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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
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.
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 Garnierlive 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
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.
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’sSlippery 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’sArmageddon 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’.
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.
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’sTouring 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.
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 theMelvinsand 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.
Isisdeliver 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 Triodelivered 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.
London’s Astoriais 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, RichieEdwards, 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 areAC/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.
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.
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.
What is all this about then, I see a bunch of names under the banner Mongrel: Reverend And The Makers‘ Jon McClure and Joe Moskow, Babyshambles‘ Drew McConnell, former Arctic Monkeys bassist Andy Nicholson and MC Lowkey.
A plethora of Indie minor celeb in one band, a bunch more in the audience.The PR looks second to none with a healthy mix of industry faces and random members from The Enemy and Glasvegas making up the crowd tonight.
The excellently monikored Death Ray Trebuchet open up the show, 3 Horns, a scuzzy bass and a shouty man at the back sound fresh until it dawns they are another Mr Bungle (first album only) tribute band with a dollop of late night Lost Vagueness field thrown in for good measure. Although anyone that convincingly can rip-off Mr Bungle has to be pretty compelling by association and technical ability, even if stylistically they may be throwing darts in the dark at a Mike Patton pinata.
Mongrel themselves are jumping about in the audience building up the vibe and then clamber on stage with a casual accord. We are going to be in for a randomly exciting Wednesday night out. Mongrel are a meeting of minds of black and white, rock and rap a nice human solidarity.
Mongrel’s heart is in totally the right place and in a lot of ways echo that of Crosby, Still, Nash & Young a political supergroup that come together at times of international crisis to talk about, to remind people not to get let their fears and war get the better of them. but that is where the comparison stop with a rather murderous crash.
They start hurling some piss poor lyrics at us. ‘This country is a lie, yer gonna die yer gonna die’ Thanks for that Mongrel. Not quite Ghost Town is it, I hope the album is called ‘GCSE rebellion’.
This is doing fuck all for me, look about and look for the escape route. Try to engage some people about the sheer awfulness of this act. Nobody is wanting to express an opinion seems a lot of people here work on this act looking at their next client, Emperors new clothes it would seem.
They order us to “Put your hands up if you hate racism ?” going on “If you keep your hands down it means you love racism” the MC tells us attempting to guilt trip support for his dreadful band. I feel short of options: I mean what if we hate this music, but also hate racism? Or what about Love music, hate Australians? It would seem we need a whole semophore for the range of realistic prejudices among the crowd. I point to the east with my left leg while holding a blue biro in the air indicating a dislike for budget rap and schoolyard politics.
This playtime rebellion continues and the band were very impressed with their own performance. Fortunately we didn’t realise Mongrel were doing two sets and left the building chose find something more enjoyable to do like having our fingers sliced off at one millimetre at a time like Pauly does with garlic in Goodfella’s.
Seventeen Evergreen land in London for a one-off show and talk to Beren Neale about their debut album, floppy cheese and those lazy Pavement comparisons.
Seventeen Evergreen are a San Francisco band, but their explorative music can be linked to no terrestrial region. Having fed a lifelong passion for all things unearthly, drifted around the West Coast of America when growing up and soaked in influences from their travels across Europe, the delicate, magnificent music of Caleb Pate and Nephi Evans is more akin to finding a spider’s web in the corner of a moon crater than any current trend.
Since the US release earlier this year of their debut album Life Embarrasses me on Planet Earth, the two have visited London only twice. But the band is familiar with the city, as Caleb lived here in 2001. It was during this time, after an enjoyable but fruitless search for new musicians, that he returned to San Francisco with Nephi to regroup, refocus, and “make Seventeen Evergreen a more serious proposition”.
Why the move back to San Francisco? Is there a scene that you identify with there?
Caleb: Maybe if they’ll have us. It’s a very hipster-driven, cliquey scene. There are a handful of really cool psychedelic bands, noise bands, but I’m probably more into some of the indie hip hop stuff in Oakland… A handful of bands we like: Deerhoof, The Papercuts, Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound. They’re a Comets On Fire kinda band - heavy psych, buzz stuff.
It sounds like an All Tomorrow’s Parties line-up…
C:ATP is the best festival I’ve ever seen. I went to the Tortoise one, and it was amazing – Boards of Canada, Television, Yo La Tengo, Lambchop. That was 2001, around the time I lived here.
