To the list of those musicians who lost material in the devastating 2008 fire at Universal Music Group's Building 6197 we can now add Beck. Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, he said that the flames "probably" destroyed a large quantity of unreleased material, depriving us of (among other things) an LP of Hank Williams covers, a 1995 album-length collaboration with Jon Spencer and a pre-Odelay indie-rock record "that sounds like a Pavement, Sebadoh kind of thing".
Aside from the intriguing list of destroyed recordings, what was most striking was that use of the word "probably" - explained by the fact that his management "still won't tell me what was lost". He suggested - perhaps rather charitably - that this might be because "they can't bear to break the news".
Beck has subsequently issued a classic forced-smile gun-to-the-head statement on Instagram: "I wanted to clarify some out-of-context quotes regarding the Universal archives fire. Since the time of that interview we have found out that my losses in the fire were minimal. Another point I want to clarify: I have had a wonderful and very close relationship with my management for 25 years through to working on my current album. x" No elaboration on what survived and what was actually lost - just that the losses were minimal. A claim that is remarkably similar to UMG's own party line...
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query universal. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query universal. Sort by date Show all posts
Thursday, November 28, 2019
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Going solo
EMMA POLLOCK / DEREK MEINS / ANDY GOWER, 3RD DECEMBER 2007, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN
Fixing us with a stare, pub poet Andy Gower launches into a collection of acoustic songs about violence, braggadocio and small town depression, the small town in question being Stoke-on-Trent. So far so Noel Gallagher, but Gower at least has both a sense of humour - "I've got some CDs. I'm not on them, I've just got some", he quips drily at one point - and a sense of adventure, most apparent on 'Stepped Out Of Line', which comes to a furious climax with accomplice Craig Coda taking a violin bow to his electric guitar as Gower sings "If you see me walking in your direction / Will you cave my head in?"
As someone else answering to the description of "singer-songwriter" (usually a phrase to have me running for cover or reaching for the shotgun), Derek Meins couldn't be much more different. Put simply, the former frontman of Berwick maverick nearly-weres Eastern Lane is such a magnetic performer it's a wonder there isn't a health warning on the door to remove piercings and steer clear if fitted with a pacemaker.
It's difficult to describe exactly what it is he does - certainly his MySpace site doesn't do him justice - but performance art probably comes closest to the mark. Unlike Patti Plinko, he doesn't have a couple of gas-masked gimps flanking him, just a shaggy squiff of hair and a pair of brown trousers. But the apparently mild-mannered Dr Jekyll sipping his drink between songs becomes in an instant a wild-eyed Mr Hyde, Rufus Wainwright with a filthy mind and more screws loose than a very badly assembled DIY chest of drawers.
Opting to open with an acapella song about taking morphine is certainly one way to grab attention, and whether simulating sex noises to the visible discomfort yet fascination of all present, singing choruses like "If the ocean was made of gin / Then maybe I'd learn how to swim" with a mannered theatricality or indulging in schizophrenic role-play with himself in 'Richard's Going Through Phases', Meins is remarkable.
Glaswegian geniuses The Delgados were that rarest of beasts, a resolutely non-parochial British indie band with a vision and ambition to match those of the Americans. The Great Eastern and in particular Hate exhibited a masterful grasp of dynamics and dramatics. Every song was possessed with poise, beauty and grace, simultaneously bleak in outlook but lush and seductive in execution.
The hopeless romantics split in 2005, soon after the release of fifth LP Universal Audio, and now Emma Pollock is touring in support of her first full-length release as a solo artist, Watch The Fireworks.
In many ways, it’s an unfortunate choice of title; there may not be any damp squibs, but there aren’t many jaw-droppingly explosive moments either. Neatly crafted songs like ‘Paper and Glue’ and piano-led single ‘Adrenaline’ continue along the route towards contentedly centrist pop signposted by Universal Audio rather than blasting off into the stratosphere. There’s little sense of being enveloped in that familiar sumptuous gloom, or of Pollock’s accompanying trio of impeccably coiffed toy-boys being anything more than a backing band of hired hands, as is illustrated when they’re dispensed with for a period mid-set, forced to make their way awkwardly off the front of the Jericho’s stage and into the crowd.
But of course such comparisons, while inevitable, are also horribly unfair. Pollock is an engaging and cheerfully garrulous performer, even when suffering the indignity of her guitar strap slipping off barely ten seconds into the set, and there are enough indications – particularly in album closer ‘The Optimist’, pared down tonight to circumnavigate sound problems without losing any of its power, and ‘Jesus On The Cross’, the darkly comic collaboration with author Louise Welsh for Roddy Woomble’s Ballads Of The Book project – that, instead of dwelling wistfully on past glories, we should be looking forward with relish to those which are yet to come.
EMMA POLLOCK / DEREK MEINS / ANDY GOWER, 3RD DECEMBER 2007, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN
Fixing us with a stare, pub poet Andy Gower launches into a collection of acoustic songs about violence, braggadocio and small town depression, the small town in question being Stoke-on-Trent. So far so Noel Gallagher, but Gower at least has both a sense of humour - "I've got some CDs. I'm not on them, I've just got some", he quips drily at one point - and a sense of adventure, most apparent on 'Stepped Out Of Line', which comes to a furious climax with accomplice Craig Coda taking a violin bow to his electric guitar as Gower sings "If you see me walking in your direction / Will you cave my head in?"
As someone else answering to the description of "singer-songwriter" (usually a phrase to have me running for cover or reaching for the shotgun), Derek Meins couldn't be much more different. Put simply, the former frontman of Berwick maverick nearly-weres Eastern Lane is such a magnetic performer it's a wonder there isn't a health warning on the door to remove piercings and steer clear if fitted with a pacemaker.
It's difficult to describe exactly what it is he does - certainly his MySpace site doesn't do him justice - but performance art probably comes closest to the mark. Unlike Patti Plinko, he doesn't have a couple of gas-masked gimps flanking him, just a shaggy squiff of hair and a pair of brown trousers. But the apparently mild-mannered Dr Jekyll sipping his drink between songs becomes in an instant a wild-eyed Mr Hyde, Rufus Wainwright with a filthy mind and more screws loose than a very badly assembled DIY chest of drawers.
Opting to open with an acapella song about taking morphine is certainly one way to grab attention, and whether simulating sex noises to the visible discomfort yet fascination of all present, singing choruses like "If the ocean was made of gin / Then maybe I'd learn how to swim" with a mannered theatricality or indulging in schizophrenic role-play with himself in 'Richard's Going Through Phases', Meins is remarkable.
Glaswegian geniuses The Delgados were that rarest of beasts, a resolutely non-parochial British indie band with a vision and ambition to match those of the Americans. The Great Eastern and in particular Hate exhibited a masterful grasp of dynamics and dramatics. Every song was possessed with poise, beauty and grace, simultaneously bleak in outlook but lush and seductive in execution.
The hopeless romantics split in 2005, soon after the release of fifth LP Universal Audio, and now Emma Pollock is touring in support of her first full-length release as a solo artist, Watch The Fireworks.
In many ways, it’s an unfortunate choice of title; there may not be any damp squibs, but there aren’t many jaw-droppingly explosive moments either. Neatly crafted songs like ‘Paper and Glue’ and piano-led single ‘Adrenaline’ continue along the route towards contentedly centrist pop signposted by Universal Audio rather than blasting off into the stratosphere. There’s little sense of being enveloped in that familiar sumptuous gloom, or of Pollock’s accompanying trio of impeccably coiffed toy-boys being anything more than a backing band of hired hands, as is illustrated when they’re dispensed with for a period mid-set, forced to make their way awkwardly off the front of the Jericho’s stage and into the crowd.
But of course such comparisons, while inevitable, are also horribly unfair. Pollock is an engaging and cheerfully garrulous performer, even when suffering the indignity of her guitar strap slipping off barely ten seconds into the set, and there are enough indications – particularly in album closer ‘The Optimist’, pared down tonight to circumnavigate sound problems without losing any of its power, and ‘Jesus On The Cross’, the darkly comic collaboration with author Louise Welsh for Roddy Woomble’s Ballads Of The Book project – that, instead of dwelling wistfully on past glories, we should be looking forward with relish to those which are yet to come.
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Things we lost in the fire
Regular readers will know that I can often be found droning on about the value of physical records and the ephemeral nature of digital music formats. As recently as 8th June, responding to the news that Apple was killing off iTunes, I argued: "At least you know where you stand with an LP or CD on a shelf." Just three days later, however, the New York Times published a remarkable article that revealed just how precarious physical archives can be too.
In the piece, Jody Rosen branded the fire that devastated Building 6197, Universal Music Group's archive at Universal Studios Hollywood, in June 2008 as nothing less than "the biggest disaster in the history of the music business". The sheer scale of the losses supports that claim: the inferno wiped out the master tapes of countless celebrated musicians (and no doubt others ripe for rediscovery) as well as of storied labels like Decca, Chess and Impulse and more recent big-hitters such as Geffen and Interscope.
Rosen made a compelling case for the critical importance of a master, "a one-of-a-kind artefact, the irreplaceable primary source of a piece of recorded music" - one to which, even in an age of streaming and downloading, we continually need to go back to. He also flagged up the curious paradox that major record labels regard masters as significant corporate assets of which they are fiercely protective, and yet they often seem grossly negligent in the way they store such recordings.
What was perhaps most shocking about the whole incident, however, was the manner in which it was reported. Through meticulous research, Rosen was able to expose the spin and PR that UMG deployed to downplay or outright deny the extent of the losses. It was, fundamentally, a corporate cover-up. Even after the article published, UMG continued to dispute the story though - as Pitchfork pointed out - failed to cite any supporting evidence.
