Beef Warehouse return @ Daft Drunk at the Lexington 26th June
Written by: admin
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
Written by: Dene Mullen
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.
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’.
Coldplay in ‘Doing promo shocker’
Written by: admin
I am hearing an awful lot about the death of the guitar band. Well that isn’t true is it. Razorlight and Keane might not be able to chart a single higher then a 100, but maybe they never deserved to. Decent guitar bands like Metallica get number 1 albums without too much of a bother.
This brings us to Chris(t) Martin and his merry gang. Who are usually above such things as getting down and dirty with a live session are doing one tomorrow. For some reason I didn’t realise Absolute Radio was the new name for Virgin, I thought it was some independent thing like Resonance FM.
Anyway tune in tomorrow to decide for sure that you do fancy Richard Hammond watch Big Brother and like Coldplay.
Or you could just listen to Death Magnetic again, just putting it out there.
Live: Manu Chao @ Kentish Town Forum - 16 December
Written by: David Harrison
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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ALBUM: DeadMau5 - ‘At Play’
Written by: Shokrates The Finger
Dance music hasn’t always agreed with everyone at Music Towers. To this day, I still believe that whenever I go clubbing it fucks with my bodyclock.
I wake up the next day with a hangover as fierce as a pride of pissed-off lions, even if all I drank was Red Bull and over=priced bottled water. I get constipated for days. There is a residual throb that’s in my sinuses that that feels like someone’s going at my nostrils with an industrial milking machine, set to “udder buster” level.
But At Play by DeadMau5 makes me want to feel like I’ve gone through my personal clubland assault course. Listening to it makes me long for a mouth that doesn’t stop feeling dry even after 3 litres of water, for eyes that feel like we’re rubbing them with sandpaper every time we blink. It makes me want to stay up for four days straight, so stuffed full of cheap pills that we make a noise like a pack of tic-tacs when we walk down the street.
Listening to ‘Hey Baby’ is like having your best mate’s boyfriend whisper dirty talk in your ear when she’s in the same room as you. It borders on the pornographic, and no matter how much it gets your juices flowing, there’s something wrong about it. Whether it’s a case of “so-wrong-it’s-right”, or “plain downright wrong”, is something I can’t make up my mind on.
Watch DeadMAu5 perform live at the O2 Wireless Festival from this summer:
Then there’s the flat-pack instructo-techno of ‘This Is The Hook’. Oddly charming, it manages to keep the right side of toe-tappingly addictive without being overpowered by its vocal schtick - a disembodied Stephen Hawking-voice dissecting the various parts of a dance track.
The rest of the the record is chewy with house basslines and nightclub sleaze. Normally we’d find the juvenile lines of a track like ‘Afterhours’ (sample line: “Throw me down on the bar / should we do it in the car?” Urgh) too laughable for us to really mesh with DeadMau5‘ album, but it’s party season and common sense has deserted us. We just want something vivid and full of vigour to distract us from the prospect of having to spend a few days in the company of our closest relatives, and At Play does that and more. Pass the disco biscuits and get over here.
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LIVE: ATP: Nightmare Before Christmas
Written by: David Harrison
When All Tomorrow’s Parties started this Christmas Festival, everyone said they were mad: “It’s Christmas time, do people want to go festivaling, what with the financial pressure, the weather, the location? Who wants to go to Minehead at this time of year?”
Well, we do! ATP choose unique artists to curate their festivals, picking their choices for the festival line-up. This weekend is being curated by the Melvins and Mike Patton, and so features a heavy dose of bands on Ipecac, the label owned and run by Mike Patton (of which the Melvins are on). And it’s not just the music that’s getting curated: the chalets everyone stays in have two channels of programmed TV specially picked by the festival organizers and the curators. Everyone I spoke to seem to catch Spider Baby, a very weird black and white film about a family of 60’s hotties gone totally psycho. The soundtrack was delivered wonderfully by Fantomas. Being back-to-back with Rosemary’s Baby, it had me bouncing about in the crowd of bearded men that seems to gather for ATP.
The road to Minehead and the surrounding area actually really gorgeous. For all Mike Patton’s jibes throughtout the festival, the north coast of Devon along the A39 is idyllic. If you ignore the fast food chains and endless slot machines, the Butlins where the festival is based is quite fancy. It has quite beautifully kept flora and forna, the buildings are all kept nice, it’s right on the beach, and although the weather is icy cold, it’s still sunny and all the gigs and bars are inside anyway.
