Archive for the ‘Live’ Category

Stereoscope / Wolf Solent / Meabh McDonnell – The Fulford Arms, York, 16th September 2016

Posted: 18 September 2016 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

One of the UK’s biggest beer festivals may be in full swing a mile or so up the road, but a quality lineup is always going to attract a respectable crowd, especially when the headliners have spent the first months of their existence being careful to avoid overexposure. As such, a Stereoscope gig always has the air of an event about it, and tonight is no exception.

Singer / songwriter Meabh McDonnell is first up. Having turned solo after her previous ensemble, Bored Housewife, split, she’s been learning guitar and writing a set of new material. She’s nervous as hell, but makes it a part of the performance with herself-effacing chatter between songs. But she has a brilliant knack for penning amusing – and sometimes really quite sad – vignettes, lifted from the humdrum existence of daily life, and she really does have a lovely voice, and receives the warm reception she deserves.

Meabh McDonnell

Meabh McDonnell

Wolf Solent – former Federal and contributor to almost infinite bands around York, Danny Barton – is an old hand when it comes to performing, but still prefers to keep his presence on-stage low-key. Playing almost in darkness, a silhouette on the stage, he’s sporting a very dapper pale suit and some impressive Cuban heels. None of this really matters, though: what matters are his magnificently understated, lo-fi indie tunes. Despite having only three or four pedals, he conjures a vast array of sounds and textures from his guitar. It’s the perfect accompaniment to his laid-back but poignant vocal delivery.

Wolf Solent

Wolf Solent

Continuing the dark, stark mode of presentation, Stereoscope are a band who play in black and white. It’s a radical shift from their previous incarnation as Viewer: then, Tim Wright and AB Johnson would play concise, danceable pop songs, bursting with pithy social commentary, in front of eye-popping psychedelic visuals. Stereoscope play long, heavy, mid-tempo dirges built on repetition, with introspective and often deeply despondent lyrics in front of black and white videos of rivers and pavements. And they have a live drummer, which lends a whole new kind of aural dynamic to their performances. It helps that Martell James is a seriously good drummer, hard hitting and with precision timing.

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Stereoscope

They’re not going for the mass market here. And yet, ultimately, I prefer this. With Stereoscope, it’s clear they’re dredging deep into the depths of their innermost dark places. Johnson contorts himself into impossibly angular shapes as he wrings the angst from the corners of his slender frame. Immediately accessible, it isn’t, but with a slow-building intensity they grind their way through a powerful set that reaches its final destination: with the emergence of light and colour, it’s ultimately uplifting.

Young Thugs Label Night with …And the Hangnails, Bull, Washing Machine Repair Man, Tooth, The Howl & the Hum

Posted: 31 August 2016 in Live
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South Bank Social, York, 28th August 2016

Christopher Nosnibor

You know it is with the underground. People in the know, know. Networking, word of mouth… and social media. So while …And the Hangnails had intimated a ‘secret’ gig at a venue tbc a few days previous, it wasn’t until the day of the event that The Howl & the Hum announced, via Facebook, a ‘last minute’ gig with a killer lineup in the dingy upstairs room in a WMC in York’s South Bank.

Call me a scenester if you like, although I’d rather say I’ve got my finger on the pulse. Moreover, this was a remarkably un-scenester gig in many ways. The peeling, mildewed walls in the room with a capacity in the region of 35 to 40, the unisex toilets hardly hollered ‘hip’ or chic and reflected a greater alignment with the DIY / basement club aesthetic of early 80s punk.

Events like this are a(nother) sign of the times. As small pub venues go to the wall, sold off by pubcos for conversion to flats or convenience stores, and other venues find themselves subject to noise abatement orders and other untenable licensing restrictions when finances are already tight, it’s increasingly difficult for bands – especially smaller ones – to find opportunities to play live. But as the cliché goes, necessity is the mother of invention, and folks are taking it upon themselves to become increasingly creative in seeking out underused, or even unused spaces. And I’m all for it. This is keeping it real, and in a universe parallel to the glitzy, mass-produced chart fodder churned out by bling-toting major-name acts with the backing of multi-billion dollar corporate labels, this is where the music that matters can be found.

A brief solo acoustic promo for the South Bank Suicide Club prefaced a belting set from Howl & The Hum The intimate venue setting was well-suited to their detailed sound: the textured guitar sound, tom-heavy and restrained drumming, paired with their knack for monumental crescendos draws parallels with early I Like Trains, although their style is very much more geared toward alt-country with a fiery rock twist. Intense and impressive, they have a ‘great things ahead’ aura about them.

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The Howl & The Hum

The last time I saw Tooth, they were so new they didn’t have a name, but they did have some great tunes. Having risen from the ashes of The Littlemores, they’ve ditched the ska leanings of their previous incarnation, and while there are still strong traces of Arctic Monkeys in their acerbically observational indie-rock, they’re flexing new muscles with some big choruses and chunky bass-leg guitar tunes.

