Egotists Anonymous

Electrifying Underground pt.2

2006-05-14T12:51:00.000Z

Napoleon IIIrd / Seven Inches
Electric Underground @ Royal Park Cellars
Walking through a glittery, half destroyed curtain, two colourful wall hangings are obscured by a boy in bright blue boots and a cloak. The boy is leaping around at the front of the stage, seemingly enraptured by the clattering amalgamation of odd noises emitting forth from the motley crew who play upon it. As films flicker to either side of us, our eyes eventually adjust to the comparatively vast number of stimuli (upstairs, we just have the football, and some, quite frankly, embarrassing half-joking half erotic [or at least we can assume that is what effect they are meant to create] photos). Down here, we get films, music and one of the daftest bands to have ever walked (with childish glee, smelling the flowers, giggling at squirrels, feasting upon their ice creams) through our city.

Seven Inches are a delight of a band. That jumping boy (the epitome of dancing like no-one’s watching) is their front man. A man with no shame, with, apparently, no desire in life to be considered cool, or normal. Just with one priority, to enjoy himself. Just like the rest of his band, really. They battle against their own meagre abilities (some of Ian’s attempts at vocals are nothing short of laughable, but in a strangely superb way) to blast out noisy, brassy, keys-heavy pop music that manages to reference not only the early, sketchy (and overtly earnest) work of Belle & Sebastian, but also contains a lyrical daftness and fondness for keys that recalls The Fiery Furnaces.
Seven Inches are a wonder to behold. They have no interest in being famous, care not for bandwagons. A lot of bands say that they’re individuals. Very few can be believed. Seven Inches don’t even need to suggest that this is the case for them. They’re just having such a damn good time (even when the keyboardist dashes off to the toilet), playing with the kind of joy that few other bands manage to simulate. Seven Inches are not acting. Not at all. They’re genuinely there for a good time, to sing us their gloriously shambolic songs, to dance in front of the stage, and act like the bunch of bizarre fops that they are.

Napoleon IIIrd can be neatly shoved into a similar category. Musically, he and the Seven Inches are leagues apart. But both acts are there for escapism. Just try his new single, that proudly proclaims, “This is not my life / It’s just my day-job / The way I pay my rent” or ‘The Conformist Takes It All’’s rallying call of “Average is not the best you can do”. Napoleon IIIrd is the work of a normal bloke called James Mabbett. But Napoleon IIIrd is not James Mabbett. Napoleon IIIrd is James Mabbett’s escape from being James Mabbett. When James Mabbett becomes Napoleon IIIrd, he has a plethora of noises to play amongst. He can spend hours toying with trumpets, looped beats and intricately arranged backing vocals, get his backing tracks perfectly in place, then unleash them live, with the aid of yet more of his voice, his keys, his synth and his guitar.
Napoleon IIIrd is a true maverick performer. Shunning the traditional live set-up. Relying heavily on pre-recorded material. This is good. So many bands have skills too substandard to allow them to translate what they do on record into something they can do live. They are fallible.
The only thing Napoleon IIIrd has to rely on is himself and his (admittedly increasingly accident-prone) reel-to-reel tape player. So he can easily hammer out the bouncing, playful ‘Guys In Band’ or the mournful ‘The Casual Terrorist vs. The International Board of Wishing’ (“You don’t get no more / You don’t get anymore / You’re greedy…/ Be careful what you wish / Don’t dream so hard that it kills you”). We don’t have to worry about where to focus. We look at him. We enjoy his performance, we appreciate the ever improving power of his voice, the gentle, slight changes he makes every single set.
Most importantly though, beneath Napoleon IIIrd’s intricate sounds, is a ever-growing rally against the doldrums of meaningless, soulless office jobs, feeling the need to get an early night so you can work well in the morning, accepting the tiresome life that we are faced with as consumers. He’s looking at the bleakness of our day-to-day lives. He can’t make us feel that we can get around it (this man is still playing to a very thin audience on Tuesday nights in the cellar of a student boozer, after all), but he’s living proof that there are still things we can enjoy. We all need that.

(photo of Napoleon IIIrd, at another venue, at another gig, by me, EA. I rule.)

Electrifying Underground

2006-04-29T11:27:00.000Z

The Somatics / Mz Sojourn / Nir Graham
Electric Underground @ The Royal Park, Leeds
Here at EA, we (by that I mean I) like to pretend that were at the cutting edge of all the new and exciting things going on in Leeds. So when I accidentally (sorry, I mean carefully planned to) came down to the Royal Park Cellars on a cold, miserable Tuesday night, I was rather excited to see odd hippy-like drapes being hung, a projector all primed a ready to go and Youre Gonna Miss Me by Thirteenth Floor Elevators (what a song) playing over the PA. It turns out that Im at the first Electric Underground (as, of course, I had meticulously planned to be). This is a fortunate mistake. This is the first of (I hope) many nights intent on showcasing the psychedelic, the odd and the generally interesting stuff going on in Leeds.
Things dont start quite as well as I couldve helped, when Nir Graham proves that having some pretty decent songs isnt quite enough for an acoustic act. Still, he often reminds me of Pavement. Thats a good thing. Of course it is. Also, I remain pretty convinced that if he played these slouching, slacker songs with a full band, theyd actually sound rather good. So please, if youre a lead guitarist, bassist or drummer in the Leeds area, get in touch with Nir Graham. He might thank me for this, or he might hate me for it. I hope its the former. I do mean well.
Lets move from one legendary American indie band to another. This time to Sonic Youth. For once Mz Sojourn stop playing violins and doing rather odd covers of The Stooges I Wanna Be Your Dog, they do a rather fine line is slow, noisy, ear bashing rock. They dont deal in the short or the catchy. Instead they test of us with the droning, the gradual and the verging on unlistenable. Thats not all, their vocalist recalls PJ Harvey. Which cant ever be a bad thing.
And then, we get three stupidly talented musicians who trade under the name The Somatics. I really need to try and go see some new bands, lest I run out of words to write about those that move me, but how can one resist the lure of The Somatics? Be it the sweet harmonies that the three members share, Richards mastery of his guitar (and his numerous effects, speaker cabs and heads that come with), Bruces showman-like drumming, or Stephs basslines, catchy, sturdy and reliable as a necessity while the boys around her do their best to show off their skills, theyre just a pleasure to behold and to listen to. They manage to mix the catchiest almost Beatles-esque melodies and ideas with a mind-bending psychedelic twist that revolves around Richards huge riffs and wailing guitar lines.
I managed to stumble upon Electric Underground by mistake, perhaps I should find myself short of things to do on weekday evenings more often?

We Are Not Amused

2006-04-29T11:26:00.000Z

We Are Scientists / Forward, Russia!
@ Leeds Met
As an editor, I fucking HATE Forward, Russia!. Seriously writers, how tough is it to put a and a comma in the right place? My god. Sorry, anyway, as a music fan I fucking LOVE Forward, Russia!. And tonight, they are on fine form. Previewing tracks off their superb forthcoming album, Give Me A Wall, they manage to get the crowd going in the way most support bands cant. Which is hardly surprising when one considers the hype surrounding this Leeds four-piece. They deserve it though. Their devilishly complex and inappropriately loud pop music (or their disgracefully melodic math rock, if you want to look at it than way instead) is superb, and played with such an energy that its hardly any shock at all that the crowd starts moving when Whiskas tells them to move. They must be feeding off the energy that frontman Tom exudes in his wild gesticulations and incoherent yelps.
From the intriguing to the downright predictable. Somewhere along the line, it has become acceptable to lay into Fall Out Boy, and brand them worthless emo kids. Somehow, We Are Scientists have escaped this stereotype. They get to be counted as an indie band, or an alternative rock band, or some other pointlessly vague tag. Apparently because they dress slightly nerdily and dont wear big shorts and have silly fringes, theyre ok. But their opening song tonight is a big power-pop number about drinking oneself to blackout. Really theres not that huge a gap between them and Fall Out Boy, is there? Oh, and I like them, both.
We Are Scientists do have some cracking tunes, and a good line in undirected angst (which somehow Im not quite too old for. Woe is me etc.). But as fun as WAS manage to be for a little while, their set is scraping over the hour mark. A long time for a band with one album. Like so many fun things (booze, for example) extended exposure can be bad for you. By the thirty minute mark, Im aching for the inevitable closer that is The Great Escape (oh how Ive become a product of the short attention span MTV generation - and I dont even have MTV). But even that pleasure is held back by the penultimate song, a cover of Be My Baby which, although clearly meant in jest, is actually rather diabolical. The swathes of heavily delayed guitar (which seems somewhat too prominent in almost every song) and the plodding, moping pace make it drag horribly. So when The Great Escape comes its greeted rapturously, beer is flung, bodies are hurled around. Most people are expressing pleasure, for me, it feels more like relief.

Bad Names ; Good Bands

2006-04-29T11:25:00.000Z

The Pigeon Detectives / The Hair
@ The Cockpit, Leeds
Something’s happening in Leeds at the moment. Relatively new bands, with their debut single still pending (just, this is the launch for a single due out in three days’ time) are selling out The Cockpit. That’s the power of Dance To The Radio for you. The Hair might not be associated with this label, but that doesn’t stop them being good. Neither does their quite frankly diabolical name. They whip out that kind of beat-heavy indie that can’t help but provoke all and sundry into swathes of foot tapping, head nodding and general merriment.
The Hair act as a perfect precursor to this evening’s stars, The Pigeon Detectives. They’re still quite a fledgling band, but they’re greeted as heroes by the audience. This kind of adulation, and their obviously heavy debt to a number of bands that emerged out of New York four or five years hence is instantly going to provoke doubters to scoff and turn their backs. They’re fools to do so.
To put it very simply, The Pigeon Detectives are a thrilling band. They are five young men venting the kind of frustrations that young men feel keenly, be it sex (“You know I love you / Take off your clothes / It’s alright”. Classy), or just pure angst (‘I’m Not Sorry’ and ‘I’m Always Right’). Even for one who should, by all rights, be getting a little old for this (or so I’d like to think) it’s startlingly exhilarating.
It’s not just the lyrical content that grabs us though. Musically it’s raw, it’s punchy. It’s a burst of garage pop and British punk. The songs are strong, they’re almost (but not quite) irritatingly catchy. ‘I’m Always Right’ showcases what this band do well. The twin guitars play subtle rhythms while singer Matt shouts out his vocals, and as soon as the vocals stop, the guitars erupt into messy riffs. Add to that a permanently swaying, drunken solo, and backing vocals that the Buzzcocks would be proud of, and you’ve got a class act.
It would be impossible to argue that The Pigeon Detectives are treading new ground, but we don’t always long for something new. There’s a comfort in the familiar, and there’s pleasure to be taken from the sheer youthful vigour of this band.
A sure sign that this single (‘I’m Not Sorry’) is going to do well (apart from the fact that pre-orders are almost outstripping the supply) is that when it gets played at the end of the set, the floor shakes in time to the beat as the crowd leaps around. Need I say more?