While Rosen noted that the blaze was to a degree an "open secret", it was by no means common knowledge. "It is probable", he wrote, "that musicians whose masters were destroyed have no idea that a vault holding UMG masters had burned down." Sure enough, one of the artists listed among the "genre-spanning who's who of 20th- and 21st-century popular music", Sheryl Crow, subsequently revealed that she had only learned of the loss of her tapes following the article's publication. Describing the situation as feeling "a little apocalyptic", she expressed her anger at the cover-up.
Crow hasn't announced legal action against UMG yet - but several others have, including Soundgarden, Hole and the estate of Tupac Shakur. More lawsuits will surely follow - but none of them, sadly, can bring those tapes back into existence.
In the piece, Jody Rosen branded the fire that devastated Building 6197, Universal Music Group's archive at Universal Studios Hollywood, in June 2008 as nothing less than "the biggest disaster in the history of the music business". The sheer scale of the losses supports that claim: the inferno wiped out the master tapes of countless celebrated musicians (and no doubt others ripe for rediscovery) as well as of storied labels like Decca, Chess and Impulse and more recent big-hitters such as Geffen and Interscope.
Rosen made a compelling case for the critical importance of a master, "a one-of-a-kind artefact, the irreplaceable primary source of a piece of recorded music" - one to which, even in an age of streaming and downloading, we continually need to go back to. He also flagged up the curious paradox that major record labels regard masters as significant corporate assets of which they are fiercely protective, and yet they often seem grossly negligent in the way they store such recordings.
What was perhaps most shocking about the whole incident, however, was the manner in which it was reported. Through meticulous research, Rosen was able to expose the spin and PR that UMG deployed to downplay or outright deny the extent of the losses. It was, fundamentally, a corporate cover-up. Even after the article published, UMG continued to dispute the story though - as Pitchfork pointed out - failed to cite any supporting evidence.
While Rosen noted that the blaze was to a degree an "open secret", it was by no means common knowledge. "It is probable", he wrote, "that musicians whose masters were destroyed have no idea that a vault holding UMG masters had burned down." Sure enough, one of the artists listed among the "genre-spanning who's who of 20th- and 21st-century popular music", Sheryl Crow, subsequently revealed that she had only learned of the loss of her tapes following the article's publication. Describing the situation as feeling "a little apocalyptic", she expressed her anger at the cover-up.
Crow hasn't announced legal action against UMG yet - but several others have, including Soundgarden, Hole and the estate of Tupac Shakur. More lawsuits will surely follow - but none of them, sadly, can bring those tapes back into existence.
Thursday, April 20, 2017
The end of the Day?
It's that time of year again: Record Store Day takes place this Saturday. Forgive me if I don't leap to its support, though. The original intention may have been laudable - a day to celebrate the enduring pleasures of buying physical music in person - but over the years it's become diluted and warped, and now arguably does more damage than good.
I've written before about how Record Store Day has been attacked by distributors, independent record labels and even the owners of precisely the sorts of small independent record shops it's supposed to help, for whom participation means taking large quantities of stock with no right to sale or return. This year, criticism has come from Simon Raymonde, founder of the superb label Bella Union, because the former Cocteau Twin was staggered to discover that his band's final two LPs are set to be re-released by Universal without his knowledge or involvement.
As this underlines, the real beneficiaries of Record Store Day, inevitably, are major labels like Universal, who capitalise by flooding stores with an obscene amount of limited edition and repressed LPs from established and often heritage acts.
Time to call time on the whole thing, I'd suggest - or at very least have a serious rethink and get back to its roots and original aims.
I've written before about how Record Store Day has been attacked by distributors, independent record labels and even the owners of precisely the sorts of small independent record shops it's supposed to help, for whom participation means taking large quantities of stock with no right to sale or return. This year, criticism has come from Simon Raymonde, founder of the superb label Bella Union, because the former Cocteau Twin was staggered to discover that his band's final two LPs are set to be re-released by Universal without his knowledge or involvement.
As this underlines, the real beneficiaries of Record Store Day, inevitably, are major labels like Universal, who capitalise by flooding stores with an obscene amount of limited edition and repressed LPs from established and often heritage acts.
Time to call time on the whole thing, I'd suggest - or at very least have a serious rethink and get back to its roots and original aims.
Friday, April 01, 2005
What’s Hot On The SWSL Stereo: April 2005
(Update: The links are all fixed now - something to do with having written the post in Word first, I think. Also, apologies to Ian - I've linked to your Low and Six By Seven reviews at the bottom of the post. Responses to specific comments are in the comments box.)
Just think of it as the scrawny upstart cousin of Parallax View’s Album Review Compendium…
Low – The Great Destroyer
Most of my thoughts on this album can be found in the review of February’s gig in Wolverhampton, but lavishing a few more words on it wouldn’t be amiss.
After scattered hints of a gathering storm over recent records, that storm has finally appeared in the shape of these meditations on time, age and death (religion for once taking a back seat). The Duluth trio have succeeded in raising the volume levels without compromising their trademark poise, resonance and deftness of touch – it’s the glorious blossoming of a delicate bud. Nevertheless it’s the quietest track on the album, Alan Sparhawk’s ‘Death Of A Salesman’, that probably weighs most heavily on the memory.
Far and away the best record I’ve heard this year. Fuck the naysayers.
The Concretes – The Concretes
For the most part, Concretes songs seem so slight as to be in danger of blowing away – soporific (in a good sense) shuffles in pursuit of swooning choruses that recall 60s pop and The Velvet Underground at their most languid. Victoria Bergsman, the Swedish group’s vocalist, has a particularly distinctive style, sounding as though she hardly opens her mouth to sing.
Every now and again there are genuine surprises – skronking horns, the militaristic drumming of ‘Diana Ross’, the Spanish gypsy feel of ‘Warm Heart’.
The singles ‘Say Something New’ and especially the brilliant ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ (Bergsman makes the chorus sound like "You came home alone…") are probably the stand-out tracks, and there’s only one duff track, the irritatingly chirpy ‘Seems Fine’, which is reminiscent of Belle & Sebastian – very definitely not a good thing round these parts.
An unexpected delight.
The Delgados – Universal Audio
Crack out the Buckfast! Glaswegian miserabilists The Delgados appear to have cheered up! By the standards of their last LP Hate, which featured a song called ‘Child Killers’ and a jaunty single entitled ‘All You Need Is Hate’, Universal Audio is a positive ray of sunshine for soothing brows and gladdening hearts. Everything’s relative, of course - don’t look too closely at the lyrics, though, because as always there’s a chance you might get bitten.
The other major difference from Hate is the absence of strings, which comes to seem like a deliberate ploy, a challenge to themselves to produce similarly swelling and buoyant melodies with fewer resources. It’s a challenge they’ve risen to admirably and if at first I was slightly bewildered by the levity of some of the tracks, I soon grew to love them all the same.
…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Worlds Apart
… And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead are a band going through a period of transition, on record and messily. It’s a bit of a car crash of an LP, truth be told - gruesome in parts, but you can't quite take your eyes (or, in this case, ears) off it.
Their first album without bassist Neil Busch, Worlds Apart marks a dramatic shift away from the bile and fury of their early recordings, of which we are helpfully reminded by the two bonus tracks, ‘Aged Dolls’ from 1999’s Madonna and ‘Richter Scale Madness’ from their debut LP which has to be one of the most aptly titled songs ever.
Only ‘Caterwaul’ and ‘Will You Smile Again’ recall that sort of intensity, and it’s the more measured “proper” rock songs, heirs of Source Tags & Codes’ ‘Relative Ways’, that really impress - ‘The Rest Will Follow’ and ‘Let It Dive’ are particularly good in this vein.
Otherwise it’s a bizarrely uneven and unfocused record. Lyrically the title track is a po-faced and extremely embittered Sixth Form tirade and ‘The Summer Of ‘91’ a lazy bit of indie navel-gazing through rose-tinted spectacles. But it’s towards the end that things get REALLY strange. ‘To Russia My Homeland’ is, as the name might suggest, a snippet of Russian folk. ‘All White’ follows, a prime slice of vintage 70s Bowie bombast (and as such the album’s most radical departure from the template) that could potentially have been the crowning glory were it not for the fact that it lasts less than two minutes. Then ‘The Best’ kicks off with a barnstorming riff, only to subside inexplicably and without warning into pointlessness and clichéd irony.
Perhaps it’s best to look on Worlds Apart as a signpost to where the band are headed and it’ll all make more sense in hindsight once we know where they ended up. Or perhaps it’s just borne of genuine creative confusion. Either way, I’ve played it to death and I still can’t fathom it out.
Idlewild – Warnings / Promises
Like … Trail Of Dead, Idlewild have lost a bassist (Bob Fairfoull), gained two replacements (Gavin Fox and Allan Stewart) and reappeared with a record that puts more distance between them and their origins, the noisily unhinged mini-LP Captain. The gap was widened by 2002’s The Remote Part, but it’s now very much a gulf.
Warnings / Promises lacks the bite of its predecessor – there’s nothing as exhilaratingly supercharged as ‘Stay The Same’, ‘Out Of Routine’ and ‘A Modern Way Of Letting Go’. Only ‘Too Long Awake’ threatens to break out into a squall but is symbolically brought to a close by the plug being pulled, followed by one of the softest tracks (‘Not Just Sometimes But Always’) and reprised acoustically as a hidden track.
Instead, the album takes ‘American English’, ‘Live In A Hiding Place’ and ‘Tell Me Ten Words’ as its blueprint for a more restrained – mature and pedestrian, if you want – sound. If the prospect of the ubiquitous ghost of REM doesn’t set your pulse racing, then you’re advised to give it a miss. Idlewild have been tamed by prolonged exposure to the music industry.
Yes, He Who Cannot Be Named, maybe now – at last – I’m prepared to concede that they’ve “plateaued”. It’s still a very listenable record, though – just not terribly exciting.
(And what is it with Roddy Woomble and self-reflexive lyrics about words?! Does the finest named man in rock think about anything else?)
The Mars Volta – Frances The Mute
“Listenable” and “very” are not the first two words that spring to mind when contemplating The Mars Volta’s latest offering.
