LIVE REVIEWS *1
65 Days Of Static / Chris Clark / The Mirimar Disaster
@ Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
Despite the apparent onset of spring, it was a freezing evening that found me outside the familiar comfort of the rescuerooms, only to be greeted by the somewhat unexpected sound of some metal-progressive-stoner rock very reminiscent of Isis. My first instinct told me that I am not generally particularly partial to this, however, it soon became apparent that Sheffield band The Mirimar Disaster inject a more emotive, mysterious element into their music which effortlessly surrounds and envelops the listener in a gloomy cocoon of everything that is loud, hopeless and dramatic. Indeed, to confirm my judgement, the singer abruptly announced that the next song was about death. Superb.
There were metal riffs aplenty here and perhaps a slight danger of songs bleeding into each other, leaving the listener’s memory flooded with a constant growling, pounding dirge. However, all is tight, well constructed and delivered in a delightfully frantic and passionate manner. Perhaps the slightly disgusting visuals in the background made me feel a little uneasy, but that’s clearly just metal. Lovely.
As stated later on during the show, the support acts reflected the two extremes of the headline band -Chris Clark however, certainly reflected every extreme. Ever.
His Squarepusher-esque electronic blur of white noise, beeps, clicks and brief, glittering melodies possess an understated accuracy that is both blissfully unpredictable yet admirably tight-each track thoroughly and delicately mapped out with intricate pulses and breathtaking dynamics.
This understated figure held the audience in an utter trance, whilst, with cigarette in hand, he modestly tweaked wires and flicked switches, as if this was no more difficult than making a pot of tea. (That is, assuming that one knows how).
Chris Clark captivates every reckless, exciting, thrilling, silly and sombre moment, smashes it to pieces and pushes it out into every nerve with astounding feeling and faultless technique. Pure mathematical and musical genius.
Next up is Sheffield band 65 Days of Static and the understandably huge audience were still visibly twitching, possibly with a combination of anticipation and the after effects of the latter.Perhaps there is a growing danger that some of this stop-start-swap around-loud-soft- post-rock has been replicated and drawn to a Mogwai/Godspeed imitation frenzy.
Immediately, however, there is something different about this band. Dismissing the regular conventions of ‘begin at a whisper and end with a roar‘, 65 DOS are less a dedication to their superiors and more of a defiant, violently destructive collapsing tapestry of cluttering stutter beats, twinkling piano, frantic, glitchy samples, and soaring, epic melodies.
This is such an apocalyptically huge and inconceivable sound that it hurts and it is evident that the band cannot contain it either. Standing up mid-song to place his hands on the speakers, the drummer transforms himself into an oblivious, frantic, frenzied embodiment of every nerve in every member of the audience-ecstatic, electric and alive.
65 Days of Static possess something inexplicably incredible, with an overpowering ability to make the listener feel utterly, indescribably insignificant. And I for one am exhausted. And hopelessly inspired.
Heather Perkins
65 Days of Static / Chris Clark / The Mirimar Disaster
@ The Leadmill, Sheffield
I love metal. I grew up listening to it, but in recent years I’ve become somewhat disillusioned with the genre, due to the amount of shit metal that seems to be around every corner. Obviously I just haven’t been looking in the right places. Cue The Mirimar Disaster: Proper metal – heavy as fuck, but simultaneously melodic and intelligently put-together, and no backwards baseball caps or pantomime theatrics in sight.
After the Les Pauls and double kick drum pedals had been replaced by a table of mixers, laptops and various other equipment that I’m not qualified to guess about, Warp Records’ Chris Clark walked quietly onstage, and began a classy onslaught of trippy breaks and squelchy synth melodies, which gradually built into a fine climax of industrial filth. A suitably Warpy performance, set to some charmingly disturbing visuals, the only downside being the anonymous cretin who decided to fade out the set before it ended, putting an unnecessary damper on an otherwise slick performance.
After a brief but heated argument with my companion over what the Leadmill “glasses” were made out of, sturdy plastic or crap glass - clearly the first option – the second Sheffieldian act of the night arrived to a rapturous ovation. Wasting no time, they launched straight into it. What really appeals about 65 Days of Static is their ability to substitute the musical whininess that some post-rock bands fall victim to, with a healthy amount of energy, but without losing any of the emotiveness. They can do the Wall-of-Noise-epic-wig-out better than most, but they also possess the songs and the skills to back it up.
Melding their Squarepushery electronics with good old fashioned instruments, the local lads thrashed about the stage with so much vigour that it was obvious they, and the crowd, were enjoying every single distorted, lingering note that was wrung from their guitars. Also worth a mention or two was the drumming of Mr Robb Jonze, which can be described as nothing short of superb – good job indeed old chap.
A blinding night overall then, which served as a timely reminder that there is indeed plenty of life in the Sheffield music scene beyond the success of a certain primate-related band. More of this sort of thing please.
Tristan Parker.
Avenged / Sevenfold
@ Rock City, Nottingham
Most people would settle for once, a few would obstinately go on for twice. Not these boys. And that's the gist behind Avenged Sevenfold, doing their very hardest to be just a little bit excessive for seventy minutes.
Sevenfold have a taste for the theatrical, marching on stage to Grieg's 'Hall of the Mountain King,' (the Alton Towers theme music), whilst vocalist M. Shadow, topped with beanie and sunglasses, alongside bassist Synyster Gates, immediately mounts the podium to break into verse.
Without missing a note Shadow breathlessly reaches to the very bottom of his lungs, whilst Gates goes into a whole series of border-line solos and The Rev sets himself to running a marathon seated at the drums.
Sevenfold's appeal stems from the convergence of punk attitude with operatic heavy-rock chords, which perfectly suits itself to live performance. The show is heavy on new material moving between the highlights of City of Evil, like 'Bat Country' and the 'Beast and the Harlot,' and, in spite of the absurdly early 8pm start, the crowd doesn't seem to have a moment of doubt throughout the set. Towards the end the band breaks into the opening of Paradise City, but then the comparison doesn't endure far beyond a taste for vests, tattoos and hard rock. To quote, 'Re-Spect!'
Mike Simon
Battle / Roland Shanks / The Pigeon Detectives / The Measures
@ Josephs Well, Leeds
It’s funny how support bands can sometimes be so oddly placed on a bill, you wonder how they get picked at all. Not to say Battles` opening nu-indie collectives didn’t impress, it’s just that tonight’s show is such a mish-mash of styles it’s all a bit like some bizarre A&R showcase.
The Measures mix the laid back grooves of The Beta Band with Velvet Underground style psychedelia and, although it works, they fail to generate any real electricity tonight. Fellow southerners Roland Shanks also lacked any depth as they plodded through a series of Bloc Party dancey riffs, all echoey crescendos and scratchy telecasters, and ultimately couldn’t replicate the desired rawness I felt they were trying to achieve.
Judging by the crowds’ reaction and the amazing energy created onstage, tonight was owned by local lads The Pigeon Detectives. I should hate them, but their insanely catchy Libertines-esque shambolic, throwaway attitude (and sound) had so much balls you couldn’t help but be won over by it all. Will it come off on record? Dunno, but as long as the enigmatic frontman Matt is in charge, live performances like this won’t fail to impress.
Battle shouldn’t even be playing. The level of passion and emotion this band harbour takes them straight out of the NME-gang because big, dumb indie this is not. Inventive, emotive, delicate, grand. Battle take soaring choruses to another level without compromising their gritty and often hip-shaking sound and songs like ‘Isobel’ fill the room with a lovely warm radiance. This is pop, but with a dark, unpredictable edge, and for anyone else getting bored with haircuts and drainpipes, it’s nice to hear a refreshingly intelligent band like Battle.
Harry Johns
Being 747 / Nightjars / Napoleon IIIrd
Leeds on the Bone IV @ The Packhorse, Leeds
Originality is clearly the watchword for the latest ‘Leeds On The Bone’ lineup, each act presenting a musical identity which, if nothing else, seems a genuine expression of themselves as individuals – no mean feat, lest we forget.
For a singer-songwriter, Napoleon IIIrd certainly provides more of a visual spectacle than most, surrounded as he is on stage by numerous mechanical contraptions including a massive, antiquated reel-to-reel tape machine which provides everything from pumping drum tracks to cracklesome background ambience. Unfortunately, it seems that he’s somewhat overegged the pudding, since all of the (admittedly intriguing technology) he deploys ends up swallowing his songs whole, what hint at interesting melodies there are totally lost in the mix. What does shine through is the strength of his voice, an affecting instrument with just the right combination of passionate yearning and everyman accessibility to make his more emotionally verbose songs bearable, at times even enjoyable. Napoleon clearly works hard at his art, and puts an awful lot of thought into it – indeed, maybe too much.
The pedestrian pace he imposes on proceedings is suddenly accelerated to breakneck speed by the arrival on stage of Manchester’s Nightjars, who come roaring out of the blocks with a five-minute-plus epic of intricate, interlocking guitar motifs and virtuoso drum breakdowns. It’s impressive, but ultimately frustrating, since the set doesn’t really go anywhere from this point – every song yet another showcase for complicated time signatures and flashy musicianship, which without any meaningful variation, eventually just becomes noise. It’s all very studious – some might say humourless – heads-down, pedals-fixated art-rock, but even the novelty of a singing bass player isn’t enough to keep my attention from wandering. Bags of potential there though.
Headliners Being 747 are nothing if not dependable, and tonight’s set is just what we’ve come to expect from these mainstays of the scene; consummate, expertly crafted avant-garde power pop delivered with a particular kind of bounding energy you’d probably expect from considerably younger men (sorry boys – that was supposed to be a compliment!). I’m even willing to forgive them the whole lab-coat conceit, purely for the sight of Steve Morricone playing keyboard with the neck of his bass, a stunt sure to set most indie-boy’s hearts a-flutter. The trio’s love for what they do, and for the artists that inspire them, is evident from tonight’s performances, and sends us all home in a pretty sparkling mood. Job done, I reckon.
Greg Elliott
Biffy Clyro / Oceansize / The Tommy’s
@ Plug, Sheffield
A line of black haired emo kids outside plug can only mean one thing, a bit of post-rock action is imminent. Unfortunately, early arrivals are subjected to the rock-lite of girl band The Tommy’s, with such insight as ‘The Day The Whole World Turned Chav’, a not so searing indictment of the state of British suburbia. Throughout their set the front row consists of horny 17 year olds taking pictures. Although the band certainly doesn’t lack stage presence as the lead singer careers around like a teenage Courtney Love, this by no means makes up for their generic uninspiring rock-by-numbers.
