The T Is For Texas

London Fields # 99
First published Inpress (Issue # 1204), Melbourne on 14 December 2011, and in Drum Media (Issue # 1090), Sydney on 13 December 2011
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

I’m not sure if it’s just people I know, but at this time of year the interest in Top Ten lists feels like something that’s escaped from the pages of High Fidelity. These tend to make me reflect on the fact that music was a big factor in abandoning my native Melbourne for the comparative anonymity of London, and further realise that I haven’t really written much about it since returning from Primavera Sound back in May. This year it did feel that the festival was beginning to be a victim of its own success, but PJ Harvey still provided a captivating 75 minutes making the large expanses feel intimate, while the first public performance of the return of Pulp met and exceeded all reasonable expectations. Here also The National finally achieved what they’ve been on the verge of on so many occasions I’ve seen them over the years – finally capturing that heartbreaking melancholy and delivering a powerful and sustained emotional punch throughout their early evening set. A secret highlight was eschewing both The Walkmen and Grinderman to see Smoke Fairies deliver what could have been the performance of the festival to a small but gripped crowd.

The most enjoyable performances of this year’s Camden Crawl could be found in the front lounge of the Spread Eagle, where Andy Ross curated a wonderful two days of performances. The larger shows there were more of a mixed bag with S.C.U.M (supporting Killing Joke) a particular lowlight (strange as they’ve gone on to produce one of the best albums of the year), but my overall highlight was Mat Motte’s deranged take on pop. I caught the new expanded line-up of Spotlight Kid on various occasions, as the year progressed they became an ever-more cohesive live outfit. Seeing Veronica Falls play their upbeat pop on a Dalston rooftop made the August riots seem very far away while Still Corners only seemed to gain by losing a member as they became a more striking live proposition as a four piece. Elsewhere Esben & The Witch were remarkable for refusing to pander to the conventions of live performance. However my pub gig of the year would have to be The Horrors at The 100 Club; their star has now risen so high that shows of this small a scale are virtually unknown, and this night was allowed the rare pleasure of a close-up insight into how Skying was created. 2011 was a certainly a year for veterans, especially from Manchester. James toured the country with an orchestra, their set mostly kept away from the hits and concentrated on rarer album tracks and early numbers. Thankfully WU LYF showed that not everything in Manchester was about the past, which was just as well as The Stone Roses announced their reformation and most of New Order reassembled for live dates. Their contemporaries The Cure certainly had all made friends again as Lol Tolhurst joined them as they played their first three albums in their entirety at the Royal Albert Hall. I even saw Blancmange and Modern English this year, so it certainly sometimes felt like another decade. That said, Scritti Politti’s Christmas shows in Dalston proved that some sounds are indeed timeless.

But there’s been one artist who both live and on record has been the key player of 2011 and his name is Josh T Pearson. It saw him begin the year in the tiny environs of The Slaughtered Lamb and end at the prestigious Barbican Hall in November. His album Last Of The Country Gentlemen brought about this remarkable change in his fortunes, but its success was also a bind, as it saw him having to relive the disintegration of his marriage on stage night after night. Sometimes the shows felt like an elaborate game, as he challenged his audiences to be quiet enough to hear his near-whisper on stage, while the terrible jokes he told between songs served as some respite from the soul-baring examinations of his compositions. My hope for 2012 is that he will be able to put this elongated catharsis to rest and bring his new-found audience with him. Finally any discussion of live music in London this year must also mention the loss of its best live venue when The Luminaire closed its doors forever in March. Vale – you are still very much missed and I fear we shall not see your like again.

© James McGalliard 2011

Inpress: Published on page 54
Drum: Published on page 52

The Maths of Rock

London Fields # 93
First published Inpress (Issue # 1180), Melbourne on 29 June 2011, and in Drum Media (Issue # 1066), Sydney on 28 June 2011
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

My first thought upon seeing that Jesus Jones and The Wonder Stuff (or Miles Hunt and friends play the songs of the Stuffies) were embarking on a joint Australian tour was of the great bands of that era that have never played in Australia, particularly James and The Blue Aeroplanes. Following a six year hiatus, James reformed in 2007 (with the classic line-up that had recorded their career best album Laid) and while most attention was focused on the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm over the last weekend, in London James played a giant show in Hyde Park supporting The Killers.

It was at Glastonbury in 1992 that I saw art-rockers The Blue Aeroplanes amass a dozen guitarists on stage for their traditional closing cover of Breaking In My Heart. There’s been two constants throughout The Blue Aeroplanes’ history: frontman Gerard Langley and a multitude of guitars. Like The Fall, the non-playing vocalist has been the constant in myriad line-ups, and over 40 musicians have been members of the band at some point. But unlike the tyranny Mark E Smith exerts, The ‘planes are more like a collective, a team where members come on and off the bench according to need and availability. To celebrate the release of their new album Anti-Gravity, they played a one-off show at The Borderline in central London the other week. Here the football analogy was even stronger as around eleven players went off and off stage according to the demands of the songs. Gerard hardly seems to have changed over the years; although his hair is now dyed and he carries a book of lyrics as an aide-mémoire, under stage lights in his ever-present dark glasses he looks almost identical to 21 years ago. It’s hard to explain how joyous it all is, but much like how dancer Wojtek Dmochowski weaves around the small stage, trying not to trip in guitar leads in the process, so the different melody lines of each guitar intertwine as they ring true and clear. Tonight sees Angelo Bruschini (now usually in Massive Attack) return for a rare appearance, and while I miss the Rickenbacker chime of Rodney Allen, when all these guitars mesh, as on Warhol’s 15 tonight, it truly is a thing of beauty.

