All the young dudes

Liverpool Sound City is now 75% over. More boo! Last night I went to see Hercules & Love Affair. Doors were advertised as 7.30pm, so I rolled up at half 8. But alas, Late of the Pier and Esser would not be appearing, pushing the doors and stage times back by a few hours. So I sat in a bar drinking Carling. By the time Telepathe made it on stage I was already a bit drunk. Florence and the Machine has a nice voice, but a few years ago wouldn't she have been in an aspiring girl group, trying to be the Sugababes?
The Field also appeared, but were not as much fun as ATP. Thir live set belongs in a cool club, not a Thursday night in Liverpool Barfly. They are still my best Swedish friends because I am dead cool and talk to dead cool bands and all that.
Once Hercules and Love Affair appeared, it was after midnight and my insides were churning with cheap lager. They put New Young Pony Club to shame with their funky disco beats and brass section. Well, trombone and trumpet.
So, it was officially a good gig. A bit late for a Thursday, for me at least. It was full of students shouting 'I've just handed in my disseration!' and snapping photos, so I must be a gormless figure in the background of approximately 287 pictures uploaded to Facebook today. Well, good for them, ready to party (sorry, RAVE) all night long. But I think daytime is for work, nighttime for sleep and evening for hobbies. Is that because I'm not a student or because I'm a tired grump?
The photo is of my handbag. It came from an overpriced souvenir shop in St Petersburg, not that you'd be able to guess it's from Russia.

Krazee-Eyez Killa

I love Timbaland. He's given the world so much pop perfection (Nelly Furtado's Loose and Justin Timberlake's Future Sex/Love Sounds). But all his gurning is descending into self-parody. The evidence is Flo Rida's Elevator, co-written and co-produced by Timbaland. But that's not enough for our Timbo. Oh no. He has to pop up in the video and contort his face. Start screen grabbing!

In conclusion: Elevator is an OK song, based on an odd penis-as-elevator metaphor (because, er, they both go up). Timbaland needs to chill out with a smoothie. He's produced about 552 albums this year (so far). You can't do everything, Timbaland! Take a break, or you'll find your agreeing to produce an album for the first Big Brother reject, so deluded by your own hype that you actually believe your knob-twiddling and vocal percussion can make a global superstar out of an aspiring glamour model from Wakefield.

(Weird formatting, I know, but I don't have time for too much image fiddling).

Santogold

Liverpool Sound City is already 50% over. Boo!There's a lot of exciting gigs happening, but I can't be in four different places at once (presumably watching three changeovers and one band). Last night I saw Santogold at Alma de Cuba, a converted chapel turned den of glamoluxe iniquity. It's usually a favourite drinking establishment of footballers, Hollyoaks 'stars' and glamour models.

It was a bit too dark for photos of the stained glass and chandeliers made out of antlers. So I took a photo of my feet instead. Those neon tights are starting to look a bit old rave.

Anyway, support from Alice Klar, The Real Heat and Ladyhawke (slightly odd, as Cock N Bull Kid, Cadence Weapon and Ladyhawke were advertised), Santogold took to the stage well after midnight. The hipster kids loved it, hoping that some of that New York cool would be passed down from Santi White and we could all forget the Liverpool murk outside. Backed by a DJ and two dancers, Santogold successfully straddled that chasm between pop and cool. Because pop music on its own apparently isn't cool, but only when presented by a Lower East Side hipster.

The dancers were ace, much better than hiring in some session musicians to play over a backing track. Dressed in identical white outfits with white framed sunglasses, they posed with military precision. It was very... gestural. Everybody went crazy for LES Artistes, she ended with new single Creator. And then I went home.

Current obsession - Lykke Li

I love Lykke Li. Maybe it's because I believe Sweden to be a wondrous paradise where the trains run on time, the elderly are respected and so on.
She just seems so lovely and untainted by trends: she can sing and write songs that are a bit kooky, but not too kooky. I haven't seen her live, but she strikes me as the sort of young lady who whips out a melodica mid-set. I fell in love when I first heard Little Bit (a restrained, I'm-not-in-love-if-you're-not-in-love song) last year. When debut album Youth Novels had a Swedish release in January, I had to snaffle it up. It's patchy, but the beautiful moments are beautiful. Perhaps with a little more time spent with Peter, Bjorn and John and she'll hit the songwriting nail on the head for the second album. Because Sweden is a wondrous paradise where you don't get dropped if the first single doesn't 'perform' chart-wise, you get nurtured. (That's how it looks from the outside.)
Here is a video of Lykke singing I'm Good, I'm Gone, with about half of the Stockholm music scene (or STHLM, if you're cool like that). Including Robyn. Yeah!

