no.

Weird Science

up. [Mimics the synth hook drops, where you get so pumped dressed up in we s; cane if you break it down, and And ?’] ats Love top-h Is ties, at “We didn’t have bow for Haddaway’s ‘Wh ad inste and n Trio’ Tuto amic Wolf Dyn Ira those songs and a er, ‘The een d Wild gas-station uniforms and were calle basically there’s no difference betw Band meeting: Yeasayer ’s Anand brainstorming ” . It’s the same table had. en eone tets kitch som a quar or nd er nerd arou Seg the hed es Bob of whatever corny nam classic rock song by Chris Keating are hunc ing ling invit stea , York ntial tra. There’s a New pote man from ial a er like merc Wild com Years later, when Keating called thing that just gets inside your brain song names. Double-entendres, le “shitting discussed. 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people to be more conscious of what they’re listening to, rather than just getting fucked and raving. I want a little emotion, y’know?” She’s excited by the influence of funky house on this post-dubstep moment, which then, in turn, “is gonna be destroyed and reborn again, and go on and on and on until forever”. And her future? “There’s gonna be a shit load of releases this year,” she promises, looking to add to a back catalogue already given waxy seal of approval by Hyperdub, Warp, Soul Jazz and Planet Mu. “I just wanna continue what I’m doing while I’m on a roll. Might as well make use of it until I dry up and die.” Even a dried up and dead Ikonika would still be valuable to UK dance’s happy cannibals - ’nuum theory dictates that her legacy would simply be swallowed up to fuel future clubland moments. It makes no mention of a reset button, just endless continues...

WORDS BY KEV KHARAS PHOTO BY ERIKA WALL

Sara’s moved even further out into London’s peripheral zones now, to Feltham, but as the private world of her music has grown more vivid, she’s returned with it to a post-tribal city opened up to her by coinguzzling gamer arcades and “rudeboys in Schott hoodies and Reebok Classics windmilling at hardcore shows”. “I’ve always been intrigued by London,” she says. “Urban London - council estates and pirate radio. When I was a kid I used to go to the Trocadero all the time. I remember they did Sega World and that was a complete flop, but that was the weekend when I was younger; pestering your parents for £30 and spending it all in arcades and McDonalds within an hour. When I fell into dubstep in 2005, what I liked was that every producer sounded different. I don’t really listen to it any more, though, and I think that’s the same with a lot of people turned off by all this aggressive, copycat wobble and chainsaw type stuff. With my music, I think I just wanted the dancefloor to change - for

DUBSTEP JUST DOESN’T COMPUTE FOR IKONI ANY MORE. SHE’S RE-BOOTING DANCE MUSIC BY INTEGRATINKA G EMOTION.

strange one: they’re memorable but impossible to mimic, with the result that they seem to glimmer on unexorcised in the mind - intimate firework displays for an audience of brain tissue and skull bone. There’s a privacy to Ikonika’s music that’s incredibly alluring. It’s not so much that it envelops or embraces you, it’s more that tracks like ‘Fish’ and ‘Continue’ seem like they would exist even if everything else didn’t. This sound world bustles with its own movements and intentions, to the extent that Sara herself doesn’t seem central to the music’s thrust. Instead, she seems to direct the action loosely and from a remote place, as if it’s all just one long, lucid dream. ‘Ikonika’ could just as easily be a name for REM neuron figments: a submarine or spacecraft, a lunar dictator or a gypsy girl working on an intergalactic fairground. Contac t, L ove, Want, Have is an escape so potent it’s unsurprising to learn this music’s formative years were spent “in a box room in Heston”.

8-Bit Operation

usic. Everyone likes music, right? Right. Great. It’s that widespread admira tion, though, that makes it hard for me to say things like, “The music from the opening sequence of Sega’s Streets Of Rage is one of the most influential and evocative pieces of music to have been written in the last 20 years.” Because even though, like all music, it organises sounds into a pattern, and you can hear its influence in the work of Salem, Zomby, FaltyDL, Teengirl Fantasy and so many other bands you’ve read about in this paper, it’s incidental music, and thus not ‘pure’ music, and saying things like that will alienate a lot of people who don’t like computer games. But it i s music. And we all love music. So I’m going to say it: “The music from the opening sequence of Sega’s Streets Of Rage is one of the most influential and evocative pieces of music to have been written in the last 20 years.” Twenty years is an arbitrar y figure, and this feature’s not about Yuzo Koshiro’s Streets Of Rage score, it’s about the music Sara Abdel-Hamid makes as Ikonika - the brilliant shrapnel that the southwest Londoner has thrown from dubstep’s blown bomb, filling the style’s terse, contemplative template with high definition synth colour and rhythms that really kick and swing. Like Streets Of Rage’s opening passage - a rolling view of a city skyline at night set to cosmic piano house - Ikonika’s debut album feels like a portal to a different world. Not one where you’ll be forced to kick the cocks off diabolical, cosh-wielding clowns, admittedly, but one possessed of its own inevitable destiny arrived at via a series of enthralling events. Streets Of Rage calls them ‘levels’. Ikonika calls them ‘tracks’. They melded together as one for Ikonika when she was a kid. “My music has made me remember my childhood,” she says when asked what images flowed through her mind’s ear when she was producing her debut, the mesmerising Contac t, L ove, Want, Have. “Computer games are the obvious thing. I used to play this Mega Drive game all the time, but I only remembered the name 18 months ago. Turns out it was Streets Of Rage. How can I completely miss that!? Anyway, I used to hang out with my sisters a lot, and they got me into R&B, hip-hop, garage... They’re seven years older, so when I was 10 they were 17 and always out raving.” Sega in one ear, rave sounds in the other, it’d be easy to pin Ikonika as a product of the ‘hardcore continuum’ or ‘’nuum’, that purported British dance bloodline claiming jungle, garage, grime and dubstep, among other club styles, and citing the use of computer game samples and inter-generational inheritance as two of its key tenets. But even though Sara’s music resides firmly in the vanguard of whatever’s going on in the continuum now, as dubstep’s groan subsides, her path towards this point has been a snaking one. Years before Ikonika’s debut 12” arrived courtesy of Steve Goodman’s Hyperdub label - home to records by established scene figureheads Burial, Zomby and Goodman’s own Kode9, as well as new heroes Joker, Darkstar and Kyle Hall - Sara was going to post-hardcore shows and working double bass drum pedals in metal bands. “Post-hardcore has influenced me so much,” she explains. “The structure’s more... When I first listened to Glassjaw, I was like, ‘What is this mess!?’ I wondered why people didn’t do anything that drastic in hip hop.” In a move loyal to her crash landing into British bass music (“I never really got into jungle or drum’n’bass. I listened to garage, but it was just ‘there’... sometimes I feel guilty for not ‘continuing’”), Sara intended to get her “musical hero” and Glassjaw frontman Daryl Palumbo to guest on Contac t, L ove, Want, Have, but he couldn’t get his vocal in on deadline. It’s “just a matter of time” before a collaboration emerges, she says, but till then she’ll do well to stick with the ticklish bleeps and “squiggly keys” that sing melody lines no human throat ever could. Their impact on the listener is a

Battle

Britten

THESE NEW PURITANS are on the attack, and just because they admire a certain composer from their native Thames Estuary doesn’t mean they like Mozart.

Words Photograph The problem with guitars is the urge to play them. That idiot rockist mantra - ‘turn up, plug in, rock out’ - is recited as if all you need do is hang the thing from your neck and lash at it, until you chance upon some formula of notes so profound it forces trapdoors to swing open in the sky. Despite what computer games, hair gel, Kate Moss and punk revisionists will tell you, music has no need for any more everymen. Punk may have been a great antidote once, but the word’s become a blight - an excuse for people too lazy, dull and cowardly to pursue ideas of their own. ‘Punk’ now is rarely anything other than a corruption turned into perverse etiquette, one tied up in another of those idiot chants. ‘Three chords and the truth!’ Who wants the truth? The truth’s boring: it already exists. These New Puritans’ new album, Hidden, with its arcane, peculiar, preposterous, brave and strived-for something sound, knows all of this. It seems to recognise, too, the difference between nextness and newness - faced with that familiar, obedient queue for the trend cycle (...English heroes then American ones, women after men, synths follow guitars...), Hidden prefers to simply blow that cycle’s wheels out from under it. It’s not an album that makes a great deal of sense. It’s a surprise. It pisses on your betting slip. That’s not to say the Southend quartet have been impatient - their leader, Jack Barnett, had to learn how to read and write sheet music from scratch before he was even able to imagine the tides of woodwind and brass that weave their way through the record. After “incredible hours” spent tinkering with manuscripts and writing deaf (in the company of New York arranger Ryan Lott), Jack travelled to Prague to hear the noises in his head played aloud for the first time. They were “blasted out by 13 Czech wind musicians” and recorded in the same day, before Barnett returned home to Essex to work on Hidden for several more months. Sat now with twin brother and drummer George by a fire in a west London pub [band mates Sophie Sleigh-Johnson and Thomas Hein are absent today], Jack’s keen to impress his admiration for “renegade classical music”, like that composed and conducted by fellow Thames Estuary native Benjamin Britten in the 20th c e n t u r y . “We were listening to Classic FM on the way to a gig once,” he explains, “and I thought, ‘When I say in interviews I like Benjamin Britten, do people think I mean stuff like Mozart?’ I can’t stand that kind of classical. Britten made some of the most brutal, melancholic music you’ll hear.” While, in rock music, wind and brass are usually the preserve of exhausted brains fumbling for an easy anthem, Hidden’s classical is odd and morose. Jack’s spoken before about his desire to use that instrumentation to make his music “even more uneven and distressed”. Brilliantly, it’s at this moment that ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ chooses to creep from the pub’s speakers. This one of yours, is it? “It’s just something that people reel out, isn’t it?” he laughs, “‘Play the riff with strings!’ And then you see ’em doing it live and they’re all going, ‘YEAH!’ with washed hair and scrubbed

Kev Dave

by faces... It’s horrible.” The other big influences on Hidden are probably more at ease on an album plotted like a military offensive. ‘Three Thousand’ has the predatory rhythmic slink and serious-sex hexes found in much US hip hop of the decade just gone, while dancehall’s totemic stomp and eerie synths tattoo themselves across both lead single ‘We Want War’ and ‘Attack Music’, the latter a name the band previously had in mind for the album. “The original idea was to make something like ‘Blackout’ by Britney Spears, but give it the depth, musical brutality and melancholy of someone like Britten,” Jack explains. Much of the record echoes that, successfully. In less inquisitive, industrious hands those disparate influences might easily have jarred, but Hidden reconciles them to each other: adding a hung-in-time gravity to chart R&B and dancehall’s “crappy presets”, and giving posho classical its teeth back. How much concession do you make to the audience when you’re meshing things together? “None, really,” says Jack. “That’s what I like about classical music; that the composer’s supposed to be this demonic force who’s not like the audience at all. It’s always about what’s most fun for us to make.” Something else These New Puritans had a lot of fun with while recording Hidden were Foley Techniques, traditionally used by engineers to produce sound effects for films. Hear drawing blades, and melons covered in cream crackers then hit with mallets to sound like bursting heads. Is it important for you to seek out inspiration in places others aren’t likely to? “I’m not a music geek who listens to deliberately obscure things,” Jack insists. “I just thought it’d be good if a song had the kind of sounds you get in films. I wanna do a song that’s purely swordfight sounds. Not sampling, because I think that’s really old-fashioned, but a proper highfidelity recording of people having a choreographed sword fight, with a generic American R&B singer over the top. I’d still like to do that.” Would you still do it if someone else already had? “I dunno,” he says, then pauses. “No, probably not. It’s more interesting for us to make something that’s completely ours. Again, it comes down to what’s most fun, and the most fun stuff’s when you don’t know what it’s gonna sound like. When it’s a risk.” “This whole album was a big risk,” admits G e o r g e . Obviously risks are important. Without risks, all you have is dull truth, waiting for someone with guts to come along and meddle with it. There were six months in 2008 when east London seemed besieged by shit versions of These New Puritans. They’d all wear pointy shoes and grow their hair down over their eyes and bark at you over a loose approximation of George’s drumming, the difference being that those bands never seemed too enamoured with risk music. As it goes, I think they’re all in lo-fi bands now. “S.C.U.M. and people like that? I think all those bands are god-awful - actually don’t say that,” says George. “I’m sure they’re lovely. Maybe they’re good. Maybe they’re really, really

o o d . ” No, they were fucking dire. How did you react to them at the time? “I don’t know, we weren’t around much,” he continues. “I don’t think they’d be able to replicate what we do now anyway, so good luck to them.” Another crowd they’ve managed to outmanoeuvre is the one that gathered at The Royal Hotel on Southend’s seafront around five years ago for Junk Club. Junk was pretty great for a while, but even an early Puritans - reliant on guitars aside from the occasional throbbing synth - never seemed the snuggest fit for something built from kohl, winkle pickers and nascent garage rock (Junk also helped introduce The Horrors, XX Teens and Ipso Facto to the world). I saw Jack stood stock still on Junk’s dancefloor once, arms at his side and expressionless, as a Thames Estuary version of The Loft partied around him to disco and acid house. So how were you entangled in Junk’s addled, seedsoiled world? “Oh, I dunno, probably Thom was doing drugs with [Junk founder] Oliver Abbot and we did that gig because it was somewhere to play. There was no other venue apart from Chinnery’s, which was like a youth club.” Wouldn’t playing a youth club be the more attractive option to you now, what with the children’s choir that haunts the new album [‘Attack Music’, ‘Orion’]? “Oh, we played it,” Jack laughs. “We played several youth clubs. It was really weird - they introduced us like, ‘Ladies and gentleman, put your hands together for.. Tee! En! Peeeeeeees... We closed with a reggae cover.” Do you still feel any affinity with those people from Junk? “Not at all,” says George, shaking his head. “I don’t think that was a defining moment for These New Puritans at all. It was... nothing, really. No, it was something: a start, but it had no impact on us, especially not a lasting one. I think the thing we did for Dior had more of an impact on us having to produce something that was much more real.” The “thing we did for Dior” was the out-on-asore-limb, auto-manhunt hypnotism ‘Navigate, Navigate’; a 15-minute track produced at Hedi Slimane’s request for one of Dior’s catwalk shows. Three years on, it remains one of this young century’s best pieces of music, and saw These New Puritans’ announce their public split from guitars by knotting them all together by their n e c k s . “The guitar world is really conservative,” notes Jack. “The people in it - those that get labelled ‘experimental’ - think they’re doing something amazing and new, but the most interesting things are the textures happening away from that, in dancehall, R&B, American pop... We feel more affinity with that than lots of other guitar stuff, really. There’s loads of people doing things with guitars - it’s probably the easiest way of doing things - but I don’t feel like I have anything to add to it.” “I hate those bands that pretend they’re really complex by having an arpeggiated synth, then playing rock’n’roll over the top and turning their amps up slightly,” adds George. It’s the coward’s

Kharas Ma way

out. Sixties rubbish!” Are you often confronted by those goodtime, cocaine rock’n’roll people? “Yeah,” says George. “I don’t like those sort of people.” How do you deal with them? “I’m generally not that nice to them. I don’t have time for people like that, really.” “Going back to ‘experimental’ guitar music, I’ve also realised I don’t like improvisation at all,” rejoins Jack. “‘Jamming’. I like compositions basically; pre-written music.” So how much of the present you’re currently occupying was devised years ago? “Quite a lot,” replies Jack, in a half-smirk. “We like to control what people see and hear. We don’t always want the truth to be shown.” As you’d imagine, the band already have various futures plotted. One involves finding a young, eastern European girl to front a These New Puritans take on Disney pop, the aim being to sneak something interesting into the charts without the ‘experimental music’ tag blowing their cover (they cite ‘Joe le Taxi’ by Vanessa Paradis as an example). Jack may also be writing songs for each of Essex’s 20 islands to aid his home county’s bid to be the next European Capital of Culture. He’s still waiting on confirmation from the council, but apparently Tony Robinson and Paul Morley are also involved somehow. How do you react when people call you p r e t e n t i o u s ? “We’re not as pretentious as the bands playing jangly guitars trying to look all cool and appeal to everyone,” laughs Jack. “‘Oh, you’ve got to have the rock look!’ That’s the world of pretension and compromise to me.” “Our music’s free of that, hopefully,” says George. “Again, it’s important for people to understand that Jack doesn’t get off to Mozart. “You’re more council estate than they think,” he says, turning to his twin. “They think you’re some really intelligent kid that’s been to university and got eight degrees. And that’s not true. If we tried to ingratiate ourselves, like most bands, we’d probably get a lot further.” I’m not sure that’s true. I like that they’re the only band who’d dare to describe global warming as the ultimate artistic event, or look to forge a new kind of empathy between the island musics of Essex and the Caribbean. I like how Jack knows that no women or children lived on Canvey Island until the 1800s because it was a smuggler’s colony, and that in 1953 there was “one really bad flood, and loads of people died”. Essex is more prone to flooding than any other county in Britain. With 350 miles of coast to protect and sea levels rising, it’s likely that it’ll be one of the first to offer its towns forever to the thirsty tide. Maybe it’s this knowledge of what’s to come for their native flats and sands that excites These New Puritans from complacency. Maybe it’s the absence of etiquette. “It’s really good working with your twin brother,” says George. “There’s no need to be polite - we can say whatever we like because there’s blood there.” Blood’s thicker than water, I’ll bet. Maybe that estuary’s safe for now.

Danger Mouse and James Mercer ARE HOPING TO RING IN A SLOW-BURNING SMASH HIT WITH THEIR NEW BAND, BROKEN BELLS.

WORDS BY HAZEL SHEFFIELD PHOTOGRAPH BY RICHIE HOPSON

n America, during the fifties and sixties, there was a spate of magazines dedicated to the future. It was a time of plenty: low unemployment and stable profits buoyed the new consumer; television sets revolutionised home entertainment; and post-war optimism ushered in an era of gadgetry and innovation. Titles like Popular Science and Modern Mechanix predicted a world of ‘Christmas Fun with Robots!’, ‘Amazing Plastic Ropes that splice themselves!’, ‘Sea Bicycles on Balloons!’ and ‘Wristwatch TV!’ Now, these covers look quaint and retro; anachronistic in a time when we can barely keep up with the technological advances of the present, let alone wonder about what could be.

he fascination with futurism still lives on; it’s just harder to convince one’s imagination of the exciting possibilities of ‘Wristwatch TV!’ when every other Nathan Barley is watching The 40-Year-Old Virgin in miniature on their iPhone in between stops on the ‘Superspeed Tube Trains!’ underground.

et the magic of sci-fi past remains. In December 2009, Sony/Columbia released a newsletter containing a load of binary code, just as several internet ads were linking to ebbelkslorn.com. The ploy was transparent from the off: the majors were looking for a trick to pique interest in something or other - and using the digital carrot to do it. The website featured the same aesthetic as another anagrammatical arrangement of the address, brokenbells.com, and the binary code spelled ‘the high road is hard to find’, the chorus line of the first single from a new band called Broken Bells. The site came illustrated in pastel with space-age animations that moved with the mouse: the graphics were obscure, silhouetted versions of an unrecognisable couple standing in a beam of light.

URNS OUT THE COUPLE WERE JAMES MERCER FROM THE SHINS AND BRIAN BURTON, DANGER MOUSE. BUT IT WASN’T THEIR IDEA TO DO THE SCI-FI GOOSE CHASE.

“

We have people that come up with ideas, visuals and stuff,” Burton explains from a black leather sofa in a glass-walled booth at Sony London HQ. That’s what you get for being a Grammy-nominated producer. “But with the music it was super deliberate in terms of the whole aesthetic...”

he Broken Bells aesthetic embraces the old sci-fi magic of those outdated magazines, blue screen technology and the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson TV programmes of the seventies, like Thunderbirds. The album is a blend of Mercer’s distinctive, mellifluous vocals - proving that you can take James Mercer out of The Shins but you can’t take The Shins out of James Mercer and Brian Burton’s trademark Danger

Mouse production. An unlikely combination maybe, but the real surprise is how they’ve managed to seamlessly integrate the two styles on record.

oth of them insist that Broken Bells is a ‘new band’ rather than a mere side project or collaborative one-off. As if to prove it, Burton is billed as Brian Burton and not Danger Mouse. Not that the Danger Mouse days are over. “I felt like a jackass for working with ‘James Mercer’ when I’ve got this fake name,” Burton explains. “With Gnarls it was Cee-Lo - that was a fake name - then I worked with MF Doom, Gorillaz... everything had a name to it.”

the difficulties he and Cee-Lo had trying to follow their irritatingly ubiquitous 2006 hit, ‘Crazy’. He concedes: “Gnarls is the only thing I’ve ever done twice and it was hard it didn’t turn out. You can’t control what people are going to think about stuff. That song was so big, we needed to make something as big as that, and we didn’t. So that was that. In terms of Broken Bells, I don’t think we’re going to have any problems like that!”

anger Mouse lives on here in every gurgling, analogue synth and oddly placed sound effect, but a Burton of non-rodent origin emerges in the drumming, which he was responsible for throughout.

e’s right: the Broken Bells album is a slow-burner, and unlikely to procure any nine-weeks-at-number-one hit singles. Burton claims that doesn’t matter. He wants the record to have the kind of longevity he sees happening in film: “Even if a film doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a massive hit, it can still do really well over time. You need to see it all the way through to the end to get the results.”

roken Bells is their collective name, chosen because, Mercer says, “Some of the best sci-fi novels have those sort of poetic names. The music feels like what someone in the sixties would’ve predicted as the music of the future, and I love that. Those space noises are on ancient equipment!”

“

That was the thing: it sounds pseudofuturistic but we’re using these eighties synthesisers,” adds Burton. “There was no computer software used on this record.” He later admits he’s something of a technophobe, though this seems hardly possible considering his mind-bogglingly complex splicing of Jay-Z’s Black Album with The White Album by the Beatles in 2004 to create The Grey Album.

ercer and Burton share a love of the nostalgic optimism of early sci-fi. “You know when you see a programme like Space: 1999, or any of those shows?” Mercer asks. “I remember when I was a teenager there was a British-made show I used to watch, which took place in the year 1984, but it was made in the mid-sixties. We just thought it was so hilarious what they thought was going to exist in the future, like floating cars and all that stuff. I love that feel.”

hey both do. They’re so excited about it, they’re already talking about album number two. “The hardest thing for another record would be trying to be in a similar place to where we are now and not paying too much attention to what happened last time,” Burton says. “You don’t want to think so much about who or how or when anymore - you just want to create something different.”

ut won’t the anonymity of this record be impossible second time around? “I’ve never done anything second time around!” Burton exclaims cheerfully, momentarily forgetting the Gnarls Barkley sophomore effort, The Odd Couple, perhaps because of

t’s not the first time that Burton has compared his musical work to the film world. In a 2006 New York Times interview he described himself as an “auteur” in the same vein as Woody Allen - the ultimate creative director of everything he’s involved in. In the five years since The Grey Album, those projects have included a staggering roster of artists as far flung as Banksy and Ike Turner, Paul Simonon and John Cale, Damon Albarn and David Lynch. And he’s also pissed off a few majors thanks to a scant respect for licensing laws.

ow 32 and heralded as the best producer of his generation, Burton seems to be showing signs of settling into something for more than a few months at a time. “This has slowed me down,” he admits. “I just wanted to do less. I wasn’t really working on other records when I was doing this and I can tell the difference in my enjoyment. A few months before we got together I would’ve never thought this would happen, and now it will probably take up the next few years of my life. That’s a great thing.”

ut there’s still something of the old Mouse in him that worries about taking his foot off the gas, even for a second. “I’d hate to not do something because we’re getting to a certain point,” he says. “There’d be no problem taking a few years to do this or do that if this was eight years ago, but I don’t want to look at it like this could end anytime soon. I don’t want the years to become more delicate as I get older. You think that you should do certain things at certain times - it’s trying not to let that get in the way.”

ercer’s the flip-side to Burton’s schizophrenic, voracious musical energy: the man responsible for The Shins’ ascendance from the ashes of his lo-fi, low profile former outfit, Flake. The Shins’ Sub Pop debut, Oh, Inverted World won critical acclaim in 2001 but never really made a

splash; not until some of the tracks got caught up in a whirlwind of indie hype on the soundtrack to cult 2004 flick Garden State. In the film, Natalie Portman’s character, Sam, passes the headphones to Andrew (Zach Braff) and declares, “You gotta hear this one song - it’ll change your life.” Sweet coincidence for Mercer, whose fortunes changed considerably in the aftermath. The Shins had already released follow-up album Chutes Too Narrow in 2003 and had to back-pedal, touring their first album over again and battling to draw attention to newer tracks.

he Shins stayed the course and their 2007 album, Wincing The Night Away debuted at number two in the American Billboard charts - proof indeed of their longevity, and of Mercer’s consistency. But the pressure took its toll on Mercer, now 39, as the sole creative force behind the indie phenomenon that The Shins became.

