pszine

Live Review: Wolf Eyes / Uter, Mono, Glasgow, 19/06/05

2005-06-28T22:53:00.000+01:00

words: jocksawyer

Sometimes I discover that I have in fact retained an element of semi-wild eyed enthusiasm after all and I find myself wanting to go and check out "new sounds" and catch the latest unfamiliars. However, running against this is the fact that I have always taught myself to never respond solely to good reviews from ANY national music publications or indeed to touch any band who seem to have a "BUZZ" (no matter the circles in which the buzzing is going on - I am particularly suspicious if the buzz creators and spreaders are young, attractive and overly keen!) about them. In my formative years, I tended to hang on most of the crap produced by a' thae "personality" writers at the weekly horror that still is the NME and was The Melody Maker. All this produced was a tendency for me to end up buying Milltown Brothers and Revolver 12 inches and spending loads of cash to go and see Bleach hit the big city. When I look back on it all now it's more than a tiny understatement to say that I feel somewhat embarassed. I feel pretty saddened too at the fact I was taken in by these would be style gurus who didn't know anything about music or even particularly like it.

The only mentions I have ever seen of Wolf Eyes big up the fact they are faves of the legendary "The Wire" mag. "The Wire" is a slightly self conscious mag which covers QUALITY and THOUGHT PROVOKING music spanning the avant-garde/classical/post-punk/jazz/electronic/experimental etc etc etc fields. The fact that this is mentioned so often will carry a certain cachet for impressionable listeners. They will tend to think they are listening to a QUALITY group, that they are listening to some Tony Conrad etc etc etc etc etc etc meisterwerk and they will get off on the feeling of having entered such a haughty world. Believe me (aargh I now sound like Ian Botham. Next I'll be fronting the "save our pound" campaign) this is how these things work. The more impressionable reader likes a feeling of having landed into an unknown world open only to him or her! From what I can gather "The Wire" see WE as carrying on the traditions of a' that Throbbing Gristle/Nurse With Wound/air of foreboding "avant-garde" grind with just enough of a peak into the even haughtier leftfield neo-classical field that meets their approval and wets their whistle so much. I have to confess to never being a fan of this oeuvre. It just seemed liked an aural hairshirt to me, pure gruel and about as far removed from real EXTREMITY or at least the type of extremity or intensity that I am interested in (i.e. the emotional kind) as I could ever imagine. For all the bobbins about pain and suffering that went hand in hand with a lot of this the majority of it was crass and.. goddamnit... art school (and that's the better stuff! Trent Reznor and walking crates of bitter windmilling their hair to banging beats and endless repetitions of the humourous phrase "beers, steers and queers" came at the fag end of it all.Yes this was the road to "INDUSTRIAL". What the fuck was that about?). It is promised in the hagiography posted via the Sub Pop web site that "Wolf Eyes just fucking ARE the dire circumstances of the modern human condition"... .eh... that's just a load of old bobbins. I bet whoever wrote that lives in a 5 bedroom apartment off Byres Road with Lou, his deliciously saturnine girlfriend, works part time at Monorail and writes a highly acclaimed zine called "Crucial Taunt" much to the delight of everyone who knows him.

I do have the feeling that WE are also much loved by leftfield indie (i.e. Colleen not Kasabian) scenesters/zinesters - the aforementioned young, attractive and overly keen peoples. Somewhere, somehow and by someone they have been deemed hip, unusual and worth bothering with. This can be down to a number of things, such as does the person who spreads the word and who is listened to know the band, do the band have previous credentials etc I love good zines. They are written by people who like music and who have not been paid to offer their opinions. The indie zine thing appears to still be flourishing. However, I have seen enough evidence to surmise that the criteria of something being stylish and in vogue is not beyond the ken of the zine. I'm aware this is a controversial and highly personal opinion but from what I have seen your average leftfield indie zine may not necessarily be written by genuine angst ridden social misfits. They may tend to be written by those who like to dress up as if they are genuine angst ridden social misfits! The ethos of dressing up and socialising in the right places is all too well kent to the indie scene and for me at times it can get a wee bit unpalatable. This may be controversial but when I listen to a record I love I come away from it feeling inspired or enervated or joyful or with a feeling of insight. I NEVER think... jeez Smog are so great I suddenly want to wear check shirts, try to develop a slightly louche fringe and look lugubrious or feel that because I like The Yummy Fur I'm going to look like a smug git or (this is a biggie with me) I love Hot Snakes so pass me the Brylcream. I do not think in that way. In my youth whenever I tried this kind of approach, i.e. getting into the FASHION AND STYLE sector of the image cast off by bands I liked, I felt an absolute twat. I did not feel true to myself and I did not feel like an individual. There was also something about my lack of standing, my lack of finances,my size and the fact I was living in a small town which just made all this come across as a total absurdity - mutton dressed as lamb indeed. However if you live in the leafy west end with all the cushioning a big city provides, if you have a certain attractiveness and approachability then you're quid's in and lo and behold you may not feel too self conscious about dressing like you saw in a photo... I am supposed to be reviewing a gig I think so let's do that.

Uter are an odd bunch. They start off as a duo and start playing (well switch on the tape..as their rather nicely self deprecating web site alludes to) before anyone notices. This duo are quite simply the 2 boffins from the early days of The Human League - 2 guys "immune in their black clothing" - the Martyn Ware one has a beard and the Ian Craig Marsh one is a red head etc . Soon they are joined by a lass who looks as if she has rolled off the zine writer production line, very popular in these parts - retro chic, uber geek chic etc all with the sign "professionally quirky etc etc" above her heid. This person contributes to some fine tunes and that should be it period but hell, this is MY little underground and these are my phrases and thoughts. I still spend a lot of time vexing on how music and the culture surrounding it is allegedly all about self (i.e. something unique to an individual) expression but then you see so many people who EXPRESS THEMSELVES IN THE SAME WAY, i.e. they clearly only have access to the one clothing store (sorry thrift store), a wondrous place called Personality Inc just round the corner from Brel which sells odd shoes and 1973 Wilkins family cast offs to those who have swallowed the music = fashion thing big time, and they ALL assert this bright and multi-faceted personality to the hilt. It seems to win too - these people are never seen on their ain. They can be heard conversing loudly and holding court with the old partner and pals combo or talking meaningfully in whispers with their spouses. Frankly it makes me uneasy... of course I should not be thinking these kinda things..so I'll tak a breather.

Aye... Uter. They sound a little like a little instrumental journey through the early days of Marsh and Ware's pre-Heaven 17 band with most of the abrasive edge hewn off to leave something that is as nicely homespun as Molly Weir and Tunnock's Tea Cakes. Ian Craig Marsh dons a bass on a coupla numbers and this adds a welcome live element and a tough underlay too to what they do. They do a really nifty cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain's "My Little Underground" (complete with vox from ICM and some rather nice hissy noises) and this is an additional aid to beefing things up. Jolly and affable as the tunes may be, there are plenty hints at something nice and rollicking and even tho' , as for WE later, the volume stays at a quiet and uninvolving level I feel myself finding a way in and simply digging the tunes. ICM plays some Albrecht/Sumner/Dicken weedy wicka wacka guitar on the set closer but even that cannot dampen my ardour. This group are infectious in a boingy kind of way - light and fluffy they may be but... hell.. .what's wrong with that?

Let's move on to a group who are far more light and fluffy than the somewhat unreasoned bumf that has been scribbled about them might indicate. WE come on and it quickly becomes apparent that these are avuncular and affable guys. They are not doom laden blank walls of Gira-esque austerity and bullshit intensity trying to trowel on "the pain and the suffering" (I'm very thankful about this - this state of affairs seems to be a selling point for this band, i.e. they produce a so called unrelenting noise but they do it without self flagellation and put it across in a supposedly gleeful and more mosh pit friendly manner). I have half a feeling that "The Wire" see them as some kind of kids instructional video - here's the first notch on the 15 step guide to"'understanding" Lamonte Young the easy way and they start well, they really do.