Bleurovision

The best song won, right? If you like power ballads so mawkish they are slapping you into submission.
I stopped clutching my betting slip early on, because my chosen punts on Ukraine and Armenia obviously wouldn't be paying out. But Eurovision's not all about spending money in William Hill, and I'm sort of happy for Russia (but would have been happier for Ukraine). I once spent 30 days in Russia, so I feel some sort of deep connection to the country. Not that it cares about me.
The performance was, of course, ridiculously overblown. Dima sexing it up in white shirt and trousers was not enough for Russia. Oh no. He also needed Olympic figure skating champion Evgeni Plushenko and Hungarian violinist Edvin Marton. Playing a Stradivarius. The performance felt like it was shouting 'this clenched fist - it's emotion! This miniature ice rink - it's passion!' and so on. Perhaps such obvious signifiers are necessary when English is a second language for the majority of the ESC community?
Why did Russia win? Maybe, after 53 years of Eurovision, it was their turn. Maybe all those former Soviet states didn't want to enrage Gazprom, as Terry Wogan suggested. Maybe the power of Dima's non-threatening sex appeal is too irresistible for Europe.
Oh well. Here's to Moscow 2009.

Weekending in a Velvet Underground song

Last weekend (so long ago, but I haven't had chance to write about it until now) I went to All Tomorrow's Parties curated by Explosions In The Sky at Minehead Butlins. This is not to be confused with All Tomorrow's Parties at Camber Sands, because that one was curated by Pitchfork. And is at a Pontins, which is like the weird cousin nobody likes to talk about of holiday camps. Butlins, however, is posh. It's true! Pubs, eateries, go-karts, a high-ropes course...
The line-up was like Metacritic's best of 2007 albums, including The Field (sample-heavy Swedish ambient techno!), Stars of the Lid (guitar-heavy ambient drones!), Battles (guitar-heavy tribal post-rock!) and Animal Collective (um, samples, guitars, drones, Beach Boys!).
Out of all the festivals I've been to, ATP is probably one of the best. It's all about the MUSIC. Well, more about the music than most festivals... and because you get to sleep in a chalet, you don't have the problem of accidentally camping next to a group of morons who stay awake all night boasting about how many drugs they can consume during an average night out in Barnsley. Er, drugs! Illegal! Well done!
Between all the over-priced Carlsberg and vodka & ginger beers, here are my highlights of ATP vs EITS...
...A Hawk And A Hacksaw were lovely, although a little lost on the Pavilion stage on Saturday afternoon. It's a bit too massive for their Balkan fiddle and accordion twiddlings.
...The Field were a perfect end to dance out the weekend between 1.30am and 2.30am on Sunday night. And I'm not just saying that because Pitchfork gave his album 9 out of 10. Strange that all weekend most people looked like post-rock fans, but as soon as the 4/4 beats and laptop appear they start shouting 'RAVE!!' and 'THIS IS JUST LIKE SKINS!!'.
...Battles played twice, and I never realised there was such demand. Sunday night was a mere 45 minute hit parade, but Saturday night's set was for the fans. Until 3am (bit late, isn't it?). But I realised that I love them, so I don't mind that it was long past my bedtime. Don't laugh, 3am is late for a gig.
No photos, sorry, as my camera didn't travel with me. :(

Florence and the Fuhrer

I had another inspection of the Liverpool Sound City guide, and discovered the most inappropriate sentence under the blurb for London folky-dolky Florence & The Machine:
'She also has almost as much stage presence as Hitler'.
Honestly. Who thought that was an acceptable use of language? And one mention of Adolf apparently wasn't enough, as it continues:
'She's like a funny, sexy popstar Hitler without the despotism and with more beautiful songs and the utmost love and respect for Jews and gays and gypsies.'
There are some words I don't think belong as adjectives in music writing (such as anorexic or schizophrenic), but using such a feared dictator in a simile is just wrong. Mitigating it with the 'respect for Jews and gays and gypsies' does not make this even slightly OK. It's not even constructed elegantly: there are five uses of 'and'.
I hope it's a fan-written ode copy-and-pasted from her MySpace blog. It must be, right?

Erroneous apostrophes

Somebody decided that Liverpool needs a music conference. And so, 27-30 May will be the inaugural Liverpool SoundCity! It is a music conference so exciting that it comes with an exclamation mark attached. 'Music conference' basically means a load of gigs over four days, with industry bods giving a few talks. Well, it gives Midge Ure a job.