“

I decided that after Wincing... I wanted to do something different - something collaborative with somebody,” he explains. “I was feeling a lot of pressure. We’d had this successful record and I was starting to feel daunted by the prospect of doing it again - looking at the blank page and starting to write. So this was a perfect opportunity to do something where I shared the creative effort. It was funny, but it just took all that pressure off. It was a really refreshing thing to do.”

rom May 2008, Mercer visited Burton’s house in LA, where they’d stay up late talking and spend the days together in Burton’s studio - writing everything ad hoc and in-sync with only a couple of engineers to mic up the various instruments. For Burton, that process was something of a revelation: “That was the first time I did it exactly that way, from beginning to end, the entire album. I don’t wanna go back definitely not. You have so much more control - you can go anywhere you want. There’s no tech-y thing, there’s no ego, nothing. There’s just: ‘Here’s a song, we could do it any way.’”

“

It was cool to have a partner to write with,” Mercer adds. “If I had a good verse, I had someone else to help me figure out the chords.”

he idea of a creative partnership where each partner is equally involved in every aspect of process isn’t something either Mercer or Burton have dabbled with much in the past. But though they’re embracing Broken Bells for very different reasons and from completely different directions, they’ve both found a kind of solace in each other and a retro-futurism that’s far removed from this vertiginous information age. The result is as anachronistic as it sounds. Broken Bells is the sound of two poles-apart musicians taking a step back, to the future.

Playing The Field By releasing a homoerotic record about a farmer called Lewis, He Poos Clouds man OWEN PALLETT is ploughing quite a furrow of intrigue.

Words by Luke Turner Photograph by Lucy Johnston

ow many homoerotic Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Darkinfluenced classical pop conceptnot-concept albums concerning a farmer called Lewis are you likely to hear this year? If it’s just one, make sure it’s Heartland, the new record from dry, diffident Toronto native Owen Pallett, formerly known as Final Fantasy. The trouble with writing such a record, says a groggy Pallett down the line from across the Atlantic, is that people have already tried to read too much into it. His devoted internetdwelling fans are battering keyboards into submission as they try to work out exactly who Lewis is. Is he Owen Pallett? Pallett’s boyfriend? A humble rancher from rural Canada, keeping it on the down-low behind a hay rick? Is this even a bloody concept album? Pallett sighs. “In the last three months, it’s all I’ve been talking about and it’s really fucking exhausting,” he says. “I actually had meetings with friends where I asked them whether I should talk about this concept in the press release or not. Some said, ‘No, don’t do it,’ but one of my best friends said, ‘Your concept is so beautiful, you can’t ignore it.’ So I decided to meet them in the middle and explain it halfway. Ooof, what a mess.” Heartland certainly isn’t a mess. On a musical level, Pallett’s work on strings for the likes of Last Shadow Puppets and Arcade Fire seems to have made his arrangements here all the more precise. And not only that, this is a record that defies the boundaries of contemporary classical, Canadian indie pop, or whatever you might like to call it. Not that Pallett was expecting the world to welcome it with open arms. “When I was making it, I was thinking,

‘Are people really going to want to listen to an orchestra for 47 minutes?” Is that why he has said it was created around the principles of electronic music? Are those principles what gives Heartland its immediacy? “No. I don’t know what it is that sustains the ear over 47 minutes. The electronic stuff is really fascinating, because it’s a classical record but I wasn’t listening to Sibelius or something. Unlike He Poos Clouds, which was rooted in the classical tradition, this record was most inspired by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark.” One of the highlights of Pallett’s 2006 tour around the release of previous album He Poos Clouds was his encore of tracks from OMD’s imperious 1983 album Dazzle Ships. Pallett used his signature live technique of looping bowed and plucked violin to render charming versions of OMD tracks like ‘ABC AutoIndustry’. This led to contact from the band’s management in search of arrangements for a concert with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Pallett takes up the story: “I realised the arrangements were somewhat out of the boundaries of my ability. And I felt so attached to the original material and the synthesisers that were used that I felt all I was doing was making it worse.” But though the project didn’t quite take off, the lessons learned had a huge impact on what was to become Heartland. “I was working so hard to make the strings sound like a four-pole filter sweep, which is what is the intro of [OMD track] ‘Souvenir’ is made from. That inspired me to take what I was trying to do for an orchestra and apply it to my own songs. I have a real soft spot for those records from the analogue era of synth pop.”

Perhaps this offers us a thematic clue, too. Before OMD plunged into the fondue set and wrote ‘If You Leave’ for the Pretty In Pink soundtrack, their records dealt with concepts: oil refineries, French martyr Joan of Arc, and of course, in ‘Enola Gay’, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. In the same way, Lewis seems to be the device to lead to whatever Pallett’s wider themes might be. So Owen, who is Lewis? “I used a lot of different people for the basis for him, including my brother. Not that I have sex feelings for my brother!” And what does he farm? “It’s not specified on the album what he farms, though he does talk about cow shit, so I guess that makes him a dairy farmer. It’s unclear too as to whether he’s a farmhand or whether he actually owns his farm. There’s certainly a lot of ambiguity about him. I tried to get more specific about the physicality of him. I wanted to objectify him almost, in a homoerotic way, but it’s not just a sexual fascination; there’s something more mysterious about having this character that is politically, socially and physically alien to you.” Pallett says he feels this has parallels with the critical theorist Roland Barthes’ essay ‘A Lover’s Discourse’, while the sexual violence that’s an undercurrent to Heartland’s lyricism reflects Japanese writer Mishima Yukio’s Confessions Of A Mask, which tells of a young man trying to conceal his emerging homosexuality. “One of the things Lewis talks about is carrying shit, which is similar to the narrator Confessions Of A Mask and his fascination with the guy who carries the night swill in a bucket,” Pallett explains. “That’s not to mention that Mishima’s fascination with

aggressive violence is sexualised in a way. I don’t go nearly so far as that, but this is a person who wants to kill - for a cause. It’s not so much a revenge fantasy - I think I’ve been in a fight once in my life.” Is Lewis a burly seducer, guiding us to your central themes? “The whole of the record is supposed to convey this otherworldliness - not the supernatural, but something that most people who listen to my music would probably find alien, and attractive,” Pallett half explains. “So I don’t remember where the character of Lewis came from, but I do know where he developed. The record was originally going to be a dialogue. I was going to be singing songs, and then Lewis was going to be singing songs, but then it became more onesided. The entire record was about me, but not being sung by me.” Yet if we want to know the significance or meaning to this “otherworldliness” that Lewis has growing in his fields, we’re going to have to wait. Firmly, Pallett says: “It feels a little premature for me to annotate the ideas. If, maybe a year or five years down the line, people want to ask these questions I feel I should be able to answer them. I want people to listen to it, and not be put off by the concept.” As he previously insisted, too much worrying about concepts clogs the ears. “The fact is that it’s not a concept record. It does have a narrative, but I wasn’t looking to make a concept album.” Instead, Pallett insists that Heartland is a clever album that, as it tickles you with deft orchestration and effortless pop hooks, just has a bit of a brain: “Frankly, I hope people do have an interest in a record about things rather than just ‘Yoshimi has a black belt in karate’.”

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

Travel Beijing is producing some fantastic bands, but on the other side of the country, people would rather listen to Arabic pop, or their local imam’s call to prayer.

CARRY need PEE PEE,” squeals Yang “I Fan (pictured), the 20something singer and guitarist in Ourself Beside Me - China’s best band. She’s sitting by a street food stall in north Beijing late on a summer’s night, the plastic table in front of her littered with bottles of Yanjing beer, half-eaten sweetcorn and meat skewers. She’s spent most of the last halfhour pretending to be sick and trying to set fire to chopsticks, so the squealing is hardly out of character. Unfortunately, “I need pee pee” is the first coherent sentence she’s said. Yesterday, Chang Liu, a bloke at her record label, Maybe Mars, warned me it would be difficult. “She doesn’t like interviews,” he said. “I’ve told her you’re an old friend passing through Beijing and it’d be fun to get a drink.” “Isn’t she going to realise I’m a journalist when I bring out a dictaphone?” I replied. He looked at me like I was dim. “Why do you need to record it?” Yang doesn’t want publicity, he said. She lives in a flat with 10 people, works as a sound engineer for shit Cantopop stars and is happy as long as she makes 600 yuan (£55) a month for rent. His advice: “Just keep buying her beer and try to remember what she says.” Yang - in spite of the above - is the best sign that Beijing’s music scene has matured. The last time I was here, six years ago, she was in Hang On The Box, an all-girl punk band who wrote songs with titles like ‘Asshole, I’m Not Your Baby’. The music scene then was made up of a few enthusiastic kids who’d book gigs then fail to promote them;

ON charming, if ramshackle. The city’s CD shops were filled with cleanliving Cantopop idols, and a punk wasn’t going to be given much space. MARS ATTACKS ay, part of that picture appears changed largely thanks to Maybe Mars and a bar called D-22, which is set back off an expressway in the city’s north. An American called Michael Pettis - a former Wall Street trader who now teaches at Peking University bankrolls both. He helps bands record properly and get their CDs to shops in Xi’an, Chongqing and the many other industrial shit-holes China has to offer. He apparently pays many acts’ living expenses. Maybe Mars is home to some great bands like Carsick Cars, Low Wormwood, and Hot & Cold (a noisy, bass and synth duo made up of Canadian embassy kids who live in Beijing during uni holidays), but Ourself Beside Me is the highlight. Their self-titled debut came out last year and is full of wonderful psychedelic pop. They should be getting attention across and outside China, but Yang’s done bugger-all to promote the record and doesn’t appear to want to start now. Fortunately, while she’s pissing around, a few other Beijing musicians turn up: Hot & Cold’s Simon and Joshua Frank, and Chen Xi, lead singer of post-punks Snapline. Simon and Josh are musing about life as Westerners in China’s music scene. “Your average foreign band in Beijing - and there are a lot - is a bunch of guys who think, ‘Hey, I like to play guitar, I’ll form a band and show these people what rock is,’”

Tod

WORDS AND IMAGES BY ALEX MARSHALL

says Simon. “Then they go and play a show of covers to their foreign friends. It’s funny, we’re not acknowledged by foreigners at all. Most people who’re interested in us are Chinese.” They also both enthuse about Chinese bands they’ve learned from and who gave them the courage to play. But this doesn’t stop them being critical of some parts of the scene. “The thing that frustrates me is that unique bands like Carsick Cars get some success so the whole scene gets a push,” says Simon. “But the new bands that start forming don’t seem to be influenced by them; they’re influenced by the worst end of what was coming out of the UK a few years ago. Everyone wants to be Klaxons.” MICRO MANAGEMENT n Xi gives an altogether different insight. On record, he’s intense, singing lyrics like, “I won’t ease the pain or set you free,” against claustrophobic backing. But in person he comes across like every other welleducated youth in China: intelligent, articulate and scarily driven. Music to him is just a hobby, a release from work. Take this answer to the question: “What motivates you?” “I think everyone wants to change something with the world and my choice is to change things with great software,” he says. “I work for Microsoft, on Office, improving its search function. Office has billions of users and maybe the thing I do is very small, but if it works I can change the way people live. As for the music... that’s kind of just me thinking for myself.”

Che

C HINA I ask him if anything would get him to put Microsoft on the backburner - perhaps a foreign tour. Unbelievably, he replies: “I’d need to figure out if I could have a vacation. Even though Microsoft has a flexible schedule, you cannot finish your daily work in eight hours.” By the time I’m finished chatting with them, the table is past beer number 20 and most of those have gone to Yang Fan. I put the dictaphone away, reasoning I’m not going to get anything sensible out of her tonight. Turns out I should have done that ages ago as suddenly she starts to talk. Maybe she really is that paranoid about being recorded. Maybe she’d just reached the right level of drunk. Most of what she rambles about is her favourite painters (she studied art before doing music) and how what she’s doing now is supposed to be art. There’s also a lot of badmouthing of Beijing bands, and some silly anecdotes about playing appalling gigs on LSD. She orders more beer, starts pissing around with cigarettes for photos. She’s in such good spirits, I think it’s okay to ask about her band again. “I’m sorry I’m so shy,” she says, “but I don’t know what to say about my music. I just make it. I don’t even like our record - it’s not the best we can do and it was made at a bad time for the band with a lot of shit things going on.” She then tells me about a Scottish friend who recently OD’ed. “But he junky, so no surprise.” Finally she holds out her hand. “Nice to meet you”, she says, as if we’re finally on level terms. Then she rushes off for another piss.

Travel

March 2010 The Stool Pigeon

WEST IS WEST ew days later, and I’m over the other side of China in a province called Xinjiang. I’ve gone east-west, making a journey that’s China’s equivalent of a leisurely drive from Southend to Bristol. It’s taken six hours, and two planes. Xinjiang’s one barren, windswept place that makes up a sixth of China. Most of it is desert, the rest mountains. Years ago, China used to exile people here in the hope they’d starve. Today, the government’s put in place incentives to encourage people to come and exploit the area’s massive oil and gas reserves. Not many tourists visit the region compared to China’s other areas, so it’s little known in the West. But its two major cities made the news last year; its capital, Urumqi, in the summer after riots between the native, long-fucked-with Muslim Uighur people (pronounced Wee-gar) and the Han Chinese. Some 200 people died, with another 1,700 injured. The Uighurs have long campaigned for more independence, or at least cultural respect, so this was really just the latest sign of tensions overflowing. Kashgar also made the papers because the local government started ripping down its beautiful old town, replacing it with shit flats. This is apparently due to earthquake prevention - many of the buildings are made of mud - and also to make the area less of a slum, but the fact its alleyways are seen as a breeding ground for separatists probably has something to do with it. I didn’t get to see any rioting, but I did see Kashgar being knocked apart and met a lot of people who

weren’t happy about it. One man, who’d called us up onto his roof, pulled out a 100 yuan note and kept on hitting the picture of Chairman Mao printed on it, saying: “At least he did what he said. The leaders today, they tell you one thing, then do another. I rebuilt my house so it’s safe, and they’re still going to knock it down.” HAJJING IT enough politics. While there, I was supposed to be seeing if anything was going down musically - whether the ripples of Beijing’s bands had reached this far. Unsurprisingly, I drew a blank. You walk round towns here and you don’t hear Cantopop blasting out of shops. You don’t hear anything. Live performances seem limited to traditional folk musicians, or the occasional bunch of Muslim kids in the back of a van banging drums. A couple of moments sum it up for me. One day I was getting a taxi up to the mountains south of Kashgar. It was a beautiful journey - nothing but the occasional camel, or some poor workgroup who’d been trucked out to paint road signs. We’d been going a few hours chatting to the driver when I asked him if he had any music. “Music?” he replied, non-plussed. “Yes, music,” I said pointing at the tape deck. He scattered through his tapes and said we wouldn’t like any. I told him to just pick his favourite. We spent the next 45 minutes listening to some Saudi Arabian imam - a live recording from Mecca - calling people to prayer. The bloke couldn’t have been out of his twenties. Another day I was up at Karakul

But

Lake on the route to Pakistan. It’s a famed beauty spot; couples take wedding photos there. My friends were off riding horses, so I spent the time walking round the lake talking to the kids who’d rented them. They were 19, 20, and looked like hardcore rap fans, all hoodies and scarves tied round their mouths. Apparently, they wore these to protect their faces from the sun and wind. It didn’t appear to have worked. Their skin was blotchy and pock-marked, bleached almost. Within five minutes, they were asking all the usual questions Westerners get in China: How much do you earn? Are you married? Do you want to meet my sister? One spoke English and Mandarin; he translated into Uighur for his mates. After about an hour, I started asking questions back and soon got to music. “We don’t listen to it,” they said. “We like cars.” That subject’s a no-go for me, so I followed-up with the one question I wanted to ask everyone in Xinjiang: “Do you feel Chinese?” It seemed a safe time to do this. We were in the middle of nowhere. The nearest person was a good kilometre away. The bloke translated for his mates. They had a powwow. “Yes,” he said, without illuminating. Then they all turned their backs. They stopped talking. They didn’t turn round. I walked off. They followed 20 metres behind. CUP FOREVER er such fun, I started the long journey back to Beijing, catching buses and trains through the desert, salt lakes and general squalor that is eastern Xinjiang into neighbouring Gansu.

Aft

Little changed - still too much mutton - but music made a welcome return. It still wasn’t the overwrought piano ballads or ballsout R&B of Cantopop, though: it was the noise and clatter of Arabic pop, all rattling drums and Middle Eastern strings, with the occasional venture into euro-techno. On one taxi ride near Turpan, the driver had a computer instead of a rear-view mirror (“Yes, very illegal”). A dust storm hit us. I could only see five yards out the window but the driver didn’t even bother looking at the road - he just flicked through pop videos on the screen. There were Egyptian and Lebanese tunes, a lot of stuff from Kazakhstan, even a dodgy cover of ‘Informer’ by Snow - that old novelty rap hit. But there wasn’t one Chinese song. I was suddenly struck by one of those dickhead moments all travellers have when they think they’ve grasped a place. “These people are so detached from Chinese culture, I might as well be in Afghanistan,” I said to myself. It was a dickhead moment due to what happened next: the driver asked if I had any music. I had one CD by Hanggai, these Beijingbased revivalists who do old Chinese and Mongolian folk songs complete with stupid outfits and a lot of throat singing. I put it in and flicked to my favourite tune, ‘Drinking Song’. One line in, the driver smiled with recognition. By the time we hit the chorus, he started belting out the words like a pissed kid in a Beijing bar: “Let our song never end! Let our fortunes never decline! A cup forever in our hands.”

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

Print PAGE IMPRESSIONS

he Stool birthday books

Pigeon

Son of Dave sent us such a lovely letter, we decided to do a whole book of his columns. Not true: we were always going to do that (see below). And there’ll be two other volumes: a collection of the greatest Stool Pigeon Q&As, and one bringing together the best narratives. ‘The Cuntoid Is A Lemminghead?’ You bet. Out March 22.

Three tomes celebrating five years

Arts

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

Tate Out Of Compton A new retrospective of ‘hip hop assemblage’ artist Chris Ofili is the shit. Turd up.

Chris

Ofili is art’s mixtape master. His technique of splicing together far-flung cultural elements, from porno to the Bible, into one fresh and cohesive whole has been dubbed ‘hip hop assemblage’ by critics. Seven Bitches Tossing Their Pussies Before The Divine Dung, for example, juxtaposes the poetry of William Blake with a collage of black faces. But his new mid-career retrospective at Tate Britain reveals an artist who clearly regards music as his most influential resource. Much of the exhibition, which brings together 45 of Ofili’s paintings from the mid-nineties onwards, works as a carefully crafted mash-up of the last 50 years of black music.

Ofili,

who won the Turner Prize in 1998 at the age of 30, credits his upbringing in Manchester during the eighties for his deep-felt appreciation of hip hop culture. It was there that he was exposed to artists such as Public Enemy and Eric B. & Rakim, and became inspired by their ability to sample, remix and recycle the past into something fresh.

Ofili’s

cut-and-paste style openly draws from lyrics to explore areas such as racism, ethnicity and identity. Song titles by D’Angelo (‘Devil’s Pie’), Bob Marley (‘No Woman, No Cry’), Erykah Badu (‘The Healer’) and Big Daddy Kane (‘Pimpin Ain’t Easy’) regularly pop up, re-contextualised. Furthermore, the aesthetic of seventies blaxploitation movies appears alongside motifs borrowed from Afrofuturism pioneers Sun-Ra and George Clinton, while the names of Chaka Khan, LL Cool J and James Brown are spelled out on flagencrusted dung.

The

exhibition will also feature the likes of INSA, Cooly G, GoldieLocks, Eddie Kadi, Mala, Tinie Tempah, Wah Nails and Jan Blake as they respond to Ofili’s work with a set of performances on March 14 and 21. Presentations and workshops will include the Rolling Sound music studio bus and barbershop Cut The Chat TV. Jason Zing

Chris Ofili Tate Britain Millbank London, SW1P 4RG Until May 16 www.tate.org.uk

Left THE HEALER Oil on linen. Opposite page, top left NO WOMAN NO CRY Acrylic paint, oil paint, polyester resin, paper collage, map pins, elephant dung, on canvas.

Top right

BLOSSOM Oil, polyester resin, glitter, map pins, elephant

dung, on linen.

Bottom

TRIPLE BEAM DREAMER Acrylic paint, oil paint, leaves, glitter,

polyester resin, map pins, elephant dung, on linen.

