I went to a record fair yesterday and spent more money than I had really anticipated. I went with the intention of only buying things I actually WANTED, rather than just things that looked cool and/or funny were stupidly cheap.

But as ever, my hunter-killer record buying instincts got the better of me and I picked up an absolute haul of stuff I WANTED at bargain prices.

Hopefully I’ll be able to knock out a few quick updates this week with some words on some of the stuff I bought, starting with;

Jesus, God, Holy Mackerel – Edan’s 'Beauty and the Beat' is FANTASTIC! Maybe people have made records like it before, I don’t really know, my knowledge of contemporary hip-hop probably isn’t all that great, but it’s the first hip-hop thingy I’ve heard in years that incites an immediate "wow, that’s awesome!" reaction. The music is so warm and fuzzy and dense and intricate with so many beautiful samples and noises, but it’s totally NOT the tedious, bong-jockey, beard-hop fodder I was expecting – it’s really lively and wired and to the point, and Edan’s rapping is fast and quite harsh, delivered with an almost early Wu-Tang kinda flow. And – Praise the lord! Finally! - It’s a hip-hop album that’s only about 40 minutes long, and is completely lacking in meandering filler tracks, self-indulgent guest spots and general pointless bollocks – pretty much every second on here has something cool going on, and feels vital.
Even better than that though, it somehow manages to be totally influenced by ‘60s psychedelia as well! The way he samples vocal melodies and weird, ambient noises from old psyche records is just... masterful. Given my well-known proclivities in such a direction, I nearly exploded with joy. The psyche thing isn’t obvious at first, but by the end it’s become so prevalent that I followed this album by sticking on the first side of the Chocolate Watch Band’s ‘The Inner Mystique’ (another great record fair purchase), and it sounded like a direct continuation... wow!
Unfortunately, the promo copy of the album is marred somewhat by having a mean sounding man announcing "this is a promotional copy! For press purposes ONLY!" inserted into the mix every minute or so. What a fiendish device – a million times more effective than any copy protection software or edited mixdowns... it means you can hear the album in it’s entirety and appreciate how rad it is, but it’s basically like watching a great gig from over a bouncer’s shoulder. I would suggest the people who thought it up should be killed, but then they’d be entirely justified by saying in return that cheapskate scum like me who defraud independent record labels and artists by buying marked down promo CDs should also be killed – so fair enough. Goddamnit, I’ll probably have to buy a proper copy now!

Better late than never, here’s my review of what I believe should forever be known as;

EGGSTOCK!

A meeting of the great institutions in what passes for cultural life in the city of Leicester took place a couple of weeks ago when a showcase gig took place at the Phoenix Arts Centre to celebrate the general existence of Pickled Egg records, a fine label which has quietly built itself a strong reputation as an oasis in the wilderness for lovers of unconventional, uncategorisable, low-key pop genius.

First on are Zukanican, a bunch of blokes who look like they woke up this morning on Brighton beach after a particularly heavy night (my mistake, they’re actually from Liverpool), but who nevertheless get it together enough to cook us up a fine pile of freeform freak-groove soup. Two drummers help tie down the kind of complex yet instinctively joyous rhythm that propelled ‘Soon Over Babaluma’ era Can, over which we have some squelchy electronics, and a central focus provided by two horn players who, despite numerous instrument changes, never summon up the energy to quite capture the Bitches Brew-style interplay they’re gunning for, although they make some good noises to accompany the beats, and one of them does pull off a hell of a good Dolphy-esque run on the clarinet at one point. Decidedly pleasant, foot-tapping, acid-eating stuff at any rate.

Veterans of several hilariously shambolic botched performances at local gigs, and a seemingly ever-shifting line-up, The Fabulous Foxes seem pretty nervous about actually playing before a quiet, attentive audience. Although still applaudably short and silly, their set is a surprisingly restrained and gentle affair, with a lack of noise and chaos instead placing the emphasis on singer Ben’s shy and ruminative minimalist pop ditties – which turn out to be ever so nice.

Regrettably, advertised headliners Scatter can’t be present because, apparently, they’ve had a big argument and effectively split up (don’t quote me). If true, this is undoubtedly a shame, but nevertheless two of their number do arrive to treat us to a modest duo performance under the name of (I seem to remember) Nelle. And they’re very, very good, playing a relaxed and explorative set which manages to work its way through all yr. favourite aspects of the current wave of folk/psyche/improv/drone/whatever. A lady who must be kicking herself at the success of Joanna Newsom, such is their vocal similarity, sings slow-strumming, madrigal-esque folk mutations much in the vein of Fursaxa, long notes hanging suspended in the air like mean, mystical ol’ albatrosses. Her partner meanwhile gives a masterclass in drone, teasing blissful feedback textures from a bowed, ethnic instrument of some kind and a fine array of pedals. An absolute pleasure – if a mere fraction of Scatter can present this much tingling, sonic joy then hearing them at full strength must be an experience indeed.

