Sunday 31 October 2010

It's time for you to see what you've sown

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So, I have to say, the published guidance isn't completely clear on this delicate issue: if you just happen to like, say, subtitled international films that are released on the Artificial Eye label does that add points to your 'I might be a potential hipster' score? I'm more worried about this than you could possibly imagine. I should say, for legal reasons, Will Stratton has no role in any of this late-night fretting, it's just a really beautiful song that's crying out to be listened to and you should buy his album immediately (on import, obviously).
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Will Stratton - 'The country clear' (3.20)
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Saturday 30 October 2010

Love goes home to Paris

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It's more than a little strange, to my mind at least. I mean, there is so much new music to hear and yet something keeps dragging us back to old favourties, songs we have literally heard a thousand times before. As an example, I've been listening to a lot of Blueboy recently, as I stomp around Mount Florida in the nevereverstopping Glasgow rain and take a drink in this bar with some students after a conference that was, in essence, something of a fieldtrip. Just been thinking about Keith I suppose, wondering why all the good people seem to die young (he was only forty six years of age - and these days that seems like a cruelly young age to have to say goodbye). Fucking bastard cancer. In particular, I've had this track on repeat, and this version of it, to be precise. There is something about listening to Blueboy in the rain that just gets to me. It's a bit like my relationship with Slowdive (listening to them on deserted beaches in winter is the only way to hear them properly, if you ask me) and Belle and Sebastian as well (erm, it has to be bathtime!). Aye, well, whatever. It has been that kind of day, really. So, are you like me? Do you relish listening to your favourite bands in particular contexts and/or environments or am I on my own here and just a wee bit strange? I only ask because I'm curious. It's not a trick question or me trying to catch you out or anything like that. Do you insist that listening to 'Kid A' by Radiohead in the nude on Coldharbour Lane at 3.30am is the only way of fully appreciating their 'Kraut-art-rock' masterpiece? (er, it was a 'masterpiece', right?)
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Blueboy - 'Air France' (live) (2.42)
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You can read all about Blueboy over here. If you are unsure I'd encourage you to try. They really were an exceptional band.
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Friday 29 October 2010

Put the sugar in my veins, the dagger in my heart

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It's all spoken-shouted-slurred, in that way, and said in the sad, hollowed-out button eyes on every corner from Argyle Street to the Trongate to the Gallowgate, a direction of travel, a well-worn circuit. The grey lost look of forgetting how to care about anything other than the next rush, the next hit. They are, for real, the literal ghosts of glass, firmly in the shadows, dressed as permanent skeletons, and they were once as proud and strong and determined as you and me. You witness them as twosomes, mostly, around this town, a boy and a girl, arguing about everything and nothing, on a marching route to somewhere better. Let's call them Mary and Tommy. And they could be any age between twenty-one and fifty-three, you just couldn't say for sure. Hair scraped back and a cigarette behind the left ear. Fake, engorged, gold earrings and a De Niro pitbull called 'Rab' scanning for fear and trouble. All you know is to cross the street, to avoid them, to avoid having to face what you might have been, what you still could be. In being so utterly lost to addiction, it's true, there is a focus that drives the movement forwards, to the next mission, but you just never know - an eye could meet an eye in a random second and they could stop at you, to set about you, for a light, for loose change, for some kind of hopeful amnesty from this pain called time and misery and a need to just be fucking heard, to know this is existence. But you just never know, you can never tell. So you cross the motorcycle streets, staring at the pavements made of discarded chewing gum, listening to that old song that tells you to not be so hard on yourself. Heroin, seriously, just fuck-you. And fuck-you well and good and true. You kill this place and the people that could have made it. So, just fuck you.
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Flowered Up - 'Dark side of the spoon' (4.19)
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Remembering Liam Maher: born July 17, 1968 - died October 20, 2009. He was just 41 years of age.
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Thursday 28 October 2010

Well I played the system and created wisdom

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Just a quick thought this late evening, early morning that takes us, musically-speaking, about as far away from indie-sweet, hearting, cupcakes, handclapping twee-pop as we can get. You know, if Anthony H. Wilson really did have the sheer audacity to suggest that Shaun Ryder was 'on a par' to John Keats as a poet then I think, if he was still with us today and living in a dodgy part of Glasgow that was littered with empty bottles of buckfast, Wilson would be comparing Gasp to Robert Burns. I really do. Genius isn't the fucking half of it, I tell you. This boy can go out and get 'em. I mean, really, it's like an Honours degree in Sociology dealt out in less than ten minutes via the medium of square sausage, Irn Bru and a week-old copy of the Daily Record that has been signed by Eminem's distant second cousin who actually bides in Shettleston now, since the 'accident'.
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Gasp - 'New Numerrr' (3.58)
Gasp - 'Educating Puddlegutts' (6.34)
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You can find Gasp here. And here, apparently (extra points if you can translate the, er, lively interactions that are witnessed).
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Wednesday 27 October 2010