A more fitting support Oceansize are on next. The Manc mentalists brand of post-rock owes much to the quiet/loud juxtapositions of Mogwai, letting loose great swathes of sound interspersed with intricate melody which seems to ebb and flow before building to a crashing climax. Its debateable whether or not what they play can be classed as songs in the traditional sense, as the vocals are always overridden by the immense noise created by three guitars, a bass and drums; yet in quieter moments Michael Vennart’s understated vocals melt seamlessly into their sound.
And so to the main attraction, a noticeably more clean-cut Biffy take to the stage sporting trimmed hair and proper shoes, this policy of precision is extended to their delivery, throughout their set the band are incredibly tight and focused recreating the variety and emotion of their records almost note perfect. Along with their diverse styles, art-rock, emo, grunge even tinges of folk, Biffy’s use of bizarre lyrical themes and unusual time signatures render every song individual and interesting. Highlights include the brooding guitar and elongated vocals of ‘Joy.Discovery.Invention’, razor-sharp riffs and alternate screaming and melodic vocals of ‘there is no such thing as a jaggy snake’, and the anthemic sing-a-long of ‘Glitter and Trauma’. Tonight Biffy prove just how underrated they are.
Sarah Stevens
Biffy Clyro / Oceansize /The Tommys
@ The Plug, Sheffield
I waltz into this gig reasonably late, having tried to arrive early, but being prevented by a dramatic scene with fire engines. Apparently, according to the bassist of ‘Oceansize’, there was actually a fire, but little was said about its cause and no explanation is given. I am slightly unimpressed with this, having never been to a proper gig at this venue before. However, when I do arrive, I am very impressed with the event, especially by the standard of support ‘Biffy Clyro’ have chosen. First on are ‘The Tommys’, and they definitely look as if they’re going to get somewhere on the music scene, whether it be with the alternative crowd or with the masses in the charts. All four are gorgeous and they look like a ‘Girls Aloud’ who can actually write music and play instruments. It is hard to explain their sound, but in my opinion they are like a bubble gum-punk band (a better version of ‘The Donnas’) with a slightly Courtney Love-sounding vocal. Whatever they sound like, the crowd seem very entertained by their distinctive image and their brand of music.
Next on are ‘Oceansize’ and they are, of course, a fantastic choice for support musically, sounding similar to ‘Biffy Clyro’ but with a bit more obvious melodic style. However, having been around since 1998, the band are probably hoping to headline a gig like this themselves by now and the expressions on their faces says it all. They do not look very excited to be here. It’s a shame because musically they are faultless live and with songs like ‘Heaven Alive’ they could really be going places.
Most of the crowd are obviously only here for ‘Biffy Clyro’ and this is proven by the level of excitement shown during their opener ‘My Recovery Injection’.
Throughout their show the crowd exudes an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm, and this enthusiasm is well founded because, in all honesty, the band is awesome live. In my analysis of their performance, I have managed (only just) to put aside my personal disappointment at the lack of coverage of the album ‘The Vertigo of Bliss’ because I understand that in reality that all their songs sound great live and they have a lot of material in demand. Ignoring this disappointment, I enjoy the songs they do play, such as ‘Joy.Discovery.Invention’, ‘Asexual Meat Kitchen’ and their encore ‘There’s No Such Thing As A Jaggy Snake’ and each of these songs are received extremely well by the crowd. The only point at which the crowd do die down is during the preview of their new songs, but this is understandable and even so, they sound satisfactory if not spectacular. However, I’m sure when they do release their new album these songs will be hailed along with the rest.
Overall, a very pleasant way to spend a Sunday night and I look forward to seeing all these bands progress in the next year.
Richard Lawrence
Boy Kill Boy / Exist
@ Fibbers, York
Support bands have always represented a problem to me. That temptation of a headline act to just pick someone they like or want to sleep with often makes no musical sense at all. The lumping together of labelmates has a similar jarring effect. It's a lack of cohesion which I frankly find upsetting, I mean - and let's get relevant here - Boy Kill Boy opening for Hard Fi? What?!
In light of this, tonight's support band cause me no headaches, because Exist make sense in the context. It's good old indie music and provides a perfectly reasonable intro to the main attraction.
As for Boy Kill Boy, the music is as sparkly and glam as the lead singer's eye make-up; they're sort of like Louis XIV (the band, not the king) without the sleaze.. Fibbers is packed and it's the first scenester moshpit I've seen here in a while. Boy Kill Boy punch out their songs like a band brimming with confidence - and given their recent press it's hardly surprising. It's one of those small venue gigs which you know you'll be able to brag about in August when the band are eating up the festivals, a safe bet I reckon if songs like 'Suzie' and 'Last of the Great' are anything to go by.
Katy Goodwin
The Boy Least Likely Too / BC Camplite / Slow Club
@ The Leadmill, Sheffield
Slow Club aren't Joan Baez and Bob Dylan nor are they The Shins what they are however is amazing twenty first century north of England meld of those people, with a whole lot more in the mix. One guitar finger picked, strummed, lovely melodies coaxed out. Two voices layered over each other and around each other singing songs thats all but thats not all. I'm not sure if it's the lyrics that tell stories that seem both fantastical and familiar or if it those voices swirling around the room probably both but Slow Club had made a fan in me a few moment into their first song.
BC Camplite play next and I'm not quite sure what to make of them, they play piano lead indie rock that at times is as good as anything Ben Fold or Peter Singer and his Sweet Science have come up with but at other times just falls a little short, their unwelcome electro interjections leaving something of a cough medicine after taste to what should have been sweet piano rock balladeering.
The headliners The Boy Least Likely Too, seem to have a great time on stage this is not to be under estimated as a quality in pop band and this is what they are, call them twee call them whimsical and naive these things maybe true but after all that they are a pop band. They do play a whole set of great pop tunes catchy hooks sing along chorus they can and did do all this. They probably lacked what I want to see in a really great band there is no grit behind the whimsy as in Belle And Sebastian the where there is darkness is feel affected and they fail to spirit me away as Slow Club had done so brilliantly at the beginning of the night The Boy Least Likely Too grabbed hold of me but failed to take me anywhere with them, which is a shame because I would have gone.
Stuart Anderson-Platts
The Boy Least Likely To / BC Camplight
@ The Social, Nottingham
The Social was buzzing with an almost capacity crowd well before support BC Camplight came on the stage and it was a fantastic feeling.
BC Camplight lives in the mind of 25 year old Brian Christinzio and it was an interesting looking stage before he even sang a note with a bass player who looked alarmingly like a spruced up Daniel Kitson and BC himself looking very Clockwork Orange - and, it has to be said, with music to match!
For those of you who haven’t heard the bowler hatted maestro (who, at one point, played piano with his tongue - I’ll leave you to imagine the rest), his sound is very much like Grandaddy with that sweet and gentle high pitched voice while the music varied between lilting melody and nursery rhyme! (Misty’s Big Adventure, anyone?)
All in all, a half an hour set which did the job of building up the atmosphere superbly.
However, you get the feeling that The Boy Least Likely To could easily have just wandered onto the stage in an empty room and within seconds there would be a party!
With just two more dates in the UK before they head off to USA and Canada to support James Blunt (I’d leave after they’ve been on, myself) Jof and Peter and their friends describe themselves as alternative country pop make your own minds up, but whatever it is, I love it!!!!
Without a doubt, it’s music to put a smile on your face and that’s exactly what they did. Showcasing their new album ‘The Best Party Ever’ they gave us 10 of the 12 tracks, ending with new single ‘Be Gentle With Me’ - released in April when they return to the UK.
There was so much love and energy in the room from start to finish as every song was warmly greeted like an old friend and with hooklines in abundance I found myself singing along within seconds. With an unusual selection of percussion to treat us with, Jof was a happy man and the on stage banter between them all was great to be a part of as they treated us to a charming rural pop sound with banjos, glockenspiels, recorders and fiddles thumping away in a quirky indie folk style.
The music is heartfelt and uplifting with unique and sweetly eccentric lyrics, often giving sad undertones to what on the surface appear to be simple upbeat pop songs. There is an awareness of mortality, of the onset of responsibilities, and a loss of innocence. Relationships forged in adolescence come to an unexpected end, and childhood friends move on and away. Above all, The Boy Least Likely To understand that all the best pop moments are about love, loss and distance.... they make disco music with a country heart...... sublime pop moments tinged with an English folk eccentricity.... sad songs that can't help but make you smile.... this is the sound of their summer.... this is the best party ever.
Simon Clark
The Boy Least Likely To / B.C. Camplight
@ The Social, Nottingham
Opening for The Boy Least Likely To tonight are B.C. Camplight from Philadelphia, U.S.A., a band that may only be described as strange… but in a good way. They’re led by charismatic frontman Brian Christinzio (hence the B.C.), who informs us that “I’m a little out of it from being on antibiotics and a whole lotta whisky so I apologise in advance.” The banter between Christinzio and his audience only adds to the magic; before starting second song Parapaleejo, he informed us: “This song is about screwing a circus performer. He very quickly built up a rapport with us, laughing and joking through the entire set. “This is a song about being a fuckface, and it goes like this.”
B.C. Camplight are worryingly good, by which I mean as they played current single ‘Blood And Peanut Butter’ (out March 7th), I was getting apprehensive that the night was climaxing too soon. However, The Boy Least Likely To are on hand to quell my fears. Opener ‘Fur Soft As Fur’ has everyone immediately smiling like they don’t know what else to do. They play with an exuberant charm, their elaborate and sometime aggressive nursery rhyme-esque songs fill the audience with a previously undiscovered glee. I’m not sure anyone’s ever been happier to play songs for people. Or that I’ve ever seen a cupcake eaten on stage, as recorder player Sweet Amanda Applewood did halfway through ‘My Tiger, My Heart’.
Before ‘Monsters’ , Jof Owen (vocals) requests a “sad chord” from his bandmate Peter Hobbs, and revels in the crowd’s collective grin. The night is coming to a close, and even though my friend Dean and I are sharing a cold and therefore fatigue, disappointment courses through our veins like it is the only emotion we know. I never use hyperbole. Any band that has a song called ‘I’m Glad I Hitched My Apple Wagon To Your Star’ and can get the entire room participating at least in the chorus has to be special. In typical musician product placement, they finish with forthcoming release ‘Be Gentle With Me’, which is a fitting end to a joyous occasion. They deserve to be much more successful than they are, but surely touring America with James Blunt is a kick in the teeth for credibility?