March 2010 The Stool Pigeon

Arts

March 2010

The Stool Pigeon

Comics

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

March 2010 The Stool Pigeon

Comics

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

March 2010 The Stool Pigeon

Comics

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

March 2010 The Stool Pigeon

Comics

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

March 2010 The Stool Pigeon

Comics

In California we meet a traveller from an antique land. On two scrawny legs - KFC issue - he stands. He has a shattered look. His face is a frown, a wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command. He is instantly recognisable to the fans of dyspeptic outrage and ye olde punk rock (not to mention the purveyors and purchasers of spreadable dairy produce). He has the air of majesty. A man given divine right by his Royal Family motto: ‘I do what I like. I made Metal Box, and Never Mind The Bollock s...’ But despite living in a glittering city built on sand in the desert, all he can do is moan. “It’s fucking freezing in here,” he says in an instantly recognisable sing-song voice. “The cold goes right through me. I’ve really got to cough this up.” He hacks and hacks and on the third terrific HACK he clears his lungs. He has his spittoon next to the phone. It may take forever to get to speak to John Lydon, but once you’ve got him you’ve got him for as long as you like. And then, without warning, he’s warm and funny and outrageous, like your favourite uncle at a wedding. He inspects the truffle of matter he’s just produced from his lungs and announces in a lilting Celtic accent, “Ah, just like the green, green fields of Ireland...” He’s not Irish - he’s English, so English it’s quite possible we had to send him to LA. At home, he would have shown up just how much our old notions of Englishness have fallen into

at Brixton Academy in London. Further shows, including Coachella in California (April) and Benicassim in Spain (July), have since been scheduled. With all of the violent conversational U-turns and mood swings it involves, talking to Lydon in 2010 ages one in the same way that very rapid interstellar travel or witnessing an impossibly awful act of nature might. You come away feeling tired, but also fretting about how Lydon himself copes. He must be uncomfo rtable in his own skin, he bristles so much. After two hours, I’m left imagining one of Dr Gunter von Hagen’s Body Worlds, plastinated corpses gripping the telephone receiver at the other end of the line. He must be all bright purple bulging muscle, popping eyeballs, snapping at me in that sing-song voice, while at the other end of the room there lies an empty pile of skin, an illfitting suit and some orange dreadlocks scattered upon the linoleum. The Stool Pigeon At the PiL gigs in London before Christmas, it seemed like you really had to work to get the audience on your side. John Lydon Yeah, but then again I said in advance, ‘This was going to be a two-hour-plus show.’ You don’t want to shoot your bolt straight away [giggles]! And there were a lot of people over-analysing, which is usually media-led in advance, because

The Stool Pigeon Interview by John Doran

more or less the same with many of them [the ex-members of PiL]. SP Are you still friends with Jah Wobble? JL I’ve launched many careers through PiL, but let it be known, and I won’t be shy about this: I am PiL. It’s my band. I started it and I’ll finish it and no one dictates otherwise. It is a caring, sharing corporation, but when I’m putting up the money I expect anyone who thinks they can come along to join back in ex-members - to put in an equal amount. And if they’re not going to do that, they shouldn’t come to me. SP And that was the issue with Jah Wobble? JL That is the problem with anybody who thinks that I’m just an open wallet. It’s equal shares. When PiL started, it was my money, my work, my record label, my record deal. It’s exactly the same all over again. I don’t want to go through this anymore; I don’t want to have to argue pay packets with people who are not willing to commit financially as much as I am. Why should I be the one paying all the time? It’s not right. If I’m the one who has to pick up the bill and front everything, then I pick who I get to work with. And I couldn’t have picked a better bunch of people; it couldn’t have been better performing for two-and-a-half hours a night. You can only do that with people you trust implicitly. You

Painting by Nick Offer

limited disrepair. Or perhaps it’s a reverse ferret engineered by the UK tourist board. He’s an advert for the UK by being a chimera constructed from equal parts of British and Irish archetypes. During our conversation, his personality morphs into Kenneth Williams, Richard III, Oscar Wilde, Muriel Belcher, Spike Milligan... His entire demeanour shifts through huge U-turns. He can be business-like and polite, and also like Stuart Hall, unable to stop laughing at the ridiculousness of something he’s relating. And then he’s suddenly angry and shouting, calling me “a lying hound, a bastard, a cunt” for asking a question about his minder, Johnny Rambo, who was accused of acting overly heavy-handed with Kele Okereke from Bloc Party and Duffy at two separate incidents in 2008. But then he ends our interview by wishing me “peace”. You may think this is a well-developed protection mechanism or proof of a giant public persona that’s gradually taken over. I don’t know. It’s not for me to say. What I do know is that the further away John Lydon gets from his childhood, the more he needs it to throw where he is into sharp relief. As much, when he mentions his north-east London roots (and he does, a lot), he doesn’t do so in a mawkish, Angela’s Ashes kind of way. The facts are incontrovertible: he was born to working class Irish

they don’t know what to expect, but then they go, ‘Oh, oh, he is good!’ Well, HELLO! I was never bad! And I’ve been away for quite a while, so I understand their trepidation, y’know? You don’t jump straight into a hot bath: you test it with your big toe first. SP The shows were, eventually, rapturously received. Did that ensure you would continue with PiL, record more material, and do a new album? JL The whole idea was to raise enough money to be able to continue touring, and that would raise enough money to be able to go into a recording studio and record a proper, new PiL album. We just about broke even with a bit to spare, so we’re starting to plan a few concerts in the US. And then back to Europe, and then to the studio to record. This is about reforming PiL properly, not some fly by night venture. SP As it stands now, what will the line up of PiL be for the new album? JL As is [Lydon on vocals; The Pop Group’s Bruce Smith on drums; Lu Edmonds on guitars; and Scott Firth on bass]. SP

Will your Coachella performance provide enough

can’t do that with someone who will take the tapes out of the studio and record over them with their own stuff [Wobble], and not someone who wouldn’t turn up for a gig because he has a drug problem [Levene], or someone who cancels a recording session because they’ve got their own solo tour elsewhere [Martin Atkins, drummer]. There are many, many stories about these people who lack commitment and who broke ranks when it counted. To me, when you break rank that’s it - you’re not going to break my bank. SP Has there been any kind of practise or discussion or hints as to where the new album might go? JL We’re going to take the best direction possible. The sheer variety and complexity of what we can now perform musically is just fantastic. It’s not an easy ride, that’s for sure, but we can go into many, many things - many styles, many genres. But us being PiL, we’re above that, so we create our own. It’s a wonderful process, and a lot of these old songs we’re always rewriting and reworking live and taking them into new areas. I’ve always loved free-forming on stage. I knew that would be a problem with some of the old members who wouldn’t be capable of understanding some of the other areas of PiL. And there’s

edition With PiL reformed, John Lydon is once more converting anger to energy.

parents in 1956 and grew up in a two room tenement slum in Finsbury Park. The spinal meningitis, which he contracted at the age of seven and put him in a coma and left him with his unusual stare, may well have been contracted from rat urine. His time spent running with a tough crowd of mixed race, proto-football hooligans, was good education for what came next. After the Sex Pistols, he went on to form what was to be one of the best groups of the post punk period, Public Image Limited. Now free of the art school Situationist pranks of manager Malcolm McLaren, and the classic rock aspirations of Steve Jones et al., he was free to explore what he’d always wanted from his previous group: AUDIO (not just lyrical) ANARCHY. He called up Jah Wobble, obviously having no fear of promoting a seemingly musically talentless friend to the role of bassist; reconnected with guitar savant Keith Levene; and hired Canadian drummer Jim Walker through the pages of Melody Maker. After the great First Issue, released in 1978, came the unassailable Metal Box a year later. It was a sonic mirror held up to the unbearable hiss and rumble of modern life; an experiment in combining noise, disco, dub, Kraut and outsider rock; an outlier of sheer brilliance - so brilliant, in fact, it was unlikely that they would stay away forever. Lydon finished PiL in 1992 (then with an entirely different line-up), but announced in September last year that they would reform for seven UK shows, including two nights

money to record the album? JL It will certainly help. It’s astounding how expensive it is to reform in these times. It’s nothing like as easy as it used to be years ago. Rehearsal spaces now, they really charge you through the nose. And equipment hire. In the old days, these were things that no one really seemed to care about, because there was a pub culture and every pub had a room where you could practise. All of that has gone it’s all wine bars now. SP I heard that a PiL reunion had already been started by an independent record label. Apparently, they had Wobble and Levene on board, and they were planning on approaching you last to make it more likely that you’d say yes. Was there any truth in that and did it affect your decision not to work with them? JL Well, no, because quite frankly there’s only one person who can get PiL back together and you’re speaking to him! Right [laughs]!? And anyone from a small, independent record label really doesn’t fit into the picture. SP Did you approach Levene and Wobble to be involved? JL Levene I would never work with. He’s an impossible character - utterly, utterly a waste of space as a human being to me. He’s done far too many crimes against humanity in my book. He’s utterly selfish; utterly unreliable; impossible to work with, and it’s

some 37 of them [laughs]! SP Is there any kind of deadline you’ve set yourself for a new album? JL No. There’s no label, no record company. That’s another little ferret I’m into at the moment. I know it’s nice that there are these little companies who are saying, ‘Come to us,’ etc. But will they have the distribution? Will they come at me with a list of guidelines? That was always my constant problem at Virgin or any label, really. Once they start making suggestions to you, they’re actually killing the music. Everyone I know in every band has a horror story about their record label. They move in on you, they become your friends, they start giving you advice. They say, ‘Oh, it’s only a suggestion,’ but then it becomes the law. I’ve got 30 years experience of it and I’m going to go about it in a proper way now. There are still many financial ties and burdens and tie-ins and merchandising deals that are seriously seriously complicated and really need to be worked out. And all of this costs money. You need the lawyers. Thank you Country Life! It’s funny how I always knew that I could always platform from that and, lo and behold, all I needed was one big break. It’s a sad indictment of the music industry, which I think I’ve done a lot for over the years. They give me nothing.

The Stool Pigeon Interview by John Doran

john

lydon With PiL reformed, John Lydon is once more converting anger to energy.

Painting by Nick Offer

SP Going back to the beginning, was PiL fractious from the start or did you have a honeymoon period? JL Ffffffffffffffractious!? Honeymoon? Gawd! NEITHER! It was what it was: a beautiful amalgamation, and it worked great and worked under severe pressure, but then some little personality traits started to creep in. Then it’s time to move on and that’s exactly what I did. SP Does it bother you that people always talk about Metal B ox? Do you think, for example, First Issue and Fl owers Of Romance are generally passed over by the critics? JL Yes. Fl owers... I had to do almost completely and utterly alone. It was a very difficult period. Keith was having all kinds of problems. He’d turn up to the studio, but he’d go straight upstairs and play Space Invaders. We wouldn’t see him for the rest of the day. I’d just come out of jail in Ireland and I was champing at the bit to get on with it. Martin Atkins was there for less than a week and then he had to go because he’d booked himself a Brian Brain tour of America, so I had to get him to lay down a load of loose, non-rhythmic drum sections, which I then had to cut up and make songs round. ‘Banging The Door’, for instance, was a jam that he did which I edited and put a voice over the top. But it worked out fine. ‘Flowers Of Romance’ was bits and pieces of drum sound with me banging on things occasionally to make it sound like a proper drum kit. There was a sax and a violin thrown in, too. Bass was done with a violin bow and just the occasional pluck. Very hard work but very enjoyable. But it was very sad years later when I read Keith Levene saying I was useless and terrible and he did it all himself. Very, very wrong. SP Was leaving the bass guitar off the record a bit of a fuck you to Wobble? JL No! Not at all! Not at all! Wobble did that to himself when he removed tapes from studios and went off to record solo ventures with PiL backing tracks. SP But are you two still friends? JL I would like to think so. I see no reason not to be. I’m aware that he’s been saying things in and around this tour where he shouldn’t. Plain and simple, I put my money where my mouth is. SP At the Brixton show, you were visibly moved during ‘Death Disco’. I understand why. Presumably when you wrote it, it was a means of coping with the death of your mother, Eileen. JL Er, no, because she hadn’t died! SP JL

Oh God, I’m sorry... Ha ha ha! You know, it was going through at the time!

SP That must make it worse, if anything, to play. JL And she did die. By the time we got it out, my mum had passed away. But I played the rough of it to her in advance. And I didn’t know whether she’d like it when I played it to her, but she was very impressed and that was a very good thing because my mum wouldn’t have lied. It’s an odd juxtaposition of events as well. The crux was the tunes. It really wasn’t in the forefront of my mind, but somehow a disco ditty combined with Swan Lake was forming in my head as a very good backdrop which could then be led into a world of chaos and pain and confusion. Which is the only way that anybody can deal with death. You don’t deal with it. You fall apart. SP What do you remember about contracting spinal meningitis when you were seven? JL I started hallucinating. I remember they called the doctor and he called an ambulance. I remember I was thrilled about getting an ambulance ride while feeling very, very tripped out. Which is an odd thing at seven! And then nothing. And then [what felt like] moments later or [what felt like] years and years and years later it came back into my memory. I lost my memory because I went into a coma for three months. It took many, many years to fully know who I was after that, or to know who anybody was after that. Slowly but surely... None of it was enjoyable. All of it was really, really grim. SP Was there a bigger implication? Did you become aware of your own mortality then? JL I went through a period after that when I was very quiet. I was a very quiet kid anyway, but after that I thought somehow it was my fault that I was ill, or that my parents thought that it was my fault. SP JL

You thought it was your fault!? I blamed myself!

SP Without wanting to be glib, was this an Irish Catholic thing? JL I don’t know. I’d hope not, but the Paddies do like to throw a guilt trip on! It usually comes not from your parents, but those sods in the black dresses and the collars - the priests. They look at you funny and they pass it on to you. SP Are you a fit and healthy person now? JL No. After that? Never. I’m very, very prone to all kinds of illnesses, particularly in my sinuses. I’m physically dilapidated. I can’t help that. It did a lot of damage. Bad circulation and I’m prone to intense headaches, especially when I’m worrying, which I do naturally. I’m always wary of going to sleep in case I don’t wake up, which would probably explain the amphetamine periods in my life! I used to think that speed was so great. I used to think, ‘I’ll never go to sleep again!’ But it doesn’t work out like that. After half a week, you’re desperate to go to sleep.

SP The come-downs are horrific. Or did you not suffer with them? JL Yes. The come-downs are very much like going back into meningitis! And so that tapered off. SP Did you ever become addicted? JL I’m the kind of silly boy who will go into a thing and go into it all the way, and then kill the thing to death and walk away from it - just drop it. I don’t have an addictive personality. I won’t be repetitive with things like that. I’m not habitual. I don’t need to drink alcohol every day, and I’ve known lots of people who are habitual with whatever it is that they’re involved with. It’s very, very hard to get them to stop because it’s an internal thing. You either decide that you love life more or you don’t. SP Given that this has been a recurring theme of your adult life - not with you but with people that you’ve worked with - were you ever tempted to, I don’t know, make PiL straightedge to get them to fucking rein it in a bit? JL Straight edge!? NO! I understand what you’re saying, what with Sid and members of PiL who got themselves into serious drug problems, but it’s ultimately on a one-to-one. What can I do to stop you from killing yourself? It’s not creative. It’s not recreational now; it’s a life dependency thing. And if the drug matters more than the thing you do to get the money to buy the drug, then you have to stop. Or move on. But you certainly can’t be round me because I’m not going to be around that kind of personality. But, on the other hand, because I’m loyal to my friends, I don’t give up on people very easily. SP You’ve been scathing about Sex Pistols copycat bands but what about post punk - the groups that harnessed punk’s ‘energy’? Much has been made of the second Pistols gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, for example. The Buzzcocks helped put it on and everyone from the future Joy Division to Mick Hucknall and The Fall was in the audience. Apparently. JL Ha ha ha! ‘Apparently!’ All I can say is that’s fine! There wasn’t that many people in the audience was there! Everyone else went on to be in a band! That’s a good thing! All the bands Mick Hucknall! - they all went off to make very, different, forms of music. That is most excellent. That in itself is a reward. Variety. Wonderful. SP As a teenager you had fairly varied leftfield musical tastes: Can, Captain Beefheart... JL I wouldn’t say leftfield. I think we used to call it then and I’ve never understood why - Catholic taste. [laughs] It expanded and I’m thrilled by all kinds of music, really. [pause] Except New Orleans trad. jazz. I don’t know why but I just can’t get my head round it. New Orleans trad. jazz and all of that honky tonk piano... I’ve got no love for it at all, which is probably why Jools Holland won’t let me on his show! [laughs] It’s because he can’t play honky tonk piano to anything by PiL! He just can’t! SP Did you feel an affinity with, or for, German groups like Can or Neu!? JL I loved them and always have done, from a very early age. German clubs were very much different to an English disco. Even when I was in the Pistols, I remember I went to Berlin with Sid for a holiday because we got thrown out of Jersey. And the music is now what you’d call techno. It was purely just heavy. Boom! Boom! Bass. He didn’t get it. It was way ahead of what rave later caught on to, and it stripped the idea of music right out of it. Why bother with a melody? Here’s a rhythm. A very dogmatic German way with music. I suppose it was techno’s earliest influence. Or was it oompah music? OOMPAH PA! OOMPAH PAH! Ha ha ha!! SP As well as Krautrock, roots and dub music were a big influence on PiL. How important was your trip to Jamaica to sign reggae bands for Front Line just after you quit the Pistols? JL To be truthful, it was wonderful. It was a real nice treat for Virgin to ask me to go out there and pick out reggae bands for their new label and to help set up Front Line. And that’s exactly what I did. SP There must have been a high contrast in Jamaica in the late-seventies. Wasn’t Joni Mitchell staying at your hotel? But, out in Trenchtown... well, I’m guessing it must have ranked quite high on world poverty tables. JL No, she had her own place. Someone knew her and drove us out there. The thing about meeting her is it might have been good, but she was recovering from some... problem, shall we say. Back then I just thought, ‘Why is she acting like that?’ There was a pomposity which I didn’t understand. She’d gone to Jamaica to hog onto the Bob Marley end of it. And I’m sorry, but I was down there in the ghetto with the boys who really make the good stuff. SP This is what I’m interested in. Were you prepared for what you found in Trenchtown? Because I know The Clash shat their pants when they went there... JL Aaaaha ha ha! They had [laughs]... their pants [laughs]... their pants [dissolves into laughter]... Because they went there with this childishly intellectual philosophy of [puts on groovy professor voice], ‘Oh, hi black guys, we’re here to, y’know, learn from you but at the same time RIP OFF EVERYTHING YOU’VE DONE and put our name on top of it.’ It doesn’t work. SP But were YOU prepared for what Trenchtown was going to be like?

Yes. I suppose so. Finsbury Park ain’t much better.

SP Slightly worse weather, I guess... JL Slightly. [Angrily] But until the age of 11, I grew up with my family in two small rooms with no indoor toilet and no hot water, so I had some concept of it... SP Fair enough. JL You couldn’t be pulling that, ‘Oh, where do you shower?’ bullshit on me. The patois. The street talk. This was Finsbury Park talk. Home from home. I’ve always had the same approach. You treat people like they’re human beings and they’ll treat you well back. But if you go there with this kind of turning up in limousines kind of attitude - which is what a lot of them did - it becomes absurd. They were all there because of the Bob Marley thing. They thought it would be as safe as houses for them and they were not prepared for the abject poverty of the people that were going to greet them. You know? Joe Strummer’s dad was an ambassador, for God’s sake! What the fuck does he know? Nice middle class boys, but utterly clueless about how the world really is. SP Paul Simonon was salt of the earth. JL Welllllllllll, of course he’s salt of the earth... up there in art college! [laughs] He comes from money. SP Let’s talk about money. How did you get on with Branson? JL Richard used to be alright, but he used to be a bit wary of me. There was always a distance and there still is to this day. Which is very odd and there it is. Can’t change that. SP Is he fundamentally a good guy though? JL [wistfully] I think the biggest mistake I ever made with Richard was he sent me a Christmas present once and it was... and now I look back on it I’m amazed I was so stupid. It was a gift for two to fly to Norway and go on a hot air balloon holiday. And in my dumbness at the time I thought, ‘Oh, is he trying to freeze me to death in a hot air balloon over Norway [laughs]?’ I didn’t foresee what that was all leading to and it was all really about. I should have been more generous in accepting it, but instead I ignored it, which was foolish. Isn’t it funny how these silly little things can affect everything? But there you go: it was my lack of good faith in his act of generosity and I think that affected our relationship as friends. SP Your friend Johnny Rambo... you’ve known him for a long time, haven’t you? JL Johnny? Since about 11. He was my brother’s best friend. So family, really. Rambo used to go on holiday with my brother Jimmy and the family. He used to take my place because I wouldn’t go. That was when I was very, very young. SP What’s interesting about this guy - from my point of view, sitting over here - is that he appears to be getting you into more trouble than he’s keeping you out of. JL You’re talking shit. SP JL

I’m not. I’m not making any accusations, I’m... You’d better not be. Explain that.

SP Alright, I will. I’m not making any accusations, but he has been accused of acting slightly heavy-handedly as your minder. JL By who? SP Newspapers, people backstage at gigs... JL Well, that would be completely untrue and all of our fans, if you want to call them that - all the people who wait back for us after the show for me to sign stuff - know that damn well. Alright? SP Absolutely. JL Absolutely. And there’s only one person I trust in that world and that’s John - Johnny Rambo - and no harm comes to anyone. And if you put a spin on it otherwise, you are completely being a lying hound, a bastard, a cunt. I’m fed up of people gossiping negatively. I wouldn’t have negative people around me. You need to explain who has said what here. I’m getting really annoyed by this. SP I can tell. JL We’re being absolutely hounded by this. We are nonviolent in our behaviour. In every way. But shit like this keeps on coming up. I have to constantly deal with nonsense and it’s usually internet fed... a heroin addict, a racist, a woman beater, a woman hater... it’s almost relentless. And it really doesn’t bode well in the light of what goes on. It’s about time somebody actually reported what goes on - the truth of how wonderful we are with people, and why we make this music and what it’s all about. This is about the betterment of mankind, not the alternative. SP I just wanted to ask about it. You’ve put me straight. JL Yep. No one gets hurt at our gigs. I won’t have it. We spend so much time stopping security behaving in that way absolutely tying it up so rigidly that no one is to be hurt or offended in any way. Now, if there’s a psychopath who wants to jump on stage and smash my face in, they’re not going to be treated too kindly, but fans... more than welcome to enjoy themselves. I’d like that to be known. SP It will be. This is how I’m ending the piece. This is definitely the end of the piece. JL [pause] Peace, sir.

March 2010 The Stool Pigeon

Comment & Analysis Ring out the old, ring in the new, ring, happy bells, across the snow

SON OF DAVE OUT WITH THE OLD, in with the new indeed. My baby’s buying more shoes she doesn’t need. We are now poised for victory, or at least a really good fight. I’m not one for calendar-changing parties, but for those who think of things in terms of new years and decades, you can rejoice. Because we’ve lived through so much garbage that we’re finally due our reward. Yes, it’s really time to buy that new/used accordion and simple country dress, go down to the river and to hell with the rent. This year is going to be the best ever! What have we just been through? “The digital decade,” I heard it called. Puke the bed if that wasn’t the most hyped-up, hollowed-out shite that ever wasn’t. The noughties tried soooo hard to be something new and improved. Every bluesman in the field was forced to take on twice as many gigs while the record business crashed and burned and only Pop Factor cleaned up.

In the last 10 years: Television comedians turned to bum tonguing and gang-rape jokes while the audience cringed and rented Marx Brothers movies. Black America became musically lo$t: celebrating pure materialism, unable to find a melody, losing all sense of purpose, and being completely duped by the man that makes the Benz. Alternative rock tried grotesque masks and zombie sex while the audience rediscovered fifties R&B and Cumbia. Brit Art crawled up its own peepee while filming itself for display in the Tate. The audience yawned and bought some watercolour paints and a pad of paper. The government spent £17b preparing for Mad Cow Disease, SARS, Bird and Swine Flu, and culled 900,000 children arriving from Asian countries. The audience caught a cold. We were so bombarded by television talent shows that they can only become passé (although there are still a couple years left of aggressive dance competition; four dance troupes together on a phoney island where they must kill locusts by swinging the little urban kid in the air). We were so betrayed by capitalism, America, Conservative/Labour governments and our Business Chiefs that evolution or civil war is now inevitable. Yes, for once I am hopeful and happy. They completely saturated the market with exploding breast implants and people want their

money back. I look forward to the coming years of riots, the popular rejection of what’s called ‘news’, and the return of turntables in nightclubs. I can’t wait for the bitching and moaning as MP3 players are replaced by streaming media on yer pPhone. But these new gadgets will fail to impress. Watching telly on your handheld will come and then what... levitation? Short of that, nothing will be new. It thrills me to think that people might have nothing new to buy. With over 100 years of pop culture now at our fingertips, nobody can fool us into thinking that the Next Big Thing is anything more than a cynical hybrid of past styles with a salty lack of purpose. I look forward to middle-class panic and identity crises as they find it harder and harder to distinguish themselves from the poor slob down the street. Anyone can have a Sony Gadget and shiny clothes made cheap in the third world, but only the super elite can wear the luxury brands. And those nitwits will be getting richer, giving us an increasingly clear target for our hatred (or lots of money to play at their awful parties). In the coming years, the ‘war on warming’ will further become our daily burden. Save your tin cans to make heat deflectors! But, optimistically, the greatly exaggerated threat of religious fundies will settle a bit. This time, we won’t let our politicians and oilmen invade Yemen or whichever new bogeyman training ground they invent. The public won’t swallow any more phoney excuses for going to war until the climate gives us real reasons to invade... Spain. The

struggle for fruit and vegetables will be real, and the Spanish guerrillas will be holding our nation to ransom for ripe tomatoes in wintertime. The sultans of Dubai will pay much more for them than we can afford and we’ll need to move in the fruit troops. Everyone will hate the Israelis, but we’ll all have a Jewish agent. The Catholics will campaign for popularity in Africa by endorsing matrimonial condoms handed out like wafer at the wedding. Holy population control. The Chinese will breed with the Africans to make a master race. The Shia and Sunni sects will have equestrian and camel Olympics in Dubai attended by the Royal Families from all good oilpurchasing nations. Our Queen will ride the winning camel. Oh Lord, I think I like calendarchanging events now. All this predicting and reminiscing! This summer will be the BEST EVER! We are going to dance our asses off and turn the Bank of England into a giant flea market. Minus 40 degrees outside on New Year’s Eve. My East German Farm Girl and I had tried to leave the party twice. There were no taxis or buses and it was cold enough that the Prosecco under my arm would freeze in 10 minutes. We resigned ourselves to make the best of the situation by just playing cards down in the costume room. Five other people had the same idea. The DJ upstairs had six million MP3s in his phone but couldn’t find one we wanted to dance to. Best to sit with a small table of strangers and drink and laugh. She and I played blackjack. The

women at the table drank and drank until they were comparing cleavage and knocking the beer over. The cards became wet and difficult to play with, or marked with cigarette burns. Our new friends howled and fought. More strangers joined and left, each leaving with a wet lap and lipstick on their teeth. We had a world of costumes to try on but didn’t bother. Too easy. We had all the loose women and booze we could ask for but we didn’t bother. Too easy. We just played cards, stuck in there, happy that the weather outside kept us from an endless number of destinations we didn’t have to choose from. It’s that which limits us that makes life enjoyable, not endless possibility. We eventually struggled back to the igloo and did very, very kind things to each other. We woke up with only mild hangovers and full of hope. This is going to be a good year with the worst all behind us. New Year’s Eve is behind us. The worst party of the year passed without too much pain. The best is yet to come, as love will burst the heart of Old Man Profit and a bright young thing will replace Old Lady Lies. Sometime this decade I look forward to being paid for writing in this alternative press publication. Maybe the advertising department will get Apple to put in an ad for its new streaming media player. I look forward to spending that little bit of cash on an overpriced Sam Butera 45rpm record. When you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you. But this crooked grin is mine, all mine!!!