James Green, of the band Big Eyes, plays solo acoustic guitar instrumentals, and I’m going to try my best to refrain from chucking around the few ubiquitous reference points inevitably dredged up to haunt practitioners of such material. Thankfully, he makes this easier for me by being fairly distinctive. Less reliant on blues and folk forms than many of his solo guitar peers, Green lets things get a bit more spaced out and uses one of those awesome delay/echo(?) boxes (where can I get one??) that allows him to loop and replay bits of his playing, accompanying himself and eventually building up a densely layered sea of ghost guitars. Beautiful. A pal joins him on ceremonial bell tinkling and weird mutated flute for a full-scale psyche-out on the distinctly Six Organs of Admittance style closing number.

Out in the normally sedate upstairs café meanwhile, Dragon or Emperor sound absolutely thunderous, tearing into their rhythmic bass/drum assault to the joy of a packed out room. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but they seem tighter, meaner, less jazzy than the last time I saw them, the yelped vocal exchanges adding to rather than distracting from the wonky juggernaut drive of the songs. The obvious Lightning Bolt comparison is only emphasised by the fact that the only glimpse I get of them from the back of the room is the reflection of a bass guitar neck in the window.

Back in the auditorium, Oddfellows Casino initially fail to charm me with their gentle songs of woozy summer afternoons and stuff. For all their lush instrumentation and jaunty tunes, they can’t help but come across as a bit self-satisfied. Music to accompany the kind of picnics where people drink champagne and witter on endlessly about how nice it is to see squirrels. Maybe there are dark woods full of malevolent, ankle-chewing badgers awaiting our happy, bourgeois campers somewhere in the corners of these songs, but don’t count on it. Something about the arrangements pleases and comforts me though - those languid, melancholy keyboards, those long, slow trombone / trumpet notes that you could curl up inside and go to sleep… where have I heard this before? I know – Robert Wyatt! That’s what all this is about – Oddfellows Casino really, really want to sound like Robert Wyatt! And who can blame them? I change my mind and decide to like them after coming to that realisation. Let’s face it, the world would be a better place if more groups tried to sound like Robert Wyatt.

It’s difficult to know what to make of de facto headliners George.
Their music is comforting yet unnerving. In theory, it’s warm and jangley, playing with familiar strains of mannered British pop. But there’s a massive tension in the music, starkly minimal with something nasty threatening to emerge, like a shattered wine glass in a costume drama dinner party. Nervous keyboards played like a school assembly recital; gentle but jagged rhythmic guitar strumming; strong, wavering voice like a mean-drunk Sandy Denny echoing around the big, dark hall. George seem like strange people. I can imagine all of their songs taking place in a microcosm of some phantasmagorical stately home; first a song for looking out from the upstairs balcony on some doomed frosty morning, then they add some pre-recorded voodoo drumming to evoke some guilt-fuelled Dionysian tryst in the spring-blooming garden. Maybe D.H. Lawrence had nightmares like this sometimes, I don’t know… Well that’s George anyway – they leave quite an impression, even if I’m not entirely sure what that impression is yet.

Which, to wrap things up rather too neatly, is probably as good a summation of the Pickled Egg mission statement as any.

ONEIDA – The Wedding
(Rough Trade)

As well as being a devotee of Oneida’s hypnotic rhythmic jams, I also count myself a fan of the trio’s song-writing, and would contest that the shorter, weirder, poppier compositions on their albums have provided just as many highlights as the more frequently praised mammoth freak-outs.

So, when word reaches me that Oneida have decided to alienate the less open-minded of their followers by recording a self-proclaimed “baroque pop extravaganza”, my natural reaction is; Yes! Bring it the fuck on!! If there’s one band on earth I implicitly trust to take whatever creative left turns they please and still unquestionably rock it into the highest realms, it is Oneida.

So here it is. It’s called ‘The Wedding’- what a title! It’s heading straight for my CD player. Expectations are soaring.

