LIVE REVIEWS / ARTICLES
The Radio Dept. / Great Lakes / I Was A King
Water Rats, 26th January 2007 (Review/Article 1)
I Was A King are a Norwegian band who tonight are using a couple of Great Lakes to make up numbers. These latter two have apparently been enjoying being mistaken for Norwegians, especially in Newcastle where they were urged to ‘Play more you Scandinavian legends!’ I Was A King play shimmering Paisley Underground-tinged power pop - their second song has an especially pleasingly revved up crunchy sound - with slightly Neil Young-y vocals and perhaps a soupcon of Dinosaur Jnr. on a fluffier day. They do a great song with bibbly beepy keyboards for which they are joined by Great Lakes main man Ben Crum. I am intrigued enough to buy their album which turns out to be a mere seventeen minutes long, but is a wonderland of skewed Elephant 6-style psychedelia wrapping itself around old style indie jangle and Joy Zipper-esque sunspaced wooziness. Don’t you love it when you discover the unheard of support band are a glinty wee gem?
A few years ago we saw Great Lakes doing the rounds in support of second album ‘The Distance Between’ and there were nine people on stage, swapping instruments like billy-o and making us go cross-eyed trying to picture the complicated Elephant 6 related family tree they all represented. Tonight they are core Laker man Ben Crum plus a bass man and a drums man (the ones that were just in I Was A King, remember?). The drummer wears super-cool white framed glasses and gets his sticks flying all over the shop whilst bassman Kyle adds backing harmonies to Ben’s warm-hearted vocals.
They play a crackling version of groovy freak-beat tune ‘Sister City’ from ‘The Distance Between’ and I am very pleased. Songs from the new album, ‘Diamond Times’ are aired and seem more introspective and crafted, the sound of men who might have found something serious to say - grown-up in an intriguing way. ‘Farther’ is ferocious, infectiously stomping rock. ‘Hot Cosmos’ swings with a country twang. I often find the concept of ‘Americana’ and its associated guitar twiddling kind of tedious and contemptible, however, Great Lakes manage to create songs that could ostensibly be labelled ‘Americana’ – backwoodsy, ruminating, camp fire crackling, but when they do it they sound cool and dreamy and hey, they look like they’re having a good time. The last song breaks open a ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ wail that manages to be psychedelic, not widdly. Always a pleasing thing.
Being tedious and contemptible is left to the couple beside us who spend the entire set standing two feet away from the band bellowing horsily at each other. In a display of unparalleled rudeness, the girl spends most of the time with her back to the stage braying up into the face of her poshe bloke boyfriend. Both are so colossally self-absorbed, ignorant and arrogant that they utterly fail to notice the looks of exasperation and disgust being shot at them from all sides, including the stage. At one point a song is being sung off mic– creating you know, intimacy and atmosphere and stuff which is shattered by horse-face shrilling ‘I love the Kinks!!’ Utter wankers.
Listening to The Radio Dept. reminds me of Malmo on steely November days, and also of, er, sitting on a Greek beach toying with pebbles listening to ‘Lesser Matters’. Which is handy in a metaphorical kind of way ‘cos that’s what the band sound like – a comfortable gloom with bursts of sunshine. The music summons grey skies, but is meltingly warm and distantly sparkling. Tonight’s sold out crowd is pushed in close to the stage and I’m comfortably squeezed in a corner peering over the top of a speaker where I can feel the noize manifesting as warm waves of sound twisting from the speaker mesh.
The Radio Dept are three mismatched blokes creating powerful, aching music that is the sound of resigned sighs, emotions being muffled and catching the gleam of reality through a haze of medication. Then there are the lyrics, little bubbles of misery floating on the up-draught of oceanic sound. The drifting, gossamer strum of ‘Bus’ plaintively asks ‘What are you gonna do if nothing happens?’ ‘Ewan’ with its burst of righteous keyboards and low-slung Hooky string twanging sounds positively upbeat, almost anthemic, but listen to the words, ‘You've spent some time in the morning sun. But what goes up must come down. And you can feel the sunshine fading’
A drum-machine provides a rigid, ticking beat, stern and inflexible, over which synth and guitar fold themselves in luxuriant layers. There is no bass, just twin guitars woven tight beneath the keyboard sounds. Singer Johan holds back on guitar, so when he does play it’s jarring, startling. Live, the songs soar eerily, swooning around the room and roaring in your ears with a woozy, suffocating euphoria. ‘Pet Grief’ begins with a dippy bontempi beat and the screech of a train braking, before rolling out an expanse of blissed autumnal frolicking that loudly builds and builds until it sounds painfully ecstatic.
