New Wave Presents: Town, plus support, Clwb Ifor Bach, 1 March 2012

The Welsh Club celebrates St David’s Day with a foursome of new Welsh acts, including headliner, Town, who are being talked about, but there’s no monster crowd.

I walk in to the wall of sound created by The New Objects. Here is an exemplary rock band, with everything in place and properly fine tuned. We have a singer looking like a young Bruce Springsteen with a voice as strong, yet clearer than Thom Yorke’s. They are reminiscent of Sugar, although this is a slightly lazy comparison. They slow things down a little with “C’est le Fin” which has an intro like “Today” by The Smashing Pumpkins, but it’s the heavier songs that work best for me.

On stage, they look stylish: the drummer has tattoos and tilted cap; the bassist is tall, in skinny jeans, and, like Nicky Wire, has a leopard skin guitar strap; the singer looks business-like in plain black shirt; the rhythm guitarist has Top Man style, looking cool like the Killers in a blazer. They’re all individual, but somehow look the complete band.

This band competes with the best of them, and would not look at all out of place supporting even the biggest rock giants like U2. Tonight they play a short set of 6 songs as the singer is struggling with his voice, but despite this, he still sounds great.

The Lash were not quite as I expected. Judging by name alone you might mistakenly think this was a bunch of pissed up kids, but they’re a bit more sophisticated than that. Instead, this is bluesy rock that I could imagine a rammed high school disco rocking out to. There’s something of The Blues Brothers or School of Rock about them – certainly they could be the soundtrack to an American teenage rock movie, with a slightly zany side. Sadly, it didn’t quite work in a half-deserted Welsh Club. 

I think they need to work on making the sound a bit cleaner, or maybe the club’s sound engineer was slightly at fault. Couldn’t really fault singer Erin Mac’s vocal, although it got slightly lost in the mix at times. She was possibly a little too static.

Carwyn aka Colorama mellowed things down with some nice tinkling organ sounds and songs that were alternately in Welsh and English. He would suit a smoky bar, remaining peripheral as people chat round tables in the background, taking in the music nonchalantly. Sadly such smoky bars no longer exist, and in their absence, the audience hugged the walls instead as the glitter ball shone light upon an empty dance floor.

He commanded more attention as he sang of being “empty…fucking empty” and then of “an old fashioned girl who doesn’t care for diamonds or pearls.” A bit optimistic there I thought – it’s the old fashioned ones who do care for such things isn’t it? He sang of lights flashing where there’s no sound but a situation, and nicely created a sombre mood.

And finally there was Town. Town is a name that demands to be noticed, and so I’ll summarise them in bulletpoints:

• Town are all killers, no fillers.
• Every song is made for a pretty hectic moshpit.
• Town’s sound is as tight as a mate who’s made money when it’s his turn to buy a round.
• Town have already played the Cardiff City Stadium, have supported Lost Prophets, and are due to support Hard Fi,
• They have songs reminiscent of The Jam at their most manic, and one song that’s based on Billy Bragg’s “New England”.
• They have a teenage anthem (“Teenage Sky”) which, regardless of the nod to The Undertones, I think even John Peel would have liked.
• Town are a lads’ band, when I’m not totally sure there’s a need for a new lad’s band.
• Nonetheless, the word about Town is: convincing.

This review first appeared on the Welsh Icons website.

Tags: clwb ifor bach, colorama, man about town, new objects, st davids day, the lash, town, wales

coventry v stoke

Coventry v Stoke

in fog. Old man produces

torch and shines on screen

Tags: coventry, fog, haiku, torch

Thoughts on the Communist Manifesto

A friend suggested I read Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto” before putting together the ‘revolution’ issue of Square. I had read his German Ideology in Philosophy at school, but can’t remember if I’ve ever read The Communist Manifesto (hereon known as the CM), either in school or university. This friend appeared to be accusing me of being a hypocritical philistine for saying that I knew about communism, but wasn’t sure if I’d ever read the CM. This same friend, only around a year ago, before the last UK general election, sometimes gave the impression that they had some support for the British National Party. It just goes to show how fickle some people can be! When the news was full of stories about immigration figures and bad-ass Muslim terrorists, “Yes, perhaps I should vote for the Nazis.” Following the revolution in Egypt, uprisings in Syria and Libya and the protests in this country, “That’s it, I’m going to become a hardline communist!” And I’m the one who gets accused of hypocrisy!

