Oka Vanga @ The Kings Head, 14th August 2009

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...

 Let’s get one thing straight before we start this review proper: if you love music, chances are you will find something here for you. How could you fail to, when the band introduce a beautiful, melodic folk song with the caveat “This one is inspired by seeing AC/DC at Wembley stadium a few weeks back...”? But I’m getting ahead of myself here.


Oka Vanga are a lyric-free, double-guitar, male-female folk duo from London. They have been in existence for about a year and appear to draw influences from all over the world and all across the musical spectrum. Their MySpace page cites Will as drawing particular influence from 80s hair metal (yes, really), and Angie as being a particular of musical styles popular in North Africa. As such, no inch of fret-board is left untouched. I ask you, people, what’s not to love? How can you not find this sort of thing exciting?


Tonight, Oka Vanga are hypnotic. It is difficult to drag ones eyes off the stage, even when you’ve been alloted the job of photographer for the evening. Each song has its own story, including one inspired by a Thai monsoon and another by the aforementioned AC/DC riff-fest. These stories are capable of filling the room and holding the audience in thrall. Each song also has a particular personality that means that even hardened lyric-studiers such as myself are kept focussed throughout the set. The applause at the end of each song is testament to how much those gathered here are impressed by the music they are watching.


It’s undoubtedly one of the most impressive displays of virtuoso guitar skill you’ll find on the folk circuit right now, with the two players complementing each other perfectly in style and influence. The drive of the rhythm guitar is perfectly complimented by the intricate melodies and there never seems to be a moments let up in a brilliantly paced set. If Angus Young had decided that finger-picking rather than power chords should dominate the world, he might well be in this basement telling the crowd that this next song was inspired by seeing Oka Vanga at Wembley a few weeks back...


My advice to any readers of this website is very simple: go forth and check the MySpace page. Go and find a gig. Prove to yourself that I’m right about this. Get. Your. Folk. On.

Doves @ Brixton Academy - May 1st 2009

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...


On the way out of Brixton Academy, one thing is notable by its absence: neon. Doves are not a band that readily lend themselves to the modern fart-in-a-hurricane culture that blights the modern music scene. These guys are lifers, and their fourth album confirms their status as one of Britain’s most enduringly excellent and resolutely under-appreciated bands.


With over four years having ensued since last we heard from the Manchester miserablists, fans waited eagerly for the release of last month’s Kingdom of Rust, and they were not disappointed. Many reviewers were moved to name it their best offering so far, and they might have a point in saying this.


Certainly, the greatest compliment that can be paid to the new songs is to report that they already fit into the set and feel as though they have always slotted in just so. This, surely, is the hallmark of present and future classics.


Opening with a bombastic rendition of Jetstream, the band remind those watching that tonight is about the ensemble experience. Doves are not a band who revel in lengthy and complex guitar solos or long passages of dribbly keyboard tomfoolery, instead their songs are constructed around solid baselines and psychedelic melodies, and at no point does one man stand forward and dominate the stage. This is all about the group performance.


As we move through classics such as Snowden and Pounding, Jimi Goodwin's voice loops and soars in a way that would make Chris Martin sound like Tom Waits. The pace of the performance only lets up as dictated by the quieter songs from the new album, including an exquisite version of 10:03.


Highlights include the stomping depression of Black and White Town, played over the video-projected back drop of the song’s video. It is tempting to draw parallels between the bleak council estates depicted in the video and the current financial climate, but such a comparison would unfairly pin this timeless song.


Probably the biggest surprise is what is left out, rather than any of the inclusions. It’s a mark of how far this band have come and how imposing their back catalogue is that they can afford to leave out established crowd favourites such as The Cedar Room, The Man Who Told Everything and Catch The Sun. Where they might have fallen in the set list, new songs make sure that the audience witnesses a set brimming with quality. As the final drum beats of There Goes the Fear ring round the Academy, the place of this band in the recent history of British music is cemented by the standing ovation they receive.

Brilliant White

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...

