Prattle

HE IS RISEN0 comments
m posted in Music on May 30th, 2008

I’ve said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating. Miles Kurosky (formerly of Beulah) has finally shaken off a pretty horrendous string of illness and incapacitation, and posted a new song to his newly-created Myspace page. It’s here, look - http://www.myspace.com/mileskurosky

Learn to love it. Initially it sounds like disparate sections, going off in too many directions. With repeated listens, it melts together into one wondrous gestalt. I’m having to fight a daily battle to stop myself from exploding with anticipation of the album. In fact, just a high-bitrate version of this first song might be enough to result in a John and Yoko-style bed-in, as I put it on repeat for a number of days and nights, eventually listening at such an ear-splitting volume that it sends me deaf, leaving this song as my last - and perhaps happiest - memory of sound.

The low bitrate version will almost certainly be in the next podcast, anyway. I’ll stick it at the end, so the unmoved can politely (but very wrongly) ignore it.

Dot to Dot0 comments
m posted in General moans, Music on May 27th, 2008

So, finally we made it to the Dot to Dot festival, this year. This is a festival that’s been going on in Nottingham and Bristol for years, and involves bands playing at local gig venues over two days. Generally, they’re not very big bands, meaning the price of the tickets can be kept extremely reasonable (£30 for two days). The problem is, the low budget seems to result in low commitment from some of the people involved. On the Sunday, two schedule changes during the day were posted up at some of the venues. The first change saw two of the three bands I really wanted to see being cancelled all together. Little Ones and Team Waterpolo both failed to turn up, with no explanation to the increasingly annoyed punters.

Still, we used the amusingly empty inter-venue bus service to get round town, and managed to see some excellent gigs. Here’s who we saw, in chronological order;

Saturday

Ida Maria at the Trinity - I’d been listening to some of Ida Maria’s album in the days leading up to the festival, and was quite excited about seeing her play. Despite the ridiculously early hour (awful scheduling, putting them at 4:45), the band went down well and played all of the best tracks on the album. By the end, they seemed to have won some new fans, as well as impressing some existing ones. The band were a bit thrown by playing at such an early hour, but they got into it eventually. Ida Maria herself is charismatic and rather attractive, with the occasional hint of Brody Dalle’s snarl. Worth checking out next time they come around.

Frank Turner at the Academy - I’d never heard of him, but he was extremely good. The songs are a bit bland, but he had a remarkable and elastic vocal range, and considerable energy. Despite the Academy clearly not giving him use of the full P.A. his frequently intelligent and interesting lyrics cut through the echoes and crowd-chatter. Plenty of people seemed to know exactly who he was, and were singing along to his songs. Presumably they were Million Dead (his former band) fans. Made me feel a bit weird, seeing as most bands/artists at least appear on my radar at some point. Still, now I know.

Oppenheimer at the Fleece - Just made it in time for the start of their set, having stayed a little too long for frank Turner. Having been greatly impressed with one of their songs, I’d been a little underwhelmed by the rest of their forthcoming album. But seeing this Ulster duo in front of me, those previously middling album tracks came to life. With the help of loads of sequencing/backing tracks, a vocoder and their handful of live instruments, they made a luscious, full sound. The singer/drummer looked a bit like Moby, hidden behind a microphone and a drum kit, but he sounded more like Ben Gibbard in Postal Service mode. Really enjoyed their poppy, electronicky set, and would like to see them again, if they play somewhere with a P.A. as good as the Fleece’s. Possibly my favourite show of the weekend. At least until the early hours of Monday…

Two Gallants at Trinity - Hmm. They played their best song first. After that, they played two crap ones, and their lack of soundcheck showed up in the dirgey, unbalanced racket that they continued to make. We couldn’t take any more, so buggered off.

Nick Harrison at the Fleece - With some time to kill due to the Two Gallants disappointment, we thought we’d stop off and catch this bloke. Turned out that he and his band were extremely proficient musicians, but had quite patchy material. It tended to lean a bit too heavily towards the Police and, even more worryingly, Sting’s solo material. Still, I won £68 on the fruit machine, so I marked this as a good gig.

