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My biggest achievement of summer 2007 has been moving back to Newcastle, my biggest achievement since, ooh since moving to Leeds in 1998. Newcastle’s great.
As well as playing lots of soccer and pub quizzes, me and Sophie off of Sailors are attempting to make it even better by putting on some great gigs. Well, at least one. On Fri October 26th we’re hosting Sincabeza, That Fucking Tank, Richard Dawson and Helios which will be an exciting evening of rock and non-rock. I used to go and see Richard play gigs when we were both about 16; he was great then and he’s great now! Sincabeza are great rocking French instrumentalists, Tank are great noisy duo, possibly augmented at this gig by Giles from Kill Yourself, just like the old days! Helios are new kids on the Geordie block and sound a bit like a heavy Faraquet, I think.
I haven’t played in my band Sailors much, but some recordings we did a while back have seen the light of day by way of the excellent Gringo Records of Nottingham. YOU SHOULD ALL BUY IT HERE NOW. Due to now being scattered all over the country gigs are few and far between, but we’re playing in Brighton on November 24th and Leeds on December 1st, with two whole hosts of excellent bands including Soeza, Line, Ack Ack Ack, Bilge Pump and Trencher. Get in!
And thats it I think.
Hello strangers.
First record you bought and do you still own it?
Push by Bros, on casette. Lost to history I’m afraid.
Last record you bought
I had a spree on Saturday and bought Motorhead, Charles Mingus, the Best of Blondie (my favourite Blondie record) and New Nina Nastasia and Uzeda records.
Last song you downloaded
Don’t really do much of that, the 21st century is not for me. I listened to Dananananaykroyd and Field Music on Myspace yesterday, if that counts.
Last song/record you went to enormous lengths to find
Pass. I’m a very lazy man.
Most elaborately packaged record you own
I can’t think of anything particularly elaborately packaged. The Unit Ama CD has a ribbon around it, I have some nice looking Shellac seven inches. Records on Run of the Mill sometimes come with free elastic bands.
Last song you listened to
‘The thought of one’s own death’ by Sweep the Leg Johnny.
Favourite mixtape someone made you that you still listen to
First in a while came from Mr Nick Jones for my birthday and it was very good.
What records are you going to buy next?
new Shellac and Joanna Newsome when they come out, and perhaps Noxagt. John Fahey, Nico, Discharge and Dirty Three are on my ‘old records to buy’ list.
What are your top 10 most listened to songs on iTunes/last.fm/whatever.
What? er, here are 10 songs I like –
Greater than Symbol by Dananananaykroyd
Escort of Soda by Valina
Human Canonball by Butthole Surfers
In Context by Field Music
Dead Song by The Birthday Party
Government Center by Bilge Pump
Ace of Spades by Motorhead
Futures and Pasts by The Fall
Square King by Nels Cline
Charlies Laptop by I Had An Inkling
Very quick
THINGS I LIKE
Fanny’s Ale and Cider House, bike-riding, eggplant, zucchini.
And NOT
Lack of free time, the vegetable ‘fennel’, framing pictures.
Were these last two questions supposed to be music-based? Sorry.
Hi. Not sure if this kind of self-promotion is appropriate, but its been fairly quiet on here of late so I’ll chance my arm.
My band, Sailors, are going on tour for the first time this week. It would be cool if you came out and saw us and said hello.
Friday April 14th – Spalding, Lincs, The Black Swan w/ Not In This Town and Toys For girls (according to the Spalding Shows website)
Saturday April 15th – Brighton, The Freebutt w/ Cove, Foals, Tired Irie (we’re playing first)
Sunday April 16th – London, The Pullens Social Centre, Elephant and Castle LUNCHTIME SHOW (we play about 2) w/ Valerie and Corey Orbsion
Tuesday April 18th – Bristol, The Junction, w/ The Unit Ama, Colonel K (i think we’re on second out of three, but not sure)
Wednesday April 19th – looks like we may well be doing The Judges Lodgings, York w/ Whores Whores Whores and Chickenhawk
April 20th – Manchester, House Gig @ 33 Anson Road, w/ Breakneck Static, An Emergency and more.