First Listen, here goes :-

Begins with lavish strings and the lyrics “pretty little German girl / the Eiger is a whole wide world” before progressing through a breathless series of overblown volkish fairytale imagery which recalls the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band in it’s unhinged, Arcadian creepiness... This isn’t as complete a transformation as I’d been led to expect – ‘Lavender’ is classic Oneida…. here comes what sounds like a mutant accordian and more lyrics about forests and winter days... “the old men love me while I braid my pubic hair” – are they taking the piss?? ... a dense and ominous haze pulled from the echoes of the folky interludes on early Grateful Dead albums... more faux-medieval song construction with acid rock guitar... now an uneasy combo of lute and a really bad drum machine ... ‘High Life’ is startlingly different – clean-toned ‘80s style synths predominate, while the band emote madly in full anthemic pop mode like nervous bedroom New Romantics… worryingly patchy, lo-fi sound mix going on here… ‘Did I Die’ kicks our expectations in the ass once again - some kind of drug-fucked, hair metal nightmare rock being boiled down into a free-folk jam...Now early Suicide keyboards, more breathless lighters-in-the-air vocals, lyrics about castles and coastgurards... ‘Charlemagne’ offers faded-glamour, morning-after electro-pop.. suggests the beginnings of a mini-pop symphony when violin and throbbing bass enters, but it’s over in about two minutes... ‘Know’ almost sounds like Mercury Rev re-recording something off the Magnetic Fields ’69 Love Songs’… arrangements are weird, lyrics are absolutely beautiful... it also fails to reach the two minute mark... Now a surly electro-Sabbath drone/stomp with vocals like a lost, freaked out metal singer crying out from limbo, but here comes a soup of startling, fragmentary, implacable sounds.. mildly magnificent... yet more heavily sustained, overlapping guitar and organ textures.. there may be a lot less rhythm going on than previous Oneida records, but there’s a lot more pure droning.. Ominous scrapes of feedback haunt ‘The Beginning is Nigh’, before some powerful Kid Millions drumming marks the genesis of a slow building, uphill march toward a mighty sonic battle – the album’s longest, darkest and perhaps most impressive track methinks! Closing track ‘August Morning is Haze’ is also impressive... more malign lute abuse... suggests the confusion of shimmering West Coast pop relocated to the benighted realms of a chill, Northern European winter. End.

Well bloody hell. That was quite an experience.

Third or fourth listen – I think I’m ready to formulate some kind of an opinion.

First off, let me say I’m sad to report this isn’t really the towering, mercurial baroque pop masterpiece I’d been anticipating. For all its laudable ambition to break them into a whole new sphere, ‘The Wedding’ comes across as perhaps Oneida’s patchiest and least immediately successful album to date. In particular, their stabs at pure pop seem cautious and fragmentary - instead of gorgeous domes of musical nectar, many of the songs seem short and underdeveloped, with a stark, hurried sounding mix – they sound almost like demos (though demos of some pretty strong and startling compositions, admittedly).

Meanwhile, the album’s full moon shines brightest when the band return to what they do best – overwhelming lysergic folk reveries and a dense, malignant psychedelic brew that’s genuinely evocative, sounding like skeletal viking armies rising from the waves to terrorise coastal villages whilst moon-mad pagan children cavort naked amid the standing stones. It’s in this aspect of the album that the full-scale awesomeness I was expecting can most readily be found.

This is also, without question, a very STRANGE album indeed. The short songs, the deranged, imagistic lyrics, and constant, jarring shifts of tone, instrumentation and atmosphere – all this serves to create a baffling, chaotic listening experience, as Oneida’s wild-eyed intensity, deprived of it’s more customary outlet in single-minded teutonic jamfests, is channelled into an almost ADD-afflicted pillaging of mutant song constructions, weird noises and wildly divergent notions of where individual tracks, let alone the album as a whole, should be heading.

Nevertheless though, I love this album, and I’m glad they made it. Only fools want to listen to ‘perfect’ records all day, and I’m sure the rest of us would agree that there are times when magnificent failures like this one are where it’s at. I haven’t yet had a chance to undertake the kind of heavy listening sessions that appreciation of an album like this demands, but now that my initial trepidation has worn off, I feel confident that hidden within the lunatic grooves of ‘The Wedding’ are more riotous, sublime mysteries than any other album I’ll hear this year. The all-pervading medieval atmosphere and the fact that the only love songs seem to focus on desperate rejection suggests that the marriage Oneida have in mind is still more alchemical than mundane in nature, and long may it remain so. Strange is good – like, obviously.

