Live And Let Live

London Fields # 61
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 4 February 2009
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

There are venues you love and cherish, others you go to only to see a band, and those you avoid no matter who is playing. The London Astoria, which closed for demolition last month, probably fell into that middle category for me, and I found it hard to be too upset about its demise. However it was loved by many, and playing there marked a significant stepping stone on a band’s career from playing club shows to the really large venues like Hammersmith or Brixton. Admittedly I did see some pretty special performances there, most notably Hope Of The States, and U2’s back-to-basics launch for All That You Leave Behind. Along with his sister venue, LA2 (formerly The Mean Fiddler), and The Metro in Oxford Street, it’s being pulled down as part of the long-awaited Cross Rail project, and its various late night clubs will struggle to find other suitable venues.

The economic downturn is causing other casualties. The Charlotte is Leicester has gone into administration, and even the efforts of local lads Kasabian may not be enough to save it. Both The Garage in Highbury, and Ocean in Hackney remain closed, despite mumblings that both may be going to reopen at some point soon. There are other threats lurking in the wings Various bands have posted MySpace bulletins urging their fans to sign a petition on the 10 Downing Street website against introduction of “…laws insisting anyone applying or re-applying for an entertainment license must have a noise control device fitted to the venue.” When this petition closed on 23 January, it had collected 86,281 signatures. Musician Warren James, who started the petition out of a concern that these devices would be made mandatory, has since issued a statement on his website that this never fear came to fruition. Interestingly, local authorities already have the power to introduce them if they so wish.

But there are major issues with noise levels at live shows. I’ve been to gigs where sound limiters cut all power the minute a snare drum was hit, and to city-based festivals where their volume levels were capped at such a ridiculously low decibel level that the person talking next to me was louder than the band. And that for me is a much greater noise problem - gigtalkers. I wish more venues followed the example of The Luminaire, where signs around the room make the situation unmistakably clear: “QUIET. IF YOU’RE TALKING WHEN A BAND IS PLAYING, WE’LL TELL YOU TO SHUT UP.” Sometimes volume can be an answer, but if the mix is too loud then the music can be lost; too few gigs recently have had brilliant live sound. But really all this is just a way of venues avoiding litigation. At their reunion shows last year, My Bloody Valentine issued complimentary ear plugs beforehand - but not every act can get away with playing aircraft landing loud.

The very first column I wrote for this paper, some five years ago, was about the introduction of the Licensing Act 2003. Hidden behind the much-needed relaxation of drinking hours were some clauses that could have horrendously affected any venue putting on live acts. It felt was a little like that episode of The Simpsons where Lisa has her airline fight path bill passed as it was paperclipped onto an innocuous and wanted legislation amendment. But there is a much more insidious piece of paper than the imagined threat of compulsory noise reduction devices. It also has a petition against it on the Downing Street website, started by Jon McClure of Reverend & The Makers; sadly this legislation is not imagined. The petition reads, "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to scrap the unnecessary and draconian usage of the 696 Form from London music events. So what is Form 696? A police form for event promoters which not only asks for the names, aliases, dates of birth, addresses and telephone numbers of everyone playing, but also about the audience likely to attend. In December they revised the form, halving its length and removing the most contentious questions about the ethnicity of performers and audience. Yet this question remains: Music style to be played / performed (e.g. Bashment, R’n’B, Garage). Somehow I don’t feel it’s white indie kids they’re interested in. Elsewhere it asks about the make-up of the patrons. This form needs to be submitted 14 days in advance or else fines and possible imprisonment could follow, and applies to 21 London boroughs but could go countrywide if successful. At the time of writing only 15,025 signatures had been collected opposing it – particularly interesting as its Facebook page has 26,385 members!

Now I can understand the police wanting to be able to prepare for possible problems. You could tell when there were ‘interest’ acts appearing at one East London venue because they’d be metal detectors on the doors, and the entrance was screened from the street, perhaps as a deterrent to drive-bys. It may all be down to thinking a watched pot never boils, but actions like this are more likely to create an ethnic pressure cooker.

© James McGalliard 2009

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

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

Scapegoating

London Fields # 58

First published Inpress, Melbourne on 3 December 2008

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

Righteous indignation seems to be favourite pastime of a disgruntled populace. Fanning the flames of anger helps to sell newspapers, so it’s become the backbone philosophy of certain British tabloids (or Red Tops as they’re known) and perhaps their lifeblood. Deliberately provocative language is used to heighten emotions, and the manipulation may also make you seethe with rage.