It was at this point that the first hiccups really set in. We decided to forgo Spiritualized, as their set was due to be 90 minutes, and we wanted to be somewhere else after an hour. Three of us had seen them before, and we all agreed that we’d rather see a whole set than a half. So we decided to go over to the Louisiana to see Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit. Except, when we got to the Louie, it was absolutely rammed. We were refused entry, so had to find something to do while waiting for Santogold. Decided to call it quits and head for the Thekla, where Santogold was due on in an hour, to make sure we could get in. Just as well, as later reports suggested that people were queuing for ages outside, and many people missed Santogold entirely. While we waited, we heard Burkaka Som Sistema, who were bloody awful.

Santogold at Thekla - We were there for the single, really. That and her supporting dancers, who looked amusing. As expected, it was a karaoke set, featuring a backing tape, whateverhernameisbecauseiassumeit’snotsantogold, and her two supporting dance drones. Thing is, their statuesque stillness and very occasional movements weren’t sufficiently synchronised to be fully effective. They were a bit of a mess. Anyway, she was pretty good, and I suppose I didn’t not enjoy the other songs we stayed for. The single was done pretty well, and we decided to clear off shortly after. Passed massive queues on our way out, so were glad we managed to get there early, even if we missed Johnny Flynn and his folky acousticness.

Glasvegas at Fiddlers - After Santogold, we had to walk a reasonable distance to Fiddlers, to see everyone’s current favourite merchants of doom and Jesus & Mary Chain gloom, Glasvegas. They were pretty good, but really sounded extreeeeeeeemely like Jesus & Mary Chain. Oh, maybe they’re sounding a bit like My Bloody Valentine now…no, it’s the bits of J&MC that sound like MBV. And the singer looked like Billy Jo Armstrong from a distance, which is very off-putting when they’re trying to be so earnest. Also, we were fairly drunk at this point, so found it funnier than necessary. While we were in there, two blokes were stabbed outside a nearby pub, leaving one of them dead and the other hospitalised.

Sunday

This is where it really went wrong. We were planning on starting with the very promising Team Waterpolo. But when we got to the venue, they’d been removed from the schedule. Also removed were the Little Ones, who were the main reason we’d bought the tickets. Very very annoyed, at this point. We stayed for a bit of Light of Words but they were pretty drab, and we were too annoyed to give them a chance. Off we went, deciding to ignore everyone else who was playing, and get some food instead. Fittingly, the food was crap too. After the food, we headed off to Bedminster, to see…

Ruby Suns at Fiddlers - This was odd. They took an age to set up their assortment of instruments, and quite slowly got going. It was still light, and the crowd didn’t know what to make of them. The fact is, they weren’t very good. I wanted them to be good, but they weren’t. Lots of manic drumming, but barely distinguishable tunes and not enough consistency to allow you to get into it. They took it all pretty seriously, but didn’t like the crowd’s indifference. Eventually, they brought it to a close a song early, and cleared off. When they announced this, there was a very loud and sarcastic shout of Aaaaawwwwww… from the blokes in front of us. I thought they were rude at the time but, in retrospect, it was justified.

Time for something else to go wrong. Sort of. Two of us went to the Academy to wait for Dirty Pretty Things, and two went to the Fleece to see Dan Deacon. But when we got to the Fleece, they’d changed the schedule again. Dan Deacon moved from 8:30 at the fleece to 00:30 at Thekla. Great. Now we might not be able to get in to see Dirty Pretty Things (wouldn’t have been bothered, if we could’ve seen Deacon, who I would rather see). So we hot-footed it across town, heading for the academy. Got there in plenty of time, and managed to capture a good spot in Bristol’s worst venue.

Dirty Pretty Things at the Academy - Deeply unmoved by their album, I was still reasonably curious to see what they were like. The Academy P.A. was fully turned on, and they’d clearly got extra dry ice machines in. Eventually, DPT came on stage to great applause, and manfully trudged through their mediocre set of songs. A couple of good ones in there, but nothing special. They made a nice sound, and they’re good musicians, but too many forgettable tunes meant for a fairly unsatisfying hour. The bloke next to me drunkenly barked “Now THAT’s what I call a GREAT band”. I had to ask him to repeat himself, and responded with something like “Well, they’re alright, I suppose”. And that’s an accurate review, I think.

