This Is Not TV

Sunday

Sunday morning finds me surprisingly spry after a relatively good night’s sleep. The children’s parade starts at twelve and there is free tea and cake in the playgroup tent (thank you, Southwold’s local church group) and everything is good with the world. It always seems a shame that by the time everyone really gets into the festival spirit, it ends, but the small mercy is that by now everyone is in the zone. Even the parents – the littluns have been there since day one.

The parade is a chaotic triumph of noise, colour and abandoned inhibitions – the epitome of the festival ethos but in microcosm. Isaac waves a flag over my head without trying to put it in my eye too much and we shout with abandon. Great fun, but before chaos descends into anarchy (huge amount of people trying to get into the Children’s Area) we hightail it to the main arena for Fields.

Good thing we did rush because their set is remarkably short – three songs only, including the well-known one( ‘If You Fail We All Fail’). They don’t seem to care and are in good spirits, laughing amongst themselves and cocking up the songs. Eventually, they cull the backline and carry on. “This is what happens when you do your rehearsal live,” chuckles Nick Peill. Still, if they can pull it together, the album should be a blinder, and if they keep this chirpy, going to see them will be a wheeze, regardless of set length.

The Twilight Sad are a bit of a surprise, not because of their sound but their location. Their dark, melancholic sleet of noise is usually the stuff of small dark spaces, but here they are in the sunshine on the main stage. Singer James Graham is blinking in the light, more surprised than me. Any kind of stage fright dissipates immediately as they launch into a barrage of guitar shrapnel and James… can be heard for once. There are wobbles and the sound sways with the wind a bit, but songs like ‘And She Would Darken The Memory’ are as punchy and intimate as if they were being played in a tiny club. With luck, on their next tour the club’s won’t be so tiny.

Though I have been let down by These New Puritans in the past, I am willing to give them another go, being in a magnanimous mood. As it happens, they are… okay. Bass, keyboards and vocals, sounding like a modern day Duran Duran but with less catchy hits. A bit cursory and forgettable on a day like this, but not an unpleasant sound by any means.

Nada Surf bring about my first uncomfortable parent moment of the weekend. Mentioned in some circles with the same reverence as the Pixies, they sound more approachable, more polite – the kind of indie band you could take home to meet your parents. They jump around a bit, stroll around a bit more, sound a bit like Soul Asylum and get the audience to join in with the chorus of ‘Fuck It’. Yep, you guessed it, that is the chorus. Fortunately, no copying ensued and the Nada’s completed their Eels lite-ish set with cheerful aplomb whilst I breathed a sigh of relief.

“They call this math,” says my disgruntled muso friend, “all their stuff is thirds and fourths – and that’s a pentatonic scale.” He pauses for a moment. “Their drummer’s not bad at all though.” Regardless of whether they are ‘true math’ or not, the mob has spoken and foals are l’arome du moins. They’re young, bouncy, their guitars go ‘pink-ticky-tink-tink-tinky tink’ and the crowd go wild for it. ‘Cassius’ comes out fighting and despite the hyperbole they put on a good show. Just don’t mention Battles: I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.

I miss the Breeders, so unfortunately I can’t tell you how good/disappointing they are, but when ‘Cannonball’ comes rolling over the hills, I am 21 again – ah, memories! Taking full advantage of this feeling of nostalgia, I return to the fray to see another bunch of men growing old disgracefully, Grinderman. From the off, I take back any misgivings I had about them. Nick Cave, Warren Ellis and Martyn Casey look like three preachers gone terribly bad – flared suits, shirts open to navel, long unkempt hair and beards (apart from Martyn) – and ‘Depth Charge Ethel’ is like a sexed up sermon, preached from a pulpit of electric guitars and keyboards. Cave is in his element throughout, flirting with the crowd, regardless of sex – ‘it’s so difficult to tell these days,’ he drawls laconically – and songs fire out with 70′s Stooges force on their destiny to become classics (‘Get It On’ and ‘No Pussy Blues’ are already there), but it is the hulking presence of Ellis that is so damn compelling. Looking like he could kill any moment, he wields maracas like maces, handles a guitar like it had sharp edges – hell, he even makes a keyboard look dangerous with that glare. I am oblivious to the rain, sharing a blanket with three other new found fans and by the time they hit the climax of ‘No Pussy Blues,’ I too am howling like a wolf on heat. The kind of band that makes you want to drop to your knees and thank god you’re a man. Or a woman.