They need things for you to be angry about, and while there’s nothing new about making news out of nothing, this rebel-rousing feels like the work of the Ministry Of Truth. You’ll find stories of how youth are out of control, or how Britain is not as great as it was, or how foreigners are taking away British identity. And this sort of piffle perpetuates the vision of a decaying nation and opens the door to politicians that play on dreams of sovereignty and jingoistic nationalism.

The British believe strongly in justice. So when someone was voted off The X Factor is questionable circumstances, Ofcom (the broadcasting standards council), was besieged with complaints. In this instance, people actually watched that show, and made complaints themselves before it became a news story. But that’s not always the case.

I’m not sure how much of BBC’s Manuelgate permeated the Australian conscience, so here’s a brief précis. On a Thursday night, comedian Russell Brand was pre-recording his Saturday night show for BBC Radio 2, along with special guest Jonathan Ross, a near ubiquitous BBC presenter and talk show host. They unsuccessfully tried to contact Andrew Sachs (Manuel from Fawlty Towers) for a phone interview. As he was unavailable, they left four explicit messages on his answerphone, centring on Brand’s dalliance with Sach’s granddaughter, the burlesque performer Georgina Baillie. Perhaps the presenters felt no need to curb their exuberance as the show wasn’t being broadcast live, so anything too risqué could be edited out later. Sachs was contacted about the messages and content prior to actual transmission. Here, accounts vary; certainly some material was cut, and the show was approved by station management and broadcast, claiming an audience of 400 000. Two of these listeners complained - about Ross’s language, not the content itself. More than a week later, The Mail on Sunday picked it up as a story, and from there it snowballed into front page news, and stayed there for weeks, going on to become one of the most complained about broadcasts in the history of the BBC. Ross was suspended without pay for three months, while Brand resigned, as did other high ranking BBC staff, including Lesley Douglas, the controller of BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6Music. Georgina Baillie hired publicist Max Clifford, and was the centre of a Channel 5 documentary called Russell & Ross: What the F*** Was All That About?

There are a number of key questions raised by it all. Do people in public life have a right to privacy, or has the world of gossip magazines and paparazzi taken that away? Was anyone hurt by it? Was it funny? And what does it mean for comedy? Adrian Edmondson (Vyvyan of The Young Ones) writing for The Independent, and the brilliant Charlie Brooker (whose television programme about television Screenwipe has recently returned to BBC Four) in The Guardian questioned the effect there might be on comedy if producers were so worried about reprisals and recriminations for allowing material which pushed the boundaries.

The real thing that was called into question in all this is the BBC’s role as a public broadcaster. Yet perhaps the reason for the story was envy – of the sexual proclivities of Brand, and the enormous pay packet of Ross (£6 million a year). Can an organisation which is funded by the public afford to pay commercial salaries? It probably wasn’t helped by Ross’s quip about his income at last years British Comedy Awards - "I'm worth 1,000 BBC journalists". Personally, I’ll pay the licence fee just for Doctor Who. Incidentally, this story almost buried the news that David Tennant is stepping down from the central role in Doctor Who at the end of next year. But it did allow former Doctor Sylvester McCoy to suggest on GMTV that Sachs and Baille could take the show back to its roots, with the Doctor as an old man, accompanied on his travels by his granddaughter.

A few days after newsagents were left with unsold newspapers with Brand or Ross on their covers, Barack Obama was elected president, and these papers were all sold by lunch. Brits care about a lot more than their television. The short sad life and circumstances surrounding the death of Baby P was indeed a tragedy, and one that caused genuine feelings of revulsion and sadness. But the prurient humour of two adult schoolboys knocked the government’s huge bail-out of British banks off the front page; and made us forget that the US election wasn’t taking place in the UK. Britain hoped too when it had a major change in 1997, and I don’t think it will ever forgive the Blair government for what followed. One can only hope that Australia and America are not similarly disappointed in their respective new golden ages.


© James McGalliard 2008

A Tale Of Two Cities

London Fields # 57

First published Inpress, Melbourne on 8 October 2008

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

So I’m sitting in a bar in Swan Street, Richmond, briefly back home in Melbourne, and I’m attempting to communicate over the noise and the alcohol some of the almost invisible differences between Melbourne and London life. When two societies are so close in so many ways, it’s the simple differences that can cause such misunderstanding and havoc. Even simple abbreviations can be treacherous, as a shortened version of Pakistani is an even more offensive racial slur in Britain than an abbreviation of Aboriginal is in Australia, yet the latter is a term which the Brits seems to use casually and without thought.