You know, sometimes I wish my favourite bands would slow down a bit and stop releasing albums all the time. The number of essential purchases hitting the record racks right now is nigh-on overwhelming my limited resources.

I got a pretty good deal last week on the new Oneida and Dead Meadow albums - which I'd sure I'll soon tell you about whether you like it or not - but I still feel an overwhelming need to get my hands on hot new platters from Herman Dune, The Mountain Goats, Electrelane, Weird War, Boris, Six Organs of Admittance... (and that new Yo La Tengo box-set and those Dinosaur Jr reissues look mighty tempting too..)

What's with this crazed work ethic that seems to be prevalent amongst cool musicians these days? Whatever happened to lazy-ass, drug fiend bands who release one monumental album once every 8 years? I mean, we're talking a full length every 9 months plus a steady stream of EPs and side-projects from some of these groups! What's the matter guys, don't you have all-consuming spiritual traumas to overcome? complex drum tracks to obsessively re-layer for months on end? energy-sapping day jobs?*

At this rate I'm never gonna get round to checking out any of the cool psyche / noise records I want to hear from Shoryobuni or Volcanic Tongue..

Plus I've now got loads and loads of '50s/'60s/'70s era classic stuff of the kind I really SHOULD have listened to awaiting my attention courtesy of the marvelous, fully-loaded MP3 player I recently acquired off my friend Alex..

I'm drowning in music, drowning I tell you!

Maybe I should do what I did for a period last year when I had no money and ignore the whole thing altogether in favour of pissing off down the library to listen to Fairport Convention and Charles Mingus..

*actually of course, with any kind of historical perspective, this whole paragraph is ridiculous - just go to AMG and read some discographies for the big names in modern jazz - check out the amount of recorded output those guys were tearing through in the early '60s, consider the fact that it mostly laid down in one or two takes by musicians who often barely knew each other, and that it's all absolutely BRILLIANT, and realise why snobby jazz fans must think it the height of arrogant obscenity that we allow relative musical neanderthals two whole years to come up with a dozen four cord rock songs, and then THANK them for it.. (DISCLAIMER: not necessarily my personal opinion, but it's something to think about, right?)

ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES, SUNDAY;

Today’s opening act The Tints prove an enjoyable Sunday morning (well, afternoon) wake-up call. Billed as a “teenage girl power trio”, they had me sold from the start, and many others too it seems given the unusually large crowd for the time of day. Unbearably pedantic note: they’re NOT a power trio. Power trio is guitar, bass and drums, the Tints are guitar, organ and drums. I know, I know, sorry to waste words on such nonsense, but I’m pretty picky about my power trio definitions, and the sanctity of that particular rock geometry must be maintained. So yeah, the Tints – they’re pretty good. They make harmonious, janglified, mannered and feminine pop sculpture out of the skeleton of third album era Velvets in a manner highly reminiscent of the great Slumber Party, and, lest I forget, they have some real fine, catchy, foot-tapping tunes too. Good things all! Basically they seem a bit like the Carrie Nations from ‘Beyond the Valley of the Dolls’, but with better music. I’m a little uncertain about the super-cute singer/guitarist’s decision to take the stage wearing some kind of questionable hot-pants / pyjamas combo (er, how old is she again?), and the fact that they may as well have played to a back projection of Vincent Gallo’s leering face, but apart from that, lovely.

Nearly pole-axed from the start by severe technical problems, Gang Gang Dance thankfully manage to pull it together and emerge as one of the most impressive and unusual bands of the weekend. Clearly well versed in sonic history and deliberately difficult to pin down, GGD’s sound basically involves crafting a dense, FX laden, shoegazing haze out of the most unlikely elements – NY mutant disco, new romantic era electronics and faux-ethnic electric ragas to name but a few - all pulled together via the explorative tendencies and new noise craving of the best kind of avant-rock. The guitarist picks out trailing, trippy arabesques through a flange-drenched, crystalline fuzz while the synths/electronics guy mixes death disco keyboard stabs with menacing thunderclaps of sub-bass. The drumming is big on those tribal poly-rhythms and echoed cymbals, taking an unpredictable approach to the beat that keeps the audience and players on their toes. Stand-out instrument though is Lizzi Bougatso’s majestic, wordless voice, weaving through the sound in tremulous high-register like some exultant Bollywood wedding chorus heard through the midst of a bad trip. Gang Gang Dance make music like something you’d expect to hear blasting out of an inter-stellar Moroccan market stall in a William Gibson fever dream. By trawling over some of the more under-utilised sounds of the past and twisting them into overwhelming new futures, they’re heading towards an entirely new definition of the psychedelic – check ‘em the fuck out.