Interpol – After seeing them at Leeds last year, I am not sure they can pull off a headline, but when Paul Banks is backlit by sombre digital oil wheels looking like the bastard son of Frank Sinatra, I am ready to concede. When ‘Pioneer To The Falls’ rolls out, I crumble. Tonight is a reaffirmation of their last album, ‘Our Love To Admire,’ but it is done with such restrained emotion and charisma that you cannot hepl but be impressed. ‘Mammoth’ is… mammoth, ‘No I In Threesome’ is desperate and even lyrical clunker ‘Heimlich Maneuver’ has some grace. But it is ‘The Lighthouse’ that steals the show for me, the sound of mist and shapes emerging and fading, a melancholy seascape, fitting for a setting so close to the sea.

We round off the evening in the cider tent, listening to one of my sister’s friend’s do an improptu DJ set. It’s been a good festival, close to being a Glastonbury beater if it keeps its size down and expands the comedy tent. I will be back and, who knows, next time I might venture to some of the other stages…

Popularity: 4% [?]

Saturday

Guilty Pleasures damages me somewhat, so my appetite for bands the next day is… diminished, shall we say. Not only that, but curtailed by a combination of huge crowds and no shows.

To start the ball rolling, I introduce my son and heir to Wild Beasts… who surprisingly do not annoy me as much as I was expecting. True, my son alternates between clouting me around the head and pulling my hair but he and I still enjoy it. The skiffle element has been replaced by an indie sensibility and Hayden has tempered his falsetto with Tom’s tenor. Before I can fully appreciate the difference, I am whisked away to wait outside the comedy tent for Bill Bailey’s set.

The tent is already heaving, one and a half hours before show time. They are twelve deep at the entrances. They are twenty deep at the tiny screens. Note to Latitude: If you are gonna put on a massive comedy star EITHER put them on the mainstage OR put up bigger screen in better places.

Swallowing the bitter disappointment, we return to the mainstage to see Ida Maria. Who has not turned up. This is not so good. Neither is the downpour during I Am Kloot. What is good is catching the hairy, cigarette smoking franco-discophile Sebastien Tellier playing the Uncut Tent. Opening with his Eurovision hit, which sounds like a funked-up Air, he exudes cool like the skies at that moment exude rain. It’s an ill wind, so they say.

After a moment or two of recovery, I come down from the tent to catch the end of Sky Larkin. Bubbly, sexy indie pop that is as easy on the ear as Katie Harkin is on the eye, but with seasoning of a Bjork/St Etienne style. A distraction, though for I am on the horns of a dilemma – the Mars Volta/Sigur Ros clash, the craziest line up decision until tomorrow’s Tindersticks/Grinderman clash. Ah well, in for a proggy, in for a pound.

The Mars Volta’s set is best summed up by the conversation overheard between two teenagers: “Yeah, they’ve got a one and three quarter hour set… should get in two songs then. Another sum up could be indulgent. For the first half hour song, deliciously indulgent, for the entire set horribly indulgent. Fair to say, Omar Rodríguez-López is one hell of a front man, his massive hair only matched by his massive ability to be everywhere on and off stage at once. Also fair to say that Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Thomas Pridgen are bloody virtuosos. playing weird 9/17 stuff or the like – impossible to dance to, but very impressive. Only problem is, all the false endings, repeated riffs and general wankery becomes too much. Their second song was very short and snappy though. By comparison, when taking a pee halfway through their set I catch a bit of Sigur Ros and am struck by the simplicity, the splendour, the sheer emotion of the set. That and the 30 choir members on stage. I am gutted. The main problem for me with the Mars Volta is that, with At The Drive In, they said everything they needed to say in incredible short bursts of virtuosic genius. The MV is unnecessarily flabby, and I bloody love prog. I’m listening to it as we speak.