In the UK, a pedestrian has no right-of-way at a zebra crossing until they have walked onto the road, and even then you have to hope that that car will actually stop. But anyway, I’m trying to illustrate the unwritten rules which underlie social order in the British Isles. I explain that in a London pub it would be wrong in normal circumstances to strike up a conversation with a neighbouring table (subject to regional variations), hence the popularity of events like pub quiz nights, where these rules break down. Meanwhile, the effects of the smoking ban were more clearly visible in Melbourne both as evidenced by a chain of burning rubbish bins throughout the CBD from poorly-extinguished cigarettes and by the evenings spent huddled with the smokers in freezing beer gardens. In the UK, smokers duck outside for a few minutes, and then try to slip seamlessly back into the conversation.

I think I’m still fairly Australian, but when I use the expression ‘taken umbrage’, I am pulled up for being far too British. It’s a relief that the culture of fear than permeates London’s streets is fortunately yet to make major inroads in Melbourne. For in London you need to be very careful in offering assistance to strangers lest your motives are misinterpreted or taken advantage of. An offer of help can be seen as more than a threat than anything else, so the friendly Aussie soon learns to walk on by. But some things are not better in the Lucky Country. I was shocked at how expensive Australian groceries had become – the cost of a weekly shop is markedly higher than in the UK. And these rising prices seem to be leading to a new class divide – the haves and the have-nots, perhaps most easily distinguished by the home brands in their shopping trolleys. At least the recession is yet to hit, as the property market is buoyant compared to that in South East England.

While in Melbourne I caught The Wreckery play the first hometown show in twenty years. It was great to see them live again, and offered a chance to show that their legacy was a lot more vital and vibrant than reflected in the silly joke names that have dogged them for years. Even more refreshing was the fact that a large percentage of the audience were too young to have seen them the first time round, meaning that their sound, which has dated very little, has the potential to find a whole new listenership if they continue. Less than a fortnight later, I’m at the Royal Albert Hall to watch Echo & The Bunnymen, accompanied by an orchestra, celebrate their 30^th anniversary by playing the entire Ocean Rain album. The difference between the gigs was marked; the average Bunnymen fan was well over forty, and I didn’t see younger fans at all. Of course, that may in part have been due to the high ticket prices, but could it also be that younger Oz punters are more interested in what they missed? Sadly The Bunnymen were mostly underwhelming and lacking in the sense of occasion, which made the occasional moments of brilliance all the more frustrating, as it showed how great they can be still.

So it’s a few weeks later and I’m standing in a small venue in Hoxton watching a short but brilliant set from Frightened Rabbit. They finish with one of the best songs released by any band this year, Keep Yourself Warm, and I’m thinking that it’s a little like a modern take on Throw Your Arms Around Me. But “we may never meet again, so shed your skin and get started” has been replaced by “I’m drunk, and you’re probably on pills; if we’ve both got the same diseases it’s irrelevant girl”. So is this the change from 1984 to 2008, or is it Australia verses the UK? I’m not sure I know the answer to that.

Now I’m no anthropologist, so while some of the above may be a version of participant observation, I probably fail to maintain sufficient distance and become involved, making me prone to more than a little field blindness. But I think it is fair to say two things. Twelve days is barely enough time to find your feet again, let alone make value judgements. And that there is that risk in travelling – while trying to find a place that feels like home you may lose whatever one you thought you had in the first place.

© James McGalliard 2008

Just a little off The Fringe

London Fields # 56

First published Inpress, Melbourne on 10 September 2008

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

For three weeks every August, Edinburgh visibly groans as patrons of the various festivals add to the already considerable weight of the tourist horde. Even though The Fringe had one of its worst years ever for ticket sales (leading to the resignation of its director Jon Morgan), rooms remained hard to find and expensive. On the Royal Mile, there’s fierce competition from leafleters to street performers for your attention and patronage.

Most striking was the way the city was tagged EVERYWHERE, with stickers, specially printed t-shirts, postcards and beer mats proclaiming This Belongs To Lionel Richie. Such inventiveness led me to see the flagship of their five show assault This Sketch Show Belongs To Lionel Richie. This seven strong team kept things brief, rattling through 25-odd sketches in an hour, meaning little overstayed its welcome. It also didn’t rely on the constant repetition of characters which seems to be the current industry standard, and it had almost TV-like speed in its switches between scenes. Special mention must go the sketch featuring the misguided attempts of using Radiohead’s Thom Yorke to advertise mini chicken kievs (Pay whatever you like, or nothing at all, or get them in a deluxe boxset for £40…No Thom! Cut!!)

