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Posts Tagged ‘Dead Naked Hippies’

Low Hummer – Modern Tricks For Living

Posted: 26 August 2021 in Albums
Tags: Album Review, Alternative Rock, Dance To The Radio, Dead Naked Hippies, energy, Grunge, Hull, Low Hummer, Modern Tricks For Living, Punk, The Cure

Dance To The Radio Records – 17th September 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

Between 2005 and 2011, Dance to the Radio was the label that wasn’t lonely synonymous with the Leeds scene, it practically was the Leeds scene, and contributed to putting the city and its bands back on the map, releasing The Pigeon Detectives, Forward Russia, This Et Al, iLiKETRAiNS, and Grammatrics, as well as a number of wide-ranging compilations featuring the like of Pulled Apart by Horses. Returning in 2017 after a six-year hiatus, they’ve focused on a small but carefully-curated roster, giving a home to Tallsaint, Aural Aggro faves Dead Naked Hippies, Jake Whiskin, and Hull’s Low Hummer, who may be relatively new but have established themselves quickly, showcasing an energetic alt-rock sound that incorporates elements of grunge, punk, postpunk, and electro-pop with potent results. Debuting in October 2019 with the single ‘I Choose Live News’, the band have marked a steadily upward trajectory in the profile stakes ever since.

Granted, over half the tracks on Modern Tricks For Living have been released as singles in the last couple of years or so, making this as much a compilation as an album proper, but nevertheless, it hangs together nicely, on account of its stylistic unity and lyrical themes, and it’s well sequenced too, with the ups and downs just where they need to be.

Classic themes of angst, anxiety, and alienation dominate, and they never grow tired or fade. They possess a universality and an eternal relevance. The power and passion of the emotions may fade with age, but they never go away: most disaffected teens still feel it, unless they sell out and become self-satisfied, complacent parts of the machine. And some do – I’ve lost friends that way – but many of us still burn with the anguish of adolescence. As such, despite the band’s youth, there’s a universality in their appeal.

‘These days I feel like I’m dead’: the drawling vocal on ‘Tell You What’ is pure grunge nihilism, but there’s a sparkly electropop aspect to it, too. And the more you delve into Modern Tricks For Living, the more detail and the more canny crafting it reveals: amidst the brashy, trashy surface, there’s a lot more going on. These songs aren’t superficial, rushed, three-chord thrashes – well, they are, but they’re a lot more besides, and that’s the appeal of Low Hummer.

‘Take Arms’ packs some attack and makes for a strong opener. It doesn’t waste any time in planting a powerful earworm, with a motorik beat and bubbling synth bass providing the spine of a spiky punky indie banger that’s pure 90s in its vibe – the guitars fizz and the shouty female backing vocals reactive the riot grrrl sound and it kicks hard.

One of the few tracks not to have been released previously, ‘Don’t You Ever Sleep’, is an exuberant, bouncy paean to boredom that powers through in a whirl of synths in two and three quarter minutes, and it’s exhilarating, and ‘I Choose Live News’ crashes in as the third track, and it’s another relentless rush.

The Curesque ‘Never Enough’ (one suspects the title isn’t entirely accidental either) brings a change of tempo and switches the full-throttle fizz for an altogether dreamier form. It’s well-placed, and proves they’re not one-dimensional or one-pace, hinting at a range that they’re yet to fully explore. Slinging lines like ‘I hate this place / I hate the world’ , they pack in the angst and nihilism

‘Sometimes I Wish’ has some neat bass runs and a cyclical guitar riff that builds, while a wild lead part tops it all off. The tempo change towards the end is both unexpected and well-executed. ‘Slow One’ isn’t all that slow, but these things are all relative, and ‘The People, This Place’, another previous single release provides a blistering finale. And what can I say? This is a cracking album from beginning to end, that presents a solid selection of songs. Modern Tricks For Living is exciting and exhilarating, and it’s as simple as that.

AA

Various – Come Stay With Me

Posted: 2 July 2020 in Albums
Tags: Album Review, C86, Come Play Wth Me, Come Stay With Me, Dead Naked Hippies, Indie, Magick Mountain, Talkboy, The Weding Present, Various

Come Play With Me – 17th July 2020

Christopher Nosnibor

Since their inception and their first release, Leeds label Come Play With Me have done a remarkable job of showcasing local talent and giving an outlet to an array of acts from the area – and to be fair, they’ve always been spoiled for choice.