I knew I gonna love Magik Markers when guitarist Elisa’s soundcheck ritual went as follows; plug guitar into Marshall stack. Hear immediate roar of crippling feedback. Shrug. Drop guitar. Walk off stage. Actually, that’s not true, I knew I was gonna love Magik Markers as soon as I read they were Sonic Youth’s new favourite band and saw accompanying photos of two wild, geeky looking girls kicking the shit out of a bunch of vintage guitar equipment. “Let’s rock!” None of this though quite prepared me for the level of primitive ultra-punk extremity Magik Markers bring to their performance. An expert in what The Wire, god bless ‘em, terms “non-interventionist guitar techniques”, Elisa adopts the persona of a sugar-hyped cave-woman completely unfamiliar with the concept of a musical instrument as she stalks the stage wielding her axe like a wand, a phallus, an anvil and, well, an axe, as the audience whoops and the feedback blares. Noise-rock and no wave might have made us familiar with the concept of great bands who can’t play their instruments, but the Markers are kicking it one stage further by being a great band who WON’T play their instruments. “It’s not a guitar – it’s an alien engine I pulled out of the ground – when I hit it it makes noise – it makes good noise.” After a vicious vocal tirade defying anyone tempted to call the Emperor’s New Clothes card on them to get up and do better, the band proceed to rock it viciously, wildly and joyously, Leah punching violent, open string non-chords out of her bass, drummer Peter trying to get to grips with this shiny new kit he’s just had for Christmas. Lyrics, as is usually best, are shrieked pop culture references and swear words. I don’t know whether Lydia Lunch is still hanging around, but I hope so cos I’m sure she’d approve. I can now die happy knowing I’ve seen a band who sound like Teenage Jesus & the Jerks without the tunes. Energy levels sag slightly towards the end of their set when the drummer picks out a few actual chords on a guitar and they attempt something approaching a ‘song’, but for the most part Magik Markers are fucking inspirational, hitting me between the eyes with that ‘GODDAMNIT, I’VE GOT TO START A BAND – NOW!’ feeling that’s ever rarer in this streamlined and apathetic world of ours.

What Motorhead are to headbanging, Prefuse 73 is to headnodding. Previously unfamiliar with his work, but assured it’s gonna be great, I’m initially rather unimpressed with Prefuse and his band’s stoner hip-hop instrumentals. I’m too tired and my feet are aching too much to put up with ninety bloody minutes of this DJ Shadow mush, thinks I. Then, as I’m hunkering down to sit (or rather stand) it out, it clicks! This is great! This is some real beautiful ‘close yr eyes and go on a journey’ kinda shit. You’ll probably laugh at me and throw me out of the hip electronica club for making such a lame and out-dated comparison, but it makes me think of the Orb, only more rhythmic and musically adventurous. Rather than the perfunctory scratching and backing tracks favoured by certain other DJs, Prefuse comes across as a really dedicated and ambitious dude, pulling all matter of wild and weird sounds out of his turntable set up which I won’t even try to describe, whilst his live rhythm section lay down the kind of heavy, dense groove that goes way beyond just counting off the right number of bars. I still would have appreciated this set more equipped with some pillows, personal space and what I believe you cool kids refer to as a ‘phat blunt’, but still, I close my eyes, nod my head, take a trip through some forest and mountains, crawl along some melting summer pavements, and a whole hour just disappears.

A brief trip upstairs, and we catch the tail end of a set by The Zombies. The first couple of numbers we hear tap into a somewhat disappointing vein of ’72 vintage easy-listening prog, but will maintain a place in my heart because a cute girl asks me to waltz and I make a complete prat of myself realising I don’t have the faintest idea how to. And I can’t hold anything against the Zombies, just because they seem like such a nice bunch of old fellas. “This is a song we wrote many, many years ago..” they say with the gentle voices of old fashioned Childrens TV storytellers. They also go down in history as the first band to ever ask an ATP audience “does anyone here know the Alan Parsons Project?” (“YEEEAAH!” yells one guy at the bar amid all-consuming silence). Then they kick things back into ‘60s shape for a storming run through (what else?) ‘She’s Not There’. And then, well, let’s put it this way – if you were a nobly reformed ‘60s rock group renowned for your wide influence and transcendent pop classicism, what would YOU play for the encore at your comeback shows? What the Zombies play is ‘God Gave Rock n’ Roll to You’!! Totally fucking earnest – as it should be. What absolute DUDES! God bless them! Lighters are held aloft, and I have a smile on my face a mile wide and a tear in my eye.

