Rock interactions: share them here!

About an hour ago I passed Cherie Ko of Bored Spies her water bottle mid-gig at Windmill Brixton. This got me thinking: what is my biggest/greatest/most memorable/take to the grave ever rock interaction?

For me it has to be the time that, for about 1.5 seconds about 4 years ago, I had my hand held by the awesome Juliette Lewis. I remember feeling like I was on fire for the rest of the night, and my nerves continued to buzz for the rest of the week.

Other examples:

Gig Buddy recently chatted to Metz' frontman on the plane to or back from (I'm not clear yet) Primavera.

My oldest mate has one of Chino Moreno's hats from about 12 years ago.

My drum teacher has recorded with Steve Albini.

Alright, so what's yours? Share them below the line...

P.S.
I fully expect to get to get no replies to this post, but David Bowie, if you happen to read it, could you please comment: "I am David Bowie"? Thank you.

Parquet Courts and The Men at The Garage

People turned out in force for Parquet Courts and The Men last night - The Garage was about 50% busier than I've ever seen it. This could have been due to the bands themselves, but I like to think it's because The Garage has ditched its Carlsberg-or-Tuborg-or-nothing beer selection, probably as a result of HMV's dire straights. Every cloud and all that...

Gig Buddy tells me Parquet Courts got equal billing with The Men for this gig. How can I illustrate how unjustified that would be?

Imagine watching the film of your life story, and finding out the director has given equal amounts of time to the day some guy turned up to read your gas meter, and the day that escort knocked on your door wearing nothing but a trench coat and lingerie, having mistaken your flat for Mr Lawrence's, whose wife was staying with her sister for the weekend. That should give you an idea.

Apparently, The Quietus and Pitchfork were in agreement on how good Parquet Courts' album is. In fairness, so is Gig Buddy, who insisted on giving me one of his download codes. I haven't used it yet, so I can talk about is seeing the band live, which was like watching librarians agreeing to color-code their clipboards and thermoses taupe this year instead of mauve. Not thrilling.

The Men, on the other hand, exploded out of the blocks as if intent on expunging all traces of their predecessors from memory – and, aside from what little I've recounted above, they succeeded.

I can't recall ever having seen a band give it so much for such a sustained period before. It was like they'd just found out they were all to be executed at dawn, and so they'd come out one last time in order to fuck the universe dry before shaking hands with destiny. The impressive buggers.

P.S.
I've just realised The Men were the first band I blogged about, just over a year ago. Aww.

Metz at Birthdays

I spent twice as long getting to this gig as Metz spent playing. 

We'd intended to catch the support too, but there were six of us and you know how that goes. We tried going to Jan's Bar for some Belgian beers early on, but the place appears to have shut down without bothering to say anything on its website. Which is helpful.

So then we went to the Jolly Butchers, which Gig Buddy had previously seen listed as one of the top ten pubs in the UK. And rightfully so. They have a selection of beers the likes of which I've never seen, and decent seating to boot. It's a hell of a pub.

Which might go some way to explaining why we were about an hour later than planned for our curry at Rasa, which in turn explains why we were late for Birthdays. Damn you excellent beers and superb food!

So we arrived at Birthdays about five minutes before Metz began. I'd never heard of the place before, and neither had GB. And no wonder, frankly. Having made straight for the bar on arrival, I turned around once I'd been served, only to discover that where I was already at was as close to the stage as I would be getting, given the layout.

Now, the blame is no doubt ours, for dwelling on our pre-gig beers and south-Indian food for far too long, but Birthdays as a venue is nothing more than an oblong hole in the ground. It's like a shoebox with the band as the toes and you as the scrunched up paper stuffing the holes before the feet come in. It's a tunnel, in other words.

I may be partisan. Birthdays could be to a Stokey resident as my beloved Brixton Windmill is to me - a place that exceeds its immediate charms by virtue of delivering a certain standard of music night after night after night. But it's hard to guess at that. For me, Birthdays was just a long hole where, after traveling 80 minutes, I then stared at the back of people's heads while a band played for half that time.

In fairness to Metz themselves, they were pretty damn good. If you like reverb-heaviness - and who doesn't - then you'd certainly have dug them. They were a bit noisy and had a bit of attitude and got things a bit rowdy - from what I could tell way back by the bar.

And alright, I may actually even be doing the venue a disservice. My mate and I ordered some thing called Briska initially, which turned out to be a cider rather than a beer, and that soured things right off. But the place allowed us to rectify that mishap and then some by stocking some SF Liberty Ale, and where else sells that? No other venue I could name.

But then I'd hoped to at least be able to pick up some music by the support bands from the merch station afterwards, and that was another disappointment, by then at least if not earlier too, as it offered nothing but Metz stuff. The support were apparently Fair Ohs and The Wytches, and I will check them out  tomorrow when I sober up a bit. And maybe I'll try listen to Metz's album again too, given that in this environ I'll actually have a clue what's going on....

