The Spoonster Spouts: Storytelling & Journalism from a West Country Dap-Wearer

Night Train

2012-02-12T09:33:00.007Z

“I'm on the night train
And I'm ready to crash an' burn
Night train
Bottoms up
I'm on the night train
Fill my cup
I'm on the night train”

Axl Rose

Guilin to ChengDu

The passing from one train carriage to another is like moving between worlds. A successful crossing is only achieved by surrendering yourself completely to the heavy smog of cigarette and cigar smoke produced by the men that gather around the train's moving parts to fill their lungs and stretch their limbs.

If you are lucky, the next world emerges, coughed up in a row of staring eyes and a pulse of familiar noises: the slap of playing cards on an upturned suitcase; the deep hacking as someone tries to dislodge some stubborn phlegm; and the tired jokes of a man selling polystyrene trays of shrivelled fruit and vegetables.

Passing between realms is dangerous. There is every chance that the thin threads that tether you to reality will fray and snap altogether, leaving you to crawl around amongst shit-smeared tissues, sunflower husks and cigarette butts looking for a way home.

I am carrying my glass canteen of dried green tea with me. It serves to anchor me to one existence as I surf recklessly between these parallel universes in search of hot water.

Eventually I find it – a bubbling cauldron of boiling water hidden behind an iron door. I hand my flask to a man dressed in dirty white overalls with a yellow armband who holds some dominion over this furnace and its frantic licking flames. Clutching the warm cylinder to my chest, I pass into the smoke; it's time to find my way back to my own time and place, further down the line.

At one point, I would guess around four am, half an hour after the baby has stopped screaming, I become acutely aware of the snoring. The man on the lowest bunk, down to my left, has a deep reverberating snore, a guttural rolling of rocks around a dented cauldron. The body directly to my left on the middle-bunk looks alarmingly like Mao in his mausoleum. His greenish flesh dead, his body motionless, but the breathy putting, flapping free from his jowly crevices lets me know he is alive. Above me, a teenager joins the chorus with a series of high-pitched nasal snuffles, a counterpoint to the older men. There are other snores rising from the neighbouring beds. It is quite incredible this cacophony and wholly unbearable. I lie in my bunk and allow sanity to escape from my pores like sweat.

Three hours later and it is light. A mother tries to amuse her baby from the bunk below me. She makes noises and moves various objects – a cup, a sweet wrapper, a hat – in pleasing arcs. I am so tired that I hang my head from the bunk and watch, wide-eyed and smiling, transfixed and doing my best not to dribble contentedly.

A few minutes later, the music starts up and the women begin dancing in the aisles like a succession of Terry Wogan's performing the floral dance. I have no choice but to abandon sleep and get up. I swing my lanky Western limbs from the bed, knocking several Chinese men to the ground, and lower myself victorious into the aisle. Without opening my eyes fully, I make my over and join the dancing women, working the stiffness from my limbs with a shimmy here and a rotating wrist movement there.

It is all I can do to resist the temptation to take one of their hands and spin them around in endless circles as China melts outside the windows. Suddenly, the train passes into a tunnel and a hellish wind whips up, biting blindly in the darkness. I stop dancing and fumble my way into the no-man's land between the carriages – it is the darkest, windiest and noisiest place. It is a pocket of nothingness and the only way I see fit to fill it, is to sing Shaggy's Oh Carolina at the top of my voice. I can sense that the old man smoking the day's first cigarette is scared, but carry on to a second verse regardless. This needs to be done; I need to finish what I have started.

After I have indeed finished what I started, I sit and eat my breakfast – an apple, a carton of orange juice, two croissants and a fresh flask of green tea. One of the train attendants, who I have been casually flirting with for the past 15 hours, walks by and quickly thrusts a pointy shell into my hand. It sits damp and glistening in my palm as I try to figure out the significance of this unusual gift. Deciding that it makes about sense as anything else, I climb back into my bunk for Exile On Mainstreet and several more hours of window-watching and occasional daydreams.

Girl's Bike

2012-02-10T18:39:00.003Z

I have a girl's bike. It is pink. It has no gears and no suspension but it does have tiny girlish wheels and a small bell that tinkles just so. In Yangshuo county in the south of China, the dirt roads that wind amongst the towering karst mountains and alongside the riverside rice paddies are traversed by brutish Honda motorbikes, gothic tractors spewing thick black fumes as they transport bamboo from village to village, and the occasional resplendent Aryan on a mountain bike, passing by in a flash of blond hair and glistening calf muscles. And then there is me, on my girl's bike.

I borrowed the bike from a farmer. Perhaps it is his daughters. Perhaps he keeps it because it makes him smile. After watching me for some time trying in vain to push my water bottle into my trouser pocket, he comes over and hands me a length of red ribbon. There is not a hint of mockery in his eyes as he passes it to me but the uncanny colour coordination it provides is no accident. I tie some rudimentary knots, lashing the bottle to the back of the bike before setting off. My first encounter with a rock and the bottle goes skidding dramatically across the gravel. The manliness inherent in knot-tying has no place on this bike. I dust off the bottle, unpick the ribbon and then set about tying it to the centre of the handle bars with a splendid bow. Of course, it stays there, swaying coquettishly, pretty as a picture.

The potholes and jagged stones don't let up, sending pulses of errant energy through the bike frame into the various contours of my buttocks and into my testicles. It is an unrelenting pounding that no extremity deserves. I take to sitting side-saddle in a style reminiscent of a Victorian lady on a countryside jolly. It does little to help my image. The Chinese at the roadside cheer me on. I am a vision of the West, ridiculous and pathetic, and way beyond the imagination of any Maoist propagandist.

When I reach the river-crossing, sore and exhausted, I carry my bike outstretched like an offering onto the waiting bamboo raft. I lay it down with a reverence it does not deserve and like a Viking funeral for my manhood, the bike and me float out onto the river.

Successfully over the river and on the outskirts of some village, I hear a bike approaching from behind that wheezes and creaks just like mine. Soon an old battered bike draws level and an old battered rider offers me a toothless grin. This wizened man is not mocking me; his smile is an acknowledgement that we have both pulled the short straws in the cycling stakes. We are brothers, across cultures, across generations, brothers holding the same shitty end of the stick. But then he flashes me an even wider grin and with a few pumps of his arthritic legs, he leaps off into the distance. Brothers no more. It is at this moment that I see the dead dog he has tied to the back of his bike, its limp lifeless form a kind of bumper. God speed to you both, I shout into the lingering dust crowd which is all that remains of this two-wheeled hearse.

I am in China, surrounded by beauty, on a girl's bike - I will shout and whoop and smile some more.

Millionaires, marriages and muck: Guilin Train

2012-02-06T06:13:00.007Z

The train rolls into a town. More like violently shunts. Smokers rummage for their lighters as they wait for the train to stop. Within seconds of the doors being flung open, fifty or so passengers are out on the platform of this nowhere place lighting or limbering up. I leave my bed, having decided to join those exercising outside amongst the early morning haze and cigarette smoke. Having never exercised in any proper sense, what I perform is a bizarre choreography of spasmodic movements; stretches and lunges that I think should be good for muscles that have been forced to lie too long in a tiny bed, clenching each time the train switches lines or accelerates towards Guilin.

The couple in the lower bunks in the sleeper carriage are from Taiwan. James Lu and his wife are warm, open and English-speaking, the rarest of combinations on these train journeys. James' wife believes it is fate that I have met them, that my lanky form should be contorted in the bunk above hers. She suggests that I should meet with their niece. Not now but in ten years time when we can get married. James nods in silent but earnest agreement. They are deadly serious. All I have done to encourage this match-making is tell them my age and that I am single. I ask what the niece is doing now and they tell me she is in school. I wonder now, how old she actually is. I go to refill my tea flask to escape the strangeness and solemnity of the situation.

When I return, they tell me hurriedly that I need only wait five years before meeting her. It seems that they are convinced the only thing putting me off enthusiastically agreeing to meeting and betrothing this girl is the time frame of 10 years. They have considered the matter the whole time I was scraping green tea leaves into a bin, adding fresh leaves to my flask and adding boiling water. Five years, I am told, is far more appropriate as she is 18 now. They are still deadly serious. As a form of compromise, I tell them that I will email them if I am still single in 5 years and as I say it, I am surprised that I too am deadly serious.

He shouldn't be in this carriage; he shouldn't even be on this train. The large man now sat below my bunk is a millionaire. He forgot his iPhone, missed the train with his VIP bed, and ended up here, travelling in the hard sleeper amongst the lower classes. James translates for me.

The man moans constantly about the government and the taxes that are limiting his profits. He moans about Shanghai and how its GDP has fallen to the fourth highest in China. He moans about the garage that over-charged him for repairs on his expensive car. The amounts he talks about are more than all the people around him will ever earn. He is bullish, loud and outspoken. It seems that he is entirely oblivious to the inappropriateness of his moaning. He explains that when he doesn't get the train, he drives huge distances at speeds of over 150 km/ph – it is the speed that keeps him from falling asleep. Each Chinese New Year he sends gifts, including a hefty wad of cash, to all those families with elderly relatives in his home town. Apparently he is not a bad man after all.

When I enter the train toilet, I am greeted by two large shits curling up towards me. I decide in that instant to shoulder 50% of the burden and aim my stream of piss at the turd closest to the hole and to the tracks below. I manage to dislodge the turd, feeling satisfied but slightly nauseous in the process. The next in line will have to deal with the taller, tougher turd. Good luck, I say, hoping they realise that this pyramid of poo did not come from my saintly Western arse.

Exiting the toilet, I see a man in the washroom opposite. If this man was born in England, he would be an East End gangster: an amateur boxer that fell in with the wrong crowd. He is drunk, stumbling on the spot. He has short hair; a shaven head in the first stages of regrowth. He stares into a mirror and attempts to light a cigarette that is the wrong way round in his mouth. He has prayer beads around his wrists that give him a certain air of respectability. I smile at him and head back to my bunk. I hope that he will tackle the poo.

Notes on Hanoi

2012-01-29T13:50:00.010Z

Places that I like to eat on Hang Dieu:

Loc Tai bakery

The Loc Tai bakery on Hang Dieu makes cakes, sells fluorescent jelly desserts but most importantly bakes sweet bread hamburger buns (Banh Tao) and croissant-shaped rolls (Banh Cua Bo) that I eat at least 3 times a day. It is an addiction. I can't walk past the bakery without ducking in, buying an armful, and tearing viciously into their soft white flesh with the predatory focus of a T-Rex. I can barely go for a piss without buying a couple in case I get hungry on the way. In an effort to combat these urges, I've started to take alternative routes to avoid it, but the smell tails me, waits for me like Orson Welles, round and doughy, in a doorway.

At 3000 VND (9 pence) and 5000 VND (15 pence) respectively, they are cheap. It is not a £200 a day crack habit we're talking about here. They also have the benefit of being a fixed price, fresh, hygienically-prepared, and tasty.

The girls that work there look at me strangely each time I appear, trying to work out just what this skinny westerner does with so many buns, searching for some pattern or semblance of logic in my habits that will reveal my secret. But there is none - sometimes the buns are breakfast; other times a mid-afternoon snack to accompany mild sun-stroke or extreme soggyness depending on the Hanoi weather; sometimes they are a late night and drunken necessity, thrown down into the pit of my stomach to absorb the beer Hoi that gurgles there dangerously.

Ban Bo

Thick noodles, slices of tender beef, peanuts, fresh mint, chunks of apple, herbs, and spring onion covered in a rich broth, finished with a squeeze of lime and some freshly chopped chilli – ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, I give you Ban Bo. A lip-smacking treat of the highest order.

And as far as I'm concerned, the place to eat it is on Hang Dieu. An efficient production line greets you when you enter the eatery, with endless bowls filled with noodles and herbs piled up ready for the next order. You get the sense that if you wanted to eat this meal again and again and again you could. The flavours are complex: the sweet bite of the apple; the salty boldness of the broth; the almost chemical heat of the fresh chilli; the delicate floral notes of the fresh mint and herbs; and the thick absorbent noodles binding it all together, unravelling in your mouth like playful baby snakes spitting out the tastiest venom.

Corner of Hang Dieu and Hang Non

Crunchy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside – the baguettes are stacked efficiently in a glass cabinet next to a camping gas stove and a small lady sat on a stool. For the equivalent of 50p, she cracks two eggs into a plastic cup, adds liberal amounts of salt, then fries them in a blackened but much-loved pan over her gas stove. Whilst the eggs solidify slightly, she slices the baguette and layers with cucumber. She then adds the completed omelette, a squirt of chilli sauce and wraps it up in a sheet of someone's maths homework. One time I was stood there waiting for my baguette when her friend brings her over a helium balloon of a cartoon rabbit. Without taking her eyes off my eggs, she ties it proudly to the drainpipe above her gas stove. It hovers lovingly over her for the rest of the evening.

21 Hang Dieu

Located unsurprisingly at 21 Hang Dieu down an unassuming, slightly unsavoury-looking, narrow concrete passage off the main road, this little nook of a place serves delicious noodles. At the end of the passage is a woman presiding over a range of ingredients from pork to wanton and some food stuffs that I don't recognise. She is like a character from Labyrinth. All I know to do is walk down, smile, and point to the peanuts and then cross her palm with notes. What I receive from this most basic of processes is a bowl of sweet noodles with pork roll and spring onion, topped with deep fried garlic and peanuts, and covered in a tasty broth. It is awesome.

Places I like to drink:

Panacea Cafe

This place is for teenagers, at a stretch young adults. I don't really belong here. It is a place where smoking is a fashion statement, where a single coffee or energy drink is sipped for hours on end, where dramatic heart-break ballads really speak to you. But with a piano in the corner, the nostalgic smog of cigarette smoke all around, vinyl-seating, big windows and a neon sign on the wall, I want to belong. I sit and drink coffee here and write, occasionally pick up an acoustic guitar just because I can, because it's a young, foolish thing to do when you can't play for shit.

There are real musicians here. For starters, The So Good Fusion Band, a quartet of young and hyper-talented musicians that play jazz-fusion covers complete with mind-blowing fiddle of Maroon 5, Barry White, Michael Jackson and even Lionel Richie in the evenings. The quality of the musicianship shines through, breathing a bizarre new life into these smoother than smooth classics – there is an innocence in their set list that reflects the oddness of the music scene in Vietnam. Overly-dramatic ballads dominate to the extent that there is no other discernible genre. I want them to play Dirty 3 and Do Make Say Think but that, I think, is what an adult would want.

Beer Hoi on the corner Hang Vai and Phung Hung

Locally brewed fresh beer at 8000 VND (25 pence) a glass, delivered to your table with a ruthless efficiency by omnipotent waiters each time you reach the crisis point of 2 sips remaining - yes, this place exists. And to celebrate men drink topless in the evening fug, occasionally arm wrestling, always shouting about onething or other. When the beer has worked its hoppy magic, plates piled high with tiny birds, beaks and claws intact, are bought round to satisfy their drunken cravings. The menu features everything from the no-nonsense 'stomach with peppercorns' to 'pig ears boiled or grilled' depending on your predilection for gunk or crunch. I drink but skip the food.

Café on West Lake

The café is unremarkable really. A small counter, no menu, a few basic seats around cheap and undeniably kitsch tables on a quiet, shady enclave of West Lake. The views are spectacular; the hazy apparitions of skyscrapers on the north shore, fishermen wading up to their necks as they check their nets for fish, and the strangely inspiring sight of a lone swan peddelo dwarfed by the great expanse of water.

The café also makes the best iced coffee in Vietnam. 7 mm of condensed milk stuck like the sugary glue it is to the bottom of the glass; 2 shots of Vietnam's finest rocket fuel coffee followed by a crowning caramel-coloured froth that is born in the moment of immaculate conception. And the 2 pieces of ice bob merrily, enough to cool but not dilute. There is a glass of water to persuade the tasty tar to leave your gums and teeth. It is divine. I spend two hours there and drink two. I would love to drink more but the sun that once dimpled through the leaves is now burning hard and bright, and my jaw is beginning to nibble at my cheeks.

Hotel California

2012-01-26T13:30:00.008Z

When you travel you meet people. It is one of the many joys. You encounter everyone from free-spirited individuals out to experience the myriad of world cultures to those twisted characters that belong nowhere and are destined to traverse the globe looking for themselves or somewhere that will have them. The California Guesthouse in Saigon is a magnet for the weird and wonderful. A home, however temporary, to the full gamut of colourful characters, pulled by an invisible force to this backstreet hostel. Some are worth introducing....

The guesthouse is ran by Tom and his wife, Loan. From the outset, it is important to give Tom his official title – he is Tom One. His best friend and constant companion is Tom Three. These two Toms are from California, they are Vietnam veterans, and both sport rather fine facial hair. Tom One has a big black beard and dark glasses. He looks like an over-sized Fidel Castro or a spy in disguise from a children's picture book. Tom Three has a magnificent handlebar moustache, a baseball cap pulled low over his rutted brow and a beer constantly wedged in his large fist. These two Toms effortlessly attract misfits, outcasts, and outlaws like moths to two very bright flames, and then proceed to embrace them whole-heartedly despite their faults.

My introduction to the two Toms' madcap world involved, somewhat inevitably, alcohol. I had just finished a late breakfast and was making my way out into the bright light of day when Tom One stopped what he was saying, looked up from the sofa, and enthusiastically introduced himself and Tom Three. Tom Three nodded his head in a slow thoughtful way before returning his attentions to the beer in his hand. On finding out that my name was Tom as well, Tom One invited me to drink with them that afternoon.

The two Toms and their dysfunctional extended family went to the same restaurant-bar in the hectic backpacker heartland of Saigon every Friday afternoon to drink, shoot the shit, and interact with the conveyor belt of characters that passed by.

Tom One knew by name the street sellers, all those peddling fake sunglasses, bootleg books, cigarettes, weed, as well as the cyclo drivers who patrol the area. Mr Phoo, the cyclo driver, was privileged, he was invited to dismount his cycle and join the table for a beer. His long straggly beard, comprised of a few errant strands of wiry hair held together with an elastic band, swung like a pendulum as he chatted in broken English to Tom One. They had known each other for over 15 years.

To my left sat Herbicide, a Sandy Rowe Loyalist from Belfast. A strong man who laughs a lot, he possesses that unnerving mix of joviality and brute strength. When we are introduced, he crushes my hand whilst disarming me with bright blue eyes that dance with uncut mischief.

Herbicide has a secret garden that he visits. Only he knows its location – the others ask him where it is and he only laughs at them. He gives Tom One a leaf from the garden. I have no idea what they are talking about.

On my right sat Gary. He has been on the streets on and off for the eleven years he's been in Saigon. Now, he tells me, he is more on than off the streets. He looks seventy; he might be older. Gary was born in New Zealand and raised in Tasmania. He smokes marijuana that he keeps wrapped neatly in individual parcels in a small tin container. He smokes it openly in the café as he talks to me about his life.

Gary worked in the entertainment business – performing folk songs around the world, humorous ditties filled with wry lyrics. In a voice that quavers with his age, Gary sings me a song about London. It bristles with derogatory Aussie slang. He tells me that when he performed it in England half the audience in the club booed whilst the others cheered. I see his watery eyes clear for a brief moment. He reminds me of a rebel Bruce Forsyth, burnt out but with a sparkle that just won't die.

Then there is Gloria, a wonderful fairy godmother of a woman, sat in the middle of these ageing men preparing peanuts for them. She is making sure they don't get too drunk too quickly, knowing from experience though that it will make no difference. Her laugh is a joyful cackle.