You bet I gave thieving bastard Enrique a pizza the action, ROFL!

MISS PRUDENCE TROG NOVEMBER 5 I need a guy. No, not Guy Fawkes - a proper guy. All the good men I ever meet are either attached or gay, while the ones who show any interest are ragbags in cast-offs who look like they’ve been in a fire. Where am I going wrong? I’m sexy and I have a great job working with the coolest bands, and I get invited to the best parties. But working for Negative Press has its drawbacks - I never get to meet nice boys. Yes, I will confess with a heavy heart: I need a good man to share my bed with, and to enjoy long weekends away with in Rotterdam and Swansea. He doesn’t even have to be industry. We could jog in the park singing Billy Ocean songs and eat egg sandwiches and fling them at geese when we’re stuffed. I want a fella to see New Moon with, then afterwards we can go to Nando’s before he whisks me home and pumps me masterfully on a beanbag. I want it all, damn it! I’ve tried internet dating but all I

get are messages from strange old men who look like scrotums. I certainly don’t want to see your puppies and you’re not coming anywhere near mine, you unlovable wank-machine. And I hope you choke on your TV dinner, you fucking internet weirdo. There are six billion people in the world, so that must leave about half to choose from, though lots of those are Chinese. I like Chinese meals and I’ll always chat happily to the staff so it’s not a racist thing - I just don’t like their eyes. Spaniards have annoying accents and give me a headache on the bus, but aside from them, I’m a woman of the world. I went on a blind date last week with Marvin from Harrow-on-theHill. He looked cute in his profile pics, but when he turned up he only had one ear. Talk about only showing your good side! He hates smoking, likes jazz and politics (which I can’t stand), and he’s really into climbing. It was clear we had nothing in common and he seemed like a paedophile, so I definitely will NOT be seeing him again. What’s more, he didn’t say goodbye in the morning and left a giant brown clinker up the toilet pan, the dirty bastard. He’s obviously never heard of a brush. If he had, he might have combed his hair over where his fucking ear should be. NOVEMBER 23 J-Lo fell over at the AMAs! What is it with stars screwing up comebacks? Britney reappeared like Krang from Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles on meth and Robbie looked like a hobo

trying to find his White Lightning. Say what you like about Susan Boyle, but at least she can stay on her big fucking tree-trunk legs.

needed to buy some plant feed. That was strange as he doesn’t have a garden. We’re going to have the best Christmas ever!

NOVEMBER 27 Oh my Christ, I’ve met the sexiest guy ever! His name is Enrique, a harbinger of Hawaiian Deluxe. He came with a pizza and our eyes met through his helmet. Such beautiful eyes. I wouldn’t mind my mouth meeting with his trouser-helmet soon, but we’re taking things slowly. I know, it’s me we’re talking about! It was totally embarrassing because I forgot I had no cash on me so we had to walk to the ATM together, and that’s when we realised we had so much in common. It’s insania! He doesn’t want to be a pizza boy forever - he wants to be a barrister or a dentist. Such ambition. He’s Portuguese but his voice isn’t annoying like a Spanish his voice is lovely.

DECEMBER 23 Oh my Christ, disaster! Enrique has to go home for Christmas as his mother is gravely ill. Apparently she has hip dysplasia, which has got worse and now she can’t walk. I looked it up on Wikipedia and it seems to be an illness that affects dogs mostly, so the stigma must be terrible. I wanted to go with him but he says he has to make this journey alone. He’s so brave. All his money is tied up in an investment account so I had to lend him the airfare. I wanted to cry, but I had to stay strong for Enrique. Then the most amazing thing happened: just as he was leaving he asked me to marry him. I said yes!

DECEMBER 16 Snow! Beautiful snow! Dear diary, I have neglected you as I’ve been spending all my time with Enrique. He’s such a beautiful soul, and he made not one but TWO amazing snowmen. He said one was Lady Gaga and the other was the Queen. He’s so funny! They did look a bit like Lady Gaga meeting the Queen, if you squinted. He threw a snowball and twatted the cute kid from next door in the throat. He’s got such a brilliant aim on him. I wish he’d shag me, but he says he can’t because he loves Mary and Jesus too much. If we really love each other then we will wait, he says. He borrowed £90 from me because he

DECEMBER 25 Happy bloody Christmas! And fuck off, snow!!! Oh Enrique, how I love thee! DECEMBER 29 I wired £200 to my fiancé today. The poor lamb is having a terrible time. He says his mum is barking. I don’t know if that means she’s mental or woofing his English isn’t great. He will be back on New Year’s Eve, and promised that as soon as he gets back he’s going to give me a shag! Thank Christ! Happy day! JANUARY 1 Enrique didn’t show up. I’ve tried calling, but I’ve not heard a word. Oh God, I’ve been a fool. I feel like killing

myself, but I know too many people would be upset. It would ruin many lives. JANUARY 6 I finally made it into work today. ‘If You Leave Me Now’ by Chicago came on the radio and I broke down at my desk wailing. Russell Brand and Katy Perry are getting married. Cunts. JANUARY 19 Kate Moss and Jamie Hince are getting married. Cunts! JANUARY 24 Brangelina have split! Hooray! I passed Pronto Pizza today and saw a rider. It wasn’t my true love. I made a big, howling noise. JANUARY 27 Apparently Amy Winehouse is going to have her Blake tattoo removed. Hooray! The Brangelina rumours could be false. The cunts!!! FEBRUARY 1 Today a dispatch rider came to the office to take Avarice’s hot new album over to Keith at ListenWithPrejudice. I did a double take, but I’d recognise those eyes anywhere. Enrique! He embraced me and said how sorry he was. He needed some space. I kicked the living shit out of him and then, like before, we walked to the cash point, and Enrique gave me all his money. He will be delivering more money next week because I now know where he lives. And tonight I’ll be going out to get ripped to the tits and I’ll be fucked like a sailor before night falls. Cheers!

Comment & Analysis

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

“NO! I SAID SEX, NOT SACHS” “LISTEN HERE, I HAVE PLENTY OF COKE, I JUST NEED A LITTLE SPLASH OF BOURBON, OK?”

INDIE DAVE

Judy Finnegan or Sam Cam?

“I SAID I’LL GIVE YOU A MILLION IN CASH, ALL I WANT IS ONE LITTLE ORPHAN. C’MON, WHO’LL MISS HIM?”

“ALBERT? YEAH, THEY’RE DOING THE PHOTOS NOW, SO HAVE THE CAR OUT FRONT IN TWO MINUTES”

“NO MA’AM,WE’RE NOT THE THREE TENORS. THAT’S RIGHT, THEY DO SAY THAT TV ADDS TEN POUNDS”

THE STARS PULL TOGETHER AT THE EARTHQUAKE CHARITY TELETHON

We haven’t had it this good since the days of post punk

GARRY MULHOLLAND A few weeks ago, I came upon a realisation. An epiphany, of sorts. I was doing the part of my job which should be fun but often really isn’t; just sitting at home listening through the many new records I get sent. But something was different. I was sure of one unbelievable but inarguable fact. 2010 is going to be the best year for music since 1981. I know. 1981 - the year of Human League and Bunnymen and Talking Heads and Grace Jones and XTC and Specials and everything magical about post-punk and disco-pop’s brief but beautiful marriage. How could it ever be as good as 1981 ever again? But, people, I was 18 in 1981. I wore the ill-fitting zoot suit, applied the illjudged eyeliner, even tried to like Bauhaus. And I’m telling you... music is as thrilling, adventurous, diverse and life-affirming right now as it was in the early-eighties. There are plenty of incredible new singles around, but all this best-since1981 theorising is really all about an avalanche of boss early-2010 longplayers. Take Two Door Cinema Club’s Tourist History; Franz

Ferdinand-meets-Vampire Weekend should be one lame old beast of a contrived idea. But Northern Ireland’s finest fill their standard, radio-friendly, vaguely danceable indie-pop with a youthful verve that skips and giggles and makes one feel all young and unnecessary. How they do that? Also key proponents of the thrilling vogue for picking three unconnected words out of a hat and attaching ‘Club’ to the end, New Young Pony Club have made a second album that proves that they’re the best art-pop group in Britain, apart from an even better one we’ll get to later. Tahita Bulmer’s voice is the essence of sex sans soft porn, and The Optimist makes it two LPs that fail to feature even one rubbish track. NYPC’s major challenge in the pop perfection stakes comes from Chicagoan Catholic schoolgirl, Kid Sister. Her debut Ultra Violet is a nofiller burst of booty-rap and retroelectro, randy yet oddly innocent, and boosted by the presence of Kanye, The Count And Sinden and Cee-Lo. It’s time for a sexy party! And as Stewie knows only too well, the magic formula for shag-pop perfection reads ‘electro-disco by Berlin-based French female singer’. There Is No One Else When I Lay Down And Dream is entirely selfperformed and produced by Ninca Leece and every time I play it a naked fashion show happens. Less discofied but similarly sexy is The Magician’s Private Library from Brooklyn’s Holly Miranda, which is one of those synthy records which bangs its own drum machine with woozy confidence. Former Delgado Emma Pollock spews forth her second solo album of intellecto-pop entitled The Law Of

Large Numbers, and it’s one of those literate, ambitiously arranged softindie records that neatly defies categorisation, hence intellecto-pop, the latest in a long line of Mulholland genre tags you’ll never find in a record shop, like pubstep, feeble-core and splatter jazz. Saharan desert rock is the new Portuguese fado, though, and Adagh by Tamikrest will make you feel all worthy and made of hemp as you dig its drones, whoops and inappropriate axe-wieldings. Things didn’t bode well for the fifth Massive Attack album. But Grant Marshall, Robert Del Naja and Neil Davidge have justified the tortuous gestation method yet again, and Heligoland broods beautifully. Comeback props too to Gil ScottHeron, whose I’m New Here gives the troubled veteran politico-poet an American Recordings-type valedictory set shaped quite brilliantly by XL head honcho Richard Russell. It’s as dark, bitter and authentic as fair trade organic Nicaraguan ketamine. Oh No Ono both sum up what the world sighs whenever Yoko makes a comeback, and, with the quietly mesmerising Eggs, make one of those playpen baroque-psych albums that can really only come from... erm... Denmark. Midlake’s The Courage Of Others sees the Texans channelling Fairport Convention with dignified passion, and pisses from a great height upon their overrated debut. The least predictable release award goes to, of all people, New Orleans rap genius Lil Wayne. On Rebirth, Weezy Baby has gone rock. Make that rawk. And I don’t just mean a few guitar samples; I mean an entire album of the guy rapping and playing with his auto-tuner over a proper metal band. Whether it kills

his career or makes him even huger is as tough to call as whether Rebirth is actually good - I’m just so blown away by the chutzpah of his autotuned rasp all over an eighties softrock pastiche like ‘On Fire’ that my critical faculties have been temporarily paralysed. In any normal moment, any of the above albums would stand out as something special. But, as I said, best time for music since 1981, so the two something specials are very special indeed. I’ve written about Hot Chip’s One Life Stand in another mag. But, suffice to say, it’s the blue-eyed soul and deep beats masterpiece they’ve always threatened, and defines their status as one of the finest British bands of their era. The other is The Soft Pack album, which I’ve reviewed in this paper. I’ve also reviewed Field Music here, and reviews by me elsewhere mean I can justify simply listing even more great albums by Music Go Music (ridiculous seventies pomp-pop fun); Gonjasufi (mumbly mystic miserabalist hippy hop); The Besnard Lakes (awesome windswept husband-and-wife classic rock); Owl City (frosty winsome Americaconquering electro-pop); LoneLady (Manc post-punk Patti Smith); Yeasayer (uplifting post-Killers artpop); and Musée Mécanique (sumptuous folky longings from Portland). I know cutting-edge pop has lost the cultural frisson that used to come with scarcity value. But that doesn’t devalue the music itself. We’re gonna be talking about this period as one of music’s classic eras, so why wait to celebrate? And if we’ve become inclined to take diverse musical excellence for granted, it’s probably because we’ve rarely had it so good.

WITH a general election looming, it would appear voters are getting what we in politics call ‘the jitters’. The ‘broken society’ is staring us in the face, like a chav with an ASBO holding a smashed pint glass to our throats, out of his mind on Buckie and covered in MRSA scars he picked up in an NHS hospital after going in to have his liver out. That’s right, Britain needs change, and change will only come if you vote for Dave. The media has been quick to pick up on what it calls indecision on our part, but our nightmare deficit is out of control and it needs careful thought, not sloganeering. In George Osborne, we have a man you can trust. Not long out of short trousers, say his critics, George recently made mistakes that were regarded as “unintended and relatively minor” when he used his second home allowance to fund a property in his Tatton constituency, and in doing so had a few problems with his sums. George fully intends to pay back the paltry £1,666 he was ordered to stump up by the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee, a piffling figure when you consider he will soon have the whole economy to run. We all make mistakes, and George has more than rectified this tiny misdemeanour by laying out his ‘eight benchmarks on economic growth’, a Keynesian statement of intent that has resonated with big businesses in the same way Martin Luther’s 95 Theses of Contention nailed to the Wittenberg Church door resonated with the people. These ideas of George’s have already been backed by managing directors of some of the FTSE 100 big hitters: carbon-guzzling budget airline EasyJet, booze industry giant Diageo, and Seroxat/Paxil makers GlaxoSmithKline. I have discussed our recent stuttering at great length with my fragrant wife Samantha, and she says we just have to hold our nerve and remain steadfast. People forget that we politicians are human beings, so yes it hurts when you read stories in the Daily Mirror about your former school chums referring to you as ‘Fat Dave’. I think you’ll find they called me Indie Dave, but that’s the Mirror for you. Just the other day I picked up the Express newspaper and Richard and Judy were advising me to “heed the Treasury think-tank document which this week advises against raising taxes”. If I wanted the advice of a shoplifting Ali G impersonator who can’t get on real telly anymore then I’d ask for it. Judy Finnegan or Sam Cam? I think you hear what I’m saying. Unlike Richard, I implore you all to choose wisely.

Comment & Analysis

March 2010 The Stool Pigeon

letters to the editor The Stool Pigeon, 21a Maury Road, London, N16 7BP editor@thestoolpigeon.co.uk

The Stool Pigeon HIT LIST

SIR, Nico is looking for Lou and Andy, and in quest for funny looking noises.

I’m really angry, I’m really depressed, but I’m not bitter. What’s the deal with all these musos working in disguise? There’s Music Go Music, who are Bodies Of Water, and in this issue we feature SBTRKT (Aaron Jerome) and Summer Camp, who are regurgitated indie popster Jeremy Warmsley and, oh no!, Elizabeth Sankey, editor of nauseating yoof ‘culture’ site, Platform. We almost pulled the story when we found out, but there’s a silver lining here: John Doran of The Quietus has at last given me permission to run a priceless email exchange he once had with young Lizzy... JD: Take me off this cunting email list, you bunch of trust-fund depleting motherfuckers. Thank you. ES: Trust fund depleting what??!? What the fuck are you talking about? JD: You. I never asked to be sent

your fucking awful magazine. Now, FUCK OFF. ES: What is your problem? If you want to unsubscribe, then do so, there’s a link at the bottom of every newsletter... JD: I have done that several times already. Don’t know why, my fucking arse. Maybe if you stopped illegally harvesting email addresses to make your fucking figures look better. “Weed 4EVA” [a story in that issue]? You Nathan Barley cunt.” ES: You are such an idiot. I’m a girl, I went to state school, I live in Tunbridge Wells, you sad, bitter fuck. JD: Get a grip. I’m not bitter. I’m really angry, I’m really depressed, but I’m not bitter. If you’re really that far out of the loop in the sticks and from a state school, then why are you working for such a preposterous, upper-middle

class, Peaches Geldof-style wank sheet? I’m sorry for losing my rag - just take me off this and you’ll never hear from me again. ES: I can’t take you off the list, it’s automated. You’ve got totally the wrong impression, I wouldn’t work somewhere like that, I fucking hate those kind of pricks, but whatever. JD: Isn’t your magazine called Platform? And haven’t you got a ‘tips on banging birds’ feature from a porn star in your latest mag? Serious question. ES: Yes and yes. I don’t know how old you are, but I’d imagine a little out of the target age. I am amazed at your anger, doesn’t seem healthy... Mad love, John, but you know we’re all going to be working for this woman one day.

SHARPENED ARROWS In darts, if you think, you lose. I’ve been having many of those moments when you feel like your brain is dribbling out your ear - real meltdown scenarios - largely brought on by pulling insane days working (January is a BITCH), then trying to read Jean Baudrillard’s preposterously academic book, America, as a means of winding down at night. Duh. He begins by taking a very simple phrase, which he noticed on a car wing-mirror - “Caution! Objects in this mirror may be closer than they appear!” - and running with it on a very intellectual level. I know how that can happen. While watching the darts highlights last month, Bobby George said something that sent me into a philosophical spin for many days after: “In darts, if you think, you lose.” Genius.

What I’m really trying to say here is there’s nothing like a savage workload to put rocks in your head and transform you into a total basket-case thicko. But there is a cure! There is a means to restore your power and make you feel clever again! It’s called ‘going on-line’. I cried with laughter when Kev Kharas, our demos man, sent over a link to a MySpace blog from a band who I won’t mention. They were so chuffed to have had their awful music reviewed, they seem to have forgotten that The Stool Pigeon can be a sarcastic little bastard when it wants to be. Brilliantly, they’d blogged this quote from Kev believing it to be a compliment: “These three tracks from [******] have got us thinking: is this band

better than Chew Lips?” Onto the Vice site now, where intelligence levels of comment leavers are spectacularly low. Want to feel like a right smart-arse? Look up ‘The Vice Tips For New Bands in 2010’ and savour what the numbnuts below have to offer. I mean, how is it possible for anyone not to realise that that list is a spoof of every other idiotic list published at the beginning of the year? “Marina has been around for ages. You only just clocked on?” writes one moron. ‘Meatballs’ manages: “I quite like this list, but I do love how you have labelled each one as a ‘clone antidote’ when all of these are pretty much eighties clones.” ‘Morley’: “I’m confused? Is this a joke?” Christ. On. A. Fucking. Tricycle.

BIRTHDAY PLANS Off the road, sort of, but sticking to it. Big ups to my ginger brother over at The Guardian, music editor Michael Hann, for taking the time to notice that we’d turned five. Thank you Nathan Beazer of Dog Day Press for putting in a call on our behalf (see how this works!?). And sorry, Michael, for not letting you in on the birthday present we’re giving ourselves. We’re off the road! Kind of. We’re going to continue to do London, but all those bonkers, 2,500 miles/issue trips delivering papers are OVER. Oh, the beauty of out-sourcing. The original idea here was to not make any kind of fuss about this being a fifth anniversary issue, shove

another average indie band on the cover, and get the fuck on with being broke. But a certain pride has swelled up inside us over these last few weeks. It has indeed been an excellent waste of five good years. When we launched The Stool Pigeon, Mickey and I said we’d do this paper for 25 issues, then think again. How chronically naïve that sounds now. It’s a miracle we’ve survived this long, and not least because the dirty world of printing paper has morphed beyond recognition in the last half decade. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, if you like a good punch-up. I used to lie to my mum and tell her

that if it all goes tits up with The Stool Pigeon, I ought to be able to get a decent job elsewhere. Ha! At Christmas I told her there isn’t anything left out there, so we may as well carry on. We’re going to, and of course it’s because we’ve somehow created an organ that brilliant writers, snappers, comic strip writers, and so on, have gravitated towards. That’s our pleasure and now more so than ever. This issue is killer. Thank you contributors and friends of this paper, thank you Melissa, thank you Cian and Hazel for enduring the delirium of this deadline. And now we’re off to get hammered.

NICOLINA W ERTHER, Via email SIR, I recently happened upon an excruciating BBC6 Music session pairing La Roux with Heaven 17, which brought to mind a ginger turd and an egg in a suit trying desperately trying to hit the same notes at the same time and managing to sound more like Rolf Harris accidentally sitting on a cat. Still, nice to see that my licence fee is going to good use. Relentless radio jingles inform me that Gary Numan and Little Boots, Adele and Paul Weller have also bestowed unique ‘hub-combos’ upon our listening ears. Begging the question, when do you launch Pigeoncombo interviews? Lily Allen dissects the lyrics of ‘The Bump’ with Keith Chegwin? Marina and The Diamonds compares thickening shampoo with Sir Elton? Florence Welch talks politics with a farting pig? The possibilities are endless. Yours in hope, ROB BLIND Via email SIR, With all due respect, fuck you and your jiffy bags. I have been patient: I’ve called and emailed repeatedly only to receive no reply. Do you have jiffy bags to give away or not? I would like a jiffy-packed apology or else I will be forced to up my efforts to obtain them. DANIEL MORTON Via email SIR, I took great exception to your portrayal of Comanechi in the last issue. Not only was I alarmed at their depiction as a couple of Shoreditch cunts, but as a woman of Asian extraction myself, I took grave offence at your representation of Akiko and, indeed, her pussy. If you are to be believed, she is an “absolutely ruthless”, fame-driven, attentionseeking, STD-ridden, ropey bag of bones “slutting it up” to get ahead. How can you qualify these claims? Poor Simon, meanwhile, came across as a talentless piece of wood intent on copying all of his favourite bands. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that if you have nothing nice to say about someone, you should keep quiet? Why can’t you just print straightforward email Q&A’s with bands like every other publication instead of ruining the images of our favourite groups? SATOKO LEE, Manchester

SIR, what is it with diabetics? One minute they’re on the floor with a loved one standing over them screaming, “Give him some chocolate! Give him some chocolate!” The next day someone offers them a piece of chocolate and quick as a flash they say, “No thanks, I’m diabetic.” I wish they’d get their story straight. ANONYMOUS Via email SIR, I took your excellent interview with Dizzee Rascal in issue 23 as an opportunity to brush up on the lexicon of ghetto youth, or as Diz calls them “estate kids”. But how come he can say things like ‘dirtee stank’ at the MOBO awards, yet when I used it at my son’s football match I was asked to leave the park? Once again, it’s one law for the rich and another for the poor, innit? Sincerely, JOHN R ENNIE , London SIR, I loves all the cartoon. They great. You must be funny. Do you know of anyone or any place or any books that I can see, to do research on HOW TO MAKE FUNNY FACES in real life?? I am doing research for a boss that wants to learn how to do funny faces. HARUE KIM, Reading SIR, this mightn’t be what you’re after in terms of a feature idea, but I recently got a Penectomy from my dog. YES, IT’S EVERY BIT AS RIDICULOUS AS IT SOUNDS. I was throat fucking my greyhound, who is usually not completely opposed, when I guess I got a little too deep because the next thing you know she gagged real hard and bit down on me with unbelievable force. The bleeding has stopped now, and though I’m not really happy about it, I suppose it’s God’s way of showing me just how sick I am. Thanks for listening. ALI, Via email SIR, like a ghastly spectre from your darkest nightmare, this saddle has returned from the grave seeking vengeance. Its previous master thought it had banished it to the blackness of the abyss for good, but nay, it was only for an epoch. ANONYMOUS, Hand-written letter Winchester, Hampshire

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

Court Circular AMY FINED FOR PLAYING THE FOOL AT MILTON KEYNES PANTO

Drama queen Winehouse coughs up for attacking theatre jobswor th Did she do it? Oh yes she did!