There is an unwritten law which states that whenever two or more people who know (or think they know) anything about music are gathered together and plied with drugs and alcohol, one of them will eventually produce the following sentence, or a variation thereof:


"The White Album is brilliant, sure, but it would have made a much better single album with all the extras and the rubbish songs cut out.”


I was thinking about this the other day, prompted by an excellent documentary from NPR, celebrating the album's 40th anniversary. And so I came home and listened to the whole thing through for the first time in ages and thought really hard about this. If everyone holds this as a kind of universal truth, then surely I as a huge Beatles fan should be able to easily and effectively edit this behemoth of weirdness into a coherent single disc. I've been at this for a week or so now and, because I am relentlessly self-interested, I thought you might be interested in reading my results.


Right up front, I will tell you that it's not easy. I gave myself only one rule: I'm not going to be pissing about with a stopwatch and a CD burner, so I've tried this numerically. The White Album has 30 tracks. An edited version will therefore have 15.


On first listening, there are those tracks that immediately offer themselves, in the manner of a lemming faced with a cliff, for deletion. These include Wild Honey Pie, Why Don't we do it in the Road, and Savoy Truffle, all of which could be easily relegated off our newly cut record. 12 to go. Told you it wasn't easy.


So now we have to get a bit more ruthless if we're to reach our target. Next up for the chop are songs such as Long, Long, Long, Everybody's got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey and Honey Pie, which are pretty good, but perhaps unnecessary and really don't add much to the overall canon of the band. And then we're faced with the tape-looping insanity of Revolution 9. It's gotta go really, hasn't it? It's a piece of musical history, undoubtedly, and a huge technical achievement, but with my new-found power, I'm relegating it to a limited edition EP to be released later and discussed in hushed tones by groups of stoned teenagers. One simple reason for this: if there's only 15 tracks, then anything with Yoko Ono's sex noise on it (allegedly) is cut. End of.


With eight more tracks still to cut, and side four virtually decimated, I'm finding it difficult. At this point, personal attachment to songs got thrown out of the window, and I decided that a harder nose was required. So we wave farewell to Piggies, which I happen to like but is perhaps more of a curio.


After two days of internal toil, I decide that Glass Onion must not go the same way. There's too much weight in that song, it contains that marvellous bit of teasing about “The Walrus was Paul”, it would not be right to fling this to the cutting room floor. So instead I cut Birthday which, despite having an awesome Harrison lick, and a middle-eight to which Noel Gallagher probably debases himself regularly, is now at the bottom of my newly shuffled heap. It's followed there by Yer Blues, which is again a great song (with that Dylan reference...) but I'm clutching at straws now.


At this point (around tea-time last Tuesday) I had an epiphany. After three days of listening to the remaining tracks, I decided that perhaps the bottom-up approach wasn't working any more. So I took a top-down approach, thinking about songs that absolutely must not be cut. You (hopefully) don't need me to tell you how great While My Guitar Gently Weeps is, how Blackbird is one of the greatest acoustic ballads ever crafted, or how good the guitar work is on Helter Skelter. These things you know. I came up with seven tracks that would definitely make anyone's final cut, and then set about intense listening of the remaining fourteen, half of which would have to go if I was to prove the above theory.


It is not true that the first cut is the deepest, I began to feel a sense of loss as I planed down the record and dropped such musical gems as I'm So Tired, Sexy Sadie, and Goodnight. These are songs that other musicians (particularly The Coral) might dream of writing, but we're getting towards (to use a well-worn phrase) squeaky-bum time. Two more cuts needed.


