Noise is too often a lowest common denominator game with far too many charlatans armed with effects pedals, circuit bent electronics, and ring modulators thinking that their racket is somehow worth listening to, or worse, is challenging, when it’s really just lazy. Thankfully ‘noise’ is a broad umbrella and for all the fifth rate would-be Throbbing Gristles out there, there are sometimes gems. New Jersey’s Anthony Saunders is one of them. Ikh Khoring is three long tracks on the more ambient spectrum of things.

The CD begins with a long track that starts with a dark droning background overlaid with electronic chirpings and twitterings and is reminiscent simultaneously of the microsound glitch of Tetsuo Inoue and the electroacoustic compositions of Louis Dufort. The piece becomes denser and more frantic before gradually fading into a subterranean drone again overlaid with skittering electronic noises. The second track continues much in the same vein, bringing to mind subway tunnels populated by fragile but menacing digital structures, becoming something that sounds like cricket noises. This leads nicely into the third track, which leaves behind these nightmarish soundscapes for mammoth gently oscillating drones. It’s rather soothing.

It’s obvious that a lot of thought and work went into Ikh Khoring and it is a richly textured and evocative work, bringing to mind a lot of nightmarish subterranean images. Highly recommended.

Anthony Saunders
Troniks

Free iPod Tour Guides – I am really starting to see the possibilities of podcasting. I laughed initially when given a huge phone on a necklace when I went to the Turner Prize exhibition at the Tate but it was actually pretty cool being able to hear the artist talking about the work while you looked at it. Walking tours seem like even more fun, especially if they are like ‘turn left here, after the post office. Look at that!’. I always like wandering in cities I visit but it’s rare you get to find out anything about the buildings you see.

Anyway, my main reason for posting this is The Glasgow Indie Music Tour!

You’ll discover:

– the hang-outs, rehearsal spaces and even workplaces you’re likely to run into band members such as Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian and more.
– What Glasgow’s got that makes it musically hot!

Imagine!

Of course what this will amount to is having a pint in King Tuts (where Oasis were discovered!!!!) and going to the Safeway on Byres Road (where Belle met Sebastian!!). I wonder if it includes popping into Monorail to gawp at Indie Legend Stephen Pastel!

“Spinspin the dog? Being the pervayer of high culcher that I am I can onlistly say iv neaver seen anything so GOD FUCKING AWFULLY SHIT in my HOLELIFE! ..and iv seen the fucking Marzvolta! oh but ther just so weard and creative!”
“spin spin the dogs are WANK. the only reason i wasn’t there last night was cos of my exam but any other day and i would have slapped the singer quite happily”
“Why are people making such a big deal over that piece of shit band (Spinspin the fucking cunt dog)? They are fucking gay and thats that!!!!!!”
“Id forgotten about Spin Spin The Dogs. I fucking hate the drummers smug gitface of “we’re making music you couldnt possibly contemplate, understand orappreciate.”
“Maybe Im not quite advanced enough to understand it. To me it came across like an excuse for not having any SONGS!!!!”
“FUCK OFF.”
“Got there to see Spin Spin the dog(s) to see if they really were that bad… I wasn’t disappointed. They truly are the biggest pile of try to hard to be weird turd I’ve ever seen. How about learning to sing and/or actually writing some music. Why did I let curiosity get the better of me…..? Everyone deserves a chance I suppose. except them”
“FUCKING ARTY TWAT SMUG SHIT! YOU’RE NOT FUCKING FUNNY! ARRRRRRRRGHH! PLEASE SAVE YOUR BEEFHART IMPRESSIONS FOR YOUR LITTLE BROTHER. YOU MIGHT FEEL IMPERIOUS THEN BUT EVERYONE ELSE THINKS YOUR A TWAT. YOU TWAT.”
“I don’t even CARE about what music SSTDs play. I don’t care how groundbreaking or original they are. I just think they are RUDE“
“kill kill the twats”

Over time, SSTD have earned a coveted title: The Most Hated Band In Derby.
No mean feat considering they come from Nottingham. The folk at the other end of the A52 can’t deal with the Dogs at all. (See the thoughtful internet comments above that were so good at the time I had to find an excuse to include them: spelling and grammar author’s own).

