Ooh, we haven’t been to a Sonic Cathedral night for ages and we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect line-up to hymn our return to the congregation. Spectrum AND Hush Arbors, mmm delicious droney, psychy goodness. And who will the billed ‘very special guests’ be? As we queue to get in, a man behind us is explaining to his mate who Spectrum are – apparently the bloke out of Spectrum used to be in Spacemen 3 and he produced the new MGMT album. It becomes apparent that these people aren’t really here for Spectrum. They’re here for the ‘very special guests’ who are obviously MGMT, innit? The internet is alive with rumours: Sonic Boom produced their new album and they’re playing Heaven tomorrow…‘tis elementary. Ah, but is it?
Once we’re in, an audience with the Bishop of Shoegaze provides us with the exciting news that the guests are Voice Of The Seven Thunders. Woohoo! I am thrilled about this, as is Kate when she arrives and I impart the good news. Not sure how many other folks feel this way though. The band take the stage to a bemused audience silence and after main man Rick mentions that he’s never heard MGMT, the silence only gets stonier. This is a shame as Voice Of the Seven Thunders* are amazing; heavy duty, exotically rumbling psych. Rick’s earlier incarnation Voice Of The Seven Woods built mesmeric psych woobles around a single guitar sampled and looped (at least whenever I saw them/him), Voice Of The Seven Thunders is a full band, able to exercise ferocious multi-instrumental glory. Confusingly, Keith Hush Arbors is on guitar fleshing out the songs so that they’re powerfully grooving. There’s also a bass player, and a drummer who pummels out tribal rhythms that hammer up through my boots and kick the sound through my system. Rick plays his finger-skipping guitar squalls though a teeny tiny amp ‘the size of a rabbit hutch’. Actually, it’s more the size of a hamster cage, but it doesn’t matter, the music is a furious wiggy wig out, and for those who care to listen a fine introduction to the gloriously all-consuming new album (yes you, incredibly rude woman who shouted ‘Get off’).
Hush Arbors are one of my favourite bands at the moment and their set tonight tells me I am quite correct in feeling this way. They play country music that has had something wrong done to it, leaving it an electricity-spewing mutant, sometimes gently weeping, sometimes fiendishly howling. They are soothing, yet disturbed. Keith’s Neil Young-ish (possibly) voice provides melancholic lament over heart-wrenching guitar melody and then over in the corner, Leon has gone all mad professor with his big box of effects pedals, scrubbing and scraping and chucking his guitar around in the name of beautiful noise.
This is already the best gig I’ve been to for aages. In fact, I think I enjoy the two supports more than the main event in the end. Spectrum are, of course, stupendous, but the set is pretty much the one I’ve heard the last three times I’ve seen them: Mary, Che, How You Satisfy Me (this is my favourite tonight – sounding super groovy), When Tomorrow Hits, Set Me Free, War Sucks, plus a spectral version of Can’s Yoo Doo Right. The hits are all here in their noddy-head inducing, Radiophonic Workshop tinkering, viciously pulsating glory, but these sounds don’t quite reach the air-bending, mind-melting heights of the band’s gig at The Dome last year. S’all relative though. This is Spectrum after all. Tonight they have a raw, garagey feel to them, less wub (to use Kate’s term), more fuzz. In fact maybe too much fuzz, as Sonic makes numerous calls for towels onstage – not because he has a major perspiration problem (though it is pretty sweaty in here), but to stuff in the back of his rickety Vox amp.
He’s joined by a seated guitarist who, spookily, is called Jason; an excellently powerful drummer and, cripes! Guto of Super Furry Animals filling in on bass, as the usual bass-player is ill. He has a little book to tell him what to play. Spectrum bass lines are pretty minimal, but important – think of the way they run deliciously up and down the scale in ‘Revolution’, a small detail that helps make the song (obviously given an airing tonight).