It seems churlish to complain about the new heights of pretentiousness Cedric Bixler, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez et al have scaled this time around. After all, you don’t buy a McDonalds meal and then complain about it being greasy and fattening. With The Mars Volta, you gets what you pays for.
But Jesus fuck is Frances The Mute pretentious. Electronic noodlings, passages of guitar wankery, mariachi horns, snatches of Spanish…
It’s like someone I ultimately want to admire, respect and like but currently find a bit obnoxious. Bearing in mind it took countless rotations for me to warm to and then adore its predecessor De-Loused In The Comatorium, it may still happen if I can make myself persevere long enough. But at present it seems like a step too far.
The Kaiser Chiefs – Employment
A gift rather than a purchase – there, that’s my excuse in nice and early.
The singles ‘I Predict A Riot’ and ‘Oh My God’ aren’t bad, and ‘Na Na Na Na Naa’ (I Should Coco era Supergrass) is infuriatingly infectious enough to take resident in your head and refuse to leave.
But mostly it’s very poor fare from five people for whom I suspect “Britpop” is very far from being the dirtiest word imaginable. The reasons for Franz Ferdinand’s continued patronage of this band escape me.
Six By Seven – 04
(For Ian – who says I don’t do requests?)
A bit of a duty buy, this one. Me and Six By Seven have a lot of history, after all.
Yet another band who’ve lost their bassist since last putting out an album (in this case Paul Douglas), Six By Seven have also been dropped by Mantra. Even for a group accustomed to setbacks, these must have come as heavy blows. How would the trio of Chris Olley, James Flower and Chris Davis respond?
04 – originally scheduled to be called Down Here On The Ground – is (duh) their fourth LP, and the first on their own Saturday Night Sunday Morning label. It starts off full of promise, too. If ‘Sometimes I Feel Like…’ is classic Six By Seven, complete with THAT drumbeat and one of the most explosive guitar breaks they’ve ever done, the pulsing beat of “Untitled” seems to hint at a subtle new direction and ‘Ready For You Now’ is keyboard-heavy, dense and hypnotic. The anger that typified The Closer You Get and The Way I Feel Today is conspicuous by its absence.
But then it all starts to go wrong, only the excellent single ‘Bochum (Light Up My Life)’ living up to the standard of the opening three tracks. By contrast, ‘Ocean’ and ‘Catch The Rain’ are dull indie-by-numbers, their lyrics clichéd, ‘There’s A Ghost’ is shrouded in too much proggy reverb and ‘Say That You Want Me’ is (its characteristic Six By Seven title and chorus aside) a disappointingly transparent pastiche of buddies Spiritualized, right down to the fuzzed narcotic garage riff, harmonica and references to Jesus Christ. Although ‘Hours’ is an intriguing Stars Of The Lid style experiment, the other electronic “interludes” are pointless doodlings and the directionless ten-minute ‘Leave Me Alone’ a magnificent example of why it can sometimes be good to have record label execs other than yourself to answer to.
So, by no means a disaster, but not the longed-for triumphant and defiant two fingers up to the music industry that spat them out either.
Links:
Vanity Project review of Low’s The Great Destroyer.
Stylus review of Low's The Great Destroyer.
University Radio Nottingham interview with The Concretes.
Stylus review of The Delgados' Universal Audio.
Stylus review of ... And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead's Worlds Apart.
Stylus review of The Mars Volta’s Frances The Mute.
Stylus review of The Kaiser Chiefs' Employment.
Stylus review of Six By Seven's 04.
Vanity Project review of Six By Seven's 'Ocean' / 'Clouds' single.
(Update: The links are all fixed now - something to do with having written the post in Word first, I think. Also, apologies to Ian - I've linked to your Low and Six By Seven reviews at the bottom of the post. Responses to specific comments are in the comments box.)
Just think of it as the scrawny upstart cousin of Parallax View’s Album Review Compendium…
Low – The Great Destroyer
Most of my thoughts on this album can be found in the review of February’s gig in Wolverhampton, but lavishing a few more words on it wouldn’t be amiss.
After scattered hints of a gathering storm over recent records, that storm has finally appeared in the shape of these meditations on time, age and death (religion for once taking a back seat). The Duluth trio have succeeded in raising the volume levels without compromising their trademark poise, resonance and deftness of touch – it’s the glorious blossoming of a delicate bud. Nevertheless it’s the quietest track on the album, Alan Sparhawk’s ‘Death Of A Salesman’, that probably weighs most heavily on the memory.
Far and away the best record I’ve heard this year. Fuck the naysayers.
The Concretes – The Concretes
For the most part, Concretes songs seem so slight as to be in danger of blowing away – soporific (in a good sense) shuffles in pursuit of swooning choruses that recall 60s pop and The Velvet Underground at their most languid. Victoria Bergsman, the Swedish group’s vocalist, has a particularly distinctive style, sounding as though she hardly opens her mouth to sing.
Every now and again there are genuine surprises – skronking horns, the militaristic drumming of ‘Diana Ross’, the Spanish gypsy feel of ‘Warm Heart’.
The singles ‘Say Something New’ and especially the brilliant ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ (Bergsman makes the chorus sound like "You came home alone…") are probably the stand-out tracks, and there’s only one duff track, the irritatingly chirpy ‘Seems Fine’, which is reminiscent of Belle & Sebastian – very definitely not a good thing round these parts.
An unexpected delight.
The Delgados – Universal Audio
Crack out the Buckfast! Glaswegian miserabilists The Delgados appear to have cheered up! By the standards of their last LP Hate, which featured a song called ‘Child Killers’ and a jaunty single entitled ‘All You Need Is Hate’, Universal Audio is a positive ray of sunshine for soothing brows and gladdening hearts. Everything’s relative, of course - don’t look too closely at the lyrics, though, because as always there’s a chance you might get bitten.
The other major difference from Hate is the absence of strings, which comes to seem like a deliberate ploy, a challenge to themselves to produce similarly swelling and buoyant melodies with fewer resources. It’s a challenge they’ve risen to admirably and if at first I was slightly bewildered by the levity of some of the tracks, I soon grew to love them all the same.
…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Worlds Apart
… And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead are a band going through a period of transition, on record and messily. It’s a bit of a car crash of an LP, truth be told - gruesome in parts, but you can't quite take your eyes (or, in this case, ears) off it.
Their first album without bassist Neil Busch, Worlds Apart marks a dramatic shift away from the bile and fury of their early recordings, of which we are helpfully reminded by the two bonus tracks, ‘Aged Dolls’ from 1999’s Madonna and ‘Richter Scale Madness’ from their debut LP which has to be one of the most aptly titled songs ever.
Only ‘Caterwaul’ and ‘Will You Smile Again’ recall that sort of intensity, and it’s the more measured “proper” rock songs, heirs of Source Tags & Codes’ ‘Relative Ways’, that really impress - ‘The Rest Will Follow’ and ‘Let It Dive’ are particularly good in this vein.
Otherwise it’s a bizarrely uneven and unfocused record. Lyrically the title track is a po-faced and extremely embittered Sixth Form tirade and ‘The Summer Of ‘91’ a lazy bit of indie navel-gazing through rose-tinted spectacles. But it’s towards the end that things get REALLY strange. ‘To Russia My Homeland’ is, as the name might suggest, a snippet of Russian folk. ‘All White’ follows, a prime slice of vintage 70s Bowie bombast (and as such the album’s most radical departure from the template) that could potentially have been the crowning glory were it not for the fact that it lasts less than two minutes. Then ‘The Best’ kicks off with a barnstorming riff, only to subside inexplicably and without warning into pointlessness and clichéd irony.
Perhaps it’s best to look on Worlds Apart as a signpost to where the band are headed and it’ll all make more sense in hindsight once we know where they ended up. Or perhaps it’s just borne of genuine creative confusion. Either way, I’ve played it to death and I still can’t fathom it out.
Idlewild – Warnings / Promises
Like … Trail Of Dead, Idlewild have lost a bassist (Bob Fairfoull), gained two replacements (Gavin Fox and Allan Stewart) and reappeared with a record that puts more distance between them and their origins, the noisily unhinged mini-LP Captain. The gap was widened by 2002’s The Remote Part, but it’s now very much a gulf.
Warnings / Promises lacks the bite of its predecessor – there’s nothing as exhilaratingly supercharged as ‘Stay The Same’, ‘Out Of Routine’ and ‘A Modern Way Of Letting Go’. Only ‘Too Long Awake’ threatens to break out into a squall but is symbolically brought to a close by the plug being pulled, followed by one of the softest tracks (‘Not Just Sometimes But Always’) and reprised acoustically as a hidden track.
Instead, the album takes ‘American English’, ‘Live In A Hiding Place’ and ‘Tell Me Ten Words’ as its blueprint for a more restrained – mature and pedestrian, if you want – sound. If the prospect of the ubiquitous ghost of REM doesn’t set your pulse racing, then you’re advised to give it a miss. Idlewild have been tamed by prolonged exposure to the music industry.
Yes, He Who Cannot Be Named, maybe now – at last – I’m prepared to concede that they’ve “plateaued”. It’s still a very listenable record, though – just not terribly exciting.
(And what is it with Roddy Woomble and self-reflexive lyrics about words?! Does the finest named man in rock think about anything else?)
The Mars Volta – Frances The Mute
“Listenable” and “very” are not the first two words that spring to mind when contemplating The Mars Volta’s latest offering.
It seems churlish to complain about the new heights of pretentiousness Cedric Bixler, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez et al have scaled this time around. After all, you don’t buy a McDonalds meal and then complain about it being greasy and fattening. With The Mars Volta, you gets what you pays for.
But Jesus fuck is Frances The Mute pretentious. Electronic noodlings, passages of guitar wankery, mariachi horns, snatches of Spanish…
It’s like someone I ultimately want to admire, respect and like but currently find a bit obnoxious. Bearing in mind it took countless rotations for me to warm to and then adore its predecessor De-Loused In The Comatorium, it may still happen if I can make myself persevere long enough. But at present it seems like a step too far.