Before the show, I spotted Marty Willson-Piper of The Church in the audience, and troubled him to ask if there was any chance of seeing the 30^th anniversary show that recently toured Australia. At The Church’s last London show a few years back, Steve Kilbey said it was likely to be the last time we’d see them play in London. Marty was kind enough to give me a long and detailed description of just what the costs and difficulties are in organising a tour, and then talked in refreshingly candid terms about the size of crowd the band can expect to pull in London these days. All in all it painted a fairly bleak picture for bands playing medium sized venues.

Last Thursday I ventured into the wilds of South Wimbledon to see Colchester veterans Modern English playing in London for the first time since the eighties, in an expanded line-up with all but one of the original members. These days they’re now mostly known for that song - Melt With You - which was kept back to the end of their set. What is best about this show is that there’s no feeling as though it’s to prove anything, but they’re playing merely just because they want to do it. The music is both naïve and organic, as one intro explains “this was before we knew about bridges and choruses - we just called them sections”. But these sections slot together in a way that current acts trying to recreate this period miss altogether. In their heyday they were a key act on 4AD and were an essential part of the This Mortal Coil project. For me the highlight comes in the encore with 16 Days, one of their songs that also was on the first TMC album.

Having spent this weekend doing an ‘Armchair Glastonbury‘ via the BBC‘s coverage, I kept thinking what a poor reflection the televised version was of the music being played on smaller stages throughout the UK. I also recalled how every time I’ve chatted to David Gedge he’s asked if I know an Australian promoter who might want to bring The Wedding Present out. You see, some English bands from the late eighties and early nineties are still making music worth hearing; perhaps one day you’ll get to discover this live in your town.

© James McGalliard 2011

Inpress: Published on page 46
Drum: Published on page 52

Future Retro

London Fields # 60
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 6 January 2009
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

Sometimes you need to look into the past to see the future. I was trying to predict trends in the UK music scene for the next year, but realised it would be rather pointless to simply write about acts that are going to be bigged-up or fawned over by the broadsheets or music press. Concentrating on personal favourites who may never even get around to releasing a single song commercially would perhaps be even worse. Yet a great deal of what’s happening here now comes from two places – the early eighties and the mid nineties.

For in the early eighties, synthesizers became affordable, and these cheaper keyboards opened a door to music, like an after echo of the DIY manifesto of punk. Today the sound of those old analogue instruments is ever more sort after, and some of the groundbreaking artists of this era are receiving recognition by a generation who weren’t born when these records were first made. In the mid nineties, the current eighties revival first began - The Human League toured on Octopus, Heaven 17 played live for the first time and Martin Fry put on the gold lame suit again, embracing his past with ABC.

Last month saw The Steel City Tour, when all three of these Sheffield acts played together for the first time. And not cabaret-style with a house band – this was three fully independent groups. It was a great idea on paper, but I’ve seen all perform better in the last decade; it was also hugely disappointing that Martyn Ware and Phil Oakey didn’t collaborate. December also saw Simple Minds on a 30th anniversary tour, which involved them playing the entire New Gold Dream in the middle of their set, while 2007 saw Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark taking Architecture and Morality around the country.

But is the live arena the place to replicate music designed to be listened to at home, specifically by playing a ‘seminal’ album in its entirety? When Gang Of Four brought their Entertainment LP to Don’t Look Back, they pretty much kept to the same set of songs as at other shows on their reunion tour; I’m not sure if every track was actually played. As curator of the Meltdown festival, Patti Smith organised a showcase of the entire Horses album, in order. Yet in the excitement of performance, she forgot a track, which she later slotted into the encore. Now these were seated gigs, in formal concert venues, with an audience there for one act only. Yet when you take this concept to the festivals, it becomes more questionable, for it breaks the cardinal rule about playing known songs to seduce music goers who have never seen you live before. Yet at Primavera Sound in Barcelona the other year, there was Sonic Youth announcing “And now here’s side two, track 2”, as they track listed their way through Daydream Nation. Following a record’s running order slavishly not only takes away the spontaneity of the live environment, but it also ignores that a totally different sequence of tracks may be needed to keep a audience’s attention than is right for the passive listening of a studio recording.

There are other pitfalls of this too. At the same festival, Dirty Three had a valid complaint about performing Ocean Songs - “How are we meant to play an album that lasts over an hour in a forty minute slot?” asked Warren Ellis quite reasonably. Now I’m not necessarily against these things – I’ve paid to see a quite a few of them myself. But do we risk tainting our memories, and do bands risk ruining their reputations? Sometimes these events involve bands reforming, and that raises the tricky question of whether to write and perform new material? James are one of the more successful examples of this, but their 2008 album Hey Ma failed to capture the magic of the live rehearsals that took place during its recording. When they do work, it can be very special. The Blue Aeroplanes launched their deluxe re-release of the brilliant Swagger by playing the album in order, including tracks that had never been played live before.

