LOCAL ARTS CENTRE IS ALWAYS “INTENSE”!

It is a joy and a privilege to live within walking distance of the kind of cinema which shows Britannia Hospital and Repo Man on consecutive days.

I think those two films have a surprising amount in common actually – both are prime works from under-rated genius British directors. Both channelled (relatively) big money into ambitious and uncompromising subversive weirdness, resulting in “you’ll never work in this town again!” reactions from studios and inevitable cult classic status. Both have utterly improbable utopian sci-fi endings. Both are really fucking funny. Both were released in the same year too I think – the year of my birth, funnily enough.

Repo Man was better than ever on the big screen – so many background details and brief snatches of dialogue that I’ve repeatedly missed on my old video copy – and, if anything, I’d forgotten what a just plain amazing film it is on every level. One of the finest examples of what I’d term Punk Cinema ever made (and not just cos it’s got punk rock in it), and a benchmark of awesomeness for other directors to measure their debut films against. Every single scene has something crazy and cool and amazing going on in it, and the whole thing is just overflowing with lightning-paced cinematic and narrative ideas, and it’s just so much fun to watch! Historical context is important too I think; post-Tarantino and post-Nirvana we’re nicely set up to appreciate Repo Man as just a really, really great film, but back in 1982 it must have seemed like some broadcast from another world entirely… one of the all time classics of weird-Hollywood. On the off-chance that somehow you’re reading this weblog without having seen it, I think you can probably pick it up in HMV for £5.99 or something: you have your orders.

Unfortunately, you’re unlikely to find Britannia Hospital in HMV, or anywhere else for that matter, at any price. The final part of the trilogy Lindsay Anderson began with If.. and O Lucky Man, it was met with outrage and contempt upon its release and has subsequently been written out of the history of British cinema more or less entirely. And it’s not difficult to see why. Anderson’s use of venomously black satire and heavy-handed bad taste tactics to express his disgust at the emergence of Thatcherite Britain initially seem designed to offend absolutely everybody, as his wrecking ball descends not only on queen & country but also on the trade union movement, the common working man and petit bourgeois middle-management alike. Needless to say, in the era of the Miners Strike, this shit must have been VERY near the knuckle – it’s pretty uncomfortable viewing even today. Anderson even sets out to alienate the kind of hipster cognoscenti you’d expect to form his natural audience, rebelling against the notion of making a “cool” film by deliberately dredging up all the most cringe-worthy aspects of ‘70s/’80s British popular culture and throwing them back in our faces. Admittedly, the casting of Leonard Rossiter as the indomitable hospital administrator is an inspired move, but this is also a film which features not-terribly-hilarious Carry On style cross-dressing, a comedy dwarf, Vivian Pickles as ‘Matron’, Fulton Mackay, usage of the word “wog” and Robin Askquith banging a saucepan singing “we shall not be moved”. And if you’re still sitting comfortably, well then there’s the gore – a blood-spewing, naked headless corpse comes back to life and strangles Jill Bennett! In terms of sheer ickiness, the film’s Frankenstein sub-plot is a match for any of the video nasties of the day.

Beyond all that though, I don’t want to spoil the film’s various shocks and surprises, so you’ll just have to take my word for it when I assure you Britannia Hospital is as uniquely daring, challenging, weird, beautiful, funny, genuinely subversive, utterly mind-shredding and nigh-on apocalyptic as any film ever made, and that I have as much respect for Lindsay Anderson and David Sherwin for bringing it about as I have for any human beings who have ever lived.

Rarely has a forgotten and misunderstood film been so desperately in need of a Peeping Tom style renaissance. With Anderson being increasingly recognised as a true folk-hero of British counter-culture, let’s hope somebody puts a new print together (the one the Phoenix showed is shredded) and gets it down to the bloody BFI or whoever deals with these things as soon as possible!

NOTES ON SUMMER SUNDAE FESTIVAL, Leicester, August 05;

I don’t normally do big festivals for, well, obvious reasons I guess. This isn’t a big festival though – it’s a small version of a big festival. A low-key, family-oriented kind of affair, the line-up clogged with inoffensive mid-level major label unit shifters and exhibiting a studied avoidance of anyone likely to use cuss words, make weird noise or generally upset the young ‘uns.

Nevertheless though, whether or by chance or design, this year’s line-up still managed to bring together more than enough genuinely great music to give even grumpy, anti-populist bastards like me the heebie-jeebies, and get us reaching for our purses.

Living just five minutes walk away from the idyllic park-and-concert-hall set-up gave me the freedom to wander in and out as I pleased, catching the bands I like, bumping into friends and generally having a lovely time. So, yay! It was good!