I regret missing the one Steve Malkmus curated.
C: He should have read all the erroneous reviews that we sound like Pavement, and he would have invited us.
Just googling you guys you see…
C: Pavement 1,000 times!
I thought I’d sneak that in there, subtle like.
C: You did a good job - I normally don’t talk about it. (Journalists) can be very lazy. Like, the Pavement thing is understandable because of geography, and the way we speak possibly. But Pavement is like the older brother of everyone that plays music. We happen to come 90 minutes away from where they come from (Stockton, CA), but I think to say that our music is derived from them… I think that’s slighting.
Nephi: I don’t think that our music has been influenced by Pavement at all. They’re just another band which I like. If we’re writing ideas and I hear something that’s too similar, I’m very aware of that.
C: To a fault we’re this way. Jokingly, I tried to rip of Dexy’s Midnight Runners, cos I thought it’d be funny, and put it in this song and he (Nephi) had such an issue with it that I had to write a completely different part real quick. I’m not self-conscience in that way - he perhaps a bit more so. But, I don’t think we’re particularly good at ripping off other bands, because it’s better what we come up with.
There’s a strong otherworldly theme through the album…
C:I think that the album definitely encapsulates some of my youthful obsessions. As long as I remember I was always really interested in the moon and space travel and aliens and these sorts of things. I have so many illustrations that I did when I was a little kid drawing spaceships.
Talking about illustrations, I remember some questions I emailed you before about zines, and you mentioned something about Floppy Cheese…
C: Nephi reminded me of that actually, cos I showed it to him long after I made it. It was a zine that an old friend and I did together. Basically, really bad music reviews, fake skateboard contest coverage, photocopied vinyl dudes made by Fisher Price (?) Just a really juvenile thing.
What inspired that?
The inspiration was my uncle had written a play called Floppy Cheese, which was based on this (living) blancmange idea - very Monty Python sort of vibe. I was like 11, right. So at one point we recited it and that became the title of the zine. Actually, me and my uncle used to do some really bizarre early electroacoustic music together using reel-to-reel tape machines, glasses and water and all kinds of things. His name’s Eric Simonson. He’s a composer. Why did you ask that? I was interested why you’d ask that.
I’ve got a friend that runs this zine… It was just a shot in the dark. What other art mediums inform your music?
C: Chicks!
Chicks?
C: That’s what’s on my mind at the moment.
Any luck in London?
This time? Not as many. I’ve seen London as virtually a smorgasbord in the past. This time I haven’t really been vibing on it.
Fair enough. Going back to another answer from a previous question - about how you wanted to “give back more than you get.” What did you mean?
C: I think it’s nice to give back, to try to express yourself in a way that you think needs to be expressed. I’m not speaking about giving back to the public or listeners. I’m actually speaking about giving back to the musical canon. Because (assumes mock lofty tone) the people will be enriched eventually by us enlarging the canon… I mean, giving back to ‘the people’ is simply giving them another Strokes. That’s all they want, right? They want another Killers, Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, you name it.
N:We’ve had comments from people, like ‘I was driving home to one of your songs and…’
C: …I totalled my car listening to your record’. We have various stories: ‘I had driven home from my wife giving birth to our first kid, listening to your record.’ It’s kinda like, wow, people live to our music.
That must be satisfying, as that album was entirely your own vision, with no interference…
N:Absolutely. We did everything [on the album] ourselves.
C: We had no label interaction when we made the record. We weren’t signed to anybody. We released it ourselves first and then we found labels coming to us later. They’ll probably be interested in working with us more closely on album number two, but we’ll see if we want to take their advice. We definitely learnt a lot from making it and I think the forty or so songs we’ve written for the next record illustrates that.
End of interview.
It’s time for the guys to get ready for the gig, and Nephi leaves to catch the end of support act Kyte. After some rambling chat with Caleb about psychedelic folk-rock innovator Merrell Fankhauser, we too head over. Entering the venue, we’re both stopped in our tracks by the music being played down the corridor: ‘Bud-ids-no sac-ah-rah-fiees’ wails a disturbingly familiar voice. “Not a good Billy Joel”, says Caleb. “That’s Elton John” I politely correct him. “It’s Billie Joel!” he demands. Although not my finest hour, I assure him I’m not mistaken, as I bought the track on its release in the 90s. “It’s Elton!” he concedes with a grin, and we launch into a unique rendition: ‘Col col heart. Hrr-dun-by-yoo’. “Hey!” exclaims Caleb. “You’ve got to put this in your piece. This is your end.” And so it is.
