THE FORTY BEST RECORDS OF 2010: Part Eight

Really sorry for the unacceptable delay to this final instalment, which comes even later than last year’s much delayed final instalment. Some unanticipated work deadlines are to blame. Think back to 2010 everybody, and let’s go…


5. Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Rush To Relax (Goner)

Unlikely winners of some kind of Australian equivalent of the Mercury Music Prize for their previous album, Eddy Current are another band who can easily seem like a music writer’s worst nightmare. Four no nonsense fellas who play drums and bass and guitar and sing, making undeniably compelling and imaginative rock music, the strengths of which are sufficiently self-evident to require no further explanation. It’s exciting music, but it’s hard to communicate as much on paper. It’s really great, but I mean, god knows what the world’s few remaining legitimate music journos will do with themselves if this sort of thing catches on.

Just like 2008’s “Primary Colours”, “Rush To Relax” has proved a steady grower over the past nine months, a real staple of my trudges to and from work and round-town jaunts, regardless of season or mood. See, I’m already making it sound dull. And it’s scarcely gonna get less so when I give in to my urge to describe Eddy Current as a “real solid band”, but basically, that’s what they are, in the best possible way. The rhythm section sound amazing here, and do sterling work throughout, not being silly or drawing attention to themselves but anchoring the flow of the music perfectly, just the way they should. As on previous recordings, guitarist Eddy Current has a great, abrasive, treble-heavy tone and is always up to something interesting.

Whilst remaining broadly within the parameters of punk rock, the surprises ECSR throw our way are simple, bold and extremely effective ones – stretching one song out to seven minutes, compressing another one into fifty seconds. Dropping the bass and drums out of the mix for a verse to keep us on our toes, or ending the album with twenty minutes of the sound of waves crashing against some antipodean shore (er, somewhat less of that on the vinyl version, obviously). In a way, it reminds me of something like Alternative TV’s “The Image Has Cracked” – an attempt to move things forward and provoke new response from listeners, without alienating anybody or compromising the basic appeal of the music.

At the centre of all this, vocalist Brendan Suppression, whose contributions to previous outings sometimes seemed a tad obtuse or overly repetitive, really comes into his own as a distinctive frontman, riffing on some surprisingly personal themes in characteristically funny, straight up fashion. Although his grating, Ozzie-punk delivery is about as different as can be imagined, Brendan’s performances on this album actually reminds me a lot of Jonathan Richman on the first Modern Lovers record, spinning earnest yarns about his feelings and his exploits against the band’s rolling backing. Unlike Jonathan’s heart string-tugging teenage dementia though, Brendan seems like a classically easy-going, agreeable sorta bloke, and listening to these songs, it’s easy to imagine him strolling around his home town, mulling over the problems life throws his way, doing his best to be do good by everyone and generally live a balanced, grown up existence. Quite a refreshing stance for a guy coming from a genre whose lyrical concerns typically revolve around the hyperbolic expression of anger, misery, excess and abuse.

Given his voice and physical performance style, it would be all too easy for Mr. Suppression to lean on Rollins-style aggression as his default position, so it is nice that he has the balls to take the opposite route. It’s really sweet to hear him outline his chivalrous approach to relationship politics on “Gentleman”, and to candidly admit his failings in such on “I Can Be a Jerk”, whilst his more conventionally punk confessions of social awkwardness on “Anxiety” and the perfect under-a-minute blast of “I Walked Into a Wall” ring very true. He begins “Burn” in more of an aggro frame of mind, attacking some unspecified person for their craven untrustworthiness, only to turn things around at the halfway point, apologising to the subject for his lack of awareness of their apparent mental problems, and wishing them the best for a full recovery in the future! An astonishingly disarming gesture, and perhaps an all-time first in the long history of generic punk rock dissing songs. It is a testament to his talents as a great singer/lyricist/frontman/whatever that he manages to pull off such a self-conscious and musically unnecessary move so well, and perhaps a testament to his standing as a decent guy that he felt the need to change the song to make things clear.

I realise this probably isn’t the most thrilling review I’ve ever written, but regardless: it’s really great to have band like Eddy Current in the world right now. They don’t make one false move here, and I enjoy listening to their records a lot.

Mp3> Tuning Out


4. Overnight Lows – City of Rotten Eyes (Goner)

From November 2010:

Overnight Lows are a three-piece band out of Jackson, Mississippi, rocking that ever-popular husband/wife/drummer configuration. Their album “City of Rotten Eyes” came out on Goner Records earlier this year, and it totally destroys.

That’s about all you need to know really, and this music makes me feel like being BRUTALLY CONCISE (some hope), but it’s the least I can do to at least try to use words to sell you on a record I’ve listened to all the way through about, say, five days out of every seven for the past couple of months.

Comparable in both form and execution to the spirit of that first Thermals album, crossbred with an accidental nod or three to the “world’s fastest strumming average” ideal of Reis & Froburg’s Hot Snakes, Overnight Lows play punk rock stripped of all fat, devoid of bullshit – twelve loud, memorable, breakneck-paced songs about being angry and hating stuff. Five of them make the two minute mark. Not a clunker in the bunch, and not a slow bit or room to catch a breath either. Best walking to work music ever.
Drummer Paul Artiques plays about as is humanly possible without lapsing into hardcore/metal double kick drum territory – hi-hat going like a metronome and heavy on the ride cymbal. He is a great drummer! Marsh and Daphne Nabors correspondingly lay into things with a crazed ferocity, rather akin to the spirit of a guy on super-charged two-stroke motorbike, randomly hurling dynamite and trying to overtake a train. Recording quality is pretty good, but with everything in the room mixed WAY UP, rough edges in the playing swallowed by the feedback… and by the next verse, which has probably finished before you’ve even clocked what the hell is going on.

Like most great punk rock, each song here begins as a monomaniacal tirade about some aspect of singer’s life that s/he feels is simply intolerable and, well, just sort of continues as one really. “You’re well read / big words stuck in your tiny head / you’re well read / can’t understand what you said”, shrieks Marsh Nabors at some scholarly antagonist in ‘So Well Read’. Wait dude, what's so bad about reading books? Nothing, obviously, but if you read books and you're a JERK, well - fair game. “When I kiss your lips / all I taste is lies / I know what I’ve gotta do, and that’s sad”, responds Daphne in ‘Static Scars’. After a few dozen listens, both singers’ lyrics stand out as genuinely excellent – direct, imaginative and dryly funny, however random and unprovoked the fury with which they’re spat out may seem.

It’s funny, I could spend all day listening to contemporary albums by bands of musclebound guys effortlessly playing ‘punk rock’ music of similar volume and velocity to this, but none of it would hit me like the Overnight Lows record. What we’ve got here I think is he sound of people who WEREN’T born to play music like this, straining themselves to the nth degree to keep up the pace and take the damage, sounding like they could fall apart any second – which is fantastic, and exhilarating, and yeah – punk rock.

Mp3> So Well Read


3. Personal & The Pizzas – Raw Pie (tape on Burger / LP on Bachelor)

Thousands of groups at any given point in post-’76 time may claim to take inspiration from The Ramones, or else just flat-out imitate The Ramones, but how many can honestly say they succeed in capturing what The Ramones were about? I mean, beyond the basic template of playing fast, loud, short songs called “I Don’t Wanna do such-and-such” or “Somebody is a something”, how many bands have there been who are really able to replicate the uniquely strange feeling of that holy first album, with its weird, thudding, midtempo rhythms, its instinctive melodic bass lines and its sullen, special ed kid black humour? The sound of The Ramones before they became “The Ramones”, if you will.

I’m not saying Personal & The Pizzas are the only ones to achieve this by any means, and I guess this band have an advantage over most of their peers in that their New Jersey pedigree allows Mr. Personal (as we sadly must call him, I suppose) to mimic the distinctive cadences of Joey’s singing to an uncanny degree. But still, I am continuously amazed at how much love and attention to detail and genuine feeling P & The Ps put into their Ramonery, and how often their song-writing instincts lead them beyond simple imitation, and straight back to the source.

Ok, so I realise they’ve got a stupid, in-jokey name, and probably make their (extremely small amount of) money playing dubious scenester beer busts full of coked up, destructive duh-brains and whatever, and I know that Mr. Personal’s cringeworthy, sub-Fun Lovin’ Criminals inter-song banter is utterly beyond the pail, especially on a *recorded album* (at one point he wishes someone “a big ol’ muchos gracias”). But seriously guys – I think these songs really stand up.

Just listen to the tough, deadpan pathos of the acoustic & tambourine-based “I Ain’t Taking You Out”, the way it shifts key for its heart-rending middle section (“I took you out yesterday / and all you did was cry-ay”), or the way that hit single “Brass Knuckles” follows in the footsteps of “Loudmouth” and “Beat On the Brat”, turning the threat of violence from something alarming and sinister into a kind of hilariously unlikely affirmation of purpose (“..gonna pop you in the mouth”). “Don’t You Go in the Ground” too is a sublime piece of minimal songcraft, its poignant chant of “retard, retard, such a little retard” rising triumphantly to the declaration of the title. I have no idea what it’s supposed to mean, but the warm, welcoming feeling that emanates from the song mitigates any suggestion of malicious intent. It reminds me of hearing The Ramones for the first time, on a slightly degraded ‘best of..’ tape a friend lent me, not being able to fathom what in the hell Joey was going on about most of the time (‘Cretin Hop’? ‘Pinhead’? WTF?), but loving it anyway on some kind of instinctive, pre-verbal level.

