Just got back from seeing Black Eyes play in Birmingham. Despite an unbearable hawk of cunts in the crowd, they blew me away. They make you recall about a million different things but the mesh of styles is never contrived. It just seems like they were born playing that way. Truly amazing. Lazy journalists of the world – if you dismiss this with a half arsed review that mentions Dischord and Fugazi you will die.

Also, spent all my money yesterday and booked a last minute flight to Australia for Xmas. I go in a week and get back in a month. woohoo.

I’m liking this Blogger lark. Makes me feel like I’m living a worthwhile life if I post everything on an internet site and 3 people read it. Last night I got to tick another band off the ‘bands I’d love to open for’ checklist when Lords played with PW Long. Wish we’d played better or more people had been into it but PW and drummer would have kicked our asses even if we’d have hired dancing showgirls and a juggling monkey.

I just got stuck in a horrific traffic jam en route to Northampton but it turned good as I got to listen to the mighty GOLDEN over and over. What a band. If you have never heard them don’t fear, I’m going to get my shit together and track one of them down for an interview for Diskant but basically its guys from Trans Am, Six Finger Satellite and Royal Trux playing scorching saucy rock. With a weird South American latino salsa feel. Their first records (S/T and Super Golden Original Movement) piss on Oxes for ripping weirdo metal. Then you’ve got Golden And Rhythm-Beat Jazz which is the Golden chiefs with the horn section from the Boom/HiM. Next up is the awesome Golden Summer which is like Freddie Mercury fronting the greatest rock band imaginable instead of Queen. Then a couple of years ago they put out Apollo Stars. What a bitching record. The singing on it is just unbelievable. And the guitar solos. Wow. I don’t think they’re active anymore though, the drummer Jon Theodores in the Mars Volta, Phil Manleys still doing Trans Am, Alex Minoff was in Make Up and now is in the Scene Creamers and someone told me Ian Eagleson was an ethno-musicologist. They fucking COOK. So go sell all your nasty math rock bullshit and get a Golden shower. If you’ll excuse the pun. APOLLO PIZZA: PUT IT IN YOUR MOUTH!!!!!

Today ends eight successive days of seeing live music (I’m practising tonight instead). Saw some great stuff, and some not so great stuff. Here’s a definitive breakdown for you:

Saturday 8th: Enon were really good fun, with lots of danceable bits and nice hooks and riffs, and none of their songs sounded like another. Grade B+ good fun (I still can’t be bothered to buy one of their records).

Sunday 9th: Melt Banana were astoundingly good. I would have like them more if I wasn’t so completely shattered. They played Spathic, We Love Choco-Pa and covered the Damned. Words cannot convey how much better this band is at playing than ANYONE ELSE YOU’VE EVER SEEN. At times I forgot that I was watching a band playing twice as fast and as well as anyone else would dare, because they were pulling it off so well. Just fucking insanely good ridiculous spastic noise blasts, with incredibly hooks and jabs. Local support Designer Babies did an excellent job of blowing unsuspecting heads off too with their extremely unique brand of strange/spastic/twisted/twisted some more. Look out for a 7″ on Gringo Records at some point in the near future. No nice words for The Vexers though, who were the worst elements of this current post-punk revival summed up in one band that didn’t deserve to play a sixth-form college. Just sub-sub-sub-sub-The Rapture and not a lot else. Yuck.

Monday 10th: Grandaddy at Leeds Met Uni were a good band in a sucky venue, playing what was obviously the umpteenth date on their upteenth tour. They’ve got amazing songs, but the sound wasn’t that great, and there were some idiots singing along tunelessly with Jason’s amazing voice in my ear. Plus, how the hell can you mosh to songs as slow as these? When you’re very very drunk and keep falling onto me. I think the Melt Banana hangover didn’t help things much. Shame, because they played well.

Tuesday 11th: Killa Kela, or some such rubbish. A human beatbox for an hour, bookended by lots of old tired-sounding drum ‘n’ bass, incredibly samey hip-hop and even the odd hint of garage by DJs who obviousluy didn’t bring enough records, because there was an annoying amount of repetition of tunes. Lots of people who desperately wanted to be black who drank stupidly expensive vodka purely because it was vanilla flavour or something. Not a lot of fun, but I was at work and therefore paid to be there. The last DJ did end the night with Dead Prez’s ‘Hip-Hop’ though, so I can’t grumble too much.

