I Shouted Gun
Tue 5 April 2005 State of Decay @ Hope and Anchor
Angsty and clever post-rockers.
Jumping and pumping bass tunes are at the core of ISG. The two guitars throw the lot into the pot, spiralling hooks, chortling solos, complex insect-flight buzzlines, off-key niggling Hugh Cornwell style, solos of reverbing syrup, Urge Overkill twangery; calm dexterity that builds into staccato grunt sequences and choruses of slash and squeal. Drums are belting and ringing in turn. Vocal takes the form of three sets of emo-laden screams, lots of barking indecipherable monotone, and a surprising blast of blues croon in a guitarist-penned romantic ballad. For the most part, ISG remind me of Rock of Travolta, with countrified rock'n'roll shades of Leicester's TEAM. But, inexplicably, something in the set brings Duran Duran's "This is Planet Earth" to mind. Weird.
I Shouted Gun throw a fistful of fake dollars in the face of professionalism and instead create an unforced Reservoir Dogs persona, accident-prone but cool. Inventive wannabe gangster guitarists veering between the chestnut and the dappled, the gloaming and the pitch black. I loved 'em.
Author: RMC
The Idiot Boy
Mon 19 July 2004 @ Hope and Anchor
Intelligence FUEL injected into anthemic punk rock.
Think of a tortured bellow of a voice in perfect Bob Mould style (Husker Du, Sugar). Remember backing that mixes Pistols football chants and Buzzcocks boyish backchat ("aaah, aaah, aaah"). Wait with baited breath for the end of the sweet melodic guitar intro that tumbles into a frenzied speedball chord sequence triggering reverberating harmonics. Groove to politely insistent bass tunes. Get swept along by the undercurrent of frantic snarey drunch punk drums.
This kind of sound was never designed to make it easy to figure out where the words come from or lead to. There's plenty of defiance about "You're not alone" and "Everything will rise up for me". A Bob Mould weariness about "Tomorrow, well who cares? I've told you I'll be there". Some mission statements in "Once it's too much, it's never enough" and "Shout it out now, who you are now, who you wanna be". And some lines so bizarre I might have dreamt them. "Look how beautiful the skies are. Look how lovelier the scars are" [erm, stars? ed]. Line out is: lead vocal/ guitar, left-hand bass/ backing vocal, drums. And Jo from Northampton said hello.
Mr Sartorial Elegance says: punks with ties need to remember that the tie you wear is the noose of authority. OK, The Idiot Boy do sound a helluva lot like Husker Du. But there's more to them than that, a dose of humour for sure, an ability to sustain a song for 3 blissful minutes, an infectious punk singalong grin, a willingness to sing about something other than conflict in relationships (sometimes). And a name that seems like an Iggy Pop reference. Confession time - Bob Mould is an OT guru. I was bound to love The Idiot Boy, like an ice cream nearly Eiffel Tower high. Tell them they're your favourite thing.
Author: OT
iDou
Thu 10 August 2006 @ Bull and Gate
The two-piece distillation of Abdoujaporov playing cheeky punk-pop songs.
The agenda is set at the start and they stick to it. Walking on to strains of Abba and launching into "What you gonna do when the world goes pop?". It's a simple arrangement, and a success every time. The opening TV samples to remind you of the Carter USM days. A backing track on an iPod, splurge and stomp singalongs and skittering beats. Twin-speed guitars that slash and tickle. And Fruitbat's wink-nudge vocal twists, with Richey's drier echoes and long-suffering responses.
As always with Fruitbat, it's the witty lyrics that grab for your attention. But where social issues and the seedy side of life were once at the core, these songs are mostly personal tales of growing older with relative grace, or silly stories woven purely for the purposes of wordplay. "You have made my life complete - cruising at 30,000 feet"; "Now I'm trapped in a tunnel desperately needing a dump"; and "There's this scary bird - I know it's absurd - but she's kidnapped me - she won't let me free".
Richey's bid for the limelight comes with a cover of 'White Wedding' complete with deep vocal menace, pouts, and revving guitar. And that's about as heavy as the set gets, iDou are resolutely and poppily upbeat with about as much political edge as the Bay City Rollers.
I defy anyone not to enjoy an iDou show. They're a gushing stream of cleverly written and catchy songs that bound along like a litter of Spaniel puppies. Sheer exuberance.
Author: RF
iDou
Fri 5 August 2005 @ Bull and Gate
Rollickin' guitar-punk anthems from former Carterman, Fruitbat.
It's an Abdoujaparov side-project, a game they call the iPod shuffle. Nine backing tracks are loaded up and the iPod orders them randomly: iDou's task is to figure out which track is playing before it's time for the guitar and bass parts to kick in. And, with a bit of conferring, the boys succeed. The backing tracks are of scooting and skittering beats and cheesy synths, each one starting with the trademark Carter TV-sample. Two guitars generate grunting chords, fuzzed-up punky revs, flickering licks, ska curls, wild solo scribbles, and squealing feedback collapses. Bass lines are simple but crammed with swift hooky repeats. Fruitbat seems to be perfectly at home with the lead singer's job these days, his playfully Buzzcock-cheeky melodies augmented by high harmonies from his fellow guitarman. Lyrics, as ever, are full of wordplay and ruminations on the meaning of life: "I would give the world to be - in love with peace and harmony"; "I'm happy that - I've never been stuck - and had to kill a duck - to feed my cat"; and, wonderfully "With the same name as a London railway station, you were cursed to always keep on moving" (I'm guessing at Victoria). iDou hark back to the glory days of Carter USM's "Rubbish".
iDou confirm to those who ever doubted it that there was a lot more to Carter than Jim Bob. Fruitbat clearly creates his fair share of singalong anthems and witty tongue-twisting. The three-man two-guitar format also adds an urgency and vibrancy that Carter hadn't recaptured for some years. As a bonus (or a warning) reminder that Billy Idol is back on the road, there's also a faithfully pouty outing for "White Wedding", with bombastic rawk vocal supplied by the backing singer. Cranked-up guitar pop fun with iPod the Unstoppable Beat Machine. Back to Fruitbat and his cat: "How could anything so small and cute get me into so much trouble?".
Author: RMC
In Faded Glory
Wed 3 August 2005 @ Bull and Gate
The apex of crafty and intelligent grunge-metal.
The singing is wilfully bizarre, tunes that wail away are suddenly inflated with rock power, playful croons rise into breathy falsetto, and all accompanied by a stream of harmonic backing. Two guitars collaborate in quizzing licks and strangely catchy hooks from another world, set against Wild West flickers and chords that scratch, grind and jangle. Bass is a reverby control of measured booms and throbs, with forays into quasi-funk slapping. Drums are coiled to extreme tension, an unwinding of flutters and zaps. The strongest flavour here is sophisto-metallers Apes, Pigs and Spacemen, but there's a taste of everyone's favourite Foo Fighters too.
Frenchmen "In Faded Glory" know exactly how to create emo with panache. The Faded Glory feel is a passion that's intense, uncomfortable and (frankly) grimy. But the sound has fine definition; sharp, crisp crunches. If Miro or Grohl are amongst your heroes, Faded Glory are awkwardly essential. Trouble will always follow them around. In Faded Glory don't care, they're cool as fuck.
Author: RMC
Intervurt
Wed 5 October 2005 karmadownload @ Hoxton Bar and Grill
Dark eighties styling out to steal Trevor Horn's heart.
You would expect something interesting from a band whose name suggests 'introvert' and 'invert', and they deliver. The singer uses melody to scold and chide himself, the audience and the world. A song about mental institutions might not seem like an attractive proposition but after Donnie Darko/ Mad World, who knows?: "Rid my life of desire," they plead. Desperate perhaps but the music is there to make you dance and forget. Tricksy drum rollling, and wonderful pings with nanosecond decay. Synth adds a second layer of throbbing and chortling percussion, it keys into foghorn blows with squeezy steam sirens. Heavy grooves come from bass, as guitar lines needle and solos spiral. Intervurt exist in a state of high anxiety "I'm a diesel train coming after you"; "Just put your body against me" and "I can sense rejection". This is an anxiety so 1980's the singer has his jacket sleeves rolled up to the elbow.
Intervurt occupy an unclaimed territory in the spaces between Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Suede, Pulp and those pesky Kaiser Chiefs. They perform outrageously catchy songs with exactly the right fractions of anger and despair to maintain commercial and critical viability. It's not just a set, it’s a full on show, with projections and light sculpturing images that describe the content of their songs, and a concluding stage invasion by half the audience. I'd rather stay here with all the madmen, I'm quite content they're all as sane as me.