There’s more to life than The Ramones though – there’s The Stooges too! And, as per the record’s title and cover, Personal & The Pizzas pay extensive nudge-wink homage to the James Williamson-era band here on exultant cuts like “$7.99 for Love” and self-penned theme tune “Pizza Army”, to the extent that I’m surprised Mr. Osterberg’s presumably eagle-eyed legal people haven’t been on the phone to get this shit shut down. Still, this is clearly all to the good. When in Stooge-mode, The Pizzas rock like bastards, and whilst I know you’ve gotta love Iggy sometimes, I think I’d far rather listen to these genuine carefree loons welding hunks of “Shake Appeal” and “Pretty Face..” to proclamations that their love is “..cheaper than a pencil case” than sit through whatever cash-harvesting ventures everybody’s favourite car insurance salesman / self-proclaimed great-grandfather of whatever currently has in the works.

So in conclusion: ‘originality’ be damned, there’s enough good times and good feeling and good tunes and rock n’ roll blather crammed into the extended tape version of “Raw Pie” to last a decade, and if there’s a buncha pointless crap alongside it too, well, that’s just the way they roll I guess. Along with Mean Jeans, I vote Personal & The Pizzas as the most genuinely worthwhile band to emerge from the whole late ‘00s Nobunny/party-punk wave. If you find their whole shtick a bit off-putting, well, I can’t say I blame you, but seriously – if, like me, you’re dumb enough to still have Joey and DeeDee and Iggy and Ron on the brain in the second decade of the 21st century, give this lot a shot, and I hope you won’t be disappointed.

Mp3> I Ain’t Taking You Out


2. Dum Dum Girls – I Will Be (Hozac/Sub-Pop)

When I first got this album, I was worried that maybe its appeal would kinda prove fleeting, that with a shiny sound and everything on the surface I’d kinda lose interest, despite all the attention I’d lavished on the earlier DDGs material.

But no – it’s really stuck with me. Nearly a year down the line, I think these songs are excellent, and sound amazing. I think this is a great album.

Back in May, I said some stuff about it:

“Now that we can hear the lyrics a bit better, old songs and new both reveal an unexpectedly compelling narrative aspect, transforming “I Will Be” from merely a collection of really cool pop songs into… well I hesitate to say it, but it’s sorta almost a concept album, or at least a record whose themes and images have been so carefully formulated that each track appears part of a greater whole.

From the narrator of “Jail La La”, who wakes up dazed at a strip club and winds up in jail yelling the chorus through the bars, to the rather more self-assured protagonist of “Yours Alone”, who’s known exactly what she wants out of life since the age of five, to the paranoid would-be starlet of “Line Her Eyes”, each song here seems to represent the first person statement of a different woman in a different phase of life. Factor in the brilliantly fierce 70s-era cover shot of DeeDee’s mum and the statement-of-intent title-track and “I Will Be” perhaps, kinda, sorta stands as something approaching a tribute to the struggles and achievements of 20th Century American femininity.

And, interestingly, it’s one that doesn’t seem to emerge from the overtly feminist perspective of [the good bits of] contemporary indie rock, but instead looks back with bittersweet glee at the kind of subject matter – starry-eyed teenage marriage, vicious fashion/fame-related rivalry, defining oneself as the adjunct to a male partner – that is (maybe, hopefully) less of an inevitable part of the female experience than it used to be back in the ‘50s-‘70s, the aesthetic golden age where Dum Dum Girls make their spiritual home.

So if you’re looking for a bit of honest-to-god content from your neo-girl group fuzz-pop, well look no further, but beyond all that blather I’m sure many listeners will be more concerned with the fact that just about every song on “I Will Be” is a hit in the established three chords / three verses mold, with a couple of great new rockers, and in particular, a handful of straight up love songs sweet enough to make you levitate through the skylight. “Rest Of Our Lives” in particular is incredible, with crashing percussion, swoon-inducing emotional heft and huge, swinging, r’n’b-influenced chorus-line coming together like the best bits of ‘60s and ‘00s chart pop crashing head-on and creating a song capable of reducing workplaces to dust as it blares over the AM radio in the staff-room. Or something.”

Mp3> Rest of Our Lives


1. Betty & The Werewolves – Teatime Favourites (Damaged Goods)

Well, here we go.

In all honesty, it took me about a split second to decide what my favourite record of 2010 was. Betty & The Werewolves, obviously!

It’s great to have an unquestioned favourite band (favourite contemporary band, at least) based predominantly in the same city as me, so that I can go and see them, like, twenty times. When I first saw them, supporting Holly Golightly at the 100 Club over three years ago (!!), I was all, like, wow – Betty & The Werewolves! They’re amazing! That band is just too perfect to exist! But exist they did, and when I saw them return to the 100 Club just last month, my enthusiasm had not waned in the slightest. During the interim, “Euston Station” and “David Cassidy” proved two of the best singles issued in recent years, and both of them can needless to say be found of this exceptional, instant classic, long-player from Damaged Goods.

Time and time again I’ve read venerable music journos going completely overboard in their praise for bands and local scenes to which they have some tenuous connection, so let it be said that whilst it was a massive honour to be able to appear on the same bill as them several times this year, I would love the Bettys just as much even if they were to punch me in the face and tell me never to darken the door of one of their performances again.

What more can I say that I haven’t said before? Doug is the best drummer in the world, and Emily and Laura and Helen’s distinctive styles of shouting and singing and guitaring and bassing are equally peerless. The band’s collision of hardcore punk and indie-pop remains more fun than life itself, and if one or two of the slower numbers don’t quite float my boat so much when they start to lose the former half of the equation, well at the same time you’d be hard-pressed not to recognise “Should I Go To Glasgow?” as one of the most perfectly executed Shop Assistants/Tallulah Gosh-style numbers of recent years, or that at least twelve of the album’s fourteen tracks are total killers.

Really it’s a bit like having their live set pressed on a record so I can listen to it whenever I like, and it’s great to be able to finally make out the words to songs like “Purple Eyes” and “Heathcliff” and "Francis", and, er, yeah… I’m about to grind to a halt here, so just do the decent thing and buy it already. Have a happy 2011 everybody! It’s Friday night and I’m gonna go… stop.. writing stuff. For now.

Mp3>Purple Eyes

Labels: best of 2010, Betty And The Werewolves, Dum Dum Girls, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Overnight Lows, Personal and the Pizzas

Indietracks 2010:
Sunday.

Somehow or other, it’s been killing me trying to finish the second half of this Indietracks review, but here it is – torn straight from the metaphorical typewriter, waved under the nose of the non-existent editor, and hitting the virtual presses, no second draft. Hey ho, let’s go…

Photo respectfully stolen from Underexposed.

Sunday I get up early (camping, y’know), and go to look for coffee.

I probably moaned about this to everyone I spoke to at the festival at some point, but get this: there is a specialist coffee stand/van at Indietracks. I know it is one, because it says “COFFEE HUT” or something in big letters on the front. Not to sound too ungrateful, but seeing as how they are apparently making a living selling coffee at outdoor events, I can’t help but offer them some advice. Specifically: d’you think it might be a good idea to open before midday? Who knows, maybe you could sell croissants and shit too? Go nuts guys - the whole ‘breakfast’ concept can make for a rewarding business model when upwards of a thousand people are waking up and wandering around in the middle of the countryside.

Resigned to not getting any proper coffee for a while, I retreat to the top right hand corner of the railway centre, where the door to ‘Johnson’s Buffet’ swings forbodingly. So utterly, wonderfully terrible, Johnson’s Buffet is like the culinary equivalent of a haunted house – a humbling reminder of what the denizens of this country used to do on a hungover Sunday morning, before uppity swines like me and Egon Ronay started going around demanding proper stuff to eat. I ask the teenage girl behind the till what the vegetarian breakfast consists of. She doesn’t know yet, but she’s prepared to cook it for me anyway. God bless her! The thrill of the unknown was worth every penny. While I’m there, a lady brings her mug of instant coffee back to the counter and asks if she can get another spoonful of nescafe in it. Spurred on by such bravery, I do the same. I wonder whether they encounter such insubordination on non-Indietracks weekends?

I’m probably sounding like a bit of an asshole in this post thus far. If I was reading this in the Guardian or wherever, I probably would have thrown it aside in disgust by now. Is it possible to write negative food reviews without sounding like a whining, pompous dick? Maybe Michael Winner’s not such a bad guy after all? (Clarification: no, I’ve checked, and actually I’m fairly certain he is a bad guy – the evidence re: everything he has ever done is pretty overwhelming.)