‘This Past Week’ has a particularly stentorian rave beat at odds with the fey indieness of the vocals. I look back to inspect the crowd – they’re standing apparently soaking it all up po-faced in the blast of juddery mechanised rhythms. This is dance music that’s been specially castrated for indie folks who prefer to confine movement to their brain cells. Truncated beats and curtailed rhythms and the caress of a mournful tune.
Review courtesy of the Kitten painting blog.
The Radio Dept. / Great Lakes / I Was A King
Water Rats, 26th January 2007 (Review/Article 2)
I Was A King are a four-piece Norwegian garage pop combo – well, 50% are Norwegian, the others are members of Great Lakes! They have a Teenage Fan Club gloss that has been scuffed by My Bloody Valentine sandpaper. The smooth/rough combination is very appealing, even though the songs are often too short for the ideas inside.
On record – the excellent new ‘Diamond Times’ - Great Lakes are an ensemble of Athens alumni and the band’s newer Brooklyn neighbours. Live they’re pared down to a strong three piece. Once your typical American psychedelic-garage band in love/debt to the late 1960s, they’re far more influenced by The Band these days, with echoes of classic rock’n’roll, blues - on one track they’re a bit like Cream – and swamp rock showing through. They’re not prolific but the quality comes down the years, from ‘Stormin’’ on the self-titled debut album (2000) to ‘Farther’ on the new (third) record. If you want to criticise, you might say that they’re too modest about their songs than you or I would be if we could write tunes of this quality. It’s one of those sets that leaves you buzzing in an understated way. The only disappointing thing is some gobby squinty-eyed harpie who insists on everyone knowing mid-set that she likes the Kinks. Get back to flipping burgers!
The gig should have taken place in November so it’s nearly three months late but well worth the wait. Radio Dept are often called “shoegazing” and mentioned in the same breath as My Bloody Valentine but it would be equally fair to liken them to electronic pop and call them a shyer Pet Shop Boys or New Order. They make songs with two hearts, one electronic, one human, although the overwhelming feeling is of being wrapped in diaphanous sheets of reassuring melancholy. Their dreamy soundscapes are perfect soundtrack material, as Sofia Coppola demonstrated with her film ‘Marie Antoinette’; one of her choices, ‘I Don’t Like It Like This’, is one of tonight’s highlights, along with ‘Ewan’. Another standout is the closer ‘Why Won’t You Talk About It’ that is atypically full of Jesus and Mary Chain feedback goodness. Their bashful presence and lack of ‘strut’ means that it’s not very rock’n’roll - but we still like it a lot.
Review courtesy of Ged M.
The Radio Dept. / Cyann & Ben / Fields
Sonic Cathedral (The Legion), 28th September 2006
Tonight we’re enjoying September shoegazey goodness at Sonic Cathedral with a gig that turns into a feat of stamina, lasting as it does for apparent aeons. 'Tis the last night of Fields' three-month residency co-curating Sonic Cathedral's summer 'Sowing Seeds' season, a series of gigs that has featured many plastic sunflowers and lots of top bands swirling about the Legion to the sounds of MBV, BJM, JAMC (segueing into Jonathan Richman - nice work) and stuff. Tonight, amongst the usual liberal scattering of sunflowers and yellow helium balloons that kiss the ceiling and tickle your neck, are plastic autumn leaves that add a melancholy 'days dwindle down' air to the stage. Who knew you could even buy such things?