Festivals like this are inevitably filled with suffocating amounts of quite-good-but-not-amazing-ness, and while I generally wish it’s perpetrators well and find it reasonably entertaining, I don’t want to bore you, so I’ll stick to a quick run through the stuff that made an impression one way or the other;

Having read so much about them (in Beard mostly), I’m looking forward to seeing Sons & Daughters, and… yes! They’re fucking great! Their channelling of the vintage darkness of Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Lydia Lunch, Cramps et al. into easily digestible chunks of post-Pixies thrash-pop is totally irresistible in it’s own right, and their wild on-stage energy and scary good looks ice the cake to perfection. They’re no mid-afternoon festival band though sadly, and the gap between what a band’s audience SHOULD be (a derelict New Orleans ballroom crawling with cooler-than-you hustlers, temptresses and knife-fighting punks) and what a band’s audience IS (a field full of chattering idiots in cagoules) has never been quite so glaring. Maybe one day I’ll get to see them again somewhere sufficiently dark and dingy to do them justice.

British Sea Power are always value for money – their knack for crafting towering guitar dramas out of Bunnymen-style indie swooning adapts well to festival conditions, and if that’s not your cup of tea you can still enjoy watching them chaotically close their set by fighting with a giant black bear. Those crazy guys.

As Idlewild continue to kill the hearts of their few remaining fans with a further display of their dogged descent into shitness, more discerning souls migrate to a tiny, packed marquee where Four Tet is rocking his laptop for a loyal crowd of dedicated potheads. Whilst on record I’m sometimes a bit disappointed by his failure to channel his obvious talent and love of sound into something a bit more challenging, it’s in a live set such as this that Four Tet really proves he knows his onions, piecing together an utterly engrossing ride that combines beautifully naturalistic body-moving beats with an unceasing kaleidoscope of weird, exciting, hyperactive sound fragments – a master at work providing endless fun for anybody with an open pair of ears. The best electronica is really hard to write about, I conclude, but DAMN is it good to listen to.

Saturday is a bit of a wash-out, and there aren’t many groups on I want to see, so I don’t venture down until the early evening. Unfortunately this means I miss Espers, who were apparently terrific, but I do stroll in just in time to catch Devendra Banhart, who’s gone electric and is now bringing the jams with a five piece band who appear to delight in taking the clichés surrounding the current hippie-folk revival to their silliest extremes. Seemingly chosen via a strict “no beard – no audition” entry policy, these guys resemble a 21st Century Country Joe & the Fish, although unfortunately they don’t quite sound like one. An endearingly goofy stage performer, Banhart continues his mission to sneak the most unhip musical influences imaginable into the ears of indie rockers, and during the course of his set we’re treated to the Incredible String Band filtered through the White Stripes, Traffic filtered through the Velvet Underground, a lot of irony-free peace & love blather and some pretty straight-up doses of American Beauty-era Grateful Dead. Five years ago these hairy characters would have been driven out of polite society by obnoxious NME writers with spiked bats, but these days the haircut kids are allowed to lap it up free of guilt. Which is progress of a sort I suppose. Hearing a gang of bleary-eyed desert-dwellers stumble their way through some good-natured twangy guitar jams and campfire singalongs is just as enjoyable as it was 40 years ago, although somewhat less than mindblowing.

Assailed by mediocrity on all sides, Saturday’s only other musical joy comes from watching a bootleg video of Neutral Milk Hotel – thanks Nigel!

Sunday is by far the festival’s strongest day, and the highlight of the afternoon comes courtesy of another Beard favourite, the softly spoken Alastair Roberts. He’s as consummate and talented an interpreter of British folk traditions as one could ever hope to encounter. His unmistakable voice, beguiling finger-picking and startling ear for an evocative tune all suggest a comparison to Bert Jansch at his best. His subtle marriage of age-old melodies, the ghosts of the ‘60s-‘70s revivalists and hints of a dogma-free modern pop sensibility makes for music that’s as beautiful and pure as any who have gone before him. Shivers run down spines as the drab midlands hall is transported to a wind-swept Scottish coastline for a stunning rendition of the traditional ‘Lyke Wake Dirge’, drawn out into a ripping guitar / fiddle duel of the kind Thompson and Swarbrick used to indulge in back in the day. Stunning.

Following that, Patrick Wolf delivers some smouldering boy angst for the Bright Eyes / Jeff Buckley contingent. Maybe if you fancy boys you might like him, cos he’s a pretty young fella who dresses like a raggle-taggle gypsy dancer, but otherwise – yawnsville.

Over on the big outdoor stage, The Duke Spirit also prove rather disappointing. I’ll admit to enjoying their first couple of singles, but I don’t hear much of the spirit I found in them here. Despite a good, noisy guitar tone their songs seem monotonous and uninspired. Energy and charisma absent without leave. There are moments when they take flight, but for the most part it’s three chugging chords and a few sluggish ‘rock’ moves that predominate. So basically The Strokes with a couple of good distortion pedals and a girl singer. A bored youth TV producer’s idea of what an ‘edgy’ rock band might sound like. Drag.

Now down to the front row for what we’re really here for – God’s own idea of what an ‘edgy’ rock band might sound like – Yo La Tengo. Unintimidated by the huge crowd, they strike still strike a gloriously weird and amateurish note after a line-up of slick professionals. They do what they do, and do it brilliantly, as usual, and hopefully I won’t have too bother telling you about it in too much detail. Inevitable set highlights include ‘Tom Courtney’, ‘Big Day Coming’, ‘Autumn Sweater’, ‘Little Eyes’ and ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.

