![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaLast Monday night saw me trotting briskly up the main road through Brixton, heading out to the quieter residential area where the Windmill lives. I missed the first support band (Congregation ? Conversion ? Constipation ? I forget. Something like that.)
Logically, the next act on stage should have been Jeff Lewis and the Creeping Branes. Which is the name Jeff, his brother Jack, and the usual shower of randoms seem to be touring under this time. However, shuffling about on stage setting up a guitar was a bloke I didn't recognise. Surely - surely - the Lewises weren't making enough money for a roadie ?
Slowly the stage filled up with another three people, and after some rather tuneless mucking about, a song (barely distinguishable from the tuneless mucking about) started. Shortly afterwards, the noise evolved into something that was barely recognisable as the Television Personalities' song Silly Girl.
Some backplot: the Television Personalities were headlining, but it was Jeffrey Lewis (the top support) I'd been keen to see. I know very little about the TVPs, beyond Jeff Lewis having covered their song Part Time Punks. I'd borrowed a TVPs best-of earlier in the week, and been vaguely surprised by how, well, ropey the singing and playing was. The songs were fun but, as I said on the first listen, the band was really pretty awful.
Anyway, so there I was expecting a nice bit of lo-fi American anti-folk and instead I was listening to something that sounded considerably worse than your mate's high school punk band. Dan Treacy, the TVPs front man and songwriter, droned and mumbled his way through songs, frequently breaking into the lyrics to shout "no photos", "fuck off" and "no fucking photos" at the audience. His guitar playing was very approximate, the female singer was woefully out of tune, and, although the other guitarist seemed competent, he didn't have much to work with.
I heard Jack Lewis, standing a little distance away from me in the audience, answering someone else's question: "Yes, we should have been on, but we thought we'd better get him on before he was too drunk. Yeah, I think we left it too late."
The set dragged on, with Dan Treacy lurching about on the stage, seeming barely able to stand, and his band fudging away in the background during the times where he was refusing (or unable) to sing. I'm not sure how long they were on for, probably about 20 minutes or so before they ultimately gave it up as a bad job. All in all, it was a pretty sorry set and I'm pleased that they weren't the band I'd paid my money to see.
The only thing I could possibly cite as a highlight was Treacy, sprawled on the stage among a welter of microphone stands and guitar strap, yelling "I auditioned for Babyshambles", which did make me laugh.
As a result of the line-up shuffling, Jeff and Jack Lewis ended up doing a rather longer set. Sadly, I missed most of it because I was sitting either outside the venue or on the squashy sofa at the back feeling extremely ill. That'll teach me to start the evening with a bottle of Dog[*]. The bits I heard seemed quite promising - I've never heard So Long I'm Gonna Go Draw All Alone In My Shack live before, and there was a whole bunch of new songs. And I like the song about the inch worm who played the French horn.
Fans of Jeff Lewis may be impressed (or distressed) to know that his low-budget music videos have gone unexpectedly high-budget. Low-budget videos have been a staple of his shows for years: large, battered A3 sketchpads illustrated with coloured drawings which he holds up, and flips pages while singing to provide the "video" component. This time the same pictures were shown, but have been scanned and were projected onto a screen[**] from a Mac (of course). Dizzying heights of technology, indeed.
If only the damn Luminaire gig hadn't sold out. Bah. Don't like the Brixton Windmill. Which surprises me, because it's exactly the sort of low-rent, home-made venue I ought to like. However, it remains a silly shape, too hot, bereft of nice beer and a long walk.
[*] A conversation with a barman at the Windmill, which has no decent beer on draught:
Me: Do you have any bottled bitter ?
Him: Yup, we've got Heineken, Becks..
Me: Not, not lager, bitter.
Him (in tones of disbelief): You want a beer that tastes bitter ?
What do they teach barstaff these days ? It's no wonder I clutched at straws when I spotted the Newcastle blue star.
[**] Well, let's be fair. Projected onto a crumpled sheet gaffer taped to the ceiling.
Logically, the next act on stage should have been Jeff Lewis and the Creeping Branes. Which is the name Jeff, his brother Jack, and the usual shower of randoms seem to be touring under this time. However, shuffling about on stage setting up a guitar was a bloke I didn't recognise. Surely - surely - the Lewises weren't making enough money for a roadie ?