Somethings Are Quite Good In Leeds

2006-04-23T20:16:00.000Z

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife, and that everything is brilliant in Leeds. Hmm.

There is a t-shirt. It is chocolate brown in colour. Upon it, there is an outline of the county of West Yorkshire. Emblazoned across this t-shirt is the legend EVERYTHING IS BRILLIANT IN LEEDS. What must have begun as a sudden flash of inspiration from a now very smug person involved in merchandising has become so much more. Suddenly, the t-shirt is accompanying ripped jeans and silly haircuts across the country. Even more worrying for the editor of a local music magazine, is that just about every other review I get submitted to me closes with the damn phrase. As if it is some kind of pithy statement.

As a Leodensian, Im not convinced that everything is quite so brilliant round here. Thats not to say that Leeds is equivalent of Netto when in comes to musical cities. Neither is it a denial that there are some excellent bands in Leeds. Its just that Leeds isnt quite as special as some would have you think. What makes us think that Leeds is like a long dormant volcano, quiet for so long, and then suddenly erupting and spurting out a relentless stream of wonderful bands? When did Leeds die, and when did it rise again? Well Ill tell you what, honey, Leeds never died, and never returned. All it is, is that people are taking notice again, thanks to Leeds lads done good, Kaiser Chiefs.

Some may belittle them, brand them a novelty act, a brit-pop throwback, but Id guess that tChiefs (as we all call them in Yorkshire, with our quaintly rough accents) dont really care too much. Theyre a roaring success. And good on em. They did it, and Im happy for them. However, here in Leeds, we have to be just a little concerned about what this means for us lot that have been left behind.

Leeds is hot apparently. The NME and The Guardian have both told us that we are a city crawling with talent, with passion and with ambition. Apparently, musically were the most exciting city that there is. Its all a scam. What we have in Leeds is a wealth of very very good bands, very few of whom sound like Kaiser Chiefs or Forward, Russia!. Very few of whom have been involved with Dance To The Radio. Very few of whom anyone outside of Leeds is going to pay any notice to. We dont have some kind of all-loving cohesive scene, where all the bands share records and ideas, and are all delighted whenever one of their number gets propelled Icarus-style to bigger, and not necessarily better things.

What we have in Leeds is probably the same thing that they have in every other city. We have a number of independent record labels, functioning with varying levels of success and with varying ambitions. We have many, many bands. Some of whom are marvellous. Some of whom are all of a sudden getting national attention. Some of whom are friends with each other, and do their best to help each other. Some of whom will say, with a look of quiet joy upon their faces, yes there is a Leeds Scene. Some of whom will say, with a look of bitter disappointment grown out of what they perceive as years of deliberate alienation, if there is, no-one ever asked me to be part of it, hmph.

The danger is that we have here will get blown out of all proportion. Bands that are still trying to find their feet and their sound will get plucked out of Leeds, ferried off around the country and end up recording career-deciding singles and albums long before they are ready for it. Bands that dont get spotted by the national press may find a decrease in gig-goers at their shows, as they all head off to see whoever is the next big thing to come from Leeds.

Equally chilling is the worry that someone will try to fashion a Leeds sound. Since our two biggest exports are currently the Kaiser Chiefs and Duels (notice, by the way, how The Music and The Gliteratti are no-longer getting a mention as being part of the Leeds scene. Good.) is Leeds going to become The City Where Brit-Pop Never Died? The place where Damon Albarn is still a captivating genius, writing brilliant pop songs about the state of the nation, and not just a cartoon. The place where Jarvis never started dressing up as a skeleton and getting involved in bizarre electro-pop. The place where the Gallaghers are still writing pub rock and fuelling their rampant egos (OK, so the last part applies to the rest of the world as well). God help us. Brit-pop was a rather wonderful phenomenon, which (rightly or wrongly) covered such great and wide-ranging bands as Elastica, Pulp and Blur. Some records from that period are still absolute classics. But the repercussions of Leeds being known as a one sound city would be nigh-on disastrous. Excellent bands such as This Et Al and iLiKETRAiNS, would have to be ignored, wiped out of existence for playing explosive noise rock and epic, murderous post-rock, respectively. The whole canon of the glorious Wrath (pronounced like Froth, but with a W, not that it really matters) would have to be swept under a huge metaphorical carpet and left to rock to no-one but themselves. Only those with the right sound would creep through. The people would get bored, very quickly, and wed be left trying to relive past glories, but getting nowhere.

All this sounds like the words of miserable bastard whos been left behind by the party doesnt it? Well thats not true. As a music obsessive, someone who, money allowing, would go to gigs almost every night of the week, living in Leeds is genuinely a delight. We do have a lot of great bands, and a handful of great labels. Together that makes for a lot of good music. Now would be a fitting place to tell you in great detail of all the bands that I like in Leeds. But nah. Id forget someone important, or worse still bore you with my earnest fannishness. Or more likely, discover that Ive reviewed the bands so many times in the past that I can no-longer think of anything new to say.

Despite my regular attendance at gigs across this fair city, Im convinced that there is a multitude of bands that I havent seen yet, but would blow me away. There are also a vast number of bands that I know are ace, and you probably havent heard of yet. But thats going to be true of almost every city youve heard of. Leeds isnt hot, but the spotlight upon us is. Look around you, I promise that every local music scene will have some superstars just waiting to be seen. Almost every band that you love has played to a half-empty pub at some point in their past. So go on, make your local venue one person less empty.

Listening:
Television - Marquee Moon

Pure Rock'N'Roll Resolutions

2006-03-06T10:40:00.000Z

Pure Reason Revolution / Far From The Dance / These Monsters / Alyra
Cough Syrup @ Woodhouse Liberal Club
Alyra. Perhaps Alyra suffer from a little lack of charisma, but then a band this bleak and angry can’t really bound onstage and yell “Heellllloooooo Leeds”, can they? Doubts immediately surface when Alyra start playing their droning, slow burning rock, especially when it becomes evident that the singer is having some problems sticking to keys. But just you wait. It’s about to, oh yes, here it comes “Bllllllaaaaarggghhh raaaaargggggghhhhh!!!” It all goes crunchy in a flurry of hardcore riffs and screaming. What a shock, but remember, shock ain’t necessarily a bad thing.
Compared to the raw power of Alyra, These Monsters sound positively classy. Rather than vocals, we have a saxophone to fill the gaps. The guitars are heavily delayed, the mastery of dynamics is exceptional, and what could well, at a quiet volume, sound cheesy sounds great when it’s turned up so loud.
Before the night goes on, I need a question answering: what the fuck are these ‘special balloons’? Why is everyone inhaling them? And why hasn’t anyone given me one? Continue.
Perhaps the influence of a ‘special balloon’ might have made the experience of seeing Far From The Dance (or, the-artists-formerly-known-as-Serotonin) slightly more thrilling. Surrounded by the other bands on this bill, Far From The Dance sound positively pop. Sure they may be a little epic, but no more so than many mainstream bands of the ilk of Coldplay. They do manage to surprise with their closing number however, when it breaks into a trance keyboard riff and all goes a little disco.
And then, there was Pure Reason Revolution. Grand. Incredible. It’s a mixture of the divine and the really quite nastily loud. The tunes are all cleverly concealed beneath masses of reverb and very long songs (this is a band whose debut one-track single clocked in at over twelve minutes. Pretentious, us?). When you manage to dig them there tunes out, you realise it’s been worth the effort. Really, to call this post-rock is missing the point. This is really ballsy rock’n’roll, just stretched out almost to breaking point. It’s done with brains, and three way harmonies. Even the moody (read nonexistent) stage banter can be forgiven when you realise just how adeptly this band master both the serene and the explosive.

(photo Pure Reason Revolution by ME, ME, ME, I'm ace, me)

BEastly

2006-03-06T10:30:00.000Z

Be Your Own Pet
@ The Cockpit
I’ve been living a lie. For most of my mature life, I’ve considered myself to be a strong believer in indie pop, and romance. Now I have four (pseudo?) trailer trash garage rock’n’roll fiends making me throw myself around with reckless abandon. As the gorgeous blonde singer yells “I’m here to take your money!… And I’m here to steal your virginity!”, I don’t find myself thinking “oh, how crass”, I look to see where I can sign up for this offer.
What’s happened to me?
More importantly what’s possessed the youth who, during the aforementioned song (‘Bunk Trunk Skunk’ FYI), stage-dived nose first into the floor, only to immediately rejoin the fray? This is some strange power that Jemina (for that is the name of tonight’s punk rock siren) and her band of noise making bastard brothers hold. It is causing us to act in such a foolish manner, making us simply forget that some bitch in heels is pogo-ing on our toes. We’ll remember that when the dull pain comes back in the morning.
We’ve been won over by the rock’n’roll.
That is the key. Infatuations aside, the strength that Be Your Own Pet possess is pure raw primal energy. This is rock’n’roll in its full thrills and spills and sex and violence and fire (only the last of those is solely invoked lyrically) glory. It’s the sound of The Ramones finding their feminine side. It’s very messy, always dangerously close to grinding to a shambolic halt; the buzz comes from watching them narrowly avoid disaster every time.
You really feel like they mean it as well. Set closer ‘Damn Damn Leash’ gets interrupted when Jemina stops the song and starts ranting: “Do you know what, we fucked that up. Do you know why? The guys at the back aren’t dancing. What the fuck is wrong with you? Why aren’t you having fun and living your life?”. And then ‘Damn Damn Leash’ starts again. The room surges, and you realise that she’s helped you. Sure, we can enjoy ourselves while keeping a respectable distance, but a band like this need you to, quite literally, throw yourself into the songs. And after that vicious line of questioning, how can we say no?

