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Musical wittering
A brace of reviews:
Despite getting up late, I made it to Gotham without being to hideously
behind time. In fact, since it seems doors opened late, I could almost claim it as
a deliberate policy.
I like Camden Palace as a place. There's something deeply satisfying about
a club which still retains so much of the baroque glory of a former
theatre. The balconies, enabling you to stand and watch the band from
above, are also a Good Thing.
Pintwatch was less impressed: no bitter. None at all. When Pintwatch asked
for cider, it got given Diamond White and was offered blackcurrant with
it. Eww. Pintwatch has not drunk Diamond White since it was 15, and has
now remembered why. And (despite bottled beverages not really being within
its remit) Pintwatch feels bound to record that it was shocked to the core
of its simple ale-loving soul to discover that people were being charged
£4.60 for bottles of Smirnoff Ice.
The gig really was at best flawed - the great god Technical Hitch was
reigning supreme, and organisation seemed to have left the building.
However, there were some fantastic performances...
Here followeth reviewage which is more wittering than musical comment.
Enter at own peril.
Excession
I can't really comment on these guys. They were already playing by the time
I arrived and, unfortunately, I realised I hadn't eaten enough and had to
squeak out to grab some food. Sorry Excession...
Descendants of Cain
I stood and listened to these guys for a while, but wasn't desperately
impressed. I knew their style was kind of familiar (sounds a bit like
Fields of the Nephilim, I was later reminded), but I really was a bit
underwhelmed by them. I'm disappointed to say that I can't remember all
that much about them.
Psychophile
At last! I've been trying to get to see Psychophile for a year or more now,
and have repeatedly been prevented (usually by illness, random delays or
(once) role-playing games). Psychophile are the sort of band I usually
disapprove of - I'd rather people played stuff than had backing tapes.
However...
They're great. Just two people, one playing guitar and both singing. Lucy
has a great voice, and an amazing ability to switch pitch, register and
mood instantaneously, going from growly-angry to floating ethereal without
a noticeable join.
There's something very endearing about Psychophile, and I can't think of
the word I want for it. Something like amateur, but that sounds like
I mean it as an insult. I guess they're just the band-from-next-door;
having an enormous amount of fun on stage.
There was something of a potential difference of bounciness going on across
the floor. At our side, people were bouncing around like loons (mind you, I
was standing near![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
davefish and fluffymark, which is
+3d6 on any bounce attack). At the opposite side of the stage, people were
nodding slightly. Ah well.
The Ghost of Lemora
A band I've heard good things about. But.. but.. they were also a little
unimpressive. They seemed to be going through the motions rather than
performing, and their onstage banter had every appearance of something
which had been scripted (and poorly rehearsed).
So, someone who appeared to be the bastard love child of Morrissey and
that bloke from A Flock of Seagulls posed his way round the stage,
squeezing out lyrics over a mulch of electronic and guitar-noise. Someone
should tell him that if he's going to try and camp it up that much, he
should lose the Tesco Value water - for God's sake, have a bit of style.
I'm afraid that on that showing I've written them off into the category of
bands who are destined to be support slot material - competent, together
and inoffensive.mrph tells me that they were off-form, though,
so I guess I'll give them another chance...
Mechanical Caberet
These poor buggers had their set trimmed down to three songs in some
last-ditch attempt to get the gig running to schedule again. As a result, I
hadn't really registered them properly before they were off again...
I recall them as being a sort of Front Line Assembly, softened down a bit,
and would like to hear a bit more of them.
Killing Miranda
Killing Miranda don't piss about, do they ? And yay, bonus points to them
for having a genuine drummer. Y'know, a bloke who sits at the back and hits
round things with sticks ?
I haven't seen KM in a while, and I wasn't desperately impressed with the
track of theirs which turned up on the Kaleidoscope free CD. But it still
seems they can kick a bit of solid arse. More rocky than gothy, and with
the kind of "screw you" arrogance that works well on stage, they
stomped on and set about it.
A great set, and the new songs sounded good despite being unfamiliar. KM still rock.
However. A note for Rikky, their frontman: Crowds are stupid. They are
slow, hard of thinking, and go "Baaa". So, if you're going to let
the audience sing a line in, make damn sure it's a simple one... nothing
says "we suck" than a band failing to get the line back from the
crowd with 100% conviction.
So... from Sunday: all those lines from Discotheque Necronomicon.
No, too hard. The lines go past quickly - by the time the audience realises
they're on, they're off again - and the words change each verse. No good.
