Tolerance Manoeuvre, Bodebrixen, Small Gang, Bored Spies @WindmillBrixton

Another great night at Windmill Brixton.

Tolerance Manoeuvre were playing when I arrived, and once I'd bought a pint I moseyed over. They're a guitar-cello-trumpet trio who play rather downbeat, forlorn pieces. The result is more interesting than depressing though, and they were well received, including by me.

Bodebrixen are a Danish fivesome who specialise in summery upbeat indie pop. They look and sound like the kind of band you see supplying good times for cool Spanish 20-somethings in smartphone adverts, but they're good enough not to be annoying. Their lead singer is a disarmingly direct and chipper little fellow who buzzes about on and offstage like he has the fast-twitch muscle fibre proportions of a particularly frolicsome squirrel. At one point he started flinging handfuls of shimmering confetti-like stuff ino the surprised crowd. I don't know how well this went down with the guy who had to sweep it up afterwards, but everyone else enjoyed it.

Bodebrixen's combination of energy, fun and quality music was irresistible, and had they played for another 10 minutes or so I might have lost my grip on my reserve and started dancing. A lucky escape. If you have the chance to see these guys, take it.

Of the four bands, Small Gang are the one I'd be most likely to listen to in a non-live situation. Their set was somewhat two-speed, with songs starting out middling, quiet and slow and then suddenly switching into something harder, faster and rather fantastic to climax. What does Sting know - give me climaxes any day.

Final band Bored Spies had been billed as a Singaporean trio, but four people took to the stage. I assume the fourth guy had infilrated the band without their noticing in order to do some spying of his own. It's the only possible explanation.

Anyway, they were a comparatively restrained bunch. Cherie Ko's vocals, for example, were breathy to the point of being indecipherable, and bassist Panther Lau was happy just to have access to an instrument that worked, on loan from Small Gang. On the other hand, hulking drummer Orestes Morfín appeared able to conform to this low-key approach only through an enormous effort of will, achieving impressive control for such a large and ferocious-looking guy.

I enjoyed the set and would happily see the band again, but the thing I enjoyed most about them was the T-shirts they had on sale at the other end of the room. I picked one up afterwards for the low low price of £8:

That made 4 bands, 3 pints, and 1 T-shirt, all for £20. Bonza.

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.

Field Day 2013

It's a bad sign at a festival when, of your core group of people, you're the best informed despite having heard of at most only 30% of the lineup.

It's also a bad sign when your core group gets any bigger than four, as you're likely to spend more time dithering than seeing anything, and compromise is definitely going to be a feature.

My hitlist for Field Day was:
Arrival - 14.15: Whatever takes my fancy
14.15: Metz
15:00 Chvrches
16:10 Savages
16:50 Daphni
17.45 onwards: Whatever takes my fancy

My number one priority was Savages, as they've been garnering comments like an American with fat ankles over at The Quietus.

The day got off to a good start: I managed to get my girlfriend to pick a jacket and get out the door, and we arrived at Victoria Park around 13:20.

After a bit of a mooch about, we ended up listening to a band who, according to the girl in front of me and contrary to the schedule were "Definitely not Palma Violets". I didn't think much to them, so we went off to get a good spot for Metz.

I didn't think much of Metz either when I saw them back in February, as recounted in this shitdribble of a post. But that was mostly because I spent twice as long getting to the venue as they spent playing, so I was feeling pretty grumpy and ungenerous. Metz at Field Day was a completely different story.

The band again didn't play for very long, but this time that was because they were limited by the schedule to just 20 minutes. They stated their intention to give the crowd - which was a decent swell - the best value they could, and boy did they deliver.

After the soporific "Definitely not Palma Violets", Metz were like a bucket of ice water to the genitals. They came out kicking, and in no time at all they had a sizeable mosh pit going on just in front of us, with bottles and even shoes flying every which way.

 They played at a relentless pace, despite having "drunk too much in Amsterdam" the day before, and by the end of their 20-minute slot lead singer Alex Edkins looked completely spent. The crowd was very much appreciative, and the band got the most intense cheer I heard all day. They were nothing short of heroic.

At this point serious communication difficulties kicked in. We were supposed to be meeting a mate, but the sheer density of people trying to do the same made the task impossible. It was like trying to fit 50 000 people through a cat flap. My phone all but crumpled itself into a ball and chucked itself in the bin. To reflect that, the rest of this post will be written in snapshot...