The opening swathes of noise are deeply rumbly and Nate Young, the main man who doesn't actually do very much despite being MISTER WOLF EYES does some lovely scraping with 2 pieces of scrap metal. Even then there are some bad omens tho'. A closer look reveals that one of them appears to be the main man from any German industrial noise merchants of the past 20 years - large proboscis, fist waving, big gut, Tommy Lee drummer's gloves!!!, bulging cycling shirt. No doubt he is called Klaus H too. He casts off some odd teutonic vibes which before I know it have me thinking of those moments from the bowels of music such as those produced by Laibach. He componds this by producing an alpine horn thing on a couple of occasions. At that point I become convinced I am in fact watching Laibach. Somehow as the set goes on it all gets more and more indistinct and muddled and a' this legendary array of noise making equipment that they're suppose to inflict aural terror with kind of has the same effect as bairns rumbling through a toy box and finding a Christmas Cracker moothie. Having earplugs in while watching all this is extremely surreal - you can see 3 guys flailing about "attacking/assaulting/battering yadda yadda yadda" their instruments but you can't hear anything apart from something that sounds like an industrial heater chugging away next door and you know what... this is them in microcosm... 3 guys cutting mock-drongoid shapes and producing fuck all.

WE are known as noisemakers, they are famed for using all manner of noisemaking devices such as various metallic clanging things, pedals, tapes, saxophone! etc etc as well as one guitar! The thing is they don't do much with anything! This just isn't a particularly extreme noise. This situation clearly isn't helped by the teeny weeny Mono PA and wide open sunlit (at 10PM!) spaces. Klaus H continually tells the sound guy (maybe even the very same infamous "wee shite" who did the sound at the Jesus and Mary Chain's first gig according to William Reid) to turn it up and he does... a wee bit.. .the loudest it gets is when Nate takes a break from the funeral parlour... sorry... shouting into his 2 mic's to ram one of them into an amp. This is very piercing! but shouldn't match the rest of the arsenal of devices and ephemera on display. In truth, their bevy of noise is more like a "peashooter attack" to quote from the greatest of games.

My mood is brought down to the elegantly scuffed Mono floor by the crowd and the crowd reaction to all this. I suppose there aren't many folk here and if you like the groop then maybe this adds to the exclusivity of it all but there are folk here who think that this lot are the second coming or at least the second coming according to "Crucial Taunt". I'm sorry to get personal but there is another "wee shite" in front of me who is keen as the hottest mustard known to man, who is animated and excitable and gets right into all the chest beating and fist pumping and reacts in a way to suggest that THIS IS THE WAY YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BEHAVE AT A WOLF EYES SHOW. When you see overly keen behavior of this kind it lets you know that the band in question have probably been over hyped. He is of course a privileged young gent - wispy facial hair, tousled mop and GIRLFRIEND to the fore complete with a' thae intimate wee gestures which are projected in a manner akin to shouting WE ARE A COUPLE through the size of PA seen at a My Bloody Valentine gig. He is not alone in hysteria. A shaggy haired cherub barges to the front with an 8 foot tall Amazonian woman in pigtails ('tis the truth!) and stands saluting with pint glass in the Melotte style for most of the evening.

A Gruff/Bunf/Milf clone barges in towards the end and tries to create a pit situation and this horrid Julie Burchill-a like who seems to be the band's best pal roams around in a reverie bumping into folk trying to exort them to appreciate the glory of everything Wolf Eyes... or something. WE's "faster" numbers are pretty surreal in that they have no percussion or drums of any kind so all that signifies speed is the rate of fist pumping done by Klaus and the frenzy into which Julie B and Jody Wildgoose in front of me twist themselves. There is something extremely surreal about this business. I suppose at least it's good that folk are getting excited about something that isn't guitar/bass/drums + verse/chorus but the thing is this lot aren't anything new or mindblowing either. They MAKE A NOISE, nothing more nothing less and that seems to be enough. Folk get excited at being in the middle of an extraordinarily all consuming noise and an intense racket etc but this isn't really that either. It's a pitter patter rather than a barrage. It's a wet blanket plop of noise not a slegehammer. It is all so indistinct blurry and random (and to all you "YOU CAN NEVER UNDERSTAND" merchants - good improvising is not random!!!) a tweak on an inner tube here and a honk on a sax there and it just comes over as a bloody mess made by sweaty BLOKES. I've seen that kinda thing quite a lot.

Now, where are those Milltown Brothers 12 inches... maybe they'll have them in Monorail next to all the Merzbow box sets...

Interview: The Sky At Night

2005-06-28T18:46:00.000+01:00

Hailing from Glasgow, The Sky At Night create lovely, woozy, dreamy, elegaic sounds, reminiscent of the likes of Galaxie 500, early Spiritualized and Sigur Ros. Determined to do things for themselves and on their terms, their self-made and produced, self-released "Hope For Dummies" LP is a gorgeous slice of melancholia and a shining example of how a DIY ethic can bear fruit if it's properly thought out and followed through. Answering the questions, put by myself and jocksawyer via email, was vocalist/piano player David Thomson.

ps - The LP was self-made and self-released. What made you decide to go down that route? Was it a concious decision to make it a nice package (as it were!), to take a bit more care with it and give the people who bought it something a bit more special?

DT - I think we wanted to make something quite personal that we`d been intimately involved with at every stage, from pressing play and record to handmaking the packaging, putting the Velcro on the sleeve and sticking the CD in. It wasn`t really in our minds to try and sell them or anything, it was more just for the satisfaction of creating the whole thing ourselves.

ps - It honestly doesn’t show but I would guess the LP was recorded on a fairly tight budget. There are some really nice lush sounds on there. Were you able to take a bit of time and experiment or did you do most of the tracks live in the studio? Also how important to you is “the recording process” in general?

DT - I think the budget consisted of a couple of bottles of wine and a curry. Myself, Andrew and Moira spent a weekend huddled around a 16-track in Andrew's front room and recorded most of it, then added bits and bobs later. There are a lot of flaws on there, things we could have re-recorded ad nauseum but we did want to keep things as much as we`d played it originally rather than iron out the imperfections. I think that helped retain a certain sound to the record which I quite like. That, and shitloads of reverb, of course.

ps - Are you going to continue to put your own records out, or will any future releases appear on a label somewhere? Obviously, putting your own records out gives you more freedom to do your own thing, but what do you see the advantages and disadvantages are of doing so?

DT - It`s looking like we might be getting some help with the record from a small label in the next few months (there are only so many cardboard sleeves we can make!) - although as nothing's certain we can`t really comment at the minute. However, having done things entirely ourselves it`s certainly proved that things can be done on a certain scale without a label, I don`t see us as being one of those bands who pin all their hopes and dreams on winning The Deal, as so many new bands still do.

ps - Following on, listening to the LP and seeing you live, I think the music you play lends itself well to the addition of the extra instrumentation (pedal steel, trombone etc), was it always your intention to not be as rigid in your sound and be able to bring more things into the mix?

DT - At the moment we`re kind of building a "squad" to play the songs - everyone who`s joined in has added something, and, we`re always open to adding different sounds, we`re not afraid to experiment. I quite like the Lambchop approach, where they seem to have a big group of players to add to the songs and who basically seem to turn up when they can make it - nothing too formal, just a bunch of friends making nice-sounding music. We try to avoid having a set idea of how things should sound, which keeps it interesting for us, and, hopefully, for people who watch us.

ps - I see you’re not of the opinion that “home taping is killing music” and that you’re pretty relaxed about people sharing your music (e.g. if I were to convert the tracks from your LP into MP3 files and send them to a friend on MSN Messenger). Have the likes of file sharing and general word-of-mouth about your LP helped you get it heard a lot more than it might have been? (a consequence being that people will want to buy it anyway so they can own it)

DT - I think file sharing really ups the ante for bands. The bands that don`t put in the effort are the ones with something to fear - those who churn out albums or who tack some lame album tracks onto a hit single will be found out and will lose out. By converse, those who put in a lot of work, both in creating music and in everything else that goes with it - it's more important to give something that can`t be downloaded, be it a look or a feel, just something extra.

Basically, for bands who want to make money, file-sharing is a Bad Thing, but for bands who want their music to be heard it is a Good Thing, and I`m pretty certain we're the latter.

ps - You have to be applauded for sticking to your guns through the booming heavy metal coming from upstairs when you played with Damon and Naomi. It provided a unique challenge which you rose to very well. How easy or otherwise do you find it, as a “quiet band”, to play when there is a lot of background noise going on either through crowd chatter or metal?