These lines on my face betray me

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It would be a statement and a half to say that much has changed in the months and years (!) that have been and gone since I last stalked and skulked this strange land, but, musically, this leopard has not changed his spots that much. Oh no. I mean, if it's twee indie-pop then I'll still dance in a rather awkward but enthusiastic manner come your private revolution. In the general spirit of handclaps, interesting scarfs and looking a bit bashful, two albums that have served me very well this year have come from the sweet soul soldiers known as Allo Darlin' and Math and Physics Club. If you perhaps missed out on either of these Long Players then do pick them up, you will not be disappointed and be all WTF? or FML. Each of these albums is, I promise you, approximately 143% better than this offering from a certain band that most of us know and love, no messing.
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Allo Darlin' - 'The Polaroid Song' (4.14)
Math and Physics Club - 'We're so DIY!' (2.24)
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So, the big news is this - Allo Darlin' and Math and Physics Club are playing at the Rendezvous in Seattle, WA (weep!) on October 29th. It's only $9 entry - so, likesay, GO! You can buy the Allo Darlin' album from here or buy the Math and Physics album from here.
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PS, For bonus points, can you spot our beloved JC in the above picture? I assure you he is in it!
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Tuesday 26 October 2010

In an ideal situation, this will all be over soon



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iLiKETRAiNS @ ABC, Glasgow 25-10-10
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'Great God, this is an awful place...' I am left wondering who the fuck would be in a Rock N' Roll band just now? It's a Monday night in chilly Glasgow. The streets are empty, except for the eternally hopeful and the always defeated. It's near the end of a very long month that has lasted thirty-nine steps, and then some. Folks are wanting, waiting, to get paid. There must be something good on the TV. So, hands up who is staying in to wash their hair? Whatever reason or excuse, the venue is close to empty tonight. And this is such a great fucking shame. 'It will be an intimate performance', Alan the barman whispers to me as he passes. And it really is 'intimate', which is both fantastic, in a perverted sense, for us keen punters, but it must be somewhat bemusing and depressing for the band, who have travelled at least 220 miles or so to be here and are now used to a fine and fair reception in Glasgow city, given their track-record in a gigography sense. In truth, it's an all-to-brief set with very few (baritone) words spoken by lead singer and guitarist David Martin between songs; at one point he even states the obvious, with some resignation, by declaring 'I have nothing to say'. With a glorious new album out the very day of this performance, you'd forgive the band for wanting, expecting, a bit more. Those passionate spotters attending, to be sure, do their best to rouse on-stage spirits but you can tell there is a sense of bitter disappointment hanging in the air. It's a straight set with no encore, ten songs and then the empty stage flicks a V-sign up at us. 'A bit Muse like in places' comments Duncan. Hmmm. I'd disagree but can see where the remark comes from, especially regarding the new and more, shall we say, 'accessible' material. This album needs time to settle, the momentum needs to build. Highlights from the evening include those tracks featured below: 'Terra Nova' is an ice-packed classic that never fails to deliver whilst 'Sea of Regrets' is a telling choice for a closing number, in a fade-out robustly kind of way. The 20% chance of hearing 'Stainless Steel' played live seems like inflated odds, if you ask me. It must be hard to put your heart and soul into something when you appear to get so little back, even from the few good souls braving both elements and economy to be here and clap.
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iLiKETRAiNS - 'Terra Nova' (live) (5.29)
iLiKETRAiNS - 'Sea of Regrets' (5.54)
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So, as you know, iLIKETRAiNS are out on tour right now and play The Ruby Lounge in Manchester this evening. If you are within a 100 miles radius do attend. Please. The new album, 'He Who Saw The Deep' came out yesterday and you should, without delay, purchase it here.
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Monday 25 October 2010