The main criticisms I can decipher among the death threats are: they can’t play and they are some sort of art prank. The first point is not up for debate. SSTD can play. John might look as comfortable with a guitar as the Queen holding a 15-inch hard-on but he can play the arse off anyone. Someone should change his name to John ‘Fingers’ Wilson.
In fact, I just did.
He seems supernaturally linked to bassist Dean like some governing hand is controlling them both simultaneously. Drummer James provides the perfect foil in a way, in that his drumming means it’s never powerhouse but more like The Fall in that it’s always urgent and never brawny.
What makes people think they can’t play is that no amount of precision and sixth sense can counter singist Vincent’s desire to reek havoc wherever he goes like a child smearing poo on the bathroom walls.
Which brings us onto the art prank accusation: if it were an adult smearing poo anywhere it’d be an art statement. Everyone would look for the meaning:

“Perhaps the poo is a METARFUR for his inner feelings that he is unashamedly revealing?” “Maybe the poo is a SIMBOLLIC protest at life?” etc.

I could be wrong but I think with this band (like a child): a shit’s a shit. And if it’s funny to smear it then it’ll get smeared. They’re not an art happening because there’s no underlying pre-decided message. It doesn’t mean they’re vacuous, it means they’re of the moment and not contrived. Most importantly, they’re all willing to make an ass of themselves to express the moment – a long forgotten virtue if you ask me.
Too many people aren’t willing to compromise themselves for what they believe in because all they’re really doing it for is to establish and emphasise their own ‘cool’. You go see screaming hardcore bands and its bullshit, they stick to a plan, they mock-confront, they throw themselves into the crowd in a manner that is contrived and it just perpetuates this crappy act of theatre that people have seen for so long they think it’s real. Vincent’s willingness to make an ass of himself, the thing that so annoys people, just shows how desperately hard he wants to break that state. One of my fondest gig memories is Vincent stepping on a milk crate onstage in Newcastle and then hobbling around for the rest of the gig with it stuck solid on his foot as though it wasn’t a problem at all.
Tonight it takes him about 40 seconds to clamber into a small space between a shelf and the air conditioning unit. A female punter yells “You’re shit!”which is met with the retort “SEXY!” from Vincent. Later on the woman seems to think it’s her mission to get things sensible when everyone else just wants to go crazy. She keeps shouting, headmistress-style, “GET DOWN FROM THERE!” and “STOP BEING SILLY!” to Vincent, who has decided he likes the ledge/air conditioner position so much he’ll spend the gig there. “SEXY!” he replies.
They seem to delight in the chaos of it all, John seems especially animated, whacking his guitar into the cymbals and when he swaps with James they both seem to relish getting to attack an instrument that doesn’t belong to them.
Much as I am sure they would recoil at the word, SSTD really rock. They always have done. Not to be confused with some sort of macho swagger, which they definitely don’t have. It’s no sausage party. It’s like ‘Container Drivers’ by The Fall with every other note being one you don’t expect. The Jesus Lizard and Scratch Acid minus the pelvic swing. It’s twitchy and insect-like. Spiny.
Having said that I was pretty leathered by this point so my memories are blurred. I don’t add that as a kind of Lester Bangs / Hunter S Thompson gonzo-journalist comment but more as a resigned admission that I can’t booze properly anymore and I am essentially a 2 pint screamer.

Which is pretty irresponsible seeing I am supposed to be telling you what the gig was like.

But that’s OK, I can do that – the gig was brilliant.

If this really was their last gig I’m going to miss them.