Throughout the set, hope reigns eternal amongst the crowd that MGMT will make an appearance any…minute…now…Even the Luminaire has sent a photographer (who has 0 clue as to who Spectrum might be) to gather prized snaps of MGMT gracing its stage. Sonic leads his band to a fulcrum of noise on an epic ‘Suicide’ and then simply announces, ‘I’m going now’, like he’s off to beddy-byes. Guto leaves a decent interval before carefully arranging his bass against its amp and legging it through a gap in the stage backdrop curtains. Things are winding down… No they’re not! Here’s Sonic again bringing Guto back onstage and rearranging the bass PROPERLY and then demonstrating to the hapless Furry how to twiddle the knobs on his effects pedal to get the desired effect. There then follows a period during which a LOT of knobs are twiddled and the song goes all minimalist…and here are MGMT!! Not really. The song ends. The set ends. We go home very happy.
* ‘Named following the rare find of an 1870s tome full of lectures on the apocalypse’ according to the Rough Trade site. Your friendly Librarian of Rock says, "The full text of Voice of the Seven Thunders ; or Lectures on the Apocalypse by J. Lemuel Martin can be found online here: www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/people/jmartin.html
Shhh!”
Monday, 22 March 2010
Spectrum / Hush Arbors / Voice Of The Seven Thunders, 17 March 2010, Luminaire
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Pop Festering 1: London Popfest Films
Due to my being ill/ at work / being ill at work, I didn’t really experience much of London Popfest 2010, but here are a few thoughts on the bits I did get to:
We nick off work for an afternoon of having a nice sit down (this is good as I feel dizzy – cheers mystery virus thing!) to watch a couple of poptastic films in the comfortingly shabby environs of the Roxy on Borough High Street. The first film is ‘The Shield Around The K’, Heather Dominic’s exhaustive, lo-fi celebration of K Records. This sort of history of the label is somewhat obliquely pieced together via various interviews (featuring such luminaries as Slim Moon, Ian MacKaye and Rose Melberg), cut with rather grainy live footage of bands playing the first International Pop Underground Festival in 1991. Plus the odd groovy Super-8 pop video for Beat Happening and Tiger Trap and the like.
By the end the general consensus amongst the audience seems to be ‘it went on a bit’, but there is plenty to be entertained by and unless you are a raving K Records freak a fair bit to learn about the label and the people involved with it. Highlights include: Sonic Boom looking exactly like a skull wearing a dishevelled Beatles wig; Jean Smith of Mecca Normal telling an anecdote and changing her mind about what happened even as the words leave her mouth; some amazing ‘freeform’ dancing by Calvin Johnson; footage of Fugazi performing; the Roxy audience sniggering whenever record store moustache man appears on screen; everyone looking pretty good and not too old until you remember that 1999, when the film was made, was like 11 years ago. Oh yes and Calvin saying that when the first Beat Happening seven inch came out someone asked him what had happened to K’s ‘cassette revolution’. Answer: ‘Didn’t you hear? We won.’
The second film seems to get more bums on seats. It’s the main reason I came as I missed out on its only other showing, at the Barbican in 2008. ‘Take Three Girls: The Dolly Mixture Story’ is introduced by director Paul Kelly who rather sweetly says, “Bye!” at the end of his intro as if he was on the phone. As he explains, the forty minute film combines extensive footage of Dolly Mixture from the early eighties with interviews and imagery he filmed in 2008. It isn’t finished yet, but it’s brilliant, perfectly juxtaposing the past (three rather naïve girls apparently just kind of doing stuff and it sort of working in a wonky way) and the present (three cool women reminiscing in a very matter of fact way without any annoying mythologizing). It would maybe be good to have a bit more of an idea of time in the film, sometimes it’s not really clear what happened when – just at some point between 1979 and 1984. Still, it’s chockfull of great bits and should be shown to school girls everywhere, as it’s utterly inspiring. Apart from at the end when the band finishes ‘cos one of them is pregnant with Captain Sensible’s child.Good bits:
- As school girls Debsey and Rachel pretended to be in a band and wrote articles about themselves. We did that too!
- Debsey’s box full of old Butterick sewing patterns, and the band’s approach to ‘fashion’ in general.
- Preparing for their first studio session, Dolly Mixture practise getting progressively quieter as they play because they want one of their tracks to fade out. They haven’t heard of faders on mixing desks.
- Dolly Mixture go down to London for the day (in carefully chosen outfits that include coloured bowler hats – for that city gent goes pop! look) in order to obtain a record deal and are disappointed when they find you can’t just phone up a label and pop round to play them your demo there and then.
- Dolly Mixture’s Peel session never gets a repeat airing, ‘cos John Walters doesn’t like them, “The Slits crossed with The Nolans”. Boo.