There is Julian also, a new addition to the club. A lethario from the West Country, who likes, and I mean likes, to sleep with women. Sex is always on his mind; it wafts from him like a cheap cologne. He is a good guy.

Fred is from Michigan and in his seventies. He arrives at the table with grapes. He reminds me of Jack Lemmon - small, sprightly and silver-haired – his body too old for the energy it contains. He spent his life as a car salesman, working his way up from a man treading the forecourt to a senior manager. He took holidays and drove from coast to coast and up to Alaska through Canada.

Fred came to Vietnam to visit the place where his best friend died in the Vietnam war. When he found the area, he called his friend's parents. After that day Fred ended up staying. He has been in Vietnam for over three years. Fred met a woman and fell in love. The police made him wait three long years before granting them permission to marry. Fred's wife is a petite and calm Vietnamese women in her early forties. She is pregnant with Fred's child.

Forest sits on the other end of the table, a large shaven-headed Texan. He has dolphins circling one ankle, representing his sister that passed away and his good side. On the other ankle, there are a number of sharks representing his dark side. It seems that his dark side is in the ascendency: you get the impression that he is on the verge of exploding in an uncontrollable rage at any moment. I am glad to be sat a few seats down from him.

Hours roll by and endless beers are drank. Tom One tells me how he served in Vietnam between 1967 and 1969, completing more than one tour. He mentions some places to me with sadness but also the resilience of someone who has made peace with himself. He is a welcoming, warm man and I like him very much. He tells me about Tom 2 who passed away. I had seen his image on the side of the table in the foyer, a grinning man with a beer. Tom One explains, “He was a bastard. Bad in the head; bad in the mouth; but in his heart,” he thumps his chest, “he was right. I can't believe he's gone. I miss him.” Later, he gives me the honour of naming me Tom Nine. I go to sleep drunk and happy. For tonight at least, I am one of them.

The Sign: Saigon, Vietnam

2012-01-04T07:38:00.006Z

It is evening under Saigon's pinkish skies. Motorcycles course through the crowded streets like white blood cells rushing along veins to fight infection. For a constant angry swarm that threatens to tear you into ugly chunks at any moment, the two-wheeled traffic has a remarkable sense of Zen about it. A deep breath must be taken before surrendering yourself to the throng, stepping slowly but confidently out into the chaos and not stopping even for an instant until you reach the other side.

On this particular evening, what waits on the other side is the seafood restaurant on the corner of Cu Bac. It is a local place, a Vietnamese place. The menu is entirely in Vietnamese, in fact all of the writing visible from my plastic chair is in Vietnamese – not even an illuminated EXIT or handwritten 'Sim Card' poster breaks the spell.

Everyone crowded around the plastic tables, both on the pavement and inside the restaurant, are speaking Vietnamese. The waiters shout busily at each other in Vietnamese and any questions I ask are met with an indecipherable stream of Vietnamese. This is not unusual, I am in Vietnam after all, but it does make what I discover in the toilet all the more gloriously absurd.

After some squid and a couple of cold beers, I feel the need to urinate. I crudely mime my way to the toilet, much to the amusement of my fellow diners, pushing my way through the air, greasy with unknown linguistic flurries. Inside the toilet, secured above the metal urinal, is a chute. A strange contraption, the sides of which are plastered with vomit that drips unpleasantly to the trough of piss below. Above the chute is a sign that states proudly in bold English letters - 'GAME OVER'.

End of the Year Round-Up – Best of 2011

2011-12-31T03:42:00.004Z

Albums of the Year

1. Bill Callahan - Apocalypse

2. Bon Iver – Bon Iver

3. Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact

4. tUnE-YaRds - whokill

5. Zun Zun Egui – Katang

Zun Zun Egui - Fandango Fresh from Bella Union on Vimeo.

6. The Antlers – Burst Apart

7. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo

8. Beirut – The Rip Tide

9. Akron/Family – The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT

10. Let's Wrestle – Nursing Home

11. Radiohead – King Of Limbs

12. Smith Westerns – Dye It Blonde

13. Kanye West and Jay-Z – Watch the Throne

14. Darren Hayman – Ship's Piano

15. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

16. Ganglians – Still Living

17. Tom Waits – Bad As Me

18. Wilco – The Whole Love

19. Timber Timbre – Creep On Creepin' On

20. Metronomy – The English Riviera

Honourable Mentions

We All Have Hooks for Hands – Girls EP

Awesome Wells – Awesome Wells and Friends EP

Dez Mona – Saga

Bjork - Biophilia

Songs

Crystal Antlers – Summer Solstice

Bon Chat, Bon Rat – Blackbird
Free download here

Sandro Perry - Changes

Battles – Icecream

Little Dragon – Ritual Union

M83 – Raconte-Moi Une Histoire

Tyler the Creator – Yonkers

Gigs of the Year

1. Yo La Tengo, 02 Academy, Oxford

2. Sleigh Bells, Digital, Brighton

3. Song Yuzhe and Yang Jima,Jianghu Bar, Beijing

4. Boyz Noise, Tango, Beijing

Snapshots of Vietnam

2011-12-26T13:20:00.000Z

Halong City Highway

A man hovers over the body of another man's in a roadside building. Perhaps a victim of the motorcycle madness that is Vietnam's forte – it's impossible to tell from the two small feet facing me. Maybe his bike was loaded with bulging blue bags of kitchen utensils, or several white sacks turgid with rice, or an ugly swine, hopelessly pushing his fat between the bars of the bamboo cage as the wind forces tears from his scared piggy eyes. Judging by the single pair of feet, it was not the family of four, the mother, father and two small children, I saw quaking under a tarpaulin as their two-wheeled steed skidded past through the slurry of this Halong City highway.

Hanoi

Ankle-deep in slurry with blackened toes and freckled calves, crouched like a fishing gnome on a stool in a street-side restaurant. An infant cockroach swims backstroke through the Pho Bo in my spoon. With a canine grinning from a spit-roast an alley away, it seems pointless to do anything other than dab the little fella with a tissue and suck up the spicy broth.

'Nghi'

Nghi means 'by the hour'. You see it written on hotels and on roadside signs advertising hotels. Nghi equates to sucking, fucking and various other riffing on the exchanging of bodily fluid. For 60 minutes or more, perhaps.

Hanoi

The coffee is strong. Slow-dripped and liquid dynamite in this cup. A dog stumbles, lazily, knocking my table, and coffee spills onto the white porcelain saucer. It instantly stains, seeping into pores, sticking like glue. The process repeats in my mouth – teeth becoming stained, gums and cheeks coated with caffeine curd, which will ignite with each gurn for hours to come. Vietnamese coffee, this black liquid gold, bare-knuckled and brutal, rushing endlessly.

I pay for the coffee and get ready to cross the road – I look at the two lanes of traffic, streaming like light on long exposure film. I notice a rat by my feet, permanently reclined by death's rolling pin, and an ominous omen for sure. The face of a fruit seller beams up at me from the pavement, her grin bisecting the twin scales of produce balancing on her knotted shoulders. The coffee kicks in again, and I step into the road, slow, zombie-lie, allowing the mopeds to pass around me, praying that there are no cars for the next thirty seconds. Four wheels don't dodge so well.

Broken; Just Broken: Siem Reap to Battambang

2011-12-22T17:55:00.015Z

I have a golden rule when travelling and that is to never undertake a journey drunk or hungover. In Cambodia, and many other countries, there's every chance that your journey could take several times the quoted time, be extremely uncomfortable – too hot, too cold, smokers, spitters, farters, shitters, broken seat, fat fella, baby screaming, body odour – and this is all under the proviso that your mode of transport doesn't breakdown altogether. These nightmarish journeys can only be survived with a perky disposition and several hours of sleep. With a hangover, they are agony. Sadly, for a golden rule, it is one that I break all too often...

I am stumbling along the banks of the Tonle Sap river in Siem Reap at 3:30am. At 6am I will embark on a notoriously arduous boat trip to Battambang. My brain does not like that math. At 4am, I fall clumsily into a light and trippy half-sleep; it lasts all of an hour and a half.

With eyes crusted shut and a foggy head, I attempt to pack my backpack in some logical way. I fail. Without time for breakfast, I am then thrust unceremoniously onto a coach and wedged crudely between giant backpacks. The owners of these backpacks are a bunch of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed bollock-chops who actually seem to be enjoying being up this early and being rogered by the potholed dirt roads that lead to the port.

Finally at the port and with all the confidence of a recently-robbed pensioner, I negotiate the steep steps down into the hull of the boat. I hit my head on a ceiling beam. In a way I expect it, deserve it even. But before I have time to slip into a well of self-pity, I spot a large wooden box, which despite the boat being overcrowded, is entirely devoid of buttocks. I clamber past people, pushing at any soft body part that happens to get in my way, before deflating in a sweaty heap on top of it.

It does not take long for me to discover just why this wooden box was empty. Not only is the box vibrating in a manner so intense that it is in danger of dislodging the contents of my bowels (a bout of incontinence five minutes into an eight hour journey would not improve my mood), it is also hot. Actually, the once-innocuous oh-so-inviting box is so hot that it is scolding my testicles through my trousers.

It is only when the black toxic smoke starts billowing up from between my legs that I realise that I am sat on the engine and that it is about to explode. From out of nowhere, a Cambodian man runs up and in one fluid motion pushes me off the box and lifts the lid to reveal a chugging archaic collection of pistons going like the clappers, spluttering and spewing out smoke. It appears that a mere inch of shitty pinewood is all that separated my sainted-arse from a severe flambéing from an Industrial Revolution museum piece, a hunk of metal pilfered from an eighteenth century Mankunean canalboat. Also, I've just lost my seat.

The only option left is the roof, a space approximately four metres wide and eight metres long and entirely devoid of seats or any other trimmings of comfort. But wait one minute, at this stage, the roof is a god-send. The views are incredible. After negotiating the narrow waterways around the port, the boat emerges into Tonle Sap, a lake that quadruples in size during the wet season to 14,000 square kilometres. With such stunning views, a delightful breeze and my bottom a safe distance from the engine, I am slightly less miserable, maybe even happy.

And it gets better. Soon the boat is chugging merrily through a series of floating villages, where smiling fisherman enjoy simple lives on houses built on the water. The children, hearing our boat, rush to the windows and out onto the porches of these rudimentary houses and scream and wave. In a cross between Where's Wally? and impersonating the Queen, me and my fellow roof-dwellers are tasked with spotting the screaming child amongst the buildings and foliage, and waving regally to them until your wrist can do no more. It doesn't get boring either; even when we pass through the sixth or seventh village, it still delivers smiles. Such a fine tonic to the hangover and sleep deprivation.

About 1pm, the sun has cranked itself up to around the mid thirties now. The paint on the boat is beginning to peel and chip off in little glittery pieces that merge with the sweat and suntan lotion on my body. I look like a nursery school painting. I feel like shit. My drinking water is hot enough to make tea with. You can fry an egg on my frown.

The sun is not the only problem. For the last thirty minutes, the boat has exited the main river and is making its way through a narrow channel between jungle. The distance between the trees has steadily reduced from the width of the boat to now little more than a metre. Branches and vines are indiscriminately whipping their way across the roof area with a vicious energy as the boat ploughs on.

Nature has turned on us – with the sun and now this, it is a full scale assault, both cruel and unrelenting. The woman in front of me is bleeding from her shoulder where a vine ripped through her flesh as if it were paper. The whole roof has transformed from a sun-addled floppy love-in to an alert unit primed for the next attack. The metre channel has now disappeared entirely and we are forcing our way directly through thick jungle.

Everyone is poised, crouched, eyes ahead looking for the next assailant. Those roof-dwellers that remain are now ducking the larger branches with some success, all the time shielding their eyes from the trailing vines that are impossible to avoid. Leaves and twigs are constantly collecting on the roof, crudely torn from the trees by the boat that has no option but to continue at full power. The roof is a blur of movement, women and children diving for cover, men swaying side to side, red raw and bleeding from at least one wound. It's intense.

To make matters worse, if that were even possible, living in these tree tops are some seriously freaky bugs that now, finding themselves homeless, are frantically crawling and wriggling through our hair, around our bodies and into our clothing. Ants of all sizes and colours, praying mantis', cockchafers; spiders, millipedes and a hundred other creepy crawlies that are hideously ugly, almost certainly poisonous are having an ugly bug ball on my balls.

What started as an adventure has now become a hellish ordeal. There seems to be no end. I put on my hat, my sunglasses and then wrap my sarong around my crouching body and prepare for the next onslaught of branches, vines and bugs. When at last we emerge out of the jungle and back on to something that resembles a river, I turn my attention to the insects.

It goes without saying that everyone on the roof is itching. There's also a strange social protocol that complicates things. If you see a strange creepy crawly climbing up someone's back do you a) slap/flick/brush it off without a word, hoping they'll understand b) tell them through mime/English/broken bits of a foreign tongue that they have a creature crawling on them and that they might like to get it off, or c) none of these; keep quiet and watch as the offending insect makes its way up their back or along their sleeve.

The next two hour sees the roof people industriously picking bugs from their person and belongings, and dabbing at wounds with tissues and Savlon. I feel like I have been to war. The hangover, the lack of sleep, the man vs nature battle has left me a wreck. The sun is still blazing, the boat is still going, but I am broken. I lie back, let another layer of skin burn, and watch glass-eyed as the bugs crawl all over me, hoping that this is the lesson that sticks - golden rules should be honoured at all costs.

Tom and Jerry

2011-12-19T08:33:00.005Z

There are a lot of children in Cambodia. 40% of the population is under 15 years old. For many reasons this is exciting; youth brings energy, hope and the chance to move on from the past, however bleak it may be. Sadly though it does not always feel like this. Due to this past, it also means that these children can be orphans, disabled from landmines, homeless, live in abject poverty or more often than not a sorry combination of all of these.

Siam Reap is teeming with street kids. They sell postcards, bracelets and pirated books about Pol Pot. They drag around Hessian sacks pleading with wide tired eyes for empty water bottles. Most of these kids are exceptionally smart – they can speak several languages, engage in banter in all of them, and name every capital city in the world. It's their job to charm you and then ask for money for what they are selling – they do not beg directly. They don't seem like children.

The money they make does not go to them, nor, in most cases, to their families. They don't go to school.

In Ankor Wat, a girl of 6 asks me if I want to buy a necklace. I tell her that I am a boy and I don't wear necklaces. She tells me that it should be for my girlfriend. I tell her that I don't have a girlfriend. She tells me that if I come back tomorrow, she will have a girlfriend for me.

Late at night, these kids are still out on the streets. They dance with drunk Westerners outside the nightclubs on Bar Street; simultaneously children and adults. Doing backflips to Rihanna, for money, for fun.

One morning in an alley behind Pub Street, I am eating breakfast. It is a large breakfast and it tastes good. A man with no legs hobbles by on crutches, dragging behind him a strange home-made machine for the tourists. The coffee is surprisingly strong. Small groups of homeless children make their way from table to table: “What is your name? What country are you from?” I am pleasantly surprised when the waitress brings out a course of fresh fruit. Tiny children scrabble in the gutters, looking for anything , finding nothing. The whole area is alive with this awful contrast: Western tourists indulging themselves: mine-victims and street kids doing what they have to do.

Then something magical happens. In the restaurant opposite, a television above the counter flickers to life. The bright images of Tom and Jerry appear through the static. Within three minutes, the sad energy and bustle of the alleyway dissipates; a Cartoon Network-inspired entropy. Every child in the vicinity stops what they are doing, abandoning their wares, and makes their way towards the wall that runs alongside the restaurant. Twenty or so children are now sitting in the alley staring, transfixed at the television, and laughing. The 11-year-old boy with one leg who sells paintings day and night props himself against the wall to enjoy the show. The smiles that break out on their faces are incredible, near religious – these are children after all and it is so painful to realise that.

Bieber in the Bodge

2011-12-16T07:48:00.008Z

His baby-face can be seen crudely painted on wooden signs outside barber's shacks in far-flung frontier towns. His high-pitched whine can be heard emerging in tinny raptures from the mobile phones of teenagers deep in the jungle. You can pretty much smell the talc on his hairless balls amongst the swirling scents of human excrement, exhaust fumes and decomposing animals. Bieber, how did you make it this far?

'Baby, Baby' is playing for the umpteenth time as the electric storm skies of Ban Lung flex brilliantly and bright to its dismal beat. It is such an obscene situation that a smile is all that can be offered. A smile that conveys confusion, distaste, but also delight. How, I must ask once again, has this pre-pubescent pup made it to Cambodia?

It has something, and perhaps everything, to do with the cult of the Cambodian karaoke video. Anybody who has been to Cambodia will be familiar with these DVDS. They are unavoidable. You are constantly bombarded by these bizarre versions of reality where friendship, love, and death are played out amongst a frenzy of hormones and teenage angst. It might be in a bar, a countryside shack, a shop, on public transport, but wherever it is, they will worm there way into your consciousness.

Each banal song soundtracks a nonsensical narrative, high in drama and low on logic, that unfolds in hyperbolic hyper-drive as the Khmer words rolls on unrelentingly. Conceptually, they exist somewhere between a music video, a Mills and Boon novel and a Communist propaganda video.

Every bus journey in Cambodia is accompanied by these ridiculous, mildly fascinating videos. The shiny silver discs are slid with a rhythmical confidence into the DVD players on clapped-out coaches countrywide, each one featuring around 10 little nuggets of nonsense.

There are two main types: those with adults and those with teens. The main motifs in the adult version are water buffaloes; these lumbering but vital beasts equate to the rural, all things Khmer and pastoral. On the flipside, you have SUVS that signify wealth, foreign investment, corruption. These two are pitted against each other in weird and endlessly inventive ways.

The male stars in these videos are frequently unattractive – tubby with bad teeth and an air of jaundice whereas the women are pristine visions of loveliness. These mismatched couples tend to have chance meetings in various dusty urban spaces where they exchange amorous glances before venturing out to the country to frolic in rice paddies, atop water buffaloes and on riverboats.

Usually in these rural retreats, a second female character is introduced – let's call her sexy peasant – in exactly the same manner as a new blonde in a porn film ménage a trois. This innocent beaming face looks up from a basket of vegetables or a tray of rice, with wide eyes falling expectantly on the couple that by now are holding hands. Inspired by this attention, the lovebirds start doing a version of pattercake, which is incidentally the closest they come to consummating their relationship.

And when it comes to the teens, the roles are reversed. The boys are pretty, effeminate with coiffured hair - Cambodian Biebers - and the girls are little more than empty vessels with idolising eyes. As far as I can tell, there are a number of categories when it comes to these teen videos. The plot which is always a basic girl-meets-boy love story will, with a certain degree of forboding, take a radical detour – throwing all the common threads to the dusty Cambodian breeze. It can be a car crash, a suicide, a break-up via video or falling from the back of some animal. There are even several songs that involve a couple being torn apart at the height of their courtship by a random stabbing or a stray bullet from two warring youth gangs.

My personal favourite though is the Facebook saga which is extremely complicated but utterly riveting, especially as it has the benefit of illuminating English phrases like “update your status” emerging from the streams of indecipherable Khmer.

Bizarre does not even come close, especially when you consider these DVDS are played constantly on arduous journeys, suggesting they have universal appeal to the passengers. Some buses lack decent brakes, a full set of working lights, or air-conditioning, but they will 100% have TVs, DVD players and a beefy soundsystem all in full-working order. People don't sing along, there isn't even a microphone. It is the sanitised romances, dramatic love stories, surprise narrative arcs that keep the people entranced.

