Los Campesinos! Camden, Sunday
16
Nov

In all of music history, there aren’t too many bands where ALL the members of the band have the same surname. The Ramones. The Osmonds. The Fureys and Davey Arthur – almost…

So what are the odds of seven – SEVEN!  – people in one band, completely unrelated to each other, having the same surname?!  Mad!

As if that wasn’t enough… Los Campesinos! all met at Cardiff University – but none of them are Welsh!

They’re a band I’ve only been vaguely aware of down the years – I only really knew their jolly-sounding “You, Me, Dancing” but I’ve heard great things about their live shows.

So – a couple of weeks ago I was on Twitter  and up pops a tweet from Los Campesinos! announcing a lunchtime warm-up gig for their UK tour at the Barfly in Camden. This is a first – a gig I attended because I was on twitter at the right time! And they’re only charging a fiver, which I really appreciate – they could easily have doubled that, given their cultish level of popularity, so hurrah for Los Campesinos!

I’m still quite tired and emotional from the previous evening spent watching Airborne Toxic Event (more on THAT in the next blog entry), and a lunchtime gig is not ideal but still…

Sunday in Camden is always a great place to be anyway. So I head over on the tube, full of families heading to Regent’s Park and the museums for a day out. The market is teeming, as always. Cooler than the West End, with better shops and better – and cheaper – food, it’s no wonder people congregate here on a Sunday.

Now, the core of the music I listen to is modern indie, broadly speaking, so I’m pretty used to being the Oldest Guy At The Gig. People generally assume I’m either a parent of one of the band or I’m selling drugs but under normal circumstances it’s the evening and it’s dark and nobody bats an eyelid.

This is slightly different.

Its daylight and there is a queue of about 200 students and teenagers down the Chalk Farm Road, with me at the end trying not to look dodgy. The queue starts shuffling forward like the bit at the end of the Benny Hill Show in slo-mo.

Now, indie fans are a pretty friendly bunch. They can be a bit quiescent, leading to a slightly dull audience reaction, but on the other hand you’d be hard pressed to start a fight. An incident at the bar illustrates this. There’s three of us waiting to be served. The barman, working on the principle of age before beauty – points to me. I say “no – he was first” and point to the chap on the end. He in turn points to the guy next to him, who then points to me again.

This could have ended in jostling, maybe even fisticuffs at a metal gig but indie kids are not natural fighters and have a strong sense of irony if nothing else. We all smile and nod wryly at each other. Morrissey would be proud.

And I get served first in the end anyway. Hah!

So, the band play a blistering, tight set of around an hour (couldn’t swear to it, who puts a stopwatch on a gig?)

I really like this band. I really like singer Gareth Campesinos!’s onstage banter, funny and sarcastic but also – crucially – just a little bit self-effacing.

Always good to see an articulate and funny frontman, not quite in the Steven Adams league but then who is?

I’m not familiar with the band’s oeuvre but odd lyrics filter through making me keen to check out the back catalogue. There’s intelligence here as well as tunes.

Quite a few from the new album “Hello Sadness” (yeah, the Morrissey vacuum has been well and truly filled here)

They play their Hit (“You! Me! Dancing!”) somewhat reluctantly, with singer Gareth informing the crowd that “we have to play this – its like if you went to see the Dandy Warhols and they didn’t play Bohemian Like You”. Well, not quite, mate. The Dandy Warhols don’t really have any songs other than that one. Whereas Los Camps! are well on their way to creating a really good body of work.

And the importance of the words is recognised by the band in that you can hear every bloody word Gareth sings / says.

These lyrics are unique. There are echoes of Morrissey, the Broken Family Band “and The Beautiful South (no greater praise imho). Hard to pick anything out specifically but the odd phrase leaps out at you causing a “Huh? What did he say”? reaction. Always a good thing.

The tunes are sometimes not all that, but with the lyrics and the sheer drive of a band with huge numbers helps create a groove which gets them through just fine.

Three quid for a Subway Italian Salami and a bottle of water.

Two pounds for a diet coke.

Five pounds for a Los Campesinos! Gig? Priceless.

Setlist

By Your Hand

Romance Is Boring

Death To Los Campesinos!

Life Is A Long Time

A Heat Rash In The Shape Of The Show me State; or Letters From Me To Charlotte

Songs About your Girlfriend

We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Straight In at 101

To Tundra

Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #1

The Black Bird, The Dark Slope

You! Me! Dancing!

