Its probably around twenty years since I tried to write about music in any sensible way. Scary numbers indeed, and even scarier to think how simple it all seemed then. I had a belief and a passion in what I was listening to which in some ways I find terribly embarrassing now - however, I miss it terribly too. So, finding myself so strangely energised about new music now, all this time later is both wonderfully exciting but also just a little bit frightening. I can't keep laughing it off as a mid-life crisis though - I need to tackle it head on and start to express some of these ideas before I go truly insane with the effort of suppressing the urge to yell at someone "you have to hear this!".
The cause of my excitement, and the reason I find myself writing again, is very much the Glasgow PodcART. My visits to Glasgow over the past decade or so have provided opportunities to see live music, and to find little nuggets of information on band's which I just don't find locally. This isn't meant to sound disparaging - it's just how things have worked out. Perhaps the distinction is best summed up by Halina Rifai's intentional use of the term 'network' rather than 'scene' to describe the situation north of the border. There is a genuine collaborative spirit in Scotland that is missing here just now. Back home it's still about old rivalries and genre dynamics, which stifles new musical enterprise in it's most formative stages. There are notable exceptions, but they struggle to thrive in a culture without the support, the venues, the outlets for their work. As at best a non-musician I've tried to offer my support in other ways to fill this gap, but in a difficult situation it's generally the messenger who gets shot. In my case, I often pulled the trigger myself - so a quiet life as a public servant beckoned, and music remained only as a guilty pleasure.
Of course the other thing which has always genuinely excited me about Scottish music is the use of the native accent and vernacular - that access to a tradition which isn't shameful or cliched like my own, and the blurring of boundaries which make the inevitable 'sounds like' review redundant. My fundamental attachment to place also comes into play here of course - I firmly believe that creative endeavours arise in some cities which just simply couldn't exist elsewhere. Musicians flourish when they find the right place to create, and that's a story which is repeated throughout the canon which I'd love to try to explain someday. The title of this confused little ramble is, like many of my attempts to express myself, also entirely stolen. This time though, from a HM Treasury strategic document. I was, of course, always going to click with an initiative called 'Total Place'.
So how am I going to grapple with this need to write, from a distance, about something which is becoming very precious to me and therefore on which I'm losing all objectivity? I think I'll take a band each week, and I'll write about them from my unique perspective. I'll try to avoid genre-terrorism, pigeonholing and lazy comparison. Ultimately, anyone who troubles to read my ramblings on a regular basis will know exactly what will come of this more intricate and evasive twaddle about me! In the sense that music is an intense and personal thing for many of us, that seems like a good place to start.
La Faro, And So I Watch You From Afar - The Cooler, Bristol
Posted in SHOFT on Friday 9th April 2010 at 11:55pm
It's a long time since I've sneaked up to Bristol after to work to see music. In part, it's because so little music of any note seems to emanate from the city. Others would tell me differently, but I just see a mess of proficient but fairly uninteresting covers bands playing over and over whilst the rest of the place seems to rumble on in the same drum'n'bass rut it's been in since the late 1990s. It's also partly my own fault of course. I'm getting old, and whilst we kid on we're all John Peel's musical offspring, it's hard to find the time to be as expansive and gloriously indulgent in our tastes as the man himself managed to be. There is, of course, also the pleasure to be had in watching a favourite band develop over time, and when pushed for time and resources it's easy to end up with a small group of bands or a scene to follow relentlessly rather than looking further afield. For me, in recent times, the vibrant and ever-changing scene in my beloved Glasgow has provided endless new opportunities and ear-opening moments - and it's partly though participating from afar in this burgeoning musical network that I even heard of tonight's act. Belfast's And So I Watch You From Afar could easily have slipped past me - tipped hotly in places I'd never be looking (including the likes of Kerrang!) their brand of instrumental genre-busting sonic mayhem doesn't really fit anywhere. It certainly didn't seem to fit into The Cooler - a tiny venue on familiar Park Street, with something of a faded 80's cocktail bar theme in evidence - though it's hard to tell whether this was intentional or just a relic of the venue's past life. Support was from another tipped NI act, LaFaro. I'd heard a lot about them, but lazily knew only one song - the punishing "Tuppeny Nudger" - which grabbed my attention with a collosal drum intro, but lost it with dreary mock-American vocals. Live, LaFaro were a much more engaging prospect with tons of energy and plenty of noise. A forthcoming album will be worth a listen - but only if the low menacing growl of the live vocals hasn't reverted to a not quite Born in the USA transatlatic drawl in the comfort of a studio. The future hit single closed the set to audience