This Is Not TV

With people crammed into every square inch of the Manchester Apollo, there was a palpable sense of occasion when the lights went down and the Bad Seeds casually stroll on stage, before the anticipated arrival of their brooding front man, Nick Cave.

With his boot polished jet-black hair, droopy moustache and 1880’s style suit, Cave cuts an unmistakable figure as he saunters onto stage to greet his adoring public.

Despite a few years absence from a Manchester stage, it’s perfectly clear as the band crash spectacularly into Hold On To Yourself that Cave has lost absolutely none of his stage presence – twirling round, doing the odd high-kick, with finger pointing and hip-wiggling all present and correct.

The between-song banter was almost as good as the music, as Cave jokes with fellow band members. At one point, Australia’s finest export dedicates a song to a lucky audience member called John and over the course of the evening cheekily changes lyrics in order to name check his new friend.

The set list drew mainly on the Seeds brilliant new album, Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig! with the brooding Moonland taking the tempo down a notch while the funky Dig, Lazarus, Dig had everyone’s heads shaking in unison. We Call Upon The Author To Explain was another highlight, showing off those Cave moves to perfection, but perhaps the high point of the show was when Cave took to the piano for a heart-warming rendition of God Is In The House.

The rest of the Bad Seeds, including Cave’s film soundtrack cohort Warren Ellis and statuesque percussionist Jim Sclavunos, are bang on form, but it’s Cave who’s understandably the main focal point, throwing himself around the place for Get Ready For Love, before departing the stage for a well-earned break.

The generous 4-song encore included, Straight To You, The Lyre Of Orpheus, the innuendo filled Hard On For Love and Bad Seeds classic, Stagger Lee.

Scott Zverblis.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Right, this is no longer an isolated incident, a chance occurrence, a one bad apple spoiling the barrel…

We, as a nation, are shit to touring bands.

To some this news will be about as surprising as the recent item saying ‘online computer games are addictive,’ to others it will be a call to defend your local promoter in righteous indignation. But believe me, the nice guys are the exception in this country, not the rule.

The reason I say this is because over the last year or so I have talked to many a band who have gone and done Europe, and everyone has come back with the same refrain: “they love us in Europe; we get treated like shit over here.” Even I have experienced the love of another country as opposed to the disdain of this one. You play a free gig in France, they apologise for the lack of funds, feed you, booze you, put you up in someone’s house then pack you off in the morning with a strong coffee and a hearty “salut!” Over here you get to change in a toilet, play to surly punters who wish you weren’t there most of the time, lump your equipment through the rain to your car, parked in danger of a clamping and told to piss off before the disco starts. It makes you wonder why you even bother – no wonder so many good bands in this country split up before they even start.

No, you have to run everything as a business in this country. Promoters need to make it worth their while, venues have to cover their costs… plus a bit. The annoying thing is, it doesn’t cost much to be nice. What does it cost to put on a vege curry? Some pasta? Space on someone’s floor? A few bottles of something and a chat at the end of a night? Some of you are doing this, but it’s not enough – you can’t keep treating bands in such a shoddy way and expect to get bands coming back, and a bit of TLC gets you happy bands=good gigs=happy, returning punters. You do the complex equations, bread heads, and show a little love!

Popularity: 2% [?]

It’s hard to believe The Vines were thought of as highly as the bands who came to prominence around the same time; White Stripes and The Strokes in particular.

Their Highly Evolved debut showed glimpses of promise but since, they’ve wholeheartedly failed to live up to that promise. Theirs has been a turbulent career so far, admittedly. With frontman Craig Nicholls being diagnosed as autistic and having to learn how to deal with it, it’s a wonder an album has emerged at all. If writing decent new songs has indeed been a struggle for Nicholls, frankly, it shows. If this is him in reinvigorated mode, he’s been plain lazy; taking inspiration from your (and everyone else’s) favourite albums does not constitute a vigorous re-stirring of creative juices.

Not many Australian bands have broken through the mainstream with anything particularly original to present, most of them being box-ticking, derivative good time rock-mongers. Vines also offer nothing new and don’t seem to know what they want to be, instead playing around with tired rock formulae. On this album, they often come across as an Aussie take on (and therefore a dumber, more cliché-ridden version of) Ash’s chart-bothering power-pop prowess. And then they pepper the album with attempts at sounding like, well, just about every other student-bop mainstay.