Novella and The Soft Pack at Cargo

Novella reminded me of one of those bands you see in clubs in tv shows when they need to convince you the characters are somewhere cool, like The Bronze in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, or the Crazy Horse in The Sopranos. They were moody but didn't particularly hold my attention, perfect for a pan away to a brooding Sarah Michelle Gellar after five seconds of exposition.

The trendiness of the venue doubtless had something to do with that impression, but mostly it was  that I generally struggled to single out any individual contribution from the trio of strapped-up attractive females at the front of the stage, bar the singing of course. For the most part, lead, second and bass all blended together to form a wash of sound, and while certainly not unpleasant, it didn't give me much to think about.

The drummer was the clear highlight for me, the part that raised the set into something just about worth watching. In fact he stood out so much that I began to wonder what he was doing there with the other three. At first I figured he must have something going on with the sultry vocalist, but when I noticed how little attention he paid to anything but his own good work, I decided this must be a guy who's in about seven different bands and doesn't care how good they are or aren't or how well they're received, but just motors from session to session each evening and rocks out, minding his own business at the back and yet being the best thing about each one.

As I said, Novella's music left substantial room for my mind to wander.

The same couldn't be said of The Soft Pack. I knew nothing of them before I turned up: my gig buddy kept telling me they were 'just so damn garage', and offered me a money-back guarantee if I didn't like them, and that was good enough for me. But I must not really know what GB means by 'garage', as I turned up expecting to see a fun bunch of guys with good ideas and a lot of energy but not a whole lot of polish, and what I actually got was a very tight unit with very considered material. No problem here picking out the individual components, which included very judicious use of a sax - again not something I'd expected from the description.

This was a band that have clearly put a lot of effort into their music, as evidenced for example by the facial straining of the lead guitarist, who throughout the set looked like he was in the final throes of throttling an elephant. Or maybe a whole herd. They started out well and gradually built to a finale that I think can legally only be described as 'coruscating'.

In opposition to my own impressions of the bands, though, the two guys I was with were actually a little disappointed with The Soft Pack, and much impressed by Novella. So either I don't know what I'm talking about, or it's different strokes for different folks. Or both. You decide.

Turbowolf, Black Moth, Wet Nuns, Throne @ The Garage

With apologies to Throne, Gig Buddy and I wanted a real beer, so we went to the Hen and Chicken before committing ourselves to the Garage. Just desserts though: the barmaid misheard my order of two Puritys and gave us two Peronis, so we only hurt ourselves.

We did actually arrive at the Garage (which now serves San Miguel, just to put the icing on the cake mistake) in time to hear 2 minutes of Throne, and from what I saw they're a good band. Actually, if you want to linearly extrapolate from what followed - and I'm not saying that's scientifically viable - but if you want to then they must have been pretty damn good...

Because Wet Nuns were fucking aces. In every respect. For two men they make a hell of a lot of noise, and most of it is very pleasing indeed. Plus they're great fun. Crowd interaction (muffled to the point of almost inaudability): check. One man topless the other dipped in country: check. One man bald the other overhaired: check. Variety: check; heaviness: check; attitude: check. Just totally bloody enjoyable. They were the highlight of my night, in fact.

Although Black Moth were the reason GB and I were present. I'd seen their CD and its frankly phenomenal artwork (by one Vania Zouravliov - one to explore further) in Fopp, but recent experience had taught me better than to buy shit randomly, so I went home and Spotified them. And loved them. And looked for tour dates, and bought tickets. And turned up. And yeah, they were good. In fact they had moments of greatness - genuine greatness - like the first and last tracks, but they also had moments that for me got just a little bit lost within themselves, and could use a bit more work. But given that The Killing Jar (which I bought at the gig) is their first album, I am firmly convinced that Black Moth have the potential to more than fill whole sets with utter greatness in an album or two's time, provided they carry on doing what they've been doing...

Which brings us to the headliners, Turbowolf. I intend to write a post soon about blogging about people you've never heard of, but since I haven't written it yet I'm hoping to beg forgiveness yet again. Because, as I've said, I turned up because of Black Moth, and Turbowolf were an added bonus, and they were just a bit too fast and thrashy for my tastes. And tastes mean nothing at all, except that I personally get off on doom, and I can only report my impressions here, and so I apologise to the proper fans who knew what to expect and got it in spades. This is just what I thought...

Some people have charisma. James Dean had it, and Bruce Lee, and Tupac Shakur... Turbowolf's lead has it. He reminded me of Serj Tankian, except when he was speaking, when he sounded more like Robert from next door. Frenetic, energetic, mesmerising, stylish... How can you not admire a man who fronts a band - a headlining band - in a paisley shirt? The dude seeps charisma. And the guitarist could give a young Steve Tyler a run for his money in the could-be-a-model department, but that's neither here nor there...