Slowly the stage filled up with another three people, and after some rather tuneless mucking about, a song (barely distinguishable from the tuneless mucking about) started. Shortly afterwards, the noise evolved into something that was barely recognisable as the Television Personalities' song Silly Girl.
Some backplot: the Television Personalities were headlining, but it was Jeffrey Lewis (the top support) I'd been keen to see. I know very little about the TVPs, beyond Jeff Lewis having covered their song Part Time Punks. I'd borrowed a TVPs best-of earlier in the week, and been vaguely surprised by how, well, ropey the singing and playing was. The songs were fun but, as I said on the first listen, the band was really pretty awful.
Anyway, so there I was expecting a nice bit of lo-fi American anti-folk and instead I was listening to something that sounded considerably worse than your mate's high school punk band. Dan Treacy, the TVPs front man and songwriter, droned and mumbled his way through songs, frequently breaking into the lyrics to shout "no photos", "fuck off" and "no fucking photos" at the audience. His guitar playing was very approximate, the female singer was woefully out of tune, and, although the other guitarist seemed competent, he didn't have much to work with.
I heard Jack Lewis, standing a little distance away from me in the audience, answering someone else's question: "Yes, we should have been on, but we thought we'd better get him on before he was too drunk. Yeah, I think we left it too late."
The set dragged on, with Dan Treacy lurching about on the stage, seeming barely able to stand, and his band fudging away in the background during the times where he was refusing (or unable) to sing. I'm not sure how long they were on for, probably about 20 minutes or so before they ultimately gave it up as a bad job. All in all, it was a pretty sorry set and I'm pleased that they weren't the band I'd paid my money to see.
The only thing I could possibly cite as a highlight was Treacy, sprawled on the stage among a welter of microphone stands and guitar strap, yelling "I auditioned for Babyshambles", which did make me laugh.
As a result of the line-up shuffling, Jeff and Jack Lewis ended up doing a rather longer set. Sadly, I missed most of it because I was sitting either outside the venue or on the squashy sofa at the back feeling extremely ill. That'll teach me to start the evening with a bottle of Dog[*]. The bits I heard seemed quite promising - I've never heard So Long I'm Gonna Go Draw All Alone In My Shack live before, and there was a whole bunch of new songs. And I like the song about the inch worm who played the French horn.
Fans of Jeff Lewis may be impressed (or distressed) to know that his low-budget music videos have gone unexpectedly high-budget. Low-budget videos have been a staple of his shows for years: large, battered A3 sketchpads illustrated with coloured drawings which he holds up, and flips pages while singing to provide the "video" component. This time the same pictures were shown, but have been scanned and were projected onto a screen[**] from a Mac (of course). Dizzying heights of technology, indeed.
If only the damn Luminaire gig hadn't sold out. Bah. Don't like the Brixton Windmill. Which surprises me, because it's exactly the sort of low-rent, home-made venue I ought to like. However, it remains a silly shape, too hot, bereft of nice beer and a long walk.
[*] A conversation with a barman at the Windmill, which has no decent beer on draught:
Me: Do you have any bottled bitter ?
Him: Yup, we've got Heineken, Becks..
Me: Not, not lager, bitter.
Him (in tones of disbelief): You want a beer that tastes bitter ?
What do they teach barstaff these days ? It's no wonder I clutched at straws when I spotted the Newcastle blue star.
[**] Well, let's be fair. Projected onto a crumpled sheet gaffer taped to the ceiling.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-12-10 01:52 pm (UTC)Welcome to Softsouthernunderbellyshire.
They could have been bigger than the Beatles
Date: 2006-12-10 03:48 pm (UTC)Yet the broken man that is Treacy doesn't do the band any favours at all these days. But there is clearly more to him than meets the eye.
Re: They could have been bigger than the Beatles
Date: 2006-12-10 04:41 pm (UTC)Re: They could have been bigger than the Beatles
Date: 2006-12-10 10:07 pm (UTC)Re: They could have been bigger than the Beatles
Date: 2006-12-14 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-10 09:50 pm (UTC)Ick. That's just scary.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-11 08:53 am (UTC)I think I've had more ill tummies off Newkie Brown than of all other beer put together. What is it they put in that stuff?!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-29 12:47 am (UTC)And not even good coal: just the scrapings from barges of lignite.