appreciation, with a few new fans being won. As the tiny stage was cleared for the main event, there was an air of anticipation in the room which I'd not felt at a show in ages. Perhaps it was the combination of decent (albeit bottled) beer and - rare for me these days - company to chat to while waiting, but I was really enjoying this evening when I'd usually be nervously pacing the venue feeling uncomfortable and out of place by now. Suddenly, and with apparently no effort whatsover, ASIWYFA took to the stage and began to make an incredibly beautiful noise. I love the way this band appears to have no pretensions whatsoever - there is little chat, no vocals to cloud the issue, and on-stage antics are confined to the paroxysms required to coax wonderous riffs from the guitars. The recent "Letters EP" was aired in near entirety - with "S is for Salamander" making an early and absolutely monumental appearance. The sound was far from perfect - but any louder and The Cooler may just have collapsed around us. But ASIWYFA are not all about loud/quiet instrumental cliches - and the intricate, sometimes near orchestral passages of clever drum and guitar interplay sounded just as clear and crystalline live. Add to this the drummer's shirtless performance, and I think some people were definitely converted to the cause! I don't think that ASIWYFA will be playing anywhere near as tiny as The Cooler next time around. The set closed with the staggering "Set Guitars To Kill" - this was always going to be the track which hooked people, with it's provocatively silly title and amazing twists of thunderous racket and intricate melody. The Cooler erupted to it's footstomping intro tonight too, with random outbursts of dancing - never a big feature of Bristol gigs given the reticent audiences here. Out into a strangely warm Park Street night, ears ringing and feeling strangely happy. I had to be up in only a few hours time, and still had a potentially tricky train journey home tonight to face - but I was incredibly glad I'd made the effort to see this band, particularly in such an intimate setting. I've never aspired to write reviews, my early efforts being torturous amalgams of other's voices and styles - but the message here is buy the records and see the band. You won't be disappointed, even if it's just a cynical attempt to view the shirtless drummer!
I'll admit a degree of satisfaction last night at seeing Rage Against The Machine triumph in the much coveted Christmas No.1 stakes. This strange, national institution has for many years been a guaranteed schmaltz-fest - originally with the specially crafted Christmas single by the band of the day (see Slade, Wizzard, even Gary Glitter!) or latterly by the progeny of Simon Cowell's talent grooming shows. The festive No.1 slot was of course as disposable as it was cheesy until Bob Geldof's Band Aid (and it's later, slight returns) made it an important barometer of what the country thought and felt - or at least that bit of the UK which still purchased the dying 'single' format. It's exactly this reliance on the sales of the most inexpensive format of all which has led to the Singles Chart being the bastion of poor quality, pre-teen pop for decades - aside from the incursion made by the enthusiast (not least the late 1980's heavy metal boom or the invasion of grunge for a few brief months in 1991/92).
So is this year's news significant? Well - yes. It demonstrates the power of the internet and in particular social networking in harnessing and giving voice to grass-roots campaigning. Whilst the objective of putting a 'proper song by a proper band' at the top of the charts at such a significant time is modest, it shows that a well orchestrated and carefully managed campaign could do pretty much anything. Ariane Sherine's Atheist Bus Campaign did something similarly unthinkable (and far, far more worthwhile I might add) but of course interested only the more serious news sources, aside from the occasional foray into 'PC gone mad!' territory in the red-tops. But hearing a brief blast of 'Killing In The Name' on Radio 4's Today programme this morning cemented the view that this was a rather miraculous thing - a festive message from the post-recession music market: we're not buying what you sell us.
The song itself? A several minute long blast of rather unfocused, bilious anger generated by the band's understandable angst at the Rodney King beatings in Los Angeles. Whilst that sounds worthwhile and earnest, the bewildered lyric slips half-heartedly from protest to threat while the band experiment with slap-bass and proper 'rock' guitar solos. It's actually very poor. I said it in 1992 and I'll say it now - the sole redeeming feature of this record is it's opportunity for a dancefloor full of students to yell 'Fuck you!' at the top of their voices. Back in 1992, in the heyday of my ill-fated and equally poorly judged Traumatone cassette label, we stood back and watched this song carefully - the most it raised back then was an eyebrow. Today at least it has raised significant cash for Shelter via a related campaign. Our observations though, culminated in a cover version - a low-budget and low-tech lounge pop version by the duo Poo & Wee. With a fairly serious stab at the music, they crooned oddly through the lyrics - unable to hide their confusion at Zac De La Rocha's jumble of angry words. Finally they found their way to the song's conclusion, each 'Fuck You' sounding like a mild expression of pique rather than a howl of protest. If you can find this version (and I'll tell you now, you can't) you'll laugh a lot - and then maybe understand how silly the song really is!