Went to Chvrches, but hung around back in case a text got through. Chvrches very cool, sweet singer, will buy album. Abandoned after 20 minutes to try to find friend.

Finally found friend wandering lost and alone. Hugging took place.

Found friend's other friends, again by pure chance. Missed Savages. Group adopted stray Australian who wanted to see something at the Desperados bar. Missed Daphni.

Went to heaving Desperados bar, shook head, stayed outside for a while and got free Desperados. Decided Desperados are shit.

Gave in to group desire to see Solange, gifting self curry by way of recompense.

Ditched Solange after 10 minutes, went to see Vondelpark. Ditched Vondelpark after 5 minutes, went to see Kurt Vile. Enjoyed Kurt Vile, who ended after 3 minutes.

Enjoyed some Everything Everything. Went to see Disclosure on recommendation of random Australian. Lack of pills = lack of enjoyment, went back to main stage to see Bat for Lashes for everyone's third time.

Bat for Lashes typically good: sexy, assured, not sufficiently appreciated by idiot main-stage crowd.

More food. Five minutes of Four Tet, then tried to see Django Django. Don't know what happened to Django Django. No Django Django.

Saw most of Fucked Up. Typically top-notch; Pink Eyes on great form as usual.

Watched some Animal Collective, didn't understand what they were trying to achieve. Bailed to avoid exit crowds.

Got home. Drank tea. Went to bed.

Thank you Metz.

First, The Kill Raimis, Oliver John Ward, James Hull and Mickey Dey @WindmillBrixton

There were five acts on this bill, and the gem among them was the first up, one Mickey Dey. A slight, and slightly androgynous, young fella, his surprisingly powerful voice successfully combined both vulnerability and confidence, despite Mickey at one point professing shyness. His lyrics were equally revelatory, striking this listener as original, affecting and without cliche.

Someone more into singer songwriters than I am could offer an opinion on whether this guy could make it big. All I can say is: I wouldn't be surprised.

The rest of the night was less distinctive. Mickey, James and Oliver were all mates playing mostly for each other's benefit, to the extent that James and Oliver didn't even introduce themselves, and I'm still not sure which was which. They weren't to my taste and seemed to offer little to those who weren't in on the joke, so I'll just move along.

Both The Kill Raimis and First were more dilating musically than vocally or, from what I could discern, lyrically. The Kill Raimis would maybe benefit from being more confident and refraining from their near-ubiquitous backing vocals, whereas First, beefy and groovy though they were musically, left me bewildered with their singer's nasal whining.

This evening belonged to one man - I'd make a note of his name.

Squarepusher @ The Roundhouse

My head is fuzzy today, so I'm going to keep this brief.

All I really have to say about this bloody fantastic show is that I thought it was a helluva lot better than Amon Tobin's. It may be unfair, but the two shows are linked in my mind because a) they were both electronic music shows that used massive visual displays as a big part of their appeal and b) they happened within a few weeks of each other, duh.

For me, Squarepusher succeeded where Tobin failed because he got the audio/visual balance right. Tobin was musically weak and boring, and the contrast between the tame audio and the flashy visuals emphasised that lameness. Whereas Squarepusher was musically badass, and so the visuals and audio reinforced each other, as they're supposed to.

Even leaving aside the quality of the music, I actually enjoyed Squarepusher's visuals more than Tobin's despite them probably being (I'm guessing) less technologically advanced, creative, and labour-intensive. They were simpler, but more effective.

I've seen Squarepusher live at least three times now, the other two occasions I can definitely remember being at the Royal Festival Hall a few years back and as part of some ATP thing about 18 months ago. The Festival Hall show was fantastic, whereas I can hardly remember the ATP one - my mate had to remind me of it last night, and apparently we weren't impressed, as my memory failure attests. Anyway, my point is only that I don't have a  Squarepusher bias: even he has to put a shift in to impress, and last night he did.

The Roundhouse itself was also a great venue for the event. I think I'm right in saying that the stage was positioned more towards the centre of the room than normal, and with the room being circular, that meant that the stage could be wider than if it had been further back, and therefore so could the visuals. Presumably the capacity was reduced as a result, so hats off to the Roundhouse for doing it: it was an excellent decision.