Popularity: 6% [?]

It is Tuesday; I’m still tired, but now the festival comedown is hitting me hard. What better way to ease my way through it than to give you my angle on the whole Henham thing. Sorted.

First of all, a big shout going out to all the brave families who went with kids in tow – a terrible idea at first, but when you see how much fun the little darlings have just getting away from the ephemera of modern life… it’s worth the hassle. And when the kids have fun, the parents relax and you get an idyllic glimpse of what life was like before we got all heath and safetied up and became afraid to let our children out the front door unless accompanied by both adults and a security adviser.

Secondly, apologies for the sparse nature of this review – there really is so much to do and see that the best thing to do is just pick a stage and drink your way through the less favoured acts. Or stay in the comedy tent from opening ’til Guilty Pleasures rolls up so you can actually see the big name comedian you wanted to see. But thus is the nature of the eclectic festival beast – you start chasing stuff around and you’re gonna stop enjoying it. And now, back to the music.

Friday

After being woken up way too early by a way too excited young man, a stroll up to the uncut tent appears to be in order to catch Gravenhurst’s Nick Talbot perform a solo show. I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems that being signed up to techno champions Warp has actually pushed them from augmented post-folk into just plain folk. Nick’s lone-man-on-big-stage makes little effect, bereft of any real presence or memorable tunes. I suppose this must the post-folk equivalent of turning up to see some techno band only to discover it is a DJ set.

Fortunately, this anti-opener is merely a glitch and my spirits are lifted on hearing Grammatics’ debut single, ‘Shadow Committee’ rolling up over the only hill in East Anglia from the Obelisk Stage. Though Rory’s bass and Owen Brinley’s guitar have been all but exorcised from the mix in favour of Emilia Ergin’s cello and Dominic Ord’s drums, Owen’s string section vocals cuts through any kind of sound man malaise, giving ‘D.I.L.E.M.M.A.’ a portion of the umph usually provided by the guitars. It’s by no means perfect, but for such a relatively new band the performance is confident and playful. Set closer ‘A New Franchise’ shows aspirations of the epic and can only be a foretaste of good things on the horizon.

The warmth and proximity of cider make it foolish to leave, so i indulge in a little Murder By Death, uncertain of what I will get. Surprisingly it is a mix of good ole’ boy rock ‘n’ roll and country, telling tales of sex and booze. Led by the mutton-chopped Adam Turla, you could be forgiven for mistaking them for some kind of Amish Danzig, or the righteous evil Elvis. Featuring another cello (!) that at turns impersonates full brass sections, string sections and duelling banjos (maybe not those), it may not be challenging but, hey, we’re here to have fun aren’t we? Murder By Death provide.

Leaving the comfort of our patch (just behind and to the left of the sound desk), I make a psychedelic pilgrimage to the pit for ex-Beta Bandists, the Aliens. Gordon Anderson comes on sporting a rather natty Native American (read Toys-R-Us) headdress and high kicking all over the place, trying to fill a stage that fellow band personae Robin Jones and Jon Maclean are reluctant to fill. In fact, they sound positively… bored. ‘Only Waiting’ seems to meander rather than punch and it is only the double-whammy of ‘Robot Man’ and ‘Rox’ that creates any kind of spark, with Gordon channeling the spirit of early nineties baggy via late sixties psychedelia. Could have been so much better.

