april 21st extract-holy fuck

Holy Fuck-Frenchy’s-Holy Fuck

Although I have  slagged Sisters of Mercy for not acting their age, this track is definitely on the iPod because I am not immune to falling for childish names for bands. I only downloaded this album for of the name of the band. I’d never heard anything by them. I have also similarly fallen for Fuck Buttons, Fucked Up, That Fucking Ocean and The Fucking Tanks. (Die, You Bastard!, a Japanese hardcore punk band do not fall into the “fuck” category, but do have a sweary name. Whilst I’d love to write about them as they are so over-the-top, I only heard them after the iPod broke so I’ll have to forego that pleasure.) I realise all this is not big or clever, but it is quite funny. Unlike Sisters of Mercy.

Bands with “fuck” in their name appear to fall into a number of fairly distinct camps. Holy Fuck/Fuck Buttons-electronic/noise. That Fucking Ocean/The Fucking Tanks/Fucked Up- thrash/punk/post punk/loud loud hardcore.  It would be interesting to see the use of the word in the context of a different genre of music; for instance how about The Fucking String Quartet or Ray Suave and his Fucking Toreadors of Swing ? Possibly not.

Of the noise axis-Ocean/Tanks/Up, I must say I prefer the first of the three largely because of their sub-early-Fall leanings, coming from New Zealand, having only released one 4 track e.p and therefore more exotic and obscure than the other two….Tanks are from London (I think) and therefore more mundane and …Up are a bit too generically punk and therefore a bit boring.

That’s them dealt with.

Between Holy Fuck and Fuck Buttons I only hear a slight stylistic split when I listen to them back -to- back for the purposes of this piece. Although both clearly owe a debt to Faust/Can/ Neu! Etc, Holy Fuck are more at the dancey- rave end (shorter tunes and repetitive beats) and Fuck Buttons tend towards the avant-garde and ear-splitting noise. There isn’t that much between them in the end though. What is not apparent is that Holy Fuck adopt a fairly puritanical position regarding their music-no loops, sequencers, splicing-they want to make electronic music without the latest technology. It’s electronic music made by Luddites and what I guess the German bands would be possibly doing now if they had grown older but the instruments remained the same as they were in the mid 70’s. Holy Fuck also use toy guns and toy synthesisers but real drums and guitars. Their raison d’etre is that it can all be played “live” both in the studio and on stage. I can say though, however good the music is, that I can’t really tell. Doesn’t seem to make that much difference.

At Glastonbury in 2010 I missed the chance to see Holy F**k (as they were coyly printed on the Glastonbury t shirts). I think they clashed with The Flaming Lips or MGMT or someone else. I might have been disappointed-sometimes it’s better to imagine what someone sounds like live rather than actually seeing them.

Well, that’s my 500 words. I’m fucking all typed out.

april 14th extract-the jesus lizard

extracted from "Totally Shuffled-A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod"

April 14th-The Jesus Lizard

 
26^th May 1998. Liverpool Bierkeller. Killdozer and Bastard Kestrel. It was a Thursday night. I’d never been to the Bierkeller before-it was not known for putting on gigs, being more well known as a bad dodgy strip club.It was located next to a tatty cinema at the apex of a multi story car park in the centre of the city. I think that apart from the rough strippers then the only connection with music was that there always seemed to be a local heavy metal band playing every Friday night. I’d heard bits of Killdozer on Peel’s show but didn’t have any of their records. About Bastard Kestrel I knew nothing. I went to the gig anyway with my mate, Dave. I can’t recall what made us go-I am sure that we didn’t have high hopes as I think the back-up plan was just to go for a pint somewhere else if it turned out to be crap. I guess that it didn’t cost much based on that premise. Entering the club-giving the venue the benefit of the doubt calling it a club- we were confronted with a cavernous space painted in black and white with long trestle tables and benches. Just how you would imagine a real bierkeller to look as if was about to be closed by the environmental health inspectors. Plaster was falling off the walls, overflowing ashtrays were scattered everywhere and the lighting was bare strip lights hanging perilously from the vaulted concrete ceiling. Because it was located in the bowels of a multi-storey car park and because the club were clearly skint there was no heating at all-and even at the end of May it was freezing. It all boded well.

The stage set up was odd as well. There were two stages in the venue-one, a small affair about a foot from the ground was located right next to what could euphemistically be termed as the toilets. These made some of the grimmer facilities at Glastonbury appear as the height of cleanliness in comparison. This stage was so close to them you actually had to walk on the edge of the stage to reach them- if you were that desperate. The other, let’s call it the main stage, was to the right of this ramshackle school-play affair. This was a proper stage of sorts, elevated about three feet above where the usual punters would sit and gawp. The smaller stage is where Bastard Kestrel opened the whole shebang. They were an odd bunch of chaps. Their main purpose seemed to be to hit their instruments as fast and as loud as possible and to shout into the microphones only in order to overload the equipment. The three of them appeared to be making everything up as they went along and if they managed to finish a song at the same time they nodded at each other sagely as if it was a major triumph. It was pure cacophony, senseless and without any redeeming musical characteristics. I recall looking at Dave three songs in and we were both grinning like this was the best thing ever. We wouldn’t have to revert to plan b; if the support act was this good, how special would Killdozer be?