(photo of Be Your Own Pet, by me)

(TO THE GUY WHO EMAILED ME ASKING IF A VINYL USED IN A PICTURE EARLIER WAS A BYOP VINYL, YES IT IS, YOU'RE EMAIL ADDRESS AIN'T WORKING THOUGH)

Noisy Buggers

2006-02-07T15:50:00.000Z

Noisettes - Iwe (Transgressive Records)
There are rumours flying round magazines, internet forums and venues that the Noisettes are the new exciting force in rock’n’roll. Pah! Tell me something I haven’t known since I first clapped eyes on them back in the halycon days of November 2004 when I confidently declared that the Noisettes were “the fucking MESSIAHS of soul, on acid”. Me, a trendsetter? But of course. Then we got The Three Moods of The Noisettes EP. That turned out to be ace. Then it all went quiet for a bit. Then, they turned up at The Vine in Leeds, I missed them, but, by all accounts, they were stunning. Then this.
The good people at Transgressive Records (who brought us such wonders as The Young Knives and Rumble Strips) decided to put out probably one of the best rock’n’roll tracks to have ever graced by ears. It deserves this credit for its sheer exuberance, its unhinged noise and the air of disaster which hangs around upon it’s completion.
Each time the heavily distorted guitar fires up, with each tortured, blood drenched cry that Shingai lets loose from her lips, with every primal thumping of the drums, this record just oozes adrenaline. What the fuck does “iwe” mean? I don’t know. I’m pretty sure it ain’t particularly nice. Certainly, the thundering noise that accompanies its cry suggests that it isn’t something to be embraced.
Rock’n’roll with an abundance of soul, inventiveness, sass and an obscene amount of energy is quite difficult to stumble across these days. So we really do need to embrace this mismatched bunch. They’ve mastered vitriolic rock, they also do a good line in loungey funk with an underlying discordance. Perhaps if the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were more than the just the pretty faces they turned out to be, then they could have made the Noisettes redundant. But no, the Noisettes have taken a now rather tired punk-funk blueprint and made it sound vital, vicious and vehement.
Really the Noisettes (and especially front punk vixen Shingai) really should be stars. They have the skills, the sheer raw power and the diversity to make this writer sit mesmerized through an obscene number of listens. Now, I must go sort out the numerous things I should have been doing while leaving this record on repeat.

Top Banana

2006-02-07T14:49:00.000Z

The Scarlet Tuesday - ‘A Perfect Quarter’ / Balor Knights - ‘Just Cos Keenan Says So’
(Thee Sheffield Phonographic Corporation)
A move down the M1 seemed so tempting a few months back. It became, sadly, no longer viable. Now, slipping this brand new record onto my deck, I begin to long for the grey, miserable streets of Sheffield yet again. Really, in Leeds we just don’t produce bands like this. We may like to think that our clubs, pubs and terrace houses are just rammed full of interesting, quirky individuals, but these records just rip these perceptions to shreds. In Leeds we have good songwriters, and very good bands, but Sheffield is a step ahead of us. In Sheffield their bands (well their best bands, at least) are taking pop blue prints and skewing them around, playing with it, breaking it into small pieces then haphazardly gluing it back together and saying to teacher “will this do?”.
Well allow me to be teacher, and say this: “Yes Sheffield, it’s delightful, you may have broken it, but the strange manner in which you have attempted to repair it has just made it even better. I love you”. After this last utterance, my job as a teacher would, more than likely, be no more, but as long as I could take this slab of vinyl as a parting gift, I would leave a rich man.

Recorder solos. Wonderful. Twirling, swirling, twinkling keyboard noises. Great shared male/female vocals. A wonderfully simple guitar solo. Jerking guitar lines. My God, I love ‘A Perfect Quarter’. So much so, infact that I am yet to experience the flip-side. I have, actually just spent the last twenty minutes revelling in the childish beauty of The Scarlet Tuesday (I must be tempting repetitive strain injury. As wonderful as vinyl is, I wish there was a ‘repeat button’. Still, perhaps that delightful hiss and click when the needle just finds the groove is worth the constantly getting up and starting over again. Plus, how many CDs are Banana Yellow?). Had a children’s choir and The Television Personalities attempted to cover The Ronettes, it would probably have ended up sounding like this record. The recorder solo really is a delight, tooting away, naively, innocently accompanying the evil sounds of rock’n’roll. The juxtaposition of the sweet-as-pie vocals and recorder in contrast to the occasional loud bursts of guitar and cyclones of drums is just intoxicating. And then it ends in the two rising notes of the recorder, and suddenly I wish I hadn’t given it up for the clarinet (which in turn I then gave up for the guitar, no regrets there, I am a rock’n’roll beast now, after all).

And now at last, I feel I must flip the record over. It better be good…

Oh, and look, it is. A bouncy bassline gives way to a choppy guitar riffs and some girly vocals which go “a-do-do-do-doo” and “wo-ah wo-oh wo-oh”, always a good sign. It’s more deranged than The Scarlet Tuesday, seems slightly more likely to grind to a messy halt, not that it ever does. It’s rawer, punchier and as such lacks the wonderful tweeness of The Scarlet Tuesday. But then it’s old horses for courses thing, isn’t it. Some will find the recorder of ‘A Perfect Quarter’ despicable, and be looking for something harder, faster, ballsier. And that’s where Balor Knights step in. Well, except they don’t step in. They launch themselves forward with a sharpened stiletto heel and flailing drum sticks, demanding that we listen. Who are we to turn our backs on such a riotously messy pop song?

I’m So Bored With The M.O.R.

2006-02-02T22:40:00.000Z

Of all the people I know, I’m the most easily pissed off at gigs. The one most likely to get distracted. The one whose head is most likely to be drifting off elsewhere when it should be focused on the bands playing. It’s not because I’m not interested. Oh no. It’s because I care too much. Honest.
See, I often moan about Shit Bands (I use this as a generic term, a genre, if you will). People nod along, and say, “yeah it’s so annoying when you turn up to a gig and the band can’t play very well and have to play covers to bulk out their sets”.
“STOP!” I say to these people (and stop they will, the fools), “for this is not the kind of band of which I speak. The truly shit bands aren’t those that can’t play, that can’t fill half an hour with original compositions, I don’t mind them too much (Sometimes, it’s nice that they’re trying, inspite off all the genetic malfunctions which make them incapable of producing anything boarding upon talent. Infact, sometimes I like them more for their ineptitude. It’s endearing, isn’t it? And sometimes, the least talented make the best rackets. It’s an odd theory but true. Those with no music training, no real understanding can sometimes make the best noise. They’re untutored in the way of forming chords or producing melodies. Occasionally [and this really is truly seldom] they come up with this bizarre primal noise which manages to be moving and exhilarating almost by accident).
No, the bands that bother me, the bands that I’ll happily lumber with the tag Shit Bands, are the truly, horribly mediocre. You know who you are.
The bands that set my teeth on edge, get my body creating all sorts of strange, evil bile, make my brain wish it could somehow turn my ears off, are those that can play well, know how to write a song but don’t take advantage of it. The dull, the uninventive, the absolutely uncreative. The ones that know how to create a catchy melody through a clever chord change, but don’t know how to change a catchy tune into a moving one (this is not something you can learn, or teach, some people just have the ability, most don’t). The ones that write ten songs, and then go around playing the same set for years, making no advances, doing nothing that could even be considered just a little daring.
It is these bands that are the true scourge of the earth. Unfortunately, it is also these bands that promoters will book over and over, who will be able to drag a load of (presumably) hearing impaired mates down to their gig. Mates who are too cruel (if you have to be cruel to be kind, then not being cruel must be cruel, yes?) to tell the band how mind-numbingly, brain-rottingly dull their band is, mates who use the gig as an excuse to get pissed and perhaps try and get off with some bird that hangs around the band. These bands get the gigs, they play them all the time, and they put the casual punter off.
No-one dares take their chances and pop their head into a gig featuring four unknown bands anymore. Why? Because it will inevitably be full of the bands that I, and any right thinking human being, detest. It will be dull. Call me a bad journalist, a bad scenester, call me what you will, but normally if no-one but mates have heard of a band, it is for very good reason, and it should probably remain that way.
Infact, no, it shouldn’t remain this way. The very worst offenders - those who have convinced themselves that they’re in the best band since the Stone Roses, and wear shades to all their gigs, with sports wear, naturally - should be gathered together. Once in one room, they should be punished by having to listen to each other sets. Repeatedly. I’m not a harsh man, so eventually their punishment shall be ceased, and their, by now, slush of brains shall be removed and put on display above the stage at every venue. Then perhaps some bands will think twice before taking the stage again.”

By this point, whoever I’m speaking to has edged away from me slowly, I’m rocking back and forth, and perhaps cackling a little as a huge space on the floor forms around me. “People just aren’t ready for my truth I’m afraid. One day, they will learn, and they will apologise for doubting me, and doubting my convictions. One day. One glorious day when all bands will be great, when I will run all the venues and all the music press. Oh how I long for that day.”

Oh, am I speaking out loud again? I am sorry.

Listening:
The Smiths - Meat Is Murder
Broken Social Scene - You Forget It In People
(yes, still)

(I didn't have a picture of me yawning, so this pinched one of a dull looking lady will do)

Hard To Love Easy To Play

2006-02-02T20:57:00.000Z

So, what do you love about music?
What a question. What a minefield. What a tricky little bastard of an interviewer to ask me that (oh ok, so I’m interviewer and interviewee, apparently. Well then I’m a bastard. Ace. I’ve always wanted someone to call me a bastard and really mean it. I don’t think I really am a bastard, not once I step away from my keyboard of fury, so this may be the closest I ever get). So, parenthesises behind, this is such a tricky question. I could make a not-at-all-clever off the cuff response and give you a list of bands or songs (of the top of me head: Broken Social Scene, Dylan (naturally), The Stooges (ditto), Why?, Arcade Fire, Pulp, ‘Teenage Kicks’, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. You know the bag, the obvious, the somewhat less obvious, the obscure, just to make me look cool), or I could try and actually articulate what it is that makes me want a job in music, makes me want to spend my life spreading the word about assorted bands and singers, sharing the love, trying to make famous those who I feel deserve it, revelling in my obsessions.
I suppose I should do that really, otherwise, this would be a list, and nowt else. And that would be what boring music magazines do to try and fill pages when their inspiration has run out. If this blogspot ever runs out of imagination, I want it to die, preferably implode, on the spot, quickly and painfully.

Anyway. Hi. What do I love about music?

1) I love that it can appeal to my moods. Feeling pissed off? Well then stick on The Stooges, shout along with Iggy. In a good mood? Then jump around your room while yelling the words to ‘Hey Scenesters!’ by The Cribs. There is always, always a song to suit your mood.