Well if you do think I’m being an asshole, things are going to get worse before they get better I’m afraid, but at least we’ll be getting all the bad vibes out of the way in one go. After killing time with a nice walk through the orderly forest (I listened to ‘Master of Reality’ and ‘Ramones Leave Home’ for grounding and decompression purposes) and helping out in the merch tent for a bit (I enjoyed it), ‘COFFEE HUT’ has finally emerged from it’s slumber, and I’m stuck deep in the queue when MJ Hibbett & The Validators open up proceedings on the outdoor stage.

Now certain things in the past have maybe forced me to turn a blind eye to how terrible this guy is. For one thing, a lot of people whose opinions I appreciate seem to derive a certain degree of enjoyment from his work. I remember seeing some fliers for one of his gigs years ago in Leicester library that I thought were very charming (each of them was *hand drawn* - not photocopied – with smiling stick people playing instruments etc). I once met the violin player from his band in a pub, and he seemed like a really lovely guy. In short, there is such a Teflon coating of modest, low key friendliness around this Hibbett character that writing bad things about him feels a bit like kicking a three-legged puppy. And no one would want to do a thing like that, right?

But y’know, maybe one day that three-legged puppy might end up with a plate in its head after an unfortunate traffic accident, and it might not be able to breath properly, and it might stagger about drooling and can’t control its bowels anymore. It might start randomly trying to bite people because it no longer knows what the hell is going on, and a time comes when someone has to stand up and say ENOUGH, and the poor beast must be taken to the vets and put to sleep.

So, MJ Hibbett. His constant stream of carefully pre-planned, morbidly unamusing self-deprecating banter; his sappy one joke strumalongs, whose façade of modesty fails to entirely disguise their genesis as smug, self-righteous diatribes; his painful attempts at observational humour, harnessed to standard issue blokey open mic night strummery, somewhat like the desiccated shell of Half Man Half Biscuit, entirely drained of all the wit and artistry and invention and anger that makes them worth listening to. He’s like a Johnson’s Buffet breakfast without the charm – cringeworthy English crap-ness writ large. In short, I wish he’d stop. Just stop, please - stop now and stop forever.

I hope he doesn’t google this up and read it, as I’m sure he’s a nice chap and I wouldn’t want to piss him off or upset him, but sometimes these things just need to be said. He can at least take comfort in the fact that an awful lot of people here seem to greatly appreciate what he does. And that’s fine. Me, I’ve got my coffee by this point, and I’m running, running, to hide in an alcove where the sound won’t leak in and plot with others who share my point of view. I believe burning him at the stake was suggested at one point, but was deemed out of keeping with the spirit of camaraderie upon which this festival is based.

And, fantasies of violent death aside, it is that spirit that I hope to return you to as I write about the rest of this fine day.

Boy, The Specific Heats are an amazing band! I was pretty blown away when I caught them on their visit to the UK last summer, and this time, if anything, I like them even better. They’ve survived a couple of line-up changes since then, and the presence Eric on bass rather undermines my previous assumption that Matt Patalano had deliberately built himself an ultimate rock n’ roll band of pretty ladies to help him bring his songs to the world, but that aside the new recruits fit in seamlessly. The whole deal is still essentially Matt’s baby after all, and he’s on exuberant form at Indietracks, leaping around like a kid at a birthday party, wringing lunatic stuntman solos from his groovy Ventures guitar. Keira Flynn-Carson still gives the impression of being the happiest drummer on the planet, and the band’s high spirits are pretty contagious as they rip through a good dozen of their more upbeat numbers without a bummer to be seen.

Frenziedly pulling influences from all over the shelf marked “the last 50 years of pop-infused rock n’ roll”, the ‘Heats combination of ‘60s pop-sike baroque, breathless Sloan/Weezer-style power-pop, surf-rock dynamics and good-natured Nuggets goofery is an exultant expression of high wire walking musical synthesis, and their new LP “Cursed!” is a veritable belter. And if “Baby I’m An Existentialist” ends up sounding almost exactly like “Down & Out” by Camper Van Beethoven, and “All I Want” is The Modern Lovers’ “Someone I Care About” rewritten via The Seeds’ “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine”… well how can this possibly be anything other than a good thing? Originality is overrated.

The term ‘psychedelic pop’ gets thrown around so often these days it’s almost become offputting, usually just boiling down to the work of bedroom bore with too much gear who once heard an Olivia Tremor Control record. As such, it’s fucking great to hear such a strong, funny, talented band stepping up to the plate and just plain OWNING that once noble descriptor. See ‘em, hear ‘em, however you’re able.

It’s fair to say I think that The Specific Heats go down a storm, attracting one of the most enthusiastic crowds of the festival, but sadly their Indietracks set seems not to have made it onto youtube, a predicament thankfully not shared by The Loves, whom the festival programme informs me I went to see play next, so I’ll give you two videos of them to make up for it.



Ah, The Loves. I thought they were a triumph. I mean, I always think they’re a triumph. A triumph of ease over effort, of the obvious over the abstract.

The Loves are the kind of band who’d probably hire a manager just because it seems like the kind of thing a rock n’ roll band should do, and then said manager would sit around and get drunk, because who needs a ‘manager’ in this day and age? There’s a kind of genius at work in everything they do, I think. An understanding of the way pop greatness walks hand in hand with absurdity; a finely developed sense of Fowleyan tongue in cheek egotism.

All Simon Love wants to do is play old fashioned bubblegum rock n’ roll, to assume the moves appropriate to a purveyor of such, to make people dance and laugh. It’s not a hard concept to grasp, but people seem to have such trouble with it. I just don’t get people sometimes.

I don’t know if half the people who are even IN The Loves these days really appreciate the idea. It’s… it’s playtime, y’know? It’s FUN. It’s big, dainty glam-rock chords, and easy singalongs, and songs that sound quite a lot like other people’s songs. It’s like The Gentrys, y’know, or The Archies, Venus & The Razorblades, The Pooh Sticks. Rock n’ roll as a really great cartoon – but don’t cartoons just make the underlying qualities of things brighter, more obvious?

And this time, The Loves take the stage to the theme from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’! Simon wears a top hat, theatrical cape, shades and a rather misguided moustache! They have go-go dancers who do specially rehearsed interpretive routines to selected songs! They throw footballs into (more like ‘at’) the crowd (“like a cut price Flaming Lips”)! They play a thundering great version of The Velvets’ “Guess I’m Falling In Love”, amongst other things! Original Loves singer Liz, latterly of The School, comes back for a one time only appearance! They even do this kinda bizarre concept album story-song that involves that Bobby McGee bloke dressed in a white robe playing Jesus, delivering in-jokey pre-scripted dialogue, and I’m not driven to immediately flee the area – that’s how much I like The Loves.



Turned around after they’d finished, ready to exchange some “boy, that was great” type bonhomie, and it looked like the whole festival had temporarily buggered off. I just don’t get people sometimes.

The next thing I remember is seeing The Bettys again, playing an impromptu (kinda) acoustic set in the merch tent – perfect recreations of their hits on just a couple of borrowed guitars and a tambourine, with the tightly packed crowd helping the sound travel further by joining in and clapping along where needed. As with so many moments this weekend, the whole scene is just a uniquely happy and affirmative happenstance, cementing the festival beyond doubt as a triumph of the good & right. And hey, looks like this one made it to Youtube…



Next it’s back outside to where a dedicated cadre of true believers gather before the still largely deserted main stage to bear witness to The Cannanes, over on a rare visit from Australia, quickening the pulse rate of those loyal few who hold the band’s scattered and commercially unheralded discography in such reverence you’d think they pressed their records onto solid gold (or so I’m assuming).

I’ll admit, my Cannanes knowledge is as sparse as the crowd watching them; I have a few tracks by them on comps, which are all excellent, but the main weight of my liking for them currently rests upon the fact that whenever my flatmate Pete is spinning something wondrous-sounding and unidentified in the living room and I ask “what’s this”, the answer is often The Cannanes.

And indeed, The Cannanes – comprised here solely of core members Annabel Bleach and Stephen O’ Neil – sound wondrous. Hard to put into words quite how and why, but their music is of a quite different order to most of the groups I enjoyed at Indietracks. These songs are sparser, rawer, more serious of intent, although never earnest or lacking wit. Just a strummy guitar, a clear, ballsy singing voice, and songs that hurt and fascinate and question and chuckle darkly, like some kinda Richard & Linda Thompson raised on The Velvets and Beat Happening.

Can’t think of much more I can say without wider reference to their discography, but this was a strong, sharp and affecting performance of some brilliant songs, and I’m very glad I saw it.

Some blokes from Sarandon joined them to bulk up the sound for the last few songs, but with no disrespect to those guys, I liked the songs they did as a duo better.



Inevitably, there were some good bands I managed to miss during the course of Sunday. I’m sad I didn’t get to see frat party garage funsters The Millipedes play what was apparently their last ever show (I’ve had a half-finished review of their big box o’ singles sitting on my desktop for months, sorry Trev), and that I failed to catch The Blanche Hudson Weekend (I saw them at a warm up gig earlier the same week though, thought they were excellent).

