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
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hotttt...
November 29, 2005
It’s quite ridiculous actually that I haven’t mentioned this earlier, but I recently took part in a survey of British music bloggers (along with fellow 'experts' from Said The Gramophone, Popjustice, 20 Jazz Funk Greats and Popstar Feets amongst others) to determine the 'The 47 hottest artists in the UK this year', ran by über-music blogger Mike Smith at Take Your Medicine.
The top ten contains some quite surprising choices, and some great ones too; all-in-all making a rather exciting list, but us Brits always have to do things differently, don’t we.
Read it now to find out which artists have claimed this year as their own, and look a bit further down the list to find out which bands are likely to lay claim to 2006. WE KNOW ALL.
Take Your Medicine's 'The 47 hottest artists in the UK this year'
Posted by Chris at 02:01 PM
This is a gig diary...
November 17, 2005
Although I've been holding back on 'going out' a lot recently (in order to save money for Christmas; giving is the new receiving don't you know) the past 4 weeks has seen me dragged out to quite a few that haven't been reported on this here blog. Now considering that the first line of the 'ABOUT THE SWISH BLOG' bit on the right is "This is a gig diary.." this isn't good enough. However in order to save my (very precious) time I'll report on the gigs in an arbitrary 1 to 10 rating system with pictures, don't say I never do anything for you.
How did you like that?
Posted by Chris at 04:06 PM
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A little bit of journo-ing
July 19, 2005
Since I last wrote on here, I've had my first review published in Artrocker magazine, which was lovely. I got a full-page to myself - my measly three-hundred word review and a huge photo - unfortunately there was some sort of cock-up and the huge photo was of Snow White, and not Test-Icicles, my reviews subjects. Anyway I mustn't grumble, I actually wrote the review the day after the terrorist bombings with a huge hangover, writers-block and a certain amount of grammatical-stupidity, so I'm lucky it got in the magazine at all.
So please buy it (generally it's free, but sometimes it's £1) if you can, Artrocker Issue 17 (it's got Les Georges Leningrad on the cover), in the meantime this is my review:
Test-Icicles :: The Legion, Hoxton :: 6th July 2005
"Ladies and Gentlemen, get ready for the worst night of your fucking lives!" Dev Test-icicles screams from atop a bass amp, "this is the best time of our lives". The hideously-named Test-Icicles - recently signed to Domnio - are out to have a good time tonight, and they're not going to let anybody stop them, especially not this largely static Hoxton crowd.
First song 'Catch It' is a shambolic cacophony of screeches and pounding electro dub beats whilst the three svelte figures of band members Dev, Sammy and Rory thrash and sling their bodies as if standing still would mean certain death. Next, new single 'Boa vs. Python' - on record an exhilarating storm of fervent teenage enthusiasm (for serpents) - waned slightly, as metal poses, and fretboard-wanking take precedent; such excesses are inherent to the whole Test-icicles experience. In that lies their very problem, here we have 3 wonderfully talented boys who can marry electro, metal and rap music with such ease (and style), yet they know exactly how talented, ground-breaking and fucking cool they are; and seem intent on thrusting the fact down our throats for the entirety of their set. There are as many missed chords as hair-metal solos, as much misplaced feedback as instrument-swapping.
'Dancing On Pegs', the greatest ode-to-amputation ever written, and 'Circle, Square, Triangle' are set highlights and briefly threaten to get the crowd moving almost as much as the boys on stage, but this is an all-too-fleeting moment. At the end of the day Test-Icicles make some of the most thrilling, danceable and forward-thinking music around, yet seem more interested in amusing themselves and their friends, with rock shapes and 80s metal pomposity. Hopefully soon they will let their music breathe and give the rest of us some of the action.
Posted by Chris at 02:24 PM
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What did I dream?
June 29, 2005
Just to expand on the Glastonbury photo post yesterday I thought I'd tell you which bands I saw during the weekend. The problem with seeing bands at Glastonbury is that it's almost impossible to make critical judgements on their quality; excluding of course the obviously terrible - like the story I heard of Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream's foaming mouth-drug fuck performance on the Sunday.
Saturday I accidentally slept all morning, waking up at 2.30 - just as Art Brut were due to start - too late. I got to the John Peel stage as they played their final chords, luckily I'm seeing them this Friday so all is not lost. Anyway, straight after t'Brut The Rakes were on - if I'm honest the only band I really wanted to see all weekend - I'd just got hold of their new album and even though I'd seen them before I was excited in particular to hear new single Work, Work, Work (Pub, Club, Sleep). They were not disappointing in the slightest, believe me, even in my mid-afternoon half-comedown half-inebriated state I couldn't stop dancing like a donkey. They are still ending their sets with Just Got Paid, despite it's absence from the album, but it blew the whole tent away - everybody was doing the faux-ironic Ian Curtis dancing - the whole experience in fact was incredible.
