The Big Comet Gain Post:
FINAL INSTALLMENT.

Thank christ.

VI.



“David and Jon failed the auditions… their guitars sounded wrong.. they’re singing as morons, because nobody sings as a naive ‘hello’..”
- ‘Mainlining the Mystery’

When I moved to London in 2006, Comet Gain were AWOL.

By saying that, I don’t mean to imply that I was in any way ‘down’ with some kind of scene in which I expected to find them – far from it in fact. Still under the spell of ‘Realistes’, I naturally assumed them to be the hippest motherfuckers on the face of the earth, stepping out in immaculate mod finery, drinking cheap spirits and talking neo-Marxist theory with Ian Svenonious as EPI lightshows flicker across the walls in clubs so fucking cool I’d never even heard about them.

Admittedly, I didn’t even have a very good idea of what any of ‘em looked like beyond the blurred faces on the record sleeves, but try as I might I never clocked any CG sightings or activity through late ’06 through the entirety of ’07 up to the first quarter of ’08.

I knew that Jon Slade had his ‘Born Bad’ club night in Brighton, but I never went to Brighton. I knew some friends of friends who were friendly with the whole Fortuna Pop kinda crowd, and rumours trickled down second (/third/fourth) hand that Feck/Christian was a ‘difficult character’. Dark speculations were exchanged that he was ‘big into drugs’, that he’d fled the country, or given up on music, or god knows what.

The ‘leaving the country’ bit was at least vaguely true I think – I gather he’d moved to France for a while to live with his girlfriend. The drugs bit seems more like the kind of kneejerk auto-rumour that circulates around the shadow of any absent rock music savant guy, I suppose. Maybe, maybe not, I dunno. He just doesn’t seem the type to me. Much like the woman who once told me she didn’t like The Mountain Goats because John Darnielle had done ‘many bad things’, I suspect whoever I gleaned that rumour from had just taken ‘City Fallen Leaves’ centrepiece ‘The Punk Got Fucked’ rather too much at face value.

So for a while there, it seemed like I’d missed the party and Comet Gain were no more. No sightings, no news – even the label that put out ‘City..’ had disappeared.

Then: early 2008. I was hanging around with a new friend and we were both really into The Wave Pictures.

[..and god, whatever happened to THEM, whilst we’re on the subject? That one album they did is genuinely amazing, and the live shows were great, but recently they’ve just gone way off the boil, last record sounded like songs existing to fulfil a contract, crawling round looking for a place to die..].

So, uh, anyway – my friend was trying to convince me I should come to the first of a series of shows they were doing at the room upstairs at the Enterprise by Chalk Farm tube, and I was like, yeah, that sounds cool, who’s supporting, and she was like, oh it’s some band called Comet Gain. And I was like HOLY FUCKING SHIT?!?! Comet Gain?? By this stage, you might as well have told me that Serge Gainsbourg had come back from the grave and would be popping in to do a few numbers with Scott Walker on piano.

Needless to say, I was there. As it transpired, the band on this occasion, playing to maybe about thirty people crammed into living room-sized space above the Enterprise, consisted initially of David Feck and Jon Slade, their imitation guitars plugged into tiny Fender practice amps, practically daring each other to try to remember the chords to whatever potential back catalogue favourites they’d scribbled down. As at every subsequent Comet Gain gig, Kay Ishikawa turned up, played her bass parts perfectly, looked disdainfully at everyone, and left again. She is a great bass player.

Lacking a regular drummer, the bloke from mainstream indie band The Cribs had been dispatched to fill-in. That those guys are big CG fans has been well-documented, but apparently their enthusiasm hadn’t yet filtered down to the drummer, who seemed entirely unfamiliar with the songs, winging it on foolproof instructions of the “this one’s fast, then it goes slow for a bit” variety.

Rachel E. was notable by her absence.

Feck certainly LOOKED like a man who’d spent the past three years in France taking drugs. Far from an impeccable mod avenger, he had a look more akin to a red faced sea captain, just washed into port after a tempestuous ocean crossing – bedraggled winter fleece-thing, three weeks stubble, boat shoes and strange, unheimlich motions. Jon Slade looked like he was reaching the end of a 24 hour drinking binge, wishing he could go home for a shower and change of clothes. Actually though, it seems like he always looks like that. Just the way he rolls, I guess.

Of the songs aired, I remember ‘Realistes’, ‘Why I try to Look So Bad’, and golden oldie ‘Raspberries’ (dating back to the heretofore unmentioned ‘90s line-up of the group), abandoned halfway through after several attempts to remember the tune. I recall there being much leery swearing, lager-swilling, and gratuitous use of the word ‘cunt’.

So in retrospect, perfection, but at the time it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Probably a bit of a fiery initiation into the strange rites of the Comet Gain live experience.

Later that evening, I approached David F. with what was no doubt a load of excruciating fanboy blather. Apropos of nothing, he started telling me that he had spent his time off conducting an in-depth study into the magickal properties of ‘60s garage rock, concluding that ‘Louie Louie’ was the perfect rock n’ roll sigil, a basic three chord vehicle for world-altering unconscious intent.

