Rainer Maria
Fri 2 December 2005 Silver Rocket @ Upstairs at The Garage
Female-fronted new wave anthems.
When all the parts the jigsaw fit perfectly, and carry equally important sections of the big picture, where do you start? Sweet female vocal melodies, but direct and determined, never cloying. Bass tunes with a gentle urgency, hooks penetrating deep into your psyche. Guitar as hard to get your head around as a 4-D dodecahedron, jangling and scratching chords, picky deconstructions, warm frills and inticate nibbles - in other words, Technique. Drums deliver racing slaps, subtle kicks, cascading cymbals. Male vocal cries, mostly a backing part, but also duetting, the two singers scream along together for the finale and encore. Lyrics are packed in tighter than travel scrabble; mostly, they're about love, joy and regret: "I can't tell any more what's yours and what's mine"; "You were strong and clever, and I didn't know any better"; "I'm gonna fight you at the end of the world", and "I could have set you free, but I watched you burn". Straightforward lines, but not clicheed.
If you didn't enjoy Rainer Maria, it would surely mean that your ears or your heart had withered and died. This is intelligent guitar-pop in the style of Belly or early-years Blondie. And, if you need your indie to swagger and pout, there's groovy throbbing resembling Roxy Music without keyboards, and the sombre rumble and twang of New Order in their Ceremony/ Procession phase. Very little here in the way of tempo change or mood switches - there's only one flavour on sale. But it's a great flavour, a sundried groove. Rachel Silver Rocket was singing along for all she was worth, bless. Rainer Maria bring you galloping rhythms, gorgeous singing, articulate lyrics, and cleverly stretched guitar-playing. Never simple, sometimes edgy, but always catchy and bright.
Author: RF
Razorlight
Tue 25 May 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Kings of speed teen rock 'n' roll that seem way too clever to be teenagers.
A mix of staccato guitar and fast blues honeyed treats. Incredible breakneck-squall guitar duelling. Thumped-up bass. Full-metal drums. Urgent boy-next-door vocals. A little bit of "I Am The Fly" trickery, but honestly, this is top of the pop-rock tree. Every lyric is a corker. Try "Don't go back to Dalston, don't go up the junction, don't go round the houses, just come back to me". Or "I just can't get there no more, so tell me which way is out". Arranged on stage are: lead vocal/ guitar, guitar/ backing vocal, bass/ backing vocal, drums.
The energy of Ash and the ckeekiness of Supergrass. Entertainingly witty rather than patronising. Razorlight produce perfect punchy powerpop songs.
Author: OT
Reagan
Wed 18 February 2004 Goo Nite Club @ Buffalo Bar
Top fun from purveyors of an electro-clash/ psychedelic/ glammy punk rock melange.
Keyboard delivers piano, bleeping noises, and swirly organs. Guitar has lots of man-machine choppiness and shooting star noodles. Bass and drums can be driving, groovy, even heavy. What you would expect of Hawkwind with the added influence of the Damned, Radiohead and The Prodigy. Lyrically, this contains thick wedges of sarcasm and cycnicism - an insincerity in "You can rest assured, I'm gonna miss you now you're gone", and the bitterness of "You never were afraid, but now you're not so brave… Your halo is slipping, so far it's missing… Oh no, you know you know who you are". I'm not so interested in a song pronounced to be about - erm - onanism. Blink 182 did that to it's climax already. Formation is lead vocal/ synth-keyboards, left-handed guitar/ backing vocal, guitar/ occasional synth-keyboards, bass, drums.
Probably the most enjoyable and original live act on the North London circuit.
Author: OT
Reculver
Tue 8 March 2005 State of Decay @ Hope and Anchor
Perfect combo of classic heavy rock and blues grunge.
It grows from a throaty mix of scream and bellow, passionate vocal timbres, part Lemmy, part Cobain. Guitars can emulate a clanging axe, a soaring pterodactyl, a teary-eyed spidering. As a duo, they deliver mournful intermeshed chord deconstructions and roped-together scaling. Bass contributes deep sonorous groove tunes. Drum is a crisp-crunch splashdown with Zeppy cymbal trickling. Words are traditional rockuledge, but crafty thefts rather than worn retreads: "One thing you like is blaming me" (oh, yeah!); "Feel so low"; "You wanna leave it all behind" (oh yeah again); "Time to put me in my place"; "Say you do and say you don't, say you would and say you won't" (Zuton me); "We, we are the people" (Tooting Popular Front); "Lonely on the last link of your chain" (triple yeah); and a putative ZZ Top foray into rock'n'roll "What you don't understand". The absolute grunge of Nirvana meets the calculating rock of Foreigner - like the Foo Fighters you might think, but without the towering Grohl irony.
Reculver are the perfect embodiment of grunge-inflected and seventies-flavoured emo-rock. The first act on the bill describes them as "tight", and in the sense of "accomplished", it's a true assessment, Reculver tick the Tommy Vance rock box. In the hands of lesser mortals, these monsters of rock stylings might sound jaded, but Reculver hatch a plot so fresh it sounds like they created it this morning. Without breaking a sweat. Cool as ice.
Author: RMC
Red Deadhead (aka Future of the Left)
Sat 12 August 2006 Guided Missile @ Buffalo Bar
Dark and passionate punk, brief songs with stark repetitive structures.
The lead singer deals in curly screams with shouted backing ripostes. It's like James Dean Bradfield in a bizarre tangle with Jello Biafra. Words express careworn desperation: "Why put the body where the body won't go?"; "The only way to get those fuckers home"; and "Don't believe in, don't believe in myself" (with unexpected country cries of "Roll-on, roll-on, roll-on").
The Red Deadhead bass deals in thumping sludge-hooks. Guitar lines are clangs, squiggles and scratchy frills. Or you may encounter a glammy guitar-and-bass ensemble, driven by chopped-up beat slices. Drums are freakily paced, slaps, cracks, staccato bursts. No space for boredom here.
Red Deadhead's sound is all about the short-sharp melody, the quickly repeated theme. Never mind the McClusky and Jarcrew personnel, the sound is more like the Projections take an axe to Spiritualized. They explain their song 'Welcome to the body shop' with the statement: "This is not about the home of officially sanctioned creams". No, Red Deadhead is the home of sectioned screams. Yikes! This really should be dedicated to Neil Kinnock.
Author: RF
The Red in Sophie Loren
Mon 18 Aug 2003 @ Bull and Gate
Thrashy post-punk flailings from 5 guys creating mayhem on and off the stage.
Amazing guitar sounds, the highest-slung bass OT has seen, and a drummer who barely sits down. This is nothing short of an onslaught, with shouted rants for lyrics and an impregnable song construction. Even titles are wilfully clever-clever in-jokes: "The sound of a marching band finally finding its bloody feet".
Impressive, but add this all up, and what does it mean? Certainly worth seeing for the entertainment-value of the band slamming each other around on stage and an audience trying to crowd-surf with a total of just 15 observers at any time left to carry them. Brilliance and lunacy may well be opposite sides of the same coin. (PS: OT keeps checking these guys out, and is still impressed and confused in equal measure).
Author: OT
Redtwelve
Wed 21 April 2004 Club Fandango @ Archway Tavern
Grunged-up metallic punk from these redfive.
On a brief showing (your reviewer was having "fun" on the Northern Line), this is about anthemic vocal melodies with heavy metal harmonies, rollockin' bass, warm but off-beat guitar lines with seriously scuzzy speed chords, and clattering drums. Lyrically angsty sentiments like "We are broken". Set up is lead vocal, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, drums/ backing vocals.
The promoter suggests that these guys compare with Muse. I thought maybe also a touch of Feeder, Idlewild, Smashing Pumpkins. Instantly likeable. When I argue, I see red.
Author: OT
Reemer
Sat 18 September 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Polished power-ballads and punky rock anthems.
Lead vocal delivers an angry melodic shout for the anthems and a grungy croon for the ballads. He's a part-time rhythm guitarist, trading and layering chords with his lead guitarist, and a part-time keyboard player mastering tinkling piano sounds. Lead guitar moves from chord-layering to classic blues-rock rambles and solos, also contributing occasional vocal harmonies. Bass is in charge of slow determined tunes, with firm and energetic drums at the core. Lyrics: on angst we have "I talk to God, but the sky is empty"; on affairs, we have ""You're in way too deep"; and on frustration, the closing number (FCUK) "It's not funny anymore". Reemer spend half the set sounding like Stiff Little Fingers, and half sounding like Embrace. An odd combination, but a good one to build on given what's popular in 2004.
Reemer are mighty purveyors of twenty-first century pop rock. Melodic, thoughtful, and - by turns - angry and romantic. Perhaps a little like Travis before they got wet, wet, wet. Reemer are standing at the edge of something big, and they won't be shot down.
Author: WT
Reigns
Fri 4 February 2005 Silver Rocket @ Upstairs at the Garage
Guitar- and keyboard-based dreaminess.