Festival director David Pichilingi writes in the introduction that 'it is hoped that by being in the early part of the year SoundCity! can become as important in the UK as SXSW is in the States'. Well, maybe, given time and investment. But such a sloppy approach to spelling, grammar and punctuation in the festival (sorry, conference) guide is a poor start.

It's a nice design, courtesy of a Fact Magazine template. But asking bands to write their own blurb is asking for trouble. Some of the more ridiculously overblown statements, gleaned from the 'unsigned' section, are below. Somewhere, an underpaid and overworked editor is weeping.

-'This lot just write songs that soar forever and want you to stop what you are doing and change your life... forever'. (Man From Michael) Doesn't that sound a bit cultist?

- 'Like a well travelled suitcase, their music wears faded stickers which say Reggae, Dub, Punk Hip-hop and Rap alongside the more sober emblems of Blues, Western Surf and Rock.' (Daniel Orlick & The Diplomats) So you're like a battered suitcase? And music genres are not proper nouns.

- 'Each live performance serves as an exorcism, and with songs as rich as maple, you'd be wise to watch'. (The Pedantics) Unsettling, mixed exorcism/tree metaphor.

- 'Here is a band, with poise like no other, who simply aim to sing about what's right to them, whether good or bad. Whose tunes raise drowned heads'. (The Vagabonds) They resurrect the dead!

The lesson here is that bands should concentrate on music. And that editors should be given more than ten minutes and payment in Doritos to edit this bollocks.

Saturday night in The Barfly

On Saturday night - which already feels so long ago - I bumbled down to Liverpool's Barfly for Los Angeles party-starters The Mae Shi. I'd only heard their name in passing and mainly went to watch Birmingham trio Johnny Foreigner. I can't know about every band. Or can I?
There was a local band on the loft (e.g upstairs) stage when I arrived, and I didn't catch their name. Rude! I'm glad that young bands can get support slots to try out their songs and possibly hone their talent. But that doesn't mean I want to hear them thrashing through attempts to sound like The Strokes/Libertines/Joy Division. This band, whoever they were, weren't particularly bad or particularly good. They were particularly mediocre, which is the best a first-band-of-the-night can hope for. Strange to think that every night of the week in every city and large town there are similar bands playing similar songs, while their friends snap camera phone pics for the MySpace. Such is life.
The Lionheart Brothers were the next support. Who needs two supports? Honestly. The guitarist was wearing a glittery headscarf, fiddling with a wah pedal and looked a bit like Naboo, so I feared a psychedelic wig-out. I assumed they were Norwegian, because there were lots of LIPA students in the room. Norwegians love studying at LIPA. I haven't discovered why. Anyway, The Lionheart Brothers (proof that all the good band names have been taken) were actually rather good. Psychedlic, yes, but not but without too much noodling around. The singer looked like a bargain basement Steve Buscemi.
Johnny Foreigner were good, and just as sweaty as their previous Barfly gig just after Christmas. My heart really likes them and for them to do well, but my head tells me their songs are too chaotic and unlovely for them to make the jump from good NME reviews to success (e.g earning a decent living from being a band).
The Mae Shi were good, although a bit self-consciously wacky. They started and ended their set from within the audience, which was like, dude, challenging. It was a fun-filled half hour involved an omnichord, fractured pop and a large sheet waved above the audience. So that was it, another gig. And then I went home.

The Last Tycoon by Peter Moren

Here's another album review for This Is Fake DIY. What a lovely chap that Peter is etc:

Taking a sabbatical from his day job as part of Swedish spook-pop superstars Peter, Bjorn and John, Peter Morén releases a solo album of intimate, folk-influenced songs. Largely written and recorded over several years while touring with PB&J, The Last Tycoon is a glimpse into Peter’s individual talents as a songwriter. The title is lifted from Elia Kazan’s 1976 film, itself an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s final, unfinished novel. Nobel laureate Harold Pinter wrote the screenplay, so we must conclude that Peter knows all about culture. Tempting though it may be to draw comparisons between Peter’s songwriting and the film’s plot of an executive losing the, ahem, plot, any hypothesising would be tenuous. The Last Tycoon (film) is about the impossibility of the American dream; The Last Tycoon (album) is about failing love affairs and working as a music supply teacher (on Social Competence: ‘when I do my best to get a minute’s rest there’s always someone trying to exhaust me completely’).
There is less variation than PB&J’s genre-hopping Writer’s Block, as Peter relies on domesticated folk. Mainly backed by an acoustic guitar, a medley of instrumentation adds a homemade quality throughout the album, including handclaps, theremin, piano and violin. Surrounded by a warm crackling, Old Love is like a near forgotten memory rediscovered in an attic. Missing Link is a summer afternoon daydream, while Twisted spins out over a music box piano riff. Single Reel to Real begins like a jaunty round the campfire song which briefly hits a dark interlude of tolling tubular bells (‘who wants to be real? Nobody I know’). All charming stuff.
Over ten tracks, Peter’s vocals become tiring as they strain to reach the higher notes: 40 minutes is a long time to spend in the company of one closely microphoned Swede. He seems like such a lovely gent, always well turned out, that you just want him to succeed. And however appealing it is to speak of Peter Morén as on the same level as Leonard Cohen or Robyn Hitchcock, the comparison simply isn’t true. The songs are gentle reflections on his life, composed in snatched moments between band commitments. The Last Tycoon does confirm what anybody who fell head over heels with Young Folks already knows (so that’s just about everybody, then): Peter is a talented and versatile young man. The Last Tycoon is a pleasing diversion until the PB&J follow-up to Writer’s Block.