Bieber is the best the West can offer to this crazy world. He is our bastion of sanitised insanity, a whiny doll's head begging to be painted with emotional turmoil in heavy-handed rouges and fluttering lashes. His inane songs appeal to the Cambodian youth, because like his face, they are neutral, blank, and ripe for superimposing inner-heartache and infantile lust.

With his purity and shiny locks, Bieber taps into this karaoke schema. They have taken to him because he is a perfect candidate for these deliciously pure, pseudo-complicated affairs of the heart. These three minute skewed appropriations of the trials of life as seen through the eyes of a child, are demented, they are completely Biebered.

Don't fear though, there is other Cambodian music out there, kicking around in all this madness. Here's the Cambodian Space Project...

Border Crossings

2011-12-10T14:32:00.003Z

I like South East Asian Border Crossings. I would recommend them to anyone. If South East Asian Border Crossings had a Facebook page, I would consider becoming a Fan.

There's something endlessly exhilarating about running the gauntlet, negotiating po-faced officials in starched uniforms with nothing more than a little red book and your best 'I'm okay' face, passing from one predefined space with its own language, currency, political system, customs, monarch and so on into another that has the potential to be entirely different. In the course of a mile, a harmless hand signal could become the most offensive of sexual gestures. Then there's the petty corruption, the hidden charges - a dollar here, a dollar there to save you the indignity and time of having your luggage searched, a more thorough check being carried out on the validity of your visa or worse-case-scenario being bundled into a dark, musty cupboard for an hour or two of solitary confinement.

There's also the immediate topography of the border crossing; the way the space between two countries in defined, delineated - from the layout – huts and uniformed officials from neighbouring countries with historical, and sometimes current, fraught relationships, separated by little more than a lowly dirt road or a featureless stretch of concrete; the geography – how each barrier, each door, provides both physical and a more significant symbolic barrier to detach and exaggerate any potential differences in wealth, lifestyle or politics between two countries. All of this is accompanied with the nagging, if remote fear, that you might be found lacking in the correct documentation and be carted off by scary men with guns.

And of course there are those characters, both human and architectural, that inhabit these nameless hinterlands, these no man's lands, with purposes that never seem wholly legitimate but are endlessly fascinating. Like the moto drivers defying gravity and various other laws of nature as they take an impossible amount of goods from one side to the other like Evil Knevil on a country-hopping shopping spree. Like the twitchy shifty-looking men with a fistful of passports and a wallet full of moulah. Like the Casinos. Like the sweat-stained and leery taxi drivers squabbling with clenched teeth over potential passengers. Like the travel reps trying desperately to look non-threatening and genuine but somehow failing to do either.

And so it is, after a three hour journey on the red dirt pot-hole-strewn road between Kep and Phuk Than in a clapped out Daewoo crammed with five tired and wet people, I arrive at a beloved border-crossing, this time between Cambodia and Vietnam. The rain, as it has been for the past four days, is teeming down, unrelenting. I have my raincoat on, my small backpack strapped to my front, and my large pack dragging me ever closer to the slurry below. The driver explains that we have reached the point, this is as far as he goes. There's a no entry sign on a barrier with a gap between it followed by a maze of potholes and puddles leading to a small concrete building – the Cambodian Passport Control Point. Scrutiny and a stamp and onwards.

After wading a further 300 metres from the Cambodian hut through puddles of rusty rain water, I arrive at the Vietnam immigration building, housed to the left of an impressive arch welcoming you to the country. It seems in these situations that it is more important to make a big deal, architecturally at least, in welcoming you to a country rather than saying goodbye. As far as I'm concerned, goodbyes should be more muted affairs, quiet, reflective just like a small hut on a dirt road.

Inside the building, instantly drab and dismal in comparison to the arch, I arrive initially at a desk for disease control, located to the right of an airport-style scanner that is not plugged in and looks suspiciously like it is made from cardboard. At the desk you must fill out a small yellow paper sheet detailing what diseases you have or confirming those you don't have. A thermometer gun is then pressed against your flesh, presumably to confirm that you are telling the truth – all of which comes with a nominal fee of a dollar. I wonder if I had a disease like AIDS or Syphilis or any other on the list if they would still charge me a dollar. Do they take pity and let you in for free or charge you more for being afflicted? Anyway, unlike at the Thai-Cambodian border crossing at Poipet, it serves to put some distance between this gentlest whiff of corruption and the smart-looking official in uniform checking passports at the next door, lumbering it with this sleepy-eyed low level civil servant.

A few more mandatory but unnecessary passport checks and I find myself officially in Vietnam. I return my passport to its rightful place next to my groin and get into a taxi – Good Afternoon, Vietnam.

Rain and more: Hoi An, Vietnam

2011-09-30T12:21:00.017+01:00

It's been raining continuously since I arrived in Hoi An. The river threatens at any moment to burst its banks; the market is several inches deep in water, vegetable detritus and fish guts swim freely in it, and puddles have grown so large that touts are selling tickets to tourists to walk around 'the great lakes'. All the while, the sky remains a flat, impenetrable concrete, unchanging. The city's charm has not deserted it entirely, but some has definitely been washed away.

The mildewed decadence of the peeling yellow buildings in the Old Town remains and the glow from the plethora of lanterns now inspires the emotional response usually reserved for the fire seen roaring in a hearth on a winter's evening - that selfsame cockle-warming contrast to the elements that stirs something deep in the belly. And for these reasons, despite wading my way through a continual tacky slurry, I still believe that good things are but a few squelched steps away.

Hoi An is an enchanting maze of alleyways. In this ancient port's clogged capillaries seamstresses busily construct costumes for hastily measured Western bodies, plump ladies preside proudly over the freshest Cao Lau ingredients, and motorbike drivers slam cards and drink tea in a near mechanical rhythm. Out on the main streets, the buildings serve up slabs of colour in pleasant tourist-friendly rows: from the fading sunshine of the colonial houses to the vibrant folds of silk and fabric in the tailor's shops, its a kaleidoscopic treat that goes some way to compensating for the monotone skies.

On one wet wandering down towards the Japanese bridge, I found myself sponging my damp and weary form across Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street and into a gallery. The canvases were nothing like the generic watercolours that filled Hoi An's galleries; there were no rice fields and rivers rouged carelessly at sunset and no elongated figures in conical hats, going nowhere. Instead what looked back at me from the walls of Phan Thanh Minh's gallery were gnarled portraits and distorted figures: faces creased and defiant with life; bodies alive and agitated.

Phan's style seems to change with each emotion expressed or experienced, but there's an ever present sense of movement and energy in his work expounded with vibrant colours. At times there are elements of the urban vigour of graffiti art, the same free flowing lines and sense of urgency, at other times there's a more contemplative and sombre use of oils, thick and tangible on the canvas.

Situated above the large gallery room is Phan's studio, a superb space with a balcony looking out over the picturesque street and providing plenty of natural light, though not today, a day when light has been banished from Hoi An. The floor is splattered with paint and every inch of wall space is busy with canvasses, stacked in rows, hung high.

I sit down to speak with Phan, occasionally stooping down to pat his dog and, much to the animal's discomfort, drip great pregnant drops of recycled rain onto her trembling body. He tells me that he graduated from The Fine Art University in Ho Chi Minh City University in 2007 and has been busy creating and exhibiting art since then. We talk awhile and all too soon my respite from the rain comes to an end, I say goodbye to Phan and allow the hood of my raincoat to suck once more at my cheeks before stepping out into a torrent - the river has finally burst its banks. Amen.

To see more of Phan's work click here or better still, if you're in Hoi An, rain or shine, and want to experience and purchase some genuinely exciting contemporary Vietnamese art then check out Phan's gallery at 18 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street. Phan can be reached at cogalleryhoian@yahoo.com.

We All Have Hooks For Hands - Girls EP

2011-04-05T12:46:00.009+01:00

I like bands with silly names. Better still if they actually turn out to be good. The American label Afternoon Records has a penchant for the ridiculously monikered, having several superalitive acts on their roster. My two favourites are Mouthful of Bees and We All Have Hooks For Hands. Mouthful of Bees released their second album in 2009, a self-titled masterpiece which came and went without any recognition in the UK. It's a travesty that a record of such breadth and brilliance somehow slipped under the radar. Here's a taster:

And the other band, We All Have Hooks For Hands, are from Sioux Falls. There are nine of them in total and they make a riotous racket with massive pop hooks and an unerring sense of fun. This week they released a new EP, Girls.

Ever since I heard their debut album The Pretender, I've been in love with WAHHFH. The Pretender was passionate, youthful, lo-fi and full of an infectious and chaotic energy. Their next release, The Shape of Energy, was an altogether more mature album. And as the title suggests, it was the sound of a band that had learnt to harness and refine their energy into tighter, more rounded songs. And now in April here they come again with their Girls EP. The bursts of brass are still there, the high-pitched vocals, the joyful yelps, the warped country motifs, and yes, the energy. Click here to download the EP for free and don't forget to spread the word - silly names don't always equate to crap bands.

Live Review: Sleigh Bells

2011-02-21T17:49:00.005Z

Sleigh Bells, Digital, Brighton
Tuesday 15th February

Every gig should be like this. On stage for just 40 minutes, Brooklyn-based duo Sleigh Bells deliver a short sharp shot of adrenalin that leaves ear bones rattled, muscles weary and the soul shaken. And all without an iota of boredom creeping in. The whole experience is revitalising; the equivalent of forcing your naked body under the bludgeoning icy torrent of a waterfall as opposed to allowing it to slowly wrinkle in a tepid bath.

The refreshingly postmodern combo of hardcore guitars, pop vocals and distorted beats that made Sleigh Bells’ debut album Treats such a success are out in full force tonight. In particular is guitarist/producer Derek Miller’s use of the metal dynamic for creating tension over house music’s predictable build and drop sensibility. And there is no better example than when, half-way through Infinity Guitars, Miller’s guitar unfeasibly doubles in volume to match the beefed-up beats, threatening to explode Digital’s soundsystem.

Inevitably, given the disparate elements at work, some tracks come across as ideas rather than fully-fledged songs. And anyone expecting an anarchic punk rawness would be disappointed. Despite the aural assault, Sleigh Bells are a polished act and this is a distinctly pop show. But that’s no bad thing, as the omnipresent laptop/backing track allows frontwoman Alexis Krauss to jump around in her basketball top and scream whilst Miller Eskimo-kisses the wall of Marshall Amps.

It is tonight’s closing threesome that typifies everything good about Sleigh Bells. Rill Rill, with its warped pop sensibilities, is more than deserving of the enthusiastic swaying, the delicious crunch of breakthrough single Tell ‘em still sounds exciting, and the riotous clash of hip-hop and hardcore guitar that is Crown On The Ground provides the ultimate finale.

Like the post-gig ringing in the ears, Sleigh Bells won’t last forever. But tonight, at least, they provide a brief and most welcome break from mediocrity.

Stormy weather and smile... A Week in Musical Purchases

2011-01-22T17:52:00.015Z

I am a bargain-hunter, blighted by the need to pay the lowest possible price for anything I desire. It is a burden. On the unfortunate flipside of my affliction, I also have an irrepressible compulsion to buy anything simply because I believe it to be the cheapest it will ever be, anywhere that I may see it, regardless of whether I have any interest in owning it. This could be a reduced pack of blackening chicken livers, a misprinted Ikea pillowcase, a pair of golf shoes (I don’t play golf) or even a book I already own – there are no exceptions.

Occasionally, reason will present itself, stipulating that if I only stopped buying things I didn’t want, just because they were bargains, I would have the money to purchase what I really wanted for a price that wasn’t implausibly low. It’s the kind of logical thought, so obvious and pure, that I expel it from my mind with the same type of urgency as you would an incontinent dog from your bed.

I have struggled for many years to come to an agreement with myself to simply pay what I believe something to be worth. Sadly, it is still the case that if I think I can find the same item elsewhere for less then I will do just that, passing up the opportunity to own it then and there. In essence I have condemned myself to a lifetime of trawling charity shops, flicking my way through dusty record shops and generally thrusting my hands into boxes that a tramp would not even aim his steaming sugar-puff piss stream at. Everyone likes a bargain, but for me it’s a necessity.

The only time when I am happy buying something is when I find it at a price I believe to be the cheapest I will ever find it. This is such a rare occurrence that it’s a miracle that I own anything at all. It is also the reason why I feel compelled to share with you my week of musical purchases. Over the past seven days, I have found several albums priced at what I am satisfied is the cheapest I will ever find them. Some greater force has granted me a reprieve from the burden that plagues me…

Purchase 1
The June Brides – Every Conversation: the Story of the June Brides and Phil Wilson
Price: £5.29

It began, unusually for me, not in the bottom of some discount bin but instead among the endless shelves of the World Wide Web. And again, unusually for me, it was not vinyl I coveted but a lowly CD. For longer than I care to remember, I have been rummaging record shops across the country in search of vinyl copies of The June Brides’ Peel session EP and their album, There Are Eight Million Stories.

Judging by the blank looks on the faces of record shop owners, these releases are as rare as an incontinent dog in a newly made bed. And all the while I continue my search, I am missing out on some of the finest fiddle-laden mid-eighties indie jangle to ever delight my ears. So online I went, searching various outlets for Every Conversation: a double CD on Cherry Red Records of every track the June Brides and Phil Wilson ever recorded, including the aforementioned and incredible Peel session. After some serious cyber surfing, I was eventually satisfied that Amazon was the cheapest at just £5.29.

The CD arrived on Thursday, replete with lovely art-work, lengthy sleeve notes and the delicious heady feeling that I probably, almost definitely, couldn’t have found it cheaper.

Purchase 2
Kimya Dawson - Hidden Vagenda
Price: £2

The experience of shopping online was not without its perks: chief amongst them an instant global price comparison and a break from those men with thick glasses, wild hair and almost always a carrier bag filled with strangely-shaped objects that frequent record shops. These characters of indefinable age may not be able to look you in the eyes, but boy, can they spit out facts about obscure jazz drummers like the bastard spawn of Rain Man and Scatman John.

I encountered one such man this week when I made the post-work dash up the hill from Lewes station to Rik’s Disks. As I rifled through LPs, I heard a conversation about the minutiae of military collecting start up. Whilst I crouched flicking through Neil Young’s back catalogue, I was treated to a discourse on World War II binoculars that was so boring I would have chosen the Somme over another minute of this man. It was also dawning on me that there were no records that I wanted, or perhaps more accurately, none that were bargains. I was just about to escape when I caught sight of that wonderful word – Sale. Within minutes, I had found a copy of Kimya Dawson’s fourth album of lo-fi gems, Hidden Vagenda on CD for just £2. My brain was certain that I would not find this album anywhere cheaper, ever – it was mine.

Purchase 3
Barry White – The Man
Price: 49 pence

Saturday is for shopping; just as Friday is for drinking. These are the simple mechanics of the working week and the capitalist curse. On Friday, you put all your effort into poisoning the stress that has built up in your mind and body over the proceeding five days with hard liquor. With the stress dissipated and replaced with the following morning’s obligatory hangover, it is then time to spend your meagre earnings on things you don’t need so that you have a reason to go to work the next week. It’s depressing but it doesn’t stop me making my way to Hastings on Saturday for my own tortured take on retail therapy.

Hastings is a good place for bargain hunting and quite bad for pretty much everything else. Hastings is the end of the line. You can go no further. And it feels like it. A dead seaside resort where tourists have been replaced with strange shadowy people that blow in and out of nooks like gulls dragged from the clouds by the sea breeze. It is out of season, perennially. The must-have accessories for your average Hastingsite are a can of Stella clasped in a claw-like hand, a permanent grimace, a hoodie pulled over your face and a leg that drags behind you, like one of the worms from Tremors perpetually chasing you in slow motion.

It is said that Aleister Crowley, who died in Hastings, cursed the town, but this is not true. It is a myth spun to excuse Hastings’ blatant shortcomings. Yet on a blustery January day this is where I want to be because it has records; it has records at bargain prices. In Hastings, there are piles of cheap LPS tucked into forgotten corners of antique markets, their location only revealed by a dull glint in the glass-eyes of the taxidermy animals, and racks of dusty discount 45s in mildewed boxes beneath suspended fibreglass acrobats in reclamation yards full of peeling iron gates and cracked bird baths.

Before heading into the Old Town area of Hastings, I check the charity shops in the town centre for vinyl goodies. It is in my second box of LPs that I find a copy of Barry White’s The Man. At just 49 pence, it is guaranteed to be the cheapest in the UK, if not the world. The superb version of Billy Joel’s Just The Way You Are is worth the money alone. (Later, when I get it home, the intro to It’s Only Love Doing It’s Thing is so ridiculously erotic that I am forced to blink my Sudoko back into focus several times. As Barry intones, “I must relax you, I mean, I mean, totally relax you because love is a kinda thing that you shouldn’t do unless you’re totally at ease. So baby let me, let me, totally relax you till you feel like you are ready, ready for an-eeee-thing. Let me put my hand… lord have mercy,” my stereo suddenly becomes so sexually charged that one of the speaker’s puffs out a cloud of smoke.)

Purchase 4
The Peddlers – Birthday
Price: £4

Leaving the town centre, I make my way along the seafront and through the Old Town, walking past the organic cafes, upmarket florists, antique shops and retro fashion outlets to Rick’s Records. Little more than a shack in a car park, it is a vinyl Valhalla, a graveyard for the dog-earred, tacky and downright lovely.

I start working my way through jazz to folk via nineties dance and soundtracks. It’s cold and my hands seize up but I don’t care because the thrill of the hunt is upon me. A gas fire in the far corner does little to warm my fingers as I struggle to flick efficiently through the racks of LPs. Rick chain smokes from his seat by the door. He whistles along to sixties hits on the radio and waits for the next pile of records to be placed in front of him.

A couple, the kind that come to Hastings because they’ve read in the Sunday Times that it is a Mecca for antiques can’t believe that vinyl still exists and spend a fortune buying crap from the 80s in what seems to be an overwhelming surge of nostalgia. Every ten minutes or so, the woman hysterically murmurs, “I’ve only got 24 pounds with me and already I have 37 pounds worth.” Still she flicks and still she exclaims as she unearths yet another The The album. Somewhere on her husband’s person are a near endless supply of crisp twenties and she knows it.

Not blessed with my own roll of notes, I have to be more selective. I fillip a disconcertingly moist copy of Dylan’s Street Legal back onto a pile and frisbee a scratched Lee Hazlewood Best Of despite coveting both. And then I find something special, a copy of Birthday by The Peddlers. An album I have never seen in the flesh. Unfortunately, the person that owned it previously was a cretin, someone wholly undeserving of such an album. And why? Because they decided to write the song titles all over one of the most stunningly conceived gatefold album sleeves of all time. And in blue biro no less. Still it gave me a way in and before you could say OCD, I had managed to talk Rick down to just £4. And my God was it worth it: the eerie take on By The Time I Get To Phoenix, the tumbling drum solos, and the unexpected piano breakdown in Girlie PS I Love You Girlie.

Purchase 5
The Peddlers – Freewheelers
Price: £3

After my success at Rick’s, I continued to ride my luck at the Antique Arcade where a lovely little collection of vinyl awaited with me. There was Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie; Mortal Sin and the Bonzos – yet, all of it, I felt I could pick up elsewhere for less. I wrestled with the maths of purchasing the All Hail Urusei Yatsura white-vinyl 10” and a battered, scratched copy of Scott 4 that was until, in a mind-boggling statistical seizure of fate and chance, I discovered another rare The Peddlers album. With a pristine sleeve and vinyl that gleamed, I actually had Freewheelers right there in my hands. And the price, three English pounds. It was mine. With Stormy Weather and Smile, it was mine. Like all of the week’s musical purchases and my entire retail life, stormy weather and smile.

