Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room Gigs - News and reviews

Nice review Chris, what an interesting gig experience, and it’s often better to do these things on the spur of the moment.


I’m not exactly a World music type person myself Ivan, but your review for Festa Di Frontiera sounds like fun, I agree, its good to have a worthwhile diversion from the old electro ghetto, I spent the journey back from the heights of John & the Maths gig listening to Midlake's Van Occupanther, not an album I'd ever gotten into, but it really suited the moment.


Cheers, she has a great voice


Didn’t schoolgirl Britney Spears have a hit with that very song in 1999?


http://www.whenskiesaregrey.com/

Ivan, I clicked on it, but I couldn’t buy anything, the site was not open for business, by the laws of Global Capitalism I’m going to have to report this consumerism failure to Team America: World Shopping Police.

Wooden Shjips, Kazimer, Liverpool 11th September.

Annoyingly there were no dates in Scotland for this tour timed for release of new album ‘West’, the only gigs north enough for me were in Leeds or Liverpool, but by a happy coincidence I was due to spend a few days of September in Blackpool not far from either of those cities, so I contrived my trip to synchronise with the Liverpool show at the Kazimer, and it turned out to be a great choice of venue. The Kazimer is nothing to look at from the outside, just an anonymous featureless warehouse building, inside however it’s unexpectedly full of character and fantasy with wooden beams and a hexagonal shaped interior. Its a good-sized but intimate place where staircases lead up to a gallery and various niches are decorated with antique bric-a-brac, and in a corner above designed as an eclectic living-room resides a fun feature in the form of a scaled-down ‘Wild West Stage Wagon’ booth that can seat a small group of people. I was completely entranced and wide-eyed as I texted a friend, saying that I felt like I was inside a grungy Disneyland-type park attraction.

I’d definitely made the correct choice of destination for the gig, on the train out from Blackpool North an older (but surprisingly youthful looking) gent struck up a conversation with me for the journey, he was on a holiday trip to the UK and making a visit back to his old home town of Liverpool after having emigrated from it decades before as a nineteen year old teenager ”he’s young again, nineteen again!”, and he was a retired ex-tram driver from San Francisco, which was quite a sweet coincidence as I’ve not only been there on holiday a few years ago, but bizarrely, the Wooden Shjips also hail from there. When I told my traveling acquaintance I was en-route to see a modern-day Psychedelic band from San Francisco it unsurprisingly left him blank, in return, he talked about having seen the Beatles in his youth playing in Liverpool in their pre-superstardom days, to which he contrasted this with the fortune he’d recently had to pay for a ticket to see Sir Paul in concert. After exiting Liverpool station I felt disorientated, so I made my way to the local Tourist Information Office where a friendly guy got enthusiastic when I asked about the Kazimer, he not only gave me recommendations for places to eat and drink on Parr Street near to the venue, but my mention of the Wooden Shjips didn’t leave him blank, instead he obligingly wrote down some bands for me he thought I should check out.

Having been early and amongst the first of a dozen people at the Kazimer’s door when it opened I seemed to be the only person who’d come armed with a ticket, those in front of me stated they were on the guest list, fair enough, but on having heard this the people behind me jovially enquired aloud if there was a ‘friends of the guests’ list. That’s a new one, I’d never heard of this kind of list before! With barely an effort they blagged their way in just by hinting that they knew someone working at one of the nearby bars and café’s. Clearly there’s a lot of social cross-pollination going on locally. The Kazimer eventually became so crowded that I was unable to move lest I lose my perch, quite literally stood on a platforms edge, seems the Shjips have now become so popular that they fill a place to bursting, and boy, was it a long evening of standing. Whether lead guitarist and singer Ripley Johnson is with the Wooden Shjips or at his other project in Moon Duo with groovy keyboard effects wizard Sanae Yamada he always starts the gig late (this was the fourth time in 16 months I’ve seen him play live) and the Kazimer was no exception when he came onstage after 10.30pm. I’d already foreseen that I’d miss the last train of the day and have to hang around Liverpool’s wet and windy streets for hours till 3.30am when the station opened and the earliest train would eventually get me routed back to Blackpool - just 50 miles away and down a magical rabbits tunnel that would take a ridiculous four hours dragged out via Manchester to get anywhere - and to further compound the pain of that inconvenience I almost got fined around 2am when a Police patrol car pulled up alongside me and I was given a telling off by an Officer half my age just as I had (fortunately) finished my desperate need to go to the toilet at what I thought was a quiet deserted area behind the closed railway station.

There were two support acts at the gig, the first was Mugstar who I like, having seen them as support before, but the second act The Fresh And Only’s played their set for as long as if not longer than the main act. Honestly, they were kicking the arse out of it. At first I enjoyed a few of their numbers in the overall context of the evening, they put their heart into it and excitedly thanked the Shjips for inviting them along on tour, but their music quickly became too ‘folksy’ and boring, and really, should an unknown support act who I eventually went from politely accepting to grudgingly tolerating garner as much stage time as the main act? I was knackered, thirsty, and stuck there unable to budge, I honestly think the Shjips are so laid back that they just let The Fresh And Only’s run on, and on, and on, (a bit like my reviews!).

