Radiohead/Bat for Lashes/MGMT: LCC 29th June

 

Still tinnitused from the previous night we finished off our ‘influential British bands mini-festival but with better toilets’ with the above line-up.

The sun was shining and I was already two pints to the better when MGMT appeared. So much has been written and said about this lot (including here) that I can’t add anything really new. All I know was they were really very marvellous. A short and tight set finishing (I think) with ‘Time to Pretend’ and ‘Kids’, we didn’t get the indoor gig extended (and harshly criticised) twiddly encores - which was a shame. Still, there was enough nu-prog here to keep me happy and have me on one leg flute-miming and hoping for the appearance of the snake-women (a text to BBO London dashed any remaining hopes of this). Really good. Love ‘em.

Bat for Lashes? The effect of toilet and bar queues leaves me with little to say here. What I did hear isn’t my cup of pissy lager. Sorry.

And then the main course - t’head. Ok they were good and at times brilliant. A great set with ‘Paranoid Android’ (still the Bohemian Rhapsody of the 90s to that extent I expected them to leave the stage half way and come back wearing glittery winged ponchos), ‘Bodysnatchers’ (the best of the disappointingly whiney In Rainbows), ‘National Anthem’, ‘Idioteque’ and 3^rd encore ‘Lucky’, sticking in the mind. But the event had got to me by that point.

I’m old enough to have been to many outdoor big gigs and thus I’m remarkably tolerant of audiences that aren’t really bothered with what’s going on up there, but on Sunday the general hassle of it all and swathes of nob-heads got to me. The cherry on the cake of annoyance was when we got covered by a chucked pint of shite lager. Said soaking was a moment of epiphany - no more anonymous and detached big gigs for me.

I must be/am getting old.

Radiohead - Bangers n’ Mash (Live, Avenches, Switzerland)

Radiohead - 2+2=5 (Live, Later with Jools Holland)

Radiohead - Lucky  (Acoustic, KROQ Breakfast)

MGMT - The Handshake

angrybonbon

My Bloody Valentine/Spectrum - Apollo 28th June

 

I’d read the reports from blogo-land and seen the pictures from their London Roundhouse gig, but none of this, it seems, sufficiently prepared me for My Bloody Valentine at the Apollo on Saturday.

Support came from Spectrum, aka Pete “Sonic Boom” Kember and band. I was hoping for much more, but Spectrum didn’t deliver: mildly affecting dronage, only slightly memorable because of the peculiar sight of Mr Boom walking around the stage (with a strange gait) adjusting amplifiers with no apparent or discernable difference to the resulting sound.

You can see why MBV are so influential - I spent a lot of the evening trying to work out how they achieved their sound and goggling at the innovation on show. Yet since Saturday I’ve been thinking a lot about this review and subsequently struggling to locate MBV in an adjective category. In fact, I’ve given up trying to work out if they were any good or not.

The best I can come up with is: “MBV were an experience I’m glad I’ve had, but never want to repeat”. Why? Because it all comes down to that section in set finisher ‘You made me realise’.

Now I’ve seen Japanese noise-architect Merzbow in full flow. I’ve also seen Magic City doing his glitch/noise/satanic metal thing at the Star and Garter. So I was full of bravado and arrogant confidence that it couldn’t be that loud.

How wrong I was.

A list of what I experienced during the noise middle-eight :

• Delight in the sheer corporeality of noise.
• Hilarity at the total stupidity of it.
• Total and utter boredom.
• Aural and visual disorientation
• Fear
• Actual and very real nausea.

And that was just the first five minutes (arf). We got 25 fucking minutes of it (and yes, I did time it)

And that’s all I can say.

Some MBV:

Only Shallow

Soon

Bleed your ears here

angrybonbon

Sweet Billy Pilgrim: gah!

I’ve obviously picked the worst two possible weeks to go away… not only am I missing Micah P. Hinson but now Sweet Billy Pilgrim too. I have never seen SBP as they are rather shy, infrequent performers, and this is very galling because I love their 2005 album We Just Did What Happened And No One Came. Anyway they’re playing at the Royal Opera House (!) in London on the 18th of July and if you like what might just be described as imaginative, beautifully produced folktronica then you should go. To tempt you, here’s a fantastic track that wasn’t on that album, and another one that was.