This is for my witches... Makunouchi Bento - Butter of a Fly

2011-01-08T11:08:00.007Z

And today to Romania where witches are fighting for their right to dabble in the dark arts by throwing mandrake plants into the Danube. Armed with cat poo, dead dogs, and paranormal powers, the witches are protesting against the politicians who are forcing them to pay taxes for the first time. In support of their struggle here's the suitably bewitching Butter of a fly by Romanian outfit Makunouchi Bento, beautifully animated by Vali Chincisan.

Download an 8 track new album by Makunouchi Bento for free here

Suuns - Up Past The Nursery

2011-01-07T15:40:00.006Z

What better way to kick off 2011 than by posting videos by exciting new bands...

Montreal is the best city in the world, I think. It churns out great bands for fun. Suuns are no different. Their debut Zeroes QC is sinister, synthy and strangely seductive. Here's the video for Up Past The Nursery. Enjoy.

Freelance Whales - Generator 1st Floor

2011-01-05T11:33:00.007Z

Proving that bad band names, do not necessarily mean bad bands here's Freelance Whales with a blowhole-bursting bump of chirpy indie entitled Generator 1st Floor. They're touring the UK in Jan and Feb so go see them.

End of Year Round-up - Best of 2010

2010-12-29T16:37:00.000Z

So another year is sliding to an end, like a canvas shoe desperately pawing for friction on black-iced pavements and here it is, the albums, artists and shows I've enjoyed throughout 2010. Happy New Year, folks.

Best Albums

1. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me

2. Deerhunter - Halycon Digest

3. Beach House - Teen Dream

4. Caribou - Swim

5. Damien Jurado - St Bartlett

6. Gayngs - Relayted

7. Clinic - Bubblegum

8. George Thomas and the Owls - Laughing at the Raging Sea

9. Micah P. Hinson - And the Pioneer Saboteurs

10. Darren Hayman - Essex Arms

11. Wolf Parade - Expo 86

12. Gonjasufi - A Sufi and a Killer

13. Jonsi - Go

14. Archie Bronson Outfit - Coconut

15. Gil Scott Heron - I'm New Here

Honourable Mentions

Yuck - Automatic; Sunday; Georgia

Yu(c)k - Automatic from Yuck on Vimeo.

Sleigh Bells - Treats

Wildbirds & Peacedrums - Iris & Retina

Islet - Wimmy & Celebrate this Place

Fists - Olympic Hits EP

Perfume Genius - Mr Peterson

The Superimposers Ashley Beedle Remix EP

Zun Zun Egui - Kass to La Senn

Ones to Watch

Fanzine
Run by Fanzine

Lamp

Flights

O. Children

Zun Zun Egui

Liz Green

Fists

Islet

Yuck

Best gigs

1. Stanley Brinks, Prince Albert, Brighton

2. Beirut, Winter Gardens, Eastbourne

3. Wildbirds and Peacedrums, Union Chapel, London

4. Micah P Hinson, Komedia, Brighton

5. Archie Bronson Outfit, Latitude Festival

6. Darren Hayman, The Lamb Inn, Eastbourne

7. Wolf Parade, Concorde 2, Brighton

8. Deerhunter, Concorde 2, Brighton

9. Fists, Truck Festival, Oxfordshire

10. George Thomas & Golden Ghost, Malborough Theatre, Brighton

2010 in Songs

2010-12-14T19:27:00.005Z

Click here to listen to some of my favourite tracks from 2010.

And this is a brilliant painting by David Lynch.

Short Story: Pirate

2010-12-08T11:21:00.003Z

A mist rolls in across the sea, billowing and thickening around the jagged spines of off-shore rock. Two men, hunched into a crevice on the largest of these rocky outcrops, are smoking roll-up cigarettes. The bluish hue of the smoke they exhale is swallowed instantly by the mist. The blink of the Mevagissey lighthouse is the only thing that penetrates the mist, and then only occasionally.

One of the men reaches into a leather satchel and removes a litre bottle of Asda Smartprice dark rum. He unscrews the lid with three sharp turns before taking a deep swig. He wipes the excess from his lips with the coarse fabric of his sleeve, before tipping the bottle’s neck in the direction of his companion. The bottle is passed back and forth between the men for some time until only a third remains.

The lighthouse flashes again off to the west. The larger of the two men stomps his feet on the rock in front of him. The sound falls in time with the rhythmic churn of the sea, the action lost to the mist.

‘Is it nearly time?’ the smaller man croaks.

The reply comes a minute later; slow and thoughtful,

‘Prepare yourself, Jim. It is approaching.’

The smaller man lights another cigarette. The flame from the match illuminating his face for a brief moment. The skin around his eyes is red and blotchy; small sores weep just below the eye-patch that covers his right eye. The larger man stands, the leather cape he wears unfurling with a dull slap. He reaches slowly inside his cape and removes a bundle. He places the cloth bundle on a shelf of rock behind him and turns to look out to sea. In turning, he dislodges the bottle of rum from its resting place and it smashes on the rocks below.

‘What the hell are you doing? There was still some in there, you dumb whoreson. I paid for it out of me own an’ all.’

Again, only the sound of the sea for several long seconds, then,

‘Hold your tongue, Jim. It’s nearly time.’

The larger man turns once more and starts to unravel the cloth bundle with care. Eventually he removes something from the dark folds and holds it out in front of him with both arms outstretched. The lighthouse blinks in the distance. A match is struck, a cigarette lit, and then flicked to the rocks below. A burst of flames rushes up as the rum ignites. There towering above Jim is the large figure of Blackbeard with his hat angled over the top half of his face. In his right hand is a musket. The flames die away, dowsed by the spray of the sea and it is impossible to see that his beard is in fact ginger.

‘It is time.’

Tugging on a length of thick rope, Jim pulls until a small wooden rowing boat comes into view alongside the lower section of rock. Jim uses his foot to steady the boat against the rock as Blackbeard climbs in. Jim follows him in before pushing off into the mist. Taking up the oars, he starts to row further out to sea.

Ten minutes go by.

‘Stop.’

Three orange lights in a rough triangle are just visible a hundred metres to the starboard of the rowing boat. It was as Blackbeard had expected. He signals to Jim to stop paddling. The boat drifts silently towards the three lights. A commercial fishing vessel comes gradually into view, emerging from the mist.

Blackbeard stands silently and leans across until his hands rest on the side of the fishing boat. Then with one fluid movement, he shifts his weight forward and then up, pulling himself onto the deck.

Jim down below manoeuvres their rowing boat to behind some netting that hangs off the side of the fishing boat. The rhythmic put-put of the boat’s motor sounds out as it heads towards land. The first musket shot splits the night. Jim shakes violently at the deep boom. From somewhere above, he hears Blackbeard's booming voice. Another shot rings out. Then a Tesco carrier bag lands in the bow of the rowing boat and Jim stops shaking. He does not look inside.

A large crack follows and the rowing boat jerks dramatically, nearly capsizing as a large blue plastic box slams down, narrowly missing Jim’s outstretched legs. Next Blackbeard’s body lands in the boat.

‘Away, Jim. Fucking away.’

For the next forty-five minutes, Jim paddles hard through the mist. His arms are completely drained of their strength, but still he paddles. The silence drives him; the silent lure of the bootie. A watery flash from the lighthouse signals that they are approaching land.

Jim drags the boat up onto the sand at the far side of Pentewan beach. Light from the holiday caravans falls upon their haul. Both men sit contemplating a plastic box full of ice with two small unidentifiable fish squashed broken-backed in a corner and a carrier bag of cockles and pebbles.

‘It will do, Jim. For now, it will do.’

‘Aaaargh,’ Jim yells, before taking off his eye-patch and throwing it towards the sea.

‘Aaaaaaargh.’

Flash Fiction - Bed

2010-11-30T11:16:00.007Z

She grimaces, coquettishly, as she lies down. My bed is smaller than those in prison, the mattress thinner. Yet, I have coaxed this sophisticated woman into it. I put on Dylan’s Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowland and actually suggest she listen to the words. After 11 minutes and 23 seconds the track ends. The bed is empty. I grimace.

Photograph by the sublime Ryan McGinley.

Warpaint Interview

2010-11-29T09:28:00.004Z

Words Tom Spooner

I swear bands used to make their debut records more quickly. All it took was 24 hours in someone’s shed with nothing more than that heady mix of cheap cider and ambition to fuel that creative fire. Well, not so for Los Angeles’ four-piece, Warpaint. It has taken them a staggering six years to record their debut album. You’ll be glad to hear though that The Fool’s bruised alt-country is a triumph; all post-punk groove and psychedelia shimmer. It still begs the question: what took them so long? I caught up with Warpaint’s singer and guitarist, Emily Kokal, to find out.

“Nobody was super technical or over serious: we just wanted to do something creative and fun. So we all moved in together and started playing in our garage. And then, after a long while, we started playing shows,” Emily recollects. “It was always a very slow process, but we kept going at it until about 2007 when we started getting more serious.”

It was during this formative period that friend and producer of 2008’s Exquisite Corpse EP, Jake Bercovici, let Warpaint in on a secret: If they wanted to become a truly great band then they’d need to play at least a hundred shows. Warpaint set about doing just that, performing night after night in Los Angeles. So how did such relentless gigging help the band develop? “All that time in LA was great,” Emily recalls. “Because you’re playing for the same people a lot, you have to bring a new flavour. As things evolve, you have that challenge of playing a new show…After a while, we had played so many shows in LA that we just had to move forward.”

It appears that these LA shows gave Warpaint the time and space necessary to explore the full depths of their sound and in turn develop a complete mastery of their music. But when it came to recording a full length album, the band didn’t want to rush things. With a number of line-up changes, including four different drummers, it wasn’t until Stella Mozgawa joined on drums that the band felt ready to record an LP. “She comes with a ferocious energy and she brings that to a lot of the songs,” enthuses Emily. “They still have that ethereal, beautiful quality but it’s a little bit more full spectrum.” The band’s tortoise and hare philosophy has clearly worked; The Fool’s sprawling compositions intricately combine elements of post-rock with the innovative country stylings of bands like Mojave Three.

Having immersed themselves in the Los Angeles music scene for so long, it’s hard to imagine that the city didn’t in some way influence The Fool’s sound. “LA is a lot of things to a lot of people…The geography and all those differences have been a huge learning experience for me coming from a place that is so different, like Oregon. LA has so much going on; you have to find your niche,” Emily explains. “It’s been an interesting backdrop: a lot about growing up in your twenties in Los Angeles and not trying to be somebody.”

But it seems that in terms of Warpaint’s creative output, LA has had little influence. Emily states, “For a while, people were always making associations because we lived in Los Angeles. I feel like LA has had a very small influence on how we write and play music. It’s very funny that we live in Los Angeles. Even though I love it and call it home, we really don’t embody that archetype.”

With an extensive European tour planned in October to coincide with the album’s release, Warpaint are finally making their move. For a band that like doing things at their own speed, there must be a feeling of trepidation as things gather pace. “We are all learning, especially as it gets more intense, that we need to take care of ourselves and stay healthy. The time we spend together on the road has actually been really great for our relationship,” Emily states. “I think it’s really important for all of us to be grateful. We’re doing something together as the four of us, creating something that people can enjoy. To be unified in that is a complete blessing, and makes this the greatest job in the world.”

Published in Spindle Magazine

Gig Review: Born Ruffians, Audio, Brighton 23 November 2010

2010-11-24T19:07:00.008Z

Tonight’s Born Ruffian gig begins in surreal Spinal Tap fashion: an over-enthusiastic smoke machine pumping out Laser Quest levels of fake fog, the band making several thwarted ventures out onto stage and then when they eventually make it out to play, the drummer proceeds to fall spectacularly from the stage.

Thankfully, all it takes is Sole Brother’s laid-back groove to settle the Canadians. Frontman Luke LaLonde delivers the first of many deliciously clean guitar lines and flexes those trademark vocals.

And things continue to get better as the Toronto four-piece set about distilling the headiness of youth into taut indie-pop songs. The bassist and now fully-recovered drummer thunder their way through the complex rhythms of new album, Say It, oozing confidence with each dynamic shift. The crowd responds by doing what young people should – make out, drink hard and jump around like they’re in a Blink 182 video.

Newbies Nova-Leigh and Oh Man may lack the inherent poppiness of old but have danceable beats and a frenetic pull suited to the excitable crowd. But for every Nova-Leigh, there’s a Higher & Higher – a meandering experiment that fails to offer anything tangible. On the other hand, Hummingbird and I Need A Life from Red, Yellow and Blue are so exuberant that it’s impossible not to feel at least young at heart.

The big hooks of their debut have been replaced with more complex and occasionally confused textures suggesting that Born Ruffians are growing up but definitely not old.

Gig review: Micah P Hinson Komedia Brighton 8th November

2010-11-14T17:22:00.004Z

Entering the dark world of Micah P Hinson on a cold November night with the rain teeming down and the winter blues lurking in every shadow, it’s understandable if you feel apprehensive. That same nervousness you might get before watching a Lars Von Trier film; you know it’s going to move you, and shake you out of complacency, but it’s going to hurt.

And yes, there are moments in tonight’s set when the heaviness of the young Texan’s lyrics and emotionally-wrought vocals do strange things to the diaphragm, temporarily winding you, planting a leaden lump deep inside like on As You Can See and Dyin’ Alone. But overall the experience is not depressing; it’s life-affirming. This man may have experienced some dark shit, but he’s come through the other side. And his genuinely funny between-song banter reveals Hinson to be a witty, acerbic, and most charming man. He has taken on the world and won. When dealing with recent media claims that he is a rampant ‘conservative’ he quips: “Sarah Palin bought this microphone…I’m a tea-bagging son of a bitch.”

Tonight Micah is playing alone with nothing more than his guitar. There is no band to recreate the complex textures of his studio output so consequently no string arrangements or percussion to build the musical tension to accompany the lyrical repetitions. But stripped of these adornments, his laments are given new life. His voice is no Willy Nelson whisper, it’s a throat-ripping battle between vocal cords and a tide of emotion, and along with his subtle guitar-playing, provides more than enough dynamism. I Still Remember is transformed into something achingly beautiful and Hinson puts so much into 2s and 3s that the room practically bristles with energy leaving you wondering why this insanely talented performer is not a global success.

Gig Review Yann Tiersen Concorde 2, 5th November 2010

2010-11-08T10:16:00.004Z

After achieving cinematic grandiosity across numerous inventive compositions, Yann Tiersen has more than earned the right to rock out on latest effort Dust Lane. But after half an hour of uninspiring synths, layered guitars, and fey four-piece harmonies there’s something missing.

And then it happens, left alone on stage Tiersen pours himself into his violin and the tempestuous Sur le fil, before thrashing it into oblivion. However, after this flash of genius, it’s back to familiar Sigor Ros-esque textures.

And here’s the strange thing: given Dust Lane’s preoccupation with mortality, why opt for bombastic guitars rather than the instrument which in his hands could communicate that complex gamut of emotions? As impressive as the overall sound is tonight, it’s easy to remain detached, rather than be swept helplessly along in a tide of feeling.

Yuck Review The Hope, Brighton, 6th October

2010-10-11T12:09:00.004+01:00

It must be hard being Yuck - your fuzzy guitar pop is right on trend, you’ve slogged it out touring with everyone from Teenage Fanclub to Modest Mouse, and then at a sweaty Brighton gig your support band (the plucky Fountains of Wayne-esque Fanzine) go and outshine you. And why? Because you lack punch. For all Yuck’s aspirational shoegaze elements, their guitars ultimately fail to wash over the audience. They still show promise: Georgia is a fantastic homage to Yo La Tengo and there is a great wig out in Secret Policeman. When the band end tonight’s set on upcoming single Rubber, a slack slow burner with the refrain “Yes, I kill you” – you can’t help but think kill is optimistic, maybe bruise is more apt.

Pig

2010-09-05T21:19:00.006+01:00

She had only bought the pig because the stain wouldn’t come out of the carpet. It was a bad stain, an ugly stain, and, in all truth, she was struggling to live with it. When any one walked into the room, whether a man who had never been there before, or a family member popping round for tea and a slice of Jamaican ginger, their face would change. The atmosphere soured in an instant. If a body had decomposed on that very spot, it would not have made a worse stain.

I don’t watch the telly anymore. Not since getting the pig. I watch the pig instead. I stare into the tv’s dull grey and watch the pig’s reflection. I would never risk looking at the pig directly in case our eyes met. He would know in an instant that he was only there as a porky smokescreen, an impossible stain-maker.

Illustration by Nuala Murphy

Mindhorn

2010-08-17T21:00:00.004+01:00

There is a cave. It is in a wood.

One day a young boy went to the woods. He spotted a shiny penny in the undergrowth. He bent down, thrusting his hand eagerly into the leaves and twigs. It felt wet. It was wet. Wet from the urine of a bad dog who liked to urinate just as much as he liked to bite.

The penny turned out to be a bottle top.

The boy didn’t want to but knew he had to…he smelt his hand. It was dreadfully smelly. He wretched a little then began to cry. Tears, like constipated turds that did not want to leave but could not stay in, came. The boy looked around for his mother. Then remembered with a sense of sadness that she was with Auntie Pam.

Shopping for bras.

The boy crying and alone with a hand that smelt of the urine of a bad dog walked without seeing. He left the path that he always took, that everyone always took, and headed through a field of bluebells until he reached a darker, colder part of the wood. Not that he knew it yet, but he was close to the cave.

Of course he found the cave and of course he was drawn to it. The blackness called him. Once inside, the boy walked around with hands stretched out in front of him. He could see nothing; hear nothing but the sound of his heart in his head. He would stop and sit awhile and think.

He stayed in the cave for a long time, but then maybe no time at all. There was no bad pop, no haircuts, no buy-one-get-one-free deals on cleaning products, no adverts for Injury Lawyers for him or anyone else, just the darkness, and the songs and pictures in his mind.

He was twenty-seven when he left the cave. He now knew that the urine of a bad dog could be washed off a hand as easily as a bottle top could look like a shiny penny. He had chosen Mindhorn.

I wrote this for an exhibition celebrating Mindhorn. To learn more about Mindhorn follow the link. The above painting is by the fantastic artist Adam Crosland. He is the creator of Mindhorn, if it ever can be said to have been created.

It (Micro Play)

2010-08-13T13:37:00.003+01:00

Gary: It’s still moving, Jimmy.

Jimmy: It’s not an it.

Gary: Well, I don’t know its sex so I can’t say, ‘She’s still moving, she’s about to die’

Jimmy: You could just say what it is, ‘The crow is twitching and about to die’

Gary: That’s no better. Imagine someone going, ‘Look at the human twitching…’

Jimmy: They wouldn’t, because they know my sex. They’d go, ‘Look at HIM twitching, about to die’.

Gary: Why would they know your sex? We don’t know the sex of the crow.

Jimmy: I think it’s going to die soon. Its eyes are going funny.

Gary: See, there you go, you called it it…

Jimmy: Let’s just take it to the vet.

Gary: The crow, you mean? We, me and you, his and his, shall take the crow, be it he or she, to the vet before it dies on us.

Jimmy: Gary, it’s dead. The crow is dead.