For some reason, Fields are on first, ripping through an excitable set and jollying us all along by sounding a lot heavier and pedal-tastic than the folksy gazeyness I'd been anticipating. Keyboardy/singer lady Thorunn looks all hippy Celtic with a medieval-stylee ribbon-thing tied round her hair - hair which I'm obliged to describe as 'flaxen'. This should be a ludicrous look but it adds to the general 'Wicker Man' mysticism the band are generating with their churning guitar vortex. As is the Sonic C way, various films flicker away behind the bands as they play, and Fields get the first half of 'The Birds' to accompany their monstrous Slowdive-with-axes feral folk spacerock. Brilliantly, as they are sweeping through the guitar rush swooning middle of frantic opener 'Song For The Fields' the film behind them swoops through an aerial shot of rolling green clifftops and a tumbling sea - it fits exactly and is a tiny accidental moment of perfection.
I venture through the cram-packed crowd meeting two Tamborines, a SoundsXP and an Eighteenth Day (hanging with a glowering Ben Swank - ooh!) en route and luck out at the bar, getting served quickly before embarking on my, 'Scuse me, sorry, scuse me' laden journey back. Jeez it's packed in here. Then there is mucho hanging about swaying gently to the likes of 'Breaking Hands' by The Gun Club (yay!) as monstrous banks of keyboards and effects-laden equipment are loaded onstage and fiddled with until they all work.
The Japanese girlies at the front (they're always there, innit) are starting to wilt by the time Cyann and Ben come on and plunge us into their drone-goth psyche-prog world of dark clouds and long songs. Cyann and Ben consist of a girl trapped behind the monstrous keyboards, two blokes with guitars and lots of pedal action and a bloke with a tiny drumkit. They all look a bit dour, cheer up luv! It's alright; they're from Paris you know. Apparently one of Espers makes an appearance on their new album, so they must be okay. They swoosh away, sometimes thrillingly going a bit Dungenesque (not Dungeness - ho!) in their epic tricksy noodlery, sometimes going a bit glowery in an uptight post-rock sort of way. On the whole, transfixing stuff, if rather, um, epic.
Many years later (okay at 12.15), The Radio Dept are READY TO ROCK! No they're not, but they're still great, whisking us through an all too brief seven (ish) song set of olde faves, plus songs from new LP ‘Pet Grief’. Weirdly, there's a group of loutish drunkards whooping, shouting and staggering at the front, confusing the band and irritating the punters. It's not entirely clear if they're here by mistake or are just overly oiled fans exercising their inner-hoolies to the soundtrack of soaring Scando indie-electro miserablism. Whatever, when the looping swoop of ‘Where Damage Isn’t Already Done’ kicks in to flips our lids, the drunkards react like they’re well ‘avin it and they’ve got a point, perversely, in this context the song sounds rave-ily celebratory.
S’been a while since I last saw The Radio Dept play, during which time they’ve lost their bass girl, Lisa, but gained a double-decker keyboard stand for the moustached-up Daniel. He looks like some kind of moderne vicar behind a lectern. A moment of frivolity occurs when a drunk hands Daniel a Spurs sweatband which the Swede dabs his brow with uncertainly. The drunk is overjoyed, then demands the sweatband back. This kind of thing adds an undercurrent of the absurd to proceedings and is frankly a tad off-putting, although singer Johan remains un-offput and scarily stern throughout. At one point he snaps something about hating everyone’s favourite Swedey label Labrador Records and nobody’s quite sure if he’s joking or not.
Chez Kitten, The Radio Dept’s two LPs get a good old playing and like lots of the excited indie faces here pressing eagerly forwards I’ve been keenly anticipating this gig. Will it be ace? Will it be a bit poor? Happily, tonight The Radio Dept sound mighty and oceanic in their mournfulness, and for three unprepossessing blokes rooted behind their instruments with serious expressions they’re creating a powerful sound. Their susurrating vocals, sweeping keyboard, grave guitar and clattering programmed drums sound less claustrophobic live, the medicated, sleep-muffled sound of their records is given some air and blown clean by the whirl of noise. ‘Lost and Found’ sounds groggily ecstatic like its lovingly forcing a pillow over your face, ‘Why Won’t You Talk About It?’ is surprisingly, blammingly heavy and ‘The Worst Taste in Music’ is sinking-feeling, buttoned-up swoon pop.
At the end, the band scamper offstage and have to be coaxed back on by Nat Sonic C and convinced that despite the late hour we’re still all waiting for them. It’s been a long night, it’s been a short set, but when the music crashes back in, we all understand, ‘It's knowing you're alive through all the fuzz’.