Wednesday 12th: M83 and their incredible gurning faces played some really nice instrumental stuff. Their album sounds like (the good couple of songs by) Air playing My Bloody Valentine through an ’80s computer, but the live show was much more direct and straight-forward. They pushed a lot of obvious post-rock buttons, but the electronic elements kept things more interesting. It aslo helped that the band were really into the emotional velocity of their music and sweated a lot. I think I prefer them on record.

Thursday 13th: I went to the same The Murder Of, Cat on Form, Army of Flying Robots and Little Girl With Cherries gig as Chris. LGWC, as ever, were amazing in their rhythms and progressions, and continue to to get better every time I see them… at this rate they’ll be the best band in Britain this time next year. I’ve seen Katy sing back in 2001 or so, but apparently they’ve ditched vocals forever, so I guess that deal with Virgin/Warners isn’t going to be forthcoming just yet. I don’t have much to add about AOFR or COF (Chris did a pretty excellent job of summing up both), but it’s worth mentioning that The Murder Of Rosa Luxembourg played last, and were very impressive indeed. Again, I was really tired, so couldn’t get as into it as the madly dancing/shoving crowd.

Friday 14th: Took a trip up to Leeds again to see Soeza, Polaris and Little Girl With Cherries (again), for the princely sum of £3.50. [Almost all the amazing DIY stuff in Leeds is associated with the amazing Cops And Robbers collective, who are broke and desperately need your support, so go over their webpage and, er, read about some amazing shows you can go to.] Unfortunately thanks to Friday night traffic we missed LGWC this time, but I was assured that once again they conquered all who stood before them; which was just as well because the gig was upstairs in Joseph’s Well and there were far more than the legal capacity of 60 people in there at any given time. Polaris seemed to play a completely different set than from when I last saw them a couple of years ago, and did an occasionally uncanny impression of June of ’44. Their chords were absolutely lovely sounding though, and Neil their drummer (also of Bilge Pump and thousands of others) is absolutely amazing, so they were really nice to watch. By the time Soeza played, I couldn’t get into the room after having gone out for a breath of fresh air, so I got to listen from the fire escape. They played some really sublime stuff too, and everyone left with a smile on their face.

Saturday 15th: Liars finally came back to the UK, aided by KaitO and Punish The Atom. PTA were “okay” (snore). KaitO were really quite good, and much better and more visceral than I remember their old records being. Plus, they had a guitarist who gave everyone earache with his effects pedals. Liars were something else. I think they alienated a good two-thirds of the crowd, judging from talking to folks afterwards. They played no recognisable old songs, and quite possibly no tunes. Instead, they played what must be virtually the entirity of their forthcoming album, which was a lot of experimenting with noises, samples, signals and loops, both pre-recorded and manipulated live – definitely a real departure from their old sound. Coming out next February, it’s going to be a tremendously interesting trip. It would appear that the Liars have been listening to a lot of Throbbing Gristle of late, because now they sound like they would be far better suited to sharing a stage with the likes of the Boredoms, The Dead C, or Black Dice than all this post-punk bollocks (here I go again) that they’ve been lumped in with to date. Maybe someone has at last taken the *good* stuff from the No-Wave experiments of the early ’80s and decided to take it further, rather than just using dancey beats and tinny guitars. So yeah, I loved it. A fair few other people were pretty angry at paying a tenner for what was “supposedly all artsy and experimental but actually just bollocks really” (one disgruntled punter at the cloakroom afterwards).

Oh, and expect Talent Spotter to open up with at least one very special label interview around December time. It’s getting all very exciting…

Howdy. Went to see some bands last night. Little Girl With Cherries are instrumental math rock of the top drawer and last night Katys guitar was overboard loud too. Made for good listening but I still reckon they need to sing. I suspect Katy is hiding a singing voice like Paul Gascoigne or something. Army Of Flying Robots are friends from way back but I haven’t seen them much since Chris left and they went back to one vocalist (Henry). Seems to me like they discovered tunes, the sound could have been better but it was still pretty ripping. Cat On Form impressed too though the scope of influences is pretty slim (Fugazi) to my ears anyway. But it seems like most bands at the moment are about posturing and style so its good to see COF wear their hearts on their sleeves. I don’t think the world of independant music is quite as black and white as they may think though. If you’re going to call people out for selling out or not being independant then how far do you go? Fugazi have a press agent and a booking agent. Southern records use marketing techniques and target audiences for particular releases. You can stretch this to suggest that even having T shirts constitutes pulling away from the purpose of a band and drawing towards commodity. I’m not laying this on COF, I’m just saying that sometimes the argument can’t be summed up neatly into “us” and “them”. But then again at least COF are interested in the argument more than their hairstyles.