So why the backward glance? Well, one look at the BBC Sound Of 2009 longlist is enough to make you despair for the future. It was only a few years back that The Bravery won; this year we have White Lies, who sound like The Bravery performing The Teardrop Explodes in the style of The Killers. Other ‘hopes’ also seem to be pillaging the past, and it looks as if there’s going to be a belated attempt to break some Electro into the UK mainstream.

It’s hard to see where 2009 will actually go. There are yet more eighties acts on the way - Blancmange is quietly working together again, and April will see the hit-making version of Ultravox bringing their arpeggios and flanged notes back on stage for the first time since Live Aid. But while the acts of the past were innovators, innovation seems largely absent today. Personally I can see two things – a new wave of C86 influenced acts from the USA, and this ceaseless digging bringing forth a BritPop revival. You have been warned.


© James McGalliard 2009

Movin' On Up

London Fields # 38
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 18 April 2007
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

The papers here are full of stories about London’s housing crisis. Having just been through the wringer of finding a new abode, I have first-hand experience of some of the difficulties, and how much you pay for so little. Another survey showed that Londoners had the smallest number of close friends of anyone in the UK , with an average of 5.3 each. Luckily, I managed to get through the past month with the support of some of mine. So why live here at all? Well, on nights when I really should have been packing, I snuck out and caught a few more nights of live music.

A few years back, I lent one of those friends my copy of The Lost Riots, the debut album from Hope Of The States. He loved the opening instrumental, The Black Amnesias, but lost interest when frontman Sam Herlihy began singing. He may well like Troubles then, as it’s the core of HotS, but without drums or vocals. The live performance is a forty-minute tone poem, as songs melt and merge into one another, tumbling more like movements of a greater vision, rather than individual pieces in their own right. There are eight on stage; Sam alternates between piano and guitar, whilst other members play guitars, strings and brass. The trouble with Troubles is that it’s all too much – they’re yet to find the openness or space in the sounds they’re creating. There’s too much kitchen sinking; it would be more effective if all of them didn’t play all the time. Still, this is definitely an evolving work in progress, and one to come back to.

They were supporting the very wonderful iLiKETRAiNS, who are also in the process of change. Gone are the trademark British Rail uniforms, replaced by white shirts, black ties at half mast, and mourning bands. They are halfway through recording their debut LP for Beggars Banquet, but there is no looking back – the album will be all new material. They play a few of these new compositions tonight, including current single Spencer Percival, a nine-minute epic about the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated in office. The band are a little sedate tonight, but the distance allows me to appreciate new aspects of them; the power of the drumming and how the band manage to keep reined back live, when the temptation must be to race and up the tempo.

On the other hand Arcade Fire managed to be distinctly underwhelming - how did my favourite live act of 2005 fall from their pedestal? Put simply, they now seem more like an incorporated company than a collective of like-minded individuals. The excitement of the random motion, like tea leaves swirling in hot water, has been replaced by something that feels far more choreographed. There’s less fun on stage, and the joy they used to communicate to their audience was lost in the cavernous spaces of the Brixton Academy . Still you couldn’t complain about the setlist, and how Power Out segues beautifully into Rebellion (Lies) to finish on Intervention. Yet tonight it all feels as false and hollow as the organ pipes on stage not actually connected to an organ, but merely for show.

But the live highlight of past month has probably been seeing the reformed James, playing their second ‘secret rehearsal’ gig in the tiny confines of Holloway’s Nambucca, mere weeks before their sold-out arena tour. Along with The Blue Aeroplanes, James were the best British band of the ‘90’s who never toured Australia . But now they’re back after a six-year hiatus, and it’s the classic six-piece who recorded the career-best Laid album. Tim Booth was carrying a shoulder injury, but he still swayed along, even if the electrocuted Ian Curtis dancing was put on hold for the evening. It was great to see them avoiding the ‘big’ numbers for this gig, playing songs so new that the ink on the handheld lyrics was barely dry, then delving deep into then back catalogue for songs like Chain Mail. I’d forgotten what a difference Larry Gott’s searing guitar made to their sound, but it’s the reaction between musicians who know and trust each other that makes this night so special, giving space and life to something like Heavens, which I’d only remembered from a somewhat homogenous form on Seven. I can’t wait to see them at Brixton now! Like the Gang of Four, James are another post-punk original returning to show pretenders how it’s really done!

On television, we sadly bid farewell to John Simm as Sam Tyler in the BBC’s Wizard Of Oz, time-travelling ‘70’s cop show Life On Mars. Yet it won’t be long before he’s back as the enigmatic Season Three meme Mr Saxon in Doctor Who. It may well get interesting if it’s more than coincidence that his Life On Mars character was an anagram of Masterly.

© James McGalliard 2007