Beef Warehouse return @ Daft Drunk at the Lexington 26th June
Beef Warehouse used to run a regular packed out themed clubnight called ‘It’s All About…’ at North London’s Boogaloo until April 2008 when the less hairy one got barred for quarreling. They wanted to start a new night but got sidetracked with appearances at ATP, Latitude, Glastonbury and Leeds whilst narrowly avoiding arrest for indecent exposure at a family village fete in the Cotswolds.
They’ve since played festivals in New York, fashion shows in Barcelona and car races in Los Angeles – but there’s no place like home and, having broken his collarbone at the The Lexington earlier this year following a mosh pit malfunction, the hairier one decided there was a no better home for a new Beef Warehouse monthly meet, which they’ve just baptised as ‘Daft Drunk’.
Arm yourself for an intoxicated Friday night mix of jumpy jumpy electro, inappropriate rock and some really bent showtunes.
Beef Warehouse presents Daft Drunk
at The Lexington (formerly Clockwork),?96 - 98 Pentonville Road?N1 9JB
Friday 26th June 11pm until 4am
Free
Live: Bob Dylan @ The Camden Roundhouse, 26 April 2009
Maths was never my strongest point, but I’ve been doing some arithmetic lately. Bob Dylan began his recording career 47 years ago, in 1962, and since then he has released 33 studio albums. According to my calculations, this gives him 363 songs to choose from when playing live. And that is not counting the huge cannon of B-sides and other rarities that have spewed forth from one of rock’s greatest minds in the intervening years.
With this in mind, it was unreasonable for anyone except the most steadfast Dylanophile to expect to be familiar with every song performed at the Roundhouse on Sunday night. It’s fair to say some of the numbers he offered, such as ‘Po Boy’, ‘Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum’ and ‘Million Miles’, while decent songs, would not get the nod on many fans’ ultimate Dylan playlist.
As an artist who has performed thousands of shows over the years, it would also be easy to believe Dylan was simply going through the motions. This wasn’t the case though; he seemed to be enjoying himself, with the occasional harmonica flourish or impromptu organ wig-out matching the flair of his choice of headwear: a brilliant white boater. That familiar, thin-lipped semi-smile even snaked across his ripened features sporadically throughout the evening.
Unfortunately, that the Roundhouse’s intimate nature afforded me the opportunity to get close enough to one of music’s true legends to observe such minutiae was one of the highlights initially. Now firmly in his twilight years, David Bowie’s description of Dylan having “a voice like sand and glue” has never been more accurate. In fact, it’s more like cement laced with rocks. While this adds a certain gravitas to his latter-day positioning as an ultra-grizzled classic rock star, it also makes for a frustrating live experience.
This is nothing new for Dylan veterans; his style of delivery has veered closer to a throaty spoken word for a number of years now, yet it does make it difficult for the more casual Dylan fan to decipher lyrics, sometimes even songs. Indeed, it was not until he was almost halfway through ‘Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat’, one of my favourite tracks from Blonde on Blonde, that I realised what it was.
It was also apparent on a laboured and disappointing version of ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ and ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’, which had been twisted and turned in every possible direction, leaving it almost unrecognisable.
With ten of his 18-song set coming from his last three albums, it was something of a surprise that he didn’t venture a single track from his newest release, Together Through Life. His recent creative upturn has coincided with Dylan returning to the music of his own youth, namely blues and pre-pop, and this blueprint was followed admirably by his band, all dressed from head to toe in black.
The man himself made no concession to pleasantries, positioning himself behind a keyboard for practically the entire evening and providing not even the merest hint of between song chitchat for his nonetheless captivated audience to hang on.
With 90 minutes down, a selection of songs either too new to register genuine delight or too mangled by Dylan’s voice and arrangements had passed. Then it happened. The jaunty organ intro took flight and immediately the mood inside The Roundhouse transformed. Solemn faces melted into smiles and regimented foot tapping became, in some cases, arms swayed aloft. The magic of ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ engulfed us all and didn’t release us from its gorgeous, familiar embrace for almost five minutes.
It was one of the most inclusive concert experiences of my life. Genuine delight, almost tangible, swarmed this small pocket of Camden. That He followed it up in the encore with All Along The Watchtower only added to the glee, Dylan was God once again.
