PRIMAVERA: Saturday


Times New Viking

Ok, so writing this review of Primavera’s third day has become a bit of an albatross hanging around my writerly neck for some damn reason, leading me toward endless procrastination, despite the fact that there is much to say on the matter, and a ton of other stuff that I want to get on and write about besides, but, ANYWAY, onward!

Saturday’s music actually begins a fair distance away from the main festival, in Barcelona’s Jean Miro park, where Primavera’s organisers have laid on a few extra free afternoon gigs ‘curated’ by Spanish record labels (in this case, the distinctly anglocentric Acuarela). I had a mental image of Jean Miro park being situated on one the idyllic mountainside districts that overlook the city, but sadly it’s actually a pretty functional urban patch o’ grass with a couple of purpose built little concrete performance spaces in the middle – the skies are grey and it’s none too picturesque.

Anyway, when we turn up Darren Hayman is midway through his set of resurrected Hefner favourites, inevitably backed up by a near full compliment of Wave Pictures. Prior to the festival, a friend of mine put forward the view that there was something “just plain sick” (her words, not mine) about the idea of London indie types dragging themselves across Barcelona just to see Darren Hayman busting out some tunes ‘neath a few palm trees, and indeed, whilst I wouldn’t go that far, sitting at a flimsy picnic table enjoying a (very) late breakfast whilst being treated to renditions of ‘Hymn To The Cigarettes’ and ‘Hello Kitten’ is an odd experience to say the least.

Things aren’t looking promising prior to David Thomas Broughton’s set either. Rain is falling and a team of roadies are out in force clearing, unplugging, packing away (the whole stage set up being open to the elements). The stage is soon bare but for a single microphone stand and David’s guitar case, and tarpaulin covers the PA speakers, whilst the audience has thinned out considerably too. It seems to be touch and go whether or not the performance will go ahead, but a man in protective gloves plugs in some mics, and gestures for our man to go ahead. And if there is any current performer capable of pulling triumph out of such a weird performance situation, here he is… come on, Broughton, you can do it. And readers who have experienced DTB’s performances firsthand won’t need to be told that he does indeed do it, and how.

In fact, scarcely two weeks prior to this show, I saw Broughton, looking utterly exhausted, crammed onto a tiny stage under blisteringly hot lights with a drummer and bassist he’d never played with before, confronting an audience of disinterested, vodka-swilling posh kids, and he won the day then, adapting to the situation by dropping the comedy and dragging a startling well of fright and bitterness from the bare bones of his songs amid screeds of improvised noise and rock star posing that eventually had them cheering for a second encore. I imagine taming the grey skies of Barcelona must be a cakewalk compared to that one, and sure enough, after a shaky start, he’s ON, familiar songs, and a few I haven’t heard before, rising majestic as ever amid confused bouts of microphone-clanging, amp-tinkering and phone-throwing, as grim roadies, bewildered passersby and, briefly, an extremely angry-looking old lady in funereal garb, look on impervious from behind the stage. One particularly great moment sees fragments of slick, soft-metal guitar soloing ringing out across the park, apparently from some other, unseen musical performance, and incorporating themselves perfectly into pauses between the drawn-out syllables that comprise the climatic conclusion to ‘The Weight Of My Love’. Toward the end of the set, Broughton traces out the word ‘NATURE’ in the sand in front of the stage, pausing for reflection between each letter, as if he hadn’t yet decided what to write, but thought he’d better follow it through after writing the ‘N’. There’s no encore this time around, and he doesn’t play ‘Another Hole’, but…. y’know, look, I’ve been lucky enough to see this man play about half a dozen times in the past year, and it’s never been less then an astonishing, inspiring experience, so let’s just leave it at that and keep this damn review moving.

