A Hairy Moment

"It's fantastic," I say with relish, "I know I say this every time, but you are a genius."

The praise is accepted graciously by H, who has just cut my hair and affected what could be called a sea change; transforming my usual spiky mess into a sensible and grown-up spiky style.

"Really," I continue to enthuse, building up a head of steam, "I know I shouldn't say this since it's my hair, but it looks great. I'm complimenting your handy-work really, not bigging myself up."

"I'm pleased with it, it's come out well" says H, calmly and with a touch of self-deprecation. We walk over to the till and busy ourselves with the business of payment. I catch the eye of one of the girls who works in the salon.

"Seriously," I say in a totally unprompted outburst, "your man here is a genius, I am so impressed as always!"

"I like your hair more spiky," she says "like it was when you came in."

I cannot help but think that this is not the best thing for someone who works in a hair salon to say.

Rumours

"Chuck Klosterman," I say with the skewed intonation of the tipsy yet assured "will tell you it's the best album on the 1970s. I think he might have a point, although I'd be willing to listen to contrary opinions involving Led Zeppelin."

It is sunny. I am in a park with a crowd of people I have previously not met, and I am holding court. Expressions on the other side of the picnic blanket are largely glazed. It would be clear to anyone with less white wine inside them that none of these people are quite as passionate about Fleetwood Mac's Rumours as I. I have ingested just enough white wine and sunshine to feel (or rather, wholeheartedly believe) that they might just want to ditch the talk of weddings and holidays and discuss whether the opinions of one of Spin Magazine's finest are correct.

"I don't think I've heard it." Says one of my new companions.

"Ah!" I say, ignoring the idea that this was supposed to close the conversation "You probably just think you've not heard it. The great genius of Rumours is that everyone has somehow heard it subconsciously. A compelling argument for it's greatness, I think we can all agree. You all know Dreams, I bet...?"

I sing a few, disjointed bars.

"Didn't The Corrs sing that?" Says someone. I roll my eyes and draw breath for a stream of invective. There is giggling and I feel the conversation slipping down a rubbish nineties pop tangent as people try to recall how many sisters there were and whether they felt sorry for Jim.

"No, no," I grapple, "they did sing it but the point is..."

One girl turns to another.

"So then," she asks, "how was the honeymoon?"

I give up.

Schoolboy French

Having been awoken by the alarm at 3am, it is possible that I was already not in the best of moods. Since that rude awakening I had crossed London in a taxi, crossed the channel on the Eurostar and crossed Paris on the suburban rail. This is a lot to ask of a man on four hours sleep.

It was therefore with some trepidation that I spotted the bag, already positioned possessively on my pre-booked window seat. The bag belonged to a slightly haughty-looking French lady who was at that moment attempting to loft a suitcase the size of a small cow into the luggage rack. I glanced down at my ticket to confirm my suspicions that I was in the right, and then met her eyes with a winning smile.

The smile was, it could be said, not an instant winner. I pointed at the bag on the seat and made a polite yet inquisitive face. I proffered my ticket, temporarily stumped and unable to remember the French for forty-five. She examined my ticket, got out hers (which clearly bore the number forty-six) and started to scrutinise the seat numbers on the carriage wall.

There was no doubt in my mind that I was having that window seat. I had not pre-booked this ticket in order to look at the blue carpeting of the carriage's aisle. Indeed, the constantly scrolling cinerama of French countryside was to be a particular highlight of this five-day jaunt. Something would need to happen.

Drawing deep upon my A-Level French, I pointed to the seat and said, gently yet firmly, "C'est le mien. Numero quarante-cinq est près de la fenetre."

She huffed a bit, but my seat was relieved of the bag. Thus, with a slight feeling of pride, I settled in for the journey.

The Donkeys - Born with Stripes

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’s rare in this modern world in which we live, where so much is conducted on a global scale, that one can instantly pin a band to a particular part of the world. Putting this album on before going anywhere near any press material, it becomes instantly and possibly painfully obvious that The Donkeys are from Southern California. I check the press release. I’m right.


The Donkeys have produced an album that owes more than a nod to this region’s great heritage. The parallels to the Fifth Dimension era work of The Byrds and the driftier parts of Buffalo Springfield’s oeuvre are totally unavoidable and it would be pointless not to mention them in passing. But to lean too heavily on these comparisons would not really be fair, since these bands are peerless and magical and The Donkeys are, for the most part, a bit ordinary.

It’s not fair to say that they’re ordinary because they’re not very good; it’s more that they seem to be trying a little too hard to cram in as many psychedelic references as they can fit on a record: reverb-heavy harmonies, reverb-heavy guitars, drifting melodies, the odd random sound and even a sitar all make an appearance. What this leads to is an album with little cohesion, which is almost instantly annoying and feels a little derivative.

Occasional high points do exist on this record though, with a particular favourite being Bullfrog Blues, which is a nice little 3-minute psychedelic pop song that wouldn’t sound out of place on Elektra’s legendary Nuggets compilation. Here I feel that the band truly achieve their aims. It’s a great little number, but it’s followed by a seven-minute noodle entitled Valerie, which is clearly meant to call to mind CSNY’s fragile and beautiful Guinevere. And this is, perhaps in essence, why this album doesn’t work for me. Touted by the record label as a modern re-working of some of the elements of 60s psychedelia, it really isn’t. It’s actually a bit difficult to listen to without treating it as some kind of I-Spy exercise in spotting 1960s Californian influences. Shame.

Little Screm - The Golden Record

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...


The Golden Record released 04/11/11 on Secretly Canadian Records


The title of this record is a reference to the golden discs included on the Voyager spacecraft, which contain a representative sample of sounds, languages and music from Earth. The hope is that if the discs are ever discovered by an alien race, they will be able to play them (assuming they’ve not ditched the physical format) and hear a cross-section of our society. Douglas Adams once said that the discs were going to include the music of Bach, but the designers were worried that even vastly superior life forms might see this as showing off. But I digress. Already.


Little Scream’s full debut is, in this case, well titled. It seems to contain a whole range of styles, sounds and influences, all held together by Little Scream’s fragile, soulful voice. The album manages to perfectly pair beautiful lilting folk songs (The Heron and The Fox is a particular favourite) with a rather fine line in bombast (Cannons - Both these tracks can be previewed here). It almost comes as no shock to discover it is produced by Arcade Fire’s multi-instrumentalist and hell-raiser-in-chief, Richard Reed-Parry. The way the louder tracks build and incorporate many instruments is reminiscent of the producer’s better-known work.


But to focus too much on the production or the host of local Montreal guests (other members of Arcade Fire and The National chip in) would be to do Little Scream a huge injustice. Her voice and song writing are both beautiful, and the album drifts from quiet and introspective to epic and enormous (particularly the rumbling Guyegaros and the curveball intro to Boatman) with an ease that carries the listener along, whilst keeping them constantly guessing and occasionally (in my case) squirming with delight. The fact that the album closes to the sound of gentle rain, wind chimes and what can only be a synthesiser playing Land of Hope and Glory will give you some sort of insight into what we’re dealing with here.


This is an album that achieves the core purposes of the debut record: to showcase a phenomenal talent, to leave the listener already itching for the next release, and to make me long to see her live. It’s also a record inside which I could comfortably live; so complete and enthralling is the world Little Scream has created. When next she visits these shores (she’s just supported Jose Gonzales at The Barbican), I shall be waiting with baited breath.

Generic Poor Review #1

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 Friday night I was assaulted in Covent Garden. Head-butted in the face, I was. Blood all over the place. And it was almost the low point of the weekend. But then I went to the pub this evening and saw a band so poor that I am not going to name them, or the pub. Instead, I’m going to generically rant about them for your reading pleasure.


It started poorly. As the band maneuvered their instruments onto the small stage, the signs of doom were all about. The trousers were genital-crushingly tight, the t-shirts achingly fashionable, the hair floppy on one side and long on the other. It seemed like a Spotters’ Guide to modern indie cliché. But something was wrong with this perfect picture: tans. This sort of band should look as though they are slightly unhealthy; as though they have been living off beans and deathly kebabs for the previous three months. They should not look as though they have recently returned from The Seychelles. These are almost definitely the Common People to whom Jarvis was referring. Nor should their drummer be wearing a designer shirt and looking a touch too much like Michael Hutchence for comfort.