The Kaiser Chiefs – Employment
A gift rather than a purchase – there, that’s my excuse in nice and early.
The singles ‘I Predict A Riot’ and ‘Oh My God’ aren’t bad, and ‘Na Na Na Na Naa’ (I Should Coco era Supergrass) is infuriatingly infectious enough to take resident in your head and refuse to leave.
But mostly it’s very poor fare from five people for whom I suspect “Britpop” is very far from being the dirtiest word imaginable. The reasons for Franz Ferdinand’s continued patronage of this band escape me.
Six By Seven – 04
(For Ian – who says I don’t do requests?)
A bit of a duty buy, this one. Me and Six By Seven have a lot of history, after all.
Yet another band who’ve lost their bassist since last putting out an album (in this case Paul Douglas), Six By Seven have also been dropped by Mantra. Even for a group accustomed to setbacks, these must have come as heavy blows. How would the trio of Chris Olley, James Flower and Chris Davis respond?
04 – originally scheduled to be called Down Here On The Ground – is (duh) their fourth LP, and the first on their own Saturday Night Sunday Morning label. It starts off full of promise, too. If ‘Sometimes I Feel Like…’ is classic Six By Seven, complete with THAT drumbeat and one of the most explosive guitar breaks they’ve ever done, the pulsing beat of “Untitled” seems to hint at a subtle new direction and ‘Ready For You Now’ is keyboard-heavy, dense and hypnotic. The anger that typified The Closer You Get and The Way I Feel Today is conspicuous by its absence.
But then it all starts to go wrong, only the excellent single ‘Bochum (Light Up My Life)’ living up to the standard of the opening three tracks. By contrast, ‘Ocean’ and ‘Catch The Rain’ are dull indie-by-numbers, their lyrics clichéd, ‘There’s A Ghost’ is shrouded in too much proggy reverb and ‘Say That You Want Me’ is (its characteristic Six By Seven title and chorus aside) a disappointingly transparent pastiche of buddies Spiritualized, right down to the fuzzed narcotic garage riff, harmonica and references to Jesus Christ. Although ‘Hours’ is an intriguing Stars Of The Lid style experiment, the other electronic “interludes” are pointless doodlings and the directionless ten-minute ‘Leave Me Alone’ a magnificent example of why it can sometimes be good to have record label execs other than yourself to answer to.
So, by no means a disaster, but not the longed-for triumphant and defiant two fingers up to the music industry that spat them out either.
Links:
Vanity Project review of Low’s The Great Destroyer.
Stylus review of Low's The Great Destroyer.
University Radio Nottingham interview with The Concretes.
Stylus review of The Delgados' Universal Audio.
Stylus review of ... And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead's Worlds Apart.
Stylus review of The Mars Volta’s Frances The Mute.
Stylus review of The Kaiser Chiefs' Employment.
Stylus review of Six By Seven's 04.
Vanity Project review of Six By Seven's 'Ocean' / 'Clouds' single.
Monday, December 21, 2015
Silent nights
"A watershed in the gradual erosion of the UK’s small-scale music venues"? That, says Ed Gillett ominously in an excellent (though very much London-centric) article for the Quietus, may unfortunately be one of the ways in which 2015 is remembered. The year saw the closure of a number of significant venues (including, incidentally, Madame JoJo's in Soho, which I went to once, to see Japandroids' first UK show). The worrying trend, he suggests, is being fuelled by several factors, including the creep of gentrification, noise complaints (often from NIMBY newbies), local councils revoking licences and the austerity measures that are impacting on many people's financial ability to go out and support live music. (No mention of Tinder or Grindr, though...)
Some might point to the prevalence of pop-up venues as cause for measured optimism, but Gillett is very far from convinced: "Their finite lifespan demands a quick and direct route to profitability, which perhaps explains why so many of them veer towards universal feel-good fodder: an ocean of barbeques, cupcakes, and cocktails, pop culture references, and cheerfully bland infantilisation of a ball pit for ‘adults’".
On a positive note, however, Gillett observes that the Music Venue Trust continues to fight the good fight with such publications as Understanding Small Music Venues, and that the "agent of change" principle, if implemented across all relevant policy areas, can offer some hope in protecting the cultural history and heritage of venues from assault by disgruntled individuals and/or newcomers.
Some might point to the prevalence of pop-up venues as cause for measured optimism, but Gillett is very far from convinced: "Their finite lifespan demands a quick and direct route to profitability, which perhaps explains why so many of them veer towards universal feel-good fodder: an ocean of barbeques, cupcakes, and cocktails, pop culture references, and cheerfully bland infantilisation of a ball pit for ‘adults’".
On a positive note, however, Gillett observes that the Music Venue Trust continues to fight the good fight with such publications as Understanding Small Music Venues, and that the "agent of change" principle, if implemented across all relevant policy areas, can offer some hope in protecting the cultural history and heritage of venues from assault by disgruntled individuals and/or newcomers.
Monday, February 17, 2020
Cafe culture
Uisce. Pronounced "ISH-ka". Even the name - the Irish word for "water" - has a deeply satisfying mouthfeel, something you can enjoy slurring regardless of how much of the wine list you've sampled. It calls itself a cafe, but don't be fooled into expecting fry-ups, formica table-tops and squeezable ketchup bottles - it might be the kid brother to its stylish next-door neighbour Heaneys, but (in the evening, at least) offers a comparably fine dining experience where everything is prepared and presented with care, attention, craft and imagination in surroundings that are simultaneously contemporary and cosy. We could have done without the lounge version of 'Blue Monday', mind.
Charcuterie is one of Uisce's specialities, so we start with a platter of Houghton pork loin - interesting flavoured and nice enough, though confirmation of the universal truth that you should never choose anything ahead of chorizo. Meanwhile, the frothy pink parfait beneath which rich, meaty duck rillette is buried functions primarily to create a lucky dip for the fork, and as ever I'm baffled by the trend for lacing perfectly serviceable dishes with pomegranate.
Other combinations, however - such as cauliflower and apple beurre - are a delight. A sensational steak and Guinness pudding, doused in gloopy lamb jus and crowned with a crunchy garnish, not only thoroughly deserves its place on the specials board but makes up for the disappointment of learning that the much-fabled lamb crumpet isn't on tonight's menu. Most remarkable, though, is the parsnip cream served with the cod, which easily wins over someone with an avowed aversion to the anaemic carrot and thereby pulls much the same trick as Heaneys does with its Marmite butter. It's alchemy, I tell you.
Some might lament the absence of a fresh, palate-cleansing dessert, but one bite of an impossibly light and airy churro liberally smeared in molten chocolate would make them change their tune. Likewise a single spoonful of the espresso panna cotta, topped with pieces of brownie - I hesitate to call them "chunks", as that suggests solidity rather than the gooey reality.
A flavourful temperanillo and a crisp Vinho Verde are among the cheapest options on the wine list, which begs the question: just how good must things be when you work your way further up? We'll just have to come back again to find out.
(An edited version of this review appeared in the February issue of Buzz.)
Charcuterie is one of Uisce's specialities, so we start with a platter of Houghton pork loin - interesting flavoured and nice enough, though confirmation of the universal truth that you should never choose anything ahead of chorizo. Meanwhile, the frothy pink parfait beneath which rich, meaty duck rillette is buried functions primarily to create a lucky dip for the fork, and as ever I'm baffled by the trend for lacing perfectly serviceable dishes with pomegranate.
Other combinations, however - such as cauliflower and apple beurre - are a delight. A sensational steak and Guinness pudding, doused in gloopy lamb jus and crowned with a crunchy garnish, not only thoroughly deserves its place on the specials board but makes up for the disappointment of learning that the much-fabled lamb crumpet isn't on tonight's menu. Most remarkable, though, is the parsnip cream served with the cod, which easily wins over someone with an avowed aversion to the anaemic carrot and thereby pulls much the same trick as Heaneys does with its Marmite butter. It's alchemy, I tell you.
Some might lament the absence of a fresh, palate-cleansing dessert, but one bite of an impossibly light and airy churro liberally smeared in molten chocolate would make them change their tune. Likewise a single spoonful of the espresso panna cotta, topped with pieces of brownie - I hesitate to call them "chunks", as that suggests solidity rather than the gooey reality.
A flavourful temperanillo and a crisp Vinho Verde are among the cheapest options on the wine list, which begs the question: just how good must things be when you work your way further up? We'll just have to come back again to find out.
(An edited version of this review appeared in the February issue of Buzz.)
Thursday, July 24, 2008
No more heroes anymore
The problem with having heroes is that someday, somehow, they'll let you down. I'm not sure Sonic Youth ever have - A Thousand Leaves was a bit underwhelming, sure, and with hindsight Kim Gordon wrestling squawks and parps out of a trumpet during the encore of their headlining set at the Mogwai-curated ATP in April 2000 (and that after they'd played a set of wholly new material kicked off with a 30-minute-long song) was definitely trespassing on the realms of pointless self-indulgence, but there haven't been any heinous crimes as far as I'm concerned. Until now, that is.
You see, my absolute favouritest band in the whole wide world have only gone and released a greatest hits album through Starbucks.
Never mind that the tracklisting for Hits Are For Squares - with songs selected by everyone from The Flaming Lips ('Expressway To Yr Skull'), Radiohead ('Kool Thing') and Flea ('Rain On Tin') to Dave Eggers ('Tuff Gnarl'), Gus Van Sant ('Tom Violence') and Chloe Sevigny ('World Looks Red'), as well as an exclusive new track, 'Slow Revolution' - is very good indeed, because IT'S BEEN RELEASED THROUGH STARBUCKS.
Never mind, either, that Geffen/Universal aren't exactly an indie label, because THEY'RE NOT AN ANODYNE HIGH STREET CAPITALIST CLUSTER BOMB THAT SERVES REALLY BAD COFFEE.