Back at the festival proper, Times New Viking are kicking things off to a sparse crowd just after 5pm. Now if you’ll allow me a quick digression, although I’m quite looking forward to seeing TNV, I got issues with them too. I’ve been vaguely meaning to write a bit of a blogpost on the subject of new American bands who seem to be into the idea of releasing unfeasibly shitty sounding records in order, perhaps, to make some kind of contrived point about their authentic, lo-fi rawness. I won’t run down the whole thing here for fear of derailing us completely, but my basic point is:

Times New Viking sound like the kind of band I’d really like – they play short, sharp, noisy, melodic songs with an explosive sense of energy and forward motion that I really dig. But I say ‘sound like’, because on the basis of the LP I have by them, it’s difficult to tell, such is the mess of muffled rehearsal room jams, incomprehensible, distorted vocals and aimless feedback that comprise the majority of it. Now this is an odd argument for me to make, in that I’ve spent the best part of my life listening to demos, bootlegs, home-recorded weirdness and all manner of other distinctly rough recordings and enjoying the hell out of them, but the key there is NECESSITY, as opposed to AFFECTATION, with TNV, Eat Skull and their peers firmly in the latter camp, given the ease with which just about anyone in the Western world can make a serviceable recording of a rock band these days.

I could rant long on the subject, but shall refrain for now. Because, despite the arrogance inherent in submitting an album that sounds about half as good as my band’s one-microphone-in-the-corner rehearsal tapes for mass international distribution, there’s still some kind of kick about Times New Viking’s music that makes me feel really kinda positive about them, even if there are only rare moments in their output where it really comes together. SO, on stage at Primavera: against the odds, Times New Viking seem to be working out a pretty good live approximation of their shitty recorded sound, thanks to a combination of slurred, off-mic vocal yelping, cheap, overdriven equipment, horrible amp settings and hyperactive drumbeats that seem to launch themselves into the fray at random, stopping and starting on a whim with little concern for whether or not anyone else can keep up. Admittedly, one gets the feeling this is far from the best gig they’ve ever played – the band, who’d no doubt kick up a storm playing for free to audience of happy drunks in a garage / house party scenario, seem completely out of their element on a European festival stage, and long gaps necessitated by the guitarist’s chronic string breakage, malfunctioning jack and subsequent inability to stay remotely in tune are pretty cringeworthy for all concerned (although, man, can I ever sympathise).

In between inadvertently essaying the near-autistic lack of communication that can result from the excessive volume and gross apathy of modern day ‘underground rock’ performances though, they do at least manage to bash through their one truly transcendent song, ‘Teenage Lust’ (see below), and a few other good ‘uns, and something at the heart of their high energy / anti-professional approach still chimes with me, although for my money they REALLY need to up their ‘coherent song’ quotient considerably and cut back the ‘chaotic racket’ element if they want to be contenders for our continued attentions.

I think I spent the next hour or so wandering around catching bits of other bands (don’t remember who), before making my way back to the same stage to bag a front row position for what I know in advance is going to be the highlight of my weekend – Silver Jews.

Berman

As with many other listeners I suspect, a true understanding of the genius lurking at the heart of Silver Jews has crept up on me slowly – from loving one song on one album a couple of years ago, I gradually advanced through learning to like the other songs on that album, then getting another album, which I didn’t like at all, until one song kinda grabbed me… and on it goes. But it’s only really over the past three months that the…. obsession? – might as well call it that – with all things Berman has really taken hold for me, after a perfectly timed, random spin of ‘Natural Bridge’ really cemented him for me as one of the only songwriters who can succeed in side-stepping the melodramatic templates of pop narrative and soundtracking the grimmer, less easily expressed ambiguities of life with a depth of wisdom, wit and poetic grandeur that had me practically falling to my knees upon repeated listens, in awe of the fact these songs could even exist. Sounds absurd? – try listening to any 'Jews record (except maybe the sub-par ‘American Water’) across, say, five consecutive days, and tell me I’m wrong. As usual, I probably am wrong, in, like, objective terms, but my conclusions sit right with me, so make of them what you will.

As with all of the music I love the most, it’s extremely difficult to communicate my thoughts on Silver Jews in writing without immediately descending into fanboy superlatives, lengthy lyrical quotations and crude declarations of original genius and artistic primacy that do nobody any favours. But, suffice to say, for the few months culminating in Primavera, it’s been Silver Jews all the way for me – it’s been the only music that makes sense, that can consistently hit home. The fact that they released a brilliant, brilliant new album that ranks amongst their, or anyone else’s, best ever this year probably helps.

So I’m front and centre before the stage fifteen minutes or so before they’re due to go on amid a tightly packed bunch of what I can only assume are other dedicated Jews fans, many of them on their own and busy smoking or staring into space. A woman behind me is carrying on some kind of freaky monologue about drugs and working in a carehome and anal prolapses. I wish she wasn’t.

