25. Nice Face – Immer Etwas (Sacred Bones)

Mid-way through this year, I was thinking about the kind of sound I wanted to develop my bedroom space-punk recording project thingy into. I had some ideas for a very particular kind of heavily-effected, mechanized racket that I wanted to make. Then I got hold of this Nice Face album, and I was like, damn, this asshole has the whole thing nailed down already.

Dunno anything about where this guy’s coming from, where he’s going, but I do know that the frantic, reverb-engulfed, violent pop found on “Immer Etwas” is some of the most kick-ass home-recorded stuff I’ve heard this year. Squelchy keyboard hooks, digitally-distorted guitars, great use of effects (just about the RIGHT amount of everything). Songs are all crazy-eyed, mutant new wave hits, like the boiled down remnants of The Knack and Iggy’s “The Idiot” being fused into a hideous bloody mess in some vat of radioactive transistor radio goo - just the kind of troubled tunes one might expect to hear on the stereo when driving an armoured taxi through the streets of future-New York in an ‘80s post-apocalyptic movie. Good shit!

Uh, yeah, I don’t have much more to say about this – in a few years it’ll sound very much ‘of its time’ I guess, but in 2010 it really hit the spot. The LP looks really cool, but the CD has lots of extra tunes so, y’know, choose wisely.

Mp3> Situation Is Facing Utter Annihilation





24. Frankie Rose & The Outs – s/t (Memphis Industries)

If nothing on Frankie Rose’s first feature length outing as band leader/song-writer can compare to the majesty of “Where Do You Run To”, this album is nonetheless a real grower, and a surprising and ambitious effort really, given the easy action the various groups she’s drummed for have attracted simply through the means of sloppy C86ish noise-pop. Of eleven tracks here, only a handful - “Candy”, “Girlfriend Island”, “Don’t Tred” – really attempt to follow the Black Tambourine / Shop Assistants jangle-punk formula that many might have assumed would predominate on a Frankie Rose solo record. As to the rest, what we’re essentially looking at here is an extension of the rather beguiling b-side of her Slumberland 45 – a kind of elegant, 4AD-indebted shoegaze, liberally draping some of those old ‘gossamer webs of sound’ across the back of skeletal, barely there melodies, with generally pretty lovely results.

Indeed, that aforementioned b-side, “Hollow Life” is the opener here, re-recorded in longer form I think (tho I could be mistaken). Writing about it way back in November ’09, I got a bit carried away, proclaiming it, ahem - “..an absolutely exquisite snapshot of a Bout de Souffle bedroom scene eternal now, vast faux-cathedral organ tones and distant guitar-drift making a bed for Frankie’s oh-so-delicate voice. Like “I’ll Be Your Mirror” medicated to the point of total bliss-out, it’s exactly the sound I want to hear last thing before I go to sleep, gently rising to a Cocteaus-y grandeur in, like, ninety seconds, then falling away to nothing.” And, a year and a bit later, hopefully that can stand as pretty good description of the album as a whole.

Vital to the record’s success is the fact that it is a very good recording in the conventional sense, heavily reliant upon its careful and clear sound, its reliance on lovely analogue echo, its gentle vintage organ sounds,gentle, decaying chords, and so forth. If “Little Brown Haired Girls” sounds a bit like a Dum Dum Girls cut reconfigured for a phantasmagorical regency ballroom, and the wordless, crashing fuzz of “That’s What People Told Me” could be Vivian Girls rewriting The Chills’ “Purple Girl”, well, that’s probably about as far as such comparisons can be taken, and, well… doesn’t that basically sound GREAT?

Based on sound and feel alone, this record would be an instant classic. It’s a beautiful listen. What’s keeping it back here #24 here rather than #3 though, is, bluntly, song-writing, or lack thereof. While the majesterial sound here is the kind that tends to work well when it comes to letting tracks that consist of little more than a simple chord progression and some chanted “la la la”s drift by pleasantly enough, I can’t help but imagine how brilliant they each mighta been with, uh, y’know, lyrics and stuff. Verses, choruses, emotional engagement. The stuff that helped make “Where Do You Run To” so out of this world, even as a garageband demo.

