Silent Words Speak Loudest

2009-11-20T01:11:00.000Z

Los leaders

LOS CAMPESINOS! / COPY HAHO / SPARKY DEATHCAP, 29TH OCTOBER 2009, OXFORD ZODIAC

Sparky Deathcap aka Robert Taylor describes his music as sounding like "ghosts in the night trying to get into a locked caravan" - which, in case you're lacking in imagination, sounds quite a bit like Jeffrey Lewis to most who’ve clapped ears on him. As you might expect from someone who's written a rock opera for ukelele composed in less than 24 hours and who draws cartoons to accompany his show (the headliners' frontman Gareth is performing PowerPoint duties tonight), he’s not your conventional singer-songwriter, possessed of deft and witty lyrical touches that illuminate deceptively simple songs like ‘Berlin Syndrome’. He begins another one about Halloween by claiming it’s the one night of the year you can go out on a date if you’re ugly. And less proves to be more, the gradual accumulation of Los Campesinos! members as the set progresses actually diluting rather than enhancing the quality of the performance.

Copy Haho take to the stage safe in the knowledge that they already have fans in Oxford, local label Big Scary Monsters having released their debut EP Bred For Skills & Magic. The Scots aren't exactly short of friends - they're named (along with the headliners) as being members of Johnny Foreigner's "family" in the sleevenotes to new album Grace And The Bigger Picture. Hook-heavy guitar pop with an abrasive underbelly is their modus operandi – comparing them to The Rakes wouldn’t be much of an endorsement, so let’s go for the neatly-turned-out offspring of The Wedding Present and Arctic Monkeys instead. Time will tell if the quartet have quite the skills and magic to become as famous as their home town Stonehaven’s other significant export, the deep-fried Mars Bar, but there’s no doubt which of them is the most nutritious.

As I'm sure you're all thoroughly bored of hearing, I’ve known Los Campesinos! since they were knee-high to a genuflecting grasshopper. So tonight is almost as surreal an experience for me as it is for them: some way from their birthplace of Cardiff, being pawed at by hordes of lust-eyed teenagers, playing the first birthday party for a promoter named after their signature song.

The fact that said song, ‘You! Me! Dancing!’, is sarcastically introduced as ‘Creep’ suggests (sadly) that it really has become the "embarrassing albatross around their collective necks" that I suspected a year ago - something that everyone wants to hear but that they’re increasingly reluctant to play. Nevertheless, party poopers Los Campesinos! are most certainly not (even despite having been officially diagnosed with swine flu, new vocalist/keyboard player Kim - a replacement for Aleks, who's returned to her studies - being equipped with a bucket in case of mid-set technicolour yawn). So play it they do and it’s met with the anticipated delirium. (No doubt delirium was also the order of the day when, a few nights previously, they curated a stage at Cardiff's Swn Festival, headlining a bill that also featured another member of Johnny Foreigner's "family", Dananananaykroyd.)

Los Campesinos! are no one-hit wonders, though – far from it. Debut album Hold On Now, Youngster continues to be well represented in the set ('Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks' remains the brilliant final act) and tracks like ‘Ways To Make It Through The Wall’ drawn from its darker, spikier successor We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed are really beginning to come into their own.

At the expense of some older gems (‘The International Tweexcore Underground’ is a particularly lamented omission) and others less fondly remembered by the band (a request for 'It Started With A Mixx' is met with a derisive "We're not playing our old shit songs"), there’s also room to showcase material from forthcoming LP Romance Is Boring, due out in the new year. The chorus of the title track has significant earworm potential, but 'The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future' - which finds Gareth muttering grimly about cutting off tongues and the fact that "she's not eating again" - hints heavily at a more contemplative, considered, grown-up future.

But – for the present, and especially given the circumstances – it’s the scatty, bratty, livewire Los Campesinos! we want, and that, largely, is what we’re delighted to get.