But it's virtually impossible. I can't pick out two more to go. By now I was dreaming about the album, it was under my skin. The gaps I had created haunted me, and this is where I had to give up. If I had my naked balls beneath the threatening shadow of a mallet, I would probably concede Glass Onion and make the point that Revolution 1 is really an acoustic version of an already extant single and hence could probably be reserved for future B-Sides... But I wouldn't be happy about it. You'd have to literally threaten my balls to get me to cut any more tracks. Two weeks it took me, but here's my final fifteen:

1. Back in the U.S.S.R.

2. Dear Prudence

3. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

4. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill

5. While My Guitar Gently Weeps

6. Happiness is a Warm Gun

7. Martha My Dear

8. Blackbird

9. Rocky Racoon

10. Don't Pass Me By

11. I Will

12. Julia

13. Mother Nature's Son

14. Helter Skelter

15. Cry Baby Cry

Now that is one hell of a single disc. But if you want to set this up as a playlist, I challenge you not to feel the occasional twinge of nostalgia for the tracks that are missing. I guess the point is that The White Album is what it is, warts and all. Some warts are obviously useless, but some are cute little moles, beauty spots on the glorious face of music. I invite anyone to post their own single-disc cuts below, or to just point out what you think I've got wrong, but the next time someone tells you how you could easily make a great single disc out of The White Album, challenge them to do it.

Coldplay @ The O2 - 15th December 2008

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...


It is often tempting (for some) to dismiss Coldplay out of hand, to bemoan them as somehow cashing in on a wave of middle-of-the-road sound. But it is when seen live that Coldplay really come into their own, and tonight proves that point and then some.


Coldplay are a band who have truly grown into the stadium-filling status that they now hold. Now on their fourth hit-laden album, they have reached a point where established hits such as Yellow no longer need to be left until the encore. Rather, they are able to fill this vast (but acoustically excellent; but I digress) space with light, sound and colour from start to finish. Hit follows hit follows hit, and warmth pours off the stage throughout. Any band who can make a 20,000-seat concrete arena feel like the UCL Student's Union is clearly doing something right.


The new material tonight is already six months old and well-established in the brains of those present, but it is still a wonderful experience to be treated to Strawberry Swing, Violet Hill and (perhaps the highlight) Death and All His Friends, alongside established hits such as Fix You, Politik and The Scientist. Already, it would be impossible for anyone walking in off the street to tell the new material from the previous hits. Still as humble as ever he was, Chris Martin regularly acknowledges the cheering masses with a wave and mumbled thanks. He's had the misfortune (if you can call it that) to become a massive rockstar without developing either a drug addiction or a serious personality disorder, and for this he is often cast aside by the more image-concious sections of the music press. Wrongly.


At one point, the band walk down from the stage and through a rapturously cheering crowd to take up residence half-way up the lower tier of seats. They subsequently perform an acoustic version of Green Eyes, with a guest harmonica solo from Simon Pegg. As the final notes die away, there is a completely euphoric moment, and I realise I am grinning like a moron. So are the band. So is everyone else in the O2. The feeling of camaraderie, that everyone is part of this, is palpable. Long live this kind of thing, if you ask me.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds @ The Troxy - 30th November 2008

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...


Up until this year's Dig!! Lazarus, Dig!!! album, I had never really got Nick Cave. One of those artists I would get into one day but had just never quite got round to it. So when a friend played me the aforementioned album I was suddenly struck by a wave of “Oh, I get it!”. The floodgates were opened and I have been literally consuming the dark and twisted work of Mr Cave, and wondering what the hell I was thinking all those years.


So tonight's concert really feels like a personal coming of age. I had seen him earlier this year, playing a six-song in-store gig on Oxford Street, but this was Cave unleashed. He looks like the Antichrist will look. With shirt unbuttoned to the waist and moustache trimmed yet still somehow exuding wild unkemptness, he manages to look like a man with whom you would cheerfully share a joke, even as he playfully kicked a puppy. The smiles between songs make you realise that behind the weird-sex-and-death of the lyrics is a loving family man. Albeit one who would eat your soul.


The location is perfect. The Troxy is a 1930s provincial theatre that somehow got built in East London. There's a diminished glamour and slight repressed seediness about the place that perfectly frames this evening's entertainment.


The sound is literally mind-buggering. The set is played out at such a volume that this writer's ears rang until 2pm the following day. Starting with a quiet rendition of Hold On To Yourself (featuring surely this years best lyric: “She rubs the lamp between her thighs / and hopes the genie comes out singing”), the band then tear into Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!! and on into a set perfectly balancing “Classic Cave” (his words) and new material, with a few surprises.