Adam Davies
Broken Social Scene
@ The Irish Centre, Leeds
Regardless of what one may or may not have read about them in the broadsheets, there’s no denying that tonight’s performance by Canadian experimental pop collective Broken Social Scene feels pretty damned special, a fleeting stop-off in West Yorkshire by a band whose genius is being belatedly recognised by the UK press and whose attendant snowballing popularity will most likely rule them out of playing rooms as homely, modest and profoundly ‘local’ as the Irish Centre in future. Indeed, the venue, although surely a little off the beaten track from the point of view of most of those in attendance, plays a big part in how memorable the experience turns out to be - capacious certainly, but also warm and friendly, free of the pretension and overbearing security measures which blight more central, big-name locations, and critical in helping the headliners create a truly remarkable ambience during their two-and-a-half hours on stage; completely intoxicating and incredibly reassuring in it’s feel of improvised community and stubborn, dauntless optimism.
In truth, their set does drag in places, but let’s not forget there aren’t many rock acts capable of holding our attention for ONE hour, let alone the best part of three, and the ambient-jazz interludes which constitute large sections of the show are just an unavoidable consequence of the band’s identity; a group of friends whose bond is their shared passion for music, and for who the performance of that music is an affirmation of what they feel for one another - at points, you get the feeling they could be playing to a completely empty room and still be having just as great a time. After leaving the stage for the second time, one by one each member drift backs into action until shapeless washes of guitar fuzz, throbbing bass and shuffling drum patterns are billowing off the stage and moving out through the crowd, continuing to do so for nigh-on quarter of an hour. And so it goes on. These are indulgences, but ones we can tolerate bearing in mind what has gone before and will eventually follow: song after song of towering beauty and peerless creativity, which draw upon all of the best currents running through the independent rock music of the last twenty years but which sounds like nothing else you’ve ever heard, which soar and groove, which have you punching the air for joy one minute and fighting the urge to hug the person closest to you the next. It’s one to remember.
Greg Elliott
Cabaret Heaven
@ The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Devine decadence, darling? Well, actually it’s more like a bit of slap ‘n’ tickle on Eastbourne pier with blue rinses eddying slowly in the chip-fat breeze. And what’s wrong with that? These guys are to be applauded for putting on such a shamelessly camp spectacle at one of Leeds premier live venues. And judging by the impressive turn out tonight, there are a lot of people willing to get into the Carry On spirit. You do have to take Cabaret Heaven on its own terms though- all notions of ‘cool’ must be firmly cast aside.
Comperes Peggy Lee and Trevor Organ warm us up first, with naff but occasionally wonderful double entendres flying think and fast. Best of the bunch is a rather inspired one liner from Trevor concerning his freshly-pinned crotch: ‘Well, nothing’s going to fall out now, which is more than can be said for Chernobyl.’ I’m wetting myself, but I think I’m the only one.
Next, to wild screams, David Bowie takes the stage! Or not. In fact, it’s Stars in Their Eyes contestant Andy Mac, who’s impersonation of his Thin Whiteness basically boils down to mugging along to ‘Ziggy Stardust’ in platforms and ginger fright-wig. True, he’s got a good Bowie perma-grin, but then so does Captain Wilberforce, and we haven’t seen him on TV with Cat Dealy (mores the pity). Andy’s Marc Bolan impression has even less to it, consisting as it does of nothing more than a black curly wig. However, no one can deny the energy the guy puts into his act and the audience gladly join in the fun. Andy Mac gets paid to do on stage what we all do alone in our bedrooms. I work in a call centre. Who’s the chump here?
After an intermission, it’s the turn of the Splott Brothers, who get a hell of a lot of mileage of basically miming pouring water on members of the audience and nicking people’s pints. Then the Haggis Horns do their funk-soul thing and benefit tremendously from the Brudenell’s fabulous acoustics. Everybody’s dancing, everybody’s laughing and nobody cares what they look like. Why can’t your average indie gig end this way?
Richard Morris
Cagedbaby
@ The Plug, Sheffield
Given that the 24th of February was a very cold night, not many people turned up at The Plug – in fact, I’d never thought it could be so empty. With so few people in the audience, I could really imagine that those who were up there on the stage must have found it really hard to warm up the atmosphere and create a vibe. Plus on top of that, and to add insult to injury, Cagedbaby’s equipment was going through technical difficulties. There might also have been the possibility that the singer was trying a little too hard to be like Mylo, but somewhat lacked the inspiration, which certainly didn’t appeal to me. The live presentation of their album, Will See You Now, didn’t seem to connect entirely with the audience – I think it might have been the frustration with the equipment- until… Until the end, when all the beats began to fall into the right place, the bass began to loom out of the speakers perfectly, filling the room, and the whole atmosphere recovered. It would seem that Cagedbaby had given up on the perfectionism and were finally giving a very good performance, full of squeaky noises and deep sounds, made with whatever computers and other equipment that was working, which ended up waking everyone up and making them dance. Those last 20 minutes made up for the earlier disappointment and made the whole night worthwhile, really showing that Cagedbaby might be more than just Chemical Brothers’s cosseted band after all.
Laia Darder Estevez
The Chalets
@ The Faversham, Leeds
The Chalets take stage and turn the night into a blur of polka dots and hand claps. Fronted by porcelain dolls Paula (Pee Pee) and Ceeva (Pony) they bring a stage show of 70’s porn moustaches, wigs straight from the Flintstones and the sounds of sixties bubblegum pop all thrown into an electro blender.
Bouncing out of Dublin they manage to capture a persona of being the girl next door with a dirty secret, and make love/hate relationships sound so damn reckless and sleazy in ‘Love-Punch’. Screaming and shouting “I know you love me, But you’re fucking crazy”, they swing their hips and click their retro heels to the awkward circus funk of guitars. It’s a juxtaposition between the respectable and the sordid. But these paper dolls are not easily torn, they have an attitude loaded with rolling eyes and snapping fingers with synchronised dance moves. Oh yes, they have dance routines! Doing the funky train, the deep sea-diver, completed with all the waving hands straight from a sixties dancehall. You can see why these guys appeal. As they sip white wine in between yelps of vocal conflict against the guitarist on ‘Nightrocker’, the verbal bashing proves to be a winning formula as the crowd jolt to every heavy twang of bass and electro pop of keyboard. It’s music so retro, sexy, and sleazy as hell you’ll be wanting to burst into extreme song and dance like you were stuck on the set of an Austin Powers movie.
Overall even though The Chalets have boundless charm they lack a social purpose in their music. If you’re looking for songs that go a little deeper than kiss chase and sexy mistakes you won’t be finding it here, you may find it hidden in Paula’s hair though. Lyrically its cute but hardly thought provoking. That said it doesn’t make them a bad band. So get on your loudest shirt, and in the words of Ceeva go to the ‘Indee Dizzko’. Just don’t be expecting anything more than two dizzy girls swinging their pencil skirts.
Yvonne McKeown
The Chalets
@ The Fuzz Club
Whilst the Gallagher brothers fought and swaggered their way through a well-heeled set at Hallam Arena on Thursday night, two small bob-haired girls (and a trio of timid-looking male accomplices) were tottering to the stage at the far more modest venue of the Fuzz Club. If Liam and Noel had been told that this little gig was going on downtown they would have been unlikely to have felt threatened by the idea of it – they are the mighty Oasis, after all, and they were the ones playing our city’s arena. But, had they been there to witness the effect that The Chalets had on those gathered at the university’s Union, they might have been forgiven for feeling a twinge of anxiety at what may be on the horizon for these meek young things from Dublin.
If there was ever a case to be made for it being possible to command attention from an audience whilst being a) playful b) self-deprecating and c) – gasp - GIRLS, then PeePee and Pony of The Chalets are the evidence. Dressed in 50s polka-dot dresses and berets, performing Bananarama-esque dance moves and singing in voices so sweet that they make Debbie Gibson sound a bit mannish, these girls feel no need to bow to ‘The Pressure’. I’m referring to the widespread demand for band members (men and women alike) to avoid the-tongue-in-cheek and – dare I say it – to play down their feminine sides. For The Chalets, though, no cock-sure wideboys or over-serious ice queens need apply. Sure, Pony swigs from a can of Strongbow, but that’s pretty much where it ends – the girls swish their skirts around, giggle and entertain the audience with banter which is sharp and very funny though never brash or aggressive (Pony: ‘Poor Enda didn’t realise his boyfriend was gay until he went on holiday with him!’). Such a side-step from the norm would seem risky – it might alienate a group’s spectators – but, surprisingly, the audience seems to love them all the more for it. Put that in your roll-up and smoke it, Liam.
Thrilled by all there was to look at, it was also a lovely bonus to find that The Chalets are also one of the tightest-sounding bands I have ever had the pleasure to hear play live. The girls were eerily note-perfect, harmonies effortlessly intact even when their attention was divided by keyboard and glockenspiel duties. Their male counterparts were no slouches either: Enda and Chris (doubling up on vocals as well as guitar and bass respectively) accomplished the tricky task of keeping up with the girls whilst also providing a hint of boyish charm. With echoes of The Go-Gos, The Shangri-Las, The Buzzcocks, and B52s, the band have several hit songs in waiting. Nightrocker (introduced by Pony as “named after the David Hasslehoff song of the same name… although not as good”) packs a mighty punch, and is set off by some effectively sinister synth lines and a hypnotic refrain. No Style sounds like The Magic Numbers on top form but with sex thrown in, and Love Punch is basically a hormone-crazed Rock Lobster for the noughties kids, in which the f-word is used in the most matter-of-fact and catchy way possible.
All these songs can be found on their album Check In which I purchased at the gig and - although I think it’s a fantastic record – The Chalets are one of those rare bands where the live experience outweighs the polished product. I left the Fuzz Club with a spring in my step, a tune in my head and several new ideas for outfits.
Catrin Lowe
Clutch / Stinking Lizaveta
@ Rock City, Nottingham
Opening up in the big room at Rock City is not an enviable task. You get about 10 minutes to sound check, about 4 inches of room to play in and every noise you make echoes straight back at you off the walls of the slowly filling room. The chances of a band rising above this are slim. The chances of them playing one of the best gigs this year are next to impossible – making Stinking Lizaveta’s efforts all the more superhuman
at 8 o clock on a Sunday evening.
I’ve seen these Philadelphians before in small rooms and they always put on a show but it’s surprising how much sense they make at a ‘big’ rock gig. Surprising because they have an upright bassist, no vocals to speak of, a female drummer and a guitarist (brother of the bassist) who resembles something from Lord Of The Rings. But despite them being far from the typical Rocko band, people seemed to really get into it.
It’s hard not to though, when the band themselves are so committed. Guitarist Yanni is especially animated, balancing precariously on his amp, leaping around, screaming into his guitar and at one point traversing the whopping Rock City ‘moat’ to strap said guitar onto an unsuspecting girl (after prying it from the hands of a gaggle of wannabe male guitossers) in the front row before returning to the stage to dish out wah-wah apocalypse on us while the girl stood there pawing the instrument.