The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future

Hello Sadness

Baby I Got The Death Rattle

Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here Far Too Dear
12
Nov

“And did we tell you the name of the game, boy?  We call it ‘riding the gravy train’”

That line is from “Have A Cigar”, the track that opens Side Two of Pink Floyd’s 1975 masterpiece “Wish You Were Here”.

Welcome to the machine. The nostalgia machine. In time for the Christmas market, Pink Floyd are releasing re-mastered versions of all their albums, including five-disc “Immersion Editions” of the two best, and best-loved, “Dark Side Of The Moon” and “Wish You Were Here”

There’s some great music here, but I’d hazard a guess that ninety percent of the people who are going to buy these overpriced reissues already have the albums.

You do not, emphatically  not need the new remixed, remastered editions. You especially do not need the new Immersion edition of Wish You Were Here.

You’ve already GOT Wish You Were Here.

The new immersion edition of Wish You Were Here costs £84.99. Let’s just put that out there. Thats fifteen notes short of a hundred pounds. For this you get three versions of the album – the original stereo mix, the Quadraphonic Mix, and the 5.1 Surround Mix.

No extra tracks, jams or outtakes from the sessions…

Plus you get two versions of a 1975 concert performance of the album, plus a selection of tacky collectibles that bear listing in full.

Two photo books. A scarf. Some marbles. Postcards. A replica gig ticket and backstage pass. And some cardboard drinks coasters.

Look, I know you love Pink Floyd.

You’re fifty, male and middle class. You were at school in the mid-seventies, when it was compulsory for middle-class boys to be into Pink Floyd.  And Yes. And King Crimson. And Genesis. Soul and reggae music was for the rough boys. Glam rock was for girls.

You love Pink Floyd, of course you do.

So do I. Wish You Were Here in particular. Its a lovely, warm, wistful album.

But you already have this music.

You  bought Wish You Were Here on the day it came out in 1975, in that black shrink-wrapped bag.

You had of course heard the album on Alan Freeman’s Radio One show the week before, and recorded it onto a C-60 cassette, which you played a lot

Later, when you got your first CD player, the first four CDs you bought (at sixteen pounds each) purchased in 1985 were – Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish you Were Here, Dare by the Human League (the wife likes them) and Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits.

DO NOT SPEND MORE MONEY ON BUYING THE SAME STUFF AGAIN !

If you have eighty-five quid to spare and you love Pink Floyd, there is a lot of music out there, in the same genre as Pink Floyd, that you may learn to love just as much:

Download Trojan Horse’s excellent album:

Trojan Horse are an up-and-coming band who describe their sound as “Prog Nouveau”. You can download their debut album here for £6.00:

Take your pick from the many records by The Pineapple Thief.

Basically the brainchild and project of Bruce Soord, these guys have been making prog-indie albums since 1999, building up a devoted following. Their latest album is “Someone Here Is Missing” and you can listen to bits of it  here.  In particular, check out the Storm Thorgerson album artwork. Admit it, Floydians, you’re interested!

Buy A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind

Amorphous Androgynous – formerly called the Future Sound Of London – these guys do killer mixes and compilations of old psychedelic gems mixed with some current stuff. This is the latest volume

“X And Y” – Coldplay

Yeah, I know you know all about Coldplay. But plenty of tracks on this album sound more like Pink Floyd than Pink Floyd did, at least after Roger Waters left. Its currently yours for less than four quid on Amazon.

Pink Floyd’s Soundtracks

The rest of Pink Floyd’s back catalogue. If you don’t already have all of this then why not fill in the gaps – for instance, the soundtrack albums. More? Obscured By Clouds? Roger Waters’ “Music From The Body”? Tonite Lets All Make Love In London? All worth your time. Except the last one, mind.

British Sea Power

British Sea Power’s “Man Of Aran” – British Sea Power are primarily an indie band. You may not like everything they do, but they wrote this new soundtrack to a 1934 film about islanders on Aran ekeing out a pre-modern lifestyle from the unforgiving land. Some of the long pieces in particular are very Floydian.

Go see a Pink Floyd Tribute Band

With half the original band no longer with us, and two of the three survivors no longer on speaking terms, a Floyd live reunion ain’t gonna happen – and if it does, it isn’t going to be any good. I mean, I watched the Live 8 performance on the telly and it was a bit ropey.