Maybe it’s just because I’m down at the front with ‘the hardcore’ as it were, but once the band appears, crowd reaction to Silver Jews set seems rapturous throughout. Perhaps it’s a direct expression of appreciation at the sight of a rare, and until recently completely intangible, personage whose cult status and legend of collapse and rebirth proceeds him in the mind of many music fans? Could it be a similar atmosphere taking shape to that engendered when someone like Roky Erickson or Dan Treacy takes the stage – a sort of collective ‘GOOD ON YOU, MAN’, ‘THANKS FOR MAKING IT HERE TO PLAY FOR US’, expressed through applause and whoops a tad more vigorous than that usually afforded yer average middleweight American indie band? Or maybe I’m reading too much into it – maybe people were simply reacting in a wholly natural fashion to the great, great songs, lustily and loudly performed with a rare mixture of professionalism and spirit by the current Silver Jews musicians who, though no doubt exceptional and creative spirits in their own right, play with a hesitancy and sense of purpose that perhaps recalls Brian Wilson’s backing band, or recent line-ups of The Fall. Keeping any hint of personality well hidden, they know their place as builders and masons, laying down blocks just so around the feet of their architect’s vision.

Those who were lucky enough to catch the first ever batch of Silver Jews live engagements a couple of years back happily report a complete transformation in David Berman’s stage presence this time around. By all accounts he has previously seemed distinctly unsure of himself as a live performer, shying from the microphone and struggling to keep up with the tunes on rhythm guitar, but now, perhaps mirroring the overwhelmingly positive feeling of the new album, he seems to have grown to enjoy his role as a roving, instrument-free frontman, sporting a fetching tailored suit (neither rhinestone nor corduroy, fellow lyric-geeks may note) and strutting and posing within the limits of some eccentric set of mannerisms of his own devising, generally owning the stage like some shifty, mid-American Jarvis Cocker. His somewhat theatrical cavorting with his wife Cassie, who shares centre stage on bass, would seem pretty creepy and cloying from most other performers, as he aims particularly swoonsome lyrics from the songs directly at her, circling as if he’s about to make some chivalrous, music hall marriage proposal (It’s hard not to be reminded of “.. I hope I don’t come across as a coyote in your eyes..” from the gorgeous “We Could Be Looking For The Same Thing” on the new record), but Berman has the grace to get away with it, and, having taken us in song through years of wasted promises and oblique misery, why shouldn’t he present his happiness in love to the world without shame, like living proof of battles fought and won?

Inevitably, the soundmix is pretty unsatisfactory from where I’m standing – the guitars are very loud, and Berman’s vocals are drowned out entirely (apparently they were more audible to those further back in the crowd). But that’s ok as, given my recent mainlining of all the records, I can fill the lyrics in myself word for word, as can many of those around me, creating the distinctly weird experience of seeing Berman strut his stuff on stage whilst we, the fans, provide his voice.

Naturally they play the lion’s share of ‘Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea’, and all the ‘hits’ from ‘Tanglewood Numbers’. “Random Rules” and “Smith & Jones Forever” from ‘American Water’ are thrown in, and the sublime ‘Bright Flight’ is represented by a damn-near tearfully triumphant “Tennessee” and, oddly, one of my favourites, “Horseleg Swastikas”, which with it’s brutally perfect ruminations on the state of depression seems a strange choice for the outgoing, upbeat new Jews to revisit. Nothing from ‘Natural Bridge’ gets played, but maybe that’s just as well. Then - “Punks In The Beerlight” – man, could there be a better set-closer, for any band, anywhere, or a stronger sentiment on which to bow out at the end of an artistic work? On record, it seemed to leap out of nowhere - the most heartbreakingly obvious yet utterly unexpected thing for Berman to write after a few years beneath the world’s radar; a lost Springsteen arena anthem for failures everywhere. And finding it’s true home here, about as close to an arena as it’s ever likely to get, crowd participation is unthinking and automatic, and I wonder how many of the no doubt thoughtful, well-heeled, lyric-analysing types around me are able to take the opportunity to call a certain someone in their own lives to mind as they shout along, in riotous conclusion: I always loved you to the max.