Finally, we discovered that the downstairs restaurant bar sells bottles of Delirium Tremens, so we were able to enjoy some of Belgium's (and lets face it, that means the world's) finest while watching the show - an unexpected delight that explains why today my head feels like someone has asked me to solve the world financial crisis while juggling cats. Just don't go spreading it around: if too many people find out there won't be enough for me next time.

Mmm, Delirium.

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.

Actress and Amon Tobin's Isam Live 2.0 at Hammersmith Apollo

I attended this more by chance than design. My mate let me know that he and his missus had tickets about 2 months ago, and he asked me if I was up for it. Fortunately I had the foresight to ask whether they'd gone for stalls standing, and it turned out they hadn't - they'd got seats, hence there was no chance of my sitting near them, hence I declined.

However, my mate's missus' sister then bought them tickets for Sigur Ros on the same night, and as they couldn't do both, suddenly I was back in the game.

My mate was very excited about Actress, who was already in full flow when we arrived. To be honest, I don't think we missed much. In fact, my mate felt sorry for the dude. All he had was a tiny setup in front of a massive white sheet labelled "safety curtain", which firmly seperated him from the main event. "Safety curtain", indeed - it was a "safety blind" if ever I've seen one...

Anyway, the lack of imagination/effort devoted to staging his set meant that the audience was as detached from Actress as he himself was from whatever was hidden away behind him. Nobody was really moving, nobody was paying that much attention... He may as well have been muzak.

Inexplicably, about 40 minutes passed between Actress and Tobin. Building the anticiption I suppose. But that was ok, we were fortunate enough to have seats backing onto an aisle, so all we had to do to go piss or buy more booze was contort ourselves accordingly, not bother the poor souls either side of us. And vice versa.

Eventually the main event began. The "safety curtain" curtain rose. And there it was. The highly anticipated getup. Picture a slightly 3D version of Tetris tipped onto its side and plonked on a stage and you have a very good idea of what it looked like. I'm sure there are phtos somewhere online by now. It looked like Sports Direct just before opening.

Then the graphics kicked in. Now picture Cartoon Network being projected onto that Tetris-like stack of boxes, only someone has cleverly mapped the pictures to the contours. Drifting blobs, electric fingers, pistons, fireballs... It was a bit techy, it was a bit futuristic, it was a bit Star Wars and Alien ... but mostly it was a bit .... eh. 

It's not that it wasn't state-of-the-art. I'm sure it was. After all, this was a sell-out show, and it wasn't cheap. But it was progressively underwhelming. Amon himself was housed in a cube at the center of the display, and his first reveal was undoubtedly thrilling. But all he did was the usual electtronica flipping of swtiches and nodding of head, and as the show went on you realised that each new segment of graphics and each new reveal of the man at the centre of it all would be pretty much the same as the last.

The music took very much a secondary role to the visuals, which is weird for a musician, but regardless of where most of the effort went, neither the music nor the visuals were good enough. Part of the problem, I think, was in the choice of venue, or else the venue setup. To be transportive, something that isn't locomotive must be immersive, and at the scales involved here, Isam 2.0 simply wasn't. Had the same show been put on in a medium-sized club, 6 feet from my face, filling 90% of my visual field, I've no doubt it would have been absolutely amazing. But from 60 feet away, occupying 15% of my visual field, it all felt a bit 2005. It was like a half-hour break in an expo, where they stick something on just to keep you entertained before the next talk about the energy efficiency of thatched roofs or the transformative power of networking. The whole thing was just too puny to be affecting.

You might think our seats were to blame, and I'm sure those in the stalls had a better time of it, but actually we had a pretty decent spot. We were about 7 rows back from the front of the balcony, which meant we were about 43 rows front of the back of the room. There were certainly a hell of a lot of people further away from the show than we were. I couldn't help but think that I'd been better transported and engaged by far less gimmickry, like the simple pleasures of good music, or the laser show at Fire, or any electronica event that provided enough space for a bit of a dance.

I have a feeling that this is an early adoption problem. OK, Amon Tobin is probably supplying the best visual effects on offer right now. But how good will things be in 2, 3, or 5 years' time? Frankly, I fear for the 20-somethings of tomorrow. When visual effects like this find their right environment in conjuction with the requisite drugs, the combination is going to deliver people from their stupid earth-bound selves into some wonderous land the likes of which you and I have only glimpsed, and the harsh reality of those people's seated, sedate, drug-free 30s is going to crush them like paper cranes under a falling asteroid. The poor, lucky buggers.

Us? We'll have to make do with good music.