Hippy f**ks don’t care about your stocks, rent out your house buy a tent and join in.
Written by: David Harrison
In the last couple of weeks almost everyone one we know has/is about to launch something. Last year live music overtook recorded music for the first time and in a celebration of defiance against bankers/manufacturing/housing crisis let us share with you the wonders of our friends new projects in this years live calendar. If you can go along and support them, in return they will support you.
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The first man of France has just launched his 2009 Worldwide Festival and revealing his first artists that have been confirmed. This year’s Worldwide Festival down in Sete taking place between 2nd and 5th July. Laurent Garnier live feat ScanX + live band, Gilles Peterson, Diplo, Soil & Pimp Sessions Live, Todd Terje, Mocky live, Stereotyp’s Ku Bo Project, Sebastien Schuller live, LeFtO, The BPM. Many more are expected to join the party in the next few weeks. The full line-up will be announced towards the end of March.
www.worldwidefestival.com
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Sonisphere Festival has just announced a balls to the gravel lineup of heavy metal: Metallica, NIN, Mastodon, The Sword, Anthrax. Taking place throughout July and August in Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Spain and putting the Knebworth’s first proper camping festival into the UK. What has this got to do with the price of fish? They have me doing the print artwork and words click here to have a look.
www.sonispherefestival.com
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The better half has got involved with a Norwegian festival which is continuing the theme of lets-not-fuck-around by just adding Slipknot to the lineup. What ‘trend’ predictor said that 2009 was about poppy sassy electro acts??? I ask you.
www.hovefestival.com
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Music Towers mate Gwen has launched the Europavox Festival, we got involved with these cats a few years back. They are bringing music and people from every country in Europe to explore each others contemporary sounds and possibly sexual preferences. It takes place in a lovely little town called Claremont Ferrand at the End of May with Bloc Party, I’m From Barcelona, Vitalic.
www.europavox.com
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Another buddie Marie is currently running the London Word Festival its second year of embracing the beauty of the word. With live performances from Phil Jupitus, Robin Ince, Bishi and yours truly - I will be doing doing a live version of my I Should Draw More blog this coming Sunday at the Vibe bar. Come and tell me what to draw!
www.londonwordfestival.com
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Also Beef Warehouse are currently scouring the slums of India for the countries finest tent maker as we are working on a new tent for festivals. Think of a festival within in a festival 2 parts fun, 1 part market. The working title is Beefy Melons Vintage Temple of Love and Gratitude. The idea to spread well being and love through festivals and encourage you to do good things, like dance with your dick out.
www.beefwarehouse.net
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Last but by no means least. Leon and his robin-hood-like merry gang have just put the finishing touches to their webmagazine all about festivals. They have gone for the all encompassing online fancy mag thing. I was asked to write an article about working for festivals and how to blag… Now that would be giving away secrets wouldn’t it? Read it here.
My Festival Feeling
Review: What happened last Friday 13th
Written by: David Harrison
I am four pints and in, and Todd are delivering great Melvinseque riff laden performance which ranty screamy lyrics from an out of control fella that gets down off the stage and joins the audience. Breaking the fourth wall of a gig he is throwing his preppy frame into the audience. People move back and i find myself at the front. He hurls himself about at the crowd, attempting to bring people down his long microphone lead caught underfoot. About three metres from me a bundle of people are on the floor. Reports say there is broken glasses and people being hit by microphones. He bashes really hard into me and being a big fella that is used to the mosh I stay upright.
It seems like that isn’t enough for our Singer of Todd who is actively attacking the audience. I don’t know what happens next but I wake up in the dressing room with him apologising to me profusely. According to the Drowned in Sound message boards It seems in the melee he had clothes-lined me and then in turned jumped down like the missing scene from the Wrestler, this either knocked me out or concussed me so I can’t remember it.