Yes, colour me not impressed.
(I do like the comments on the Drowned In Sound story, particularly tohereknowswhen wondering "The only way to be punk rock these days is to do the least punk rock thing you can think of?", and Alex-in-Ciderland offering the exclusive revelation that "Little Chef are releasing a Campag Velocet retrospective"...)
How's about I slip in a few more bits of music news here? OK, thanks...
No sooner has he been left in peace than Michael Eavis is looking forward to next year's Glastonbury, announcing that on 5th October 100,000 tickets will be available to reserve for a deposit of £50. So, the solution to slow ticket sales is to effectively make them available for longer - presumably the registration process will still apply, though. If Eavis really wants to arrest the slump, and prove that "people are coming back", he needs to ensure the line-up's better. Those of us who were there this year know it was brilliant, as ever, but more in spite of than because of the musical entertainment on offer.
Rather unusually for an avid music fan, I suspect, I've got very little to worry about when it comes to today's news that six ISPs have signed up to the BPI's efforts to combat music piracy online - even if all it might amount to (at present) is receiving a strongly worded letter. Filesharing networks are perhaps a bit of a different case, but sharing between individuals is surely the same as lending someone a CD, and where would your record collection and tastes be without that? I only hope that MP3 blogs aren't affected - it would be extremely short-sighted of the music industry to declare all-out war on sites which offer samples to spread the word and essentially do their marketing work for them. Either way, rest assured the SWSL Best Of 2008 mixtape will definitely be happening.
Full marks to Mogwai, whose new album The Hawk Is Howling features such marvellous songtitles as 'I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead', 'The Sun Smells Too Loud' and 'I Love You, I'm Going To Blow Up Your School'. Still, even they're outshone by one of the tracks on the Batcat EP whose release precedes that of the album by a couple of weeks: 'Stupid Prick Gets Chased By The Police And Loses His Slut Girlfriend'...
And finally, back to coffee. Ever drunk a cup wondering whether Megadeth main man Dave Mustaine would approve of your choice of blend? I know I have. Which is why I'm delighted to discover, via the excellent Stool Pigeon, Dave Mustaine's Monthly Coffee Crew, where he reveals what he drinks "to prepare for another day of shredding". Nice to see him keeping up the heavy metal credentials by having his coffee "bubbling in the cauldron" - none of that soft-rock cafetiere shit for Dave...
The problem with having heroes is that someday, somehow, they'll let you down. I'm not sure Sonic Youth ever have - A Thousand Leaves was a bit underwhelming, sure, and with hindsight Kim Gordon wrestling squawks and parps out of a trumpet during the encore of their headlining set at the Mogwai-curated ATP in April 2000 (and that after they'd played a set of wholly new material kicked off with a 30-minute-long song) was definitely trespassing on the realms of pointless self-indulgence, but there haven't been any heinous crimes as far as I'm concerned. Until now, that is.
You see, my absolute favouritest band in the whole wide world have only gone and released a greatest hits album through Starbucks.
Never mind that the tracklisting for Hits Are For Squares - with songs selected by everyone from The Flaming Lips ('Expressway To Yr Skull'), Radiohead ('Kool Thing') and Flea ('Rain On Tin') to Dave Eggers ('Tuff Gnarl'), Gus Van Sant ('Tom Violence') and Chloe Sevigny ('World Looks Red'), as well as an exclusive new track, 'Slow Revolution' - is very good indeed, because IT'S BEEN RELEASED THROUGH STARBUCKS.
Never mind, either, that Geffen/Universal aren't exactly an indie label, because THEY'RE NOT AN ANODYNE HIGH STREET CAPITALIST CLUSTER BOMB THAT SERVES REALLY BAD COFFEE.
Yes, colour me not impressed.
(I do like the comments on the Drowned In Sound story, particularly tohereknowswhen wondering "The only way to be punk rock these days is to do the least punk rock thing you can think of?", and Alex-in-Ciderland offering the exclusive revelation that "Little Chef are releasing a Campag Velocet retrospective"...)
How's about I slip in a few more bits of music news here? OK, thanks...
No sooner has he been left in peace than Michael Eavis is looking forward to next year's Glastonbury, announcing that on 5th October 100,000 tickets will be available to reserve for a deposit of £50. So, the solution to slow ticket sales is to effectively make them available for longer - presumably the registration process will still apply, though. If Eavis really wants to arrest the slump, and prove that "people are coming back", he needs to ensure the line-up's better. Those of us who were there this year know it was brilliant, as ever, but more in spite of than because of the musical entertainment on offer.
Rather unusually for an avid music fan, I suspect, I've got very little to worry about when it comes to today's news that six ISPs have signed up to the BPI's efforts to combat music piracy online - even if all it might amount to (at present) is receiving a strongly worded letter. Filesharing networks are perhaps a bit of a different case, but sharing between individuals is surely the same as lending someone a CD, and where would your record collection and tastes be without that? I only hope that MP3 blogs aren't affected - it would be extremely short-sighted of the music industry to declare all-out war on sites which offer samples to spread the word and essentially do their marketing work for them. Either way, rest assured the SWSL Best Of 2008 mixtape will definitely be happening.
Full marks to Mogwai, whose new album The Hawk Is Howling features such marvellous songtitles as 'I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead', 'The Sun Smells Too Loud' and 'I Love You, I'm Going To Blow Up Your School'. Still, even they're outshone by one of the tracks on the Batcat EP whose release precedes that of the album by a couple of weeks: 'Stupid Prick Gets Chased By The Police And Loses His Slut Girlfriend'...
And finally, back to coffee. Ever drunk a cup wondering whether Megadeth main man Dave Mustaine would approve of your choice of blend? I know I have. Which is why I'm delighted to discover, via the excellent Stool Pigeon, Dave Mustaine's Monthly Coffee Crew, where he reveals what he drinks "to prepare for another day of shredding". Nice to see him keeping up the heavy metal credentials by having his coffee "bubbling in the cauldron" - none of that soft-rock cafetiere shit for Dave...
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
Care under pressure
We've all been living through COVID-19, but many of us have been fortunate to have been largely insulated from its most direct impacts, preoccupied with homeworking and homeschooling, daily strolls in the park and a steady succession of box sets and takeaway teas. So it's vitally important that people like Glenn Dene - an operating department practitioner and photographer - have been on hand to capture the challenging realities on the front line.
Dene's book Behind The Mask - a collaboration with consultant Ami Jones - is a sobering illustration of a hospital and its staff pushed to the brink by the pandemic, and a powerful tribute to the resilience and inestimable value of the NHS at a time when the future of free universal healthcare is under threat. Buy a copy and use it to beat an anti-masker/anti-vaxxer around the head.
Sunday, February 09, 2020
Vinyl boom - bust?
In a New York Times expose published last year, Jody Rosen described the fire that ripped through Universal Music Group's archive in 2008 as "the biggest disaster in the history of the music business" - and not without good reason, as it claimed the master tapes of scores of artists and several legendary record labels.
But the blaze that has completely destroyed Apollo Masters' manufacturing and storage facility in California is also going to have a huge impact on the industry, at least in the short term, as the company was one of only two global makers of "the lacquer used in the production of master discs, from which vinyl records are made, as well as the styli used in the pressing process".
At very least, the incident is going to set vinyl release schedules back significantly - and, as usual, those likely to be worst affected will be the indies, whose orders are bumped so that those of the big boys can be fulfilled as a priority. At worst, it may burst the vinyl bubble altogether.
But the blaze that has completely destroyed Apollo Masters' manufacturing and storage facility in California is also going to have a huge impact on the industry, at least in the short term, as the company was one of only two global makers of "the lacquer used in the production of master discs, from which vinyl records are made, as well as the styli used in the pressing process".
At very least, the incident is going to set vinyl release schedules back significantly - and, as usual, those likely to be worst affected will be the indies, whose orders are bumped so that those of the big boys can be fulfilled as a priority. At worst, it may burst the vinyl bubble altogether.
Sunday, December 02, 2018
Shameless
The Tories' capacity for crass, ignorant behaviour is hardly a well-kept secret, but even by those standards the comments made by Dominic Raab on Friday were particularly appalling.
The former Brexit Secretary tweeted a photo of himself grinning in a supermarket with the caption: "Thank you to Tesco in Molesey and the Trussell Trust for partnering to encourage customers to generously provide food collections for families in our community, who are struggling at this time of year." In so doing, he conveniently ignored the fact that it's the policies of his own party that have created the need for such collections - and for members of the public and the private sector to step in and provide the basic welfare support that should be the responsibility of government.
Perhaps, though, we shouldn't be so surprised. After all, Raab has previously demonstrated that he has no understanding whatsoever as to the reality of the situation, claiming on BBC2 in May last year that "the typical user of a food bank is not someone who's languishing in poverty, it's someone who has a cashflow problem episodically". Those comments - branded "stupid and deeply offensive" by the Lib Dems' Tim Farron - were swiftly rubbished by a representative from the Trussell Trust, who pointed out that delays to benefits (caused by Universal Credit) and low incomes are inextricably linked.
The former Brexit Secretary tweeted a photo of himself grinning in a supermarket with the caption: "Thank you to Tesco in Molesey and the Trussell Trust for partnering to encourage customers to generously provide food collections for families in our community, who are struggling at this time of year." In so doing, he conveniently ignored the fact that it's the policies of his own party that have created the need for such collections - and for members of the public and the private sector to step in and provide the basic welfare support that should be the responsibility of government.
