grange85's Last.fm Journal

Nina Nastasia @ The Theatre Royal, Brighton

Tue, 20 May 2008 17:30:45 +0000

Originally posted on Everything's Swirling

There were four acts on the bill at the second Fat Cat Records night at the Theatre Royal in Brighton - the middle two Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad were both enjoyable enough guitar rock bands…but they weren't the reason we were there. The first act Silje Nes also was not the reason we were there but was interesting and different enough to deserves more than a cursory comment.

Silje makes sweet and mostly quiet layered music using guitars a violin various bits of percussion and a loop pedal or two so that she could play them all at the same time...almost like a one woman band only she was accompanied by another musician who also had many instruments (drum kit, guitar, melodica and various other bits of percussion) and a loop pedal. Her voice and some of the gentler sounds were reminiscent of Little Star era Stina Nordenstam but the performance was unique and the songs were lovely and the wig-out that featured in one of them was perfect...the way a wig-out during a quiet set should be ((old) Low and (more recent) The Clientele do lovely wig-outs when quiet is what's expected).

Nina Nastasia was the reason we were there, the bit of paper at the bar implied that she had a set that should have started at 10 and finished at 10:40 - a weekend in Brighton for a 40 minute set might seem a little extreme but this was Nina whose five albums contain no sign of a dud track and whose voice I never tire of. But still...40 minutes...

She arrived on stage, sat down with a pen and a piece of paper and asked for requests - jotted down the shouted song titles (or near song titles or extracts of lyrics) and that was the setlist. And she played...it was a relief when she said "I have to be off by eleven" because by the time she started it was beginning to look like we mightn't get more than 30 minutes. A more talented person could think of better words thant stunning or sensational to describe the set, the singing and the playing but that’s all I have to offer - the sight of me open mouthed and on the edge of my seat for most of the performance might have made a more impressive description of just how good this was. So relaxed and funny and comfortable - Nina was in very fine form.

By eleven o'clock a fair chunk of the setlist was still unplayed...so she just kept on playing. She went off when she thought she probably ought ("I don’t want to get anyone in trouble") but the audience weren't going to let her get away so easily and despite the house lights coming up she was (literally) shoved back onto the stage for more...quite a lot more. I suspect that she would have played all night given the opportunity but by 11:25 the Theatre staff were obviously wanting out and the house lights came up again and Nina left us. An hour and a quarter and one of the most enjoyable gigs I’ve been to made the trip to cold and rainy Brighton more than worthwhile.

Sat 17 May – Nina Nastasia, The Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit, Silje Nes

Just dug this one out #16 - The Hounds of Love by Kate Bush

Fri, 16 May 2008 21:26:47 +0000

Posted on Everything's Swirling on May 16th, 2008

I'd been a fan of Kate Bush pretty much since the beginning, but it was a fanaticism that I kept to myself...she was making music that was far removed from most of what I was listening to at the time. Kate Bush was an artist I admired on my own and it stayed that way for a long long time.

The Hounds of Love was the first album I ever bought on CD and it seems a shame that I chose to make my first steps into the modern world of shiny, silver, plastic discs by buying an album that is so clearly an album of two sides, an album made for vinyl. Two sides that are so different and both so stunning - the pop side and the prog side, the safe side and the experimental side, The Hounds of Love and The Ninth Wave. There was a period of probably a year or two where I listened to The Hounds of Love every night - it was the album that I went to bed with but never slept until it finished (if I did doze off Waking the Witch would generally bring me back to consciousness).

Hazel is a huge Kate Bush fan and in the discomfort and awkward uncertainty of our fledgling relationship I found comfort in our mutual love of Kate Bush. It was something that we could talk about passionately and open up about, something that we could try out our relationship on, something that allowed us to see if there was more to this...and there was. I distinctly remember one of our first lunchtimes at the Nelson where I gushed uncontrollably about Kate and particularly about The Hounds of Love, in times of panic my mouth can occasionally run away with me because talking is better than awkward silences.

The album sounds as stunning now as it did on its first listen. It doesn't sound dated and for an album released in the dire depths of the 80s to avoid the hellish taint of that time is testament to Kate's genius. It is too rich and deep, too layered and arranged, too lush and clear, too real, too organic to sound anything but timeless. Until Joanna Newsom’s Ys was released a couple of years back there was no other album that could make as excited and enthralled by music the way that The Hounds of Love did...and still does.