DT - Ach, I`m normally in such a blind panic onstage that I don`t notice anything! I think I find chatter more irritating as an audience member than as a band member, but I`d say we`d been pretty lucky, we generally have played to pretty polite audiences, but you have to understand at this level not everyone is necessarily there to see you, there's nothing worse than a band in a strop.

ps - The incident at Barfly where you were put on against heavy metal from upstairs made me think about the quality of venues which exist in Glasgow and Edinburgh Do you feel there are enough decent places to play, particularly for new-ish bands? Also, situations can arise which make it hard for some bands to get a shot at playing decent gigs such as where promoters put on the same band in every support slot going! How easy do you find it to get gigs, either support slots or on your own? Have you ever put on your own shows?

DT - Again, it comes back to effort. We've never had a problem playing a gig when we want to play a gig, either through promoters or venues or by organising our own shows, but as a wee band you can`t just wait for things to happen, because they never will. So, for example, we wanted to play a Christmas gig, so we roped in some pals (Lucky Luke, Evan J Crichton and The Savings and Loan), hired out Stereo, put up some lights and handed out a wee CD in a Christmas card, and it made for a really nice night, and it really wasn`t that much work- just a wee bit of get up and go. All you need to do is switch off your TV set and do something less boring instead...

ps - As mentioned above, you recently played with D&N. Who would be on your dream list of bands to play or even tour with? These could be bands from the worlds of both reality and fantasy!

DT - Cripes…off the top of my head:

To play with: Red House Painters.

To tour with: Pavement.

My dad played drums with a band of young hopefuls in the 60s, so my fantasy line-up would be with them, to see who's band was best (I`m quietly confident)

ps - Lastly, I’m guessing Patrick Moore hasn’t been in touch about the name! I take it his right-wing maniac political views may bar him from having the opportunity to add some virtuoso xylophone sounds to any future recordings?!

DT - We were, of course, unaware of Mr Moore`s political orientation when we named the band, although, in fairness, in terms of crinkly-foreheaded-TV-bigots he still ranks some way behind Kilroy and Big Ron, so that's at least something.

Website - http://www.theskyatnight.net/
Email - info@theskyatnight.net

Live Review: Oxes, Subway, Edinburgh, 12/06/05

2005-06-14T18:11:00.000+01:00

words: chris_ps

Sometimes less is more (although, not always) so it went without saying that one of the support bands (either of the local metal types who were pretty dull and uninspired) could have been culled - at least the quirky acoustic troubadour that is Oso was semi-interesting. So, and in such a spirit, here is my review of last night's Oxes gig -

Complex, roaring, jagged, non-linear, math-metal? Check.
Playing songs while in the audience or standing on tables at the back of the room? Check.
Playing songs standing while on top of boxes? Check.
Old, bare-chested Dick Campbell lookalike with a cane sat by the side of the stage for banter purposes? Check.
Non-ironic cover of Alice In Chains' "Them Bones" complete with random audience member on vocals? Check.
Support act (yer man from Oso) drinking piss out of a pint glass at the end? Check.
"Performance art" of naked guitarist crawling on the floor and spitting remnants of a banana at people? Check.
The feeling, when leaving the venue, of feeling utterly fulfilled and muttering the words "now, that's entertainment!"? Check.

Just another day at the office for the Oxes then.

Live Review: Hot Snakes / Dan Sartain, Oran Mor, Glasgow, 29/05/05

2005-05-30T13:26:00.000+01:00

words: chris_ps

Sometimes the simple thrill of seeing a band so on top of their game and so clearly into what they do can be the best feeling in the world. And that's the feeling I had watching Hot Snakes - the chemistry between the 4 of them, the way Rick Froberg and John Reis just seemed to be automatically on the same page as each other and how they made it look like the easiest thing imaginable, the relentless crash of song after song with little time to breathe in between time. It was magical to watch.

But first, Dan Sartain. Sartain, from Birmingham Alabama, is another unassuming figure and performs unaccompanied on the electric guitar. An interested few edge closer to the stage, but, on the whole, the crowd remain distant as he begins his set. His amplified country/rockabilly tunes and his bluesy voice tended to drag (so much so that I swear he just played his first song song 4 times in a row at the start!) and I found myself drifting as my interest waned. His closing song at least provided some respite from the monotony of the previous 25 minutes or so - a neat, twangy, Flaming Stars-like noir which ended a somewhat disappointing set on a good note.

To paraphrase someone then - Hot Snakes, bloody hell !!! Froberg and Reis have been partners in crime for many years, obviously, and most notably, in the mighty Drive Like Jehu, but it seemed to rise to a new level in the plush surroundings of Oran Mor. They open with the edgy, jarring "I Hate The Kids", Froberg, as he did all evening, hollers away like his life depended on it and the stellar, chiselled Reis thrashes out those guitar lines with an intensity rarely seen (as Mr Sawyer noted, he's some guitar mangler is old Mr Reis). "Gar Forgets His Insulin" followed almost immediately, setting the tone for the evening - 20+ pieces of exhilarating, roaring math-punk genius in just over an hour. No wonder we, and they, were so breathless at the end of it.

And the fact they overcame a not inconsiderable amount of adversity as well - the sound was muddy (but it was loud and loud works for them!) and the ferocity of the drummer meant that his kit had to be held up for most of the show by a willing volunteer from the crowd propping up the bass drum (Reis, mishearing his name due to the accent, christens him "Robot", Robot turns out to be one of the heroes of the night, I hope his hearing returns soon!). To play through what could have been trying circumstances and to deliver a performance of such quality summed up what makes them a special band.

As I said, Froberg and Reis know each other's games so well that all it took sometimes was a look or a nod to start the next song - they tear through the likes of "If Credit's What Matters I'll Take Credit" and "Automatic Midnight" from the first LP, "LAX" and "Suicide Invoice" from the second and the glorious, chiming "Plenty For All" and a crushing "Braintrust" and "Hi-Lites" from the quite magnificent latest "Audit In Progress". That's not to say it's just a two man show - the ever cheery Gar Wood's bass rumbles away and the aforementioned Mario Rubalcaba batters the seven shades of shit out of his drums to add magnificently to the mix.

They close with a quite astonishing version of Jehu's "Bullet Train To Vegas", Froberg straining to get the words out, his voice nearly shot, but it's still stark reminder of how to take something from your past, re-evaluate it to the present and make it sound as vital and urgent as it ever was - it was one of the evening's highlights and trust them to keep it in reserve. They (and Robot!) leave to tumultous acclaim from the crowd and every last drop of applause is deserved. Their formula is so simple, but the delivery and execution is extraordinarily done. One of the gigs of the year, and maybe a contender for inclusion in the gigs of all time. Yes, THAT good.

Live Review: Damon And Naomi / The Sky At Night - Barfly, Glasgow, 21/05/05

2005-05-27T12:28:00.000+01:00

words: jocksawyer

So, it's Saturday night and even tho' we're in the big pristine fulfilled and summery (yet summary) city instead of the Fife Rust Belt badlands, my personal prevailing wind suggests that I should spend said time power drinking from champagne waterfalls and a glass that was never empty admist a flurry of "she done me wrong's" and "where did it all go wrong?'s." So, therefore, what I should do is take recourse to the common man and seek solace in nostalgia - "Stranglers revival tours remind me of the halcyon days before I went full time at the slag factory" / "I once bumped into Chaz Jankel outside Snape, The Maltings when I was with her who looked a bit like Debbie Harry" etc, etc.

Anyway, tonight I'm going to see Damon and Naomi. I loved Galaxie 500 with no small amount of passion and I've always followed D&N's subsequent path. Sometimes, I am wracked with guilt tho' in that I might be falling in to the above trap, i.e, I express dissatisfaction with my current life by revisiting my faves from a golden age (Ha! - aye, I was thinner, had more hair, less money, drank less and had more active contact wi' pals but I was still negative, depressed, aimless and congenitally unattractive to women! Bring on The UK Subs and Chelsea washed down with gallons of laaager laaager laaager...). However, in a saner moment, I realise that while G500 might have piqued my initial interest in D&N they have done plenty enough in their own right to extend an active involvement beyond a mere yearning to re-enact way back when. Jesus, they have released 5 studio albums of, at times, quite exquisite beauty. They have moved away from the G500 sound and have delved deep into folk and a different more organic brand of psychedelia. They run their own publishing outlet, specialising in "Classics Of Experimental Literature". They now have their own label 20/20/20 too. Basically through it all they have done it their own way without recourse to major labels and crossover markets and they deserve a venue choc full of youth keen to catch up on what they're all about. Sadly, what they get are 10 or so normal couples (most of the women seem to be doing Carol Smillie impressions while the blokes all look like they once played bass in Hipsway), a few solo nostalgia-ists and the support band's pals! This is somewhat confusing but it does reassure me to think that the "D&N way back when" club doesn't have many members!