So, before the first note had been struck, I had decided I hated this lot. I knew they would be rubbish, and they did not disappoint.


The ukelele is an instrument that can, in professional terms, “go either way”. It should not, for example, constitute the entire melody line of your Shoreditch-friendly indie band. Nor should it be played with accompanying head banging. Just close your eyes and imagine how stupid that looks. See?


Beyond this, there’s a singer for whom the concept of a consonant is clearly a foreign and slightly suspicious one. Having heard more than one Cure record (I don’t know this, but I’d put my next wage packet on it), he bleats away with a voice that leaves myself and my housemate struggling to maintain straight faces and continence. In the entire set, I heard one discernible lyric, no kidding. There is occasional falsetto because, you know, that’s in right now.


Then comes the best bit: a song featuring the triangle. It is, let’s face it, the instrument you give the utterly rubbish kid in primary school music class. The reason for this is that it takes a very special kind of talent to fuck it up. Needless to say, these guys manage it. The “instrument” is frequently mishit and sometimes even missed. It’s hilarious to watch and we finally give up trying not to laugh when he throws aside the beater (as Wikipedia tells me it’s called) in fury. He resorts instead to saying “Shup” into the microphone instead.


Eventually the set draws to a close, to decidedly scant applause. I feel that here, in this small upstairs room, we have crossed an event horizon. The point where indie music gained it’s own Spinal Tap. It’s all been headed that way for a little while, let’s face it. In this modern world where social media has effectively removed several billion layers of quality control, we may have brought this on ourselves. These guys are so laughably generic that it matters not one jot that I have not given you their name. One day soon they will undoubtedly feature in the new bands section of the music tabloids. Take a look, they could be there already...

Folkadot @ Green Note, Camden - 2nd February 2011

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 am coming before you to extol the virtues of London’s best folk venue. If you have not yet had the pleasure of Green Note, I have only one word for you: go. The restaurant out front leads you through to a little venue at the back, littered with candle-lit tables and flanked by bare brick walls. It’s what my mind thinks the cafés in 1960s Greenwich Village were like. A tiny stage at one end is lit just enough to create atmosphere, and a bar at the other end serves a good selection of just about everything. The food is out of this world and everyone is friendly beyond description.


Tonight is a monthly night put on by Unstable Promotions and features three acts from in and around London. Before we start though, credit and massive props to Jonny Berliner, who comperes and warms the crowd up with a couple of folk songs about science. His calypso tribute to the marvels of DNA has to be heard to be believed.


First up tonight is Oka Vanga , last heard of on this site in 2009. Before the set, I talk to Angie about why they seem to have an aversion to eating before they go on stage. “Well,” she deadpans “If you were being chased by a bear, you wouldn’t stop to have a pitta, would you?”


That said, there’s no sign of any nerves at all in their performance tonight. The eighteen months since their last review have seen the duo record an album and play a number of folk festivals across the country. Their performance has grown and changed, and the synergy of their playing styles is as stunning as ever. It would be impossible to attribute them to any one genre (unless frantic-vocal-free-speed-metal-folk is a genre in the MySpace generation) but their performance is as intoxicating and breathtaking as ever. The introduction of some slide guitar adds a new dimension to what remains one of the most watchable and compelling live acts you’ll see this year.


Following them is a change down a gear for solo singer-songwriter (no, it’s not a dirty word, it used to mean something) Pepe Belmonte . Pepe is Irish by birth and has been on the scene in various guises for some time now. Tonight his collection of songs are touching and beautifully constructed, and his voice is breathy and perfect for the tracks. His songs are reflective and full of intriguing characters, and his charm and banter have the audience eating from the palm of his hand. I am convinced that we will not be the only ones charmed by his songs and persona in 2011, particularly not with the release of his debut album just around the corner.


Finally, there’s Matthew Neel , who is clearly an old hand at this. Well known to many of the crowd, he appears tonight with a band, who win their first accolade by somehow defying the laws of physics to all fit on the stage without falling over each other. Once there, they proceed to entertain the massed ranks with a clutch of songs penned by Neel and which can, on occasion, conjure up the softer moments of Ryan Adams or Jeff Tweedy. The band give extra oomph to the songs and when the electric guitar comes out (to the predictable yet hil-ari-ous cries of “Judas”), the set starts to swing as Clapton-style licks give the songs a kick. That being so, standout track We Will Be Dreaming is performed solo as the set closer after the happy crowd request an encore.


So in summary then, see these bands and attend this venue. You won’t regret either of these decisions.

A Bit on the Side

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...


Recently I was subjected to a horrible misfortune, with which I am only now coming to terms. It happened at a house party (these things always do) and left me with a deep feeling of unease and the undeniable urge to shower. For those of you who have not already guessed, the incident was this: I heard Brandon Flowers solo record in it's entirety.


The thing about this album that made my brain do cartwheels is the plain and simple fact that it is a Killers record. To all intents and purposes it sounds exactly the same as any of the records the guy has made with his band of glorified Las Vegas session musicians. The audacity of this forced the breath from my body and the rest of my whiskey down my throat. How dare he do this, I wondered. What is the point, I further mused, of having a side project if it's just going to sound almost exactly the same as the band to which it is an aside? The next day, when the hangover cleared and I had wiped the last vestiges of half-eaten kebab from my face and pillow, it was time to investigate further.


The "side project" or "solo record" is a term that often fills those who obsess about music with dread. It's usually a chance for a musician with an over-inflated view of themselves to apply their "creativity" without the confines of their already established band. This frequently ends badly, though often humorously. Nowhere is the self-regard of these people better presented than when members of laughable bands attempt something "credible" or more real. Fightstar are a case in point here. Pop Muppets Busted were never likely to contribute in any meaningful way to the canon of popular music, preferring instead to pogo aimlessly with guitars that (if you have a careful look at some of their live performances on TV) were not actually plugged in. Eventually becoming disillusioned with all this and realising belatedly that he had a valid contribution to make, Charlie Simpson walked out, gathered some cronies who knew a few more chords and signed himself up to indie label Search and Destroy (best known for launching The Darkness to a nation hitherto starved of irony). It was a brave and ultimately lucrative move. Charlie seemed oblivious to half the world giggling behind their hands as he cheerfully provided quotes seemingly devoid of the aforementioned irony: "It was the first time I'd recorded anything that I loved," he bleated.


I guess you could call Charlie's new band a "post-project", given that it didn't happen on the side any more than was necessary for contractual obligation. Other examples of this are pretty common: when 90s indie legends Suede finally tired of excreting all over their considerable legacy, they did the decent thing and split up. Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler wondered off in opposite directions. Then came The Tears, who were fronted by... Anderson and Butler. And they were rubbish. Even one album was too many. It just begs the question: why?


Elsewhere in the catalogue of joyously misguided side projects, one bumps into Corey Taylor. And apologises quickly, because he's a big guy. For those of you who to whom this name does not immediately ring a bell, Taylor is the lead singer of panto-metal combo Slipknot. Your author is deeply fascinated by this band (I studied Artaud as part of my Theatre Studies A Level and I know the Theatre of Cruelty when I see it), but the brilliant sense of wild terror afforded for them by their grotesque masks was somehow shattered when their lead singer decided to strike out with new band Stone Sour, ditch the mask and reveal himself to be a slightly chubby, middle-aged skater.


It doesn't always go wrong of course, sometimes it can go right. Consider the odd folk mix of genres found on Out of Season by Beth Gibbons and Rustin' Man. It's a beautiful record and, with exception of Gibbons's amazingly distinctive vocals, a departure from the gloomy trip-hop of Portishead. Erland Oye also deserves an honourable mention for simultaneously conducting an excellent solo career, contributing vocals to Royksopp records and working as part of Whitest Boy Alive, all whilst keeping his main band (the peerless Kings of Convenience) ticking over.


No, the good side projects are the ones where the artist does something completely different from their previous output, with different people and with a honed appreciation of the possible rubbishness of their actions. Ryan Adams is a master at this, although whether he gets the last point is probably up for debate. In 2006, he released no less than 18 albums via a live stream on his website. Almost every corner of music was probed (hip-hop, death metal, scratchy covers of folk standards) and a variety of pseudonyms (a hardcore punk band called The Shit, the death metal group Werewolph and the MC extraordinaire DJ Reggie) were used. It was the Spinal Tap of side projects: a musical career's worth of songs from a man who appeared so bored with his own prolificness that he'd decided to take his creative filters off for a while.