If there’s one down side to the album it’s the sadly uninspiring sleeve but as Hazel pointed out a while back Kate has always had a tendency to wrap her masterpieces in naff sleeves.

Marissa Nadler + Jesse Sykes @ The Luminaire

Tue, 13 May 2008 13:39:24 +0000

(originally posted on Everything's Swirling)

I was so tired yesterday and tempted to give this concert a miss in favour of an early night…except I never have early nights and would have stayed up until 1am anyway with nothing to show for my late night. I arrived in Kilburn about 7:30, the only bike rack near the venue had two sawn through U-Locks as evidence that leaving your bike unattended in Kilburn is probably unwise. I took a chance although I locked to a lamp-post as the bike rack was clearly bad luck!

Entered the lovely Luminaire, grabbed a bottle of water and waited for an hour in the too dingy to read light for Jesse Sykes to come on. Jesse performed with an electric guitarist, Phil, who I guess is the Sweet Hereafter for this tour. She proclaimed her shaky nervousness but managed to get through a short sweet set with neither her fingers nor her rich voice letting her down (I keep wanting to describe her voice as smoky but I think I’m being influenced by the album sleeve picture of her smoking)

Marissa Nadler came on to the stage which was set up with her three microphone - one normal, one with a bit of echo and one with a stack of echo (she picked the wrong one for between song banter a couple of times). Sometimes it seemed as if she might just be a normal, sweet, folkie singer-songwriter but then she’d do something that made you realise that she was just a bit special, a lovely Diamond Heart, or Rachel which despite her commenting on the missing “acid leads” of Greg Weeks still had enough going on with the one acoustic guitar that it really didn’t matter.

The bike was still chained to the lamp-post when I got out - obviously the fact that it’s knackered (looking) and grubby, and the saddle is taped up with masking tape to keep the insides inside meant that the theives took their saws and bolt-cutters elsewhere. The ride home was a joy, mostly downhill, wind at my back and not too many other road users getting in the way!

Marissa Nadler + Jesse Sykes @ The Luminaire

Just dug this one out #15 - Parallel Lines by Blondie

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:43:01 +0000

(posted on Everything's Swirling)

Today I woke up with Blondie’s Parallel Lines in my head. In my post from a couple of years ago where I picked out my favourite bands over time there were a few important acts that slipped through the woodwork. Blondie were one and, for a short time in 1978 and 1979, were just about my favourite band.

Listening to Parallel Lines now it feels so comfortable, so timeless unlike pretty much anything Blondie/Harry did subsequently. Parallel Lines was the second Blondie album I bought, Plastic Letters was OK, a couple of gems but all a little rough and patchy to make it a classic. Parallel Lines was a whole different ballgame. At lunchtime today Hazel suggested that there was only three good tracks on it (she meant Hanging on the Telephone, Heart of Glass and Sunday Girl) but surely to dismiss Pretty Baby and Picture This and 11:59 and Will Anything Happen is just ridiculous, each of them as good as anything else on the album. To be honest, with the exception of the utterly dire I Know but I Don’t Know there isn’t any reason to reach for the skip button. This is as close to perfect as a pop album can get.

In February 1979 I went on a miserable ski-ing holiday with the school, I was sick, homesick, the food was rubbish, we had power cuts and barely enough snow to ski. Add to all that the embarrassment of falling over on my first day on the snow and not being able to get up, and being a woeful failure at using the drag lift, most of my memories of the trip and not good ones. The only exception is that Heart of Glass was on the hotel jukebox and we listened to it pretty much constantly over the whole week, no matter how sad and miserable I felt that track made me feel better. It pretty much still works now.

The Clientele @ The Luminaire

Tue, 4 Mar 2008 00:18:46 +0000

(originally posted on Everything's Swirling)

Another visit to the Luminaire to see The Clientele...and another excellent Clientele show, despite Alasdair's quips about being strangely nervous they seemed very relaxed. Nice set - some old, some less old, nothing new (we’ll play some new songs next time because we have some rehearsed...but they sound shit) the wig out during Lamplight is getting to be a set highlight.

Support from The Left Outsides (again) - I enjoyed them more than last time - and The See See who were also very enjoyable in a shabby yet organised way...