King Buzzo, aka Buzz Osbourne, mainman of the Melvins, wins the award for most amount of times playing this weekend- 3 Melvin’s performances, 2 Fantomas‘ and a Porn (the band, rather then a carnal show) performance, plus a few Astoria shows before and after. His white ‘fro allows the lighting guys to get a chance to perfect the art of lighting his hair.
Isis deliver the 25 minutes of sound that induce both awe and love for them, before the third song reminds you of that there’s a bit too much of a formula going on: enter melody, enter storming riff, and enter a in-need-of-a-Lemsip voice, and one wanders off in search of a beer.
The Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio delivered a quadraphonic version of a Stockhausen’s avante garde music piece, KONTAKTE, of which out of the seeming improvised (but wasn’t by any means) plinks and plonks the Gong solo was by far my favourite bit. While it was very odd, with lots of chinstroking was in order, it was so good that Mike Patton himself rushed up to congratulate the performers when then finished.
Farmers Market delivered a blindingly complicated folk set, although we were spoilt on the Saturday night when the 10-piece Roma Gypsy band, Taraf De Haidouks, took to the stage. They were making a rare appearance on these shores, and they are so fast and so, so brilliant. What was unusual was instead of the usual Barbican-type audience, they had glowstick-welding circle-pit loonies. The crowd worked the band up into such a frenzy they took the show outside for ten minutes before the security moved them on.
The usually-alternative Melvins came across almost normal, in that they had songs with choruses and beginnings and ends. They seemed positively mainstream poised against the experimentation littered about the rest of the bill. Even with bass player, Jared Warren, taking his wig off and spending a good 15 minutes wandering about the audience, in some sort of tongue talking preacherman mode.
One of the best things about ATP festivals is that the partying never really ends; you only get a break when you can’t hack it anymore. I heard tales, from people holding their heads in shame, of a few bands playing a chalet with a full PA and drumkit, another shindig kicking off with a dry-ice machine. I, however, woke up at 5am, watching Star Trek and facing a cold journey back to London.
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Gear: Korg Kaoss Pad KP3
Written by: David Harrison
Having got the Mini-KP pinched at Glastonbury was an excuse to head up to Kilburn and have a nose at around that DJ kit shop there. The Pioneer EFX 500 was my aim, priced at about £300. But Korg’s Kaos Pad KP3 has just been reduced to £230 - not only is it a bit more flexible, but it has some sampling tools too.
Out of the box, the Koas Pad KP3 is pretty easy, with sending and receiving a breeze through the mixing desk, and - Eureka! - 100-odd extra finger-controlled effects, available in glorious flashing red lights. The first change from the Mini KP is the power of the thing. The Mini KP always required a bunch of compensation on the channel you were mixing to equalise the levels. The KP3 is powered, over-powered if you want it to be, so if anything you’ll need to make sure that you aren’t going to blow away your last track in a spate of finger-powered enthusiasm.
The effects on the Mini KP and KP3 are pretty much the same: Sweeps, Flangers, are both fun sometimes. I find a little to much of the pad is ’swept’ quiet so these take a bit of getting used to. The EQ that appears on the KP3 is totally weird, and is very good at taking out the ranges - it’s too odd to be that useful. Delay is good for making some simple guitar sounds good. Matt Bellamy of Muse has one of these embedded in his guitar for that vert reason.
By far the effect that I most use are the Distortions. The perfect tool for my Lionel Richie/Slayer mix, everyone is reeling from, a one timed electric-storms is perfect for hiding what is lurking round the corner. In fact I love the Distortion so much, I used it to carry an entire set last weekend.
One small bugbear is that when selecting an effect, its default mode is off until the pad is pressed. Without the pad being pressed there is no sound. It needs an idiot-check, otherwise a simple distraction can become a disaster, as you miss your hundredth press down on the hold button.
By directing a track through it, you can sample about 30 seconds using the KP3’s Sampel tools. It’s then possible to take out slices of the section, and remix the track on the fly. This is very easy to use, and is all saved on the standard SD memory Stick.
