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| Young Heart Attack / The Fever / Earlimart (Barfly, London) | |
Aaron  Espinoza stands
there in his cardigan and sings low-fi songs dripping in emotion. Sure, we’ve got just the right box for you,
young man. Your acoustic guitar, your cardy,
your bandmates’ rinky-dinky piano and muted percussion put you straight in the box
marked softcore or emo. Review over. And then you play something that’s insanely
fast and rhythmic, percussion falling like bombs, keyboards bouncing and jabbering, like
the Pixies walk upon us again. Christ, man,
who are you? Earlimart take pleasure
in confusing you, and it’s an unexpected pleasure to be confused by them. The songs alternate fast and slow, the
vocals are sometimes clear, sometimes treated, and it’s an unpredictable ride to the
end. First impressions are sometimes so
wrong. Reviewed
by Ged M
Reviewed by Paul M
Reviewed
by Ged M
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| The Futureheads (Buffalo Bar, Highbury) | |
The 'heads
don't beat about the bush, they just launch straight into a set of short, sharp, staccato
pop-punk gems with flashes of early Talking Heads and some XTC-like quirky guitar.
But what really sets them apart from their peers is the distinctive three way vocal split
and harmonising. Picture of Dorian Gray, Carnival Kids...it's half an hour of frenetic,
splenetic blissful brilliance. The encore was a song they haven't played live
before, and B-side to their next single, Piece of
Crap, a healthy punk turd falling with a resounding splash into the murky, stagnant
toilet bowl of the British music scene. Already earmarked as one of the great hopes
of this year, for once it's more than justified. Reviewed by Graham S
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| Cerys Matthews / Adam Green (Union Chapel, Islington) | |
| Moving to Nashville to live in a shack and make a country album. It’s not what we expected really. As famous for her heavy drinking and hard-partying as she was for being the wonderful/woeful (delete according to personal preference) voice of Britpop stars Catatonia, Cerys Matthews has proved full of surprises lately.
Cerys is very comfortable with her fresh attire, both in terms of music and finding the right top to fit snugly yet sexily around her heavily pregnant belly. Impending motherhood seems to be coming as naturally to her as her hedonistic days once were. It seems appropriate therefore that her ode to those old times, Chardonnay should feel so at home in this grand old church - wine as the blood of life and all that. The presence of Bob Dylan’s steel guitar player, Bucky Baxter lends tonight’s performance the same air of country/folk authenticity as her recent album, Cockahoop. Ocean, If You’re Looking For Love and Caught In The Middle all swing and twang in the right places and when Cerys is silhouetted by a stark blue light behind her during Weightless Again it adds an atmosphere of twilight in the woods worthy of the Handsome Family’s original. Ancient Welsh hymn, Arglwydd Dyma Fi, inspires a waving pair of flags of St David and further adoration from the believers in the pews. There’s one last novel trick up Cerys’ sleeve during the encore when she brings Adam Green back onstage to perform a duet of his forthcoming single, Jessica. Afterwards she jokes that it’s the song everyone will remember the next day. It’s a typical act of self-deprecation from the mother of reinvention. She may only be eating for two but thankfully she’s back singing for many, many more. Reviewed by James S
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Tricky gigs are usually intense affairs but tonight is pretty grim. Having lost his voice somewhere on the coach (!) journey from Berlin to London, he starts off with a barely audible croak (on the valium paced #1 Da Woman) then his voice disappears altogether. Whilst he strips to reveal his taut torso and shakes his body and head like a demented David Gray we have to focus on the music. And this is where Tricky shows his ‘I am artist and not here to entertain you lot’ stance. ‘Cos what follows is an hour and bit’s worth of recent stuff - monotous slabs of nu-metal riffing that have replaced the inspired trip-hopping of years ago. Tricky’s female vocalist is strong but has nothing to balance herself against (apart from the metal hammerings) – it’s like listening to a record with one speaker busted. The songs go by in an indistinguishable cacophony, it’s hard to tell where they end and begin. Cheers greet old familiar strains as the band start into Overcome or Black Steel (off the seminal ‘Maxinquaye’) but these are 10 second snippets before the band stop and begin another heavy metal tune. Even the presence of Lee Scratch Perry later on fails to liven up the proceedings, wandering across the stage uttering nonsense – sometimes revealing why he was such an inspirational reggae producer and vocalist but otherwise repeating lines ad nauseam like “Take a pinch of black skin/put it in a white girl”, which I took to be a version of Blue Mink’s Melting Pot (Meltdown festival, geddit) and then runs out of inspiration resorting to shouting ”Tricky! Tricky!” over and over. Oh dear. Scratch was screwball but overall Tricky was tiresome and disappointing. Perhaps he’s run out of tricks. Reviewed by Kevin O |
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| The Hells / The Gin Palace (Buffalo Bar, Highbury) | |