2) Not only can music be used to mould seamlessly, joyously and loudly around our mood, it can effect our moods. It really can. Listen to ‘Most of the Time’ by Dylan. I bet that you feel a little upset and a little pissed-off. Listen to anything by The Stooges, and you just know that Iggy’s aimless, directionless, but oh sure pure anger is going to end up coursing through your veins. You will yell, tunelessly, along, whether you wish to or not. The all-encompassing misery of Low will get to you. Always.
Who needs mind altering drugs when we have music? No, I’m not kidding. If I want to spew up a steaming mound of bile and hatred, then I can listen to ‘I’m Not Okay (I Promise)’ by My Chemical Romance (probably one of the least cool songs I can admit to enjoying, but it moves me, genuinely. Despite all its fake posturing and synthesised angst, I can relate with it. In some really odd, embarrassing, sub-teen angst way. I would apologise, but I don’t really care) and it will bring this up for me. Whether previously I was feeling all lovey-dovey or not.

3) It can really, really hurt your brain. Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, I consider to be an utter mind-fuck. The multi-layered noise. The jolting sounds. The lack of respect for the holy power of the tune. It hurts me, and I love it. What can a boy do but remain lost somewhere between desire and loathing? Ditto for White Light / White Heat. There are tracks on there that go on for over ten minutes, ten minutes of something verging on white noise. It’s a delight. As long as your head isn’t full of hangover. Then it really does cause pain.

4) It has inspired some of the great writing of our time. Lester Bangs. Charles Shaar Murray, Johnny Cigarettes, Steven Wells. And locally (this man would be embarrassed, and perhaps lightly, jokingly, but viciously, slap me around the head for this, but fuck it, he deserves it) Johnny Ersatz-Culture, Sandman Leeds writer extraordinaire (and bassist in Leeds’ very own indie-chancers Unexploded Shells, to those of you out of the loop). Ok, so they ain’t no Austens, Brontes, Greenes, McEwans. But these writers have the ability to convey popular culture to the masses. They can express what I am struggling to express here, their love, or their hatred. There’s little (or no) money involved in music journalism (unless I’m getting seriously cheated here), yet they write out of passion, they want to tell us which bands they loathe and which they cherish.

5) Harmonies. Harmonies are brilliant. Many of the best songs have ‘em. Something about a great vocal harmony somehow sends these waves of delight from your ear, all the way through your body. It will make you fall in love with records that, otherwise, you would consider sentimental cheesy shit. A genuinely great harmony (we’re talking Pet Sounds Beach Boys here, not McFly [although they are pretty great, but only in a naff, poppy way, they don’t move me like Brian Wilson can]) can transform a song. Hell, it can transform me. The same goes for a great guitar or bass riff, a stunning lyric. Even a good drum part can do this. I can’t explain why, it’s surely got something to do with the bones in our ears and electrons in our bones. It’s impossible to identify what turns you on musically. Just as, when your eyes rest upon a girl that you adore, you could never adequately define or describe quite what it is that stirs you so, a great moment in a great song is tough to place your finger upon. The record comes on in a club, “this record, is ace” you may slur to the unsuspecting drunkard next to you, “and this bit this bit [queue a little sing-along] is A-mazing”. You will actually say a-mazing. It’s a fucking dreadful semi-pun on a word, but you will use it. There’s no other word to define that musical phrase that you adore so.

6) Getting records. There’s something so very very lovely about records. Be it CDs, or vinyl (obviously vinyl looks nicer and sounds better, but, like the magpie, I appreciate the shiny charms of the CD). Also, a music collection, a serious one, is a work of beauty. Racks upon boxes upon racks upon shelves of music is a wonder to behold. One must take a journey through every new collection that one sees, draw conclusions from it, appreciate it, perhaps even criticise it. That is the power that the recorded medium of music can hold over us.

7) Gigs. Unbridled showers of masculinity (all gigs seem to be attended by a predominantly male audience. Maybe I should go to more pop concerts? Perhaps this can explain the abject failure of my ‘love’ life), a place for great musicians to show off (tastefully, otherwise the experience would be akin to watching someone masturbate, I’d imagine), a place for the shit to be put to shame, a place for the true emotion behind a song to be expressed. There is no wall between the performer and the fan. On record, our enjoyment can be tempered by the production, the quality of our stereo and how damaged the record/CD is. Live, yes, we may still have to deal with PAs and soundmen, but we can see the artist. We can understand. Or at least try to.

8) Discovering who you can trust. How great is it when you find a record label that you love? When you can rely on their output, buy everything they release, form a collection of records. Just wait til you find Thee Sheffield Phonographic Corporation. Wait til you get vinyl by The Long Blondes, Chuck, Champion Kickboxer and Smokers Die Younger. Look at the stuff that Dance To The Radio releases. Most of what Rough Trade sends to us, or Domino. There’s so much great stuff, and when you know where to look for it, that’s when the magic starts.

So yeah, I love music. It moves me. It has, previously, moved me to tears (FYI, the last record that did this to me was Antony & The Johnsons I Am A Bird Now, one miserable summer evening, curled up in bed, my headphones on and my head a mess, aren’t I emo?), it can also whip a great big grin across my face. It can occasionally make me furious (there really is some unmitigated shit out there), but more often, it makes me happy, or at least happier. And anything that can cheer me up, well, that must be a good thing. Something to cherish, and something to try and hold onto for the rest of your life. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go be a complete sap elsewhere.

Listening
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People
Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
Bromheads Jacket - various recordings I have collated
Smokers Die Younger - ‘It’s Coming Straight For Us’ / ‘Kermit Song’ / ‘Five-0’

(photo of a hand, that isn't mine, gripping a sexy looking seven inch EP by me. I was actually trying to get the band behind the hand, but liked the picture anyway. Even if it ain't got much to do with this piece)

Indie? Moi?

2006-02-02T20:15:00.000Z

Herman Düne
@ Brudenell Social Club
You’d be hard-pressed to find two frontmen as different as Andre and David from Herman Düne. At the one extreme, we have Andre; nonchalant, barely speaking to us, almost lethargic. Hardly, it appears, bothered to play or sing at all. Then we have David. His two feet never touching the floor at the same time, turning up his amp so he can play what should be (but somehow aren’t) ill-fitting guitar solos, and occasionally choosing to sing-along with the guitar or trumpet solos. Despite their drastic differences, both are excellent performers. Andre relies on the simple, plain emotion of his voice, whereas David plays around as the slightly unhinged, troubled singer.
The combination works wonderfully here. Not because you are captivated by either band member, but because between them, they write wonderfully simple, unadorned folk music. David and Andre switch between providing lead vocals, or gorgeously understated harmonies, and also between playing bass, electric or acoustic guitar. Behind them their dual percussionists (and occasional trumpeters) provide the constant beat through the varied mediums of a basic drum kit, sleigh bells, bongos, a triangle and various other instruments that I haven’t seen since junior school.
Somehow, much of the audience at the Brudenell doesn’t seem overly keen. This is quiet music, relying on its lyrical subtleties, clever use of percussion and wonderful chord changes. How this can be fully appreciated while one noisily chats away, pint in hand, is incomprehensible, but then they’re the ones who miss out.
Those of us with the common decency to listen can revel in the simple, clever tales of relationships, unrequited love and the like (you know what I’m talking about here - the same themes that everyone indulges in - but Herman Düne do these themes so very well), and be gleefully suckered in by their simple folk melodies. Much of the set appears to be new songs - and from the evidence on display we must really look forward to the next album - which carry themselves care-free (and rightly so) alongside the more well known material from Not On Top.
Of course, for a band that make such good use of the contrasting male and female voices and enjoy dissecting a relationship from both voices, the lack of any female vocals does detract from proceedings occasionally, as does the infrequent need for, perhaps, one extra guitar. But then touring away from your own country is a costly affair, and you can hardly begrudge them for a little bit of thriftiness.
Really, when songs are of such a high quality of ‘Not On Top’ or ‘You Could Be A Model, Goodbye’, any simplicity in their performance can be instantly forgiven when we open ourselves up to the tunes and the earnest vocals.

(photo of Herman Düne stolen from a website, sorry, it just looked so nice, y'know, and it's not like anyone reads this, is it?)

Promoting Happy Hours

2006-01-30T21:44:00.000Z

I am, or at least I would like to consider myself, a promoter. Not of the having to run an entire venue every night of the week sort, oh no, that would be no fun. I put on gigs on a monthly basis, occasionally two a month if something special chances to cross my path (which it rarely does).
Now why on earth would I want to be a promoter? For starters, it’s hard work, and I don’t allow myself to make anything even close to a tidy profit. Secondly, I become a little less anonymous when I’m the one making sure that bands soundcheck on (something vaguely resembling) time, or try and tell them they only have one song left before they must be off the stage (and no, it can’t be a fifteen minute epic). They begin to notice my existence, and from then on they can point me out to others. Through this I have met some lovely people, but I’ve also had to deal with those who haven’t fully appreciated the words I have written about them in the past. Hopefully my charm will be such that no attempts on my life will be paid.
Since, I’ve kind of started interviewing myself elsewhere on this ‘ere blog, I might as well do it again:

So, why did you feel you wanted to be a promoter?
Disillusionment. That’s the primary motivation. There are a lot of promoters in this city. Some of them are rubbish. Some of them put on a stream of poorly attended gigs, and yet more sign up to do it all the time.
Do we really need gigs on every single night at about seven or eight venues?
Are there enough good (I mean really, genuinely good, I’d buy a record by them, go see them again, recommend them to a friend, good) bands in this city to play all these venues?
No.
Oops sorry, you’re meant to be asking the questions, not me. Carry on.

Surely though, by putting on a night yourself, you’re adding to this flurry of promoters?
Well yes, and no. See, I am another promoter, running another gig. But I only do this once a month. I can make this gig an event. I can only pick bands that genuinely excite me. Bands that I have loved, bands that I am convinced I will love, bands that I am currently in love with. Who needs a really big crowd puller? Putting on a gig is cheap, as long as I can cover costs and give the bands a little something for their time, I’m happy.
I want people to come to my gigs because my gigs have a pedigree. I want them to know that if they come to my night, the bands will be good. I want them to trust my opinions, to know that I’m not booking bands because I have three spaces to fill on a Monday night, and really, I’ll settle for anyone, but because I believe in the bands.
Gigs should be an event. They should attract people down because it’s their mates band, and they feel obliged, but because there is a indisputably thrilling line-up, one that’s been thought through, and one that will be entertaining from the off. Gigs should not, I repeat, not, become background noise for socialising.

So in short, I’m a promoter (of sorts) because I believe in music. I believe in trying to make people hear bands that, in my not-so-humble opinion, are ace. I want gigs to be special events. I think that’s a very good motivation, is it not?