Other bands I ended up just kinda half-seeing. I was walking back to the campsite for a shower and a bite to eat when Standard Fare came on on the outdoor stage, but no matter, they were mixed so loud I could hear ‘em perfectly most of the way. I may have found myself unable thus far to really connect with their album (“it’s good, but it’s not the one”, as the guy used to say on ‘Catchphrase), but they’re an excellent band, no question, and sound completely in their element on a big festival stage.

My biggest misstep of the day though was missing The Pooh Sticks. How did I manage that? I mean, I love The Pooh Sticks. Their Swansea-based (non)existence, and their album ‘The Great White Wonder’, hold a definite place in my personal mythology. This was “their” first public appearance in, like, nearly twenty years or something. It’s not like I was doing anything, y’know, important while they were playing. I was hanging around in the train-bar, barely feet away from the stage, drinking beer. I was having a nice time, sure, but when I saw happy faces emerge from the hanger, bearing placards reading “E=MC5”, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. These things happen at festivals, I know, but… I’m sad it worked out this way.

Here’s what I missed;



I could weep.

When The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart close the festival, I’m standing at the top of the slope overlooking the main stage, surveying the scene, sharing some whisky with a couple of friends. Now The Pains aren’t, like, my favourite band in the world or anything, far from it, but it’s going to be difficult writing about how beautiful their set here was. When I got carried away writing about their album last year, vis a vis my last few paragraphs, this was EXACTLY the vision I was seeing in my head.

The sun has set, and the moon is rising. There’s some cloud in the sky, but it’s still a perfect, mild summer’s evening. The air is still over the miles of fields and fences and neatly cultivated clumps of forest that stretch in every direction. It’s the midlands, flat and wide, and empty, and in the middle of it, there’s bright white and blue light (exactly the colours I mentally associate with this band, weirdly enough), there’s a gigantic PA, and…. well it could be any number of bands playing to be honest, any number of variations of noisy rock n’ roll, but this time it’s The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, and that’s just fine. They’re happy to be here, and they’re discovering maybe for the first time, that their band is a flat-out perfect festival headlining act, and they're just fucking killing it, sending blissful, electrifying distortion echoing for miles across the empty English countryside. Not a corporate logo in sight, or a security guard, or any reason to need one – this whole edifice built on DIY culture, enthusiasm and mutual friendship. Opening song: ‘This Love Is Fucking Right’. Halfway through their set I’m almost crying. This is what it’s all about, surely? The reason why we all do this stuff that we do? Standing in the middle of nowhere, hearing that noise hit those empty spaces.

People down by the stage are dancing and hugging, and it’s the festival’s big finale, but me, I’m just dumbstruck.



That’s ya big kiss-off moment of course, but the night is far from over. Down at one of the marquees, Birmingham DJ Attagirl is playing the flat out perfect DJ set for myself and my assorted friends to bond over. Girl-centric cult ‘90s indie? Oh, go on then. There’s still probably someone somewhere waking up screaming at night, having witnessed my reactions to hearing “Nightlife” by Kenickie and “Kandy Pop” by Bis.

At some point after that, we have a running race. There is a great spirit of camaraderie on the last tractor-land-train thing back to the campsite, stragglers leaping onto the runningboard and being pulled on-board. It probably would have been easier to walk, but it’s a lot of fun. Back at camp, conceptually unsavoury London night Crimes Against Pop is holding sway at the disco, so we hang out outside instead, banging steel picnic tables, making our own songs.

For me, the real end of the festival comes sometime between 3 and 4am, when The Sock Puppets and their retinue play a ‘secret gig’ in the tent of a guy with an acoustic guitar who invited everyone back to his tent and promptly fell asleep. They’re belting out their hits at the top of their lungs, and it’s sounding brilliant, when, inevitably, men with torches are banging on the tent, telling us to pack it in.

“Now, now” says the man from the campsite, “you girls have got lovely voices and everything, but it’s pretty late, y’know, and we’ve got a lot of families trying to sleep up in the top field, so if you could just keep it down to a manageable level…” – once again, I am almost moved to tears by the sheer NICENESS of this reaction to our heinous, drunken noise pollution.

Stumbling back toward our own encampment, we see a grumpy looking man sitting awake outside his tent. “Was it you lot singing those songs?”, he asks. Yeah, sorry, we reply. “No, it was good, I really enjoyed it, thanks” he says, and wishes us goodnight.

Goodnight to you too, Indietracks – hands down the best festival I’ve ever attended.

Labels: Betty And The Werewolves, festivals, Indietracks, live reviews, MJ Hibbett, Standard Fare, The Cannanes, The Loves, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, The Pooh Sticks, The Specific Heats

Indietracks 2010:
Friday & Saturday.

The Midlands Railway Centre at Swanwick, which hosts the Indietracks festival each year, is perhaps the most quintessentially midlands place on the face of the earth. Though a beautiful and remote spot by most people’s definition, it’s not really ‘beautiful’ in the sense of the more rugged and intimidating terrain that dominates more coastal areas of our land. A supremely quiet and orderly piece of countryside, it speaks of a benevolent idyll where the trains and canals run side by side, where the farmers grow their crops in neat, symmetrical rows and the cows only shit at night when nobody’s looking.

It’s a deeply comforting, reality-defying kind of beauty that people in this part of the world seem to fight hard to maintain against the imposition of chaos – a sort of Victorian biscuit tin beauty made real through sheer determination, if you like. And with the idea of ‘Victorian biscuit tin beauty’ very much falling in line with the original, correct (pre-musical; pejorative) usage of the term ‘twee’, the essential connection between the location and the nature of the festival it is hosting becomes inescapable.

I’ve not met or spoken to the founders/organisers of Indietracks, so am unable to qualify my assumptions, but it seems the brainwave that originally brought together a midlands heritage railway and the reserved, nostalgic sound of jangly ‘80s-vintage British indie presupposes certain values. Modesty; decorum; gentle good humour; tweed trousers; a nice pint of ale to sip contentedly after a hard day’s cycling; that sort of thing.

As such, I can’t help but wonder how the event’s founders feel as the festival has grown, the music has become more varied and the provision of food, accommodation, entertainment and amplification has expanded dramatically (apparently the first event four years ago attracted 150 attendees, now it’s somewhere in the region of several thousand)… all leading to a perilously un-twee situation wherein surly reprobates like me find themselves in attendance, demanding the opportunity to guzzle whiskey and leap about like baboons through the early hours. What would Morrissey say?

Seriously though, I hope no one minds. I hope there’s no lovable middle-aged fellow with authentic ‘60s patches on his jacket elbows, looking on with his head in his hands as bands start plugging in distortion pedals and his beloved railway is reduced to a zone of moderate racket and borderline impoliteness. If he is out there somewhere, he can rest easy in the knowledge that he’s still helped create what is surely the most friendly and enjoyable festival experience in the British Isles, and still run with a more genuine sense of camaraderie and respect for DIY ethics than any event I’ve ever attended.

Looking at the composition of the attendees is kinda interesting, I think. Leaving aside the fact that I seem to know about a third of ‘em, by sight if not by name, there does seem to be a noticeable disjuncture between the classicist indie-poppers crudely stereotyped above (sorry guys, I love ya really), and others whom you might call, well…. I’ve never considered the term before, but sort of hardcore indie kids, y’know? The ‘90s-raised lifers who’ve kept the faith in the badges, the big glasses, the messy hair, the reverence for Kenickie…. my people, in short, whether I like it or not. They’re a good bunch. It’s a lovely feeling, realising you’ll be able to turn around at pretty much any point this weekend and engage the person behind you in conversation about, I dunno, Urusei Yatsura or something. Odd that it’s the former contingent who seem to be making most of the fanzines these days, but there ya go.

ANYWAY, enough offensive generalising about other people’s cultural backgrounds, let’s get down to business.

Lackadaisical travel planning means that most of myself and most of my companions end up missing the bands on Friday night, but that’s ok, there are only three of them. (Veronica Falls are great, but I’ve seen ‘em loads of times; Allo Darling can go suck a fuck for more reasons than I can bother listing here; Eddie Argos’s Everyone Was In TheFrench Resistence..NOW thing worked a lot better as a funny press release than a record.)



So, SATURDAY;

I didn’t actually manage to catch Glasgow’s The Felt Tips, but having seen them at the warm up gig they played with us on the Thursday, I’d like to throw ‘em a mention, and I’m confident that they were indeed pretty good. Happily generic indie-poppy type stuff really, but their classically twangy lead guitar lines, strong songs and big, melodic bass give things a pleasantly Teenage Fanclub-ish feel, if you’ll excuse the regional stereotyping. Nice stuff, and you’ll remember what I said about the virtues of being nice earlier this month.

There is a definite disparity at Indietracks between the two main stages (which are quite big festival stages), and the church, which is inexcusably tiny, with a maximum capacity of about a hundred and one-in/one-out operating thereafter. It does have the obvious advantage of being a wonderfully creepy/picturesque (delete as applicable) railwayman’s chapel, allowing for a pub gig intimacy and fantastic straight-from-the-amps sound that slays the other stages, but still… the lack of any medium-sized venue is somewhat to the festival’s detriment when more popular bands scheduled to play in there have more punters queuing outside than enjoying the performance.