Lizaveta are super-arranged, technical riff-metal but by putting so much of themselves into the performance things seem natural, it becomes less of a display of technical virtuosity and more a celebration of the band as people.
Clutch are a band I’ve heard on record plenty but never seen live. On record they have an unnatural heaviness that’s replicated tonight in volume but not in overall sound somehow. They are massively loud but the guitar especially sounds croaky and blubbering. Not to say Clutch don’t rock. They resemble a compressed, more aggressive ZZ Top with Dan Higgs from Lungfish on vocals – complete with bizarre shamanisms and facial hair. But whereas the mighty ‘Top have an elasticity to their rhythms that means I could listen to Frank Beard play a shuffle beat all day, Clutch rely a bit too much on a straight fonky rhythm that never allows them to break out and run. Couple it to the sometimes-overbearing New Orleans-y keyboard sound and it makes too much Clutch a bit hard to take.
Chris Summerlin
Coldcut / Kids In Tracksuits
@ The Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
It’s a freezing Sunday night again. But in the comfort of The Rescuerooms things are warming up. We’re here to see Coldcut. But first, in support is Kids in Tracksuits. Yet again cutting and pasting with ease. I guess you could say they’re an up and coming Coldcut type duo. This time they treated us to something beautiful with a Boards of Canada track. These guys just seem to get better and better every time I see them. They’re EP is out now, check out www.dealmakerrecords.com.
Time rolled on and people were getting restless, the place is rammed. Where’s Coldcut? K.I.T even seem to be wondering the same thing. Finely out they come, I guess when you’ve been around as long as Coldcut have you can pretty much do what you want. The beats start up and the visuals kick off. Coldcut are the originators of Vjing, and creators of the software Vjamm. If it wasn’t for them you might find yourself bored at gigs with nothing to look at but the back of some ones head. Clever guys these two, there’s a lot more to them than you think!
They kick off with a couple of MCs hyping up the crowd as Coldcut start up their triphoppy beats. And I’m thinking 'great' as I stand up front with my pint in my hand. This I what I was expecting. I’m nodding my head when suddenly the whole thing changes. We are now descending into a drum and bass frenzy! Heads have gone into overdrive nod and arms are starting to fly! I’m finding it really hard to drink my pint and most of it’s on the floor. So we head to the back thinking it’s going to be quieter, right?! Oh hoe wrong we were. The whole place is rammed from top to bottom, there’s no where to hide, no where is safe.
I’m not an oldie but my drum and bass days are definitely over. I’m more of a discreet shuffler then a stomper. So we ducked into the bar next door to finish our liquid refreshments and cool down. When we had prepared ourselves for the frenzy we returned. The MCs had been replaced by a female vocalist, expect the unexpected from Coldcut. We found a quiet spot, and even though we didn’t feel like dancing the visuals we definitely keeping us entertained. Coldcut were cutting and scratching clips of bush for our amusement. I didn’t know they were so political, but they are! If you scratch the surface of Coldcut you’ll find a lot more than you bargained for.
We were a little unsure at first having been thrown by the drum and bass, but there’s so much more to these guys that we stayed to the very end. Coldcut look after their crowd like true gentlemen, giving us one mighty encore. And unexpected night for me I have to admit but an excellent one none the less. We stumbled home on a still freezing Monday morning, in a few hours we will all be up for work with plenty of tails to tell. Excellent!
If you want hear these guys do the unexpected from the comfort of your own home you can hook up to their pirate TV broadcast every Wednesday on the net. Just go to www.ninjatune.net and click on ‘Solid Steel’. And if you want to know more about what these guys have and will be up to check out www.coldcut.net/coldcut. Their site is a treat I itself! Also, have you bought their new release Sound Mirrors? Then you should, it’s out now!
Sophie Parker
Computerman
@ The Welly, Hull
Computerman have this rare and strange ability to not only provide a gratifyingly shallow pop twist but also an emotional depth that can bring a misting of the eye while you dance away. Tonight they bring this and their soaring indie-electro-pop back to Hull. For a band of boys one of their number has an amazingly female sounding voice that is used to great effect between the synth bits on “No More Broken Hearts.” “Watch More Television” builds with anthem like intentions before falling into the more believable and less pretentious. Then the vocals enter, these lyrics hint at the something else; something more affecting. An example can be found in the opening line of “Watch More Television”: “She would like to think she touched him once” which when coupled with the music hits you just under the breast plate.
They don’t believe in holding back their aforementioned better known songs- that were released as a single just before Christmas- as within the first ten minutes they have dashed through both. This leaves the middle end of their set a little on the more ambient side with nothing quite having the impact of what has gone before. They could work within the context of an album but live there is a slight struggle to grab them. Not even the rousing sounding set closer “No Surrender, No Recover” quite brings them back up to the full level of our attentions. It’s all there though and we just have to wait for Computerman to perfect their art before they can truly capture us.
Mike Reynold
Julian Cope
@ Leeds Metropolitan University
For a self confessed stone circle hugging, ex-Pop Star, father of two, 48-year-old author and former acid casualty, Julian Cope looks in pretty good shape. Not many blokes of his age could get away with standing on a stage with hair down to his waist, black leather kecks on his skinny legs, an “Anarchy is Peace” t-shirt tied round his hips, an extravagantly peaked army officers cap rammed on his bonce while wearing no shirt at all on his bony chest. But then again, most blokes even half his age haven’t managed to pull off the trick of balancing a rampant ego with goofy self deprecation in quite the same endearing way that Cope has either.
As far as his musical muse goes, in his time Cope has been a penner of effortlessly brilliant pop songs, perpetrator of rambling ambient epics and driver of wigged out, aimed at the sun rock riff-olla. This is Cope’s first tour for some time with a band and with new CD Dark Orgasm providing a release for the gonzoer heavy metal side of his multiple personality, it’s no surprise that the gig is loaded with pummelling riffs a plenty.
Unfortunately, much of the new stuff is feeble, by the numbers HM, a problem only exacerbated by the limited trio set up of the band. While Cope plays rudimentary bass most of the night and drummer Mr E is solid enough, sole guitarist Doggen is left to give the songs the crunching power they need but ends up relying too heavily on clichéd tropes. Fortunately, Cope’s long career and mercurial nature means he can, and enthusiastically does, exploit a back catalogue studded with jewels. A HM version of the Teardrops ‘Books’ just about survives the transition, the “loony 80’s” phase stuff like ‘Sunspots’ sounds anything but loony now and truth to tell some of the new stuff manages to reach fifth gear in spectacular fashion. But the solo spot at the midway point proves to be the highlight - ‘Soul Desert’ has a dry and brittle beauty, ‘I’m Your Daddy’ is a peculiar mix of world weary naiveté and “Julian H Cope”’s sly self deprecation is great fun. Quite why the painful doggerel of ‘Robert Mitchum’ seems to have attained almost mythic proportions with the fans remains a mystery though.
The solo spot is abruptly terminated by an alleged trouser ripping accident and Cope leaves the stage to change his kecks because, apparently, he aint wearing no underwear! New pants in position, he returns and aims the band squarely at the stars for the final run in. ‘Get off your pretty face’ and ‘Hell is Wicked’ stoke the engine for the finale of that raucous hymn to defiance ‘World Shut Your Mouth’ and the juggernaut that is ‘Spacehopper’. Awesome, drude.
Johnny Ersatz-Culture
The Cribs / Giant Drag / Jeffrey Lewis
@ The Refectory, Leeds
I like surprises, especially those in the form of the Jeffrey Lewis collective. For the full duration of their set, the band transport us to a different, better place than the one we know as all embrace the new, “Weird America” sound. With song titles such as ‘The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane’ and low-budget feature films featuring the likes of ‘Champion Jim’ and an ever-changing Jeff, even one new to the Jeffrey Lewis outfit can’t help but warm to them. See, it ain’t exactly that the music produced is accessible or nothin’ but it is, I think, the strangeness and almost unheard of song-writing style and musical compositions: dear reader, MySpace Jeffrey Lewis and you’ll be more than thankful you did.
Ah, Giant Drag with the deceptively doe-eyed Annie ‘I’m a cute girl with a dirty mouth’ Hardy don’t fail to stir the crowd for the headliners with their distorted, down ‘n dirty rock ‘n roll that’s just the way it should be. ‘Kevin is Gay’ and the appropriately anagrammed ‘YFLMD’ are greeted with uncontainable skinny indie kid jubilation and hearty sing-alongs. The incredulously slender Annie tosses her beautifully straight hair and plays the hell out of that wild yellow gee-tar as any girl worth her rock ‘n roll salt should. But the most striking element of Giant Drag’s performance is the realness, the ‘I’ve-lived-through-what-I’m-singing’ feeling in Annie’s voice; the tales of unscrupulous waste-of-time men in personal favourite ‘This Isn’t It’ are not myths written to sell the imminent album, I’m sure.
And so I come to the Wakefield trio themselves and the crowd is whipped into a frenzy by sheer excitement alone, before The Cribs are even onstage! A few wasted ‘woo!’s in between‘80s disco hits (?!) and ‘…the lights are out now’. Ryan, Gary and Ross relentlessly rip through the classics, both past and present from the embryonic debut The Cribs to the more polished and perfected The New Fellas. Front man Ryan’s generosity (okay, one can of Stella) and pure down-to-earth attitude are what renders The Cribs one of the most significant ‘people’ bands to date: if peeling off his bandage and thus exhibiting the bloody stitches acquired two days previously in the war on rock ‘n roll isn’t unpretentious then I don’t know what is. Although it might not have been expected, tonight the boys from Wakefield really showed us what’s what. So their famous friends may have all but left them behind, but underneath all that flurry and those awards shows, the Jarman brothers are coming and they are most certainly gathering speed.
Maria Pinto-Fernandes
Dandiwind
@ The Social, Nottingham
Dandiwind is from Canada’s capital of ‘cool’ Montreal. This city seems to be one of those few at the moment that is generating a wealth of excellent and interesting musical acts (I hear that Look North has called Sheffield this country’s hottest city for music, hmmm). Don’t get me wrong, I like Sheffield, it’s my home city and all that, I just feel like the Arctic Monkeys have killed the city with their ‘new’ sound (really, can anyone hear the ‘new’ in their sound?). But Montreal is on it, showing a broad spectrum of sound from the killer post punk noise of Les Georges Leningrad, to the mightily weird epic sounds of Arcade Fire, to the post rock of Godspeed. Now we have Dandiwind, and really she isn’t that easy to place, maybe somewhere between dance, electro, and maybe just the eighties generally?