Think Floyd were one of the earliest and best Floyd tribute bands. Fourteen quid will get you in to see them playing at St Pauls Church in West London next week:

There are others, notably The Australian Pink Floyd. My personal favourite is a band called Interstellar Overdrive who I saw in Germany many years ago. They limit their selection to the Barrett / Waters led period – nothing after “Animals” except “Comfortably Numb”, which is just fine by me! You have to respect a semi-pro band who include a massive gong in their stage rig solely for “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun”.

Just say “Yes” !

And finally, Floyd’s seventies prog contemporaries Yes are playing at Hammersmith Apollo next week, The difference is that Yes have been a working, breathing band ever since they began, barring the odd hiatus and many personnel changes, and they continue to produce new music to this day.

Tickets are £37.50 plus booking fee. Don’t even get me started on booking fees…

Now you may say that’s an outrageous price for a gig by a bunch of ageing prog-rockers. And you’d be right.

But it compares well with paying £84.99 for five versions of an album you already own several times over.

And… breathe. Breathe in the air.

Katie Malco – The Lexington
9
Nov

Friday 4th November, 2011

First act on at the Lexington last Friday was Katie Malco.

Her voice sounds like honey soaked in whisky. Her songs occupy the same territory as Sarabeth Tucek and Laura Veirs (to these ears). All doe-eyes and wistful and melancholy. She’s left-handed but plays a right-handed guitar much like that other great doe-eyed musician, Paul McCartney did, at least in the early days.

There aren’t many punters in this early at the Lexington. Can’t believe all the hipster HerNameIsCalla fans have something better to do than get here early for the supports. Heck, school finishes around 4 in the afternoon, doesn’t it?

So Katie plays her beautiful songs to a solo guitar and an audience of maybe twenty people, mainly sitting down. She charmingly forgets the words to some Bob Dylan song or other but so what?

Robert Plant famously forgot the words to Stairway To bloody Heaven at Knebworth in 1978, possibly the most famous rock song ever written at that time (and number one in John Peel’s inaugural Festive 50 in 1976, fact lovers.  You think I had to look that up? Hah ! I remember TAPING the show at the time !). And he wrote the bugger!

Katie remembers her own songs fine though, and you can tell that this is what she really wants to do, her own stuff. Although her other cover is interesting (a cover of a mate’s song, whose name I  didn’t catch unfortunately) and I get why people want to do covers early on, I’d say she’d be better sticking to her own excellent material..

Or failing that, do the Abba and Zeppelin covers that she alluded to towards the end of her set … (Knowing Me Knowing You or Immigrant Song could work … just sayin’ … )

I downloaded her debut 5-track EP off of bandcamp, and its loverly.  Best £2.50 I’ve spent all week.

http://katiemalco.bandcamp.com/album/four-goodbyes

Forthcoming gig with Katie givineg her Courtney Love as her band play a set of Hole covers this Saturday at Brixton Windmill (supporting the Cash-In Pumpkins 8=) ), which I am gutted to be missing … ( I need to put in an appearance at home every now and then or the Wife will forget who I am)

Go see her soon.

Talons – The Lexington, London
6
Nov

Friday 3rd November, 2011

What does this band sound like ? I never know how to answer that properly.

It was simpler back in the day. You had rock and pop, soul and reggae, country, classical, folk. That was about it and you knew where you were.

Nowadays – well, this is a desperately incomplete and in no way definitive list of the genres inhabiting today’s musical landscape. See if you can spot the ones that I’ve made up. Although of course that doesn’t mean they aren’t genuine genres even if only by coincidence.

Indie, Shoegaze, Techno, House, Funk, Jazz-Funk, Jazz.

Acid Jazz, Acid Folk, Acid House, Acid Drops.

Drum and Bass, Jungle, Grime.

Crunk, Donk, Emo, Screamo, Romo.

Punk, Nu-Punk, Ska-Punk, Skater-Punk, Jazz-Punk.

Country, Western, Country AND Western, Bluegrass, Alt.country.

Folk, Alt.folk, Antifolk

Prog rock, Classic Rock, Jazz-Rock, Post-rock, Math Rock.

Grunge, Clunge, Flange

Garage, UK Garage, Two-Car Garage.

Death Metal, Black Metal, Nu-metal

Pop, Chamber Pop, Wonky Pop, Swingbeat.

As soon as you define something musically, you pigeonhole it. And you put off some people who may have liked it, while other people think they’re going to like it and don’t.

If I describe Talons as post-rock that will put people off because they have heard one band that is a post-rock band (say Mogwai) and they didn’t like them.