Beth Orton comes and goes for me – she swears a bit, sings some niceish songs and then goes. I’m getting a bit fidgety. Lucky for twitchy me, BSP take to the stage; they’re looking like unsold seventies action men and strolling about a stage decorated by tree boughs – I hear that they have a habit of doing this, and at one gig guitarist Noble was found selling conkers and twigs at a table pre-gig. Perhaps that’s why someone in the crowd is waving a bough too. In a burst of fissile energy, the set opens with ‘Atom’ – bit risky, pulling out the air raid siren in the first instance, but then this band have suddenly grown a couple of anthems, so what the hey. A couple of fans come up behind me and ask if they’ve missed ‘No Lucifer’ yet. They look visibly relieved when I answer in the negative. The set is crowd-pleasingly hit filled, but also takes time to air the Peter Green-ery ‘Great Skua,’ complete with seabird imagery. My only complaint would be that they could have done with a bit more volume – I can hear my ‘easy’s embarrassingly distinctly over the music. Butch, beefy and mellow too, BSP are the Bovril of this festival, but it is heavily spiked with dangerous narcotics. Let the good times roll!

Shame about Crystal Castles then. I find myself sitting outside a crowded tent listening to some sequenced backing track being screamed at by some antsy girl while with-it teens drink overpriced alcopops. The set is so brief that, for the first time in ages, a band actually get booed. We shuffle away, dejected…

… To Guilty Pleasures! Over three hours of agonising cheese for those who know better. The tent is packed though, and you cannot help but dance yourself silly. And you can never leave. Because you say to yourself, ‘I can’t leave on this one, it’s awful,’ only to find it gets worse and worse. The Glitterbandits camp it up on stage and my sister comes out with the greatest piece of wisdom about this festival: “The thing with Latitude is that you see all these musos really getting into the bands, biting their top lips and all that, during the day… but in the evening you see the same musos here, dancing to ‘I’m Your Man’ – and you’re one of them!”

Guilty as charged.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Though for my money Wintermute are one of the best bands in Leeds at the moment, no-seems to have quite captured their tight as Russell Brand’s trousers live sound on CD or vinyl – it sounds good, but not great. Things might be different here, though. It’s produced by Duels’ James Kenosha, he of the barn out towards Whitby, and his recent work with This Et Al has been highly commendable, if final. Care to dance the math tango?

First things first, he doesn’t like to muck about with bands who like to muck about. ‘Bad Company In A Sauna’ starts halfway through a conversation and doesn’t stop to fill you in. David Hemmings’ guitar line bounces along like a Barnes Wallace bomb in miniature – small but devastating – dropping out occasionally to let Chris Newbould’s bass chat conversationally in the background. It is very Futureheads, that’s a given, but just heavy enough and erratic enough to prevent it from being labelled new rave pop. The production is crisp and tight, but effervescent and rich – like a sparkling white absinthe.

Essentially it’s just a warm up for ‘Dead Or Not He Was Wearing Sunglasses’ and ‘Spanish Girls,’ two mighty tracks. The first, riffing lightly on a Kyuss variation at double speed, jumps and starts, throwing in inspired half-riffs teasingly, putting Ben Johnson’s drumming skills to the test with it’s time changing antics and Fall-like shouts. Dan sounds more like a PiL era John Lyddon here than some kind of math-boy, throwing a healthy dash of punk into the mix. It’s one of those songs you’ll want to hear again immediately… almost like it was live. No time for that, though, as ‘Spanish Girls’ pirouettes up on spiked guitar phrases. The rhythms sound improvised, but it’s so tight that it just can’t be possible. It’s angry – David’s middle eight is shouted down continuously, but is finally allowed to escort you gracefully to the end of the song.

Unfortunately, ‘I Abandoned My Boy’ comes as a bit of a lull. It sounds too conventional, even though the guitars engage in a nice bit of counterpoint – Chris and Ben have nothing very interesting to do. Drink at the bar song. So ‘Emerald Zone Act 2’ (Sonic reference) will have you downing that pint and heading for the front again. The Ministry-like rim-tap of Ben and the coasting stoner bass of Chris give way to panicky cries from Dan and more fervent riffing from David as the swimming protagonist of the song tires. ‘Jambon! Jambon!’ rounds things off neatly, showcasing David’s finger picking and Chris’s bass chuntering, leaving Dan to scream about the ‘crackle of a cigarette’ amidst the flares and explosions of the resulting climax.