Turbowolf were damn good at what they do, I suspect. The front 50% of the audience were certainly loving it, fists raised, circles spun, shoves shared... This was the first time I've felt old at a gig, standing at the back and smiling, but not wanting to get battered. The highlight for GB and I was their cover of Somebody to Love, and although I absolutely think bands should cover with abandon, GB was a bit put out that the song of theirs he enjoyed most was a cover. I dunno. Taste only counts for so much. Their final track was a ripper, and overall they whipped shit up, they entertained, they conquered, they topped the bill like champs.

This brings me back to my last post about why I stopped blogging. Taste - who gives one? Turbowolf were whitehot for most people present, Black Moth will be awesome very soon, and for me Wet Nuns already are. That'll do for a Wednesday night. It'll do just fine.

The Men, Fanzine, and No @ The Camp Basement

Neither my Gig Buddy nor I had ever heard of The Camp Basement before. In fact I could go one better than that: I'd never heard of any of the bands before either, this being GB's tipoff. In double fact, when GB sent me the link I sort-of misread it, and thought that we were seeing Haxan Cloak (who I didn't actually like when I checked them out, but why let that stand in the way of seeing them live?).
Anyway, I wasn't much impressed with the venue when we arrived (quite early: the first band didn't even start for about 15 minutes). I haven't visited its website, so don't know the ethos behind it or how long it's been in action, but it's basically just a small, empty concrete room with only exposed ventilation tubing by way of decor. Don't get me wrong, I like a dive bar as much as the next guy, but I also like a bit of character: some graffiti, maybe a few murals, perhaps a poster or two... Bare concrete wasn't really doing it for me.
But once it had filled up a little more, and the concrete had been softened with a scattering of 100% pure granny-knitted beany hats and the odd unruly beard, it all started to make sense. I'm assuming whoever runs the place simply prefers the no-frills approach - maybe to keep costs down, I don't know - since the security was as low-key as the place itself, the bar staff were friendly and relaxed, and there was a kind-of DIY vibe about the whole thing. Another example of this would perhaps be the fact that there was no beer on tap - only bottles - which was actually a bit of a negative, but only a little one. It was a place I'd happily go to again even without (again) knowing the bands at all...

So, about the bands.

No got things off to a very promising start with their energetic set of short, fast, - and only a mite samey - punk offerings. Their drummer was particularly impressive, knocking out track after track at a breakneck speed with barely a pause in between. And the frontman (sorry: I'm just not going to bother with names) was decent too: somewhat affected, in that he kept trying to pull off a rather unconvincing sneer, but confident enough for a bit of crowd interaction and just generally effective at livening things up after what were presumably technical problems caused a bit of a delay.

Next up were Fanzine, who valiantly tried to undo all of Nos good work. They looked the part - or at least half of them did: the drummer mostly looked bored, and at times half-dead, while the bassist looked like a last-minute fill-in from another band - but they had about as much grit as your typical council transport department when the snow hits (hint: not much). GB complained that they were far too 90s, but for me they were just too sanitised for what they were following and what they were sandwiched between - in fairness not a fault of their own, but of whoever stuck them on the bill.

And then the headliners: The Men. I must admit, I did wonder what I was letting myself in for, going to see a band called The Men in a place called The Camp Basement, but being an adventurous sort (ha) I wasn't going to let that stop me. Anyway, I'd read a very promising review of The Men's latest album in pitchfork earlier in the day, and I wasn't disappointed. My first thought was that they sounded quite a lot like Boris, with a fair dollop of their thoroughly enjoyable chaos and distortion. (Actually, my first thought was that it was a bit strange to have a female bassist in a band called The Men, but that's by the by.) And although that thought did fade away a little as the set went on and I concentrated on just enjoying the music rather than trying to pin it down, it's still the best description I can come up with. One thing you'll notice if you stick with these posts, and of course if I continue to write them, is that I don't actually know much at all about music. I figure that's fine, as long as I don't pretend otherwise. So we'll stick with saying that I found The Men a bit Boris-esque, and that's all right by me 100% of the time. Good work guys (and gal).

Final thought: because of the delays, it was 11.30 when the gig ended. That's fine - these things happen - but what's not fine is the shocking inadequacy of London's public transport network, as Old Street tube station was already closed by that point. That meant that I had to hike over to Liverpool Street to catch the night bus back to Brixton, and because buses hate me I didn't end up getting home until gone half midnight. This is one of the world's capital cities, and its underground closes before half eleven on a Thursday night. WTF, as the kids say?

But overall the night was grand. Cheers to No, cheers to The Men, cheers to The Camp Basement, and cheers to GB for tipping me off. And cheers to you for reading: maybe I'll see you again some time...