Midyear Malaise

London Fields # 66
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 24 June 2009
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

In the northern hemisphere, as well as being the longest day of the year, the solstice is considered to be the first day of summer. Hence the beginning of the northern summer also marks the halfway point of the year, and I’m finding myself a little out-of-step with 2009. The temptation to spend an evening at home, rather than out watching music gets ever stronger. Nothing would persuade me to go to the Glastonbury Festival now (even though some friends have flown over from Oz just for it). It’s just too large now; smaller events like Latitude or Truck are far more tempting, as you can actually see the bands. While I can keep up with developments in music via MySpace and YouTube (and Glasto is on TV anyway), nothing matches the experience of a live band on the right night. On those nights I’ve been glad I got off the couch, or even went further a field for the experience.

At the Deaf Institute in Manchester, My Latest Novel played their first English show in several years. Selecting material almost exclusively from their yet-to-be-released second album Deaths And Entrances may have been a gamble, but I was both entranced and transported by the spirit of the band, their musical progression and the sheer joy of the inspiring music they created. Similarly, when I Like Trains played at The Luminaire for the launch for a Belgium Festival, most of their set was work-in-progress, some still without titles. The change to a four-piece has seen a shake-up their world view, and the new songs premiered showed that they are writing material of a different hue than they have so far released.

The innate experience and skill of The Bats shines through whenever they perform (as does their charm). They effortlessly recreate their sound in the basic set-up of The Brixton Windmill, and there are lots of older songs sprinkled amongst most of The Guilty Office (although sadly no Trouble In This Town or Made Up In Blue). Promoters (and label) Club AC30 can always be relied upon to provide gigs of quality, and The Bats supported Crystal Stilts for them at The ICA the following night. But a far more impressive show came at another AC30 show early the next week, when Stephen Lawrie used Doncaster three-piece 93MillionMilesFromTheSun as a backing band to perform a set of Taste-era material of his band The Telescopes. The result was punishingly brutal, but brilliant!

It doesn’t always go so well. I bought a ticket for The Gaslight Anthem mainly to catch their support for the tour, Frank Turner. Now I’ve seen Turner triumph at small gigs, and win over large festival crowds, but this middling-size audience proved a tough size to crack. Still, he did better than the headliners, whose repetitive songs seemed honed for audiences who wanted Bruce Springsteen 1978-85, without any of the slow ones, but with added ‘indie’ cool. I didn’t stay for the whole show; neither did I make it through all of doves on their recent tour. Before they hit the encore, I hit the pub next door – only to see rafts of attendees who hadn’t lasted as long as I did. And although I waited until the end of The Longcut at The Luminaire, things didn’t get much better than they began. The live sound was messy, and the band failed to find that elusive groove.

I’ve no interest in the daily reports of Blur (PLC) playing ‘secret’ show after ‘secret’ show. I don’t understand why White Lies end up on high rotation and brilliant releases like that by Joe Gideon & The Shark remain unnoticed. Over at the Enterprise, I catch Kid Harpoon, playing again as a solo performer. It makes me sad that music as fresh as vibrant isn’t being heard as it should. Since I last saw him, he’s recorded an album, scrapped it, re-recorded it and had Nambucca, the venue he lived about, and called home, burn down. Tonight sees him playing a piano-led paean in his memory, whilst older unreleased songs like Colours and Late For The Devil draw a strong response, and I fear the bouncing floor may give way during a rousing version of The Milkmaid.

Sometimes it feels like a lone battle against mediocrity. There are some great acts out there, and concepts like Bandstand Busking offer some hope. But is it enough to ward off the repercussions of five years of unthinking cover versions from TV talent shows? Just when I feel I may be losing it all, I run into someone who has worked with many of the bands I rate or care about. Over the next few hours that we end up chatting, on numerous occasions he stops and hugs me, merely for the opinions I express. So then I start to wonder, is that I am off the ball, or is just that most of the current music is just dull and unimaginative? Let me know…


© James McGalliard 2009

Going To The Dogs

London Fields # 55

First published Inpress, Melbourne on 13 August 2008

NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

Londoners often tend not to know what they’ll miss until it’s lost. So when one of the first initiatives of new London mayor Boris Johnson was to ban the consumption of alcohol on all public transport, wags used Facebook to organise a number of giant booze-ups on the Circle Line for the last night of legal drinking. Predictably, it all went awry, leading to chaos, closed lines, and arrests.