Nonetheless, I make it in there just in time to catch Foxes!, from Brighton I think, a band I’ve been hearing good things about for a long while, and… well everyone else I spoke to thought they were great, but I was a bit disappointed to be honest. Their sound was a bit thin for my tastes, and their songs seemed fussy and over-complicated, with the hard work of rendering them accurately serving to strip the performance of the kind of ramshackle joy one would assume to be the point of starting a band called Foxes! who record goofy song cycles about sailors.

Oh, but how I wish any of that could be said of the next band on, some bunch of chancers called The Give It Ups, who with their foul attitude of entitlement and pauper’s disregard for musical syntax can only be assumed to have got on the bill through bribery, blackmail or begging. Honestly, this one guy hammers away on a bass through half the songs like he thought it was a tennis racket, they repeatedly use the f-word before a mixed audience, and their lyrics variously invoke mythical beasts and promote larceny, slothfulness and envy. That they were allowed to sully the air of a House of God with their impudent assaults on conventional harmonics and good sense speaks of a loathsome miscalculation on the part of the schedulers, and one that I trust will not be repeated in future.



By the time Betty & The Werewolves come on, the queue outside the church looks to have reached Soviet Union bread-line proportions, and we only get to witness proceedings by hiding to the side of the, er, altar and bothering the photographers. And lord, what can I possibly say about The Bettys by this point? I’ve seen their set so many times it should be a matter of routine, but every time it just seems to get better – faster, more joyous, more rocking, more varied, more exuberant - and in these happy circumstances they’re on absolutely top form, with choice album cuts like “Purple Eyes” and “Heathcliff” sounding just as incomparably great as their super-hit singles. They’re simply a brilliant, brilliant band, and it’s a privilege to be able to exist in the same time and place as them.



Over on the big, unavoidably echoy shed/hanger stage meanwhile (be sure to stand centre stage at the front if you value the sound of properly differentiated instruments), New York’s Boy Genius precede to blow me away for the second time in a week. Looking like one of the bands from Scott Pilgrim come to life, Boy Genius demonstrate perfect timing in breaking out the absolute perfect end credits music for that comic’s recently published final volume with their sickeningly anthemic “Ramona Saves The Day”, and their mixture of starry-eyed jangle-pop exuberance, late-period Husker Du tuneage and full-on Crazy Horse guitar heroics again proves about a thousand times more exhilarating than a New York indie-pop group called ‘Boy Genius’ might reasonably be expected to be.



Brad from One Happy Island proves to be the most kick-ass bass player I’ve seen in recently memory, while the lead guitarist’s Cave Weddings-esque twangy riffs are a total joy, the drummer really kicks it too, and… well shit, they’re just one of those infuriating bands where EVERYONE’S really great. I dunno if their stuff would quite do it for me in cleaner, recorded form, but here, with a third guitarist guesting from OG indiepoppers Miracle Legion, Boy Genius speed over over the line from ‘pretty good’ to ‘KIN AWESOME, ending their set with a veritable guitarpocalypse that must have some onlookers worrying over precisely how much rocking constitutes too much at an indie-pop festival.

Fun and accessible and genuinely pretty great, I’d be tempted to single out Boy Genius as likely recipients of Pains OBPAH style hugeness by this time next year, were it not for the fact that few punters I spoke to afterwards seemed quite as enthused by them as me – oh well, who cares, I mean it’s not like I’ve ever been much of an arbiter of public taste.

I think I headed back to the campsite at this point in proceedings for a shower and a bite to eat, and to be honest, the rest of Saturday is a bit of a blur – I don’t think I managed to see any more bands for more than a minute or two. I remember stating my disinclination to bother watching The Primitives, only to exclaim “oh my god, I never knew they did THIS FUCKING TUNE!” when they launched into their big hit – y’know, that great “shut, shut your mouth” number from every indie disco ever? Clearly that’s a way good song. I always thought it was some one hit wonder band from the ‘90s who did it. I think maybe I was confusing The Primitives with The Barracudas or something? Who knows – too late to rectify my mistake now.

Speaking of indie discos, much of the fun I had at Indietracks consisted of leaping around to the various post-bands DJ sets. With friendly faces always within sight, a steady supply of alcohol, cool summers evenings, an endlessly happy atmosphere and a variety of reliable sorts spinning fun tunes, the festival makes for a pretty perfect atmosphere for late night dancing and later night campsite shenanigans, and it would be wrong of me not to at least mention the highlights.

I very much enjoyed the way the weird acoustics in the big shed managed to make familiar tunes sound like a storm of noise as soon as the DJs took over and tried to push things up to club night volume. I don’t remember what they played so much, but the preponderance of random, reverberating racket with a bass line certainly got me going.

Following that, Ian from How Does It Feel’s ‘60s soul special over in one of the marquee tents was absolutely bloody magnificent. I’ve always thought Ian is a fine DJ with a great ear for throwing together totally unexpected combinations of killer tunes, and let off the hook here without needing to play the bloody Smiths or something every ten minutes, his set is an absolute blast, drawn primarily from the seemingly endless well of guaranteed party-starting obscurist soul cuts, mixed with the plenty of straight up classics, plus occasional diversions into girl group, rock n’ roll and ye ye…. every tune I didn’t recognise was of course totally killer, but it was a such a joy when something like “Give Him a Great Big Kiss” or Otis Redding’s “Shout Bama-Lama” hoved into view. Just the absolute BEST time, as far as myself and my poorly synchronised feet are concerned. I think I made it through all two hours near continuously, switching between groups of friends as circumstances demanded. Fun.



Back at the campsite, an unpromisingly named crew called “Feeling Gloomy” wisely decide that trying to score cool points off a dwindling gang of early hours drunkards looking for any reason not to return to their uncomfortable tents is probably a bad idea, and give us what seems like hours of collective memory singalong goofery to Weezer and Fleetwood Mac and god only know what else. Somewhat brilliantly, as the night drags on the sound system begins to fail, fizzing in and out of hearing as if the moss and mud of the forest has started to infiltrate the speakers, leading to a situation where uncertain revellers are forced to try and make their own way through a barely audible mid-section of “Born To Run” before the sound crackles back in a bit for the chorus. Things get pretty weird after that, with the volume coming and going, the numbers thinning, the speed of dancing slowing to a zombie-like crawl and the music deteriorating…. I think I bail at about 3:30 when I can’t take it anymore.

The two guys in the burger van outside are still up, waiting for business, grinning gap-toothedly into the moonlight as the darkness of the woods closes in. Not to seem unkind, but judging by the look in their eyes, I don’t think I’d trust them to provide me with a snickers bar. Never mind, I've got some biscuits back at the shack. Man, what an awesome festival.

Sunday review coming as soon as I’ve written it.

Labels: Betty And The Werewolves, Boy Genius, festivals, Foxes, Indietracks, live reviews, The Felt Tips, Veronica Falls

Birthday.




Thanks Pete!

(You can catch up on parts 1 and 2 here and here.)

Labels: Betty And The Werewolves, birthday, comics

Plug.



Don't suppose I have any readers in the Cambridge area (as far as I know), but thought I'd stick this up just because it's by far the best poster that's ever been done for a gig I've been involved in, and it's a real thrill to playing with Betty & The Werewolves twice during July.

Proper new posts coming literally, like, tomorrow, by the way.

Labels: Betty And The Werewolves, posters, self promotion

SINGLES!
March/April/May ’09, Part # 1:

Look at all the little things I've found to fill my shoeboxes with! In alphabetical order from A to E, part #2 coming soon-ish...


The Bats / Songs split EP
(The Spring Press)

Well, what a coincidence – there I was eulogising The Bats but a couple of posts back, and here’s a brand new 7” from them, split with Australian (I think?) band Songs.

True to their status as a working definition of consistency in pop music, The Bats side is sublime. “Castle Lights” is the slower of the two songs, with violin and an honest-to-god harp helping to intensify the stately ‘great plains’ ambience the band has grown into over the years.“Under The Branches” is a tad jauntier; yet another text-book jangle-pop killer that they could have recorded any time in the past twenty five years really – all constituent parts are present and correct, and a fine time is had by every instrument in this band’s steady hands. Now that they are out and about again, touring and such, I would commend anyone playing in one of the many bands who seem to be going for a ‘classic indie-pop’ kinda sound to listen, listen, listen to The Bats, and hopefully learn something.

Songs stab at the big-time meanwhile begins with a largely instrumental number showcasing a mixture of instinctive, motorik drumming, surfy, post-punk derived guitar & bass and spacey organ-drone that puts me strongly in mind of early Electrelane. Really nice actually, especially when the chanted, phone-number-as-mantra vocal comes in and the music builds up around it – good stuff. Their other song by contrast is a slightly drippy male-voiced reverby acoustic thing. It’s ok, but a tad forgettable. Overall, sounds like a band worth keeping an ear on.

http://www.myspace.com/thebatsnz
http://www.myspace.com/ssongsssongs
http://www.myspace.com/thespringpress

Betty & The Werewolves – David Cassidy
(Damaged Goods)

Ok, so clearly regular readers will already know that I love this single dearly. My main purpose in writing this is to remind you that it exists. Boy, is it ever a good one though! A sweet story of old fashioned pop star obsession, international plane flight, dreams fulfilled etc., staring an archetypal British girl and everybody’s mum’s favourite 70s crooner, all set to gleeful, breakneck-speed girly singalong punk rock. Great to hear a good bit of storytelling creeping into such fast and furious music too; “Los Angeles is a long way from Ryslip, they told me so!” Brilliant!