The Kestrels finished as suddenly as they had started and wandered offstage to the rapturous applause of the massed ranks of the whole crowd. All 40 or so of us. As the venue could have easily held 300 or 400 punters it was a bit sad. We each decided to get another flat pint of Guinness from the bar whilst we waited for Killdozer to come on stage. As they were Americans who’d released a couple of records we anticipated a bit of a prima-donna wait. However, as soon as we’d settled back onto the wooden benches three extremely gruff- looking blokes got on the stage. We paid them scant attention as by their dress we guessed they were the roadies and continued with our chat. The hum of a guitar being plugged in and a bit of a diddle on the drums merely confirmed our assumptions. The hum grew louder and louder though and was joined by a low rumble of a bass being plucked, then all of a sudden …bang! It was the loudest thing I had ever heard. These weren’t the roadies- this was Killdozer. We were sat at the back of the venue, near the exit but the volume was unbearable. I could feel the fillings in my teeth rattling and as I glanced at Dave's pint on the table it was spilling everywhere. Not because he was dropping it; he wasn’t even holding it. The level of noise was causing the glass to shake by itself. Dave grimaced and stuck his fingers in his ears-there was really no other option. The majority of the audience, like us, headed as far away from the stage as possible, and two songs in we were all ringed round the perimeter, pinned against the wall by this wall of sound. There was one foolhardy fan, whom I think the word wanker was the most suitable description, who decided to stay in front of the stage alone, headbanging like his life depended on it. The fact that he had written Killdozer on the back of his leather jacket in chalk gives an indication of the sort of person we were dealing with. The bass growled and rumbled away in a mission to cause body parts to drop off in harmonic sympathy. The guitar screeched like the end of the world was nigh and I don’t know what the singer was going on about but something had upset him very much. All the songs were conducted at a very slow, insistent pace with an intention it seemed, to drag things out for as long as possible. I looked towards Dave. It was impossible to speak. “O.K.? Do you want to stay?” Taking a finger out of his ear, the response was a quick thumbs-up before the digit had to be reinserted. We lasted for another hour or so until the whole thing was over and staggered out into the street with a certain numbness in our skulls.

This was a Thursday night. On the Friday morning, like the aftermath of going to most gigs or clubs our ears were ringing. We were used to this and didn’t pay it much attention. After all, back then, we were fit, young and healthy(ish). When the buzzing and ringing was still there on the Saturday morning it was a bit disconcerting and as it persisted into the Sunday we both got a bit worried. I didn’t fancy nipping to the doctors to have to explain about Killdozer and the Bierkeller, but maybe medical attention could have been called for. Luckily, by the time Monday morning came around the buzzing had gone and all was well with the world again.

The birds were singing and Killdozer were just a happy memory.   

get/see/read Totally Shuffled here:

kindle
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CJYZ3CA

paperback
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-iPod-/dp/149495687X

                 

april 4th extract-swell maps

Swell Maps-H.S.Art-A Trip To Marineville

When I was a small child I loved, really loved, the Thunderbirds TV series. I believed it all despite the wobbly puppetry and now clearly visible strings. I only had one of the toys- a plastic Thunderbird 1 rocket plane and was desperate for the undersea Thunderbird 4, which I think was yellow. As it was originally aired in the mid-sixties I must have been about six or seven years old. I don’t know how I knew Thunderbird 4 was yellow as I am sure there was only a black and white television at home. I presume some other more privileged child at school must have had Thunderbird 4. There was always one spoilt kid in every school who had all the full set of toys, whatever the latest craze may have been- but they never had many friends. Maybe that was a lesson for us all even back then.

What was it I loved about Thunderbirds? The battle of good vs evil, (there must have been some undercurrent re the Cold War I guess in there), the fact that when they called into base the eyes on their portraits would light up and the cliffhanging narrative-would they get there in time etc. I recall vividly being  six years old on literally the edge of my seat, hardly being able to watch. Even now I can remember well one episode with a train full of passengers teetering on a collapsing bridge and watching in horror in case the Thunderbirds crew didn’t get there in time to save the day.(They did of course, they always do). I also remember another brilliant episode with a named drilling machine on articulated tracks emerging from the green Thunderbird 2 to drill through a rock fall to save some hapless civilian trapped perilously close to death.

Thunderbirds was my favourite. I never particularly liked Stingray, which was a slightly earlier effort by Gerry Anderson, largely because the evil fish people scared the shit out of me. By the time Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Joe 90 came around I was too old and sophisticated for it all (I must have been nearly 8 years old by then) but Thunderbirds will always have a special place in my heart.   

Apart from the summer holiday classics that were an intrinsic part of growing up in the 60’s(Belle & Sebastian,The Flashing Blade, Robinson Crusoe and White Horses) my other special TV programme when I was growing up was the animated Boss Cat (it was only years later that I understood that it was really a re-write of Sgt Bilko) but I’d still watch it now and enjoy it.

This brings me neatly onto Swell Maps and this album. Quite possibly one of the finest albums I have ever heard and certainly up there with the best. It’s been so hard to write anything about it without falling into clichéd rhapsodies that the best way to approach it is sideways. Marineville was the name of the sea base in Stingray and Swell Maps were the living embodiment Top Cat’s gang- Benny, Chooch ,Fancy-Fancy, Brain and Spook. When I was 19 I loved, really loved, this Swell Maps album. Still do, all those years later.