Support comes from the neatly monikerered The Sky At Night. It soon becomes resoundingly clear that it isn't just their name that is pleasing to the ear. There are 7 of them, including folk on pedal steel, trombone and cello, and when I see these numbers preparing to play I immediately think of the horror of The Earlies with their cast of millions and who do nothing but add more pain to an already sludgy mess. With this lot tho' you have 7 folk who can play with feeling (man) and subtlety (and there's nobody who looks like Dennis Locorriere or Ray Sawyer either) and what the different instruments do is what they should, i.e. add nuances and wee touches to proceedings. The main singer is a guy who looks totally like a Martin (don't ask!) but in fact is a David. He sits crouched incredibly low over a massive piano which seems to be tuned to the saddest of keys. He knows how to manipulate thae sounds of yearning from both keys and voice. His voice is gorgeously strained and produces a level of fragility way beyond the everyday. His songs have something of the big scuffed balladeer in hiding about them - imagine Jimmy Webb's tunes if they'd been wrung out of the bedrooms of Scottish tower blocks where the stereo skips between Tindersticks, Red House Painters and Kris Kristofferson.

Other golden unprojected and naked voices (courtesy of the cellist, who is the least likely Moira ever to set foot on the face of the earth, and the guitarist) weave nicely in and out of the fold and it gets all heady and swoony. I must stress however that this is not floaty "one level" music. This lot know how to build tunes and how to bring thae Wire mag-friendly dynamics into play, e.g. the epic set closer starts off bare and pained and soon gets spiky and ends up tearing at you - the guitar all pain and that wheezy cello almost bursting! The more I think about this set and listen to their "Hope For Dummies" LP, the more I think this lot really are something special. Sure at times they sound a wee bit gauche but they are a young band and they will develop - out will go what needs to be pruned (if pushed I might say that some moments are still over populated with instrumentation) and with their added confidence and courage of conviction what you will be left with will slay you - bottomless sound, stark arrangements and all the fragility you will ever need.

They are also absolute troopers. They respond to the absurd Barfly cross-scheduling situation (a metal band is playing upstairs at the same time!) with good humour and no small courage. Of course they play essentially quiet music and music that doesn't really benefit from having a recreation of "All Hell's Breaking Loose Down At Little Kathy Wilson's Place" drilling away in the background but they persevere and get over it. They do "Sleeps With Cacti" complete with that fantastic line about how "sadness will come" and it will but these sounds and this band remind you that a period of sadness will be multi faceted and possible to navigate. The main gripe is that sadly they don't do the seminal "Recreation" - all together now - "Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba recreation" - genius. But, they already appear to have enough strong material to be getting along with! Quite simply, dear reader, I have to advise you to track down this alboom and catch them live. Good lord, I don't say that about groops too often! I rest my case...

Aye, D&N - I've followed these folk for a long time, being a borderline beery normal person etc and they are very familiar figures to me. Old Krukowski is a wee, squat and intensely scholarly looking guy (D&N went to Harvard together!). He has grown more clipped and high foreheady over the years and one day it will be revealed that he has officially turned into Art Garfunkel. I have to admit that I have spent many an hour "thinking about Naomi Yang with the curtains drawn" to paraphrase a classic of yesteryear. She has a splendidly arch persona and whenever I see the combination of that massive bass she's always played and those dangly earrings I tend to lose my composure somewhat. The first thing you notice tonight is that they are standing up rather than sitting down! They are normally stoic sittie-downers. Outside of the merely physical, this act of leaving the stool behind, as it were, aligns them slightly differently You feel as if you are watching a "rock" performance as opposed to a "folk" one. It used to be different - I remember Damon once introducing a gig by saying "thank you for coming along to listen to some folk music" and then talking about how he was delighted to be in the same city that The Incredible String Band were born in!

There are definate changes to the D&N scheme of things these days. They now tour and record as a 3-piece with a guy called Michio Kurihara from "relatively obscure" Japanese psychedelicists Ghost. Gone is the squeezy box thing that Naomi usually plays and in comes her glossy looking new keyboard and Kurihara's big bank of pedals. This lets you know that you might no be getting too many oldies and it kinda proves to be the case. They do some oldies written by other people tho'. They start with a tune by the kinda-legendary UK folkie hippie Vashti Bunyan, a name now much beloved of the Devandra Devendras that you read about in the NME. D&N admit to enjoying doing covers and these have always produced key moments on the records - the new alboom "The Earth Is Blue" features a rather nifty version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"! The VB number introduces you to Ms Yang's lovely baroque voice. She has a high and wavery thing going on and indeed her voice is a pretty celestial instrument, man. It kind of coats the songs in a sheen of some Sandy Denny parallel universe.

They then do a couple from TEIB, including the quite wonderful "House Of Glass" - Peter Fenn organ, one of Naomi's best vocal perfs and some great wigging from Kurihara-san (as he is announced tonight!). This record has been described as D&N going all Phil Spector on yo ass and undoubtedly there is an element of that. It's a very crisp record, as lovingly crafted as all of their stuff but a lot more sunshiney and summery shimmery. All told/tolled, it's an extremely confident and relaxed alboom and the new songs come across like this when played live too. They sound fluid and alive with Damon's easy acoustic strumming and Kurihara's vibrant electric lines causing them to soar off and up. They do a tune written by Kurihara which helps to point out the influence he is having on their current sound. A move away from a downhome and homespun place (glorious reminders of this period come mid set from "Turn Of The Century", the centrepiece of the "Playback Singers" alboom. This showcases Damon's voice, once described by the wonderful Stephin Merritt as sounding "much like Neil Young slowed down"! I can't argue with that!) to a more shimmery canvas can be gleaned.

Their stuff is now admittedly far more expansive and ambitious and this can be balanced against an arguable loss of simplicity and space. At times, to me, Kurihara can take over proceedings and add clutter rather than the desired stratospherics. On other occasions, he adds lovely melody and counterpoint to the tunes such as on the epic set closer "Araca Azul" / "The Earth Is Blue"(yes I am already talking about set closers. This was a short set! 7 or so songs! Bloody curfews...) But but but, I missed the part that for the true nostalgicists would have been the main attraction. The legacy of Galaxie 500, I would expect, weighs fairly heavy on D&N and I would have presumed that they would never look back in performance terms (they have been involved in putting together a DVD and box set of G500 stuff and seem to look fondly on the music if not the personal issues which went down with Dean Wareham, G500's singer and guitarist) but they did a version of the G500 classic "Blue Thunder"!!! - all re-invented and made their own. They love doing covers and it shows! I feel that in the very act of doing this cover you have one o' thae career in microcosm things and no doubt. They took a relic and updated it and made it part of now and that seems to be what they are about at the moment - refining, honing, developing etc. They've just made a really rather fun and fine record and it seems that nothing can stop them from moving onward and upward. I have heard a whisper that the aforementioned "PSYCH FOLKSTERS" dig them too so maybe D&N will soon be hotly tipped / Pete Doherty's fave band etc etc! Of course, seeing as they are their own people and not rock stars, they will probably blow any crest of a wave stuff out of the water and take 10 years to do a follow up by which time they will have translated every Antonin Artaud pamphlet imaginable and they will have a nostalgia movement in their own right but it won't be an average guy / rock/indie thing - it'll be a nostalgia movement full of enlightenment and a love for spirituality and respect for yer fellow man... maybe... Anyway, this was an assured perf from D,N & K - they stood up, they talked to us, they joked and they put up with the upstairs rock too! And you know what? Afterwards, I talked to Naomi Yang.. .bloody hell! Whatever the reason for me being there I had fun fun fun in the sun sun sun way out, no doubt about it. Oh George, where did all the "she done me wrong's go? Ha ha...

these phrases these thoughts #1 - On Edinburgh, thae underground sounds and progress thereof...