Anyway, changing the subject I’m going back to school next year hopefully. Primary school that is. I’m doing teacher training if I’m accepted. Wow. Career direction, you got to love it.

on friday we dressed up as zombies and went to see a band. a fairly standard friday night you may be thinking, but thankfully we saw japanese band mono and they were first fucking class. a few years ago i got completely sick of watching bands of skinny kids who sound like mogwai; there was too damn many of them and they were never very good. this is largely what i was expecting of mono, but after only a few minutes of their set they showed me that they’d done their homework and they meant business. there’s really no escaping the fact that they just sound like mogwai did 5 or 6 years ago: gentle gliding guitar textures that sway and build until it’s very loud, or occasionally switching from very quiet to very loud on a sixpence. the thing that sets them apart from the legions of second rate post-rock copycats is that they do it very very well indeed, the best i’ve heard anyone do it since young team, the holy grail itself came out and lodged itself firmly in my skull. when they were quiet it was all very nice and pretty and 1998 and when it was loud it was “fucking hell, that’s really very loud indeed and i wasn’t expecting that and SHIT it just got louder, well surely they can’t get… JESUS! there they go”. they reminded me why i ever liked this stuff in the first place, at a time when anything that sounds remotely like mogwai sends me to sleep within 30 seconds. the couple of times they went from quiet twiddley bits to SHREDDING THE PLACE TO SHIT i seriously began to wonder if they weren’t better than mogwai ever were, but that was probably the beer talking.

for those who haven’t heard of this band (most of you i’m sure) they’re a tokyo quartet who have albums out on tzadik and arena rock, and will probably be very huge if the nme ever decides to start writing about music again.

lastly, in an effort to get a photo into every blog, here is the amazing pumpkin kim carved.

To continue Ollie’s admirable ascent unto the upper reaches of American Noise (TM), I thought I’d share about Sightings‘ European debut last night. On record, Sightings are something I find very difficult to adequately describe or evaluate. Their records are very much more an experience rather than some kind of tangible “enjoyment”, so I jumped at the chance of deconstructing the mystique of exactly how they make noises so harsh and tinny by seeing them perform in the flesh.

Now I’ve seen them (and got some pretty nasty tinnitus, which I expect to last a good couple of days yet), I’m happy to report that Sightings are very much more a conventional live “power trio” than I’d been led to believe – albeit one where the drums are played through contact microphones and the guitarist who has his “instrument” set to EvilNoiseBastard permanently. My general impression was that Sightings are doing their utmost to violate and disseminate the corpse of early ’80s NoWave armed solely with shards of glass and a knowledge of what is damaging to the human ear (that’s the guitarist placing metal rods under his strings and failing to play anything remotely resembling a tune or even recognisable notes rather than frequencies*). They have a habit of taking one very basic primal riff, and then playing through some evil squealy effects pedals. Unfortunately, this often meant that the bassist & drummer were doing very little but hit the same basic rhythm whilst the guitarist flailed around for five minutes at a time, but when they bothered to develop ideas into some kind of full flow, Sightings really started to take over all your senses and drag you down a path towards utter sensory destruction.

When I saw the infamous Black Dice earlier in the year, what I enjoyed so much about them was the sheer experience of the effect that the sound had on my body; this is what Sightings appeared to be aiming for – if from a different angle – and fitfully, they pulled it off. On the first night of a tour and with unfamiliar rented gear, it took them a while to get going. I’d anticipate that if you see them on upcoming date, they may well have got their confidence together enough to give your head a suitably punishing trouncing. They’re currently on a very brief European tour, so go check ’em out – if your ears are prepared to take the abuse.