Tickets here. Let me know how good it was. Sigh…

Forget to Breathe - Sweet Billy Pilgrim

Experience - Sweet Billy Pilgrim - We Just Did What Happened And No One Came

Download the Brughada EP free from Spoilt Victorian Child Records

Official site and myspace

Buy ‘We Just Did…’

JKneale

Adem: Takes

I love cover versions, even bad ones. I’m particularly fond of good covers of terrible songs, because I then forget all about the original. An exorcism, of sorts (anything by Phil Collins, for example). This is a collection of great songs, even if I don’t know all of the originals. Because while I know most of the artists, the songs themselves are not always what you might call ’standards’. After two great records of smart but simple folk with all the tweaks (bike locks and all) that you’d expect from a mate of Keiran ‘Four Tet’ Hebden, Adem has decided to record some of his favourite songs by artists like PJ Harvey, Bjork, dEUS and others. It’s winning stuff, to the point where I was really finding it hard to choose two to post. The whole thing is delightful.

While Adem’s voice can easily cope with a bigger sound, it really suits a more intimate, homely feel. The two tracks I have chosen show this off nicely, as well as the care that’s gone into this album. The first is actually two Aphex Twin tracks run together, starting small and working into something grander; the second is a completely charming cover of a Breeders’ song from Last Splash. And there’s something else there for the waverers. Me? I’m completely sold.

To Cure A Weakling Child (Boy Girl Song) - Adem - Takes

Invisible Man - Adem - Takes

These Lights Are Meaningful - Adem - Love And Other Planets

Buy Adem’s records here

JKneale

Maybe next time, Micah…

So while I will be missing Micah P Hinson’s gig at Bush Hall in July, I will be rushing out to buy the new CD, Micah P Hinson and The Red Empire Orchestra, as soon as I can (it’s out two days earlier on the 14th July). Maybe I’ll see him at the End of the Road festival - he’s playing a few places this summer and I insist you search him out if you can. European dates and one track from his myspace.

‘Dying Alone‘ - Micah P Hinson

Jkneale

The ‘where are they now’ pile, 3: Wall of Voodoo

“Harshly awakened by the sound of six rounds of light caliber rifle fire…”

A quick post - I’ve just been spending some time rediscovering early-80s LA band Wall of Voodoo, probably most famous for ‘Mexican Radio’, and perhaps for vocalist Stan Ridgway’s subsequent (and similarly singular) solo hit ‘Camouflage’. God I loved that song - I’m a sucker for a ghost story, and the delivery made me laugh - and I went back to his old band. I’d forgotten how good they could be - a strange mix of pretty harsh synths, film score atmospherics and twangy guitar, with Ridgway’s nervy voice telling these tall tales over the top. I guess they didn’t want to be like all the LA punk bands around them, and while you could call them ‘new wave’ they kind of stand out on their own.

No ‘Mexican Radio’ here, just their very different version of Cash’s ‘Ring Of Fire’ from 1980, which really should be heard, and the song that was always one of my favourites, the title track of their second album from 1982, Call Of The West. This is a great yarn about a guy heading west to start again, and being warned to keep moving on by an old man who knows “you’re not from round these parts”. Falling asleep, our hero awakes to find himself “peering down the muzzle of a weapon held by a drunken liquor store owner.”

“‘There’s a conflict,’ he said. ‘There’s a conflict between land and people… The people have to go…”

To find out how this take on Turner’s frontier hypothesis turns out, you’re going to have to listen to the song, right?

‘Ring of Fire‘ - Wall of Voodoo - Wall of Voodoo EP

‘Call of the West‘ - Wall of Voodoo - Call of the West

You can still track down Call of the West in record shops over here and at Amazon. I don’t recommend the records after this one as it’s a very different band. The 1980 EP-plus-live tracks-etc Index Masters CD was re-released in 2005 and should also be around.

Official site here, myspace, and good fansites here and here.

JKneale

D.R.O.N.E.N’.R.O.L.L. with me

  

Round these parts, I think it safe to say, the descriptor ‘Shoegazing’ is something of a profanity associated with the Home Counties, private education and inability to see beyond unconditioned fringes. So it’s surprising that there are quite a few current bands out there using the tag uncritically - a nu-scene that celebrates itself? Tsk. You live and learn.

Yet this stuff engorges my love of repetition. There’s something securing and comforting to find a groove, stick with it and then add some decoration and deviation as one sees fit (and I’m thinking beyond music here as well).  So since I rediscovered my love of Loop via this here blog I’ve been hunting down bands that are quite happy to hammer one note for upwards of ten minutes and layer eddying psychedelic effects on top in what amounts to an extended Krauty-jam. Here are two of them.

First up, Glaswegians Ursula Minor where it seems bass, synth or ear mincing guitar vie to take on the drone, with what’s left doing the deviating. Laudanum is their debut EP and is very promising.

