A Bigger Canvas

London Fields # 68
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 19 August 2009
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

For years the fourth plinth of London’s Trafalgar Square has been the centre of discussion and controversy. It is no longer the age of Empire, so what is an appropriate subject for a new permanent statue? Artist Antony Gormley has come up with an intriguing, albeit temporary solution in a work entitled One & Other. Over the course of 100 days and nights, 2400 ordinary folks will each get one hour on top of the empty plinth to do almost whatever they please. So far, around 32 000 have applied to take part. Andy Warhol’s famous quote about fame may be true in another way here too, for some ‘plinthers’ (as they’re known) seem to run out of steam after about fifteen minutes, and end up twittering on their mobile. Via the live streams on the website I’ve seen someone dressed as a giant pigeon (Trigger Happy TV anyone?), another dressed as a giant CCTV camera, and some partial nudity. Last week someone went to whole hog and took off all their clothes (until police made him cover up after about five minutes). But it’s also been a place where music and art meet. Chris T-T took his guitar and a small PA up with him and busked, and a woman named Verity stood serenely while she resolutely and quietly sung wordless laments into the darkling air.

Music also met art over at the Roundhouse in Camden, where Nick Cave gave his first ever public reading from forthcoming novel The Death Of Bunny Munro. When I interviewed him about Grinderman for this paper a few years ago, he told me that he’d love to write a second novel, “...but I just don’t have the fucking time”. After the reading he revealed that this had been written over an intense six-week period while touring, late at night after shows, and in the mornings, and had a very different creative process to And The Ass Saw The Angel some twenty years ago. It transpires that this was originally a screenplay he wrote for John Hillcoat, and when the project stalled (at least temporarily) he just started telling the story in prose form, and liked how it turned out. It was fascinating to see him in this light, made somewhat hesitant and uncertain by venturing outside his comfort zone. The novel itself reflects some of his music; the spirit of Grinderman especially seems to permeate the text, from a reference to lampreys, to the naked need for sexual congress at any cost. The modern setting allows Cave to create some new verbs and adjectives from brands such as iPods, Zippo lighters and Tarzan, and in this digital age it is being released on multiple formats, including a talking book, and accompanying soundtrack.

Over at the Horse Hospital, DNA was a short art exhibition in praise of, and inspired by the pioneering work of John Foxx. Rather than a retrospective, all the work here was contemporary, and featured a blend of the analogue and the digital. Perhaps the physical centrepiece was The Grey Suit, one of four suits that over the years John has lent to friends and colleagues for the seeming properties that allow its wearer to become anonymous and move through the city without being noticed. These ideas and reflections have all contributed to The Quiet Man, a forthcoming work which Foxx has been spent over 30 years in refining. Gary Numan contributed an OSCar synthesiser (interestingly the keyboard of choice for the Foxx-free Ultravox of 1983) and a video interview about Foxx, while Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran had two digitally manipulated prints on display. Most interesting to me was Andrew Back’s No Numbers which breaks down the 3’18” of Foxx’s own Mr No into sets of numerically displayed digital samples which if transcribed on the paper provided at the rate of one number per second it would take four weeks to transcribe. Sadly Alex Proyas’ film was unable to be screened at the time I attended due to its gritty subject matter. Foxx told me he had enjoyed last year’s Australian Tour, and thought the ACMI in Melbourne (which he performed Tiny Colour Movies last May) had the best sound system of any venue he’d ever played. Although he won’t be working with Louis Gordon for a while, this is a verdant creative period for him, as he currently has five completed albums just waiting to be released.

Back at The Roundhouse, David Byrne has taken the combination of art and music one step further. His Playing The Building seeks to convert the structure, built over 150 years ago to turn railway locomotives around like a giant turntable, into a giant music instrument. At the centre is an old pump organ, reinforcing the steam-punk feel of the enterprise, and like One & Other, the general public are part of the installation, and can even be the ‘musician’.