Similarly, the "I was... I was... I was a teenage vampire" line -
OK it's simple, and everyone knows it, but the pauses make it tricky.
Whereas Spit - simple line, we can see it coming a long way off;
everyone who'd heard the song before was in there with "I'll show you
fucking psycho". That's the way to do it.
[Apologies to anyone who isn't familiar with KM songs, the last couple of
paragraphs probably made no sense.]
In Strict Confidence
These were a rather odd sounding band, to my mind. The backing was all Pet
Shop Boys, with a slightly heavier edge. But then the singer appeared to be
of the opinion that Rammstein's lyrics are a bit puffy, and need more
growl. After some time listening, I still wasn't sure whether he was
actually singing in German or English (davefish says German, at
least some of the time).
And somehow, the two didn't seem to fit well together. I very much like the
sound of the backing, but there was this relentless growly droning going on
all the time. Still, a lot of people seemed to like them... Shame about the
relative minority who decided to hurl abuse at them from the back - if you
don't like a band, bugger off to the bar, don't stand there yelling
"wankers" at them.
Their set came to rather an abrupt end - I'm not sure whether this was yet
more technical hitchery, or them being cut off for going on too long...
The Damned
And The Damned. Now, I realise the Damned should fall under my reformed
punk band policy (for new readers, said policy is that all reformed punk
bands suck and should be avoided[*]).
However. They were absolutely fantastic... hugely energetic, and all the individual performances spot-on. The singer really does have a fine voice (even when leaping about) - and the fact that he's been on-stage professionally for years shows (not least in his ability to pirouette around the stage without getting tangled in the mike lead :) Their keyboard player is also impressively insane.
Their set was a good mix of old favourites, from the punky blast-through numbers to the more opulent extravaganzas like Eloise, and new stuff. I'm not actually familiar with the recent albums at all, but it sounded like it would be worth a listen. They did throw me thoroughly by fitting a few verses of The Doors' Break On Through into the middle of Neat Neat Neat, which was interesting...
And despite it getting late, they ran off the end of their set list (I was reading over the sound guy's shoulder) and came back to do Love Song - dedicated to their road crew (and is it MU regulations that says every road crew must include a guy named Moose?) - and Looking At You. The dedication of the last one to "all the poofy goths, you're just sulking" was a little strange... maybe there was a lot of moping going on I couldn't see.
But yes. Big sound, good songs, energy enough to fill a run-down theatre. I'd certainly go to see them again...
[*] Actually, after recent experiences I'm beginning to wonder if my policy
is actually completely invalid :)
Then on Monday, it was off to...
Justin Sullivan and Friends
I have mixed feelings about this gig. It was good. I enjoyed it. But... but... the last time I saw Sullivan at the Zodiac it was probably one of the best gigs I've ever been to, and so this felt like a bit of a let down.
His "friends" seem to be Dean White and Michael Dean (keyboard player and drummer from New Model Army), so the line up is a little like NMA-lite. DW atually spends more time playing electric guitar than keyborads, and MD again has an amazing percussion rig based round bongos, rather than a drum kit as such. It's an interesting sound, and leads to some great reworkings of old NMA standards. I'm not sure I've ever heard The Attack live before.
There were a couple of disappointing omissions in the genuine "solo" stuff - no Turn Away, for a start. But there were flashes of brilliance in the NMA stuff - an absolutely storming version of Ballad of Bodmin Pill almost lifted the gig up to the standard of the previous one.
It's also good to see a band that appear to be enjoying themselves - and aren't above laughing. Certainly, by the time they were on-stage for a second encore, and sending Family Life up something rotten, MD appeared to have become possessed with the spirit of Animal, the other two had given up trying to keep straight faces.
But... the new solo stuff. Hmm. A large proportion of it is Justin-does-mellow; soft, murmuring vocals over haunting atmospheric guitar/keyboards. And it's just rather unremarkable - everything sounds faintly like Marry the Sea. There are also some great, epic tracks (like Ocean Rising) - but they're great, epic film music. I like them, but they would drop seamlessly into the soundtrack of Last of the Mohicans; nice-sounding, but not a lot of depth in some ways.
I don't criticise this guy lightly :( I sold my loyalty to Sullivan and NMA the day I heard Thunder and Consolation when I was fifteen. So come on Justin: you can write better songs than this.
Despite getting up late, I made it to Gotham without being to hideously
behind time. In fact, since it seems doors opened late, I could almost claim it as
a deliberate policy.