So, what have we learned from our quick whip through the world of side projects? We've learnt they've got to offer a change of pace or a tongue firmly lodged in a cheek. You can't take yourself too seriously, you can't involve your previous bandmates too extensively and you can't be too upset if it's roundly panned. It's just got to offer something slightly different, which is why it's a risky business. If Brandon Flowers had spent six months in his bedroom listening to Rick Wakeman and emerged wearing nothing but a cape and a codpiece and indulging in ten hour Moog sessions, then I would happily give him the time of day. Probably wouldn't listen, mind.

All We Grow - Sean Carey / Steeple - Wolf People

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...


All We Grow released 04/10/10, through Jagjaguwar

Steeple released 11/10/10, through Jagjaguwar


Having thought long and hard about whether to write two reviews for this here website, I eventually decided that one double-header would better do the job of singing the praises of not only two very different but equally wonderful albums, but also of the record company that had the decency to release them into the wild.


Jagjaguwar Records are probably not yet a household name, unless you live in one of those households in Hoxton with art on the walls made out of your friend’s blood. After the success of debut albums from Ladyhawk and Bon Iver, the label is probably best known in recent months for releasing Black Mountain’s Wilderness Heart, a very excellent record if you haven’t heard it yet. But a quick trawl of the website reveals that the future for this label is likely to be bright, and the two albums reviewed here look like a pretty good clutch to be getting along with.


Firstly, the album All We Grow by Sean Carey. Yes, him what hits the skins in Bon Iver. This is Sean’s debut solo recording outside the band, and it’s very much what you’d expect to hear from one quarter of America’s alt-folk saviours. It’s relentlessly melodic throughout, with a stripped bare sound that’s almost spooky in its sparsity. It’s clearly a well-rehearsed piece, which is refreshing for a genre that prides itself on naturalness, often to a fault. Not for Carey is the finger-in-the-ear-and-hope-for-the-best approach. Goodness no. Here, the melody lines are precisely trimmed and the occasional whiff of strings that drift in and out like clouds crossing a particularly tuneful sun, are beautifully timed and laid out. It’s an intimate, stripped back sound that demands close attention rather than casual listening.


My personal highlights include the stunningly beautiful and ethereal Rothko Fields, and the immaculate piano riffing on We Fell, where Carey demonstrates the full range of the talents of the musicians he has assembled as support. The sheer force of melody is occasionally preposterous, but this has never been a problem for yours truly, and nor should it be for you. This record does for melody what Fleet Foxes did so dramatically for harmony: reminding us that even slight over-use is no bad thing if you get it right.


Critics would have a point to say that this record sounds a lot like… well… something by Bon Iver.This would not be unfair to say, but would beg the age-old ultimatum: if it ain’t broke, why fix it?


Also on offer from the 11th is the debut-album-proper Steeple, from Wolf People. This is quite a different animal from the melodic lilting of the above. From the doom-laden opening chord, it is clear that this is not album that is going to let you ignore it. It is, in summary, not the sound that immediately springs to mind when one thinks of North Yorkshire, where the band originated. Nor is it particularly reminiscent of Wales, where the band followed in the footsteps of luminaries and clear influences Led Zeppelin and headed off into the middle of nowhere to cut this disc. This, my people, is a record to get excited about.


It is at points painfully cool – the sort of band that make you feel like you’re on drugs, even when you’re not. The first single, Tiny Circle (available to download for free here), is a stoner masterpiece that probably wouldn’t feel altogether out of place on a Cream LP or mixed in with the early work of The Yardbirds. Praise this high does not come easy to me, but this record is worth that praise. The best thing about this record is that it sounds like a band who are confident enough to, just occasionally, rock the fuck out. At one point I genuinely felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise as the lyrics “big black revolver tells me which way to turn” oozed out of my speakers.


The record oozes confidence and the musicians involved are not afraid to push the envelope. Jagjaguwar have, in this author’s opinion, signed themselves something of a gem in this band, and they’ve been good enough to share it with the rest of us. Take note people, ‘tis the season of the Wolf.

Libertine-age Kicks

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 now only a few short days until what many are framing as the musical event of the year. The return of The Libertines, almost five years after they dissolved in a haze of boredom (Pete(r), as has been well documented, was fired in mid-2004), is being met with mounting hysteria in some corners of the music press. I wondered whether I ought to put fingers to keys in honour of this, as I once held the distinction of being seemingly the only person on campus not to think they were the saviours of modern British music. Five years on, I thought I’d go back and have another think about this.


When Up The Bracket and the small number of 7”s that went before were released, I had only one thought in my mind. “This,” went the thought, “is a fairly poor Clash tribute band. This will all be over soon. Put Is This It back on and ride it out”. I wasn’t entirely right about this, of course, as Pete(r), Carl and the other two went on to dominate British music for four years or so. They somehow managed to paint the most irresistible rock ‘n’ roll story of the past ten years without ever really producing the music that ought to be the basis for such a narrative. The crazy parties, the drugs, thespats, arrests, violence, celebrity affairs and general debauchery were all there, but they seldom hit the musical highs.


Up the Bracket produced a few good singles that could fill any indie dance floor, even today. Their second, self-titled attempt though, was far weaker (with the notable exception of Music When The Lights Go Out: by far their best recorded work). Ruined by poor production and a complete lack of ideas brought on, in part but not exclusively, by Doherty’s much-reported downward spiral, the album failed to scratch many people’s itches, and we were headed for Stone Roses territory. Eventually, the soap opera that surrounded them eclipsed, rightly or wrongly, their actual output. “Style over substance” would be unfairly harsh criticism but they became, to paraphrase Terry Pratchett, “a lifetime in their own legend”. This largely accounted for the drabness of Carl’s Dirty Pretty Things: they were musically not too different from The Libertines, but without the exciting backdrop, they were dull and unfulfilling. In the five years since the split, we’ve also suffered one of the worst albums ever created in the debut from the abysmal Babyshambles. It would be easy here to hold this situation up as proof that The Libertines were greater than the sum of their parts, or at least were perceived that way.


I never cared much for Doherty’s lyrics, for the man himself, or for the tortured poet image that he gave off, and there was one simple reason for this. In an interview at the height of his drug addiction, he made the throwaway remark that he wanted to rise again; to be, as he put it, like George Best in reverse. What he meant was that he wanted to do the dramatic fall from grace and then go on to have a sensational career that would cement his iconic status in the national consciousness. Unfortunately, I think he failed to realise that it just doesn’t work like that. Think of all the other rock stars whose lives have at one time or another been ravaged or ended by drugs, alcohol or the attentions of the tabloids. The key, unifying factor was that they were all producing work of incredible quality and ruined it all. It does not work backwards. This is all without even bothering to point out that Doherty hasn’t actually produced all that much work of incredible quality, even after his fall from grace had slowed slightly.


It would be churlish of me not to admit that when I saw them on the Evening Session Stage at Reading in 2002 they were electrifying, but I always found their recorded output completely failed to capture this. I would also acknowledge that Pete(r)’s track For Lovers is one of the most heart-rending things I’ve ever heard committed to record. But it seems to me that a band that’s been gone for a mere five years after producing only one decent record, and whose members have played together at a fair number of “emotional reunions” whenever their solo careers take a dip, doesn’t really merit the amount of attention they’re getting.


I think, in summary (and with maximum cynicism), they didn’t really change the face of British music. People always talk about a theoretical musical pendulum that swings from one side of the Atlantic to the other, and The Libertines never really pulled it back from The Strokes, Interpol et al. at any point. They always seemed to me to be no better than the many other “The” bands that characterised the music scene at the time.


So how will the musical community react to the comeback? I suspect that the hysteria will fade pretty quickly, unless they go on and produce more music. Led Zeppelin are the perfect example of this: one massive reunion, a bit of half-arsed speculation and now no one who wasn’t there can really remember it happening. If The Libertines make more music they might well be onto a loser anyway, since it is only ever likely to draw unfavourable comparison with their early work from fans and critics alike. Their place in the canon of popular music history and whether their legacy can be anything other than an extended buffet for the tabloids are still matters for debate, and this is therefore a reunion that might please fans, but might fail to convince those, like me, who are still wondering if it’s really worth all this hype.