Shaky camera case closed

Buttons up She began making a pantomime horse of herself almost from the off, shouting out rowdily from her seat in the stalls, which prompted one audience member to admonish her. During the interval Winehouse and her entourage were upgraded to a box seat, and there was little hint of what would transpire. Amy, who in court gave her married name Amy Civil, decided she needed the toilet shortly after the buffoonery, slapstick and cross-dressing resumed, and made a brief trip to the ladies. Once finished, stage manager Richard Pound began politely ushering Winehouse back to her seat, but clearly she was in no mood to hurry back to Davro as Buttons, and cheekily requested he pour her a crafty snifter from the bar to help her along her way. Righteous jobsworth and self-appointed moral guardian Pound gave Amy a “don’t you think you’d be better off with a glass of water?” lecture, at which point the star decided to tear a clump out of the chap’s head. Quite right, too. “Miss Civil said she felt embarrassed and patronised and, with no premeditation, grabbed his hair and pulled,” said Julian Vickery, prosecuting. The judge, Peter Crabtree, fined Winehouse £85, and she was also ordered to pay a nominal £100 to Mr Pound. M’lud conceded it was an overreaction on her part, saying, “Clearly there was no injury.” Crabtree also praised the popstar for having tried to address her alcohol and drugs problems. Winehouse conditionally needs to keep her nose clean for the next two years, or it’ll be less ‘Back To Black’ and more off to chokey. Jeremy Allen

TAKING LIBERTINES

ItCmhrigishttmhaasvefobreeenvaerMyeornrey, but not Shakin’ Stevens. The ‘Welsh Elvis’ has always been something of an anomaly, becoming a rock’n’roll star during the synth-driven eighties - 20 years after it was fashionable - but few people could have anticipated an assault charge sticking to the normally squeaky-clean minstrel of pop. Shaky, now a 61-year-old, was playing a pre-Christmas show at the Tullyglass Hotel in County Antrim in 2008 when the incident in question took place. Stevens, real name Michael Barrett, a stalwart entertainer who unites blue-rinses and kiddies alike, was throwing some knee-buckling shapes that would cripple a lesser mortal, when he noticed an unauthorised photographer snapping away in the pit (and it’s a fearsome pit at the Tullyglass Hotel, Ballymena, let

me tell you.) Hugo McNeice, photographer, told the court he thought Shaky sashayed over to him so that he could get “a nice tight shot”, so he expressed surprise when Stevens unleashed the power of his microphone stand, causing a suggested £479 damage to the snapper’s camera. “Ain’t got time to fix the shingles,” sang Stevens in his 1980 No.1 ‘This Ol’ House’, “ain’t got time to fix the floor.” Now dear old Shaky won’t even be able to pay for the maintenance, given he was fined £300 for assault and ordered to pay for the smashed equipment. “He wanted his five minutes of fame and I suggest he came willy nilly to show off to his friends and started clicking,” said the miffed Cardiffian, who plans to appeal. “It is frustrating to cause all this, it is ridiculous. I am saddened by it.” Jeremy Allen

Coldplay in hot water as another songwriter fingers Chris Martin JEREMY ALLEN Chris Martin, also known as Piss Farting to a very select and extremely childish minority, is being taken to court by unknown songwriter Sammie Lee Smith, who claims Coldplay ripped off three of his tunes for early hits ‘Yellow’, ‘Clocks’ and ‘Trouble’. So he’s the bastard who wrote them! Rather optimistically, Smith has called upon the band to desist from

playing them, seeking undisclosed damages. Martin has been fingered on numerous occasions, with instances reported nearly as often as Michael Jackson kiddie-fiddling charges. Well, you know what they say: there’s no smoke without fire. If by ‘they’ you mean idiots. In 2008 Martin was accused of plagiarism when New York’s Creaky Boards claimed the melody for ‘Viva La Vida’ had been lifted from their ditty, ironically titled

KLASS ACTION We’re not sure where Myleene Klass lives, but it sounds hooky. The singerturned-TV-presenter who endured happy-slap hell in 2005, being beaten up and having a punnet of chips slapped on her head, tried to threaten lurking youths by brandishing a knife through her kitchen window. Police ticked off Klass for exhibiting an offensive weapon and let her off with a warning. “She is not looking to be a vigilante,” said her spokesman. Klass expressed bewilderment at not being allowed to protect herself on her own property.

HE’S BEHIND YOU! Amy Winehouse may have left her troubles in the past, or so her people would have us believe, but she’s still got some fire in her belly. Or five vodka and cokes in her belly, according to reports from Milton Keynes Magistrates’ Court, where the ‘Rehab’ singer recently pleaded guilty to common assault and disorder. It all started innocently enough when, prior to Christmas, Winehouse went along to a performance of Cinderella taking place at the Milton Keynes Theatre, Bucks, to support a friend. The panto boasted the robust talents of Mickey Rooney and Bobby Davro, either of whom would surely agitate anybody who’d had a few. Winehouse had allegedly been drinking with some gusto before she’d even entered the theatre at 7pm. Oh yes she had!

Up Before The Beak

‘The Song I Didn’t Write’, after Gwyneth’s hubby popped along to a gig. “We were flattered when we thought we saw Chris Martin in the crowd,” said Andrew Hoepfner of the band. “He seemed pretty into it... Maybe too into it?” Proper musicians have also filed suits, with noodly guitar splooger Joe Satriani settling out of court, also for ‘Viva la Vida’. How many people wrote that song? It’s like

the musical equivalent of an episode of Friends. Cat Stevens, who didn’t want to fuck with his own chi, charitably let the stadium soft rockers off, for similarities he noticed with ‘Foreigner Suite’. Not that Chris Martin cares. He’s got his own jet, an Oscarwinning wife, and best of all he’s guesting in an episode of The Simpsons. Now he really is all Yellow...

‘Lazy journalism’ has become a lazy charge in itself, but here at The Stool Pigeon we have no problem running the same ole drugs stories about Pete ‘same shit different day’ Doherty in every issue. This time, the former Libertine has been let off with a fine after being caught in possession of four grams of heroin just moments after being fined for careless driving at Gloucester Crown Court. Doherty was made to pay £750 with £85 costs, and claimed the misunderstanding arose because he has too many coats, and this one contained smack he hadn’t realised he still owned. A likely story.

DJ SPAT And the bi-monthly Andy Kershaw Restraining Order Award goes to... Incubus. DJ Chris Kilmore has taken out a second order on DJ Gavin Koppell, aka DJ Lyfe, former scratchmaster for the US rock band. Koppell, fired from the band in 1998, spat in Kilmore’s face in 2003. The Incubus incumbent was then approached in a shop shortly after Christmas and threatened with death should he not lift the order, meaning judges enforced a new restraining order that Koppell not go within 100 yards of Kilmore or his girlfriend. Cuckoo!

RAP SHEEEEEEIT The Hova will be distressed to learn he’s lost the exclusive rights of the name Rock-A-Fella in the UK after a lawsuit he filed against a now defunct restaurant in Newcastle backfired spectacularly. Jay-Z, rap’s most powerful man, took former 2005 Hell’s Kitchen winner Terry Miller to court over the name of his northeastern eatery, which closed in 2008. On succeeding in the case, Miller said: “I still hope to market my King Prawn Rockafella signature dish, possibly through supermarkets, and I want to keep the name.” Denied!

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

Certificates VIC CHESNUTT Deaths

Announcements Please email us your announcements editor@thestoolpigeon.co.uk

Forthcoming Engagements

MR NICHOLAS PHILPS & MISS EMMA LEE-MOSS. The engagement is announced between Nic, son of Mark and Caroline, and Emma-Lee, aka Emmy The Great, daughter of Hugh and Blossom. MR NICHOLAS OFFER & MISS ANNA SQUIRES. The engagement is announced between Nick, aka Dibbler, second son of Rodney and Ingrid, and Anna, only daughter of Hugh and Blossom. MR RUSSELL BRAND & MISS KATY PERRY. The engagement is announced between Russell, son Ronald Henry and Barbara Elizabeth, and Katy, daughter of Keith and Mary Hudson.

Marriages FERGIE & DUHAMEL. On Saturday January 9, Fergie, Black Eyed Peas singer, renewed vows on their first wedding anniversary. CULLUM & DAHL. On Saturday January 9, Jamie, jazz singer, tied the knot with Sophie, food writer and model, at a secret ceremony in New Forest, Hampshire.

Births CHYLDISH - CHYLDISH.

On Thursday December 10, to William and Juju, a daughter, and a sister to Huddie, Scout Augusta. BALL - COOK. On Thursday January 14, to Zoe, presenter, and Norman, DJ, a baby girl, Nelly May Lois. FILAN - FILAN. On Friday January 22, to Shane, Westlife, and wife Gillian, a baby boy, Shane Peter.

Divorces The divorce is announced between LEANN RIMES, singer, and DEAN SHEREMET, dancer. The divorce is announced between MATTHEW and TINA KNOWLES, parents to Beyoncé and Solange.

JERRY FUCHS, !!! drummer, b. 31.12.1974, d. 08.11.2009 MAURICE JONES, manager and Live Aid promoter, b. 1945, d. 13.11.2009 JEFF CLYNE, British jazz bassist, b. 29.01.1927, d. 16.11.2009 DEREK B, UK rap pioneer, b. 15.01.1965, d. 16.11.2009 HAYDAIN NEALE, Jacksoul lead singer, b. 30.09.1970, d. 22.11.2009 MAT ARLUCK, Sweet Cobra guitarist, b. 1970, d. 26.11.2009 BESS LOMAX HAWES, folk musician, folklorist, b. 21.01.1921, d. 27.11.2009 AL ALBERTS, Four Aces singer, b. 10.08.1922, d. 27.11.2009 BOB KEENE, Del-Fi Records, b. 05.01.1922, d. 28.11.2009 JACK COOKE, country bassist, b. 06.12.1936, d. 01.12.2009 ERIC WOOLFSON, Alan Parsons Project, b. 18.03.1945, d. 02.12.2009 AARON SCHROEDER, songwriter, b. 07.09.1926, d. 02.12.2009 LIAM CLANCY, The Clancy Brothers, b. 02.09.1935, d. 04.12.2009 JACK ROSE, folk guitarist, b. 16.02.1971, d. 05.12.2009 YVONNE KING BURCH, The King Sisters, b. 20.01.1920, d. 13.12.2009 TIM HART, Steeleye Span, b. 09.01.1948, d. 24.12.2009 TONY ‘T-BONE’ BELLAMY, Redbone guitarist, b. 12.09.1940, d. 25.12.2009 JAMES SULLIVAN, aka The Rev, b. 10.02.1981, d. 28.12.2009 ROWLAND S. HOWARD, Birthday Party, b. 24.10.1959, d. 30.12.2009 LHASA DE SELA, Mexican-American singer, b. 27.09.1972, d. 01.01.2010 SANDRO, the ‘Argentinean Elvis’, b. 19.08.1945, d. 04.01.2010 TONY CLARKE, British producer, b. 21.03.1941, d. 4.01.2010 DANNIE FLESHER, co-founded Wax Trax, b. 1952, d. 10.01.2010 MICK GREEN, guitar slinger, b. 22.02.1944, d. 11.01.2010 YABBY YOU, reggae singer/producer, b. 14.08.1946, d. 12.01.2010 BRIAN ‘DAMAGE’ KEATS, Misfits drummer, b. 11.02.1963, d.12.01.2010 ED THIGPEN, jazz drummer, b. 28.12.1930, d. 13.01.2010 BOBBY CHARLES, New Orleans songwriter, b. 21.02.1938, d. 14.01.2010 JIMMY WYBLE, guitarist, b. 25.01.1922, d. 16.01.2010 KILLA SHA, rapper, b. unknown, d. 16.01.2010 CARL SMITH, country music legend, b. 15.03.1927, d. 16.01.2010 KATE MCGARRIGLE, folk musician, b. 06.02.1946, d. 18.01.2010 APACHE, rapper, b. unknown, d. 22.01.2010 OBSERVER MUSIC MONTHLY, magazine, b. 09.2003, d. 24.01.2010 SHIRLEY COLLIE NELSON, country singer, b. 16.03.193, d. 27.01.2010 PAULY FUEMANA, OMC lead singer, b. 08.02.1969, d. 31.01.2010 AN EXPERIMENT ON A BIRD IN THE AIR PUMP, neo goth trio, b. 2008, d. 01.02.2010

Veteran singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt has died following an overdose of muscle relaxants. He was 45. Chesnutt, who suffered from depression, was plagued by mounting medical bills and had attempted suicide several times. He grew up in Zebulon, Georgia, and at the age of 18 was paralysed in a car crash after drink-driving. Though wheelchairbound, his fingers could still play basic chords and he claimed the accident finally gave him “something to say”. Chesnutt was discovered in 1988 by REM’s Michael Stipe, who helped him record a set of demos of such quality that they were released as his debut album, Little. In 1996, his songs were performed by the likes of Madonna, Garbage and Smashing Pumpkins to raise money for the charity Sweet Relief, which helps musicians lacking health coverage. Despite being popular among critics and fellow musicians, Chesnutt never outgrew cult status during a 16-album career that combined dark humour and stark, confessional songwriting. On his last release, 2009’s At The Cut, the song ‘Flirted With You All My Life’ addressed his suicidal tendencies: “I flirted with you all my life, even kissed you once or twice. And to this day I swear it was nice... but clearly, I was not ready.” He is survived by his wife, Tina. VIC CHESNUTT, singer-songwriter, b. 12.11.1964, d. 25.12.2009

TEDDY PENDERGRASS Teddy Pendergrass, a Philadelphia soul singer who epitomised the seductive side of R&B, has died of colon cancer at the age of 59. He shot to fame as the singer of 1970s soul outfit Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, scoring a smash hit with the 1972 anthem ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now’, later successfully covered by Simply Red. After embarking on a solo career, the baritone attained sex-symbol status for his explosive performances and during the seventies and eighties he became the first black male singer to record five consecutive multi-platinum albums. In concert, he would perform signature tracks such as ‘I Don’t Love You Anymore’, ‘Love TKO’ and ‘Turn Off the Lights’ for “ladies only” audiences who would throw flowers, phone numbers and underwear at the stage. In 1982, Pendergrass suffered a lifealtering car crash in his Rolls-Royce while driving home from a basketball game with a transvestite. Following a six-month stint in hospital for a spinal injury, a wheelchair-bound Pendergrass staged a comeback at Live Aid with Whitney Houston in 1985. But by then it was apparent that the power of his timbre had diminished. He published an autobiography in 1998 and continued to record and perform until 2008. He is survived by his wife, a son and two daughters. THEODORE DEREESE PENDERGRASS, ladies man, b. 26.03.1950, d. 13.01.2010

NO MORE BLOOD VISIONS FOR REATARD ALEX MARSHALL GARAGE PUNK Jay Reatard - born Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr. - died in the early hours of January 13. He had been complaining of flu-like symptoms shortly before his passing but, according to the Memphis Medical Examiner, autopsy results show that an accidental cocaine and alcohol overdose led to his death. Reatard was buried in a Memphis cemetery just a couple of feet from Scientologist nutcase and soul legend Isaac Hayes. For anyone who knows Jay’s manic two-minute songs, or his reputation for punching audience members in the face, that juxtaposition may seem ludicrous. But throughout his life, Jay showed a dedication to songwriting, and especially to nailing hooks, that Isaac would have had a lot of time for. Reatard grew up in poverty on the outskirts of Memphis - in the sort of areas where he once had to listen to crack-addict neighbours rape a woman. By all accounts, it seemed as though he wouldn’t amount to much until he started writing songs at 14. At 15 he sent local label Goner Records a tape of rubbish home recordings, but they were impressed enough to put out his debut 7” under the name The Reatards. He spent the next 10 years writing relentlessly, learning new instruments (he liked a synth) and playing thousands of blink-

and-they’re-over shows. During that time he put out something like 15 albums and over 20 singles in bands like the Lost Sounds, Bad Times and the Final Solutions. He also ran his own label, Shattered. Reatard came to wider attention for his solo debut, 2006’s Blood Visions - a near-perfect pop-punk album of 15 songs lasting under half-an-hour. It’s a dark record filled with death, anger and self-criticism - all hidden under the strength of his choruses. The album got him signed to Matador at the end of 2007, something he appeared to see less as an achievement and more as a beginning - a chance to support his family and the local scene that dragged him up. He released his debut for the label, Watch Me Fall, less than six months before his death. After he signed to Matador, his antics fights, band sackings and the like - got increasing media attention. Clearly, he could be a total dick, but he always seemed as disappointed as anyone that his character was detracting from the music. Last year, in an interview with The Stool Pigeon, he said: “I always feel like I’m racing against time and losing.” Although he was just trying to explain his prolificacy, it now seems a poignant summation of his character. JIMMY LEE LINDSEY JR., garage musician, b. 01.05.1980 d. 13.01.2010

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

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“You takin’ the missus anywhere nice this year, Mr Brown?”

Rocky’s Classic Hip Hop Covers

SERPENTINA DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND

rene Ferrell was born around 1898 in Oakland, California without any bones in her body below the shoulders. Her condition was a case of osteogenesis imperfecta, which means she had no spinal column, vertebrae or backbone, and it explains why she couldn’t walk. Irene was a good swimmer, however, and entered show-business when she was about 20 years old. At first she was billed as ‘Snake Girl’ or ‘Serpentina’. Later, in 1937, while part of Ripley’s Mammoth Marine Hippodrome Show, she was advertised as

‘Nature’s Closest Thing to a Living Mermaid’ and exhibited as ‘Sea-Tiny the Mermaid’ alongside living whales, sharks and giant octopi. Irene earned a large amount of money but never trusted banks, so she took all her earnings and invested it in diamonds and jewellery, which she always kept hidden about her body. Her physical problems meant she had to be cared for by her manager Bill Gregory, who carried her from place to place. But Irene always carried her own valuables.

DEVIN THE DUDE FIRST SOLO LP, RELEASED IN 1998

CANCER JUNE 22 - JULY 23 Nobody came whom I invited to tea Nobody came but a bug with eyes three Our starters in silence By desert there was violence The bug was full of hypocrisy!

TAURUS APRIL 21 - MAY 21 So you’ve had a nice, bossy festive period, butting people about with your symbolic horns. Now you’re busy telling all the other poor star signs to cheer up during this miserable January period. “Winter’s great! Stop being so bloody grumpy, blah blah... Spring’s on the way, etc.” Well, you’re right: we need your bossing; we can’t all perish in this winter mire. Keep up the butting in good cheer, even if it seems underappreciated, you slag.

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT ORDER THEY COME IN, I JUST FEEL THIS SHIT”

AQUARIUS JANUARY 21 - FEBRUARY 19 You slag, you know what I am talking about. Slag.

CAPRICORN DECEMBER 23 - JANUARY 20 The holy stoat god Harrundudu calls on the goat fish Capricorn for your wisdom. He will take over body and mind of a close acquaintance to reach you. It’s up to you to recognise this Welsh deity and do what you think best in the circumstances.

SCORPIO OCTOBER 24 - NOVEMBER 22 Treat yourself to a funny little gift this week: send a text to all your old flames and see what bites; don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself; scream and rub yourself with jelly while watching yourself in the mirror. Now ask yourself: does this make you feel good or bad? These are confusing and testing times for you, Scorpio, but I’m sure you’ll make the right choice.

Horrorscopes Your Stars With Mental Marvin LEO JULY 24 - AUGUST 23 The Great Golden Mother, the sun, is the symbolic ruler of your conscious and all your potentiality. No wonder you are feeling a bit low. Winter is a bad time for you Lions, especially January - not a shit squirt of sun to be seen, sticky poop, runny botty, dribbly Nelson, SALES FESSES!!!

ARIES MARCH 21 - APRIL 20 Wear something different, like a nice wooly jumper with sheep jumping through a meadow, to cheer you up. This kind of jumper was usually knitted by your sexy friend’s mum - if you were around during the period 1978-83. They usually come in the classic colour blacksheep-on-white-backgroundjumping-over-green-hedgepsychedelic-red-triangles framing the intriguingly dull scene. I’ve got a collection of these jumpers. Some of them are so terrifying I have to have them sealed at Comet.

VIRGO AUGUST 24 - SEPTEMBER 23 Love is a pivotal planet that all other emotions evolve around. Even HATE can only exist through contrast with LOVE. But if you’re not feeling anything, this star sign stuff, which is integrally linked to the symbolic planetary emotionary system, is not going to mean shit. You somehow floated out of this system into another space and time with new, unfamiliar rules. Have a coffee, a big poo, and think about things.

GEMINI MAY 22 - JUNE 21 Come yeee Mordrake and embrace my sword Excalibur’s last breath will cut thy life-cord “Then who will be King!?” the masked youth in gold cried. “Not you or I, son” with cursed embrace they died. Sir Percival wept Sir Lancelot free to take Guinevere’s hand in matrimony. The sword cast back not to stone but to sea history was legend Legend who is he? Merlin now drifts as mist in the woods rusted river bed Excalibur margarine lids discarded goods.

LIBRA SEPTEMBER 24 - OCTOBER 23

PISCES FEBRUARY 20 - MARCH 20

A task for adventure and fun. One often has to disguise oneself slightly to survive and fit in, just as the early church builders created the eightsided church spire, which ironically is a most recognisable Christian silhouette on an English landscape. Spires are actually symbolic of the tree of life, the eight sides representing the eternal cycle, seven being the holy number, eight the cosmic cycle turning back to the beginning, the eight notes of the musical scale, the colours of a rainbow. The spires often sprout off from green men hidden in the cloisters. Your task is to try and not wank for a week.

I want to sex you up through this paper, noooow. Hucknall’s playing in the background, got a nice turtle’s head, rub it up and down on the end of your nose. Don’t worry, I have a joss stick going, for Lord’s sake; just get into the sensualness of pushing boundaries. The turtle’s head, or the parson’s nose, is much under-used in modern foreplay. In times gone by, all great lovers were expected to be masters of the parson’s nose. The upper class was particularly fond of it during revolutions and other precarious times of history, thus came the expression given to them: ‘toffeenosed’.

SAGITTARIUS NOVEMBER 23 - DECEMBER 22 One of the planets has moved out the way of another one. I can’t quite figure it out but I think something is in retrograde, which means if you’ve got an important interview, event or whatever coming up, leave the flares and kipper tie in the cupboard for this time.

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The Stool Pigeon March 2010

Sound & Vision Box Shot

DVD Choice SEAN DONNELLY (Dir.) I Think We’re Alone Now Awesome + Modest

I Think We’re Alone Now explores the one-way relationships between eighties pop star Tiffany and two of her most obsessive fans. By illuminating their back stories, director Sean Donnelly’s disarming portrayal humanises the “stalkers” rather than exploiting them for ridicule. Jeff suffers from Asperger’s syndrome and is prone to delusions. Kelly is a hermaphrodite who believes she’s destined to be with Tiffany after having a vision of her during a coma. Both claim to share an intimate bond with the washed-up singer, whether she realises it or not. The film is structured so that whenever you find yourself softening to the characters, they lose you with a baffling jump in logic. Sometimes it seems harmless; sometimes it’s chilling. It’s a tactful balance, producing as many laughs as squirms, but the film’s strength lies in its ability to intertwine these two tales of unrequited love. Jeff has spent $20,000 building a “radionic” headset which he uses for spiritual communication with Tiffany. He once made the news after trying to give her five white chrysanthemums and a Samurai sword - regarded as the highest honour in Japan, but a harrowing gesture everywhere else. Yet he’s so resolutely upbeat that it’s hard not to find him endearing. Kelly, on the other hand, has never even seen Tiffany in concert. She exists as a social outcast, her home adorned with images of her idol, and becomes increasingly fraught at the prospect of finally meeting her. Tiffany, for her part, seems so accustomed to these encounters that she barely blinks when Jeff says, “We have an agreement, we don’t hide anything from each other,” and tells her what hotel room he’s staying in. The documentary doesn’t speak to Tiffany directly, and there’s no need to. Both fans’ attachments have little to do with her. She is whatever they need her to be: a source of friendship, motivation and even selfbelief. As Jeff observes at one point, “It’s the cracked ones that let light into the world.” This makes for a fascinating insight into the nature of obsession.