Water Curses by Animal Collective

Like A-sides and B-sides, EPs only really made sense when vinyl was dominant. Do EPs even exist anymore? It's like those bands who emphasise their new single is a radio edit, when they have no hope of getting playlisted. Not even on student radio. Anway. To Animal Collective:

Critics and the music aficionados who pay attention to them couldn’t get enough of Animal Collective’s 2007 album, the at times difficult yet joyous Strawberry Jam. After all the excitement, it would perhaps be rude of the New York quartet to deny their fans Water Curses, an EP of Strawberry Jam off-cuts and leftovers.
Title track Water Curses burbles through highly strung keyboard buzzes and flute warbles so distorted they could almost be underwater. There is a melody, although it’s difficult to hold onto and gradually unravels into a jittering hullabaloo.
Water Curses is experimental, but underneath the freeform structure and sampling there is a pop song. It is strangely shaped, sometimes noisy and sometimes erratic, but still a pop song. Because it is simultaneously boldly experimental and celebratory, Water Curses is as much fun as the Beach Boys dancing to John Cage.
As for what it’s all about, it’s something to do with ‘I want to be like water’ and to ‘never need a doctor’. That’s just the lyrics you can understand. Who really knows? This is Animal Collective, after all.

Replica Sun Machine by The Shortwave Set

I have been busy for This is Fake DIY. This time, an album review:

Psychedelic indie poppers The Shortwave Set return from the wilderness of being dropped by their label with their second album, Replica Sun Machine. Although their debut album The Debt Collection (2005) received awed reviews and high star ratings, it did not shift units. The south London trio found without a record deal and back to the hustle of being an unsigned band. Fortunately, one of the few people to buy their debut was neo-funkster Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley), who produced their sophomore effort.
Replica Sun Machine could have been unearthed from a time capsule alongside The White Album, as crisp guitars and psychedelic instrumentation support mellifluous vocal lines. Throughout, there is a portentous preoccupation with the sinister machinery of the album’s title. Such pre-apocalyptic conspiracy theorising might be expected on, say, a Kula Shaker album, and here it is no less affected. But it unifies the album with one concept, especially as many of the tracks are mixed together.
This 11-track album opens with sitar-flecked Harmonia, a song so understated it almost urges the listener to go elsewhere. Beyond this, the fun begins. Lead single No Social is the stand out: a sassy brush-off to arrogant scenesters who look down their noses. ‘Everyone knows that a dog dressed in clothes is still a dog,’ muses Ulrika Bjorsne. Elsewhere, Replica Sun Machine includes luscious string arrangements (Yesterday To Come), David Bowie circa Aladdin Sane pomp (Now Til 69) and a round the piano singsong Hey Jude moment about our impending doom (The Downer Song). In an age where Beth Ditto’s raucous bellowing equals emotion, the singing of Andrew Pettitt and Ulrika sounds flat and occasionally androgynous, as their harmonies slide against each other. Of course, this is to keep the band as equals, drawing attention to music overall.
You have to admire the man-hours Danger Mouse has put into arranging and producing Replica Sun Machine, presumably on free afternoons somewhere between his duties with Gnarls Barkley and generally being one of the coolest men in pop. Barely a phrase passes without a delicate tweak of reverb. At times, Replica Sun Machine is a ménage a trois between Mr Mouse, John Cale (experimental pop pioneer formerly of the Velvet Underground, who provides ‘atmospherics’: a catch-all term for the swooshes and added value instrumentation) and Van Dyke Parks (a string arranger notable for his work with the Beach Boys). The imaginations and skill of the three experienced musicians sometimes engulf the Shortwave Set, leading to the question: is this simply a CV boost for Danger Mouse? Short of hiring an orchestra, Replica Sun Machine is near impossible to recreate live. Without all the production, the Shortwave Set are simply two boys and a girl with inventive melodies and an exhaustive knowledge of late 60s psychedelic pop. Probably best to enjoy Replica Sun Machine for what it is: a glorious trip through climate change anxieties and glistening pop.