Author: RF
Ipsofacto
Wed 10 August 2005 Akira/ Smalltown America Records presents @ Catch 22
Clever mix of urgent post-punk grime and summer breeze vocal harmonies.
The singers shift from hysteria to dreaminess and back, Beach Boys layering switches to traded cries that fly off the melody: "Waster! > Waster!". Guitar sounds are dark slashing chords, hooky repeated sirens, curling intricacies and sobbing entreats. Keyboard focus is swirling synth, organ flourishes and simple piano repeats. Bass is a collision of compelling bounce and evil thrumming. Drum sets a tempo like a jerky merry-go-round, beats that are racing, crunching, then broken. Flavours of Teenage Fanclub compete with Fatima Mansions and even early Idlewild.
These Swansea boys are serious musicians, but their concerns are urgency, crankiness and contagious tunes. They claim to have only a single fan in the audience, but win a rapturous reception from people who've never seen them before. A main event waiting to happen, they'll be back along the M4 soon. Goodbye, give thanks.
Author: RMC
Izzy Strange and the Mad Staring Eyes
Wed 18 June 2003 Goo Nite Club @ Buffalo Bar
Garage 3-piece featuring serious musicians and impressive showmanship from the lead.
A range of rock ‘n’ roll styles are featured, including the Essex-boy R&B of Dr Feelgood and the stilted guitar riffs and rhythms in a 70s prog-rock melange. Lyrically, these guys are delivering complex stories about the wonder of London life.
Within its own genre of musicianly lo-fi, this can’t be faulted. Not an OT favourite though!
Author: OT
Jack Viper
Sat 22 October 2005 @ Bull and Gate
Silly punk-metal, as camp as a boy scout uniform.
The singer bellows the melody over guitars that rev and squeal, and a galloping rhythm section. Songs are sneers at ex-partners and drug-taking, they think they're cleverer than they are: "Why do you have to say those lies?"; "Baby, you just made a mistake, cos every dog has its day"; drug song #1 "Merry go round, merry go round, round and round we go"; drug song #2, dedicated < Go fuck yourself Pete Doherty > "I got no time for you".
For Jack Viper, it is forever the end of the 70s. Golden Earring and The Vibrators rule. Rock'n'roll ain't noise pollution, but it's trying hard to be. An apt contribution to an AC/DC evening. File between Jayne and Wayne County.
Author: RF
Jacksons Warehouse
Thu 2 December 2004 State of Decay 2 @ Purple Turtle
A unique blend of folk-, punk- and blues-rock.
The vocal pairing is superb, earnest assurance shared between the dedicated singer and front guitar man. There's genuine passion to the melodies and harmonies, and an impressive solo vocal and guitar piece with the breezy earnestness of Squeeze's Glenn Tilbrook. Guitars also form a quality double act, with Wedding Present styled duelling, electric folksy strumming, solos that fiddle and squiggle, squeal and rasp, plus blues-outs, mournful minor chords and wild drizzle lines. Bass speaks in lolloping couplets and insistent punchlines. Drumming is a cymbal and snare collision, with snare pulled away for the quieter passages.
There are lots of lyrical references to seventies songs here: straightforward cuts "I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all" and "You look like you want it, don't you". Remarks that fall somewhere between bubblegum and social critique "I've got a great big car and a three-day weekend". Invitations to the band's world: "The walls have ears, they speak their minds" and "There's a whole big scene where it's not supposed to be… my hometown". Add to that some fine pop hooks that seem to have stylistic links as varied as The Byrds and Fleetwood Mac - songs like "Dry Your Eyes", hooks like "Stay, I can make you happy". Well-used lines, but used well. It's hard to find comparisons with the Jacksons Warehouse sound, but flavours vary from the Ramones to the Levellers to REM - that's one hell of a variation.
Jacksons Warehouse stores a cornucopia of unlikely influences to produce music that is simultaneously scuzzy, grungy, rocking and folky. The set feels like a personal baring of the soul. It's a tradition at Pogues gigs for the audience to form an arm-in-arm circle jumping and kicking to the beat. That's the uplift that Jacksons Warehouse might just emulate one of these days. Not just a dream, but a band in the spotlight forming a new religion.
Author: RMC
Jacksons Warehouse
Tue 12 October 2004 State of Decay @ Hope and Anchor
Remarkable cowpoke blues-punk 'n' roll.
Twin vocals intone and respond in blues melodies cracked with emotion and ciggies. Guitars are a roller-coaster of floating tingles, diabolic sludge chords, waspy angst drizzles, staccato flourishes. Bass hammers out iron Beelzebub pitchforks in a forge of deep evil tunes. Emotion-drenched drums panic from explosion to implosion. Tortured anthems accelerate to a fresh crescendo of extreme care every 8 bars. Lyrics suggest mature reflection: "Spare a thought for the broken hearted" and "The kids won't listen to just one reason". There are echoes of the good, the bad and the ugly in Jackson Warehouse, backwards from Nirvana to REM to Joy Division to The Godfathers to Rockpile to Doctor Feelgood.
Jackson Warehouse skilfully present the twin faces of fresh dirt and polished accomplishment. It's rock 'n' roll with urgency and emotional damage, swagger and tears, check shirts and army pants. Cowboys lonesome on the trail and thinking 'bout their certain females.
Author: WT
Jerico One
Sat 26 June 2004 Flag Promotions/ Club Noir @ Upstairs at The Garage
Dark and scarily serious rave.
Duo with synth, lap-top and occasional processed vocal bark. Lots of trickling percussive "chks", seething bass sounds, stellar bleeps, underwater breathing sucks, and bellowing body blows. Not dramatic enough to rate as evil, not melodic enough to rate as dance, not simply percussive enough to rate as trance, not dirty enough to rate as industrial. The last time someone looked so malevolently at a computer was when a crash lost me a whole web-page. But, looks aside, this is not threatening, it's boring.
Jerico One play brooding formless technological halocinogenics. A vision of purgatory. Dull, dull, dull.
Author: OT
Jetson
Tue 6 April 2004 Club Fandango @ Dublin Castle
Glammy nu-metal/ punk quartet.
Slicing T-Rex harmonies. Forceful anthemic-punk bass melodies. Gorgeously squally guitar with Motorhead-grade metal staccato solos. Breakneck speed-drum madness. The sum of the parts is tuneful off-key pop to challenge Ash. Like Placebo and Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Jetson are simultaneously populist and slightly dangerous. OT will make no attempt to interpret lyrical content: this is the surreal world of "There goes my Tokyo" and single "Social hand grenades". Line-up is lead vocal/ rhythm guitar, lead guitar/ backing vocal, bass, drums.
Yup, they're young and cute. Yup, they're powerful punk-rockers, accessible and a bit off-kilter. No, they ain't nowhere near the wet vein of Busted, or even as tame as Blink 182. Yup, they are likely lads. Wait until they're due up on MTV. Switch the set on. And thrill your television.
Author: OT
Joeyfat
Fri 5 September 2003 Silver Rocket @ Upstairs at The Garage
Cerebral psycho-sociological poetry and arty post-rock.
This edgy and melodic chicanary could stand on its own without the poetry. But the poetry provides form and focus - really it's the logically perfect conclusion to post-rock's development. And, notwithstanding the bleakness of the observations, the gallows humour and melodic guitaring produce some great pop. "Last Train to Waiferville", for example, seems to be a sound of suburbia that is neither complete mimicry nor complete parody. All that, and a 6 foot 6 inch Dave Gedge lookalike from East Kent on vocals. Set-up is: poet, two guitarists, bass-player, drummer.
Complex erudite pop. Superlative.
Author: OT
Denis Jones
Sat 4 November 2006 @ Bull and Gate
An incredible one-man show of loops and layers.
Just four pieces in this show, but each one so slowly and cleverly constructed that you're glued to the performance. These painstaking creations could neither be entirely planned, nor could they be entirely improvised.
Superficially, he's a guitarman, but his first piece hangs on synth and voice. A pedal controls loops of splurge, bleep and moan. Voice is built into layers of skiffle-beats. More layers add a breezy skipping-rhyme, drifting in from many childhoods, each at a different phase in the cycle: "The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line".
Subsequently, guitar features heavily, loops of 'tabla' percussion from the soundbox, strings repeating pings and twangs, funky chords scratched and chewed, hooting sustain assembled into a scale, cycles of folksy jangling. Skiffling and popping vocal percussion continues.
The lyrics are sung onto reverbed layers, and paired into earnest and concerned harmonies. Thoughtful and wise words: "There's no need for you being obtuse"; "Sometimes you know - all that's forgotten isn't always forgiven" and "How can it hatch if it didn't get laid?".
