The Swish Blog: Photos Archives

Bad camera phone photo alert!

March 29, 2006

The Matt Willis showcase, 28th March 2006, The Scala, London

His soon to be ubiquitous logo design, its like Robbie Williams' 'RW' design, you see? It's his initials, but with an M at the start instead of an R. Also it looks a bit like a squiggle and does funny things to your eyes after a few Kronenbergs.

The Willis on stage. He's wearing a suit jacket, but in an ironic way because he's a bit PUNK, but still a bit POP.

Posted by Chris at 09:47 AM | Comments (1)

Saturday Night's Alright

October 02, 2005

Last night was long and fun-packed; here's some photos.

McFly, Wembley Pavilion, 1st October 2005, 9-10.30 pm

The Long Blondes, Frog Club, Mean Fiddler, 2nd October 2005, 1-2 am

Jeremy Warmsley, Frog Club - Young & Lost Room, Mean Fiddler, 2nd October 2005, 2.30-3.30 am

Posted by Chris at 02:09 PM | Comments (5)

Brown Toenails

June 28, 2005

Glastonbury was funny. Working was a bit more of a pain in the arse than I thought it would be; feel like you missing out much? Ridiclui. Angry people fought lots and my mood changed hourly.

1. The Tor.
2. I loved (and lost) (and found) my blue scarf.
3. I went 'papp', being official photographer for the presenter from Naked News as she paraded around the Green Fields.
4. Helen and Steve formed a drink-yourself-to-death partnership.
5. Kate Moss asked me where the Main Stage was.
6. Eddie Argos carried his tent through the throng on Friday night. Relocation, Relocation, Relocation.

Posted by Chris at 04:55 PM

Dead-Head Gig Hopper

April 25, 2005

Last Tuesday night I decided to do some crazy gig-hopping by going to Help She Can't Swim at 'trocker (Buffalo Bar, Islington) and Battle at Club Fandango (Dublin Castle, Camden). I had intended to write quite a big piece about it for here, and have been trying to write it ever since. I couldn't.
Whether my block had something to do with boozy-brain (mental haziness after drinking), old age (I turned 23 the weekend just past) or just laziness I don't know, but I couldn't do it.

I still haven't been able to write anything down (6 days later!) and I have now officially given up - so I'm going to give you all that I have done:
* Some photos of the two bands.
* A transcription of the notes I had made at the gigs.

I hope you enjoy.

Help She Can't Swim
Artrocker club, Buffalo Bar. Tues 19th April 2005
The girl singer has got some great shorts on - she's such an unlikely front person and seems both uncomfortable and charismatically extroverted at the same time.
'Fermez La Bouche' is by far their best song. Everybody in the crowd is head-nodding but why am I the only one singing along?
'What Would Morrissey Say? is a slowed-down draining behemoth live - on record it skips along jauntily - tonight it seems much more aggressive and threatening, your dancing REALLY does aggravate him.

Battle
Club Fandango, Dublin Castle. Tues 19th April 2005
They love the '80's Battle do. They were originally called 'Killing Moon' after the Echo and the Bunnymen song (presuming they weren't named after the Aeroplane Virus flick) and only changed their name to Battle around the turn of the year. I first became aware of them (as Killing Moon) on the BBC R1 Music Demos Site (and not just because my flatmate runs it) and those original tracks impressed me quite a lot. They've come on in leaps and bounds since then - but haven't 'made it' just yet - they still occupy that "have supported a number of major acts" niche; they're the bridesmaids not the bride, if you like.

Posted by Chris at 01:55 PM | Comments (5)

The B Plan Blew My Mind (A Little)

April 08, 2005

Last night I was blown away by The B Plan. All I'd known of them before last night was that singer Baco (Peter Bacon?) is the bassist is Dustin's Bar Mitzvah – and that he does a pretty good job of singing on 'Kick Him Out' - and a few tracks which are available on their website.

As it is at the moment I know very little more about them than I did then, except after their gig at Stylish Riots at the Rhythm Factory last night, I now know that they are so much more than a Dustin's Bar Mitzvah side project.

Set opener 'Come Back Soon' is a storming singalong classic, the drum and bass lines drag you up out of your slump and into the real world in a way reminiscent of 'Pounding' by the Doves, or something by Minutemen.
Unlike Dustin's they are led primarily by the Rhythm section (as opposed to the thrash-your-guitar-till-it-breaks style employed by DBM), every song they play bangs on your brain like a tribal drum whilst Baco calmly emotes over the top about lost-loves and sleeping around.