BRIAN ENO Another Green World

BBC4 one small word, three letters, huge connotations: ambient music; Roxy Music; the shape of modern music; the shape of analogue and digital electronic music; 40 years of pop music; 40 years of experimental music. He’s been a pivotal figure in so much noise and pop, first appearing as the darkened figure in the back of Roxy Music’s early videos, subtly ego-battling his frontman with subversive, futurist synth. He went on to abstractly explore the transcendent negative space between notes before becoming an omnipotent presence on early U2 albums and landmark releases by many other bands. Even the droning notes that accompany the opening credits of the long-standing BBC programme Arena are Eno’s. rk his achievements, Arena has explored the man’s journey. Brian Eno: Another Green World is an insightful account of the many events that have shaped Eno’s idiosyncratic musical brand. Rather than focus on staples such as his notoriously tempestuous relationship with Brian Ferry in the early 1970s, director Nicola Roberts leads Eno into a-typical and occasionally awkward territory as a means of revealing unexplored aspects of his persona. ocumentary delves deep into his early fascination with fashion and glamour (“I love the idea of selecting various clothing styles - references from moments in culture and time - and putting them together”) and his self-confessed under-achievements with the fairer sex. More pertinently, Eno discusses how his music is ultimately rooted in industry ideals: if a record hasn’t sold well, he says he avoids using similar methods twice. any veterans, Eno’s commitment to commercial projects - most recently Coldplay’s Viva La Vida - has sparked confusion and dismay, and the show explores this topic in detail. Eno fuses his innate interest in gospel music and its ability to reach people on a communal level with Chris Martin’s wish to unite large masses of people at festivals and in arenas. It also sets in contrast his own understanding of music as an ideological raison d’être to the modern day fascination with music as a means of sharing: blogging communities, mp3s and music television. rs are treated to archive footage of Eno at the mixing desk during the recording of The Joshua Tree. “I like the moment when your voice fades to an eerie whisper,” you hear him tell Bono. Interviews with Bono and dusty industry hacks like Paul Morley offer insightful commentary tacked onto the side of the footage. “U2 didn’t go to art college, we went to Eno. He is a mind-expanding drug,” says the singer. nother Green World’s real strength resides in the space it leaves for reflection. Philosophical conjecture is neatly broken up by long segments of Eno’s music, cast against beauteous shots of sand canvases, sprawling deserts and caves. In totem, the hour-long documentary is a vital and deeply revealing update to a wonderfully attuned and unique story. Roberts’s method of drawing the subject into unconventional territory provokes feedback equally worthy of the attention of casual Eno fans and aficionados. Jack Mills

Eno -

To ma The d For m

Viewe But A

Also out now... VERNON CHATMAN (dir.)

DOUGLAS HICKOX (dir.)

ULLI LOMMEL (dir.)

HAVANA MARKING (dir.)

Final Flesh

It’s All Over Town

Blank Generation

Afghan Star

Drag City

Optimum

MVD

Dogwoof

“Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.” Easy to say, but upon opening the DVD case adorned with a surreal collage of eagle-eyes, laser beams, rainbows and mushroom clouds, a sachet of antibacterial hand wash drops out, with a press release explaining how Vernon ‘Wonder Showzen’ Chatman’s new faux fetish romp Final Flesh will challenge conceptions of religion, sex, philosophy, fashion and “reality”. Hmmm. For all its chaotic misappropriations of sexual symbolism and ambiguity, the film, comprising four motif-driven, intertwined plots, dulls after the first half. Scenes that include an anaemic, hysterical middle-ager fellating a sock full of dice, breast-feeding a raw steak and ‘Mr Pollard’ attempting to climb into his wife’s womb amount to an ultimately forgettable viewing experience.

Movies were hilarious in the olden days. Musicals threw together camp exuberance and dance with fantastic ease, and standards were so often high. It’s nice to see people enjoying the absurd simplicity of everyday life: singing and joking; pranks and dates. 1963’s It’s All Over Town marries the energy of Golden Era Rogers & Hammerstein with the vivid colouring of swinging sixties London. The opening scene sees Frankie Vaughan miming terribly against an obviously painted skyline. But it’s the inconsistencies, the oversights and the overacting that adds to its overall sense of theatre; you are the audience, and you’re there to laugh. Musical contributions from some of the era’s greats, like Dusty Springfield and The Hollies, document the period in all its glory.

Scenes of Richard Hell & The Voidoids performing at CBGB’s makes Blank Generation a valuable artefact of the lateseventies New York punk scene, but as a feature film it’s more of a curiosity than a classic. Shot in film noir style with a score worthy of Murder She Wrote, the narrative follows Billy (Richard Hell), a rising punk star who becomes disillusioned with his career, and his fiery romance with temperamental French journalist Nada. With Hell preserved in his prime, exuding cool against the backdrop of a crumbling Manhattan, this could have fallen somewhere between Jim Jarmusch’s Permanent Vacation and 1972 reggae flick The Harder They Come. But with woeful acting and a threadbare plot, it’s no wonder this arthouse also-ran has been long forgotten.

Afghanistan’s answer to Pop Idol shows how one culture’s TV trash can becomes another’s opportunity for social freedom. Seeing as music, television and dancing were outlawed in Afghanistan until 2001, Havana Marking’s documentary looks into the implications of trying to express yourself on a new nationwide platform. As the contestants become symbols for their respective ethnic groups, voting via text message - the only democracy most young Afghans have ever experienced - becomes a matter of national pride. But where Pop Idol contestants merely risk humiliation, Afghan Star contestants risk their lives. The fact that both the host of the show and its two female participants have since been forced into hiding only underlines this film’s significance as a portrait of a country still struggling with repression.

Reviews

March 2010 The Stool Pigeon

Long Players

LIARS Sisterworld Mute

When bands release self-titled albums, it can signify numerous things, most of them negative, such as lack of inspiration or effort. When Australian/American rock trio Liars did so in 2007, it was in an attempt to refocus attention onto their music and away from the thematic concerns of previous albums such as Drums Not Dead and They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. Of course brilliant groups (and that’s certainly what Liars are) can’t really escape from their true nature. Liars became a non-concept concept album, and people either discussed that or didn’t talk about it at all; a shame, as it was a mighty piece of work and it lost the band momentum. The silver lining is that they’ve regained their drive, and then some, with this stunning piece of work. The thematically guiding hand of their fifth long player suggested itself when singer/guitarist Angus Andrew moved to Los Angeles and took lodgings above a legal marijuana dispensary. Within weeks, a doorman at the weed depository had been gunned down outside his front door and two thieves had broken into his flat with lump hammers. Great art often comes from the desire/inability to escape the urban environment and the unhappiness that occurs when a substitute exit is sourced (Trainspotting / Brazil / 1984). Sisterworld became the concept of such a haven. Whether we want it to be or not, Los Angeles is a pit canary and when you look at its diseased downtown streets it becomes clear that in the 21st Century, the autonomous wheels of late capitalism worldwide will kill more people than the combined political atrocities of the 20th Century. This awful idea is given voice on the album’s bracing centrepiece ‘Scarecrows On A Killer Slant’. Angus chides himself for ignoring a homeless guy (“Why d’you pass the bum on the street?”) before suffering a hysterical glimpse of a new urban Auschwitz as he screams, “We should take the creeps out at night / Drag them incomplete by their ears / We should nail their thoughts to the wall / Stand them in the street with a gun / And then kill them all.” Horrific. Prophetic. A unique and unsettling vision. JD

BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB

EFTERKLANG

FRIGHTENED RABBIT

Beat The Devil’s Tattoo

Magic Chairs

The Winter Of Mixed Drinks

Co-op

4AD

Fat Cat

BRMC were a parody of themselves before they’d even played a note, but their devil-maycare attitude predictably gave way to a confidence crisis brought on by too many bongs and nasty reviews. Out with the existentialism then, and they’re back to ragging on about Devil’s tattoos, evil, war machines and conscious killers, with T-Rex/Mary Chain hooks, and Satan fart bass. Silly, but they’re better when they don’t get ideas above their station.

Copenhagen ensemble Efterklang have made an about-turn from their former path as explorers of sumptuous, choral multi-instrumentalism to have a stab at being a generic American indie rock band, with all the pained vocals and irritating coos that that entails. Now musically staid, it’s as if their sumptuous European charm has been lost mid-Atlantic. What once was haunting has become hammy and tediously overwrought. Such treachery must be avenged.

It’s not that we endorse binge drinking in Withnail And I-like proportions - far from it. But there’s something about the blood harmonies of brothers Scott and Grant Hutchison, the fleeting twinkles of keys and punctured guitar strums that’s made us fall punch drunk in love with the third album from this Selkirk five-piece. Less of a lament to a former lover than its predecessor, but still makes you feel a little woozy nonetheless.

HEY COLOSSUS AND THE VAN HALEN TIME CAPSULE Eurogrumble Vol. 1

KID SISTER

LIGHTSPEED CHAMPION

Ultraviolet

Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You

Riot Season

Asylum

Domino

“I can’t believe,” as Beavis once said to Butthead, “that someone’s finally got it right.” We’ll be the first to admit that we had Hey Colossus pinned down as a great live, post-Butthole Surfers London noise band who were always destined to disappoint slightly on record. This, however, is a forward-looking psychedelic monstrosity with abyssal grooves to spare, unhampered by too much wackiness or selfindulgence. Buy it and run with the devil.

You fear the worst when albums get chronically delayed (see Lil Wayne’s Rebirth), but in the case of Kid Sister (the only artist with ‘Kid’ in her name that’s any good), all’s turned out very rosy. This shit is so Chicago - throbbing juke and hip-house beats coupled with Melisa’s slightly clumsy but super-cute rhyming style. Some tracks, like ‘Pro Nails’ with Kanye, are ancient. Doesn’t matter: they sound box fresh again in the best club LP of the year so far.

Nothing says “you were right to dump me” quite like overwrought ballads. Having ditched altcountry for soapy melodies and tacky arrangements, Lightspeed’s new album illustrates the difference between genuine misery and just being whiney. Though his pleas to be killed at least show signs of self-awareness, the theatrics aren’t enough to craft something fresh from heartbreak’s worn-out vocabulary. A reminder that a break-up album can be more embarrassing than therapeutic.

Reviews by Jeremy Allen, John Doran, Ash Dosanjh, Ben Graham, Phil Hebblethwaite, Jack Mills, Garry Mulholland, Huw Nesbitt, Hazel SheffieldCian Traynor and Luke Turner.

Long Players

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

The debut album by LA’s Music Go Music was released in the States last September, and is actually a compilation of tracks that the band had leaked out on three 12”s previous to that. The delay in getting it out here has to do with the band inking a major label deal, which makes perfect sense. These

are songs borne in cleverness and a kooky, indie spirit but they’re sprinkled with the kind of stardust that gives them mass appeal. Expressions is gorgeous and playfully ridiculous, and if it can escape the cynicism of hipsterville, it will send the band stratospheric. Music Go Music were initially a mystery - a group made up of players with wacky names like Gala Bell and TORG, until the mystery began to distract from the songs. They quickly revealed themselves to be baroque indie band Bodies Of Water doing classic pop in disguise, and simply for the

hell of it. The intention was real, but the characters weren’t: the band was (and still is) intended to be theatre - a chance for the core three musicians (Meredith Metcalf, vocals, her husband David, keys, and Adam Siegel, guitar) to escape themselves and be... fabulous. The shorthand here is to say Music Go Music sound like Abba. As they told this paper last issue, they consider that a compliment and they agree that ‘Light In Love’ is a shameless echo of the Swedes. But there’s far more going on here heart-wrenching, minor-key disco is a big influence, and so is golden-era

MUSIC GO MUSIC Expressions Mercury

soft rock like The Carpenters, sixties pop, FM punk (Blondie) and, if Meredith is to be believed, Meat Loaf. Sound horrendous? Many think so, but there’s no denying the craft in the songwriting, and the insanely high level of the musicianship. These are staggeringly wellput-together mini epics - brilliant in the truest sense of the word. Maybe the characters in Music Go Music haven’t yet fully found their (phoney) voices. Doesn’t matter: Expressions is a glittering gem of an album - so purely musical, as they say, they put the word ‘music’ in their band name twice. PH

FIELD MUSIC

LINDSTRØM & CHRISTABELLE

MARINA & THE DIAMONDS

TREVOR MOSS & HANNAH-LOU

FIONN REGAN

Field Music (Measure) Memphis Industries

Real Life Is Not Cool Feedelity/Smalltown Supersound

The Family Jewels

Trevor Moss & Hannah-Lou

The Shadow Of An Empire

679/Atlantic

Loose

Bella Union

I just know that Peter and David Brewis are really nice men. I know, because Field Music (Measure) can only be the work of pleasant and interesting people. I realise that great popular music is traditionally the work of psychos and cunts, but Field Music are a band that exist to challenge assumptions; every note that they write and play is a subtle dislocation of the norm. The press release for the third album by the band, led by Sunderland’s Brewis brothers, reckons that this record is ‘Tuskmeets-English Settlement’, which, both sonically and in terms of the soft rock/post punk mix Field Music specialise in, is tough to take issue with. They insist there’s no unifying theme to this 20-track epic, but it feels like a discourse on how nice, middle-class white people deal with lives of chronic anxiety and discreet struggle. “If we could bottle fury,” a Brewis brother sighs on the lush-yet-troubled ballad ‘You And I’, “we’d be saved.” All of the playing, the arrangements, the tough, witty basslines, the strings, the banks of choral harmonies, the refined power, the detailed production... all of it is jawdroppingly sophisticated and technically accomplished. It’s the kind of ‘progressive’ music that used to be comfortably numb, but, here, is edgy, fascinating, gently emotional and deeply immersive. Field Music will never be ‘big’. They remind you of that James Murphy crack about Captain Beefheart on ‘Losing My Edge’: “Don’t do it that way. You’ll never make a dime.” But some great pop just isn’t, you know, great pop. What Field Music (Measure) is, is a non-conformist tour de force and an album you’ll be taking pleasure in trying to decode for the rest of your days. GM

Even if you were the sort that wanted to, you’d find it hard to come up with any sensible objections to the brilliance of Norwegian disco/house producer Hans-Peter Lindstrøm. For sure, sometimes his records [‘Where You Go I Go Too’] occasionally feel more at home on a good pair of headphones than they do emanating from a club soundsystem, and when he’s noodling his way through rolling banks of weed smoke and Tangerine Dream motifs, you have to trust implicitly that he knows what he’s doing. Even these essentially nonexistent worries are banished on this sumptuous collaboration with chameleonic pop disco singer Christabelle Sandoo. Admittedly, its genesis can be traced back nearly 10 years to when she whacked some of her by turns sultry/aggressive/deadpan vocals on one of his club bangers. But that, and the fact that tracks such as ‘Music In My Mind’ and ‘Baby Can’t Stop’ are club staples by now, doesn’t damage the utter freshness of this disc. (The older tracks are necessary for a tightly plotted album.) This is also easily Lindstrøm’s most unadulterated pop moment. The touchpoints are glittering and unassailable: Quincy Jones, Prince, Donna Summer, Patrick Cowley and yet, to be utterly contradictory, this is also the most psychedelic record he’s done. Behind the spirit of Off The Wall, Purple Rain and Cerrone’s Supernature is not the considered cosmiche proto house of Vangelis or Manuel Göttsching, but some pure ecstasy-damaged madness. It’s like your favourite school disco memory heard through a jagged MDMA-confusion filter. Seriously, they’re spoiling you. JD

Four years ago, Welsh-Greek warbler Marina Diamandis couldn’t play the piano. Now she’s managed to put together a whole album of ham-fisted oom-pa so acutely relentless that one can only pray someone pulls the stool from under her. This isn’t music: it’s the sound of celebrity fodder being inflated by polls and producers until good sense has to sidle out the door to avoid being squashed by one girl’s egomaniacal bid for popularity.

No surprise that the debut by the young husband-wife duo at the heart of the short-lived-butpromising Indigo Moss is a sparse affair, and they’ve made no effort to involve anyone else in their new songs. It’s just the two of them on equal vocal duties and, mostly, simple acoustic guitar and harmonica. But the feel is similar: urban country-folk (more pie and mash than the green grass of home) that sounds unavoidably intimate but never slushy.

Fionn, you almost had us. After years of emulating Nick Drake, you let your guard down and produced a literary album rich with whimsy and light on pretension. But now you’re trying to be Bob Dylan. Despite improved production and musicianship, warmth and intimacy have been replaced by a cocksure bombast that fails to convince. Few back catalogues cast shadows as far-reaching as Bob’s, but imitation is no way to build an empire of your own.

SCOUT NIBLETT

SHEARWATER

The Calcination of Scout Niblett

The Golden Archipelago

THEE SILVER MOUNT ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA Kollaps Tradixionales

Drag City

Matador

Constellation

Vulnerable yet defiant, backed by primitive eruptions of distorted guitar and hammered drums, Scout’s blasted her sound down to its raw, fiery essence. On ‘Bargin’, ‘I.B.D.’ and ‘Lucy Lucifer’, she scours her own soul for signs of compromise and hypocrisy, while ‘Meet And Greet’ challenges the expectations of her audience. This may not be the commercial breakthrough she’d like, but it’s undoubtedly the pure artistic statement she needed to make.

Jonathan Meiburg’s feverish voice (both actual and authorial) has always been fuelled by a sense of his own heroism. Shearwater’s sixth LP emphasises that voice more than ever, but this time, amid their usual acoustic morbidity, there are engaging Polynesian touches; an interesting mix considering that this record is designed to denounce “man’s impact on the natural world”. It’s relentlessly earnest, without getting in the way of some fine songs, such as ‘Black Eyes’.

Thee Silver Mount Zion aren’t typically associated with brash optimism, but the newest release from the Québécoise supergroup is widely, and euphorically, confident: swooping instrumentation and fore-grounded vocal immersions offer a consistent, if samey, grounding, and Efrim Menuck’s blunted lyricism makes me long for a muddier canvas. Not necessarily a return to the minimalist landscapes of previous outings, but more variable degrees of drama.

Long Players

March 2010 The Stool Pigeon

There’s a touching story behind ‘Twinkling Stars’ by Dutch group Nine Circles. When Angular Records boss Joe Daniel managed to track down the vocalist to seek permission to use the track on this compilation, she burst into tears. She now calls herself The Rose and runs a foster home in Amsterdam, but she was 14 at the time of the

recording, which she had never heard before (it was made without the group’s knowledge). Asked for a photo to go on the record’s sleeve, she submitted a ‘Greetings From Amsterdam’ postcard from the early-eighties. And there she was on the front, eating an ice cream. This sweet tale isn’t merely an antidote to all the groups with austere names like Absolute Body Control and End Of Data, but a testament to the labour of love that went into collecting such a superb collection of unknown European synthpop and cold wave. The electronic music of the late-seventies and early-eighties has developed an

orthodoxy just like any other movement - the legacy of Kraftwerk converted into chart success by British groups like Depeche Mode and the Human League. Cold Waves... shows that this is only half the story. So many of these tracks take elements of the best of British synth and give it a European twist that’s at once darker, more pop, and more effortlessly glamorous - no brickies in eyeliner here. Take Eleven Pond’s ‘Watching’, for example, a funkier take on a collision between Depeche Mode and Fad Gadget. Ladytron must have hoped that Stereo’s ‘Somewhere In The Night’ had remained in some

THE SOFT PACK

VARIOUS ARTISTS

SOULS OF MISCHIEF

THE STRANGE BOYS

SWANTON BOMBS

The Soft Pack

Jackie Love Songs

Montezuma’s Revenge

Be Brave

Mumbo Jumbo and Murder

Heavenly

EMI

Hiero Imperium

Rough Trade

Turnstile

If the debut album by San Diego via LA’s Soft Pack had been largely rubbish, it still would have been entirely redeemed by ‘Answer To Yourself ’, a contender for the greatest rock’n’roll song of the 21st century thus far. Four blissful chords, headrush tempo and the best damn advice - about thinking, reading, creating, rebelling, and blocking out the world’s babble and squeak - that any bunch of cool kids could possibly give to any bunch of wannabe cool kids. But fuck me backwards if the rest of this album is NOT largely rubbish. In fact, the 10 tunes that make up The Soft Pack are so damn great and fast and short and sharp and perfect that it forces you to compare it to other classic rock’n’roll debuts. (I’m) Stranded by The Saints. Fire Of Love by The Gun Club. Crocodiles and Murmur and Is This It and Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash by The Replacements... all drop by and doff their caps to a band who’ve captured the essence of a lost art. They sing, “You beg more than anyone else / Demand more than anyone else / Yet, you have more than anyone else,” on ‘More Or Less’ and it’s so beautiful to hear a band dare to be obnoxiously self-righteous, like young men were always meant to be. Best of all, The Soft Pack does the key rock’n’roll thing of making you want to join the band, and does it better than any debut album (here we go again) since Generation Terrorists. It also makes me feel young again, which means that it casually destroys all known laws of physics and biology. GM

This compilation seems totally random but, of course, where there’s lavish packaging and three CDs of music collected together by EMI, there’s always sound financial sense, and the point here is that men in their forties are going to get laid on Valentine’s Day if they buy this for their wife. It’s a nostalgia record - a jumbo collection of super-pop love songs that will be forever impregnated in the minds of girls who came of age reading Jackie and fantasising about getting some from David Essex in the seventies. The fact that those girls are now deep into their forties gives these songs all the more resonance to younger people: we associate them with horror - with being trapped by a hammered aunt who suddenly wants to tell you about her ex-boyfriends in way too much detail . She thinks only of purity and innocence. The booklet that comes inside this package is wonderful - beautiful pages from the magazine’s seventies hey-day titled things like ‘How Romantic Are You?’ and ‘What’s the oddest Valentine you’ve ever received?’ Answering the latter question, reader Jen from New Addington writes, “I once got a Valentine which said simply ‘Get Lost’ - luckily I never did know who sent it!’ Genius. The CDs are jam-packed with every smash hit love song from the era you could ever imagine, including tonnes of total shockers (by David Cassidy, Bread, Bay City Rollers, Chicago...), but also loads of bona fide gems (by David Bowie, Marvin Gaye, Minnie Riperton, Barry White...) Yup, you bet your life we’ve been hammering this comp all through deadline. PH

What’s up with hip hop groups from yesteryear always having to open new albums by reminding everyone who they are? It’s redundant, and a shot in the foot. People buying this know Souls Of Mischief dropped the classic ’93 Till Infinity 17 years ago, and it makes their intro on here seem like they’re saying they can’t cut it any more. Transpires they can. This is a really solid and cohesive album unashamedly old school and entirely confident about being so.

How sweet it is to see a group defecting from the ever-growing manure pile of atonal garage bands. Rather than shun even the most basic production values, Austin’s Strange Boys have taken a credible stab at capturing the Stones at their country-tinged best. Sadly, singer Ryan Sambol doesn’t do their borrowed twang any justice by screeching and whimpering like a trampled alley cat, turning an otherwise solid set of productions into an exercise of patience.

This band’s lack of skill cannot even be charted. With weak vocals, clumsy chords and an ADD-like tour of every overused idea in garage rock, naming themselves after a wrestling move is the only thing this Essex drums-andguitar duo got spot on. Even still, they may find fans in those who were too young for Mystery Jets, industry types who find naivety endearing, and bloggers who never bothered to listen to their dads’ old records.

TITUS ANDRONICUS

WHITE HINTERLAND

WOODEN SHJIPS

The Monitor

Kairos

Vol. 2

Merok/XL

Dead Oceans

Sick Thirst/Forte

Marrying high-pretension with gritty, lowest-common-denominator garage, Titus Andronicus shit-kick all the way from New Jersey. Taking their name from a Shakespearean tragedy, they also plunder the works of limeys from contemporary culture - Shane McGowan and Joe Strummer. They don’t appear to have developed much since forming in 2005 (some of these titles look very familiar), but they play tight and angry, which is half the battle won.