She dances around like a demented windmill, drinks the audiences drinks, and I think crowd surfed further than anyone else has at the Social. These spectacular stunts won the crowd over after a quiet reaction to the first few songs. This resulted in some guy getting on stage and then attempting to crowd surf but everyone moved so he fell flat on his face. That was a highlight from me. Then some other guy getting on stage
partially striping and grinding up the poor girl. She seemed to have fun with it though… The live drums added a new dimension to the vocal/keyboard duo of her previous Nottingham visit, making it feel more like a full band, and filling out the stage. It just looked a lot better really.
Dandiwind should be massive here, but maybe, she’s just too fucking weird even for all the weird kinds that like the weird electro clash eighties thing. All here stuff will probably be on Ebay for loads after she’s long gone. At least a few of us know.
I look forward to reading all the letters defending Arctic Monkeys and slating me next issue. It’s all hype you know.
Words and Photo: Joe Blanchard
The Dark Arches / Ryder / Freebooting Profiteers / Rbap
@ Mixing Tin, Leeds
Just getting in to Mixing Tin about 8pm and kicking off is Rbap, a bright energetic foursome, with some really clever ideas. Looking back, these guys really shouldn’t have been opening up, as I would have had them as the best band of the night. They were, however, and they did a damn fine job of it too. Mixing genres and influences together like the good old days of RATM, and more recently Test-Icicles, I cant help but get the feeling this band will never really realise their full potential, but they do deserve better than opening up tonight. And any band that does ‘rock vogueing’ is alright by me.
The standout track is ‘Spanish’. Clearly not that comfortable sporting two guitars simultaneously, the lead singer announces, “this could all go horribly wrong” before it all goes really rather well. Random Fact; apparently, one of the band (andy) has 12 fingers – I could neither confirm nor deny this.
Next up are Freebooting Profiteers. Now I’ve gotta be honest, I wasn’t expecting an awful lot from this group, just something inside said I wasn’t going to enjoy them. But they were pretty damn good! Energetic, fiendish but friendly rock.
The standout track, ‘Industrial Slit’, conjured up memories of Jet, when they were fucking good. “Well come oooowwwwn!”
Now, Ryder. I don’t know if it was me, or the quality of the previous two bands, but I just didn’t get it. I didn’t get the full on camouflage gear, because that stirred up false hopes of an Ian Brown style mash up. I didn’t get the switching between guitar and keyboard, because that reminds me of Staind, and who the fuck wants to remember them? I don’t know, there were some clever ideas in the set, some sturdy riffs, and a really strong closing song, but it just seemed so few and far between, that by the time the end had come, only the friends and family seemed to be interested enough to applaud them.
Which is why I don’t think The Dark Arches got quite the audience they wanted for the closing set. Smart ideas and edgy pop would (and should) have seen them through a distinctly average set on any other night. My impression was though, by the time they had come on, the audience were just uninterested enough so that they never stood a chance. Myself included.
Sean Davey
Delays / Nightmare Of You
@ The Cockpit, Leeds
It's rare to walk out half way through a headline set, out of sheer mediocrity but as my brain and in turn legs longed for the doorway on account of the terribly idea-void Delays, tonight would go down as one of those occasions.
Be assured, there won't be a man, woman or child that hasn't heard of Nightmare Of You by this time next year. However the audience participation levels, means tonight is inevitably the poorest of the New Jersey indie/emo pop rockers three Leeds shows since November. But still, Nightmare Of You have more ideas and character in one song than the whole Delays set put together. Frontman Brandon Reilly cuts down on the camp stage moves for a change but still cuts an imposing and mesmerising centre piece for the undisputed potential next big things in rock.
The likes of 'I Want To Be Buried In Your Backyard' and 'Why Am I Always Right?' seemingly garner the best reactions until the NOY coup de grace that is 'My Name Is Trouble' leaves an even bigger imprint on the nights proceedings than any haphazard Delays fans could ever have imagined. If you do happen to be one of the unconverted, I suggest you do something about it. quickly.
The artists formerly known as The Delays then. You may have guessed by now, this summary isn't going to be particularly favourable. The highlight of the set is undoubtedly the waltzer surplus light gimmicks they have going on in the background which seem to have had more chorographic effort put in to them than any of the songs. The music is hideously drole.
The band try bless 'em. Frontman Greg Gilbert does have an air of the fact he's trying his best but knows he's never going to be in Coldplay, or even Athlete. Delays have two or three songs at the very, very most. Debut single 'Long Time Coming' and the song or two that follow are more than tolerable but still lack the ability to grab the listeners attention. It is easy to see why Delays really are the least scene indie band in England. As the mind drifts as to whether to buy pizza or chips on the way home we feel it's time to vacate.
Thank god for Nightmare Of You.
Luke Ramsden
DJ Scotch Egg / Horatio Pollard / Doddodo
@ Cabaret, Nottingham
Post Sunburned Hand of The Man, the night still felt young, so away, through the rain to Cabaret. Doddodo was in full swing, charming the throng with fantasticly cute manic beats combined with gutteral mic shoutage, and, mildly alarmingly, with all kinds of comedically sped-up banjos, and hyperfiddly riverdance shenanigans. Somehow this was amazingly great, despite a couple of power failiures. Truly the only one of the three that might not have been on crack.
Horatio Pollard was fantastically misanthropic. His racket was like something out of the 'Drugs' episode of 'Brasseye'. The crowd was mixed in its reaction, but 'fuck off' seemed the general response. His response to this? 'Fuck On!' His live contribution to his laptop's performance was lamely singing along to whatever melody was there, which was entertaining in a 'wtf' Nathan Barleyish way. Oddly, his last tune, 'Single Mother On Death Row', was rather beautiful and superb. And a minute long. And his last.
DJ Scotch Egg - now signed in the US to Load Records, home of Lightning Bolt - is well-known in comparison, after the Go! Team support slot from a year ago. Mr Egg is received as a hero, and his gameboygabba sonic assault is best received in conjunction with the sight of his complimentary moves and in sight of a quite frankly hilarious moshpit, which rather amusingly featured a young lad in an Agoraphobic Nosebleed t-shirt. Superb. Big ups to the old dude near us who looked like Harold Shipman and who was 'aving it throughout.
Craig Wood
DJ Scotch Egg / Ove-Naxx
C90 @ The Matilda Social Centre, Sheffield
Set up at the back end of last year, the Matilda is an activist meeting place as well as an all round good place to go to feel outside the mainstream. With flaking paint and DIY posters the feel of the room (apart from the cold, I lean on an old sink then huddle by the generator) is ace; graffiti on the walls and a homemade bar make this a perfect DIY venue for a DIY gig.
But with C90 it can’t all be low-tech. For those not in the know C90 is a group of Sheffield promoters who are in charge of leading us to new delights. Attempting to put on around a gig a month they have built up a good reputation and their DJs are well respected.
Meanwhile the place has filled up, plenty of interesting people are milling about but all eyes are on the guys setting up a table of a million wires and several Gameboys. On the right we have Ove-Naxx who, wearing a massive yellow hoodie and a cheeky expression will rock the shit out of the room in half-an-hour. He makes similar music to the Egg-Man but with the screaming largely replaced by noisy beats.
Scotch Eggs are weird things. Like pork pies even when you’re eating them and enjoying them you know there’s something weird about their consumption. And so, unlike the likes of DJ Rubbish and the rotund Pixies, he is perfectly named. Hailing from the far-shores of Japan he creates heavy electronic music with occasional beats and shouting in his native language. Unbelievable there’s an audience for this of which I count myself a member.
You see there are moments where you’re struck with an incredible feeling of absurdity. On a ridiculously cold night I dragged myself, on my own, right across town to see a man scream down a mike and throw a tantrum at a guy (admittedly only at Granny speed) rolling a spliff in the corner whilst attacking Tetris on a Gameboy with its battery dying. Why? Because it sounds good. Despite his complaints at the volume the Egg rocks, causing the walls to shake and the effects pedal he’s channelling his voice though to conk out. An ace night out and proof that if we rely on each other to put a bit of effort in, weird and wonderful things can be created and enjoyed without outside control. And he beat my lines top score.
Alex Lawson
Dog City / The First Few / The Experts / Amida
@ The Vine, Leeds
Spring is technically only three weeks away, but of course it's still bloody freezing. Thank God tonight's show at The Vine – four charming prog/indie acts with a collective sound warmer than a mug of Bovril – that endeavours to turn seasonal affective disorder on its polar axis.
First up come Amida, and though the lights operator seems to be on a fag break they press on out of the darkness with gentle soft rock ambience and swaying movements. A familiar guitar band set-up is complemented nicely with a well-placed accordion, and soon enough Amida have finished a nice consistent set deserving of a larger audience. And some visibility.
The Experts pick up the beat with their subtly cool infusion of prog rock with Beach Boys style funk. The Blues Brothers-shades-wearing frontman fires some impressive guitar solos over a concise yet powerful backing. It gets a good reaction and is almost brilliant – it just needs to be a little more catchy. That said, they have got a song that sounds like 'Cool For Cats'. Shake up at the disco.
The First Few seem to draw a pretty big crowd. Things get a lot more sing-along now, with a big bag of lively acoustic numbers for fans to clap to. They've nothing ground-breakingly original to offer, but they do get me in the mood for batting a giant balloon around.
Finally Dog City turn up the pretentiousness, taking care to verbally big themselves up before launching into a riff-wielding party noise residing somewhere in between Kings of Leon and Chili Peppers. Despite a professional feel with some great vocal harmonies, I find myself wishing upon the sudden entrance of a string quartet or full-bodied church organ to give the band the huge sound they really need.
Nevertheless, Dog City march through the last of four worthwhile performances, and it's not until the last note that I remember we've still got at least another two months of shitty, slushy, miserable English weather ahead. Time for a hot bath.
Jon Daley
Duels / Cardboard Radio / The Nicoles
@ Fibbers, York
Leeds' Duels the next big thing? Never mind their NME feature or the Kaiser Chiefs in the audience, Sandman had Duels on the cover last year, and that's the only taste barometer you need. First The Nicoles, sadly not a gang of punky girls, but painfully young floppy-haired lads. Misleading moniker aside, they showed real promise. OK, most of their songs sounded similar, with gothy basslines, squealing lead and mid-tempo thump, but when they worked - ‘Come On’ and a couple of others - they were rather fine. And on ‘X-Box and Food’, they hit the spirit of the times as sometimes only young lads with guitars can - "we're all playing X-Box now / we're all getting fatter by the hour" Good stuff. (An aside prompted by The Nicoles - it's pretty cool that these bands are prepared to stand or fall by their own material, in fact I can't think of the last time I saw a band of young kids in a Fibs opening slot do an obviously crowd-pleasing cover. Just a thought.)