There was a strong Australian presence at the Fringe as well, from small free events to Circus Oz’s 30th anniversary show. Brendan Burns, the winner of last years IF award (formerly the Perrier) was a hot ticket, as was Tim Minchin, particularly after a feature of the BBC2’s special Edinburgh edition of The Culture Show. Also featured on the same programme was The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, which was my personal highlight of my time there. It’s a one man two-hander (three if you count the invisible Emo sock), featuring a playful reworking of Johnny Cash’s Walk The Line with a guitar-playing sock, a five minute King Lear, a dissection of Abbott & Costello’s Who’s On First routine, and a improv song from cut-outs of Kraftwerk in a cameo appearance. Of course it’s a little naff, but knowingly so, and so good natured you can’t help but love it. And on top of that all, it’s extremely funny, even (especially?) when things go a little wrong. I hope that someone from the Melbourne Comedy Festival sees sense and brings this show out next year.
Over in The Spiegeltent, My Friend the Chocolate Cake returned for their first UK shows in over a decade. With no London shows booked, their appearance was the deciding factor making the trip north. With a short 70’ set, perhaps they didn’t pick the best material to showcase themselves, and some sound issues early on didn’t help. But then it all came together, and was over much too soon. Theirs was a relatively small crowd the night I went, and it made me a little sad to see the queue around the Spiegelgarden for the late show, La Clique, which through word-of-mouth became the must see show of the Festival.


In the Balcony Room of the Gilded Balloon, the subject of Damian Callinan’s show mmm… they’re small proved a bit much for some audience members, who walked out once it became clear that it was gonna be an hour of balls, or at least about them. Perhaps it was an error in judgement for the flyers not to explain that the show is his journey of self-discovery about infertility and relationships, both interpersonal and with his testicles. There were many ways this could have gone, and for me the mix of high and low humour, pathos, education, knob jokes, Catholic references and role playing just didn’t hang together. It felt more like a work in progress, lacking both laughs and a deeper emotional level. While Callinan remains an extremely likeable performer, this didn’t really show his best side.

Then again, it is the contrasts that make the festival so interesting. Simon Kempston and Friends, a trio of guitar, cello and bodhran, stitched through with his unique otherworldly voice, provided a lunchtime moment in St Giles Cathedral. On the street outside, David McSavage’s routine consisted of harranging passers by with very funny short musical ditties (although one day someone will twat him, as some of these were a little on the sharp side). On South Bridge Street there’s a queue outside an unassuming café called The Elephant House. Inside are more people sitting alone with their laptops than you’d think possible. For it was here that a certain Joanne Rowling sat each day to write the first Harry Potter novel, so other aspiring writers pilgrimage here hoping that a little, ahem, magic will rub off on them.

But perhaps the most surreal moment of the whole Festival occurs late on a Sunday night as I walked across The Meadows after catching some free Finnish stand-up (don’t ask). For coming from the nearby marquees was the distinctive sound of ex-Fringe favourites The Doug Anthony All Stars. Yep, The World’s Best Kisser graced the Fringe once again, this time courtesy of The Ladyboys Of Bangkok. Oh yes, I hope to be back again next year.

NB: This column does NOT belong to Lionel Richie!


© James McGalliard 2008

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

Knifey Spoony

London Fields # 54
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 16 July 2008
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

On the streets of London there is a steadily growing sense of rising resentment and bubbling aggression that is becoming almost palpable. Perhaps it can in part be attributed to the current “credit crunch”? (Whatever you do, don’t dare call it a recession!) Families can afford less as salaries fail to keep pace with inflation, and prices of basic domestic necessities have risen drastically. For many years, the price of supermarket goods seemed to have been dropping year-on-year, but recently there have been sudden and dramatic increases, with certain items going up 20% overnight.

In this market, houses remain unsold; vendors see their prices falling, and some reports say there is only one buyer for every ten properties. For the buyer, mortgages are harder to get, and the interest rates are much harsher than even a few months ago. So while property prices have fallen over 10% in the past few months, it seems as if no-one is brave enough, or can actually afford to buy in this uncertain climate. This in turn results in a great shortage of rental accommodation, which allows landlords to push their prices up rapidly as demand exceeds supply.

I was recently speaking to an ‘old school’ real estate agent – one who’d been in the game long enough to have been through the last major downturn in the early ‘90’s. He said that many of the current players didn’t know how to handle this situation at all. “These guys are used to putting a ‘For Sale’ sign on the front, showing a few people round, and then selling it within a few weeks. They have no idea how to actually sell”. He also predicted that they’d be many casualties in the coming months. And he was right – already I’ve noticed some former estate agents are now up for let as they’ve gone to the wall, and this so-called “crunch” hasn’t really started to bite yet.

But this depressing picture could also be linked into the one story that’s dominated London news recently - the alarming rise in lives lost in knife crime in the capital. Last Thursday alone, there were four fatal stabbings in London in the space of sixteen hours, taking to twenty the number of teens who have died in knife-related incidents in the year to date.