I could go on about Wintermute being a band of their time, but that’s a bit of a lame, pointless statement. They’re young, fired up and talented, playing with what they like and slapping riffs about until they fit. They’re fearless, and I think that shows on here. The vocals may be basic, but you will shout along with them; the titles don’t make any sense, but you will remember them; the boys may get compared to other bands… but they will bury them. Mark my words.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I’ve never really been certain what I should do with this article. Around two years ago I found in a 2^nd hand shop a taped recording of The House Of Love’s set at the 1989 Reading festival, and if anyone reading this ever finds a copy, it is a masterful piece of live performance and a quite definite indication that HOLs recorded output never quite captured what the band were musically capable of.

The copy of the tape I based this article on is now in the hands of a Creation artefacts collector in New Jersey, but I am quite certain that there are others circulating somewhere in the weekend market stalls, and here, in the absence of my own copy, is an expression of my own sense of awe and amazement that not all of my memory circuits are failing, yes it actually is true that bands really did sound as good as The House Of Love were on a damp August evening in Berkshire, nineteen years ago -

The House Of Love – Reading Festival 1989

Now there’s a name from the late 80′s,The House Of Love. My own memories of the band are based solely from what radio play I heard of ‘Shine On’ and ‘Beatles And The Stones’, and I need to confess I wasn’t instantly fired with an urge to run down to the nearest record store and buy up everything The House Of Love had released while placing advance orders on anything they might. Why was this?

A lot of the reason for this was, as I discovered recently, a matter of the production their songs received. Plus, in the instance of ‘Shine On’, the idea that some of the bands more potent material was hidden away in their 3 eponymous albums of that time, or indeed never actually found it’s way onto vinyl. I remember hearing ‘Shine On’ at the time and thinking ‘yeah, the Bunnymen, like that’s 5 years ago now’ and sticking my copy of ‘Heaven Up Here’ back on the turntable. Nowadays though, bands can pretty much get the results they need when they need them, as pro-tools have significantly speeded up the recording process and freeing up musicians from too much in the way of fiddling with and amongst bulky amp stacks. It did sound as if The House Of Love had spent a little too much time in the studio.

Had I seen the band perform live though, my opinions would have been altered significantly. I recently found a tape recorded at the 1989 Reading Festival which demonstrates that while some of their recorded output may have come across as less than fully inspired, The House Of Love were a formidable live act, and also a highly influential one. I no longer raise an eyebrow when I hear what an influence they were upon Ride, and can definitely detect their continuing influence today – Hard Fi and The Departure, for instance. So exactly what’s on the tape?

First things first. The House Of Love formed in London in 1986 and were initially signed to Creation before gaining the deal with Fontana records which secured them the radio play I’ve referred to, and the tape would appear to date from the beginning of their major label career. The onstage line up on what was a drizzly evening in mid August was – Guy Chadwick, guitar and vocals: Terry Bickers, lead guitar: Chris Groothuizen, bass and Pete Evans on drums. All of whom were on exceptional form that night.

The tape begins with some sonorous growlings from the Festival PA as the band take up position onstage, which suddenly fades as Terry Bickers picks a chiming guitar intro to the first number, which isn’t credited with a title on the tape. The intro develops into a twisting three note solo and the initial rush of bass and drums drops away as Bickers cranks up the effects pedal while Chadwick intones the lyric – ‘deeper than any heart / deeper than any sea / deeper than anything’ before the bass and drums kick back in again and the song careers into a furiously thrashing end. This has definitely caught the audiences attention – and probably that of some of the other performers: also on that years Reading main stage were Green On Red, Loop, My Bloody Valentine, The Mission, Spacemen 3, The Sugarcubes and Swans. You could throw guesses as to exactly who were in the audience.