There is a ghost in the red room troubling my mind

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#keepingitpeel
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You know, it was simply too difficult, in the end, to select just one band and one session for Keeping It Peel so, rather, I have chosen a few tracks from particular bands that I have kept close by mah hairy bosom over the years - most of them, of course, first introduced to me - and the nation - via the dulcet, late evening, tones of a certain John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (AKA Peel). Some of these tunes are incredibly important and special, to me at least - such as 'Anoint' by The Field Mice which (to my PhD-pass in all things Sarahesque knowledge) was never recorded or played in public anywhere else other than for this one-off Peel session. Utterly bizarre and strange when it could be argued, on solid grounds, that this was one of the best things they ever recorded (with that line-up, at least, namely McLennan, Wratten, Williams, Cait). Likewise, the cover version of The Modern Lovers track, by Galaxie 500, is an insight into the kind of 'freedom', relatively speaking, that these unique Peel recording sessions gave bands to try out some new ideas, and to pay their own respects to the artists that they themselves admired and worshiped - in this case Jonathan Richman of course. Each of the tracks listed below has their own story, for me, and doubtless they have a story for you as well. I hope so anyway. This was the glory of Peel - one minute he would be the only person South of Middleton to give The Chameleons, and so many other young bands like them, the time of day (along with access to his valuable ears) and the next he would let Loop play very very fucking loudly in the studio at Maida Vale. As for The Flatmates and the Kitchens, older readers, of pixels gone past, will remember only too well, I hope, how I feel about both of those bands. The Flatmates were, in my mind, one of the definitive 'indie pop groups' of the 1980's and they had a 100-day-trek sized rucksack of great songs to their name, not least the one featured here, 'Love Cuts'. Apropos the Kitchens, it's a long, staggering, version of 'Blue Pedal', and well worth your time, I assure you, as it builds and builds and builds... and then just fucking explodes in a rage of feedback and loops from about the four minute mark until the very end, some three odd minutes later ('And no one played keyboards'). I'd also highlight The Family Cat ditty - not least as the version you can play below actually comes from a c90 tape I had of the show that Peel broadcast that very night, keen as I was back then, aged 21, to capture the glory of the band who infamously stated on the back of their T-shirts, 'All Other Bands Are Dog Shite'. Juvenile, aye, but brilliantly adorable, meow! I have all four tracks from that night, by the way, if you'd care for them? And, as Peel says it himself from the tape, just before 'Furthest from the Sun' kicks in: 'A further dispatch from the frontline of pop....'. It fades in very quickly, and just off to the side, with a bit of an echo to just round things off. Oh John, you legend you. Nobody did it better. And nobody ever will.
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The Field Mice - 'Anoint' (recorded 01-04-90) (5.51)
Loop - 'Collision' (recorded 14-06-88) (5.29)
The Family Cat - 'Furthest from the sun' (recorded 30-01-92) (4.07)
Slowdive - 'Catch the breeze' (recorded 26-03-91) (4.11)
The Chameleons - 'Second skin' (recorded 08-06-83) (6.06)
The Flatmates - 'Love cuts' (recorded 24-09-86) (3.39)
Kitchens of Distinction - 'Blue pedal' (recorded 23-08-92) (7.31)
Galaxie 500 - 'Don't let our youth go to waste' (cover) (recorded 24-09-89) (6.49)
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With all due acknowledgements, credit and eternal thanks to Webbie et al @ #Keepingitpeel.
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Sunday 24 October 2010

You send a last balloon

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It strikes me that the very best shows I have been to recently (and not so recently, in fact) have all had something in common: lead singers that you can just kinda obsess over. I suppose this is the obvious point of it all though, right? I mean, whether it is Emily Kokal (Warpaint), from the other night, or James Graham (The Twilight Sad), from the week before, they just have something that draws you in - you listen, you stare, you blush and get fixated (hence the often-heard expression - What Would Edwyn Collins Do? - replace the name with your own chosen Idol). But it's not a teenage 'kick' thing, exactly, as the years advance it's less all-out adoration and more, well, just a warm glow that you get, appreciating the fact you know these people and have them in your ears, in your life, at least through their music and their shows anyhow. Jonathan Meiburg is #1 in this regard, right now for me. He has a voice that I can very easily obsess over. He also has his own obsessions, the Johnny Rook and fellow winged travellers, and that just means I adore him a little bit more myself (I am hugely attracted to people who do not hide their passions and interests, their own enthusiasm for Subject X just seems to somehow rub off on me). It's that voice though. When I first heard Okkervil River, and more particularly Shearwater, I was wondering how and why Mark Hollis had reappeared. Like a ghost. But it was Jonathan. Of course it was. So, do enjoy this subtle piano and vocal take on the Shearwater song 'Hidden Lakes'. You can watch a studio version here, check out the cute dog, and those JM eyelashes! <3
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Jonathan Meiburg - 'Hidden Lakes' (solo, piano version) (3.41)
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Jonathan's band, Shearwater are over here, and the really great news is this: some new recordings are already being made. It doesn't seem long since the 'The Golden Archipelago' came out! They are also heading out on tour with this guy very soon - you may know him - and the first stop is Birmingham, AL.
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PS. Yes, um, that is Jonathan's bare chest. Taken at The Captain's Rest, Glasgow back in February this year. Any excuse, I know... but he did take his first degree (English) here! Weep.
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Saturday 23 October 2010