Mp3> Little Brown-Haired Girls



23. Dead Meadow – Three Kings (Xemu)

There comes a time in every band’s life, when a gatefold double LP ‘greatest hits live plus new studio cuts’ set accompanied by a feature length concert footage/fantasy odyssey movie modelled after Led Zep’s “Song Remains The Same”, featuring cover art that sees the band enthroned like decadent rock n’ roll wizards, their groovy analogue equipment collection spread out before them across a verdant hillside, is the only way to go.

Of course, the difference is, Led Zep had the money and global following that allowed them to indulge such ludicrous conceits with a straight face. Dead Meadow, presumably, do not. Which as a long-term fan of the group, make me all the more keen to laugh loud and support them in their elaborate whimsy.

The movie, of course, is pretty stoned and pointless, squandering the potential for a Jodorowskian psychedelic mindfuck on some unexciting concert footage and vague, faux-symbolist music video tomfoolery… but I was happy enough with it. I mean, I wasn’t really expecting much else. It almost would have spoiled the gag if it was really good, wouldn’t it?

It did bug me however that I couldn’t hear Steve Kille’s bass on the soundtrack, like, *at all* - a factor which is obviously somewhat detrimental to the enjoyment of eighty-odd minutes of low-end heavy power trio rock. Partially, this can be blamed on the crappy speakers on my cheapest-one-in-the-shop TV, and indeed, the bass was audible when I played the LPs, but still not mixed high enough for my liking - a circumstance that is perplexing given that Kille takes sole production credit here. Also somewhat of a bummer is Jason Simon’s voice – never the band’s strong suit – which is heard here completely clean, and unsettlingly high in the mix, his throaty, tour-hardened, off-key bark a world away from the reverbed & phased tones that used to meander through the band’s older records like a gentle stream. I realise that a touring band aren’t able to achieve a perfectly lovely, otherworldly vocal mix every night, but for the recording of a live album, it… well it might have been a good idea to sort that shit out before it went and harshed everyone’s perfect Dead Meadow mellow, that’s all I’m sayin’.

Anyway, production gripes aside, I’m happy to be able to report that performance-wise, Dead Meadow are at the top of their game here, with the particular brand of well-honed hard rock telepathy that makes them such a killer live band much in evidence. Drums crashing by like the tides of the ocean, bass standing solid like the rocks as the waves hit, guitar spiralling off like a boat fulla warriors, off on some distant adventure - if you’ve heard the band before, well it’s the same old shit, (I think I’ve even done that metaphor before), but when you love it as much as I do, it never gets old. As heard here, “Til Kingdom Come”s Immigrant Song-esque tale of ocean-going pilgrims flat-out slays the version found on the lacklustre “Old Growth” album, and “At Her Open Door” and “The Whirlings” have never before spun and spluttered and screamed they way they do here. Psychedelic rock, the way it’s supposed to be done.

Change moves slowly in Dead Meadowland, and the very fact that they don’t end this set with a fourteen minute “Sleepy Silver Door” can be taken as a shocking and daring break from tradition. I didn’t mean to sound grumpy moaning about the production and stuff earlier on – hearing Dead Meadow on form in 2010, dropping heavy, hazy shit like this, is all the reward a humble fan could ask for. Maybe next time they’re in town I can score drugs for them and introduce them to loose chicks and… huh, what year did I say it was again?

Mp3> Til Kingdom Come



22. Dead Luke – American Haircut (Florida’s Dying)

More deliciously nasty homemade campfire psyche twaddle, bubbling up on this occasion from some unspecified location in the South Eastern USA. Like the Haunted Houses tape, I really like this one a whole lot, but it’s difficult to quite put my finger on why. Unlike the Haunted Houses tape, it’s quite varied, spread across nine long-ish tracks, each slightly different from the last, all rich in, uh, ‘aural interest’.