2005-05-21T13:12:00.000+01:00

words: chris_ps

Last night I was at a gig at Cabaret Voltaire in Edinburgh (it's a club just off the Cowgate, I think it used to be caled The Peppermint Lounge where I saw a few Fringe things in recent years) to see 3 bands, although the main attraction for me was Fuck-Off Machete, featuring Natasha ex of Ganger. So, 3 bands, 6 quid to get in (hmm...) and it was all over by 9.55pm - it just struck me as a bit "you've had your fill of your indie rock and loud guitars, now piss off so we can shoehorn these, more important, punters in for a club night". However, it's heartening to see more places putting bands on for sure, but I get the impression that it's not the most important thing for them. I've seen it many times at the Venue and I've seen it many times at the Liquid Room, but it still grates to be herded out as quickly as possible to replaced by the hip and happening sounds of the day (or something...).

Edinburgh has all these great places for people to play and yet I don't feel it lends itself all that well to helping bands develop, kick on and create something resembling (here comes that dreaded word!) a "scene" (I also feel it needs a Barrowlands-sized venue in the middle of town, but that's another matter!). Last night recalled the old Cas Rock in many ways as the support bands contained one or two weel-kent faces from Edinburgh scenes gone by. The Cas Rock was a dive I know and wasn't in a salubrious area (right in the middle of the Pubic Triangle remember!), but it did so much for local bands. Sometimes I don't think there'll be another wave of your Gilded Lil's, your Coney Island Cyclone's, your Sawyer's (was there with John last night, and he got a shout out from one of the support bands, which was pretty cool!), your Pizza Boy Delivery's, your Degrassi's etc etc, but sometimes I see things like last night and think there's maybe a chance to get something going again.

So, what can be done? More gigs, more opportunities for bands to play - I can list the venues - Bannermans, the Wee Red Bar, Cabaret Voltaire now, the Subway, the Bongo Club, the Swamp Bar in the west end (which appears to be putting stuff on pretty regularly) and so on. They're there waiting to be used and I hope we'll see more folk stopping off here in addition to, and not just exclusively concentrating on, Glasgow. Maybe there's scope for even doing something like the Winchester Club - try and get a monthly thing going where a couple of bands play and in between and after you hear DJs playing the type of stuff not normally heard at such club nights, I think that would be a pretty good addition to Edinburgh. OK, it's shameless plagiarism of a pretty well established Glasgow night, but I'm sure people would come if it was done properly and done well. Hell, there I go with the idealism again, but it's my zine and I'll write what I want to and all that!

It is frustrating to know that there's still a lot of untapped resources and potential for this city music wise - I think it's a great place to live with a great mix of people and anything that's being done to promote, raise the profile and awareness of underground music has to be supported and applauded. I remember a Yummy Fur gig a few years back at, what was, the Attic on the Cowgate, it was a pretty ropey performance and John McKeown summarily dismissed it with a shrug and "it's only Edinburgh". It'll never be "only Edinburgh" to me - it's where I live, it's where I work, it's where I hang out, it's where I feel most comfortable in. I want this place to doing more (that doesn't mean to say I begrudge going to Glasgow of course, it's only 50 minutes away on the train, an hour and 10 on the bus, it's not, and never has been, a problem) and I just hope the signs I'm seeing, albeit however small, mean that it will do so in the months and years to come.

Addendum, May 22, 2.20pm - that was all very well and good, but maybe I should get out more. I completely forgot about the Baby Tiger collective and the things they put on (http://www.baby-tiger.net) and for that I apologise. Sometimes these thoughts are motivated by idealism and wishing that you could get your favourite bands to play quite near to your house and be exposed to all these great happenings and all that and you forget to look hard enough elsewhere and see that there's something already going on. See, this is what happens when the fitba season finishes and I've got time on my hands!!! Doh...

Live Review: The Go-Betweens - Renfrew Ferry, Glasgow / Avalanche Records, Edinburgh, 11/12/05/05

2005-05-16T17:26:00.000+01:00

words: quiet heart

If ever a band deserved commercial success, it is the Go-Betweens: if ever a band had benefited from lack of commercial success it is the Go-Betweens. The freedom that comes with not being identified with a particular era has allowed the various incarnations around twin front men Robert Forster and Grant McLennan to take the Go-Betweens to new heights 25 years and more after their first recordings were put together in Brisbane and Glasgow.

After a warm-up so awful it is painful to recall (indeed, if Joe Strummer was not already dead, he would surely have killed himself on hearing their version of "Janie Jones"), the resurrected Go-Betweens took the stage to massive acclaim from the assembled worshippers. You always get the impression that the Go-Betweens are far happier with 500 truly devoted followers than any prospect of selling out Knebworth. Unfortunately, they initially failed to capitalise on the open door, partly by opening with a ballad ("Finding You") and partly due to the fact that the sound quality of Grant's mic was not all that it could have been. Still, for the rest of the evening, the band meandered through an astonishing back catalogue, keeping devotees of the early years as happy as newer converts to the band's genius.

Perhaps surprisingly, the band chose not to trail new album "Ocean's Apart" too heavily, leaving out such instant Go-Betweens classics as "Lavender" and "The Mountains Near Dellray". Those that did make it into the set, like "Boundary Rider" and "Darlinghurst Years", stand up there with the very best that the band has produced over its long history. The band's renditions of the melancholic "Cattle and Cane" and "Draining the Pool For You" confirmed the new line-up's ability to do credit to the classics from the heights of the band's achievements when the artistry of the songwriters was more equally matched by the towering musical talents of Lindy Morrison and Robert Vickers.

The band left us for the first time with a rousing version of "Too Much Of One Thing", one of the few songs on which Forster and McLennan collaborated jointly (being subtitled by Forster on a previous occasion as the Ballad of the Go-Betweens). The duo reappeared to dedicate an acoustic version of "Dive For Your Memory" to "old friend" Edwyn Collins, a nod to the band's debt to Glasgow in general and Postcard Records when their nascent career got off the ground in the company of Aztec Camera, Orange Juice and Josef K.

After a rousing version of 1980's "People Say" with Grant on bass and Adele on keyboards, they left the stage to the adulation of the gathered masses, desperate for more. Given the band's record in continuing to produce the goods since its reformation in 2000, there seems little doubt that they will be back.

And so to Edinburgh. A thirty minute semi-acoustic performance for forty-odd people crammed into a tiny record store felt like a wee bonus to keep us until the band does come back. Perhaps it was the intimacy of the setting, but the tension side of the creative genius of Forster-McLennan was more apparent than ever, with Robert showing up at the last minute and being really up for it, changing any setlist plans they had ('Hey, you may think I’m mad, but let's do "Surfing Magazines". No, let's do "German Farmhouse"'.) Grant's irritation looked like leading to a sulk at one point, but no band was ever greater than the sum of its creative parts than the Go-Betweens and they produced a sublime glimpse of their unparalled achievements, peaking with "This Girl, Black Girl" and Tallulah's eulogy to loyalty "Right Here" as well as squeezing in "Dellray."

A wonderful twenty-four hours in the company of the Go-Betweens was rounded off in typically idiosyncratic fashion by sitting in an Edinburgh bar that evening with Grant McLennan spinning the discs in the corner. Sometimes, I really do think I need two heads.