Denis Jones is a different breed of showman. No costumes. No guitar heroics. No vocal gymnastics. Just a craftsman at work, forging pieces of robust delicacy, labours that absorb him and absorb the audience. When the creation is complete, he allows the loops to seethe briefly, then abruptly switches off the entire rig.
It's easy to get distracted from the content, but these are great songs - subtle, hypnotic, laced with guitar-sounds worthy of Greg Lake and Steve Hackett. The chap from Skelmersdale gets on with it, cool, businesslike - his mobile interferes with the electronics, it's out of his pocket and thrown to the back of the stage without a single loop disturbed. Unassuming genius in action.
Author: Pops
Joy Zipper
Fri 14 May 2004 @ ULU (University of London Union)
Beautiful country-fried psychedelia.
Ethereal twin vocals from male and female lead, and Byrds harmonies across the front three. Guitars produce gentle strumming, breezy blues solos and punky off-the-wall picking. Keyboards deliver dreamy atmospherics, while bass ranges dramatically and drums subtly jazz about. The songs manage to be homely and surreal at the same time, with maybe a touch of existentialism for the religious. "You're not the father". "Check out my new Jesus; he talks while he walks… it you want him to". "When we were young, I told you not to cry… When we were very old, I said we were gonna die". "Every thought you have is mine". And "Why do I keep forgetting your name; maybe I never liked you anyway?". This straddles the territory between Belly and the Byrds, taking in a little Teenage Fanclub and Dandy Warhols. Light and floating yes, but with a firm grip on songcraft. Lined-up are female vocal/ keyboard, male vocal/ electric guitar/ acoustic guitar, bass/ acoustic guitar/ backing vocal/ maracas, drums/ percussion.
The wistful quirky humour is reminiscent of an Evan Dando/ Juliana Hatfield duet. The band truly enjoy a rare outing with a large audience, joking about the lead guitar's ambition to front a heavy-metal band, and generating an audience sing-it-back contest by handing the mike around for "You're the Sun (-You're the Sun-), I'm the Moon (-I'm the Moon-)". How much do we love Joy Zipper? In their own write "I love you more than 1,000 Christmases". Are they going to become megastars? It's about time.
Author: OT
July July
Thu 9 February 2006 @ Bull and Gate
Classic punk energy and anger from a band that really knows how to play music.
July July vocal is about barking a catchy tune and adding football-terrace harmonies. Choppy guitars are ever-present in contemporary indie pop, but these guys add spangling, sub-ska slashing, intricate needling, calm solo melancholia, speed-strafing and semi-acoustic strummery. Bass is a meandering Hooky sludge-monster. Drums are scarily military, a marching army parade, a Glitter Band stomp, a coronation of artillery salutes. Interpret these words for yourselves: "I'm Abraham's son" (just like Homer Simpson); "I'm going to a place I can be alone - where I don't have to sit by the telephone"; and a vibe sillier than Werewolves of London "Got a secret agenda… by night, a cold-blooded killer". But the insistent "I wish that I could" sounds archly Franz Ferdinand to me. So punk can become fashionable without becoming fluffy.
July July are the most irresistible mixers of fluff 'n' crunch for many moons. At the opening, nods to Stiff Little Fingers, the Green Day radical years, even the Clash. When the mosh-chops get to work, the sounds become grand student anthems, fit to satisfy a stadium audience waiting for Franz Ferdinand or the Kaiser Chiefs. Any claims to be changing down a gear are just an excuse to get angsty. In July July, rock eclecticism meets the absorption of youth. They are young, and love is a battlefield.
Author: RF
Kandinski
Wed 22 October 2003 Goo Nite Club @ Buffalo Bar
Rock-jazz crossover with a massive WOW factor.
A sound that sits somewhere vaguely between a Belle and Sebastian stripped of female vocals and a Steely Dan bereft of keyboards. And you know what? You don't miss the bits they left out at all. Guitars can be staccato, jangly, jazzy. Bass can be funky, driving, melodic. Vocal can be fey, diffident, note perfect. These guys sure cut a broad cloth. Ans some fine pop songs too, rivalling that Stealers Wheel "Stuck in the middle" vibe. Formation is: lead vocal/ guitar, guitar/ backing vocal, bass, drums/ backing vocal.
A wholly new take on alt-rock. Pure unadulterated QUALITY.
Author: OT
Kardomah
Wed 8 March 2006 @ Bull and Gate
An unexpected bill this, with Kardomah added at the last minute, a slice of Coldplay brand indie-pop angst.
Keyboards chime and glisten, guitars combine swinging strum and tooting sustain, plenty of that jingle bells feel. The front man's melodies are impressive, from honeyed croon, to passionate swoon. But is this wisdom or pretentiousness: "You follow me through the streets of deception; we'll find a path to equality". Kardomah have perfectly mastered their chosen genre, but I still wouldn't listen to it at home.
Author: RF
The Khe Sanh Approach
Thu 12 October 2006 Sump Puppy @ Montague Arms
Lo-fi electro-punk with wicked gothic humour.
No low rolling fog of dry ice for these boys, their smoke machine fills the pub from floor to ceiling with thick white clouds. Clothes, naturally are black.
A continuous stream of images is projected onto the backdrop, some clearly appropriate and some apparently random. The singer is perpetually in motion, running across the floor, climbing, balancing, jumping. The stage is not big enough.
Nine marks for atmosphere then, but the full 10 for music. The toppy drums that rattle stamp and crash. The undercurrent of hooky rumbles from the bass. The keyboard-synth set-up, searing chortles and squiggles or lo-fi splurges and tootling, sounds borrowed from Half Man Half Biscuit. The uncompromising guitar madness, all harsh scribbles and chops, messy slashing, wonderfully stretched out-of-tune soloing and engineered screeches of feedback.
Words are a muttering stream of poetry, barked in a curious cross-key melody. From the story of The Columbian comes the line "You've got a hunch that you'd better wear black", an observation that explains quite a lot.
The initial images are of the psychedelic time-tunnel that opens Dr Who, followed by motion pictures and frozen frames, sprinting athletes and whirling dancers. Now they're replaced by clips of vintage advertising, and the title "British Theatre 1956-1959" is announced. Moving along, flames leap across the projected images to accompany an account of racial unrest in the North: "Burn Burnley, burn > burn Burnley, burn Burnley" come the alternating cries.
The closing chants of the second singer drive a final song "The riot cops, the riot cops", as the defenders of state and property march across the wall. Musicians depart as the skitter and chew of the synths continues amidst the dry ice.
I've not seen an outfit quite like the Khe Sanh Approach before and I'd be surprised if you had. There are elements of punk experimenters Wire and goth godfathers Bauhaus here, but KSA are fun - none of the too-too-clever attitude of Wire or the pompous theatricality of Bauhaus. Catchily anxious and awkward, this is clever humour left of the flat field. Burn down Tinsel Town.
Author: RF
Kid and Conundrum
Sunday 26 November 2006 @ Bull and Gate
A topical ocean of storytelling lyrics, breezy summer sounds and hardworking musicianship.
K&C relax you as soon as they appear. The conversational melody of the vocal simply seems to say 'welcome'. But there's nothing else simple about the performance. The beats skip and jump, gentle but awkward. Bass is as busy as a 2-minute dodgem ride, as mellow as big-band jazz, as urgent as an imminent tube train. The electric guitar jangles and pings or chops and slides. Rapid strumming, delicately picked rotations and deliberately frayed chords are delivered by semi-acoustic guitar. Yet both guitarists take time out to stroke many-toned keyboards, chortling the organ, wheezing the squeezebox, cascading the synth-stream, attacking and sparkling the piano.
All of this is great but it's the lyrics that are stunning. Bitter words in a sweet setting, protests and entreaties: 'Tonight we're gonna change the rules again - tonight we’re gonna sell-out all our friends'; 'That's how we worked out what's true, we just looked in your eyes, we saw right through you'; 'There's no point in getting comfy where you are, tomorrow they could take it all away' and 'I'm trying to understand why we are sleeping in the sand when the mystery of the sea is not far away'. Song-writing as evangelism, but with cleverly oblique messages.
Kid and Conundrum provide a wealth of material for the amateur reviewer and the pub psychologist. The narrative flow of the singing and the Gainsberg waft of the melody are the core features, but there are lots of interesting asides - disco-feel guitar janglers, a rolling soul ballad, an edgy funk number, bizarre titles (my favourite 'Baghdad Bakesale'), and a string of fake endings. There hasn't been such brightly odd pop music since the days of James and of Lloyd Cole. The final K&C protest 'Alien nation, what is wrong with you?' comes from a band that can analyse the problems of the world but feels powerless to change them. Brilliance born of frustration.