Of course here fans will talk about authenticity. There is no doubt that Rage Against The Machine have their origins in early 90's Los Angeles, with its guns, gangs and drug culture shaping their sound. As recently as the ill-fated Radio 5 session appearance last week, frontman De La Rocha was reminding us that his song meant more than Cowell's concoction because he wrote it in straightened circumstances - in a genuinely unpleasant part of LA. Because the song came up from the gutter, it has more honest, mass appeal perhaps? This is dangerously close to declaring some sort of musical class war which is surely deeply un-American! And I'm not sure how this reflects on Cowell's 'everyday people' - plucked from badly wallpapered semi-detached homes which we only get to see when the artist returns home to say "Well folks, I've won and I'll be buggering off to London now!". This struggle of rock versus pop isn't about class, colour or culture - those things are carefully stripped from corporately available music long before they reach the pressing plant. No, this is about people realising that it would be hugely funny to have a slightly rude, deeply angry and undeniably noisy slice of rock music gracing the post-blowout Christmas tea time. Rage Against The Machine rubbing shoulders with Her Majesty, a Last of the Summer Wine special and turkey sandwiches. Someone will of course die in Eastenders. Probably, if the on-the-fly editors can work it in, to the tune of 'Killing In The Name' - just to give the soap an edge of authenticity!
Interestingly, every lash comes with it's backlash and there are already conspiracy theories circulating: that Cowell cooked up the whole thing to sell more records and line his pockets, or that because Sony BMG is the rights-holder in both cases this evil corporate giant is the only winner. I don't think I believe either to be honest. Yes, I bought a copy - because the idea of Rage Against The Machine being Christmas No.1 with a grumpy, grungy blast of noise appeals to me. The alternative - another slice of Cowell-planned career pop - is too much to bear, one sickly sweet Christmas 'treat' too many. Like the mint which tips Mr Creosote over the vomit-spraying edge perhaps? The fact that 'Killing In The Name' is, in it's own way, equally silly makes it all the funnier.
Merry Christmas, pop fans. You can have your chart back next week.
As a youth I vainly believed that I could maybe, one day, write about music. I knew I had a fairly interesting turn of phrase, but most importantly I had a vocabulary of eclectic performers and styles so those inevitable 'sounds like....' descriptions would be no problem at all. Fast forward something like fifteen years, and I'm faced with the wish to describe a band from inside the inevitable minefield of cliche. B S Johnson knew all the good stuff had already been written after all...
So what of this strangely named band? A trio, none hailing from Glasgow but formed and located there, and part of the ever-vibrant scene. I didn't know what to think - over the years I've become old, bitter and jaded - and totally unable to express myself where music is concerned. However, a listen to the two singles currently available from Zoey Van Goey made me sigh with dismay - because I knew I'd end up posting here, and doubtless embarrassing myself wholly in the process.
But what do they sound like? Well, in lazy journalistic terms the comparisons must be trotted out. Kim Moore's high, clear, open vowels soar above the music, like Liz Fraser in some strange way, but clear as a bell, understandable - the mystery is in the tiny vignettes of life captured in these tunes and not in the bewilderingly oblique Cocteau vocals. Somewhere on 'Foxtrot Vandals' - in fact in the second line of the second verse or thereabouts - not that I checked of course - there is a sudden dark undercurrent of bass and drums which threatens to bring the song back to earth. Thankfully it doesn't - it's all too brief. A hint, perhaps, of another possibility from this band of multi-instrumentalists who think nothing of inserting a brief banjo solo into the newly released and very fine 'Sweethearts in Disguise'. The lyrics too are simple but intelligent and wonderfully wordy, soaring above the music. There is something special about the way Kim sings about exploding stars 'shining a motherlode of answers on the skies'. It's not at all trite or twee, as Matt Brennan's deeper, often darker harmony provides a balance.
So as promised, I've wittered on for a number of paragraphs now about Zoey Van Goey. They are worth hearing, and that's perhaps all I really want to convey. I've always been guilty of over-enthusiastic music appreciation, but when something wakes me from a long slumber like this and turns me into a froth-lipped evangelist just like I used to be, you can be sure it's a bit special. I'm really rubbish at bringing things back from my holidays, so consider this my present from Glasgow...
You can hear for yourself at the band's MySpace page.
Lost::MikeGTN
I've had a home on the web for more years than I care to remember, and a few kind souls persuade me it's worth persisting with keeping it updated. This current incarnation of the site is centred around the blog posts which began back in 1999 as 'the daylog' and continued through my travels and tribulations during the following years.
I don't get out and about nearly as much these days, but I do try to record significant events and trips for posterity. You may also have arrived here by following the trail to my former music blog Songs Heard On Fast Trains. That content is preserved here too.