The next track on the tape is ‘Christine’. Now anyone who’s heard the album version (the track is included on the band’s MySpace) would probably agree that it could slot unnoticed into an expanded reissue of the JAMC’s first album PsychoCandy. It’s a fuzzily tuneful pop song with a one sentence lyric, much of which involves the repetition of the song’s title. A little grimy, a little throwaway, and the Raveonettes have probably covered it at least once. On stage though, the song is entirely transformed. Taken at a slightly less frenetic tempo, the band seem to deliberately throw off any Reid Brothers comparisons and stretch the tune for all it can take – the mid part has some nifty interplay courtesy of Bickers and Groothuizen which simply doesn’t exist in the songs’ recorded form. There is perhaps an air of a band with something to prove to both themselves and their audience here, but more importantly they’ve the confidence to take their material by the neck and wrench it into an altogether different creature. These are not C86 type janglers, oh no. They’ve been listening to The Cult, and the intro of ‘I Love The Way She Cried’ contains definite shades of ‘She Sells Sanctuary’. The thumping bass drum which accompanies Bickers’ power chords gives the signal, here is a credible piece of late 80′s rock music and would any goths in the audience kindly pay attention? Once again it’s Bicker’s lead part which lifts the song into an effects-led epic, the juddering chordage and screeching feedack providing Chadwick with a 3D backdrop for his twisted introspection.

The next number has, slightly, the feel of a band treading water somewhat. ‘You Can Do Anything’ has a thudding drum part from Evans and Chadwick isn’t at his most cheerful – ‘destroy the heart she said / it’ll make you want to smash your head’ he intones over a choir of buzzsaws, and the song ends abruptly. To a very enthusiastic Reading crowd who are now paying their fullest attention to The House Of Love, and doubtlessly filling out the mosh pit in various degrees of enthusiasm.

It’s at this point that the gig really does begin to sound less like a rehearsal and more like an inspired live performance. The next song, ‘Man To Child’ is a ballad with a deeply embittered lyric from Chadwick, a tale of ageing and loss which easily knocks many of Morrissey’s plaints into the file marked ‘whining’. Quite what Chadwick (I’m assuming it’s his lyric) was thinking when he penned lines such as ‘Jesus, where did the time go / Holy God, where is the money now?’ is a question only he can answer. Add to this the quality of the guitar work – and it is an excellent tune – then ponder on exactly what we would’ve heard had The House Of Love been as big as, say, the Charlatans. Or the Stone Roses. Or Suede. Or anyone else you care to mention.

The following number is uncredited on the tape and is mostly an instrumental which gives Groothuizen and Evans an opportunity to indulge in some rhythmic trickery, particularly here Evans drumming receives something of a showcase as the crashing floor toms of earlier in the set are replaced by what sounds like some nifty brushwork and rimshots, interspersed with some bloody great slabs of noise from Bickers, and the whole band are sufficiently in control of what they’re playing to ensure that the contrasting aspects of the piece don’t collide with each other.

Next song up is introduced by Chadwick, who asks if it’s still raining. It’s a new song called ‘In A Run’ which, while it’s a properly rocking number with certain similarities to ‘Christine’ has an altogether lighter tempo than the band began their set with, and it’s definitely Chadwick’s number, a atmospheric strum-along with Bickers taking something of a backseat for 2 and a half minutes or thereabouts. And this leads directly into ‘Finest Hour’ a song from the same mould as ‘Shine On’ which is given a seriously epic treatment and has Bickers’ chorus pedal threatening to overload.

Now what really persuaded me to write anything about both The House Of Love and this tape is their treatment here of what is possibly their best known song: ‘Beatles And The Stones’. On record, it’s a slightly dreary ballad. Onstage at Reading, the song is, frankly, unrecognizable, save for its lyric. What began life as a 3 chord paean to the nineteensixties is provided with a bravura display of musicianship that perhaps didn’t sit too comfortably with the bands’ new bosses at Fontana records. Both Bickers and Evans excel themselves, and at this point I realised that Bicker’s guitar playing reminded me strongly of no-one less than Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera – on quite a good day – while Evans once again has an opportunity to display some of his percussive versatility. ‘Put the V in Vietnam/the Beatles and the Stones/made it good to be alone’ sings Chadwick, and there’s a real sense that the band are providing his lyric with the depth of musicianship it requires.