Tooth

Tooth

Washing Machine Repair Man offers a brief acoustic interlude – by which I mean a detour into delirious and borderline deranged shouty anti-folk, augmented by double bass and green rubber wellies – before Bull are up. Having found the last couple of performances I’ve seen from Bull to be a shade lacklustre, it was uplifting to see them on such fine firm on this outing. Guitarist Dan Lucas seems to have learned pretty much everything he knows about solos from listening to Dinosaur Jr albums, and for that, he gets my vote. With shirts off and sweat running free in the tiny venue, they really step things up a notch, and carry the enthusiastic crowd with them.

Bull

Bull

…And the Hangnails are one of those bands who never get tired, who are consistently brilliant in their volume and intensity. And not only are they a great band, but they never put in less than 100%, with the same explosive energy being poured into intimate pub gigs as festival shows. Tonight is no exception, and the crowd get down accordingly. They may have turned the amps down a bit on account of the venue and its residential location, but when the room is such that if you’re not in the front two rows you’re in the back two rows, and you’ve got a drummer who hits so hard he can cause earthquakes with a single bash of the snare, it’s still ear-bleedingly loud. And these guys go for it, a hundred miles an hour, hell-for-leather, no let up, blasting out pretty much every last one of the highlights from their two albums. Crunching riffs, piercing vocals and immesne drumming are all pulled together in a molten heat into solid gold garage-influencd alt-rock classics. By the time they’re done, we’re all deaf and halfway transmuted to liquid form, and everyone is very happy indeed.

Trundling out superlatives to apply to the individual acts or even the night as a whole seems somewhat redundant: stepping out into the cool night air, tacky from head to with perspiration and ears whistling, the buzz isn’t coming from the beer, but from the exhilaration of living in the moment.

Fully York Festival at The Fulford Arms, York, 6th August 2016

Posted: 7 August 2016 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

What began life earlier in the year as one man’s seemingly crazy idea to organise a festival showcasing York-based bands, tentatively mooted on Facebook to see if there was any interest gained traction pretty swiftly, and a few short months later here we are: 18 bands across two stages. And not only is it a killer lineup, but it’s free. So while I fully intended taking the day off just to soak it all up, socialise, drink beer and watch bands, I figured that since Dan Gott and some of his mates put in so much work to make it happen, then the least I could do was record the occasion.

With bands alternating between the indoor stage and the second stage in the car park from 1.30 to gone 11 (with a civilised break for dinner), it wasn’t an event to race round and pack ‘em in as much as going with the flow, meaning that while I didn’t watch all of the bands on the bill and took some well-earned time out to kick back on the beach (yes, this summer a portion of the car park has been converted to an urban beach of golden sand) or on the grass in the beer garden, I got to see, and hear, plenty.

Anyone who complains that York doesn’t have much to offer, or that it lacks diversity isn’t getting out enough: with only a smattering of indie bands and even fewer acoustic performers, the quality and range of acts on the bill is impressive by any standards. And while it’s about the ‘local’ scene, many of the bands playing are making – or already have made – an impression in much wider circles, building audiences nationally. York may be a small city, but when it comes to its bands, parochial it ain’t.

It wouldn’t be a York event without Boss Caine, and Dan Lucas’ solo set gets the afternoon session going in glorious sunshine on the outside stage. In fact, it’s the perfect way to start a festival: there’s barely a breath of wind, it’s baking hot, but there’s plenty of cool beer served well (the Milestone Brian Clough was nice and refreshing, but it eventually ran out, forcing a shift to the Sunny Republic Shark Head Friesian Pilsener, which was superbly crisp and hoppy), and the sound is excellent.

With each act having a 20-minute slot, no-one outstays their welcome and everything runs smoothly, even giving ten minutes between acts to get to the bar and all the rest. It’s fair to say there wasn’t a duff act on the bill, but noise-rock duo Push provided an early highlight. Fusing choppy guitars with the dynamics of Nirvana and kicking out songs with titles like ‘Kitty Basher’ and ‘Moggy Wrecker’ with maximum scuzz, they’re anything but wet indie and make for an exhilarating experience. Putting on the full-throttle raging racket of Deathmace at four in the afternoon was a bold move, and ultimately a stroke of genius. The purveyors of ‘repulsive thrashing death’ are fully committed as they growl and grind their way through a set that’s a relentless onslaught of rage and monumentally heavy. Just the way it should be.

Deathmace

Deathmace

How I’ve managed to avoid Fat Spatula this long will forever remain a mystery, but hearing the hard-gigging alt-rock foursome leaves me confident I’ll be back for more, and soon. Having a genuine American-born frontman gives their Pavementy post-hardcore / noise pop / surf rock an air of authenticity. The scratchy guitar sound may be lo-fi but it’s eminently listenable and there are some strong melodies that provide earworms galore.