My friend told me that this song has a line about masturbation, but honest to god, I’ve listened to the lyrics very closely, and I still can’t hear it. It all sounds quite wonderfully innocent to me. Please tell me there’s not some sleazy sub-text running through the whole thing that I’m missing.

But, uh, anyway, I got a special Betty & The Werewolves pencil when I bought my copy of this single off them. Maybe you will too! It’s on sparkly pink vinyl as well. Great! I hope I’m selling it to you here. Something still has to be number # 1 in this era when nobody buys records anymore, so let’s make it Betty & The Werewolves!

http://www.myspace.com/bettyandthewerewolves
http://www.damagedgoods.co.uk/

The Bombettes – What’s Cooking Good Looking? EP
(Ny Vag / Wasted Sounds)

Look out guys, here come The Bombettes! Five more tough gurls straight outta Sweden, a land where I can well imagine school careers advisors counsel kids from a young age on the right choice of tight jeans and Fenders, gently pushing each teenager towards the one precisely designated aspect of Anglo-American rock n’ roll culture that suits him/her best, all in order that they might eventually make a one-off 7” which will inevitably find it’s way into the singles racks at All Ages Records in Camden where, about two years after the recording date, I will glance at the cover for a couple of seconds, think “wow, this looks great”, and proceed to swell the coffers of the Swedish recording industry to the tune of a five pounds, before taking it home and being slightly underwhelmed. At least, I think that’s how it works. I’m not so hot on the finer points of international commerce.

Anyway, true to form, the first time I played the Bombettes record, I was pretty underwhelmed. Unerwhelmed by its ruthless efficiency and it’s manifest lack of charm or ideas. Underwhelmed by its strict adherence to a sound akin to early Blondie after a spell at The Hives’ high-energy garage-pop bootcamp. Underwhelmed by its hectoring, over-enunciated faux-punk vocals and dumb-ass lyrics, and underwhelmed by the extent to which it’s very existence is so evidently surplus to the requirements of anyone who once heard a Sahara Hotnights record.

BUT, then I played it a second time, this time in company after a couple of beers, and things changed. It’s true genius became evident to all. This instant change of heart was clear right from the outset, as opening track ‘The Thief’ kicked in with The Bombettes singing “I stole a look from you / while dancing to The Who! / Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” about twenty times in a row. Wow, what a great song! You can probably guess what the accompanying music sounds like without any help from me, but by this stage I was actually starting to enjoy the way it bludgeons one into submission, a theme which is more overtly discussed on the curiously bracketed ‘I Wanna (Kick your Ass)’. Herein The Bombettes sing “I wanna kick your ass, because you’ve got a nice ass!” about twenty times in a row. “You came along / I wrote this song / now I sing it / all night long!” they add by way of clarification. There aren’t many other words. You’ll be singing it all night long too if you’re not careful.

After that, they turn their attention to the ‘Dating Scene’, observing: “I’m bored /
You’re not good enough / I’m bored / And your record collection is too small / I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored / I’m so fucking bored”.

See what I mean? Genius!

http://www.myspace.com/thebombettes
http://www.myspace.com/nyvagrecords

Cheeky Cheeky & The Nosebleeds – You Let Me Go(Twenty Years of Boredom)

Hmm, what have we here? A silly band name and a cover like a Hefner record that’s gone psychotic…. looks like it’s signed by some people too; the band, presumably. Any bets on what might be found within? Let’s have a listen, shall we!

The answer is: two two minute slabs of perfectly decent, trebley indie-punk; nervous verses and pounding, singalong choruses as the martial rhythm section pound on ahead of the choppy, Strokes-y downstroke guitar licks and groovy, surfy lead riffs; the singer howls distraught in high register with a slight cockney twang. Unhappy lyrics about girls. I quite like it!

Basically these guys sound like the winners in a secondary schools Pete & The Pirates impersonation contest, but c’mon, that’s nothing to be ashamed of! Either side of this could prove a right belter in thirty years time, when ‘00s indie becomes a long lost collector’s cult, and people start compiling it on teenage wasteland-focused ‘Back From The Grave’ type albums, revelling in the sound of these mad kids of yesteryear working out their girl troubles on guitars in a way that all this wimpy, smartarse 2030s music just can’t compete with, goddamnit.

Looks like they’ve renamed themselves “The Cheeks” since this single. I’m not sure if that’s an improvement name-wise, or even worse.

http://www.myspace.com/cheekynosebleeds

Comet Gain – Herbert Hunke / No Spotlite on Sometime
(Germs of Youth)

“Coming in, tuning in on Comet Gain as they sing their favourite song, Herbert Hunke” says a guy who I think must be world’s angriest millionaire Christopher Appelgren, last heard signing off CG’s immortal ‘Ballad of a Mixtape’, “..they ask him for bread, and he doesn’t know what bread is, but you do, you understand..”. Don’t we just. Thus begins a definitively shambolic live-in-studio wouldbe-Velvets jam of a rendition of David Feck’s tribute to beat poet/associate Hunke, the ‘real life criminal’ said to have inspired much of Kerouac and Ginsberg’s drug/outlaw shtick. The song lopes along pretty painfully, lacking the declamatory energy it’s had at recent gigs, but hey, fans of this band have long learned to accept that perfection is scarcely the point. ‘Hunke’ catches Feck at his most audacious/arrogant/vital/obsolescent/sloppy/boorish/ wonderful (delete as applicable), and your enjoyment will largely hinge on whether or not you’re able to stomach a good dose of ‘Sister Ray’ street jive play-acting, as an old-enough-to-know-better British bloke proudly declaims lines like “motherfucker, where is my bread / you’ll get it off my eyes when I’m dead”, and “my name is Herbert Hunke / poet bum, majestic junkie”. As you could probably have guessed, I can stomach it just fine.

Diehard indie-poppers wondering why they’re being subjected to this rubbish though need only flip the disc to be soothed by “No Spotlite on Sometimes”, latest in a long and beautiful line of defiant/despairing Gain-ballads, guitar jangle glowing & fizzing out like cigarettes thrown into the 3AM ocean in slo-mo; sobering sea breeze on your face. Another lament for chances blown, dying romance, fading stars, rendered with a force that can claw these things back from cliché, from fiction back into reality, the way that only this band can (even if that’s the opposite of what they managed to achieve on the A-side). “Some whisky, some old friends, some rock n’ roll disease”; “I loved you, I existed, underneath these eyes”. Heartbreaking. A welcome reminder of why we all need this band in our lives still, and why I’ll fight anyone who suggests otherwise.

This one's limited to about 300 or something I think, and seems to be available solely via Pure Groove. Beautiful sleeve, and insert full of reprocessed photographic pathos, random poetical scrawl and warped declarations etc, as per usual. An artefact worthy of anyone’s time/money.

http://www.myspace.com/thecometgain
http://www.myspace.com/germsofyouth

Cyanide Pills – Break It Up
(Damaged Goods)

A debut single’s worth of red leather & skinny jean clad punky power-pop direct from Leeds Rock City, courtesy of Damaged Goods.

I don’t have much to say about this one, except that it’s totally great!

If you like The Undertones, The Rezillos and The Adverts, you know what you’ll be getting here, and it feels good, like suddenly finding yourself pogoing in comfy slippers in some stale lager-stinking basement.

And if you don’t like The Undertones, the Rezillos and The Adverts, well… clearly I do not care to listen to your dumb-ass opinions! Scram fool, I’ve got jumpin’ and “whoa-oh-oh!”ing to do! TWO THUMBS UP for Cyanide Pills. Going to see these guys play would be a fun evening for sure – I hope I get a chance to do so at some point.

http://www.myspace.com/thecyanidepills
http://www.damagedgoods.co.uk/

Electrocute – On The Beat
(Germs Of Youth)

On the same label as the Comet Gain single, with artwork by David Feck, so I thought I might as well pick it up at the same time. And so, well, uh, bloody hell! It seems this is some kind of superslick, sugar rush electroclash/big beat party song with saucy lyrics about hotpants that sounds like Bis being remixed via Beck’s Midnight Vultures! Not what I was expecting at all! Funnily enough, it features a special appearance by one Jerry Waronker, who I seem to recall was a sideman on the Beck albums…? What the hell is up with this thing? Away with you, Electrocute! Go dance into the record collection of somebody who likes The Go Team! Stop trying to make me be happy and exercise, it’s Sunday night and it’s not fucking going to work!