“Dreaming, Pt.3” has a kind of ritualistic, unheimlich stomp to it, reminiscent of Sylvester Anfang II, while “Luke Is Not Dead” is more of long-lost mutant guitar-blues effort, with a sorta rhythmless Velvets chug, like a mid-60s Lou and Sterl lost in the woods communing with witches. “Sunrise” and “Acid Forest” could nicely soundtrack the acid trip / blood sacrifice scene in some regionally produced early ‘70s hippie witchcraft shocker, complete with somebody banging away inexpertly on the sitar and webs of gnarled old feedback growl, but then “Lil Red Riding Hood” is back on the transcendent weirdo blues tip. The central riff and melody of “You’re Bringing Me Down” sound an awful lot like “Snowblind” by Judy Henske and Jerry Yester, I’m sure you’ll all be shocked to hear. It’s good though, and turns into a great delay pedal shredding drone in its final minute.

The one unifying element behind all this is the presence, in some form or other, of a voice whose slow, unsettling snarl seems to be drawing from the same well as Greg Ashley on the darker Gris Gris material, an influence that also seems to trickle down into the song-writing in places – the aforementioned “Lil Red Riding Hood” could’ve been pulled straight off “Medicine Fuck Dream”.

What more d’you expect me to say? I don’t know a damn thing about this record, but I find it very satisfying and comfortable listening. It sounds like the work of some cool and inspired people, and it suits my morbid proclivities perfectly.

“Backwoods campfire psyche revival” sounds like about the most unpromising phrase I’ve ever typed, but between this, Dignan Porch, Florida, Irma Vep and Purling Hiss’s “Public Service Announcement”, it seems to be creeping up on us regardless, sounding more spirited than we ever could’ve guessed.

Mp3> Luke is Not Dead


21. Hype Williams – untitled LP (no label)

Live review from August this year:

“There is something compelling about what they do that’s hard to quite define at a time when so many faceless acts seem to be groping around in the same closet without a flashlight, but I’m gonna take a leap of faith and say that the way Hype Williams do business essentially reminds me of Boards Of Canada. Although wisely bypassing the rotting carcass of ‘90s ‘IDM’ that lurks always beneath those Boards, they’ve got that same winning mixture of insistent pulse, rich, inviting melody and darkly unsettling undertones; garbled voices, melted ghosts of pop hits, crying children marching over the hill in the distance. It draws you in, it keeps you sedated with increasingly familiar games of fuzzy-headed audio-nostalgia, and it’s only then that you notice the nasty tricks, the sudden lurching stabs into the unknown. Very good stuff indeed. Friends with whom I was earnestly discussing what a dead end live electronica can be can be half an hour ago are now head-nodding, happily entranced as the duo crouch over their gear on-stage, if you’re willing to take that as any barometer of quality.”

So I’ll level with ya, when I bought a copy of this, the scribbled label on the merch table said “Hype Williams LP, £10”. That aside, the record is completely anonymous, guaranteed to confound Music & Video Exchange clerks and senile record collectors for years to come. Anyway, since the label said “LP”, the first few times I spun this, I did so at 33, and was mightily impressed by it’s hazy, slurred voices and cough syrup n’ weed nightmare dub atmospherics. Then I thought, hang on a minute. Sure enough, it sounds even better at 45, the vocal samples coherent and all the more unsettling for it, and the music brighter, stranger and more varied, percussion sounds and shaky guitar/key riffs hitting off at what sounds like the speed they were played at. Great! Obviously this is a 12” guys, not an LP. Duh. Then, earlier this week, I noticed it was approaching time to write this review, but I’m down at my mum’s house for xmas sans record or turntable, so I thought I’d see if I could find a quick download to refresh my memory. So I did that, and…. the mp3s are ripped at 33. So you see my dilemma: which one to review?

At 45, the chief point of note is that these recordings reveal Hype Williams to be far less of an electronic/sample based outfit than was suggested by their live show, with most of the music based around what sound like scrappy basement psyche jams, cut with odd, verite spoken word samples and heavily treated radio pop samples creeping in and out of the mix (a woman screams, a nervous-sounding home counties vicar discusses the Ark of the Covenenant, claiming “..the power of god was resting within that tabernacle” and suggesting “..putting a musical box inside it..”, before recommending “a dose of good, old fashioned hellfire preaching” to all and sundry). This approach, it should be noted, is very much in keeping with that taken on their earlier “High Beams” EP.