The last album that arrived in my hands with such expectation as Death Magnetic was months ago - Justice in fact. Metallica really jumped backed into our good books a few years back when they played the entire of Master of Puppets at Download Festival, after years of being out in the corporate cold with their Napster mission and the whole St Anger debacle. Monday night at the O2 Arena, Hetfield jokes ‘Frantic’ is off the “very popular” St Anger album, to a giant groan from the audience. Hetfield laughs: “It still rocks”.
Pleased that the album arrived before the show, nothing is under five minutes and only one under six. This isn’t the The Ramones, but it’s just as fast. A few details seem to indicate this album will be great.
1. Rick Ruben (the lost member of ZZ-top) at the helm of buttons. Whom I would’ve thought cut through their rock star indecision: “Just make it like this, Ulrich, and shut up. I am taller then you have a beard and producedLicensed to Ill, Reign in Blood, Blood Sugar Sex Magic and Johnny Cash’s last record - so listen up midget”.
2. Every magazine that has had the album already has said ‘return to form’, but then every album since Master of Puppets has said that, every magazine wants the interview don’t they?
3. It has the old logo on it.
The album opens with very distinct Metallica sound - it just couldn’t be anyone else - and if it was, everyone would accuse them of sounding like Metallica. This album is so big it won’t work on your crappy computer speakers. Throw it on the Tannoy Speakers, that’s better.
The single: ‘The Day That Never Comes’. Big and anthemic, six minutes into it I’m starting to wonder how these old guys can remember the arrangement. I mean, I can’t remember the password to my computer that I change a few weeks’ back. I want listen in on the internal monitors they all wear. I bet there are arrangement prompts on it. Has to be. Of course, there there is a heavy argument that they are seasoned professionals, and they are playing the O2Arena while I’m just watching. But have you seen Some Kind of Monster? If they were that good, surely LarsUlrich would be a better drummer.
None of this denies that this album is a feat of modern metal, currently sitting at Number 1 in the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic. I feel a sense of metal-pride I haven’t felt since I found out that ‘Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter’ got to number 1 on the walk to school, a vertible feast of riffs and metal headbanging heaven. ‘The Day That Never Comes’ alone must have about 20 sections at least to it and a bunch of words too. Lets count them.
Pre-lude twiddly melody bit
Intro melody,
Intro melody with drums.
Intro melody with first verse
Same melody but rock with stabs - and vocals getting all gruff.
Queen-y twiddly bit
Same melody but solo featurette
Intro melody with second first
Melody has gone all rock - guess this is a chorus, these stabs are cool.
Queen-y twiddly bit
Queen-y twiddly bit 5 more times slightly differently
Intro into Outro
Ooh this bit sounds like Orion.
Ohh this bit sounds like Orion with singing, ‘Love is a four letter word’
Key Change ‘I suffer this no longer’
Lots of sliding to get out of this bit and into
Queeny twiddly bit x 2 into
Fast like ‘Battery’ go apeshit bit
Iron Maiden double guitar solo/riffing
Slow slides
Double guitar riffs, this time not iron maiden.
More double guitar solo runs
Some new riff quite low on the neck.
Fast chugga chugga bit, with a more traditional solo quite shreddy quite long.
Slow slides with some chugga interludes
Slides faster.Go twiddle it is an outro.
26 sections, and I am pretty sure I missed out one or three. The whole album is like this. A masterpiece of arrangement, and we wouldn’t expect anything less from the lost the Great Beard Rubin. It is enough to gives previous incarnations of attention-deficit rock like System of a Down and Mr Bungle a valium and a nice sit down for a minute.
I get the impression from the instrumental ‘Suicide & Redemtion’ that Metallica have been listen to other bands other then themselves this time round. Not because it sounds like anybody, but it just sounds a bit different from them. Maybe they paid attention to The Sword and Mastodon on recent support slots. Actually scratch that… this track fucking rocks because it sounds like the heavy bit in The A-Team theme.