Skip forward to Sunday afternoon, The Crown tent for Special Needs, part of the special Poptones line-up - which was generally a bit crap barring The Paddingtons, and the absent Carl Barat (what happened to him?) - and again they were well worth the trip. To the left, to the right… etc etc etc. Do wop brilliance.
OK, OK, here come the questions... Why did you go all the way to Glastonbury to see only two bands, both of which you've seen within the last two month? What about Coldplay? Or The White Stripes? The Go Team!? LCD Soundsystem? M.I.A.? Maximo Park? LCD Soundsystem? 2manydjs? Babyshambles???! ARRRrggggghhh!
Yawn.
Why go to Glastonbury to see bands? Honestly.
Posted by Chris at 03:13 PM
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Catch-up time
June 01, 2005
Restored, The Swish Blog seems a bit redundant to me at the moment. Hopefully you haven't noticed, but if you have I apologise. The thing is I just haven't had time to update recently, I've moved house, been stupidly busy at work, and a little bit ill; I'm afraid doing anything more than a fifteen track mix every week or so was far beyond me.
The thing is I've had loads of things that I could have (and should have) written about. I've been to a tonne of gigs, seeing many good (Twisted Charm, Objects, Death From Above 1979) and bad (Cazals, Dakar Rally, Metric) performances, which I would have loved to scribble about on here - this blog is, after all, my personal outlet of rainbows and bile - I'm perhaps more upset for myself than for you, dear readers, that I did not. In addition there were many drunken nights and TV shows which could have also found their way onto these pages (although nowadays these things are probably more suited to my livejournal).
Hopefully, with the house move mainly complete and my work-frazzled head clearing any future concert going will be chronicled.
It's possible that some of these forthcoming gigs will be at the Buzzard venue. The nice lady who runs the Buffalo Bar has bought the old Purple Turtle in Mornington Crescent, renamed it the Buzzard (zoological theme throughout), and has some worthy acts to kick off the new club in style:
June 16th
Les Georges Leningrad
June 17th
The Chalets + Yuppee Flu
June 20th
Tom Vek + Young Knives
June 21st
The Wolfhounds
June 22nd
Be Your Own Pet
June 23rd
Kinski + Todd
June 24th
The Cherubs
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THE BUZZARD (Formerly The Purple Turtle)
61 - 65 Crowndale Road
Camden NW1
020 7383 4976
Wow. LGL, BYOP, The Chalets and the Vek within a week!
Now, a request, does anyone have a leaked copy of the new Rakes album 'Capture/Release'?
And finally, if you use Livejournal you can syndicate this site into your friends-list, click here.
Posted by Chris at 04:40 PM
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Black Wire/Clor/Art Brut, Fabric, 15th April
May 08, 2005
There are some confused looks in the Fabric crowd tonight. A girl peers at the live bands stage for a moment before turning on her heel and asking where Jacques Le Cont is. A man next to me asks if it’s a Battle of the Bands night. A venue populated by mainly Ben Sherman shirts and glow sticks is not usually where you’d find any of Black Wire, Clor or Art Brut, but the Camden ‘Kill Em All and Let God Sort Em Out’ crew have taken over tonight. It may be messy.
Black Wire are the first to brave the stage. Their pretty boy looks win over a few of the girls and having a drum machine helps to win over some of the more dance loyal boys.
The lead singer of Clor looks creepily like Chris Martin when they released Shiver, but thankfully that’s about all they have in common. Though they’re another band with a drum machine, Clor scare many of the more curious Fabric regulars away. Dressed in leather, they’re not appealing to the fashionista crowd here either but they hardly need to, nor probably want to. Clor thunder unstoppably through the set, they do not smile, they simply throw out noise on top of noise until you have your shake your head quickly just to ground yourself again. The merciless pounding of drums and bass guitars is enough to inspire some dancing usually reserved for headbanging at office parties amongst the braver city workers.
Art Brut get the easiest option, playing after midnight there is barely a sober soul in the venue but they could have just as easily played 12 hours later to a room full of hungover heads and won just as many hearts. They won a few too many hearts possibly, an eager group of girls kept groping Eddie Argos’ groin during the set, and this was even before he ripped off his shirt. Art Brut are only one step away from having girls with banners at their gigs now.