Surely some revelation is at hand









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WARPAINT, Stereo, Glasgow, Scotland (22-10-10)
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"I learned courage from Buddha, Jesus, Lincoln, Einstein... and Cary Grant"
Miss Peggy Lee
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It feels snug and warm down here, in the basement. Much like dipping into a Joan Didion book from the 60's, recently obtained from the Barrowlands Market. You just feel at home, despite the oh-too-loud commentary from Cool Folks to your left and the Jostling Tall Boys in front. And the anticipation for this show is, literally, dripping from the ceiling, in the form of human condensation, before the band even enter, stage left. One thing is certain, the hipsters are in town. You can hear them before you see them, and that is quite some feat as we all know. But, hey, you can't look that cuntish and still not love what's about to be unleashed. New Long Player, 'The Fool' is not out until Monday but it's telling that as it rides out, the masses are singing along, grooving along, like it's a club classic from 1999. So what is it about this dazzling mix of sound? Where does it come from? Well, it's part Young Marble Giants, part The xx, part Slits, part-Slowdive, part Vogue covershoot (it can't be ignored or denied, they look as amazing as they fucking sound - but it's the sound that counts you dicks). The new album is given a fair hearing, along with earlier tracks from the sublime 'Exquisite Corpse' (a statement of intent if ever there was one). What strikes you most over the hour and a bit we are graced with a presence is the staggering amount of confidence they possess as a foursome, the knowing looks across the stage, the gestures of body, the shared moments - just knowing they have this moment fucking nailed. Their happiness and ease with one another, with the audience, is joyous to witness. It makes something of a change from the oh-so-fuckish indie-norm of appearing, in sometimes utterly false ways, to be shambling, nervous and just untogether. This band is a unit, they have their shit tight. Yes, tight, assured, moving to the same beat. And, it has to be said, my God, do they have the beats. It isn't all sub-Cocteau Guthriesque effects, 'space', delay, and soundscapes (gag!), for Jenny on the bass, and Stella on the drums, demand movement and it's evident all around, as well as on stage. The sweat pours out of me, of everyone. Emily, often hiding behind a bulk of strawberry blonde hair, takes on the bulk of vocal duties, but Theresa chooses her moments as well, both favouring a style eerily familiar to anyone that has even an on-nodding-terms relationship with that ill-defined, and rather easily mocked, sub-genre once called 'shoegaze'. Their guitars hark back to such times as well, embracing multiple effects pedals and those shuddering layer-upon-layer-upon layer waves that reach over our heads, stretching to the very back of the room (though Emily does need to remind the mixing desk to pump up bass and drums, tellingly). But as we leave, the masses are still nodding heads and dancing away, remembering the grooves, the beats, the rhythms, as well as the - sigh - hips, tits, lips, power! Yes, even the baked-in-sweat fucking hipsters are dancing. Result, game over, Warpaint. You so win.
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Warpaint - 'Beetles' (session version) (8.05)
Warpaint - 'Elephants' (session version) (8.57)
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PS, The new material, I just love, but at Stereo the older tracks 'Beetles' and 'Elephants' just swaggered, soared and swooped. So, take a listen. Now.
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Warpaint are playing Manchester tomorrow night (24-10-10). But it's sold out, obviously.
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There's a Sunday social, to stave off the silence