Certainly, for anyone who does have far-left tendencies, recent events in some parts of the world, and the frequent use of the word “revolution” on news bulletins has had them jumping up and down in glee. Anyone who has such people as friends on facebook will have seen frequent posts espousing the downfall of Western Civilisation.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to sound too cynical, I am left-wing myself with (I thought) some latent Communist tendencies. His Bruce Forsyth moment (not in the CM), “From each according to their means, to each according to their need” always resonated with me. But it’s just the repetitious, and to me, out-dated language that is always trotted out. Marx himself spoke of being anti-dogmatic, but I think too many people have a dogmatic approach to his texts and resort to simply copying what he himself has said in ritualistic fashion

The most common thing you will ever hear whenever anyone mentions the word communism is:

“It sounds great in principle, but it would never happen.”

This is precisely what the second-hand bookshop owner said when I finally found the CM after going to first, The Works, hoping to pick up a cheap copy, then the bookshop in the market (mostly fiction, inhabited at the time by two large Americans buying puzzle books and seeking a pub where they sell Brains? beer), then the Oxfam bookshop, which I think had one or 2 related books, followed by the library – a couple of communist books, and lots of fascist books – Waterstones, and 1 or 2 other second hand bookshops. In none of these places, except the shop where I finally found the book did I ask for assistance – although I checked the computer in the library – feeling for some reason slightly embarrassed to ask for it. On the one hand, I perhaps did not want to appear to be stark raving mad, and on the other hand, I thought they would probably think “Oh, another one of those communist bandwagon jumper-oners.” I only asked in the last shop because I was downstairs, away from the main shop, in front of probably the right section, when the owner passed by, and picked it from another section to my left where I probably would have found it myself.

So anyway, we had a short dialogue, the shopkeep and I, but to be honest, the phrase, “It sounds great in principle, but it would never work” is a bit of a conversation stopper.

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Tags: Bruce Forsyth, Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx

Look Out Government! Here come The Kabeedies… interviewed on 16/02/11, 10ft Tall, Cardiff

The Kabeedies like their food. I always seem to catch them when they’re tucking into or about to tuck into food. I joined them at Cardiff’s Ten Feet Tall just before four large bowls of pasta provided by the venue are served up for them. I leave them to eat, and return to see the band sitting around 4 empty plates. Dinner having been routinely scoffed, we go to the room at the top of Ten Feet Tall for a chat.

I first interviewed Katie and Roary around 3 years ago, before their first album, “Rumpus” was released. This month, they’ve now released their second album, “Soap” and I find all the band in good form, minus only their manager Craig (who also happens to be Roary’s dad), missing from this leg of the tour due to an, ahem injury to his leg. But, I asked, in what ways is this a different Kabeedies from the one back then?

Evan explained that things have definitely changed, “We’re not scrotty teenagers any more. Well, we’re scrotty, but not teenagers! We’ve grown up a bit.” Roary chipped in, “We’ve grown up musically, but not so much as people. We’re still making music to dance around to, but we’ve thought about things a bit more.” Evan finished off by saying, “Rather than just write some songs so we can go on tour and be idiots, we’ve thought, let’s try writing some actual songs!”