Complete with new suits, new shirts, and a new album only weeks away, Art Brut are looking and sounding better than ever. Their next single, Emily Kane, tells of how Eddie just can’t over his girlfriend, though he hasn’t seen her in "10 years, 9 months, 3 weeks, 4 days, 6 hours, 13 minutes and 5 seconds". But as they launch into the single Eddie is on his knees, looking somewhat nervous, telling us the real Emily Kane is in the building. Maybe as an homage to teenage heartbreak songs, the set has far more "oohhs" and "aahhs"in the backing vocals than usual, giving it all a very cute 50s prom slant.
Posted by Chris at 11:09 AM
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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
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FREE BOOZE and some photos...
April 15, 2005
Apparently Roger Sergeant charges a fortune to do a photoshoot for a band; and then he tries to sell prints to unsuspecting media workers for £200 quid a pop. I've got a camera, any bands out there want a photoshoot doing?
Last night we went to his exhibition opening at Proud Gallery in Camden, and in my boozed-head it was brilliant. I imagined it to be similar to gallery openings from the swinging sixties, full of crap celebrities and hangers-on. In thirty years time I want to be able to say "I was at the Roger Sergeant exhibition back in 2005 - or the swinging noughties as we used to call them - and it was crazy! People we're drinking bottles of Carling like there was no tomorrow! Such debauchery." I can't wait till I'm old.
Well it wasn't exactly like that; Kasabian, some of the artists formally known as The Libertines, the Queens of Noize and that guy from The Boyfriends were there, but it all felt a bit contrived. Some bands played: Metro Riots were awesome, Dogs were ignored, and Carl Barat only Djed - which upset me as I'd expected a little bit of shambling with a guitar after his comments in the NME this week.
However, Popstar Feets actually went POP (as opposed to Indie-Nonentity Feets); upcoming posts will feature Kasabian, The Killers, Carl Libertine, Gary Libertine and George Bush. Beat that Popjustice.com.
Posted by Chris at 02:55 PM
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
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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
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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
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(Late) Camden Crawl post
March 14, 2005
I was geeking myself senseless this weekend, ending up completely goggle-eyed after working on the Popstar Feets redesign non-stop. Helen wants it ready for the (promised, but not confirmed) NME feature on the shuffle page of this week’s upcoming issue. She drew me a picture of how she wanted it to look and then left me to it; anyway, I’m not bitter (or suffering from blog-envy), so if you want to look at the new design before it’s unleashed on the world then look here.
If I’m honest, I suspect that I’ve left my Camden Crawl post a little late for it to be relevant, or even interesting to most of you who have probably already been bogged down with hundred upon hundred of CC ‘reports’. So, I have decided that today will be the first ‘bullet-point-post’ on The Swish Blog (although I do admit that certain previous posts have not been far off the mark – especially hungover ones).
Camden Crawl 2005
1. Stupid ticketing arrangements.
· On the tickets it said you could pick up your wristbands at KOKO or The Bucks Head, so we went to KOKO, and they said we could only pick them up at The Bucks Head. Wha?
2. Then we went to Lock 17 for Art Brut
· Art Brut were really good, but I spent the entire set (and I mean ENTIRE SET) at the bar waiting to get served. We found Jack, Candy and Steve – then Helen and I had to down our double vodkas (plus top up vodka from hip flask) really quick, as we were leaving.
3. At this point I thought the night was going to disappoint. It had been a bad start.
4. We then headed over to the Dublin Castle for The Chalets.
· We had an eye on the rest of the night when doing this; next on were The Cribs, and after them Graham Coxon; and with Dublin Castle being the smallest venue on the crawl we expected a certain amount of over-subscription.
· The Chalets were excellent, the cute irish front-girls were wearing bowties.
5. The Cribs were up next; vodka had now well and truly taken hold within the group, Helen seemingly in some sort of 40% Proof haze – staring at the speakers and her feet.
· The Cribs set enjoyed many stage invasions, stage dives and complaints about sore throats, but were excellent. It was the first time I’d seen them (despite my dreams being sound-tracked by Another Number and Direction for the past year and a half), and I was not disappointed.
6. For some strange vodka-fuelled reason we then decided to leave our much sought-after Dublin Castle floor space (Coxon was about to go on), to attempt entry to the Barfly for Le Tigre.
· However on the way we ‘received word’ that the queue was huge and no-one was getting in, so we turned back around and walked to the other end of town for Hope of the States playing an acoustic set in The Purple Turtle.
· This provided an amazing opportunity to ‘have a nice sit down’ in the big seats upstairs, which I took full advantage of, whilst Helen still high on a vodka-rush buzzed about the place talking to a number of south coast music-artistes.
7. We then headed the Barfly for the DJs.
· It turned out it was John Kennedy from XFM: great! He played absolute crap music, starting at about 2003 and working backwards: shit!