Soma Crew, meanwhile, I’ve seen a heap of times and it’s no secret that I dig their scene. On a good night, their psychedelic drone hits a perfect groove to hypnotic effect, and on this outing they really hit their stride.

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Soma Crew

After the break, Naked Six provided another of the day’s highlights. Again, a band who’ve bypassed me on the live circuit up to now, it’s not hard to grasp why there’s a buzz about them right now. They’re a classic power trio with a sound that’s rooted in that classic vintage, steeped in blues rock and with a big Zeppelin vibe and delivered with incredible panache. Making inroads into London and with backing from BBC Introducing, they’re a band on the up.

Naked Six

Naked Six

The last three acts on the bill have all been building reputations further afield and as a killer bam-bam-bam three-way finale, it works well: the power-punk of The Franceens gets things moving down at the front. As is standard for them, they’re on fire and their blistering energy turns the already hot room into a sauna.

The Franceens

The Franceens

It may be their second set of the day having pegged it back to York after playing at Hull’s Street Sesh festival earlier in the evening, but if they’re in any way weary, it doesn’t show. Martyn Fillingham plays the first half of the set, which boasts a cluch of new songs, with a guitar that could reasonably be described as ‘stripped back’: the body’s sawn down to minimal size, with just enough wood to house the essentials, namely the pickups, wiring and controls. It still yields a barrage of noise, it’s treblesome clang pinned down by Steven Reid’s superhuman drumming.

And the Hangnails

…And the Hangnails

And then there’s ((RSJ)). They may not be your everyday family-friendly festival crowd-pleasers, but the this isn’t your everyday festival, even though it’s been very family friendly all day: there’s no doubt they’re the biggest band on the bill, and have the biggest sound o match. That they’ve toured and played with Raging Speedhorn, Orange Goblin, Funeral For A Friend and American Headcharge, and opened for Slayer gives a fair indication of their stature, and to see them in a place this size is something else. Current single ‘Hit the Road Jack’ features John Loughlin of Raging Speedhorn (making it a kind of RSJ / RSH collaboration), and it’s suitably punishing. When it comes to delivering thunderous, sludgy riffs that hit like a juggernaut, ((RSJ)) are absolute masters. They’re also consummate showmen, and the in-yer-face delivery really amplifies the intensity of the material. There’s been much beer drunk and the floor is awash with at least half a gallon, and the moshpit erupts, but remained good-natured. It’s only fitting that toward the end of the set, Dan Cooke should be borne aloft and traverse mere inches below the venue’s low ceiling: because while everyone is melting, they’re also loving every moment, and it’s an uplifting experience indeed.

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((RSJ))

In all, a great day / night, not just as of and in itself, but also in terms of what it represents: a casting aside of all genre differences and a coming together of bands and fans. There is strength in unity, and in diversity, and Fully York is a triumphant celebration, which reminds us that ultimately there are only two kinds of music – good and bad. And at Fully York, it’s all good.

Raging Speedhorn / Stoneghost / By Any Means – The Key Club, Leeds, 19th July 2016

Posted: 23 July 2016 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

It’s the hottest, or second-hottest, night of the year so far, with temperatures teetering at the top of the twenties. I managed to knock off work early to get the train over from York to Leeds in order to conduct an interview before the show, and having managed to chill with a pint in the North Bar for half an hour before the gig, I’m now back underground in the small, dark, box venue that is The Key Club, trying hard to make my £4.20 330ml bottle of Punk IPA last more than five minutes while I sweat my tits off and wait for the first of tonight’s three bands, By Any Means.

Sporting beards, vests, tattoos, and knee-length shorts, the Belfast band crash in hard. Their front man may strongly resemble Brian Blessed, but I suspect he’d be more likely to crush Flash’s oesophagus with his bare hands than proudly declare him to be alive. They crank out a set of intense, dense, throbbing metal and these no shortage of chug ‘n’ grind(core) in their meaty riff-driven tracks.

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By Any Means

Next up, Stoneghost, sporting beards, vests, tattoos, and knee-length shorts take to the stage with a holler of “Leeeeeds! How the fuck is everyone?” Everyone is fucking melting, as it happens, and the relatively restrained response is by no means an indication of a lack of appreciation. In comparison to By Any Means, Stoneghost are sonically denser, the guitar lines more technical, the drums more frenetic, the sound more brutal, and the front man more bullish. He’s got a mean look, and I certainly wouldn’t mess with him. But for all the thunder and aggression, they’ve got some monster choruses, and they earn themselves a one-man slam-dancing moshpit for their efforts.

