Parakeets and Hungry Kids of Hungary at Bull & Gate - & June 2012

Hungry Kids of Hungary

I’m climbing the walls. It’s been nearly a month since my last gig and I’m champing at the bit. Admittedly there was a trip to Munich in the interim, but man cannot live on glory alone.

We’re at the Hoxton Bar and Grill to see O Children and Savages. Unfortunately, we’ve neglected to buy tickets in advance and we are politely told (to the huge amusement of the rather butch bouncer) that tonight is sold out and we should take our raddled carcasses elsewhere. There is a faint possibility of inveigling ourselves onto one of the many guest lists, but we think that we have an alternate show lined up.

 Spying the name ‘Parakeet’ we immediately think of the Yuck side project and head off to the Bull & Gate

Ok. So the band headlining tonight turns out to be Parakeets (plural not singular) but we head on in anyway. And you know what? We land on our feet.

First off we get Hungry Kids of Hungary, who hail from Brisbane and have been touring the country for the last few weeks. As they start to play, my antennae go up – I’ve heard of these guys.

And in the grand tradition of bands who have travelled an incredibly long way to ultimately play in a very small venue in the UK, they turn out to be really good.

It’s an easy, laid back funky sound. We shuffle and dance and relax to their smooth pop groove. There are certain elements of acts such as Vampire Weekend or Cold War Kids but these guys are definitely their own animal.

All band members appear comfortable with vocals and these are shared throughout, although it is the songs that are fronted by guitarist Dean McGrath which make the most impression.

There’s a small ex-pat coterie of fans here to see them, and for one song we are treated to a couple doing an elaborate but rather alcohol-affected dance routine in front of the stage.

We have a quick chat with the band later. They’ve enjoyed themselves as much as we have.

Parakeets turn out to be rather good fun too.

These guys dispense a nervous, angsty yet still crisp and dancey guitar pop and in their singer/guitarist they have a front man who is worth watching. He is as thin as a rail and the kind of face that is all planes and angles. He also affects a mildly twitchy, exaggerated persona that highlights these songs as elegant artifice and performance rather than from the heart confessional.

The singer either stabs away at his guitar or sinks to his knees to fiddle with a small electronic array. There’s a hint of Chapman Family anger here too.

Later, I try to get some more info on Parakeets (names would be nice!), but the emergence of the similarly named Yuck offshoot, along with the vast number of sites dedicated to fanciers of the actual small parrots make it impossible to glean much knowledge to share here. A pity.

So, not the gig that I thought I was going to, but a very worthy substitute. I’m glad to be back in the saddle again.



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Garbage at The Troxy - 9 May 2012

Garbage

The first thing to say is that the Troxy in East London is one of the most unfriendly and paranoid venues that I’ve ever been to. I don’t mind the security checks on the door, but I’m not impressed by the teams of spotters within the venue itself who busy themselves insisting that even the smallest bag which had already been checked on the way in is then removed and placed outside the room. 

I also fail to see much logic in their insistence that the plastic bottles of water that they sell you are to be decanted into er...plastic glasses. There are rubber rooms in insane asylums that have more opportunity for self harm.

We are here to see the return of Garbage, who have been in limbo for a number of years while the band members took a rest from each other and replenished their various mojos.

The band start in an explosion of sound. Everything is louder than everything else and singer Shirley Manson’s voice is all but extinguished.

I pop in the ear plugs that I acquired on the Camden Crawl and everything is transformed. On one level, it’s rather like being underwater, on the other I can hear the singer and instruments clearly without all that top end distortion. So, ear plugs are the way to go unless you need to communicate with the guy stood next to you.

Shirley is sporting a shoulder length Rita Hayworth hairdo and is rocking a black pair of hot pants. She may look incongruous, but as ever, she’s definitely the one in charge round here. Duke Erikson and Steve Marker are pretty much dressed as accountants and go about their business with a minimum of show, Butch Vig pounding away on drums.