Author: Pops
Kid Sister Phoebe
Sun 13 February 2005 UK Antifolk 3 @ Buffalo Bar
Bittersweet acoustica about childhood, romance, and the tiny gap in between them.
Except for a brief spell of snare accompaniment, this is one man on guitar and vocal. The singing is somehow simultaneously earnest and playful, he's got an impressive ability to whistle a would-be guitar solo, and a knack with busky semi-acoustic strum and slash chords. Subject matter is animals, girls who love Converse baseball boots, Chilean girls with irresistible accents, and having your partner stolen by a character from Cats. Lines like: "If I were a hedgehog, I'd roll into a ball, and anything that bothered me, it wouldn't bother me at all"; "Macavity the mystery cat, he always gets the girl"; "We're shouting in the attic and nobody knows we're at it"; and "Although your footwear will be different, your heart will be the same". I can't think of any other singer-songwriters that reveal themselves completely in simple unembellished tales.
Kid Sister Phoebe gives a direct and honest performance of wide-eyed story-telling songs. The set is announced as his first live performance, which is mighty surprising given his talent and composure. Astonishingly bright and untainted.
Author: RMC
Kill Kenada
Wed 12 October 2005 Goonite Club @ Buffalo Bar
Grunge-punk with a cracking groove.
The singer is a man of Grohl-like switches: conspiratorial whispers delivered as screams mutate into angsty suggestions of melody. I think I'm hearing words, but I'm not too sure. "If I hurt you, then I'm sorry" and possibly "Go crack the USA". Guitar has lots of voices, urgent staccato pings, chord strafing, drifting sustain lines and speed shimmers. Bass deals in hooky propulsion and subtle prods. Beats are sharp but playful, drum-smacking sadism with a jerking conclusion to each piece. Kill Kenada play grimy spook music with elements of Joy Division, Sonic Youth and Nirvana. Angst grooves R us.
There's more urgency in Kill Kenada than in a 4 minute warning. There are also interludes of surprising calmness. This is intelligent punkage operating in the same dimension as Querelle and Cat on Form. As a disco diva himself, the son thinks they're "ok". Should you need to know, they pronounce their name like lemonade. I love Kill Kenada better than you, I know it's wrong, but what can I do? I need another fix of Special KK.
Author: RF
King Furnace
Thu 17 November 2005 @ Bull and Gate
Glitter camp, prog-pop, funk and punk.
The front man is almost too hilarious for me to waste time talking about the music, but, in brief, the musicians give you controlled-explosion drums, funky bass with beautifully squiggly flourishes, guitar that scratches at chords, revs the engine, squalls up a flood and Santanas a chewy solo. Now - that front man - his singing is a mix of wailing and passable blues screams, but it's his behaviour that is priceless. Petulant cries: "Don't clap yet, I'm not done". Prancing around, scarf thrown over the shoulder, the passed back between the legs for a sexual crotch rub. A stint onstage in YMCA mode with construction worker fluoro jacket. A flash of the £1.75 vest - a feminine psychedelic number - and what's underneath; plus backless (but rather grey) underpants. Some token guitar slashes and juddering mouth organ. A half decent attempt at being a human beat box. And truly silly lyrics: "I'll sabotage your genocide" then "I'll bag your heavenly body". Thank God he has no tambourine.
King Furnace play mock-cock-rock. As musicians, they're great at caricature, especially the Billy Idol style punk. I suspect they're lifelong Bowie fans, but they've also spent time studying AC/DC Whitesnake and The Cult. One vast love removal machine.
Author: RF
Kiosk
Wed 14 April 2004 The London Particular @ On The Rocks
Excellent female-fronted punked-up rock 'n' roll, featuring Julian Cope's comrade and co-writer, Donald Ross Skinner.
Vocals manage to combine the waywardness of a Wendy James, the raunch of a PJ Harvey and the punchy melody of a young Annie Lennox. Bass pummels out a superb irresistible squirm. Guitars engage in high-speed duelling, and neat little licks that produce a peal of harmonics to beat cathedral bells. The crisp drumming with tonnes of snare and cymbal is perfectly plugged into the unit. The staccato vocal style is pretty impregnable, but there are hints of old-fashioned lovelorn bitterness and anger in lines like "It means nothing" and "I can see you're mine". Line out is female lead vocal, guitar/ male backing vocal from DRS, guitar, bass, drums.
Psychobilly punk rock of the finest kind, this is one seriously choppy groove. I see you baby, shaking that ass. You need this. Let's hang out.
Author: OT
K-Matrix
Fri 18 June 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Quirky jazz-fired alt-rock.
A predominantly female affair, K-Matrix are fronted by an airy jazz vocalist. Though there's some pre-programmed percussion, the rhythmic force is a deep bouncing tigger of a bass. Guitars deliver light metallic speed-strumming and bright but twisted dawn-chorus proclamations. Cheerful it ain't, but less maudlin than the lyrics might suggest - "This isolation grows and grows" and "There's unison in darkness". The groove of Stereolab and the wistfulness of Belle and Sebastian. Players are: vocal; bass; guitar; guitar.
K-Matrix are well off the beaten rock-path, but there's plenty for a pop audience to hum-along or dance-along to. An unusual combination of grooviness and musical articulacy.
Author: OT
Kmoto
Sat 24 April 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Excellent Southern Fried Rock from this 4 piece.
The vocals coo with the sweetness of a Tanya Donnelly, the depth of a Hazel O'Connor and the raunch of a Chrissie Hynde. Guitars have a mix of Ry Cooder desert jangle, country twang and gliding infinite sustain. All this set against dramatic drum rolls and slow teasing bass lines. Lyrically, this is the dry female cynicsm of those tired of male abuse. "I'm done, that's what I said… do I need to tell you again?... I'm done", "I've over-sized my intentions", and "Pass around the cup, take a drink, take more than your share". Not a million miles from Belly or the Pretenders. Set-up is female vocals/ rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, drums.
An atmospheric and haunting set with brilliant gutars and a beautiful voice. Finger lickin' good. But remember, bad boys get spanked.
Author: OT
The Koolaid Electric Co
Wed 20 September 2006 Goonite Club @ Buffalo Bar
Enormous madcap factory producing multilayered psychedelia.
Three vocalists generate drifting harmonies and whispers. An endless succession of guitars are employed, from 12-stingers to battered old semi-acoustics, to provide feedback squeals, awkwardly gnarled lines, subtle scribbles, light and hazy strummery and a reverb immersion tank.
Bass ingredients are zooms and gentle hooks, both incorporated into pulsing beats. The final additions are throbbing or tapping keyboard and searing bleeps. Before the set it seemed that a violin was being prepared but I never saw it in action. Still, I’m not sure this heady mix really needs any more sparkle.
The Koolaid Electric Co have built their own remarkably different variant of the nu-gaze bandwagon. It has so many extras I'm put in mind of Spiritualized, the Dandy Warhols, Ride, Jesus and Mary Chain and Velvet Underground. They didn't tune up so much as glisten, squeal and fade in. When the set is complete, they sail off on a spaghetti ocean of squiggle and whoosh pedal fx. The Koolaid Electric Co have built one scarily powerful land-to-sea-to-air vehicle. Jet engines, hydrofoils and propeller blades.
Author: RF
Kronikel
Tue 15 June 2004 State of Decay @ Hope and Anchor
Blues metal.
Vocal is strangled blues and rant. Guitars mix choppy reggae, long rambling Killing Joke warbles, and crushed far-from-home licks. Bass plays assertive complex melodies. Drummer is a real star, giving it trash metal, rock flourishes and subtle jazz quirks all rolled together. Lyrically, it's full of aggro and confusion, and not that short on cliché. "You try to tell me something's not right; you try to tell me that I cannot fight". "You look for guidance in me". "Got no reason to stay here". "You may think I'm wrong, but I'm right". And the titles are in the same vein. "Man is authority"; "Find yourself"; and "State of Mind". At it's best, it's like Red Hot Chilli Peppers, at it's worst, like Ocean Colour Scene. Players are first vocal/ guitar/ tambourine; second vocal/ guitar; bass; drums.
Kronikel are in a blues rock groove, not a blues rock rut. Probably a sign of diverse influences like the truly 21st century System of a Down, and the cool seventies of Wild Cherry's "Play that Funky Music". More the last carriage in the train than the latest aero-engine, but so what? Kronikel rock.
Author: OT
Kushty/ Bograt
Fri 20 February 2004 @ Bull and Gate
3 piece blues-rock with a hint of metal and folk.