Second, are The Black Angels, from Austin, Texas (what do they put in the water over there?), whose second album Directions to see a Ghost has a cover designed to give you one of those niggly headaches that you ignore until you give in to the Nurofen (it’s also embossed for extra pleasure). With vocals that more than hint at Nico this is great psychedelic dronage. I turned down the offer of seeing them in Manc recently despite high recommendations from a mate. When will I learn to take more of a punt on gigs?

Sod Shoegazing - I much prefer drone n’ roll (not one of mine). In fact, let’s go with Mr Cope:

S.P.A.C.E.R.O.C.K. with me.

Ursula Minor - Sick Fuzz

The Black Angels - Doves

Drift your way here to purchase

angrybonbon

I Don’t Want To Move On: Bob Mould, Koko

We often end up looking back on this blog. This gig was a case in point, because on this tour Bob Mould seems happy to play material not just from his solo records and Sugar, but from Hüsker Dü as well, just as he does on the excellent live DVD. I was in seventh heaven - I like the solo stuff (the most recent, District Line, is fine), but my god I love the older stuff. I can’t be certain of the setlist, but he started with ‘The Act We Act’. followed by ‘A Good Idea’. Not bad. More Sugar (’Hoover Dam’, ‘If I Can’t Change Your Mind’), plus ‘I Hate Alternative Rock’, ‘Circles’, ‘Hanging Tree’ and more from solo albums… and then ‘New Day Rising’, ‘I Apologise’ and ‘Divide and Conquer’(!).

Then he played ‘Celebrated Summer’, probably my favourite song of all time, and it was just brilliant. At this point I turned to Al and said, jokingly, “He might as well play ‘Chartered Trips’ now”, thinking that he might draw the line at Zen Arcade’s intense shredders, but he bloody well played it. And it sounded fearsome, ending in a blur of guitars and screaming. He still does that weird running about while he’s playing, which I (still) find tremendously affecting - he obviously gets carried away with it, even after all these years.

So yes, a night for nostalgia. Some of the crowd were older than me, god bless ‘em. Bob asked if anyone had been there last time, when it was the Camden Palace and Hüsker Dü played in 1985 (recorded for TV, recently out on DVD). I wasn’t there, but I was at the Electric Ballroom just up the road less than a year later. And really I know we should find new stuff, not bang on about how things are terrible now, but I don’t want to move on. My celebrated summer involved listening to that song and this music shaped a good deal of my taste, and who I am, I guess. For better or worse.

So watch, listen, and wonder, younglings. This is how it’s meant to be done.

Hüsker Dü, Camden Palace 1985: ‘New Day Rising’, ‘It’s Not Funny Anymore’. Proper Moshing:

‘I Hate Alternative Rock‘ - Bob Mould - Bob Mould

‘Chartered Trips‘ - Hüsker Dü - Zen Arcade

‘Celebrated Summer‘ live - Hüsker Dü - The Living End

Buy Bob Mould, Sugar, Hüsker Dü here.

JKneale

Robbed! Sébastien Tellier at Eurovision

I’ve never cared about Eurovision before but this is ridiculous. The British are still moaning about ‘political’ voting, even though the song was rubbish. And all this guff about neighbours voting for each other seems a tiny bit simplistic - someone should tell Terry Wogan that there are good reasons that we use the word ‘Balkanisation’ to describe fractious fragmentation. Anyway the winner was the usual nonsense.

But the French nominated a proper pop star with a proper song and no one votes for that either. Sébastien Tellier comes on stage in a golf buggy and gives a cracking performance of ‘Divine’, backed by a chorus of lookalikes (including bearded women). It’s a lovely summery electronic pop song with great vocals - reminding me a little of Jarvis, or maybe that’s the loucheness. I then buy the album, the first and probably last time I will ever do that after watching Eurovision. And it’s great. Anyway, the performance is worth a look if you missed it, and the song is below.

‘Divine‘ - Sébastien Tellier - Sexuality

Buy

Jkneale

Worth waiting for: MGMT, Astoria

Well. If you think Kate Nash is irritating, avoid Florence and the Machine like the plague. My teeth are still grinding. It was so awful that I was driven to heckle. Anyway thank god for MGMT and their charisma and decent songs. Plus something for the ladies - a bit of bare chest (visible above). I’ve been playing this record to death but I wasn’t sure how it would work live. After all, it is quite mixed- the smart lyrics and pop hooks of ‘Time to Pretend’, the reedy Neil Young of ‘Pieces of What’, the Lips-ish cloak rock of ‘4th Dimensional Transition’. But it all sounded great. Of course they ran out of material - early days yet after all - but the rough-and-ready semi-improvised finale gave them another chance to do the party thing. I liked it. One band that deserves the hype, then.

Time To Pretend - MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Pieces of What - MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

4th Dimensional Transition - MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Buy here

Photo by Siobhan

Jkneale