What a brilliant way to end a festival. OK, admittedly, the Vincent Gallo All-Star Jam Band rocked around a bit with Yoko Ono and Youth Movie Soundtrack Strategies did another surprise closing set, but I’m gonna rewrite history and say that the festival finished with the Zombies offering their own tribute to Kiss, and to the spirit of rock n’ roll.

And so, in conclusion; be good to rock n’ roll, my children, and rock n’ roll will be good to you.

That is all.

Well that was a pretty crappy election.

I mean, not that I hope high hopes or anything, and elections the world over on the whole tend to be fairly crap most of the time, but still y’know, not much change, not much of interest, and things just vaguely erring toward the direction of ‘bad’.

Certainly pretty lame-ass results in the constituencies I have a particular interest in;
My previously jolly, Lib Dem held Leicester abode seems to have actually been won back by Labour (what the fuck?!), whilst my boring old ancestral home of Pembrokeshire South has predictably remained Labour (seems there was a fairly small majority for a safe seat, though obviously it’s a sparsely populated county, so I dunno how many people voted, and I dunno who came second either..), whilst North Pembrokeshire has only gone and bloody made itself Tory, thus eliminating Wales’ previous proud claim of returning no Conservative MPs.

A brief look at the Election map on the Guardian website proves pretty depressing… I know that a map view isn’t really at all accurate, given the Tories popularity in the larger, rural constituencies and Labour’s base of urban support and all, but still… the South and Midlands have started to look like a few red and yellow islands drowning in a big, blue sea. Bummer.

Oh, Lib Dems, you had such a chance here – all you had to do was get off your bloody asses and do something interesting to get peoples attention and you could have got the fucking engine running, but no, same boring old crap, same boring old result. Be nice to have a new party of opposition some time this CENTURY, you lazy bastards…?


BUT ANYWAY, enough of that.

I'll post my ATP Sunday review this afternoon.

c'mon, c'mon!

hung parliament!!

ALL TOMORROWS PARTIES, SATURDAY;

Another bracing start to the day is in order when we wander down to the pub to catch an impromptu set by the cumbersomely named Youth Movie Soundtrack Strategies. And hot damn, they’re not bad. Definitely one of the better up-and-coming British rock bands I’ve seen recently. A tendency toward somewhat lumpen vocals and irritating sub-Godspeed earnestness hampers them slightly, but such deficiencies are more than compensated for by some seriously choppy math-rockin’ action, tight-as-fuck dynamics and, best of all, loads of that irresistible ‘crashing airliner’ screechy guitar noise we all know and love. Well done chaps – you officially rock.

Buck 65 seems to have gotten a lot more serious since the last time I caught him on stage. No long, rambling stories about going to the dentist or incessant shouts of “SON OF A WHORE!” this time around, I’m sad to report. His trademark hobo-noir hip hop seems a lot darker and more introspective these days – less of the De La Soul humping Tom Waits parodies, more of the dense personal poetics and earnest outlaw romanticism. This is far from a bad thing though – he’s still as honest and captivating a performer as you’ll ever see, in great voice with great moves and a head full of dazzling, off-beat, evocative rhyming that stands alongside indie-hop’s finest. The chugging rock band backing tracks he seems to go in for these days don’t really do it for me, but he’s a unique talent and wherever he feels like pointing his wagon towards is fine by me.