Kushty are no more, they tell us, and by the end of the set, pick 'Bograt' as a working moniker. Funked-up bass spars with drumming that's part tickety-tick metal and part show-off rock. Bluesy vocal is offset by more varied guitar, a wrestle between complex solos that are measured rather than pompous, and gritty chord squeals in the realm of Killing Joke. Kushty are at their best playing instrumental segments, these are the passages where they rock out like premium 70s metallers - passages that could be slotted comfortably into a Thin Lizzy song. Some of the songs' main elements are decidedly worn - the opener reminded me of "What shall we do with the drunken sailor?". Still, the lyrics show signs of much more creative brainwaves - the gist of one hook was "No point in dying to the poison pen… Better to die fighting for your country… And then forget its name".
This combo succeeds in taking the old blues-rock lark somewhere fresh. Kushty RIP. To Bograt - or its ultimate successor - bon chance.
Author: OT
Kyote
Sun 13 November 2005 VF Loud Alldayer with Silver Rocket, Noisestar and Monotreme Records @ Bull and Gate
Feel: look into the eyes of beautiful losers - they're a mirror.
Vocal: rumbling grunt.
Guitar: niggle lines.
Bass: meandering tunes.
Drums: crunchy, broken.
Extras: floating trumpet.
Lyrics: poetry.
Popstar factor:75% - the frontman's even traded his duffel coat in for a suit.
Familiarity factor: 75% - I've seen them loads, but they still have the power to surprise.
Song count: half a dozen.
Longevity: timeless.
IT factor: overgrown hair on frontman, but some visible face.
Antecedents: Velvet Underground, The Fall, Blue Aeroplanes.
Quotable quotes: "This is a headcount"; "We do these things to remind ourselves we're safe and warm"; "23 foot high-rise"; "She could swim underneath and still come out on top"; and "You forgot whose life you lead".
Remark: Prince Headbutt.
Author: RF
Lapsus Linguae
Tue 7 October 2003 @ Bull and Gate
Post-rock artistry from the four Linguaists.
A difficult night for the boys, suffering from 'flu and disintegrating high hats. But still, the sound is rich in beautiful piano melodies, lustrous guitar lines, kaleidoscopic bass, tempo-bending kit-stretching drums. Much is instrumental, but edgy and tense vocals veer from barks to taut melodies. Words, whatever they are, fade as an extra-surreal element in the wider soundscape.
It's impossible to catch the majestic sweep and anxious desire of Lapsus Linguae in a review. Even trying to work out who's doing what is hard, with the line up roughly: first vocal/ piano/ guitar; second vocal/ bass/ piano; guitar/ bass/ backing vocal; drums. They are about to release an album, and you just know there will be no high-power marketing, no MTV plays, and you'll never hear it. Better see them live then. In their own words, on the only Lapsus Linguae record I've found: "Parade! And That's an Order!"
Author: OT
Last of the Real Hardmen
Fri 4 February 2005 Silver Rocket @ Upstairs at the Garage
Instrumental guitar virtuosity.
One man and an amazingly multi-tongued semi-acoustic guitar. Metal slidery, fiddly niggle lines, country twangery, thematic chords with twinkling undercurrents, wolf-whistles and birdcalls, jazz-jerky playfulness and wayward picking, and a final power-down to steely tickling. A couple of covers in the set, including a John Coltrane piece, but the Hardman's bizarrely-titled compositions dominate - "All of this shit I'm eating is leaving a bad taste in my mouth"; "I can see it coming and it looks bad"; and a dedication to the guitar, "Song for Honey". The classicism of Steve Hackett, the beauty of Nick Drake, the desertscape loneliness of Ry Cooder.
The Last of the Real Hardmen has a tenderness to his touch that makes the strings sing like a choir, sparkle like spring Sun on a mountain lake. Sounds that he tells us are miserable are actually full of wistfulness and memories of past pleasures, there's not a dreary moment in the set. Sublime ethereal grace.
Author: RMC
The Last of the Real Hardmen
Sat 5 July 2003 RoTa @ Notting Hill Arts Club
One-man and his ambient electric guitar instrumentals.
Wicked mournful sounds, with subtle background guitar loops and sustains. Short soundscape-bites with long titles like "all the shit I've ever eaten is leaving a bad taste in my mouth".
The Hardman is relaxing, but never dull.
Author: OT
Last Year's Fashion
Tue 13 Jan 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Harrow four deliver a huge slab of grungey bloke-rock.
Madly pummelled drums, lolloping bass, guitars primed for crunching chords and searing power solos. All topped off with a vaguely flat blues drawl. Lyrics seem to be relationship-dominated "not-gonna-cry-when-you're-gone" material, although there are some intriguing titles. Is that "Confessions of a stone" or "Confessions of a stoat"? There are shades of Lemonheads, Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana in here. Wonderfully like having sharp gravel stamped into your ears (in a good way!). Set-up is vocal/ guitar, guitar, 5-string bass, drums.
Old-fashioned maybe, but it rocks-out big time. A slice of Seattle in NW London.
Author: OT
The Left Outsides
Friday 24 November 2006 Fortuna Pop's Beat Motel @ Buffalo Bar
Psychedelic folk'n'rock'n'roll.
You are struck instantly by the female vocal, folksy in its airiness and phrasing, but with a perfectly pure and controlled melody. Viola is introduced early in the set, which adds to the traditional feel, but it speaks in many different tongues. These sounds may weep in anguish, seethe with regret, dance a slow jig, playfully descend the scales, or solemnly mark the end of an era. This is the work of Alison of the Eighteenth Day of May, so it's hardly surprising that the performance is both expressive and polished.
The fellas take the music away from the traditional roots to add a country-fried rock'n'roll dimension with surprising psychedelic flavours. Guitar that shifts from softly struck chords to a strange spaghetti western flamenco with ominous minor chords, to measured telegraph wire twangs, to steely strumming. Bass that trots in, rolls with the wagon train, thrums a melancholy hook, and joins in the viola's happy stepping down the scales. Drums that are quietly versatile, the opening crack and rattle displaced by calmer trickling, gentle tamping, busy patters and chops, and sparse arrangements of kick drum, snare and maraca.
Alison's calmly floated voice alternates with male vocal, daydreaming melodies, wordless harmonies, soothing responses and respectful duets. The arrangements are designed to tell the story, and wistful tales they are: "From sunrise to sunset, I dim the lights"; "Lately I find certain people I meet are not as they first appear" and "When the day is through you will be glad it's over > you won't want to face it, you'll be glad it's over". No-one's glad that this show is drawing to a close.
The Left Outsides chart strange territory. One moment, you're in the Animals' 'House of the Rising Sun', soon after you're exploring the Beatles' 'Strawberry Fields', then you're off to join the Thompsons and Fairport Convention at the fair. The Left Outsides' set is a steady process of mood development that draws you gently into their place of sad contemplation. They close with an apparent lament, but the throbbing bass is leavened by bright sleighbell accompaniment. "Ring out the bells tonight" declares Alison. Celebrate life on the outside.
Author: Pops
Leisur Hive
Wed 22 February 2006 @ Bull and Gate
Gothic pop-noir excellence.
Their walk-on music is an odd piece of female-fronted balladry that seems to belong to Europe at War (no, it's not Edith Piaf's signature). Then the band bursts in demanding your immediate attention. The singer is close to hysteria - hear me, for I am desperate: he sneers, he chews, he warbles. Two guitars are heavy on the atmospherics, they twang and niggle, they scribble, squeal and strafe, they seethe and sob like violins, they phaser, they white-noise, they gnash teeth. A team exercise in fuzz, frill and shimmer. The rhythm section is F-O heavy, beats are firm and skin-stretching, but the bass is a diabolic gong, it purrs, it growls. That's an enormous sound already, but the lyrics are gigantic: "An image is nothing but a film in your eyes"; "It's a new kind of beauty, when a body feels empty"; "Did you fall asleep? Did you let yourself go? I thought I was the last one to forget how to say… It's all you"; and "Now I will clean up the mess and leave my body twitching in the dust" (?). A fistful of spaghetti.
I've consistently loved Leisur Hive shows for well over 2 years. They draw on so much that obsessed me as a teenager: Roxy Music intensity (second band playing on that tonight), Psychedelic Furs sonic-walls, original Ultravox robot-art, Bauhaus goth-sinister and Banshees guitar psychedelia. The audience is rapt as the set draws towards its close with the sulky threat of "Walk Away". But no-one's walking anywhere, and Leisur Hive press on to a crushing heavyweight finale. Bela Lugosi's still undead.
Author: RF
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Fri 4 March 2005 Silver Rocket @ Upstairs at the Garage
Agit no-wave as it was originally created.
This is a man who checks his guitar-sound by improvising accompaniment to the DJ's inter-set selections - Elvis Costello's "Pump It Up" and Julian Cope's "World Shut Your Mouth". After that, he could do no wrong in my eyes.