White Hinterland, Portland’s Casey Dienel, is in possession of some earworms here, and given the upbeat, ambient accompaniment, Kairos could end up being plundered by dirty ad men. ‘Icarus’ certainly has something viral about it. Dienel takes herself too seriously on too many other tracks, which are mostly meandering, sub-Björk filler. Purchase the LP or not, you may be unwittingly buying Opal Fruits to it in the future. Or whatever they’re called now.

Right now there are a million American soccer moms campaigning to have this second trunk of previously vinyl-only Wooden Shjips releases banned. Why? Because it’ll make their children want to drop acid and fuck the night. This is the smacky sound of the sixties candyflipping to 13th Floor Elevators, and if you don’t ‘dig’ it you’re probably already living vicariously through your kids’ after-school hobbies.

VARIOUS ARTISTS Cold Waves And Minimal Electronics Angular

forgotten record cabinet, given that it sounds like the template for their entire career. ‘Figures’, by Absolute Body Control, is burbling goth euphoria; Land of Giants’ ‘Cannibal Dolls’ is pure skittish glamour; the Ruth track all mechanical fizz. Throughout, this is edgy, sexy and arch - a long way from how the likes of OMD ended up becoming a warm pina colada on the Costa Del Sol. And ‘Twinkling Stars’? It’s the best track; haunting and urgent, a vocal that belies a 14-year-old singing, “There must be more than this.” Indeed. Here’s hoping that Europe’s icy vaults yield up further frigid treasures. LT

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

Demos CHAPTER XXV. LET’S GET THIS OVER AND DONE WITH, THEN. Croydon’s Kobayashi make music for stupid people who think they’re clever, perverts who think they’re sexy and men who wear waistcoats and bowler hats yet still labour under the misguided impression that they are somehow not cunts. Their malign blend of slap bass and rape-rock is undermined by the fact they all dress like flair bartenders. As an aside to this ‘review’, I think it’s important that at some point we establish who thought it was a good idea to give alcoholic, capitalist jugglers access to the water supply.

Meanwhile, up the road in Southampton, a man called Gary is surprised to learn that his own, existential dementia sounds exactly like industrial pop music. Track three’s pretty good – it sounds like Dan Treacy sneezing and banging a drum while listening to newworldaquarium on his crack-boat. Why don’t more people have crack-boats? Because living on a crack-boat makes you think it’s a good idea to ‘put a bit of echo’ on that bit where you solemnly intone the word “Mucus… mucus… mucus… mucus.”

M Y S P A C E . C O M / K O B A Y A S H I M U S I C

M Y S P A C E . C O M / S L O W S M I L E

Can we find someone to look into this one too? Danny Mahon’s song about getting beaten up for having long hair and being ‘indie’ surely marks the tipping point where the number of songs written about getting beaten up for having long hair and being ‘indie’ exceeds the actual number of fights taking place in England on any given Saturday night. Maybe if all his songs weren’t about setting fire to crackdealing bad lads he wouldn’t spend so long picking bits of guitar out of his clitoris.

Come on, political rap? Why not just write a letter to your MP in text speak?

M Y S P A C E . C O M / D A N N Y M A H O N

Lord Magpie & The Prince of Cats? You may as well bend down and tie the laces of my shoe for me, pal. This lot are actually quite charming if you can get past the wacky moniker, their lax jazz-hands drumming, doo-wop harmonies and discontent guitar nark sounding like slacker rock might have if it was conceived of before Mexicans knew what punk rock was. The Stooges, Beefheart, Link Wray. Fair enough. They’d be even better if they burnt all their Mighty Boosh DVDs. M Y S P A C E . C O M / L O R D M A G P I E S

Typical. You get slightly excited about the idea of a band brave enough to play nothing but two bass notes and a drum for the first minute and eight seconds of their demo, when your dad comes in on vocals. And he sounds ‘sexy’. Erk. You’ve used too much lather, father. M Y S P A C E . C O M / M A B L E S H U S B A N D S

Something makes me want to like The Ran-Tan Waltz. I think it’s their press release – they talk about the custom of ‘rantanning’, a method of public humiliation popular in Britain up until the 1920s that saw crowds of hecklers, armed with sticks, cans, buckets and drums, gather outside the houses of criminals and berate them with a clanging, booing, shouting din. This is an idea that pleases me, probably because of the obvious parallels with what I do in this here demo column each issue, but ultimately The Ran-Tan Waltz are let down by the fact they’re a folk band with a song called ‘Tripartite Crossfire’.

Mutant Beatniks sound like all the noises we’ve ever made rattling around in the concrete corners of space.

Glum Dundonians Dormant Figure sound a bit like My Vitriol playing Fall songs. Suitably, their music seems to loathe itself: a stiff upper lip chewing hatefully at the art-fag trembler below, it’s forced to share an orifice opening with. It’s that ruck between dockside and bongside that gives the three tracks here their allure, though – ‘Washing Machine’ is carefree and morose; something akin to staying up all night talking about the daytime.

M Y S P A C E . C O M / E D G E O F T H E C O S M O S

M Y S P A C E . C O M / D O R M A N T F I G U R E

Robotniq does creepy Robert Palmer impressions while dressed as a sort of gay magician. He has one friend on M y S p a c e .

Setting out to write anthems is like walking into a nightclub with your dick hanging out - i.e. something you’d be better off not doing, Australia’s The Box Rockets.

M Y S P A C E . C O M / R O B O T N I Q

M Y S P A C E . C O M / T H E B O X R O C K E T S

My girlfriend says Daddy Long Bones sound like a couple of middle-aged drunks dancing to karaoke. She’s a bit squiffy around the eyes and he’s “a pervert in a tie”. This surprised me, as I actually found their music quite agile and lean. ‘Waves of Steel’ sounds like Billy Idol if he’d fucked up and gotten into rockabilly instead of disco music. Maybe that’s what his other leg did. Anyway, this isn’t gonna abuse your children, but it isn’t gonna put them through university either, regardless of the whereabouts of Billy Idol’s limbs.

Milk are the sort of people who believe in ghosts but look at you funny when you spell God with a capital ‘G’. Their music is OK.

M Y S P A C E . C O M / D A D D Y L O N G B O N E S

The Campaign are responsible for pleasant, slightly brainless mod-indie shang-a-lang and go out with those pretty, quiet girls you thought you might go out with at school if only you could think of something halfway engaging to say to them. Good for them, I say. They all seem like real decent guys and they seem pretty into Buzzcocks.

M Y S PA C E . C O M / L U C I A N O D A R W I N I A N

Is ‘dude-rock’ now bigger in Brighton than Fosters, juggling and DJ Yoda? If Illness’s big, dumb racket is anything to go by, the answer’s a big, dumb YES. Their Yankee instrumentals remind me so much of basement shows, my neck’s starting to ache and everything in my field of vision looks like an ugly girl with emotional problems.

Telling me you’re influenced by Snow Patrol, Guns N’ Roses and Radiohead is like trying to explain to me how Liz Taylor and Michael Jackson once conceived a child together: confusing at first, but ultimately unimportant, as long as whatever came out of it stays the fuck away from me. What type of women do men like these go for anyway? Virgin biker chicks with PhDs in actuarial science? Unfortunately it’s nothing as exciting as that, as The Nocturnals’ influences absorb each other in a watery stew of riffola and last-in-thebattle-of-the-bands-again-then wailing.

M Y S P A C E . C O M / I L L N E S S B A N D

MYSPACE.COM/THENOCTURNALSBAND

MYSPACE.COM/WEARETHERANTANWALTZ

M Y S P A C E . C O M / M I L K N O I S E

Scottish people and rap go together like Uri Geller and lightning bolts. M Y S P A C E . C O M / G A V L I V Z

MYSPACE.COM/THECAMPAIGNBEGINS

Our pick for the fat advance: If it were up to me, this prestigious accolade would be heading Dormant Figure’s way, but unfortunately The Samaritans have been dredging this column for lost souls for a while now and they’re demanding that we give it to Robotniq.

REVIEWS BY KEV KHARAS

Send your work of genius in through one ear of The Stool Pigeon and straight out the other. Address at front. Please mark the envelope ‘Demo’.

Varese 360° LONDON SINFONIETTA AND NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA

Friday 16 – Sunday 18 April Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall

Stereo MCs VS THE BAYS + the herbaliser Friday 16 April

16 – 24 April 2010

Royal Festival Hall Foyers

Glass, Górecki and Turnage LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Saturday 17 April Royal Festival Hall

Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Trio Monday 19 April Royal Festival Hall

Gil Scott-Heron + Speech Debelle Tuesday 20 April Royal Festival Hall

Broadcast + Micachu & THE SHAPES & OlIVER Coates Wednesday 21 April Queen Elizabeth Hall

HEALTH + CHROME HOOF Thursday 22 April Queen Elizabeth Hall

Chris Cunningham live + BEAK> Friday 23 April Royal Festival Hall

Will Dutta and special guests Plaid, Max de Wardener & John Richards Saturday 24 April Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall

TICKETS: 0844 847 9930 www.southbankcentre.co.uk

The Stool Pigeon \March 2010

Business news CASH COWELL TO GRAZE ON PHILIP GREEN’S FIELDS

THE MARKETS AS THEY STOOD ON 08/02/2010 EMI 6 Month

DIGITAL BOOM NOT ENOUGH JEREMY ALLEN Radiohead unleashed In Rainbows as a download only release in 2007, Luddites scratched their heads and traditionalists felt a deep sense of betrayal, but it signified a new era in the way we consume music. Those who resisted ended up looking like a bunch of Cunutes trying to hold back the sea. Rumours of the death of the music business were greatly exaggerated, and the good news for the recording industry is that digital sales are booming, with global single track downloads up 10 per cent in 2009, shifting an impressive 1.5 billion units. The International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry also reported a 20 per cent rise in digital album sales, again discrediting the naysayers prophesying the imminent, premature demise of the beloved album format. In its Digital Music Report, the IFPI said that digital growth was up some 940 per cent since Apple premiered iTunes in 2003, with downloads now accounting for around 27 per cent of record industry revenues, though the curve is still not steep enough given the massive slump in CD sales. In the first two quarters of 2009, overall revenues were down 12 per cent, and the recording industry is down 30 per cent overall since Steve Job’s Year Zero. The IFPI inevitably blames pirates, particularly in Spain and France, who are apparently endangering the lifeblood of their respective local record industries, ultimately killing off any investment in indigenous talents. In France, Nicolas Sarkozy is like a man possessed, attempting to stymie all pirate activity. He recently threw a protective arm around French literature, even suing Google for attempting to make digital copies of the country’s treasured books. In Spain the government has been less supportive. “Spain runs the risk of turning into a cultural desert,” said IFPI digital chief Rob Wells. “Drastic action has to be taken to save the Spanish industry.”

When

igh-trousered ruler of pop evil, Simon Cowell, is all set to sign a new deal which will make him a partner rather than an employee with entertainment behemoth Sony. The 50-year-old mogul is Sony’s greatest asset, way ahead of any artist. He will put pen to paper to extend his current deal, structured around the Syco company and the X Factor franchise, which is due to expire in the latter part of 2010. The arrangement will make the already stinking rich Brighton-born buggerer-of-the-ears even more stinking rich. The Daily Mirror is calling him ‘British TV’s first billion dollar man’, with Cowell on course to make £500m a year for the next two years with the export of X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent as formats for foreign telly. On top of this deal, Cowell is reportedly leaving American Idol in the States, which is owned by his old mate Simon Fuller, the demonic puppet-master who created the Spice Girls and looks like a fat Paul Young with hairier eyebrows. Cowell doesn’t own the format for that show, but does own X Factor, which is pretty much the same show, right? In all this confusion it looks as though TV Simon will eclipse the other Simon in the rich stakes. If he didn’t have his filthy fingers in enough pies, Cowell has also got into bed with another rich person, Philip Green, head honcho of Top Shop. Cowell’s share of all the abundant Syco wealth will be owned by yet another company, not named in Sony’s statement, but thought to be Greenwell, the new Green/Cowell joint venture. “I am absolutely delighted that we have been able to extend our long and mutually beneficial partnership with Simon,” smarmed Sony Music UK head Ged Doherty. “He is an inspiring and stimulating business partner and working with him closely over the last 10 years has been an absolute pleasure.” Jeremy Allen

OVER AND OUT FOR ANALOGUE TRANSITION TIME FOR TRANSMITTERS

Share price UK£ 200 180

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BAE 6 Month Share price UK£ 200 180

160

140

JEREMIAH DOGERTY never killed the radio star, and digital radio is struggling to put analogue to the sword before the projected switchover date of 2015, set by Lord Carter’s Digital Britain white paper of last year. The broadcasting industry is being driven radio gaga attempting to come up with schemes that will hasten the public along, discarding their trusty old FM sets for a shiny new DAB. One idea is to introduce an incentive scheme almost identical to Alistair Darling’s car scrappage project, where consumers were encouraged to trade in their old banger in exchange for a less polluting vehicle, with an added sweetener of as much as £2,000 neatly stowed into their top pockets. A 20 per cent discount on a new digital set on the proviso that the listener gives up his or her old machine is considered a fair inducement, though radio bosses fear there may be a rebellion from sensitive FM listeners, who like static, fizzing and crackling and Tottenham rudeboys bleeding phat beats and chat-up lines all over the shipping report. Another scheme being considered by the PR department is a benevolent fund, where people place their outmoded radios in knifeamnesty style boxes set up in city centres, so they can be dropped on the Third World, enabling Africans to listen to the World Service. Ways of reducing environmental impact are also being considered, and any other bright ideas that will negate a middle class revolt. The government will be unable to begin the process of switching over until 50 per cent of all radio listened to in the UK is via digital sets.

Video

120 Sep09

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THE NUMBERS High Low

Stock

Price

Change Yield

45.07 14.57

AppleC

47.03

+1.6

N/A

240

Amstrad

203.75

+13.75

3.1

13.96

595

509

BSkyB

491.5

-12

N/A

20.7

Chrysalis

163

+0.5

0.9

52.57

41.09 25.01 Dreamworks

$42.45

+0.32

5.4

N/A

442.38 31.41

398.00

+1.75

N/A

52.2

196.5 133

Easyjet

P/E

281.25 225.25 EMI

245.25

+9.25

3.92

N/A

274

HMV

158

+2.25

2.5

7.75

304.1 -2.90

Google

238.98

-18.52

N/A

17.25 9

MUSICCH

9.5

-23

N/A

165

42.54 20.10

MGM

213.5

39.79

+0.21

2.6

18.87 12.64 Motorola

$22.48

-1.9

0.9.1

14.2

22.53 17.89

Phillips

25.35

+0.35

1.8

N/A

34.30 23.17

Reg Vardy

909.5

+5.5

1.1

15.76

47.25 17.75

Sanctuary

n/a

-5.264

248.95 19.31

Somerfield

197.00

0.0

12.8

17.23

4,400 3,590 Sony

3,850

+30

0.6

21.9

129

Topps Tiles

201.75

+1.25

0.6

17.85

189.15 32.22 Vodaphone

118.00

+3.25

N/A

134

+0.10

N/A

16.95 15.23 Warner Grp 20.17

Business news

March 2010 The Stool Pigeon

50 BEST-SELLING ARTISTS OF THE NOUGHTIES Title

Morsels

Artist

Eminem

Kanye West

Westlife

Elvis Presley

Britney Spears

Pussycat Dolls

Black Eyed Peas

Shaggy

Girls Aloud

Christina Aguilera

Madonna

Mariah Carey

Rihanna

Shakira

Will Young

Jennifer Lopez

Sugababes

Beyonce

Killers

Fighting Chance Crap things that were popular in the seventies have been enjoying a renaissance in recent years, so it’s no surprise the Eurovision has undergone a facelift, with Diane Warren and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s joint-penned effort coming a respectable fifth in 2009. A crap thing from the eighties, Pete Waterman, is on board to write Britain’s next entry. “I’m relishing the opportunity to put my own stamp on this one,” said the white-haired pop svengali. “We may even be in with a chance if Russia doesn’t threaten to turn Eastern Europe’s gas off again.”

Youth Vote

Leona Lewis

Ronan Keating

Robbie Williams

Craig David

Pink

Jay-Z

Kylie Minogue

Enrique Iglesias

Lady Gaga

Destiny’s Child

S Club 7

50 Cent

Michael Jackson

Alexandra Burke

Oasis

Justin Timberlake

Take That

Nickelback

Gareth Gates

McFly

Atomic Kitten

Lily Allen

Kings of Leon

Usher

Nelly

Nelly Furtado

Coldplay

Shayne Ward

Akon

Snow Patrol

As our culture becomes ever more youthorientated, one wonders when focus groups will start being asked what they think of sperm. Not content with the Critic’s Choice Brit award launched three years ago to anticipate the most hotly-tipped newcomers, the Brits is launching a Class Act award, in conjunction with its 30th anniversary, involving meddlesome government fatty Ed Balls and Piers Morgan, twat. Musically talented children up to the age of 19 will be showered in accolades that will weigh heavy on their young shoulders and ultimately destroy them.

Sucking Up Not since the British Invasion of the early nineties when bands we could be truly proud of (like Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and Jesus Jones) were doing well in America, have we had much to crow about across the pond. That all changed recently when XL Recordings’ Vampire Weekend hit Billboard’s pinnacle placing for albums; the first time a UK indie has achieved this in 19 years. Strangely, last time it was Paula Abdul on the then independent Virgin Records, who was shagging a cat at the time, as her video ‘Opposites Attract’ attested.

TOP-10 UK ARTIST ALBUMS GLOBALLY 2009 Pos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Artist / Title / Label Susan Boyle / I Dreamed A Dream / Syco U2 / No Line On The Horizon / Vertigo Muse / The Resistance / Helium 3/Warner Bros / Robbie Williams / Reality Killed The Video Star / Virgin Depeche Mode / Sounds Of The Universe / Mute Lily Allen / It’s Not Me, It’s You / Regal Enya / The Very Best Of Enya /Warner Bros Mika / The Boy Who Knew Too Much / Casablanca/Island UK Cast Of Mamma Mia / Mamma Mia! Movie Soundtrack / Polydor Leona Lewis / Echo / Syco

Paper Trail When a glossy Melody Maker bearing Biffa Bacon look-alike Fred Durst finally disappeared from our shelves in 2000, many thought that ignominy was the last we’d see of the historical music paper. Not so, with news that IPC is planning on launching an online archive after defending the name against some Spanish interlopers hoping to make hay with the handle. IPC, which also publishes NME, says the service is almost ready to go, though there’s still some legal ish to sort out, namely paying the writers. Remember that?

Sales 6.0M 2.9M 1.4M 1.3M 1.1M 1.0M 905,000 794,000 793,000 781,000

Lucky Dog The HMV dog will not have to go scavenging or overturning bins for discarded bits of pasty like many had anticipated, largely thanks to the collapse of Woolies and Zavvi this time last year. Like-for-like sales were up 13.4 per cent over the Christmas period, though those figures weren’t startling considering the crap 2008 that most high street firms had after Lehman Bros collapsed. Its book chain Waterstone’s had a poor quarter, but with Borders going into receivership, shareholders will be toasting yet more bad fortune.

TOP TEN LIVE EVENTS CHART

Source: Amazon

Artist/Event Venue Fleetwood Mac NIA, Birmingham Fleetwood Mac Sheffield Arena Jay-Z Alexandra Palace Michael Bolton Royal Albert Hall Biffy Clyro Barrowland Glasgow Paul Potts 02 Royal Albert Hall Biffy Clyro 02 Academy Glasgow Calvin Harris 02 Academy Glasgow Seasick Steve Picture House Edinburgh Shinedown 02 Academy Glasgow

Attendance 11,692 10,277 10,250 5,760 3,800 2.009 2,301 2,500 1,500 2,056

Live Nation Live Nation Live Nation 3A Entertainment DF Concerts 3A Entertainment DF Concerts DF Concerts DF Concerts DF Concerts

Borderline Joke

Source: Music Week

Gross (£) 818,440 719,340 594,000 197,918 70,300 49,377 42,594 34,860 26,250 24,686

The Borderline, one of the few central London venues not to get smashed to smithereens by Transport For London, has recently been smashed to smithereens by its owners, in a bid to make the place more habitable for its clientele. Gig goers can expect to ride a log flume into the now re-opened venue, have drinks brought to them by a Megan Fox doppelganger and be able to crap in toilets you could eat your dinner off. The nearby Astoria used to be the place for eating meat in the toilet, but G.A.Y. had to move...

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

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The Stool Pigeon March 2010

Sports SURFER BLOOD BREAK A SWEAT IN LONDON, NOT SURE WHERE THEY’RE CATCHING A WAVE TO NEXT

SURFER BLOOD / HOXTON SQUARE BAR & KITCHEN, LONDON HAZEL SHEFFIELD By JACK MILLS Photo RACHEL LIPSITZ

just after their first ever UK show and members of Surfer Blood are loitering by the exit doors of the venue. They seem... confused. “I’ve no idea where we’re meant to be playing next,” says Brian Black, bassist and one fifth of the West Palm Beach collective. “We’re playing a few more shows around London - Koko and Manchester.” Feeling obliged, we tentatively inform the approachable, if sweatsoaked, Floridian that Manchester is absolutely nowhere near London. Sometimes live performances can reveal more about the intention of a band than their studio work. Astro Coast, Surfer Blood’s debut, is primed with sun-kissed, gain-clogged chanteys, much in keeping with touring compadres Japandroids and fellow east-coastians Cymbals Eat Guitars - the songs exist beneath membranes of bingo hall reverb. Tonight’s performance, however, is a stripped-back affair owing much to the grungy trailblazers that brought them up: Weezer, Dinosaur Jr, Pavement... Lo-fi, punch-drunk tracks such as ‘Floating Vibes’ are re-imagined as punky straight-shooters, and Thomas Fekete’s scratchy Telecaster interjections are cast against subversive moments of drone and feedback that seem to allude to directions the band may be considering for the future. It is quite something that Surfer Blood managed to sell out a venue as roomy as this for their first UK performance. Better still, the band managed to transform the night into a communal and intimate affair, none more so when paying respects to Jay Reatard with a lovingly reverent rendition of ‘Harmonix.’ Manchester, London is in for a treat.

It’s

Stars line up in Brighton to find out what time has told us about Nick Drake WAY TO BLUE: THE SONGS OF NICK DRAKE / THE DOME, BRIGHTON By BEN GRAHAM shy

and

Legendarilyintroverted, Nick Drake was also extremely ambitious, and desperately wanted his songs to be heard. It’s impossible to know what he would have made of

this all-star tribute concert, curated by Nick’s producer/manager Joe Boyd, and featuring a full orchestra led by the estimable Kate St John and Five Leaves Left bassist Danny Thompson. But then, it’s a moot point: Drake is a revered, worldfamous figure now, as much for the tragic legend of his short, obscure life as for his songwriting. And if this show is a celebration of Drake’s music, then it also seems to be attempting to lay Nick’s own unquiet ghost to rest. It’s as if, by presenting the songs in a new light, they might finally escape the suffocating shadow of their over-sensitive creator and find a life of their own. So Robyn Hitchcock brings out the sinister, edgily psychedelic side of ‘Parasite’, while each line of Vashti Bunyan’s wistful ‘Which Will’ seems delivered with a small kiss, shyly floating away into the air. Green Gartside’s unique voice is perfectly

suited to ‘Clothes Of Sand’ and ‘Fruit Tree’ and he’s only outdone by rising star Krystle Warren, whose stunning, neo-gospel take on ‘Time Has Told Me’ is the highpoint of the evening. Chris Difford’s performance of ‘Mayfair’ as “a bit of a knees-up” brings a welcome note of affectionate irreverence, but it’s Vashti’s performance of a song by Nick’s mother, Molly Drake, that’s the real revelation. ‘I Remember, You Remember’ is a sad, brittle creation that perfectly captures a sense of post-war, emotionally repressed, middle-class Englishness, straitjacketed by respectability and convention - the same quiet, mustn’tmake-a-fuss desperation that was at the root of Nick’s own songs, but which they were also constantly struggling to break free from. This violent break is finally achieved in Lisa Hannigan’s

cathartic, foot-stomping ‘Black Dog’. Accompanying herself on the harmonium, she seems to be channelling Drake via Kurt Cobain, capturing all the raw existential horror at the song’s heart, a howl of rage and pain at the dying of the light. It confirms the sense of tonight as some kind of benign exorcism, allowing Teddy Thompson and Krystle Warren to do the previously unthinkable and close the main body of the show with a funky, upbeat ‘Pink Moon’ that doesn’t make you want to burn them at the stake. “I saw Nick Drake,” Robyn Hitchcock sings, returning alone onto the darkened stage. “He was fine.” Reassured, we welcome back the whole cast for a perhaps unlikely finale of ‘Voice From The Mountain’. But it’s okay; it’s just a song now. Just words and melody, for other voices to fill. Nick Drake has left the building. And he’s fine.