There’s a certain way to walk London streets. You don’t look directly at other people; you more sense where they are. Almost automatically you find yourself ceding the footpath to one group, and walking through the middle of another. Because not standing aside, or giving way when you shouldn’t, or even meeting someone else’s eyes can be seen as a challenge to the street code of “face”. Some would say it’s about “respect”, but really it’s more akin to “cock of the walk”, or animals making themselves look bigger when threatened. Whatever its origin, it is an unspoken language and code of conduct which is difficult to learn. You have to trust your instincts, and sometimes repress your wish to respond as regretfully it seems to be the only way to walk the streets without confrontation.

However if you’re a teenager, getting it right can be even more difficult, especially if the other party is looking for trouble. Put blades into the equation, and a simple altercation can leave a deadly outcome. A doctor from the Casualty Department of Homerton Hospital claimed that there had been a big change had been in the type of wounds inflicted – slashing has been replaced by stabbing attacks. With the number of vital organs located in the torso, this has led to a huge rise in fatalities. Some other figures claim that the overall number of violent incidents has remained much the same, with the rise in knife incidents reflected in a fall of firearms-related ones. But you can’t buy a gun at your local supermarket, and the laws to stop real life games of Crocodile ‘That’s not a knife – that’s a knife’ Dundee prowess seem to be completely ineffectual.

Now I’m wary of being too pragmatic about this subject; grieving families have lost loved ones over the most minor of disagreements. And I’m also lucky as this hasn’t really touched me. But I’m also a feared about how it’s possible to use this as a blunt instrument for political gain without due consideration. When Conservative candidate Boris Johnson launched his bid for London Mayor last September, he advised Londoners to “tackle a thug” as the chances of being stabbed were “microscopic”. Now he’s won the election and has the job, he been forced to make a massive volte-face on those statements in the light of these events, now advising you NOT to intervene in disagreements, lest someone is tooled up.

Sometimes I feel that we moving towards the dystopian future of V For Victory. When a climate of fear is used to push through a law allowing terrorism suspects to be held 42 days without charge, perhaps there are others at fault? Yet the media is more likely to tie this into the spate of 17 seeming unrelated teen suicides in the Bridgend area of south Wales during the 13 months up to last February, and ask “What is happening to youth of Great Britain?”

Perhaps they’re a reflection of what they see?


© James McGalliard 2008

Dispatches From The Moshpit

London Fields # 53
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 18 June 2008
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

One of the troubles with seeing so many live acts is finding time to write about them. Individual reviews need to have a reason to stand on their own, and sometimes you may only have scribbled a few rough thoughts about the evening before life intervenes. This month I thought I’d share an assemblage of rough thoughts on some of my recent live experiences, which never quite became full reviews.


Rest Now, Weary Head, You Will Get Well Soon is easily one of my favourite albums of the year, but I wasn’t sure how well a meticulously assembled one-man studio project would work live. But only a few seconds into a recent show at Bush Hall, any fears were allayed as a seven-piece Get Well Soon launched into Prelude, its a cappella opening bursting into a full band roar. This was quiet/loud as an art form, and rarely have I seen it performed with such grace and skill. This was swiftly followed by the mariachi horns of You/Aurora/You/Seaside, and the dark brood of If This Hat Is Missing I Have Gone Hunting. I was left in awe at the sheer skill and mastery of it all, and time and time again deep shivers of joy ran down my spine. In this band I hear what everyone else sees in Radiohead. The live act jumps from brash cymbal crashes, to soulful violin or piano accordion, through keyboards, to massed singing. It also has one of the best drummers I’ve seen in a long time, perfectly able to keep up with the extremely eclectic nature of Konstantin Gropper’s compositions. “Are you ready for some nu rave?” was the jokey introduction to his inspired redux of Underworld anthem Born Slippy, but most heartbreaking of all was Automatic Heart, where everything was stripped down to a whisper, until the full band retook the stage for the song’s finale. Seriously brilliant!


Elegies To Lessons Learnt was one of the great disappointments of last year for me; it felt too singularly paced, and it seemed as though iLiKETRAiNS had failed to meet the potential they’d shown with their earlier material. But live it all makes glorious sense – these songs are reflections and tributes to those who have passed before. Ashley Dean’s projections create a travelogue through the losers and losses of history - sort of a weird skew-whiff history presentation. While it could so easily be pretentious, it isn’t at all. It’s a good spirited affair with plenty of banter between band and audience. New song Progress Is A Snake (“A snake can shed it's skin but never change”) turns out to be one of the highlights of the set, and from there the second half is riveting. They can rock like a mother too – so hard that during set closer, Spencer Perceval, frontman David Martin accidentally smashes his guitar. He laments “It’s all very well being rock and roll, but we haven’t any money!” The encore sees a beautiful change of pace, by following the preceding deluge with the sublime instrumental Joshua and slightly upbeat Before The Curtains Close Part 2. Their heyday is yet to come.