Two man outfit with two guitars, keyboard, programmed percussion and occasional bass. Guitars produce shimmers and intermeshed jangle picking. Keyboard is primarily piano voiced, anxious repeated strikes, deep boomy synth vibrations, wild chimes and fairlight whistles. Deep throbbing bass guitar melody is set against spiralling and circling organ chews. Percussion takes the form of metronomic clicks, ticks and kerchunks. Disembodied (but alive) vocals are ethereal mantras, lines that sound like "Again, again, she'll die for him". Overall a sound of gentle progressions leading to chiming crescendos. The calmer moments of Bill Nelson, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yukihiro Takahashi.
Reigns play complex drifting pieces that allow your imagination to wander and return, your thoughts to roam and come back safely. Sounds from a varied palette, applied with no urgency, a sly form of hypnosis. To borrow a Bill Nelson sample: a worse thing than blindness or deafness would be sleeplessness.
Author: RMC
Retrobiff
Mon 7 August 2006 @ Bull and Gate
A crash-barrier in the highway between punk and Britpop.
It's all about getting your punches in fast. Drums drive at white-knuckle pace, crashing and rolling, a relentless rocketing bullet-train. Bass piles on with short thumping hooks and showy slides. Guitar scratches, rasps and slashes at chords, or rips into clanging solos - brief, wild and desperate. Vocal melodies are clear but skewed and loopy, twisted drones, long warbling cries.
Lyrics suffer a little from schlock-rock syndrome, but that's youth: the lovelorn "You're in control of me"; "I can't sleep tonight" and the ultra-cheesy "So nice to treat you, so nice to sleep with you baby". Accelerated remakes of "I just wanna be your dog" - and why not?
Retrobiff have learnt the defining spirit of punk rock perfectly - get through the songs as quickly as possible then leave. Despite that, the act doesn't feel especially retro. More than the racing sneers of the Dead Kennedys, Retrobiff remind me of of the first three Manic Street Preachers albums. Mixing the staccato and the thunderous, the band burn through 8 songs in 20 minutes. Retrobiff are urgent, critical and insistent, and they make me want more.
Author: RF
Ricky Spontane
Sat 13 December 2003 Guided Missile @ Bull and Gate
Four halo heaven from the indie janglers.
Vocal croon like Vic Reeves with the bonus of discernment, bass chainsmokes and pumps away on the full length of the stick, guitar teases in finest punksville style (with fine phasor moments when it matters). A show too - guitars and vocal perambulate wildly. This set was the 7th band OT witnessed on the day, and the first male vocal to be passionately and perfectly in tune: what a relief! Songs are about the banal, the everyday, the lives of me and you. Some personal "Who will play my girlfriend in the story of my life?", some metro-universal "Did you see the girl with the blonde peroxide? Couldn't see her 'cos there's too much carbon monoxide". Set up is lead vocal/ keyboard/ guitar, lead guitar/ backing vocal, bass, drums.
At moments, the simple savvy poppiness reminds me of the first few Police singles. But no, RS spend a song describing "The Perfect Sound", and in their gentle irony, they have found it. And all of this would be ko on every single day.
Author: OT
Ricky Spontane
Sat 8 May 2004 Guided Missile @ Buffalo Bar
Joyous punk 'n' roll extravaganza.
Imagine an English beach. The lead vocal is the yodelling barker selling donkey rides (his favourite donkey is Domino). Drums evoke the waves crashing on the shore. The guitar is the spray where the surf hits the breakwater and the crackle of the sand as the sea recedes (though there are also some punky 3 note off-key solos and great fifties rocker riffs - maybe someone brought a ghetto blaster). Keyboards draw in the sound of a distant organ at the fair on the pier. And bass is the throb of the motor in the ice cream van (ok, way more melodic, maybe Mr Whippee sells lots of flakes). Lyrical goodies abound for Ricky Spontane. "Where the old and the new somehow get together, like you know they could do". "There's a man with a clipboard in my road, I wanna go… I gotta run". And "I'd like to get to know you, before the Summer". It's the warm teen sounds of the Undertones with a crooning Neil Hannon up front (Divine Comedy). Set up: lead vocal/ second guitar, first guitar/ backing vocal, keyboard/ backing vocal, bass/ cigarettes, drums.
Gorgeous songwriting genius in the vein of Squeeze's "Pulling mussels from a shell". Here comes the Summer. Here comes the time of Ricky Spontane.
Author: OT
Rosemary
Thu 6 July 2006 B*sides @ Enterprise
An engaging blend of indie, rock'n'roll, skiffle and garage sounds.
There are two Rosemary singers, the guitarman and the bassman, delivering lines that interchange and lock together like jigsaw pieces. The vocals have a distinctly folksy feel, but in a tradition of drinking songs rather than crop failures or mining disasters. Rosemary sing in blusters and echoes, chants and rounds. Delivery is fast and frantic, pace set by a furious rattle of express train and gunshot drumbeats. Guitar scribbles and twangs in a country style, teasing an unflusterable rockabilly bass.
Rosemary are suffused with the secret joys of the sweet life and how to live it. New single Suburban Kings is typically catchy and upbeat, a longstanding showpiece of the set: "We will always, we will always, we will always go. They will never, they will never, they will never know". Such musical fun and games.
This compact Rosemary audience are determined to shake their stuff whatever. And that's surely what these sharp 2 1/2 minute routs are made for, each somewhere between a reel and a sea shanty. The shortcomings of the venue (like apparently having no sound engineer) don't seem to bother anyone at all. Rosemary jump deftly from the playground to the dance hall with flair and panache. Ah, the exuberance of youth.
Author: RF
Rosemary
Wed 9 March 2005 Rhythm not Reason @ Nambucca Bar
Countrified rock'n'folk anthems.
Blistering beats blast from harshly rattled and pummelled drums. Bass bounds away from trouble, shocked, but trying out complex dodges, striking off into pony trekking blues and mysteriously insistent hooks. When the guitarist is adjusting, there's a strangely dubby bass and drum jam. When guitar is in action, the two sets of strings combine for pacey bubblegum rock'n'roll slammers. But guitar also gives you more. More subverted twangy solos. More jangle and chime pickings. More urgent chops on the tilted merry-ground. More revola and curiously deconstructed chords.
Two singers swap, interchange and trade twisted melodies. It's a folksy chortle-a-wail accompanied by a harmonised "baa-de-baa-de-baa" and falsettoed "la-la-la". Words address thoughtful genies and coralled herds: "You are all mine"; (apparently) "We feed our hate"; and "We will always, we will always, we will always go; they will never, they will never, they will never know". Amongst other precedents, the Rosemary sound hybridises Seahorses, Zutons and Bluetones.
If you seek the drama and camaraderie of a gang evading the law on the high chaparral, look no further than Rosemary. They're in a modern country-psych idiom, but with plenty of classic moments, like their closing number "Your love is sweeter than wine". These are rousing sounds of a drunken hop, a twenty-first century response to The Pogues. A herb that grows wild, piquant and addictive. An escape from the last chance saloon with all guns blazing.
Author: RMC
Rothko
Mon 3 October 2005 twentysixfeet and akira present Wreck @ The Marquee
Famed for having two bass guitars, but what's more important is that they create thrills from subtle progressions through sonic swatch-books.
No vocals here. Stilted percussion, a telegraph-machine drum sound, jangling wind chimes, atmospherics that trickle and boom. Synth generates drifting whitewash, rasping echoes of subterranean streams, contemplative pipe organ tendrils.
The two basses operate almost as if they were lead and rhythm, but they're open to role reversals. Rhythm is mostly about hooks and rumbles, whilst lead is shimmering sustain and (perversely) roving chord sequences. Readily, this transforms into the lead developing and repeating a short theme in the higher bass pitches, to be echoed and varied below by the rhythm man.
Rothko daub a mix of rough shadows and polished white, the dappling of the Dirty Three or Eyeless in Gaza. Each piece develops incrementally, but the pace of the development is perfectly measured. Six songs in half an hour, they capture a piece of your soul with each one in turn, then withdraw to regroup. It’s mostly a melancholy business, with titles as uplifting as "Definition of Loss", but, with the kiss of a beat, Rothko will rise to a (post) rock-out. The difference between art and engineering is just texture.
Author: RF
The Rum Circus
Fri 15 September 2006 @ Bull and Gate
Magnificent glam-rock epics performed as a 1970's costume drama.
They're filming the show for an internet podcast, and the band put on a worthy performance. They're dressed for a ball (formal psychedelic), with waistcoats and drapecoats, flowers in hair and in garlands.
The white spotlight is on lead singer Chesca. She opens with feisty gypsy vocals and metallic strumming on semi-acoustic guitar. Bassman and drummer provide a male vocal underscore. B's electric guitar screams and thrills as Gavin's bass romps along busily. Velibor's drum sounds tumble, tap and crump showily. This is theatre, bright and flamboyant.
The set contains many different elements, but the strong lyrical narrative is a constant throughout. Longing and loss are at the heart: "Love is my fever"; "God made the natural world, then He filled it up with pain… He won't notice you when you call His name to praise Him"; and "All the loves I've lost and left behind me, and hoped would find me, and love me again". That's one serious fever.