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Stoneghost

Raging Speedhorn may be purveyors of gnarly sludge metal, but they’re certainly not uncivilised: drummer Gordon Morrison pours beer from bottles into (perspex) glasses before they play. After an inter-band playlist that featured, amongst others, Fudge Tunnel, they walk on to ‘The Heat is On’ by Glen Frey, and yes, the compact basement venue is fucking boiling. With the stage drenched in feedback, vocalists John Loughlin and Frank Regan stand, silent, at the front of the stage, simply leaning out toward the crowd, looking menacing, they hold it for a full minute. This is showmanship, and it’s the band’s commitment to the performance element of the show is integral to the live experience. That said, they’re not posers, by any means: in fact, they’re just a bunch of middle-aged guys with beards and tattoos, wearing vests / T-shirts and long shorts, but they give one hundred percent to the music, and the aggression, the brute force with which the songs are played is so genuine it’s scary. Their contrasting styles work well: Loughlin screams maniacally and looks deranged as he charges he stage, while Regan is almost nonchalant and looks like he’s relishing goading the crowd with ‘come on’ hand gestures before he spits and snarls into the mic.

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Raging Speedhorn

They pile in with ‘The Hate Song’ from second album We Will Be Dead Tomorrow, although much of the set focuses on the new album Lost Ritual, which is fair play, and no bad thing given that it’s a riff-led stonker. ‘Bring Out Your Dead’ and ‘Motorhead’ are slammed down early. Delving back to their debut for ‘Redweed’ elicits a strong reaction, and before long there’s a tornado of bodies frothing in front of the stage.

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Raging Speedhorn

One guy who’s filming the set on his mobile has his phone confiscated and starts whinging like a kid about how he wants to show his friends the show. No doubt he’ll be gutted that his footage won’t include the ball-busting climax: they close the set with a pulverising rendition of ‘Thumper’, and still have it in them to return for an encore of ‘Ten of Swords’.

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Raging Spedhorn

The full set – twelve tracks – may have lasted just under an hour, but no-one’s feeling short-changed. In the blistering heat, they’ve delivered a relentless set that shows Raging Speedhorn are as vital now as ever.

Irk / Super Luxury / Fawn Spots / Christopher Nosnibor + Legion of Swine / Neuschlaufen – The Fulford Arms, York, 16th July 2016

Posted: 20 July 2016 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

Is it wrong to review an event you’ve participated in as a performing artist? Very probably, but in the scheme of things, and in the current global socio-political climate, a minor display of poor etiquette really doesn’t amount to anything. Besides, this is more about what I – as a writer, reviewer, artist and site editor – believe to be the primary function of running a site dedicated to the coverage of non-mainstream music, namely to give artists and acts I believe in exposure. At times, focusing on a niche – albeit a pretty eclectic niche – feels like the audience are likeminded obscurists but I like to think there are things for those likeminded obscurists to discover here. So. I landed a spot initially to provide a spoken-word interlude to some bands – bands I like. The night before the gig, this evolved into a collaboration with one of the bands, one-man experimental noise act Legion of Swine. It was something I’ve wanted to do for ages.

So I rocked up while the soundchecks were getting going to discuss what we were going to do. The little pub venue was bursting with more kit than many all-dayers and everything was pointing to this being one loud night before anyone even got plugged in.

And the lineup! Five acts, three (and a half) over from Leeds for a measly three quid? You have to hand it to both the venue and first-time booker Jim Osman for the wild ambition here. There’s so much that could go wrong.

Neuschlaufen are only just soundchecking fifteen minutes after they’re due to play, and their bassist, Ash, has to be out and on his way to another gig by 7:45. Yet somehow they manage to pull it together and are churning out their heavy, hypnotic grooves in next to no time. Ash Sagar’s hefty, Jah Wobble-esque basslines boom out, underpinned by Jason Wilson’s uncluttered drumming. In cominationm they provide  a solid base for John Tuffen’s textured guitars, and while the set may be short, it builds nicely, going beyond Krautrock and into territories as yet unexplored.

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Neuschlaufen

Immediately after, everyone vacates to cool down in the car park, with its impressive beach art installation. It also serves as a sandy area where people can go and sit and smoke and buy cocktails and stuff and pretend they’re not in a car park in a city pub.

Consequently, I began spouting my first rage monologue (a recent piece entitled ‘Ambition’, if anyone’s interested) to an audience numbering half a dozen (plus sound man and bar staff), but – probably for the first time in the years I’ve been performing – people began to filter into the room by the time I left Legion of Swine to run the set to its natural conclusion of feedback and bewilderment (what other response is there to a man in a pig’s head and lab coat, ambulating the space with a condenser mic taped to his face and a battery-powered 3W Orange amp to his ear?) there was a substantial crowd. Most of them were confused, and more interested in the spectacle than necessarily enjoying watching a 40-year-old man spew vitriol and expletives into a mic, but I had an absolute blast. Literature is the original rock ‘n’ roll and the new rock ‘n’ roll, and the footage of the performance, for which I can take no credit whatsoever, is outstanding.