The Veils also work on a deeper emotional level. After a major shake-up, they really found their stride on Nux Vomica. They’re in the middle of a residency (above a small pub in Camden) roadtesting material prior to recording the third album, which they hope will be out by January. The new songs sit nicely along old standards like Jesus For The Jugular, which gets an airing tonight. I want to be moved by music; I want to be excited - and nights like this do it. It’s great seeing an established band play with this drive, coming to grips with arrangements which are still fresh to them – seven of the ten songs played are new. The highlights are Someday All This Will Be Yours, and the gentler (and band favourite) Sit By The Fire. There’s a different dynamic without the keyboards, but the barer sound seems to bring out different aspects of the songs, and the band feel harder and more intense than ever.

Another album I’m looking forward to is Simple, which is due out next month from Andy Yorke. His London show saw him struggling with a throat infection, but there’s something I can’t quite put my finger on that makes his music deeply affect me. Is it the way that the melody of the songs glides, or the way the cello occasionally cuts through, or cedes to a Spanish guitar? I’m not sure, but my love of him also led me to discover Frank Turner who he was supporting that night. And Turner is another great find of 2008 for me. I mean how can you not love someone who preludes his set with an acoustic verse from AC/DC’s Rock 'n' Roll Singer, or who introduces himself “I am the Jason Donovan of punk”? Frank Turner’s album launch at the 100 Club was a euphoric singalong from the get-go, of punters finding something that spoke to them, lyrics that touched on a common cultural experience “Yeah, England’s still shit and it’s still raining”. It’s a rare knack to have the great and the cool dosey-dohing, chanting, hugging, and losing their voices by the end of the night, and Turner proves himself a master.


© James McGalliard 2008

The Crunchy and The Smooth

London Fields # 52
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 21 May 2008
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

“If you hate the place so much, why have you lived there for the best part of twenty years?” This question arrived by e-mail in response to a recent column, and played on my mind for days. Was I portraying such a negative viewpoint, or merely being actively and critically aware? And if I did indeed hate London, why have I chosen to make this large, cold, distant and potentially dangerous city my home for so long?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been watching a pair of magpies build a nest outside my office window. But I can no longer see it or them. For in the course of three days Spring arrived, and a tree of bare branches became so thick with foliage that the nest was lost from view. Now with this sudden change of season came the pollen, which for the past three years has blighted the capital with itching, eye irritation and other allergies. Even if you see it all though teary eyes, how can you not love a place that goes troppo the minute there is sun and temperatures over 20? The change in people’s personalities is astounding too, like that old episode of Star Trek where the townsfolk’s demeanour changed as the clock struck twelve. So too, the Londoners shed their winter hides and suddenly exchange scowls for smiles - there’s a latent friskiness in the air. At lunchtime, London Fields was awash with sunworshippers, and the turnstiles of the recently opened lido (outdoor swimming pool) clicked incessantly. It can be these little things that make you cherish a place so.

The London pub is a special place, and the old style establishments are becoming rarer all the time. Many have been converted into flats, or ‘upgraded’ to gastropubs and dining rooms. Yet they can still be found, and in a local boozer on a Hackney estate, they quickly learn your name, and remember what you drink. In this very pub recently a mate (London born and bred) commented on how hard it was to make friends here, but friendships you do make are exceedingly strong. So while it is harsh for the newcomer, there are rewards for staying longer term. For a place is as much about people as it is about architecture, and so London has become more an International city than a British one, as a true reflection of its shifting multicultural population.

Although folks moan about it, public transport in the capital is pretty amazing considering the sheer numbers it has to cope with. And living in a city so large means that it can take hours to get to a gig, but the sheer variety and number of acts means it’s hard to keep it to less than two nights a week. Bands from all over the world play here, and the local scene is better than it ever has been. Melbourne is so far away; here I see bands that have never made the journey there, sometimes because their Australian fanbase simply isn’t big enough to make a tour financially viable.

While it’s by no means perfect, the National Health Service (NHS) remains amazing, simply by surviving all the cutbacks. It may be underfunded, but is staffed by dedicated professionals who provide a high level of healthcare. You may sometime have to wait a while, and you’d be lucky to build the same bond that you had with your Australian GP, but I never fail to be impressed by a system that provides care to all, regardless of income or private insurance.