However, I would of liked the KP3 on start up to remember the last loaded samples and tools, as loading up the KP3 can be a bit fiddly. I have found my workflow disturbed, and have to make a little book of notes to remind me what all my settings were. The actual sampling buttons are a little deep and are not as responsive as an MPC, so can be easy to mis-hit. I’ve been using it to layer up guitar riffs, and the extra millimetre of button seems to get in my way.
The machine has a microphone jack, so you can sing straight into and effect your voice a bit like Mike Patton, and of course it has the obligatory MIDI in and out.
In total, the sharpening of the sampling tools, and maybe some odder FX like pitch or robot, are welcome additions, as it does OD on sweeps and flanges. I wouldn’t mind it doing a couple of things less, but also a little better - either lose the sample function and have a few hundred more effects, or lose all the synth sounds and sharpen up the sampling.
The nearer to £200 you can get it, the closer it is to an utter bargain. And to be honest, the Mini KP isn’t that much of a difference and at half the price it is a total bargain.
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LIVE: Airbourne & Stone Gods @ London Astoria - 28 November
Written by: David Harrison
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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ALBUM: The John Henrys - ‘Sweet As The Grain’
Written by: Hugh Platt
Country Music frightens me. You know that scene in Terminator 2 where he walks into the bar, beats that guy up, melts his face on the kitchen hob and nicks his threads? Country music was playing in the background. Not to mention every brain-scarring psycho moment in Deliverance - remember the kid with the banjo? Exactly. Country music is the twangy veneer on nasty things.
Except The John Henrys don’t play up to my self-created stereotype. At all. The Canadian five-piece have about as much darkness to them as an over-enthusiastic children’s TV presenter, locked in Dr Smile’s House of Happy Pills.
The John Henrys play ‘Thought Yourself Lucky’ live:
Their 60’s shake-shuffle and hazy blues might not be enough for me to get over my fear and prejudice of all things country, but in amongst all that twanging I hear an album that smells like the first whiff of a fresh whiskey bottle, rather than the glum final dregs. The John Henrys are Good Time Boys, not Good Ol’ Boys, and foo to you if you can’t enjoy a bit of that.
‘Sweet As The Grain’ came out today on True North Records. For more info, check out their official website and their MySpace page.
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EP: Kono Michi & The Stone Ghost Collective - ‘The Grey Eulogy EP’
Written by: Hugh Platt
I love Christmas. Society takes a step back from all the bollocks it preaches for the rest of the year (Don’t Drink So Much. Don’t Eat So Much. Stop Snogging Random Strangers You Meet In the Pub. Be Miserable. Be Quiet.) and instead everyone acts like they should (Drinking Too Much. Eating Too Much. Enjoying Mistletoe Too Much. Having Fun. Singing Songs). Big Coats! Mulled wine! Presents! The slim hope of snow! Dr Who Xmas Specials! And the record industry slowly grinding to a halt as everyone starts chucking up Best Ofs and re-releases for the Christmas rush. Meaning we get to spend more time with our feet up, listening to the records we think we like, rather than those we think we ought to cover. Yes, Christmas is a good thing.
Another reason to celebrate this Winter (well, if you live in The North, that is), is because Kono Michi and The Stone Ghost Collective are embarking on a mini-tour to promote their new collaborative release, The Grey Eulogy EP. Four tracks book-ended by covers of ‘The Look Of Love’ and ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’, it’s at once both wintry and warming. With both acts solid staples of Shark Batter Records, their covers were never going to be straightforward. ‘The Look Of Love’ slips from a whispering murmur to the edge of ghostly nervousness, as opposed to the retching sweetness of the Bacharach original. ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ pairs an unexpected outback twang with Kono Michi’s violin, and the addition of Brendan McAndrew of The Stone Ghost Collective on vocals - sounding like a young Tom Waits if he existed solely on a diet of honey and lemon - suprises us by finding a new spin to put on a song we thought well and truly spun out.
Kono Michi & The Stone Ghost Collective hang out and practice in France and Switzerland:
It’s with the two original tracks that the EP crackles and pops though. The title-track, described by the band as a “death-bed ballad”, mixes maudlin lyricism with a warmly uplifting melody, mulling over its sense of mortality. It feels right that we’re listening to it now, during the onset of Winter, with the song feeling delicately crisp, rather than glum and grey.