Tuesday night at the Artrocker club and the influence of the White Stripes hangs in the air as two bands line up to try and push the garage-blues thang further by throwing out the bass (I'm predicting that in 2004 all bands will consist entirely of bass players). The Gin Palace feature awesome ex-Penthouse guitarist Jon Free unleashing an amped-up, swampy fuzz-a-billy barrage while drummer Stuart Bell pounds directly on your eardrums. Shouting scathing lyrics over the top of this is star Meaghan Wilkie, by turns prim and punk, like one of the Famous Five crazed by PMT. Sounding a bit like early (ie good, ie pre Patti Smith) PJ Harvey while singing, between songs she talks to her drummer like a schoolteacher and apologises for screaming "Fuck You" into someone's face seconds earlier. The effect is like watching "What ever Happened to Baby Jane?" while trapped inside Link Wray's speaker cab. If she can put this much energy and anger into her performance in a tiny basement then think how wonderfully bonkers she'd be given the sort of attention lavished on Karen O. This alone is reason enough to buy fifty copies each of their forthcoming EP. Tell your friends. The Hells are never going to be hailed for their songwriting genius - tonight we had "Satisfaction", "1969" and the Von Bondies' "It Came From Japan" all passed off as their own - but there's no arguing with a sound like that, even when it keeps cutting out, a nerve-shredding, knee-shaking surge of equipment pushed to the point of malfunction. Unfashionably funky guitar and vocals are shared between the super-cool twosome at the front, the superbly-monikered Ippy Shake's dark, glowering barbed-wire-and-honey cocktail the perfect accompaniment to the violent squalls of guitar barely harnessed by shaggy-haired shamen of the Marshall stack, er, Kevin. A blast. Reviewed by Paolo M
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| Nina Nastasia / Caroline Martin (Purcell Room, London) | |
No entry until the song finishes. A torch-laden usher showing to your leather-upholstered seat. Tonight’s artists may both be favourites of John Peel but the Bull and Gate this certainly aint. A solitary spotlight illuminates Caroline Martin as the rest of this demure South Bank Centre venue is immersed in inky blackness. Minimalism is the watchword here as, armed with only a guitar for company, she lets her tales unravel before an audience hushed in respect. Which is wonderful when you want your work to heard and appreciated but poses a problem when you try interacting with a crowd observing such deferential silence. Only the faintest titters emerge when she deconstructs Liberty X’s Just A Little Bit More, revealing a hitherto unexpected hidden beauty to its lyrics, or tells the cute story of how her new guitar came to be called Minty. Fortunately, she is however afforded a suitably polite but worthy ovation for a set full of charm and grace The appearance of Nina Nastasia brings a little more oomph to proceedings, as befits someone whose three albums to date have been produced by legendary noise-meister Steve Albini. Flanked by an intriguing combination of double bass, cello, violin, accordion and drums, Nina reveals Albini’s taste for a broader church of musical styles than he is generally given credit for. Sure, there are elements of noise swirling around in the likes of I Say That I Will Go, where the instruments battle hard for supremacy, and You, Her And Me as Nina’s voice soars over the crashing drums, but a sophisticated subtlety is prevalent throughout. Oh My Stars, Superstar and So Little keep the instruments sparse with ever-changing elements of gentle strumming, bowing and fragmentary twists. Elsewhere, Little Angel boasts a sweet country twang and In The Graveyard could easily be the work of the majestic Neko Case. Nina’s vocals owe a little to as many influences as her elegantly eclectic music. Elements of 80s singer-songwriters like Suzanne Vega and Edie Brickell intertwine with US indie neurotics Lisa Germano and Liz Phair to weave a spell over the crowd. She smiles shyly at the warmth of the applause ringing out after two encores and departs. No wonder Steve Albini found his own personal nirvana in her.Reviewed by James S
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| Fun Loving Criminals (Meltdown Festival at Royal Festival Hall) | |
FLC are indeed fun loving and appear to want to
enjoy themselves as much as please the crowd, with a smattering of songs old and new. Dewey is in role, attempting stand up comedy (the
jokes are always bad) but giving up good naturedly when asked to by the crowd…and
yes, the interaction between him and the crowd is light hearted and genuine. When
introducing the crowd pleasing Scooby Snacks Dewey
grins “I like this song. It’s been paying my rent for the last 10 years!” ,
before the Pulp Fiction dialogue and low bass line rumbles in and all singalong to being
whacked out on scooby snacks. It’s odd what people will singalong to isn’t it? Me too. Songs
vary from almost jazzy George Benson-like doodlings (Loco)
to numetal riffing (a new one), and familiar
heavy rhythm led tunes like Fun Loving Criminals
with its horn stabbing accompaniement. The
final song (another new one) is startlingly different – gentle, minor chord laden, it
is sweet and sad and a perfect tune to come down to. Unpretentious and enjoyable – no tortured
souls, just dancing bodies (it’s an all seating venue but within seconds people are
down the front and in the aisles schmooving along)
and there’s smiles all round. Reviewed by Kevin O |
You
can’t have a widdle in a Camden pub khazi without finding yourself stood next to the
latest bubble permed, drainpipe trousered sensation from New York at the moment. Band #383
from Noo Yawk to appear at the Barfly this year are The Fever, on their
first visit.
So too has support act Adam
Green. Similarly pigeonholed, but in his case to scratchy under-produced guitars
and deviant lyrics, he surprised the crowd at his own headline gig in London last week
with the backing of a string quartet. Tonight, due to financial constraints, he’s
back on familiar solitary ground. Oldies like My Shadow Tags On Behind and the
almost romantic Her Father And Me bear strong resemblances to their recorded form
but Friends Of Mine, the title track of his just-released second record, feels
naked though not vulnerable, without its new clothes.