Of course, it wouldn't be a show without changes to pace, to moods, and to roles. Shortly into the set, Chesca moves to piano theatrics for the Babooshka-flavoured "Gabrielle": is this tragedy, or is it melodrama? More plot development, and a scmaltzy musical-box waltz shifts up several gears for a thundering rock chorus, with twin electric guitar twangs and soars. They close with a powerful warbling female voice set against the full band's backing "aah-aah, aah-aah" - "Why are you so cruel, cruel, cruel, cruel, why so cruel?" Is the female of the species deadlier?
The Rum Circus name captures the flavour of the b(r)and perfectly. This is a concerted effort in skill, daring, variety, and exuberant showmanship. Bowie, Cher, Procul Harum, John Miles, Elton, Jefferson Airplane and Siouxsie and the Banshees would all be envious. In terms of presence, togetherness and sound quality, this was the finest Rum Circus outing I've seen, and captured as a movie too. The spirit, the sound, the greasepaint and the lights are in their blood.
Author: RF
The Rum Circus
Thu 26 January 2006 @ G Lounge
A rock opera in eight episodes.
The circus opens with a moody and glowering Nick Cave build-up. Bass flickers, cymbals shimmer, guitars conjure steadily intensifying atmospherics. Suddenly the show is in motion. The electric guitar is at the core, rasping revs and wildly curled solos, chopping chords and calliope steam pipelines. Bass guitar directs the tunes busily, subtle nudging and string-bending assembled into wild-west ambience. Drums are anxious, focussing on the flutter and ping of cymbals and hats.
Frontwoman Chesca draws you in with some frill-and-slash semi-acoustic guitar. But she devotes herself to keyboard, serious baby-grand piano sounds that worry and sparkle. Chesca is also the chanteuse, taking a few cues from Cher's Tramps and Thieves (but fortunately not hairstyles, costumes or partners). The opera's cohesion is in style and direction rather than subject-matter. Songs deal with yellow bellies (figuratively), murder and the afterlife. The climactic final anthem warns "Don't let me down", and ends with an abruptness that contrasts starkly with the opening build-up. No more stories, entire repertoire exposed.
This Rum Circus evokes childhood memories. Expansive and catchy song-based music, dogs jumping through burning hoops, death-defying stuntmen putting their heads between the lion's jaws. These cleverly structured and rolling melodies recreate the era of the young Kate Bush and Toyah Willcox. But when the show is over, it's over until the circus next comes to town. Chesca explains: "It’s the end of the night for the music, but just the start for the drinking and amorous adventures!". Amorous adventures? Bring on the lions.
Author: RF
The Sailplanes
Wed 2 November 2005 Goonite Club @ Buffalo Bar
The BBC website for John Peel quotes the man at the masthead: "I just wanna hear something I've never heard before." Well, listen-up.
Only The Sailplanes make music like The Sailplanes. At the end of the 1970s, this was known as 'no-wave'. Two guitarists alternate on lyrics, but male voice predominates (in tonight's set anyway). A hysterical bark that is almost John Otway versus a latter-day 'Holly', the Red Dwarf's female on-board computer. To say the words are nihilistic is an understatement: 'I got no one, got no time', 'I never knew anyone', 'Feeling without meaning', 'You can have my life', and the uncharacteristically cheery 'I see the world in your eyes'.
There are only three Sailplanes, so the guitar duo creates twin strafing, wild and wide-ranging picking, string frillers and clangers, scratchy white noise. Strangely beautiful chords terminate a violin bow sawmill treatment. Drums race, a pattering hailstorm of beats, with an unusual wrist flicking action. A common structure is applied to most songs - strong rock 'n' roll intros that accelerate into violent strummery. But there are variations - one blistering instrumental that ends in an excerpt from Nick Cave's ' John Finn's Wife' and a strange episode of kneeling at the guitar pedals, wild fx, chirruping and motorbiking.
The Sailplanes are unique, but like Marmite, you either love 'em or hate 'em. I'm in the first camp. The promoter suggests they're like Sonic Youth. Possibly, in parts, but no sludge, no bubblegum, this is way more single minded. By the time they sang 'I see you walk' most of the audience had walked. To borrow from The Adverts 'We must be no-wave. They'll like us next year.'
Author: RF
Samsa
Wed 21 April 2004 Club Fandango @ Archway Tavern
Stadium-bound post-rock anthems from this Leeds trio.
Expertly stilted drumming complete with crashing cymbal crescendos. Booming bass melodies running for upto 8 bars, worthy of The Who are The Jam. A warm guitar squall that switches occasionally to soaring Cocteaus sustain lines. The trademark stamp of guitar style on this recalls the early days of U2's The Edge. All of this plus unsurpassable vocals, tortured and melodic, with hints of the folksiness of David Gray, the gothic off-key wail of Peter Murphy (Bauhaus), the intensity and falsetto of Thom Yorke, and the matched-at-birth harmonies of Macca and Lennon, or The Byrds. The feel is pure angst - lyrical titbits include "I won't let you down again… you won't let me down again" and "My eyes caught fire". The overall sound ranks with Radiohead of the My Iron Lung era. Set-up is lead vocal/ guitar, bass/ backing vocals, drums/ backing vocals.
Quite simply, and out-of-the-box rock performance of sheer brilliance. If you walk away, walk away… I walk away, walk away… I will follow.
Author: OT
Sand 700
Wed 22 December 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Perfect guitar pop.
Sand 700 are almost too good for this world, but thankfully, they're here. The lead singer is a white man, but he's also a chewy soul melodian in the territory of Roland Gift (Fine Young Cannibals). He's half of a pairing that delivers a matchless array of guitar sounds: chords of chopping, reverb and steely strummery; tinkering Johnny Marr solos, countrified metalling and speed scribbles of spook, sustain and showiness. Bass generates swift tuneful pummellings, whilst improbably balanced drums deftly trip the beats and chug like a smoothly tuned engine. And, as a parting shot, there are hookily squidgy mouth organ bursts from the singer. Add to that high density lyrics, every one thoughtful, esoteric, and highly quotable. "Light has never been my friend, but it pays my wages"; "The landing's longer than the fall" (so is the winter); "Until it happens again and the start is the end" (a bit Stephen Hawking); "I can't help but stutter these words that I mutter - and carry on singing this song of my substitute life"; "Well I drink 'til I love you 'cos memory just gets in the way"; "High on a ledge a push will turn to a fall"; and "A smile and a fist is like a fuck and a friend". Sand 700 reproduce the exhillerating guitar harmonics of Roxy Music's "Virginia Plain", and meld together the shimmering spikes of Kitchens of Distinction, Josef K and the Bluetones.
Sand 700 trade in catchy and lyrical indie genius. True originals, there's not a trace of brit-pop, blues rock, garage or rock-lite to be found. Sand 700 amount to 700% hooky quirks. Incomparable wonders. The only fun in town.
Author: RMC
Satellite Inspectors
Thu 4 May 2006 @ Bull and Gate
Intriguingly "out there" guitar pop.
The Satellite Inspectors are not quite de rigueur, and this sets them apart from the pack. They've got a whole cavern system of reverb on the guitar, fizzing and swirling strokes, with hoots, squeals and catchy curls teased out. Tempos are straightforward, but firm spacious hooks from the bass contrast with the density of the drum patterns. The bass-player doubles as the singer, a chap who knows how to sing and knows how to mess with the tune, sliding down the wall, calculated to be catchy but marginally flat. I like the sense of disdain, as if mortals couldn't possibly understand: "I feel fine… we come from above it" and "I'll be the same without you". Looking down on London, baby.
I'm dubious about bands with work-related monikers, but the Satellite Inspectors can call themselves anything they like. This is accessible pop music, but you have to work to get into it. Nothing is obvious or instant, but the SI have enough charisma to pull an enthusiastic crowd, and get the venue two-thirds full for an early set. I would guess they grew up with the music of the 1990s, with sounds of Suede, Cast and the Verve making an impression. The mark of Anderson and Butler is indelible. The SIs also make room for a blast of bluesy jazz in the style of The Cure's Love Cats, and a harsh choppy finale that thrashes like a tropical storm hitting the coast. Guitar pop that's hooky but not predictable, clever but not pompous. The radar is picking up strange signals from the sky. Satellite Inspectors are go.
Author: RF
Savage Henry
Fri 14 January 2005 Tsunami Appeal Benefit @ Montague Arms
Genre: guitar and electronic experiments on the cosmic psyche.
Members: 2
Vocals: 2, manic screams, whinnies, processed ethereal sirens, rant-rap, eastern mantras.
Guitar: crazy horses, shimmers, scribbles, dew-drops.
Synth: space station, parabolic bells, clangers, martian crickets, white noise, wild horses.
Backing: trippy dance beats, Doctor Avalanche, Cocteau metronome crunch, machine gun.
Rough quotes: "Comfort me by sound"; "How will I defend you?".
Precedents: Eno, Bowie, Fripp, Bill Nelson.
Savage Henry straddle a line between spacescapes and spacecakes.
Weirdness to pop ratio: 95% - there are structured developments, but no prospect of a chart-bothering single.