At 33 meanwhile, Hype Williams do indeed sound like a kind of evil Boards of Canada, hiding screaming children behind a grim, headnodding miasma of chopped n’ screwed electronics. This is very much in keeping with the kind of stuff they were doing in their live performance.

As previously noted, I have my concerns about this kind of sound ultimately becoming little more than a 21st century reiteration of the horrors of ‘trip-hop’. But at either speed, Hype Williams are certainly doing a lot to nullify my fears through the generous application of imagination, sonic depth and good old fashioned weirdness. Find yourself a copy and take yr choice.

Mp3> Untitled # 6

Labels: best of 2010, Dead Luke, Dead Meadow, Frankie Rose, Hype Williams, Nice Face

End of the Road Festival, 2008

So, as expected, End Of The Road at the weekend was all manner of awesome. So many of my favourite bands and artists played in such quick succession that by the end I was getting almost blasé about it. From my own personal POV, this was almost certainly the best British festival line-up of my era. I mean, look at it;

Equally predictable in its own strange way is the fact that despite all this, I didn’t find it quite such a revelatory / enjoyable experience of last year’s fest. Last year you see, I didn’t really have high hopes for the festival experience and was prepared to just drift around and see what happened, result being that much of it was rather like a relaxed weekend in the countryside where unexpectedly amazing musicians kept pitching up and singing a bunch of songs for me, resulting in a joyous time. This year, there was obviously a lot more forward planning involved, and a lot more expectation of MIGHTY FUN. The festival seemed bigger, more crowded (though not to an unpleasant degree), there were a lot more people I knew going, a lot more social shenanigans, a lot more “I must be in THIS place at THIS time to see THIS band” kinda manoeuvring. Also, my uncomfortable tent/sleeping bag arrangements and manly disregard for such niceties as a camping mat and warm clothing sadly rendered sleep near impossible throughout the festival, encouraging me to drink more and stay up later than last year, all of which contributed to me getting a bit flustered and exhausted at times, especially given the performances from various bands whose music, emotionally-speaking, tends to hit me like a ton of bricks.

But that’s nothing new – in retrospect, I always seem to end up feeling a bit survivalist at festivals, even nice comfortable ones where I have a bed. Over-stimulation, that’s what it is. 95% of the festival was still totally unspoiled enjoyment.

I’m not gonna do a big band-by-band write-up of everything I saw, partly because I saw so much bloody stuff that that would be a massive undertaking, and partially because for the most part I was watching bands with whom I’m already familiar, and whom I’ve (hopefully) oft mentioned on this blog before, so I don’t want to repeat myself.

Unlike last year, I didn’t really make many ‘new discoveries’, but it was wonderful to see all the acts I was discovering/championing on the festival’s smaller stages last year moving up to better slots and bigger audiences this time around - Congregation opening the big top tent, David Thomas Broughton headlining one of the other tents to a massive crowd. The Wave Pictures played in blazing sunshine on the main stage on the Sunday afternoon – almost exactly the same spot/situation as Herman Dune last year – and totally OWNED the place, not that I was in any doubt re: their ability to do so. Liz Green also played one off the best sets of the weekend to rapturous response in the big top tent. She’s so much more comfortable and relaxed on stage than a year ago, it’s a great thing to see, and, now fleshed out by some well-balanced accompaniment from a small band, her music seems more purely beautiful than ever – simple, dark, honest, upfront songs about stuff that happens to people in their lives, played with an unfettered emotion that stops the breath in my throat.

In a welcome change of pace, and volume, it was great too to see Dead Meadow putting in an appearance in one of the smaller tents late on Friday evening, playing one of the best sets I’ve seen them do in years. I mean, to a – ha! - outsider it must have seemed pretty much interchangeable with any of their other sets - they’re not exactly a band that goes in for surprises - and I’m well aware by now that the vast majority of my learned fellows are sadly blind to the abundant charms of The ‘Meadow’s timeless approach to things, but they can all go whistle down a mineshaft, cos on this occasion the band, and by extension myself, were IN THE ZONE, if you will, and, as they slip inside the ‘Sleepy Silver Door’ for the millionth time, the Dead Meadow Zone is one of my all time favourite places to be. You wouldn’t fucking believe how comfortable the seats are in there, or the things they do with the lighting.