Poor Boy by School of Language

Another track review for This Is Fake DIY. I gave it 3.5 out of 5, but I'd give myself 2.5. Feel like I just relied on cliched constructions and so on, because there's only so many ways you can say 'this is QUITE GOOD, yeah?'. Here it is:

A side project of Field Music that has become a main project, School of Language is written and recorded entirely by David Brewis. This is a one man and his laptop affair, but it manages to sound like a laptop with a drummer, guitarist and keyboard player willingly trapped inside. New single Poor Boy is easily the most accessible track from his debut album, Sea From Shore.
Poor Boy is a fuzz of American college rock guitars and falsetto harmonies, approaching a geeked-up Queens of the Stone Age. Who knew Sunderland could produce such sunny melodies and squelchy bass? Like Weezer in their cuter moments, it slots together deceptively simple melodies and crisp guitar riffs. A bit like Tetris. But it’s not all brightly coloured shapes, as David slyly observes in the chorus: ‘and you’re tired of being everybody’s lover’.At four minutes, Poor Boy hangs around for about a minute too long. Many good things can happen in one minute, but Poor Boy’s repetition is not one of them. Had the duplicate choruses been chopped out, it could have been a sparky little pop nugget ready to enliven indie discos. Unfortunately, it just keeps going. And going. And going.

Breaking Standing by Forward Russia

Here's a track review for This Is Fake DIY. I'm never sure whether to persist with the band's artistic vision and type iForward, Russia! but, to be honest, I think it's a little unnecessary. Instead, I'll go straight and keep bands on a level typographic playing field.

Leeds cottage industrialists Forward Russia have DIY artrock credentials and an interesting approach to typography. Yes, they’ve ditched the numbers and started using proper song titles. With words and all that. As titles go, Breaking Standing is a curious mixture of two continuous present verbs that is either a striking, poetic image or a pretentious nothing.
Lead single from sophomore album Life Processes, Breaking Standing is a muted fanfare to announce the band’s new material. Emerging from an icy expanse of juddering guitars, it sounds more like their Soviet-influenced contemporaries Bloc Party than ever before. Produced by Seattle-based Matt Bayles (who has previously worked with grunge deities Pearl Jam and Soundgarden), there is a near dehumanised gloss to the recording similar to Gang of Four. Perhaps, like their Leeds predecessors, this is another device to emphasise the artifice of the creative process.
For this new, sleeker direction, Forward Russia are focusing on the human body. ‘The bruises on the inside of your face, those pummelled blanches showed through your translucent skin’ coos singer Tom Woodhead. Yes, coos. He spent much of the band’s 2006 debut Give Me a Wall in a yelping hissy fit, but his vocal histrionics have been calmed.Overall, Breaking Standing is a recognisable yet more rational Forward Russia. It is not until the three and a half minute mark that Breaking Standing reaches a brief climactic barrage of angular guitars then swiftly disappears with Tom’s sighed ‘forever…’ Forward Russia have ordered their chaos, and sound all the wiser for doing so.

I Believe in Karma by Paul Hawkins & Thee Awkward Silences

Here's a track review I wrote for This Is Fake DIY:

I Believe in Karma is the messy and bloodied remains of a sordid late-night knife fight between Billy Childish and Sergeant Buzfuz. Paul Hawkins attempts to cast himself as the marginal outsider, sticking it to The Man through his scuzzy anti-folk.
And at its best, anti-folk combines the urgency of guitar-driven punk-pop with rousing narratives of protest songs.
However, at its worst, it sounds like Thee Awkward Silences. The line-up (including performance poet Niall Spooner Harvey, Death in Vegas guitarist Ian Button and Buzfuz violinist Kate Arnold) sounds like a drearily liberal dinner party, where barefoot guests discuss Independent on Sunday arts reviews.

Lyrically, I Believe in Karma has no social or political comment; it’s just Paul Hawkins whinging about the woes of being a nice guy – one who holds open doors – unable to find a nice girl. ‘I believe in karma,’ he squalls throughout, ‘where’s my reward?’ A long way off, if you carry on like that.The main problem is how eerily similar it all sounds to Thee Headcoats, the most prolific of Billy Childish’s musical outfits. The excitement of said band is in their barely contained rage at society’s ills and how, even on record, it could all collapse in a whisky-sodden heap at any second. I Believe in Karma scrapes through trying to be charmingly shambolic, but sounds like a mundane, bad parody.