As has been increasingly apparent over social media in particular lately, with attention all on schools, pubs, hairdressers, the music industry is foundering. Which is why this release is important, as a compilation record ‘to support contributing artists as they deal with the delays, cancellations and loss of income caused by the coronavirus pandemic’.

I may have mentioned it before: I’d questioned the appropriateness of reviewing under the circumstances, but with so many acts releasing new music under lockdown either out of boredom or necessity, following a certain degree of public pressure, I elected to press on, and releases like this remind me why.

Come Stay With Me is ‘a collection of 13 new songs from bands and artists across Leeds ‘Come Stay With Me’ will feature Magick Mountain, Talkboy, Dialect, Team Picture, Van Houten, Dead Naked Hippies and more with artwork from ‘Life’ drummer Stewart Baxter. Set for release in July on eco-vinyl, all profits from Come Stay With Me will be shared between the contributing artists.

What isn’t to support here? For those in need of a reason, here are plenty:

Team Picture are a band who invariably surprise: perhaps it’s because of their incorporation of so many disparate stylistic elements that they never sound like the same band. On this outing, they’ve gone for some Hi-NRG disco which is more Donna Summer than the indie seem they’ve mined previously.

Mindstate are a new name to me, and while I’m not taken by their brand of mellow, lougey jazz, it’s hard to fault the musicianship or their capacity to conjure a mellow, late-night club vibe with their chilled brass and skipping percussion. As it happens, the majority of the bands are unfamiliar, and it’s heartening to discover so many emerging artists. The majority are of an overtly ‘indie’ persuasion, and collectively, there’s something of a C86 vibe to this compilation.

But then, what goes around comes around, and the label is names after a song by on of the definitive indie bands of all time, local legends The Wedding Present.

But then Dialect’s ‘Come Up’ represents a vastly underrepresented aspect of the Leeds scene, with some direct and no-messing old-school bassy, beaty hip-hop. It hits hard and packs some meaty bass, too. That it’s very much a lone example amidst the stereotypically white indie probably suggests less an act of tokenism as how the various scenes in the city meet, and hearing this says it’s a shame and reminds us of just how far we still have to go to realise

Tall Talker’s ‘River Hands’ may be contemporary, but their noodly instrumental math-rock belongs to a rich heritage of technical post-rock that goes back to the turn of the millennium and reminds me of countless bands I saw at the Brudenell and various other venues around the city circa 2004-2008. There was a time I found this stuff a bit samey, but listening to this now, it’s hard not to get dewy-eyed. I’d rather listen to a thousand identikit instrumental post-rock acts than see venues going under and not be able to mill around at the bar between acts and discover new bands several nights a week.

Jagged post-punkers Dead Naked Hippies offer something different with the stark, broody electropop of the ‘Night Time Version’ of ‘Eyes Wide’, which sounds like Siouxsie and the Banshees remixed by Depeche Mode. Which means it’s absolutely killer.

Local supergroup and Pulled Apart by Horses offshoot Magic Mountain bring all the grungy surfy racket with ‘The Shitty Beatles’, and DENSE do a storming job of primitive lo-fi punk din with a contemporary spin on the ball-busting ‘Electric Chair’.

Dead Poets bring a slice of DIY folktronica, that boasts a dense cinematic production that belies its simplicity, and Talkboy’s demo for ‘Over Under’ is another classic indie cut with a certain vintage feel

The last track, ‘One Last Look Around’ by Household Dogs is interesting, musically and in terms of its place on the album: it’s brooding, reverby, and semi-gothic, at the same time calling to mind Post war Glamour Girls and early Pulp. It’s no understatement to say that this is an absolute revelation, and I’m buzzing for more Household Dogs. It makes me yearn even more for the live scene and situations where I can stumble upon new acts with ease. But in the meantime, stay alert, keep on the hunt for new artists and support music any and every way you can.