· Here I’d like to make a point about the quality of the Djing in general. Sure I understand that the people who came to the crawl were eclectic in taste, and the Djs had to cater for that. However, I HEARD THE LOSTPROPHETS 3 TIMES!! On one occasion two of their tracks were played in a row!
8. After muchos dancing on benches and the like, we headed to the Electric Ballroom and it was rubbish.
Ok that’s the end of the night (except for when we were waiting for the bus and I called this really nice young goth lad a xenophobe and a racist as a joke – which he didn’t get), and I’ve just realised that my short-bullet-pointed-post idea didn’t really work. It turned out a bit heftier than I had imagined it would. Sorry.
Posted by Chris at 06:07 PM
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Dustin's Bar Mitzvah Single Launch
March 10, 2005
An absence of shoe girls last night meant that I attended the Dustin’s Bar Mitzvah single launch party (Jimmy White / Lucy) with my good friend ‘Dave of the 1’. I ate an extremely salty pizza (I hate anchovies, so why did I order them?), drank a few too many beers, and met Trev from lostmusic - all was good with the world (until this morning when I woke up).
First up were Larrikin Love, a band of clichés and music which quickly became uninteresting. The highlight of their set was a jaunty little Irish jig number; which maintained its allure mainly because it only lasted a minute and a half.
I didn’t hate them – not enough to stab them anyway - but they quickly bored me, which in turn led to heavier drinking; so they are in some part at fault for my headache right now.
Next were The Rank Deluxe who I’d heard a lot about previously mainly down to John Kennedy’s (XFM) enthusiasm for them. I’d got the mpfrees off their website and enjoyed them immensely. Live however, they were not at all how I had expected them to sound. The pork pie-Ian Dury bopping I had expected morphed into a much more ‘rock’ and mainstream – a gruff-voiced Feeder perhaps – which, if I’m honest, disappointed me a little.
The Fades have been written about on this site many a time before so I wont go into them in detail here. But let me just say that they impressed me so much more than on previous occasions; ending on the riotous CaCa they pretty much set the mood for the rest of the night. A great way to set up Dustin’s for their hour of glory.
Dustin’s ran up and down the venue doing nothing in particular for a while immediately before taking the stage, whilst the Pyrrha girls played excellent 60s rock and roll music. By the time they went up the place was pretty much full and everyone seemed pretty damn excited (as opposed to past Dustin’s gigs, where crowd agitation has usually been a product of fear rather than anticipation), and they didn’t let anyone down. Spitting, growling and insulting throughout, the performance also included stage-diving, crowd-invasions and mike stand-loss; they played the longest set I’ve ever seen them play, and at the end you were left wanting more. Jimmy White was played for the ‘last time ever’, and ever other song splashed along with far more verve and fortitude than ever before. It was their night; and it could also have been the turning point – from the bastard oiks that everyone loves to hate, to the great white hope – a future for this band suddenly seems a much firmer proposition.
We went home at this point, so apologies to Action Plan and The Lisa Moorish Experience; I was wasted and was almost sick on the District line.
Posted by Chris at 06:02 PM
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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
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This is a big long list of gigs I have been to...
February 03, 2005
Have been gigging loads and loads with the shoe girl recently; spending silly money and drinking silly drinks. It got so bad by Monday morning that I took two days off work! I never take days off work! If I feel bad I generally just go to work and skive as much as I can. Anyway, here’s a short run though the past week and a half in the land of swish and shoes.
Tuesday 25th January 2005
Maximo Park at Metro. Supported by faulty driver (I think) who were actually quite good; in a vertically challenged Kele Okereke way. Maximo park were pretty good, but it was a bit of an industry gig full of old people – so wasn’t fully enjoyable.
Thursday 27th January 2005
Art Goblins at Circus / Elbow Room, Islington. Some shit American/Canadian band were on first who were rubbish. Then (surprisingly low on the bill) were dustin’s bar mitzvah who played one of the best gigs I’ve seen by then so far (no jimmy white though?) best bits of the set: all the chineapples fans hating dbm and not dancing – dave getting annoyed and shouting at them – dave getting a cigarette off Guy mcknight from 80s matchbox (alari?) – dave messing in the dj booth and having a fight with the DJ.
Next we had the barbs who were boring; which amazed me as I loved massive crush. Then chineapples; who were interesting. a little too dot org affiliated for my liking – but shoe girl is friends with the singer Douglas so I’ll let them off. Finally the art goblins came on stage and played a set reminiscent of kjell in their heyday – total carnage, and terribly, terribly bad.
jack and candy were there and we sat with them, they are nice.