© James McGalliard 2009

Decalogue

London Fields # 63
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 1 April 2009
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

There used to be simple rules of gig etiquette that everyone knew and understood. Recently these seem to have slipped by the wayside, and so the experience of being part of a large number of people crammed into a very small and poorly ventilated space is often an ordeal rather than any kind of pleasure. Now some of these codes of conduct have changed, or no longer apply. The conceit of never wearing a t-shirt of the band you are seeing seems to have passed into obsolescence. The smoking ban has relegated several others, but at outdoor events and guerrilla gigs erratic dancing can still result in cigarette burns in a neighbour’s clothing, or worse still, on their skin. While you may now come home from a gig without reeking of stale tobacco, the absence of smoke has revealed other odours that used to lie hidden in the haze. Principally is the seemingly new phenomenon of gig farters. We’ve probably all been quaffing away happily for many years – the difference is now you can smell it, and it can be overpowering. Indie gigs seem to be the worst – notable recent eye-watering instances have occurred at gigs by The Wedding Present, Wavves and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. Although you can’t really suggest Thou shalt not fart, the relentless onslaught throughout the performance sometimes makes me fear for the gastrointestinal health of those around me. I know I’ve written about gig talkers before, but they really are the bane of all but the loudest gigs. Put simply, they just show a complete lack of respect for both the performer and everyone else who has paid to hear the artist. There are other verbal annoyances, like the moron who yells out for a particular song after every song. Nick Cave has the best riposte to this “Yes, we’ll play anything you yell out. As long as it’s on that list (points to setlist). And in that order”. Yet some talk is good – like asking Excuse Me, rather than roughly barging a way through, But don’t use excuse me so that someone makes a space for you to squeeze through, only to stand in the space that was made for you as a temporary concession. Neither should you expect to find an easy road to the front if you arrive at the last minute. And if you want to be right against the stage, you may have to forego some other things. If you need to make six trips to the bar in ninety minutes then perhaps you should stand nearer the bar, so you don’t have to disturb people twelve times on your travels? Once you get to the bar, show some good grace. We’ve all had to queue for drinks, and we’re all missing something as we wait to be served. But when people push in, it just leads to aggro. At the front respect the rules of the mosh pit. If someone goes down, you stop and get them up, and out, if needed. Don’t go running full pelt into the periphery. We’re here to hear music, not to get into argy-bargy with someone spoiling for a rumble. Speaking of space invaders - take off your bloody backpack! You have no idea how many drinks you’re spilling, and people you’re bumping. If you must have your bag with you, then take it off your shoulder and put it on the floor. Or at least wear it on your front so you can see where it’s swinging. The final one shouldn’t even need to be stated, but sadly it does. Don’t steal - from other punters, or the venue, or the band. Piney Gir, in a recent MySpace posting, made a list of all the things that she’s had nicked from off stage in recent gigs, and it paints a pretty horrible picture of the state of play. Now I’m not for rigorous adherence to rules per se, and have probably broken many of them at some point (except the last). At one gig I was bailed up for talking. When I challenged this, he said that he couldn’t actually hear my commentary himself, but the microphone with which he was bootlegging the gig could. Another time a friend complained that the couple in front kept canoodling, and each time their heads pressed together, it blocked his view of the stage. Easy - you just move. Drink plays a factor in all of this, and there’s nothing worse that someone who’s drunk and obnoxious (unless they’re leery as well). But the loss of these abiding principals seems in some way to reflect a growing contempt of other people. So rather than a list of commandments, let’s keep it simple: don’t make your enjoyment of the gig result in ruining someone else’s. It’s simple - the tall bastard will stand in front of you just before the band come on, some idiot will spill your drink, or spill his over you, someone will yell out inanities, and someone else will treat you like crap. Yet sometimes the experience transcends all of this, and it is for these magic moments that we persevere. But if your pleasure is at the cost of someone else’s enjoyment, something’s gonna break. © James McGalliard 2009

Boom and Bust

London Fields # 59

First published Inpress, Melbourne on 29 December 2008

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

But you really don’t care for music, do you? Isn’t it more than a little ironic that the debut single of this year’s winner of The X Factor is a cover of Leonard Cohen’s classic Hallelujah? The fastest selling download in UK history was released just after the final, so it’s fair to assume that all the late contenders recorded their own karaoke rendering of the same arrangement. The sheer commercial hard-headedness of it just fills my heart with seasonal glee. Saturday night telly is where the BBC and its commercial rival ITV battle it out in audience-voted talent quests, the modern day equivalent of variety shows. Even Peter Kay’s one-off piss-take Britain’s Got The Pop Factor And Possibly A New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Strictly On Ice spawned its own single, and it seems nothing will stem this tide of bilge passing for entertainment.