Listening:
Lightning Bolt - Hypermagic Mountain
Hefner - assorted b-sides

(photo of an exciting moment from an exciting gig that i promoted, by me)

The Importance Of Being Ordered

2006-01-25T22:21:00.000Z

Occasionally, a housemate wishing for enlightenment will pop into my room. Once I manage to draw my head out of my own invisible (but very real) hermiting bubble, I normally say to them something like, “yes, of course you can borrow some of my CDs”. Inevitably they will then ask, “where’s your [insert dead cool and rather ace indie band name here] album?”. They really shouldn’t bother. My answer, “it’s arranged alphabetically”.
Of course it’s fucking arranged alphabetically. First, you find albums (arranged alphabetically by artist and then in chronological order within each artist), then singles (see above) and finally compilations (arranged alphabetically by compilation title, and then chronologically within each artist). Of course. Isn’t everyone’s collections sorted in a similar manner? I hope so. I worry about those who don’t. How do you find anything?
Ok, granted, some people just don’t own a record collection that is significant enough to require any order. To those people, I ask, how do you sleep at night? A good record collection is a companion, a signifier of your taste, of who you are, and a reassurance that you’ve spent what probably amounts of thousand of pounds wisely. Or perhaps that’s just me. Either I should be ashamed of myself, or those with a paltry number of Cds should be ashamed of themselves. Personally, I don’t have time for shame (blogs don’t grow out of e-trees you know, and they don’t pay e-money), so I’m going to say that I think I’m the normal one, even if deep down I know I’m lying.
I revel in knowing that I have what many would consider to be a fairly serious collection. I love it that if someone asks me for an album - let’s say, for the sake of argument they want Kick Out The Jams by MC5 - (and I’m feeling sufficiently helpful) I can spring to my feet, take a quick search for the M, bit, then see that wedged inbetween Attack of the Grey Lantern by Mansun and Wonderland by McFly (I do own this album, I like it, so fuck off) is the album they are looking for. How’s that for comfort, and easiness, and looking like I have some order in my life, when I quite blatantly don’t? In short, for those twenty or so seconds, I rule, I can interact with my fellow housemates, and I am a provider of some sorts (other than off unwanted musical noise).
And then of course, you get to add new stuff, a perfect excuse to make a positive use of your time (this is not a waste of time, this is tidying, puuurrr-leaze) whilst flicking through every album you’ve ever owned. Perhaps chancing upon something you haven’t heard in a long time. Perhaps listening to it again. Perhaps remembering why you bought it all those years ago. Perhaps falling back in love again. Perhaps I should say “perhaps” less? Hmmm?
Hunter S. Thompson (god bless his soul) once wrote (under the alias of Raul Duke in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas - the book, not the film, of course) “once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can”. I know how he feels, only my drug is records (and alcohol and caffeine). How rock’n’-fuckin’-roll am I?

If we allow ourselves a brief, fictitious spell of open-mindedness, then we could pretend there are other ways in which a CD collection could be ordered. I assume most people reading this will have either read or seen High Fidelity (please, for the sake of my faith in humanity, please tell me you’ve read it and not just seen the film. More people should read more. It’s a good hobby, it will enrich you. It’s more worthwhile than wasting your life watching dumbed-down documentaries and horribly, tediously inane brain rotting reality TV), well, in that BOOK, the narrator, Rob, orders his records autobiographically. So he has to remember why he bought a record, who he was with, or who he received a record from as a gift to work out where it will be. This sounds like a nice idea. But what if, like me, you receive an awful lot of free CDs in the post? What if when you first have a record isn’t necessarily the time when you first ‘got’ it (as in when you took it to your heart, danced around the room with it in your arms, learnt all the words, really let it lead your life for you)?
So, I propose a new system. A new world order, if you will (NB, although I propose this system, I have no intention to use it, but then governments propose all sorts of laws that will never effect them. It hasn’t effect Our Lord, Our Saviour, Our Hypocrite Tony, so why should it effect me?). Let’s order our records by when they became important to us.

(The following dates are a mixture of fact and fiction, but just bear with me in this idea). We would start with the first record that ever effected us, and end with the most recent. The remaining records (those that have never changed our lives, those which are just really fucking dull) will be put in a secondary pile, purely for the purposes of lending to clueless housemates. Here is a sample of my collection in chronological order (the dates are all rough guesses, I’m useless at dates, it’s a wonder I remember my own birthday).

The following are pretty much factual
Now 26 (January 1993): The first record I was ever bought (I was a late starter, musically). I liked it, although some of it was obviously wank, even at that tender age I knew that.
Jurrasic 5 - Jurassic 5 LP (February 1998): My teenage record of choice. It made me feel cool (which I wasn’t). It was the first record I really got my significantly older (six years, that was a lot when I was but 14!) friend into.
Oasis - (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? (sometime around 1997): Everyone my age loved Oasis, so did I. Although I liked Blur first, but I quickly turned. In retrospect, I was right the first time (see like I said in my It Takes Bridges review, I must learn to trust my first impressions more).
Incubus - Make Yourself (July 1999): The beginnings on the ‘nu-metal’ era of my life. I was angst. It made sense at the time.
The Strokes - Is This It? (January 2002): See ‘Origin of the Species’ post. The record that made everything go right/wrong for me in terms of seeking a career path. Probably the reason why I write this now.

The remaining are fictional (here is not a place for me to talk about my dating life/ mental health - although you may be able to infer facts about both from what I have to say)
Hefner - Breaking God’s Heart (August 2003): The first major break up. The first tastes of real defeat, bitterness and jealousy. Anger. What else can a boy do but mope. Thankyou Darren Hayman & co.
Maximo Park - A Certain Trigger (September 2005): An on-off relationship. Tricky, confusing. The Park do a fine line in break ups and the tension they call
The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat (January 2008) [I do know this hasn’t happened yet, oh, and I already adore this album in a sado-masochistic kinda way, this is an example]: In an inexplicable (well, I dunno if it is inexplicable really, I'll let you be the judge of that) burst of fury and self-loathing, I decide to give up on human company. Live off my records, cheap whiskey and baked beans (Heinz of course). I make my money by submitting unusually vitriolic album and single reviews in great, great quantities to every magazine and newspaper under the sun. Some fools print them. Thus I can afford to fund my exile, my alcoholism and my bean addiction. The perfect soundtrack is of course, this pure noise that only The Velvet Underground could successfully inflict upon us.

So, there you have it. My life (some of it made up, some of it in the future) in eight records. This is how the record collections of the future will be ordered. It will be known as the Anonymous Method (oh, the irony, when this order will tell people more about you than any other, sweet). Just try it. And let me know the top three on your pile, so I can judge just how fucked-up you are.

Listening:
Dance To The Radio: What We All Want (Compilation)
Sonic Youth: Washing Machine
Ryan Adams: 29
Herman Dune: Mas Cambi0s

(photos to prove that my collection is immaculately ordered - look i don't know how those CDs ended up on the floor, ok? - by me, EA. Thanks)

When A Band Just Make You Want To Write

2006-01-22T21:32:00.000Z

You know they must be a good thing. Or diabolical. When two bands in one night make you want to write for two very different reasons, how on earth should one resist the call? One can’t, OK… but can one drink before having to write, yeah? Good.

Juma / It Takes Bridge
Grain Division @ Carpe Diem
Thankfully, if we are to stick to the chronological order of events (which one can always resort back to in hard times. Time never changes, even if our perception of it does), then we get to begin by writing (if you’re me ) or reading (if you’re my, possibly fictional, dear sweet audience) about It Takes Bridges. Which is a good thing. Because by the time I finish this, my bile for Juma will, hopefully, have died down enough not to infect you all with the hatred that only utter mundanity (is that a word? It is now) can bring.
We find ourselves perched at the front, stage left, ready to witness the emergence on stage of a man with an extreme moustache, a black cape and a bass guitar, another man, topeless and wearing a rabbit mask, and then a slightly embarrassed looking man going under the name James Brown, who I am convinced isn’t actually the godfather of soul, but then, I never saw the legend in the flesh, so it could be. Who am I to judge? They enter, we cheer it starts.
He certainly doesn’t sound like the godfather of soul either (see, always trust your instincts, I knew it wasn’t him). While THE James Brown was all about getting up and feeling like a sex machine, this sounds like getting knocked to the floor and feeling like screaming. This is a compliment. The best sounds, are the sounds of anguish, and it certainly appears that It Takes Bridges do a fine line is anger, despair, boredom and probably a good few other negative emotions. To call this noise, would not be missing the point by too far, but it would be missing the point. OK, so it does sound like this three-piece are balancing dangerously on the edge of collapse, but they’re still standing (well apart from the drummer, who’s sitting, naturally, and Mr. Brown, who drops to his knees a few times - what a rock star, eh?). Still standing and still making a brutal noise.
When a song does break through, you pick up on it, and it sounds all the better for being drowned amongst the feedback, the pounding rhythm section, the fury. It’s rock, that’s for sure, but there’s a bizarre groove to it. A certain element that kinda makes you want to dance, even though you’re sure this noise isn’t really lending itself to anything that’s not going to make you look like a spasming twat.
It’s around this point that I want to bring out names like Sonic Youth and The Stooges to help me make my comparisons, but placing these three mere mortals on stage amongst such royalty would be to dwarf them. Suffice to say that it was the sheer disregard for the usual convention of song writing that felt me need to mention the former, and the pure energy that brought up the latter reference. Of course, as impressed as I was, I’d go see Sonic Youth or The Stooges over It Takes Bridges anyday. But then show me any man who wouldn’t. See? That wasn’t an insult, just the truth.
Questions of preference to one side. It’s been sometime since I saw a band live for the first time (Right. Stop. Honesty time. This is technically the second time I’ve seen It Takes Bridges live, but they’ve changed a lot since then, to me they’re new. In my heart, at least I‘ve just discovered them) and been so impressed. They could probably tighten up a bit, yes, they could even, if they wished, rock out some more, or play for a little longer that twenty minutes. Still, this was raw potential. Loud, nasty, abrasive. Brilliant.
No sooner are we won over by It Takes Bridges, than we have to have to watch them leave the stage so damn early (their decision, no-one else’s, well, we’re always told we must leave them wanting more, they’ve certainly done that), and break our hearts.
Then, we have to deal with Juma. Now, to review Juma would be fairly harsh. To say I didn’t pay that much attention would be a lie, to say I actively did my very best to ignore them, rather than have them destroy my mind would be truthful. Yet, if I tell you what we did to avoid watching Juma, it might give you an impression of how dreadfully fucking tedious and tiresome they were. Let’s see: we made a small sculpture out of Juma flyers and cake (there was free cake at this gig, ace), we sang Stone Roses songs along to many of Juma’s songs, just to prove how fast the quantities of knicked riffs are (it’s no secret to me that Juma were once incensed by my calling them “post-Stone Roses wank”, two years later, I stand by my decision), we even did faux-dance moves along with the songs, they were trying to be a club band, and failing.
They played for an indecently long time as well. Acting like rockstars (“we want to see you all dancing at the front, because we’re hot”, erm, fuck off!) in their tacky sportswear.
Infact, fuck it, Juma most be offered an hour long headline slot at every gig I goto, or I quit this game.
And I'll take my bongos with me, and my Ian Brown-style bowl cut, and my flares, and the 90s, they will all be mine, and I will dance, and take ecstasy, and deny that anywhere but Madchester is the place to be, and I will worship John Squire, and Mani, and even Reni, and you'll be stuck with all your shit bands who don’t sound like the stone roses, and who perhaps even make up new exciting sounds.
Then you'll be sorry.
I didn’t like this band. Yet they gave us sixty minutes of music, It Takes Bridges gave us twenty. This allows us to draw one of two conclusions:
1) the less time a band play for, the more I like them. That would mean that my attention span is that short
2) there is no justice in this world, and someone really should pull the plug on shit bands without even the vaguest concept of creativity,
I opt for the latter. I hope you will too.