New Clinic video

2010-08-09T10:18:00.002+01:00

The mighty Clinic return with this slab of warped pop, I'm Aware, with a trippy video to boost.

Sleigh Bells - Tell 'em

2010-08-02T14:03:00.003+01:00

This song is huge. Crank it.

Download it here and buy the limited 7" when it comes out next week.

Band of the Day from Truck Festival

2010-07-31T15:54:00.003+01:00

BAND THREE

I sat down in a circus tent to eat a lentil daal and onion bhaji cooked by the local Rotary Club. Ralfe Band were playing and it was great. I wish they could soundtrack my every meal. Here they are with Attics.

Band of the Day from Truck Festival

2010-07-30T10:57:00.005+01:00

BAND TWO

Sparky Deathcap is from the North West. He's a bit like Jeffrey Lewis in that he sometimes has illustrations to accompany his songs and he possesses a lo-fi charm and humour . But then Sparky Deathcap seems more morose and there are layers in his lyrics and music which possess gravity beyond anti-folk's surface tension dynamic. When I saw him at Truck my hangover had waned, and seeing his set made me want to start drinking again. In a good way.

Here he is performing at Pure Groove Records

Check out his excellent blog

Band of the Day from Truck Festival

2010-07-29T11:03:00.007+01:00

BAND ONE

I will post a video of three great bands I saw at Truck Festival this year. First up is Nottingham's Fists. They played the Village Pub tent early on Sunday and made me dance. I had a hangover so bad that I sweated constantly and the smell of booze in my sweat got me drunk again so the fact they made me dance is testimony to what a fantastic live band they are. Here they are performing Finger.

Check their myspace

Latitude Festival Review

2010-07-27T23:57:00.004+01:00

Latitude Festival, Henham Park, Southwold, Suffolk
Thursday 15th to Sunday 18th July

In the idyllic grounds of Henham Park, babies crawl after the brightly-coloured sheep grazing by the river, toddlers listen to interpretative theatre through headphones, and well-bred teenagers frolic to dreamy pop with flowers in their hair and their parent’s cash in their pockets. Oh, Latitude, how middle class and lovely you are.

Yet this year a black cloud hovers over the fifth instalment of the festival; a big fat Tory-shaped cloud. The grassroots and fringe culture that Latitude celebrates is under threat from the new government, consequently a growing sense of concern feeds into many of the performances. The comedy may still be rife with jokes about how posh Latitude is, all hummus and Guardian reader jibes, but more often than not genuine anger abounds. Robin Ince and Josie Long are among the angriest, providing compelling and hilarious reasons to mistrust the Conservatives including Long’s: “The Tories don’t even like The Wire!”

Elsewhere, former Beta Band front man Steve Mason devotes half of his stage time to a documentary about the 1984 miners’ strikes. He warns, in an impassioned manner, about the dangers of allowing a government to go unscrutinised, before delivering renditions of Dr. Baker and Madonna’s Borderline. Singer-songwriter David Ford closes out his politically-charged set with She’s Not The One For Me, an anti-love song about Maggie Thatcher, and the aptly named The Agitator, lead by Derek Meins, employ their soulful skiffle stomp to promote direct action. There’s even a hint of foreboding about the bigger bands; The National for one are superbly morose, headlining the Word tent on Friday night.

Thank god then for Saturday night headliners Belle and Sebastian. Propelled by Stuart Murdoch’s wit and inspired dance moves, the Scot’s tweeness is catapulted into a danceable set of textured indie-pop. An impromptu cover of Jumpin’ Jack Flash sits alongside the blue-eyed soul of Funny Little Frog and the heartfelt tenderness of The Fox in the Snow in what is a varied and uplifting set. When a dozen teenagers take excitedly to the stage to bounce around to The Boy with the Arab Strap, the audience has an image to match their joy.

Other musical highlights include gothic rockers O. Children who deliver a brooding synth-driven set deep in the woods. Front man Tobi O'Kandi’s insane baritone and huge physical presence makes the pastiche element of their noir stylings all the more enjoyable, in particular on Dead Disco Dancer. The Archie Bronson Outfit dressed in kaftans are both a visual and aural treat, mixing the beefed up bluesy strut of Derdang Derdang with the doom-disco odyssey that is Coconut. They whip the crowd into such a frenzy that when singer Sam Windett offers free t-shirts to any one prepared to dance naked, one man is quick to shed his clothes without a thought for the burly arms of the security guard that awaits him. In the intense sun, the Dirty Projectors deliver a jaw-dropping set of vocal ingenuity and inventive avant-garde pop. The r’ n’ b influences of Bitte Orca, especially on Stillness is the Move, anchor Longstreth’s creative vision into a more digestible and ultimately pleasurable package.

It is the diversity and quality of the line-up across all stages that sets Latitude apart from the multitude of summer festivals. It is the shows that you stumble across that make the four day event so special. Whether it’s Eddy Argos performing the Art Brut classics Modern Art and Emily Kane or Portishead’s Adrian Utley and Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory recreating their brooding score to the French silent movie, The Passion of Joan of Arc, you can’t help but feel privileged. There’s even enjoyment in watching Miranda Sawyer doing all she can to coax Bret Easton Ellis out of his cocaine comedown to talk about his work, or anything at all for that matter. Long live culture; long live Latitude.

David Ford Gig Review Koko 8th July 2010

2010-07-16T09:41:00.003+01:00

David Ford may not have the exposure he deserves, but he’s certainly bagged some of the best fans going. And they’ve all made it out on this muggiest of nights to sing their hearts out for the former Easyworld front man at Camden’s Koko. They sing all the louder because they are privy to the same secret: David Ford is a fantastic singer-songwriter. Not in the Blunt sense, not even in the Fyfe Dangerfield sense; Ford aspires to blend Springsteen’s muscular protest song with Tom Wait’s smoky bar room balladeering. He is an angry, and you guessed it, sensitive troubadour with a talent that would cause much bed-wetting amongst fellow artists, if they had only heard of him.

Tonight, Ford is backed by a full band featuring indie-rockers The Late Greats along with Gary Page on percussion and the lovely Hannah Peel on trombone, violin, and those all important harmonies. The band bolster Ford’s sound on tracks like St Peter and the recession-themed rockers from new album, Let the Hard Times Roll, including the laid-back groove of She’s Not The One for Me, as much a homage to Maggie Thatcher’s sex appeal as it is to The Faces' Stay With Me. Max Arnold’s lead guitar provides a welcome snarl throughout, particularly on the up-tempo politicising of Surfin’ Guantanamo Bay.

When Ford is left alone on stage mid-set, he delivers This Is Where I Stand with stripped down emo power. Then comes the breathtaking State of the Union where Ford loops several instruments into a soundscape that is in equal parts venomous and technically impressive. It’s Ford’s ability to nail so many styles convincingly without losing his amiable personality that makes him such a captivating performer. Whether it’s the gravelly power ballads, the breezy country-rock or the heart-on-sleeve singalongs, you can’t help but go with him. The fact that his swan song, Cheer Up (You Miserable Fuck), is so damn right euphoric is the most apt of in-jokes.

Scout Niblett Gig Preview

2010-06-04T04:28:00.002+01:00

Scout Niblett is England’s answer to Cat Power, but thankfully minus the tantrums. Although lacking Marshall’s infamous temper, Niblett shares with her the ability to convey goosebump inducing anguish. On latest album, The Calcination of Scout Niblett, uber-producer Steve Albini captured the cathartic energy of her minimalist grunge. The sparseness of Niblett’s sound and the rawness of her vocals mean that any live show is sure to be an intimate and emotional encounter - prepare to shed a tear.

4th June The Fleece Bristol
5th June The Freebutt Brighton

The Bundles Gig Review

2010-05-23T09:09:00.002+01:00

The Komedia, Brighton 20/05/10

A volcanic ash cloud may have prevented anti-folk supergroup, The Bundles, from coming together in Brighton tonight, but it failed to perturb the exuberant Jeffrey Lewis. In honour of his stranded song-writing partner, Kimya Dawson, he waxes lyrical about the pros and cons of the supergroup, even bashing out a delightful cover of the Traveling Willburys' End of the Line. It is his brother Jack, however, who is left with the impossible task of recreating Kimya’s idiosyncratic vocal blend of biting cynicism and casual allure. Ultimately, he falls short and, despite exhibiting lyrical wit and lo-fi charm, tonight’s incarnation of The Bundles fails to erupt.

Words: Tom Spooner

Published at Latest 7

Wolf Parade Gig Review

2010-05-19T20:18:00.002+01:00

Wolf Parade
The Concorde 2, Brighton
17/05/2010

Montreal bands are cool; it’s a given. Yet Wolf Parade may have damaged their credentials after spending the afternoon on Brighton beach playing a game called ‘rock on rock’. The premise is simple, front man Dan Boeckner explains: “You throw a rock up and try and hit it with another rock.”

Thankfully, Wolf Parade’s music remains undeniably cool. And judging by tracks aired tonight from forthcoming album, Expo 86, it’s going to stay that way. The new material sits somewhere between the stripped-down delights of debut, Apologies to Queen Mary It’s A Curse, and the Television-esque prog of At Mount Zoomer. Despite the four-piece insisting on “getting them out of the way,” they are clearly enjoying playing the new tracks. And why not? They are fast, theatrical, and a damn sight less bloated than those on Mount Zoomer. Spencer Krug’s keyboards are still prominent, but it is Boeckner’s clean guitar lines that lift tracks such as Two Men in New Tuxedos. The pair seem happy to be performing together again, especially when they battle head-on to turn California Dreamers into a menacing rock epic.

Some of the new tracks, however, verge on the bombastic and lack a sense of urgency. It was after all the urgency of Wolf Parade’s 2005 debut that made it so refreshing. Thankfully, a sizeable chunk of Apologies… is performed tonight with the anthemic Shine a Light and I Believe in Anything delivered with frenetic energy. The early material fares better overall with the vocals and grooves given more space to work, like on the exhilarating Dear Sons And Daughters Of Hungry Ghosts.

Ultimately, Wolf Parade use the density of their sound to stretch each song to its full potential. At their best, they sound like the aural equivalent of two drunks fighting in a phone box: a heady scrap of driving synths, jerky guitar, and vocal warble. It remains to be seen if Expo 86 will deliver the knock-out blow.

As published on the Fly Magazine

Wolf Parade

2010-05-03T18:12:00.004+01:00

Two tracks from the new Wolf Parade album, EXPO 86, streaming at Pitchfork. Woop woop!

WOLF PARADE

The Old Lady and the Record Shop

2010-04-22T10:15:00.002+01:00

Record shops are never busy; they are the domain of that rare oxymoronic creature, the cool-nerd. Each time the door opens in a record shop, it is an event; music escapes out into the world, a person gets sucked inside.

On the road that leads from the Old Town to the rundown housing estates is Euphoria, a specialist dance vinyl retailer situated amongst the kebab shops, massage parlours and auto-repair shops. The door swings open and an old lady enters, determinedly dragging a tartan shopper behind her. She has odd earrings; it is not clear if this is through choice or senility. Her lips are painted carefully in a colour a little too close to purple. There are two other people in the shop; a man sat on a bar stool behind the counter, staring with twitching eyes at a computer screen, and a hooded figure that despite the baggy folds of fabric gives the impression of being bony, angular. He is flicking rapidly through the vinyl in the Psy-trance section and wearing headphones that emit a high-pitched chirrup; another layer of snares to the jump-up jungle that shakes from the shop’s speakers.

The old lady pushes past the hooded figure assertively, but with a smile glued to her face. She knows that ‘Excuse me’ would stand no chance. After passing several metal racks of records that seem to loom over her, she reaches the counter. She feels like she has just climbed through the asshole of the future; it was most unpleasant.

The hooded figure turns off his iPod but leaves his headphones in. The old lady is about to speak to the owner – this has got to be worth a listen, he thinks, lifting out a record to examine the label more closely. The owner, leaning nonchalantly on the counter, straightens himself only slightly. From then on in, the angular figure only catches odd phrases:

“Woolies – shut down. HMV – too confusing. Asda – too bloody big. […] Song off that advert. Red car … hills. […] Sounds like a black fella. Lovely deep voice… Treacle…. Lovely…. Just lovely. Do you have it?”

The owner hesitates before shaking his head. He somehow knew how sad it would be to watch this old lady so purposeful and confident, deflate so suddenly. Then something happens. Almost as an afterthought, the owner says something to her whilst tapping at the keyboard. He then slowly turns the screen round towards her. It is the YouTube home page. The angular figure presses play on his iPod as the owner begins to explain how the website works. The old woman then proceeds to shake her head over and over. After ten minutes, her face suddenly stretches taught in a huge beaming grin and she raises a finger defiantly. The owner writes something down on a piece of paper and hands it to her, smiling as if he was being photographed handing over a prize cheque. She takes it, puts it in her purse with a pat, then scurries out, forgetting her tartan shopper.

Teignmouth Pier Photo Blog

2010-04-16T16:44:00.004+01:00

I went to Devon on holiday. Here is what I saw.

Tom's Food Diary

2010-04-08T15:00:00.008+01:00

I'm working for a restaurant magazine this week. Here is an account of what I ate for lunch:

Day 1

There is no canteen here. The only place that serves food in walking distance is a gargantuan leisure centre, home to a climbing wall, swimming pool, and to Crawley's chaviest inhabitants. You might expect the food to be healthy in such a place. It is not. Children get free orange juice to wash down their chips and pizza, and that's as good as it gets.

I opt for 'chicken and leek soup and half a baguette' - the only option not wallowing in saturated fat under the hot lights. And still, despite all I'd seen, I was excited by what might be in the half baguette - mature cheddar cheese; ham salad; a beefburger sliced in two...

I took my tray and tried to find a table. I decided to avoid the row of paedophiles oggling the toddlers in the pool through the giant glass wall; and the seats located in spitting distance of the climbers; instead I opted to face three sour-faced receptionists, clearly bitter after experiencing the enforced irony of having to sit all obese and lazy in a temple of exercise.

The baguette was not a baguette but the nobby of a baguette; the hardened talon of a bread monster who came into power after ridding the universe of good bakers. It was not overflowing with fresh fillings but whole and hard as the hobs of hell. And the soup, well the soup was appaling. A green snot of stock and mechanically-separated chicken. There was so much salt in it that my eyes began to crust up: I looked like I'd just woken up from a thousand year sleep.

George Thomas & The Owls Gig Review

2010-03-17T22:11:00.001Z

George Thomas & The Owls

Marlborough Theatre, Brighton

Brighton’s Marlborough Theatre is tonight beautifully bedecked with flowers and fairy lights; a fitting locale for Sshh! Promotions and Simple Folk’s line-up of understated, underappreciated guitar music. The onstage adornments also serve as a playful contrast to the dark folk tales of tonight’s headliner, George Thomas.

Tonight, Manchester’s man Thomas is Owl-less, performing without the band that brought a sprightly musicality to his three ultra lo-fi albums. With only a battered electro-acoustic guitar and a microphone, Thomas is still an interesting prospect: tree surgeon by day; twisted folk troubadour by night, with his music similarly awash with contradictions.

Thomas is also incredibly shy, something only heightened this evening by the Marlborough Theatre’s intimate space. He attempts to disguise his shyness through a feigned nonchalance that sadly alienates a significant portion of the audience, coming across as arrogance. At points in the set it seems that Thomas can’t summon the energy to play or sing properly. What is closer to the truth is that he is uncomfortable parading as an accomplished musician or singer – he knows he is neither. To point out Thomas’ technical short-comings misses the point entirely: his monotone singing is odd, occasionally off-key, and his guitar playing scrappy at best but then this makes it even more pleasurable when he seemingly stumbles across the most delicate melody mid-track.

Thomas’ appeal lies chiefly in his lyrics, which drip with irony and wit, and in a live setting would only appear trite against a more polished musical back-drop. Tonight, Thomas plays very little from any of his three recorded albums instead focussing on gentle near-throw-away ballads that exist only long enough to conjure an image much like a William Carlos William poem. He does however play Brighton Pier and Asbestos from this year’s excellent, ‘Laughing at the Raging Sea’. Asbestos is a deliciously macabre tale of a man punching a hole in the ceiling of his house after splitting up with his partner only to then inhale asbestos particles. Thomas’ humour also lapses into the downright silly with a ditty about a waterproof, fireproof, deathproof spacesuit. Sadly, for the majority of Thomas’ set, his awkward onstage manner detracts from his carefully pitched ironies and the audience tend to laugh at him more than with him.

Ultimately Thomas does little tonight to win over those unconvinced of his talent, yet for those intrigued by his idiosyncratic world-view, he proves himself as both the diamond and the rough.

Yuck Free Download

2010-02-21T11:58:00.005Z

I came across Yuck just last week and have found myself listening to the same four songs repeatedly ever since. Yuck are a four-piece based in North London who make delicately fuzzed-up shoegaze pop. For such a new band, they seem to already possess a complete mastery of their sound. The artwork on their blog is also amazing.

The beautiful beguiling 'Automatic' is available for free download so just click below.

Automatic

Yuck will be supporting the equally brilliant Times New Viking on their UK tour this spring (dates below). And will release the single ‘Georgia’ on a limited edition split 7” with Ohioan Nick Tolarg on Transparent Records on March 15th so check it out.

Yuck in support of Times New Viking:

March

18 Nice & Sleazys, Glasgow
19 The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
21 The Portland Arms, Cambridge

April

26 The Rest Is Noise, London
27 Arts Centre, Norwich
28 The Masque, Liverpool
29 Bodega Social Club Nottingham
30 Stereo, York

May

1 The Victoria - Birmingham

Please Be Quiet Please Blog

2010-02-20T12:23:00.002Z

I wrote a blog for those lovely people at The Fly Magazine.

Please be Quiet, Please

2009

2010-01-10T11:15:00.003Z

Best of the Year Blog

Well, it’s 2010. How about it. Arctic winds, bad skin, black ice, hangovers, snow, chapped lips, a pot belly that shows no signs of diminishing, more snow, and it’s only day ten. Now add to that an unavoidable sense of nostalgia and nerdishness that has led me to compile this best of the year list. Here goes:

Albums

Flaming Lips – Embryonic
Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern – Pram Town
Alec Ounsworth – Mo Beauty
We All Have Hooks For Hands – The Shape Of Energy
Staff Benda Bilili – Tres Tres Fort
Vetiver – Tight Knit
Wildbirds & Peacedrums – The Snake
She Keeps Bees – Nest
Mouthful of Bees – Mouthful of Bees
Let’s Wrestle – In The Court of The Wrestling Lets
A Hawk and A Hacksaw – Deliverance
Gable – I’m Ok
Akron/Family - Set 'Em Wild, Set Em Free
Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs

Live Shows

Vic Chesnutt & Elf Power – Polish Club, Bristol
Dirty Three – Green Man Festival, Brecon Beacons
Omar Souleyman, Group Doueh, Akron/Family - Fiddlers, Bristol
Gable – The Cube, Bristol
Staff Benda Bilili – Fiddlers, Bristol
T-Model Ford – Thekla, Bristol
Dirty Projectors - Mountain of 8, Arnolfini, Bristol
Fanfarlo – The Cavern, Exeter
Daniel Johnston & Wave Pictures – Trinity Centre, Bristol
Wildbirds & Peacedrums – Mountain of 8, Arnolfini, Bristol
Lightning Bolt – Fleece, Bristol
Roni Size with Bristol Chamber Orchestra and Choir – Colston Hall
Zun Zun Egui – Green Man Festival, Brecon Beacons
AU & Fredrick Stanley Star – The Cube, Bristol
Hawk and Hacksaw - Fiddlers, Bristol

Gig Preview Tommy Emmanuel

2009-11-26T08:27:00.001Z

Tommy Emmanuel, Colston Hall, Bristol Saturday December 5th

Tommy Emmanuel is a remarkable guitarist, a virtuoso in fact, but more importantly he is a performer. The Australian has been playing guitar since the age of four, professionally since the age of ten, and until recently still managed to exceed three hundred shows a year. During his remarkable career, he has played alongside Eric Clapton and Les Paul, and recorded an album with his idol Chet Atkins.