The last number is, also, uncredited on the tape but I’m going to assume that it’s ‘Touch Me’, which is the last track on the band’s second album. It has a naggingly discordant lead part from Bickers which runs right through the number, and the minor chords it’s built around seem somehow at odds with much of what’s gone before on this evening. Once again Chadwick’s lyric is on vitriolic form – ‘there’s murder in the hearts of men / and treason in the skies’ – and Bickers’ effects pedals probably burned out around here, such is the blistering multi-chorused cacophony he’s drawing from his instrument. The song also has a catchily swaying rhythm which doesn’t resemble anything else The House Of Love have played this evening, and before anyone knows what’s happening it’s a polite goodnight from Chadwick and the set is well and truly ended.

So why weren’t the band more of a quantity than (at least I) had been led to believe? Any biography of the group I’ve read makes some mention of tensions between Chadwick and Bickers, alongside hints regarding mismanagement. It’s also probable that they were casualties of the then ascendant dance scene. But The House Of Love certainly enjoyed more of a profile than, say, Loop. Or Bjork before she went it alone from the Sugarcubes. Definitely more than Spacemen 3. And 2006 saw the beginnings of a new album from the band, with Chadwick and Bickers resolving their differences. I haven’t yet heard it. What I did hear recently, almost by chance, was a cover of ‘Shine On’ which it transpires is the work of a Norwegian electrogoth outfit known as Apoptygma Berzerk. It does seem as if the legacy of The House Of Love is set to continue, for quite some time yet.

Jon Gordon

Popularity: 11% [?]

Glissando CARDIFF

Yet another hangover looms as we raise our weary heads in London town and hit the rainy road to Cardiff.

It seems to take us about a week to get there and we’re late. We need not worry though as the venue has some crazy policy of no noise before 9.30. Good one.

Tom and i take a stroll around the city in the hope more people will show up while we are gone. They don’t.

There is a DVD projector and we run the Refused DVD behind us while we play.

The night is strangely subdued but we step up the action after the show by meeting our hosts, Isaac and John. The 24 hour Tesco eats our money on alcohol and we have another late night drinking until we all fall to sleep one by one.

The aim is to get back to Leeds to see Frightened Rabbit and The Old House on Thursday but we fail due to a 9 hour journey home.

Tired hearts and minds but memories to treasure.

Over and out…..

Rich x

Popularity: 4% [?]

The appalling misdemeanour of being brave, independent women in rock aside – and in Kim Gordon’s case, a women in her 50’s in rock – Free Kitten have made a confident, playful, exciting and occasionally challenging return to the Sonic Youth side-project ‘spotlight’. Much of ‘Inherit’ is cut from the same cloth as latter-day SY, clanging chords and ringing guitars, a slow chug, but while those are hailed as renaisance recordings, and all Thurston has to do is tune up to recieve rave reviews, Free Kitten are definitey marginalised more than their music deserves. Without wanting to go down the route of positive discrimination, ‘Inherit’ should be treated as the work of conquering heroes, three musicians who have contributed a lot to the modern rock underground – Kim, Julie Cafritz of Pussy Galore, and Yoshimi P-We who, as one-third of the Boredoms’ drum circle, should have statues of her erected on every street corner.

The variety on show here hints at aspects of their previous work outside of Free Kitten, all brought together and harnessed. Several tracks are lengthy, and no doubt a little too meandering for some, but there are some punky, punchy numbers. ‘Bananas’, ‘Help Me’, ‘Roughshod’ are especially memorable, fuzzy floods of sound with vocals from somewhere beneath a barrage of guitars

. Of the more experimental tracks, ‘Free Kitten On The Mountain’ is perhaps the best, while ‘Monster Eye’ recalls the heyday of the original Patti Smith group. Another reference that recurs is PJ Harvey’s punked-up ‘Uh Huh Her’, although ‘Inherit’ is the stronger record.