Saturday 29th January 2005
X-posure all dayer at Barfly. Was loads and loads of fun – saw james from the rocks stumbling towards destruction, john kennedy wearing a pink stripy t-shirt, and I got so drunk that I went to sainsburys bought some coriander and then gave it to a 16 year old girl outside the barfly.
We also missed pretty much every band we wanted to see: metro riots, clor, cherubs, dogs and eastern lane. We saw maximo park and they were good, a lot better than the metro gig. We didn’t stay for yourcodenameis: milo because we wanted to get to Frog early. Dave went green on the tube (he said it was the lights) and went home. Shoe girl and I went to frog and I made up some dances and then we saw ludes who were really good – but do you ever really enjoy bands you see at frog? It’s too big, and too late and most of the time you’re too drunk – I see the bands at frog as trivial entertainment – like a circus, and not something you go to specifically see.
Tuesday 1st February 2005
The rocks at the barfly. Support from the cunts (who we missed), and the ordinance who were ok (this gig review is getting really deep now isn’t it?) the rocks were loads of fun as usual, but you could see that they weren’t too chuffed with the turnout. Best bit: Glancing around the half empty (half full?) venue James says “Tuesday night at the barfly… it’s a rocking place. And we are the rocks! That’s what we do.” And then he fell off the stage. Then shoe girl got her bag stolen by some ‘crack-whore’© and we had to leg it to cancel all her cards and stuff. We met sarah from the rocks on the tube and regaled her our story of woe. She had read shoe girls Live journal and knew all about her eddie argos infatuation, which was funny.
Wednesday 2nd February 2005
rtx at 93 feet east. Well actually, we didn’t stay for rtx (royal trux? Who?) and just watched comanechi (best two person band in the world) and gin palace I love ‘em; Helen Hates them… they still didn’t play ‘cool like an axe’! that song Is really good, I was upset.
the venue was full of old (well late 20s) people – apparently kate moss was there. I hate old people.
and that’s it. Hope you enjoyed my totally uninteresting run down of the gigs I’ve been to this week.
Posted by Chris at 01:28 PM
A Meeting on Brick Lane...
January 14, 2005
The bishops were pretty non-descript last night. Not particularly worthy of comment. We were at the Rhythm factory to see an awesome night of many many bands, but in the end we only saw three, and one of them was the bishops.
Happily they were followed by Metro riots, who impressed me so much more than last time I saw them (although last time I was significantly distracted by the prospect of throwing pool balls at special needs groupies with toby from dustin’s bar mitzvah). They really get people moving with their blend of punkfunk mc5 type stuff and messy (captain armbands) London grubbiness. Envisage the rolling stones if they had gone through a fuck-funk phase.
Dustin’s Bar Mitzvah again, this time hampered by terrible sound engineering; but still they fought through it – someone actually asked me if they were signed, and when I said no (except for their one single deal) he went over to some trendy looking fella and whispered it into his ear. Ooh. Anyway, I’m sick of telling you all how good dustin’s are – go to the website, download the tracks and get on the forum.
sadly we didn’t stay for the ludes – which means I’ve missed them twice now… anyway
on the way back to helen’s flat, walking down brick lane, we came across Eddie Argos and various members of Ciccone and other Art / Post brit-pop bands (sorry I dunno who half of you were) eating bagels from bagel bake / the bagel shop. Helen got her shoe (actually sock) picture, and then we got invited back to one of their houses to drink whisky into the early hours. Unfortunately Helen didn’t hear that (she was still in a bit of shock to be stood next to EA) and shook hands, said goodbyes and walked off. When I told her later she said “at least I can say that I turned down Eddie Argos.” She is such a groupie whore slag.
Posted by Chris at 06:19 PM
'trocker and the rise & rise of popstar feets
January 12, 2005
Last night we went to ‘trocker to see (purveyors of female do-wop loveliness) the schla la las and (Sheffield’s finest new cross associated melodo-rockers) the long blondes. Most importantly it was another chance for helenium to grab some more of those all important feet shots.
‘trocker was the busiest I’ve seen it in a long while, but there seemed to be a strange atmosphere around the place; no-one really seemed that interested (despite really great sets from both bands). Dave suggested that (with it being the first trocker of the year) most people were there to be ‘seen’. Dunno.
the long blondes rocked though – even playing a bit of special needs’ classic the winter gardens at the start of one of their songs. Anyway. Still got a bit of gin head, so I’m not feeling too eloquent.
helenium’s new theme blog Popstar Feets is really kicking off at the moment, she’s even had offers of spot features on the radio1 and Q magazine websites! Having already got Chris Martin, and Tim Wheeler I think she’s feeling a little bit of pressure to keep the momentum going, whilst maintaining a high celebrity standard (she was a bit annoyed with me not taking pictures of the bad pop band Freefaller and Mikey from Phixx when I saw them this week). Anyway, she got shots of dj supremo Rory Phillips, and the (hair) drummer from the long blondes. And she hopefully should be posting them soon, so check it out.