- Dolly Mixture’s manager is called ‘Dubious Tony’.
- U2 supported Dolly Mixture at The Rock Garden. Captain Sensible reports that U2 were ‘crap’.
- Dolly Mixture don’t have enough money to see The Undertones play at Cambridge Corn Exchange so they stand outside in the car-park to listen. Afterwards they go in and manage to give the band their demo tape. Half an hour later they are asked to support The Undertones the next night. And then after that they get to be support on the whole Undertones tour and the band are all really kind to the Dolly Mixture girls. It is pleasing to learn that the O’Neill brothers in particular are very nice.
- Dolly Mixture the band write to Dolly Mixture the sweetie company to suggest some kind of advertising collaboration. The company declines this kind offer, but sends the band a big box of sweets! Can you imagine this happening now? A cease and desist order would be more likely.
- Debsey Wykes is my new style icon (not that I had an old one, but you know).
Towards the end of the film, drummer Hester expresses a desire to have a go at drumming again – but only in a sound-proof room where she’s knows nobody could overhear her. And she definitely would never ever play in a band again. This is a shame, ‘cos when the film’s over you can practically see the thought bubbles forming above the Roxy audience’s heads as they picture Dolly Mixture playing a reunion show to an adoring Indietracks crowd.
Pop Festering 2: London Popfest Alldayer - 100 Club, 27 February 2010
After yesterday’s cinematic extravaganza, I listen to Dolly Mixture en route to this gig. I feel like I’m in a swinging 60s film, ‘Smashing Time’ maybe, as I skip off the no.10 bus and straight down the 100 Club stairs. I’ve been at work all day despite this weird illness making my head buzz and the floor undulate, and so like an old lady I’m very pleased to see there are seats going spare in the 100 Club. I feel too groggy to really pay much attention to the bands, but I really want to see Shrag, so I stick it out, drinking a pint of Guinness ‘cos it might fortify me (it just makes the dizziness weirder). I notice that there is a preponderance of Girls With Bobs here, even more so than usual at an indiepop gathering. My hair is looking especially bobbed ‘cos I went to Last Days of Decadence last week and wanted to look like I was out of the1920s, but I don’t know what everyone else’s excuse is.
From my biddy seat it seems that Standard Fare and Allo Darlin’ play mighty pop-full sets and I'm sorry I don't have the energy to pay proper attention. However, I am persuaded to totter to the front to peer at Dorotea who have briefly REFORMED for a one-off trip to play in the UK especially for Popfest.
People (including the ever excitable Horowitz chaps) are pretty happy about Dorotea playing and throw themselves about with glee. Hooray! I slither further back so that they can leap about without me keeling over in their midst. Dorotea are skillz, they basically just play choruses and thus their songs are v. short. Cool.
I always get a manic pop thrill when Shrag play and tonight is no different. I feel a whole lot better with their itching powder rhythms and scrabbly guitar noises crunching through me. Helen is on good form, squealing her vocals, words cribbed from a big book of scrawled lyrics. She pulls some good ‘mentally distracted’ stances does Helen, plucking at her clothes, pigeon-toed, collapsing to her knees with nary a care for laddered tights. Despite my grogginess, I think the band are the best I’ve seen them, even with this unfamiliar set. Their second album isn’t out for a while yet, but a lot of new songs get an airing (is there really one called ‘Tights in August’? if not there should be) and jokes are made about everything we’re hearing being unreleased. I’m looking forward to the new album, ‘cos these songs are immediately great, they’re more nuanced (Helen reads out a monologue throughout one – ooh get her!) than just being revved up and in your face – although there is that as well. I like Shrag’s sense of menace - the aggression in their sound is most invigorating, and by the time they’ve stomped through a captivating set (which includes a smudgy ‘Ghosts Before Breakfast’ and top pop hit ‘Rabbit Kids’) I’m glad I stuck around.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
It's knowing you're alive through all the fuzz / It's never coming down from going up. Fave Tunes - January / February 2010
1995 – The Radio Dept. Back to work after Christmas muffled in a dufflecoat against the snow. The Radio Dept’s melancholic drifts of sound are Wintery perfect.
Mind How You Go - The Advisory Circle The eerie-comforting sound of radiophonics and 1970s public information films.