2009-11-18T01:32:00.002Z

Know Your Enemy

"There have been some real victims in this case. People had their homes attacked and some people have lost their jobs."

BNP spokesman John Walker, branding the verdict in the case against Matthew Single who leaked members' personal details "an absolute disgrace".

The BNP complaining of "real victims" and "homes attacked", eh? Well, that makes for a refreshing change, doesn't it?

2009-11-18T01:15:00.002Z

Quote of the day

"I think the heavier hallucinogens are amazing. The problem with our society is there aren't enough positive drug rituals. I said this to the Archbishop of Canterbury the other night - the Church of England should introduce some sort of ecstasy communion."

If this were anyone else, you'd imagine they must be off their trolley on hallucinogens to be dreaming up such conversations - but it's Will Self so it probably did happen.

2009-11-16T22:16:00.003Z

Know Your Enemy

"If the cat wasn't dead, I'd have killed it by now".

After being caught up in a potential diplomatic crisis thanks to bungling Canadian Transport Minister John Baird, aide Dimitri Soudas won't be mourning the death of Baird's beloved moggy Thatcher.

All very The Thick Of It, n'est-ce pas? (And that's one problem with Iannucci's show - razor-sharp it might be, but the truth is often as ridiculous as his fiction, if not more so...)

2009-11-13T00:08:00.001Z

Shock and awe

ELECTRIC EEL SHOCK / SMILEX, OXFORD ZODIAC, 20TH OCTOBER 2009

When Lee Christian admits he's gutted about being "unable to show Electric Eel Shock our A game", you sense there's an apology for us in there too - and, in truth, so there should be. Fair enough, tonight Smilex - who once upon a time released a split single with The Young Knives, dontchaknow - may have been deprived of two members by circumstances beyond their control (illness, I think). But all the same, boiled down to a duo of vocalist Christian and guitarist Tom Sharp, they proceed to inflict on us soul-sappingly dreary acoustic renditions of their scuzz rock repertoire.

If the set serves any purpose, it's as a public service announcement allowing Christian to plug their forthcoming gig at the recently reopened Port Mahon. "Hope you think we're better than the stereo would have been", he ventures optimistically as they wrap up, our collective disinterested murmuring and awkward shuffling delivering a cruelly blunt answer.

Collective disinterested murmuring and awkward shuffling are, it's safe to say, simply not an option when it comes to the headliners. As a friend witnessing Japanese nutjobs Electric Eel Shock for the first time once memorably opined: "This is what happens when you spend two thousand years worshipping your head of state as a god".

Japan seems to be to music what Madagascar is to animals. There, species (or genres) that were once familiar evolve into rather different and unique creatures, but nevertheless still to a degree recognisable. Evidence? Envy's take on Mogwai and post-hardcore. Devo as filtered through the prism of Polysics. The schizoid assault of Melt-Banana. Nissenenmondai's startling convergence of Krautrock, post-rock and disco.

Electric Eel Shock are no different, though it would be a tad misleading to refer to them as the product of any kind of evolution. They're old school, you see, as old school as they come - making a grand entrance to Black Sabbath's 'Iron Man' wearing Ozzy T-shirts, their free hands almost permanently contorted into devil horns, foot-on-monitor stance and machine-gunning move borrowed from Iron Maiden. And that's just guitarist Aki Morimoto and bassist Kazuto Maekawa. Drummer Tomoharu 'Gian' Ito is naked apart from a two-foot-long white sock on his cock, the end of which he occasionally beats on the drums - when he's not battering them with his four sticks, two in each hand, that is...

The songs - called things like 'Suicide Rock 'N' Roll', 'Sex Noise' and 'Bastard' - are loud, joyously stupid, subtle-as-a-brieze-block garage metal romps which make Motley Crue seem sensitive and cerebral, between which Morimoto (who, bizarrely, features alongside Chelsea and England captain John Terry in the latest issue of Angler's Mail - yes, really) sticks his plectrum to his forehead to applaud the audience before addressing us in perfect Engrish. To one person shouting out a request he responds "I'm sorry, I don't speak English", and towards the end of the set asks "You want one more song? YOU WANT ONE MORE SONG?! OK, OK, we play two more song". And off they go again, outtrumping Tap once more.