I like Camden Palace as a place. There's something deeply satisfying about
a club which still retains so much of the baroque glory of a former
theatre. The balconies, enabling you to stand and watch the band from
above, are also a Good Thing.
Pintwatch was less impressed: no bitter. None at all. When Pintwatch asked
for cider, it got given Diamond White and was offered blackcurrant with
it. Eww. Pintwatch has not drunk Diamond White since it was 15, and has
now remembered why. And (despite bottled beverages not really being within
its remit) Pintwatch feels bound to record that it was shocked to the core
of its simple ale-loving soul to discover that people were being charged
£4.60 for bottles of Smirnoff Ice.
The gig really was at best flawed - the great god Technical Hitch was
reigning supreme, and organisation seemed to have left the building.
However, there were some fantastic performances...
Here followeth reviewage which is more wittering than musical comment.
Enter at own peril.
Excession
I can't really comment on these guys. They were already playing by the time
I arrived and, unfortunately, I realised I hadn't eaten enough and had to
squeak out to grab some food. Sorry Excession...
Descendants of Cain
I stood and listened to these guys for a while, but wasn't desperately
impressed. I knew their style was kind of familiar (sounds a bit like
Fields of the Nephilim, I was later reminded), but I really was a bit
underwhelmed by them. I'm disappointed to say that I can't remember all
that much about them.
Psychophile
At last! I've been trying to get to see Psychophile for a year or more now,
and have repeatedly been prevented (usually by illness, random delays or
(once) role-playing games). Psychophile are the sort of band I usually
disapprove of - I'd rather people played stuff than had backing tapes.
However...
They're great. Just two people, one playing guitar and both singing. Lucy
has a great voice, and an amazing ability to switch pitch, register and
mood instantaneously, going from growly-angry to floating ethereal without
a noticeable join.
There's something very endearing about Psychophile, and I can't think of
the word I want for it. Something like amateur, but that sounds like
I mean it as an insult. I guess they're just the band-from-next-door;
having an enormous amount of fun on stage.
There was something of a potential difference of bounciness going on across
the floor. At our side, people were bouncing around like loons (mind you, I
was standing near
davefish and fluffymark, which is +3d6 on any bounce attack). At the opposite side of the stage, people were
nodding slightly. Ah well.
The Ghost of Lemora
A band I've heard good things about. But.. but.. they were also a little
unimpressive. They seemed to be going through the motions rather than
performing, and their onstage banter had every appearance of something
which had been scripted (and poorly rehearsed).
So, someone who appeared to be the bastard love child of Morrissey and
that bloke from A Flock of Seagulls posed his way round the stage,
squeezing out lyrics over a mulch of electronic and guitar-noise. Someone
should tell him that if he's going to try and camp it up that much, he
should lose the Tesco Value water - for God's sake, have a bit of style.
I'm afraid that on that showing I've written them off into the category of
bands who are destined to be support slot material - competent, together
and inoffensive.
mrph tells me that they were off-form, though, so I guess I'll give them another chance...
Mechanical Caberet
These poor buggers had their set trimmed down to three songs in some
last-ditch attempt to get the gig running to schedule again. As a result, I
hadn't really registered them properly before they were off again...
I recall them as being a sort of Front Line Assembly, softened down a bit,
and would like to hear a bit more of them.
Killing Miranda
Killing Miranda don't piss about, do they ? And yay, bonus points to them
for having a genuine drummer. Y'know, a bloke who sits at the back and hits
round things with sticks ?
I haven't seen KM in a while, and I wasn't desperately impressed with the
track of theirs which turned up on the Kaleidoscope free CD. But it still
seems they can kick a bit of solid arse. More rocky than gothy, and with
the kind of "screw you" arrogance that works well on stage, they
stomped on and set about it.
A great set, and the new songs sounded good despite being unfamiliar. KM still rock.
However. A note for Rikky, their frontman: Crowds are stupid. They are
slow, hard of thinking, and go "Baaa". So, if you're going to let
the audience sing a line in, make damn sure it's a simple one... nothing
says "we suck" than a band failing to get the line back from the
crowd with 100% conviction.
So... from Sunday: all those lines from Discotheque Necronomicon.
No, too hard. The lines go past quickly - by the time the audience realises
they're on, they're off again - and the words change each verse. No good.
Similarly, the "I was... I was... I was a teenage vampire" line -
OK it's simple, and everyone knows it, but the pauses make it tricky.
Whereas Spit - simple line, we can see it coming a long way off;
everyone who'd heard the song before was in there with "I'll show you
fucking psycho". That's the way to do it.