Drums whip it good, a ferociously paced rock 'n' roll battering, a genuine snap, crackle and bop. Not short of tricksy "Go your own way" broken tumbles either. The speed-boogie feel of the set is confirmed by the splodgy bounce of the bass's power tunes. But it's the astonishing panoply of guitar voices that dominate the show. At the core are chewy chord deconstructions: add to that solos of sly off-the-wall tickling; pirouetting emergency wails; punky skitter and scrawl; maverick grated spangles; chimy picking and piping of almost Stuart Adamson proportions (Skids, Big Country); even accelerated reverby skanks.
Leo's voice never strays far from the melody, but he doesn't sing so much as bark, yelp, and stray into cod falsetto; an angry not-so-young man. The lyrical density is difficult to follow, especially given the guitar emphasis - Leo asks repeatedly "is the guitar too loud?", but the audience is having none of it. There are plenty of pumping chorus anthems - "It's all right" repeated dozens of times; "Looking dow-ow-own"; and "The time is now, now". But there are also lots of stream-of-consciousness ideas that disappear almost as fast as they appear: "We sing our song together, and it sounds so good"; "Show me the way to my heart"; and "I'll give you back what you've given and you'll get what you deserve" (disturbed karma).
A set of blistering 3 minute rock 'n' roll critiques, supposedly the compare of Elvis Costello - but I felt there was less directly personal vitriol, more of the Jam and Husker Du in the content, and more of the Woodentops in the live pace. But, though Leo indulges in cranking up the revs, he's no one trick pony: songs may open with the contemplative calm of A Day in the Life, or take on the supercharged stomping and extra-terrestrial guitar solos of The Sweet.
A show with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists is a religious experience. The US equivalent of seeing Mick Thomas of Weddings, Parties, Anything. Lots has been said about the range of underground bands claiming to be under the influence, but the most obvious direct descendant of this vibe is The Strokes. Leo is fast, direct, wordy; more than this, he loves his job and he loves his audience. He ands as he begins, performing along with the DJs post-encore selection: a Billy Bragg style karaoke of "Dirty Old Town". Ted Leo and the explosive chemistry class.
Author: RMC
The Light?
Thu 22 April 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Impressive mod sextet with huge slabs of blues rock and Britpop underpinning them.
Jazzy drums, quality funked-up bass trickery, deep keyboard washes, and a mixture of angular guitar squall and warm bluesy show-off solos (did he have to play behind his head and with his teeth?). Vocals are pure smoovery, a young Robert Palmer almost. Lyrics are sometimes obvious, but there's lots going on, and nice little twists. "I don't like to see you… down, down, down… But I still don't want you around" and "Who's the one that told you everything would be alright… well they lied. Who's the one who said your name would be in lights? Well I tried". Huge bunch of sounds in here - Faces, Lynard Skynard, Ocean Colour Scene (sorry), Bluetones, Stone Roses. Set up is vox, lead electric guitar, rhythm electric/ semi-acoustic guitar, bass, keyboards, drums.
Fun but not silly, this is the sound of the Blues Brothers but it's no joke. Excellent songs, excellent playing. And cute too - half Beatles, half Stones - Grandma would love 'em. Forget Grandma. Get down and cut some rug.
Author: OT
Lights Run Riot
Sat 12 November 2005 @ Bull and Gate
Emo-grunge excellence.
Two guitars entwined, intricate jangling, chord chopping, catchy musical-box licks, high speed frilling. Bass is an effervescent bustling, drums are assertive cracks arranged into twisted time signatures. Vocals are strangely hypnotic; first and foremost dreamy thoughtfulness, but melody and passion closely behind, forlorn cries and angry screams complete with harmonic backing. The regret and wordplay wash like a tidal wave: "Your humble insignificance"; "The daylight holding onto scraps of night"; "Don't look surprised when I say it's time to fall down"; "Things that you wish you never had said"; and "Sorry for being sorry". I don't think that they say anything regrettable.
Lights Run Riot are earnest young fellas making great alt-rock music like their heroes. I think it's a safe bet that their heroes are Idlewild. I like Idlewild and I like Lights Run Riot. Why should I be more cynical?
Author: RF
Lilygun
Thu 17 August 2006 @ Bull and Gate
A genre defying act, Lilygun offer an indie take on grunge-metal.
Lilygun's female singer is strident about songs and messages, tunes punctuated regularly by accusing cries. Like the singer, the rhythm section dwells on the dark side, with full hooky bass-buzzing and stomping drums that crack, pump and rumble. But the sunshine is not far away, as rasping thrash guitar gives way to frills and jangles, delicately mournful picking, a shimmering waterfall of strings.
The songs seem intensely personal and they're delivered with passion to suit. "Give me my poison", "There were times when all I wanted was some honesty", and "The many other masks you leave behind". Not to mention the sweat-drenched t-shirts you leave behind.
The Lilygun set is an impressively varied romp through distinctive and individual songs. There are heavily strummed ballads, angry punk belters, and juddering PJ Harvey blues-stomps that pull-up refreshingly short. The last song is a tight popsicle, complete with phaser fx and squealing climax. This is an array of sounds you could use to create a new Skunk Anansie, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cure side-project The Glove, or a psychedelic reinvention of Hole. Lilygun's music rains like a shower of petals and bullets. Just like the snow in Summer.
Author: RF
Lo Fuzz
Sat 1 October 2005 @ Bull and Gate
Expert blues-jazz fusion.
A great singer, smooth and effortlessly powerful melodies. Electric guitar is a cornucopia of fancy fingerwork, the Niles Rogers solos and the catchy electric licks that quickly develop and migrate are a mere fraction of what's on offer. There's hyperspeed semi-acoustic strumming too, vibrant meandering nudges from a six-string bass strapped under the chin, and drums that patter, smack and even stray into ska beats. Neat blues lyrics, get these: "Don't ask me where I'm going to, I'm not the kind of person with a long-term views"; "She's killing me, killing me with her love"; and "As we cast our minds away, I softly turn to you and say, I've only ever wanted what was mine".
I don't know much about jazz, I don't know much about blues, but I know what I like - and I like Lo Fuzz. I can't pinpoint their influences, but I'd say they've listened to Van Morrison's Moondance and Stevie Wonder's Superstition, and possibly the odd Blur song. Lo Fuzz are breezy but clever, a stream of tempo and phase changes, but everything gels. Ten years ago, acid jazz was going to be the next big thing, but the "powers" decided the public wasn't ready. Shame. This is music for groovers. As they might say on the Fast Show: Nyce.
Author: RF
The Loners
Sun 17 October 2004 UK Antifolk 2 @ Buffalo Bar
Screwball noiseniks billed as antifolk rock 'n' roll.
The two singers drone misfortune and scream vitriol. Guitar emits harsh growls under the onslaught of a fearsome strumming, but is also tickled into sweet intricate Byrds flight. Pummelled bass glows like a Pete Hook melody. Lyrically, this is esoteric material, either deep or dadaist: "I've got the blood of Christ on my hands"; "And your ego blew up, and that's all"; "OK, it makes you feel ashamed, but you should not feel ashamed". The impact of this is part Violent Femmes, part Pavement, wholly welcome.
The Loners bring serious anti-naff attitude to the world of antifolk. Unabashed wood-shavings from the garage transformed into Pinocchio and winning by a nose. Worlds collide but everybody loves a lady's shame.
Author: RMC
The Lords
Fri 4 March 2005 Silver Rocket @ Upstairs at the Garage
Artfully subverted blues rock.
Around half the material is instrumental, but the vocal episodes are cathartic - frenzied wails and yowls, bellows and barks. Ironically, the first lyric I jotted down sounded like "I won't be your dog". Other words of wisdom include "There could be trouble" and "I've got to feel my fingers, I've got to feel my toes". Seems like the blues to me.
The most striking facet of these three Lords is a twin guitar sound conveniently described as intertwanged. Each one perfectly fills every gap left by the other. There's oodles of warm string-bending and slidery, chiming cycles, rounded hooks, high speed flickers, and oddly bright blues grunt-chords. Drums are hefty but neatly damped for pinpoint sharpness. The beats are wild, tripping, tumbling and somersaulting. The net effect is mashed up and staccato experimentalism punctuated by heavy sludge-outs: a Beefheart barrage.
The Lords combine exciting but inaccessible sonic cacophony with lo-fi countrified blues. The two are cleverly exchanged, so that before one element begins to feel like too much of a good thing, they're romping into the next. The Lords take a century of bellowing woes into new territory. Have you ever been to eclectic ladyland?