Stylistically, Atkins’ finger-picking style is a good starting point in describing Emmanuel’s playing. Yet Emmanuel has moved beyond traditional finger-picking to incorporate melody, rhythm, bass, and drum parts simultaneously through a series of innovative techniques. The acoustic guitar is pushed to its limits by Emmanuel. December’s show at the Colston Hall promises to be special, as at long last Emmanuel is offered a UK venue grand enough to house his talent.

Hangover

2009-11-20T19:52:00.004Z

The journey lasts twenty-nine and a half steps. I awake. I don’t know if it is night or day. My tongue feels out ulcers and layers of staleness in my parched papyrus mouth. It tastes of, or maybe just is, rotting flesh. I drag my legs out from under the covers then my arms from beneath my pillow, narrowly avoiding the pint of water I failed to drink. A pirate sea battle mist of farts chunders out from beneath the disturbed duvet, filling my nostrils then the room with the stench of compost, corrupt high-pitched spices and mouldy tarpaulin.

I stand, instantly unsteady on my feet as the room tilts. My bladder closes around my lungs, sups the focus from my eyes, and grinds against my brain. I step on the loose change that has spilt from my jeans which lie discarded on the floor at the end of the bed. Even though my mind is not capable of thought, I get the distinct impression that there should be more money than there is on the carpet. Did I really spend that much? I step over my jeans not yet knowing that the juice from some ill-advised meat-salad-sauce combo will never come out. I track the perimeter of the bed, safe in the knowledge that if I fall it is there to catch me.

Walking through the doorway, I clasp momentarily at its wooden frame as nausea snakes around my intestines before spitting yet more venom into my stomach. The next three steps are more desperate, my feet feigning confidence as my bladder takes charge once more. Then, at last, the toilet bowl. I start to piss. Like a good story, this piss has a beginning, a middle and an end, however, it lasts too long like a work of historical fiction. Four pints of cider, two ales, two lagers and four dark rums and coke seem to leave my body in the same time they took to enter it.

My bladder flexes making sure that it is empty whilst simultaneously dispelling all remaining energy from my body. It is at this moment that I realise I can no longer be upright. I sit down quickly on the bathroom floor, telling myself it doesn’t count as falling. I sense the black veil of unconsciousness twitch just out of sight.

Two minutes go by. I touch my hair, greasy and clumped, then my face, dry and ugly, a scab formed over my regret. I pivot, spinning around on my ass, before shimmying forward half a step across the lino. I stop and listen, trying to hear beyond the incessant ringing in my ear. There is only ringing. My steps are longer now. I head back to the bed, quicker, as my brain threatens to implode.

As I collapse into my bed, I knock the pint of water onto my pillow. I rest my head in the wet regardless. Amongst this agony, this dampness, I long for sleep, resolution, and an altogether more subtle way of my body letting me know that I should never drink again.

Gig Preview Staff Benda Bilili @ The Fiddlers, Bristol Wednesday 18th November

2009-11-12T10:09:00.018Z

Staff Benda Bilili, whose name translates to ‘look beyond appearances’, are a group of paraplegic musicians from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Comprised of four senior singers/guitarists and a much younger rhythm section of former sheges (street children), Staff Benda Bilili are clearly not your average touring band.

Prior to embarking on this, their first European tour, Staff Benda Bilili’s live performances have almost exclusively taken place in the streets around Kinshasa zoo. As street musicians, they took their passionate vocal harmonies, complex rhythms and educational messages direct to the people.

Released in March this year, the band's critically-acclaimed debut album, Très Très Fort, mixes Congolese soukous and rumba styles with a strong blues sensibility. There are even aspects of James Brown’s unmistakable funk thrown in for good measure. It shouldn’t work but it most definitely does. There is a unique life-affirming spirit that pervades the album, bringing cohesion to these diverse influences.

The capturing of Staff Benda Bilili’s energy may well have something to with parts of the album being recorded live outside the zoo. On the haunting track Polio, where the band urge parents to innoculate their children against the disease that afflicted them, you can actually hear the toads croaking in the reptile house.

Wednesday’s gig at the Fiddler’s promises to be a departure in every sense for Staff Benda Bilili. For us, it is a chance to witness their spirit triumph yet again.

www.myspace.com/staffbendabilili

Published online at Bristol 24-7
www.bristol247.com/2009/11/12/music-to-show-how-spirit-can-triumph-over-adversity/

The Costellos

2009-11-09T09:04:00.005Z

Congratulations to the Costellos who won the Wiltshire Battle of the Bands competition. The best act to come out of the 'don since XTC. Young, gifted and Swindonians....

http://www.myspace.com/thecostellomusic

Handsome Furs Gig Review

2009-11-02T15:05:00.004Z

Handsome Furs The Cooler Friday 30th October

Bounding onto the Cooler’s stage complete with its cardboard skeletons, the husband and wife duo of Handsome Furs appear genuinely pleased to be here. It may have something to do with them escaping their accommodation for the night, a place they describe as a rundown rural “trailer park” where feral children catch mutant fish. In what is only their second ever gig outside of London, Handsome Furs may well have glimpsed a dark side of England. Perhaps though they will find inspiration in this, after all the sinister aspects of society has been something of a lyrical preoccupation on both of their albums.

The Montreal duo of Dan Boeckner, best known as lead singer with Wolf Parade, and wife Alexei Perry kick off tonight’s show with fuzzed-up synth punk. They rip through several tracks from this year’s Face Control album including Clash-esque strut of I’m Confused. Then the tension and momentum of the set builds as the songs get more complex with various layers of sound added. Boeckner’s guitar work is impeccable, fleshing out Perry’s up-tempo drum beats and synth lines. Perry is an energetic if slightly unhinged figure, bouncing around as she dominates the synths and beats. On stage they are a sexy, hedonistic and charming couple; the melancholy and sense of doom present in their tracks is softened by the amount of fun they appear to be having. When they state these are “sad songs,” it’s almost difficult to believe them.

The slow-burn, nihilistic throb of Cannot Get Started and Sing Captain! stand out, sounding epic and brooding. By the time Handsome Furs Hate This City reaches its crescendo, the audience is left in no doubt that this band are much more than a side project, much more than husband and wife. Handsome Furs like to party, fuck and play music; the secret to a good marriage, apparently.

GaBLé Gig Review

2009-10-18T17:28:00.003+01:00

GaBLé The Cube Cinema, Saturday 17th October

GaBlé are hilarious. Their performance tonight establishes them as bona fide comedy geniuses. Like artist David Shrigley, the French trio combine naivety with the macabre to create a world that is deliciously uncanny. Their songs, which rarely extend beyond two minutes, have a lyrical brevity and precision which maximises their comic impact. These vivid snapshots are made all the more effective by the multifarious musical backdrop which simultaneously builds the comedy dynamism, whilst elevating the tracks above mere comedy songs.

Mathieu, Thomas, and Gaella are unassuming figures; on stage they smile sweetly and nod modestly in response to the rapturous applause, seemingly oblivious to the idiosyncratic strangeness and scope of their musical vision. Take, for example, Thomas who from the left of the stage reads in English a list of random objects from scraps of paper concealed inside a cardboard box. (“Chainsaw. Arrows. Head-cutting wire.”) He does so as if it is the most normal thing in the world. When not narrating, he conveys emotion through a series of yelps, sobs, facial ticks and full-body twitches. Throughout the diminutive Gaella employs a fog horn, a Native American war cry and a tape player in bursts of unrestrained glee. Then there is Mathieu who at one point in the set dons an Elvis mask and launches into a leg- trembling version of All Shook Up. As the beats tumble around his King impersonation, the bewildered audience descend into laughter.

Yet each word and sound is deliberate, carefully chosen for effect. It is delightfully apt that to close out a song about unrequited love and an ugly duck, the threesome launch into a barrage of duck noises. Equally delightful are the songs about being eaten, the functions of a remote control, and the debauched acts of a drunk fox in London.

GaBlé offer up close harmonies, recorder solos, delicate xylophone motifs, frenetic broken beats, guitars played with drills, and speech-impeded hip-hop: it really shouldn’t work, but it most definitely does.

Bristol Gig Preview GaBLé The Cube

2009-10-14T19:17:00.001+01:00

GaBLé with support from A Press of Suspects - The Cube Cinema, 17th October

French anti-folk surrealists GaBlé bring their innovative genre-blurring sounds to Bristol’s Cube Cinema this coming weekend. The three-piece from Normandy will be performing tracks from their critically-acclaimed album Seven Guitars With a Cloud of Milk along with choice cuts from this year’s mini-LP I’m Ok. Although defying simple classification, GaBlé combine elements of Tunng’s folktronica, the leftfield beat poetry of Bonzo Dog Do Dah Band, and the deconstructionist pop of Moldy Peaches at play.

In a live setting, what sounds on record to be a beguiling if haphazard musical collage promises to be as challenging as it is fun. As your brain struggles to piece together the links between the avant garde poetry, it must do the same with the music, connecting the disparate elements of folk, jazz, electronica and Kraut-rock. There is also an intriguing contemporary quality to GaBlé with their attention-deficit cut and paste style held together by a hyper-modern blend of violence, post-irony and off-centre humour.

As one of only three UK appearances, this is a unique opportunity to find out just how GaBlé will recreate the chaos of their studio recordings in the live setting. If that wasn’t incentive enough, the Cube’s superb theatre space is ideally suited to their blend of postmodern playfulness and performance art. Expect beards, samplers, French humour and a whole host of unusual props-cum-instruments in what is certain to be a hilarious, entertaining and ultimately rare chance to witness partly-insane wholly-original music in its conception.

www.myspace.com/gableacute

Two Cocks in the Country

2009-09-30T18:08:00.004+01:00

Since July, my good friend Elliott has been attentively rearing two chickens in his garden. He built them a coop, christened them Betty and Leia, fed them, and even read Animal Farm to prepare for all eventualities. He has waited day after day, week after week, month after month for eggs, but none have come.

It is now fast approaching October, all of three months later and the chickens have failed to lay a single egg. Instead, they have sprouted red frilly bits from their heads, started attacking Elliott’s dog and developed the habit of crowing very early in the morning. It turns out the chickens are cocks. Betty and Leia are in fact Bruce and Luke. Without the ability to lay eggs, Bruce and Luke are of no real use to Elliott. Seeing as all they do is cock-a-doodle-do in a quiet residential street in Swindon and terrorise the dog, Elliott has decided that they're going to have to go.

Elliott fills me in on the dire situation in the pub. On hearing his plight, I instantly volunteer to follow him every step of the way until he resolves his dilemma. The next morning I receive a text – it turns out that today we’re going direct to the farm where the chickens were purchased. I agree to accompany Elliott not to provide muscle but to witness first hand two grown adults trading endless cock puns. Elliott pulls up at my house an hour later. He pops the boot and gets out of the car. Inside the boot within a large cardboard box are two impressive feathered-creatures strutting in a distinctly manly way. I can tell that Elliott is proud of them; they are well-groomed chickens with glossy feathers and prominent masculine chests. There is a certain sadness in Elliott’s face as he folds over the cardboard box and closes the boot; they are his pets after all and he could never blame them for their sex that has rendered them so completely useless.

We drive through the market town of Wootton Bassett, where the residents call earwigs earth-prawns, and out to the country road where the farm is located. We pull into the large gravel driveway alongside the farmhouse. I instantly feel uncomfortable as we drive noisily over the lightly-talcumed gravel, disrupting the small stones. This is an intrusion, an affront and farmers tend to shoot and ask questions later. I am aware that we have already created a bad impression, and that is before the farmer has even seen our city-boy clothes and heard our city-boy predicament. No phone call, no email just two boys with two cocks rocking up at a farmhouse with a gender-orientated complaint. Getting out of the car, we walk with as much purpose as we can muster over to the door and knock. After a few moments, an attractive young woman in jodhpurs opens the door. Elliott decides to opt out of any niceties and comes out with the bare bones of it, the elemental unadorned truth: “I bought two chickens in July. They turned out to be cocks.” The statement hangs there in the air, doing nothing for a tortuous amount of time. It doesn’t help that she really is quite attractive.

Eventually, the young woman explains that we’ll need to speak to her dad but that he’s away. She doesn’t say where. We stand there, still in her doorway, clueless. She shouts up to her mum who confirms that yes, indeed, we need to speak to her dad. A mobile number is recited. Back in the car, we sit saying nothing. Things didn’t go to plan. The cocks scratch rowdily in the boot, incensed by the sound of other chickens.

The reality of the situation presents itself thus: Elliott bought two chickens, costing five pounds each in July. They were supposed to be hens; purchased as hens. In fact, as we now know, they are cocks; cocks do not lay eggs. Elliott wants eggs for his tea and breakfast; cocks will not lay these eggs. Elliott needs to get rid of the cocks and get some hens. However, Elliott did not buy the chickens in Primark; he has no receipt. All he has is a mobile number of a farmer and two cocks in the boot.

Elliott calls the mobile number; no answer. He calls again and leaves a message. I can’t help but think if I was a farmer and received the message Elliot left, I would not call back. To cheer ourselves up, we make puns about giving our cocks to the daughter. It works for a while.

We decide to drive back to Wootton Bassett; today is market day after all. A town-crier is crying about the market as we walk through the arcade. Inevitably, we visit the market; Elliott buys a pig’s trotter (for the dog) and I buy some lighter fluid (to clean my LPs). It dawns on me as we put our purchases in the car that if we were to have a car accident it would look distinctly weird. Two live chickens in a box, a rotten pig’s foot and some highly flammable liquid is a hell of a lot more suspicious than wearing an embarrassing pair of boxer shorts. It is time to call the farmer again. This time he answers; his name is Alan. I try to listen in as Elliott proceeds to say yes a total of seventy six times in fifteen minutes. After this time, Elliott puts the mobile on the dashboard and looks confused.

“Yes?” I enquire.

“Alan doesn’t have any hens, but he will take the cocks. Only he’s not in to take them today. He told me that a man called Steve in another farm has hens for sale. But Steve won’t take the cocks in case they’re diseased.”

Elliott is indeed confused. Not only has Elliott fed, watered and loved these useless cocks for three months, but he has just wasted half a tank of petrol driving out here and spent the best part of his mobile credit on a ridiculous and fruitless conversation with a farmer called Alan. He is not going to get any money, nor hens, nor does it seem any form of compensation. Our only hope rests with Steve who has hens but that does not resolve the issue of the cocks which incidentally are beginning to smell. And worst of all, I only got to hear one side of the cock-pun conversation.

Steve’s farm is a little further into the county but we find it easy enough following the signs for free range eggs. The farms is expansive with several outbuilding and thousands of chickens running free in great fields beneath electricity pylons. We walk through the farm before coming across a lady who directs us to Steve. It turns out Steve has never head of Alan, but yes, on Saturday morning he will have thousands of hens for sale for only a pound each. The hens are no longer commercially viable and are to be slaughtered. He asks Elliott how many he would like.

‘Three,’ Elliott replies.

‘Three hundred?’ Steve asks.

‘No, just three,” clarifies Elliott.

We get back in the car henless and disheartened, knowing that this farm is soon to be overrun with blood and feathers. Somehow Elliott has also been burdened with the moral sting of only being able to save three, not three hundred, or three thousand chickens from their death. Once more we hit the road, heading back to Alan’s farm, the source of all problems. Pulling up outside the farmhouse with yet more noise and churning of gravel, Elliott proceeds to open the boot and with great speed and dexterity punches air holes in the cardboard box with his car-keys. Then in one fluid movement he dumps the cardboard box containing the two cocks on the back porch, knocks on the door before jumping back in the car. We speed away from the farmhouse. I can’t help but think, “That’ll teach you for being a cock,” over and over in my head as the comfort of urban Swindon becomes closer.

Invada Invasion Review

2009-09-27T13:00:00.008+01:00

Invada Invasion curated by Geoff Barrow featuring Zu, Mogwai, Zun Zun Egui, F**k Buttons; Colston Hall, Saturday September 26th

Invada Records’ mission statement is to avoid genre-specific releases in order to expose underground artists. It is therefore no surprise that label boss and Portishead founder Geoff Barrow’s Invasion of the Colston Hall defies simple classification. The mini-festival features acts from the Invada label alongside acclaimed international artists; all of which plough a defiantly individualistic line, sharing with Barrow an uncompromising commitment to the experimental.

Colston Hall’s new multi-levelled foyer with its series of staircases and bridges is clinical in its architectural lines. The space is detached from emotion, unapologetically so, which has certain parity with the music it hosts, in particular Italian no-wave metallers Zu. Zu’s set traverses and transcends genre with exhilarating results, as they aggressively punctuate their idiosyncratic punk noise with mathsy broken beats. It is a unique experience to witness the crowd far above the stage breath life into the space as they rock back and forth amongst the bisecting lines of the elevated walkways.

In the second hall, Zun Zun Egui bring together Tortoise's post-rock groove with West African guitar phrases and a whole host of other disparate influences in a mesmerising postmodern stew. The rhythm section is sufficiently tight to grant the guitar and synths freedom to jump between psychedelia, soukous, noise, and beyond. Bristol is lucky to have such an original act to call its own.

Over in the main hall, Mogwai perform the stand out tracks from their six studio albums with technical aplomb in a set that although impressive lacks structure. Their instrumental post-rock is reduced to a series of isolated thematic discourses as the dynamic tension is contained within each track. With better programming, Mogwai could have delivered a more holistic set without seeming disjointed. The sound although impressively large was overwhelmed by top-end frequencies which ultimately detracted from the experience further. After the initial impact of seeing Mogwai in the Colston Hall, there was insufficient flow to link their moments of brilliance.

A far more upbeat experience came from local heroes and musical trailblazers, F**k Buttons who closed out the festival from the foyer stage. With their distorted big beat deconstructing melodic and rhythmic convention it was typical of the Invada Invasion experience: indefinable, challenging, and quite brilliant.

Events of this calibre actively facilitate the transition from concert hall to cutting edge performance space, placing the Colston Hall at the forefront of Bristol culture. Let’s hope that the invasions continue and that the Colston Hall’s boundaries never become fixed.

Roni Size and William Goodchild with The Emerald Ensemble, Colston Hall, Bristol

2009-09-26T12:46:00.005+01:00

Roni Size’s Reprazent and William Goodchild with The Emerald Ensemble; Colston Hall Friday September 25th

And on the eighth day, God gave us Roni Size.

Day eight in Colston Hall’s ten day launch programme for its new multi-million pound foyer sees the world premiere of the collaboration between drum ‘n’ bass maestro Roni Size and orchestrator William Goodchild. Over several months, the pair have mined their creative muses and built on common influences to create the original compositions debuted tonight.

The recently reformed Reprazent are joined on stage by Bristol’s Emerald Ensemble chamber orchestra along with a choir to perform what Size has termed ‘Future: Retro’ music. The concert is impeccable, the sound gargantuan. Size’s intelligent take on jungle is bolstered with a percussive fullness from the orchestra; the break-beats made all the more dramatic with the addition of sweeping strings. The soul and jazz facets of drum ‘n’ bass are drawn out in the compositions; the classical element ultimately affording them more emotional and sonic depth. With Goodchild and Size at the helm, the two disparate musical genres grow into a fully formed organic entity.