Garbage are plugging their new album ‘Not Your Kind Of People’ and are also limbering up for the summer festival circuit. So, whilst we get some new material, (all of which seems great and indicates the band returning to a heavier, guitar driven sound) there are also the hits.

Garbage are one of those bands that surprise you with the number of their songs that you didn’t realise that you already knew. ‘Queer’, ‘Happy When It Rains’, ‘When I Grow Up’ ‘Stupid Girl’, these tunes keep coming. The audience is delighted and Manson often allows them to do her singing for her, stretching her microphone towards the bawling throng.

For me, the highlight is ‘The World Is Not Enough’ Let’s face it – how many bands that you see have their own James Bond theme?

Manson has her family here tonight and thanks them, the band’s manager and Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. It’s all genuine and unforced and cements the vibe that this is a band playing amongst friends. Garbage are as happy to see us as we are to see them.

Other than a minor confusion over the running order of the set list, this is a slick consummately professional show. Garbage in full flow are a mighty proposition.

It’s good to have them back.

Camden Crawl Day Two - 6 May 2012

Rolo Tomassi

It’s Sunday afternoon in the Lock Tavern. People are sat at tables tucking into huge plates of food. And, on, a small dais perched amongst them all, the second day of the Camden Crawl gets under way.

Echoes are two brothers and a percussionist who taps unobtrusively on a pair of bongos.

It’s damp and chilly outside, but Echoes transport us to warm tropical nights in Eighties Miami. Their epic, synthy groove is so redolent of another time and place that you can almost see the shimmering neon.

The singer has a wonderful white-boy soul voice that soars majestically. He stands transported, his eyes closed. This is the sort of electric pulse that weaved and throbbed through recent hit film ‘Drive’.

In the Roundhouse Studios Mammoth Sound are hugely entertaining with their funky/rap/ska/jazz/soul fusion. These kids are young and still learning, but their confidence and charm are very cheering.  Kenny Mukendi and Santarna Scott are fine foils for each other, she smiling, dancing and belting out a storm, while he raps, bounces and teases the guitarist. Very good indeed. I’d have said that they are certs for the Jazz Café, but they’ve already played there.

A long walk down the road culminates with a stonking set from Rolo Tomassi at Koko. The previous band are just finishing as we come in, and are so loud that the only way to order Tiger beer at the bar is to do a mime like a tiger. Like this.

There is something about Rolo Tomassi that always cheers me up, possibly for reasons that the band would not be happy about.

Don’t get me wrong – I love their music dearly, but I also get a smile each time one of their gentle and intricate ‘musical’ interludes is interrupted by the harsh and guttural hardcore screams of Eva Spence. There’s a certain Spinal Tap ‘Lick My Love Pump’ incongruity.

Rolo Tomassi have had line up changes since I last saw them and I wonder if they have lost some of their old subtlety in the process. They are not helped this afternoon by sound problems that mean that they only seem to have one working microphone between them.

Eva writhes and twists and almost inverts herself as she cavorts around this big stage. It’s a great show, and the last really good thing that I’ll see on this year’s Crawl.

I head off to the outdoor arena to catch Japanese screamo outfit Crossfaith. They are very loud, jump up and down in unison and shriek “Camden Crawl” every thirty seconds or so. A girl from Action On Hearing Loss hands out ear plugs.

And then, for me at least, the Crawl just falls apart.

A stop off for food takes longer than intended and puts us behind. We can’t find anything good in the remainder of this time slot and end up in Dingwalls for the last fifteen minutes of Baxter Dury. Let’s just say that he does what he does and the people here seem to be enjoying it.

I then make the fatal mistake of heading to the Monarch for Willy Moon. I spend the best part of an hour watching a guy uncoiling bits of cable while an old man stares at a microphone as if trying to work out what kind of devilish device that it might be. It’s like a Beckett play. It’s an utter shambles and another time slot wasted.

Micachu and The Shapes are at least on time for their set at the Jazz Café. However, the sound mix is horrible, with Micachu all but inaudible and the only thing that you can hear being the discordant and deeply irritating plonk of a basic keyboard.