Posted by Chris at 05:58 PM

Arctic Monkeys at the Dublin Castle

April 07, 2005

When an unsigned band - with only mp3 downloads on their website to count as releases - has the majority of a crowd singing along to every word, you know you are witnessing something special. Singer Alex Turner could take breaks from singing throughout the set, occasionally mumbling “you can take it from here…” into the microphone almost as if he was embarrassed by the adulation – but this is not something to shy away from – that situation is usually reserved for the Robbie Williams’ and U2s of this world, not four South Yorkshire teenagers.
Arctic Monkeys are on to something big; there is no doubt about that.

Posted by Chris at 05:14 PM | Comments (4)

Be Your Own PET.. plus The Rakes Vid!

March 29, 2005

Last Thursday a group of my friends and I (collectively known as ‘the gang’) went down to Infinity to see Be Your Own PET, Test-Icicles and Semi-Finalists. Most of you Britishy-type people will already know that last Thursday was the last day before the excellent religious-plus-skiving public holiday known as Easter bank holiday weekend; and being relatively new to full-time employment I was eex-sigh-teed about the prospect of getting drunk on a Thursday night without worrying of the consequences.

After the obligatory queue debacle we slid into the venue only to find that Semi-Finalists were towards the end of their set. So, rather than start to form opinions on half-cooked evidence we headed to the bar and got completely blotto.
Anyway, the real anticipation was for the final two acts – I wanted complete and utter freaking out from Test-icicles (like, can you even have hardcore funk?), and I wanted Be Your Own PET not to be an absolute mess ‘in the live setting’.

The last time I had seen Test-Icicles they only played three songs because they were the only ones they had figured out how to play live, but despite that they absolutely blew me away. Beforehand that gig I had suspected that I would leave sore-eared and disappointed but nothing was further from the truth – they were thrilling – bounding across the stage whilst belting out perfectly timed rock riffs, punk-funk rhythms and hardcore screaming.
At Infinity I had expected exactly the same, but with more songs! Sadly two songs into the set the Dev’s keyboard playing became erratic and then he collapsed onto the floor. The drum machine was quickly switched off, and help was called to the stage. To find out what happened and for the more squeamish amongst you - click here - and for the incredibly hardcore-gore-philes amongst you - click here - ooh, that’s nasty.

Next (and now being watched through an alcohol-induced haze) were Be Your Own PET – officially the most hyped band in the entire ~~world~~ NME this week! A lot has been said previously about their: energy, youth, beauty, catchy songs and hair – all of which turned out to be true; but the real reason for the hype was obviously the singer, Jemina. She’s young (17 or 18 I think), pretty, blonde, skinny and has the sort of stage presence Juliette Lewis would kill for. I was transfixed for the entire gig (much to the delight of my girlfriend I can assure you), and you can bet your bottom dollar that any other heterosexual male writers would have been to. It all pointed towards something great for the future - as if you’d seen Wayne Rooney play in the Everton Reserves in 2001 – this could be like watching Debbie Harry in a pub in Rotherham before Blondie were signed. Jumping on this bandwagon, suddenly seemed like a good idea, and I would suspect that many others are thinking this too. “I liked The Audience BEFORE they changed their name to Sophie Ellis Bextor!”

Finally, another outing for the much-maligned Swish Video Player if you’re using Macs or Firefox I’m not sure if it works, try it in IE. Anyway, it’s not even my code – I stole it!! Ha ha ha!

Brand new video for ‘Retreat’ by The Rakes click here!

Posted by Chris at 04:55 PM | Comments (3)

The Violets

March 17, 2005

On Tuesday shoe gurl and I attended ‘trocker again. We met people from the internet, got far too drunk for a week night, laughed at people behind their backs a bit, and as usual for ‘trocker we scooted off early cos we got bored / wanted to catch the train.

We saw The Violets and (some of) The “Hey, we’re from Hollywood” Flash Express. The Violets were good as usual, but it’s late in the day and I’m tired, so I won’t comment any further than that. However, I do have some photos which I took.