Olivia Tremor Control start half an hour late, following a perfectionist soundchecking session which the soundman will be reliving in his nightmares for years to come (“ok, trombone? … Clarinet? .. Singing Saw? .. Banjo? .. hello, hello? Who’s mic is that?”). But what an entrance! Emerging from a side door, they parade straight through the centre of the audience in marching band formation, led by a bearded dude playing a gigantic tuba (or is it a euphonium or something? Well the biggest fucking horn you’ve seen in your life anyways..). There’s an American guy standing in front of me who says he’s come to the festival purely to see this band. “I mean, I can’t go see the Beatles or Pink Floyd anymore, so these guys are the last truly great band..” he explains to a passing stranger. Pretty eyebrow raising comment for a cult neo-psychedelic group playing fourth on the bill at All Tomorrows Parties, but by the time their set hits the halfway point, I know exactly what he means. As the central focus of the Athens, Georgia ‘Elephant 6’ collective whose members produced some of my favourite weird records of the late ‘90s (as Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples in Stereo, Elf Power etc.), I knew I was gonna enjoy Olivia Tremor Control, but I had no inkling of the glorious sonic ambition to be found in their live incarnation. If the above mentioned groups are notable for pulling sky-scraping romantic dreams out of a lo-fi, trash-can aesthetic, then seeing OTC’s nine piece expanded band is like hitting the motherlode – the full-scale, stadium-conquering realisation of all of Elephant 6’s multi-faceted psychedelic whimsies. As the American dude hinted, this is overpowering, uncompromising, visionary rock glory. For the uninitiated, imagine what might have happened if Syd Barrett had stayed in charge of Pink Floyd as they went on to become mega-stars, and if he’d invited some of his brass band shredding hippy pals to join in along the way. Devotees of a very special kind of perfection, Olivia Tremor Control stand guard over the eternal moment where a mid-‘60s top 40 countdown dissembles itself forward into a big, formless acid-hazed stare into the holy sun, and backwards into a lost utopia where geometry-defying buildings rise and fall at will, and where the Paris surrealists made history by flying to the moon on a giant clockwork albatross, but where the gentle, wide-eyed guitar-strumming residents are still subject to the ache of melancholy and girl trouble that makes the pop world turn.

Due to some mysterious kind of time-lag effect, I find myself sufficiently recovered from all that to return to the upstairs hall in time to catch most of a set by John Foxx. Possessed of an extraordinary mug that makes him look like a calculating, silver-haired self-help guru, and a pedigree as a founding member of Ultravox, more than one item of gentle ridicule had previously passed my lips regarding Mr. Foxx. Shame on me as it turns out, because he’s a blast. Standing stone-faced and immovable behind his bank of synths, he plays, like, the most ludicrously obvious and brilliant Kraftwerk-worshipping electro-pop imaginable. Concepts of irony remain utterly alien to the mind of the fantastic Mr Foxx as he bangs out stupidly irresistible robot-dancing keyboard hooks and delivers seemingly endless songs about car crashes, plate-glass windows and faded European glamour in a formidable deadpan croon. And he has lasers too – oh yes. Taken somewhat by surprise, the increasingly large crowd act like the showroom dummies they are and get into the teutonic groove.

Now, PJ Harvey;
PJ Harvey plays three barre chords, shifts them slowly, and rocks like fucking Slayer. PJ Harvey’s voice hits almost physically, makes hairs on the back of your legs rise, confuses the blood in your veins as it shoots around knowing it should be going somewhere, but nobody’s told it exactly where. Regardless of what you make of her records, or the company she keeps, PJ Harvey is one of the best fucking performers on the planet – that’s just plain fact. This is, she says, the first unaccompanied solo show she’s done for 12 years. Thus, by my reckoning, this is the best PJ Harvey show for 12 years. No disrespect to her band, but 4 Track Demos is my favourite PJ album, and this is the way I like her music best – totally wild-eyed and raw, just the voice, the heavy, no-bullshit guitar riffing and an occasional stomp on the distortion pedal. Electrifying like ten rides on a rollercoaster. Music this primal doesn’t need a band backing it up any more than Robert Johnson did. Finishing with a rendition of ‘Rid of Me’ that nearly makes my innards melt, what seems like a full ten minutes of applause passes before she reluctantly graces us with a single song encore. So fuck the Mercury Music Prize and fuck Jools Holland - I hope none of us are taking Polly for granted these days, cos if she goes we’re sure as hell gonna miss her.