And they say the Japanese are repressed...

2009-11-12T01:04:00.003Z

Big break

Foo Fighters, Jay-Z, Sting, Norah Jones and ... Stornoway?! Suffice to say that the line-up for last week's Later... With The Evil Ivory-Tinkling Midget gave me quite a shock - though that's no doubt as nothing compared to the surreal experience of the band... And they did themselves justice too, fighting back the nerves and nausea to give good performances of debut single 'Zorbing' and the gently anthemic 'Fuel Up'.

A little bit of poking about online and it's clear that Stornoway have come a long way since last we met, almost exactly a year ago, at the Zodiac. OK, so they may still be unsigned and have only two singles behind them - the aforementioned 'Zorbing' and, more recently, 'Unfaithful' - but in the last twelve months they've supported The Magic Numbers, had features in the Guardian and NME, played no fewer than eight performances at Glastonbury (which they wrote about for the Torygraph) and collaborated with the Oxford Millennium Orchestra for a hometown gig at the Sheldonian Theatre.

While I wouldn't claim to be their biggest fan, it's certainly encouraging to see local favourites breaking out and getting significant wider recognition. Expect to see them on quite a few festival bills next summer, at least.

So, who's next? Jonquil? Tristan & The Troubadours?

2009-11-12T00:57:00.002Z

Baker street

McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, Wimpy - your boys took one hell of a beating. Oh yes, it's official (well, it is if the BBC proclaim it to be so, at least): Geordie haute cuisine has conquered the high street.

Mine's a steak bake (but of course!) and sometimes a cheese savoury and bacon sandwich or one of those slightly exotic spicy chicken concoctions too. What about you?

2009-11-08T13:13:00.006Z

Uneasy does it

ZU / DR SLAGGLEBERRY / DRUNKENSTEIN, 4TH OCTOBER 2009, OXFORD WHEATSHEAF

Tiresomely convoluted songs? Cursory nods to Faith No More overshadowed by gothy bluster and Chili Peppers style slap bass? A theatrical frontman who looks like the Bee Gees' Robin Gibb, who has a distressing penchant for a maniacal laugh that Dr Evil would think too contrived, and who reads some of his lyrics from crib sheets, explaining "I've just got back from Suffolk and still have the thousand yard stare"? Yes, Drunkenstein are gruesome all right - just not, I imagine, in quite the way they intended.

Far more unsettling are Dr Slaggleberry. Midway through the set my gig-going accomplice leans over to say: "I'm enjoying this, but get the feeling we might be about to get murdered". You'd call for the men in white coats - if they weren't already on stage, wearing blank face masks. "We all have court summons we're avoiding so we try to keep under the radar", they've explained in an interview - probably a joke, though I wouldn't be sure.

There are no shortage of local types for whom the adjective "mathy" is appropriate, but Dr Slaggleberry are the only ones I've yet come across who also take their cue from jazz and metal - all detuned guitars, double-bass pedal battering and odd time signatures - to impressive effect (i.e. I'm discounting Eduard Soundingblock). Unusual rhythms are probably only to be expected given that all three members started out as drummers. If they were to ditch the vocals and between-song banter, and borrow a bit of Drunkenstein's theatricality and (for instance) freeze when the riffs grind to a stop midsong, the trio really would be a frightening prospect.

Once they've packed up, the stage sits empty for a while - until the headliners stride in as if just arrived, set up and start playing, to dropped jaws. After an appearance alongside the likes of Mogwai and Fuck Buttons at Invada Invasion, the one-day festival organised by Portishead's Geoff Barrow, Zu are on a low-key tour of the country - certainly, the Wheatsheaf is rather more low-key than Bristol's Colston Hall, the reopening of which Invada Invasion was organised to mark.