When not in snotty, racket-making Stones-go-punk mode, they’re aping The Beatles’ whimsical pop with the waltz-time fluffiness of ‘True Is The Night’. Then, quite shamelessly, having a go at playing ‘being Nirvana’ on the next track. Album closer, ‘She Is Gone’ could be a weak-limbed Oasis B-side (way to plagiarise the plagiarists!) while ‘Merry-Go-Round’ and ‘Orange Amber’ have the weak drabness of tra-la-la Britpop, the former with an ‘80s-metal chorus inexplicably cut and pasted in between the verses. Its 14 songs barely stretch past the half-hour, too, with most songs hovering around the 2-minute mark, further suggesting the scorching antipodean sun has perhaps led to a debilitating ideas famine, ‘round the Vines’ way.

It all comes across like a particularly adept covers band doing songs you vaguely think you’ve heard before somewhere. It’s all fairly well presented but there’s nothing that will have you eagerly anticipating repeated listens.

In fact, it’s more ‘old hat’ than the hat Catherine Howard was wearing when Henry VIII had her beheaded. Sorry, my mind is wandering. This album isn’t helping matters at all.

Popularity: 8% [?]

If we must insist on living by categorisation, I’m not too sure into which camp I should place The Automatic. As a U.K. indie act, they fall somewhere between the fist-banging terrace-indie brigade and the sweeter, more sequencer-happy electro pop favoured by others. Aside from that, they probably most resemble the catchiest kind of US pop-punk emo bands and Christ knows there’s enough of those doing the rounds without the brits adding to the deluge. I’d heard the first Automatic album Not Accepted Anywhere, several times and was never that impressed, so I was preparing to listen to this with a heavy, largely unmoved heart.

As it turns out, the tunes bash along at a nice, rowdy pace but have enough hooky power-chord changes and catchy choruses to grab your attention over their collective clatter. Their bolshy, ‘no-frills’ drummer purrs out a different rhythmic approach on each track, too, ensuring their limiting distorto-rock style doesn’t result in them sounding too samey.

Most tracks make their stamp on you in some way another. The majority are brash and loud but ‘Magazines’ dead rings for the expansive technoid-rock of MGMT and ‘This Is A Fix’ and ‘Accessories’ feature some powerfully wrought, high-registering vocals from bassist and singer, Rob; the spit of David Essex in the ‘Rauol’ video by the way, ladies.

I was expecting to be rendered unimpressed by this. A difficult second album by a band unloved by many whose previous best was some fairly lame, childish tosh about an oncoming monster. It’s a marked improvement from their first, though and provides the same kind of balls-out, unashamed power-pop thrills that made We Are Scientists’ first album such a winner. Some tracks do make you wonder if they’re annoyingly poppy or just pretty damn good. ‘This Ship’ begins with an awful, overblown American teen-pop feel but, further in, scampering along at a breathless pace, it boasts a winning, more downbeat sequence of what seem to be three different consecutive choruses, such is the song’s catchiness quotient.

The plodding, mawkish ‘Make Your Mistakes’ is an unwelcome half-ballad that irritates rather than improves as it unfolds and if in the wrong mood, you could obviously dismiss this album as being formulaic indie-rock ear-candy.

Generally, though, with your glossy, plasticky ‘Saturday night out’ head on, you’d have to concede this is a fine pop album by a band blessed with a keen ear for no-brain ‘singalongability’ but with enough chunky garage band punch to ensure they don’t stray too far into over-produced McFly or Killers territory.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Following the re-release of ‘Condor and River’, Leicester/Leeds band Her Name Is Calla have decided to give it a rest for at least a year.

Being divided between two counties has certainly been a contributing factor behind the decision, but the principle reason has been ‘quite serious health issues,’ as announced enigmatically by founder member Thom Corah. He has also reassured fans that the hiatus does not mean a complete halt, just ‘a slowing of pace’.

‘Calla played their last gig for the foreseeable future at Holy Trinity Church, Leeds this Saturday, a suitably sombre affair, which was attended by members of I Like Trains and Glissando as well as a good many well-wishing fans.

Though it is unclear as to when we will see ‘Calla again, it is fairly certain we shall see them again, in one form or another.

‘Condor and River’ is available on this 12″ split with Maybeshewill from Gizeh Records.

Popularity: 4% [?]