Okay, back on track, onto a darkened stage the Shjips appeared amidst a psychedelic snowstorm of swirling white lights that furiously swept the band as if they were caught up inside a snowglobe blizzard, they played the first song from their new album and It was quite an entrance: ‘most psychedelic man!’ At long last the evening had began for me, shame, no drink left, couldn’t move, and barely room to shake my thang to the music, but so glad to be immersed in the sophisticated cosmic space rock. The Shjips music has nothing in common with wistful and redundant tie-dye and joss-stick hippy clichés, and as a child born in the 60’s I was unaware of what that Summer of Love thing was exactly, though I do have vague fleeting childhood memories of seeing on my hometown streets denim clad people with rainbows, moons, and stars painted on, of course I’ve certainly vivid memories of that time after when people reversed the groove and wore ripped clothes, chains, spiky hair, and safety-pins through their ears. Ripley and the Shjips capture a far away beautiful hypnotic sound, its both an echo of a past that never quite was and also one from a place existing in a sideways time stream. Best musical highlight of their set for me was Flight, and on their new album it’s seven minutes long, I’m not sure just how long it was when they played it live, it could have been seven minutes, or it could have been fourteen, either way it was timeless, and I think that the saying: ‘far out man!’ is the appropriate expression for that moment of perfect bliss...

Harold Budd / The Necks - Exeter Phoenix Arts Centre 23 November 2011

Having lived many a day and night with Harold's music since 1992, this was unmissable. Just last weekend I played Luxa, The White Arcades (twice), The Serpent (in Quicksilver)/Abandoned Cities, Lovely Thunder, The Pearl, and The Plateaux of Mirror. Music that suits every season, if only in the wishing for the opposite season to return. It was somewhat fitting to be sharing the gig with the friend who introduced me to Harold's music, plus another friend.

But I also knew The Necks, from their album "Drive By", which sometimes accompanied me home from a night shift, in varying shades of dawn. As the repetitions slowly evolved, another part of the labour peeled off and whipped down the road (thanks Bill C), the next street was crossed, the light grew a fraction like an enormous natural energy-saving lightbulb, and more importantly I was a few steps nearer lying down. I heard they never play the same thing twice, but that's about all I had heard.

A suitable silent reverence (except for the obligatory occasional coughs, which I find just add to the atmosphere) was maintained throughout. Just the applause as musicians entered the stage and a louder applause as they left. The silence continued even after the music was no more, until the artists shifted and relaxed, clearly done, and thus permission was given to displace air between hands.

There were just two pieces - one each. Lost all sense of time. Forty five minutes each artist? Haven't a clue. Thanks to this wonderful (and frankly more coherent and informative) review, I can tell you that the chap accompanying Harold was Werner Dafeldecker. After several minutes setting the scene with what I remember as a constant rumbling rhythmic vinyl crackle, Harold started to play. His playing was then manipulated by Werner. If I'm being completely honest, I would say that there was a little too much trial and error in obtaining the treatments, one might even have heard some of the changes as mistakes? But it added to the fragility of the sound, plus you have to speculate to accumulate (I am certain) so no matter and, once settled onto a theme, everything clicked into place, sounded great. Having the musicians on show below us couldn't have helped - no-one needs to see the technique. Certainly I felt less nervous for the performance when I focused instead on watching the projections (apparently courtesy of Russell Mills) - softly shifting and reminiscent of Mark Rothko, but with clearer boundaries to the rectangles, albeit subsequently blurred, some thin as skyscrapers, and occasional suns I seem to remember, very effective and perfect accompaniment. I want it. One wonders how much the glow of the shifting colours behind them subliminally affected the mood of the players (The Necks played to the same backdrop). I would have liked to have heard a little more of just Harold on the piano and even something familiar (the temptation to holler for "Balthus Bemused By Colour" during a particularly quiet bit was almost evil) but it is always a delight to hear Harold in a room. And if Harold is actually in the room it is an honour and a bonus.

After a short interval to refuel (us not them), The Necks came on. A line up of drums/percussion, double bass, and pianist. The pianist Chris Abrahams began things briefly (sounding even more like Budd than Harold did) then ducked out, silently looking down, waiting for a different moment. You would perhaps expect an improvisational trio to be facing each other, in order to facilitate visual signals of an individual's intentions to make a change. None of that here - all is done based on the sound. What followed was, frankly, astonishingly good, full of building tension and slight releases, a marathon of control and restraint. It was also flawlessly consistent - not a join in sight. How they knew what time it was God only knows. Was a particularly golden piece of stage lighting a hint to wrap things up? If so it took a good 15 minutes to achieve. Or it felt like 15 minutes - I didn't have a clue what time it was. A number of Necks releases were on sale afterwards but, blimey, I'd have needed a good few notes with me, which I didn't. That will have to wait for next time, which I truly hope will come.

Great review Mark - thanks so much for this.

I was lined up to see this gig at The Holywell Music Room in Oxford last week, but it sold out before I got my a*se in gear.

Sounds like I missed something really special. I know you've admired Budd for years, so I'm glad you caught up with him.