Familiarity factor: 15% - the sounds and the themes stick in your mind, but I've seen them play 4 times, and they could have played 4 different sets - or not. Well, you can't say it seems like you've heard it all before.
Author: RMC
Savage Henry
Tue 28 September 2004 State of Decay @ Hope and Anchor
Industrial experimentalism with corporeal form and ethereal structure.
This dark duo eke out unlikely noises from voice, synth and guitar. The poisonous percussion of a night deep in the jungle. Frantic chunks of chord. Foundry clanks. A violin cat strangled with its own gut. A vocal cry of colonic irrigation, a sob of broken dreams. Percussive freak-fests with throaty chortles. Accidental and deliberate feedback. Synth trailing the wild perambulations of guitar melody like the distorted shadow of a winter morning.
The ether raises the hackles and shivers the spine. The body crumbles the blues and woes the torture. Savage Henry marry the vile nihilism of Test Department to the dreamy sorrow of Eyeless in Gaza and the gallows whimsy of Laibach.
Savage Henry complete their set with the sound of a thousand souls descending into eternal damnation. The sound of intermeshed cries of agony, hordes of enslavers cracking the pneumatic whip, the buzz of stinging insects deep inside cranial cavities. Staggering originality with substance and detachment. Time has a slot booked for Savage Henry across the Styx on the subterranean Resonance FM. A convincing dirty protest against bland sounds.
Author: WT
Jack Savoretti
Wed 2 April 2008 Café Nero private event @ The Bedford
Last night I attended a private gig of the artist Jack Savoretti at The Bedford, Balham in London - many of you will know the venue well. The performance coincided with the release of 'Between The Minds' Deluxe double CD version of the album and a reward to the 'Cafe Nero' staff who had helped Jack on his Tour through February and March visiting fans at various Cafe Nero's across the UK.
Last night's gig has to go down as one of the best I have ever been to, the acoustics of the Globe Theatre itself are amazing but Savoretti had the audience in awe with his husky singing voice, Orlando Bloom looks and poetic story telling songs. The thing that amazed me most was the way Jack Savoretti is able to make his guitar sing like a bird while at the same time tell the story of each song in such a way.
The tracks covered included personal favourites of the crowd as Jack asked what most folks would like to be played - 'Dr.Frankenstein', 'No One's Aware', 'Dreamers', 'One Man Band' to name a few, and new tracks such as 'Lucy', 'Russian Roulette' and a hauntingly amazing Johnny Cash cover of 'Ring Of Fire'. An hour and 10 minutes set simply flew by and I found myself along with the crowd wanting more Savoretti.
I know Jack Savoretti is a big favourite of Janice Long the Radio 2 presenter/DJ but it seems as though the word is still not quite yet out there, Jack Savoretti looks to be the new kid on the block! If you do get a chance to see him for yourself, don't miss the opportunity, you won't regret it. As a music lover and musician myself I cannot shout loud enough that Jack Savoretti is going to be huge.
I can't give 11 out of 10 for Jack's performance so it has to be 10 out of 10 but with BIG BRIGHT STARS ON!
Author: Jason
Scaramanga 6
Fri 1 April 2005 Silver Rocket @ Upstairs at The Garage
Supercool purveyors of wild-west drama in the rock'n'roll idiom.
Well, in that tradition of japing with monikers, there seem to be 5 Scaramangas. Vocals are impressively varied, starting as a 3-way cacophony of male and female screams, adding in episodes of Bowie croon and psychobilly yammers, then graduating to finely harmonised "whoas". Two guitars parry twin-speed chord chops, discrete lines of niggling twang, hooky circling, terrifying minor chord-crunch lines, and mistuned crooked cycling. Bass is the warm beating heart, an irresistible nudge tune. The drum lathers up to a rollicking snare-cored smash out. Mr Keyboard is the real multi-tasker. He juggles organ sounds that siren and growl, friendly masticating harmonics, and stylings of Steve Nieve complexity. He also moonlights on a trumpet that mixes derisive snorts with freely jazzing solos. And his own mini drumkit which accelerates the percussive ante like a joyridden runaway train.
The Scaramanga's titles were easily heard, the lyrics more deeply buried. So I can tell you they sang about: "The throning room"; "Sunken eyes"; "Baggage"; and a "Towering inferno". I can also report some negativity in the words: "You, you're a walking accident"; "Where did you get that terrible face?"; and "There are certain people responsible for touching my steeple".
Elements of Dave Graney, Corrigan, and the accessible side of the Bad Seeds.
The Scaramanga 6 are an act of inescapable ghost-town gothic, a skeletal waltz of the undead. The twenty-first century response to Hotel California, and far more threatening. Pass the whisky ma, I'm 6, I got teeth, and I'm a-courtin'…
Author: RMC
The Schla La La's
Sat 13 December 2003 Guided Missile @ Bull and Gate
Six wonder-women play smirky wry surf pop.
The opening theme sets the target for the show - "We'll show you what the girls can do" - and, boy, do they show us. They bring gorgeous melodies and harmonies (every performer has a vocal part), but without being twee or sweet; there is a strong hint of dirty knowingness reflected in some scary minor chords. Think of Dorothy from Men Bahaving Badly. Then think of 6 Dorothies. And to up the art-factor, we have Dorothy 6, known as Kirsten, singing from a German menu, to the reponse "She's going back to Germany to stuff her face". I shouldn't mention - but will - the black and red matching outfits - tres chic - with a diagonal red stripe on the black skirt that reminds me strangely of my mother's 1960s curtain fabric. The players, roughly, are: guitar/ vocal, guitar/ vocal, guest vocal, bass/ vocal, bass/ vocal, drums/ vocal. Spookily, they end the set with the Violent Femmes' song "Add it up". (Great song, it's spooky because I used it to close a review 2 hours earlier).
Fantastic sixties-sisters pop. We want the same thing!
Author: OT
Scrappy Hood
Sat 6 May 2006 UK Antifolk @ 12 Bar Club
The shorter part of the Milk Kan partnership brings you common wisdom from the semi-acoustic mosh-pit.
Everyday anthems in a sarf London accent, samples from TV shows and easy-listening standards, lo-fi backing with chatterbox beats, surfy rock'n'roll with guitar twangs - this is the new DIY music. Mr Hood alternates his assembled scraps with thrusts of straightforward folk guitar, or blasts of hip-hop with unlikely punk guitar solos. The songs deal with life as a piss-head, life as a small wheel in the music industry, and life as a big fish in a small pond - the kind of person who ends up asleep in wheelie bins and train depots: "I'm a nobody, and I'm happy as can be". Scrappy follows the crowd and the crowd follows Scrappy - "Wherever you're going, I'm going with you".
Scrappy Hood makes his space in a triangle between Carter USM, Billy Bragg and Chas'n'Dave. It's not an idea I would normally find engaging, but I'm surprised to say I really enjoyed the set - and that's bonhomie rather than beer talking. I don't think you can knock a performer that closes with a song based on a huge slice from Dolly Parton's hit "Here you come again". Especially when he adds a hugely silly parody of the US-FM rock station guitar solo. This does not mean that the continued existence of Chris Moyles is forgiven.
Author: RF
Screaming Tea Party
Mon 12 January 2006 Bull and Gate @ Bull and Gate
Off beat rock'n'roll buffeted by a rough sea of squealing and fuzz.
The name ought to come from Alice in Wonderland, but the only connection is that the book and the band are both bonkers.
The pure rockabilly bass strikes you first, hooky tunes that sometimes nudge you along, sometimes accelerate to a gallop. But it's soon the sheer breadth of the guitar's messy playfulness demanding more of your attention: a complete suite of rasps, bluebottles, scribbles, squalls and feedback. The drummer focuses on rumbling toms and a wash of cymbals, but she has other important roles - the female part of a vocal duo with the bassman, and bearing an uncanny resemblance to Michael Jackson by wearing big big shades. The vocal style is primarily the twin shout, the reverbed wail, the male exclamation and the female retort.
Just when you think you understand the mashed up rock'n'roll on stage, Screaming Tea Party throw in stark contrasts. A waltzing cabaret number featuring doll-like voice and beautiful guitar simplicity; then a hit-an-miss nursery rhyme, Jonathan Richman style, with cute donkey-ride bass and twee toytown guitar lines. Each diversion is followed swiftly by more up-tempo antics - Teenage Kicks riffs, or scraping at the guitar strings with the lip of the stage - but the varied texture adds immeasurably to the flavour.
Words are wonderful and mysterious, no attempt to go for the open, direct or easily understood. "Your voice is breaking down" they seem to warn. "Smoking cigarettes and hiding figaro", we are accused. Then a request: "Show me the picture you've done: wake me up, crack me up". Cracked it is.
Screaming Tea Party switch continually between scribbling punkabilly and utterly stripped-down lo-fi, with magical results. You could almost imagine them creating this sound after overdosing on the Violent Femmes, Throwing Muses, Pixies, Sonic Youth and Velvet Underground - then deciding to ditch the complicated bits. Screaming Tea Party are the most exciting new act I've heard since Fuck Off Machete. Tea dances will never be the same again.