Unchanging Window/Chord Simple – Broadcast The peaceful ennui of gazing at grey skies. With a soupcon of spooky.
What Am I Gonna Do? – The Dovers Dippy/sublime mixture of psych and soul. Also to be found sampled on Atlas Sound’s ‘Walkabout’
Mirror Kisses – Citay Epically swirling psych folk with hints of Wendy and Bonnie.
Wide-eyed, Legless - Laura Veirs For the squealy noises that sound like tropical birds / fireworks in a summer sky.
Coming Home To You – Tim Buckley Sounds like contentedly greeting the
Spin That Girl Around – Euros Childs Sometimes Euros’ voice breaks your heart.
Brite Futures – Dum Dum Girls Perfect mix of tough girl indiepop and roughshod garage a la The Delmonas
Owls And Flowers - Belbury Poly Sounds like the album cover ('The Owl's Map') looks.
Low Scene – The Sea Urchins Pilled up mod pop with slightly worrying rawk vocals. See here pleaserainfall.blogspot.comSome Velvet Morning – Starpower I just rediscovered this psychotically overblown version of
Man Overboard! - Soft Hearted Scientists Listening to this on the tube to work; ‘Where are all the carefree days, they seem so long ago / We were going to change the world then routine caged our bodies and our souls’ Oh the delicious sorrow.
Thursday, 18 February 2010
The Darling Buds
The Darling Buds were a kind of Primitives substitute to me – a blonde girl fronting fuzzpop blokes – but I never loved them even a fraction as much as I loved the Prims. They did have some good tunes though: the ace rumbledethump of ‘Shame On You’, the swooping ‘Hit The Ground’. There were a couple of great Peel Sessions that I taped and played to death, and our friend Mike put out a flexi with his fanzine ‘So Naïve’ that contained the swingorilliant ‘Spin’. It was a buzzy indiepop maelstrom that began and ended with the sound of er, like, a creaky merry-go-round speeding up and slowing down. Slightlydelic!
The Darling Buds’ joyfully ramshackle first single ‘If I Said’ / ‘Just To Be Seen’ came out in 1987, but by the next year I was fed up with the band. They got scooped up by Epic Records and became tainted with an aura of corporate bollocks. I couldn’t even be bothered buying the album ‘Pop Said’ it had an ugly sleeve with icky colours. I reluctantly bought a twelve inch of the single ‘Burst’ ‘cos it was on sale, but I always kind of despised it. It represented big shiny major label nastiness. Still, I seemed to enjoy the band the one time I saw them live:'The Darling Buds / The Corn Dollies – Norwich Arts Centre, Oct 5th 1988
All squeezed into the back of the van and zoomed to Norwich Arts Centre and wow! it was packed. Most people I’ve ever seen there. Talked to N who had a funky green shirt with purple polka-dots, and we discussed groovy bands and getting a band together ourselves – me on stand-up drums! When I was telling N’s sister later she said ‘Oh N will have to do lead guitar and sing and it will probably be called N’s band.’ Ha ha!
Shine! were on first and were abysmal as ever – 100th rate Wedding Present. I bought a Darling Buds badge and then The Corn Dollies were on and the singer had a fab flopsome haircut and groovy baseball boots like our ‘Sportright’* ones. Their last song was groovy ‘cos it was mad with a squeaky violin!
Then The Darling Buds were on and we couldn’t get near the front ‘cos of all the dudes a-moshin’ and a-crashin’ (hardcore DBs followers the Skullfuck Crew mayhap?) The band were F.A.B. v.v. noisy. Andrea’s voice sounded squeaky and they put ‘Venus In Furs’ into the middle of ‘Just Say So’. Harley was v. cool and he’s got a brillo big shiny red semi-acoustic guitar. They played lots of songs and then two encores. People threw confetti and a balloon was being biffed around and it was all dead fabby wabby.'My friend K. sent me a letter (old skool!) from Brighton telling me about The Darling Buds gig there. They were supported by The Waltones who were ‘a bit boring, but quite groovy I suppose’. The Darling Buds were ‘pretty good but too loud!! My ears were ringing so badly the next day that I couldn’t hear my lectures.’ The main news K had to announce though was ‘I’ve sat on the same loo as Andrea Bud!!’ Classy.