I wake in the dressing room I can’t see shit, did he brain me properly? My arm hurts like hell, everyone is fussing. A short guy in glasses is having a go at me for making a fuss and I demand he make me a roll up. Looking over at my arm I realise that.
A) My nice new expensive glasses have had a lens knocked out
b) My arm is hanging horribly wrong.
Assuming it wrongly it must be dislocated I call up the infamous Dr Tom. ‘Dr Tom, I think my arm is dislocated what should I do’. I enrol the whining short guy to my home-made surgery
‘You ready this is going to hurt’ Dr Tom says through the phone.
‘Get your helper to pull the arm down as far as it will go, then out and in theory it should pop back in’
Yank, scream, ouch, it flops back down in the same place, with only an increased pain.
‘Any other tips’ I ask Dr Tom on the end of the phone
‘Call an ambulance’
In the background Todd are still playing albeit without the Lead Singer who is getting increasingly agitated by the damage he has created. I tell him to go out on stage and don’t worry about me… ‘Finish the Set’ I demand, he refuses.
‘ I feel sick’ Todd’s singer says, whether it is because he is drunk or upset by the big hairy sasquatch screaming in pain that he caused. I am finding looking through one clean lens terribly difficult I shut my right eye.
‘Give me a roll up’ I demand somewhat unfairly from the short guy through my one eye.
Short guy gives me a roll up and Todd’s singer pukes over the side of the chair. The band carry on playing to an Audience that is slightly relieved that the speaker stack didn’t fall on their head.
At this point the manager of the venue and some security pile in the door. Put out those cigarettes… Oh yeah this 2009 smoking is forbid in venues. We put them out and I ask them to send somebody to look for my glasses lens and they ask whether I will need an ambulance, which they kindly order. They comment on the glass covered floor, It seems Todd’s Singer caused an awful lot of smashed pints as well, and almost knocked over a speaker stack.
Todd’s singer stops puking.
The big burly security guard sits me outside, and the preppy Todd character sits down and starts talking to me. I say this would be a perfect time for an interview, so start asking him questions about how why what and when, none of which the answers I can remember but took my mind off my limp and painful arm, he talks about himself a bit. I remember why I am rubbish interviewer, I couldn’t ever care less about what an artist has to say about their outlook on life. I just often like their guitar licks.
A hero barman turns up with my glasses lens and I enrol some random blonde lady that is passing by to pop them back in. Sitting in the back of the Ambulance alone, I realised it was Friday 13th. The ambulance driver continues to go along the idea of that my arm is dislocated, so queue another 20 minutes of trying to pop back in the unpoppable. Lordy this hurts, but what can you do but laugh, it helps to be on laughing gas at the time.
A month on and it is Friday 13th again. I am about to leave the house, enrolled into a boys night out to to go see The Watchman. It is weeks on and I am anything but laughing, Todd’s lead Singer has caused a lot of pain for his little show and I haven’t heard site nor hair of him or the band. People tell me I should pay attention to those TV ads that say ‘Had an Accident that wasn’t your fault’.
That same week a friend got hit by a HGV and I was in too much pain to make the trip to her funeral, I have since had a pretty invasive operation, been tanked up on morphine codine for weeks. Sometimes I wake feeling the skin around my 15 skin staples tightening in, feels like 15 little blades slicing me up. It is bloody weeks of torture, now afraid of infection I am on antibiotics combined with the painkillers. Suppose I have lost weight, I know there are a lot worse injuries and death out there and I count myself lucky, I really do. But can’t help wonder why I have been given this daily burden for a bands live performance.
Bangkok Rock: Jumpin’ Johnny Flash
Written by: Dene Mullen
The condensation runs down my bottle of beer, soaking the mat below. Despite the tricks that my eyes and ears are playing on me, my mind is still lucid enough to reassure me that I am not in the late 80s, watching a proponent of perhaps the most ridiculed musical ‘movement’ of all time.