Author: RF
Scrotum Clamp
Sat 8 October 2005 @ Bull and Gate
Cabaret idiocy with traces of glam, punk and ska.
A happily stroppy singer, a versatile bunch of musicians, and a stack of props and costumes. The core of the Clamp is an ambling blues-funk bass with disco-scratch and tickles from guitar - and no shortage of groovy improvisation. Lyrics are sing-along sarcasm, commentary on social trivia: "Newspaper, newspaper lies > Newspaper, bums, tits and thighs"; "You wanna be a Mysteron? Captain Scarlet was my lover" (or brother, I don't think it matters); and "The times have changed and things are better". Facepaint, wigs, feather boas, loon pants, party hats, and a raffle for three rubber-chickens. Scrotum Clamp give you Reasons to be Mildly Amused Parts 1, 2, 3.
I guess Scrotum Clamping must be performance art. OK, that rings alarm bells, but it's not always bad news. There's no keyboard or sax on stage, but there's an impressive Blockheads vibe. The singer can be witty too - especially the observation that this audience will never be together again, and so the show is their farewell gig. But it's hard to see beyond the rhetoric to the substance, this seems like protest music without a cause. To use my favourite quote from the Beat: "I think quite a lot of my own point of view". Never mind, the Scrotum Clamp brings you playschool politics, chickens and sex-toys: so get your camera…
Author: RF
The Seasons
Mon 23 June 2003 @ Hope and Anchor
Sixties imbued jangly psychedelia from these boys.
We have a standard 4 piece line-up with lead and rhythm guitar, drums, and the ubiquitous left-handed bass. The aim seems to be for gentle Byrds-esque melodies with joyful harmonies. The main sixties impression really comes from a Hank Marvin/ Shadows feel to the lead guitar; sadly, most of the harmonies fall flat. Lyrically, this is clichéd too; themes like “You’ve Got A Friend in Me” inspire nausea at best.
They have an ardent following of groupettes, but this must be justified by something other than the music. A mere 8 inches high.
Author: OT
Sedulus
Fri 13 January 2006 @ Bull and Gate
Rocktastic professional grunge.
The frontman sports an impressive blond beard and bellows with scarred Benson-and-Hedges passion. He's also responsible for bass, hooky sludgeheavy tunes in the form of sustained growls and grizzly thrumming. Two guitars take on harsh biker revs, co-ordinated coils, squealing lines, reverberating carbonated curls and spiralling solos. Beats are thumping drums and wave-crashing cymbals. Words are gloomy of course: "You let me down"; "Break through the lies". Come on guys, things could be so much worse.
Sedulus work with bluesy structures that continually reverse and invert. This sound is full of string-scratching and nervous ticks. To some extent, they're tongue-in-cheek, with that finale lurching like a Doctor Who bog-monster. But the set also contains traces of Rage Against the Machine, Metallica and Queens of the Stone Age. People who bring darkness to the brightest and glitziest of places. You can't fault that.
Author: RF
Sell the Lexus
Tue 18 October 2005 State of Decay @ Hope and Anchor
Rap metal that breaks all the rules, cerebral and gothic, with a 4th dimension in blues.
There are two Lexus vocalists, one a moaner with a bit of the trademark Ian Brown flatness, the other a salesman of industrial bellows. Two guitars deliver way more styles than you have any right to expect, a metalled road of solos that curl, needle and spiral, ice-skating twirls, awkwardly gothy drizzle chords, gruff revola, Jimmy Page frilling and Sabbath demonic possession. Bass takes on Stone Roses pulsing and wide extra-terrestrial zooms. Drums are eerily measured and clever, a Budgie tribal urgency, with beautifully pinged cymbals. What happened to thrashing snare and deafening kick-drums? What they're talking about I have no idea, the only line I grasped was "You should know". But I don't.
Sell the Lexus play music from a different universe. They casually insert Iron Maiden portions into rap-metal, and somehow retain a matter-of-fact stance. No posturing, no attitude. If you had been trapped for a week in a hire-car with CDs by Sell the Lexus and Jefferson Airplane, you would understand why I regard this band as personal saviours. Music to shrink heads by.
Author: RF
The Seen
Sat 1 January 2005 @ Barfly
An excellent fusion of acid jazz, mod and late baggy.
The Seen's singer is a lightly wayward melodian with the charisma of Jim Morrison. Guitar is nothing short of amazing, dance grooves, disco licks, complex spangle-jangle riffs, reverby lines with scratchy interruptions, fast splashy solos and phaser drifts. Bass drive is about simple high-speed tunes, funkathons, and thumpy assertions in the style of Bruce Foxton (The Jam). Drums are competing with Heinz to notch-up the varieties, wild pushes of snare and bass, jazz jumping, plus edgy cymbal smashing. And, aside from an inevitable stretch on the maracas, the vocalist digs an interestingly black hole: "I need someone to hold me, someone to love me… but all I've got is you"; Don't believe in tomorrow"; "I'd rather be lonely than be with you"; "The devil comes in many forms, the worst of them a woman"; and "I know all the best clubs in the city, I know all the best lines, wonder why I'm lonely all the time". The Seen combine some of the best traits of the Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays and Flowered Up.
The Seen have adopted and updated a jazzily baggy funk sound that nobody else is creating right now. This is stylish, danceable, and irresistibly individual. The Seen seem to be kookily out of fashion and to think they're pop-stars. Well, they are and they are. The resurrection of the wild life.
Author: RMC
Seretone
Wed 5 October 2005 karmadownload @ Hoxton Bar and Grill
Electro-clash dance music.
The singer's relaxed melodies float skywards. Synth plocks, zaps, and blows underwater bubbles. Two guitars have many points to make, reverby flows in the style of Mr The Edge c/o U2, ringing sustain, delicate jingling, tightly curled licks and scratchy disco chords. Rhythm sets thrumming bass against handclap and patter beats, with an interesting foray into bossa nova. These cheery souls have the following words of advice "Everyone's waiting for the world to end" and "Can't wait to be on my own again". Echoes of Eighties outfit Blamanche, Orange Juice, erm Spandau Ballet ("To cut a long story short") and - with lyrics like those - New Order.
If you liked the indie-dance crossover that started brewing in the 1980's, Seretone have honed it to perfection. The set grows to a 10 minute "Weekender" of a conclusion, a crunchy rave epic. This song could be Nottingham's answer to the Super Furry Animals' wild finale. Seretone are a musical packet of chocolate chip cookies. Just the thing for the munchies.
Author: RF
Sergeant Buzfuz
Sat 6 May 2006 UK Antifolk @ 12 Bar Club
A dour look at power, hypocrisy, depravity and death, in an idyllic folk-country setting.
Joe Buzfuz Murphy is a man with a dark sense of humour and a righteous sense of anger. In honour of the lateness and debauchery of the hour, an opening tale of the Vatican's divinity down the ages: "Hide your wife, bury your dope, here come the popes". There are so many murderers, buggers, rapists, torturers and thieves in the annals, you'd imagine that God sanctions almost anything: Joe has to speed to hyper-poetry and 15-second verses to cram them all in.
With the addition of a female singer, the set lightens to a country-duet - but the subject matter is no more cheerful than arsenic poisoning. The Sheffield roots appear to be on show with the (presumably) Pulp-inspired "Do you remember the first time" (about a dying romance, of course) - "As we stubbed out the butts of our Silk Cuts, we knew it was the last time". Folk guitar strafed with angry regrets meets the uncanny vocal chemistry of a David Gedge and a Kirsty McColl.
Forget Donovan, Buzfuz is Northern England's twenty-first century incarnation of Bob Dylan, complete with his own Joan Baez. Oddly situated in a night of slapstick, Buzfuz plays to the gallows. Slowly unfolding tales in the tradition of the Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll alternate with the bleak wit of high-bodycount psycho drama. I can hear the sharpening of the knives…
Author: RF
Sexmachina
Thu 29 September 2005 Club Fandango @ Bull and Gate
Part grunge-punk, part electro-clash, part alt-country and part rock, but consistently special.
Female and male lead vocals alternate, with another male vocal backing. His is the grand screamed up and chewed up melody. Hers cheeky, passionate, sultry. Hell, if they want they can duet like Springsteen and Parton. There's a sprinkle of chattering synth, guitar that is hooky and haunting by turns, a romping bass that drives the tunes, and tribal drum compulsion that encapsulates every weather event on record. I can't tell you where their lyrics are coming from: "When I can't reach you, your light is always on" is hardly earth-shattering, but "Sister, take me out, don't leave me breathing, lying here staring at the ceiling" is a song you don't hear every day. Imagine a collision between Pixies, dark-era Depeche Mode, Pavement, and Rumours grade Fleetwood Mac, and you're imagining Sexmachina.