All of a sudden it all seemed worthwhile and the realisation that just one song could do this to an audience summed up the Bob Dylan live experience. We make this pilgrimage with the hope we will witness something spectacular, something unexpected, something classic. Experienced Dylan watchers know we are often disappointed and he certainly alienated the casual fan a number of years ago. It is also a great shame not to be able to decipher some of the greatest lyrics ever written but the aura is still there. Almost 400 songs and half a century later, witnessing Bob Dylan play live, particularly at such close quarters, remains one of music’s quintessential experiences.
Bangkok Rock: Jumpin’ Johnny Flash
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’.
The Music Towers 2008 Almanac: Better Late Than Never
Well, here it is - the Music Towers 2008 Almanac. It was a crazy-ass year and no mistake. We appreciate we’re late with this one, so we’re gonna keep it brief.
It’s been a terrible year for most of the Music Industry. Well, the ‘industry’ half of things at any rate. Distributors have closed down, there’s virtually nowhere on the high street to buy records from anymore, and everyone is wringing their hands and being depressed. But this is supposed to be us looking back on the GOOD stuff - the ‘Music’ half of that Music Industry equation. Let’s get to it.
By far the best discovery of 2008 has been Turbowolf. It’s to my eternal shame that I haven’t written more about them - since stumbling onto them quite by accident at Stag & Dagger, I’ve seen them a half-dozen times (each time = AMAZING) and even got them to sit still long enough for us to film a long-lost video interview with them, but for a variety of stupid reasons this has never made it into print. The Bristol four-piece make the kind of electronic punk-rock party music that makes your head swim and your balls drop.
Anyway, fuck the self-recrimination, all you need to know is that Turbowolf are the best goddamn band you never saw in 2008. They’re hitting SxSW and Canadian Music Week later in the year, so even you guys on the other side of the Atlantic will get a chance to catch these Bristol mentalists. Get involved!
There’s been plenty of other rock’n'roll highlights - anyone who came to any of the Beef Warehouse parties knows what I’m talking about. The year ended with a highlight with our Christmas shindig, but Leeds Festival, once again, was the Party Of The Year. Not only did we get to spend the day watching Cancer Bats, Rage Against The Machine and getting our heads sewn up from the time some C**T gashed our head open during Queens Of The Stone Age (check our review of the weekend here) but we then got to party all night on a giant £40K soundsystem. It didn’t matter than the rain had reduced the site to one giant mud-bath, we had ‘em dancing till dawn every bloody night/day. Check out our review here: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.
There were some great albums too - I’m sure you’ve had your fill of Top 10’s by this stage, and don’t need to be told AGAIN how good certain records are. You might’ve missed them but ‘American Demo’ by The Indelicates and ‘This Gift’ by Sons And Daughters. The record that was on the stereo the most though was ‘Hail Destroyer’ by Cancer Bats, and I never even got round to reviewing that one. Ho hum.
Gig-wise, those cheeky Cancer Bats made our year with a sweatbox performance at the Kingston Peel. Close rivals were The Bronx at KCLSU, KISS at Download Festival, and, again, the mighty Turbowolf at pretty much every show we saw them at.
See? I managed to get through this without mentioning Guns ‘N Roses once. Oh. Go and listen to Turbowolf and I guaran-damn-tee you’ll start to feel better again.
Live: Manu Chao @ Kentish Town Forum - 16 December
The Forum is packed full of people denying the Winter outside. The Latin vibe, mixed with the inter-rail generation is filling Kentish Town to its very brim. Music Towers struggles our way to the front, with people getting pretty stroppy till we get to all the funsters at the front.
Manu Chao these days is actually Radio Bemba Manu Chao’s Touring Band, and has been for the last few years. With gentle-giant Gambeat on bass, every time the the kick drum starts the crowd bouncing his thumping bass lines fuel the frenzy.
The storming guitar player, Madjid Fahem, curls his tongue like he should be in KISS. His ripspeed guitarism is better then anything those NY punks ever did though, with a flaming SG and his body twisting and turning in time with the music. When he switches to an acoustic, never have I seen a one-note solo been played so well, with an occasional lightspeed run.
In true British ignorance, I have no idea what any of the words are. Spanish, French Italian and Arabic mix about in pick and mix spendor. The outstretched hands in the air, from the front of The Forum, to the back, imply that hefty chunk of the audience do.
Tracks start taking a formula anthemic rally cry into reggae groove. Then a small break, fill or thumping of microphone into Manu’s chest. Then go mental as we are rocking out. Call and answer giant chants, and solo.