You can hear Sailors at www.myspace.com/wearesailors
Or what I have been doing instead of being here
Listening To: Fugazi – ‘Repeater’, Lightning Bolt – ‘Hypermagic Mountain’, Pifco – ‘Pifco’ CD, Woman – ‘das Hexer’ CD, Big Black – ‘Songs About Fucking’, Jeffrey Lewis, Burn to Shine Washington DVD (really not good), Burn to Shine Chicago DVD (REALLY DAMN GOOD!!!!)
Reading: Alan Bennett – ‘Three Stories’, Julie Burchill – ‘Sugar Rush’, Kurt Vonnegut – ‘Slaughterhouse 5’.
Working on: job application form, learning to play the guitar PROPERLY, putting on a lovely gig in January with Woman, Not in this Town and others.
Looking forward to: playing the guitar PROPERLY, getting the new job, Dirty Three (tonight!)
Hi all. I know Chris wrote extensively about Damo about this time last year but I thought I’d break my main blog duck by telling you all about his gig the other night.
It was ace. Damo’s ‘sound carriers’ for this gig were Joe and Neil (Polaris / Bilge Pump) on guitar and drums respectively , Stu (Leeds DIY PA guru) on bass, a keyboard player who was having the time of his life, and a percussionist with a snare drum, cymbal and a box of tricks including a whistle, a football rattle and a baking tray full of pennies. He was my favourite.
For those who haven’t seen Damo recently, he is about 5 foot tall, with long grey hair and a goateee beard. He was wearing a gojonnygogogogo tshirt at least three sizes too big for him. At the start of every ‘song’ he’d point at the person he wanted to start it. They’d play a bit, then the others joined in and Damo sung. He’s got two voices, one is his Can voice and the other is this Tom Waits-like gruff howling. Sometimes he’d swap between these voices during the song, so it was a bit like watching a 60 year old Japanese schizophrenic.
Good job I like 60-year old Japanese Schizophrenics.
I think the band perhaps were a bit nervous at first. Not that it wasn’t ace, it’s more that they started out sounding a bit like Can, but then slowly gained the confidence to do things their way. By the end of the set they were in full flow, doing free jazz bits, spacey bits, krauty bits etc etc.
After every ten minute song (they probably did about 8 pieces, they were on stage well over an hour) Damo would applaud each member of the band in turn, applaud the audience and then point at the guy he wanted to start the next song.
When they finished there was the longest, loudest call for an encore I’d ever heard, so they came back on to do two more pieces… I think the band may not have been sure whether people were enjoying it up to this point because during the encore they were having the time of their lives, laughing, playing with / off each other, the keyboardist looked like he was high, the drummers were having call-and-response battles on the drums. The second to last song was awesome – faster and groovier than everything that had gone before it, and the previously reverential crowd indulged in a bit of dancing down the front.
When they finally, finally finished, Damo announced he was ‘going to bed’, but then shook hands with most of the audience and then sat down signing autographs etc.
Feh, you can call it self-indulgent or arty or whatever (couldn’t find anybody to come with me!) but I thought it was ace, and it was never noodly or muso-ey (apologies to any musos or noodlists reading this).
Damo! Damo! Come back on, and do another song!
That’s Kill Yourself, the band famous for Not Sounding Like Shellac. Maybe in their formative years there was more than a little of the Albini stop start skrrng about them but they’ve long since beheaded THAT albatross, and pushed the envelope into a distorted postbox of maniacal screeching, off-kilter time signatures and evil bass riffs. I wonder if, at age 80, I’ll find myself humming more Kill Yourself songs than Shellac numbers, terrifying the ‘life’ out of the bed-wetting squares I’m sharing my twilight years with. Because these two songs are up there with the best, young man, mark my words.
‘You Are Good’ starts the OAParty of my future with its disjointed verse, tension-tastic middle bit and torso-bangingly euphoric chorus, and then before you know it its all falling apart again. Very, very good. But its ‘Fill The Sails’ which is the real killer no filler on this bit of (blue) wax. A toe-tappingly relentless repeato-riff underpins toe-curlingly creepy vocals, a genuinely unsettling ‘quiet bit’ genuinely unsettles me and it all comes to a head with a coda I can only describe as ‘punishing’. If this is still in my head at age 80 I’ll be a happy, if slightly deranged, old codger.