A few weeks later, waiting with my shopping for a (now booze-free) bus outside Walthamstow Central station, a family of rats frolicked playfully around my feet. You can’t live in London long without someone helpfully reminding you that you’re never more than fifteen feet away from a rat in central London, but the exuberance of this lot was something else. As I got off the bus in the middle of the local estate, I was greeted by the all-too-familiar sound of a police siren. I looked up and down the street, as did others also waiting to cross, but there wasn’t a cop car to be seen. Then we realised that the ‘siren’ was emanating from ten year old lad, sitting astride his BMX. This junior Michael Winslow’s rendition was so uncannily accurate (including the switches in tone used to get through heavy traffic) that people looking for the police car broke into hails of laughter as they realised its source. Like a bowerbird imitating what it hears, this lad had captured the sound of the London streets.

While a wail of a siren is a modern soundtrack, so many symbols of the old East End have disappeared from the streets. Some changes are a reflection of its changing emigrant culture; others are due to financial pressures. It’s been many years since I heard the ringing school bell and cries of “any old iron” from the scrap metal man, and even longer since I last saw (or heard) the clip-clop of the horse and cart of the rag and bone man (as immortalised by Steptoe and Son). With a large influx of followers of religions which shun alcohol, many of the smaller local boozers have closed and been converted into flats. Very few pie and mash shops, which sell the traditional jellied eels, remain. Greasy spoons are one of the remaining stables of the East End, but the price of a fry up has risen 15% in the past year, according to a report in The Sun.

And next Saturday, Walthamstow Stadium, an iconic landmark and a centre of greyhound racing in the capital for 75 years, will close its doors for the last time. Last May the Chandler family, who have owned and run the track since it opened in 1933, sold the 8.1 acre site to developers for the construction of new-build flats. So I spent last Saturday night at the dogs. This is not the world I usually inhabit; in the bar they’re playing Phil Collins’ Against All Odds and Chicago. Sitting in the seats of the grandstand around me are four generations of the same family, brought together by something that will soon be another lost relic of the old East End. It’s a real mix; young couples on dates, old couples, children, Hoxton haircuts - all gathering as an era ends. The stadium also has a place in rock history, as all the photographs of Blur’s breakthrough album Parklife were taken here.

No matter what happens, the beautiful neon frontage, the East London equivalent of the Nylex or Skipping Girl Vinegar signs will be saved, as it was listed by English Heritage last year. But it will become a façade with no heart behind it. The closure will also mean the loss of hundreds of jobs for local people. While there are two rescue packages on the table and a big protest march planned for the lunchtime on Saturday, at this stage the only hope seems to lie in the developers fretting over the slump in the housing market.

For The Stow, as it’s affectionately known, is one of the few places of entertainment in this impoverished ‘Olympic’ borough. Waltham Forest remains the only London borough without a cinema, since the local Odeon closed early this decade; it now lies rotting as they decide what to do with it. And the horrible giant 3.7 metre TV screen that the council have just installed this week in the Town Square, to show both the Chinese and 2012 Olympics every day from 7am to 11pm, is no replacement.
Even local MP, Neil Gerrard, a former greyhound racer himself, can’t really see the council opposing the development, reports the Waltham Forest Guardian, as it fits into the social housing agenda. But he also said, “We don’t need housing at the expense of everything else, especially the biggest leisure facility in Walthamstow”. Over twenty greyhound stadiums have closed around the country in the past ten years, but The Stow was the jewel in the crown. Next week, London will only have tracks remaining at Wimbledon, and in Romford, Essex. While the opponents of greyhound racing may applaud its closure, there’s a part of me that’s very sad about it. For this is another part of London that will be irretrievably lost, and once again, people may only realise what they had once it’s gone forever.

© James McGalliard 2008