Just dug this one out #14 - When I Was Born for the 7th Time by Cornershop

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:03:56 +0000

(originally posted on Everything's Swirling)

My mum was Anglo-Indian, she grew up in Calcutta with an Indian mother and a British father and they had a huge family. Ten or eleven brothers and sisters and all the aunts, uncles, cousins and nephews that comes along with that. And a good chunk of that family lived in or around London so I grew up tolerating huge family get-togethers, regular trips to Southall to shop, eating curries and hearing music that was different to the music I liked. Cornershop were a band that made the indie guitar music I liked but in amongst it were the sounds of those family get togethers or those trips to Southall.

When I Was Born for the 7th Time made it to my best albums of 1997 list but I very rarely listen to it these days and while it probably didn't deserve that accolade I've enjoyed listening to it a lot more than I expected I would

There are gems...Sleep on the Left Side is a fantastic opener, the moment when Paula Frazer arrives in Good to Be on the Road Back Home is almost perfect make way for a lady, and I love Norwegian Wood ever if it does have a slightly tacked-on-the-end-as-an-afterthought feel. Brimful of Asha hasn't yet been ruined by over-familiarity and that Norman Cook remix…here’s the proof...

Just dug this one out #13 - If You're Feeling Sinister by Belle & Sebastian

Thu, 7 Feb 2008 16:13:58 +0000

(originally posted on Everything's Swirling)

Belle and Sebastian's If You're Feeling Sinister was released at the tail end of 1996 but all its memories for me surround the couple of months after Adam was born in May 1997. Adam came as a bit of a shock for a couple of lazy people resigned to not having children (probably because we thought it would be scary and hard work)...it was a good shock (and one we probably needed!) but a shock all the same.

The first few months were utterly exhausting, particularly for Hazel who had to spend the days (and nights) trying to deal with getting the reluctant little beggar to feed and to stop crying because he was hungry. I'd come home from work and retrieve Adam so that Hazel could get some shut-eye. So...many of my evenings (and nights, and early mornings) that summer, were spent walking up and down the living room trying to get him to sleep. Accompanying me on that walk were Belle & Sebastian.

I don't think the album was chosen because it was necessarily an appropriate one for the job, just that it was an album that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to (and singing along to!). It was (and still is) a beautifully effortless listen. Coincidentally it turns out that it probably was an appropriate album for the job, perfect for a rocking, swaying walk and gentle singing along, no shocks or jars…sweet sounds and clever and funny lyrics.

At some point Adam started eating better and consequently sleeping better and I listened to the album less and less - I still dig it out periodically but this week was probably the first time for a few months that I gave it a spin. All those memories can’t help but give the album a nostalgic and slightly dated feel - more about me than about the music. None of B&S subsequent albums had the same impact but I have them all, and there are bits of all of them that I love (although not a lot of Dear Catastrophe Waitress) - but If You're Feeling Sinister has nothing that has me reaching to skip a track or turn it down. It's pretty close to perfect…and with the glory of hindsight I can forget the crying and the utter exhaustion and just remember my tiny little boy nestled in my arms listening to me singing Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying...

My Top 6...memorable gigs

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:16:58 +0000

Not really a Top 6 but just some gigs that are popping into my head as I write…I’ll try and avoid the obvious Galaxie 500 (and related) gigs here and pick out ones that were memorable not necessarily for the obvious reason of being utterly brilliant…

Levitation @ The Tufnell Park Dome - 14th May 1993
For a while during 1993 I lived in a bed-sit in Northfields. The place was a tip and I spent as much of my time as possible not being there. The only good thing was that the guy who lived in the room next to mine had overheard the music I was listening to and befriended me - he and I went to quite a few gigs together over the months until I moved in with Hazel. One night he banged on the door and said he was going to a gig and would I like to come and because being “out” was infinitely preferable to being “in” I said “yes” without even knowing what it was. We arrived and got in through some shenanigans that seemed to involve us being on the guestlist (even though I’m pretty certain we weren’t). Levitation, or more specifically Terry Bickers, were music inkies darlings and so Bickers on-stage quitting of the band was exciting - the quotes on Wikipedia are probably true (I’d guess they come from a recorded source) but my memory (which is not to be relied on) has him calling the rest of the band, or maybe the audience “wankers” before he left the stage.