‘War Correspondence’ reminds us a bit of long-forgotten LA-electrolocists, Snake River Conspiracy¸ only without that boring obsession with making bad covers of The Smiths. Combining a killer chorus of “You lie on your back / it’s a mortar attack”, it manages to be robotic without having to sound like a cheap automated sex-product (Goldfrapp: take note). It’s addictive like an arcade game that you can’t stop pumping pound coins in till you’ve blown your bus fare home. A genuine contender for Track of the Year.
‘The Grey Eulogy EP’ by Kono Michi and The Stone Ghost Collective is out now on Shark Batter Records. They’re on a micro-tour of the north of the UK from tomorrow - get yourself here to see if there’s a date near you.
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Live: The Sea @ The Dublin Castle - 21 November
Written by: David Harrison
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.
Live: Kenan Bell @ Hoxton Bar & Grill - 19 November
Written by: Hugh Platt
I know fuck all about hip hop. Okay, so I’ve got a few albums lying about here and there from acts both American and British, but I’d be a big fat lying fucker if I pretended they weren’t tokenistic inclusions in my record collection. There’s some Task Force nestling up against some Phi Life Cypher, but it’s got an inch of dust on it. It’s just stuff to play at parties when you want to mug off the responsibility of DJ’ing to go drink’n'flirt with the hot girls in the kitchen.
I’m might know jack shit about hip hop, but I know when I’m having a good time. And on Wednesday night at the Hoxton Bar & Grill, that’s exactly what Kenan Bell made me have. It’s hard to enjoy anything at the Hoxton Bar & Grill. It has the stupidest name of any venue ever. It has the worst bar staff and bar prices in London, a city famed for it’s shittiness of both. It’s always too hot inside, the venue always feels too empty as the ceiling is far too high, and the tiny stage that’s too high up never does anyone any favours.
It certainly doesn’t Kenan Bell and his band any at first once they take to. Intermittently pleading and berating the crowd for not gathering at the foot of the stage, and about how in debt this tour has made them, the Californian and his cohorts seems somewhat indifferent of the fact that London is crunching to a recession-frozen halt. We’re all broke these days, chaps, and moaning about how hard done by you feel will hardly engender you to a be-credit-crunched crowd.
Watch Kenan Bell and his giant sunglasses playing performing ‘Enjoy’:
They’re saved by a gradually swelling crowd, and the fact that there’s talent in his songs, rather than the sub-standard self-aggrandisement I expect from hip hop. Tracks like ‘Save Your Life’, ‘Good Day’ and ‘Enjoy’ manage to be engaging without being unbearably “positive”. You know what I mean - those positive-thinking positive-message types who seem to see the stage as theit platform to preach from, rather than to entertain from. Kenan Bell sidesteps this with hooks that still feel like they’re tugging on my ears when I’m on the tube ride home.
Seeing as the biggest impact the UK urban scene has had on me recently is that they had to abandon their own awards ceremony descended into a mass brawl, it’s a little sad that I’ve had to look across the Atlantic to find something that’s made me want to investigate hip hop again. But if it means exposure to more acts like Kenan Bell, well, I’m all for it.
For more info on Kenan Bell, go check out his Official Website. Alternatively, go check out his MySpace page.
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Single: Selfish C**t - ‘England Made Me II’
Written by: David Harrison
Selfish C**t never had a name for radio. It was always such an abrasive name that I found it was difficult to them seriously, dismissing them as a bunch of attention-seeking skinny-jeans types.
But ‘England Made Me II’, their latest single, is just too bloody good. First up (thank God), it isn’t a cover of the Black Box Recorder song. Instead it kicks off with a US-style preacher vocal that doesn’t reconcile with the title at all, but then the car-crash smash of guitars kick in and send you flying into the nearest ditch.
Calling on the ghost of McClusky, 80’s Matchbox, The Cramps, Sex Pistols and all things that are fucking great in low-fi rock n roll, Selfish C**t have made a bastard brilliant record. It might just be one riff all the way through, but who gives a toss? It’s better then that 700 billion dollar Chinese Democracy record, and probably only took about ten minutes to record as to boot.
Splendid - carry on.
‘England Made Me II’ by Selfish Cunt is ount on December 1st on Sparrow’s Tear Records. For more info, go check out the band’s MySpace page.