(Photo: James Brown, It Takes Bridges, by EA)

What? Where? When? Who? WHY?

2006-01-17T21:26:00.001Z

Why?
Elephant Eyelash (Anticon)
Alright, so as far as musical genres (and yes, genre is an evil corporate, let’s-make-things-easy-to-market term that I probably shouldn’t be using, but then find me a better word and I’ll use it), hip-hop falls pretty low on my list of stuff that I will happily go out and listen to. Infact, hip-hop is something I’m suspicious off. There’s something not quite right about blokes boasting about the amount of girls they sleep with, the amount of drugs they take, the amount they spend on ‘bling’ and how many times they’ve been shot. None of the above (in my book at least) are worthy of bragging. It’s just a bit pathetic, really isn’t? I don’t need anyone to prove to me how manly they are. Why? Because I don’t really give a fuck if someone is more manly than me. First off, define what makes someone manly. If you manage to satisfy me with this definition, then tell me why I should aim towards it. If, yet again, you manage to make me acquiesce with you, then I will back down on this whole article and never again listen to the album that I’m making a vague pretence to be writing about.
But then, perhaps all hip-hop isn’t like this. Bollocks to it, all hip-hop isn’t like this. I know it because for several years I’ve been in the thrall of the astoundingly positive Jurassic 5 (‘Concrete Schoolyard’ was probably the most bizarre track to soundtrack my youth, but it did for a while, alongside various Travis songs, and later on, some Limp Bizkit. In retrospect, ‘Concrete Schoolyard’ might have been the high point of my youth. A daft, good time, old-school hip-hop record. It didn’t even indulge in bad language, just irresistible beats and a nifty line in shifting between the hugely varied voices of their four vocalists. This record made me feel cool. Of course, I wasn’t very cool. But it was my record, dammit), and have regularly enjoyed the hugely socially conscious Mos Def, to name but a couple. Infact, some hip-hop isn’t even like hip-hop. Why? is special because he makes a mockery of what we might loosely try to term hip-hop. No, that’s not all, Why? breaks down any real conceptions of genre.
What the fuck is he? Obviously we can pick out all sorts. Rhythmically spoken vocals, with chirping harmonies, computer generated beats, strummed acoustic guitars, a distinct taste for what we could term a traditional song structure, occasional bouts of singing. Yoni, the brains behind Why? ain’t a straightforward artist. For starters he can come out with lines as ludicrous (yet brilliant) as “it moves slow like a exercise bike on an airport walkway”. What else can I tell you about Yoni. How about that he was (and perhaps he still is, whether they will return or not is a bit of a moot point, apparently) a part of cLOUDDEAD, who did their damndest to make intelligent, challenging hip-hop, and succeeded, very much so. And now Why? has had such success that even I, one so poorly versed in music that doesn’t consider the guitar to be an integral instrument, am trying to eulogise about his latest album, when, by all accounts, I should probably be off in search of rare Belle & Sebastian b-sides, or something.
So why Why?? Well why not Why?? Truth be told, Elephant Eyelash confuses me. It manages to be direct, and catchy, yet remain lush and so multi-layered that there’s always something more to listen to . It manages to tread a very odd, distorted line between pop, hip-hop and folk, and do it with an expertise that is nowt short of breathtaking. And this all came from a chance trip to a gig. Suddenly, a name that vaguely connected some dots in my brain thanks to the cLOUDDEAD connection, has become a small obsession. A record of the year (last year that is, I may be a lot of things, but one thing I’m not is punctual) in my heart? Yes, without a shadow of a doubt. A genuinely groundbreaking record? Yes, I would say so. Infact, if you can find anything like it, please tell me, now.
Most importantly, Yoni and his band don’t talk of some dated, Neolithic ideals of manhood, they philosophise, use thrilling turns of phrase (“The rain is millions of tiny speech bubbles, unused. The collected breaths of youths and all our silent exhalations where we should have put words, or words we had no-one to tell”. I’m an English student - big deal - and to me, that is some pretty special imagery just there, and it’s imagery that I can connect with plenty of times there have been blanks in my life where I should have said words, and similarly there have been times where I’ve so much to say, and no-one to tell them to) and never once boast about sex, drugs or murder.
Perhaps this is hip-hop made accessible to your average white, English indie-kid. Some kind of sanitised form of the genre, designed to appeal to people like me, who just simply don’t get gangster rap. I don’t want to think of it this way. To me, this is a daring album, happy to scoff at the intentions of hip-hop and happy to embrace just about any sound that Yoni felt that he wanted to chuck in. That is why I love it. That is why when Yoni hints at death and suicide (in ‘Rubber Traits’ - “always be working on a suicide note” - and ‘Light Leaves’ - “when my balls finally grow big enough to do it, I don’t want no casket, no saddle, no see-through plastic masks”), I worry for him. And I worry that perhaps there won’t be anymore Why?. That would be a terrible shame.

This Is What Happens When You Send Me Down The M1

2006-01-15T00:57:00.000Z

Smokers Die Younger / Chuck / Champion Kickboxer / The Scarlet Tuesday
Thee Sheffield Phonographic Corporation @ The Boardwalk
Venturing to Sheffield is a big deal. It requires sleeping on a particularly evil blow up mattress in an especially grotty student house. It requires almost £10 being spent on the train. It often means that my usual bragging skills are diminished by no-one actually knowing who the fuck I think I am.
Despite having to make my way past the various beggars, and drag myself out of a nice warm pub with some charming company, there is no question as to whether the trip was worthwhile or not. This is Thee SPC after all. The record label that has treated us to releases by the great and the odd of the Sheffield scene. The Long Blondes, Champion Kickboxer, Smokers Die Younger, Chuck. And now we have all but the most famous of these four bands playing for us, in one bill. It’s exciting.
As in all courses of life, we must take the rough with the smooth, and I must say that other than for a few saving graces (more on them later), The Scarlet Tuesday ain’t really impressing me all that much. Well, actually before they start, I assume they will rock me in ways I never knew I could be rocked. The drummer is wearing a Pixies t-shirt (that just has to be a good sign, y’know), and they have a keyboardist. Ace. The set begins, and at the risk of being accused of lazy journalism, instantly, The Long Blondes spring to mind (they play upbeat indie music, with a girl singer, and are from Sheffield, what else should I do? All of you that are complaining, you’d think it to, if you heard them). Now excuse me for being hasty, but does every band in Sheffield really sound like The Long Blondes or Arctic Monkeys. Not that this is bad. It’s just perhaps not quite as thrilling as we might want it to be. Neither is it just like The Long Blondes. This is pointier, sharper, ballsier, it’s played better as well.
There is a big highlight awaiting us. On the floor there lies a recorder, a flute, and a clarinet. Presuming that these aren’t the world’s worst stage props, we’re going to get some woodwind action. And yes, here it comes. It almost sounds like Hope of the States jamming with a school orchestra. It’s a cacophony of squealing guitars and pleasant wind noises. It kinda makes me wish I’d paid more attention at clarinet lessons, instead of wanting to be a rockstar. Ah well, you live and learn. Unfortunately this aspect of The Scarlet Tuesday gets one showing, and one showing only, then we’re back with those lazy comparisons again.
Bands shouldn’t be afraid to slow things down from time to time. Not every song has to be all ready to get the indie dancefloor filled. Champion Kickboxer have worked this out before I got my head round it. Not only are their melodies downright obscure, and their vocals barely comprehensible for all the chanting, but it’s all done at such a slow meandering pace. Perhaps this should make everything drag, make time drag to a near standstill, and make us long for the DJ to start playing inbetween bands. But then I ain’t no dancer, and this is reminding me of Super Furry Animals (high praise indeed, since I truly believe that SFA are one of the best British bands to have lived, breathed, recorded and gigged and been loved by me in my lifetime). It’s hard work to grasp what these buggers are doing, but like a love affair, the longer you work at it, the more rewarding it will be in the end.
We can certainly find ourselves edging towards thinking of The Futureheads, but that’s just because Kickboxer do an even better job of overlapping vocal melodies and counter melodies. The songs, though, are more inventive, more interesting, and they don’t rely on a Kate Bush cover to get your average Joe interested.
“Yaaarrrggghhh”, Chuck be good. It be true. They make us do pirate impressions, I don’t know why. How fucking rock’n’roll is that? Not very. Exactly. To many, Chuck will seem old, too old, past it. Really, this is an advantage. It means they don’t give a fuck. It means they can be ace in numerous bizarre ways without having to pay any consideration to such bullshit business studies terms as ‘marketable’, ‘shifting units’, or ‘making it’ that should never be applied to music.
So Chuck are free not to worry. This gives them room to breathe, to be daft, stupid even. It means they can make surf rock that leaves me baffled and still grinning. Sometimes I think I’m watching Frank Black actually having fun, and then I remember I’m in a bar in Sheffield. And then they start with Middle Eastern chants, and perhaps snatches of the theme to ‘The Bill’, and then some more good time rock’n’roll, more yelps, more brilliance, and as they end with the thoroughly ludicrous ‘Ummm Na A Gay’ my head feels about primed to explode.
I have a theory that Sheffield gets all the best bands. Pulp were, of course, brilliant in every little way. Different Class may be the album of my lifetime, ‘Common People’ may be one of the songs of my life. Arctic Monkey’s all the hype to one side are an excellent, witty, exciting rock’n’roll band. Then we have Hiem, Ape Drape Escape, The Yell, The Lovers. All these bands are genuinely unique, and exciting and are doing something different, challenging music. Champion Kickboxer and Chuck have done that tonight, and Smokers Die Younger are all ready to do it again.
Somehow Smokers Die Younger are both achingly disco, and horribly awkward. The post-punk noise that they make sure don’t lend them to dancing, but still, my feet are moving in ways that my brain wishes it could stop. But can’t. This is scratchy, it’s a bit dirty (can we really approve of a song that revolves around the line “I don’t fucking love you, but I just love fucking you”? Because I do, despite its themes going against my beliefs), it’s full of shrieking keyboards. It sounds like a bunch of young men having a laugh. Which is what it is.
This is self-conscious - ‘Kermit Song’ contains the lines
“he’ll play his keyboard, and he‘ll do it real good
He‘s not making any mistakes - touch wood
Cos I‘m playing the keyboard, not fucking up
Cos I‘ve improved dramatically”
- and funny with it. And again, they’re not aiming to make the most immediate, hear-it-on-the-radio-and-rush-out-to-buy-it single (I’ve owned ‘Kermit Song’ and ‘Five-O’ for a month or so, and they’ve only just made sense to me, now I love them). They’re being a bit skewed, a bit wilfully difficult, and that makes them better. Finally, their name carries an important social message. Don’t forget that. It’s not just fun. It’s educational.