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There are some songs that just grow and grow on you, they dig deep, into your soul. Is it a soul? Do we even have one? Is that a bit fucking metaphysical for this kind of time on a Saturday morning? Anyway, this is one of those songs, for me. A bit of a surprise this, really, given it is quite a recent release and I only ever liked a few Maximo Park records. But this song. It just cuts me down, stops me in my tracks, in the most brilliant way. I want to play it and play it and play it. Again. Mostly because of, yes, the guitar hooks and the lovely use of delay, delay, delay... but also, it cannot be ignored, it's Paul Smith's accent. It's a Tyne and Wear 'thing'. And, personally, it takes me back to a home fae home, the North East of England. Spend eight years living anywhere, you will miss it occasionally. Sigh. I miss the beach at Tynemouth. I miss the people. I even miss the old house, in a way. But in particular, apropos this song, I love the way Paul delivers his lines, witness 'Sunday social' (at 1.50) as an example. It's, frankly, rather orgasmic to me. But, er, I guess I have always been a bit strange like that. For accents. They just make me so, well, rigid.
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Paul Smith - 'Our lady of Lourdes' (4.20)
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Paul is over here now. You can buy the album as well, please.
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NB: Review of Warpaint @ Stereo, Glasgow 22-10-10 coming soon! With pictures. And songs!
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Friday 22 October 2010

Just a clever boy on the border



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Oran Mor, Glasgow.
Sunday, 17-10-10
So, what the fuck is it with these pre-eight o’clock early evening beginnings...  they seem to be infectious around these parts? I mean, you think you are arriving not that late, in the wider scheme of things, but you are still too late for RM Hubbert, it seems. He has been and gone before even stepping inside the palatial setting that is upstairs at Oran Mor. I can say no more than that, about the opening contender I’m afraid. But the venue is breathtaking, stunning... goodness me. Even though it is familiar and known, it still impresses you every-single-time you attend a show here (it is a heavenly world away from the dark crypt below, also used as a gig venue). In sum, Oran Mor certainly has the ‘WOW’ factor, the 'space', as Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer from the telly might say. So, drink in mouth, heart in hands, Nikon camera balanced on the edge of the gallery, James Graham and Andy MacFarlane shuffle on stage, bathed in purples and reds and blues, as well as a laser-sharp white light that makes James think he is in Ibiza (cue audience laughter). It’s a short, sweet, acoustic - not to mention intense - set from a stripped-down The Twilight Sad. And this line-up meets the demands of the venue perfectly. It’s the soaring voice amongst the high ceilings that gets to you. Despite facing the hopeful punters side-on, and looking as if a direct stare from the audience might give him heart failure, James sings deep fae his blood-and-soil(ed) insides and delivers some immense rasping sounds. Of particular note was ‘The Room’ (‘And her blood is never spilled after dinner / there’s wine on our breath...’), ‘Cold Days From The Birdhouse’ (tears are shed, jeezo)and their intimate If-Moz-came-fae-Kilsyth take on ‘Half a Person’. And it is over not long after it began. Nice things are said about the headliners and it is exit stage right, to mighty applause from all attending and James looking like he can’t wait to step out of this particular white spotlight. As for The Unwinding Hours... well, this was their night, their grand sweet-sixteen. A page seems to have been turned for the last time. Completely (well, almost completely... see later) removing the need to mention Their Band That Once Used To Be. Craig B and Ian Cook take the opulent stage to what must feel like a Cup Final on home turf, you’ve made it this far and in 90 minutes or less it could be victory. It is a mature, measured and confident few strides, opening with the epic six-minute ‘Knut’ (‘If we can / We will / We must / Get out’... repeat, repeat, repeat...). It sounds very loud. It sounds a rumbling kind of heavy that you feel in your feet, stomach and head. It sounds fucking incredible, actually. Then on the show moves to other glories from the CHEM132 debut album, including ‘There Are Worse Things Than Being Alone’, ‘Traces’, ‘Child’, ‘The Final Hour’. It’s a thoughtful recreation, rather than expanded reconstruction, of the album offerings but this is no bad thing at all. Having said this, it all changes – most wonderfully so - come the timely encore. We are treated to an acoustic version of ‘Burning River’ followed by a heartfelt version of the Sparklehorse song ‘Spirit Ditch’ (with RM Hubbert accompanying) and then, well, no. Not ‘Solstice’, despite more than a few calls for it from the gathered masses (‘CYNICAL!’). Rather, we are sent home with an Aereogramme tribute in our ears - ‘The Art of Belief’. There was no need for this, of course, the sound of The Unwinding Hours can stand on its own fully-formed, evolutionary, legs now, but the tender and caring look over the shoulder, a glance, is much appreciated by those humming on the way out onto the cold October corner of Great Western Road and Byres Road. The night is complete. Wrap up warm. Aye.
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The Twilight Sad - 'The Room' (acoustic) (4.17)
The Unwinding Hours - 'Solstice' (2.56)
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You can reach The Twilight Sad over here and The Unwinding Hours over here.
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Thursday 21 October 2010