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Tags: african pop, alan partridge, Cardiff, eyes, fierce panda, haircut 100, itbox, kabeedies, norwich, soap, soap in your eyes, x box

John Squire – Noise, SW1 Gallery, viewed on 09/10/2008

 

The SW1 Gallery is situated in an extremely smart, newly developed area near Victoria – all sleek glass and metal, and sexy curves. As myself and Faye – my plus one, and keyboardist with London-based band, Prince Edward Island – approached the gallery, I picked out the figure of John Squire inside, his lank, long hair the easy giveaway, even from a distance.

A few words were exchanged with the doorstaff – I hadn’t brought my invite, and they couldn’t find me on the guestlist, but they still let us past – and we were in. Looking around, it was difficult deciding which was the most important of three things inside, and which to head for first – John Squire himself, the paintings, or the vast quantities of free booze on tables to our left. Really, a preposterous amount – probably about 30 bottles of Havana rum, about 40 bottles of both read and white wine, about the same number of some interesting-looking bottled beer, and about 80 bottles of soft drinks, probably smoothies.

We had a quick gander at a couple of paintings, before we caved in, and got ourselves each a glass of red wine, though taking a whole bottle would have easily gone unnoticed!

This was the third John Squire exhibition I’d been to, but this was by far the best, quite daring and adventurous in places, and with a lot of variety. The title of the exhibition was Noise, which you might think is an appropriate title for an exhibition of paintings by a musician, but I didn’t really feel the paintings were portraying or depicting music. The majority of the paintings were covered in words, with loads of short phrases scattered fairly chaotically, so you could say the paintings quite literally spoke to you! The paintings exuded noise, like the chatter in a busy pub, in a way that paintings don’t ordinarily. It brought to mind a television which would allow you to also smell what was on the screen; these were paintings that you could “hear”.

The interesting thing about the words was that you could only read most of them by going quite close up to them, whereas the best vantage point to view the paintings – especially in the case of the landscape paintings – was from a good few feet back.

Faye commented that the words were a bit like song lyrics. I have to say, I didn’t quite get this myself – they were mostly fairly formless and stuctureless, slightly chaotic, as with their arrangement on each canvas. I kind of got the impression with some of them that if the words represented the artist himself, they showed him to be quite insecure and unsure of himself, but I’m not sure if this really is how John Squire feels.

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Tags: john squire, noise exhibition, prince edward island, square magazine, vast quantities of free booze

Landslides, as part of the Free For All Festival, at The Moon Club, Cardiff, 12/01/12

I was asked along to film this band, and must admit, had not even bothered looking them up online in advance, but found myself pleasantly surprised by the quality of the grunge-pop served up by Landslides. Sometimes it’s nice see a band with absolutely no preconceived ideas.

Landslides have been going for a little over a year, but singer Bex has only been part of the set-up since November, after their previous singer left to pursue her career as a policewoman. Bex hails originally from Washington DC, but is now settled in Cardiff. With a strong voice, straggly blond hair and sassy self-assurance, she makes an excellent lead. Despite this being her first gig with the band, there were definitely no signs of nerves as she jumped around in a section she made her own between two speakers below the front of the stage, seemingly full of energy. She even dared try out some slightly lame Christmas cracker-type jokes between songs.

Having a chance to briefly catch up with the band afterwards, I learned the reason for her self confidence – she has, as I might’ve expected, been in bands before. In fact, it seems that that the whole of the band has had previous projects, which is perhaps quite often the case with this kind of scene. People get into rock at a young age, and being fully engrossed in the genre is the nature of the beast. Guitarist James has been involved with different bands for 15 years, including a hip hop band called No Sleep Police. Drummer, Dorian is in fact currently in no less than six bands! I’ve met people before who are in 2 or 3 bands, but I think 6 is a record! Remembering which songs he’s playing is not the difficult part, it’s learning them, he says. I would’ve thought just remembering which band you’re playing in each night would be something, but perhaps that’s just my age showing. Quite a good way of hedging your bets I suppose – surely one out of the 6 will succeed! On their showing tonight, there’s a good chance that Landslides will be the most likely.