At this point, I throw my hands up and cut my losses. Despite things rather petering out, I’ve had a lot of fun on this year’s Crawl.

There’s always next year…

Camden Crawl 2012: Day One - 5 May 2012

Antlered Man

It’s Spring, it’s cold and there’s rain the air. It must be time for the Camden Crawl.

We start off in the Black Cap for a set from Wrexham’s Mowbird. They blast along in a Pavement-y, US indie kind of way. The guitarist and drummer share vocals whilst their keyboard player coughs weakly and twiddles with a doll’s head that has been stuffed with various electronic gizmos. Creepy but fun. A good start.

Trwbador also hail from Wales and are so quiet that they make the xx look like AC/DC. Angharad Van Rijswijk is fetching in a tight crocheted dress and plinks at a small red toy piano. Owain Gwilym plays an acoustic guitar, which sounds almost deafening in contrast to the hushed vocals. I like the band, although they are hard to hear over the hubbub of the bar.

St Michael’s Church is having a record fair. In a side chapel, Race Horses are playing a semi acoustic set. It’s an amazing, intimate setting and the band’s cornet and harp interlude fit perfectly.

I nip up the road to the Roundhouse Studios to catch Tanya Auclair battling technology to deliver an in-the-end triumphant set of tape loops and ukulele.

The Kabeedies are playing to a rammed room in the Lock Tavern. It’s the only thing all day that we can’t comfortably get into.

Hymns are serious, proficient and making a loud racket in the Underworld. Unfortunately, I find them rather like the medicine that may be good for you but just doesn’t taste very nice. They’re far too grim and earnest.

Antlered Man at the Black Heart are much more like it. By turns preposterously heavy and ludicrously complicated, they wow from the off. The splendidly named singer Damo Ezekiel Holmes is compact, ginger of beard and occasionally slashes at a guitar strapped to a table. The band are both hardcore and elaborately proggy and don’t really sound like anything else. Really good.

In the Purple Turtle, Throwing Up are hiding behind a curtain. Newly expanded to a four piece, they emerge to reveal that drummer Ben has now moved to second guitar duties. He has the tattoos of a Norse god, all eagles and flames. He also has the word’ Rumours’ on his arm. Perhaps he is a fan of Fleetwood Mac. The band play no nonsense femme fronted Ramonse-y power punk. It’s a deceptively simple but big, big sound.

Fever Fever play a blinding set at the Monarch. Intense and heavy rock rap that triggers ecstatic dancing inside the venue and a small crowd to form in the street outside. I love this band.

I end the evening in the Barfly to see old favourites Sauna Youth. I recognise some of the personnel but find they have done a ‘reverse Throwing Up’ and that singer/guitarist Boon has retreated behind a drum kit. The band are a 300mph motorik monster that destroys all in its path. This is absolute ball-out tear-ass rock and roll at its best. They polarise opinions – many leave, whilst the rest of us lurch and bang our heads until they all but fly off. Terrific!

Now that’s a good end to Day One.  

Bow Wow Wow and Dead Wolf Club at Islington Academy - 30 April 2012

Bow Wow Wow

There’s a mixed audience tonight. Some of us are old and some of us are even older. Not exclusively, though. One little lad looks to be about ten years old. Good, Get ‘em started young.

Given the obviously nostalgic attraction of the headliners, I’m surprised that the support band are hungry and clattering and youthful. Even better, they’re really good.

Dead Wolf Club are led by the hyper-excitable John Othello, who flails at his guitar and screams his lungs out from under a thick fringe of hair that all but obscures his face.

The songs are varied and catchy and put over with wild enthusiasm. This old audience may not be able to move very much, but they like what they hear.

Othello becomes ever more manic, at one point leaping from the stage with his guitar, only to find himself stuck behind a barrier. He runs up and down a bit before hauling himself back into view.  It is clear from the expressions of guitarist Alwin Fernandez and bassist Martha Supajirawatananon that the rest of the band are as fascinated by his antics as the rest of us.

So carried away does he get that during the finale, Othello feigns as if to smash his guitar and then proceeds to do so for real. Stage left, Fernandez looks horrified.