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Legion of Swine

https://player.vimeo.com/video/175067654

 

One of the benefits of being lower down the bill is that it’s possible to kick back, drink beer and watch the other acts, and while the temperature was steadily rising, it was a joy to sup a cool pint and listen to Fawn Spots road test a set based on their upcoming second album. I‘ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen these guys since they started out as a snotty York-based two-piece and it’s been a source of pride to witness their evolution to a Leeds-based four-piece with a debut album on Fire Records. Their hard-gigging work ethic is admirable, and they’ve got both songs and attitude. If the new material showcased tonight is a little less frenetic than the older stuff, it’s no less intense, and there’s every indication that album number two will be a stormer.

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Fawn Spots

It’s a little over a year since I saw Super Luxury play. Supporting Oozing Wound at the Key Club in Leeds, I’d been impressed by the power of their performance. However, as their gig photos and the anecdote I’d heard from a friend about front man Adam Nodwell delivering vocals for a large portion of a set from inside a box on stage, it seems they’ve been evolving the performance aspect of their show. They pulled out all the stops for this one, Nodwell arriving on stage cowelled in a hooded cloak, stripping it off to reveal some crazy man/badger legs thing that simply looked wrong. With confetti guns bursting all over and crowd-surfing and a general air of crazed mayhem, you might think the music was taking a back seat. But you’d think wrong: with enough back-line to shake a venue three times to size to its foundations, they blasted through a ferocious set with terrifying vigour and psychopathic precision. They may be zany in their presentation, but when it comes to the songs and slamming them in hard, they’re entirely serious.

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Super Luxury

Irk are pretty fucking serious, too. It’s barely been a fortnight since I caught their set in Manchester supporting Berlin’s heads, and while they were pretty ripping them, tonight they really do take things to another level. Of course, when I previously stated that they sound like fellow Leeds band Blacklisters, I meant it as a compliment: Blacklisters are one of my favourite bands of recent years. They’ve delivered two gut-wrenchingly hefty albums and are one of the most consistent live acts you’ll find. But it’s on this outing that I first truly appreciate Irk in their own right as the drum / bass / vocal trio lumber, lurch and piledrive their way through a full-throttle set. Jack Gordon – an affable, articulate chap off stage – comes on like a man possessed, hurling himself about the low stage amid crushing bass riffs and powerhouse percussion. While the power trio format is often lionised as the optimal band configuration, there’s even less room to hide when there are only two instruments and a vocalist. And so it is that Irk are tight as hell and double the intensity of the playing to compensate the absence of instruments and bodies on stage. In contrast to Super Luxury, here’s little by way of over showmanship on display here, and instead it’s all about whipping up a blistering intensity through directness and unadulterated force.

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Irk

With not a weak act on the jam-packed, super-value bill, and every act giving every last drop of juice to their performance, this is going to stand as one of the gigs of the year. The venue may not have been packed to capacity, but there’s no question that those who were there will be talking about it. That’s precisely how legends are made, and I’d wager that that at some point in the future, tonight will go down as one of those landmark events. And if I’m wrong… fuck it, it was a great night.

Vesper Walk / Mishkin Fitzgerald / Flora Greysteel – The Basement, York, 1st July 2016

Posted: 3 July 2016 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

Indie Noir have been putting on curated nights catering to the tatses of people with a preference for indie from the darker side for around three years now, with eleven previous events in and around London and Brighton. This is the first event in the north, and coincidentally the first show in York for Mishkin Fitzgerald, whose operation it is.

She’s already established something of a cult following with her band Birdeatsbaby, and is making progress toward the same as a solo artist, and tonight’s show represents the third night of a UK tour in support of her new EP.

Mishkin is joined by local talents Flora Greysteel and Vesper Walk, and despite being up against the Wales v. Belgium match in Euro 2016, and all of the other goings on (and drunken lunacy that is commonplace in York on a Friday night), it’s a respectable turnout.

I happened to have ‘discovered’ Flora Greysteel less than a week ago, appearing on the same bill at an anti-fracking open mic event. I’m not sur if they were taken with my performance of a brace of ‘Rage Monologues’, or if they were even in the room at the time, but I enjoyed their set. Off the back of that stripped-down set, the bearfooted minimalist duo have spent the week tweaking their songs, and the results are a compelling set. Simon Bolley’s taut, restrained drumming is admirable, while Emily Rowan uses voice and a range of obscure or otherwise unconventional instruments to conjure. Haunting melodies. The pair seem rather disorganised on the surface, but musically, they’re tight and display an idiosyncratic charm.