Watch ‘Me Llamen Calle’ bu Manu Chao:
So many elements are like a football match this evening - the layout of the band in a 4-3-1 formation, the amount of bald heads in the audience, the chanting, the crowd sweating buckets, with those call-and-answer chants reaching a frenzy.
Manu Chao himself kind of swans about, his clothing casually falling off. You can see a fair few faces lighting up as he shows off his Ladies’ Man credentials to this full house.
Last time they played a solo gig it was at Wembley Arena, and for Manu Chao and Radio Bemba this is a pretty intimate show. London has really have been missing out.
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LIVE: Airbourne & Stone Gods @ London Astoria - 28 November
London’s Astoria is on it’s last legs. It’s almost time to switch off the lights and call in the wrecking ball. I was just passing the place and found myself thinking: “Airbourne are on tonight…might be the last chance to go there…” The venue is full of proper old skool characters, the smell of denim and leather and overpriced canned lager. I even saw ‘a’ girl!
First on is Sounds and Fury, looking like every axeman Guitar Hero ever shat out. They really throw their hearts into it, but sadly nobody in the audience can bring themselves to bang their head, or even sway a little bit. They just stand there, wondering when some good music might come over the PA.
Next up on support are Stone Gods, currently sitting astride the rung of their own personal ‘can we headline yet?’ ladder. Coming across one-part Def Leppard and one-part really-chugging-and-hard-dirty-riffage, guitarist Dan Hawkins is the only person all night that doesn’t seem to pretending. He stands, slender in the corner, delivering storming string twizzling while the singer, Richie Edwards, acts like he has ‘arrived’. Hawkins is the star of the evening by miles, and he never said a word, barely looking up from behind his hair.
It’s their second night on the trot here at the Astoria, and Airbourne have almost sold out both. Are we really that deprived of AC/DC here in the UK that these jokers can get away with this? Everybody seems quite excited by the whole thing, while I look on baffled. I swear their last london gig was the Borderline, and it was just an ‘okay‘ show, with their then-support act Skirtbox seeming a more exciting prospect. A more enthusiastic hack enthuses to me that “this everything that I’m about”, while I’m just confused. Has a little brain bug taken over these people’s minds?
Airbourne’s frontman, Joel O’Keefe, screams at us for bleeding hours. No smiles, no sense of Irony, no thanks that he has upscaled from the Borderline - nope, Joel O’Keefe and his headbanging buddies seem to act like they are actually are AC/DC.
The crowd is happy, outside in the smoking corner. People accept Airbourne are a ‘AC/DC but cheaper’ ticket. Fair point, but I just can’t get any sense of fun out of it. It’s just wholesale rip-off, fronted by a long-haired James Blunt lookalike. Some say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but to me this band feel like a leech, taking every stylistic nuance, and distilling it into a cynical money-making project, aimed squarely at AC/DC fans’ wallets. It’s no surprise that the best track of the night is a cover of ‘Whole Lot Of Rosie’, to which Hawkins returns to the stage to join in.
Go on - watch it if you don’t believe me:
Airbourne might have 8 Marshall stacks on stage, but you can see only 2 of them are mic’d up. The guy screeches a fake, ear-busting banshee noise all evening, even when he talks, not once dropping the horrid stolen veneer. Airbourne are the trade description of pretentious.
pre.ten.tious
/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [pri-ten-shuhs] Show IPA Pronunciation–adjective
1. full of pretense or pretension.
2. characterized by assumption of dignity or importance.
3. making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious
4. This ruddy Airbourne band that do my head in, I still have a headache.
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VIDEO: The Gaslight Anthem - ‘Old White Lincoln’
Last month we mentioned that The Gaslight Anthem had a new single, ‘Old White Lincoln’, coming out to co-incide with their December mini-tour, but didn’t have a video for it. Well, we do now, so have a gander:
The video for ‘Old White Lincoln’ by The Gaslight Anthem:
Speaking of tours, the band are coming back in February and March for a proper jaunt around the UK, so if you miss them this week, you’ll still be able to catch them in a couple of months time if you’re as taken by their The Boss-esque rock. You want tickets? Then click here, dear readers.