A Treatise/Ramble [delete as appropriate] On The Wold of ‘Pop’

2006-01-13T08:09:00.000Z

The Lodger / Shatner / Samsa / Downdime / The Pigeon Detectives
Tea Time Shuffle @ HiFi Club
AND
Spitdfire Charlie
@ Mixing Tin
Let us consider, for a moment, the word ‘pop’. Such a sweet, easy word. A word with so many lovely, sugary connotations. A word that springs forth from the lips in an ejaculation of delight and onomatopoeia. In the Nineties, pop came to mean all that we hated. All that we stood against. The Spice Girls, Take That, A-fucking-1. Adam Rickett. They were pop. Good music, no matter how catchy, how immediate, how “well blow me, this is genuinely excellent, catchy as a catcher catching slow things with a really big net” a band was, we would never, repeat never, call them pop. That would be like telling a lovely girl that they reminded you of your mother. In short, something that you’d never do. If you dared pipe up to your amassed school friends that you enjoyed pop music, you’d be mocked, shunned. Possibly have bits of rubbers thrown at you in Chemistry. Someone might even daub “EA (short for Egotist Anonymous, my name, of course) <3 Take That” on your pencil case, and then call you “gay”. Well fuck me, this would never do. So we kept quiet, and accepted that, for now, pop was bad. Evil. The work of Satan’s spawn. Some amassed, secret army is trying to bring the word “pop” back to the good, the righteous, and their first major success is this month’s Tea Time Shuffle. It all begins with The Pigeon Detectives. New York pop. Big songs played by roaring guitars, sung by a singer with some women problems, and really making us think of The Strokes. It’s fun. it’s not new, but it’s very fun indeed. The lead Pigeon struts around like a peacock, his guitarists are immaculate in their leather jackets, their 501s, and their dishevelled appearances. I’d call ‘em a fashion band and have them hung from their skinny ties (which they no doubt own) if they weren’t so ballsy, so loud, so fucking good. If their songs didn’t come on like horny fourteen year old boys desperate for their first shag, then perhaps I would care less. They have the balls that only the young and virile possess, and the tunes that most of the battered Converse wearers in the world would kill for. If The Pigeon Detectives are from New York (in our fictional let’s-make-bands-easy-to-pigeon[arf!]hole-by-what-city-they-sound-like-they-may-come-from, world), then Downdime are probably from Toys’R’Us. There’s something undeniably cute about ’em. It’s the chiming, chirpy keyboards that make me think this. Well that, and the numerous hooks, and the way that Ged sings his songs with a slight American accent. This comparison will require a gigantic mental leap, but please try to picture Placebo, without the ugly dwarf at the front, with completely different songs, and with an ability to avoid being total twats. Basically, imagine Molko wasn’t a balding git, his weren’t band tiresome post-Cure goth whiners, and his vocal chords have been put in an awkwardly charming indie kid. So yeah, Ged sounds a bit like Brian Molko, while his band sound like a bunch of kids let loose in some giant shops that sells twee indie records, punk records and great bit fun toys. Please let me get my hands on their next single soon. Samsa and Downdime hardly need introducing to each other. They’ve gigged together many-a-time. Why? Because they are perfectly suited to each other. Where Downdime invest their energies in making the songs stand up, shout out loud and proclaim “yes, me, I contain that chord change you’ve searched for your whole life”, Samsa make this dirty upstart of a song get submerged, and then drowned in a sea of distortion, noise and dramatic soaring vocals. It’s all deceptively brilliant guitar work, huge chiming chords, big, anthemic songs that pretend to be defiantly angry, but really are quite nervous and charming. ‘First, The Lights’, may well be the finest song you will hear this year, so go and find it. After this set, you have no excuses. And then we have Shatner, good old dependable Shatner. Shatner. With their name, hinting at the past - well he is past it now, did you hear his cover of ‘Common People’? An abomination! - and at the future - well do we have spaceships yet, like proper ones, with captains and colonies on board (ants don’t count)? Exactly - we can sum up this band. They are (as their t-shirts proudly proclaim) ‘Yesterday’s Band… Tomorrow’. They’re too old to be famous, and almost too happily obvious. Songsmith Jim isn’t interested in creating new, previously unexploited, tunes. He just wants to enjoy himself, and by proxy, we have a good time. Even if they do occasionally collapse into a sub-Oasis land of pub rock, most of their tunes are slightly Bragg-tastic, kinda David Gedgey and just about brilliant. So all are happy. When one is happy, one wants good pop songs. So having The Lodger headline this gig makes perfect sense. Of all the bands, The Lodger are the poppiest. No distortion. No effects at all actually, just a clean guitar sound carrying the pure, unblemished songs and simple (yet accented) vocals forward. Onwards forever towards pop perfection (‘Many Thanks…’ got close, ‘Watching’ even closer, so we should have high hopes for whatever comes next), catchy delights, and a general preference for the simple, the undeniably easy to comprehend and the joyously, well, let’s say it brilliant. It’s all short, snappy pop songs. Often high-energy. Chord changes fly by in the blink of an eye. As an extra treat for us pop fans out there, we get a trumpet and a trombone come onstage. Simplicity is good, but sometimes that little bit extra just makes a good song sound like a great one. Any doubts of one-dimensionality are destroyed when we get the brassed-up ‘Not So Fast’. It’s the closest that lead Lodger Ben’s pop sensibilities will allow him to get to an epic, and it’s huge, and classy, and actually quite beautiful. Were I that way inclined, I might have shed a tear, but I’m not. A victory then for the reclaiming of the world pop. I feel like running into the streets, filling my lungs with the polluted, cold air, and then screaming “I love pop music” as loud as my weedy vocal chords will allow me. But that’s the kind of behaviour that gets people thinking you’re a bit odd, and we don’t want that now, do we? It ends, and we spew forth onto the streets of Leeds just after ten. It’s early. The HiFi’s strong beer has left an uncontrollable desire in our guts. Our friend is putting a gig on just minutes across town at the Mixing Tin. There, there be beer, and more music, and more friends, and more fun. And blagging in will, of course, be effortless. And so we walk, careful in our step (lest the alcohol should get the better of us), quietly marvelling in the gig we have just witnessed, and sharing pleasantries with those who have accompanied us. We get to the venue. We see a DJ (who, amongst other things, plays Yes Boss’ ‘Indie Kids’ song, it’s brill. Proper grime, proper bo [or something like that]). We watch a band prepare themselves. Then we watch a band play. The band we watch are Spitfire Charlie. We watch for ten minutes or so. We get tired. Somehow the searing vocals of front man Jon are just not enough. The obvious blues riffage is just so obvious. Great music should always spark some distant note of recollection in the back of your head (a great song is one that you are sure you’ve heard before, but then you realise you’ve actually just been composing bits of it in your head, and then suddenly someone has written it, and you feel like it’s for you), but not because you’ve already heard the same song before, done by a plethora of different artists, done better by a handful, done worse by many more. No-longer can I get excited. The gleeful effect of the beer, ceases the reality of the depressant kicks in. A table is found. Inane banter commences. We wait to sing along with the words of our favourite local stars courtesy of the DJ. Tonight, the beer wins. Tomorrow, we will know better. Tomorrow, the booze will be kicked, the ears kept open, the brain kept clear, the guts filled with only the purist organic meat and veg. Only God’s food, as he intended. Then, we will be able to taste, to touch to absorb the wonderful simplicity that we find in music. Then, these vague promises I have made myself will vanish as a beer seems ever more tempting, and oh yes, my enjoyment will yet again be tinted by the blurring effect of alcohol. How sex, drugs and rock’n’roll am I? Not very. Pah! Well it’s a silly cliché anyway. I’m happy being a slightly drunken music geek anyway. It’s less dangerous that way.

(photo of Downdime, at a different gig, I may add, by me. I'm a bit handy with a camera. Apart from catching a bit of the audience. Oops.)