*This is not a criticism.

before i start, that was some good stuff from chris there. i really need to try and write about some of the weird things that i see every time i leave the house (of which there are many). until then…

LIGHTNING BOLT

after literally years of anticipation i finally got to see this band live on sunday, and i’m happy to report that i wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. despite a number of factors which could have made the evening a thoroughly horrific experience, the lb pulled it all together in one big skull shattering half hour. but first, the some of the downers. i was convinced as soon as we walked into the texas ballroom that i had stumbled into a bumper issue of the face, the month when it and i-d hatched a plot for try-hard hipster fucks to take over the world. i hate to be too judgemental, it’s nice that people want to go to some effort in an attempt to be different, but on this scale it was just too much. i felt overweight, underdressed and highly scrutinized.

next was the support bands. there was four, and despite the fact that none of them played for very long, it made the first part of the evening a lot more tedious that it should have been. here is a run down:

#1. some dude (don’t know his name) running around in his pants shouting over disco beats. people danced.

#2. some arty types who looked very moody and serious and sounded like harry pussy or something at first and then sounded like deerhoof but more shouty and noisy. that’s a bad description but they sucked. one of their songs was called “everyone wants to be my friend” or some crap.

#3. shouty punk band from baltimore. the singer complained a lot about hipsters (the fool) and was generally preachy and annoying. kim pointed out that he sounded a little like the singer from bob tilton/wolves of greece, which was true, but to mention the two in the same sentence seems somewhat sacrilegious so i’ll move on.

#4. the first band whose name i caught (necronomitron) and the first band who were any good at all. very “now” in that they sounded like a mix of lightning bolt, sightings, noxagt and orthrelm, but they were still very enjoyable. i wasn’t totally convinced that there were people actually playing the music though, because i couldn’t see a single band member. they must have been lying on the floor or something.

and finally, by the time necronomitron had finished, lightning bolt had set up their stuff on a piece of carpet right in front of me, which was nice. they began with brian c. standing up playing air guitar and making some crazy super distorted noise with the mic on his mouth. i was on the verge of insanity by this point, and if i wasn’t hit in the face by a thunderous barrage of noise within the next minute, bad things may have happened. thankfully, i was. they whipped through a mix of new songs i didn’t know (which incidentally sounded amazing) and stuff from wonderful rainbow, and everyone freaked out and it was very very loud indeed and at times i started to feel like my mind was separate from my body. dracula mountain was a huge sprawling beast, whipping around on the floor at my feet, daring me and everyone else present to dance and jump and fall around even harder. unfortunately the building wasn’t up to the task, and people started freaking out because they thought the floor was about to collapse (it probably was to be honest). people spread out a bit and they played another song, but we were all still dicing with death apparently, so lightning bolt were told they had to stop. being the true gents that they are though, and on the condition that everyone stood against the walls, leaving a big space in the middle of the room, they did play one more. by this point i was spent, and happy to watch from a distance as the audience swarmed around brian c. as he pulled his drums out to the far side of the room as they finished. they might not have played for very long, and they might not have played any songs from ride the skies, but it was still more than i ever hoped it could be. it was hot, chaotic and very fucking loud, and by far the best thing i have seen in years.

before the show, we also had some fun in chicago. we went to reckless records were i bought lps by vincebus eruptum and neil young, and kim got the new dirty three. i also saw the cat on form album in there which was exciting. i didn’t get it though, i’ll wait for the vinyl i think. we also ate some very good thai food and wore coats for the first time in months. hooray for autumn.

While Ollie was having his ears assaulted (see below) I was having mine caressed by the gentle sounds of the James Orr Complex AKA Chris Mack of Eska with an acoustic guitar and that wonderful voice of his. A launch night for his debut album, which seems to have taken the best part of two years to finally see the light of day, in the tiny confines of Monorail I was not likely to be missing this. Always a friendly and natural performer, we got a lovely selection of some of the highlights of the new album which we were then encouraged to buy a whole three days before release. Hurray!

Which led to conversation later, namely ‘Monorail, a record shop in a pub – best/worst idea ever?’. If you’re anything like us, it’s hard enough to avoid spending all your money on records as it is. Add booze, a relaxing, friendly atmosphere, a stomach full of comforting vegan food and the company of your drunken friends and all hell may break loose on your pocket. And don’t think your usual saving grace applies here; Monorail has every record you’ve been meaning to buy EVER, on cd and vinyl and with a nice selection of second hand stuff, magazines, zines and gig tickets to boot. Plus there’s a reasonable likelihood of you getting to place your money into the hand of Stephen Pastel himself. If Mono was my local I’d be penniless by now.