December
3 - Glasgow, Garage
4 - Manchester, Academy 3
5 - London, LA2
February
2 - Portsmouth @ Wedgewood Rooms
3 - Birmingham @ Academy
4 - Manchester @ Academy 2
5 - Bristol @ Academy 2
6 - Brighton @ Concorde
8 - London @ Shepherds Bush Empire (NME Awards Show)
March
2 - Norwich @ Waterfront
3 - Nottingham @ Rock City
4 - Dublin @ The Academy
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Another Short Call Show: BISHI
So you can’t afford Manu Chao, but still want some continent-crossing modern masterpieces in the next week? Well, Bishi is playing the Camden Monarch on December 10, and it’s only £4 with a flyer.
The Monarch used to be the Moon Under Water or somesuch, but it will be home to Bishi next month as she celebrates a year that has seen her wangle her way onto Jonathon Ross, The Culture Show and Des O’Conner Tonight. Yes, DES O’CONNOR TONIGHT.
She is trying out her new material on the sssh, so pop along and have a look.
Live: The Sea @ The Dublin Castle - 21 November
In the 20 years I have known him, my mate Tom has never once said:
“So-and-so are playing the Dublin Castle - want to come along?”
“Yep, I will meet you there,” I reply, somewhat stunned.
The band in question is The Sea, playing at the Dublin Castle in Camden - and Tom loves them. Their search engine-proof moniker means I walk blind into the venue, and was pleased to see nothing but a guitar amp and drumkit on stage. The Sea are just one man bashing pigskins, and his brother twisting strings on a Rickenbacker plugged into a scuzzy vox.
We later discover that not five minutes before they are due on stage, a fellow cornered the guitarist, Peter Chisolm in the toilet. “Give me coke, skinny indie kid,” he ordered. Upon finding that this skinny indie kid had none he proceed to punch him a few times in the face.
Which is why a dazed Peter Chisholm joins his brother, Alex, on stage. “This song goes out to the man who just gave me a black eye’” he syas, and lunges into a guitar frenzy. A hard-hitting bluesathon of riff rings out, and the room fills up. A lot of miserable old blokes shuffle around at the back, and optimistic teenage girls bounce around up front - always a sign of record company interest (or a paedophile ring).
It’s only 8:30pm, and The Sea are shamelessly riffing and drum filling away. If I’m being lazy, it is quite like early White Stripes, before Meg had that breakdown, and Jack turned into a humourless git that wrote wishy washy Bond themes. They have calls of Dan Sartain, Robert Johnson, and Led Zeppelin’s ‘Moby Dick’. The set creates a warm feeling like sausage & mash might, but instead it is made up of guitar riff porn and killer drum fillers.
However, listening to their MySpace page the next day, I’m not feeling the same raw fuzzed-out feel I got from the live show. It feels all a bit indie-twee, and seems to be missing its critical edge. Someone put Albini to work on it, and the world shall see peace in our time.
For more noises from The Sea, go check out their MySpace page.
Why is it sold out already? The Ticket Con
The scenario: a show goes on sale. Even though you are all over your phones and the relevant website, all the tickets are sold out. Is it just a lottery? They can’t possibly have sold those 50,000 tickets that quick. How did it become ”sold out”, the very second tickets went on sale? I don’t understand.
And if they’ve “sold out”, how come there are loads of tickets though on those Secondary Ticketing sites such as Viagogo and Seatwave already?
Are there really that many people just buying to sell? And how come they can make everything work so fast? It is almost as if the promoters of the shows are giving large allocations directly to the Secondary Ticket sites.
Almost? Unsurprisingly a lot of them are!
Bit depressing isn’t it? In the search for new revenue streams, agents (who are acting on behalf of the artist) and promoters are giving allocations of the big live shows straight to the secondary ticketing market. If you didn’t know already, the “secondary ticketing market” is pretty much a tout market, where you auction off your tickets to the highest bidder.
Bah! What the **** is that about
The live industry has been in a boom-time for the last ten years, and this is exactly the sort of behaviour that will kill the goose that lays this particular golden egg. Remember £16 CDs? Remember the record companies burying Napster? Live shows aren’t an invincible source of cash - we might just stop buying tickets.
But seeing as the Government has bigger fish to fry, ticketing will carry on developing its own code of conduct, rather than having one imposed upon it. and it will probably be increasingly exploitative, as this looming reccession kicks in.
Whta do we think? It should be made public knoweldge exactly what allocations are going where, as at the moment there is a big silent con going on; a con that is rotting away at the core of the live scene.
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