Like Dr Slaggleberry before them, the Italian trio aren't exactly easy listening - needless to say, really, of a band endorsed by John Zorn who have collaborated with Can's Damo Suzuki, Fugazi's Joe Lally, Melvins' Buzz Osbourne, Nobukazu Takemura and the evening's spiritual curator Mike Patton amongst others. Tonight there are no collaborators, and not much in the way of electronics or nuance - just Massimo Pupillo's bass, ultra-deep and laden with effects; Luca Mai's sax, rigged to pack a punch more fearsome than your average distorted guitar - he plays what has been described as a "death bassoon"; and Jacopo Battaglia's extraordinary drumming, which shreds sticks and sends splinters flying.

The music is jazz-influenced, though definitely wouldn't be described as "nice" by John Thomson's Jazz Club presenter in The Fast Show. It's as dense and heavy as it is complicated - hardly surprising, given that latest album Carboniferous (their 14th, put out on Patton's Ipecac imprint) has been acclaimed as perhaps their most downright aggressive release to date. The only respite from the feeling of being simultaneously disoriented and steamrollered comes when a misfiring PA heckles with some incidental music during a quiet section, Battaglia suddenly as open-mouthed as those of us in the audience.

Link:

Another review of the gig - we may not agree on the merits of the various bands, but it's good to stumble across another local blogger who chronicles his gig-going activities

2009-11-04T00:15:00.002Z

Only joking?

So, Jimmy Carr landed himself in a spot of bother for telling a joke some people found offensive. Not exactly a big surprise, is it? And neither do I disagree with the Guardian's Bruce Dessau in his general defence of the occasionally deliberately offensive comedy of the likes of Stewart Lee.

But I do have an issue to his contention that "it was a good joke, and a defensible one, not least because it had a political subtext. Carr was not mocking war heroes, but underlining the horrific injuries of young soldiers on the frontline". Was he? Was he really? Somehow I doubt it, even taking into account his visits to a military hospital and rehabilitation centre. I've never got the impression from Carr's comedy that he even knows what a moral compass is, let alone possesses one.

(Incidentally, bet that in the wake of the Moir affair the Mail were glad to be able to get back to playing the part of the outraged. Also interesting to note that the report's author can't help alluding to Carr's friendship with Mail bete noire Jonathan Ross and thus to Sachsgate...)

2009-11-03T22:45:00.002Z

Quote of the day

"I think the scientific evidence is absolutely clear cut. I would agree with it".

Professor John Beddington, chief science adviser to the government, backs the view of Professor David Nutt, ex chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.

The Lib Dems' Chris Huhne asked the pertinent question in the wake of Nutt's sacking by Home Secretary Alan Johnson on Friday: "What is the point of having independent scientific advice if as soon as you get some advice that you don't like, you sack the person who has given it to you?" Quite a contrast from the Tories' position, shadow home secretary Chris Grayling tarring Nutt's comments as his "latest ill-judged contribution to the debate". Doesn't seem like there's much debate going on from where I'm standing - the government are stubbornly maintaining a stance in the face of the scientific evidence.

2009-11-03T00:26:00.003Z

Unknown pleasures

Not so much Manchester as Northern Quarter, so much to answer for. After a Saturday out and about up there, I may be in very real danger of actually liking the third city, and I'm holding the Northern Quarter responsible - and the following establishments on and around Oldham Street in particular:

* Piccadilly Records: A fine selection of music and staff descriptions affixed to nearly every CD or record, just like Selectadisc of yore. Marvellous mailing list, complete with free MP3 samplers and on-the-money staff recommendations. A copy of Animal Collective's Feels for a fiver? Oh yes indeed.

* Magma Books: Lots of formidably pretentious graphic design magazines, to be sure, but also a great selection of entertaining books, cards etc. If only Christmas was coming. Oh.