Flora Greysteel

Flora Greysteel

Mishkin Fitzgerald may be slight in build and quirky, even vaguely nerdy in appearance, but her piano-led ballads are rich in emotion and heavy with personal meaning. Her all-too-short set features three tracks (I think!) from her new solo EP, the last being title track, ‘Seraphim’. Touching. Alongside a number of track culled from her 2013 solo debut Present Company, including ‘Hanging Tree’, she covers ‘Help Yourself’ by lesser-known bluegrass country goth act The Devil Makes Three. Without the bombast and theatrics of her band’s material, the songs are stripped back and simple, and in this setting it’s apparent she’s an adept pianist. ‘Sugarknife’ brings a dramatic change of tone and tempo as she ditched the piano and belts her vocals out against a full prerecorded backing. It isn’t strictly heavy metal, but is a bold chunk of operatic rock and powerful at that. Closer ‘Stitches’ is a rich, brooding work leaves an ache hanging in the air long after it’s ended.

Mishkin

Mishkin FItzgerald

Vesper Walk are many in number and fancily-dressed. In fact, most of the oddballs I’ve seen floating around the venue are suddenly on stage. Glitter, kohl, cat ear headbands, crazy eyebrows and more theatre than the Apollo. The six-piece vocal collective with piano, cello, cajón and occasional flute, are accomplished in their harmonies. Extremely accomplished, in fact. As one may expect from an act who are well accustomed to performing in theatres and have featured at the Edinburgh Festival, they’re high on drama and theatricality, both in terms of performance and presentation, and the music itself. It’s hard not to be impressed by their composure, the way they command the audience’s attention, and they really do know how to entertain, providing a splendid finale to an enjoyable and appropriately offbeat musical evening.

Vesper Walk

Vesper Walk

Heads. / Mums / Irk / Pijn – Gullivers, Manchester 28th June 2016

Posted: 30 June 2016 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

With an evening to fill in Manchester, the offer of four bands, including one I already know to be good, at a venue five minutes from my hotel was always going to be a winner. Unsurprisingly, it proved to be the right decision: Gullivers is in fact a decent pub, with five hand-pumps offering a selection of local brewery, JW Lees’ brews, and an upstairs room which is a perfect small gig venue: rectangular, dark, with a high stage and a well-proportioned PA installed.

First band up, Pijn (seemingly pronounced ‘pine’ although variant pronunciations emerge through the evening, mostly sounding like ‘pigeon’, and the band don’t seem too fussed) are a local three-piece. And they’re good. Very good: Immense rolling drumming holds the sound down. There are some hoarse-throated vocals, but their material is largely instrumental and defined by a textured guitar sound. Samples drift and drummer switches to synths, and later does vocals to. With monumental crescendos but also chugging riffs galore, there are hints of Maybeshewill but heavier, calling to mind Pelican and Neurosis. It’s a strong performance from a band with a dynamic sound and an accomplished set, and who stand out in a populous field.

Pijn

Pijn

Leeds trio Irk (a configuration of drums / bass / vocals) have chunked up and tightened up a fair bit since I last saw them. They still sound like Blacklisters (and that’s by no means a ba thing), but lay down some hefty grooves with assurance. They land a brace of new ones early on, the second of which, ‘Insect Worship’, is built around an elastic funk groove over which echoed vocals wash before it busts into a jagged, jolting, hollering finale. People start moving and getting into it properly around halfway through the set, and it’s gratifying to see them so well-received away from their local scene. I always maintain that the test of any band’s quality is their ability to convince an impartial audience Too many bands seem content to build themselves up to being big on their local scenes and play to their mates who’ll always turn up and tell them their great, but band with ambition have to take the risk of stepping outside the scene. Some nights, they’ll tank, however good they are. But with their frenetic hybrid of Shellac, Nirvana and The Jesus Lizard, filtered through the warped prism of Blacklisters, they manage to more than convince this respectable Manchester crowd, and deservedly so.

Irk

Irk

Widnes trio Mums offer a different permutation of the three-piece: they have two guitars but no bass and sound a fair bit like Melvins. Having seen Melvins only a couple of weeks back, it’s not entirely surprising that they’re not quite as magic as their mighty forebears but then, few acts can truly touch Buzzo and co. Still, Mums are young and infuse their megalithic riffery with a finely-tuned pop edge. The slowed-down sludge of ‘Can of Worms’ which crashed in about a third of the way into the set is stonking. Guitarist Roanne Wood is slight in build and looks girlie in paisley a minidress: her Marshall JCM 800 amp and 4×12” stack is bigger than her and the riffs grinding forth from it are similarly huge.

Mums 1Mums 2

Mums

With stereotypical German efficiency, Heads. pull back a 20-minute overrun on stage times to start only five minutes later than scheduled. With enhanced lighting and an immense, dense but crisp sound, their textured and very heavy riff-centric material is given optimal conveyance. It’s the bass that leads. Low down, twisting, grinding, it’s melded to thunderous percussion. Guitarist Ed Fraser sweats like rain after just three songs: this is a band that really gives everything to their performance I can’t be sure if Fraser’s guitar’s signal is split through two amps: if it is, it may explain the depth and richness of the sound. It may simply be that these guys are sonic wizards, the magical triangle of the pow trio amplifying the input of each player threefold to produce a sonic summit.