No, it’s 2009 and I’m sat in the upstairs room of a huge pub in balmy Bangkok, along with about 10 other people, witnessing one of the most unbelievable performances of my life.
Anyone who has been to Thailand’s capital will tell you that, no matter how noble your intentions upon arrival – sticking solely to cultural wonders such as the Royal Palace and the magnificent reclining Buddha – eventually it will get you. And we’re not talking about an attack of Bangkok Belly after sampling the delights of the innumerable street vendors here either. No, what will lure you in, against your better judgement, is the infamous Khao San Road.
At times it resembles a particularly gratuitous street scene from one of those god-awful ‘documentaries’ that were so popular in the late 90s, sporting titles like ‘Mad Reps Get Fucked in Faliraki’. Yet at the same time, it has an unabashed sleaze and slight sense of danger, making it strangely thrilling to behold. While the natural warmth and exuberance of the locals only adds to the allure of the place.
After ignoring the advances of yet another helpful tuk-tuk driver who enquires whether I’d be interested in seeing a ‘ping-pong show, boss?’ (complete with finger-flicking-out-of-inner-cheek ‘pop’ sound) I continue my march toward a pub called ‘The Place’ which promises ‘Rock Show Tonight!’ on a billboard outside. Perching on a ludicrously high stool, I order a couple of Chang beers and try my best to get comfortable in time for the show. What greets me is beyond my wildest imagination.
There are four male members of the band I later find out are called Roadkill, and a female vocalist who totters onto the stage occasionally to provide harmonies. They are all Thai and the lead singer is perhaps the most outrageous human being I’ve ever seen.
Lunchtime on the Khao San Road:
His hair akin to the infamous Colombian footballer, Carlos Valderrama, and a personal stylist who seemingly has Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet DVD on a constant loop. I would also estimate he weighs roughly nine stone. When he addresses the audience, his English is pretty much perfect but has a strange pseudo-American twang to it. He says his name is ‘Johnny Flash’ and I barely stifle a laugh as the opening chords crash out of the sound system. Immediately, he is off; bouncing around like an ADHD-sufferer on the pop for the very first time.
In sharp contrast to the madman with the mic, Roadkill’s bassist is the kind of man who makes you feel relaxed just by looking at him. Baring an uncanny resemblance to Chief Bromden, the huge native-American in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, his hunched frame hardly moves with the music but his nimble fretwork is what drives the music here.
Similar to Red Hot Chili Peppers in that respect, there is also something of the Kiedis in Flash’s rockstar moves. They are all clichéd beyond belief: the attempted aerial splits, the mic stand pushdown, even something resembling a Jagger strut but when he actually sings, his shoulders become scrunched up around his neck and he holds the mic with both hands.
They perform songs with names and lyrics so outrageous they almost transcend into genius, their self-titled paean to a lover who “wore me out, like roadkill” being a particular highlight. In amongst the senseless rock there are one or two softer moments, although they are as contrived as Aerosmith’s Armageddon theme tune, with lines like “I’ll run through the night, to hold you tight”.
It is clear this is Flash’s band and he is, obviously, meant to be the main event. Songcraft thrown unashamedly out of the window - along with taste - it is nevertheless hard not to feel something approaching admiration for a man who performs like he is headlining Glastonbury when he is, in fact, commanding the attention of five northern lads with ‘comedy’ nicknames on the back of their t-shirts, a couple more interested in getting to know the insides of each other’s mouths than watching the band, and two twentysomething blokes who had tans months before they even arrived in Thailand and are both the proud cultivators of those half-spiky, half-swipy haircuts so popular in the nightclubs of Essex.
Our man takes on Khao San Road after dark:
Aside from this beguiling cross-section of humanity there’s just me, and four bar staff. Not exactly Wembley Stadium. Yet this doesn’t stop Johnny Flash from expending roughly enough energy to power a small country for a week or so.
