This has been a tricky review to write. I like Denmark’s Barra Head a lot, I played some shows with them a few years back and they were great. But there is this weird thing with European bands that tackle this (largely) American genre of music. That genre being part hardcore, part indie rock, part (whisper it) emo etc etc. The best example of a band doing this stuff well is The Lapse (or The Breaks or Sparrow or whatever they are called now).
The last Lapse album In Truth Loved is a masterpiece. A solid gold masterpiece. The reason is that it moves the goalposts. To hear Chris Leo sing some of the words on that record was a revelation to me. To actually sing “I know I’m dirty but baby I’m still dandy and I know I can be a bit too dandy but baby I’m still dirty” was revolutionary at the time. Because all of us – male/female, straight/gay/bi – know what it’s like to walk down the street and eye up someone we fancy. ALL of us make crass comments. Hell, I bet Ian MacKaye has rude thoughts sometimes. I saw him kiss a girl once. It’s true.
Barra Head sound mightily like The Lapse. And their songs are cracking. This album also sounds exquisite. The guitar playing is wonderful throughout. But, like I said, the goalposts have moved. And to get back onto the European thing again, it seems to be a trademark of bands from mainland Europe to abide by some rules that really were never in place. There is a sterility to this music that should be fought and not embraced. From the packaging to the lyrics to the presentation, Barra Head seem to seek to remove the kinks and the eccentricities from what they do and it leaves it cold, good though it is. You’re just dying for a wah wah freakout in the middle or for the lyrics to be silly for a moment but the way it sticks to defined boundaries and is so reserved just feels like a step backward and ultimately you want to shake them so their music represents everything about their lives it can do – not just what they think is acceptable to be represented in the genre they exist in. Because when they do they’ll be out of the shadows of their peers and become the amazing band they’re only threatening at being here.

Excellently named band. The blurb says they have one song and “a whole heap of PISSED OFF”. The one song part is true. This seven inch has a remix of the A side as the B side. The original version sounds like Marc Bolan singing a Blues Explosion tune. But something off the last couple of records. It’s OK but if you’re going to come out of the gates blasting for 2 minutes it’s got to be memorable and there’s not much of a tune and neither is it really “well mental” enough to make you either shit or spume your pants (which is the mark of a good record, obviously).
The B side is a slowed down version of the vocals pasted onto some squelchy dub bass and a lengthy coda that sounds a bit like Snap. It makes more of a tune of it and the slowed down vocals improve them no end making them sound like the awesome exclamations of the God-like Lord Buckley, or Channel 4s WG Grace impersonator.

Beautifully packaged CDR release/demo callitwhatyouwant. It has a hand written quote inside it, mine’s from Woody Allen. I hope it’s a different one in each CD.
Kyote play a sort of downbeat indie rock that recalls Arab Strap if I was being lazy (I’m sure that’s the not the first time they’ve heard that) though The New Year is a better comparison due to the economy of the playing (it states the EP was recorded live).
The band sounds a little embyonic at times, the riffs are sometimes of the kind where they go exactly where you think they will. In a time of insanely complex mathematical bands who end up sounding like a Spectrum 48K cassette loading, this is no bad thing. And like The New Year and Bedhead there’s this tension created by the band constantly sounding like they could suddenly drop a rock-out with no problems at all, they’re just choosing not to. Good stuff.

I am sure most folks who are interested in comics will know this already but I thought I’d put a post up about the passing of Mark Simpson, co-proprietor of Page 45, the comic book shop in Nottingham.
I am not the best person to write a piece about this, my interest in comics doesn’t reach the obsessive levels of a lot of my friends but anyone who can run a business they love with the level of success Page 45 has achieved as well as being such a well loved and respected person is going to be sorely missed.
Go visit the link above if you’ve never spent an afternoon in Page 45 as you probably should.

Pancake Mountain!

http://www.pancakemountain.com/clip16.html

I am delighted to find out that Dusty Hill, bassist for the finest band on Earth ZZ Top, nicknames his right index finger (seen left pointing at his wife’s forearm) :

THE PLEASER

I love this band.

It’s nuts. I hated Big Brother with a vengeance – even when they were all kicking shit out of each other last year. But this year has been GOLD television.
It’s like someone handpicked the scum of humanity, put them in a laboratory and just picked on them. Praise be that someone had the common decency to televise the results.
Take yesterday’s activities in the house for example.
The contestants were set a task where they each had 15 mins alone in the diary room and they had to wear a bizarre set of goggles with little test tubes attached. The task for the day was for them to collectively cry enough tears to fill a tea spoon. I SHIT YOU NOT.
When they were in there, the voice of Big Brother advised that if they needed beating down, belittling or upsetting then he would oblige. They then bombarded the contestants with tearjerking music and read them upsetting and heartbreaking stories.
Seriously, I fully expect them to lock a housemate in a glass box next. The ceiling will then begin to slowly descend to crush them slowly to death. They will be informed that if they confess to everything bad they’ve ever done then Big Brother will let them go. On the bottom of the screen it will flash to the audience
“BIG BROTHER IS LYING. NOTHING THE CONTESTANT CAN DO WILL SPARE THEIR LIFE”.
In the same day one of the contestants wanked off another in the swimming pool after he had asked to feel the fake breasts of another contestant and she had happily obliged.
This is amazing, perfectly orchestrated, car crash TV.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/news/05-06/23.shtml

I don’t know what to think about this or whether I even care. Bear in mind Black Flag are on a Wannadoo ad, Nike already used Search & Destroy by the Stooges, Lyle Preslar from MT is an A&R guy and Brian Baker is about the best example of a career punker known and it’s all splitting hairs really.
I guess all it says is that the MT fan at Nike’s marketing office kind of missed the point.

God’s way of damning charging people a hundred and whatever quid for a peace and love experience. Rain on!

I listened to this and liked it before I started reading the press release. I am starting to get into the art of the press release writing stuff for Diskant. This one really trumpets the wrong things about the band and leaves a bad taste of them being after something I hope they’re not.
Because the music is good. The press release mentions Beefheart, Deerhoof and Jehu but this reminds me hugely of Elevate. The vocals are especially similar both in delivery and lyric. They have that same funk in the music as Elevate and their big brothers GVSB had. The rhythms jerk about but the songs are well conceived and have definable choruses and hooks.
It works best when you see it as a small concern, like most bands do except maybe AC/DC or the Crue. The press release makes me think these guys might be after more and I hope not. They seem to have a lot going for them as it is.