REVIEWED: Chinese Democracy
Written by: Hugh Platt
Is there any dance move, stage gesture or physical act of defiance, more rock’n’roll, than the pelvic thrust? You can keep your devil horn throwing, your crowd surfing, your stage diving, your head banging, your mosh pit’ing – the pelvic thrust sums up everything about rock’n’roll. The ill-restrained sexual desire. The disregard for what others may think. The fact that if anyone other than a rockstar attempts it anywhere but on a stage in front of an audience, it looks totally fucking stupid.
If records were dance moves, then Chinese Democracy would be a pelvic thrust. If anyone other than Axl Rose had made this album, it would sound totally fucking stupid. Despite holding the lion’s share of ex-GnR members, there’s no way Velvet Revolver could’ve made this album. It’s over-wrought, over-the-top, over-budget and completely, unequivocally, a Guns record.
There’s no point in even trying to review this objectively. Notwithstanding that this is possibly the most mystery-shrouded record release in the last twenty years, notwithstanding the fact that this review will make fuck-all difference in altering your decision whether to buy it or not, and notwithstanding the fact that this review is a result of a single playback in a record company boardroom, it’s impossible to listen to Axl Rose’s new baby without the dull ache of regret in the pit of your guts. For all the acres of talent used in it’s creation – the liner notes for this record go into exasperating detail – and the years spent making it, the crushing realisation hits you that this is just a capable album, not an exceptional one.
You’ll have already heard the title-track by now – opening the album, it feels more portentous than it did as a stand-alone track. Those Elton John urges he squirted out indiscriminately with ‘November Rain’ – well, they’re back with ‘Street Of Dreams’, only nowhere near as grandoise. The rumoured dalliances with industrial metal chug? See ‘Shackler’s Revenge’. “Don’t ever try to tell me how much you care for me / Don’t ever try to tell me how much you’re meant for me,” Axl sneers at us. Oh, if only you knew, Axl, if only you knew.
‘Better’, which is being lined up as a potential second single, has a pumping chorus, but its refrains of “Now I know you better / You know I know better” never quite get under your skin the way you desperately, fervently hope they will. As a fan you want this record to succeed, but as a fan you can’t really deny that it fails.
‘I.R.S’, played live at Rock AM Ring, 2006:
There’s one, huge, elephant-in-the-room problem with Chinese Democracy – bangers. Or rather, the lack thereof - the title-track is the fieriest bombast the album can manage. Oh, there are acres of solos, from the Bill & Ted excess of the guitar wanking in ‘Street Of Dreams’, to the big, stabby mentalism of the one that ‘Riad N’ The Bedouins’ indulges, but none of them have the soul-fucking, spine-ripping, raw gonzo genius of classic Guns. A few tracks like ‘Scrapped’ might come close to the cocksure riff attitude of old, but they can’t hide the fact that there’s not one true anthem of the ages here. No ‘Paradise City’. No ‘You Should Be Mine’. And certainly no ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’.
If anything, Chinese Democracy goes to show that without Slash, Duff and Izzy to keep a stern rock’n’roll eye on him, there’s no-one to curtail Axl’s wanton musical excesses. The hired help just smile and do what they’re told, whereas the classic Guns would take their frontman’s wild ideas and give them that juiced-up wild-eye’d rock finish, and make them into the solid-gold genius that those early GnR records had in abundance.
When legends die young, they become cannonised as they’ll never tarnish their legacy with ever-decreasing returns. When Chinese Democracy was the joke of the industry – the album that would never come – then the legacy of GnR was unimpeachable. Now? Guns N’ Roses were one legend we wish had stayed dead.
‘Chinese Democracy’ is out on November 24.
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Subliminal Girls - ‘Self Obsession is an Art Form’
Written by: Hugh Platt
There’s something thoroughly irksome about Subliminal Girls. Their last single, ‘Burn KOKO’, was a shoulders-back, lip-curled sneer at London indie-culture. It simultaneously managed to pompously deride music fans who weren’t “hardcore” indie, and similarly turn their nose up at very elitist scenesterism, as if the band couild somehow transcend the entire spectrum and comment upon it from a big white high horse, perched atop the local peak of moral high ground.