Saying that, Dorian is also in Clay Statues, the headliner of the night. Clay Statues’ singer’s vocal range is somewhere between Lemmy from Motorhead and Black Francis of The Pixies: it’s loud. Loud is the operative word in fact – it’s just the 2 of them on stage, but they would put many a 4 or 5 piece to shame. Forget The White Stripes or local band, Gin Drinker – this is a two piece that’s so loud they had me genuinely wondering why any group would ever have more than 2 band members!

Also sharing the bill were God Bomber. With an almost excessive 3-man line up, they too were pretty ear-splitting; perhaps atom-splitting is more the phrase. The shirtless drummer and bassist combined to make a lively rhythm section. The singer’s voice was the only slight let-down, lacking slightly in grit and phlegm, but he made up for this with some boisterous enthusiasm on the eve of his birthday, he let it be known.

The night was part of The Full Moon’s Free For All festival, featuring 80 bands over 26 days. With free entry each night, it’s a great way to encourage people to go out in what is usually a quiet month. By the end of the year, it’ll be interesting to see which of these bands will have progressed and gained wider support – I wouldn’t bet against any of the three on show tonight. Landslides have just done some recording at the Atrium, so look forward to some recorded output from them soon.

This article was first featured on Welsh Icons, photo by Dom, full collection here

Tags: atom splitting, boisterous bassist, christmas cracker jokes, clay statues, free for all festival, god bomber, landslides

On Photorealism

I recently told a friend that walking into the Plus One Gallery in London, one of the best places to view photorealist art, was like walking in somewhere and being given champagne and chocolates. It was the first thing that occurred to me when trying to sum up the feeling of being allowed to indulge in luxury – here, in my view, is a real feast for the eyes.

For me, photorealism is the greatest of all forms of modern art. As a child, I loved Pop Art, with its brash colours, boisterous attitude, and with its associations with pop music and culture. But it seems to me that it was, like a particular music scene, only associated with one period in time – the 60s. Of course, there are many artists who still have a pop feel to their work, but without it being tied to a particular time in history, it seems less relevant.

Without a lot of people realising, photorealism could, I think, become a major art form of this time. For anyone who has grown tired of the showmanship of so much conceptual art, or the indeterminacy of abstract painting, photorealism is an art form to cherish. And that phrase is important – it clearly is an art form, the painters involved in it paint what can clearly be described as works of art.

For so much of the time, in this indifferent consumer society, people have become incredibly lazy, choosing for their living rooms abstract pieces that “match the curtains”. It is sad to see Rothko adorning so many living room walls. But the irony here is that, when Rothko was painting, before abstract painting had taken a hold, this form of art would of course have been radical. It seems ridiculous that now, anyone who paints lifelike paintings is now going against the grain, and shunned by most of the art world.

The criticism you hear most often of most forms of lifelike painting, including photorealism, is that “anyone can do that”. It seems strange to me that people use this as a criticism of lifelike work, rather than for many forms of abstract painting. After all, to look at a lot of abstract painting, you might imagine someone of any age or ability could knock something like it up in a couple of hours. Don’t get me wrong, I do still have an appreciation of some abstract work – I like good use of colour, etc. but if I’m going to speak about an art form I love, it is photorealism.

To say that anyone can do this sort of work is completely missing the point. And also, probably means that the person saying this has never properly looked at such work. The workmanship that goes into such a work is phenomenal. Just take Tom Martin’s painting, “A Year’s Work” – I assume the title reflects the length of time taken over the piece. Yes, with training, people can become good draughtsman, ie. able to copy well, and get good likeness, etc. But the work of photorealists goes far beyond that. The detail is simply spectacular. Surely the point with anyone who is doing representative painting is to try to get a likeness – these guys take it to the nth degree by trying to get a perfect likeness.

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Tags: pedro campos, photorealism, plastic bag, plus one gallery, square magazine, tjalf sparnaay