Review courtesy of the Kitten painting blog.
Pow! to the people all dayer
London Barfly, 11th April 2004
The owner of the J D Wetherspoon pub chain is not, as you may be forgiven for thinking, J D Wetherspoon. Rather than etch his own monicker over the door, the bloke chose to name his empire after a teacher who once told him he'd never amount to anything; the idea being that we warm to his defiant rebel spirit. 'Business leaders', you see, bemoan what they see as Britain's anti-entrepreneurial culture, and want us to idolise them as we do pop stars. We all just want to be loved, don't we.
But for crying out loud, man, just move on! There is, thankfully, a long way to go before the nation's teenage bedrooms are lined with Richard Branson posters, and Mr Wetherspoon's former charge appears to have letting-go issues that may need serious psychotherapy; but I am at least very grateful to him indeed for selling cheap beer. If you're going to Pow! to the People, be sure to do all your drinking between bands – in the Wetherspoons just down the road (it's on the right, before the venue, as you're walking up Chalk Farm Road from the tube), where a pint and a short can be had for less than the Barfly charges for a pint. And has been many times. O yes.
Since its inception in 2000 Track and Field's annual Easter Sunday knees-up has featured some absolutely blinding sets from the likes of The Butterflies of Love, Saloon, The Aislers Set, but this year – as Ron Atkinson might say about a third-round Carling Cup tie – for me, you're looking at a weakened line-up here. You know when you're gagging for a curry and you sit down and order your lager and poppadums, only then to discover that they don't do vegetable chana vindaloo (substitute your own Ruby of choice)? And you're a bit disappointed... but only a bit, cos, y'know... it's still curry.
So let us drool over Bearsuit, irresistible as a tickle, more sexy and exuberant than ever. Let us particularly admire the way Lisa reels off some shrieky stuff and then looks momentarily amazed and amused at her own capacity to emit this fab din. The new stuff sounds as good as the old this time, and me girlfriend has to forcibly restrain me from buying the new album cos she's already got me it for a present. Hey – Bearsuit: so good they nearly spoil your birthday.
Aforementioned better half, ever hip to where it will shortly be at, discovered The Radio Dept about a year ago by downloading the awesome 'Why Won't You Talk About It?'. Trailing in her sugar-scented wake, the world is apparently about to go gaga for this lot now that the XL label, no less, is priming them for UK consumption: hence our failure to get in to see them at the Betsey Trotwood last night. In the same way most Scandinavians speak better English than most Brits, The Radio Dept continue the Swedish tradition (see also: Boys Like Charlotte; Second-Hand Furniture; Free Loan Investments) of playing the sort of glorious unashamed indiepop that most Blighty bands are just too jaded and jaundiced to even think of. They hint at the grandeur and radiance of The House of Love but with less self-importance, sweeter understatement. Now let's see if XL overproduce them.
Just to give your Scandophile reviewer a reality check, St Thomas – a Norwegian outfit formed by an ex-pro footballer – are the Tore Andre Flo to The Radio Dept's Henrik Larsson. I last about 15 seconds of a song about cowboys before the call of Mr Wetherspoon's star pupil drowns it out. Nul points. The Projects chase that mesmeric Stereolab groove and get halfway with some ace throbbing drums, bass and synth. But the singer's undershooting her range; she sounds flat as Lincolnshire. The Cribs are another of these back-to-basics three-pieces; at the end of their set the drummer stands on his stool and waves his arse at the crowd. Fine if you like that sort of thing. Oh, you do. OK then.
On balance it's been a tasty old rogan josh of a day, but a better running order might have elevated it at least to jalfrezi level (it's still light when Bearsuit and The Radio Dept are on, and I manage to miss The Loves entirely, mistakenly figuring that such a decent band will be held back until well after teatime). Herman Dune sum it up. They're a man down, and so the event is headlined by a two-piece: not exactly a feverish climax. But the indie hipsters are loving every minute – even though, or possibly because, all the good songs sound like 'Sweet Jane'. It's the third time I've seen these and the second time was better than the first; but £1.55 a pint is dead cheap, especially for London...
Review courtesy of Pete Popkiss.