Pop may well eat itself, but television feasts on its own entrails. Literally in Charlie Brooker’s Dead Set (E4), which focussed on a microcosm of refugees hiding in the Big Brother house whilst the world outside fell to zombies. Brooker was also behind Screenwipe, an informative, cruel and bloody funny show about television. On ITV, the award-winning TV Burp saw Harry Hill take a gentler ramble through the previous week’s viewing, replete with some lovely running gags. While BBC Four had a series of biopics of famous comedians and their bloody depressing lives, it wasn’t a vintage year for TV comedy. New sketch shows failed, Pulling improved but wasn’t recommissioned. With the exception of Peep Show, the brighter lights were the newcomers, like No Heroics, or The Kevin Bishop Show. 2008 also saw the serious decline of the documentary. reality TV and lifestyle challenges had already done damage, but the new decline was evidenced by ‘mission’ shows. Even Horizon turned mental illness into a game of Spot The Looney.

Dramas prepared us for the end of the world. Spooks saw a Russian sleeper planting a nuclear device in central London, and the ropey Spooks Code 9 was set in the aftermath of a nuclear attack by terrorists at the 2012 games. Survivors (a remake of Terry Nation’s 1970’s original) began with a pandemic wiping out over 99% of the earth’s population, and next year we’re promised a new version of The Day Of The Triffids. While I suppose anything is more entertaining than Hole In The Wall or I’m A Has-been, Restart My Career, you start to wonder if we’re being slowly prepared for a new, tougher world, one where you can only hold onto what is yours by force.

In the real world of London’s streets, 28 teenagers died violently and gangs fought post code-based wars. Britain talked its overvalued housing market into a crisis, and we all just watched helplessly as the credit crunch inevitably became a recession. For sure, someone made a nice profit out of the misery of wrecked lives. Every day a further 350 Londoners lose their jobs; unemployment stands at 1.8 million, the highest since 1991, and predictions expect this to rise by another million by 2010. But the most telling sign of the downturn has been the loss of an integral part of British life and one of the country’s retail giants - Woolworths. Perhaps actually closest to the long-gone Coles Variety stores, Woolies modern Australian equivalent would be Target or K-Mart. Yet Woolies wasn’t an outer suburban megastore - with 807 stores they held a place on every high street. Nothing has felt less like Christmas than watching a wake of buzzards descend upon the 27 000 soon to be unemployed workers, to pick clean the carcass of the dying beast, all to the sound of piped Christmas songs. Ironic also as this was where many a single of Christmas Past was bought.

My catch cry of live gigs this year seems to have been ‘Oh, maybe it was just a bad night’. Hence Robert Forster was dull and uninspired and Nick Cave at Hammersmith seemed a little out of love with The Bad Seeds, perhaps wishing he was playing Grinderman instead. The exceptions to ‘bad nights’ were wonderful. My Bloody Valentine joined the rare echelons of acts whose reunion was a good idea, and Edwyn Collins, who I was a little scared to see after his stroke, proved bloody great, both musically and spiritually. The baggy workings of Working For A Nuclear Free City hinted at a possible return to Madchester, and Frank Turner’s enthusiasm and sheer joie de vie made every show special. Get Well Soon as a full band surpassed their excellent debut album, and Fuck Buttons dark rave provided an exhilarating contrast to boring Carling rock acts.

With Top Of The Pops gone, and only very large stores carrying any physical singles at all, does the singles chart really matter any more? Railing against bad cover versions, I feel a little like Alex DeLarge, strapped into a chair, my eyes clamped open, screaming “It’s a sin!” Yet as I write, the campaign to get Jeff Buckley’s cover of Hallelujah is gaining momentum. Perhaps there is some hope for the future after all?