Post Script
If anyone wants to write an article about why I really should be excited about this, I would be genuinely interested in reading it. Despite the overall cynical tone of this piece, I am relatively open-minded about the whole issue, and would happily read the counter-argument. Open goal here, ladies and gentlemen…

Ben Keith Obituary

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 Tuesday the music world mourned the loss of one of the greatest hired guns we ever knew. Ben Keith, long time collaborator with (amongst others, but most famously) Neil Young passed away at the age of 73. Neil paid a touching tribute to him at last night’s tour show, with a version of Old Man. You may not all know Ben, but you all should know his work. Anyone who’s ever heard Harvest (and there can’t be that many left that haven’t) will have been entranced by his beautiful pedal steel playing the odd drop of backing vocal. The pedal steel, in my humble opinion, had two great exponents: “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow and Ben Keith. In his honour, I have compiled for you the five best bits of Ben that exist on Neil Young records, where he will be longest remembered. I therefore invite you to crack open a can, kick back and just enjoy that magical sound that only the pedal steel can bring to a record. In no particular order then:


See The Sky About to Rain from On The Beach – The ethereal drift of the steel throughout this song is one of the finest examples of the craft you’ll ever find. Just have a listen to the way it soars behind Neil’s voice and then provides the beautiful focal point of the 90-second coda.

Heart of Gold from Harvest – Neil’s only number one that you’ve heard a million times. But listen again, and listen for the steel on the chorus.

Mellow My Mind from Tonight’s The Night – The recording of this album was a mad, crazy mess and most of the record sounds as though it’s about to fall in on itself. But the slide guitar on this track is guaranteed to make you feel as though you’ve inhaled in that way politicians never do.

Four Strong Winds from Comes a Time – The closer of this record (produced largely by Ben) became something of a hippy anthem for a while, with its nature-centric lyrics and powerful imagery, and the slide guitar lends the track an air that perfectly frames Neil’s words. Emmylou Harris on backing vocals makes this something of a supergroup session.

Cowgirl in the Sand from Road Rock Vol. 1 – A slight change of tack for the last one, this live track sees Ben on rhythm guitar as Neil takes this already epic song to a mammoth 18-minutes. Ben keeps the song together, letting Neil do his thing.


So there you have it. I’ve not put this list together on Spotify, because I can’t bear the idea that your reverie might be interrupted by adverts, but you can do this yourself if you like. If not, you can always pop round mine. Bring beer, and we’ll get the hi-fi fired up. Rest in peace Ben.

Arcade Fire @ Hackney Empire - 7th July 2010

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 a generally accepted fact that Arcade Fire are the best band in the world. Last decade, Radiohead were the muso’s band of choice, but now Win Butler et al. are firmly in charge. The option to see them in this tiny venue (capacity 1,300) was one that should be seized. Tickets were available for the truly dedicated who pre-ordered the album and were lucky enough to be drawn out of the hat. And when I say lucky, I mean really fucking lucky.


Hackney Empire is an amazing venue, a turn of the century music hall with all the gilt edges and cherubs that go therewith. It seems to be the perfect venue for tonight’s comeback. Arcade Fire have been away for three years since their pair of gigs at Alexander Palace in 2007. Now, with a new album on the way, this is a warm-up gig for the round of festival appearances that lies ahead. The sense of anticipation is tangible.


When they take the stage, it is instantly as though they have never been away. This effect is enhanced by the fact that they launch in with two new songs, literally picking up where they left off. Ready to Start and Modern Man bode incredibly well for the new album. By the end of the second song, the previously presentable Butler is already drenched in sweat. This is a pattern that does not let up. How every member of the band don’t need medical re-hydration by the end of the gig remains a mystery to me.


From then on, the classic anthems and new songs blend seamlessly together, suggesting that the new album will be the equal of what came before. “This song is called Yes Boats Yes” says Win before launching into No Cars Go. A few songs later, during the end of Rococo, Win climbs into the audience and finishes the song lying on his back, carried aloft by the wave of adoration.


Although the public address system in the venue is not quite up to Arcade Fire’s complex yet loud sound, they manage to render all their anthems in their full glory. During Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out), the audience pogos as though lives are at stake, and when this segues into Rebellion (Lies) and on into the hefty new track Month of May, I begin to think that I might not make it out alive, so drained am I by the encore break. Before that though, we are treated to a rare outing for Crown of Love, one of Funeral’s greatest hidden gems.


The encore, comprising Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels), Keep The Car Running and Wake Up leaves the audience gasping for breath, and the band leave the stage grinning like maniacs. They deserve to. When you’re the best band in the world, it must be amazing to be up there on that stage.

Songs From The Canyons

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...

In a change to the usual process (all articles reproduced as originally found) I would like to point out that I completely retract the first four lines of this article. I bloody love Spotify now.


I’ll expand on this in a further article sometime, but it’s worth flinging this in right at the start: I am fundamentally opposed to Spotify as a concept. I realise this makes me sound like old beyond my years, but I feel it makes the whole concept of discovering music too easy, takes all the dedication out of it. And also, who the fuck wants adverts in the middle of albums? This is a rant for another time though, children, so be seated and let us get to the meat of the matter.


For my playlist I have chosen to attempt to represent my all time favourite musical era: the Los Angeles Canyonscene of the late 60s and early 70s. To my mind, this time and place was a musical hotbed rivalled by nothing else, not even the London scene of the early sixties that spawned the “British Invasion” of the American music charts. Just why this is will hopefully become clear in this article.


The canyon scene is one that grew up a round a clutch of musicians and artists who emigrated from the then-vibrant and loud Los Angeles scene in search of more peaceful climes. What they found were the expanses of the Canyons that surround LA, principally Topanga Canyon and Laurel Canyon. Clubs on the Sunset Strip such as the Whiskey A Go-Go and The Trubadour played host to an unrivalled selection of the greatest music ever made: The Byrds, Love, Buffalo Springfield, Otis Redding, Joni Mitchell, The Mamas and the Papas… I could go on. Doused in sunshine and good quality marijuana (David Crosby always knew where the best smoke was to be found, according to a number of accounts), the musicians of the Canyons made some of the most diverse and evocative music ever set to record. Truly, this is not a time or a situation that could ever again be replicated.


My list begins with The Byrds, which is fitting as this band perhaps best came to embody the ethic of the scene. A much more “pop” offering here with a cut from their debut LP: I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better, which to my mind offers the best possible reason why they should be considered the US’s answer to The Beatles. This list having been thoroughly thought through, starting with The Byrds makes it easy to stroll down (in the manner of Pete Frame) through the various members of this band, linking the list together. The most obvious next step is Gram Parsons, who recorded the excellent album Sweetheart of the Rodeo with the band, before his record company threatened to sue and most of his vocal tracks were removed and re-recorded by Byrds leader Roger McGuinn. Following a tour of England, Parsons quit The Byrds in protest at plans to tour apartheid South Africa. Returning to the Canyons, Parsons formed The Flying Burrito Brothers, whose classic Dark End of the Street is my second selection. Gram’s solo work should also not be ignored in this list, as it was so tied to the Canyons where it was written and recorded. I’ve chosen Return of the Grievous Angel, as it is one of the best pieces of music ever made.


Other members of The Byrds were not idle either. Gene Clark recorded two records with Doug Dillard and Bernie Leadon (later of The Eagles), and my third choice is Out on the Side, the first track from the first of these albums, The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard and Clark.


During one of their residences at The Whiskey, The Byrds’ Chris Hillman persuaded the manager to give a support slot to a little known band called Buffalo Springfield. This band, featuring a young Stephen Stills and an even-younger Neil Young, are one of music’s greatest should-have-been stories. The Stone Roses of their day, the Springfield lasted just 25 months, during which time they put out two records (a third was released after their split, but it was largely pieced together) and dissolved in ignominy, infighting and drugs. During their brief lifespan, they suffered from poor management and outrageously poor production. Their eponymous debut album should have been a serious contender for the best record ever made (seriously) but is so poorly produced it sounds flat. No release-quality live recordings of them exist, and those lucky enough to see them speak of the experience in hushed tones. It’s one of Young’s tunes I’ve chosen: Flying on the Ground is Wrong, a song that Neil later disclosed was written after having to explain to a young lady that they couldn’t be together because she didn’t understand what was so great about smoking pot.