Live Review: Anthrax / M.O.T.H. - Barrowlands, Glasgow, 05/05/05

2005-05-09T22:22:00.000+01:00

words: jocksawyer

The Book Of Heavy Metal, you know, I never really read from that. When most of the youth of thae small towns were getting all tight jean-y to the big beery bulge that was NWOBHM, I was listening to the nuttiest sounds around and when the thrash metallers dove into view I was trying to convince the world I liked jingle jangle indie and first wave goth (shy and big haired no hoper would like to meet girls of any kind who quite like Skeletal Family etc etc) so the world of “Newcy”, denim cut-offs choca full of Kreator patches, windmilling hair, circle jerk moshing and, of course, gallon containers of piss was not really my scene. Maybe that was why I kept “losing my birds, fairy godmother”…

Anyway, whenever I thought of Anthrax and of metal in general, I recalled mostly a certain type of bloke (jeez, METAL and thrash metal especially is probably the most male environment imaginable. I really do feel that the masonic lodge should try recruiting outside Nuclear Onslaught gigs …all men do indeed play on ten) – a tapered poodle in tight denim jacket with wafer thin legs crammed into XXXS jeans with an arrogant demeanour and a hook nose, all called Ben Gilfoy. A “Ben Gilfoy” will be from an upper middle class family, will be aloof, will see thrash metal as progressive and forward thinking and in later life will become much taken with ganja and Trent Reznor. This category of METALLIC MAN is different from the beerier species (pronounced “Speeesh-iss” of course) known as The Big G. “The 'Big G” is a far less cerebral character who is obsessed with “birds”, Manowar, Dio and mediocrity in almost equal measure. In later years they will willingly mire themselves in a pattern of sterile clerical jobs, stag do's, gallons of lager and Budgie revival tours. There is also a modern day and far more “argy bargy” variety – this is known as the “Nuron Pilly”. An NP will spend the majority of his life trying to look like Glenn Danzig, will take his shirt off in public at any opportunity, will be pally with giant Miss Whiplash-esque girls with the MSN “handle” of 'Scary Fife Lassie' and will work for a small carpeting firm until he dies of scarification related issues in Ladybank.

For the most part I think ill or at least negatively of metal – it's the domain of the small town and the Kettle Produce by day/The Sands Hotel, Burntisland by night lifestyle. However, “just lately seeing you, I rise A.M., off pink sheets”, I have seen the allure of wanting to “get away from it all”, of wanting to “fuck shit up” of a weekend, of relentlessly pursuing girls known as Izzy or Sal and of music so loud it cracks the beams. What has brought this about as well as my own despair (!) is my realisation that there is fun to be had with all this. It's damn enjoyable to put on a studded wrist band and/or a vest and to get your pint in hand down at the Windsor Hotel, but seriously... No it's the music that's done it. The majority of metal doesn't take itself too seriously and even if it does it can be possible to kinda give in to the moment in an oddly satisfying way and bathe in the big riffage, the endless soloing and the preposterous, brainless young splendour of it all.

The word preposterous certainly does bring me nicely to M.O.T.H aka Man Of The Hour. The phrase “motley crew... natch” was invented for them. Huge hair, noxious body odour, baldness ,massive beer guts, widdly solos, old old school metal vibes including SWORDS!!! (yes, the singer. – a Blaze Bailey clone (replete with gruff Midlands twang) called Tommy Concrete!!! wields a sword in a rather magnificent Cloven Hoof-esque gesture, alongside his many exhortations to mosh drunkenly while bowing down in front of the power of heavy metal) and the mandatory giveaway of them having “local band” status, i.e. one of their neebors is brought up on stage to do a bit of shouting. Christ, if there was only a gaggle of drooling teenage girls at the front of the stage we could be at a Certain Death gig at the Path Tavern in Kdy – yes it's that base, that crass, that unreconstructed and just about as entertaining. Not sure if they write songs about breasts and spunk or not but it sounds as if they do.

I also like the fact that Tommy/Blaze seems like the real deal. I just refuse to believe that this guy has a proper job in an office and goes into work every day at 8.48AM with a Jarlsberg cheese baguette in his pocket. He seems so fucked (not, like, fucked up) and so much the walking crate of bitter that I kinda know that he spends his days sleeping and his nights chatting up girls in stripey tights, out of his mind on, well, anything that he can find. I conclude that this level of dedication should be applauded. M.O.T.H go down fairly well. The first coupla rows contain mostly Ben Gilfoys and even tho' they feel like they're slumming it they allow themselves a headbang and an ever present 666-y gesture. The Big G's would love this if they were here (thrash is anathema), even tho' they would prefer the band to feature some big breasted girls and the NP's are saving themselves for a ruck during Anthrax ... killer segue...

Yes. Anthrax. What did I ken about them beforehand? They were much taken with Judge Dread, they had a relic of a singer keen on sub operatic vocalising, they were seen as being “quality” in some quarters, they replaced said vocaliser with one a bit more rad and, well, that’s about it. I find out a bit mair ower the course of getting the ticket (so I could chum a pal along rather than through any great amount of actual desire to be there) and preparing to go namely that the lineup tonight is the “classic” 'thrax (!) lineup complete with the coiffed one on vocals and that a lot of folk care pretty deeply about this band and this incarnation of them in particular and you know what? Against all the odds, by the end of the night, I think I know why they mean a fair bit to some. My main evidence as to why this might be is simple – they are ENTERTAINING! Fucking “indie” groups could learn frae them. They put on a “show” (I'm getting very sick of hip alternative and indie groups deigning to give you a desultory 40 mins for £12 as they stumble through grudgingly eked out snippets of their critically acclaimed “experience”). Goddamnit, they rock in the full on stylee, but let's break it doon a bit.

They are perhaps an even more disparate lot than the aforementioned M.O.T.H. The legend that is Scott “Not” Ian is a wee rubber ball of a guy who is the only member of Anthrax who has played in all of their incarnations over the years and he's still keen as mustard with his generous goatee and penchant for massive METAL-tastic guitars. He's the one who looks like he could be part of the crowd – an enthusiast, a trier, an effort-over-inspiration man, I guess. Then there's Frank “Frankie” Bello – a lanky streak o' piss on the bass – he is the jumpy up and down one. He's all over the place, stooped over and rockin’ oot kinda pleasantly. He's the one most likely to be a “mild mannered janitor” in another life. On the lead and squeally/uber-widdled guitar is Dan/Danny “not Mark” Spitz. It soon becomes apparent this guy has lived a tad. He is a wiry, buff wee muthafucka who has an endearingly kooky thing going down. The story goes that he got rid of guitars/stereos/anything music related and became a master watchmaker! Reading between the lines, it's probably the truth to speculate that he may have “gone through the ringer” a tad but he looks extremely lean and mad for it, producing some insane screechy cat noises and cutting some rad shapes. He is the one most likely to give it up at the drop of a hat and take up grouse beating. Behind the absurdly large kit is Charlie Benante – a headbanded rather picquant chap who plays drums stiffly but solidly, big on the old double bass drum speedy bugga da bugga da action. He seems the one most likely to shoot deer.

And finally there is Joey Belladonna… good lord... this guy is a case and a half. They threw the mould well away after he appeared. There is something of the world of light entertainment about him – it's maybe the NYC thing but I can't get Barry Manilow out of my head when I think of JB. Even at his heaviest moments he is about as hardcore as Dio. A leathery guy, he sings in the Manowar stylee – high notes, theatricals and impassioned fist waving, all of which come out from under that bloody poodle hairdo. At first I keep thinking that it's no surprise that they got rid of him in their heyday –he is not really part of this world of speedy music and big riffage. I see him doing a turn as a warm up artiste for Siegfried and Roy but not as the lead singer of a groop of big rockin' types, and yet… somehow... after a wee while, you come to dig how goofy and awkward he is and there is something pretty real in that at least. He also tries hard to work the crowd, to entertain, to get you going, to get you involved and he does this without you wanting to kill him. This indicates to me that he is probably quite a good frontman. He is about as rad as Liberace and as down with the kids as Max Boyce but you cannae hate him. In fact you kinda like him, or was I just kinda drunk?