Posted by Chris at 05:42 PM
Dustin's 'own' Death Disco
January 06, 2005
Two gigs in a row at Death Disco for Dustin’s Bar mitzvah ended in apparent chaos last night. Mid-song fuck-ups, on-stage fighting and, best of all, off-stage fighting (between the band's roadies/friends/family – it was totally scallylicious). This left the band seemingly in a bit of a huff; racing through the last few songs and walking off stage to relative silence as the place rapidly emptied of people.
First of all, there is something quite important that I have to say about Dustin’s bar mitzvah. I think they possibly have the most commercial potential out of any unsigned bands I’ve seen for the 12 months. They are lyrically fascinating, and surround themselves with such rock ‘n’ roll circus that sometimes you can’t help but think that you are witnessing the birth of a legend
Last night however The problem these boys seemed to have was that they were awful – truly awful.
Dave seemed to be in a bit of a mood – his sulky affectations rubbing off on the rest of the band – to the point where they all gave him a kick when he fucked up.
they played all the classics (the stuff that prove they have real talent as songwriters) BNP, Jimmy White, Lucy and get your mood on; but ruined any chance of the quality shining through with a half-arsed attitude.
what’s most disappointing about it (for a ‘concerned’ fan such as myself) is that last night was the ideal time to cement their position as ‘the best unsigned band ever ever’. Gordon Raphael was filming them, tim wheeler and the entire cast of the coldplay band were in attendance, and mcgee is obviously impressed – putting them on at death disco on the past two nights now. Their time was then. Last night. No wonder dave was so pissed off when I was leaving. “I’m going home! No fuck you! I’m going home!”
shoeblogger to the stars… Helen has started a new themed picture blog. It’s called popstar feets and it will feature pictures of famous (-ish) people’s shoes.
She kicked it all off at the Comanechi gig at whiteheat on Tuesday night with the lovely and talented akiko (white brogues), and has followed it with Gordon Raphael (scuffed trainers), and tim wheeler and chris martin (shiny black boots and white addidas trainers respectively). Check it out here http://helenium.pitas.com/ and remember, she’s always looking for contributions – if you are out and see a celebrity take of photo of their shoes and email it over to her. Cheers.
Posted by Chris at 05:23 PM
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
Maximo park badge
November 27, 2004
So it turns out that going to a gig on my own isn’t as much of a kick up the arse as I thought it would be. I threw pool balls with Dustin’s Bar mitzvah, checked out some tattoos, deprived zac needs of a free drink, and screamed some Live Journal into someone’s face.
The night was aided significantly by the presence of the lovely Claire; she took me under her wing for the night, introducing me to (almost) everyone that I wanted to meet, and all for the price of some m.l.
During one of the early sets, when I think the mushrooms we’re giving me a bit of jip, I was absolutely entranced by the hilarity of a journo type fella stood in the corner. He had a pad and was writing short notes as the bands played, nothing weird there - Except every time, just before he wrote, he would lick the end of his pencil; people actually do that! At the time that was the weirdest (and funniest) thing in the world ever ever - which I can now see it was not.
Dustin’s bar mitzvah were shit hot, it goes without saying – the messiest, most slow minded and quick witted band going. Number 1 every time. top moment: 01:35 am dave and baco jumping on stage and dancing when the (queens of noize slayer) dj played ‘lucy’.
metro riots - they are basically the fastest moving haircuts in the west; playing incredibly tight funkadelic bullshit with some little dancing balding fat boy making the crowd go all of a quiver.
special needs are simply an incredible band, however I had trouble with them simply because of the rampant oestrogen convention going on around me. It was a busted-alike scream-fest of the highest order. Don’t get me wrong, I like girls. I simply prefer it when their paying me attention, and not (the incredibly nice) irish heartthrob "zaaaccchhhaarrrrryyyyyyyyy!!!"
Posted by Chris at 12:23 PM
a post about nothing in particular
October 27, 2004
Swish-girl and I went to the others gig at cargo last night, and I wasn’t entirely enthusiastic about the prospect to be honest, as I think the others are boring self-indulgent old men, with a penchant for dramatic gestures – and how earnest! Swish-girl had told me that les incompetents (never heard of them) and the paddingtons (exceptionally pretty kids with a beautifully honed garage sound but absolutely no decent tunes whatsoever) were also playing. but it wasn't until about three minutes before we got to cargo she said ‘Oh and some band called agent blue are playing as well’ Wha! Wha! Suddenly the mediocre line-up turned into the best kiddie-tinged garage-band line-up ever assembled (except the others, who are still just boring old men in my estimation).