AA

Music:Leeds Live in the Square – 3rd August 2019

Posted: 4 August 2019 in Live
Tags: Bilge Pump, Cwtown, Dead Naked Hippies, Hobson, Leeds, Macig Mountain, Millennium Square, Music:Leeds, SCUM, Treeboy & Arc

Christopher Nosnibor

Shirt status on arrival in Leeds: moist, and particularly damp on the stomach and lower back. It’s another humid hot day and half the trains re screwed and the other half are packed solid. It’s going to take a lot of £5 pints of Amstel (well, it’s that or Strongbow or Strongbow Forest Fruits) just to replenish.

Sandwiched in between Black Grape, Cast, and Dodgy on Friday night and Leeds Pride on Sunday, this new local talent showcase pitched some incongruous alternative acts alongside a bunch of names I’d never heard of. But I figured the ones I had heard of were more than enough to justify the trip over from York, with Dead Naked Hippies being incentive to make for an early start.

As a band I’ve seen play a venue smaller than my living room to fifteen people, as well as regular reasonable gig spaces, their outdoor performance at Long Division in May proved that they’ve got the chops to go big. And Millennium Square is big. And as expected, the trio fill the stage with noise and presence. The dense, gritty-as-fuck guitar that also fills the space in the of bass is immense even outdoors. ‘Dead Animals’ provides an early afternoon family friendly crowd pleaser. Lucy Jowett’s in fine form as always, and ends the set prowling the front rows, her wanderings only limited by the length of her mic lead.

Dead Naked Hippies

Tommy Monaghan is pleasant but mediocre, with a static bassist and some bad shirts proving more interesting than his accessible pub gig fare that would probably be able to work its way into the charts given a suitably R1 friendly production.

I know it’s poor form to judge a band on appearance, but with the white shirts and rainbow braces and a sax/harmonica player in their numerous ranks, Hobson would never have been my choice. But their gutsy brand of country / folk rock is infinitely better than their presentation. That the singer’s teeth are whiter than the shirts is quite something, and they kinda spoil the ‘all originals’ pitch with a well-executed but uninspired rendition of ‘All the things that I have done’ by The Killers as a set-closer. It goes down well, though.

Tyrone Webster is probably Leeds’ answer to Craig David or something. Only his laid-back soulful pop packs some woozy sub-bass and trip-hop beatage. Final song and current single ‘Crippled’ is pretty meaty and emotionally wrought, though.

SCUM are barely old enough to have been born, but kick out fiery, politicised 3-chord shouty punk. The nagging repetitions hint at The Fall played with The fury of Black Flag. The songs all clock in at around a minute and a half and are played at 100mph, and despite the massive stage, they’re utterly fearless and totally ferocious. It’s a rush, and maybe there’s hope yet. These kids are certainly alright.

SCUM

Isaac Saierre’s slick brand of r’n’b was never going to do it for me, but people stuck out the onset of rain for his set brimming with covers. This, right here, reminds me why shit like The Voice is popular.

Afterwards, Girl Gang DJ Emily injected some alternative cred back into proceedings with a selection of indie, post-punk and riot grrrl that was most welcome.

Inching into the evening stretch, Victors arrive with an array of sportswear, beards, and man buns, looking like some kind of hipster math-rock E17 to roll out some smooth sonic wallpaper.

Thank fuck for Magic Mountain. The local supergroup, consisting of Tom Hudson (Pulled Apart by Horses) Nestor Matthews (Sky Larkin / Menace Beach) and Lins Wilson (who seems to have involvement in infinite projects, including Music:Leeds), kick out heavyweight psychedelic grunge bursts with energy and riffs galore without sacrificing melody or hooks. They’re tight on schedule and promise to power through the set – and that’s exactly what they do.

Magic Mountain

Treeboy & Arc’s spacey motorik post-punk has power and energy, and the scrawny guitarist (who’s sporting a Zozo T-shirt) races around the stage like he’s possessed and they thrash away maniacally. On paper, they offer nothing musically that hasn’t been done before, but to deliver it with such vigour is petty radical and entirely engaging. How have they bypassed me for so long?

Treeboy & Arc

The first (and last) time I caught Cowtown was supporting Oozing Wound at the Brudenell. I’d enjoyed their set enough, but they seemed an ill fit for a dirty US thrash band. In context of tonight’s lineup, they sit a lot more comfortably with their high-energy, jerky rockabilly indie. ‘Tweak’ mashes together The Ramones with the Bangles, and is fairly representative of what they’re about – which mostly is uptempo fun.