Everything I can remember, I remember wrong

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If I am being horribly, brutally honest - unusual for me - it's all a bit nerve-wrecking. This. Again. I promise not to go on and on about it for the sake of a few badly-played violins but, you know, I almost completely disengaged from all things interweb. Aye, even Facebook. I still don't really know why. I was just feeling, well, a bit invaded. Not by anyone or anything in particular, just by a sense that I was losing it. I was losing it big time and losing control. I had become a parody of a parody of a parody. My life had become, well, a triple measure of the strongest spirit you can drown in - a large gulp of Jackie Leven, mixed with a dash of H. G. Wells and finished off, literally, with a headache-inducing nip of Withnail, actually. Chin Chin! The thing is. I don't think I ever really got over a particular night, Friday November 2, 2007 to be exact, when after witnessing this band play at the ABC I... well, I suffered (not to be too melodramatic). The detail isn't important. Not now. Suffice to say I had something of a turnaround. In fate, circumstances and possibilities. I thought things might get easier, or rather, not easier but less complex. And they did in some ways, but not in others. That's the way of it, right? The sweet and the sour. Sucking on a lemon. Like that song puts it. Anyway, sorry, the point is that in a non-glib way you do the best you can and get on with it. I don't mean that to sound like such a tired cliche it's a relic in an ancient vault in the oldest museum you could possibly know, circa 1707 rather than 2007. You just get on with it. Life does not stop, it's a constantly jiggled snow-shaker (is that the technical term for those things?), though sometimes the snow is replaced by sun, sea, sky, for sure. Like, the other night. Entirely unexpected, I bought my eldest son his first pint. At a gig (it was The Unwinding Hours at Oran Mor). He turns 16 in January, but is already going on 21. As I approached the bar I asked him if he wanted a coke or whatever. He looked me dead on and said 'A Guinness?'. I met his gaze and said, 'Right you are. Stand back from the bar. Do not tell your mother.' And then I realised it had happened. I had fucking moved on. And it would be my turn soon. Forty years old, at midnight as a certain train rolls into town to play at... the ABC. In five days. And you know what. I am genuinely excited. I need to grow up a bit. And I need to learn to face, to play, The National again. It's an encore that just needs to happen. For 'Mr November' is actually a girl in a red top, staring up at you, with love in her eyes.
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iLiKETRAiNS - 'A Father's Son' (3.26)
The National - 'Daughters of the Soho Riots' (live) (4.40)
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Platform 9 + 3/4 is, in fact, over here. Album pre-order here. Oh, and watch this. And feel a little sad.
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PS, Yes, this is my way of apologising for being so AWOL. Sorry about that. I had reasons though, you know?
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Wednesday 20 October 2010

Fall off the table and get swept under

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Jeezo. Has it really been that long? And is it really worth trying this silly m'larky again? I suppose only time will tell. I mean, we're not getting any younger, are we? So, yes, true, my reputation is tarnished a little in this green and pleasant pixel world. Or it is tarnished a lot. Depends who you talk to, who you choose to believe. Just like Don Draper (what would he do?), you know - good at beginnings, terribly good at letting go and fucking it all up. I've been around these WWW parts a fair bit over the years and written too many words in too many places. The word is plural, and then some. So many words and thoughts and songs and pictures. All gone now, via a click of a BIG ORANGE button in moments of panic, crises of confidence. But this feels a bit like coming home. I will try harder, just like they kept telling me to on all my report cards, way back in the days of school. The nice people at blogger.com even let me keep my old place going. How is that for good fortune and service with a smile? I reclaimed my title. No, not that one. This one: 'And Before The First Kiss'. It's still a song by The Field Mice, by the way. Just like 'Let's Kiss And Make Up'. That's still a song as well. Even St Etienne covered it, but I'm guessing you all knew that anyway. But, listen, if you don't know these wee tunes then you really need to get out a bit more, and probably travel back in time as well. It marches on, in a relentless way. For now though, this is a 'track' (not a 'song') by a band who come to Stereo, Glasgow on Friday night. You need to make it there. I'm expecting great things from the Hipstaaaah crowd. Checklists will be flipped out, waiting to be ticked off. And the 'band' will play a song or two. Or is it 'group'. What's the preference these days anyway? And I am not talking to you here, Mark E. Smith.
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Warpaint - 'Undertow' (4.00)
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Warpaint are over here. Album out on October 25th, you can pre-order here (Rough Trade).
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