Of the main stage stuff, A Hawk And A Hacksaw and The Dirty Three both kicked it pretty thoroughly on the Friday night too, although Low’s set on the Saturday night was actually quite upsetting. I’m not gonna talk about it here, because I’m sick of retelling the same story, but if you’re a fan of the band, or an avid music media/blog follower, you’ll likely have heard the gory details by now. Aside from all that though, let it be said for the record that they played one of the best sets I’ve ever seen/heard from them. That they were followed directly by Mercury Rev’s current pageant of simpering lunacy seemed… unfortunate scheduling. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m a big ‘Rev fan, I even dig ‘All Is Dream’, but when the band is reduced to Jonathan prancing like a tit amid dry ice and Grasshopper throwing shapes and making the occasional comedy skreeeee noise over a laptop booming out their Disney OST backing tracks, what can you do but laugh? Their bombast is writ so large it’s positively surreal, but any true feeling their songs might once have carried seems lost to the ravages of time.

Most of the best stuff for me though took place in the dark realm of the big tent, and I guess it almost goes without saying that Pete & The Pirates kicked ass, that Let’s Wrestle were fantastically enjoyable - geeky good fun, like the kind of band I’d always assumed I’d probably be in. Billy Childish and the MBEs went down a storm too, of course. Jeffrey Lewis played one of the most chaotic and enjoyable sets I’ve seen him do in recent years too, despite a few guitar malfunctions. He started off with a couple of really wonderful new solo songs, went through a few raucous psych/punk numbers with the band, Jack sang a fantastic Jeff-less song about attending Neil Young’s imaginary funeral. With near sickening inevitability, David Tattersall came on to play ukulele on a couple of selections from the Crass covers album, and, somewhat more surprisingly, John Darnielle made an appearance too, bounding on grinning like the easter bunny to sing the chorus do “Do They Owe Us A Living?”, briefly creating a ‘Last Waltz’-like personal best for the number of my favourite songwriters I’ve seen on stage at one time.

One of the best things about the festival actually was the unscheduled after-hours shenanigans in the couple of smaller music tents. It’s all a bit hazy, bit it seems like I spent several whole hours watching fresh-faced classic rock revival troupe The Young Republic soldier through sets of Dylan and Chuck Berry covers. Whilst their original material is – what’s a nice way of putting it? – only intermittently inspired, they’re certainly an accomplished and joyous bunch, much taken with the idea of reconstructing a careful approximation of that hallowed Big Pink / Basement Tapes vibe, with much good-natured, ego-free chooglin’ thrown in for good measure. And above all, they’re aware that there is much to said for the simple joys of some well-lubricated musicians belting out the singalong-ready goods to a well-lubricated audience by the light of a full moon in the early hours. Good times, as they say, pretty much defined.

Speaking of which, perhaps the best moment of the whole festival goes as follows; after midnight on the Saturday, and we’re all a bit flagging energy-wise (well, I am anyway), looking for something fun to keep us going… so we’re crammed into this packed tent where apparently some kinda (clearly not very) secret musical happening is going to be a-transpiring. So, hey, apparently it’s some guys from British Sea Power and some of their pals and, with no disrespect intended to them as a band, this does not really fill me with faith in imminent good times… BUT, they take the stage, and they say, hello, we’re going to be playing a set of Jonathan Richman covers. And they do!