Dead Wolf Club are thus thoroughly entertaining. I buy their self-released album immediately.

Bow Wow Wow started as one of Malcolm McClaren’s projects to provoke and outrage the pop world, and the actual quality of the music was often overlooked amidst the general hoo-hah and controversy over Annabella Lwin’s age – fourteen at the time.

It’s been over thirty years since they last played in the UK, and Annabella and original bassist Leigh Gorman have decided to head out on tour once more.

The stage set is dominated by a huge drum kit. This is to be expected, because the key thing that Bow Wow Wow will be remembered for (along with the closely connected Adam and The Ants, who Lwin repeatedly thanks this evening) is that thumping, pounding Burundi Beat. This double, primitive rhythm is unlike any other sound. When those galloping drums start, the band just run over you.

Annabella is now a vivacious and charming woman who dances and smiles in a perpetual shimmy, her long black hair whipping around her. She’s so full of energy and bonhomie that she cheers up the whole room.

The songs still sound great, particularly the very early ones from the ‘Your Cassette Pet’ EP. We get ‘Louis Quatorze’ and ‘Sexy Eiffel Towers’, the last of which I haven’t heard in a very long time.

The pièce de résistance is ‘C30, C60, C90 Go!’ which has lost none of its urgency and bite. Annabella speed-raps through it and I realise that I can draw a straight timeline from the Bow Wow’s to all the contemporary stuff that I love today.

‘Wild In The Country’ is met with roars of appreciation. Lwin acknowledges this and says that it is good to be playing in front a sizeable audience, the implication being that attendances may have been a bit sparse at other times on this tour.  Frankly, on this showing, the rest of the country has been missing out.

Annabella stops proceedings to get the crowd to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to surprised guitarist Will. Interestingly, and because we are all of that kind of age, it is the Altered Images song that is sung.

After a tribal and triumphant version of ‘I Want Candy’ the band run out of their more obvious material and the demanded encore that follows falls slightly flat. It doesn’t matter.

Bow Wow Wow will always have a place in my heart, and it would be good to see them enjoy some success through these live shows.  It’s been far too long.

 “We’re so young and dangerous!”

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour and Casablanca at Scala - 10 April 2012

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour

On the way into the Scala, a guy hands me a big woollen sock. A little further on, his mate hands me another sock.

“What are these for?” I ask.

“This is the Scala” he replies “You might as well stuff these in your ears, cos you ain’t gonna hear a fucking thing!”

That didn’t happen, but you get my point. The sound mix in the venue tonight is utterly appalling and that I and everyone here has a great time is despite rather than because of the conditions that the bands play under.

First on tonight are Casablanca. They must be named after the rather disappointing in real life Moroccan sea port because they seem way too young to be familiar with the film. Hell, they are so young that they probably think that Avatar is a fairytale recounted to them by their parents. Even their other inspiration, Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, must seem like a distant father figure.

They are dressed in leather coats and look rather as if they have just trudged in off the moors. They are slight in stature and curly of hair. Hobbitses they are.

Actually, a pretty decent band is what they are. Singer Jacob hangs from his microphone and croons songs of love and loss. He has fierce little eyes and a winning smile.

The band never quite reaches sufficiently happy highs or affecting lows, but occupies a musical middle ground that is perfectly acceptable. I quite like these guys, and from what I can see, so does everyone else. Ones to watch. (Although if you were previously aware of an outfit called Lo-Fi Culture Scene, you may recognise them in their new guise).

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour are here tonight in support of their new album “Out Of Frequency”. Their first effort was a pop masterpiece that provided the soundtrack for advertising campaigns around the world and, on the evidence of tonight, the new collection of songs is going to be equally ubiquitous.

There are many band members, and most of them play more than one instrument. It makes for a riotous performance.

Singer Mette is togged up in classic fashion as a sexy 60’s pop sensation. She slinks around the stage rasping in her unique vocal style that is part way between Cyndi Lauper and a cartoon character. She’s definitely an acquired taste, but her voice works incredibly well in this context.