Perhaps, though, we shouldn't be so surprised. After all, Raab has previously demonstrated that he has no understanding whatsoever as to the reality of the situation, claiming on BBC2 in May last year that "the typical user of a food bank is not someone who's languishing in poverty, it's someone who has a cashflow problem episodically". Those comments - branded "stupid and deeply offensive" by the Lib Dems' Tim Farron - were swiftly rubbished by a representative from the Trussell Trust, who pointed out that delays to benefits (caused by Universal Credit) and low incomes are inextricably linked.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Girl power
DEAP VALLY / SKATERS / DOLOMITE MINOR, 30TH OCTOBER 2013, OXFORD ACADEMY
Who are Dolomite Minor? We don't know, and - I would venture - neither do they. The Southampton-based pair describe their sound as "fuzz blues", and so draw inevitable comparisons to The White Stripes and The Black Keys, but there are musical echoes of everyone from Queens Of The Stone Age to Black Sabbath (the rollicking riff to 'Girl Of Gold') and vocal allusions to Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison ('Let Me Go'). If they could distil it all into something resembling a unique identity and improve their stage presence - drummer Max Palmier deliberately knocking over his cymbal stand at the end of the set is about as dramatic as it gets - then more ears might prick to attention.
Concealed beneath Halloween masks, wigs and bandages are Skaters, who only formed early last year and yet are already signed to a major label, Warner Bros. The precocious fivesome are undoubtedly slick, and very well served by the Academy's sound-desk, but, despite citing post-punk influences, are soon confirmed as New York's answer to The Killers, who (initially, at least) were themselves Las Vegas' answer to New York's Strokes. It's like a bad photocopy of a bad photocopy, or a once-appetising pint that's been watered down twice (though still more drinkable than the piss they serve up behind the bar here). 'I Wanna Dance (But I Don't Know How)' is the exception, though offering a clumsy parody of The Drums is even less commendable. Credit to whoever cues up 'Mr Brightside' to come on halfway through, the instant their set finishes.
First encounters between future bandmates are supposed to take place in dark and sweaty subterranean gig venues, in record shops, during drunken and heated exchanges about the merits of obscure albums in the early hours of the morning at house parties. Not at crochet classes. But then in truth Deap Vally aren't exactly your ordinary common or garden band. When was the last time you came across a duo who look partly like Motley Crue groupies fresh from Sunset Strip and partly like college cheerleaders from an 80s teen movie waylaid by the twin discoveries of booze and pot, and who whack out strident, bluntly feminist bluesy hard rock that pays as much homage to Joan Jett as it does to Led Zeppelin?
In the Sinead O'Connor v Miley Cyrus debate about the sexualisation of women in the music industry, Deap Vally have their feet firmly planted in the Amanda Palmer camp. Vocalist/guitarist Lindsey Troy has previously declared: "I feel like we kind of flaunt our femininity. It's not something we're trying to hide or downplay. For us it's empowering." Tonight Troy's accomplice Julie Edwards, drumming vigorously in a leopard-print bra, certainly couldn't be accused of hiding or downplaying much. However, while their record company Universal may not be pressuring them to dress in a certain way, you do wonder how quickly they would object if Troy and Edwards suddenly decided to swap the hotpants for sensible knee-length skirts and ill-fitting jumpers. Furthermore, the sporadic wolf-whistling between songs suggests that their message is sailing high over the heads of some male members of the audience.
Not that it's easy to ignore. Lyrically speaking, most songs on debut album Sistrionix, aired almost in its entirety tonight, are bold and unequivocal assertions of female control and power within a patriarchal society - over one's body (set opener 'Raw Materials'), over one's reputation and public image ('Bad For My Body', 'Walk Of Shame'), over one's personal finances and income (brilliant first single 'Gonna Make My Own Money', with which they introduced themselves to the UK on Later... with Jools Holland). In this respect, their decision to cover Screamin' Jay Hawkins' creepy classic 'I Put A Spell On You' in the encore is perfect; not only does it allude to Halloween, it also articulates a desire to exert control over a lover.
But the songs aren't just designed to make a political point - they also rock, hard. Troy has the full-blooded voice of a monitor-straddling stadium rock superstar and a great, big, dirty guitar sound to match (and to compensate for the lack of bass), while Edwards furiously pounds the skins as though they're the face of the hairdresser who gave her that Brian May perm. 'End Of The World', which Troy dedicates to her dad on his birthday, finds her finally forgetting about intergender power divides and power struggles, and instead endorsing the perennial hippy ideals of peace, love and understanding "Cause life's too short". Indeed it is - but at least bands like Deap Vally exist so we can enjoy it while it lasts.
Who are Dolomite Minor? We don't know, and - I would venture - neither do they. The Southampton-based pair describe their sound as "fuzz blues", and so draw inevitable comparisons to The White Stripes and The Black Keys, but there are musical echoes of everyone from Queens Of The Stone Age to Black Sabbath (the rollicking riff to 'Girl Of Gold') and vocal allusions to Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison ('Let Me Go'). If they could distil it all into something resembling a unique identity and improve their stage presence - drummer Max Palmier deliberately knocking over his cymbal stand at the end of the set is about as dramatic as it gets - then more ears might prick to attention.
Concealed beneath Halloween masks, wigs and bandages are Skaters, who only formed early last year and yet are already signed to a major label, Warner Bros. The precocious fivesome are undoubtedly slick, and very well served by the Academy's sound-desk, but, despite citing post-punk influences, are soon confirmed as New York's answer to The Killers, who (initially, at least) were themselves Las Vegas' answer to New York's Strokes. It's like a bad photocopy of a bad photocopy, or a once-appetising pint that's been watered down twice (though still more drinkable than the piss they serve up behind the bar here). 'I Wanna Dance (But I Don't Know How)' is the exception, though offering a clumsy parody of The Drums is even less commendable. Credit to whoever cues up 'Mr Brightside' to come on halfway through, the instant their set finishes.
First encounters between future bandmates are supposed to take place in dark and sweaty subterranean gig venues, in record shops, during drunken and heated exchanges about the merits of obscure albums in the early hours of the morning at house parties. Not at crochet classes. But then in truth Deap Vally aren't exactly your ordinary common or garden band. When was the last time you came across a duo who look partly like Motley Crue groupies fresh from Sunset Strip and partly like college cheerleaders from an 80s teen movie waylaid by the twin discoveries of booze and pot, and who whack out strident, bluntly feminist bluesy hard rock that pays as much homage to Joan Jett as it does to Led Zeppelin?
In the Sinead O'Connor v Miley Cyrus debate about the sexualisation of women in the music industry, Deap Vally have their feet firmly planted in the Amanda Palmer camp. Vocalist/guitarist Lindsey Troy has previously declared: "I feel like we kind of flaunt our femininity. It's not something we're trying to hide or downplay. For us it's empowering." Tonight Troy's accomplice Julie Edwards, drumming vigorously in a leopard-print bra, certainly couldn't be accused of hiding or downplaying much. However, while their record company Universal may not be pressuring them to dress in a certain way, you do wonder how quickly they would object if Troy and Edwards suddenly decided to swap the hotpants for sensible knee-length skirts and ill-fitting jumpers. Furthermore, the sporadic wolf-whistling between songs suggests that their message is sailing high over the heads of some male members of the audience.
Not that it's easy to ignore. Lyrically speaking, most songs on debut album Sistrionix, aired almost in its entirety tonight, are bold and unequivocal assertions of female control and power within a patriarchal society - over one's body (set opener 'Raw Materials'), over one's reputation and public image ('Bad For My Body', 'Walk Of Shame'), over one's personal finances and income (brilliant first single 'Gonna Make My Own Money', with which they introduced themselves to the UK on Later... with Jools Holland). In this respect, their decision to cover Screamin' Jay Hawkins' creepy classic 'I Put A Spell On You' in the encore is perfect; not only does it allude to Halloween, it also articulates a desire to exert control over a lover.
But the songs aren't just designed to make a political point - they also rock, hard. Troy has the full-blooded voice of a monitor-straddling stadium rock superstar and a great, big, dirty guitar sound to match (and to compensate for the lack of bass), while Edwards furiously pounds the skins as though they're the face of the hairdresser who gave her that Brian May perm. 'End Of The World', which Troy dedicates to her dad on his birthday, finds her finally forgetting about intergender power divides and power struggles, and instead endorsing the perennial hippy ideals of peace, love and understanding "Cause life's too short". Indeed it is - but at least bands like Deap Vally exist so we can enjoy it while it lasts.
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Access all areas
As was pointed out in a viral tweet recently, the Tories have mocked Labour for their election pledge to ensure free superfast broadband for all (with Boris Johnson leading the attack, branding it "a crazed communist scheme") - and yet it's the Tories who've insisted that (for instance) people have to apply for Universal Credit online.
My own recent experience illustrates the problem: it should have been £14 to renew my photo driving licence online, but, due to an unspecified "glitch in the system" (in other words, through no fault of my own), my options were to apply by post (£17) or in person at the post office (£21.50).
The DVLA would no doubt attempt to justify the price differential by referring vaguely to "administrative costs", but the fact is that those who don't have easy access to the internet shouldn't find themselves victims of discrimination. It's ludicrous that those with the least are routinely forced to pay the most.
Labour's promise is a lot less trivial than it might at first seem.
My own recent experience illustrates the problem: it should have been £14 to renew my photo driving licence online, but, due to an unspecified "glitch in the system" (in other words, through no fault of my own), my options were to apply by post (£17) or in person at the post office (£21.50).
The DVLA would no doubt attempt to justify the price differential by referring vaguely to "administrative costs", but the fact is that those who don't have easy access to the internet shouldn't find themselves victims of discrimination. It's ludicrous that those with the least are routinely forced to pay the most.
Labour's promise is a lot less trivial than it might at first seem.
Thursday, May 02, 2024
"This is a time of crisis"
When it comes to the state of the music industry, and live music in particular, I continue to try to look for the positives (see here, for example) - but it's extremely difficult when confronted with an unrelenting torrent of grimness on a daily basis.
Take Daniel Dylan Wray's recent Guardian article on the cost of touring from the perspective of artists, for example - an alarming eye-opener that has drawn universal acclaim for exposing the extent of the crisis.