You know that feeling, when you’re in a situation of some kind – in this case, an unknown musical unit setting up to play - and you think ‘who knows, maybe something fun will happen here – prob’ly not, but you never know’, and then the universe knocks you flat by presenting you with something so, so, so, so, so much more fun than you could possibly have expected? Like, the absolute PERFECT thing you want to happen at that moment? – well it was a bit like that. They mostly did stuff of the first couple of post-Modern Lovers solo records – ‘New England’ and ‘Ice Cream Man’ and ‘Government Center’ and ‘The New Teller’ and ‘Important In Your Life’ and ‘Abominable Snowman In the Market’ and ‘Martian Martians’, as well as ‘Cornerstore’ and ‘The Girl Stands Up To Me Now’ from later in the great man’s career, and probably a bunch of others, I forget. ‘I’m A Little Airplane’ went down a storm too – I mean, it’s never really been a favourite of mine on record, but the appeal of getting drunk and yelling along at the top of your voice to a song that mostly goes “WANGITY-WANG!, WANGITY-WANG!” is never to be underestimated. And, moving from the ridiculous back to the sublime as only Jonathan can, they did ‘The Morning Of Our Lives’, absolutely note/word perfect to the version on ‘Modern Lovers Live’! I could have wept. I think I probably did. I think I might weep again now, just writing about it.

Go and do whatever you do, British Sea Power guys – even if you release twenty six albums of fascist speeches and reversed dog barks, I’ll love you forever for pulling this one out of the hat.

The other highlight was, of course, the privilege (and it really is a privilege for us in the UK) of getting to see The Mountain Goats on two consecutive evenings – first at the festival, then at their London show the following day. Strangely perhaps, the crowd for their festival slot seemed to be a lot more psyched (read: fanatical) about things than at their headline date, but who knows. They were both great sets, obviously. The new three-piece Mountain Goats with Jon Auger on full-time drums seems like a far more straight-up ‘rock band’ kinda proposition than when there was just the two of them, with a pretty fixed night-to-night setlist and little room for digressions. So at EOTR they gave us all the ‘hits’ from the 4AD albums in short order, no older songs or obscurities whatsoever. Which, seeing as how those albums comprise the best body of original song-writing of the century thus far, is clearly TOTALLY GOOD, however much a little bit of me might be silently yelling for ‘Going To Cleveland’ or ‘Going To Bristol’ or ‘Alpha Sun Hat’ or ‘Downtown Seoul’ or whatever else. Hearing a hushed take on ‘Have To Explode’ on both nights is beautiful, and maybe the most poignant moment for me was getting to hear ‘Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod’ during the EOTR set – hammerblow obvious though it may be, I’ve still got no words for that song. John Darnielle seemed to get pretty worked up on both nights playing Heretic Pride’s brilliantly odd ‘Sept. 15th, 1983’, and it’s not until afterwards that it’s occurred to me – Sept. 14th/15th 2008 – 25th anniversary. Somehow, I was actually unaware up until this point that the song is actually about the death of reggae star Prince Far-I (perhaps making it a good companion piece to The Sunset Tree’s ‘Song For Dennis Brown’?), and I think maybe I actually preferred it as a completely mysterious tale of some kind of baffling secret society assassination, but no matter. Similarly, John’s spoken introduction to ‘How To Embrace A Swamp Creature’ really clicks the song into place – I’d previously been sorta quite struck by it, but unable to get an angle on it’s full meaning. Narrative context explained, the song means a hell of a lot more to me, and its live rendition scratches and pounds my heart just like it should have done the first time I heard it.

As an aside, it occurs to me that this rather oblique approach to context/meaning and heavy reliance on outside reference points has become a pretty constant motif in recent Mountain Goats material. I can’t help but wonder what, for instance, audience members unfamiliar with the song’s title, never mind the cultural significance of the ‘Halloween’ franchise, make of ‘Michael Myers Resplendent’, which opens both of these sets. Similarly, John treats us to a couple of new songs in Monday’s set, and I can well see ‘Sarcofago Live’ becoming a bit of a puzzler for those unfamiliar with the finer points of the early Brazilian metal scene. The other new tune rejoices under the name ‘Wizard Buys A Hat’, by the way.