Unfortunately, this instrumental rock opus, that dispenses with trying to put meaningless lyrics sprinkled over the top, was skipped from the O2 show. We were told to expect something ‘different’ and in turn was expecting the whole album of Death Magnetic. Fortunately we escaped another rendition of ‘Sad But True’ or ‘Enter Sandman’. Instead slightly more off the well beaten track like ‘The Thing That Should Not Be’ and ‘Of Wolf and Man’.
The gig feels intimate, even though it has about 15,000 people here, as the band are playing in the middle of the room on a platform, surrounded by mic’s and the drumkit moves ninety degree’s every few songs. As Hetfield says - there is so much front row. The show has no pyro, and barely any lights. It is stripped down and rawer, like a proper race car. No hotdog stalls or support acts to distract us from the ‘tallica.
The O2 sort of has a feeling of going to a gig in Brent Cross, and in turn everyone behaved like they were shopping with their mum. Having a few enjoyable drinks, comparing tickets, we wasted the afternoon away getting the feel for some metal youth revival. Elsewhere in the east of London Metallica had a more enjoyable day and went down to watch the Lehman’s bank redudantees crying clutching boxes of staplers, wondering why they didn’t set up that smelly candle company.
Not that it matters: we headbang away blissfully, ignoring the fact we are not 16 and this is really going to hurt tomorrow morning.
Lets take stock of the 5 days in that Beavis’ guys field this week:
Found
Some new friends
One orange torch
One big smelly but well fitting coat
A Tent (there were a few available)
Someone called Shuan gave me £60 to buy/steal my megaphone then buggered off without it.
Someone gave me £50 for helping them up on stage
Lost or Stolen
One Bakerlight Handset that had been rewired as a headphone for mixing made by my missus she is very very angry about it.
One Mini-KP Kaospad a bunch of leeds and rechargeable batteries
Maybe a very tasty bunch of CD’s (not sure yet, a bit too scared to look)
One hat with horns like the devil or a cow
One set of oversize shades I bought on holiday
Dignity on Dancefloor
This is the reason why I didn’t want to go - it costs so much to go to Glastonbury, both personally and financially. In time effort, hard cash, and your best party kit that gets stolen. I always end up losing out. If you found the retro phone handset/kaospad or CD’s, please get in touch will give you hard cash.
TOP ACTS
Manu Chao
Where have you been all my life, we wanted ‘Bongo Bong’ though.
Black Mountain
Ah someone booked a rock band! Aces! Call out the beardo’s! Loved the end of their set - “We are going to play one more’. Cue enchanting 15 minute pink floydesque physcadelica. With some very pacey stage managers.
Neil Diamond
What happened to ‘Girl You’ll be a Woman Soon’? Or ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’? We don’t care about the god songs on the new album. May I also suggest learning the name of where you are: “hellooo Glastonberry”.
The Banjo Circus
The smallest Banjo Circus in the world ever! Made me believe I can do acrobatics. And remind me why redheads are the boss.
Trash City
The random trance of trash city – imagine finding a flaming mad max baddie headquarters at 4am full of crazy midlanders. Could of done with some Lionel Richie though throw a random smack in the middle of it. Nice to meet a 60 year old raver though.
Newton Faulkner
Until recently thought that white guys in dreads only should be allowed to a) sell falafels b) do the lighting rigging, I will now add c) Sing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ to a billion teenage girls with a load of acoustic guitar gimmicks to that list
TOP GRIPES
Glastonbury is full of bullshit and double standards: it’s like getting out of a prison to get in, messages of peace love tidy up and happiness. But all the punters leave it like a dump - disgusting.
Music seems to be painfully music-industry indie-based, not that much experimental music on the main stages. Doesn’t really support the genuine alternative scene in that respect. Feels like a marketing exercise in the same people making the big bucks and getting the exposure.
The big band areas of burger bars and gurning idiots that really need a mirror put in their faces.
Now combine 1 to 3 and you have Jack Penate and friends - (allegedly - legal Ed). They were camped near us. They were rude, self-important on coke (seemingly) and some other camper spotted a lovely crackpipe. They left their camp really dirty and didn’t tidy up anything. Probably got paid a relative fortune and treated everyone around them and the farm with total disrespect. This is the mindset of possibly every fouth camp that didn’t tidy up, got wankered, took drugs and then left everything in a field. Spoilt twats deserved a kicking and offered them it too. Not surprising they snuck off in the morning, one of them even walked off while in his tent so ashamed on his comedown.