Once upon a time, gigging was seen as a lucrative business. Then, when revenues from sales of recorded music collapsed with the advent of streaming, it became a crutch (or was perceived as such, at least), helping to subsidise the costs of creating, recording, producing and releasing albums. But now touring often seems to end in debt - not only for smaller acts but even for those filling decent-sized venues who you would automatically assume must be turning a profit.
The situation, essentially, is simple: costs are increasing but the size of fees and audiences are not. Indeed, there's some concern that attendances are actually declining for sub-arena gigs. Perhaps, in the post-pandemic era and with the cost of living biting hard, the general public are preferring to save their money for stadium acts (not that you'd have caught many Swifties down at the Moon before COVID-19 hit, mind).
In revealing the realities for artists and examining the various factors at work, Wray touches on three themes that also recur in analyses of the predicament of other sectors of the arts: the impact of Brexit (which in this case has made touring Europe an expensive, bureaucratic ballache and led to a saturation of the gigging market in the UK); the fact that making and performing music is becoming more a hobby rather than a vocation (which makes the industry increasingly inaccessible and hostile to working-class artists); and the collapse of the whole vital ecosystem.
Perhaps understandably, Wray focuses on diagnosing the problems, devoting little space to the consideration of solutions. On a micro-level, merch sales are now more crucial than ever, helping by putting money directly into the pockets of artists - but some venues demand a cut, and I can't be the only gig-goer who has to choose between picking up a CD or T-shirt (to support the band) and buying a pint or three (to support the venue). This can't be the long-term answer.
Tom Excell of Nubiyan Twist argues that what is required is "more state funding and support from the top down", to follow the model found on the continent. David Martin of the Featured Artists Coalition agrees: "The government needs to start looking at spending money on the music industry as an investment rather than as a cost."
But, given that the Tories appear intent on waging war on the creative industries and have no interest in bringing about much-needed change within the world of music (see the dismissive refusal to act on the recommendations of the Misogyny In Music report), the chances of this happening seem very slim indeed. And even if they are turfed out in the general election, as looks likely, it seems pointless pinning hopes on their prospective Tory-lite successors being any better.
Saturday, July 31, 2021
Respect due
'Viewpoint' finds Ruth Bidgood looking out at a natural landscape that is at once familiar and alien: "from here / we saw it new, aslant, changed / a beauty of questioning and strangeness". The new anthology A Last Respect, in which the poem appears, is a similarly revelatory survey of the literary landscape, one that throws the lofty peaks of Anglo-Welsh poetry into even greater relief.
Titled after a Roland Mathias poem and gathering together a clutch of contemporary poets who have all won the annual prize established in his memory, the book is a fitting tribute to a tireless champion of Welsh writing in English. Equally fitting, it's published by Seren, passionate advocates of English-language writing in Wales for the past four decades.
The inclusion of Rhian Edwards' 'Skype' may be a deliberately topical nod to the pandemic and the disillusioning reality of trying to maintain intimate personal relationships digitally, but generally the subject matter is universal and weighty. The shock of parenthood verges on visceral horror in Ailbhe Darcy's extraordinary pair of poems 'After My Son Was Born'; Owen Sheers and Robert Minhinnick take us into bloody combat on foreign soil; Edwards laments her own physical decline in 'The Unkindness' ("What of this cauliflowering arse, / where are the buttocks that snake-charmed?"); Gwyneth Lewis and Bidgood are haunted by the prospect or reality of losing linguistic faculties in old age ("Words have migrated, / I forget their calls"); and the latter writes ominously of death in 'Porchlight' ("the slow approach / of that which knew her name and habitation / and would not leave without her").
By contrast, Dannie Abse's 'A Marriage' is light relief, a tender portrait of "perdurable love" that sees the poet comically recollecting illicit nocturnal visits to his lover's lodgings, avoiding a ferocious German landlady and her "anti-Semitic" pooch.
"This collection represents some of the best of Welsh poetry in English of this century", ventures Glyn Mathias in the Preface. A bold claim, to be sure, but one that is undoubtedly substantiated by what follows.
(An edited version of this review has been published on the Buzz website.)
Monday, July 15, 2019
Quote of the day
"She hadn't arrived at the venue yet, so I snuck into her dressing room and began to extract blood out of my arm. With the syringe, you can aim it and basically paint with it. You can write words, and it was a technique that I had perfected over the years. There was no innuendo or poetry in the message I wrote her. It just read, 'Dear Fiona, I hope you have a great time tonight. Love Dave.' That was it. It wasn't too over the top. In my coke-addled brain, it was a very subtle, kind, romantic gesture. I saw us riding off into the sunset, with this gesture being the basis for our romance. As it turned out, the management and staff at the Universal Amphitheater didn't see it the way I saw it."
Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction on how an attempt to act on his crush on Fiona Apple backfired. Of all the tales included in Drew Fortune's book No Encore!, this must surely be among the craziest.
Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction on how an attempt to act on his crush on Fiona Apple backfired. Of all the tales included in Drew Fortune's book No Encore!, this must surely be among the craziest.
Thursday, August 27, 2020
"It's probably the most special film I've ever been in"
Last year's The Day Shall Come may have received a lukewarm reception (something of an unwanted first for Chris Morris), but the same certainly can't be said of his debut full-length film, 2010's Four Lions. Daniel Dylan Wray's oral history - assembled for Vice with contributions from writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, producer Mark Herbert and actors Kayvan Novak, Nigel Lindsay and Riz Ahmed, as well as Morris himself - is an entertaining behind-the-scenes tour.
Four Lions was prompted by the realisation that farcical levels of stupidity and incompetence are universal, and wannabe terrorists are no different. This helped Morris to challenge the narrative that "this is an incomprehensibly evil, foreign culture that is absolutely outside of our understanding". And understanding is precisely what he set out to do. His research appears to have been time-consuming and meticulous - which ultimately meant that, despite the controversial subject matter, the film got the content and tone right (much to Armstrong's relief).
Morris may have been a tough taskmaster on set, but there was also (naturally) a lot of silliness. Lindsay talks about the daft ways they maintained secrecy (using false names for the film and director, sending party invites rather than call sheets, shredding scripts) and the time when he upset the owner of a greengrocers' stall by destroying it while dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for a scene that wasn't even used. And pity the poor chap who had to get a fake rocket launcher through customs to Spain...
Aphex Twin emerges as a good egg, having gone to the trouble of re-recording a track at Morris' request just so it could be used for the credits. But perhaps the article's most interesting revelation is the reference to an unfilmed Brass Eye sketch about a Paedo Pride March. The mind boggles.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Misery loves company
MALCOLM MIDDLETON / THE ACCIDENTAL, 26TH MARCH 2008, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN
To describe The Accidental as a supergroup might be stretching things a tad, but the four members certainly have previous. Sam Genders' day job is in serial SWSL irritants Tunng; his fellow guitarist Stephen Cracknell was one of the founders of cult label Trunk Records; and Hannah Caughlin is the key voice of The Bicycle Thieves, part of the Fence Collective. Grinning singer-songwriter Liam Bailey, meanwhile, would be the Bez of the group (and it's hard to imagine a band less likely to have a Bez) were it not for the fact that he's actually useful for more than just "vibes", possessing as he does a gorgeously soulful voice.
Tonight, accompanied by a violinist happy to lurk at the fringes of the stage, the quartet are playing only their fourth ever gig together. On occasion it shows, with things slipping slightly out of sync, but for the most part they're spellbinding, so much so that my dislike for Genders' other band is forgotten. Spying the mirrorball suspended from the ceiling, Caughlin jokes "This is our disco set", but don't be fooled - their stock-in-trade is folk so featherlight it makes Monkey Swallows The Universe sound like Motorhead, crafted out of simple melodies, percussive taps on the guitars and intimately interwoven vocals.
The opening pairing of 'The Closer I Am' and 'I Can Hear Your Voice' set the bar very high indeed, but there's still plenty to impress in what follows, especially the single 'Wolves', 'Illuminated Red' (available to download via their website) and closer 'Time And Space'. We've got their debut album There Were Wolves, due out on 14th April on Full Time Hobby, to look forward to, but in the meantime we should just be thankful to the Green Man Festival and Adem of Fridge that Cracknell, Genders and Caughlin met at all.
Nipping down the stairs and along the corridor to the toilet, I very nearly literally run into the evening's headliner, fresh from relieving himself. The toilet's empty and I watch the steam rising up out of the urinal trough from Malcolm Middleton's piss (or should I say "pish"), reflecting on the fact that it's the sort of thing he might write a song about.
A bit of an aside. Nearly seven years ago now, when they were touring their fantastic fourth album The Red Thread, he and I interviewed Arab Strap. It should have taken place before their set, but, true to form, the duo failed to return from the pub until they were due on the Rock City stage. The exchange - drunken, unpredictable, frequently awkward, dominated by Aidan Moffat who was playing with a doll throughout whom it eventually transpired was the "Christy" he was referring to as his girlfriend - turned out to be one of the most memorable of my short career in student journalism. On that occasion Middleton - the musical one - took a back seat, allowing Moffat the platform on which to perform. But since Arab Strap's demise in 2006 he's stepped out of the shadows and now, backed only by Jenny Reeve on fiddle and vocals and Stevie Jones on double bass, is very much the centre of attention, and obviously enjoying it, though perhaps more than he'd care to admit - he's got a reputation as an agoraphobe to uphold, after all.
The early portion of the set is heavy on material from last year's A Brighter Beat, as reinterpreted by the stripped-down line-up. The title track gets things underway, soon followed by 'Fuck It, I Love You' (a nice insight into romance Falkirk-style). Genius Christmas single and album opener 'We're All Going To Die' isn't far behind, but it's 'Blue Plastic Bags', from this year's predominantly acoustic follow-up Sleight Of Heart, that first gets the hairs standing up on the back of the neck.