But thankfully, the emotional half-nelson of The Mountain Goats best material transcends any such need for contextualisation or personal identification, and having drilled even the slightest of them deep into my mind via years’ worth of solitary, pavement-pounding walkman time, it was strange and unnerving and delightful to be there at End Of The Road, doggedly holding on to a good spot at the front as fellow devotees crowd around in advance, and watching apparently happy couples yelling along in tandem no ‘No Children’ and guys who probably had comfortable middle-class upbringings raising their fists and singing every word to ‘This Year’. Myself, I refute such accusations by closing my eyes and smiling and singing along to absolutely everything.

Actually, I seem to have ended up doing my whole ‘singing along’ thing quite a lot throughout this festival. I know it’s weird, and obnoxious, and almost unbearably nerdy… so I’ll end by apologising to anyone I irritated.

I was only going to do a quick festival summary, but it’s near 2,500 words already, so.. END!

If you’ve kept reading this far, you deserve some Mp3s. They are good ones, so treat them well.

The Mountain Goats – Sept. 15th 1983
The Mountain Goats – Going To Bristol
Liz Green – Hey Joe
Jonathan Richman – The Morning Of Our Lives

Labels: Dead Meadow, End Of The Road, festivals, Jeffrey Lewis, live reviews, Liz Green, The Mountain Goats

RAISE THE SAILS!
Dead Meadow, London Cargo, August 9th

Well there’s all only so many times one can say such a thing before it lose all meaning, but man alive, Dead Meadow are GREAT. That’s the long and short of it really.

Dead Meadow are a band I feel like approaching not with hyperbolic blog-crit, but via the kind of Wordless Rock Dude Awe Moment that, issued with appropriate solemnity, speaks with more than authority than a thousand over-analytical reviewers ever could…

“Dead fucking MEADOW, man..”

(Respectful silence and nodding of long-haired heads.)

Sadly, Dead Meadow rarely seem to achieve these moments of awe-recognition that they so richly deserve, often seeming instead to fall frustratingly between the cracks dividing current music/fashion cults. Too drugged and riff-heavy for run of the mill indie kids, yet too nuanced and starry-eyed (read: wimpy) for the metal/noise-heads, they nonetheless hold the fort of a certain unique position on the musical landscape, a fort wherein they stand guard over my personal conception of Thee Perfect Psychedelic Rock.

Whole swathes of the musical landscape are now of course occupied by those trading off various sub-genre-designated permutations of ‘churning riffage’, ‘heaviosity’ and the like, as stoner guitar-dude culture and unashamed ‘70s metal worship bleed carelessly across into indie-rock crit respectability, avant-noise envelope-pushing, ambient texture worship and god only knows what else. Chances are you could throw a brick somewhere in the vicinity of the Camden Underworld of an average evening and hit a member of some band who are - on a practical, measurable level - heavier, or slower, or gnarlier, or more intense, or more spaced out, or more bad-ass or whatever than Dead Meadow.

But….. who fucking cares, frankly. Guys the world over can decamp to the nearest desert with enough ampage to decimate a football stadium and grind out variations on ‘Iron Man’ till they’re blue of face and black of lungs, but it won’t achieve much. It’ll all sound a bit forced, a bit constipated, a bit pointless. It won’t change the essential fact that, every generation, the holy hand reaches down from on high and appoints one – maybe two, or three if we’re lucky – groups as custodians of The Riff.

Black Sabbath had it through most of the ‘70s, obviously.

Sleep and Electric Wizard were standing guard over some serious Riff during the ‘90s, if I’m any judge.

And now, Dead Meadow have The Riff. Scoff all you like metalheads, I don’t care, it’s fact.

The Riff is impossible to define in terms of the notes, guitar sounds etc. you’d imagine would be relevant to such discussion – try all you like, you won’t get it that way. The Riff is the reason why the first side of 2003’s definitive “Shivering King and Others” doesn’t sound like an album by a Lovecraft-referencing heavy psyche band, and instead sounds like PURE SEX. No fooling!