Sexmachina made my spine chill and my beard bristle, the same feeling I had when I first heard Monkey Gone to Heaven. They can play it crunchier than mint cracknel, or they can calm it to alt-country, with the suspense of knowing they'll crank it up any second. Their coup-de-grace is "Inuit", supremely catchy, and heart-stoppingly truncated half-way through the second chorus: the opening "You were the worst damned counterfeit I ever met", and the hook "Your little eskimo heart". One of those songs you need to hear over and over and over. The whole Sexmachina set is brilliant, wildly varying but utterly coherent. In the words Mr Black borrowed from the Jesus and Mary Chain, makes you wanna feel, makes you wanna try, makes you wanna blow the stars from the sky.
Author: RF
She Shimmy Rivers And And Canal
Sun 25 September 2005 Stolen Nights @ The Spitz
Chopped up junkyard blues.
This music is not just from the garage, it's from the inspection pit. The singer screams, a Zappa hysteria, reading poems from a pad. Guitar is an awesome blues plucking, atop bass boings and the patterns of the stand-up drummer, part car-crash mania, part tribal essences. There are sax contributions too, wavering hoots, unnerving squiggles. Songs arrive and end in two-minute bursts, and words aren't easy to get a grip on. Ensemble shouts of "Determination". Repeated Mark E rants "Work it out". She Shimmy play like an extra frenetic Bad Seeds.
She Shimmy are talented musicians choosing to play intense and fractured lo-fi. The themes are cut so fine, the messiness sometimes leaves you desperate for a conventional song, or even a complete hook. So it's not catchy, but it's crunchy, screamy and poetic. That's enough in my book. And She Shimmy are certainly the only band in the world with the word "And" repeated immediately in their moniker. Now that's what I call swimming against the shopping trolleys.
Author: RF
Shigo Roch
Fri 22 October 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Egocentric grunge-punk blues.
The frontman has a massive attitude and an old-fashioned blues bellow. He has this ripped-up dress shirt that's part Incredible Hulk and part school-disco, adorned with biro slogans like "sick" and "fuck'd". Can't decide if he's more Michael Hutchence or Henry Rollins.
Backing involves two scuzzy guitars in collision, fuzzed-up, squalling and siren-wailing, a slow bass that pumps and funks, and perfectly measured drums.
There are moments where the songs report the speed-rap of street conversation, but mostly the material is a profane prayer to the God of the atheist. "Let Jesus come, let Jesus love you, Let Jesus change you", "Why do I carry the blame, why do I feel such a shame","When I was a young boy I was taught not to lie. When I was a young girl I was taught to cry". At it's best, the energy and stilted tearjerks of the Ruts' Babylon's Burning, but mostly straddling Pearl Jam and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Shigo Roch are a psychologists dream. The hyper-grunge backing is good but unexciting; the frontman, on the other hand is a torture garden of inexplicable pain who looks like he belongs in a Rugby scrum. Full of porky badness.
Author: WT
Short Term Diary
Thu 22 April 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Folksy acoustica from this miserable duo.
Vocal is warm, clear, emotional and almost engaging. Piano-keyboard is simple, downbeat and almost haunting. Guitar is straightforward rhythm with very little dynamism, but an honesty that is almost mellow. Light female backing vocal is dreamy, airy, almost audible. But how did someone so young spend so much time fucking-up their life? No visible scars there, no needle tracks. "I can see my own ghost… in the shadows of this house… I just can't carry on" and "I've been listening to the same song all week… it's no-one you know… it broke my heart". Perhaps they would like to be Richard and Linda Thompson, but they never will be. Set up is male lead vocal/ acoustic guitar, keyboard-piano/ female backing vocal.
This attempt at fey gentle acoustic pop is so slight it's almost nothing at all. The only significance it has is that every word is dismal. The first track starts "I always sleep with the light on… cos I'm not feeling right". The second starts "Now I lay awake at night… and think about the bad things I've done". Well mate, it's not the bad things keeping you awake, IT'S THAT SODDING LIGHT. Get a life.
Author: OT
Frank Sidebottom
Thu 15 June 2006 World Cup Extravaganza @ Bull and Gate
Sidebottom is a chap with a plastic head looking like a 1970s lego man, singing in a nasal easy-listening croon, with backing that sounds like an electric organ that your nan won in the bingo at a Working Men's Club. And it's filled the venue with cheery beery blokes that see essentially the same thing when they take their kids to the panto at Christmas. Except all the jokes are Lancashire and Cheshire based. Like his reworking of Anarchy in the UK - who'd have guessed it, Anarchy in Timperley?
Frank starts the set in trademark suit and tie, but he's soon peeled off the layers to reveal the football strip. The props are out - Little Frank, the ventriloquist's dummy that's a duplicate of Sidebottom ("he's only cardboard, don't let yourself get swept away") - and Mr Moulinex the Puppet Iron, passed off as a marionette with a single cord. Then the football songs are out, "The Red Red Robins ain't bob-bob-bobbins says me" - the joy of Altincham FC and Moss Lane. "Because football is fantastic, it's fantastic, oh yes it really is". This is how Frank works, an audience that knows all the lines, and loves to hear the old favourites repeated, oh yes, we really do. Regularly, Frank reminds us that he's been on match of the day because he's got Very Big Shorts.
Another prop, the Freddie Mercury moustache, and the ultimate routine is a digression-rich cover of Bohemian Rhapsody, "Mother, I just killed a houseplant". A side-excursion takes in more celebrations of the north-west - "Timperley Sunset", "There isn't a cure for the Timperley Blues". How to stage your own eBay bidding battles - you don't need a computer, just photos of things you might be selling and a group of friends who'll stay at your house for 10 days. And an indie medley to complete the show, featuring the Smiths' "Little Frank strikes again", and closing with "Take the skinheads bowling, you know you should - you really should, specially when the wind blows". And nothing really does seem to matter very much.
Frank Sidebottom works the finest traditions of music hall and stand-up, the endlessly revisited catchphrase, the gag that runs on through the diversions and returns when you least expect it. This is like Punch and Judy with Frank and Little Frank - oh yes it really is. Don't expect political correctness to get in the way either - he wants his mother to buy him a computer so he can visit www(dot)rogertheboynextdoor(dot)com. But the crowd loves every second - each prop is returned to the suitcase in turn as the set ends, and every one gets its own cheer. Frank Sidebottom plays cheesy easy-listening from the worlds of The Two Ronnies and Morecombe and Wise. And he's good. Oh yes, he really is.
Author: RF
Silver Tongues
Sat 30 October 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Female-fronted bluesy rock 'n' roll.
The silver tongue belongs to the lead singer, who digs out an excellent seam of throaty power vocals. OK, maybe it's shared with the male backing harmonies and responses. Backing singer also plays a warm and high scuzz guitar. Bass funks at warpspeed. Drum drive is fast, loose and simple. Lyrics seem to touch on the obvious: "I don't know what's the score, but I ain't no fool" and "Don't you know you really got me going" (thanks Ray). There's too much going on here to pick an evident precursor, but vocally there's a bit of Rickie Lee Jones and attitude-wise there's a bit of Rezillos.
The Silver Tongues take blues-rock and make it a little bit wry, a little bit jazz, and a little bit high school bop. A combination of schmooze and fun. Probably destined for Radio 2, and why not?
Author: WT
Silvery
Fri 30 July 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Coherent but dissonant art-punk.
For unfathomable motives, Silvery have modelled themselves on a Victorian Gentlemen's Club. It mattereth not what reason there may be. And I can't bring myself to write a whole review in bad nineteenth century English. The lead vocal is pitched towards lots of strange notes vaguely resembling a melody in the manner of Wire, or a shier version of John Lydon. Guitars incant a Banshees' Lord's Prayer, urgent chord brainstorms with a solo agenda of manic tightrope walks. Bass pomps along whimsically. The drummer is a twister, a dervish, a mantra, an escalator. Material includes out-takes from an apparently self-penned opera. Concerns about "All that I want to hold to me", "A carnival", and "The sounds evolving underground". Oddly like an XTC production of an Adam and the Ants set. Players are: lead vocal/ rhythm guitar; lead guitar; bass/ backing vocal; drums.
Silvery are simultaneously bizarre and catchy. The Victoriana may seem silly, but it feels like style. And boy, do Silvery live up to the cliché of "leaving the audience wanting more". Towers of London, when they had built you, did you watch over the men who fell?
Author: WT
Sister
Wed 25 September 2006 @ Bull and Gate
Gently beating waves of harmony-infused psychedelic rock.
These are wonderfully understated sounds. Rhythms patter the gravel lightly, a tambourine and a shaker take turns to create a rustling of leaves, drums scud like fluffy clouds. The bass-player's simple hooks are insistent, but this is a gentle thrum rather than a high-powered pump.
Keyboard sounds are sparkles and gentle tapping, a piano note struck repeatedly. Guitars pile on rather more weight, hooky twin riffs that chop and stomp, steely slides and spangles, electric scribbles, squeals and strummery, semi-acoustic frills and twangs. Taken together, it's a decorous stomp, brightly embellished by the guitars, but leaving a polite space for the audience to focus on the voices.
The singing is very special indeed, a man-damaged melodic intensity with folk-country roots, underlined by breezy harmonies. Dolly Parton wonders, Joni Mitchell warbles and declares, the male vocalist can only humbly agree. "I look to St Christopher when my back's against the wall"; "I got nothing, well they tell me that's something"; "The city's raging, too many people on the streets, and it was black, black, black, black as fate"; "Don't listen, I don't need that much"; and "I wanna feel it in the back of my brain". Sister songs will haunt you forever.