* The Night & Day Cafe: The fact that there's nothing on tap is the only black mark. Great coffee and a decent selection of bottled beverages, plus it's a gig venue with impressive listings past and future - The Fiery Furnaces, Malcolm Middleton and Sky Larkin in the last month or so, and Cymbals Eat Guitars and The Drones to come. It's the Cafe's 18th birthday this month - many happy returns.

* The Castle Hotel: Apparently this compact boozer has had a bit of a trendy overhaul lately - not that it's much in evidence. Two cosy rooms, six different real ales and (it being Halloween) pumpkin lanterns on each table and free pumpkin soup for the peckish.

* Keko Moku: A tiny tiki bar serving large and lethal cocktails (several of them set aflame with a blowtorch before serving) in extraordinary vessels, made all the better by the Halloween Zombie Fest theme. It's not often you'll see Freddie Krueger look up from his decks and a woman in a blood-splattered wedding dress moving aside as Teen Wolf strolls in nonchalantly bouncing a basketball.

We did venture further afield, too - most notably to the Temple, a pub converted from an underground public toilet - though decided it would be a bit of a waste of an opportunity to explore the city if we just headed for the Efterklang / Jonquil gig at the Deaf Institute (you've got to love whichever bright spark thought it would make a good gig venue, if only for the name).

Perhaps next time we'll be able to squeeze a gig in along with further explorations.

2009-11-03T00:10:00.002Z

Feel good hits of the 2nd November

1. 'Crazy/Forever' - Japandroids
2. 'Ways To Make It Through The Wall' - Los Campesinos!
3. 'I Want You To Know' - Dinosaur Jr
4. 'Rough Steez' - Fuck Buttons
5. 'Infinity' - The XX
6. 'Down Boy' - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
7. 'So Bored' - Wavves
8. 'Criminals' - Johnny Foreigner
9. 'Two Weeks' - Grizzly Bear
10. 'Mirrorball' - Nissenenmondai

Reviews of recent Japandroids and Los Campesinos! gigs to follow shortly (and of the Wavves gig that's to come later in the month too). And Mike, Alison and everyone else who recommended the XX album to me - thanks.

2009-11-02T23:58:00.002Z

Overdrawn

Well, here's one way to respond to a reminder of an overdue payment. Though I wonder whether you'd be able to get away with this if you were a famous artist?

(Thanks to Matt for the link.)

2009-10-29T01:21:00.003Z

Back to the retro future

I've often complained in the past about having a steam-powered computer (not since upgrading last Christmas, though), but on Saturday I saw what is very nearly the real thing, as created by Richard Nagy (aka Datamancer).

We were passing the Museum of the History of Science, you see, and decided to pop in to admire all the various measuring and calculating tools and their famous Einstein blackboard - and to check out the current Steampunk exhibition.

Now I'll confess I had no idea what on earth steampunk was before stepping inside. The Wikipedia page gives a fairly good definition and explanation, but it surprised me to learn that it was first recognised as a literary phenomenon, an off-shoot of sorts of cyberpunk, when the medium of visual and physical art seems so much more suited to its expression.

I can't say the exhibition excited in me any desire to read a steampunk novel or browse through a steampunk comic, but the artworks on display - bizarre and only barely utilitarian contraptions that seem to have been spawned from the fantastical imagination of some of forward-thinking Victorian inventor - were fascinating. In a similar though more aesthetically striking way to those 60s visions of a world where everything is Bacofoil silver, collectively they hint at a strange unrealised future. One in which everyone seems to wear goggles of some description...

Link: Pictures of exhibits from the BBC Oxford site

2009-10-29T01:10:00.002Z

Quotes of the day

Both taken from yesterday's Metro...

"Worn and ravaged builders' hands have acted as a stumbling block for fingerprint access control readers in the construction industry. However, all that is about to change thanks to computer technology developed by Warwick University that can identify partial, smudged or 'warped' fingerprints in just seconds. The system, already in use at six major building sites, will also play a role in crime-fighting."