Cowtown

There’s something amusing about someone with a cut-glass accent on stage at a show celebrating Leeds music announcing headliners Bilge Pump. They slay, of course. But let’s unpack this a bit. Bilge Pump. Playing in Millennium Square. It’s crazy. But cool. So cool. Primarily active in the first decade of the new millennium, their angular noise rock found them a cult following and favour with John Peel, scoring a handful of Peel sessions, bowing out in 2010 with the EP The Fucking Cunts Still Treat Us Like Pricks.

Bilge Pump

No two ways about it, comeback album We Love You is a blinder, and recent shows have been pretty special. But, not to denigrate their achievements, they’re very much a smaller venues band. And yet here they are, on this immense stage with the biggest crowd of the day – and it’s really quite substantial, especially considering they’re up against Flipper at the Brudnell – and they absolutely kill it. Joe O’Sullivan’s guitar is blistering as the throws squalls of noise – and himself – in all directions. It’s a blast – somewhat surreal, but a blast. And ultimately, Bilge Pump headlining in Millennium Square on a Saturday night in August encapsulates everything that’s ace about the Leeds scene.

Dead Naked Hippies / Henry Raby / Drooligan: Hovel Session #11 – The Hovel, York, 26th September 2018

Posted: 29 September 2018 in Live
Tags: Dead Naked Hippies, Drooligan, Grunge, Henry Raby, Hovel Session, Live, poetry, Post-Punk, Punk, Smallest Venue Anywhere Ever, Tiny Venue, York

It’s the night before payday and I’m skint. I should probably be at home, sifting through the mountain of review submissions that have crashed into my inbox while I’ve been at work. I should probably be doing myriad other things. But having caught Dead Naked Hippies for the first time in Leeds a few months ago, I vowed to see them again at the first opportunity, and given that this was a free-entry show at a venue above a WMC two minutes’ walk from my house, there was no way I was going to miss this. And with bottles of Timothy Taylors’ Landlord at £3.20 a bottle, it wasn’t going to be a complete overdraft-smasher.

I often experience a strange sense of déjà-vu, but tonight, I suffer a deep sense of disorientation on finding the room I’d previously watched bands perform in full of chairs, so I continue on up and lo, there’s a cluster of people, some of whom I recognise. Dave, aka Washing Machine Repair Man, who runs Young Thugs Records and it at the helm of the activities surrounding the Hovel – which is above a WMC in York’s South Bank, gives me a bit of a tour and shows me some of the changes they’ve made since I last visited. It’s impressive: the studio is now in a large, and rather plush room, and he’s excited about the potential of what was – and is, where he’s yet to begin work – a dilapidated but substantial space with a number of rooms.

And so I find myself in a room I’d previously sat in as a studio-in-progress, repurposed as a sort of rehearsal space with lights, before some kind of weird Japanese-made electronic organ / synth contraption from the early 80s. A dude in a cropped jumper and sporting a neatly-trimmed beard bounds about flamboyantly and chats entertainingly between songs played by the trio on said instrument. He’s accompanied by and shares vocal duties with a curly-topped chap in a bobble hat and a super-bouncy female singer / keyboardist in glasses. They sings off-kilter songs with pithy lyrics and groovesome rhythms and a certain retro vibe, which build a sort of narrative across the set. Welcome to the world of Drooligan. I haven’t quite made up my mind yet, but tonight they delivered something special, something engaging, something different. And something different is rare, which makes this quite the compliment.

Drooligan

Being a small room, it doesn’t take many (half a dozen?) to make it feel quite full, and for it to get quite warm, and to describe the atmosphere of a gig venue smaller than my living room as intimate would be as weak an understatement as describing the sun as ‘quite warm’ or Brexit as ‘not the best idea ever’. But then, the Hovel Sessions aren’t really gigs in the conventional sense: the shows are filmed and serve more as a showcase performance and an ‘experience’ than your usual setup.