In a mid-concert sojourner, Size breaks from the lush orchestration to pay homage to his jungle routes with a DJ set of sharp jump-up cuts. Then Reprazent prove once again why they are one of the best live acts around as they showcase with passion and focus the elements of the genre that are too frenetic and dirty for the orchestra. The thirty plus musicians then come together for Brown Paper Bag from 1997’s New Forms album. The track sounds as fresh and deliciously complex as ever; the taught bass line and strings negotiating the musical layers with exhilarating results. Onallee’s vocals, incredible all night, peak here with her impassioned call that simultaneously makes hairs stand on end and ignites the dance floor. Realising his role as a true Master of Ceremonies, Dynamite MC excels throughout; he hypes the crowd and adds further dynamism to the music with his immaculate flow.

Tonight’s encore of Share the Fall with its refrain of ‘together we can change it all’ encapsulates the positivity of the collaboration and goes some way to repositioning Colston Hall in a positive schema for the people of Bristol. Although all that glisters is not gold, there is no doubt that the management has shown an unerring and admirable commitment to diversity and local talent in its celebratory opening programme. Drawing a line under the hall’s contemptible origins in the slave trade, Size and Goodchild have propelled the venue into the future with the spirit of unity.

Darren Hayman Gig Preview

2009-09-07T18:25:00.002+01:00

Darren Hayman & the Secondary Modern, Fleece, Thursday 10th September

Darren Hayman, the one time front man of Indie heroes Hefner, has consistently written nuanced lyrics that expose with wit and tenderness the frailties of human relationships. Since Britain’s largest small band split in 2002, Hayman has been keeping busy as a prolific solo artist, producing his most consistent work earlier this year with concept album Pram Town. Backed by the Secondary Modern, Hayman will be treating the Fleece to a large helping of Pram Town alongside some new songs and Hefner rarities. The tour also coincides with the re-issue of the expanded We Love the City, so here’s hoping that Hayman will offer up one or two of the infectious horn-laden gems from Hefner’s crowning moment.

Wildbirds & Peacedrums Video for My Heart

2009-09-03T18:18:00.002+01:00

Here is the rather lovely Sara Frisk animation video to accompany Wildbirds & Peacedrums new single My Heart.

Green Man Festival, Glanusk Park Estate, Brecon Beacons, August 21st – 23rd

2009-08-26T17:31:00.004+01:00

Nestled within the rolling hills of the Brecon Beacons, Green Man is a serene festival in every respect. With a line-up spanning folk, indie, rock, and psychedelia and an atmosphere of calm and warmth pervading the site, the festival strikes a wonderful balance between arts festival and idyllic family holiday.

Despite the appeal of each of the main stage’s high calibre headliners, they all disappoint to some extent. The disparity between potential and actuality was greatest with Animal Collective. The Marylanders were unable to recreate the scope of their fantastic Merriweather Post Pavillian with their performance distinctly self-conscious and bordering on the dull. Jarvis Cocker played an entertaining set peppered with his acerbic wit, but the majority of his songs were derivative and a long, long way from the quality of Pulp. Finally Wilco, who are clearly at the top of their game, delivered an accomplished set albeit too quiet, too clinical to ignite the crowd.

Saturday evening was much more entertaining with Vetiver on the Far Out stage splitting their set between mellow Country laments dripping in close-harmonies to more uptempo rollicking tunes. Shortly after, over on the main stage, Bon Iver adapts the fragility of his For Emma album to the festival stage successfully harnessing its emotive qualities whilst broadening its sonic range.

On Sunday afternoon, Jeremy Dyson delivered a typically macabre story within the Literature tent from his new short story collection, The Cranes That Build the Cranes. The non-performing member of The League of Gentleman was both charming and witty but it was the quality of his material that stood out. The story captivated the audience despite the occasional barrage of power chords swirling from a nearby stage.

Dirty Three were quite simply stunning, delivering the set of the festival. Their tempestuous violin-lead instrumentals ebbed and flowed through their superb back catalogue. The inimitable Warren Ellis even surpassed Jarvis in terms of humorous between song banter.

Other highlights of the weekend included Brooklyn-based blues-grunge duo She Keeps Bees fronted by the charming Jessica Larrabee; Beach House’s set of dream-like pop added a Lynchian twist to Saturday afternoon, and Bristol’s Zun Zun Egui whose melting pot of musical styles and admirable energy exploded on to the stage, giving the finger to the more middle of the road folk acts.

After the dramatic burning of the Green Man on the Sunday night, Finders Keepers founder and DJ Andy Votel delivered a typically obscure yet danceable sub-genre set into the early hours. With his cuts consistently sharp and tracks kept short to maximise impact, his globe-spanning set communicated an unrivalled passion for music. Reeling within the psychedelic confines of the Far Out tent, it was impossible to imagine that in just a few hours the rain would be falling and us revellers would be trudging back to a once distant, mundane reality.

2000 Trees Festival Review

2009-07-20T07:35:00.008+01:00

2000 Trees Festival, Upcote Farm near Cheltenham July 17th and 18th

As rain teems down on the ancient countryside of Withington, a familiar feeling of doubt rises up – another wet summer festival, will it be worth it?

The answer is of course yes. 2000 Trees is a small festival, tiny even, with only two stages and a miniscule dance tent, but its size makes the personal efforts of the organisers all the more noticeable and affecting. A warm communal spirit pervades the festival and sees that proceedings run smoothly for revellers of all ages. The facilities are excellent: clean, fully-equipped toilets, delicious food from Pieminster and Lechyd-da amongst others, and the ever-friendly Lebowski bars serving pints cheaper than most city bars, including the highly-potent Badger’s Bottom cider.

Friday’s line-up on the main stage is dominated by guitar bands at the heavier end of the spectrum. The King Blues, as with Imperial Leisure on the Saturday, offer up crowd-pleasing festival fayre, blending ska, punk and rap to inspire some enthusiastic skanking. Headliners Fightstar offer little beyond the novelty of witnessing Charlie-from-Busted growling over a cod-metal riff. In the tented Leaf Stage, Let’s Tea Party are an altogether more interesting prospect, but nothing comes close to the delirious pleasure to be had at the Headphone Disco.

Equipped with headphones and the choice of two DJs, 750 party people are encouraged to dance into the early hours under the stars. The headphones, with some assistance from Badger’s Bottom, dissolve any self-consciousness and a battle to out-dance, out-sing and out-party commences in the Gloucestershire countryside.

Ushered in with glorious sunshine, Saturday is a more relaxed affair with roots and indie the flavour of the day. The highlights include Babel whose alt-folk inspires a toddler to perform impressive acrobatics to the delight of the crowd, and Sheffield duo Slow Club who play a sprightly mid-afternoon set of bitter-sweet bluesy-skiffle.

The effervescent Glaswegians Dananananaykroyd bring a merry chaos to the evening’s proceeding, delivering their frantic sounds with commendable energy. In the drizzle, they split the crowd into two halves and urge them to run at each other and hug the first person. It is a gesture that in some settings may seem contrived, but at 2000 Trees it feels right. British Sea Power close out the festival in style amidst their beloved foliage. Their grandiose take on Prog- indie delights an exhausted but ecstatic branch-wielding crowd. Affordable, spirited, and highly enjoyable, 2000 Trees is small but perfectly formed.

Gig Review - Howe Gelb

2009-07-06T18:04:00.003+01:00

Howe Gelb, Thunderbolt July 3rd 2009

Sometimes gigs just leave you wondering why. Why subject an artist of Howe Gelb’s calibre to the confined, sweaty, and tonight, technically disastrous, Thunderbolt? For over thirty years, Gelb has produced some of the most original re-imaginings of alt-country, bringing an unbridled creative energy to the genre. With his band Giant Sand, various collaborative projects, and his solo work, Gelb has amassed a back catalogue, both prolific and impressive. In short, the man is a legend and deserves more than this.

Tonight Gelb performs a wide selection of tracks spanning his career, including several from last year’s excellent proVISIONS album. After a witty and engaging narrative about Giant Sand’s recent performance at All Tomorrow’s Parties comes Increment of Love, the album’s highlight, and a moment of transitory success this evening. Throughout the set, Gelb’s trademark vocals shift between gravelly baritone, unsettling distortion, and a hoarse whisper. The latter frequently getting lost in the hum of disengaged voices from a selfish and ignorant quota of the audience. His Chinese-puzzle lyrics consequently evaporate in the heat.

Despite the constant prattling, endless technical problems and the humidity, Gelb still manages to impose his considerable talent, in particular on Shiver and Stranded Pearl which bristle with sinister energy. Leaving behind his guitar, Gelb turns to his keyboard a few times during the performance, most notably on Rag. However, the drunken chatter doesn’t cease; eventually Gelb loses patience and quips, “This isn’t a real piano so I hope you’re not having a real conversation.”

After yet another technical problem, Gelb wryly imparts, “Improvisation is only problem-solving.” It is Gelb’s good humour along with his persistence that stops the gig falling apart altogether. As Gelb returns for an encore, he invites close friend John Parish to accompany him. Parish declines and, to be honest, who can blame him. In another venue, under different circumstances, this would have been the perfect end, but as with the whole evening, it didn’t quite happen.

GaBle´ – I’m OK Mini Lp Review

2009-06-22T17:18:00.004+01:00

French anti-folk surrealists GaBle´ are back in typically playful mood with new mini-LP I’m Ok. Touted as a response to Daniel Johnston’s Hi, How Are You?, it’s a genre-blurring mix of the folktronica of Tunng, the leftfield beat poetry of Bonzo Dog Do Dah Band, and the deconstructionist pop of Moldy Peaches.

I’m Ok continues in a similar, if less cohesive vein to last year’s critically-acclaimed Seven Guitars with a Cloud of Milk, with an English-speaking narrator spinning surreal, macabre poetry around a haphazard musical collage. The lyrics are thematic signposts which point all ways at once, leading nowhere. As on the title track, a delightful ditty that bursts into being with an optimistic chorus before a list of random objects is reeled off by the dead-pan narrator including the mystifying trio of, “dove; guillotine; teeth.” As your brain struggles to piece together the links between the words, it must do the same with the music, connecting the disparate elements of folk, jazz, electronica and rag time.

There is a mid-album sojourner into the darker instrumental territory of their Semineoproantintiantifolk album with the twisted beats and throbbing strings of Violons, Riots and Satan and Arms and Nose, Arms and Noise. Whereas the excellent closer, Sans Du Feu Dans Mes Mains is a warm Super Furries-esque swell of psychedelia.

The album’s thirteen tracks are over in a mere 22 minutes, but then these songs have no right, or in fact need, to extend beyond two minutes. They are part-realised narratives, playful glimpses of musical phrases rather than a conscious attempt to reveal a whole.

Existing simultaneously as a breath of fresh air and an overwhelming belch of many flavours, I’m Ok is an album of contradictions, whirring and clicking between postmodern playfulness and a mildly irritating irreverence towards form. In small doses I’m Ok is a happy chaos in a world full of dark insanity.

Released June 29th 2009 on Loaf Recordings

GaBLé / Drunk fox in London
by yannick-lecoeur

A Hawk and a Hacksaw Gig Review

2009-06-18T23:09:00.003+01:00

Fiddlers, Bristol June 17th 2009

A Hawk and a Hacksaw (AHAAH), despite being from Albuquerque, New Mexico are obsessively Eastern European in their sound. Multi-instrumentalist and former Neutral Milk Hotel drummer, Jeremy Barnes, and violinist Heather Trost have travelled Romania and Hungary, collaborating with the countries’ foremost musicians, in order to assimilate and recreate the folk tradition.

On this year’s superb Délivrance, AHAAH have finally succeeded in marrying their own idiosyncratic musical vision with the Eastern European music that they have immersed themselves in. The album’s compositions appear unfettered, altogether more organic with the moods conjured rather than forced. There is a warmth to Délivrance’s complex and playful tracks that smacks of optimism and tonight’s set at the consistently excellent Fiddlers is a clear celebration of this musical epiphany.

AHAAH perform tonight as a five piece with Barnes and Trost joined by musicians on the tuba, bouzouki, and trumpet. They open the set with the spiked violin and lilting vocals of I Am Not a Gambling Man from Délivrance. Barnes then leaves the vocals behind to focus on playing his accordion with impressive zeal as well as the limited but expertly employed percussion of a bass drum and cymbal. Trost too is a virtuoso musician, equally spellbinding on the violin and the visually and aurally delightful Stroh violin. For the next forty minutes, the band delivers a superlative selection of marches and instrumental folk-jazz jigs that ebb and flow with dizzying muscianship.

Then Barnes, announcing that, “Electricity was not always the best thing for folk bands,” leads the band from the stage and into the centre of the crowd. The five musicians proceed to perform several tracks acoustically, closing out the show in an intimate dream-like pod of music and movement. The up tempo waltz of The Sparrow is mesmerising as the band members swap places in a hypnotic dance, allowing the audience to experience their instruments in turn.

Despite the quality of tonight’s set and the enjoyment to be had, there is an energy and rowdiness intrinsic to the music which is sadly lacking (the audience barely get beyond a vigorous foot tap). But then AHAAH are an American act playing Balkan music to a British audience, a simulacrum that somewhat douses the fire of the musical tradition. By its nature, folk music is linked intrinsically to a community, entrenched in a culture that carries its own gravitas. As this culture is not one shared by the majority of the audience, the music remains as music in isolation; there is no rousing of old memories; no rallying cry to the collective identity. Tonight’s show, if anything, is too good. Perhaps AHAAH should down a few more pálinkas and get rusty with the age and character of the music they love.

Keeping My Hand In

2009-06-16T22:50:00.006+01:00

It’s been an interesting few weeks; big stretching weeks of dilemmas, minor disasters, and flirtations with decisiveness. My life seems to be at a crossroads: I am sat cross-legged inactive in the middle, letting the dust of a quarter life crisis sting my eyes and the grubs of gravel numb my skin. I need momentum; something to wake me and get rid of this crippling inertia.

What I have done and failed to write about:-

I have stood up for a charity shop’s pricing and nearly been attacked by an alcoholic busker for the trouble (he insisted that a £150 banjo was in fact £1.50).

I purchased a brass eagle that I thought was haunted until I realised it was only five years old and did not have, however glorious, the integrity for such dark voodoo.

I danced to the biggest pop star in Syrian history.

I went to Alton Towers and rode the Nemesis three times; ate a locally made Cider lolly in the blaze of a Bank Holiday; and got ravaged by hayfever.

I got rained on and more honestly shat upon by all that the thoroughly shitty city of Southampton fails to offer; and suffered varying strengths of addiction to gin and tonic, The Wire, and vinyl.

I went to Wales and enjoyed it.

Generally, basically, I have just managed to stay afloat in the insubstantial haze of my existence. I’m waiting for something tangible, plausible and damn right neck-snappingly vigorous to shake me out of my life-coma. Yesterday, they told me I was going to lose my job - it's a start.

Then there is the issue of my right hand. In the past week my right hand has gone from being a good right hand, a piano-fingered, creative-looking hand (bony and veiny to the casual observer) to the hand of a £100 a day crack fiend.

What happened to my hand:

I decided to cook a large roast chicken after getting home from work one night. I had eaten nothing all day except for a cheese sandwich, a packet of hula hoops, and an apple (this is my lunch everyday, barely enough to sustain a primary school child for several minutes of off ground tig let alone a full-grown man for the nine to five slog.) Three hours into the cooking process and weak from hunger, I flung my lifeless anaemic arm in the direction of the roasting tray only to slap it against the top of the oven. There was a loud hiss and a foul smell as the skin on the top of my hand shrivelled and bunched up like the neck of an octogenarian. Several layers of flesh had fizzled into non-existence on the glowing element of the oven. Then it began to hurt. It hasn't stopped hurting yet over a week later. People stare at my burn when they pass me. It is a glistening scab with a pink aura - it deserves to be stared at.

I am taking an important call at work. I am distracted by the voice in my head screaming "when is a call at work ever an important call". I am also trying to pin a caricature sketched by my colleague that depicts me as that weird kangaroo creature that Rolf Harris used to draw himself as. As I attempt to push the drawing pin in to my notice board, the pin hits something hard and flips round. Inevitably I plunge my thumb into the drawing pin until its vicious spike is entirely embedded in my flesh. It hurts like buggery. I am still apparently on the phone to a client. I look down at my hand and realise that I still apparently have a very sharp piece of metal deep in my thumb. What happens in the next thirty second is not entirely clear, but some how I finish the phone call, pull out the drawing pin and bleed over my desk. The pain is pretty bad. And like the burn, it doesn’t stop there. The tiny puncture wound turns itself into a red pin prick on my thumb over night that when touched sends a wave of pain throughout my personage like wildfire.

This very morning, in the thick fog of pre-work grog and half way out of the door, I was rummaging in my bag to check that I had my keys. For some reason, whilst I carried out the search, I left my right hand in the door. The heavy-set chunk of spring-loaded pseudo-wood that is my door inevitably came slamming shut across my fingers damn near popping the tops off them.

I now type like a builder, shake hands like serial killer and look like Rolf Harris.

AU Gig Review at The Cube

2009-05-04T13:15:00.006+01:00

AU, Frederick Stanley Star The Cube, Bristol, Friday April 24th

Luke Wyland and Dana Valatka, the duo that make up the touring incarnation of AU have not slept. They have driven through the night from Cork to make it to Bristol’s Cube Cinema in time for this evening’s performance. Wyland concedes that they may well be a little delirious. Their set opens with an impassioned, partly improvised free-composition. It serves as a musical limbering up to purge any tiredness, but as Wyland’s voice soars above his piano and Valatka beats out an intricate rhythm it is like an espresso shot for the senses.

Given that Wyland’s last album, Verbs¸ featured over thirty musicians harvested from the fertile musical soils of Portland, Oregon, a two piece comes as a surprise. The twenty-strong vocal chorus, the plethora of instruments, and the unbridled energy of so many collaborators that manifested in Verbs expansive experimental pop sound was a lot to put on the shoulders of two exhausted men. However, Wyland with his keyboard, sampler-based lap steel, a whole host of pedals and two vocal microphones manages to capture the energy and scope of Verbs through a series of loops and virtuoso musicianship. Vlatka is vital to tonight’s success as he expertly recreates the complex rhythms whilst reacting to Wyland’s every move. His drumming is both emotive and textured, at times restrained and at others blisteringly dominant.

Piano-driven tracks like All Myself and Boute were always going to work in the live set- up. These tracks build from hazy psychedelic ballads before spilling over into an epiphany of Riley-esque classical swells and warm waves of electronic sound. Wyland’s keyboards move from Francesco Tristano’s classical appropriations of techno to the proggy synth lines and circus riffage of the exuberant Are Animals. His voice conveys emotion throughout, contextualising the ensuing soundscapes for the audience. Many experimental bands struggle to find an emotional connection to tether their music, which results in their compositions, however impressive, floating disengaged from human experience. There is a compelling emotional aspect to AU which is unique and admirable.

Wyland’s passion for music and collaboration both on record and live is palpable. It emerges tonight when to conclude their set, he calls for Cardiff-based support act Frederick Stanley Star to join him on stage to bash the shit out of everything including their trademark crash helmet. The percussion builds in a dizzying stomp which Wyland matches with a fevered wall of effects and piano before the music disappears altogether, replaced with ecstatic yelps and screams from all on stage. It is harnessing the joy in music’s conception that is AU’s humble triumph.