Opening up in the big room at Rock City is not an enviable task. You get about 10 mins to sound check, about 4 inches of room to play in as you squeeze yourself around the headliner and other support bands’ massive amps and every noise you make echoes straight back at you off the walls of the slowly filling room.
The chances of a band rising above this are slim. The chance of them playing one of the best gigs so far this year is next to impossible – which makes Stinking Lizaveta‘s efforts all the more superhuman, as they were amazing at 8 o clock on a Sunday evening.
I’ve seen these Philadelphians before in small rooms and they always put on a show and I always enjoy it but it’s surprising how much sense they make on a massive stage at a ‘proper’ rock gig. Surprising because they have an upright bassist, no vocals to speak of, a female drummer and a guitarist (brother of the bassist) who resembles something from Lord Of The Rings. Interesting enough to fill a small room but not the typical set up for an 18 year old in cut-off denim and a peach fuzz moustache sipping on a nervously-bought cider and waiting for the mosh parts. But people seemed to really get into it.
It’s hard not to though, when the band themselves are so committed. Guitarist Yanni is especially animated, balancing precariously on his amp, leaping around, screaming into his guitar pickups and at one point traversing the whopping Rock City ‘moat’ to strap his guitar onto an unsuspecting girl (after prying it from the hands of a gaggle of wannabe male guitossers) in the front row before returning to the stage to dish out wah-wah apocalypse on us while the girl stood there pawing the instrument. Lizaveta are super arranged, technical metal but by putting so much of themselves into the performance you forget about it, things seem natural, you don’t really try and follow the changes because you follow the people.
Clutch are a band I’ve heard on record plenty but never seen live. On record they have an unnatural heaviness that’s replicated tonight in volume but not in overall sound somehow. They are massively loud but the guitar especially sounds croaky and blubbering. Not to say Clutch don’t rock. They resemble a compressed, more aggressive ZZ Top with Dan Higgs from Lungfish on vocals – complete with bizarre shamanisms and facial hair. But whereas the mighty ‘Top have an elasticity to their rhythms that means I could listen to Frank Beard play a shuffle beat all day, Clutch rely a bit too much on a straight fonky rhythm that never allows them to break out and run. Couple it to the sometimes-overbearing New Orleans-y keyboard sound and it makes too much Clutch a bit hard to take. It’s lucky the sheer vocal presence of Neil Fallon is commanding enough to make it seem like they’re not repeating themselves even when maybe they are.
It was Stinking Lizaveta’s night though.
(Corrosion Of Conformity headlined but I tried to review two gigs in a night and didn’t see them. Here’s what my friend Annie thought: “Dark loud raw R-n-R, played old and new – heavy sounds from the deep” so there you have it!)

I don’t have MTV so I have only just seen this. It’s the best music video ever

Also, how shit are band names? Here are some genuine bands taken from the pages of Punk Planet:

Across Five Aprils
The Autumn Offering
The Autumn Project
Before Today
By The End Of Tonight
It Dies Today
Missing Autumn
Oh My God
Beneath The Falling Skies
Ruining Tomorrow
Sunday Tore Downs
A Thousand Falling Skies
Leaves Of Lothlorien
Recess Theory
The Juliana Theory
Subpoena The Past
Count The Stars

I went to see Adult play Glasgow’s ABC last night and I was quite taken by the support band, Battant. For the same reason Marceline keeps telling me to stop listening to the likes of Interpol and get into Joy Divison instead, I am half sure Battant will be turn out to be fairly derivative of someone or other. While I’m listening in ignorance I have to say I fairly enjoyed their set and this, what I believe to be a self published EP I bought after the gig.

While on stage I noticed that I was mainly liking the songs they introduced their new ones. My favourite being ‘Jump Up’, the first track on this EP. It is an acid sharp heavy electric number with disaffected noisy vocals from singer Chloe Raunet. To be honest I can’t really make out what she is singing about but unusually for me that doesn’t matter here.

There is something enjoyably awkward about Battant. Despite the cut glass electronica, or perhaps because of it, there is a solemn, scratchy texture that intrigues and entertains. Battant make music that is dark, sinister and easy to get swept away with.

www.battant.co.uk

This is pretty dumb. But in a good way.