Casting sheets of paper to his feet like brutal and chunky confetti, live, clothed punk poet Henry Raby seems to have been taking performance tips from yours truly, and one of the three new pieces aired tonight takes cues in the opening segment from criminally underrated local performer Lawrence O’Reilly – but then, creativity in the postmodern age is all about drawing material from a wide range of sources and intertextuality isn’t simply about what’s written, and Henry’s style seems to be evolving. The last time I saw him was at that Dream Nails gig in a 400-capacity venue. It’s often more difficult to perform to a small audience, especially in a small space, but a seasoned performer, he does a decent job of it, firing out nuggets of socio-political commentary with energy.

Henry Raby

Dead Naked Hippies are touring hard at the moment, and it was the fact I landed ‘Drain You’ for review last year that made me prick up my ears in the first place, before checking them out at The Belgrave Music all and Canteen supporting DZ Deathrays recently that ultimately brought me here tonight. As much as the music and the songs themselves, it was the band’s intensity – especially the electrical energy of Lucy Jowett – that makes them such a compelling act. Off stage, testing their snooker-playing skills, they’re an affable bunch, but give them instruments and amps and the fiery angst explodes instantly. The lumbering groove of new release ‘Rare’ sits neatly alongside the grungy ‘I Wanna Know Ya’ and some simple-but-effective rabble-rousing anti-work sloganeering.

Dead Naked Hippies

It’s a fairly short set, but this much spikiness needs to be dispatched hard and fast for optimal impact. And in such a tiny space, the intensity is amplified. Maximum intensity: optimal impact. Blistering.

DZ Deathrays / These New South Whales / Dead Naked Hippies – Headrow House, Leeds, 23rd August 2018

Posted: 24 August 2018 in Live
Tags: Crowd Surf, Dead Naked Hippies, DZ Deathrays, Headrow House Leeds, Incredible show, Live Review, Mosh, Punk, These New South Whales

Christopher Nosnibor

Four years on from Black Rat and DZ Deathrays return to the UK touring album number three, Bloody Lovely. Granted, the York show at The Woolpack with a capacity of maybe 70 on their last visit to these shores was one of the more intimate, but it’s clear from tonight’s turnout and reception that they’ve significantly expanded their fan-base in the intervening time.

Those who turned up in reasonable time got a real treat in the form of opening support act Dead Naked Hippies, who caught my attention a few months ago with the release of ‘Drain You’ on a split 12”. The Leeds art-rock trio, consisting of drums / guitar / vocal kick some serious arse. The guitar sound is dirty, a little bit messy, but works well in contrast with the crisp drum work. It’s Lucy Jowett who really commands the attention, though, lunging and stomping about the stage, wide-eyed and crackling with tension. They’re already going places, and were worth the entry fee alone.

Dead Naked Hippies

Touring support These New South Whales come on, shirts off and electrical tape over their nipples, looking dangerous and introduce themselves with some angular, grinding guitars, with menacing vocals pitch-shifted down. The stage half-obscured by a thick smog, they then proceed to slash and thrash their way through a sweaty, high-octane set. They may have their own show on Comedy Central, but they take the performance of their fast, furious, bass-driven art-punk seriously. It’s pretty fucking intense.

These New South Whales

DZ Deathrays have really honed their live sound and the material from Bloody Lovely – which accounts for over half the set – is delivered with real attack. With the album having been out a full six months already, it’s had time to bed in with the fans, and a good segment of the crowd sing along with every song. Others just go nuts, with a mosh-pit seven rows deep and crowd-surfing commencing early.

DZ Deathrays

Said new material pushes further into melodic territory, but the tunefulness is still driven by big, fat, fizzy riffs. Impressively, they maintain the high energy level throughout the set, with no let up in tempo (you’re not going to get a mid-set lighter-waving slowie or an acoustic breakdown with DZ Deathrays).

DZ Deathrays

They throw ‘Reflective Skull’ from Black Rat in early, saving ‘Gina Works at Hearts’ for near the end. The crowd goes ballistic – with a crowd surge causing the band to briefly stop to make sure someone wasn’t too badly hurt – and rounding off with ‘Like People’ and ‘Ocean Exploder’ for the final salvoes, it all adds up to a blistering set.

With three cracking bands, a corking headline set, and a great vibe all round, it’ll probably go down as one of the gigs of 2018.