Summarised biogs often seem to peg Dead Meadow as a “70s retro” band, which must annoy the hell out of them. I can see where the label originates of course – a sanctified reverence for vintage equipment and recording techniques and a knowledge of how to use them properly to achieve the perfect expression of THAT particular expansive, slightly disembodied fuzzy-round-the-edges-with-the-bass-knob-on-max dusty vinyl guitar thrum, dredging up ancestral memory of a thousand suburban evenings with the joints aflame and the headphones on, in thrall to “Led Zep IV” and “Master Of Reality”. You know what I mean? But, god only knows, there was nobody around in the ’70s actually making records that sounded much like Dead Meadow! If there had been, their artifacts would be going for $thousands$, effortlessly eclipsing the killer rep of comparatively puny collector-cults like Flower Travellin’ Band or what have you.

Far from being a mere “retro” concern, ‘Meadow take a similar – if more consistently successful – approach to their musical heritage as bands like Oakley Hall and Espers; carefully internalizing the distinctive sounds and atmospheres of their deepest influences and blasting them back outward in new permutations to essentially create the music they think SHOULD have existed during their teenhood.

But Ok, I’m supposed to be talking about the gig here, so let’s get on with it:

Perfect, pre-meditated textures and general heftiness of sound are obviously a significant part of Dead Meadow’s collective whack, and as such I find myself demanding every ‘Meadow gig be a perfect, hermetically-sealed entity beyond the messy and inconsistent reality of yr average rock gig set-up. And predictably enough some element of the experience is usually found wanting; last time I caught a headline set from the band, in Nottingham back in… Christ, it must have been 2005 I think… their performance was superb, but proceedings were muffled throughout by shitty, jerry-rigged, TOO SMALL amps. I know, I know… but with a band like this, these things are paramount.

No such problems are in evidence at Cargo thankfully, as bassist Steve Kille plugs into the kind of Ampeg you could bury a gorilla in and Jason Simon fiddles with an elaborate set-up incorporating a full-size Orange cabinet and head, a Fender Twin, a vintage tape echo and some kind of electronic drone machine.

Things still aren’t perfect; the vocals are waaay low for one thing, and from my position at the front of the stage I think I’m getting a lot of direct blare from the guitar amps that’s drowning out the bass and drums to some extent, but shouldn’t really complain because oh my god, that guitar blare was PERFECTION. Simon has perhaps my favourite tone/sound/etc of any modern day guitarist, with sustained low-end fuzz-notes echoing in the air for mini-eternities, throwing out ghosts of overtones more rarefied and beautiful than anything you’d ever expect to hear beaten out of sweaty electric guitar strings, and his wah-wah divebombing conjuring THE exact audio equivalent of a pupil dilating in slow motion. And so forth.

Having my senses almost entirely consumed at close quarters by this guy’s blare for an hour was….. too fucking good. Like I was saying: Dead fuckin’ MEADOW, man.

(silence.)

(You can buy a print of this poster from Chris S.)

What else to say? Well there’s a hell of a lot more excitement to this band’s live incarnation than just waxing lyrical about guitar tone, and when they really hit their stride halfway through this set, I swear, Stephen McCarty is drumming like the ocean and Kille is bassing like the goddamn whale. Form is streeetching, fuzz is flying, groove is in the collective heart in the best possible heavy-rock-band way, and it’s only the lack of a second guitarist for Simon to bounce stuff off (whatever happened to that other guy who played on ‘Feathers’?) that stops the whole thing taking off into the kind of astral projectin’ improvisational nirvana so often promised by psychedelic rock, and so rarely delivered. It’s a great show!

The crowd is dense, sub-culturally diverse, enthusiastic, and it is MOVING, which is a real kick to see, because I didn’t think Dead Meadow were actually very popular in the world at large. Clearing the hair from my eyes for a minute or two, I can see a gang of girls on the other side of the stage, dancing. Not head-banging or mock-belly dancing or anything you might deem aesthetically appropriate, but locked into a slowed down, tranced out, joyful nightclub grind.

A gang of girls, dancing. To Dead Meadow. Who are playing in front of my face.

God I love being in the world.

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Dead Meadow’s Peel Session, recorded March 2001:

Dusty Nothing

Drifting Downstream

Good Moanin'

Rolling Thunder

Labels: Dead Meadow, live reviews, Psychedelia