I have subsequently not ventured to speak to him again, simply because as far as awkward rock star / fan conversations go, that one was pretty unbeatable.

VII.

Press shot circa 2009.

“Young, free and single, like the crack in the 45, that makes the guitar snap all night, and in the morning it starts all over again… we aren’t cartoon characters, the pain is true, beware our bitten mouths and finger nails… we have torn ideals… Comet Gain has torn ideals..”
- ‘Jack Nance Hair’

The next time Comet Gain made an appearance must have been a few months later, cos I remember it was a really hot, late Spring evening. In what I can only assume must have been a favour to the people who run/ran it, they were appearing at a sorta informal ‘folk night’ in a room above the Apple Tree pub in Farringdon. For some reason I arrived foolishly early and forgot to bring a book, with the inevitable result that I was quite trashed by the time the band eventually stepped up to play. Blame excitement or beer as you will, but oh man, this was a magnificent gig – probably still the best time I’ve ever seen them.

If the space above the Enterprise was ‘living room sized’, this place actually WAS (and presumably still is) a living room, complete with mantelpiece, arm chairs, little trestle tables and stuff. Although not widely advertised, word of mouth for this one had obviously gone out to the faithful, and place was rammed, the lady charged with collecting £3 from everyone on the door pretty much giving up as people crammed their way onto the staircase trying to gain access.

Some friends of the band who do a ‘60s style light show had still found space to set up their wallpapering table and projector though, bathing the room in ink-blob melting ersatz UFO club glory. There was a (different?) stand-in drummer this time, but Rachel was back, her central presence cheerleading the others into a transcendently ramshackle performance. For some inexplicable reason, Jon Slade was wearing cricket whites and an umpire’s hat. I recall that I was worried about not being able to force my way out to get more beer, but somebody bought one for me, and I was happy! Not bad going considering I went to the gig alone. This truly was the big COMET GAIN ARE BACK moment, and thankfully I don’t have to carry on about it at any greater length, cos Youtube provides.




Such self-deprecating banter as would stir the hearts of the gods. Never exactly one to hide his current obsessions, I remember this one saw Feck wearing a big 13th Floor Elevators pyramid badge, and closing proceedings after they turned the PA off with a solo stumble through Roky’s ‘Splash # 1’. Much as we may fall back on properly promoted gigs at more reliable/comfortable venues, isn’t it a magnificent thing when an ill-advised happenstance like this really comes together? A great night.

Subsequently, I went to see Comet Gain a whole bunch of times as they re-constituted themselves into a viable pop group, gradually accruing members as official drummer Woody Taylor returned, Anne-Laure Guillain joined on keyboard, and now they’ve even recruited a wholly gratuitous third guitarist, making the band circa 2011 a seven piece on occasions when everyone turns up.

Before that though, I remember attending, uh, let’s see now… at least a couple of shows at the Buffalo Bar, probably a few more here and there, and a hilarious turn at the Old Blue Last where they didn’t seem to have a working guitar lead between them, prompting stunned expressions from super-slick support act The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

Safe to say CG’s reputation for unreliability and general shamblism reached its apex in (I think?) the summer of ’08, when they were awarded a much-coveted (in some circles) slot headlining the Indietracks festival. By far their biggest engagement since getting back together, and at the very least a well paid summer festival booking announced months in advance. In a nigh-on supernatural feat of disorganisation though, it seems that most of the band *failed to even show up*, citing the fact that nobody told them they were playing, or they’d forgotten, or were busy, or something. I don’t know how many readers are familiar with the organisational faff of being in a band, but if so, CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE the heights of miscommunication that would lead to such a situation? It’s positively heroic.

Reports as to what actually transpired vary, but the consensus of opinion seems to suggest that Jon Slade took the stage with a bunch of girls he’d rounded up and tried to instigate some sort of ill-fated requests set / mass singalong / general noise-making session. Predictably, reactions to this astounding debacle vary widely: one friend I spoke to described being wholly enthused by the “ten minutes of chaos” that followed a days worth of mediocre twee-pop, but long-standing fans of the band from outside of the London/Brighton axis were understandably less than thrilled at seeing their first and perhaps only chance to see such a revered group contemptuously pissed away. Brilliant lark though it may seem to those of us lucky enough to be able to see them play regularly, I’d imagine the whole episode must have created a lot of ill-will toward the band (not least on the part of the influential festival organisers, I’m sure).

Similarly, one of my favourite Comet Gain shows was another indie-pop hoedown headlining appearance, at London Popfest in early 2009(?), a fantastic mixture of beauty and chaos that seemed to go on for hours. Things started conventionally ‘well’, with a magnificent cover of Felt’s ‘Ballad of the Band’, as captured here;



..but soon Feck was riffing on Hitchcock’s ‘Frenzy’, suggesting that “strangling people with neckties in Soho” seemed a better career move than “doing this”, as the whole thing collapsed into some drunken mess of noise and semi-coherent beat poetry. Goddamn I love this band, I remember thinking, as disgusted tweesters pushed past me toward the exit, leaving the place half empty by the time they finally ground to a halt.