Heads

Heads.

On the one hand, it feels criminal that bands this good should be playing in venues upstairs from pubs with a capacity of maybe 100. On the other, this is where the real buzz lies: seeing bands of this calibre for six quid, up-close-and-personal, while supping a decent pint that cost £3.50, from a proper glass, while people up the road are watching Lionel Ritchie from a vantage that suggests they’d have fared better watching it on telly while having forked out a fortune for the ‘pleasure’ feels like a real win.

Camden Rocks Festival – 4th June 2016

Posted: 9 June 2016 in Live
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Jess Robinson

So, Camden Rocks was good this year wasn’t it?! After almost thirteen hours on my feet, I have blistered soles, a tight back, and by the Goddess I swear my eye-bags could double up as a freakin’ Deliveroo tandem. Totally worth it though.

My musical day-trip started with The Kut at The Crowndale at noon, I feel like I should describe them as shouty and feisty and grrrr, but they really weren’t. In the best way, they were actually genuinely lovely. Personable, proficient, and clearly over the freakin’ moon to be able to play two extra tracks as part of the soundcheck – a soundcheck so damned good it swelled the crowd from a piddly eight people (understandable, given the time of day) to something nearer 50. The Crowndale itself felt something like an abandoned funeral parlour, complete with huge floral tribute on the corner of the bar, but sonically it worked nicely, and it was great to see that the bar staff (definitely not undertakers) were enjoying the music, taking phone pictures of the band at work.

The Kut’s songs are a mix of punky-punkrock-grunge-rock. Yeah that’s a mishmash, but it’s a good one, tunes are raw, unpolished yet without flaws. The punkier elemns of ‘I Don’t Need Therapy’ fed brilliantly into ‘Bad Man’, a track that’s a sublime blend of everything I loved about both Nirvana and Hole – the guitars and sneering Cobainesque vocals work so well with the Courtney Love based lyrics. Vocalist Maha was determined to get us dancing, kicking up the beat with ‘Hollywood Rock ‘n Roll’. Bouncy! Great fun.

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The Kut

My next mission was to find my way into Dingwalls (having basically formed an infinity symbol in footsteps the previous day I decided to start my mission afresh on Saturday). Surely with the music in full flow, and with festival punters making their way into the venue, it wouldn’t be hard to work it out… oh how wrong I was. See, the name “Dingwalls” is marked out in an arc above the doors on the canal-side. So you walk down there, aaaand the doors are locked. You continue alongside the building, drawn to the music audible at the far end. You see the band through the windows, but you can’t get in. You walk around the building, nope, still no doors evident, unless you fancy trying to barge into the back area of the stage mid-set. No. Walk up to Lock 17 (directly above Dingwalls), where there are stairs pointing down to ‘Club’ (i.e. Dingwalls). Lovely bar staff explain we’re not supposed to go down there, and to use the door outside. I remained confused, all the doors are locked! So I take my chances and go down the forbidden stairs… Lovely security guy (who later explained that the name wouldn’t be above the door any more, if only they could physically remove the lettering) told me how to – correctly – enter the venue. So off I trot, to find that the letters above that magical entranceway in actual fact proclaim “The Comedy Loft”. Of course! I mean, it’s so obvious when you think about it….

Once I made it inside Dingwalls, I discovered two stages, and I managed to catch the end of Heels’ set on the larger of the two – thrashy, shouty, femme-fronted, male-backed metal, are Heels. Not really my taste, but they seemed to be on form. When they finished I nipped to the ladies, and it was like that cringey moment in that IT Crowd episode, the one where Roy and Moss crash Jen’s theatre ‘date’ with the gay man, go to the gents during the interval and there’s a toilet attendant man there, who puts them off their stride so badly that they can’t even piss yet they each pay him a tip anyway. Yeh? This.was.worse. The lady, surrounded by myriad bottles of dubious looking perfume, bellows a cheerful “Hello!!” to me and the grrls following behind, so I say “Hi”, but evidently I’m too quiet, for as I my feet carry me to a toilet cubicle while my mind screams “no, run away, remember the IT Crowd episode!!” she glares right at me and booms “When a lady says ‘hello’, you say ‘hello’ back!”. That’s me told then. Except I did say ‘Hi’… does that not count? Does it have to be ‘Hello’? Please don’t hurt me/hate me toilet attendant lady….