Against all the odds, b-side “Bad Legs” actually goes down a lot better. It’s, I dunno…. it’s shorter for one thing, and it’s punkier, with gutsier vocals and a better tune – not too bad at all really. Sounds a bit like Brassy, if you remember them. Ho hum.

http://www.myspace.com/electrocute
http://www.myspace.com/germsofyouth

Labels: Betty And The Werewolves, Cheeky Cheeky and the Nosebleeds, Comet Gain, Cyanide Pills, Electrocute, singles reviews, Songs, The Bats, The Bombettes

Monday November 24th
Those Dancing Days play at Goldsmiths Student Union.



Tuesday November 25th
'breakfast in the ruins' posts on the Plan B forum:

"Wow, Those Dancing Days were FANTASTIC last night! One of the best live bands I’ve seen in ages…. If there’s one thing I don’t like about their records (and that’s a big IF) it’s that they’re a tad over-produced, so I’m so, so glad to have seen them totally rocking all those incredible songs live to a half empty hall of about a hundred students (and about eight people over twenty sticking out like sore thumbs) on a freezing Monday midnight. As is obvious from the records, their drummer is INCREDIBLE – she looks about twelve and rocks out like John Bonham doing session work for ’80s Madonna. And the rest of ‘em are no slouches either – not much in the way of show(wo)manship, but that’s fine with me since they’re busy playing the living hell out of their songs and looking like they’re loving every second of it. The intro to every single song, even album tracks and b-sides, got an immediate “yes! I love this song!” reaction from me and/or others in the crowd, and it’s the first gig I’ve been to for ages that had a proper, spontaneous encore. Not to mention dancing on a Monday night. Shrug ‘em off if you like, but in their own way Those Dancing Days are DIY as fuck – no gimmicks or hype bullshit or pandering to genre/gender/age-based preconceptions, just five cool, characterful girls working hard to make the biggest, best, skyscraping, optimistic pop music they can imagine. WOW. Dear Diary, I LOVE THIS BAND SO MUCH, etc.

The gig seemed to be running on East London Time, so I didn't get home on the buses until 2ish and feel like I just done got up and died on the spot this morning, but, wow, it was worth it."

Mp3> Those Dancing Days – I Know Where You Live


Friday November 28th
Shrag and The Loves play at The Buffalo Bar.

(I didn’t get a chance to write anything about this one, but rest assured both bands were really terrific, and I had a great time.)


Monday December 1st
Hotpants Romance play at The Windmill, supported by The Understudies, Horowitz and The Give It Ups.


(Headliners Cars Can Be Blue had to pull out because, appallingly, UK customs wouldn’t let them into the country and kept them detained for 48 hours. Can you believe that..? Fucking hell.)

Tuesday December 2nd
'breakfast in the ruins' posts on the Plan B forum:

"So I had a fantastic time at the gig last night.... attendance was pretty low, I guess what with the headliners having cancelled, the fact it was a freezing Monday etc., but the folks who were there brought a great atmosphere with them (talk about cliquey - I think I knew nearly everyone in the room, by sight if not necessarily by name :D ).

Hotpants Romance were an absolute inspiration! Proof positive that knowing how to play and fretting (no pun intended) about tuning and guitar sounds etc. doesn't matter a DAMN so long as you've got the energy and smarts to get on stage and just *be awesome*.

They're like Swell Maps if they were girls and didn't bother with all the arty stuff, or like early Magik Markers if they were a pop band, or..... actually, no, those are crap comparisons! They're like the Ramones is what they're like! Really, really early, pre-first album Ramones, before they got their shit together and when they used to argue between each song about what they were gonna play next. I guess that all sounds kinda patronising, but...uh... IT'S NOT; in my world at least, this makes for a totally radical band of the highest order. And their songs are amazing too - I mean, obviously they've got their whole trashy pop-punk thing down, but they've also got a really odd, sweet, kinda introspective angle on things, ala The Marine Girls - just killer, real life sentiments expressed in as few words as possible - wow.

I lent the guitarist the only plectrum I own, and she never gave it back, so now I'll have to take a special trip out to a guitar shop to get some more. But no matter - as a hopeless fanboy, I'm honoured to have been of service.

It was great to catch up with Horowitz too – those guys are heroes. So dedicated to what they do. That being: loud guitars, beautiful melodies, geeky references, choruses designed to make me melt. Heartfelt, homemade power-pop. Fantastic, as it always has been and always will be.

Vivian Girls tonight - what a great eight days it's been, musically speaking!"

Mp3> Hotpants Romance – Blow My Fuse
Mp3> Horowitz – I Need A Blanket


Tuesday December 2nd
The Vivian Girls play at The Windmill, supported by The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Betty & The Werewolves and The Bridport Daggers.



Wednesday December 3rd
'breakfast in the ruins' begins typing the following into the “reply” box on the Plan B Forum, but thinks better of actually posting it:

"Vivian Girls were stunning last night. They were so loud! My ears are wrecked this morning. Every time I move my jaw distant bells start ringing. It was so incredible to stand at the front and let those amazing songs just envelop me completely. And they have *so many* amazing songs - loads of new ones that aren't on the album. They're such an incredible presence on stage too; I was kinda worried that maybe it would be a case of the real life band being crushed by the expectation that all the hype has thrown their way, but they're such a positive, relentless force, such a massive noise, so determined to smash their songs into everyone's heads, it's just... [speechless].

I love their album to death, but now it just sounds like some muffled reflection of their actual reality. Maybe it was just all the noise and excitement, but when they played "Tell The World", I got kinda religious and started thinking, ok, y’know, this actually everything I love and strife for and believe in, *happening right in front of me*. My own personal vision of God, if you will. It was probably the closest I’ve felt to heaven for many months.

Beat THAT for hype.

And they didn’t even play “Where Do You Run To”!

Obviously Betty & The Werewolves were fantastic in support too, and should not be overshadowed; bouncing around to their set was an absolute blast. They’re such a perfectly realized band – every song just an absolute femme-punk gem at hardcore tempo with radical riffs and guitar breaks, frenzied rhythm strumming, sweet harmony vocals.... wow. Also, much respect to the bass/lead vocals werewolf for her carefree pogoing. She’s quite tall, and the stage at The Windmill is pretty small, and a bass guitar is a big thing to swing around in mid-air, so it must take some serious dedication on her part to the noble art of jumping up and down. I mean, I was playing in the same spot the previous evening, and if my feet had left the ground I suspect a catastrophic pile-up of leads, band members and equipment would have been the immediate and ugly result, so that in itself is fairly awe-inspiring.


Anyway, it’s an absolute travesty that circumstances have contrived to make this only the SECOND of the many, many gigs Betty & The Werewolves have been playing this year that I’ve actually been able to witness. I’m definitely gonna have to make a more concerted effort in future. Any Londoners reading, take heed – these guys are the best band in town, and every day that passes on before you go to see them is a day wasted. Thank them in your prayers tonight.

This year’s indie-pop new big things The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart were a late addition to the bill after their support slot with The Wedding Present got cancelled, and they were pretty good too I guess. They’ve definitely got a more powerful sound going on than most other “indie pop next big things” I could mention, but, like many current Amerindie bands, it’s maybe a tad too slick for my tastes. They sound kinda like they’ve started work from a blueprint of *exactly* what they want their band to sound like – in this case, variations on MBV’s “Paint A Rainbow” with arch, Interpol-ish vocals and hypnotic spacerock basslines – then practiced like fuck and tweaked members, equipment, songs etc. until they’ve got it DOWN, then hit the road/studio and waited for the love to roll on in. Admittedly, it’s a great blueprint, so if my brief X+Y=Z above floats your particular boat, well, get on down to the harbour, cos they do it better than anyone, and their set is very enjoyable, but…. y’know. It don’t touch base with my soul. I’m probably just being unduly cynical though really – I ended up having a brief chat to the singer/guitarist afterwards, and he seems a really good guy. I’m sure they’re actually as genuine in their intentions as any other band, and I shouldn't leap to such foolish music journo-ish assumptions.

Opening act The Bridport Daggers were pretty cool too actually, if perhaps a tad out of place on this line-up (and out of place is as good a place to be as any). Chiming, overdriven guitars, twisted Scientists-esque swamp-rock racket, vicious rockabilly rhythms, two guitars and no bass - good stuff.

What a fantastic evening of deafening, joyful music."

Mp3>The Vivian Girls – Tell The World
(I’d post a tune by Betty & The Werewolves, except they’ve only put out that one 7”, and I don't have a digital version.)

….

And I just got myself a ticket to see Mika Miko headline a late-running seven band bill in Stoke Newington next Friday …. I’m psyched to have gotten a chance to finally see them! So that makes what, six amazing female-led punk and/or pop bands in the space of a fortnight…? Will my fragile heart be able to stand it?? – watch this space.

Labels: Betty And The Werewolves, gurls, Horowitz, Hotpants Romance, live reviews, pop, punk, The Bridport Daggers, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, The Vivian Girls, Those Dancing Days

SINGLES ROUND-UP 2008:
PART ONE

A whole lot of 45s have come into my possession since I did my last singles round-up. Which is great news. Keep ‘em coming, world!

Not all of these were released in 2008, or even 2007, but all of them were puchased from shops or merch tables, or in some cases were even sent to me for review (for which thanks), during 2008, so they make the cut.