So let that be a lesson to the light-fingered criminal masterminds among you - working in the construction industry is no longer the easy way to avoid detection and justice that you thought it was...

"The spiralling cost of passports coupled with credit crunch-hit 'staycationers' has seen demand for passports fall by more than ten per cent over two years. The decline has been so marked that the Identity and Passport Service has 'loaned' staff to JobCentres."

Now if that's not a marker of the fact that we're in a recession, then I don't know what is.

2009-10-29T01:08:00.002Z

Know Your Enemy

"A fat Holocaust-denying cunt"

Judging by their acceptance speech at the Q Awards, you-know-who very definitely isn't on the Specials' Christmas card list.

2009-10-27T00:19:00.004Z

Diminishing returns

TREMBLING BELLS / THE HALCYONS / THE ROUNDHEELS / MATT WINKWORTH, 3RD OCTOBER 2009, OXFORD JERICHO TAVERN

The Rules decree that singer-songwriters should be tedious drips who believe that listlessly strumming a guitar and moaning about something or other at the same time makes them the natural and inevitable heir to Bob Dylan. Thankfully, for Matt Winkworth, the Rules are made to be broken. Your average common-or-garden singer-songwriter he is not, channelling the (melo)dramatic flourish of Rufus Wainwright into a performance that takes in a song written from the perspective of A Midsummer Night's Dream's Puck and a tribute to tragic Eurotrash star Lola Ferrari which succeeds in being as poignant as it is witty, before wrapping up with a cover of Burt Bacharach's 'Anyone Who Had A Heart'.

Also making very good use of other people's songs amongst their own are folky types The Roundheels - tonight a stripped-down twosome of guitarist and vocalist, although some additional assistance is provided on mandolin and slide guitar by members of The Marmadukes. There's a nagging feeling that they're the sort of act who could be found performing in any number of pubs on a Saturday night (indeed their next gig is at the Malmaison), but justice is nevertheless very much done to dark material including Nina Simone's version of 'Black Is The Color (Of My True Love's Hair)' and Neko Case's 'Make Your Bed'.

At least one member of The Halcyons, keyboard player Colin Mackinnon, writes for the OxfordBands.com site, so he must be used to the difficulty (if not outright impossibility) of being positive or saying at least something constructive in certain reviews. As such, he might be feeling my pain right now. His band won't be responsible for me remembering this as a halcyon evening - let's just leave it there, shall we?

Trembling Bells: the name seems to say it all. Not Howling Bells - not desperate, full of fury or anguish. No, Trembling - nervous, quaking, trepidatious. As they shuffle uncomfortably before a crowd considerably thinner than it was half an hour earlier and begin a song called 'Adieu England', I conclude that perhaps they've bid adieu to their native Glasgow rather sooner than was sensible and would have been better off honing their art at home for a while longer. Certainly their stage presence is non-existent, the drums seem too loud and obtrusive, and I'm struggling to find much to admire in their rambling folk-country (and even less to like). Worse still, two friends confess the need to escape outside to the smoking balcony before the singer's nails-down-blackboard voice drives them to murder.

So it comes as something of a major surprise to learn that not only have the quartet been talked about in excited tones by those in the know, but that two members of the band (at least) have significant form. Alex Neilson is a much-feted drummer who's played with Bonnie "Prince" Billie, Alasdair Roberts and Six Organs Of Admittance amongst others, while vocalist Lavinia Blackwall was part of his Directing Hand free jazz project.

Thing is, though, I came across Directing Hand at Greenman two years ago, accused them of "just taking the piss" and agreed with a barman that Blackwall sounded like "'cats in a bag in the river'". And, personally speaking at least, Trembling Bells are hardly any better.

2009-10-26T21:17:00.002Z

Quote of the day

"The reason I feel sorry for her is not that she is a journalist, or that she writes for the Daily Mail, I am quite sure she can do without my pompous, patronising sympathy. I feel sorry for her because I know just what it is like to make a monumental ass of oneself and how hard it is to find the road back. I know all too well what it is like to be inebriated, as Disraeli put it, by the exuberance of my own verbosity."