*Our Sportright boots were one of our greatest shopping finds. From some crappy shoe shop in a Norwich alley, they were ridiculously cheap (like £2 or something) black baseball boots with an amusing picture of an athlete embossed in the rubber circle bit over the heel. We wore them always, replacing as necessary when they wore out. No wonder my feet were so cold all the time.
Get Primitive(s)
Against my better judgement, we’ve got tickets to see The Primitives at The Scala later this year. I resisted last year’s reformation gig at the Buffalo Bar, due to not wanting to destroy happy pop memories, but it was by all accounts a splendid showing, so this time round I’ve given in to peer pressure and we’ll be there in April. This has got me thinking about the sparkly buzzsaw wonder that was The Primitives and how much I loved them, at least for a little while.
Part of the appeal of The Primitives was the way they looked. Especially guitarist Paul Court.He was the perfect indie boy! He managed to look utterly, unimpeachably cool in his moptop, skinny black jeans and Chelsea boots, like, “Yeah, I’ve just been transplanted from 1967, what the fuck are you going to do about it?” A feat often attempted by lesser mortals but rarely achieved so successfully.
1987 gave us the ramalama scrawl of ‘Stop Killing Me’ with more bursting bubblegum fuck right off lyrics. I flouted indiepop rules and bought the twelve inch, because the real jewel here was the second track on the b-side, ‘Laughing Up My Sleeve’. It was sung by Paul in a not quite off-key flat tone (sexy!) against a deceptively sweet tumbling guitar. Once again it had a great fuck you theme, not least the bit about 'that boy you're with's a dick’ (or ‘boy who is a dick’, or ‘boy who looks a dick’, we weren’t really sure). But the best bit was kept ‘til last when the guitar went MENTAL! Fuzzing menacingly behind the vocals, gradually increasing in volume until it detonated into a terrible feedback SCREEECH! Genius. We played it LOUD and often.
The b-sides were always brilliant, what about the Velvetsy, day-dreamingly titled, annoyingly bracketed ‘(We’ve) Found A Way (To The Sun)’, with its understated singsongyness building up to a euphoric Tracy ‘n’ Paul duetting end? Or the acid summer shimmer of ‘Everything’s Shining Bright’?
Summer 1987 and The Primitives started evolving ever so slightly. Tracy’s look developed into that of a knowingly prim starlet, complete with excellently applied winged eyeliner (Bilinda Butcher from MBV did the same sort of thing – it was very influential on my eyeliner wearing). ‘Thru The Flowers’ was re-recorded and released on a (limited ed!) three track 7”. Gone was the crunchy scuzz of the original release, this was deliciously pristine. The guitars pealing like bells somehow reminded me of the theme tune to ‘The Magic Roundabout’. It was pure pop but still trippy. The band appeared on ‘Wogan’ plugging their single:
'September 2nd 1987: ‘Happy When It Rains’ came on the radio on the way home and then later The Primitives were on ‘Wogan’! Funny, I know, but they were! They were fab, a perfect pop group. Paul Prim looked v. Johnny Marr-esque and he’s had a haircut so his hair wasn’t such a mega pudding bowl and he had v. anorexic black jean clad legs. Pete forgot to mime to a little bit. Tracy looked v. sweet shaking her head to the ‘You won’t find me, no, no.’ bits. Ace'
Drummer Pete Tweedie was sacked because of something to do with Tracy’s cats (I can vaguely recollect some interview that my friend showed me in which a pre-sacked Pete discussed his predilection for the cats – ugh) and replaced by Tig who was a better drummer, but we still preferred Pete ‘cos he had good hair. I once kept a fiver for ages that he fished out of his jeans pocket to give to me as change when he was manning Birdland’s merch stall. It was a kind of talisman to me and my friends and we were most distraught when I had to spend it on petrol (a fiver’s worth of petrol could get you places then).