Posted by Chris at 05:21 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Pleasure Unit / Helvissa / V V & the V's

March 02, 2005

The last week has been somewhat empty in terms of gigage; shoe-girl and I missed the Q-o-N night with The Pipettes and The Long Blondes due to illness, and we missed The Mystery Jets at the Pleasure Unit on Monday due to overheating, and boredom. We were actually at the venue for the gig, and we saw the 15 year old school band (band-name unknown), and the band which I think may have been New Rising Sun due to the obvious (and frankly, blatant) Hendrix references – they were beset by sound problems, and instead of stopping for a couple of seconds to sort them out, decided to carry on regardless. My ears are still ringing three days later. Anyway, I took some photos of them because despite the awful sound they seemed quite good.

We also saw Dustin’s Bar Mitzvah who were excellent, if a little lackadaisical - excuses provided were “we were in the studio all day and we’re knackered”. Turns out they weren’t lying and the results are available to one and all here http://www.dustins.co.uk - Billy and Goldhawk Road are the new ones so don’t miss out.

Vincent Vincent and the Villains have been plying their post-ska rockabilly trade for a short while around London. I have yet to see them (despite them featuring heavily in my ‘gigs I must go to’ list each week); but I’ve heard that it’s a real treat. They have two songs to download from their website http://www.vincentvincentandthevillains.com/, but the direct links are sometimes difficult to find, so I’ll provide them here:
Vincent Vincent and the Villains – On My Own
Vincent Vincent and the Villains – B-Side Baby

Helvissa are from somewhere in the west midlands and seem to attempt a sort of sub-art brut drone rock. There’s quirkiness, but also the obvious heroin-rock+JAMC influences milling about in these (rather badly recorded) tracks. There are soon to be releasing an EP on the lostmusic label, ran by the knowledgeable and gracious Trev@lostmusic.co.uk, but there are a lot of tracks still available at soundclick
if you can’t be arsed with the sign-up process there here is one of the tracks from that site, which I think may interest a few of you (especially if you’re reading this on Livejournal; you bunch of weirdoes) – because y’know everybody’s doing it…
Helvissa – Everybody’s Writing That Slash Fic

n.b. I wrote this post whilst slightly drunk and slightly ill (hope it not avian flu) so apologies to all offended.

One final thought: after almost two weeks of Hunter S Thompson eulogies, the question remains to be answered. Was Gonzo journalism the forbearer of blogging?

Shit, I really am drunk.

Posted by Chris at 10:50 AM | Comments (1)

greek christmas?

December 24, 2004

Hello everyone, merry christmas and all that gubbins. I hope you are all now having a lovely time off work / nothing; and are suitably full of drink / full of food / full of drugs. Once again I’ve gotta say sorry for not posting for ages, and more importantly apologise for seemingly forgetting that this is an mp3 blog - I will be posting files soon. I promise. Today I shall be writing about new rhodes because I saw them for the second time on Wednesday night, and they were quite excellent. I’m not going to post one of their songs as they were on the Playlouder singles club in september so you can download from there; here’s the link: new rhodes – I wish I was you.

back to Wednesday night. New rhodes attempted to play ‘frostie the snowman’ – they are the best thing since ~~sliced bread~~ dustin’s bar mitzvah - they will be moderately large in indie rock circles.

Posted by Chris at 03:37 PM

i stole the first line from helenium...

December 09, 2004

another tuesday another artrocker.... oh i can't do this, faux plagiarism is the lowest form of wit. read helenium's review of the night, as she is far more concise and, quite frankly, abrupt than i ever could be.

instead i'll simply provide the pictures - lovely smudged, out of focus numbers as usual. the cherubs, artrocker club, buffalo bar, tuesday 7th december 2004.

i'm at my mum and dad's house at the moment; visiting to see my brother in the school play thingy. he has to cry in it, and apparently on most nights he gets real tears! Well, except for the night before last when he started laughing instead. monday i start my new job, ooh what's that feeling? oh yeah, apprehension.

Posted by Chris at 07:51 PM

this is for real... fever

December 01, 2004

Ever since I woke up this morning I’ve wanted a cup of tea. 10 am I got out of bed and staggered to the kitchen only to find there was no milk. I pottered around the house a bit more, chucked some clothes on and got out to the corner shop. Unfortunately it seemed I’d pottered a bit too much and it was now 2 pm. So I bought the milk and went back to the house, put the milk on the worktop and was then sidetracked by murder she wrote. Anyway, to cut a boring story short, I’ve just had my cup of tea (that I’ve been craving so much) and now it’s 5.45. I hate being unemployed. That was my fucking day.