Good review. Would have liked to have been there.

Very good review Mark, being an occasional Budd fan myself you really made me feel I'd have enjoyed seeing that show.

Agnes Obel, Stereo, Glasgow 10th November.

Thought I'd better quickly fire this one in, as like all my other previously late posts I've been meaning to do so but never had 'the time for the time' as it were, and as that invisible clock ticks down now to end of year it seems somehow apt that my very first ever taste of Agnes Obel's music was her sublime cover version of John Cale's 'I Keep A Close Watch' - in which the pulsating ticking heartbeat style of her playing underscores the pacy delivery of the singing, in fact shes extremely good at interpreting the work of other musicians, towards the end of the gig she announced a song originally written by Elliott Smith (a musician whose work I was unfamiliar with and a bit of googling the next day led me to discover his amazing legacy, influence, and story of his unfortunate life).

A different kind of gig for me here at Stereo, no light-show, no back-projection, no roaring speakers dominating a straightforwardly illuminated stage that was bare except for Agnes Obel's grand piano and the seats the performers sat on, this together with various unidentifiable objects belonging to the venue discarded at the rear. The crowd seemed to be split equally between people in their twenties and the rest of us much older types, there was a high volume of young women in attendance who I suspect given the nature of Agnes Obel's music were perhaps classical music fans, I certainly detected this kind of audience was present from a group of middle-aged men stood next to me, one of whom was visibly 'conducting' with one hand in the air during many of the songs. The lasting impression on me from this gig is the amount of friendliness shown towards the audience by all of the performers that evening. Agnes on piano was accompanied by her female band members consisting of a cellist and harpist, perhaps they were balancing a faint nervousness in anticipation of the evening as each in turn seemed eager to engage us in conversation during the breaks between songs, with hindsight I wish there had been a few more direct verbal hooks thrown out from the stage to latch onto as I’d have loved to respond in return to the band, not that I probably would have of course.

Agnes was a really lovely person, casually chatty and gently funny, it was quite sweet the way in which she tilted her head slightly to one side and adopted a wistful faraway look in her face as she "whooo, ah,hoo, ah, oooh'ed" for a song, and how she playfully apologised midway during the gig for us all having to stand so long during the set, saying "maybe get some seats for next time", or suggesting that her songs were "too long", and, "I'm sorry", "its hundred percent my fault" she said in her surprisingly broken English, I use the word 'surprising' in relation to her clipped speaking as just like her perfectly executed playing on the piano she's also perfectly English in her singing and you easily forget shes Danish.

There was an obvious camaraderie onstage and the depth of this was illuminated further for us when Agnes joked about how they'd all become a family during this tour. Along with the three women there were also two men on the journey, the tour organiser and the support act Martin John Henry. Like the harpist and the tour organiser Mr Henry is a Glasgow native and (as I later discovered) the frontman for Rock band De Rosa, with 'Rock' not being my thing I’d never before heard of either him or them, he has a terrific voice and his songs are well composed, but with 'folksy' not being my kind of thing either I politely applauded and not long after deleted from memory.

At one point Agnes playfully name-checked her tour organiser who was stood at the back, jovially thanking him for 'forcing' the three women to get up after little sleep at the crack of dawn that morning, but also highlighting his coming to the rescue in eventually getting them on the road that day and sorting out a transport problem. In what was either an in-joke or a barely disguised vein of (mutual) flirtatious admiration Agnes mentioned Mr Henry quite a lot (just as he had also done with her during his set), she had a problem with his full name, to which he obligingly corrected her from within the audience, seems they'd made a tour game out of Agnes continual and I think deliberate faux-pas. From her chat about looking forward to enjoying Glasgow it appears that Henry had also built her up in expectation of this extremely non-tourist city (though she has actually played here before in April). Maybe all this love in the air was a result of the special bond that had grown between the traveling musicians and fortunately it shined through in the performance for which the Philharmonic's album was played in all of its thoughtful, tender, and effortlessly uplifting manner. There was a great segment with an absorbing instrumental piece that flowed at its end straight into Close Watch, quite amazingly done, and there were a few other highly melodic pieces that had me tapping my foot eager to burst into a dance, although you could hardly describe the music of Agnes as dance it does irresistibly move your mind and spirit, and maybe that's why your body just wants to follow where it leads...

Orbital at the Royal Albert Hall April 10th, I'll be booking tickets for their next tour - very memorable gig with brilliant use of what looked like a Jupiter and an acid box, I'd like to find out their kit list but can't find it on the web.

I heard the new album with the live tracks .. sounds really good.

Tara Busch is premiering her electroI Speak Machine symphony at Sensoria in Sheffield this Sunday 22nd April.
An experimental piece especially commissioned for the show.

Commissioned by Sensoria in association with PRSF Women Make Music, Tara Busch has built a synthesizer and created an innovative ‘sci fi symphony’

Tara explores artificial intelligence and her relationship with the machine – performing using a vocal effects processor to represent an android named G.E.N.A.

Trafalgar House, Trafalgar Street Sheffield

http://2012.sensoria.org.uk/featured/tara-busch-scanner/