By 1988 The band had signed to RCA and started moving up in the world. Paul got a quiff! ‘Crash’ got released. The song from the Andy Kershaw session that had been a raucous headlong charge with Tracy spitting the words out spitefully was a big gleaming pop monster that the whole world and its granny loved. I still loved it too, despite the big bucks video. And I loved the album ‘Lovely’ when it emerged triumphant on the back of this sudden success. The Primitives finally came and played in our neck of the woods:
'The Primitives – UEA, 5th May 1988
They came on and did ‘Dreamwalk Baby’, then ‘I’ll Stick With You’, ‘Run Baby Run’, ‘Nothing Less’ and everything off the LP except ‘Spacehead’ Boo! Swizzed! They also did ‘Across My Shoulder’, the three session songs (Peel session from April 1988 I think), ‘Really Stupid’, ‘Everything’s Shining Bright’, ‘We Found A Way To The Sun’ and one I DON’T KNOW! Anyways, it was dead cosmic and FAB and stuff and I got mega-crushed so I had to fight my way out and execute groovy dances further back. They came back for one encore. D. went backstage and got their autographs. Huh!'
Then what? On my last ever day at school the ‘Out Of Reach’ video was on the Chart Show. The band were playing on a beach (‘cos it says about walking on the sand or something in the lyrics) and I was just about to go out to an ‘end of school forever’ beach party! Blimey!
I bought the next single ‘Way Behind Me’ ‘cos I found it cheap. Again, the b-side was the best bit, ‘All The Way Down’ sung by Paul (I think basically I loved everything that Paul did) against a Velvetsy drone with hints of squally noise underneath. Yum. I just played it again for the first time in 1000 years. It sounds dreamy! It’s also maybe a precursor to the stuff Mr Court did under the name Starpower. I only came across them once, when Mark Radcliffe played their gorgeous take on ‘Some Velvet Morning’. It crackles and hums with interference like its being beamed from a distant planet.By 1989 I was losing interest in The Primitives. Bass player Steve Dullaghan had left, so they weren’t really the proper band any more. Tracy g-a-s-p changed from blonde to redhead and I thought she looked much better even if nobody else did (I had red hair), but it wasn’t enough to sustain my interest. I’d moved to London. I was at Art School. I was Busy. Plus the band just weren’t cool anymore. They got a good hard major label scrubbing and ended up looking shit – all sheeny and clean with crappily perfect stu stu stu studioline hair’styles’. I didn’t know or care what happened next. According to the internet they had two more albums! I don’t think I want to hear them. I want to preserve the songs I know in a velvet(s) lined box alongside the teenage memories they represent. Until April when we go to The Scala, anyway.
Friday, 22 January 2010
Katapult – Wednesday Club (Odd Box Records)
Some words about Wednesday Club: joyful, absurd, spirit raising on a gloomy day, abundantly melodic, super eclectic. ‘Katapult’, the product of three different songwriters, is 57 varieties of pick ‘n’ mix musical fun, slipping and sliding all over the pop shop for your delectation and delight. Fifteen songs in half an hour that offer variously: a soupcon of Jonathan Richman here, a dash of The McTells there, the vague ghosts of a whole hotch-potch of alty/indiepop stuff from 1986/1996/2006/whenever floating in and out of your ears and the odd psych-y twist.
Wednesday Club are apparently three fifths of The Medusa Snare (with about nought percent of the MS sound) and sing couplets like: “You like Belle And Sebastian / Your sister is a thespian” (‘Marks And Lines’) whilst delivering a variety-pack of pop straight to the breakfast bowl of your heart.
Guitars jangle and pianos plink, drums rattle and ‘Steven’s House’ is a sweet singalong pop smash! ‘Wave At Planes’ is all lilting and wistful. The opening of ‘European Veins’ is not dissimilar to The Darling Buds’ ‘Spin’ and then it continues in a splendidly fuzzy, rattley and yes, JAMC kind of way (maybe 'cos of those Manhattan Love Suicide connections?) Woo! ‘Huevos’ starts off a bit Barretty then has a personality change and comes over all aggressive and shouty. Flip!
‘De Lomelanicon’ has the exact correct measurements of sway-along melancholy and longing and contrasts perfectly with album closer, the fuzzy, fizzy, cuckoo clockwork of ‘Citalogasm’ which will have you singing along oh so sweetly with the choir, “Fuck the world. Fuck the whole wide world”. Beautiful.
And can I just point out the song title ‘Schrodinger’s Catflap’. Nice work.
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Dark winters wear you down / Up again to see the dawn. Fave Tunes - November/December 2009
I See, So I See So – Broadcast & The Focus Group Everything I want from music, spooky, disorientating, sublime.