Anyone who knows anything about this era knows what happened to Neil Young after Buffalo Springfield dissolved. His first Archives boxset contains no less than three full discs of material recorded after a disappointing reception for his self-titled debut caused him to move up to Topanga Canyon in search of a new perspective. Here he would meet Crazy Horse and, later, The Stray Gators. Choosing a single track from this period is utterly impossible, so I decided to put my iPod on shuffle and see what it chucked out. It chucked out a live version of Down by the River. This, as they say, will do nicely: especially as it shows Neil at his roaring best with three solos in twelve minutes.


Over in Laurel Canyon, the one place where all the hipsters hung out was in “Mama” Cass Elliot’s back yard. It was here that Graham Nash would meet David Crosby and Stephen Stills, with whom he would form Crosby, Stills and Nash and would embark on one of the craziest stories rock has to tell. The trio’s debut is debatably their only real masterwork, and I have chosen Long Time Gone, as possibly the ultimate stoner hippy anthem. Another regular in Mama Cass’s garden was a young singer-songwriter with an intriguing approach to tuning guitars. Joni Mitchell would go on to have relationships with both Graham Nash and David Crosby, and it is the song she wrote for the former that makes the list: Willy. Mama Cass was of course no slouch herself. In addition to acting as mother (hence the nickname) for most of Laurel Canyon, she was making music as a solo artist and with The Mamas and The Papas. My personal favourite, Make Your Own Kind of Music, also makes the list in tribute to the role Cass played in holding the whole scene together.


Finally on the list (I’ve tried to stop at ten, although I could go on), a cut from my all-time favourite record: Love’s Forever Changes. A mix of psychedelic madness and perfect pop music, this record represents all that was so great about the Canyon scene. I have chosen the insanely titled Maybe the People Would Be the Times Or Between Clark and Hilldale. The address in the later part of the title refers to the location of the Whiskey A Go-Go, which inspired the song (“And here, they always play my songs”). It is to my mind the best summary of the period in a single song.


So that’s the playlist, but there’s millions more artists on this fertile scene who didn’t make it onto the list: Jackson Browne, The Doors, James Taylor, Brian Wilson, Joe Cocker, Carole King… it goes on. Of course, the story does not end well, they never do. The Canyon scene was doomed to dissolve in excess as Gram Parsons and Mama Cass met untimely ends, David Crosby became addicted to heroin, Stephen Stills discovered cocaine and the Manson Family killings (Charles Manson was a resident of Topanga Canyon and sometime friend of Neil Young) and a succession of bad relationships generally took a sword to the whole bohemian vibe of the place. Before long, Don Henley noticed that there was a big pile of cash to be made out of the style and ethic bred in the canyon and formed The Eagles. They went on to have the biggest selling record ever and in the process destroyed so much of what had been great about the place and time. This is just your introduction. For those who want to know more, I can heartily recommend the book Hotel California by Barney Hoskyns. He’s also got a much more expansive playlist tucked away at the back…


1. I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better – The Byrds

2. Dark End of the Street – The Flying Burrito Brothers

3. Return of the Grievous Angel – Gram Parsons

4. Out on the Side – Dillard and Clark

5. Flying on the Ground Is Wrong – Buffalo Springfield

6. Down by the River – Neil Young with Crazy Horse

7. Long Time Gone – Crosby, Stills and Nash

8. Willy – Joni Mitchell

9. Make Your Own Kind of Music – The Mamas and the Papas

10. Maybe the People Would be the Times Or Between Clark and Hilldale – Love


Go Play - Canyon Songs Spotify Playlist

Glastonbury 2010 - Part Three

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...

This is the final part of the trilogy that was my weekend. If anyone has read all three parts, you are a saint and a martyr and you should probably give yourself a round of applause. Here's the first part, and the second part...

Sunday

I was right, of course, to dread waking this morning. If Saturday’s hangover was a battle, this one might as well be represented visually by a rising mushroom cloud. It takes a full litre of water to assuage the feeling that I am dying of thirst. Why, I ask myself as the haze begins to lift, did I do that? What have I gained? What bonus have I brought to humanity, or what crime have I committed to deserve this? If nothing else it has made it much more difficult to drag my carcass clear across the site to The Park Stage for The Travelling Band. The Travelling Band are the best alternative country rock band ever to come out of Manchester. Their new single Sundial is out now and I strongly urge all of you to go and find it so you can say you were ahead of the game when they’re half-way up the bill on The Other Stage next year. As their set closes, they produce giant balloons from the wings and the general party atmosphere blows away the hangover.


Fuck it, I think, I’m going to have a smoothie.


I have a smoothie. It is terrible. It does contain fruit, and this can only really be a good thing, given the level of abuse I have inflicted upon the temple that is not my body. I watch The Villagers, followed by Avi Buffalo. Neither have survived long enough in my mind to get reviewed.


Slash!! The multiple exclamation marks are deliberate. You can’t see me now (I hope) but I’m making devil horns. My Companion wonders off to watch England’s glorious victory over the Germans. I bounce between the silly hat stalls (I do not buy one this year as my drug intake has been considerably lower than in previous) towards the main stage, where a curious new form of democracy is taking place right before my eyes. It goes like this: whenever Slash and his band play a song of their own making, the audience talks to their neighbours, lathers on another layer of suncream and generally looks a bit vacant. When a Guns ‘n’ Roses classic is dusted off, however, the audience sings along in unison and wild abandon. It is a curious thing to watch an act where the namesake stands at the back, silent throughout. But who cares, when the set closes with Sweet Child o’ Mine followed by Paradise City? Slash is awesome, and watching him play those solos live is another personal dream crossed off.


Next up is Ray Davis, who seems to have developed a split personality. When addressing the audience, he is charming and affable: the very picture of a musical elder statesmen. As he turns from the microphone however, the guitar technician or the soundman is invariably subjected to a torrent of invective. Stuart Maconie sites Ray Davis as the most unpleasant man he’s ever interviewed. I think he may have a point. The music though, is flawless, even if Davis’s voice has gone a bit flat as the years roll by. Kinks classics are rolled out to the joy of the assembled masses and sing-alongs have rarely been so sung-along. He pays touching tribute to recently departed Kinks bassist Pete Quaife, and dedicates a mesmeric See My Friends to his former bandmate. The Crouch End Festival Choir do an excellent job of backing him up, and add a new twist to some of the best known songs in the British musical canon. I have almost forgotten about the football by the time it’s over. My Companion has not. We agree not to discuss the beautiful game for the remainder of the weekend. On the way back we catch a few songs from Loudon Wainwright III, who is charming and brilliant and will be worth seeing in more detail at some point. My evening, however, is rushing towards a crescendo.


Back at the tent, I sip idly at a pint of cider and prepare myself for the final push. This moment, I have decided, will be my headline set, as Stevie Wonder holds no interest for me. This, however is a moment that I have been waiting for these ten years past. I have always wanted to see Faithless and I have always wanted to see them at Glastonbury. I gulp the cider as my heart rate quickens. We walk down. I am not afraid to admit that I may have skipped.


The set does not disappoint. As the sun sinks low over Glastonbury, I find myself raving like a possessed man. The girl standing next to me washes a pill down with cider, then hands me the rest of the pint. This evening, I decide, could not get any better. As Maxi moves through God is a DJ, straight into Mass Destruction, my legs start melting and my head goes funny. As the set finishes with Insomnia, I become convinced that I am leaving Earth, bound for Planet Dance. And I am never coming back. Ten years was worth the wait. As the sound fades away I collapse onto the surprised girl who gave me the cider. She clearly wonders about the wisdom of giving me the beverage in the first place.


On a high, I again do a sharp gear change and head over to the Acoustic Tent to catch the tail end of Richard Thompson’s set. This man is one of the world’s finest guitarists and, although my head is still pounding with beats and loops, it is fantastic to hear him and to see him, alone on stage with his acoustic guitar. He is briefly joined by his son Teddy, and the sound is beautiful and simple throughout. It is the perfect contrast to what has gone before.


Then there is wondering towards Arcadia, stopping briefly to enjoy a secret gig from comedian Ed Byrne. When we arrive, we find Gomez in full swing. It staggers me that in the ten years since last I saw them, they appear to have changed not even their shirts. They still, not to put too fine a point on it, look like students. But they still sound awesome. The crowd is small yet unbelievably dedicated, and the atmosphere is amazing to behold.