So that’s that. I’ve witnessed what I came here to witness, and whatever happens next is just gravy. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks are about to start though, so it’s going to be some pretty top notch gravy…. and indeed it is, as they proceed to choogle their way gamely through most of the new album, along with a few random selections from the earlier solo-Malkmus discography (‘Loud Cloud Crowd’ and ‘Dark Wave’ and ‘Jenny & The Ess-Dog’ all got an airing I seem to recall). And after settling myself into a “wow, check THAT bit out” instrumental interplay-noting type rock headspace, and remembering not to expect ANYTHING in the way of showmanship, coherent communication or crowd-pleasing antics from Steve, it’s tons of fun, a particular highlight being Janet Weiss’ muscular drumming, given a freer reign here than that allowed in her various other combos, as she drags the band by the shirttails through the odd troughs and furrows of ‘Hopscotch Willie’ and ‘Real Emotional Trash’.

Malkmus

Again though, the set is somewhat marred by the Curse of the Bad Mix, rendering vocals invisible, guitar chords a deafening wash of treble and, in this case, bass that is way, WAY too loud, unleashing shuddering feedback that has me trying to enjoy a few songs with fingers jammed in my ears for protection. I mean, getting deafened at a *Stephen Malkmus* gig would just not be cool, would it?

Mid-set, a confused exchange ensues between Joanna Bolme and the swathes of audience who are gesticulating to her to turn the fuck down. Misunderstanding slightly, she’s all, like, “what?? you think my bass playing is awful? - fuck you!”, and understandably seems quite upset, before bashing into the next song with even more ear-damaging vigour. By the time the audience succeed in getting their point across, a bad atmosphere has already settled, and it’s one that isn’t much helped by Malkmus mumbling about how it’s supposed to be loud and asking different sections of the audience whether they’re also getting too much bass. “Yes” being the general consensus, a *slight* volume adjustment is brokered, but generally things still sound as if an elephant has sat on the mixing board, spoiling what was otherwise an extremely fine hour of music.

We sit out Mission of Burma for some reason, which is a shame, I’ve been getting a bit back into their stuff recently and would have quite liked to see them. As midnight arrives, I troop off to watch Shellac in preference to Dinosaur Jr on the impeccable indie-bore logic that I’ve seen Dinosaur Jr before, but have never seen Shellac. God knows, rewind four or five years and I would have jumped over the moon at the chance to see Shellac; they never seemed to tour back then, and a Peel tape of a live performance was one of my favourite ever angry-boy listens for a while. That said, I can scarcely claim I still have much time for this kind of thing just at the moment. I haven’t stuck on a record by an Albini-led band since god only knows when in fact.

So I don’t know the extent to which I’ve changed, or they’ve changed, or whatever, but despite being enthusiastically received by everybody else in one of most densely packed crowds of the weekend, this whole Shellac business seems a bit of a drag. I seem to remember, on the evidence of my old Peel tape, they used to flail through emotionally-flattening songs like ‘Song Of The Minerals’ with bursts of shattered glass, metallic skronk and lurching, desperate beat-downs, constantly threatening to send the whole mess over the edge into chaos. Here at Primavera in 2008 though, it’s hard to detect much of that spirit. The essential ‘howling, cathartic release’ aspect of their work seems to have been severed somewhere along the way, leaving a lumbering shell of uptight, masculine repression-rock, each song seeming little more than an excuse to grind through Meaty Shellac Riff # 12 for a few minutes, endless variations on ‘My Black Ass’ furrowing brows from here to eternity. ‘Prayer To God’ – obviously their high point as a band by many, many miles – is tossed off without fanfare halfway through, whatever weight it may once have carried reduced to a mere trudge through the tune. Denied their build-up/release safety valve, Shellac just leave us stranded in The Man-Zone; not a place where we can see the good, noble side of man-ness, or – as in Albini’s best work – the bad, unhinged side of man-ness, but just a deathly dull thud of the featureless, functional man-ness that leaves us feeling like clumsy, unfeeling golems, rewiring valve amps, in an airless room, forever.