Sister are destined for stardom. They're as unlikely as the Magic Numbers, and I feel as certain about them as I felt about the Magic Numbers. Sister share the shy assurance of the Magic Numbers, but Sister are a more exciting proposition. It's as though Phil Spector had produced Velvet Underground in a Motown style, and reignited the candle of the Mamas and Papas. Four red table lamps light the stage, they're building a Personal Services 'don't mess with my mellow boudoir' vibe. I sense a building velvet-crush of clients. Sister sell it: "In my darkest hour, you can show me the light". I've seen this light, and it's a dazzler bathed in drapes.
Author: RF
Six 50 Whisky
Tue 16 November 2004 State of Decay @ Hope and Anchor
Dark and dirty blues metal.
The vocal is a sand-papered throaty roar with odd conversational interludes. Twinned guitars are the linctus to the sore vocal, solos of rose-petal syrup together with huge dangerous licks, dark brooding over intermeshed chords, and waves of sparring choppier than the Irish Sea. Bass is a pacey juggernaut of a tunesmith, drum a heavyweight thumper. Lyrics travel the wearily trodden journey of use and abuse: "Give me a reason"; "Can anyone help me?"; and "Riding on the highway… riding on my baby". Moments veer towards eighties-nineties metal (Faith No More), but more of the set is reminiscent of 60's psychedelic blues (a dis-organised Spencer Davis Group).
Six 50 Whisky are bachelors of the blues art and masters of the metalcraft. The supply of blues-rock in the world is almost endless, but these guys have discovered a rare nugget of kryptonite. I'm a man, yes I am, but a can't help but love Six 50 Whisky.
Author: RML
Six 50 Whisky
Tue 15 June 2004 State of Decay @ Hope and Anchor
Superb speed-metal blues.
Seriously troubled blues vocals that could challenge Kurt Cobain. Twin guitars mixing Quo riffology with unbelievably fast Jimmy Page hooks. Bass backs-up with simple mission statements. Drums are a well-rounded controlling chug. Subject matter is as you'd imagine: "Don't break my heart" and "Do you love me, do you want me?". The players are, straightforwardly vocal, guitar, guitar, bass, drums. Soundwise, Whisky sit between ZZTop and Motorhead, between Stone Roses and Primal Scream. An ace place to be.
Six 50 Whisky take a well-used genre and make it their own. Passion. Directness. Swagger. Livin', lovin', I'm on the run…
Author: OT
The Slides
Wed 5 October 2005 karmadownload @ Hoxton Bar and Grill
Hammond driven Britpop with a hint of folk-country influence.
Hammond swirls are right at the front, bless 'em. They weave around Oasis certainties, catchy vocal melodies, guitar that scratches strings and slams chords. The rhythmic sub-structure is the strong bass hook and the drumbeat drama, building, building, building, to a sequence of storms. I didn't dissect the lyrics but I caught some cool lines "Two way traffic down a one way street": "Just don't take 'em on"; "The show bullet that kills you" and "Watch your road disappear". If the sum of these parts is like anyone in the major league, it's The Charlatans, complete with in-built Bob Dylan love affair.
The Slides play punchy organ and guitar pop. No simplistic anthems for these guys though, the sounds can be gentle or climactic, exposure to light or shadow. Quirky too, with rhythms scratching with skiffle and hoedowns and the singer having a crunchy bash at a pair of freestanding drums. Plus these unexpected slots of threatening bluesy rock 'n' roll compare with The Faces. When I get to the bottom I'd go back to the top for The Slides. No, really.
Author: RF
Slowgun
Thu 12 January 2006 @ Bull and Gate
Where twee meets grunge and sparkles meet grooves.
Slowgun want it all their own way. One minute the singer gives us pure understated melodies hiding beneath guitar noise. The next she's singing strange melodies a semi-tone flat.
Two guitars bounce from frilly chords and jangles to off-beat solos and scribbles. The rhythm section matches groovy bass guitar with simple chop and patter beats.
Words are simply cute: "Superman is not around, I think he's had a breakdown"; "Cheer up Charlie, don't be sad, it's not as bad as it could be"; and "Little fly on the wall, why are you staring at me?". Sweet, then swatted.
Slowgun are a great two-girl two-boy combo with roots as broad and diverse as Velvet Underground and Josef K, Sonic Youth and Fiery Furnaces. This set is a breakneck collection of 2-3 minute songs, awkwardly instant. Even their squally finale is wild rather than angry, with the reassuring lyric "I don't hate you". Slowgun have flown onto a superbly eccentric orbit all of their own. Keep that comet coming!
Author: RF
Slowline
Thu 14 July 2005 @ Bull and Gate
Curiously engaging indie pop, simultaneously sharp and hazy.
The singer wails and croons in the middle-distance, slightly flattened off-key Bowie, pacified Tom Verlaine. Guitar builds from gentle intricacy through catchy nibbles, high and reverberating, into harsh and frantic strummery. Throughout the set, bass guitar is slowly measured out, dollops of thick honey. Drums combine a light pattering with tripping and tumbling snare and bass. Slowline keep their words close to their chests, although the line "Now your chance is gone" floats out. These sounds seem to have elements of the Stone Roses and Ride, although there's a moment that takes me back to New Order's classic "Ceremony".
I can't think of another band that harnesses the economy of the 3-piece in such a successful amalgam of the haunting and the crunchy. The thing that draws me most to this outfit are the way that the guitars and the drummer progress from one sound to the next rather than chucking it all in together. At the beginning, the tunes were way too ethereal for any to stick in your mind on one hearing, but by the end, Slowline were playing pithy and instant guitar pop songs. Slowline are the kings of understatement. Words and meanings remain impregnable while styles twist and turn, as much a textural event as a show. Soaring, drifting and diving excellence. When you come alive it’s a low jive, take the Slowline.
Author: RMC
Sludgefeast
Fri 14 January 2005 Tsunami Appeal Benefit @ Montague Arms
Genres: redneck punk and blues, with tongue in at least one cheek.
Members: man, woman, boy.
Guitar: rumbling riffs, Mysteron and Motorhead solos.
Bass: not just tunes, but sonic earthquakes - they justify the moniker.
Drums: lo-fi, snare-bashing.
Vocals: his (majority) - grunts and bellows; hers - strident Suzi Q.
Shades: narrow.
Average song length: under 90 seconds.
Timing: almost Swiss.
IQs: allegedly drums 150, guitar 6, bass "not telling".
Rough qoutes: in song > "Hey baby, let's take a ride somewhere I ain't been"; "Can you hear me, I've got shit to say"; "Baby I've got nothing to say, cos' I'm too fucken fast"; "I'm no. 1, I'm fucken' no. 1"; and I need to change, to rearrange": in conversation > "I can tell by the look of the audience there's not a lot of ballerinas here"; "I've drunk a lot of beer, I'm talking absolute shit"; and (my favourite) "Eat what you want, drink more than you possibly can, and you'll lose weight".
Motherfucker count: 69.5
Precedents: Motorhead, Natural Born Killers, Bonnie and Clyde.
Sludgefeast is blistering lo-fi rock. It is what it says on the tin.
Trailer park: Torquay (Farty Towels).
Weirdness to pop ratio: 10% - irresistibly catchy riffs and charisma.
Familiarity factor: 90% - like listening to the White Stripes play mother fucken Status Quo.
Inspired thought: the future's so bright I gotta wear shades.
Author: RMC
Sludgefeast
Tue 26 October 2004 Club Spleen @ Bull and Gate
Diesel-fuelled blues-punk.
Sludgefeast are a front partnership of male vocal/ guitar with female vocal/ bass. Male vocal is a convincing southern state drawl and bawl, female vocal a dry wail and distant harmony. Guitar is a blues-zoom solo, a gristly grind, a huge spiralling scuzz. Bass is pure grunge, a variation on the tuneful ho-ho-ho of the jolly giant. The fledgling drummer is happily tormented by his mentors, and strikes his own rhythmic twist of crashing bass and cymbal plus rattling-sleeper snare-snaps.
The lyrics are ridiculous, and don't Sludgefeast know it. From the female side "C'mon baby, let's take a ride, somewhere I ain't been": from the male side "I'm in manual, ain't got no brakes"; "I'm gonna fuck you up, c'mon"; "You've been giving me what I want, not giving me what I need - oh honey, you're so fucked up". It's all showpersonship really: bickering between the front pair, arbitrary invention of the new word "shippee", a new song ostensibly about how stupid songs are - "I don't sing no song 'cos I ain't got nothing to say". But the result is creditable just the same - The Damned taking on Black Sabbath and ZZ Top.
Sludgefeast are not a garage band, they're a gas station band. The guitarist could not be contained in a ten-gallon hat, only a ten-barrel hat would be enough. To acknowledge the departure of John Peel, they crack out a respectful if wayward extract of Teenage Kicks. But for the most part, Sludgefeast blaze a trail of 2-minute scuzzball hooky blues. One-trick ponies perhaps, but it's a phenomenal trick. Move over Rover, let Jimi take over.