[Apologies to anyone who isn't familiar with KM songs, the last couple of
paragraphs probably made no sense.]
In Strict Confidence
These were a rather odd sounding band, to my mind. The backing was all Pet
Shop Boys, with a slightly heavier edge. But then the singer appeared to be
of the opinion that Rammstein's lyrics are a bit puffy, and need more
growl. After some time listening, I still wasn't sure whether he was
actually singing in German or English (
davefish says German, at least some of the time).
And somehow, the two didn't seem to fit well together. I very much like the
sound of the backing, but there was this relentless growly droning going on
all the time. Still, a lot of people seemed to like them... Shame about the
relative minority who decided to hurl abuse at them from the back - if you
don't like a band, bugger off to the bar, don't stand there yelling
"wankers" at them.
Their set came to rather an abrupt end - I'm not sure whether this was yet
more technical hitchery, or them being cut off for going on too long...
The Damned
And The Damned. Now, I realise the Damned should fall under my reformed
punk band policy (for new readers, said policy is that all reformed punk
bands suck and should be avoided[*]).
However. They were absolutely fantastic... hugely energetic, and all the individual performances spot-on. The singer really does have a fine voice (even when leaping about) - and the fact that he's been on-stage professionally for years shows (not least in his ability to pirouette around the stage without getting tangled in the mike lead :) Their keyboard player is also impressively insane.
Their set was a good mix of old favourites, from the punky blast-through numbers to the more opulent extravaganzas like Eloise, and new stuff. I'm not actually familiar with the recent albums at all, but it sounded like it would be worth a listen. They did throw me thoroughly by fitting a few verses of The Doors' Break On Through into the middle of Neat Neat Neat, which was interesting...
And despite it getting late, they ran off the end of their set list (I was reading over the sound guy's shoulder) and came back to do Love Song - dedicated to their road crew (and is it MU regulations that says every road crew must include a guy named Moose?) - and Looking At You. The dedication of the last one to "all the poofy goths, you're just sulking" was a little strange... maybe there was a lot of moping going on I couldn't see.
But yes. Big sound, good songs, energy enough to fill a run-down theatre. I'd certainly go to see them again...
[*] Actually, after recent experiences I'm beginning to wonder if my policy
is actually completely invalid :)
Then on Monday, it was off to...
Justin Sullivan and Friends
I have mixed feelings about this gig. It was good. I enjoyed it. But... but... the last time I saw Sullivan at the Zodiac it was probably one of the best gigs I've ever been to, and so this felt like a bit of a let down.
His "friends" seem to be Dean White and Michael Dean (keyboard player and drummer from New Model Army), so the line up is a little like NMA-lite. DW atually spends more time playing electric guitar than keyborads, and MD again has an amazing percussion rig based round bongos, rather than a drum kit as such. It's an interesting sound, and leads to some great reworkings of old NMA standards. I'm not sure I've ever heard The Attack live before.
There were a couple of disappointing omissions in the genuine "solo" stuff - no Turn Away, for a start. But there were flashes of brilliance in the NMA stuff - an absolutely storming version of Ballad of Bodmin Pill almost lifted the gig up to the standard of the previous one.
It's also good to see a band that appear to be enjoying themselves - and aren't above laughing. Certainly, by the time they were on-stage for a second encore, and sending Family Life up something rotten, MD appeared to have become possessed with the spirit of Animal, the other two had given up trying to keep straight faces.
But... the new solo stuff. Hmm. A large proportion of it is Justin-does-mellow; soft, murmuring vocals over haunting atmospheric guitar/keyboards. And it's just rather unremarkable - everything sounds faintly like Marry the Sea. There are also some great, epic tracks (like Ocean Rising) - but they're great, epic film music. I like them, but they would drop seamlessly into the soundtrack of Last of the Mohicans; nice-sounding, but not a lot of depth in some ways.
I don't criticise this guy lightly :( I sold my loyalty to Sullivan and NMA the day I heard Thunder and Consolation when I was fifteen. So come on Justin: you can write better songs than this.
no subject
Definitely one of, if not the most fun live bands I've seen...
Remind me sometime and I'll lend you my copy of Grave Disorder (their latest album unless they've snuck one out while my back was turned). It's one of those grower-type albums- the first time I listened to it I wasn't overwhelmed, but it gets better over time and tracks from it regularly get played down my way now.
(Grrr- fourth time I've tried to post this- hopefully I haven't arsed anything up this time)