Maybe it is time to call it a Day – the Message isn’t working
It is more of an issue now then a spare ticket being sold here and there, of course it is reflection of a wider throwaway culture. But in the build up to Glastonbury I think the touting talk/Jay Z talk/Tent Peg talk all come back to one thing. Respect for everyone on site and that disposable culture can’t be maintained. I would find it hard to justify putting on the festival if I owned it. Why not just have a smaller more sustainable festival?
You can’t organise it and then have some very token gestures on charity donations. There was a sign somewhere that said ‘not just a marketing gimmick’ - but I think Glastonbury’s green credentials are the biggest marketing green gimmick of all time.
How about not having 200,000 burn rubber, fire, petrol, use plane miles, and have endless lines of cars coming to a field? Surely that would be the most effective manner to ‘all do our little bit’, or ‘be kind to the farm’. Maybe I am being grouchy and I have had a lot of great times at Glastonbury, but with every year it seems more hypocritical even having the festival on at all.
So if you have to have another one - this is a festival with almost 200k people every year, about a quarter of them working. So cooking food, sucking poo, performing on stage, making a Wickerman…it seems possibly a third are just there to get ‘tarded up on drugs, steal shit, and then leave it all behind when they pop off back to suburbia. Maybe the festival needs to become a tad more militant?
If everyone was involved, then would they respect what you do more? How about Burning Man’s theme, lets ban money on site, let’s take away the bars, let’s take away the burger vans, let’s take away the headliners and the expensive hitters. Let’s all get involved, get up there on a Wednesday and make some reason to barter for food/drink/entertainment. Let’s ban petrol generators and electricity on site. Let’s all get involved to make it work. Let’s have a production train or two taking the kit off and on site. Let’s make the BBC take down their glittery production. “Get into the festival or don’t turn up” should apply from top to bottom.
Whatever happens, something has to change as the state of the site was unacceptable to do it like this again.
Most of us here at Music Towers are like the Wicked Witch of the West – the prospect of going out in the rain makes us curl up and melt. So when the weathermen predicted dark clouds over London last Sunday, step forward our new guy, Tom Gibbons, for the Love Music Hate Racism Carnival:
Despite a stinking hangover, yours truly dragged his arse to Victoria Park in London on Sunday, to check out the 30th Anniversary of Rock Against Racism – an Anti-Nazi League ‘music festival’ which has renamed itself Love Music Hate Racism.
Upon entering the regal gates we were aurally assaulted by some ANL activists with megaphones, and handed a year’s supply of roach material, cleverly disguised as ‘Vote For Me’ flyers. On May 1st, Londoners will elect both the Mayor of London and the 25 members of the London Assembly, and what better way for ‘Red’ Ken Livingstone to finish off his campaign than with a rally….err….music festival.
It seems that a large proportion of London was camped just outside the entrance to the festival, drinking their cheap booze and such, and after negotiating our way through the midday mayhem we found a friend covered in mud, grinning like a mad man. He’d just been ejected for doing a running ninja slide under the gate, armed with enough booze and drugs to knock-out a small elephant. Surely that’s par the course for a music festival? For an Anti-Nazi League music festival in London, the security were going about their business in an ironically fascist manner. After some full-cavity searches were done with, it was over to the main stage for some music. Except Ken was talking – we were his “brothers and sisters” – and he only just stopped short of “I have a dream……”
When the music did arrive the acts on the main stage didn’t last long. It was one or two numbers and on with the next, and no-one in the crowd had a clue who was playing. So we bought a programme, which gave you a nicely illustrated line-up…but no stage times. Most performances - particularly from The View - were lacklustre and there was a less atmosphere than the aroma of one of Neil Armstrong’s farts trapped inside his spacesuit – mainly down to the bizarre and short performance arrangements, which were interspersed with political sound-bites from Ken and co. Just as the procession of politicos was becoming tedious, it started to rain.