This band can swing like Sinatra as a pumping full-on brass section lends oomph to old favourites like ‘Around The Bend’ or ‘The Sun Ain’t Shining No More’’.

The new album gets a good airing. ‘Heart Attack’ bounces along and title track ‘Out Of Frequency’ sports a Ron Burgundy-esque jazz flute solo.

That the band are brilliant is all the more remarkable in light of the awful sound mix. Every song has to fight through a muddy stodge. When the band plays keyboards, all that can be heard is a feedbacking distorted bass rumble. It’s like listening to the best band in the world play on the other side of a wall.

The sheer vim, vigour and joi de vivre of Asteroids Galaxy Tour wins the day. We’re all laughing and jumping, lost in a whirl of parping brass and good vibes. The band concludes with ‘The Golden Age’. Now if only that were used in an advert...

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour - Around The Bend - Live from Cinematze on Vimeo.

Public Image Ltd at Heaven - 2 April 2012

Public Image Ltd (pic Chiaki Nozu/WireImage.com)

The kids are elsewhere. This is a night for the faithful, the ones who still believe. I see virtually no one here this evening who is younger than myself. Very few with more hair either.

When Public Image Limited reformed last year for their ‘Metal Box’ tour, I was cynical. It seemed like a cash-in, the trampling of a legacy for a quick buck.

Then the reviews came in. And they were wonderful. I had been utterly wrong to miss out. I am here tonight to atone.

John Lydon bounces onstage and ferrets out a pair of spectacles so that he can see what he and we are all doing. A sinuous bass line erupts for ‘Deeper Water’ and Lydon is off and running. He barely pauses for breath for the next two hours.

To watch John Lydon perform is to watch an absolute master at his work. Songs are often lengthy jams that afford him plenty of time to commentate, extemporise, scream, act, laugh and yell. He is in his element, arms flailing, fingers jabbing as he inhabits a succession of personas.

The second tune of the night is ‘Love Song’, here stretched and twisted into an unrecognisable shape. A thudding bass groove weaves through the venue.

The band are all guys of a similar age to Lydon and have mostly played in previous iterations of PiL. They are just as much on top of their game as their front man.

Scott Firth looks cool in a suit, but his calm demeanour belies his penchant for laying down an ever louder, ever more bone shaking bass thrum. Across the stage, Lu Edmonds the guitarist is as wild-eyed and beardy as Rasputin. He wields a mean axe, plucks a nifty banjo and is not averse to playing either instrument with an assortment of bows and found objects.

There is little from ‘Metal Box’ this evening, but we do get a ten minute version of ‘Albatross’ , Lydon gurning good-humouredly throughout.

The absolute highlight of the night is an incredible twenty minute rendition of ‘Religion’, in which the stage turns blood red and Lydon rails and gibbers as a maniac preacher, conducting his own perverse service. At his exhortation, the bass levels are increased until first my nose starts to itch and then the organs start moving in my chest. Forces don’t come much more “Tour de” than this.

During ‘Death Disco’, the crowd around me starts to jump up and down. I join in, in an ineffectual manner. The signature drumming of ‘Flowers of Romance’ (Bruce Smith also excellent) is even more galvanic, and once again a track becomes a hypnotic ten minute plus groove. Heads nod in unison all through the venue.

There are new tracks amongst the oldies. ‘Lollipop Opera’ features an epic rap/rant from Lydon, bellowing down a megaphone, words tumbling from him a mile a minute as the band settles into an industrial-sized loping skank.

Back to the familiar then for ‘Bags’, with the singer marching on the spot until the song gradually mutates into ‘Chant’, the rest of the band and the entire crowd bawling “Love! War! Fear! Hate!”

Lydon is talkative all evening. Over two hours into the set he responds to a querulous voice from the throng with the admonition “We’re just warming up. We never go off easy.” The encore lasts a further half an hour.

PiL remain a vital group. John Lydon proves once again that he is unique, a twinkly and mocking jester at the court of Rock. Gawd bless him.