Could that really be Stephen Fry feeling sorry for Mail hack Jan Moir? Weirdly, yes - and to say she made a "monumental ass" of herself doesn't really do justice to the contents of her original column on Stephen Gately. That said, he only does so after referring to the column as "that epically ill-judged piece of gutter journalism" remarkable for "its malice, stupidity, incoherent illogicality and crass insensitivity"...

2009-10-26T20:00:00.005Z

Don't believe the hype

Detecting just a smidgen of hypocrisy in the tabloids over their post Question Time vilification of Nick Griffin? So's Anton Vowl of the Enemies Of Reason blog - and he's got the front pages to prove it.

Feeling rather more sympathetic towards the striking Royal Mail workers than the media are encouraging you to be? You might be even more so when you read the whistle-blowing behind-the-scenes expose of one anonymous employee which appeared in the London Review Of Books. It seems that managerial mantra "Figures are down" doesn't quite ring true.

(Thanks to Zoe and Simon for the links.)

2009-10-25T19:15:00.003Z

Know Your Enemy

"It's the pretence that grates, the hollow emptiness and lack of any coherent reasoning behind her ridiculously lauded aesthetic, all these vague allusions to beauty that try to appear weighty but fail. Perhaps a shock of electricity would be just the cure for her listlessness. Ambition should surely be made of sterner stuff."

Laura Snapes of The Quietus is none too impressed with Florence or her Machine.

It's a bit of a hatchet job (possibly with a prior agenda - though Snapes has denied this), and there's some guff about "being female" having "developed into its own genre" (er, that would be the media's making, methinks), but certainly there's precious little of any interest, profundity or even coherence in what Florence has to say. I'll stick with Natasha Khan, thanks.

(Thanks to Brian for the link.)

2009-10-25T19:13:00.002Z

Quote of the day

(This should have gone up on Thursday night, but never mind...)

"He looks like someone has stretched luncheon meat over a toad".

Comedian Russell Howard on that loveable scamp Nick Griffin.

2009-10-25T19:03:00.002Z

Is it just me...

... or is the name Trojan - with its implications of unpleasant surprises and deceitful entry - not rather inappropriate for a brand of condoms?

Also on the subject of the amorous arts, if you haven't already seen what happened when Mark Cawardine and Stephen Fry encountered a randy parrot on Last Chance To See, then you really should.

(Incidentally on Last Chance To See, Stephen Fry's no Attenborough, of course, but his commentary is always entertaining and at least the programme's more coherent than Attenborough's latest vehicle Life, impressive though the cinematography is for the latter.)

2009-10-23T00:41:00.002+01:00

Know Your Enemy

"The BBC should be ashamed of single-handedly doing a racist, fascist party the biggest favour in its grubby history".

Welsh Secretary Peter Hain has some strong words for dear old Auntie over BNP leader Nick Griffin's invitation to appear on Question Time - the same dear old Auntie whom Griffin accused of being "ultra-leftist" during the recording.

I noticed that, despite the open letter from the British Legion, Griffin is still insisting on sporting a poppy. At one point he came under attack for the BNP's appropriation of Winston Churchill (part of a wider appropriation of Britain's involvement in the Second World War), and part of his defence was the fact that his father was in the RAF. Well that's all right then, isn't it?

2009-10-23T00:28:00.002+01:00

Sites for sore ears

The Independent names the 25 best music sites. Some familiar names in there (Pitchfork, of course, plus MusicOMH and Spotify) as well as a few I really ought to read more often (Pop Justice, The Quietus - had no idea the latter are behind the White Heat club nights at Madame Jojos in Soho, where I'm off to see Japandroids on Tuesday) and one or two I haven't heard of but will certainly be investigating (Rock's Back Pages).

(Thanks to Rob for the link.)