Author: RMC
Smilex
Tue 7 October 2003 @ Bull and Gate
Dynamic punky rock 'n' roll combining the stage antics of early Damned, the sneering of Johnny Rotten, the sexual obsession of Iggy Pop, the riffy groove of the Stooges and the Pistols, and something that's indefinably them.
Smilex deserve a big up-for-it crowd, but taunting a small Tuesday night knot of the hopelessly undevoted for a reaction ain't gonna work. All the same, the guitar is excellent, and juxtaposition of the singer's screams, yowls and whelping (plus lots of reverb) against the guitarist's melodic backing vocal is a treat. Overall, Smilex are more anarchic and exciting than anything in this vein. The sexual obsession is kinda laughable, but lyrically not bad - "everyone wants a piece of your ass" (well, he means arse). Players are: lead snarl; guitar/ backing vocal; female bass; drums.
Smilex depart saying "Fuck you, good night". Say what you mean kids… Smilex are The Darkness of punk rock. They should be headlining. You should be in their audience.
Author: OT
TV Smith
Thu 10 August 2006 @ Bull and Gate
Smith remains the angriest, hardest-working, and most incisive social critic in the punk cannon - and doesn't he just grin and relish it?
Smith opens with a swift solo romp across 4 decades, from 1978 hit 'No time to be 21' to anti-war stomp 'Not in my name', pausing for highlights from 'Crossing the red sea with The Adverts' and mellower nineties folk song 'Runaway train driver'.
Next up is the full-band set featuring Bavarian glam-punks Garden Gang. Smith decides to welcome them with an impromptu impersonation of Condoleezza Rice (looks like an elephant, sounds like a foghorn, apparently). The opening shot is the 'Cheap' song, 'Waiting for the axe to drop' ('Cheap' were the last band Smith fronted live at the Bull & Gate).
What follows is an impressive collaboration that accentuates the dark and brooding aspects of the music. Smith's semi-acoustic rasps harshly, matching the fizzing anger of the vocal. Garden Gang electric guitar works to new parameters, continuous wild flourishes, unfamiliar solos for 29 year-old songs, wheedling licks that pierce the flesh, and big spangly riffage. Garden Gang frontman PamP adds excited chants and tambourine to the crowd-surge pummelling of the drums and the hooky racing-pulse bass. I'm not convinced the bass player deserves the 'Jack Osbourne lookalike' heckles.
Material continues to range freely over the years, but there always lines that strike you as newly significant and TV merrily sews the songs into contempory events as he introduces them. From the seventies, we remember: "What about the new wave - do you think it will change things? No way!"; "Thank God I never close my eyes, thank God I never compromise"; and "The eye receives the messages and sends them to my brain, no guarantee the stimuli must be perceived the same".
But you only have to go to a few TV Smith shows to realise how many catchy punk anthems he's continued to write over the past 15 years. Established ones are 'Only one flavour' ("I woke up when I was writing, there was blood on my hand... there's only one position, only one view to hold") and the ironic "Any day now, we'll find a pitch, and join the immortal rich" (any decade now). Newer ones are introduced too. "There's no safety in joining the majority, they're following the establishment" is the marker for 'What if they led the way and no one followed?', whilst "Soap opera's created a situation where you're scared, and then comes along to save you" heralds 'You saved my life then ruined it' (I think I know what you mean, Tim).
There are more old favourites than you can count by the time the set is closing, with 'Bored Teenagers' and a jubilant take on the first Adverts single 'One Chord Wonders'. Swiftly into the encore, Smith is genuinely content to recite 'My punk rock poem' - imortally rich words "We did have one hit single and supported Iggy Pop". Finally, a blistering finale with a new favourite 'Perhaps the good times are back'. As ever, a stream of social consciousness - "Maybe they're just a distraction from what's actually happening" - the warning and the response - "Come on, get into the action - stand up now - catch up now". Everybody wants a piece of the action.
This is just the third London gig for TV Smith and full band this century, and it's a night to remember.The first with the Midnight Creeps was great, I'd only heard solo versions of most of the songs before. But there was a vague sense that perhaps the 2004 set was TV Smith with an Adverts tribute band.
Not so with Garden Gang. The set is peppered with Adverts songs, but not dominated by them. Garden Gang add a huge party-spirited energy and inventiveness to everything they touch. They are in charge of most of the guitarwork, leaving TV unencumbered for solo moshing and leg kicks. And this party is in my favourite small venue. Smith sums it up with an unexpected moment of Adverts proto-jazz - "Never let me forget - I'm staying here in my place. My place".
Author: RF
TV Smith
Wed 14 July 2004 Blow Up @ Metro
One of the founders of punk rock as a form of social commentary and protest.
TV plays tonight with members of The Midnight Creeps, pronouncing them to be his Weapons of Mass Destruction (the only ones around that actually exist). The set is focussed on Adverts songs (TV's late seventies band), which stand the test of time and are meted out by WMD with Solomonic justice. All the tub-thumping drums and searing guitar and you could possibly expect, plus some unexpectedly Stray Cats punkabilly twang. Bass doesn't boom quite the way an Adverts fan knows and loves, but asserts its complex melodies nonetheless. TV is on remarkable form, transforming himself back from the recent folk agitator into the punk snarler of yore.
TV doesn't care (so he says) if the nostalgia makes you feel young or old - he will always be a teenager. I believe him. He gleefully observes that you can get fined $3,000 each time you say fuck on stage in the States, and lets out a string of expletives.
The songs that troubled the top 30 at the end of the seventies would be smashes if they sold as many today. Themes are sometimes obvious, like "No time to be 21" or "Safety in numbers", but there's always a twist in the content. "Strip down to the bare facts of it. Into the cold heart, no hope and all that shit... We'll be your untouchables. We'll be your outcasts". "What about the new wave? Did you think it would change things? It's just safety in numbers".
And after the Adverts-based intro, TV grabs the semi-acoustic guitar that is the real WMD of the evening. Thrashed to within an inch of its life, folksy acoustica is transformed without a glitch into the protest punk it was perhaps always intended to be. Direct at times, we get: "Give us the power; give us the wealth; or else we'll have to help ourselves". More oblique reminders include the song of a suicide in charge of transporting nuclear waste "Runaway train driver". Still, TV is proud of his punk heritage, and the real eruption is for "Bombsite Boys", followed by more Adverts favourites. "Gary Gilmore's eyes" ("No guarantee the stimuli must be perceived the same when looking through Gary Gilmore's eyes") and "Bored teenagers" ("Talk about the frailty of facts is really meaningful; when we're sitting watching the planes burn up through the night like meteorites").
The closer "One chord wonders" bizarrely predicted TV's whole experience with the music industry - "We must be New Wave, they'll like us next year". And they encore with "The Immortal Rich" while the youths and the thirty-somethings have a go at crowd-surfing. As TV observes - three-and-a-half hours of genuine punk rock on stage is worth more than over 3,000 hours of MTV posturing.
Players are: TV - lead vocal/ semi-acoustic guitar; MC1 - guitar/ backing vocal; MC2 - bass/ backing vocal; MC3 - drums/ backing vocal.
TV Smith is one of the most expressive malcontents ever to get a platform in music. This set with the Midnight Creeps shows that all the performers love playing and have the mutual respect that makes for a brilliant show. Grey haired men on- and off- stage are pogoing and spitting with venom. Almost as much as the less mature fans of the support acts. A triumphant return to the days when punks responded to the knee-jerk by engaging brainpower. We're middle-class, we're middle-aged and we're revolting. This machine kills fascists.
Author: OT
Smoking Kills
Mon 24 May 2004 @ Bull and Gate
Edgy blues-inflected stoner rock.
This starts off - literally - flat, and turns into something excellent. The first vocal is tortured (initially to the point of a fair portrayal of cat strangulation), the second is a smooth blues man, and they make sweet neat harmony. Guitars manage a mix of bluesy romp and scuzzy grunge. Bass is fuzzy funk. Drums are astonishingly well-rounded for guys that really don't come over as regular stage-hands (as it were). Lyrics mix existential angst, bollox, and stuff that really should be said often but is said rarely. Bollox - "I don't want to leave the house… but I got to do some shopping". Angst - "I won't compromise"; "Draw a line in the sand, I only have one demand"; "There's nothing I'm looking forward to more than doing to you what you've done to me"; the oddly staccato "If I knew how I could be you". Should be said - "Lunch with American fascists follows at the Palace" and (on the war) "Not in my name… I don't want any part of this". Personnel here are 1st vocal/ rhythm guitar, 2nd vocal/ lead guitar, bass/ backing vocal, drums.
Despite opening hiccups, S-K are rather fine, and at their very best when more bluesy than stoner. Close parallels are not obvious, but there are shades of Queens of the Stone Age and Apes, Pigs and Spacemen. When it's good, it's inspired, and when it's bad it's Dreadful. (Yup, poor reference to haircuts). Smoking Kills kill me.
Author: OT
|