Indeed, the disjuncture between the perfectionism and fiery idealism of Comet Gain’s records and the self-sabotaging car crash of their live incarnation has proven a stumbling block for many potential fans. After years of worshipful listening to the LPs, I too was pretty taken aback by it initially, only gradually coming to appreciate, nay love, the chaotic grace of the band’s unpredictable stage presence. As well as appealing to me as a lifelong proponent of musical mess and amateurism, I can’t help but find a strange triumph in the way they hide noble sentiments and sky-scraping talent behind a veil of bloody-minded alcoholic piss-taking – a classic diversion tactic that draws comparison with a whole lineage of British outsider culture, from Wyndham Lewis and Dylan Thomas through to the Television Personalities, Swell Maps and (them again) the Mekons.

The brilliant thing is of course, they never do it on purpose. I mean, that would just be stupid. They try their best to be a brilliant live group playing brilliant songs, and frequently succeed… but sometimes things go wrong, the atmosphere gets weird, and instead of getting all precious about it, they just have a laugh and go with it, ending up wherever the feeling takes them. It’s an inspiring thing to see.

I guess they’ve probably gotten a bit more (ugh) professional though as they’ve picked up steam and acquired new members, leading up gradually to the release of their new album earlier this year. Performances rarely degenerate into total disorder anymore, and by all accounts the handful of shows they did in America the other year left everyone pretty impressed. But still, pop along to a Comet Gain recital and you can still fully expect to expect random members failing to turn up or ducking off stage never to return (hey, it doesn’t matter so much when there are seven of ‘em), unexpected cover versions standing in for songs they can’t remember, and sight of David Feck on his knees, trying to tune a guitar string whilst twisting the wrong tuning peg. For about three minutes. Beautiful stuff.

We’re finally reaching the end of this bloody thing now, reaching the present at last. What more do you need to know? Well… they’ve done a bunch of one-off singles for different labels, all of which are strange and great in equal measure. The singles/odds n’ sods collection ‘Broken Record Prayers’ came out in in ’09 and is bloody fantastic, and now in 2011 we’ve finally had the new LP, ‘Howl of the Lonely Crowd’ (and who else on god’s earth could get away with calling their record that). Needless to say, it’s a monster, the rockers rocking in jagged furious fashion, the epic opening cut pissing in the face of anyone who purports to care whether Bob Dylan is still alive, and even the now-inevitable sloppy acoustic songs taking on a rich, Go-Betweensy grandeur after a few listens. In between, Feck found time to record an LP as Cinema Red & Blue with members of Crystal Stilts, Hamish Kilgour from The Clean and others, and it’s perhaps even better. You should get it, if you haven’t already. Attendees at Comet Gain’s recent two-night residency at London’s Lexington were gifted with a copy of ‘Thee Optical Sewer’, what promises (I’ll believe it when I see ‘em) to be the first of potentially many band-produced fanzines, and, jinx though it may be to say it, it looks as if they’re going from strength to strength, adapting well to a new standing as a kind of cult indie institution with little left to prove.

As an infuriating happy ending (cos nobody wants a happy ending from a rock biography), here they are playing to what I’m sure must have been by far their biggest audience to date, at the Primavera festival in Barcelona earlier this year.

VIII.

TEDIOUS ROCK-CRIT AFTERWORD.

Sitting on a long train journey recently, meditating (as you do) on my choices for The Best Rock n’ Roll Groups of All Time, I came to the conclusion that there are essentially two models for a truly brilliant band. First, there’s what you might call the Unified Band: the band who look the same, are on exactly the same page, fighting a kind of war in the name of a singular musical vision. If you look behind the scenes, there will almost certainly be some deeply eccentric and conflicting personalities behind this band, but when they’re clocked in they are a unified force, creating music of such basic, uncompromising power that it changes the shape of the world forever: The Ramones, Stooges, Black Sabbath, Les Rallizes Denudes, The Shop Assistants, Dead Moon, Black Flag, The Misfits, The Sonics, Bikini Kill – take your pick.

Comet Gain are not one of those bands. But at the other end of the playground, where things get weird and messy, you’ve got an entirely different kind of band, a kind of band that reaches further, aims higher, hits some point of singularity and falls back into a beautiful mess. A band which, though it may have a central guiding presence, is essentially composed of a bunch of random misfits, and has little fixed idea of exactly what it’s doing or where it’s going, making it liable to fly off in any number of directions, throwing together themes and references and big mixed up emotional signifiers as it sees fit, celebrating it’s own contradictions and blurring the boundaries between genius and nonsense, transforming the internal world it shares with it’s listeners just a thoroughly as the Unified Band might shake the walls of the wider world. I’m sure you can find your own examples of this kind of band, but I won’t throw out any obvious names right now, because as far as I’m concerned at the time of writing, Comet Gain are the best one.

Labels: Comet Gain