And so – Patti Smith. Being in such close proximity to such a legendary performer (and legendary band) through a storming outdoor festival headlining set is the kind of thing that can destroy anybody’s critical faculties, so instead of trying to come up with some poncey bullshit, I’ll quote an amalgam of what I said to people in emails the next morning;

“And we were right at the front for Patti Smith! Yay! She played a huge, loud stadium rock kind of set with all the hits and lots of fist-pounding and singing along and no poetry or messing about (unfortunately) - it really rocked it! All of her original band were there too I think, with the addition of Tom Verlaine from Television sitting in the corner moodily smoking cigarettes and joining in whenever he felt like it. She did 'Because the Night' and 'Walking Barefoot' and stuff, and even played 'Like a Rolling Stone'!! I caught Lenny Kaye's guitar pick at the end, and Lucy caught a drumstick and got to shake hands with Patti when she did her Bono-esque "blessing the people" walkabout. When I saw her in London a few years ago she was being all serious and poetic, but this time it was like seeing Bruce Springsteen or something! Crazy!”

By rights, I should be giving you a round-up of this weekend's Summer Sundae festival.

However, this takes precendence;

I must have walked up and down London Road in Leicester thousands of times, but only yesterday did I chance to pause outside an impressively ornate Victorian townhouse and read the following blue plaque;



Needless to say, the sixteen carved heads are present and correct and don't disappoint.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah, I know - the Monster Magnet and Loop albums are actually pretty good. Apologies - I was listening to them on a crappy stereo in a bad mood. That'll teach me to do weblog posts based on first impressions.

(Incidentally, if any readers could get in touch and let me know if they're still seeing a big, blank space at the top of this weblog I'd be interested to know. The problem appears fixed on the computers I use, but others have begged to differ. Thanks.)

During my trip to Scotland last week I visited a fine little record shop in the town of St Andrews (called Unknown Pleasures) and picked myself up a bunch of somewhat less well-known indie/underground rock albums of yesteryear for cheap prices.

As usual with such bargain basement impulse-buying sprees, it’s a pretty patchy selection (funny how the objective value of most of this kind of music seems to decay as it gets further from it’s ‘moment’, isn’t it?). Rodan’s ‘Rusty’ would be great if I’d never heard Slint’s ‘Tweez’ before. The For Carnation’s self-titled disc would be great if David Pajo was on hand to add some musical muscle to Brian McMahan’s atmospheric mumbling. Loop’s ‘Heaven’s End’ would be great if it was anywhere near as cool as their early 12”s. Monster Magnet’s ‘Spine of God’ would be great if it didn’t totally fucking suck in comparison with other Monster Magnet records. And so on.

But wait! Here’s what I’m looking for! A CD with £3 scribbled on the front that completely kicks my ass and leaves me dazed and over-joyed!

It’s ‘I Am Not This Body’ recorded in 1992 by the (clearly massively under-rated) God is My Co-Pilot, and it becomes obvious from the first 90 seconds of exposure that it is, if you will, THE FUCKING SHIT.

They kinda mix some really aggressive hardcore chops with totally dissonant no wave guitar skronk and smart-ass grrl vocals, playing short (34 tracks on here!), bouncy, idea-packed songs that make me want to flail wildly and jump around.

“Yeah so what, so do cool new bands X, Y and Z, what’s your point?” you’re probably thinking, and I wouldn’t be sold from such a lousy, factual description either, but trust me here, this record absolutely fucking destroys.

The guitarist lays down some of the best Arto Lindsay / early-SY style random carnage I’ve ever heard whilst retaining an almost Minor Threat-like dedication to directness and violence, and the rhythm section bop along like Mike Watt and George Hurley at their best, keeping things tight and weirdly foot-tapping and occasionally splurging out into time-changey jazz-stabbing cacophony as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. And the singer! She’s so great! She sounds like she could go ten rounds in a righteous feminist ranting competition with Bikini Kill-era Kathleen Hanna and still flay you alive with understated humour and charisma. She may not play any instruments or get many writing credits, but you know she OWNS this record, just through force of personality. And the songs! There’s no flies on these guys conceptually speaking, as they rip lyrics from John Donne, Joseph Conrad and the Gnostic Gospels(!) and pound them into instantly understandable short, sharp mutant pop blasts about angels, bomber planes, Joan of Arc, food, fat girls, hipster bullshit and gender politics and space travel. Wow! It’s like if Huggy Bear spent ten years perfecting their art in a Buddhist monastery and came back to kill us!

This kind of stuff is exactly what I’ve always wanted from “indie rock” or “punk” or whatever – horrifying, uncompromising music that’ll make squares and parents think you’re frightening and crazy but that’s as vital and mysterious and amazing to you as the workings of a clock.

Dunno about you, but I’m off to AMG to find out more about these singular characters...