Aye, this raggedy bunch fire through a set which to me sounds exactly the same all the way through but the one song they play is a pretty chunky one. Of course, “Indians” (that was a hit, I think!) is crass, tacky and crap! But, old “Not” keeps the guitarring solid and biting, Spitz widdles away like crazy and the rest get oh so amiable and the whole works… goddamnit… I am informed that they play a set of pre-1992 “classics”, most of which go down a storm with the NP's who can put in a bit of “Brummage amd Bump” ( R.I.P Pat Roach) and face the prospect of a precious bloody nose to take back to show off to their “girls” ( all called Michelle, of course) in Windygates and Drem – “All these ghost towns, wreathed in old loam” etc, etc. Yes “it's a man's life in the Cardiff Rooms, Libya”… There are probably 5 women in a crowd of 1200 or so – all very visibly attached and on the arms of local legends holding court in the big city on another “Wild wild night”. These guys do not let their “berds” out of their sight, not even to buy a Samhain or Mucky Pup T-shirt while these possession rituals take place the BG's soberly revisit 1987 and check out all the nuances in the line “I'm the walking dude” (it is a sign of my personal development that I can tolerate and even enjoy a group who have a track which features this line). The Big G's stay at home and whack off in front of old Heart album covers, high on “Naked Pilsners”. I was there tho' and despite it all, I tapped a foot, I shook my head, I wished I wasn't self conscious so I could have had a clap along, I got deafened, I got entertained and above all I got kinda happy! It's a big dumb ass world ain't it? Damn it all to hell…

Live Review: The Arcade Fire / Final Fantasy - Glasgow University Union, 05/05/05

2005-05-06T15:34:00.000+01:00

careful up that speaker stack napoleon, you could do yourself a mischief...

words: chris_ps

Ah, the leafy west end of Glasgow, dodging the students and bohemians as we drive up Ashton Lane (no kidding, we really did drive up Ashton Lane before having our pre-gig tea), cursing the middle classes because there's nowhere to park, what a place to be this early May evening. The GUU is alive with the sound of "now" (or something...) as people have turned out in force to witness the much talked-up Arcade Fire.

But first to Final Fantasy. Shit name, intriguing sound. One man and his violin, you really can't see how this could work live, but it actually does. Using tape machine trickery to create some neat accompanying loops, he plays some lovely poppy gems, infused with a wicked nudge towards the overdone and a fine line in cheeky interaction with the crowd. The highlight has to be the cover of Joanna Newsom's "Peach Plum Pear", and watching how he can manipulate his instrument (as it were!) to produce what he did was fascinating.

So, onto the Arcade Fire. They unassumedly set up their own instruments, the crowd don't really pay that much attention except for the odd "is that Win Butler?" comment so maybe we don't really know the force that is about to hit us. Opening, inevitably, with "Neighborhood #1", the first thing that hits you is how nothing is wasted - keyboards, guitars, violins (both of them, including the returning Final Fantasy bloke to augment) all play their part in creating a soaring, majestic wall of sound. But, they also know how to put on a show - the geeky, Napoleon Dynamite lookalike on whatever instrument takes his fancy climbs the speaker stack and uses it, the edge of the balcony and anything to hand as extra percussion during a rollicking "Neighborhood #2". It looks unhinged, but it's gloriously unhinged.

Sounds gimmicky I know (and hey, let's project a bird cage onto the bass drum!), but this is no ordinary rock & roll show kids, Win Butler seems immune to the quirky goings on around him and he is the glue that holds it all together wonderfully. The longer the show goes on, the better they get - each song brings more tumultuous, yet uplifting swathes of guitars - the pairing of "Neighborhood #3" and "Rebellion (Lies)" was especially extraordinary, it just kept on building and building to the expected crescendo and I just didn't want it to end.

You think it can't get any better, but it does - the version of "Wake Up" was probably one of the best things I've seen in a long time, it just took over and filled the room and you couldn't help get lost in it all. It ends brilliantly - "In The Backseat" dies down to a murmur and one by one they file off the stage through the crowd and out the door at the back of the hall. That IS the way to do it frankly. Hyped to the hilt I know, but with the tunes to back it up. They may go far these folks...

Live Review: Karlheinz Stockhausen - Queens Hall, Edinburgh, 30/04/05

2005-05-03T18:19:00.000+01:00

words: jocksawyer

Saturday Night’s alright for wooshy noises. That was a hit of yesteryear but old Karlheinz has never even thought of the hit parade. He is part of the CLASSICAL WORLD – all Concertgebouw stuffed shirt and aye, I have to say it, a wee bit of the old STURM UND DRANG too. He has however influenced/been responsible for EVERYONE who has ever gurgled on a moog or sensationally sequenced anything on the old Admiral Rolland. He is the man who started it all. He is now 76 years old and was making Biosphere and Amon Tobin records in 1958. Tonight, thanks to the Triptych Fest, he makes only his second appearance in Scotland. Most of the audience are either professors from Edinburgh Uni called Nigel Pettigrew-Watt, big haired students from Edinburgh Uni, most of whom played cello in that one time Human Condition band whose name escapes me oddly enough and “sophisticated ladies”, mostly called Petrella. The evening starts with a Queens Hall blunder – the doors open at 7.35-ish, but it appears that the auditorium doors won’t open til after 8. A massive queue of the keen as mustards swiftly forms which thanks to bladder pressure I am unable to join. As a result of water retention issues, I am resigned to taking part in a popular game called “Invade My Space”. Within 5 minutes of the front door opening, the bar area is congested beyond comfort. The Petrellas are all by the bar – they ken how to get served: the sashay followed by the offhand and easily applied air of destraction – this must be like nectar to bar staff. Petrella #345 has 3 Pimms and a Stolly in her grasp before one can say “hey wait a minute...”. It is just impossible for me to get served. I am a 6 footer who is as petite as Shirley Crabtree, but to the bar keeps I am the size of Tom Thumb's youngest. All the profs need to do is stroke a chin and remove a beret (yes it’s true, I did say beret. There are quite a few being worn tonight) and “Posdnous was in” (as somebody once said).

Unfortunately for me as a behemoth motherfucker, I don’t have what it takes. Finally I have had enough and jump in front of a couple who have appeared out of nowhere and can attract any bartender in the vicinity without trying. I wail “I’ve been waiting for 10 mins!” – not much of an exaggeration but this claim and my frazzled air marks me out as dangerous and antisocial. I take my overpriced beer and find an inch of space right next to conversations regarding vectors/semi-crotchets/the swing band on at the Pleasance/the large angry man standing edgily next to me who might go postal very soon etc etc. Even before I cry for help I notice a figure messing with my peripherals near the door. I look and think “NO it cant be” … but it is. It‘s a nemesis from high school – a guy who spent most of school thinking that all people (including me) were dimwits – apart from him of course, but now he seems to recognise me! I bury my head and try to hide behind my pint glass. I keep my head down and wait for him to lose interest which mercifully he does. This gives me the chance to join the now mammoth queue and pray for the doors to open before he comes over. Finally, finally…the portal slides…or something equally boomy and portentous...

KH appears in a baggy white suit and informs us that tonight he won’t be performing his werks but instead “channelling them”, i.e. playing his records and knob tweaking the sounds round the 8 pairs of speakers that are set up round the hall. Advance material from some quarters touted this show as being a solo piano recital. This is a complete lie. Basically, KH introduces 2 of his well kent explorations – the legendary “Kontakte” and the less legendary “Oktofonie” and then gets doon from the stage and goes to his mixing desk in the middle of the hall, plays the tape and does a kinda live mix type thing of it. There is nothing on the stage, no musicians, no focal points and no lighting – the hall is in total darkness and Karlheinz is adrift somewhere in the middle of the pliss, very occasionally twirling a knob or two and probably doing his knitting too. Old KH’s intros are a little stentorian – he is scholarly and every inch the CLASSICAL COMPOSER, he is a mite stuffy and likes to give you recommendations as to how to absorb and appreciate. He does seem to have chilled by the time he introduces “Octofonie” – he even cracks a joke! Can’t remember what it was but the audible gasp that came forth from the crowd when KH mentions that “Octofonie” is 69 minutes long is pretty priceless!!!

So, the music. I ken I’ve started off sounding a wee bit slaggy offy but once you get round to it there is a fair bit of entertainment (or is it infotainment?!) to be had. “Kontakte” is an extremely spacy spacy epic about alien abduction, which has its longeurs and moments where the passing years have turned it into nowt much more than another Tangerine Dream record. However, there is something to be said for sitting in the dark and trying to zone into vibes, particularly when the vibes are really nicely hewn and put together. I can’t tell a semi-quaver from a (as they call them in Fife) “WAVER” biscuit so I have no opinion on how well he descended a notch or 3 in the 75th cantata of the libretti but I am pretty good at knowing when he’s made a nice sound or no!