Another publicly funded jewel, the BBC, is an absolute gem. I may not entirely agree with its direction of travel, but find myself watching its five main television stations, listening to four of its radio stations, and using its comprehensive website daily. Really it is unmatched anywhere in the world. And it’s all commercial-free! British newspapers, from the popular red tops, to the ones given out free at train stations, to quality papers like The Independent and The Guardian are also wonderful. Without them, I feel disconnected from the wider world in a way that even the SBS News can’t fill.

I miss Cherry Ripes, and being able to say ‘Morning’ to people I pass in my street, and having a peer group with a similar background. But for the time being this will continue to be my home. I like that bands are finished by 11pm, so I can get to work the next day without too many ill effects. I love being embedded in history, from local place names, through to contemporary pop references.

I think what it all comes down to is that some time into a relationship, you realise that your chosen partner isn’t perfect. You see their faults, yet still love them. For if the things you love outweigh those you don’t, you stay. My eyes may wander, and my heart may desire more, but for now I’ll continue my relationship with London. Melbourne was my first love; and your first love remains with you for your whole life. I have no desire to be here when the Olympics arrive, and London is increasingly a city for the young. But for the time being at least, London is the one I’ll come home to each night.

© James McGalliard 2008

Gypsyfolkpunkrock

London Fields # 51
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 23 April 2008
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

There are some interesting developments in indie UK music away from the generic ‘Carling Indierock’ that seems to be widely exported. There’s a growing unquiet, which is finding its expression not through radio-friendly unit shifters like The Enemy, but via singer-songwriters. While you could say that some of these were following in Billy Bragg’s footsteps, and others from a folk rock tradition, each is saying something different in a vibrant way.

I suppose the most long-standing one of these artists is Chris T-T. His early records were very London-based – The 253 album was named after a bus route (which ran from Whitechapel to Euston via Hackney, Finsbury Park and Camden). In October 2005 came his furious protest LP 9 Red Songs, resulting in some media attention and a live session with Tom Robinson on BBC 6Music. I caught him play a mid-afternoon set on the main stage at Truck Festival last summer, and was suitably impressed with his personality, his wit and his songwriting. He’s just released Capital, which completes the London triptych he began with The 253. Sharing a label with Chris T-T, and having recently toured in America with him, is Frank Turner. Like Billy Bragg, he came from a punk background, in this case as frontman of defunct punk rock band Million Dead. Turner has just released Love Ire and Song, his second album as a solo artist. It’s a more political beast and perhaps not as endearing as its predecessor, Sleep is for the Week, which dealt more with personal relationships. Yet both albums share a refreshing honesty and candour of music and lyrics which distinguish him from the run of the mill. For both artists are making strong statements in a time when much of the music that is broadcast is mainly apolitical and homogeneous.

On The Ballad Of Me And My Friends, Frank Turner sings of playing ‘another Nambucca show’. Tom Hull, aka Kid Harpoon, started his London career living above, and playing regularly at that very north London venue. I first caught Kid Harpoon as a solo artist, opening the bill for shoegazey folk-rockers Fields. Accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar, he had a great presence, and a strong set of songs. But the crowning glory was his blistering take on Leonard Cohen’s First We Take Manhattan. Since then, he’s recruited a band, The Powers That Be, and I’ve seen them several time before, but nothing prepared me for the joyous explosion they created recently at a show at Dingwalls. For in an age when gigs can be over-regulated, they showed people it was possible to have fun without being ejected from the venue. From the people who ran onstage and planted kisses on Tom’s cheek, to the crowdsurfers, and those who stayed onstage to sing along the chorus of The Milkmaid – all were left alone to get on with it and no-one was hurt or evicted. With the full band, the music is sorta gypsy folk punk rock, showing the transparency of all those post-Libertines acts. For what Kid and The Powers have created is a musical timewarp, an age when you could let it all go at a gig and have a fantastic time without fear. And it’s still early days; he and his band are still finding their way and learning just what they can achieve. But the most startling thing is the way Manhattan is now his song, just as much as John Cale or Jeff Buckley can lay claim to Cohen’s Hallelujah.

Although not folky in any sense, but like Kid Harpoon another of my picks for 2008, there have been great leaps forwards by Exit Calm. When I first saw them I loved the music but was unsure of their singer. But now Nicky Smith has all the swagger of Ian Brown and the menace of a young Liam Gallagher, but his throaty rasp is all his own. The only thing that may stand in their way is the volume of Rob Marshall’s guitar, which at a recent show at The 100 Club threatened to destroy anything within a 400’ radius of the stage.