On this, their debut double A-side single, Neon Plastix make what is in many ways modern indie pop by numbers. Slightly affected posh vocal? Check. Angular guitars? Check. Nifty electro-synths? Absolutely. Dance floor influenced drum sounds? Of course. Any good? I think so.

Ok, even if they do sound a little like The Killers, The Faint, Franz Ferdinand and others, they have found a neat line in choruses and base lines. Neon Plastix are one of many bands that we’ll no doubt see this year making sparky electro pop despite hipsters proclaiming the death of ‘electro-clash’.

If they keep coming up with stuff as fun as ‘Prick Tease’ the Neon Plastix could add up to being a band to be reckoned with.

The Neon Plastix
BlowUp Records

I’m not going to ATP, I’m going to Japan, but if you are, and you’re going to the second weekend (the one with Lightning Bolt, Boredoms and Magik Markers) and you live somewhere near Glasgow then GOOD NEWS! Instead of spending over £100 getting 4 trains and a bus to Camber Sands you could go on a coach with some other people who like great music. If this sounds like a good idea then give Gary Thoms a mail at gary dot thoms at gmail dot com to find out more. And send us a postcard.

I would hope that anyone who listens to music a lot must fantasise about playing God and getting bands to tweak their sound so that it is even more musically satisfying to their ears. It’s what I do all the time anyway. And it’s rare that I come across a band that has a sound that I would consider perfect. The only two that spring to my mind right now are Neu! and Shellac, for hugely contrasting reasons. But anyway.

The first ten seconds of this CD got me into a real lather – someone was making some guitar vomit something akin to those amazing seasick sounds Kevin Shields coaxed out on “Isn’t Anything”, and it looked like they were going to harness them to make some great vague indie pop in the process. Unfortunately, from then on the proceedings became increasingly staid, with more ‘proper indie’ songwriting and sounds dominating. Aside from the occasional interesting textural flourish, Black Watch otherwise only mark themselves out as a very competent band playing some competent songs that are unfortunately bereft of any real melodic or catchy hooks to really catch your attention. And those flourishes diminish as the album goes on and on, getting duller as it gets increasingly singer-songwritery. It’s a shame because those blurry guitars are ultimately filler on a few tracks, disappointingly underutilised – normally to underline a part already played by another guitar in an altogether less interesting fashion. The whole thing just seems a little unambitious after a very promising start.

My personal advice would be: Pile on the effects, and get some hooks going on. Then the Black Watch would really be onto something special and ears would really prick up. That’s not to say this band could be another My Bloody Valentine clone; there is obviously talent at work here, and they could give those guitars a whole new setting with some decent rhythmic drive and songwriting. It’s just my opinion. Black Watch are not there yet, and maybe they don’t even want to be. I just wish they would, so they could properly escape that horrible label of being Just Another Indie Band.

www.theblackwatchmusic.com
www.pinkhedgehog.com

I have never been to Leeds, and until recently I had no desire to. I worked with a guy from Leeds and I could hardly understand a word he said. I had to nod in agreement whenever he paused after asking ‘innit?’. I’ve heard good things about the city: a busy arts scene, half decent shops, and nice buildings. I hadn’t heard much about its music scene though but if YSN are anything to go by, I may have been missing out.

YSN do many things I enjoy: on first hearing forthcoming single ‘More’ my heart skipped I was so excited.

They are camp in the best possible way – witty, articulate, sharp and sexy. ‘More’ has a timeless retro-futurism, it sounds like it could have been made by robots from a future that people used to dream about in the 70s. It boasts sophisticated synths and arch guitar hooks alongside wonderfully theatrical vocals and tight song writing. On b-side ‘At The Club’ the vocals take center stage as the boys come over like a barber shop quartet gone bad performing to a half empty candle lit cabaret club.

YSN display more than enough wit and charm to convince me that Leeds could be easily be filled with articulate and well dressed gentlemen, frequenting once decadent, but still alluring, back street gin joints.

The single is out on the 13th of February and are touring the UK throughout the month. I think I may be exploring Leeds in March.

YSN at myspace
YSN’s Website