© James McGalliard 2008

Here Comes The Flood

London Fields # 42
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 8 August 2007
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

While no one thinks of England as a warm, bright, sunny country, this non-summer is getting beyond a joke. Already the days are getting shorter, and each week presents another cloud-filled long-range weather forecast. On the few days the sun has shone, the pollen count has been sky-high, which has been great news for manufacturers of antihistamines, and other allergy relief, but awful for the rest of us.

I’m sure the flooded areas of this country will fail to see any humour in a poorly timed release of a film where Steve Carrell has to build a second ark. People have died; families lost their homes. The Truck Festival was washed out, and will now take place in September. Lodestar was cancelled, and the site of the Reading Festival is under inches of water.

But is this lack of a summer making folks gruff and moody? I don’t know if it’s sun depravation, pollen allergies, irritation at the smoking ban, or just something in the water, but I keep witnessing scenes of unprovoked sheer bloody-minded behaviour. Like the mindlessly aggressive bloke at the recent Grinderman gig – although he could have just been drunk.

Grinderman have grown and progressed from their live debut at All Tomorrows Parties back in April, and you shouldn’t miss the chance to see them when they tour Australian in October. What they do is dark and primal, but it’s the palpable menace that makes it so good. Live they are the house band from the Titty Twister of From Dusk Till Dawn – a band for which cage dancers would seem right and just! While Get It On and No Pussy Blues are obvious standouts, the opening Grinderman instantly sets the mood, the maracas sounding like a rattlesnake preparing to strike.

For Go Tell The Women, Nick Cave struts along the front of the stage, holding his guitar like an assault rifle, picking out the three note riff as though he was an axe god. This is visceral, energetic and vital. This is about living dreams – during the encore Cave momentarily becomes the vocalist of Suicide. While Marty Casey’s bass is the glue that binds it all together, this is the sound of a unified purpose, but not one lacking in humour. Yep, they were so good that even an aggressive idiot who made me disappear to another part of the venue couldn’t detract from the evening.

Meanwhile, at a recent show at the Barfly, I came across the worst audiences I’ve experienced gig-going this year. Like the woman who pinched inside armpits as he drilled her way though, followed by an ‘excuse me’ over her shoulder. Or the coiffeured idiots talking really loudly during the quiet support act. Oh, hang on – those insensitive chatterers are the headliners – Palladium. There’s always a risk in seeing a band blind. Now Palladium have already had coverage in national papers, even before their first single is released. Even though the band is on a major label, this first single is a limited run of 500 on 7” vinyl only. This technique in generating hype was spearheaded by The Bravery, and makes your first release rare even before it’s released, and hence worthy of attention.

But that precedent should have been warning enough. A mate who regularly attends gigs with me bailed by their third song. Hoping for a glimmer of light, I resolutely stayed until the end. It’s a great idea to mine the path of the big rock of the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s – think Supertramp, think the theme from Cagney & Lacey. But while this could be so good, the band has forgotten to write any tunes. What you’re left with is rock - Alan Partridge style! Yet they already have a devoted following and maybe a great producer will even manage to find a seam of gold amongst the quartz (though they’re going to have to be bloody lucky).

However this month both the biggest disappointment and the greatest joy came while seeing The Blue Nile close the Manchester International Festival. At times this was heartbreaking, like watching a prize racehorse run lame. Maybe after some perfect shows previously, my expectations were too high? But the live mix was bass heavy, with the vocals and guitars mixed down, and the drums way too high in the mix. Which only served to emphasise some unnecessary business by the man behind the kit, which distracted and detracted from the whole. There’s an old joke that runs “the difference between a drummer and a drum machine is that you only have to punch the beats into a drum machine once!” Maybe they needed to punch a bit harder? Still, it was a joy to hear Stay, and the rendition of Family Life, with Paul Buchanan’s outstanding voice complimented by a simple piano accompaniment, was an emotional and musical highpoint, and easily my gig highlight of the year so far.

© James McGalliard 2007