Due to further “rescheduling”, the next two bands we considered seeing (Alphabeat and Infadels) were cancelled. So, in anticipation of Dan Deacon, we headed over to Thekla early. After quite a wait, we went through to the balcony to see…

Heartbreak at Thekla - Billed as “Rimini Disco revival”, two very unlikely blokes came out on stage. One looked like Robert Webb, and worked the keyboards. The other looked like…well, I don’t know. What was he trying to achieve? Anyway, their music was 80s Europop, and rather entertaining. What lifted it further was the singer’s dancing. It’s captured in the video below, at about 1m30s. Do watch. The camera may jump around occasionally, as I was shaking with laughter. I binned a couple of other clips, because they were all over the place, and you could hear me crying. I almost had to be held up when he was singing “You won’t see me sitting down” over and over, while doing his dance. Brilliant.

Dan Deacon at Thekla - This was a bit of a punt, I think. 00:30 on Monday morning, and we were a bit tired. The others weren’t overly keen to see him, but I’d really enjoyed Deacon’s album and thought he might be worth seeing. The album is difficult to pigeon-hole, but it’s got a sort of groove to it, and a lot of humour. It turned out that this was the performance of the weekend, even though very little of it was played live. Instead of setting up on stage, Deacon stuck his little table of gadgets onto the dancefloor, surrounding himself with a drunk and enthusiastic crowd. This became a problem at one point, but he took it in good humour.

As well as playing his tunes, he got the crowd to go over to one side of the boat (listing it quite dramatically) and then come back to the other side through human archways. He got everyone crouching down and waving their arms around, got us singing along to barely intelligible lyrics. And most entertainingly, he attempted to instigate a dance-off. This inevitably involved local gig celebrity Jeff “Big Jeff” Johns, who didn’t fully grasp the idea of the dance-off. He didn’t want to leave the limelight, so it eventually descended into chaos. But watching it from the balcony above, it was very entertaining. Deacon’s banter with troublesome crowd members, and his various games were very funny indeed, and hugely enjoyable. Fantastic gig. Even if it brings to mind kids’ discos and Black Lace records.

And then home. They were still queuing outside Thekla when we left. Apparently someone fell in the water, and was fortunate to be rescued by gig-goers, after the bouncers ignored them. I took photos of every band, which I’ll stick on flickr eventually. Also, some fairly dodgy video footage from my compact camera, which I’ve stuck together and uploaded to Youtube. So, please witness Ida Maria, Oppenheimer, Heartbreak and Dan Deacon;

Click to link or watch below;

Albums of 20070 comments
m posted in General moans, Music on January 10th, 2008

Right. I’ve been putting this off, because there’s lots to say about lots of albums, and I never get round to it. So, with almost no nonsense, here’s my list of favourite albums from 2007. Why so many? Well, this year I thought I’d rate every track in iTunes, then work out averages for albums, and use that as the basis of a chart. Then, I shunted things around a bit, because some albums hang together really nicely, but might not have as many big-hitting tracks on them. So this, more-or-less, is the result. Most really bad things, or things that annoyed me a little too much, were deleted and therefore not included in the rankings. Other things missed out because I cocked up the years e.g. Sondre Lerche, though I wasn’t overly keen on that album anyway.

Anyway, stop faffing. Here’s my album chart of 2007. Podcast to follow shortly.
The top 25;

1 Voxtrot - Voxtrot	Simply wonderful. At first, Voxtrot struck me as a bunch of fairly dull indie weaklings. It seems that most people still agree with that initial appraisal, but I don’t. Many reviews have said that the album didn’t live up to the promise of their earlier EPs, but I prefer to think they’ve gone in a slightly different direction. Given the added resources (in terms of time, money and an experienced producer) the album contains more layers than the EPs. Some of the songs are packed with strings, woodwind and layers of guitars, giving the music the kind of gravitas that the lyrics often demand. In other places, they strip it back, and leave Ramesh Srivastava’s fragile vocal stranded, drawing attention to the words and the melody. It’s a beautifully crafted album, with a number of immensely powerful songs, which reward repeated listens. There’s something quite charming about an album whose climactic finale revolves around the line, “I’m just trying to do my best; I’m not afraid of life, I’m afraid of death.” It’s an admirable motto for life, I think. You may prefer to think that it’s nonsense or trite, but I’d have to disagree. It very nearly sends shivers down my spine.
2 Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder	3 Polyphonic Spree - The Fragile Army
4 Polytechnic - Down til dawn	5 Fortune Drive - A modern question
6 Shins, The - Wincing the night away	7 LCD Soundsystem - Sound of silver
8 Rakes, The - Ten new messages	9 Manic Street Preachers - Send away the tigers
10 Aliens - Astronomy for dogs	11 Switches - Heart tuned to D.E.A.D.
12 Serj Tankian - Elect the dead	13 Hot Hot Heat - Happiness Ltd.
14 Jason Falkner - I’m OK…you’re OK	15 Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
16 Arcade Fire - Neon bible	17 Black Francis - Bluefinger
18 Future of the Left - Curses	19 Crimea, The - Secrets of the witching hour
20 Maximo Park - Our earthly pleasures	21 Biffy Clyro - Puzzle
22 Electrelane - No shouts, no calls	23 Of Montreal - Hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?
24 Bloc Party - A weekend in the city	25 Wildhearts, The - The Wildhearts