Anyway, last night we went to ‘trocker to see the fever and punish the atom (who were really good by the way). Throughout the fever’s (la fievre’s) set I tried to get dave to shout out “Ladyfingers” really loud. Which he didn’t; but they did play it as their final song and it was really good. Here’s some pictures.

Posted by Chris at 05:04 PM

wind in the willows...?

November 28, 2004

we took a trip along the proverbial willow covered bank to frog on Saturday night, which was, like, totally exciting because I haven’t been to a full scale indie-disco since I last went to crash in Nottingham about a year and a half ago. Lady swish was going on about her idea for a shoe blog all night so I thought I’d start the ball rolling by posting one of her (now infamous) feet pics.

and beware! Regular readers of her blog (i.e. crazy newfound live journaling passion) she is attempting to move into the dark and seedy world of slash fic. She’s already started a story about sandy and ryan from the oc; and she is even threatening radio 1 slash fic! Chris Moyles and comedy dave, zane lowe and steve lamacq, and perhaps most hideously wes and scott (although apparently that’s already happened in real life litigation fans!)

anyway back to frog: the (international) noise conspiracy we’re dull, plain dull. Perhaps my opinion was swayed by the fact that they we’re all wearing tight red t-shirts; but I quickly got out of there. Anyway the real attraction was gin palace in the ‘trocker room. I positioned myself early (which meant I was right next to the speakers), got my drink on, and my smoke on – worked myself up into a suitable pre-gig frenzy of excitement and then they totally disappointed me. They have no tunes. Fact. The singer is 3 ft 2 inches. Fact (not that I have a problem with small people – I love midgets). They didn’t play ‘Cool like an axe’. Erm, fact, I think - I couldn’t really make out one song from the next. Anyway. This is what they look like in case you were wondering.

Posted by Chris at 04:41 PM

milk plus and fightstar

November 08, 2004

Milk+ - Last of the Mohicans

milk+ - Rebel Song

On Saturday night I saw milk+ play at the T23 & the psychedelic circus album launch party at the borderline. Scary futuro goth punks all over the place and a drunk fella with an adidas samba obsession. Milk+ avoid scary metal comparisons, despite the guitarist having floor length dreadlocks, and tread a much more listenable and exciting line of rock.
Contact the band: by email

On Wednesday my brother and his bandmate/hair-do peer came down to London for the day to go to a meet and greet with mcfly.
Big news harry has had his tongue pierced and they have got loads of new songs which they played to the meet-and-greeters.

Check out photos from the best young haircut awards 2004

That night lady-swish and I went to see Youthmovie Soundtrack strategies and Fightstar (which just happens to be Charlie Simpson’s Screamo side-project/busted-babyshambles).
As ymsS interest me more than a band that could possibly destroy the greatest pop band ever I’ll just write about them.
they played the usual 4 song setlist; and kept the crowd enraptured for the majority of the first three songs, which is quite incredible seen as the crowd was made up mainly of over-sexed young girls with a three second attention span. Their main redeeming feature is that they are filled with energy despite their droopy post-rock outlook; the music is impossible to follow and predict, their tightness and tension spews out across the audience until everyone is standing on tiptoes or biting their fingernails in anticipation. Sadly by the time they launch into their last, and arguably best, song they have (‘If the works’) the crowd are twitching and fidgeting for different reasons; it’s as if they can smell the eyebrows and hair straighteners of the simpson boy. and ymss get lost under waves of teenage sweating.

Posted by Chris at 04:13 PM

the shape of things to come

September 28, 2004

question of the day
Stan bowles by the others is a song about peter Doherty from (or not from) the libertines.
Read example of story here or watch the video here.

Does this song represent:
A] Embarrassing hero worship?
B] Cynical use of a relationship to turn a profit from witnessing, first hand, the destruction of one of our generation’s greatest rock stars?
C] a song about a mate?

Vote now! Click comments!

Now some pictures from last week – artist shots below, and then a picture diary of last weeks events. Enjoy!

On Wednesday we went to maida vale to see the little killers and the hunches play a peel session. The little were good; the hunches despite having a flute) were not.