Gigs in clubs are always a difficult affair – the British gig go’ers mindset can’t fully integrate the behaviour of both environments. After al, both have a set sociological procedure to them – at a gig, you hand over your ticket, go buy a drink, browse the merch stand, jostle with strangers to get a good spot, stomach the support acts, watch the main act, go home. At a club, you roll up late doors, have a few drinks, maybe dabble in recreational narcotics, dance like a fupping idiot, before copping off with something you shouldn’t before retreating to the taxi/nightbus/nearest hedge.
Combining gigs with clubnights usually makes everyone feel awkward. No-one wants to dance before the band comes on – their instruments stand unattended on the stage, like a particularly stern parent. At a regular gig they can be ignored – we’re not doing anything other than standing around, we’re not here to interact with each other, and ‘they’ are part of the furniture you expect at a gig. At a club they seem to sneer at us, casting judgement upon our revelry: “Heh! You’re just dancing to someone else’s records, you plebs!”
Well, London indie-student Saturday night stalwarts, the Afterskool club night, have broke with their tradition of just spinning whatever songs get the kids dancing, and last weekend, booked up-and-comers Los Campesinos! to play live. And yes, before the bad comes on at midnight, the place feels just like a particularly crowded gig, rather than a club night.
“Up-and-comers? Shows what you know, Granddad, their album ‘Hold on Now, Youngster’ has been out for ages,” is what I’m currently imagining some of the gig go’ers of last weekend are thinking after reading that. Or perhaps not – any semblance of putting on a façade of indie faux-indifference fades in the face of songs like ‘Death to Los Campesinos!’ It’s just impossible to affect a yeah-whatever-too-cool-for-(after)skool pose when seven people are having such a joyous time onstage.
Of course, fitting all seven members of the band onto that small stage does somewhat focus the fun, squeezing every last measure of juicy chaos out and pouring it out over the crowd in concentrated waves. Keyboardist/vocalists Aleksandra and Gareth have to swap places throughout the gig, depending on which one is singing which song. When lurking back, they each slip into the shadows created by the lighting rig – its not a planned exercise, but it works rather well. They are, quite literally, sharing the spotlight.
When: Thursday April 3rd. Where: Camden Underworld.
Saviours: If you want unashamed guitar heaven, you have walked into the right room. The Underworld is heaving, and Oakland California four-piece, Saviours are on stage. The lead guitarist is a skinny dude with a very nice Explorer, and quite suitably a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt. Metal at it’s purest, some might say, while dissenters may dismiss it all for being way too derivative. But we all know that doesn’t matter here - these hard riff-laden tracks are to be enjoyed for the shameless guitar celebration that they are.
Saviours kind of have a Ricky Gervais timing. Just when you think the Riff Assault should break off, they carry on for an extra few bars. It keeps building the tension in the process, so when that break delivers, it does it with so much more and really does hit home.
Despite the gruff doom mongering and ‘Into Abaddon’ title of their first album, the band are pretty chirpy and excited to be there. After the gig they head straight to the Merch desk, like any good American band should and encourage us to buy some of their marvelous T-Shirts.
The Sword: Their track ‘Freya’ cropping up as a enjoyable level on Guitar Hero 2 computer game was a weird break for the band. Just a slow tip of the hat, and after a quick double-take of “who the fuck was that!?!”, we all went onto iTunes and tried to find them. They popped up on a Clutch bill as a support act last year - now here they are, suddenly at the end of their first full UK tour. The Sword have fianlly arrived properly (in London at least).
Now I would be lying if I said The Sword were quite a different booking to Saviours. Both are wall-to-wall axe-worship. If you don’t like loud guitars and leather jackets, you are probably at the wrong gig. If you are happy with Big Fucking Heavy Metal, and not too bothered that you can’t hear the lyrics about Norse Gods having a wrestle, then The Sword are for you. Perfect - I’ll be Dungeon Master, can you chalk up the d20 please?
“If you like riffs,” lead singer and guitarist J.D Cronise tellss the crowd, ‘this one has a lot of them’. Those are pretty much the only words we get out of him this evening. The crowd have gone mental and I take a spin in the Mosh which is quite erm… full of grown-ups.
Excellent gig - best show I’ve seen for ages. The crowd are in a fuzzy euphoria afterwards.
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.
When: Thursday April 3rd. Where: Camden Underworld.