Here are the rest;

Glowsticks pt.IIComments Off
m posted in General moans, Music on February 15th, 2007

This time, there really were glowsticks involved. Last night, I unwisely attended a gig that made me feel older than the father of Old Father Time. Older than Old Father Time’s father’s father, in fact. Older than the hills. And so on.

Shortly after getting home from the disturbing experience of the Bristol leg of NME’s New Rave tour, I wrote the following in an email to some people. I reproduce it here, as I don’t think I’ve completely carried the anger over into today. I’ve toned it down a little, in the cold light of day, but want to represent how I felt last night;

I’ve just spent a number of hours in a big room - a room that seemed to be turned on its side, as it was much higher than it was long - knocking glowsticks and whistles out of the mouths of water-drinking Jocastas and Henrys. I know this isn’t the first cultural phenomenon to have come round twice during my life, but it’s got to be one of the most annoying. If I go to a proper gig i.e. one that is for music fans, rather than retarded children, and someone blows a referee’s whistle within leaping distance of my head, I will immediately disable them, hollow out their heads, free their eyes from the sockets and blow into their nose until they make a loud “pheep”ing noise.

CSS were quite good, I expect, but I couldn’t really see them, and I couldn’t hear much after the 2 Unlimited sample, because the sound disappeared up into the uselessly high ceiling, and its remnants were strangled by the braying children and their whistles.

There were empty glowstick packets in the men’s bogs. IT’S JUST WRONG.

If I try to consider it rationally, I suppose I don’t object to New Rave in principle. I object to these bands (Sunshine Underground, CSS and Klaxons) being termed “New Rave”, when they bear no relation to Old Rave. But, if kids want to do something that they’ll be embarrassed about in 6 months’ time, then let them show up at clubs with glowsticks, whistles and white gloves. But these bands…you’d at least expect a tenuous connection to Rave buried somewhere in their music, but it’s pretty difficult to find. Three bands showed up to this gig, and all of them were largely guitar-orientated indie bands, with a disco attitude to the open hi-hat. Franz Ferdinand have already revived that sound, and I doubt they get pelted with glowsticks whenever they take to the stage.

What’s most annoying about it, is that this risks turning gigs into clubs. At clubs, it’s all about the audience/crowd/clubbers, so they prance about in order to get noticed by the opposite (or the same) sex. Like greasy birds of paradise, they leap and whoop, attempting to attract a temporary mate, or a shout out from the DJ. But gigs should really be about the band on stage. And it’d be nice if there was some applause between songs, instead of the TOTP-style shrieking of teenagers and waving of glowsticks.

OK, you want some crowd atmosphere, but you don’t want it to completely envelope the band’s performance. Or at least, you probably don’t want that if you’re 32 years old. If you’re 17 and into New Rave, it seems that this is exactly what you want. So perhaps that’s what the link back to Rave music is; self-absorbed tossers in search of a beat that they can wave their hands at.

I’m not prepared to stand by these comments, by the way. I’m just angry about not being able to see or hear 3 bands who I was curious to see and hear. Glowsticks made it more annoying than it needed to be, I think.

Albums of 20060 comments
m posted in General moans, Music on January 7th, 2007

It’s a bit late for this, but I might as well share my list of the best albums of 2006. There’ll be a related Podcast to follow, and you’ll need to bear in mind the usual disclaimers regarding the arbitrary nature of chart placings. Go to Pitchfork or Amazon for further information about the various albums.

Looking at the list, it reminds me that 2006 was a year where I rather liked a large number of albums, but loved very few. So, without much trouble, I could produce a list of 50 albums I liked, but the last 30 would probably all be ranked the same. This makes further mockery of the below listing, of course.