Let’s fire-up the turntable and get cracking!

Bad Reaction – Plastic World EP (Flat Black)

Yeah, I'll admit it, I mainly bought this one for the cover art. As it turns out though, it’s a cracking good bit of good-time hardcore (as opposed to the more prevalent strain of misery-guts hardcore), rather reminiscent of the Ramones circa ‘Too Tough To Die’ in it’s slower moments, moving toward generic drill sergeant style ‘core when it picks up speed. So: YEAH! ‘Hate My Job’ wins instant credit by starting with a lengthy sample from Repo Man (the scene where Otto gets sacked from the supermarket), and is almost my favourite tune here, beaten into second place by heartfelt relationship rant ‘The Truth’, which is startlingly good. I was pretty alarmed though to hear them launching into a chant of “Studying God’s words / fills me with the feeling / drink beers, stomp queers / dance with the heathens” on the song ‘Keep Your God Out Of My Peanut Butter’. Consulting the lyrics sheet, I learn the song is a Jello-esque sarcastic tirade against some breed of homophobic, Xtian mosh-pit invaders who have clearly been getting Bad Reaction’s goat, or something. So fair enough, but guys, if you’re gonna tour the world’s stages busting out stuff like that, you might want to make your intentions a little clearer lest people get the wrong end of the stick.

http://www.myspace.com/badreaction
http://www.myspace.com/flatblackrecords

Betty & The Werewolves – Euston Station (Damaged Goods)

The debut single from one of my favouritest new London bands, and it is a certified WINNER. A flat-out, romantic and furious punk-pop ode to tender moments and frustrating hold-ups in one of the capital’s less appealing transport hubs, perfectly executed with frantic racing-the-last-bus energy, a killer lead guitar hook and the kind of beautifully catchy harmony vocals that most bands these days just can’t be bothered to get right. Instant classic, and it’s great to finally have it pressed on a record so I don’t have to find their myspace again whenever I want to hear it. “I don’t want dinner and a movie / I just want something that’ll move me!” Too fucking right. B-side ‘Wind-Up’ is great too, taking a slightly choppier Elastica-y approach. SINGLE OF THE YEAR, no jive.

http://www.myspace.com/bettyandthewerewolves
http://www.damagedgoods.co.uk/

The Budget Girls – Get In Your Ear EP (Damaged Goods)

An unintentional glimpse at another side of the Damaged Goods catalogue of recorded hits, this one actually dates from 1996(!) according to the label on the disc, although I picked it up from All Ages Records in Camden just this weekend, so who knows/cares. Featuring two wanton women shrieking over competent backing from some garage rock boys, it’s a fair bet that Billy Childish knocked this one out when he had a spare weekend and couldn’t round up Thee Headcoatees. The a-capella ‘Go Away Geek’, on which they yell incoherent insults at some boy who wants them to play D&D and surf the net is an obvious highlight, as are the funny liner notes.

The Cat Burglars – Holy Shit EP (Tooth Decay)

Seven whole slabs of beer-fuelled punk rock mayhem of the best possible kind is what’s on the menu here, flipping the bird at any lamo scene designations and just kicking some ass: sloppy, loud, unpretentious and totally obnoxious, with real-time banter between songs suggesting they booked 30 minutes studio time and just laid it down in one go. Cuts like ‘I Hate My Job’ and ‘Your Girlfriend’s A Dumbass’ are pretty self-explanatory (wouldn’t it be great to find some punk band sang about enjoying their jobs for once?), but ‘S.P.’ is a little more unexpected; “Baby baby, you’re my kinda girl / you can really help me hate the world / even though we never met / I’m in love with you, Sylvia Plath!” Ha! You know what, I think I really dig these guys.

http://www.myspace.com/catburglars
http://www.myspace.com/toothdecayrecords

Congregation – Don’t Pay No Mind (Velo)

I won’t say too much about this one now, because I’m planning a review of Congregation’s album and don’t want to repeat myself, but needless to say, this is some vitally genuine, minimal electric blues right here – not ‘genuine’ in the sense of paying cack-handed homage to some never-existed traffic jam of blues cliché, but genuine in the sense that it’s music with guts and heart, wrought from exactly the elements it needs to hit your own personal spot, wherever you are in time & space, and not or note nor beat more. ‘Pay No Mind’ is a heavily rhythmic affair, foot-stomping rather than just tapping, with some slapback echo for a bit of a brooding rockabilly feeling, whilst Victoria Yeullet explains sagely that she and her fella had better learn to tolerate each other’s runnin’ around. The b-side, a cover of an r’n’b tune called ‘Building A Wall Around My Heart’, takes the fast guitar beat / sloooow vocal thing even further, to smouldering effect. Sounds just lovely and fuzzy and perfect spinning around on heavyweight vinyl too. Mmm.

http://www.myspace.com/congregationband
http://www.myspace.com/velovelovelo

Dead! Dead! Dead! – George Lassoes The Moon (Tough Love)

This optimistically named combo may tempt more jaded hacks to hurl ‘em into the recycling bin marked ‘angular’ with the opening riff on the a-side here, but for those with more than a ten second attention span, they proceed with enough vim and imagination to keep your ears thoroughly stimulated, though whether for good or ill is debatable. The vocalist’s theatrical delivery is plain ridiculous, splitting the difference between a Morrissey croon and an early Nick Cave bellow, and ending up somewhere not a million miles away from the guy from the Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster. And that’s perhaps quite a pertinent comparison for what’s going on here musically as well actually, if you were to turn down that band’s chaotic punk aspect and imagine them getting a bit more shiny, proggy and deliberate about things. Maybe I’ve just been listening to too much pop-punk recently, but the a-side here seems to go on for AGES, and has LOADS of different parts, each seemingly better than the last – first a “yeah, we can fucking PLAY” maths-rock breakdown, now a wistful goth-rock chorus/coda thing, some dramatic twin guitar rock-out…. If I say these guys sound like precocious a-level students trying to do first album era King Crimson, I hope they understand I mean that as a compliment.

http://www.toughloverecords.com/main.htm

Foxboro Hottubs – Mother Mary b/w She’s a Saint Not a Celebrity (Jingle Town)

So I picked this up at random cos it looks like a groovy garage-pop 7”, and heaven knows there’s always room for a few more of those in my life. And, praise be, it IS a groovy garage-pop 7”! The a-side has a preppy ‘Can’t Hurry Love’ backbeat, chiming guitars and tube-amp fizz, moody power-pop verses and pure bubblegum melodies, hand-claps, lalalas, oh-oh-ohs, the whole deal, whilst the b is a bit more punky with a Ramones steal, a rad solo and some ‘woo!’s. Two great songs, a swinging band and a great sounding recording – nothing new, but fuck ‘new’, this is a ton o’ fun.

Turns out though, I was the only person in the world unaware that Foxboro Hottubs are actually Green Day in disguise. Well, they sure played me for a sucker. I’ll stick to my guns though, and declare this the best thing they’ve done since their Lookout Records glory days. I guess it stands to reason that as these guys edge toward the far end of their 30s they might feel the need to escape their dayjob as clod-hopping stadium-fillers and regroup as a tight, retro-styled powerpop combo, but it speaks poorly of the world they exist within, not to mention the music industry’s general contempt for it’s audience, that as soon as they come up with some music that’s actually, like, GOOD, they’re forced to go incognito with it. Would it REALLY be that much of a stretch for the wallet-chained masses to accept some cool, three chord guitar-pop songs? Isn’t this basically what Green Day have always done best, only with a more pleasant guitar tone, less embarrassing lyrics and minus the rock star pomp? *sigh* Well, as they so frequently reminded me back when I was 15 and blasting ‘Dookie’, the world sucks.

http://www.myspace.com/foxboromusic
http://www.foxborohottubsdownload.com/

Liz Green – Bad Medicine (Humble Soul)

Trying to find something to write about Liz Green’s music seems almost surplus to requirements. I could tell you that I think she’s from Manchester, and I think this is her first record, and that she’s subsequently done another one, which I haven’t got yet. I suppose I should remind everybody that she plays original folk/blues in a gutsy, British style that bears distant comparison to Holly Golightly or Billy Childish, and that she sings in a gentle, forlorn style that can’t help but bring Karen Dalton to mind, even though she sounds entirely different.

Forget that though, all that matters here is the reality of two really good songs, played softly but surely with a rare strength of character that make wit, charm, humility, sadness, resilience, serenity all seem like bright, new, shining concepts, rather than tired hack words.

Basically, the name of Liz Green’s record label defines the essence of her work far more succinctly than any of my rambling ever could. So buy this from them, in its nice rough recycled cardboard sleeve, and, whilst you’re waiting for it to arrive, think upon those two words, and the implications of the perfect review they make.

http://www.myspace.com/lizgreenmusic
http://www.humblesoul.net/

Part Two to follow imminently!

Labels: Bad Reaction, Betty And The Werewolves, Congregation, Dead Dead Dead, Foxboro Hottubs, Liz Green, singles reviews, The Budget Girls, The Catburglars