The James Orr Complex album is excellent though so go buy it for these quickly-approaching winter evenings.

we drove down to kentucky to see some bands the other night, and it was good. the first 2 bands, death beam and hair police were pretty dumb but fun to watch. both bands played about 10-15 minute sets, and there was lots of awkward jerky guitar yelps from death beam, followed by screaming and fighting and noise by hair police.

next up was wolf eyes. prior to this gig, all i had heard by them was their dead hills picture disc on troubleman, which didn’t do anything for me at all, and more recently their dread lp on hanson, which was much better. however, neither record could have prepared me for the live experience. they lulled me into a false sense of security with their first song, which was a kind of laid back affair with horns and tape loops. after about 5 minutes though, they decided enough with the ambient shit, and launched a sonic attack vicious enough to make even the most hardened of noise fans piss their pants. we all agreed that, while it wasn’t really any louder decibel wise than other bands we had seen before, it was a different kind of noise. wolf eyes manage to do something with the sound they create that has some very interesting physical effects on the listener. my nostrils were vibrating throughout, something i can’t remember ever happening before. breathing became a less than simple task on more than one occasion. i found myself suffering from frequent pains in various parts of my head and neck. for a while it felt like i was being repeatedly punched in the chest. the few times when the wolfeyesdeathbeats? reached a point that could be defined as a “hook”, and fists began punch into the air, i started to feel like i was witnessing some kind of revolution, like life wouldn’t be quite the same when i left the venue. it’s very hard to write about such an obtuse band at my pathetic gcse-level, but needless to say i recommend that anyone who is curious to get some wolf eyes stuff. marvellous.

the common opinion after they finished was “how are black dice going to top that?!” and sure enough, they didn’t. their show in london earlier this year was bland as shit, and to be honest i was only enthusiastic about this gig because of the other bands playing. i have listened to beaches and canyons recently and quite enjoyed it, so i thought if nothing else i might recognize some of the set this time. well, i did, but it still wasn’t very good. they basically did the same thing they did in london, wobbly birdy sounds with a little bit of guitar and tribal drumming, apart from the fact that a) they only played for half as long, and b) they injected the odd burst of roaring cacophonous white noise every now and then, which certainly broke things up. i just don’t think black dice are a good band to see live, it’s just fucking boring. to be honest, it takes a lot to bore me at a gig, i’m a simple boy and don’t need much to entertain me, but black dice can’t even supply that. still, i didn’t care at all because wolf eyes had made the evening more than worthwhile.

further reading:

hanson

freedom-from

load

tomorrow we are spending the day in chicago, and then seeing lightning bolt. fucking lightning bolt.

Why go home after work anyway?

First i went to see Show Me Love, Lukas Moodyson’s first film (Fucking Amal to us sophisticated European / pottymouthed types). I’d heard good things about it but I wasn’t prepared for exactly how life-perfect and damned sweet the thing is. It might be set in Sweden and the two characters falling in love might both be female but apart from that it felt like me and every person i know / knew. It’s joined my list of films I wish I’d seen as a teenager. It’s on again on sunday and i might well be back at the cca for the double bill of this and Together / Tilsamanns. I defy anyone to see it and not go “awwwwwwwwww”.

After that there was the gig by Glasgow’s premiere pianopunk outfit Lapsus Linguae over at Stereo. They were definitely On Form tonight. No technical hitches or heckles, just room enough to marvel at the – what ? The Lapsus-ness of it. I haven’t heard a band like them and they are damn good. Go See Them if you haven’t already, though this was the end of their tour I think. News!: they have arranged an album release for the spring, even if the songs haven’t been written yet. Support band Sea Change are also worth a listen. More conventional song-style (obviously) but with a violin / shoegazey sound.

While I was there I got a flyer for a new Glasgow club, DeathKill4000. At the Woodside Social Club every Thursday from the 26th. I like the playlist’s silly-but-sensible-to-me mix: Aphex Twin, Alec Empire, Big Black, Bobby Conn, Chicks on Speed, Dead Kennedys, DJ Assault / Shadow, Horrorist, Iron Maiden, The Locust, Megadeth, Motley Crue, Peaches, Public Enemy, Slayer, Spinal Tap, 10Benson, Trans Am and Turbonegro. Multiplies playing live. Plenty variety in type of tune but no let up in quality it sounds like. Well worth yr £2 from 10-2 on Thursday the 26th June I’d suggest. I may even be there myself, competing for the “best dancer” bottle of vodka.