Highlights include a raucous Red Right Hand and a soulful near-solo version of Into My Arms. At one point, Cave introduces You've Got Me Eating Right Out Of Your Hand as coming from the “much maligned album Nocturama”. There is a ripple of discontent and some muted cheering. “Soon you're going to realise what a fucking masterpiece that was,” he smirks “It just had some shitty songs on it, that's all...” But tonight, even a selection from the band's least loved long-player could not possibly sound shitty.


Two hours of groin thrusting and dramatic stances later, the crowd spills out as the echoes of undisputed classic Stagger Lee drift off across East London. I have seen the light. And it's pretty dark in there...

Fleet Foxes @ Shepherds Bush Empire - 5th November 2008

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...


To listen to Fleet Foxes debut album is to enjoy not only the best folk record of the past five years, but also to experience a master-class in the application of vocal reverb. Initially, one might be driven to wonder why this is. Tonight provides the answer to that question: it is simply the closest that it is possible to get to the band's live sound.


The stage is as simplistic and bare as you might expect for this sort of gig: guitars, drums, strange percussion and two sticks to rub together for warmth and light. But the five men who grace the stage bring with them enough facial hair for ten and - more importantly - complex harmonies that are impossible to describe in words. After five minutes of the concert I have given up trying to sing along and have resorted to merely standing and gazing in awe.


Tonight, the band play almost all of their aforementioned debut long-player, as well as a selection of the tunes from February's Sun Giant EP which preceded it. Highlights include a beautiful solo rendering of Oliver James, a beautiful version of White Water Hymnal and the closing bombast of Blue Ridge Mountain. The band are clearly enjoying themselves, with quips coming thick and fast, not least on the subject of their country's freshly elected leader. During the acapella choral interlude in Mykonos, I become suddenly aware of just how quiet the Empire has become. Two thousand people have resorted to doing the same as me: merely standing and staring.

Travelling Band / Hey Negrita @ Monto Water Rats

This article originally appeared on the peerless (yet now sadly defunct) Gobshout.com. It's owners are now Suburban Tarts, who should be visited post-haste...


I have a theory about “Alt Country” music, and it is this: you can't make it British. The best you can do is to imitate it in a British accent. It's still got to be about deserts, whiskey and trains. It would not work if you sang about tea. Tonight though, we are in the midst of a British country and folk music bonanza.


The Travelling Band impress from the start. Not least amongst their achievements is squeezing seven people onto the Water Rats' tiny stage and still managing to play. The set is spell-binding, with harmonies dripping off the excellently crafted songs. For a band whose debut album is yet to be released, this is a confident and involving performance. Encouragingly, they already have new songs that don't appear on their first long-player. One of these, Sundial is a particular highlight of the set. Yellow light streams off the stage and the song fills the room so completely that at one point I began to fear for the structural integrity of the building. Three guitars, endless harmonies, bass, drums, keyboard and violin create a rich sound which, when layered with harmony, grabs you immediately and keeps you listening. If there is any justice in the world, these guys will be huge by this time next year.


Hey Negrita are a deal more advanced down their career path. Now on their third album, the band is a tight unit comprised of two guitars, drums, double bass and harmonica. Tonight is the first leg of a three-week UK tour, with Travel Lodges up and down the country already booked, according to lead singer Felix. Their tunes are ridiculously catchy and deal with the staple country blues diet of love, loss and drinking on your own. Heavy on the harmonica solos and some superb guitar work, the five-piece soon have the Water Rats dancing. Everyone is thoroughly enjoying themselves – the band not least – and the new songs are received with cheers and singalongs from the hardcore fans. Mid-set, Nick from Alabama 3 is introduced to the delighted crowd, and a “harmonic-off” ensues that is quite literally mind-blowing. Overall, the set is a brilliant and accomplished performance from a band whose future will undoubtedly be bright. Catch them if you can, before the rest of the world does.