RICHARD GRIP HIPSTER TIPSTER He’s always on the hunt for a steamer THE BRITS are coming and they’re 30. Over the hill or what! It’s hard to believe it was way back in ’89 when Fox and Fleetwood totally tanked it, but with Kasabian, JLS and Muse all contesting best group it looks like it could be the Brit’s finest year. Mirth! I’m the hipster tipster you can trust; I love my tunes and you’ll always find me walking with a big wad in Dalston after robbing William Hill again. Sick beats and Arsenal are my current passions, and you can be certain I know my Pistols from my Gunners, my Vengaboys from Wenger’s boys. And I definitely know my Arse from my Elbow. Right now you only need to know two words: Lady Gaga. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was the undisputed sensation of 2009 and I wouldn’t bet against her cleaning up, so reach for the Lady Marmalade and get spreading. I can’t give you odds on whether or not she’s packing a chubby, but I don’t mind telling you Easyodds will give you a decent price on Gaga sweeping all three of the categories she’s nominated in: International Breakthrough, International Female and Best International Album. It’ll be all over for her if she bags them all, but right now she is totally rad on toast. Bet 365 are offering 16/1 on Friendly Fires and Doves. FAIL! It’s surely a two-horse race between Muse and Kasabian, but most bookies will give you 8/1 on a shock JLS victory. I’ll be so shocked I’ll strike out at my granny. She’s big into JLS, the fucking deaf whore! Dizzee Rascal is a 16/1 shot for Best Album; a good price as he has a habit of confounding us all, winning awards and bagging No.1s like Pete Doherty bags up his horse. Florence is favourite to win Best Album and Breakthrough; she’s coming up just behind Lily Allen for Best Female. I expect her go home with gold in all three and establish herself as an artist who’ll be around for years to come, like The Darkness. Finally if you fancy a pair of outsiders, Mika, who is totally gay, and Bat For Lashes, who is whack(y), are both 20/1 in their respective genders, but they’re too off-kilter for the stuffy BPI. Animal Collective are baller, but they’ve less chance of winning props than Michael McIntyre doing a funny. Word.

Q & A

Archie Bronson Outfit

WITH MARK CLEVELAND DRUMMER AND CHIEF

WERE IN SEEDY AND CRACKING FORM PLAYING SONGS FROM NEW ALBUM

SONGWRITER

COCONUT ARCHIE BRONSON OUTFIT / THE LEXINGTON, LONDON Words by Luke Turner Photography by Dave Ma Archie Bronson Outfit, oh where have you been? How we’ve missed your bitter frenetic and rambunctious live shows, your aggressive grooves and pained, lyricism. Yet so many have yet to be exposed to them. boozer, Signed by Domino boss Laurence Bell after he saw them play in his local of likes the with in slotted quite never that concern cult a the band have long been was frothing label-mates Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys, over whom a world in 2006. when these three gents from Bath released their last album Derdang Derdang fitted with Despite what was essentially a fractious take on the blues, they hardly one of those Domino’s American roster either, and were certainly a leading example of were from they if massive be “They’d said, be might it British groups about whom across the pond.” , that’s Where have Archie Bronson Outfit been? They’ve been at the outfitters track ‘You where, accessorising for a far-from-tentative return. They open with new standing Have A Right To A Mountain Life’, regular collaborator Luke Garwood stage, the of side other the On pipes. his through mantra stage right as he blows a - Kristian behind a rack of keys and wires, is the crucial new addition to the core trio heavy, and Robinson, best known as electronic musician Capitol K. The song’s heady, guitar deeply impressive. Gurgling and peculiar synths and the kind of mucky serve to peddled by Archie Bronson are not natural bedfellows, yet Robinson’s sounds laid down by add colour and shape to the increasingly Kosmische-influenced rhythms the central three members. a captain Sam Windett hollers and wails, looking and sounding, as usual, like to grief on a who’s lost his mind on the poop deck of his East Indiaman as it heads and Mark lee shore during a tropical cyclone in 1786. Dorian Hobday (bass) in nautical similarly are r) songwrite chief scowl, ed Cleveland (drums, impassion treacherous appearance. Together, they seem a hardy crew who only sail to the most by being waters in search of the richest haul, and make up for their salted lost hours Outfit: their the hardest carousers in port. That’s the thing about Archie Bronson abandon, embrace has always been strikingly male, their breath tinged with whiskey woman’s a at hurt for e vengeanc with dealt often have yet while Cleveland’s lyrics hand, they’ve never been boorish or blokey. set This is doubly so on new album Coconut, from which the majority of tonight’s of ation amalgam ng bewilderi a it’s live is taken. Heavy, dirgy and propulsive, played in the room psychedelic disco blues that, frankly, terrifies the living shit out of those the doubters, who were expecting something more traditionally rock’n’roll. More fool is about for the horse that’s been waiting quietly and patiently in the Domino stable forth. to come galloping

MARK, WHAT KEPT YOU? “We’ve been getting married, having kids. Only Sam isn’t married, but he’s as good as. Dorian and I are. It’s all changed since the last time we did a record. We’re settling down... sounds horrendous, doesn’t it?”

HAS YOUR LYRICAL SUBJECT MATTER CHANGED TO REFLECT THAT? “I remember! I remember you asking me once whether I hate women...”

NOT IN A MISOGYNISTIC WAY, BUT YOU SAID YOU HAD A LOT OF DEMONS TO EXORCISE ON PREVIOUS RECORDS THAT CAME FROM A CERTAIN RELATIONSHIP. IS THAT DIFFERENT NOW? “Definitely, yeah. I mean there’s a song called ‘Harness Bliss’. It’s a different time. I guess the way I’ve been writing the songs - and this sounds awfully pretentious - is that I’ve been letting them come out on the typewriter. I write tonnes and tonnes and come back and edit, and that process goes on and on. I think they’re abstract, but of course they’re not. They’re simple, but have layers of meaning. They’re always really personal... that’s what I’m getting at. I think we’re in such a different place from the last one.”

THERE’S CLEARLY A MASSIVE MUSICAL PROGRESSION FROM DERDANG DERDANG. WHAT SHAPED THAT? WHO DID YOU RECORD WITH? “In the States, we had a couple of sessions with Tim Goldsworthy from DFA, which had taken it to a really clean place. There’s only one track that was untouched by our dirty rock hands and that was ‘Chunk’. I think he brought in some really interesting sounds - shoving things in our faces and playing our songs through new instruments and pedals - but a lot of it came back and we panicked, and put loads of guitars on it.”

I’VE ALWAYS SEEN YOU AS BEING A DANCE GROUP, THOUGH. DID GOLDSWORTHY TAKE IT TOO FAR THAT WAY? “I love the dance stuff, but I think Sam’s more terrified of that he’s more into the filth. I don’t think Tim was really approaching it like a dance record, but he wanted to work with a live band, so it was meant to be a meeting of worlds. My favourite song is ‘Shark’s Tooth’, which is probably the most dancey song on there, but he didn’t take it too far in a dance way.”

HOW DID YOU MEET KRISTIAN? “He works at the studio where we were going to do overdubs and

we got on really well. We were worried about how the album was going to sound live, so we got him involved. In rehearsal, it’s great - it’s like having a new headmaster who’s joined three naughty boys. We’ve got someone saying, ‘What are you doing? There’s no bass in that part!’ and we feel like we’re 16. He’s amazing.”

YOU’VE ALWAYS WORKED WITH OTHER PEOPLE. IS IT LIKE THERE’S THE CORE OF THREE WITH A FLEXIBLE EXTREMITY? “I think that happens quite naturally. Getting Luke [Garwood] in was because he’s a friend. I think Kristian feels different because he’s the first outsider, or somebody who we’ve only met very recently.”

LOOKING AROUND AT THE GIG, SOME PEOPLE LOOKED RATHER SHOCKED BY HOW THE NEW MATERIAL WAS SOUNDING. “Really? I never have an idea of how people are going to respond. We were more panicking about playing. You’ve heard the record, right?”

IT TAKES A WHILE TO GET. I MEAN, IT’S ACE, BUT IT TAKES A WHILE - IN A GOOD WAY. “I know what you mean, I can totally relate to that. I must have listened to it thousands of times as we were doing different things to it. It is odd to have those really loud guitars and really dead drums - filthy guitars and disco drums - and with the drones as well... What’s going on?! People don’t expect garage rock to be like that.”

IT SOUNDS LIKE ARCHIE BRONSON, BUT THERE’S A PROGRESSION. AND GARAGE ROCK? I’VE NEVER SEEN THAT ABOUT YOU, EVEN THOUGH YOU GET DESCRIBED AS SUCH. “I’m glad you’re saying it’s different. I was feeling it to be a lot different, but people have said, ‘Oh, it’s just like you.’ And I’m really pleased that people in the live show were perturbed, because it proves that we’ve moved along a bit. To get pigeonholed is really boring.”

FINALLY, WHY IS THE ALBUM CALLED COCONUT? “Just because I wanted something that sounded a bit absurd. We definitely wanted to embrace the Tropicália bit, and there was a play called Mango which I thought was an amazing title. Also, and this sounds really corny, but it has been a hard nut to crack. There you fucking go.”

TROPICAL THUNDER

Sports

The Stool Pigeon March 2010

YOU’RE AFRAID OF EACH OTHER BECAUSE Y O U WA N T T O S C R E W E A C H O T H E R Lawrence Arabia delivers some home truths to the Hoxtonites Words by Izzy Molina Photo by Dave Ma

L T UKE

JOURNALIST

Issue Twenty MARCH,2010

URNER

LONDON

Five

TYPESETTER M.GIBBONS.

AWRENCE ARABIA’S NEW ALBUM, CHANT DARLING - A WRY AND HIGHLY MELODIC MIX OF CLASSIC SONGWRITING AND SIXTIES POP - SOUNDS LIKE A HIT RECORD. ESSENTIALLY IT’S

A live concert by...

RAMMSTEIN AT

WEMBLEY

ARENA

On Thursday February 4 , 2010 It was an explosive performance by Germans at Wembley, quite literally.

FEUER

FREI A Review of Proceedings

If you’re en route to watch Rammstein, that most cruelly misunderstood of Teutonic troupes, there’s a certain amusing irony to walking up Wembley Way and passing ‘England 2018 World Cup’ bid posters that invoke the “spirit of 1966”. Yes, Rammstein are behemoth heavy and sing in their native tongue, but who’s to argue with a group who deploy flame-throwers and a generous helping of pyrotechnics in support of their sturm und drang? After blow-torching his way onto a stage that resembles a Fritz Lang nightmare, buff singer Till Lindemann commands forth ‘Rammlied’. It is, rarely for this cavernous venue, thunder-loud. He shouts “RAMMSTEIN!” and pyrotechnic blasts mark time with each syllable. It continues like this for the next 90 minutes. Explosions? You can feel the heat from the fireballs that engulf the stage a hundred-odd metres away. Intra-band violence? Lindemann throws emaciated keyboard player Christian ‘Flake’ Lorenz into an iron bath, rises into the air on a pole, and pours fireworks onto him. A massive KABOOOM!, and then Lorenz rises from the bath in a glittery suit. He spends the rest of the gig playing keyboards while marching on a treadmill. Crowd abuse? During ‘Benzin’, Lindemann sprays a ‘stage invader’ with flaming petrol from a vintage pump; in ‘Pussy’ he rides a phallic pink cannon along the pit, ejaculating foam over the front rows. All very well but all, perhaps, so Cirque du Soleil? Ha! Never misunderstand this band. The theatrics are entirely complementary to both the music (an alloy of techno, industrial, and pure metal) and Rammstein’s fascination with technology, modernity, sex, and concepts of nationalism. They make Muse, who seem to have a tedious residency at the stadium across the way, look and sound like a village hall drama society. Rammstein live is, simply, one of the best gigs you will ever see. “I can’t get laid in Germany...” sings Lindemann on ‘Pussy’. Not to worry tonight, in London, he and his formidable troupe have 20,000 sturdy English hearts in abject surrender at their feet.

about getting laid and stoned (not together), and although it did very well in his native New Zealand last year and came out in January here to mostly great reviews, it doesn’t feel like people are really going bananas for it. Not yet. The nice guys never win and there’s definitely something about the persona of the man in those songs that seems destined to do okay, but never fantastically. “Britain seems to be terminally self-loathing,” he told this paper last issue, “which I think is quite an admirable characteristic, really.” That’s really funny. Lawrence Arabia, James Milne, is supporting Field Music in what amounts to his first UK show with the new material. Exasperatingly, for a man who dressed as a sea captain for his recent press pics and cut a video for ‘The Beautiful Young Crew’ that’s a superbly executed (and hilarious) spoof of a seventies

political party TV ad, he looks like a geography teacher tonight. He seems edgy, too, and relaxes only as he nails a barbershop quintet opening with his band. It’s as thrilling as when Hayden from Wild Beasts once belted out an a cappella falsetto in the same room, just as that band were beginning to get noticed. Now we’re onto the big pop song from Chant Darling, ‘Apple Pie Bed’, and it’s crisp and as awkwardly dirty

as the (also very brilliant) video he made for that. Next, James can’t resist telling the beautiful young crew assembled in the Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen that the following tune is about them. He used to live round these parts, and this is what he thought of his neighbours: “They love each other / But they hate each other / They’re afraid of each other / Because they want to screw each other.” Self-effacing, witty and now with two albums’ worth of songs that bristle with character, Lawrence Arabia deserves far more attention in the UK, where his personality fits so well. He didn’t steal the show from Field Music tonight, but he had their fans’ attention, and you know how staunch that lot can be.

SCOUSE MAN GETS IT SPOT ON WHEN HE YELLS ‘SHITE’ AT LONDON’S CHEW LIPS CHEW LIPS/BALLOONS / KOROVA, LIVERPOOL SPOONBOY pick of tonight’s support acts are Balloons, who prove that rich reserves of strangeness are to be found in the Mersey underground. A double-keyboard attack of crusty bleeps rides on a bucking prog rock chassis; lead singer BBC1 yelping like a deranged bingo caller. Pass the absinthe, matron. By now the UK really should have produced an electro diva worth her salt; we can surely do better than the whining La Roux. The latest contender for the crown is Tigs from Chew Lips. Endorsed by Steve Lamacq after just eight gigs, the London trio appeared at the Electric Proms last October and have just released their debut album Unicorn. They open with the trip-hoppy atmospherics of ‘Eight’, but continue with a string of numbers that pump and pound rather predictably. Opinion in the crowd seems divided there are disco dollies crammed down the front with phones aloft, while a Scouser bawls “SHITE!” at every opportunity. At the back of the stage, Tigs’s bandmates try to make pressing buttons look exiting, like the hyperactive nerds in Hot Chip. These electro types always namecheck Sparks and Kraftwerk, but none of them have the guts to stand completely still. ‘Too Much Talking’ has a certain epic grandeur to it, and Tigs can sing, but there is nothing essential about this act. Still waiting for a truly transcendent electro-diva? Chew lips. Twiddle thumbs. Scratch arse. And wait for the next new pretender to come along.

The

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March 2010 The Stool Pigeon TATTOO’S COMPANY

GIRLS UNINTERRUPTED Females far more deadly than Male Bonding VIVIAN GIRLS, MALE BONDING / TRINITY MUSIC HALL, LONDON Words

JACK MILLS

In deepest Dalston there are many half-houses and abyss-like garages used as makeshift venues, but the Trinity Music Hall - a community centre-comepensioners’ keep-fit space - must be among the least befitting. After manhandling my way through the labyrinth-like entrance, I expected to open the door to a room divided by gender and full of pre-pubescent shoe-gazers. But somehow the bric-a-brac aesthetic fit in perfectly with the musical themes of the night. London’s Male Bonding offered a spiky take on the retro American sound à la Rites of Spring, but it was completely drowned in reverb. The hall didn’t do them any favours in helping to dissipate very straightforward melodies - shattering their focus and hurling them down Kingsland Road in a maelstrom of bullish disarray. When the Vivian Girls came on, my ears were pulsing claret, my shins caved in by 12-year-old moshers three sheets to the wind on SmartPrice Tennents. Happy days... shit. Fortunately, the Vivs were in grave-robbingly good spirit, and sounded like a suitably dressed down, fuzzed-up version of The Applicators. ‘The End’ was a wall of canvas-messing fun, sped up and spewed out with piss-take panache. The highlight came midway when the lasses convened for a hymnal, a cappella take on The Chantels’ ‘He’s Gone’. For all the layers of drone, the cover proved just how melodically aware, and tight, the band actually are. Not afraid to strip things down, they had the crowd stomping to the awkward signature in unison... Clapping is just so Cliff Richard’s impromptu ‘Devil Woman’ slaying at Wimbledon ’96. Though visible cracks manifested as drummer Ali Koehler told the crowd to ‘cool it’ just half a dozen songs in - two critically acclaimed albums in two years and a whirlwind tour of Asia, Europe and North America, anyone? - the troupe seemed incredibly humbled by all the attention, and their smiles seemed genuine. By the time ‘Tell The World’ raised its gargantuan head, zealous followers had convulsed into a squirming mass of sweat and mud as lead guitarist Cassie Ramone continued to melt captivatingly into her mic. How they can churn out such immersive depictions of lovelorn fuzz anthems night after night is anyone’s guess, but it’s certainly a pleasure to see a band fulfilling their potential.

It turns out the Hudmo live experience sounds a lot like Hudmo records being played very loud indeed with an MC on top, which is a good thing. His trademark skittering drums – think Timbaland’s drum machine broken down on Buckfast - come across as devastatingly heavy and crisp, with drops bigger than the Grand Canyon, combined with rudely imposing bass and pretty, cut up melodies. Highlights include ‘Gluetooth’, whose stuttering breakdowns and enchanting R&B vocal gain an epic power from the powerful Fabric soundsystem and ‘Twistclip Loop’, which sounds like malfunctioning electro. Aside from an excursion into muddy ambience mid-way through the set, it’s not a very subtle mix, maybe - albeit incredibly well produced - but the hammering beats send the crowd into a pogoing crowd-surfing mess, the likes of which Fabric rarely sees. The only downside is the absence of a full ‘Joy Fantastic’, surely one of the best pop tracks of last year. Following that was never going to be easy, but the night pads out with a sparkling line-up of DJ talent that demonstrates why everyone is having such a difficult time defining what is going on with the murky 140 BPM world of UK bass. If forced at knifepoint, you could call Joy Orbison, Untold and 2562 - all playing tonight dubstep. But that is a slightly crude definition for three operators who are a world away from the boring wub wub bass merchants like Caspa and Rusko. And their range shows: 2562 plays a set of deep - if occasionally rather dull - Chicago house and Photographer Owen Richards Detroit techno, while Untold belies his Jonatton Ginger ninja bassist, Kickball Katy Yeah? haircut with a set of dubbed out oddity, full of twists, turns, squelches and bass. It’s probably one of the strangest sets I’ve ever First among these is Joy Orbison, who has seen a crowd properly bug out to but it succeeds sneaked onto many a tip list on the back of one thanks to an open-minded track selection of brilliant single, the ravey synth fest ‘Hyph Mngo’. impeccable taste, much like the night itself. early DJ set is a housey, dubsteppy delight Hudmo, Joy Orbison and pals His packed with plenty of meandering synth lines much like his own productions, a point he hammers home split open Fabric by dropping ‘Mngo’ to a rapturous response. HUDSON MOHAWKE & CO. / FABRIC, LONDON That tune may have become something of an anthem for a new set of clubbers who like their Words BEN CARDEW beats decidedly odd, stuttering and bass-y – a point The Big Pink slip twixt It’s early January and so bitterly cold that people underlined by several DJs playing it tonight - but as cup and lip in Paris. are queuing for canned goods like back in follow-up ‘The Shrew Would Have Cushioned The Communist Russia. And yet Fabric is so busy you Blow’ proves, he’s far more than a one-tune outfit. THE BIG PINK / NOUVEAU CASINO, PARIS would think it was the Copacabana beach and Sadly, Hudmo cohort Rustie has had to cancel Words AL DENNEY Barry Manilow was giving out sun tan lotion. tonight due to asthma - although he leaves a very The reason? A live gig from Warp wunderkind polite note on the door excusing his absence - which The venue crackles, but not with atmosphere. Hudson Mohawke, backed by a choice selection of means a reshuffling of the pack and an early start It’s the sound of a hundred plastic cup rims being 140 BPM manglers. for Hudson. chewed in embarrassment, and mine is one of them. For here we stand, confronted by a man who looks like the actor Kevin Eldon dressed as a gay biker from the eighties, hollering at an NO NEW MESSAGES audience which doesn’t know where to look that he “really loves breaking your heart”. We hear cups, Robbie Furze hears hearts - such is the hubristic folly of The Big Pink, if this lacklustre performance is anything to go by. The track in question is the band’s Top-30 single ‘Dominos’ - a noisy, nouveau-baggy ode to sexual wanderlust - and it’s by no means the nadir of tonight’s show. That would be an interminable cover of Beyoncé’s ‘Sweet Dreams’ which, in aiming at narcotic and ending up narcoleptic, commits the perennial indie-bloke sin of supposing you’re doing the world a favour by holding a pop song aloft as ‘dark’. How did we end up here? The answers aren’t difficult to pinpoint. The London outfit, comprised at their core of well-connected duo Furze and keyboardist Milo Cordell, were hyped to the rafters well in advance of their lumpen 4AD debut A Brief History Of Love, only to somehow escape a consensual backlash and emerge, if not exactly triumphant, then at least with credibility intact. Pitched awkwardly between would-be anthemics and nerve-shredding noise, we’d at least hoped that the live arena would see them inject some life into either department. For the first 20 minutes or so, the group’s splicing of live and digital rhythms meshes nicely, and they at least manage to serve up serious lashings of obnoxious noise. ‘Velvet’ sounds suitably big and splashy, even if it does suspiciously resemble Atomic Kitten’s ‘Whole Again’. But even the volume comes with one big caveat - namely, that the band doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to communicate anything in particular, other than a Photographer Kelly Burian A Glaswegian kiss for London from the Hudmo. patent lack of charm.

HAIR RAISING

FALLING DOMINOS

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The Stool Pigeon March 2010

Inside 1

Sheik your booty to

New wavers

Good hair day

LAWRENCE ARABIA

SURFER BLOOD

HUDSON MOHAWKE

Crossword 7

ACROSS

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1 5 6 8 9 11 16 17 18 19 20

1 2 3 4 5 7 10 12 13 14 15

The light of Laura Veirs's summer (4, 5) The Dignity of ______, 1979 Human League single (6) David, founder of The Byrds (6) What the Stone Roses wanted to be (6) High-pitched UK dubstep producer (6) Morrison or White (6) Mark, genius behind Talk Talk (6) What Natasha Khan bats for (6) Wyatt, hit Rock Bottom after Soft Machine (6) Dazzlingly bright Jesus and Mary Chain song from Automatic (6) Released Emperor Tomato Ketchup in 1996 (9

Crossword No.XIII compiled by Ed Mugford 20

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Nichols, released Strange Faith and Practice last year (3, 3) ______ Than Bombs, Smiths compilation (6) Bambaataa, hip-hop pioneer (6) Christian Patti Smith album? (6) Recently deceased Flowered Up frontman (4, 5) Shunda K and Jwl B's group (2, 7) Mr ___, Boston rapper on Definitive Jux records (3) Eric Clapton had none of these on his Journeyman album (6) Panda, UK indie label (6) The Placid ______, laid back Super Furries song (6) ______ Rock, angelic Smashing Pumpkins single (6)