It’s probably just me though. Wrong atmosphere, wrong period of my life.. etc. Still though, one has to applaud the band’s efforts to overcome the deadening, masculine grind their music can engender by way of some prime ANTICS; Bob Weston calls Scout Niblett on-stage to answer the audience’s questions, then declare that he can’t hear them, and dismisses her – ha ho - and the most interesting part of the set comes during ‘End Of Radio’ – more of a spoken word / performance art piece than a song – wherein Todd Trainer roams the stage with an unmiced snare drum as Albini expounds on it’s acoustic properties and the miraculous nature of it’s electronic amplification. The set concludes with Albini, Weston and friends theatrically dismantling Trainer’s kit piece by piece as he attempts to play a Bonham-esque solo on it, leaving him sitting alone on his drum-stool, waving his sticks in the air until they carry him off too. All this is jolly good fun, and it’s nice of them to put in the effort. But it’s still somewhat akin to discovering that the workmen drilling up the road outside your house have a good sense of humour.

After that I ended up watching most of the Tindersticks set from a distance. I’ve never really been into them, so most of it was spent talking or staring at the ground. They sounded nice in the background, exactly as they have done at so many dinner times at my Mum’s house over the years.

Then some stuff happens. I don’t remember what really. Then the next thing I recall, it’s about 2:30am and I’m forming part of some kind of freaky human snake with various people, weaving toward the centre of the dense crowd watching Animal Collective. Though fairly exhausted and confused by this circumstance, I’m delighted to note that they’re playing ‘Chocolate Girl’, a tune off my favourite album of theirs, ‘Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished’ from way back in 2000. Animal Collective have never struck me as the kind of band to revisit old material, or even to throw any recognisable songs at all into their concerts, so this makes me weirdly happy. And indeed, they actually go on to play (‘recreate’ might be a better term) a whole bunch of hits, including the bulk of ‘Strawberry Jam’ and a couple of numbers from Panda Bear’s ‘Person Pitch’. Which is nice.

Animal Collective

I find that, whether live or on record, Animal Collective can be a bit of an all-or-nothing prospect re: enjoyment. Either things go right and you’re ENTRANCED (as I was throughout their gig in Elephant & Castle last year, during which they played ninety solid minutes of glorious, harmonious, utterly unrecognisable racket), or, through no fault of your own, you just can’t hit ‘the zone’ and you’re left unmoved, as I am throughout the Primavera set. That’s cool though. It’s good just to be here witnessing all this stuff. Look - there they are! Three distant, silhouetted figures hunched on stage, rendered both ‘popular’ and ‘influential’ to an extent that still seems utterly absurd according to conventional music-world logic, given the odd and unconventional nature of their music. They’re backed by crazy light set-ups, big screens….. thousands of people apparently getting the hell down to a darkened, static stage, flashing, multi-coloured alien strobes and a bloody-mindedly positive, tidal throb of massed rhythm and wonky melody that sounds like the combined essence of Terry Riley, Lee Perry and Brian Wilson forced through a blender of digital effects patches; undifferentiated, overwhelming, hypnotic, vast and endless, yet still somehow undeniably POP. Go figure. I think this is the kind of set that would appeal to the kind of people who enjoy taking drugs in the middle of big music festivals. What’s not to love, you might well ask. And…. that’s about… all I can think to .. say, .. on the matter… (collapses).

Cut to me begging a lady working behind the near-sold out bar for something, anything alcoholic she can give me for my last two drinks tokens, and getting rewarded with a generous dose of neat whisky in a coca-cola cup for my troubles. God bless ya! Various shades of fairly straight up dance music boom from a couple of stages, accompanying those who feel like making it through the rest of the morning. I don’t. Having been watching live music more or less continuously for over twelve hours, I think I’ve done my duty.

So that was Primavera. It was pretty good fun all in all. I don’t know whether or not I really felt at home with the whole deal, or whether I’d make the effort to go again, but, as my tombstone is likely to eventually read: I sure saw some good bands.

Mp3s >

David Thomas Broughton – The Ever Rotating Sky
Times New Viking – Teenage Lust
Silver Jews – Horseleg Swastikas
Silver Jews – Punks In The Beerlight
Shellac – Song of the Minerals
Animal Collective – Chocolate Girl

Labels: Animal Collective, Darren Hayman, David Thomas Broughton, festivals, live reviews, Primavera, Shellac, Silver Jews, Stephen Malkmus, The Jicks, Times New Viking