We rattle off into the night and explore Shangri-La for the remainder of the night / morning. It’s all a little hazy now. I remember there was a brilliant cider called Soap Dodger, and there were people dressed up funny. The rest is a blur of raving and guzzling. Just as the last night at Glastonbury should be. If your journey home is not accompanied by dry heaving and cautiously eyeing the toilets, you have not been trying hard enough.


Now it’s all over, it seems like a million years ago. I’ve never known a Glastonbury without rain, and although the line-up did not instantly grab me by the short and curlies, it has been one of my best ever. You have all been reading long enough now and I suspect you’re nearly as tired as I was on Monday, so I shall sign off with a cliché that I have long avoided: roll on next year.

Glastonbury 2010 - Part Two

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...


Welcome back to the Glastonbury review, which is starting to feel a little weighty. It was going to be two parts, but even I am not self-obsessed enough to subject you to 5000 words about what-I-did-on-my-holidays all at once. If you missed the first bit, it's here. Then read on...


Saturday

There are no words to describe what it is like to wake up in a tent that is already being battered by unrelenting sunshine. If you take this feeling, stir in a pinch of hangover, sprinkle liberally with dry-mouth, add a huge lug of needing-a-piss and shake well, then you will end up somewhere close to how I felt on Saturday morning. One soon becomes uncomfortably aware that the sun is just as much an enemy as the rain at major festivals. My companion and I crawl from the tent, gasping and lolling, looking for all the world like something from a poor remake of Deliverance. A breeze passes across the site. There is a moment of relief before the blaze returns. Saturday has begun.


Saturday actually begins properly (after a rather tasty fruit salad) with another visit to the Two Door Cinema Club. This time they are playing The Other Stage, but their indie-pop is still as tight and catchy as it was on Thursday night in a tent not far from here. From this point, we take the short walk, pausing only for cider (it has been a full eight hours…), to the Pyramid Stage for what had promised to be a personal highlight: The Lightning Seeds. I happen to know that one of the chaps who runs this here website hates this band with a passion bordering on the insane. I, on the other hand, love them. Thinking back to my early days as an impressionable indie kid with no girlfriend (not directly related to liking The Lightning Seeds) and too much time on his hands (so to speak), they had everything. Crap hair, crap clothes, crap lyrics, but truly stupendous danceable tunes. Their appearance on this year’s bill made me whoop in public, as I would finally get to see them and appease my inner naïve self. Add to this the thrill of their playing Three Lions in the midst of England’s inevitable march to World Cup glory, and it was all shaping up nicely. It comes as a shock, therefore, when they’re not actually that great. They do play all their hits, but somehow the big bombastic sound is missing. At one point a trio of young ladies with violins is added to the ensemble, but even this cannot detract from the idea that the sound is a bit flat and doesn’t have enough power to render their pop gems in full magnificence. The lowest point is an ill-advised acoustic version of Marvellous, which proves to raise the apathy level amongst the small crowd. When Three Lions is eventually trotted out, it serves only as the backdrop to a sing-along. It could as easily be on tape. A shame for me and for my 14 year-old self. Tom Wolfe was right: you can’t go home again.


This disappointment laid aside, we toy briefly with the idea that watching Jackson Browne could be good. It is, however, far too hot to be outside for too long, and so we head for the cool shelter of the Acoustic tent to watch The Leisure Society. They put in a solid set of folky-goodness, which is unlikely to make me seek them out, but also unlikely to make me write anything bad about them in reviews. It happens in front of me. I snooze. We relocate to watch Wild Beasts. This is a band about whom I knew very little until about a week ago, when the album somehow found its way into my basket in a record shop. The lead singer wins the prize for worst dressed man of the weekend for his jacket, but this barely registers as the intriguing combination of deep, resonant voice and falsetto combine to produce a truly unique experience. It’s very easy to get transported elsewhere listening to this band, and the audience responds well with howls of respect at the end of each track. This band are already in the ascendency, and if this set is anything to go by, they’re not finished yet.


We cross the site, briefly avoiding a man dressed as a dog with fully functioning leg-cocking provided by a water pistol, and find ourselves at the West Holts stage. We find a spot as far away from the Brothers cider bar as possible and sit to watch counter-culture legend Devendra Banhart. He puts on a superb show, with the crowd rocking and swaying to every note. The backing band frames his vocals perfectly, and the general hippy ambiance is going strong, not least when he unexpectedly launches into a brilliant reworking of cheesy pop classic Tell It To My Heart. Sunshine and the eternally youthful sound of Mr Banhart. Perfect. From here we trot back over to the Acoustic stage for another of the weekend’s highlights, a performance from British folk legend (I do not use this word lightly) Al Stewart. For those of you who do not know Al Stewart’s music, I urge you to stop reading and go to your local music emporium and refuse to leave until they service you with a copy of Year of the Cat. There’s nothing more wonderful than Al Stewart’s silky voice on this record, singing songs infused with the childlike wonder we all secretly wish we still had. This is the second time I have watched Al, and I have never seen anyone more charming. Between songs Al waxes lyrical about the French civil war, the complex metaphors present in every song (he informs us that the next one is about lovers but that he has turned them into aeroplanes because it’s more interesting) and the reasons why he is so delighted to be back at Glastonbury. It is disarming and wonderful. When he finishes with the title track from the aforementioned album, he leaves the stage to cheering that does not die away until he returns for a well-deserved encore. You owe it to yourselves to find this man if you have not already.


As swift gear changes go, moving from Al Stewart to The xx is undoubtedly one of the swiftest of my festival career to date. This band are about as dark as you can get. Everything onstage is either black or, starkly, white. The band are sulky, they too are dressed in black. For a moment, a scene wonders through my head of a rehearsal where one of them has purchased a pink guitar. I will not bother writing this scene out for you. But I digress. The xx are pretty impressive, a synthesis of The Cure and Jean Michelle Jarre, and they move through their set with a languid ease. Islands produces an enormous cheer from this packed tent, and the moments keep coming as drum-machine-player (what is the proper name for one of those?) Jamie Smith hammers away as one possessed at the touch-sensitive pads in front of him. The set builds to what could well be a crescendo, but sadly is not.


It takes a few seconds to dawn that their closing number is a cover of Florence and the Machine’s ubiquitous You’ve Got The Love. This is not a wise choice of cover: the song’s selling point is its vocal range, and The xx are not a band built upon that. As the song continues, shrill warbling sounds from off-stage are rising in the mix. It becomes clear what is happening seconds before Florence (sans Machine) bounds onstage to help out. I am not a fan of Ms Welch particularly but, judging by the reaction from the crowd, I am in the minority. I have seen videos of Beatlemania, and this sound is the closest I have heard to it in real life. It is deafening. She trills her way through one final chorus with the band, there are hugs, and then silence as they leave the stage. Everyone is grinning and talking about what has just happened.


Myself and my companion are already hot-footing it to the nearest pie stall. Pies are great festival food: that’s another thing that I learnt this year. Then there’s a brief dalliance watching The Pet Shop Boys, who are awesome. It is my one regret that I did not hang around longer than Go West, New York City Boy and Always on my Mind. I will bite the bullet and see them next time they tour.


But our feet are now already carrying us towards Midlake on The Park Stage. Midlake are label mates of Fleet Foxes, which is instantly clear when you hear their albums or see them live. The set is brilliant for about three songs, but soon it becomes slightly repetitive. The set twinkles on occasion, but the stand-out moments are rare. We move on.


The night is spent raving in Arcadia. A giant metal spider as big as a building spits fire into the sky. Women dance on it, throwing various other flaming objects into the air. Later, we visit The Village Disco, a motley collection of young men who dress in brilliant costumes, have a disco on a trolley and play a rather disjointed array of music with entertaining quips in between. At one point even later, My Companion falls off a half-buried 4x4 and injures himself. Glow sticks are everywhere and the cider flows like… cider. We stagger home as the birds are singing. The tent is already heating up with the familiar funk and my last thought as I fall asleep is to dread the hangover.

Glastonbury 2010 - Part One

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...