The Road Of Golden Dust - Espers Sounds like drifting Ophelia-like along a reedy river.
For While You Slept - Hush Arbors Brooding, foreboding, exhilarating psych-folk.
What Would I Want? Sky - Animal Collective Playful and feathery - wriggle your limbs against the rigid winter cold.
Devil Made You High – Hush Arbors Like putting your head out the window of a speeding car and having the breath pulled out of you.
Young Adult Friction – The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart played live at the ICA, Upstairs At the Garage, The Scala. Always my favourite few minutes of every Pains gig.
Meet Me At Lookout Point - Devendra Banhart Ethereal sunshine daydream.
Smell Of Incense – West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band The sound of smoke.
Willy O’Winsbury – The Pentangle The Wicker Man and The Pentangle meet in a folk waltz = two of my favourite creepy folk things combined.
Down On You - Ringo Deathstarr Delicious daydream dizziness.
Pretty much everything by Deerhunter They have been my cocoon during the freeze.
Saturday, 12 December 2009
Comet Gain / Veronica Falls / Schwervon! - Buffalo Bar, 11 December 2009
A handmade felt rosette has been trampled in the doorway of The Buffalo Bar. It’s a sorry sight, but kind of fitting for this is the last EVER Twee As Fuck clubnight, the crazy kidz who ran the night for two and bit years are going on to (sun-dappled, flower-speckled) pastures new and going out with a cheery POP farewell.
Twee As Fuck put on lots of excellent bands and jolly popnights but somehow managed to get folks’ backs up. They were like the kids at school who always did everything right, the ones you couldn’t help liking but secretly wanted to push over in the mud. Tonight they’re at it again with a spankingly ace line-up.
First the wonderful Schwervon! go rip-roaring through an end-of-massive-tour-honed set, Matt on guitar and Nan on drums set up to face each other having conversations with clackity rhythms and crankily groovy sounds. They play old favourite ‘Dinner’ – yay! They show us a big old set of cutlery they were given as a ‘Christmas present’ by a Manchester curry house. It turns out we can WIN the cutlery set as it’s too heavy for the band to lug about. A dance off ensues! The dance off is mainly Kate boogie-ing about at the front of the crowd and so rightly Kate wins the cutlery. It’s always top fun when Schwervon! are in town.
Veronica Falls become mightier every time I see them. They’re spook-indie, for a start there’s the excellent gothic (not goth) bone-rattling janglepop of ‘Found Love In A Graveyard’, but there’s something slightly distanced and other-worldly about all of their songs. Not in an ethereal way, but in a feral, weird kids way. They’re the creepy loners who got their hands round the neck of indiepop and squeezed a little too hard. They sound echoey, like they’re playing in a crypt: clattery drums, dead-eyed sweet-gone-bad voices, and a double bill of guitar janglage = fearsome.
And so the task of being last band to play Twee As Fuck falls to Comet Gain who somewhat bizarrely seem to have become ‘elder statesmen’ for today’s up ‘n’ thrusting indiepop kids. As ever at a Comet Gain gig we scan the stage for missing band members. Oh, Rachel’s not here. This is a shame as Rachel seems to have carried the whole shebang along at recent gigs in a smiley, clappy, possibly slightly unhinged way. We miss her voice and her shuffley-stamp dancing.
Pulling the whole thing together is - uh-oh - left to David Feck, but shockingly he appears to be magnificently un-drunk, leading the band through a swathe of ferocious pop songs only one of which, to be fair a newie, they forget how to play.
Feck explains his sartorial choices for the night – shirt, tie, cardie, cravat-scarf - he’s been aiming for the curmudgeonly landlord look, but has accidentally dressed like the (hated) eighties. Doh! There are plans to end the set appropriately with ‘The Kids At The Club’. ‘Tis indeed a scratchy soul-pop gem, but it’s missing Rachel’s yelping and maybe doesn’t quite hit the mark. So we get given a choice for the last song and shout our little heads off for ‘My Defiance’ and then dance our little wigs off , stopping only to enjoy the extended midsong wibble waffle testifying about (amongst other things) listening to ‘Chestnut Mare’ by The Byrds. ‘It’s a song about a horse. Of course.’
N.B. Bob Underexposed decided to take the night off from photographing the gig - hence this random selection of images from my files.