Author: RMC
Low Sparks
Wed 8 March 2006 @ Bull and Gate
A wailing voice commands your attention to the stage, a protest that's part Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) and part Kevin Rowland (Dexy's): "I'm gonna shake your tree house down". This is the Low Sparks, a band showing off their knowledge of a range of forms and instruments, but with a focussed silliness.
Two guitars contrast choppy slashes with glowing reverb, and bass bounds wildly around the scales. Bonus sounds are percussion blocks and bells, the lonely wait of a melodica, and episodes of broken hooting from the keyboard. The writing is bizarre, epithets and truisms presented as revelations: "My floor is made of wood, but my roof is made of tin"; "Out came the police - the ducks and the geese started flapping at me"; and "The sound I make with my last breath will be the sound of a man who's ready for death". It's as though author Magnus Mills had decided to move into popular music.
Essentially, this music is whacky rock'n'roll'n'pop with a few exotic flavours. I'm reminded of 1980s Hull outfit Red Guitars. More recently, this everyman storytelling has been at the core of the Divine Comedy business. The Low Sparks' music is clever fun, not clever-clever fun. Bring the playhouse down boys!
Author: RF
Luxembourg
Sat 26 June 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Deliciously verbose glammy pop.
Vocal is a veritable Jarvis Cocker croon. Guitar is a warm mix of long complex Ronson sequences, Suede scribbles and Bill Nelson declarations [fuck, he must be good… Ed]. Keyboard is a relentlessly Sparksy voice-changing business, screwball organ and reverby piano. Bass is in the realm of insistent melodies; drum backs the whole performance, across the board, come bass-hell or high-hat water. Lyrics? Well, us reviewers want to write down the lot. More "bon mots" than lyrics really. "It wasn't that hard, it just doesn't seem right"; "I want to hold your hand until sometime next week"; and (I think) "I want success, if it's not too late".
The players are: vocal; guitar; bass; keyboard; drum.
Luxembourg are the beautiful child of the Suede and Pulp generations. They have their own issue - their single featuring killer-line "You happen to have it, you happen to like it, and you're not giving it away". Luxembourg announce the closing song as "Success is never enough", then launch into the first few bars of "Wuthering Heights". Which changes into a glammy prayer to the Fame God, only to close with the keyboard playing that famous 4-note piano line. Ridiculously fey, and wonderfully off-balance.
Author: OT
Luxembourg
Sat 27 March 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Electro-guitar croonery with a big nod to eighties new romantics.
Luxembourg's sound is warm but not wet. Bass plays nudging tunes, while guitar moves from high lines to galeforce squall. Keyboards initially hint at A-Ha pop, but switch into serious minor-key spookiness, and then on to kitschy popcorn. Vocal manages to be both operatic and grounded, not miles from Marc Almond. The glammy-punk phrasing hints at David Devant. Lyrically, it's revealing, specific and anti-racist: "I want your 3 day stubble and your ample chest"; "You want to send me and another 27 million home, but I was born on a roundabout in SE17"; and more obscurely "You happen to have it, you happen to like it, and you're not gonna give it away". Set-up is simply vocal, guitar, bass, keyboard, drums.
Luxembourg describe themselves as pop-noir. The set is quality glam-songcraft tomfoolery, directly and overtly from the closet. Luxembourg crackle with electricity. They deserve to be big.
Author: OT
Lyca Sleep
Thu 25 March 2004 Club Fandango @ Bull and Gate
Northern tripped-out psychedelia that makes you desperately crave a festival and a ginormous spliff.
Vocal is a sweet dreamy effort drenched in reverb. Drums tickle gently. Guitar and bass are so fuzzed- and buzzed-up they are making whale music. Broadly, it's the little noddly bits between Stone Roses songs extended into 5- or more minute jams. Without any Ian Brown. At all. Ever. Yet, strangely, the odd lyric I picked-up sounded like "You're made of stone". Set-up is simply vocal, guitar, bass, drums.
The music of the narwhal, the dolphin and the seal. A new mode of sonar communication. Lyca Sleep are a thing of shoe-gazing, spangly, mushroom-inspired ethereal beauty. Underwater experiences can come in handy.
Author: OT
The Magic Heroes
Sat 19 November 2005 @ Half Moon, Putney
Nottingham's beautifully over-the-top blues rockers.
The Magic Heroes generally open the set with the same irresistible line. Tonight, you get an intro first, commencing with the bass thrum, progressing to chewy guitar licks, gentle drum pattering and a sudden explosion into the Jimi Hendrix Experience: "I'm a lovemaker, I'm a heartbreaker, I'm a piss-taker get out of my way". It's hard to resist the compulsion of the Heroes, and tonight, no-one's trying to. They've supported Dr Feelgood here before, so they're playing to an audience that already knows them and likes them.
It's not hard to see what the audience digs. Huge Presley vocal, wailing, muttering and screaming blue murder. Unbelievably fussy guitar cleverness, tickling, squealing, singing, soaring. A little semi-acoustic rock'n'roll cabaret too, crazy little things. Busily spidering bass slaps and plucks. Manic drum smacks.
The Heroes sing about what they know, which mostly means Nottingham; the local hero turned rough-sleeper/crack addict (don’t take no drugs, don’t take no shit, they warn); their favourite club night at The Social "Friday nights are so much better than the rest of the week". The highlight may be their summertime song 'Couldn’t give a monkeys' with the awesomely cheeky chorus line steal - "Too hot to handle". Here the Heroes get into a blue funk, with the vocals pecked, guitar scratching and frilling, bass zooming around the fretboard and drums pinging.
The Magic Heroes play silly, good time music and they do it darned well. By 9pm they’ve got the audience responding in song: "What you want? > What you want! > What you need? > What you need!" Two enormous afros, heaps of reverb and an attractively glistening drummer. Everything that you might want or need from a rock band, especially if you're a mother of a certain maturity (not uncommon in the Feelgood fan base). The audience love the Magic Heroes and it's great to see them in front of an up-for-it crowd. We love it when our friends become successful, and when they're northern it's even better.
Author: RF
The Magic Heroes
Thu 2 December 2004 State of Decay 2 @ Purple Turtle
Bombastic blues-rock with a slice of irony.
To begin with, I thought this whole set was meant as a joke. The opening number suggests "I'm a love maker, I'm a heartbreaker, I'm a piss-taker, get out of my way". Blues-rock needs some serious piss-taking, but the Heroes apply serious musicianship. The singer delivers clear blues melodies with the assurance of Ian Gillan. A comprehensive list of sounds his guitar doesn't make would be shorter than a list of the sounds it does, so as a sample, there's blues-funk licks and squelches, key-slipping solo spirals, reverby laments, Hendrix-inspired squeals and chuckles, and space-pedalled chimes. Bass menaces with melodies of speed, depth and complexity, or paces gently up and down the scales. Drum switches from determined rock out to subdued atmospherics, from snare smashing to cymbal ringing.
Lyrics are sometimes oddly constructed, but for the most part they seem deliberately obvious: "To cause you pain is not my aim" and "Give me back my heart". To reinforce the sense of irony, there's "Too Hot to Handle" - if I'm not much mistaken a UFO cover. The feel is a cross-breed of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.
The Magic Heroes amount to The Darkness of the blues-rock world. Not a spoof, but a reminder that 70s rock bands were themselves stoners with a big sense of humour. They are taking the pee - for instance each stagily strips to the waist in turn - but they are acting out of love, not disrespect. Magic Heroes gotta whole lotta front.
Author: RMC
The Magic Numbers
Wed 22 October 2003 Goo Nite Club @ Buffalo Bar
Mellow and melodic sounds from country-tinged acoustic rockers.
Two light female vocals harmonise with male croonery. Lyrical themes are self-discovery and the human condition - "Which way to heaven?" and "The weight of the world". Line-up is male lead vocal/ semi-acoustic guitar, female backing vocal, female backing vocal/ bass, drum.
I can think of no obvious comparison, although some parallels with Bread (erm… where are the female harmonies in Bread? - Ed). Gentle intelligence.
Author: OT
Manatoba
Thu 16 September 2004 @ Bull and Gate
An energetic clash of garage blues, mod and baggy.
The vocal wails torturedly around the melody in Robert Plant style. The singer also produces passages of fast strummery on semi-acoustic guitar. Electric guitar is a beast of bluesy chords, rock riffs and squally punk solos. Bass races away with a galloping tunes, astride a clatter-punch drum. True to form, lyrics are about forays with the female of the species - "She's so sexy" and "Why do you always refuse me, why do you always complain". Manatoba get me reminiscing about the Faces, the Animals, and the Stone Roses.