Capable of roaring like a grungy express train, or pondering and provoking over strangled feedback, Free Kitten have delivered a strong, multi-faceted album, which might not always take itself seriously but deserves respect and attention.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Glissando LONDON

Hungover in London on a rainy Wednesday morning. We stayed at my old friend Tony’s house last night and drank rum and gin into the wee hours listening to Dr John vinyls and smoking our body weights in tobacco.

If you are new to the world of Wray & Nephew please investigate for yourself. It’s like a 63% acid trip.

Tony sells me one of the last two copies of a Shit & Shine 12″ he released on his Noisestar label which make me a happy boy.

Today we head to Wales and the last stop of our rock tour

Popularity: 12% [?]

They say you know you’re getting old when you attend more funerals than weddings per annum. I don’t get invited to weddings anymore (one of the joys of having a small child – people think he’s going to get into the cake or something? actually more than likely) but I am a bit worried about band demise in my vicinity these days…

First one to go was Mother Vulpine, a band I interviewed and had tipped for good things: split up due to creative differences. Then the Acutes; then Vatican Jet. I was starting to feel like Typhoid Mary. But then i got over myself and realised that it was a more serious pandemic of splitilitis – bands that had showed unfailing resilience and a great deal of promise were just tossing it in and taking up, I dunno, jobs in accounting.

These past weeks, Leeds has seen the death of This Et Al and Shut Your Eyes And You’ll Burst Into Flames, two very original, very likeable and utterly danceable bands that should have had long and happy lives. Now I read that Newcastle’s Kubichek! have called it a day – another band packed to the eyebrows with potential. What’s happening, kids?

I’m not going to have a go – this is more of an appeal than anything. Gig goers, music appreciators, downloaders, bit-streamers, you tubers – anyone who likes music that hasn’t been prepackaged for maximum commercial impact – get up, get out… and get off the beaten track. That band you’ve heard so much but never seen? Go and see them – your soul will love you for it. Become part of the vibe and prevent another death through apathy or any number of reasons. You like music? Unless you make it, you’re going to have to support it – that’s your responsibility. And what an enjoyable responsibility it is too.

Besides, local bands play in venues with cheaper nicer beer on the whole – everyone’s a winner!

Popularity: 3% [?]

You can’t beat David Gest for a bit of good copy, and it appears he’s getting all indie on us. After a chance meeting between him and Attic Lights’ manager, he agreed to record a monologue to go over their forthcoming single, Bring You Down. Should be interesting.

But El Gesto’s involvement doesn’t end there. The single, released on 21^st July, will be accompanied by a video featuring Kev from the Attic Lights, David Gest and his entourage of the Little People Of Davidland and the Chinese Girls With Herpes. Getting stranger by the minute.

Also making an appearance is a guzzerling alcoholic named Alke Hall who likes to bring her men down and a nutty hotel clerk named Prunetta Pitts (whose mother loved prunes!). Puns as well, by the sound of it.

Lead singer of the Attic Lights, Kevin Sherry, said, “We are thrilled to be working with David Gest. He is a true television legend and he is great fun. He also produced the highest rated musical special in television history ‘Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration’ – which is cool.” ‘Nuff said.

Additionally David has requested the band to appear on his forthcoming musical tour of the U.K. which will play to more than 100,000 people in October 2008. Entitled ‘David Gest…My Life! A Musical Concert Extravaganza,’ you can be certain it will be an understated affair and will also feature the, ahem, talents of Ashford and Simpson, Peabo Bryson and Peter Andre.

The full list of dates are as follows:

OCTOBER
4th Manchester Apollo
5th Blackpool Opera House
6th Liverpool, Philharmonic
7th Wolverhampton Civic Hall
9th Croydon Fairfield Hall
10th London Indigo2
11th London Indigo2
13th Cambridge Corn Exchange
14th London Indigo2

And More Dates To Be Announced Soon!

By way of reciprocity, Attic Lights have asked Gest and entourage to join them on stage at V Festival. Could get kinda crowded up there.

Popularity: 3% [?]