At times “Kontakte” sags and gets unfeasibly swooshy but the sound is big - noises fly around your head, appear in your left ear or above you oot of a’ thae speakers and the effect is enough to make you feel like you’re having a unique experience which you probably are. Is it involving? Is there any emotional content? Eh… “kinda” and “no” are the answers, but..is it exciting? And is it… gulp … fun? Eh… “aye” and “aye” are the answers. I could have zonked oot nicely if I had been in a decent seat with recourse to all the speakers (thanks to the aforementioned queue, I end up on one o’ thae horrid pews under the balcony!) and if I could have stopped my mind from noticing that the nemesis was across the room still looking at me even during the “performance”!!!

As for "Octofonie", well this was quite unimpeachable at times – far more busy than “Kontakte” and with a lot more to take in. Huge noises, lots of big chiminess, some operatic wigging and is, all told, a dense, all encompassing beast. A bit more volume and ear testing would have been good as would a bed/reclining chair have been too, but hell…one of my favourite things to do when you’re taking this all in is to watch KH at the desk – he sometimes lifts his head imperiously and seems to take it all in too. He seems satisfied, despite having earlier slagged off the Queens Hall acoustics and he’s maybe a bit self satisfied too but he gets to be I suppose – he’s done it all and did it his way. Ha ha!!

It finishes with the tiresome classical ritual of standing ovations – the intelligentsia version of that double air kiss thing much beloved of Tiggy Legge-Bourke and her ilk, where AWBODY shows how they dig KH. They’re no clapping for a guid performance cause that doesnae apply, more to bow down to a guy who is a legend and who is beyond reproach in their eyes. I disagree with that – I would prefer a human element to my entertainment, I would like to see music presented in a less cerebral way and I would like KH to get funky with the youth. I feel there are other ways to represent yer admiration for the man – somehow the act of sitting in a room showering praise on a gadge after he’s sat and played his ain records to you for an hour and a half and charged you £20 for the privilege seems a wee bit hollow – a bit like yer Mr. Eges, yer Hartnoll brothers and their egregious ilk but simple prole, you are missing out on the way he subverts the boundaries of performance, audience (he does sit in the middle of the crowd between “sets” right enough! – this gives you the rather delicious experience of being able to look across a room at the mid session interval full of ice cream quaffing gentility and see old KH sitting twiddling his thumbs! Later on he even signs autographs – he probably is “down” after all) and of art, the universe etc etc. Hell, I bet you he has even subverted the idea of how you eat a Cornish pasty… Anyway, I write as if I’m confused about tonight – the music drew me in for the most part and it was a genuine “experience”. It felt odd and nothingy, but when the sounds were winging aboot yer heid, it was kinda magic (and who wants to look at somebody who looks like Simon Rattle when you‘re listening to summat???) pity the nemesis was there! Now, he could gie you a treatise on KH… Maybe…Go ask him.

Live Review: Cat Power / Entrance - Liquid Room, Edinburgh, 01/05/05

2005-05-01T23:37:00.000+01:00

is one man's contemptuousness another man's self-deprecation?

words: chris_ps

We'll come onto Ms Marshall in a moment, but first tonight's support. Entrance hails from that well-known blues heartland, Baltimore, MD. He has big hair, a big beard and is impossibly bohemian in appearance. He was also very, very bad - dire, cliched, bluesy guitar twanging and a quite ridiculous voice. At a couple of points during the set, he even thinks he's the reincarnation of Jeff Buckley and hollers his little heart out. Sorry pal, you're not, you're a one trick pony without a trick and you were shit. "I wish I was in Baltimore" went one of his songs. So do I, so do I...

To say I was looking forward to this gig was a bare-faced lie. Twice I have seen Cat Power live, twice I have left disappointed and disillusioned at how one of my favourite people on record can be such a mess in concert. But, I bought the ticket, I told myself "it has to be good one of these times, it has to..."

And it was. You can nit-pick about the fact that she didn't finish some songs, or about how she fiddled with her mic stand and all that, but there were moments of utter, utter sublime, fragile and delicate beauty to be found in her set. The set up was simple, voice, guitar and piano, doing a wee set of songs alternating between the latter two. I wish I could tell you everything she played, but I only recognised a handful of tunes - a slightly off-kilter, but effective "Good Woman", the working of the devastating/exploitative (you decide!) "Names" into another, unknown piano based number and a quite extraordinary version of "Satisfaction" which, for the couple of minutes that she played it, was spellbinding.

I know she's a nervous performer, but I thought the way she did it tonight worked - minimal audience interaction (the aforementioned moments of self-deprecation which my colleague and I disagreed on), back and forth between piano and guitar for a few songs each. John thought she lost it towards the end, I don't think she did, the last song on the piano was fantastic and as I said there were a lot of great moments. The last time, it ended in chaos with Chan stumbling drunkenly about the stage to cheers from her fawning acolytes - this time it ended in mere confusion with a song finishing and then the realisation that that was it and a wave goodbye.

It's never going to be completely perfect, but I'm glad I went and saw that, maybe sometimes, Cat Power gigs won't be such an abberation.

Live Review: The Earlies / Micah P Hinson / Sam Prekop / Archer Prewitt - Venue, Edinburgh, 28/04/05

2005-04-29T00:39:00.000+01:00

words: chris_ps

You would think it would be a cracking evening with a bill like that? Well...

Archer Prewitt unassumedly shuffles onstage, does the usual tuning type stuff and gently glides into his first song. It's not good, it's earnest, singer-songwriter nonsense and I can't believe he's doing it. There are hints of his previous existance in the guitar playing, but his songs are cliched, obvious and just plain wrong. He even chucks in some la-la-la's, ooh baby's and, at one particularly horrific point, attaches himself to a harmonica, which is then, unfortunately, used. I was watching a member of The Sea and Cake reduced to this and boy was it painful.

Sam Prekop saves the day though with a performance of sheer class - AP joined him and the contrast between his own set and the one he does with SP is stark. Prekop's songs are golden, joyful, shimmering gems - that voice allied to the sheer beauty of the two guitars (see Archer, this is what you want to be doing - don't try be the "next big thing", continue to lose yourself in dreamy soundscapes with your mate. It's a lot better for you). They play "The Company" off SP's self-titled LP from years back and recall the time they played "up the road", which was another fine, fine experience and it was just wonderful. As was the whole, all too short, set.

I don't know what people make of others being quirky and self-aware - it can be endearing, but it can grate. I think for me, Micah P Hinson falls into the former category. Looking like the bastard love child of Ian Hart and Martin Freeman, Hinson is uber quirky, everything about him is jerky and clunky and it shouldn't really work, but somehow he manages it. Blessed with a Bill Callahan esque voice, albeit more raspy, his brand of country noir is, at times, quite the thing. The quieter, Smog like moments are a treat, "Beneath The Rose" and the opening half of "Don't You" especially. He loses it slightly when he finds some compulsion from somewhere to bellow into the mic and unnecessarily rock out. But I'll forgive him as he has "something about him" (to borrow a phrase).

Looking at the stage set up, it appears The Earlies don't do "less is more". A vast bank of keyboards take up half the stage (we thought Rick Wakeman or someone was guesting...) and then one by one, they all take their places. All 11 of them... You know, there's a lot to be said for simplicity, and this is another thing The Earlies don't do. Maybe they should - everything is just lost in a lumpen morass of sound - they have some genuinely lovely moments on their LP, the opener "One Of Us Is Dead" is one of them, but that too descends into sludge. It was all too cluttered, overblown and messy. A particular low point is an excreble Tim Buckley cover, and they follow that with a ghastly mess of never-ending psychedelic rubbish. We last one more song before making our excuses and leaving - they're probably still playing now. And I missed the last bus home by a whisker. Gits.

Um, yeah, check 1-2 and all that...

2005-04-27T19:11:00.000+01:00

OK, here we go again, except in a different place this time.

This is ps_zine vol.932 (or something) - I've done it before, and I'll probably do it again! It's another attempt at combining a blog and a zine to create a blogzine - the zine bug has never really left me and I thought it was time to try and get it up and running once more.

What to expect? All your zine standards I guess - reviews, interviews (once I dust down some old contacts from 19oatcake), comment & column type things, anything really. As before, I'm looking for people to contribute things - if you're reading this and wish to do so then get in touch - pszine at gmail dot com. If I manage to secure some band interviews, they will be trailed and if anyone wants to contribute any questions then fire them away to me - I believe I've just revealed the email address above...

OK, that's a quick mission statement - discuss, criticise, but get involved as well. Let's see if I can get something going again.