I escaped Dingwalls, and after a chippy lunch on the hoof, I landed at The Cuban for the first of Ginger’s three sets. Expecting it to be busy, I got there early but it was still rammed. And I mean rammed. Somehow I tagged on to a quad of hardcore fans and wound my way between jam-packed bodies, following them as far as the sound desk. My view of the stage… was non-existent. Bugger. What to do? Well, I decided to make the best of it and just listen. It was still live music, right?! I was in the building, woohaaaaa! Then… HERO…! the guy doing the lighting took pity on me and let me stand on the bench behind him. Well, I am tiny, so thankfully I don’t take up much room! In return, I fanned him now and again with a Camden Rocks Fest postcard. Oh yes, things were going well.

Ginger and his guys had a few technical difficulties at first, something up with a guitar… It was cool though, he bantered his way through it jovially (no prima-donna stropping) and refused to cut the set short because of the delay. Bet that pleased the organisers… We were melting but we all clapped in time and ‘oooooh’d’ (off key) when Ginger asked us to ‘ooooooh’. “That was definitely the best sing along I’ve ever heard. Not technically brilliant…” ~cheeky grin and wink~ “…for sure, but definitely the best” The highlight had to be ‘I Wanna Go Where The People Go’, of course it was. We all loved it.

Peckham Cowboys followed. They were rockin’, like, well, like cowboys who double up as a rock band. A solid performance, much enjoyed by the remaining crowd.

So then. Onwards. To The Underworld. To Heck. Umm, intense doesn’t quite cut it as a description… It was intense, it was also insane, and it was utterly perfect. Invigorating and terrifying almost alternately, Heck are fuckin nuts, man. Perfect choice of venue, kudos to whoever placed Heck there. It was dark, it was cavelike, it was deliciously claustrophobia-inducing WALL-TO-WALL NOISE AND CHAOS. I’m glad I’d been forewarned of likely antics. Although there was no escape (guitarist stomped on my foot at one point, singer plonked his mic stand down right in front of me, proceeding to sing and play guitar whilst deluged by photographers), I did select a location where I was largely safe. Basically, if you don’t wanna be involved, don’t go see Heck live. Stay at home, listen to the records, watch them on YouTube to see what you’re missing. But naaah, you should probably go anyway, at least once; absorb the wonderful screaming vitality of them.

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Heck

I was so spaced after Heck, I decided to abandon my plan of Vukovi at the Bloc Bar (I know, I know, I’m slightly ashamed!) – I just needed a little time, outside, getting some air, resting my beaten senses!

Popped back up to The Cuban where Starsha Lee gave strong rock vibes; blasting guitars and sci-fi tinged cartoony vocals, boy they were good and crazy. Crazy good. I overheard someone say “I liked the music, but I just couldn’t get on board with that voice…”. Slightly harsh, but each to their own!

Deadcuts was the last band I saw at The Cuban, gothy layers mixed with New Wave. A little Joy Division-y with their music. None of that is my bag, but Deadcuts were clearly on their game and crowd pleasers nonetheless.

A return to Dingwalls, for LA act Queen Kwong. I absolutely love these guys, and the fact that the overall lineup switches around and morphs between tours does nothing to diminish the power and sheer brilliance their songs, I urge you to see them next time they are in your area. Tonight’s set was marred only slightly by the dim lighting, which I suspect was set at low level on instruction from Carré herself, but it did mean that she couldn’t be seen too well, and I think sadly, those that didn’t already know the music struggled to engage with the show. Having said that, for those of us familiar with the luminosity of tracks like ‘Cold Daggers’, ‘Bells On’, and ‘Purrfiction’, it was awesome.

I’ll admit I was flagging when I left Dingwalls, and, knowing I likely wouldn’t physically be able to see (yep; the short-arse problem again!) much of Black Spiders at Proud, I rejected all headliners and made my way to Camden’s Cavern at Belushi’s bar, where I stayed the rest of the night. To be honest, at a festival where there are over 200 acts to choose from, why stand crushed seeing two or three bands that you could see on numerous tours, when you could find something fresh and exciting, up close in a smaller venue?

What’d you seeeee!?! I hear you cry, ha, well, let’s think back… I just about missed Wars but caught Making Monsters (hooks and riffs, baby, hooks and riffs), As December Falls (polished and young), and lastly Seán Grant & The Wolfgang who made their way to the stage area for a midnight display. And wow! They were so worth waiting for. Seán and his (wolf)gang served up a full-on juicy slab of a set that included ‘Curtains’, ‘Best Of Men’, ‘Brother’ (dedicated to one overjoyed pal in the crowd), and the most excellent ‘Take A Man’s Body’. Meaty, pounding, brilliantly executed music combined with gorgeously bittersweet lyrics that draw.you.in! A superb end to my Camden Rocks experience.

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Seán Grant & The Wolfgang

Huge, huge thanks to all those that brought the music and the vibe, and to those that kept us safe and happy, right down to the not-so-scary-really, toilet attendant lady.

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