Kierkegaard once very famously said that life could only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. The same is, broadly speaking, true of Glastonbury festival, with one important difference: it is impossible to actually understand it. It is similarly impossible to review the damn thing, since every single person on site will have had an utterly different experience. The only way to tackle this then is to go a bit Hunter S Thompson on y’all and tell you how it was for me.


This has been my seventh Glastonbury, and an initial look at the line-up did not instantly fill me with joy. It is of course well recognised that the line-up is significantly less than half the story with Glasto, and I should really have known better because the weekend is one of the best times I have ever had with my pants on. The loss of U2 was, for me, a bonus, as it gave me the chance to see a headliner this year, as I have little desire to see Muse or Stevie. But I get ahead of myself.


Wednesday

Myself and My Companion, a tall, languid man of no fixed abode and no fixed connection to reality, arrive just as Jermaine Defoe nods England in front against Slovenia. We waste no time in dropping all our gear and sitting down to watch England labour to a glorious 1-0 victory over a country ranked a titanic 17 places below them in the world rankings. Fortunately, picking a campsite is significantly less stressful than the preceding two hours: a friend is camped up in the caravan park, and so we high-tail it that way to find a whole new world. It may involve the sort of walk that normally needs sherpas, but camping up there is excellent: quiet, calm and handy for grabbing those too-few hours of sleep.


The rest of the evening is spent wandering and wondering around the site, looking at the weird and wonderful display of humanity that has assembled for the world’s greatest festival. A man on stilts dressed as a giraffe struts past, and the odd early festival casualty lies prostrate in the bushes. We find a place called The Front Room, where two men with a trumpet and a piano play covers of popular swing and early rock ‘n’ roll numbers to a small crowd sat on sofas. Part way through their set, a passing brass ensemble arrives and joins in the fun. This is the sort of thing that could only happen at Glastonbury.


We retreat to the comparative calm of the hill and overlook the site, surely one of the greatest views on earth. Then we down an unhealthy amount of cider, dance like morons and head to bed.

Cider

A brief detraction about cider: for the past few years at Glastonbury, the Brothers Bar has been setup next to the Jazzworld Stage (now re-christened the West Holts Stage). It acts like an idiot magnet, sometimes drawing a bigger crowd than some of the stages, and for the life of me I cannot understand why. Brothers cider tastes like piss, and there is a ridiculous array of novelty ciders on sale, including Toffee Apple Cider. It’s cider for children, people who want a cheap, high-alcohol content novelty. It’s the drinking equivalent of the Creme Egg: too sweet and essentially a once-a-year novelty. This year I frequent the Cider Bus by the main stage, which serves real cider. Yes, it costs a bit more, but you get what you pay for. On the last night, I also try the brilliantly named Soapdodger cider from Glastonbury Ales. This is real cider. To all of you at theBrothers Bar: fuck off back to nursery. Rant over.


Thursday

Today begins with the predictable hangover, the predictable bacon sandwich and the less predictable blazing sunshine. I am not used to this. Not since 2003 can I remember it being this sunny. I glance at my wellies and mentally reassure myself that it was worth lugging them here, as it is bound to hammer down sooner or later. After lying around at our tent for a while (who knew you could make a decent cup of coffee in a caravan kitchen?!) we shift back onto the site and trawl blearily through the circus fields, watching people juggle, bend, balance and generally distort reality. We also watch some music played by people with instruments made of rubbish. It sounds rubbish.


Walking in the Greenfields is the usual experience: a heady mix of people making stuff out of wood and fabric, and a field full of people making insanely unsupported claims about the healing properties of crystals, divining and glasses of water. We stop to play draughts on a board made of wood and tiles, and My Companion beats me to win the coveted trophy (a stick with the words “I am the winner!” emblazoned on it in permanent marker by the girl at the stand) before we buy a plate of Moroccan food and stroll off.


The evening is an equally wonderful experience. We watch My Luminaries, who play to an increasingly large crowd at The Queen’s Head stage. They are good, solid indie rock: nothing that completely changes my world view, but a brilliant way to pass the time. The crowd swells throughout the set in anticipation of the upcoming performance from Two Door Cinema Club. By the time the band take to the stage, the tent could easily be filled twice over. The jangly indie pop described in my review of a few weeks ago is present here and this is a perfect setting, as festival-goers pogo with the wild abandon of the truly euphorically pissed. This band are arriving big time.


The evening is spent bouncing from party to party before getting what passes for an early night at Glastonbury (about 1am) in preparation for the following day of music, about which I am nearly too excited to sleep. The cider soon sorts that out.


Friday

Waking in a hot tent is up there in my top ten least favourite experiences. It is sweaty, it is smelly, it is disgusting. It makes you uncomfortably aware of the fact that you are at the mercy of the weather at Glastonbury, whether it is hot or wet. I already feel more disheveled than I have at the end of entire festivals in the past: the heat is debilitating and, although wet wipes are good, they’re not that good.


We make the executive decision to avoid Rolf Harris, as I am of the firm opinion that there is a finite amount of irony in the world, and it would be a shame to waste it. Instead we pop up to the Croissant Neuf, a stage entirely powered by the sun, and watch the brilliantly entertaining Biggles Wartime Band, who perform a set of West Country and Western music, interspersed with jokes that Carry On writers would be proud of. At one point they bring a giant papier maché sturgeon onto the stage for a guest slot. They then break the world record for most consecutive fish puns. This is a much better use of irony. Next up we drop into The Front Room again and find one of those magical moments that could only happen here: a semi-impromptu performance from Katie Maddocks and Raevennan Husbandes: two young ladies who play a set under their adopted moniker for the weekend: The Lovely Girls. without wishing this to sound patronising, it’s a well chosen name, as they do sound lovely. Sharing a guitar, the set comprises their own material and a few well chosen covers, including a magical acoustic rendering of the Sugababes About You Now. I had never realised what a great tune this was until this weekend. Check these two out, I promise it will be worth it.


A hasty breakfast of fruit later, we find ourselves at the Avalon stage to see Gabby Young and Other Animals. I first saw Gabby a few years back, supporting Al Stewart and she was excellent, so I’m full of anticipation. Unfortunately, it does not quite live up to this. Gabby has decided that a suitable use of her time is to paint herself up like a kabuki performer and the music seems to have lost a lot of the charm that initially attracted me to her. It’s still good, but I feel that comparisons to Bat for Lashes are going to come thick and fast if this is your chosen onstage persona. We leave and head for Willie Nelson. This is a man who needs no introduction. The word legend is used far too casually these days, and should be reclaimed for moments like this. As none of Willie’s songs are more than three minutes long, he seems to play about a million of them, and at one point I worry that the organisers will have no option but to cut him off mid-set; as he seems to move from one tune to another without hardly taking a breath. It is incredible stuff though, and Willie treats us to all his classics, including magical versions of Funny How Time Slips Away and Always on My Mind. This is a perfect afternoon set, pitched accurately at diehard fans and Radio 2 listeners clustered around at the Pyramid Stage awaiting the headliners.


Next up, French indie poppers Phoenix serve up a set on The Other Stage, which reminds me why indie is my first and truest love. Early evening sets in the sun at festivals ought to make you dance, even if your knowledge of the band’s material is patchy. Phoenix fulfill this brief perfectly. As does the evening’s next star: Snoop Dogg. Mr Dogg has had his troubles entering our fine nation in the past, but all this is clearly behind him now. He is masterful, the crowd are like crumbly hash in his hands. The set features enough of his classic hits to please the crowd, as well as some guests and some sage advice. We are left in no doubt about three things. Firstly, we know exactly what his name is. Secondly, we are more than aware that he enjoys the odd jazz cigarette. Thirdly, Noel Gallagher was wrong and arrogant to say that hip hop had no place at Glastonbury.


Next, our weary limbs carry us to the John Peel Stage for a performance by Mumford and Sons. These guys are a classic Peel Stage band: not that big when they were booked, they’ve since gone interstellar and the tent is packed. Who knew that Irish folk music could take over the world this way? Their set is immense, with the tunes so ingrained in the mind of every music fan in this land that half the time you can’t hear the band over the shouting of the audience. They bring out a couple of new tunes which suggest that their next album will be more of the same, and who could blame them? It’s a stupendous performance, brimming with confidence and tunes.