We had a drink (me: red stripe, her: cranberry juice), toasted John Peel and tried to guesstimate all the pretty young punters ages. ’12!’ ‘15!’ ’43!’ ‘shit is that Robert smith?’
Still no mp3s today either. Sorry guys. Nothing excites me; so I don’t want to subject you to pap which even I don’t rate.
Anyway, in the absence of downloads I’ve got three awesome links for you all to check out.
Hit40uk – enter the mcfly competition – see mcfly play in the universal records boardroom; I’m assured no more than 8 competition winners will be there.
Check out eminem’s new video for ‘Mosh’ or some song title to that effect (it’s how eminem works, 1st release off an album = dance style joke song / 2nd release = aggressive ‘I’m a bitch and I’m gonna rise up’ song / 3rd release = ‘but I can be gentle and heartfelt too’ song) – it’s an anti-bush/vote him out song; good vid.
And once you’ve exhausted both of those avenues waste some more of your time by playing ’iron stomach sumo columns’ when you get to heavy.com click heavy games at the bottom and then click ‘iron stomach’ (you need shockwave).
Posted by Chris at 05:51 PM
artrocker mag launch
October 05, 2004
Last night we went to the artrocker magazine launch at the fifth (I think…) marquee. We we’re too late for comanechi, but got there just in time to find out the much lauded French kicks had been added to the bill.The marquee is a very interesting venue, it’s just above the trl studios in Leicester square, I could almost feel the presence of the great alex zane – He doesn’t have far to go from one job to the other does he, from XFM (in the capital FM building) to the TRL studios and back again.
French kicks came on, they’re quite pretty and impressively flitted between instruments and microphones, it was hard to keep up with who was playing what. However they were quite dull and the crowd realised this very early on. One or two spectators seemed enthusiastic at the start but even they seemed to tire towards the end, perhaps sensing the depressed crowd around them, or perhaps simply realising that French kicks are dull. More sad was the fact that their album was released in Europe on that day, and they were obviously were quite apprehensive about their reception. “thank you very much, you’ve been very polite. You’ve all been very polite” Was their response. Oh dear.
After the show (but before art brut) we went upstairs to the café area to have a soft drink and a sit down and we saw the white shirted guitarist/keyboardist/singer dude sat at the bar on his own with a beer, and then wandering around the café completely ignored by all the people who had just seen them play downstairs.
Art brut top of the pops art brut top of the pops art brut top of the pops. Not much else to say.
We sadly didn’t stay for kaito, but I’ve heard they are good, and the singer girl looks alright in a few photo’s I’ve seen.
Elsewhere: check out Chad’s Prague blog. if he manages to keep updating it, well, I’m sure it’ll be debauched-Dvorák-kafka-Victorian era-but with drugs reading.
Posted by Chris at 04:28 PM
the decision made...
August 19, 2004
Finally a review of The Ordinary Boys which matches my views on the young chappies perfectly, thus relieving me the task of constructing a spiteful diatribe in my own words.Read it here on 75orless.com
I've decided that i'm definitely gonna make this into an mp3 blog from now on, all i need is about 50 to 100 megs of webspace to hold the mp3s for a week or so at a time, so if anyone can point me in the right direction i'd be well chuffed.
finally got around to listening to the annie album sampler today; it's top. buy it (or maybe download a song from it on this site next week!).
Posted by Chris at 04:43 PM
Hallowe'en part 2.
November 14, 2003
Back to hallowe’en then. Drunk and sat in the centre of the barfly on one half of a pair of couches the three of us find ourselves sat opposite a large proportion of the bands that played that night, alex from franz Ferdinand, dustin from hot hot heat and Eleanor from the fiery furnaces (note: an all alliteration gig). More drinks were consumed and after a quick chat with some mtv guy about the relative merits of his ‘thank god I’m Norwegian’ and my ‘yo! Richard bacon’ t-shirts chad and I felt compelled to do something vaguely journalistic, so as chad went to get his phone which has a voice record function I introduced myself to alex kapranos from the lovely franz Ferdinand, and asked for a quick interview. As we were walking outside to do the interview chad pulled me aside, “chris, I can’t figure out how to do the record thing on my phone…” panic set in. “ok well just take notes then” I suggested not really realising the full implications of this as alex turned and indicated a spot for us to stand. “ok, thanks for allowing us to do this” I said, half slurring I’m sure. “I seem to have broken my dictaphone, so my friend chad here will be taking shorthand notes”, “he can do shorthand?” asked alex, obviously suspicious. “erm, yeah.”. I love lying.The sad thing about doing a fake interview when drunk with a very poor way of recording what’s said is that when it goes well (as it did; he spoke for over five minutes in response to my first question) you are left with nothing to show. Hence after at least 15 minutes of talking chad and I thanked the man for his time and scurried back to the throng to see if what chad had written was legible and comprehensive; it wasn’t.