With ten songs down, Flash’s knife-on-glass screeches are punctuating a chorus which consists solely of the words “come and get me”. He begins swirling like a particularly lightweight helicopter before falling theatrically to the ground just as his drummer pulls up one stroke shy of demolishing one of his toms.
As someone who has spent far too much of his time watching jumped-up little pricks strut around tiny stages in London, dripping with cocksure attitude despite playing to a similarly small audience, Johnny Flash is somewhat refreshing. Unlike the school-night rock-flops of London town, this is clearly a guy who acts like he does because it comes naturally, not because he thinks it is what’s expected of him. His appeal is certainly kitsch in its most lavishly affected form, but Flash is intensely likable. I’m not advocating a return to the dark days of hair metal, but as I drain the last drops of beer from the bottle and leap to the floor from my stool, I can’t help but wonder whether the London scenesters would benefit from toning down the swagger and turning up the ‘flash’.
Interview: From laundromat to Morrissey
Written by: Sarah Holt
Los Angeles is a strange place. One minute you’re washing your smalls at the Laundromat, an hour later you’re interviewing Morrissey.
Local radio station Indie 103.1FM announced that the former Smiths icon was holding a rare TV conference ahead of his residency at the Hollywood Palladium.
A chance for Music Towers to infiltrate?
So, I sped down Sunset Boulevard; charmed the doorman, courtesy of my finest Leicester accent, and next thing I knew it was my turn to quiz Morrissey.
Morrissey had returned to Los Angeles for an unprecedented 10-day residency at the Hollywood Palladium. He would be the last artist to play there before the venue closes for much-needed renovations.
Dressed in a crisp, navy suit and Morrissey t-shirt, the man himself, backed by his band, showcased five songs – Let Me Kiss You, Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before, and new compositions All You Need is Me, That’s How People Grow Old and One Day Goodbye Will be Farewell.
The trademark poise, exaggerated swishes and arched eyebrows were all in place, so was he still enjoying touring? Because, um, sometimes Mr Morrissey it’s hard to tell with you.
“Deliriously happy,” Morrissey dead-pans back.
“I don’t ever call this, being on stage, performing. To me it’s quite natural.
“Performance is fake and it’s difficult for me to think of this as a show. Off stage, maybe that’s when I’m performing.”
Hmmmm. Not an easy one this.
Morrissey, now in the midst of a 177-leg tour, left LA to relocate to Rome last year, but the city still holds him in its thrall and vice versa.
At his opening show that evening, the audience scream at the intro of every song – maybe even before the first bar of The Smiths’ Death of A Disco Dancer.
They chant his name and there are gifts too, a handmade manga comic, and flowers, of course.
What is it about Los Angeles that raises a smile from the Pope of Mope?
“I still love it here,” says Morrissey. “It’s crazy, it’s insane but other aspects are more (pause) gratifying.
“I find it visually beautiful, I like the brightness and it’s glamorous. That’s what I needed.
“I thought I would last a year here but then the years flipped by.
“I’ve stayed in Italy for a long time but everything I possess is still in this city.”
In a world away from the dark Manchester streets of the 1980s that spawned The Smiths, Morrissey and his music are idolised by LA’s huge Latino community.
At his show, they out-numbered us aging indie kids by 10-1 – at least. Just so as you know, a film on the subject, Is It Really So Strange, explores the bridge that Mozzer has unwittingly provided across two cultures, brilliantly.
On the subject of his fervent LA fanbase Morrissey coyly says: “Well I’ve heard they love me, but I don’t jump to conclusions.
“But I can’t answer why I have such a big Latino following here. They like singers who are impassioned, they like crooners.
“I’m outside the mainstream, and the mainstream never let me in. When you write and create it’s important to be yourself and that’s what I always try to do.”
Time is up, and with that, he gives me another scrutinizing stare with his blue eyes, turns on the heels of his Italian shoes and whisks away into the sunshine of Sunset Boulevard.
http://www.myspace.com/morrissey
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