2009-10-19T21:34:00.006+01:00

Here's looking at them

AND SO I WATCH YOU FROM AFAR / HREDA / NITKOWSKI / IVY'S ITCH, 23RD SEPTEMBER 2009, OXFORD CELLAR

Since last we met, just under a year ago, have Ivy's Itch mellowed? Er, no, would be the simple answer - though the sound is at least better than in the bar of the Regal (presumably because guitarist Jimmy Hetherington, also sometime member of Eduard Soundingblock, is the Cellar's resident knob-twiddler). The gothy bruisers - Tura Satana cast in lead, essentially - are unapologetically old-school metal, but stagger and slide from sludge (good) to stodge (bad) too often. Imagine being in a wind tunnel, only that wind tunnel is the Devil's anal passage. To be honest, I can think of better places to be.

Nitkowski are no strangers either. Last time the Londoners were here (or at least last time I saw them here), in support of Oxes, there was a moment of skull/ceiling interface that had me wincing. Not that I wasn't wincing already, you understand. Theirs is a tightly woven web of sound, with which they ensnare you before going in for the kill with clinical precision. Quite how they achieve the bass sound with just two guitarists is a mystery (well, it is until one of my gigging accomplices asks - pedals, apparently). Recent album Chauffeurs received an enthusiastic write-up in Kerrang!, but you wouldn't want to be driven anywhere by these guys - they'd probably take you to a deserted warehouse and recreate the scene from Reservoir Dogs with a blunt spoon and a soundtrack by Shellac.

Hreda are long-standing local favourites of this 'ere site - so much so that I can overlook the fact that they once sold me an EP rendered unplayable by the fact that the spray paint on the slipcase had also spotted the CD itself. Their most recent release was a double A-side single featuring a song called 'Minnows', but there's not much minnow-sized about what they do. All the same, there seems to be a subtle evolution afoot, gradually leaving the broad brushstrokes and majestic Explosions In The Sky sweep behind. The new songs continue to make the most of Russ Wainwright's fluid drumming, but now it's set in contrast to faster staccato sections, suggesting they're edging slowly and in their own way towards the more mathy ground occupied by fellow locals This Town Needs Guns (who, incidentally, have sent a deputation out tonight).

And so I watch And So I Watch You From Afar from up close. Fresh from headlining the Edge Of The Wedge Stage at Southsea Fest (a set I missed, knowing we already had a date a few days later), the boys from Belfast are not in the best of fettles. It later transpires that on the motorway en route to this esteemed seat of learning they learned a harsh lesson - namely, that the petrol gauge on their new tour van was not quite as accurate as might have been hoped - and as a result missed the window for soundchecking.

But, as one of the songs on their self-titled debut album (released on the Smalltown America imprint) would have it, 'Clench Fists, Grit Teeth ... GO!' - and, once diminutive guitarist Rory Friers has removed his glasses and put them on the amp, GO they most certainly do. Continuing with the song titles, 'Tip Of The Hat, Punch In The Face' implies a modicum of civility prior to the violent outburst, but that's never really apparent - 'If It Ain't Broke, Break It' is a more apt sentiment. For music that betrays the pervasive influence of Mogwai, it is at the same time far more visceral and face-ravagingly ferocious than most of what passes for post-rock. Volume and aggression are crucial, technical intricacy only a secondary consideration.

As it turns out, ASIWYFA have more than just an empty petrol tank and no soundcheck to contend with - there's also the supremely pissed girl who thanks the band for dedicating 'A Little Bit Of Solidarity Goes A Long Way' to her (and the other bands on the bill) by lurching and falling onto Friers' pedals mid-song, knocking his mic stand over into the bargain. Quickly and uncomplainingly, though, the guitarist rights everything and soldiers on unflustered. Clench fists, grit teeth ... GO!

I remain to be convinced that their recorded output quite does them justice, or that they have enough about them to ensure longevity and distinction - but tonight, at least, seeing is believing.