So Here’s the interview in its ‘revised-the-next-day-whilst-still-drunk-by-chad’ form:
Franz Ferdinand Alex Kapranos interview – we rock
q. what’s it like being the new thing? (or something)
a. I don’t know, a lot of new bands have got good press, and it hasn’t made them better bands. It fascinates me how the music press can influence popularity so much. When we started the band I set a rule for myself that I won’t allow press to affect me, journalists have a lot less power with something like films – it’s best to watch it and decide for yourself if you like it or not.
q. in that case would you prefer to distance yourself from the celebrity you are likely to achieve?
a. to me there’s no distinction, [then something about celebrity previously being ‘respect for the upper classes] I want respect for my music not for being a celebrity and doing the things that they usually do.
q. [something about lord byron, and how he chose to eventually shun celebrity]
a. [conversation about byron’s appearance and club foot impressions]
q. new single?
a. January
q. album?
a. album after single and maybe a live album on the internet
q. do you aspirations to attempt to ‘break’ America?
a. we’re going to America at the end of November and playing the mercury lounge, I’d just like to see what happens, there’s no big American marketing plan in action. Then we’re touring Europe with hot hot heat and the fiery furnaces again.
-----------------------
as you can probably see theres about 2 minutes of chat there but, although blurry, i'm sure we talked for 15 minutes; including full details of album and single releases. so let this be a lesson to all drunken gig-goers, please don't attempt an interview - especially without suitable audio recording equiptment.
next: the remaining hallowe'en stories. including irish girls, zane lowe looks in a mirror and walking with poppers.
Posted by Chris at 05:42 PM
Hallowe'en Part 1.
November 05, 2003
So having finally regained sobriety 5 days later I find myself trying to articulate the carnage of Hallowe’en, and failing quite miserably. Chad had suggested it weeks earlier, but in my current state of trying to avoid nights out I hadn’t really considered it that much, as the day got closer however and it became apparent that it fell on Hallowe’en, the bands were good and I yearned to get drunk - the prospect grew in stature. “Gonzo on tour, fo’shizzle!” Chad screams from the rooftop of bargain booze. “We’re gonna rockizzle the jointizzle!” My ‘Yo! Richard Bacon’ T-shirt drew attention but no-one really got it. Chad wore the most bizarre combination of clothes I have ever seen (blue trampoline club polo shirt, red tie with a big paintbrush on it, yellow corduroy jacket) and then had the nerve to say I was the one who looked idiotic. Inside the place was pretty packed; Franz Ferdinand seemed to get a very good reception and they were my favourite band of the night. Hot hot heat and the fiery furnaces were good but don’t seem to satisfy the children of the new rock revolution as much as they should do, the strokes have spoiled us all; and maybe the words of Johnny Borrell should be heeded before it’s too late. Anyway chad chatted up some Israeli bird and then tried to palm her off on me when he got bored of her. The three of us found our way to the couch in the centre of the room, and the world closed in around us.Shit it’s so late. I’m going to continue this little story tomorrow. Stayed tuned for the next instalment featuring: Chad takes poppers, Zane lowe loses his marbles, we speak to franz Ferdinand front man Alex, and we are sorely humiliated at table football by ‘thank god I’m Norwegian’ man.
Posted by Chris at 01:53 PM
mexico review
October 20, 2003
Band: Mexico, Venue: The Zanzibar Club, Liverpool, Date: Tuesday 14th of October, 2003.I know someone from Mexico. He has a fantastic grasp of the English language, but is able to say whatever he wants – be it odious or ridiculous – and blame it on a loss of meaning during translation. The four lads in the band Mexico also speak English, but they hail from Liverpool and have no excuses for their poor translation skills.
The initial signs were good, a slow crescendo led by a charging bass line flirted and undressed with mogwai-esque come-ons, leading us to a sticky mutual climax with everyone in the room. At the point of orgasm however, the keyboardist seemed to decide it was time to play his DAT Politiks CD, and totally spoiled to mood; worse of all the drummer started singing. Rock-post-rockisms seem perfectly viable in theory, but, like communism and home-made slush puppies, rarely work in practise. Ultimately when you add the sound of radio Deftones to the mix it becomes once upon a crime in Mexico.
The Zanzibar Club
Posted by Chris at 07:55 PM