31 - The Knife - Silent Shout
(impossible to rank, I find, hence its position outside the 30)

30 - Milburn - Well well well
29 - Primal Scream - Riot City blues
28 - Secret Machines - Ten silver drops
27 - Morning Runner - Wilderness is paradise now
26 - The Sounds - Dying to say this to you
25 - Mando Diao - Ode to ochrasy
24 - Semifinalists - Semifinalists
23 - Akira the Don - When we were young
22 - Fujiya & Miyagi - Transparent things
21 - Belle & Sebastian - The life pursuit

20 - Hope of the states - Left	19 - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show your bones
18 - Albert Hammond Jr - Yours to keep	17 - The Pipettes - We are the Pipettes
16 - TV Eyes - TV Eyes	15 - The Killers - Sam’s town
14 - The Young Knives - Voices of animals and men	13 - Mates of state - Bring it back
12 - Ben Kweller - Ben Kweller	11 - Joanna Newsom - Ys
10 - The Fratellis - Costello Music	09 - …And you will know us by the trail of dead - So divided
08 - Simple Kid - 2	07 - The Dears - Gang of losers
06 - The Concretes - In Colour	05 - My Chemical Romance - The black parade
04 - Boy kill boy - Civilian	03 - Sugarplum Fairy - First round, first minute
01 - I’m from Barcelona - Let me introduce my friends	01 - Muse - Black holes and revelations

A number of albums narrowly missed the list (Midlake, Brakes, Grandaddy, Cord) and one missed it by a country mile. I hope 2007 is the year the Arctic Monkeys bugger off. It’s unlikely, but it should be the nation’s main goal. Doherty will disappear in a puff of cheap cocaine and rubbish songs, so it’s just the parochial prats that need erasing in the next few months.

2007’s album of the year is pretty much decided, by the way. New Magnetic Wonder by the Apples in Stereo is absolutely brilliant. It’s a joy to hear a band that’s been around for years finally putting all of their previously (largely) unrealised promise into one expertly crafted album. It’s nearly perfect. It’s officially released in the US in February, and the UK in March. Seek it out and learn to love it. It’ll hug you back.

Spintos!0 comments
m posted in General moans, Music on October 30th, 2006

Spinto Band were excellent, though strangely subdued, at the Thekla on Sunday night. I took a bit of video, and uploaded it (in squashed-down form) to Youtube. Here it am;

Compare that to this more typical performance from elsewhere on youtube (stick with it to the end, as it does build up with a crescendo of silliness.) This one comes closer to capturing why they’re such good fun to go and see;

Albums of 20050 comments
m posted in General moans, Music on January 2nd, 2006

So, here’s my favourite 30 albums of 2005. Their order changes on a regular basis, but I’ll stick with this for now. Won’t bother writing little reviews of them, as I’m still using an annoying laptop to type this stuff up. Go to Pitchfork or Amazon for further information. Podcast featuring tracks from the top 20 will follow. I ought to point out that because I imported it from the U.S. last year, Arcade Fire’s sublime “Funeral” went into last year’s chart, and is therefore exempt from this year’s. It would’ve been number 1.

30 - Death cab for cutie - Plans
29 - Doves - Some cities
28 - My Computer - No CV
27 - Bloc Party - Silent alarm
26 - M83 - Before the dawn heals us
25 - We are scientists - With love and squalor
24 - Goldie lookin’ chain - Safe as fuck
23 - Shout out louds - Howl howl gaff gaff
22 - Final Fantasy - Has a good home
21 - The Bravery - The Bravery

20 - New Pornographers - Twin cinema	19 - Envelopes - Demon
18 - Weezer - Make believe	17 - Sigur Ros - Takk
16 - Nine inch nails - With teeth	15 - Cardigans - super extra gravity
14 - Mew - And the glass handed kites	13 - System of a down - Mesmerize
12 - Clor - Clor	11 - The Wedding Present - Take fountain
10 - Art Brut - Bang bang rock’n'roll	09 - Ambulance LTD - Ambulance LTD
08 - Of Montreal - The Sunlandic twins	07 - Hot Hot Heat - Elevator
06 - The Crimea - Tragedy rocks (reissue)	05 - Brendan Benson - Alternative to love
04 - Nada Surf - The weight is a gift	03 - Maximo Park - A certain trigger
02 - dEUS - Pocket Revolution	01 - Spinto Band - Nice and nicely done