Cardboard Radio are seasoned campaigners, back from tour and last-minute replacements for The Bazaars. I like 'em better when they ease down on their crazed 10-songs-crammed-into-one-shit-another-time-change-aagh approach, as Andy's blues Zep guitar gets chance to breath, but most people here know them and they go down really well.
But the overwhelming rush of Duels' sound is something else. Half their set sounds like it's soundtracking a Cold War epic where the doomed young embassy lovers race to shred the documents while the ambassador's smacked out and the jackboots of oppression kick down the door, while the other half seems meant for a sharp-suited knife-fight in a glam club on the moon. But at no point do they sound like they don't belong on a much bigger stage. With current trends for all sounds skinny and sparse, to hear a band fusing a prog-ish desire to sound epic, grandiose, bombastic even, with a real streak of street aggression is refreshing, howling guitar and massive sweeps of keyboard pushed out at lethal speed and punishing volume. Highlights? The relentless ‘Things’, ‘Idiot’’s barely-controlled tension (which does the right thing and doesn't explode), the bite of forthcoming single ‘Animals’ which may be just a bit too hard for Radio 1, lots more. Duels have the potential to be something really quite special - better catch them now.
Tim Procter
Farming Incident / It Takes Bridges / Blah Blah Tin
@ The Cardigan Arms, Leeds
You really have to admire a band so heroically, relentlessly grim as Blah Blah Tin, a trio of stern and frankly rather intimidating chaps playing a kind of post-industrial melodic grindcore which makes you feel like you’re watching them in a mid-‘80s Thatcher-induced nightmare of urban decay rather than the eminently more convivial surroundings of The Cardigan Arms on a rainy evening in March. If you like your beats electronic, minimal and tightly regimented, your guitar thoroughly nasty in a way that evokes Throbbing Gristle at their more accessible, and your vocals delivered in a way which seeks to out-Mark E. Smith Mark E. Smith himself, I advise you to check them out. I think I fear too much for my sanity to want to encounter them again any time soon.
The openers may have stayed rooted determinedly to the spot, but being overly static certainly isn’t an allegation you can level against It Takes Bridges, who are so animated on stage tonight it’s actually quite hard to separate the quality of their music from the attention-grabbing nature of their performance. Maybe that’s the point. The closest reference I can think of is Bleach-era Nirvana, deranged, whisper-scream vocals delivered over simple, distinctly grungey down-tuned guitar riffs which achieve an incredible momentum by dint of their sheer ferocious repetitiveness. The dexterous percussion calls to mind their (superb) Leeds contemporaries Bilge Pump in its storming complexity and power, and increasingly totemic frontman/promoter/man-about-town James Brown certainly knows his way around a Telecaster, alternating between crunching chords, picking and shrieking feedback with such frequency and enthusiasm that I’m surprised he doesn’t confuse himself. It all rushes by in the space of, at most, twenty minutes, leaving the meagre audience thoroughly rocked and me all over the place. I really want to see them again mind you.
Farming Incident are, quite clearly, studious men, the music they play bringing to mind all kinds of diverse innovative rock forms, like those popularised by Hawkwind, or Joy Division, or the Pixies. After forty-five minutes though, I’m still not entirely sure what these gents are getting at; we’ve had instrument swapping aplenty, some spoken word and lots of reverent, heads-down fretwork, but to no real avail – the emotional impact is pretty much zero, and although I admire their technical abilities (as well as their good humour), this isn’t something I can overlook.
Greg Elliot
The Feeling / The Strollers
@ The Leadmill, Sheffield
This Monday night gig in Sheffield coincided with the group's debut in the singles chart. Their classic pop song 'Sewn' landed at number 7 on the Sunday ratings and was the highlight of this show. If they can use the same writing formula to create a few more sounds of this calibre, they have a bright future. Not that the other eight songs in this short set were poor, it is just the strength of that composition and the feeling they put into it. They play well too, a solid unit who work hard, talented musicians who dispel any suggestion that they are too commercial. The down side of the night was the sparse crowd of barely 100. This meant the show was re-located to the 'Steel Stage' or Room 2 as it is more generally known. Whilst this was so cosy you could actually read the band's set list (taped to the floor) it also meant the logistics of accommodating three artists was a challenge. It was Derby based band 'The Strollers' who gave a lively opening sounding a bit like 'Razorlight'. The billed warm up act and second on were three Norwegian lads who, despite their unimaginative name 'Lorraine' and looking like Depeche Mode, got better as their slot went on. By the end their electronic sound and the smooth lead vocal hit the pulse; they were very good.
The Feeling took the Stage at 9.15pm and the small turnout of customers turned the event into a paradox. The five piece and their unique sound, almost surrounded by the audience, gave the atmosphere a bit of magic. If you were at the gig, hold onto your ticket because if this band fulfill their potential, you may need it to prove to your friends that you were there.
Stuart Clarkson
The Field
@ The Leadmill, Sheffield
Sheffield is making its mark on the music industry as a hot spot for the latest upcoming talent. The buzz surrounding our city hasn’t been as intense since the memorable days of Pulp; now it seems the Disco 2000 is here again. Competition is strong, expectations are high and the accent is broader than ever. Can we succeed?
There was a certain air of excitement lingering amongst the fans as the Field set up in the small room of the Leadmill. Perhaps one of their biggest venues yet, the audience of selected family and friends are eager to see how this change of scenery suits their friends’ performance. It’s tough for guys like these at the minute; the new Indie breeds of today are forever becoming an extended metaphor to the ‘Legends’ that once were. However, the Field seem to have found themselves a nice little undiscovered niche in the market; and promptly settled there.
There's no messing around either. Despite a slight lack of organisation to begin with the performance didn't lack sparkle; in fact it would be hard to guess these guys did anything else for a living! Russ looks comfortable on bass; an initial cloud of nervousness has blown itself away and as the crowd warms up so does he. Adam, on the other hand has a Gallagher-esque strut that could charm the socks off any female fan and is confident as soon as he hit’s the stage. And so he should be. People are wanting songs that hit home these days and this band have accomplished it with style; with songs such as ‘Crystal Clear’ and ‘True Believers’ the audience are impressed. There’s a very mixed feel to this band; its evident through the riffs that they take a heavy influence from Stone Roses and with Adam’s stage manner he certainly has a bit of the Brown in him, but these songs have kick. Some have pounding beats that make your feet stomp, some are so happy they give The Coral a run for their money and others have a dance attitude that makes you want to get up and move.
A final gem for the audience was ‘City of Steel’, a song that provoked the innermost football hooliganism in the friends surrounding the stage. A drunken smile spread across the faces of many blades as they swayed arm in arm and sang every word, a little less harmoniously, with the band. So, if it’s a fun set with good songs and a hard Sheffield attitude you’re wanting, you might want to check out the Field.
Katie Baker
¡Forward, Russia! / O Fracas / Dead Disco
@ The Cockpit, Leeds
Tonight symbolises every reason why everyone in Leeds no longer cares about the Kaiser Chiefs. That reason is Dance To The Radio, and more prominently ¡Forward, Russia!, the best new band in the UK right now. Fact.
This Dance To The Radio showcase kicks off with Dead Disco, who produce a mix of 80s synth pop and new wave electro with a 3:1 female to male ratio. Now call me a cynic, but I don’t think Dead Disco would be half as interesting if they weren’t short skirted women pulling sultry poses. Musically, it grated on me, with an overpowering synth and wailing vocals, and I lost interest very quickly. Maybe I caught them on a bad day, but Girls Aloud they ain’t.
Next up, it’s the delightful O Fracas. Dressed like the cast of Grange Hill in the 80s, they rip through a set a quirky, spiky Devo inspired punk, sounding like The Futureheads with some decent ideas. If their songs alone weren’t enough for originality, then their idea of audience participation is. Forget playful banter, O Fracas have brought multiple instruments for the audience to play, a fantastic idea, and, like the rest of their set, goes down a storm.
In the last 2 years, I’ve probably seen ¡Forward, Russia! more than I’ve seen my mum. They might not do my washing, but I just can’t say no to their liquid dance punk party, it’s that damn infectious. They bounce onto the stage to hair metal, ripping into every song like their live depended on it. Tom is the perfect front man, spazzing out around the stage and wailing hypnotically, Whiskas is a guitar god, and Rob and Katie provide the tightest, most pounding rhythm section possible. Every song has about 20 different parts, from the electro stomper ‘Thirteen’, the metal punk funk in ‘Fifteen’ (parts 1 and 2) and the delightful pop in ‘Nine’. Everyone is stomping along, drunk on the music, and no one wants it to end. When their debut album ‘Give Me A Wall’ drops in May, the whole country explode into ¡Forward, Russia! fever, but until then, Leeds can sit back and relax, smug in the knowledge that it was here before anyone else.
James Ould
Frank & Walters / iDou / Hybrasil
@ The New Roscoe, Leeds
Missing, presumed lost, in the 90s indie wilderness, the Frank & Walters have done surprisingly good business in their native Ireland since last they troubled the UK charts. Five albums and a greatest hits down the line and their latest, Souvenirs, has even picked up a nomination for Best Album at Ireland’s Meteor Awards.
So they arrive at the Roscoe very much a going concern, with imitators of their own - openers Hybrasil, unconvincingly billed as Irish trance, are like nothing if not a young F&Ws. Throw in the bassist’s Sultans of Ping t-shirt and the Edge-like riff of their single, ‘We Got Music’ and you know the Wicklow lads have indulged in a little too much Irish rock of a certain vintage. Very palatable, all the same.
Just as well, because the vintage that Les, formerly Fruitbat, of Carter USM, plies us with has turned sour. Trading under the name iDou, with a new sidekick, he’s resurrected the Carter guitars-and-samples template for the iPod generation. The little white gadget supplies the drumbeats, he and his colleague ham-fist some power chords and holler blokeishly over the top and hey presto, the punk Pet Shop Boys are back. Only the songs have up and left. There’s the odd lyrical flourish - “I would give the universe / To wed a psychiatric nurse” - but it all lacks the punch of a Carter couplet of old. Mercifully, the crown jewels of the Carter back catalogue remain unplundered, but mid-career B-side, ‘Always The Bridesmaid…’ gets a cod-reggae pummelling. When he tackles a song about impotence by a band twenty years his junior (Art Brut’s ‘Rusted Gun of Milan’), you wonder if the words ‘mid-life crisis’ have crossed his mind. The self-satisfied way he leaves the stage suggests not.