Speaking of loud, there’s been a huge shift in the world of The Twilight Sad - they’ve added a fifth member. Now the Sad were my favourite act of 2007; each show was special and unique. And it’s unfair to make a judgement based on a single show, but their London showcase at The 100 Club was the first time they didn’t blow my proverbial socks off. Dok (from Aereogramme) is the newcomer, and he fills out the sound with keyboards, loops and some additional guitar. Alas, it was a case of more is less. For there was a purity about the four-piece – the contrasts between the fury and the ebb. The impact of this has lessened with the expansion, as all the spaces are filled. Afterwards the band tells me this addition is permanent, as they felt they needed some new input. I’ll tend to trust them and wait to see how it all turns out as they’ve been right in so many ways before. Oh, and the new stuff sounds just grand…


© James McGalliard 2008

Paperweight

London Fields # 50
First published Inpress, Melbourne on 26 March 2008
NB: Each column has a name, but these do not appear in print; printed versions may differ slightly to those displayed here

I’m often baffled at which stories Australian newspapers choose to republish from their UK counterparts. It sometimes means that weird creatures, such as the lesser-spotted celeb become known in Melbourne, when the TV show that made their name hasn’t been screened overseas. Perhaps more interesting are the stories that don’t get reprinted; maybe they seem too English, or simply not relevant. But these can paint a disturbing picture of the land in which I live.

Concerns about ‘youth run wild’ help to fuel fear (and to sell newspapers). So tabloids became obsessed with a spate of teenage suicides in the South West, even claiming links to social networking sites. Closer to home, London teenage gangs are said to be aping their LA equivalents in a war over territory and colours. Last year, 34 were killed; this year 7 have died so far. In Camden, a fast food chain is hiring bouncers as the late-night shenanigans of post-pub punters are getting out-of-hand.

The race for London Mayor ahead of the forthcoming elections on 1 May has lead to debates about everything from bendy buses to the future of live music venues. On 11 March, following the publication of the This City Is Built For Music report, current Mayor Ken Livingstone launched an initiative to try and halt the closure of so many of London’s music venues. Yet three days later, it was announced that The Astoria was to be demolished (to allow a new station to be built), following in the footsteps of the Hammersmith Palais and the Spitz. While we’re promised that a new, larger, swankier venue will replace The Astoria, the future of Camden’s Electric Ballroom is still undecided. But why should this be of any concern to someone that doesn’t live here? If London becomes end up a city of larger super-venues, the variety will suffer, as a wave of hyped or generic bands that can fill the larger spaces become the mainstay. Meanwhile, over in Shoreditch, some of the former YBAs (Young British Artists) are creating opposition to the demolition of a pub to build a twenty-five-storey tower, which they feel will destroy the character of the area.

One thing that may strike any visitor to London is the lack of public loos. Across the UK, over five thousand have closed over the last ten years, for reasons including cost, vandalism, safety, cottaging and drug use. There are some French-style Turdises about, but these are often out-of-order or unusable. And with pubs being closed and converted into flats, there really is literally nowhere to go.

Smokers have had a tough time of it here. The ban in public places was one thing, but some live venues continue to have a No Passouts policy. A smoker told me that last week’s three hour plus gig by The Cure at Wembley felt even longer than a long-haul flight as he couldn’t duck out for a ciggie! Now there’s talk of removing cigarettes from visible sale, so they’ll literally become under-the-counter items. But there’s more; Health England wants to introduce smoker’s permits - without one of these photocards you won’t be able to purchase tobacco at all. I suppose it’s all down to the lack of tax on the illicit, but a report last week stated that a line of coke is now cheaper than a London pint.

If a smoker’s ID card sounds a bit Orwellian, then what about the introduction of new UK national ID cards? Non-European Union nationals will be issued with compulsory ID cards later this year. Then, almost by stealth, it will roll out to security staff, and then students will be encouraged to apply as it will ‘assist’ them to apply for a loan, or to get served in a pub. Anyone applying for an UK passport from 2011 will automatically be enrolled. There are fears of how secure our data will be. We may shred our bank statements, but government officials seem to almost have developed a habit of leaving CD-ROMs full of personal data lying around. But at least an ID card is an invisible marker.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader of the opposition, has an idea about how to deal with overcrowding in British jails (asides from building new ones). He wants those on Community Service to wear a uniform so that they can be easily identified by members of the public. I’m not sure if he wants them to wear pink stars or yellow triangles as an additional form of identification. Yes, that comment is in questionable taste, but is it worth noting that he launched this idea a mere ten days after describing government support for visits to Auschwitz as a "gimmick"?


© James McGalliard 2008