They’ve continued to maximise how objectionable they are with their latest single, ‘Self Obsession is an Art Form’. The vocals have an airy lilt of Pete Doherty to them, with lyrics more ruggishly literal than the guffish poetry of The Nation’s Favourite Junkie®. That doesn’t stop there from being something gratingly self-satisfied about these three minutes of post-pub sentimentalist beige.
The first B-side, ‘Posh Girls Names’, almost, almost makes up for it, with an Art Brut-ish twinge, a babbling stream of consciousness underneath an almost Eddie Argos anti-pop delivery. Which just makes it even more of a shame that the second extra track, ‘Electronic Hearts’, continues their prior hypocritical rants against hipster culture, rolling their music-eyes at “Clichéd bands and pointless art”.
Subliminal Girls play ‘Small Town Girl’ & ‘Self Obsession is an Art Form’, live at Selfridges:
Maybe it’s me that’s missing something? Maybe this is a joke that I just don’t get? Maybe it’s a big ironic statement that I haven’t been able to see an edge of in order to get a handle on the whole thing? Maybe I’ve had too many cups of coffee and I’m seeing masked contempt when there is none?
Oh, wait - the band have got a vinyl boxset version of this release out for £1200, because they’ve got Brit artist, Stuart Semple, to design the various gubbins that goes with the tunes (click here for the full deal). That’s not at all pretentious, is it? To use a phrase like “so far up their own arse they can’t see daylight” in conjunction with Subliminal Girls wouldn’t be too harsh, would it?
‘Self Obsession is an Artform’ is out on PopArt London on November 17. For more info, go check out Subliminal Girls’ official website.
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Tah Mac - ‘Time Of My Life’
Written by: Shokrates The Finger
3 Things We Like About This Single From Tah Mac
1. The excessive amount of woo, whuh, yeah, ha, hey, and other superfluous extra vocals callbacks that litter ‘The Time Of My Life’. Listening to a single by Tah Mac is like having a conversation with someone you don’t know very well who is so uncomfortable in your presence he has to keep saying anything that comes into his head to avoid uncomfortable silences.
2. The random bursts of lyrical genius. The use of rhetorical questions! “Feels good, don’t it?” You don’t get enough of that in hiphop. “Every day’s like a Friday?” Which means I can eat a Crunchy Bar every bloody day of the week without feeling guilty.
3. The fact that everyone in the video (check it below) couldn’t be any less enthusiastic, except Mr Tah Mac himself. I’m guessing they didn’t exactly have too many auditions for those dancing girls, eh? Anyway, it makes for a much more entertaining video than your usual generic hophop vid:
3 Things We Hate About This Single From Tah Mac
1. It is only ever acceptable to have a remix as your only b-side if a) it is by The Chemical Brothers or Soulwax or someone like that, or b) you’re a faceless dance act and no-one really cares. But in this reviewer’s opinion, hiphop b-sides should be bombastic party songs, or unfunny comedy skits. Not bloody remixes.
2. Something about it sounds like the music at the start of an episode of CSI: Miami. You know – the bit just before they discover the body, and we’re treated to some ridiculous party montage of bikini models lounging about and frolicking in a swimming pool while gangster-types cut shady deals in the background. At least Tah Mac didn’t draft David Caruso in for guest vocal duties.
3. His name – I know hip hop stars love homophonic names, but Tah Mac? Naming yourself after the stuff they put on roads? That’s just…well….silly?
‘Time Of My Life’ is out on November 17 on Tah MC Entertainment.
Review: Guns N’ Roses - ‘Chinese Democracy’
Written by: David Harrison
The hundred years and 700 billion dollars it took to bring this single out, unfortunately means that unless The Axl Rose Project (I can’t bring myself to call them GnR) instigates a Bill & Teds Bogus Journey type epiphany for the human race, it’s going to fall flat. So I suppose I better attempt a pithy review?
Chinese Democracy has a one minute intro that sounds like Axl has taken some cues from Tool. Well, that is until a two chord wonder kicks in and the track becomes an X-Factor segway. A heavily fx’d Axl starts complaining about things, says the word ‘masturbation’, and then it’s over with an explosion at the end. Then my iTunes starts playing Guttermouth, and suddenly modern American punk sounds more fun then it did five minutes ago.
P.S: Rumour update has the Axl Rose Project touring in 2009 and Slash getting back on board and making up Guns N Roses in 2010. Yeah, right.
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