"It's about getting drunk, or the confusion of modern living", Middleton says. "We'll judge you on how you choose to interpret it". Well, for me it's about the universal and desperate search for comfort and consolation: "The whole world's going home with blue plastic bags / Six bottles of Stella, Jacob's Creek and twenty fags / And you know there is no shame / 'Cos we're all doing the same". And that's the beauty of it - we might be lonely, we might feel isolated, we might be listening to "downbeat shite", but we're actually all lonely, isolated and listening to "downbeat shite" together. The stirring climax - "Sing along with the sad song / Sing along, sing along" - just underscores the point. This is a communal experience, and a perversely uplifting one.
Middleton's miserabilism manages to be neither po-faced nor cartoonish - instead, it's weighty but articulated with a wry and blacker-than-black humour that can't help but make you grin rather than grimace. "Tablets to breathe, tablets to sleep / Tablets just my favourite sweet", he sings in 'Loneliest Night Of My Life Came Calling', and elsewhere: "We drank to the good times, we drank to the bad / We drank to times we never had". Madonna's 'Stay' sounds marvellous given the Middleton treatment, and he can even get away with calling a new song 'Red Travelling Socks' and still invest it with emotional poignancy.
Left alone on stage for the three song encore, Middleton ratchets up the self-loathing and self-deprecation a few notches with 'Total Belief' before the final song of the night, 'Devil And The Angel', takes it to a whole new level. Greeted with a chorus of 30- and 40-somethings hissing "Yes!" under their breath, the song tells the tale of being visited by a devil and an angel. The former knocks him down, the latter builds him up - and, on waking, guess which path he chooses? He may have gone for a slash before getting up on stage, but he evidently still has plenty of piss to take out of himself. But of course the irony is that to be able to sing self-abasing lines like "I'll never amount to anything / I'll never achieve anything / I'll never be good at anything / And my songs are shite" to a roomful of strangers actually takes an extraordinary amount of self-confidence.
It was pissing it down shortly before the gig, but by the time I step outside afterwards it's stopped. That about sums it up.
MALCOLM MIDDLETON / THE ACCIDENTAL, 26TH MARCH 2008, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN
To describe The Accidental as a supergroup might be stretching things a tad, but the four members certainly have previous. Sam Genders' day job is in serial SWSL irritants Tunng; his fellow guitarist Stephen Cracknell was one of the founders of cult label Trunk Records; and Hannah Caughlin is the key voice of The Bicycle Thieves, part of the Fence Collective. Grinning singer-songwriter Liam Bailey, meanwhile, would be the Bez of the group (and it's hard to imagine a band less likely to have a Bez) were it not for the fact that he's actually useful for more than just "vibes", possessing as he does a gorgeously soulful voice.
Tonight, accompanied by a violinist happy to lurk at the fringes of the stage, the quartet are playing only their fourth ever gig together. On occasion it shows, with things slipping slightly out of sync, but for the most part they're spellbinding, so much so that my dislike for Genders' other band is forgotten. Spying the mirrorball suspended from the ceiling, Caughlin jokes "This is our disco set", but don't be fooled - their stock-in-trade is folk so featherlight it makes Monkey Swallows The Universe sound like Motorhead, crafted out of simple melodies, percussive taps on the guitars and intimately interwoven vocals.
The opening pairing of 'The Closer I Am' and 'I Can Hear Your Voice' set the bar very high indeed, but there's still plenty to impress in what follows, especially the single 'Wolves', 'Illuminated Red' (available to download via their website) and closer 'Time And Space'. We've got their debut album There Were Wolves, due out on 14th April on Full Time Hobby, to look forward to, but in the meantime we should just be thankful to the Green Man Festival and Adem of Fridge that Cracknell, Genders and Caughlin met at all.
Nipping down the stairs and along the corridor to the toilet, I very nearly literally run into the evening's headliner, fresh from relieving himself. The toilet's empty and I watch the steam rising up out of the urinal trough from Malcolm Middleton's piss (or should I say "pish"), reflecting on the fact that it's the sort of thing he might write a song about.
A bit of an aside. Nearly seven years ago now, when they were touring their fantastic fourth album The Red Thread, he and I interviewed Arab Strap. It should have taken place before their set, but, true to form, the duo failed to return from the pub until they were due on the Rock City stage. The exchange - drunken, unpredictable, frequently awkward, dominated by Aidan Moffat who was playing with a doll throughout whom it eventually transpired was the "Christy" he was referring to as his girlfriend - turned out to be one of the most memorable of my short career in student journalism. On that occasion Middleton - the musical one - took a back seat, allowing Moffat the platform on which to perform. But since Arab Strap's demise in 2006 he's stepped out of the shadows and now, backed only by Jenny Reeve on fiddle and vocals and Stevie Jones on double bass, is very much the centre of attention, and obviously enjoying it, though perhaps more than he'd care to admit - he's got a reputation as an agoraphobe to uphold, after all.
The early portion of the set is heavy on material from last year's A Brighter Beat, as reinterpreted by the stripped-down line-up. The title track gets things underway, soon followed by 'Fuck It, I Love You' (a nice insight into romance Falkirk-style). Genius Christmas single and album opener 'We're All Going To Die' isn't far behind, but it's 'Blue Plastic Bags', from this year's predominantly acoustic follow-up Sleight Of Heart, that first gets the hairs standing up on the back of the neck.
"It's about getting drunk, or the confusion of modern living", Middleton says. "We'll judge you on how you choose to interpret it". Well, for me it's about the universal and desperate search for comfort and consolation: "The whole world's going home with blue plastic bags / Six bottles of Stella, Jacob's Creek and twenty fags / And you know there is no shame / 'Cos we're all doing the same". And that's the beauty of it - we might be lonely, we might feel isolated, we might be listening to "downbeat shite", but we're actually all lonely, isolated and listening to "downbeat shite" together. The stirring climax - "Sing along with the sad song / Sing along, sing along" - just underscores the point. This is a communal experience, and a perversely uplifting one.
Middleton's miserabilism manages to be neither po-faced nor cartoonish - instead, it's weighty but articulated with a wry and blacker-than-black humour that can't help but make you grin rather than grimace. "Tablets to breathe, tablets to sleep / Tablets just my favourite sweet", he sings in 'Loneliest Night Of My Life Came Calling', and elsewhere: "We drank to the good times, we drank to the bad / We drank to times we never had". Madonna's 'Stay' sounds marvellous given the Middleton treatment, and he can even get away with calling a new song 'Red Travelling Socks' and still invest it with emotional poignancy.
Left alone on stage for the three song encore, Middleton ratchets up the self-loathing and self-deprecation a few notches with 'Total Belief' before the final song of the night, 'Devil And The Angel', takes it to a whole new level. Greeted with a chorus of 30- and 40-somethings hissing "Yes!" under their breath, the song tells the tale of being visited by a devil and an angel. The former knocks him down, the latter builds him up - and, on waking, guess which path he chooses? He may have gone for a slash before getting up on stage, but he evidently still has plenty of piss to take out of himself. But of course the irony is that to be able to sing self-abasing lines like "I'll never amount to anything / I'll never achieve anything / I'll never be good at anything / And my songs are shite" to a roomful of strangers actually takes an extraordinary amount of self-confidence.
It was pissing it down shortly before the gig, but by the time I step outside afterwards it's stopped. That about sums it up.
Sunday, September 20, 2015
..., study finds
Partially unboiling a boiled egg, the standard speed that mammals take to empty their bladders, the universal meaning of "Huh?". Yep, it's Ig Nobel Prizes time again. Perhaps this guy who's trying to live like a goat might get an award next year.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Good ...Taste
What truly tremendous TV the Grayson Perry documentary series In The Best Possible Taste was - almost enough to make me forgive Channel 4 for its inexorable slide into tedious mediocrity and offensive dross over the last few years. The premise was simple enough: Perry was cast as an anthropologist of sorts, travelling around Britain exploring the nation's different "taste tribes", divided along perceptible class lines. Admittedly, we missed the first instalment of the documentary, which focused on working-class culture in Sunderland, but the second and third parts were excellent.
In the second, Perry spent time in Tunbridge Wells classifying and investigating two distinct brands of middle-class taste: the aspirational materialists, who seemed to suffer from a chronic angst, caught between the desire to be like everyone else and own the "right" brands but not to flaunt them in a way that might be considered vulgar or brash; and the individualist materialists, who sought to fill their homes with kitschy nick-nacks or symbols of culture as an expression of their individuality.
The third episode found Perry in the Cotswolds, mixing it with the tweed-and-polo set but ultimately painting a rather elegiac portrait of the upper class as a dying breed. They seemed imprisoned within crumbling country piles that cost a fortune in upkeep, clinging doggedly onto the comforting certainties of tradition and relics of the past as a way of blocking out the encroaching threat of the present and particularly of new money.
As a presenter, Perry was perfect. Inquisitive of mind and clearly delighted at having the legitimate opportunity to have a nose around people's houses and wardrobes, he did so in a remarkably thoughtful way, never openly critical of or sneering towards what he saw. A bucket load of restraint, or just indicative of a genuinely open-minded and non-judgemental person? The latter, it certainly seemed. If his conclusion - that "good" and "bad" taste only exists (as far as it does exist) within specific, narrowly prescribed societal groups, rather than as universal truths - was somewhat predictable, then that's not to imply that the journey he took to reach it was anything less than fascinating.
Each of his encounters with the three different classes gave birth to two huge tapestries, which were initially inspired by Hogarth's The Rake's Progress and specifically styled on (or parodied, perhaps) famous classical and religious scenes. All except the sixth composition I was very impressed by - and so it was a source of some irritation to discover that, while they're currently being exhibited at the Victoria Miro in London under the title The Vanity of Small Differences, the gallery is shut on Sundays, thereby frustrating our plans to use our one free Sunday until late September to inspect them at close quarters.
Still, at least there's the consolation of knowing that there's more to come in the same vein from the Perry/Channel 4 partnership, I suppose.
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