Published at Suit Yourself Magazine

1990s Gig Review

2009-04-29T17:50:00.005+01:00

1990s O2 Second Academy, Bristol 28/04/09

Glaswegian trio 1990s released a refreshingly plucky debut album Cookies in 2007; it wore its influences unabashedly on its sleeve and captured the hedonistic glee of drugs and girls better than most. This year’s follow up Kicks is more pedestrian with considerably less engaging songs. Can the Rough Traders’ recapture their spark in the live environment?

The answer sadly is a resounding no. Most of tonight’s set struts along somewhere close to Primal Scream at their laziest. Their live performance comes across as a sloppy homage to the prominent rock bands from the seventies through to the nineties. They imitate the Stooges on Kickstrasse, but fail to capture their sinister violence; a chorus that should snarl, meows instead. And the stomp of The Box is so brazenly glam it recalls The Sweet, and that’s not a good thing. The key point is that although their songs can be danceable and enjoyed on a base level, there is nothing vital about them. The lyrics occasionally bristle with sarcasm and hedonistic wit, but more often than not sound like a sloganistic hangover from the lad culture of the nineties as on You Made Me Like It.

Drummer, Michael McGaughrin, cuts an energetic and captivating figure in the middle of the stage. It is his expressive drumming that holds the band together; it is also his vocals on 59 that see the band move away from the soulless struttings of Kicks and create a warmer more subtle sound, reminiscent of The Bluetones. Vondelpark, a rare highlight of Kicks, also stands out tonight with its blend of Born Ruffians’ style funk and early Super Furries’ pop-psychedelia. The delicate guitar phrase creates a rare dynamism and contributes to a more mature and modern sound.

There are a few moments when the enthusiastic vocal interplay or cynical guitar riffs elevate 1990s from a simple, straight-up rock and roll band. However, the garage guitar chug and vocal woos are offered up a little too cheaply and there is not enough invention that engages intellectually. From their name to their sound, 1990s are retrogressive and derivative. In a booze-drenched back room of a pub on a Saturday night, their blend of nostalgia and unsubtle hooks would have been a different prospect; in the sober ebb of a Tuesday evening in the O2’s second academy it is dull.

Published online at Suit Yourself Magazine

Monday Rain

2009-04-27T20:29:00.010+01:00

Nothing much is going on.

It was raining when I left the house this morning; it made me both happy and sad. Happy because it actually came as a surprise that it was raining which in turn made me realise and recollect on how nice the weather has been recently. Bad because it was pissing down with rain and I was going to get wet feet and trousers, and it almost definately meant that the sun had disappeared for good.

Mondays suck. I had wet feet and trousers. The vast quantities of alcohol I drank over the weekend were not apparently content to rob me of sleep, suck the moisture from my face, leave my liver aching like a kicked testicle, no, it had to go that one step too far and make me think that going to work dressed like a 1980's car salesman was a good idea.

Anyway, on Saturday I met a pig at the City Farm in St Werburghs. He was a nice chap.

And today I remembered an illustrator whose work I saw and liked very much; his name is Ben Aslett and below is his picture of a bird. His website is www.benaslett.co.uk. I like animals, even on Mondays.

Also the collected Found Songs by Olafar Arnalds is now available to download for free; I like this on a Monday too. http://foundsongs.erasedtapes.com/

Raving to the Grave: A Vinyl Junky’s Fatal Overdose

2009-04-20T20:56:00.005+01:00

My train ticket from Bristol to Frome read ‘Bristol TM to rome; this typo afforded a grandiosity to my day that was entirely unwarranted. I was not visiting one of the founding cities of Western Civilisation to explore the pillars of a great empire; I was visiting a Somerset market town with a new Lidl to flick through records. No matter how you print it on a train ticket, there is nothing glamorous about flicking through dusty slabs of pressed plastic surrounded by men that are smellier, weirder versions of yourself, just further along the line.

I left my house for the train station twenty minutes late. I had to run half the length of Bristol, dodging vehicles and shoppers, and all so I could catch a train to a town with a record shop. What if one of the cars had hit me? I can imagine the driver sobbing into their palms, shaking, and mumbling, “He just ran out so fast. I couldn’t stop. So fast,” and the paramedic leaning over me to check my vitals, shaking his head, “Why?” And my reply, if I were able to make it, “I wanted to get to the record shop. I wanted to make sure that I could look at every LP and 45 single in the shop. What if I missed a Little Anthony and the Imperials 7” or a rare pressing of Scott Walker? Why can’t you understand? I could never just walk with so much at stake.”

Anyway, I made it to the train station just in time; my heart beating a little too fast, my armpits a little too damp and a slight hangover becoming rapidly less slight. I took a seat next to an old lady and breathed a long, slow sigh of relief. The train pushed through gentle countryside, from Wiltshire to Somerset, passing fields of lambs and cows, even rabbits jumping in and out of view along the hedgerow, before the concrete shadow of Frome station rolled into view.

It was always my plan to visit another shop before the record shop; an antique shop, a charity shop, a book shop, it didn’t matter, anywhere before the record shop so it didn’t seem like the pilgrimage it quite evidently was. But as I headed down the hill into the town centre, I was drawn to a pretty cobbled street with a river flowing down a gutter in the middle of it. After following it for a few metres, I came across a sign with a skull and the words Raves from the Grave. Three floors of vinyl heaven. I knew I had to go in then. Meteorites could fall, atomic bombs rain, and the very earth rip asunder, destroying all of that delicious dusty music. I was a nerd, this was a pilgrimage; I had to accept my fate.

Walking into Raves from the Grave, I experienced something akin to an acute Asperger’s episode. There were three floors, six rooms, and hundreds of thousands of records. It dawned on me in one terrifying instance that I needed to look at each record or else I may miss laying my hands upon music that would change my life. Where did I start? After spinning around a metre inside the entrance and jabbering inanely for ten minutes, I headed up the stairs, which were of course stacked with vinyl, all the way to the top floor and into a room of soundtracks, novelties, blues, jazz and country. Some time later I found myself lost in a cubby hole full of world music and gospel – I may have been here for a good while judging by the record-flickers arthritis already entering my fingers. I mean, there was a section of Scottish pipe music bigger than my entire record collection and albums with titles like, Tribal Music of the Head-hunters of Papua New Guinea - this place had everything.

The next room I enter is the singles room – over 20,000 seven inches, divided into compartments, arranged alphabetically, with large sections for significant artists and a separate a-z for lesser artists. I walk up and down the racks for several minutes before settling upon Jamaican dub. It is a strange place to start, but at least the artist names are amusing. I then look through the soul for about half an hour. I then move to the fifties section and find four Johnny Ray 7” inches; more than I have ever seen in all my years of searching. It starts to overwhelm me; there is stuff here that I have been lusting after for ten years, not only that there are multiple copies of everything. I decide to move to an area of music that I am less familiar with, but am confronted with thousands of names that I don’t know. In a way this is worse. What am I supposed to do? I go into panic mode and I cop out altogether, picking up 90s Indie, a genre so horribly familiar and undesired that I feel safely grounded. Flicking through 10 copies of Menswear’s Stardust is like breathing into a brown paper bag, however stinky, it calms me.

Eventually, after around an hour of near-blindness, where I forget the name of any band I have ever liked , I decide to ask at the front desk if they have any original Johnny Ray albums. A sallow-looking chap, fingering a limp rolly looks up at me, acknowledges me with a nod, then picks up the phone. He calls a man in the shop down the road (Raves from the Grave has a separate shop for CDs and videos) whose speciality is the layout of the fifties section. Staff are trained up on a genre, a specific area, because to know it all would be too much for any mind to take. Some men have tried and inevitably lost their marbles. These brave if foolish pioneers can be found in Frome’s psychiatric hospital shouting out the serial numbers to Jean-Claude Vannier’s back catalogue up at the pale face of the moon.

Two minutes later, a man comes through the door, slightly out of breath and with a keen look in his eye. He tells me to carry on looking around and he will find me when he has something. Ten minutes later, I head upstairs again. An old man with a pronounced stoop says to me, “You’re the Johnny Ray one. I’ve just been through all these,” sweeping his thin arm to indicate the expanse of floor to ceiling records in the room, “I don’t recall seeing anything.” The word recall says it all. This man came into this shop when he was thirty-two, he is now eighty eight. He has lived on a diet of the fluff found in original pressings of Captain Beefheart’s Safe as Milk and the occasional lick of the Velvet Underground’s banana. It has taken him an actual decade to make his way through each musical decade housed in Raves from the Grave.

Suddenly, the man from the other shop pops his head out from behind a tower of vinyl with three Johnny Ray albums. Even after his efforts and another hour and a half of my own, all I buy is a Garnett Mimms’ LP. As delicious as it is, it seems like a failure. I walk out of the shop into daylight and instantly wince and cower in the glare of the sun, but also of my own shortcomings. I took on Raves from the Grave but wasn’t up to the challenge. It did for me in the best, most frustrating manner. Amen.

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone Gig Review

2009-04-16T17:49:00.005+01:00

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Concern, The Croft, Bristol April 14th 2009

Chicago’s Casiotone for the Painfully Alone aka Owen Ashcroft has developed considerably as an artist in the decade since his debut album. With an array of instruments bolstering the once fragile tones of his beloved battery-operated keyboards, Ashcroft has pushed his stripped-down electro pop into a fuller, more confident form. On this year’s Vs. Children, Ashcroft broadened his musical scope to the extent he felt it opportune to tour with a band for the first time, an exciting prospect indeed.

Ashcroft opens tonight’s set in familiar solo guise with his array of synths, keyboards, and gadgets spread before him in the Croft’s unique gloom. After stumbling through a couple of tracks, he takes requests from the audience which results in the upbeat White Corolla and the sombre White on White, appearing before Ashcroft has fully settled into his environment. The excellent Lesley Gore on the T.A.M.I. Show follows shortly, but again is missing something, this time in the form of Jenny Herbinson’s bittersweet vocal. The character sketches and succinct narratives at the heart of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s appeal, are unfortunately muddied with Ashcroft’s baritone coming across muffled and distorted in the mix.

After playing several highlights from his lo-fi beginnings, Ashcroft is joined on stage by Tyler Thurston who plays Moog on I Love Creedence. Once again the quality of the song is not fully realised in the live setting. When brother Gordon and drummer Nick Tamburro join them things sadly don’t improve. The band succeed in providing additional percussive and melodic thrust on tracks such as Old Panda Days, but rarely match Ashcroft’s vision. Ultimately, they fail to do justice to the range of textures showcased on the Vs. Children and Etiquette albums.

The majority of the audience appear familiar with and endeared to the source material performed tonight and are content simply to see it recreated. For the impartial listener, however, tonight’s performance is unlikely to convey either the scope of Ashcroft’s recent output or the naïve charm of his early musical forays and that is a great shame.

Appeared at Suit Yourself Magazine http://www.suityourselfmagazine.co.uk/gig-review-casiotone-for-the-painfully-alone/

Bill Callahan Album Review

2009-04-13T11:55:00.004+01:00

Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle (Drag City Recordings)

Having ditched the Smog moniker for 2007’s Woke On A Whaleheart, Bill Callahan emerged more ambitious, eager to try out new textures. Although Whaleheart was a slightly disappointing progression when compared to the consistency of Smog albums such as Knock, Knock and A River Ain't Too Much to Love, it did signal a broadening of horizons. On Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle, Callahan once again pushes himself into the unknown. With the help of arranger Brian Beattie, he employs an abundance of instruments, most noticeably an impressive string section, to launch his once lo-fi miserabilism into lush, kaleidoscopic hyper-pop.

Initially, the panoramic sound draws you in; there is a confidence and ambition that demands attention. Hearing Callahan’s sombre machinations and simple guitar drenched in such finery has an addictive charm. Yet, after a few listens, it becomes apparent that Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle may have dazzled without connecting emotionally. The arrangements suddenly seem sensationalist, clashing with the dominant theme of uncertainty.

The opening track, Jim Cain, sees the album’s ambition realised; Callahan’s familiar rhythmic guitar strumming and idiosyncratic vocal is lifted by subtle, yet dramatic, instrumentation. Its refrain of, “I used to be darker, then I got lighter, then I got dark again,” is one of several examples of Callahan charting his personal progression and reflecting on his growth as an artist. Over the course of the album, Callahan returns to his favoured use of pathetic fallacy, in particular on the lovely, Rococo Zephr, to inform his internal struggles. Ultimately, the lyrics amount to a collection of problems without solutions; statements without argument, questions without answers.

Callahan’s work remains captivating in its depiction of the struggle between the individual and the metaphysical, the introspective voice wrestling with the indefinable world outside. These conflicts explored through complex lyrics still work best when accompanied by a simpler, more direct musical approach. The Wind and the Dove here is an example of when the over-enthusiastic arrangements of Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle obscure the lyrics, detracting from the power of the metaphorical narratives. At worst, the mismatch of message and music can be nauseating. Maybe this jarring between the music and the themes is intentional, a manifestation of the uneasiness the lyrics suggest. However, this is undeniably an album of large scope and ideas. As Callahan attempts to find his position in an uncertain time, it is perhaps a positive gesture to espouse this turmoil in the elation of such overblown orchestral pop.

Published at SuitYourself Magazine in edited form @ http://www.suityourselfmagazine.co.uk/cd-review-%e2%80%93-bill-callahan-sometimes-i-wish-we-were-an-eagle/

Ólafur Arnalds Freebies

2009-04-09T19:53:00.004+01:00

The Icelandic neo-classical composer Ólafur Arnalds has decided to record and release a song every day from Monday under the 'Found Songs' project. Each track will be made exclusively available online as a free download at foundsongs.erasedtapes.com . He is pretty lovely sounding so get on it.

Moutain of 8 at the Arnolfini - Gig Review

2009-04-06T17:35:00.004+01:00

Bristol Friday 2nd April 2009
With Dirty Projectors, Polar Bear, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Matt Elliott, Nat Baldwin, Gary Smith, Silver Stairs Of Ketchikan

Mountain of 8 at the Arnolfini is a coming together of two of Bristol’s finest assets. The cutting-edge gallery and performance space is the ideal venue for the high-calibre, forward-thinking line-up synonymous with promoters Qu Junktions.

First off in the intimate dark room at the top of the Arnolfini is double-bassist Nat Baldwin. Tonight Baldwin’s frenetic plucking, snatched bowing, and percussive thuds are both expressive and challenging. Baldwin works best when he employs his voice as a counterpoint to his double-bass as on tonight’s closer Enter The Light Out. With its dramatic bowed bass and lyrical refrain, it sees Baldwin successfully harnessing his lust for the experimental within the accessible perimeters of song.

Downstairs in the auditorium, Swedish free-soul duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums deliver an exhilarating mix of blues stomp and vocal acrobatics. Mariam Wallentin’s vocal, somewhere between Nina Simone and Bjork, coupled with the innovative percussion of Andreas Werliin, creates a primal and surprisingly full sound. The duo are at their most potent when Wallentin allows her vocal to pick out a groove which Werliin then pounds into a mix of old-world soul and postmodern innovation.

Next, Polar Bear treat the auditorium to a textured set that takes in the various facets of their post-jazz arrangements. Their more experimental forays into free jazz are tempered by unique broken break grooves as on the fantastic tomlovesalicelovestom. Leafcutter John, on one occasion, leaves behind his distorted electronic samples to coax a surprisingly beautiful tone from a balloon. This is typical of Polar Bear’s innovative and playful music, which tonight succeeds in being both cerebral and body-shaking.

Brooklyn-based headliner’s Dirty Projectors take to the stage and strut through a superlative opening five songs of danceable, Mathsy, afro-blues. Dave Longstreth’s guitar work is full of flex and is the lynchpin of a more direct and rhythmic approach. Longstreth also orchestrates some incredible vocal harmonisation and interplay, in particular on Finches Song at Oceanic Park. Occasionally though, he tries too much, forces ideas, and instruments stumble over each other. There is consequently a mid-set lull when the textures and rhythms collide more than complement. However, overall much of the experimental flab is replaced by an impressive focus that makes this a fitting finale.

Tonight’s acts explore the overlaps and spaces in between musical structuralism and the avant garde; they each toy with traditional forms only to subvert them in consistently interesting ways. Mountain of 8 is testament to the vitality of Qu Junktions, and in turn, experimental music.

Published in an edited form at http://www.suityourselfmagazine.co.uk/2009/04/05/gig-review-mountain-of-8/

Gig Review - Vic Chesnutt

2009-03-31T17:54:00.007+01:00

Vic Chesnutt, Elf Power, and The Balky Mule
The Polish Club, St Pauls Rd
March 29th 2009

The Balky Mule is the brainchild of Bristolian post-rocker, now residing in Australia, Sam Jones. Through the Bulky Mule, Jones creates textured DIY chamber pop. For tonight’s home-coming gig, Jones strips away the multi-layered complexity of his new album The Length Of The Rail in order to expose its pop core. The plethora of instruments and experimental electronics are replaced by the simplicity of a traditional three-piece band, who although a little loose, recreate the chaotic charm of Jones’ musical palette.

Both Wireless and Range with their gentle melodic tugs stand out, being characteristic of Jones’ warm sound. It is however when Jones appears unaccompanied on stage to close his set that the quality of his work impacts fully. He delivers a string of poignant vignettes over a loosely-strummed guitar demonstrating a fragility that is wonderfully affecting.

Elf Power take to the stage next and deliver their idiosyncratic psychedelic pop with a tightness and impressive musicality. The heady and complex textures of their albums are in the main recreated in a sharp and pleasurable turn.

Then it comes to Vic Chesnutt, an artist who has throughout his career inspired and worked alongside the highest calibre of musicians, including Cowboy Junkies and R.E.M. Tonight, he performs a number of tracks from Dark Developments, his most recent collaboration with Elf Power. Songs such as the stripped down, mournful shuffle of The Mad Passion of the Stoic are tempered by the obscure delight of Bilocating Dog. Alongside material from Dark Developments, Chesnutt performs tracks from his impressive back catalogue including Old Hotel from The Salesman and Bernadette. The track, which he recorded with Lambchop, is mesmerising with its cacophony of plaintive wails and fuzzed guitar tones.

Chesnutt’s vocal power and schizophrenic guitar work is consistently matched by Elf Power who are both an appreciative and intelligent foil. They create layers of musical drama and tension for his profound lyrics to ride atop. Throughout Chesnutt uses his voice like a weapon, sometimes a loud cathartic roar and other times he removes it from the aggressive pull of the microphone to hold a note that stabs directly at the heart. Chesnutt brings to song-writing a complete mastery of dynamics. He uses the mechanisms of pop to subvert and manipulate the listener, whilst his lyrics capture and frame human behaviour, simultaneously making it worthy of scorn and wonder.

Tonight The Polish Club witnessed the best in outsider, off-kilter pop; an expose of song-writing stretched to its limits. The Balky Mule stumbled within pop’s airiness, evoking the nuances of human existence. Elf Power warped pop, harnessing its melodies only to scuff and prod them to a bruised hue. Finally, Vic Chesnutt manipulated, mutated, and ultimately exploded pop into an inspirational form of human emotion. Just as he promised, Chesnutt kicks our arses tonight, just enough for it to hurt.

This appeared, edited down, at http://www.suityourselfmagazine.co.uk/2009/03/30/gig-review-the-balky-mule/ for Suit Yourself Magazine.