Origin of the Species

2006-01-03T16:32:00.000Z

if I were to start in the obvious place, I wouldn’t pick the start, I don’t think. See, the start would be the first music I was subjected to. At a guess, this may well have been some Beatles or Dylan (my parents are kind enough to have good taste, and thus my musical upbringing, while not an immersion in all things wonderful, was at least given a good push start), but really, this would be a guess. It could well have been Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘The Power Of Love’, it was number one when I was born, after all. We’re not starting here anyway, so this is all inconsequential.
So yes, the start will be Is This It?. It was an album by The Strokes, yes. And yes, I’m probably too old to really claim that The Strokes had a profound influence on my life, but they did. It must have been my eighteenth birthday party (as a pleasant, circular side note, I write this in the slight haze of wine and tiredness in the early hours as my twenty-second birthday is expiring). I know this, because the album I have just mentioned was a birthday present from a very close friend who I seldom see other than for special occasions. She lives in London, I, at the time, Wakefield. It takes something big to make us want to make such a long journey. So I must have been turning eighteen. Seventeen or nineteen just wouldn’t have been special enough.
So she turns up, and as a gift, I get Is This It?. At this time, I’d already decided that I disliked The Strokes. They’d been hyped up rather too much for my liking, and I’d heard that ‘Last Nite’ single, and it had failed to make me fall in love with these five skinny, well dressed New Yorkers. Nevertheless, I listened to the album (it would have been rude not to, and I was intrigued by what all the fuss was about).
My life was in a period of transience. Previously, I’d been subjecting myself to the work of such esteemed artists as Limp Bizkit and Korn. This is a not something I’m proud of, but it’s a necessary, true and it’s all good background. So, occasionally, it’d been an angry teen, in the unique, purposeless way that only the comfortable, well provided for middle class boy can be angry. I didn’t know quite what I was angry about, but my God, I was livid. In retrospect, it was probably a combination of the boredom that being an earnest and very able pupil brings you at school, and the soul destroying singledom that being an earnest and very able pupil brings you in school.
Somewhere in between having Fred Durst and Jonathan Davis tell me about how fucked up they were, and receiving an album that sparked the ‘New Rock Revolution’, an amazing thing happened, I seemed to have found myself a girlfriend (rather she found me, and I complied, very willingly, but nervously), and gone to college. Suddenly those youthful feelings of angst no-longer had a source. The intense vigour of these pathetic angst-filled Americans no longer spoke to me. I was a boy in limbo, musically speaking. The Oasis an Blur records of my early youth seemed out of touch (we must always be in search of new music, after all), my directionless fury had gone. What’s a boy to do?
Well apparently a boy must listen to The Strokes. So I did.
I was won over, no quite instantly, but pretty quickly. Here was something I could get excited by. Those riffs seemed nigh-on essential. There was still an anger there, but it seemed more defined, less sulky. Most importantly, it seemed more grown-up, more real. And the sound. It sounded new. Clearly, it wasn’t new.
With the benefit of hindsight (and an improved record collection), I can now hear the truth. It was a clever facsimile of a lot of old rock’n’roll records, and some Velvet Underground, some MC5, some Stooges. But even that source material is thrilling, isn’t it. But this isn’t a review, nor is it a study of the effect that The Strokes had on modern music. Actually, I’m not sure what this is - other than self-indulgent, obviously -, but I know it’s neither of the above.
So yeah, present-bringing-girl-from-London. I blame you for my career choice. It’s because of you that I am devoting my time to records and writing. It’s because of you that the chances of me earning a tidy sum doing what I want to do are slim. And thank you, because god knows what I’d be doing if it wasn’t this. And meagre pay and brain-rotting making-ends-meet jobs may be bad, but the sheer volume of music I get to digest doing this makes it worthwhile.
From The Strokes, things went off on all kind of thrilling tangents. The obvious routes were followed first. The White Stripes and Interpol were both new bands at the time. The White Stripes reminded me how much I used to enjoy Dylan (and one of my Christmas presents this year, Highway 61 Revisited has secured in me the opinion that our Bob is indeed a great man. ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, ‘Tombstone Blues’, ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’ and ‘Highway 61 Revisited’. Like, wow). Interpol led me in the direction of Joy Division. I was reminded that ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ is actually one the finest songs ever committed to record. I believe that if I had written that song, I would be so smug and full of pride that suicide would be nowhere near my mind. Obviously this wasn’t the effect it had on Ian Curtis. Shame, obviously. Still, great song.
Of course, being reminded of good old John Peel’s (RIP) fervour for ‘Love…’ sparks memories of ‘Teenage Kicks’. That song becomes the soundtrack to the lonely hours before and after those exhilarating periods when you and that certain female share that certain moment.
(off topic - if there was ever a topic that I was on - ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ and ‘Teenage Kicks’ are often credited very highly in Best Song Ever lists, and they deserve it. My other Big Obvious Choice for my Big Best Song Ever Lists would be the Kinks’ ‘Waterloo Sunset’, I record a grew to love thanks to the purchasing of a German best of Kinks album, purchased by the very same girlfriend who played her part destroying my meandering fury. It’s a beautiful record, and Ray Davies is one of a small number of musicians that I would happily term ‘genius’. Continue)
And then, our tastes grow. Perhaps we chance upon an excellent support band, hear something being played at a party that distracts us from our quests for chemical induced excess. Records that you never knew existed sneak up on you, and obsessions bloom in a similar manner to the way that you’re fixations with members of the opposite sex might. (On a side note, on the few occasions when you can combine a great new musical experience with the company of the object of your addiction, then embrace it. You are onto a good thing.)
(The best time when a band snuck up on me, was actually when two bands snuck up on me at once. The setting, The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds. The bands, Why? and Hood. The reason I was there: I’d reviewed a cloudDead album once, and liked them. I knew Why? was in cloudDead. Plus, my mate was promoting and I got in free. Always a bonus. So Hood were on first (well actually second, but I can’t remember quite who was first…), I’d heard the album, and not been bothered. I was wrong. They’re majestic, and the sound like a beautiful dawn raising over a dissolute, ruined industrial estate. Beautiful but also ugly. It would be a big industrial, huge infact. Probably with rats, huge caverns, and the occasional wonderful flower miraculously surviving and poking it’s head through the metal and concrete, it would, after all, be intrigued by what that wonderful sound was. The sound would of course be the sound of Hood.
By this point, I was feeling smug. Not only had I got in for free, I’d had me a few cheap nasty lagers, and had seen a band who I’d assume would be average, be great enough for me to start going on with post-apocalyptic beauty metaphors.
Imagine then, how smug I was when I discovered that Why? makes cloudDead sound like amateurs. For Why? is breathtaking. This little Jewish rapper/singer/song smith is making me grin like a slightly mentally challenged baboon. He’s making my head nod, and making my hand reach into my wallet and making all my powers of restraint worthless as my feet start striding towards the merchandise stall. He’s making Leeds feel sunny. He’s making the Brudenell Social Club - a real old style Working Men’s club- switch back and forth between 60s California and contemporary Leeds. In short, he’s weaving his intelligent rhymes, with his equally intellectual singing. It’s not enough for him to have made some of the most groundbreaking hiphop that I’ve heard, now he insists on showing me that he can merge it with folk and sunny pop music, and psychedelic beauty. And it all becomes too much, and my powers of explanation are depleted, and for days all I can write is “Wow”. I got over that though.)
No matter how sensible, and sincere we like to think we are, music provokes bizarre reactions. In times of emotional strife, we connect with songs, a song we once thought little off suddenly inspires tears, and your opinion is changed for good. There’s not much we can do about that. Just incorporate it within your musical belief structure.
Then of course, there is the frivolous side. Listening to Pavement may inspire us to dig out our lumberjack shirts and distressed denims. Then perhaps you’ll indulge in some Lou Reed and go off in hunt of your leather jacket and sunglasses. Music to fit your mood, clothes to fit your music. I’m sincerely hoping that I’m not the only one shallow, fashion-(and self-)conscious or just plain silly enough to indulge myself in this way.
If I am, I’m not sorry, you know. I can’t explain it, but sometimes, if you anticipating having a bit of a walk around, and you reckon your steps will be sound tracked by the Americana, alt.country of Ryan Adams, and then you realise that your favourite cowboy shirt is sitting, all nice and ironed, in your wardrobe, then the temptation is there to allow your rock’n’roll fantasies to fly forward. No-one else will twig what you’re doing, and if they do, then most will empathise. Right? Fuck it, I feel damn cool doing it, regardless of whether I’m being a fool or not. If I want to pretend that, rather than a shop assistant playing in a noisy indie band, I’m a country troubadour from the Wild West, then I will do if I want. I’m not proud of it, but I’m not ashamed enough to pretend I don’t do it.
(Anyone wishing to accuse me of being a fashion lover, rather than music lover will do well to remember that I’m composing this in the wee small hours of the morning, in bed, listening to records. For no monetary gain. How that’s for commitment?)
And I’m short of a punch line, a conclusion and a reason. Why on earth am I deny my body sleep to write this. This is a question that I cannot really answer. Is it enough to say that it’s because I want to, and I can. And also, I want to stay up and listen to Highway 61 Revisited some more. ‘Desolation Row’ is about to begin.

Listening:
The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico
Johnny Cash - American Recordings I
Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
The National - Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers

(Picture of the mess that is my floor, by me, EA. I gave myself permission)

The World Needs Another ¡Forward, Russia! Review

2006-01-03T14:19:00.000Z

¡Forward, Russia! / Shut Your Eyes And You’ll Burst Into Flames / Voltage Union / The Playmates
@ Josephs Well
It’s only the middle of November, and already ¡Forward, Russia! are telling us that this is their last gig in Leeds until the New Year. We’ll miss them. As a rather fitting celebration of their achievements thus far (they’re the best unsigned band in Britain, apparently), they turn up at The Well with friends in tow and a rapturous reception awaiting them.
It all begins with The Playmates. Now, The Playmates aren’t going to turn your world on its head. They’re not going to start a revolution. They’re a punk rock band, with catchy tunes, amusing lyrics and a great stage presence. Sometimes we require more than this, but for tonight, it’s just bloody good fun. Damn Good.
Similarly stunted in the innovative stakes are Voltage Union. Their keys-heavy indie rock is clearly indebted to The Cure. It’s played with vigour, it’s played with real attention to detail. In fact, it’s played really fucking well indeed. It sounds good, it’s catchy, but Voltage Union are still a couple of tunes short of being a good band.
“Raaaaarrrrggghhhhh” clatter clatter bang bang buzz. That is how it starts. But then you wouldn’t expect any less of a band called Shut Your Eyes And You’ll Burst Into Flames, would you? Somehow pretty much every afro in Leeds (that would be three) has gravitated together under a rather spiffing moniker, and started making the kind of careering, sprawling, baffling, catastrophic noise that we last heard At The Drive-In doing some years back. Shut Your Eyes… are still but young. There are creases to iron out. It could get a bit tighter, perhaps even a bit louder, a bit faster, a bit more streamlined. Even so, when you have this much hair, this many silly RAWK poses, these gargantuan explosions of songs, then it’s clear that Shut Your Eyes… are making their first steps (probably to a tricky 7/4 beat) towards actually being very very good.
Of course, we’re all primarily here to witness ¡Forward, Russia!, them being the latest Leeds band to really get people’s attention. But then, it’s hard not to pay attention to them. Look at them, in their matching ‘¡ !’ t-shirts. Listen to them. The word angular might as well have been invented to describe ¡ Forward, Russia!. It seems that the Russians can’t help but write songs crammed full of little sections that many other bands would lazily turn into about five different tracks. They’re so loud, and so frantic. Tom is frenzied at the front of the band, crowd surfing, strangling himself with his mic leads, shrieking incomprehensible cries. Meanwhile the rest of the band jerk, pulsate, convulse and invoke mass crowd surfing. We could have done without the bass guitar getting disconnected during every other song, thanks to enthusiastic surfers, but as was said earlier, this was a celebration. Let’s not nit pick.

(Forward Russia photo was taken by Danny North. I didn't ask if I could use it, but then no-one looks here anyway. He won't mind. He's my mate, innit)