If you have never heard of either of these bands, and there’s no particular reason why you should have, then how about this – would you say that just because you don’t like UB40, that means you won’t like Bob Marley ? They’re both reggae artists, after all.

So, Talons.

Talons are a bit mathy and a bit posty. And instrumental.

Six impossibly young looking lads from Hereford, apparently.

They have a unique line-up consisting of two guitars, bass and drums – and not one but two violins, played in the ferocious manner of Klaas Janzoons on early dEUS albums.

According to their website (link below but read the rest of this blog article first, its good!) Talons play neither post-rock nor math-rock but something in-between. So, a bit mathy and a bit posty. I’d also say a bit proggy and a tiny bit thrashy, but only when its called-for.

It reminded me a bit of Grammatics fused with Mogwai, but the band may well disagree.

They open with an astonishing seven or eight minute epic piece of melodic noise. As soon as the music starts they’re transformed from six diffident young lads into a transfixing noise unit, perfectly in synch, confident in their creation of a unique, brilliant sound.

These boys can really play. The drummer holds it all together brilliantly through the odd time signatures.

They have an album out called “Hidden Treasures”. Its superb, and you should buy it – but you should also go see them live, cos that’s where they take it to another level.

http://gotalons.com/

 

 

Young Knives, Reading
3
Nov

“We’re all slaves on this ship, we’re all slaves on this ship, this ship’s sinking”

Tuesday 1st November 2011

Reading’s a funny old place. Too close to LDN to really have its own identity like, say, Southampton, but pretty much all the facilities you could hope to have. Jimmy Carr recently played at the Hexagon, so there you go.

Sub89 is a cracking small  venue. Daughter No. 1 (henceforth known as D#1 for brevity) gets asked for ID on entry, which pleases her immensely (“They think I look like I’m only 21”) until she realises its a 16-plus gig.

http://www.sub89.com/gallery/

600 capacity, but I reckon you could squeeze a few more in here at a pinch. Quite a big hall for a small venue, if that makes sense. Only half full on  Tuesday night.

Quick word about the support bands. I got there too late to hear Quiet Quiet Band but the tracks I listened to were really good so I will deffo be seeking them out in the future

http://www.facebook.com/pages/quiet-quiet-band/104858314903

I DO get to hear Chewing Gum Weekends, who straddle a number of styles, sometimes going from abrasive hard-assed white reggae to prog to fisting the air anthemic indie then back again to reggae. Tight as a post-credit crunch bank manager, they have the songs, notably “Go Hard Or Go Home”, which is a fine sentiment ! Give ‘em a couple of years.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chewing-Gum-Weekends/144341098965636

“Who are these people? They are too stupid to be your REAL parents”

The Young Knives are one of the bands that D#1 and I have in common. Tunes, scuzzy punky guitars and proper lyrics.  They look like young farmers but sound like a hardcore punk band.

They’re from Loughborough and they assure the Reading massive that “our town’s shitter than your town”. Having worked in Loughborough for a few months, I can confirm this. Its not quite shitter than Barnstaple though.

One of the characteristics of their songs is that I’m rarely 100% certain exactly what they’re alluding to … but what I do get is usually pretty dark, so maybe I’m better not knowing.

“And I will never go down fighting”

Last time I saw Young Knives they were headlining an NME show at the late, lamented Astoria in London, a victim of the Cross-Rail Network link that is being built for the Olympics. We also lost the best (indeed only) chippie in the West End, the legendary Dionysius, scene of so many post-gig munchies fests for so many people …

That show was fantastic. Seemed to mainly consist of school-age kids, which can sometimes mean a fairly static crowd, but this lot were there to mosh like demons. Found myself being used as a shock absorber in the mosh pit, which was fair enough I suppose given my girth. Saved a kid’s life in a mosh pit once, you know, but that’s a tale for another day.

“Fake rabbit, real snake, Terra Firma, Terra Firma”

This show is lower-key, being the last show in a long tour.

Young Knives play for an hour or so, including encores, which seems a little tight as they have three fine LPs to choose from.

They didn’t play Hot Summer – what a bummer. But we did get Terra Firma and She’s Attracted To and Loughborough Suicide and I Love My Name and Turn Tail, all of which were belted out by the small but enthusiastic crowd dahn the front. And after witnessing Bill Bailey doing Hallelujah in the style of Kraftwerk the other night, tonight we get Young Knives doing The Model in the style of … well, Young Knives.

Good show all in all. Another half hour would have been perfect, but you gotta love Young Knives

http://www.youngknives.com/