By Sunday morning the consensus seems to be that Suicide’s headlining set was – to paraphrase one sign spotted at the al-fresco indie record market – “a load of disappointing nonsense”. Well, fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke, I thought Suicide were great. Now you’ll have to bear with me here, but let’s look at it this way – everybody knows the legend of Suicide back in the ‘70s – their total originality, almost anti-musical primitivism, their declaration of open war against hostile audiences precipitating riots, beating and nationwide revulsion, their refusal to take shit from anybody, their existence as an uncompromising ‘fuck you’ to everything rock music stood for at that point in time. As I say, all this is legend. So I ask you, what are these increasingly gnarly looking middle-aged iconoclasts supposed to do when finally confronted with a huge, adoring crowd yelling song requests rather than abuse, and waiting to be hit by the magic of this now rehabilitated ‘classic’ and ‘influential’ band? Are they gonna kick through precise versions of their songs, growl at us through a haze of alienated urban cool and soak up the applause? Are they fuck! What they’re gonna do instead is stay true to their original mission statement the best they can by slouching on and off stage, muttering incoherently (Alan Vega) or shamefully goofing around, grinning like idiots and pulling off ludicrous disco moves when convention dictates they should be playing music (Martin Rev – he’s so funny). And thus Suicide, clad in exactly the same retro-street gang outfits sported on the back cover of their ’77 debut album, once again succeed in pissing off anyone and everyone. They half-heartedly toss off their classic ‘Ghost Rider’ with slurred, half-remembered lyrics and cheesy disco beats, and dare us to object. The best moment comes though when they decide to close their set with ‘Frankie Teardrop’. You know how it goes – that crushing ‘da-dur-dur, da-dur-dur’ rhythm grinds into action, Alan steps up the mic and delivers his first few “Frankie, Frankie”s. Then Martin, looking bored, hits a switch and turns the whole thing into some kind of ridiculous up-beat Casio bossa-nova! Alan looks completely bemused; “Well… slight change of plan.. looks like Frankie’s alive and well..”. Fantastic! They get Peaches on stage for the encore and have another bash at Frankie, the three of them chucking the one working mic to each other, gurning through the wrong lyrics in the wrong order to the wrong backing track, utterly defiling their own greatest musical moment and hilariously trying to out-do each other in clichéd punk posing. What a hoot! For kicking back against those who’d turn their early music into a sanctified, canonical cult-rock museum piece, Suicide should be saluted, even if it means destroying themselves in the process.

EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES II;

Back at the chalet, I swear I saw some stuff on Vincent Gallo TV which will stay with me to my dying days. OK, I caught a hard-boiled indie exploitation movie called ‘Thief’ which was pretty cool, and that ‘60s motorbike racing documentary on Sunday morning was totally sweet, but did anyone else happen to catch ‘La Beste’ (The Beast) late on Saturday night? Oh. My. God. Let us never speak of it again.
To my great discomfort, I also caught a few minutes of the screening of Gallo’s ‘The Brown Bunny’, and can confirm that, yes, the whole thing seemed like a colossal bad joke, taking all the worst clichés of arty American indie movies to unwatchably egotistical extremes. If I’d made it, I’d probably break down in tears at film festivals too.

Hi everybody. Sorry for the lack of recent updates, but rest assured I’ll be making up for it this week. I’ve got a full write-up of the Vincent Gallo curated All Tomorrows Parties ready to roll, which, in order to avoid a massive info-dump, I’ve split into days. Here’s Friday, and be sure to tune in later this week for Saturday and Sunday.


ALL TOMORROWS PARTIES, FRIDAY;

An unexpectedly early set by Lydia Lunch proves a pretty jarring way to begin the weekend’s live music proceedings. I think she would have been more in her element haranguing a crowd a crowd of drunken post-midnight stragglers, and her band’s debris-strewn LA noir jazz seems weirdly out of place in a room full of fresh-faced, semi-sober kids anticipating a weekend of seaside fun. Nevertheless though, Lydia’s on raging good form, fusing her ‘Queen of Siam’ femme fatale persona with the punch of her vicious spoken word performances, effortlessly staring down would-be hecklers and commanding our attention as the material from her new album moves her trademark butcher knife dismemberments of sex and gender politics forward into realms of global turmoil and societal control, particularly on highlight ‘God was the First Cop’. Like all great underground orators, her words make brutal, righteous sense and come across like a rabid rush to the head. Make no mistake losers, she is still Lydia Lunch and she still owns you.

Already legends in their own lunchtime, Japanese grrl-skronk duo Afri Rampo turn in another triumph. Their playing is so utterly instinctive and joyous, and conveys such a pure, childlike understanding of how to make a rocking racket, totally unencumbered by ego, self-consciousness, musical ‘logic’ or any of the other curses heaped upon us by generations of white male muso geek rock star bullshit, that I’m lost for words. And they knock the drumkit apart, bash hell out of the guitar with drumsticks and sing weird, wordless screaming songs into each others vocal mics! In a perfect world, all pop groups would be like this.

From the five minutes I caught of Merzbow, it seems somebody had seen fit to restrict his customary ear-bleeding volume rather severely, reducing his bone-gnawing robot deathdrone down to the ineffectual soup of farts it truly is. Ha! Whoever made that decision has my highest regards.

EXTRA CURRICULAR ACTIVITES;
The DJs playing through Friday night in the downstairs room are absolutely fucking great, inspiring me to cut some rug for three or four straight hours. Just thought you might like to know.