What follows Mumford is possibly one of the greatest moments of the weekend. We head to The Park for a Special Guest slot. Unless you have been living under a rock this weekend, you will remember that this guest was in fact Thom Yorke, from the little-known band Radiohead. Thom plays a few of his own tracks, including a fabulous rendering of Black Swan, to wild applause. Then he casually announces the arrival of Johnny Greenwood from that aforementioned little band. The place goes mental. At the 40th anniversary festival, it would be wrong if Radiohead weren’t represented, and they make their presence felt with pared down versions of Weird Fishes / Arpeggi, Pyramid Song, Idioteque and a closing combination of Karma Police and, after the crowd nearly riots for one more, Street Spirit. These moments go down in history, and it is easy to see why. The crowd screams itself hoarse, retaining just enough vocal capacity to leave the stage singing the refrain from Karma Police.


If you had read only the reviews of Gorillaz from a popular broadsheet newspaper that I shall not name, you would be convinced we’d all left unsatisfied and depressed. You would be wrong. Their set is immense from start to finish. It’s groundbreaking to see that much talent assembled in one place, and each new guest star is greeted with rapturous cheering. The initial disappointment of thinking Snoop has replaced himself with a video (oh how we looked back on that moment two hours later...) is soon overwhelmed as Bobby Womack,Kano, Lou Reed, Shaun Rider, Little Dragon, De La Soul and more join Damon onstage to perform material from all three albums. Although the tracks from Demon Days are still by far and away the most accomplished, this set crams in classics from start to finish. The more mellow moments provide relief from the more frantic ones, and the visit from a Syrian instrumental troupe feels a tad cheesy, but is nevertheless just a short moment of inconsistency in a set that, although it perhaps lacks continuity, has a quality running though it that cannot be questioned. The main gripe about it from some seems to be that it wasn’t a “proper” Friday night headline slot. It was. It may have been slightly more for music geeks than casual fans of listening to a few tunes but, speaking as a music geek, this is no bad thing. Snoop Dogg returning in person at the end is the icing on a truly scrumptious cake. Congratulations Damon, you deserve your record as the first man to perform consecutive headline slots.


Part 2 and Part 3 are here...

David Karsten Daniels & Fight The Big Bull – I Mean to Live Here Still

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...


Released on 21st June, through Fat Cat Records


This is the sixth album to bear David Karsten Daniels’ name. And it’s a name that has become synonymous with lazy reviewing words like “underground” and “cult”. He has the air about him of a mysterious and enigmatic yet alluring singer songwriter, born straight from the same mould as Micah P Hinson. And this, of course, is no bad thing.


It would be very easy at this point to make a further lazy reviewing comment about this record sounding like Fleet Foxes as re-imagined by Mumford and Sons and then to go and have a beer. This would not, however, even begin to do justice to what is, at its core, an intriguing and multi-faceted record. It is no understatement to say that there is a bit of almost everything here: Cajun, Balkan, folk… if CSNY had decided to go inter-railing around Europe, it would have ended up sounding a bit like this.


Before getting to the serious discussion of individual tracks, it’s worth mentioning that Fight The Big Bull are a nine-piece ensemble from Virginia. From the sound of this record, they seem to play everything. A quick visit to the photos page on their website seems to add weight to this theory. The band are pictured playing almost every musical instrument known to man, and many of the photos are taken in the kind of club that we all wish we were cool enough to get into.


Listening to this record for the first time, there is one track that instantly leaps out and refuses to go by without mention: the utterly charming Through All the Fates. This song combines a superb rolling guitar track, with some glorious harmonising and some great brass accompaniment. It is by a long chalk, the most instantly hummable track here present.


Other honourable mentions should go to the eventually-bombastic Die and Be Buried. In a parallel universe, this track is the theme song of the 23rd Bond movie, in which James has decided to move to the country and keep some sheep. Starting with a brooding overture, the track seems to break down beyond repair, before crashing back in with a fabulous second act.


Elsewhere, The Funeral Bell is a great piece of folk music, and The Salmon Brook manages to recover from an interminably pointless drum intro to end with two and a half minutes of twinkling instrumental that manages to sound like… well… a salmon brook.


Throughout the ten tracks, this album has moments of brilliance and some generally lovely touches. Although occasionally it verges on getting a bit overly free-form and sometimes risks becoming “noodley”, it always stays on the right side of this very dangerous line, stepping across perhaps once on the eight-minute Each Summer Sound. This is a record that I am sure will find a place in the hearts of anyone who loved the aforementioned Fleet Foxes, but there’s a whole other layer here. The multiple instruments mix the talents of David’s backing band with his own talent for composition and the results are frequently awe-inspiring. Go forth and buy this record, one day you will find yourself with a music snob that you need to impress. And he (or she… probably he) will be impressed. I guarantee this to you.

The Drums - The Drums

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...


Released 6th June on Moshi Moshi

I like to think of myself as a person who is completely immune to hype. I’m not. No one is. So, when The Angel Gabriel himself arrived at Gobshout Towers on a flaming chariot, bearing a copy of The Drums' debut long-player, it was only natural that my heart rate went up a little. And with good reason: The Drums have been tipped as this year’s hottest band by just about everyone from the BBC to the NME and every acronym in between. Respected contemporary music commentator Boy George said they were like The Smiths. And he should know.


The Drums are a four-piece from New York, and Wikipedia informs me that they formed from the smoking remnants of the superlatively named Goat Explosion. Their background is largely in making electronic music and, although the synthesisers have been largely cast aside for this new band, their influence is all over this record. The racing rhythm tracks on songs like recent single Forever and Ever, Amen sound as though they could have been created for a loop-obsessed Hot Chip tribute band. This impression is exacerbated by the fact that it very often sounds as though drummer Connor Hardwick is in fact a drum machine: so overly produced is the drum track. Ironic really, considering the band name.


There’s certainly a lot to love about this record, or at the very least there’s a lot on which to build a solid platonic relationship that occasionally goes a bit further after a couple of glasses of cheap wine. So many of the songs sound thoroughly jaunty, and there’s a summer swagger to proceedings that makes me think this record might just be the one that your friend who bothered to bring speakers for his iPod will play when you’re all in the park on a Saturday. This effect is nowhere stronger than on Skippin’ Town, a sparky pop number that manages to survive the indignity of having fairly naff lyrics. Other highlights of this record include the aforementioned Forever and Ever, Amen and the cheery-yet-dreary I’ll Never Drop My Sword.


A curious inclusion on the record that deserves a paragraph all to itself is the brooding Down by the Water. It almost seems a little out of place, as it plods and lumbers along with all the urgency of a lovesick cow. It also contains some fairly atrocious lyrics (“Everybody’s gotta love someone / But I just wanna love you dear”) and it seems to be strategically placed to provide a change of pace at the beginning of side two (for those of you who still think of records that way). A seemingly random inclusion, but one that shows a potential for some range nevertheless. More on that later. Special mention should also go to It Will All End in Tears, which sees the band plunder Peter Hook’s oeuvre and come up with perhaps the only Joy Division bassline that Joy Division didn’t write.


In all, this is a solid debut, but there are just a couple of things that spoil the party for me. The first is the mattress of reverb (I’m patenting that expression, hands off) that smothers the whole record. The effect is to make the band sound as though they’re playing at the other end of a particularly lengthy plastic drainpipe. There’s nothing “crisp” on this album, no bite or attack to be found anywhere, which is a shame really. Secondly, there’s the lyrics, which are frequently embarrassingly obvious and occasionally a bit trite. I feel that comparisons to The Smiths should be put straight to bed the minute that Jonathan Pierce croons “Would you like to go with me / Honey, take a run down to the beach”. Sorry Boy George, but I respectfully disagree. I’ll stick with “For there are brighter sides to life / And I should know because I’ve seen them / but not very often”.


But my main issue with this album can be summed up as follows: this is what it sounds like when electronic bands make guitar music. There’s not a great deal of variation; many of the tracks are indistinguishable from one another for the first few listens, and the vague familiarity of the singles is the only initial landmark on the journey from start to finish.


There’s certainly nothing desperately wrong with this record, it’s a solid debut, as I said. But somehow I’m left slightly unsatisfied by the whole experience. This is frustrating, as there could have been slightly more made of this. The uniformity of the record is a bit of a trial, and it ultimately ends up grating; but that’s not to say that at points, it’s not a worthy addition to the canon of 21st century summer soundtracks.