Manatoba play a mean lo-fi blues with attitude rather than swagger. Not so much punching the air as defying the clouds. Blues-rock with its eye on the 60s, 80s and 90s as well as that obligatory nod to Zep. What does Manatoba mean? I reckon it means Tenth City Army.
Author: WT
The Mandlebrot Set
Sun 28 November 2004 @ Bull and Gate
A two-man towering sonic wall.
Not songs, but progressions from a cleverly layered and looped guitar and a complex set of drum patterns. Backing synth and sample track provides simple repeated thud percussion, white noise and whistles. Guitar builds vast piles of squealing and shimmering, chiming, scratching, hard-edged chords, violin bow soaring and e-bow sustain, all subject to pedal-controlled reverb. Drum trickles, skips and judders, the atmospherics of the dead and wounded rising like zombies on the battlefield into waiting sniper-fire and strafing machine-guns. The structure is provided primarily by the drummer's progressions from trippy jazz to thundering crescendos, but the closing piece does feature a relatively simple fuzzed-up and developed guitar melody. Stripped down post-rock like The Last of the Real Hardmen.
The Mandlebrot Set are a couple of musicianly technophiles showing off, but they have plenty to show off about. A beautiful and pasionate forcefield of sound. Not the Winnebago Deal, but the real deal.
Author: RMC
Manola
Fri 9 April 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Classic bluesy heavy metal from these four.
Robert-Plant style vocals of the wail, scream and sigh variety. Lead guitar drips honey, rhythm guitar squalls. Steering is from crashing tin-roof drums and curiously Level 42 funkin' bass. Lyrically, this is really darned silly - apart from cliches about "The Sweetest Taste", we have these obviously retro derivatives perversely whingeing "Stop living in the past". Set up here is lead vocal/ guitar, guitar/ backing vocal, bass, drums.
If you like Led Zep wannabes, you'll love this. And OT has to admit to thinking - grudgingly - that this is proficient AND it's fun. But lines like "It all feels the same in my heart… We all look the same in the dark"? You're 'avin' a larf…
Author: OT
The Mass
Sun 13 November 2005 VF Loud Alldayer with Silver Rocket, Noisestar and Monotreme Records @ Bull and Gate
Feel: crushed by the wheels of industry.
Vocals: out-screaming Ozzy by 100 decibels.
Guitar: feral revs and chimes - after all, today is the Sabbath.
Bass: galloping.
Drums: mental Maiden.
Extras: squealing and whistling jazz sax, indecipherable rants, claimed to include French statements.
Popstar factor: almost possible, in a Henry Rollins kinda way.
Familiarity factor: 80% - I don't know them, but I sure know the genre.
Song count: normal.
Longevity: eternal, probably on a space waste-transporter called Red Dwarf.
IT factor: 25% - just two beards and a little floppy hair.
Antecedents: Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Lydia Lunch, Ex-Models, Motorhead.
Quotable quotes: "Slice up your toys" - or possibly "Slice off your toes", and "Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye".
Remark: Blue for Ceaucescu.
Author: RF
Massive Fire Fox
Sat 17 July 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Madcap wank-joke rap.
The crew's vocal organ are a bit of a Little and Large comedy duo - for contemporary audiences, think Gareth and David Brent. David Brent is dressed for the Office, but sounds terribly academical. Gareth is the Mad Hatter. Not surprisingly (this being rap) the musical core is booming drums and assertive bass. But we also get Brent on decks, and The Third Man on joke cock-rock guitar, scribbly strapped-on keyboard and ridiculous pipes. Their "Massive Fire Fox" introduction almost sounds like "Ebenezer Goode", but it's followed by a passage of Brent playing a cross between Father Ted and Ivor Cutler ("Keep it real, Lord, keep it real".) We move on to a bit of Am Dram from Gareth and the Tragedy of the Flatulent Gasmaker.
It's cross-country skiing all the way from there. Gareth "The elbow"; Brent, lustily "Yes". Gareth "The knee"; Brent, sotto voce "Yes". Gareth "The shin"; Brent, lushly "Yes". Gareth "The achilles heel"; Brent erotically (?) "Yes". And so on, Gareth pointing to each of his body parts in turn. Of course, at "The cunt", Gareth points to Brent. The closer is "Jump, jump, jump, if you don't jump you're a cunt". The audience does jump. Ad libs are lobbed in by Gareth, like "I like heavy petting; mostly with men; sometimes with girls". Line-up is Gareth: "Mad" Hatter - first vocal; David Brent - second vocal/ decks; The Third Man - guitar/ hip keyboards/ pipes/ backing vocals; bass; drums.
Massive Fire Fox are alarmingly silly and it works. A crowd-pleasing goodtime pisstake. Despite their self-deprecation, they're pretty decent musicians too. How low can you go? As low as you like.
Author: OT
The Mau-Maus
Thu 27 October 2005 Club Fandango @ Bull and Gate
Lip-smackin' white-rhymin' bass-slappin': as camp as Carry On.
Guitar swishes and squelches, kneeling at the feet of Chic's Nile Rodgers. The promoters' description of the bass as Funkadelic is spot-on. He caresses you into the groove. But the core of this is the cool George Benson melodies, the tight-as-a-gnat's arse vocal harmonies, the Barry White middle-eight voiceovers. They rap about craps bands, and they rap about the gentrification of Notting Hill Gate ("In the Royal Ghetto"). They're wearing George Michael shades, and some of the rap could be about said Mr Michael: "I'm so crazy, I'm gonna change my name, I'm gonna party on my own" and "You ain't nothing but a jailhouse bitch".
If you want to get a grip on where The Mau-Maus are coming from, think of Wham and the Scissor Sisters' "Take Your Mother Out". I defy anyone not to get turned on to the music of The Mau-Maus - but shouldn't it be The Mau Mau? Whichever way, I bet their favourite game is Hide the Bone, and I say "Young guns, go for it". The Mau-Maus are The Darkness of funk-rap.
Author: RF
Me Against Them
Wed 21 April 2004 Club Fandango @ Archway Tavern
Uber garage blues-rock from this 4 piece.
This sounds like Jack White on speed accompanying a Wild West Strokes. The vocal is high octane Marc Bolan vibrato with juddering drawl. Guitars are a mix of tex-mex picking, punk flourishes and evil Department S chords. The bass is a gorgeous sloppy fuzzed-up throb, and the drums neatly stilted, flying almost at the speed of sound. And boy, those lyrics. "Your loving eyes aren't following me no more… if your loving arms aren't following me, what good are mine for?". And some brilliantly colourful images - "I am Napoleon", "Shoot, shoot the messenger", "We're never gonna be alright" and "We're surrounded, everyone's dead". Set-up is lead vocals/ rhythm guitar, lead guitar/ backing vocals, bass/ backing vocals, drums. Garage does not get any better than this.
Outclasses the White Stripes by a length and then some. "Don't put your love in a bad place" they warn. Join Me Against Them and sear your heart in the flames of hell. Horny rock. A good place to put your love.
Author: OT
Medium 21
Thu 19 June 2003 @ The Garage
Slow dramatic rock with psychedelic edges.
Almost like Travis and Coldplay get sent on a long desert highway to examine the width of the horizons and develop a good country drawl. The result is atmospheric and thoughtful - on an Australian front, 70s-80s bands like The Church and Died Pretty are in the same dustbowl, or for the UK, Headswim are not a million miles away. 4 piece formation is 1st vox/ lead guitar, bass, synth/ 2nd guitar, 2nd vox, drums.
Mellow sounds that weave a spell rather than invoking sleep – but it’s a close call at times.
Author: OT
The Metalers
Tue 17 June 2003 @ Metro
4 piece garage punk outfit that has found a place in the (so far short) OT catalogue of “betes noires”.
These guys produce simple driving bass lines and choppy tin guitars, part Stooges and part New York Dolls/ Sex Pistols. The vocalist behaves oddly like a glam crooner in spangly silver gloves to deliver lyrics that sound way too much like a pastiche of their influences – one hook seems to be “This is not fun”. To produce something fresh in the Iggy Pop genre, you need to have some very special material and a captivating style.
This is throwaway. Am compelled to leave by the awful hook “Lights out t’nite… Lights out, is that all right?”. Lights out can’t be soon enough for me.
Author: OT
Mica
Wed 20 September 2006 Goonite Club @ Buffalo Bar
Bright and anxious guitar pop.
Three singers are on stage, occasionally a female lead but mostly male lead with male and female harmonies. They have a fine portfolio of catchy hooks: "You're not the one I'm looking for"; "It gets us nowhere fast"; "You think that you've seen it before and you still don't know what you're waiting for" and "It must be hard, so hard to be you". Yes, it can be.
Meanwhile, guitar summons jangle strums, squiggly staccato solos
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