The Franks themselves are remarkably chipper, and the audience noticeably warms to them. The dappiness of yore has gone, ditto the amateurish musicianship. They are now a smart, tight three-piece, with a nice line in between song banter, if you like your banter longer than the songs themselves. They reminisce about the Duchess of York, they order pints from the bar, Fruitbat bobs around the dancefloor. It warms the cockles of your heart. The more robust sound does wonders for them, most noticeably on early gibberish anthem, ‘Walter’s Trip’. Ireland still obviously cherishes them, it’s just a shame we’ve no need of them anymore.
Rob Peacock
Fury of the Headteachers / Hipshapkes / Midnight Kicks
@ The Harley, Sheffield
Fury of the Headteachers were the main act in my mind, and the reason I went to the Harley on a cold Monday night. But they were flanked by Midnight Kicks before them, and the fabulous Hipshakes who closed the gig. Midnight Kicks could be described as a ‘baby hipshakes’ because the three piece are young in the extreme, full of vim, and share some musical influences with the actual Hipshakes. I was not blown away by their set, but couldn’t fail to be engaged by their youthful exuberance, confident playing and sense of fun. Kids with guitars giving it some is, and should be, an important part of the local music scene, and these kids are worth keeping an eye on in the future.
Watching the daddies of punky, skiffly raucousness take to the stage later, they suddenly seemed quite mature and musically heavyweight in comparison to the adolescent support band. But still crazy, brilliant and as infectious as ever. Long live the Hipshakes and all their musical offspring.
What can I say about Fury of the Headteachers except buy their records, download their tracks and go see them play live! This band have been compared to Franz Ferdinand, Fugazi and others but I think they are true originals. Tonight I noticed once again with some awe how they manage to produce a dense and complex guitar noise with three guitars, without overshadowing the melody and power of lead singer Chris’s voice. The second track from their current double A-side single ‘Fables/What does for you will do me in’ stood out as a popular number. Members of the crowd were even mouthing the words to the chorus: ‘a-n-x-i-e-t-y (what d’you call it?)’ in a grudging acknowledgement that rock music can be catchy too. At other points in the set the band produced a much harder sound, and it even went quite prog-like at times. Fury of the Headteachers manage to combine aggressive, assured performances with an air of self-depreciation and understatement. Personally I believe they can afford to be a bit more cocky then they are. If I was Franz Ferdinand I would be quaking in my pointy-toed boots.
Elly Tams
The Go! Team / The Grates / Smoosh
@ The Plug, Sheffield
Tits. I’ve done it again; got my dates mixed up and rocked up to The Plug on U16 battle of the bands night. Eh… this is The Go! Team’s support band Smoosh!? But… but… they’re even younger than the young one from Hanson, when they first mmmmmmbopped onto our stereo’s. Not my stereo, you understand, our collective stereo’s. Ok, maybe my stereo. Not a disinteresting racket that they’re making - almost Tori Amosesque in parts – but c’mon, you’ve got your whole life to go to sweaty indie clubs, why start at 11. And at least Hansen sounded young. Sounding like Tori Amos at 11, well it’s just chilling.
The Grates lead singer Patience, obviously mindful of the effect on her figure of a tour diet of greasy kebabs washed down with liquid ecstasy, or whatever the kids are drinking these days, spends the entirety of their set performing the most exhaustive bouncy-dancing/aerobics I’ve ever witnessed on a stage. For managing to even utter a word concomitant with this rigorous workout the girl deserves a badge. The lascivious howl that emerges, in the circumstances, is nothing short of miraculous. The stripped down rock’n’roll that propels her is basic but acts as the requisite primer for that yelp. Fittingly titled Trampoline is a disingenuous punky hit-in-waiting.
Leaning against the bar as The Go! Team blast on to the stage and it just isn’t adding up. Sure, there is an impressive array of people on the stage: sexy Japanese guitarist girls, rapping Ninja lead singers and some pale indie boys. Something for everyone you might say. They’re swapping instruments as if they’re mutated bird flu; melodicas are being traded for harmonicas, kazoos for guitars - with brass straining behind it all. It looks very pretty and day-glo, but it’s all a bit disjointed and is leaving me cold; that is until my mate drags me down the front for a glorious Huddle Formation. In the milieu of the sweatpit it all makes sense. Celebratory and fun, this is music to lose yourself in, not analyse. Allaying classic-sounding Motown choruses with casio keyboards and following it up with some John Barnes paced rapping, only works because they never take themselves too seriously. At times you feel a bit like you’re in the credits of a bad 70’s American TV show, but somehow that just makes you want to punch the air in excitement.
Stuart Scott
Gyppos / Hinterland /Aim For The Head / Not The Musaq
Seaweed Biscuit @ DnR Live, Sheffield
Not only do Not The Musaq have the third worst name in rock history (after Barrabbas!! and Crispy Ambulence), they play host to six of the worst hairdos I have seen in my many years of watching bands. But as this is their first gig and as bad hair will be one of the recurring themes of this evening, I'm going to cut them some slack.
Not The Musaq are a band that have yet to settle on their sound, veering wildly from Emo-lite to Goth and occasionally teetering on the edge of Hootie and the Blowfish. Occasionally the rhythm section falls over itself, the sound of the instruments doesn't really gel, but we're cutting slack, remember? Enough promise is shown in the nicely executed dual vocals (most bands are satisfied with one pretty singer, but oh no...) and energetic performance to suggest that providing they can keep the lanky one away from that bloody keyboard and given some time to decide what they actually want to do, this bunch of teenage hairdos might turn into a band worth watching.
If your singer looks like a young Neil Morrissey, sounds a bit like Glenn Danzig and you're a thrash metal band, you'd better be a bloody good thrash metal band. Aim For The Head (also making their debut this evening, but getting less slack, cos they're all over 18 by the looks of things) are very, very tight. They look the part and have a fine ear for a metal riff. The fact that by all appearances they stole said ear from Kirk Hammett in the mid eighties is neither here nor there, although I hear he wants it back.
Naa-Naa-Naa, Nu-Naa-Naa, Nu-Naa-Naa! Hinterland have an anthem on their hands. The rest of the set is brilliant, don't get me wrong, brutal and harmonic by turns, but My Big Mouth is a classic. Not in a "good song by a little band" sort of way. It's a classic of Smells Like Teen Spirit, Song 2, Enter Sandman proportions. In the future teenage bands will agonize over whether they should cover it, or whether that would be sacrelige. Please, someone sign Hinterland so that my future can become a reality and finally
Britain will have a decent rock export again.
I've come to the conclusion that Gyppos aren't actually dreadful, they're just much, much cleverer than me and that I don't get the joke.
No, on reflection they're just dreadful. Bands that go out of their way to be "clever" generally end up coming out "wacky". Rumpus often used to fall foul of this, but then they must have remembered that even the Cardiacs had tunes, or something. Gyppos would do well to follow the example. Genuinely painful.
Fruit Bat
Gogol Bordello/The Fighting Cocks
@ The Corporation, Sheffield
WARNING: In the interests of taste and decency, and due to possible overuse, any obscenity in this article will be replaced with the word ‘funstick’. The following review may also contain overblown statements of appreciation.
As they take to the stage we debate what The Fighting Cocks are all about. We decide we have no funstick idea. See what you think. A flamenco dancer, guy in Hunter S. Thompson outfit, woman in fishnets and scarf and someone who forgot where the dressing up box was bash out a mash of hoedown, steel band and 1940’s something or other. This topped off with slash of punk guitar and lyrics bellowed as if all microphones are situated at other end of venue. They have a DJ who samples and scratches and looks as if he’s taking it far too seriously (more fool he). We decide we have no funstick theory as to why they’re doing it except for the likely possibility that they enjoy it. But what’s that nagging thought? Who do they remind us of? Wait a minute! Garish clothes, shouty almost-pop, the ‘this-could-be-arse-but-do-it-anyway’ mentality. Ah, yes! It’s The Fast Food Rockers on MSG overload, all grown up and breaking away to make ‘real music’ (You may think this means I don’t like them. You’d be wrong.).
Now from the mainstream to the outer reaches, and we still have no funstick idea what is going on. Over the sweet melody of a gypsy band held captive in Johnny Rotten’s dungeon Eugene Hutz tells us tales, what about I’m not sure. What was it like then? Well…HE WEARS A GARTER WITH THE WORD ‘FUNSTICK’ ON IT! SOMEONE BALANCES ON A BIG DRUM BEING HELD ALOFT BY THE MOSHPIT! HUTZ LOSES HALF HIS BODY WEIGHT IN SWEAT AND ENDS UP IN ONLY HIS PANTS AT THE END! SORRY BUT CAPITALS ARE THE ONLY WAY OF CONVEYING THE INSANITY! (And relax.). Someone in this band will disappear in an implosion of perspiration before the tour is done, this I guarantee. I came away deaf but happy. I came away covered in beer by band but happy. I came away with a mate’s notion for a best way to describe the experience. “This should be your headline,” he said, “Mad, but funstick marvellous”. Yup, that’ll do.
Witchboy
Goldfrapp / Hot Chip
@ The Octagon, Sheffield
Goldfrapp were audibly and visually spectacular. The shear amount of fantastically familiar songs would have meant even a non-supporter would have felt at home and gives a measure of how good Goldfrapp really are. Alison Goldfrapp’s vocals were often stunning, reaching operatic proportions, something that is unfortunately all to scarce with the current popularity of guitar led bands.
Goldfrapp provided an eclectic mix of new and old material, including haunting classics such as “Lovely Head”, and the current funky single “Ride on a White Horse”. The highlight was the fantastic “Satin Chic”, which I assume must be a future single and one to certainly look out for.
Goldfrapp’s almost erotic performance reached a glorious climax with a superb performance of “Strict Machine”, resulting in not a single still body in the place.
The superb performance was complemented with spectacular visuals, featuring Alison Goldfrapp’s flowing blonde curls and fluorescent pink cape cascading in a breeze provided by a number of stage fans, not to mention some of the best lighting effects I have ever witnessed, thrusting the audience further into the music.
Goldfrapp’s crowd interaction was not the most intimate, but that’s not what is expected from such an ice cool electro act.
The support act were sadly not as satisfying. Hot Chip appeared as if they had just walked out of a sitcom, each having a distinctive stage character, reminiscent of the Spice Girls. This strange assortment was further enforced by the band seemingly taking it in turns to have a go with each instrument, and the play fighting and nudging on stage all seemed rather rehearsed. Their set was full of unoffending, but non-descript music, apart from the rather catchy “Over and Over”, which as the only song with any punch, was predictably saved until last.