Gary Glitter @ The Guildford Civic Hall - 198?
I was rather reluctant to mention this - not just because of Mr Glitter’s subsequent demise but mostly because it was not the sort of music I ever really liked and certainly didn’t care about in the 80s. I went because a bunch of mates were going and it was local and we had nothing better to do. The gig however was memorable for the punch up between two blokes that pretty much lasted the whole of the show. It started in the bar before Gary Glitter took the stage and they punched shit out of each other down the stairs into the stalls and through to the encore - occasionally they’d be pulled apart but within minutes the audience would part to reveal them blattering each other senseless again. Glitter tried to make it stop with pleas from the stage but I think they were just enjoying themselves too much. I don’t recall if the fight carried on afterwards…maybe they’re still punching each other in Guildford pubs of a Saturday night…

The Primitives @ The Borderline - (probably) 1992
Ken loved The Primitives, I sometimes wondered if the “love” was based a bit more on an infatuation with Tracy Tracy, but they sometimes made some very sweet pop music. This was the last time we saw them (and may have been the last time anyone saw them) the gig was tired, beset by sound problems and ultimately saw the guitarist just leave the stage mid-song leaving the rest of the band to struggle through to the end of the show.

Motörhead @ The Hackney Speedway Stadium - July 1982
This was (as I recall) the first London gig that Motorhead did with Brian Robertson and as if the short hair and fancy guitar work wasn’t enough to alienate the hardcore fans he took to the stage in a pair of very short and very shiny shorts.

Miracle Legion @ The Powerhaus - 1989
Ken was a huge Miracle Legion fan but I’d never heard of them so when we turned up at the Powerhaus in 1989 and found it packed to the rafters I was a little taken aback - how can a band I’ve never heard of be quite so popular among the hip and trendy indie kids of London. When the support act came on stage things became clear. I wasn’t really paying attention when they started but looked up and did a comedy double-take - probably a double-double-take…that looked like Kim Deal…and Tanya Donelly on the stage…and sounded like them. The Breeders had just finished their first record in Scotland and snuck in this secret gig on their way through London…it was clearly not that much of a secret…except to me. The crowd thinned considerably after The Breeders had finished…

Thousand Yard Stare @ The T&C2 - 1992
Brian played one of their very few gigs and were second on a bill that included a hypnotist. The Brian set was punctuated by some lad shouting and shoving and trying to get backstage to punch the hypnotist because his mates were laughing at him for his on-stage antics while under hypnosis. Brian sharing a bill with Thousand Yard Stare and a hypntotist probably counts as being memorable for the sheer inappropriateness of it…that the hypnotist almost got beaten up just for doing his job (if his job is making floppy haired indie-kids look silly) was just a bonus…

The Track & Field Winter Sprinter @ The Luminaire

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:16:18 +0000

I've written up theTrack & Field Winter Sprinter show featuring The Clientele, Darren Hayman and The Left Outsides on my blog Everything's Swirling

I don’t think there’s been a gig by The Clientele that I haven’t enjoyed (and I’ve seen them quite a few times over the last few years) but for some reason last night seemed exceptionally good - here’s a list of possible reasons…

read more...

My Top 6...xmas songs

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 00:29:55 +0000

…in no particular order…

Low - If You Were Born Today
I remember sitting my car in a supermarket car park unable to move while this song was on the radio when it first came out on a 7″ single. It is just stunningly moving - even for an atheist! Low’s Christmas album is one of very few seasonal records that could get pulled out at any time fo year…it was a toss up between this and Blue Christmas as to what made it on the list.

The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping
I still can’t quite figure out why I enjoy this one so much. Maybe the silly/sweet cranberry ending - but it always fills me with festive spirit.

Fountains of Wayne - I Want and Alien for Christmas
Just because…well…who wouldn’t.

The Ronettes - Sleigh Ride
“A Christmas Gift for You” is our traditional xmas morning soundtrack - I never get bored of it, and the Ronettes take on Sleigh Ride is the best track on an album full of absolute gems.

Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody
I guess most everyone else in the world is bored sick of this one - but xmas hasn’t really arrived until I’ve heard Noddy telling me that it has.

Brenda Lee - Rocking Around the Christmas Tree
The best Rock ‘n’ Roll xmas song

Galaxie 500 listers may be surprised at the lack of Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time given my annual vociferous defence of the sugary xmas treat - I love it but would still have to say it’s a far cry from any of the above…