Henry Warrington
The Guild / redcarsgofaster
@ DnR Live, Sheffield
There are interesting noise bands like !Forward Russia! who play turbo-charged post-punk and then there are boring indie revivalists like Bloc Party who try and fail to drag this ridiculously oversubscribed genre out of the 80s. Leicester's redcarsgofaster are somewhere between the two: good enough to listen to with a pint in your hand but lacking the quality to convince you to buy the CD. 'The Pragmatist', picked by Dance To The Radio to put on theirs, is the highlight of a set that is more notable for the onstage posturing and instrument trashing at the end than for any musical inspiration. With a bit more variety and some better songs, though, they just might be onto something marketable.
The Guild have undoubtedly struck gold in that respect already. 'Til I'm Dust' is positively anthemic in the Chris Martin sense of the word and really ought to take the airwaves by storm when it's eventually released as a single. They'd only played a total of five gigs before tonight but you wouldn't know it, particularly from the accomplishment of Joe's voice. His soaring falsetto doesn't fare too well over the DnR PA but the quality of the delivery is there for all to hear. With chiming keyboards and FM friendly choruses The Guild have little in common with the rest of the South Yorkshire scene but that shouldn't do them any harm. Their only deviation from that formula tonight is set closer 'Weight Of Night', a menacing electric number that hints at a slightly darker side. Their future, however, is looking nothing but bright.
Rob Webb
The Hair / The Bazaars / The KBC / The Whip / Zapped By A Million Volts / Type Press
@ The Faversham, Leeds
Kicking off this 6-band extravaganza were Type Press, who I had the misfortune to miss, but I’m sure their mellow, bluesy sound kicked off the evening well.
Zapped By A Million Volts were disappointingly less interesting than their name, although they provided a tight set. Lead singer Cornelius’ voice is urgent and the songs are jaunty enough to get a few people’s heads nodding.
The Whip had more than a hint of New Order to them, a welcome and unexpected change in style from the previous bands. The music was edgy and the lyrics were simple yet to the point (“I wanna, I wanna, I wanna be trashed”). Unfortunately, only one bloke decided it was early enough to dance, which he did. Like a lunatic. Coincidentally, he had a copy of Sandman in his back pocket.
The next band are like Radio 4, or more fittingly The Rapture. They sing about “stones and packets of herbal tea”, perhaps an under-discussed subject in music. The KBC are dancey with the slight feel of urban dankness one would expect from three lads from the North West. The crowd seem to have woken up at this point, perhaps something to do with the arrival of Hollyoaks’ Lee Hunter (omg!).
Sounding like a bunch of gypsies, The Bazaars, much like a bazaar, provide a wide variety of goods (boom boom). Amongst their many influences you can pick out early Coral guitar riffs and vaguely Bowie-esque vocals. The band hark back to the 60s, which seems to have been a popular era to hark back to over recent years, but instead of providing us with a new twist to keep us interested, The Bazaars maintain a familiar sound that is quirky but ultimately unexciting.
The Hair’s name may make them sound like quite a boring bunch of people, but tonight they show that they are anything but. The crash onto the stage in comic book fashion, their music filled with zaps! and bleeps! and perhaps even a kapoww!. They urge the crowd to dance more than they already are and they are charming enough for us to comply – so charming that their song ‘Sorry, But I Want Your Girlfriend’ might actually work. They are distinctly colourful and cartoon-like, and have a mash of influences, as The Bazaars do, but these guys bring them all together to produce an original, funky and fun sound.
Tom Hughes
MJ Hibbett and the Validators /Pony Harvest /The Scarlet Tuesday
@ The Grapes, Sheffield
Scarlet Tuesday seem to be on the bill at pretty much every gig I end up at, and they’re one of those bands where you don’t really mind that much.
Summery, giddy, left of centre with a good grasp of pop, they’re always a delightful addition to any bill. Hopefully their fantastic split single with Balor Knights will elevate them from everyone’s favourite support band to the indiepop megastars they deserve.
Imagine Summerisle had an ex-Poly university in it, and the students there, in between nicking traffic cones from outside Christopher Lee’s mansion, made weird pagan electronic prog. Then imagine one of them’s a hippy in a cape playing flute and dancing. Well that’s pretty much Pony Harvest, one of those purposefully odd bands you watch for a whole set without managing to decide if you’re enjoying it or not. Their track ‘Worst Secret Agent In The World’ was great, though, so I’ll say check them out and decide for yourselves.
Finally MJ Hibbett and the Validators. Hibbett is a man whose look of a slightly pissed civil servant cherub shouldn’t fool you, he’s a canny singer/songwriter who’s perhaps the midpoint in some kind of David Gedge/Billy Bragg Venn diagram. His songs are generally warm ditties of ale, pubs and the ups and down of being an aging indie kid, but thrown in is some fantastically spiteful leftie polemic on songs like ‘The Fight For History’, an anti-Thatcher rant that gets over the fact it covers ground that Hefner did ages ago by its pure seething anger. Highlight, as always, was the anthemic singalong homage to 8-bit computing that is ‘Hey Hey 16K’, but the new ones showed his forthcoming album should be at least as entertaining as the last.
To conclude, a great night of indiepop, caped weirdoes and leftie rants down the Grapes. You can’t say fairer than that.
Pete Mella
High Pressure Sound System
@ The West Indian Centre, Leeds
The West Indian Centre is in Chapeltown, which for most languid LS6ers equates to ‘the middle of nowhere’. It’s usually worth the trip, though (and you may take several) since by one route or another your head is likely to be floating blissfully several miles above your body come daybreak anyway. Hence, I was surprised to find mine this evening settling not too far from the middle of the road. I must stress that whilst there are many forms of cerebral transport popular to get you through the Jungle at events like this, for various reasons my chosen vehicle to get lost in is always music alone. Thus, I became frankly pissed off with the main room DJ’s erratic driving style; cutting the beat up more times than Stevie Wonder’s first teenage shave, every time I found a hook I could dance to the record changed, leaving me frustrated and flailing like an 85-year-old tribeswoman’s tit. Even the famed sound system didn’t shake my spine with bass as orgasmically as I’d hoped. The chillout room had entrancing speeded-up visuals of fruit ripening (think more arthouse than Asda), and I would have found the MCs and random 90s chart drops amid the dub reggae refreshing had I not an excess of unspent dance energy to sweat out. This probably wasn’t as poor a do as I’m making out, yet after being so engaged at nights like Crystal Yamantaka and Cabbage that several dawns have arrived by surprise, I expect mighty things from the Windy Centre. This was in, chillout, in, chillout, but for me lacking some serious shake it all about.
Alix Fox
Maggie Holland
@ The Black Swan Folk Club, York
The folk club in the skewy, wood-panelled upstairs room of the magnificent old Black Swan Inn is something of a York institution. Buoyed by a stalwart of regulars, just about everyone who's anyone in folk has played here, and a glance at their listing shows just how much they've got going on, indeed they frequently attract from performers who don't play very often at all. Maggie Holland is one such performer, an English-born Edinburgh-based singer with an amazingly clear, powerful voice and a simple but effective acoustic guitar and banjo style. She's also overtly political, something folk does very well - in fact political numbers dominated her first set. Martin Carthy's ‘Which Side Are You On?’, ‘Herald of Free Enterprise’, by the much under-rated Rob Johnson, The Diggers' song, made all the more powerful by her understated but passionate delivery.
A definite highlight was her own ‘Perfumes of Arabia’, a simple a-capella expression of disgust at the invasion of Iraq.
The second set was more personal and story-based, but no less engaging, including a truly haunting reading of Billy Bragg's ‘Levi Stubbs's Tears’ - but again her own composition shone out, this time ‘A Place Called England’, which posits gardening as an act of rebellion - superb! I'd been to several Black Swan club events before, but this was my first visit to the weekly nights - on the strength of the performance, the setting, the wide variety of styles from the regulars' turns before Maggie Holland's sets, and the friendly atmosphere, I'll definitely be back.
Tim Procter
Hooker / Penny Broadhurst / Mz Sojourn / Seven Inches
@ The Fenton, Leeds
Openers the Seven Inches are the best thing since bread stopped being sliced and started playing a Korg. Singer Ian takes to the stage with a guitar made from cardboard, what looks to be a lampshade on his head, the most amazing sock-boots ever, and several layers of waistcoats all of which are fantastic. The bassist is wearing trousers that if I get any drunker tonight I’m going to mug him for. But I’m confused by the guitarist’s coca cola t-shirt. They play songs which are fun and you can dance to, and when, for one song, Ian starts picking lyrics out of a hat I realise that the Seven Inches are going to be one of my new favourite bands.
Mz Sojourn, next up, also excel. Theirs is a pared down and slower sound, mostly led by just a bass guitar and drums, with singer D joining in on guitar for atmospheric second song ‘The Wanderer’, which sounds kind of like a slow number that The Fall might do if Mark E Smith was a girl, and not Mark E Smith. It’s infectious, you find yourself nodding your head in time, and maybe it’s something about the prominence of the bass but it seems like you feel the songs as much as hear them. Towards the end of the set D starts sawing wildly on a violin, drummer Sacha adds a dustbin lid to her kit, and it’s great.
Penny Broadhurst, a performance poet, is third to perform tonight, and although she tells us there’s music on her album, for tonight it’s all spoken word. That’s not a problem though, she’s a good and confident performer, spitting Streets style raps with politics while also finding time to dis bad indie bands with tank-tops and most other poets.
Finally, Hooker take to the stage. Their songs are short, sharp, and pack a punch; shouty-girl punk fun that’s good to jump around the room to, so I do. Problems with the mic, guitar, and an amp cause the set to be cut short, but ‘Dirty Mess’ is a great finish, it’s quieter moments really letting singer Zoe’s voice wrap round the lyrics and show us just how good she can sound.
Russell Dunphy
Howling Bells
@ Fibbers, York
I'm not in a band. In fact, I have no discernable musical talent whatsoever. So the tragedy I'm about to describe will probably never afflict me personally, but I experienced it vicariously through Howling Bells tonight. What's it like to be in a band, a critically lauded one, and know how good you are and how much people should hear your music, and look out into an empty venue? Yorkies, where were you? The shame of it is that Howling Bells are clearly something very special. The (extremely glamorous) singer has a hauntingly beautiful voice which recalls PJ Harvey and Tori Amos, the band are tight and the songs are not just good, but interesting to listen to, going to places you don't expect and challenging the audience, which is far more rare and only makes Howling Bells more valuable. My plan is this: I'm going to get my hands on 'Broken Bones' and force everyone I know to listen to it until they promise on their mother's lives to watch Howling Bells at their nest opportunity, thus ensuring I never have to have this rant again.
Katy Goodwin
