Girl on a train: Sleaford Mods whilst the city never sleeps

I hadn't planned on being at this concert, gig, shindig - I was bought a ticket from the other half - a birthday treat as her birthday fell the very next day after it - late night outings and present opening mornings. She knows how much I love a rant - a rave - she know how much I love her - she lets me out - because this I guess this is what i'm about.

So it was with coughs and shakes that I made my way to the forum - to see 'em - to be with the mods again. To be honest - i was late to the key markets push - I hadn't listened as intently to this long player as much I should have. So with minimal plays in Zafira journeys I wasn't fully accustomed to the blast and rhetoric- the fucked off 'avin it - and downright funk of it. It was sitting there on the old itunes - not yet settling in the brain - but tonight I was going to see them live tonight.

Through phonecalls and garbled texts I let myself in to the venue without companions - zipped up parka and stares - grey hairs and semblance of attitude - with 4.80 a pint and a scant smile for the trainee bar staff.

I didn't want to waste the moments of big city life.

I hadn't been in the Town and Country club since god knows when - probably Ultra Vivid Scene or Buffalo Tom in the early 90s. Things still remained the same - but i wasn't bothered. 

Being there as the hall filled meant I got to witness York's finest (Iggy) pop - in the shape of Mark Wynn - all grapes and blouses and skinny black trousers. Not a Fall rip off ( even though he played Psychomafia )- a Formby punk warrior with tales of Claire ( if only she wore a name badge) from charity shops and doctored Bowie struts and grapes - 300 quid and we paid for the privilege - he felt so fucking modern - but reminded me of my youth - an absolute fucking trooper - wit and words and shapes and moves. 

Performance punk poetry. 

I wasn't expecting it - you know he basically danced - randomly recited poetry - ate grapes. It was good - but you know - I couldn't hear the words properly - it was hard to make out. (This is meant ironically - just go and see him - it's worth it) 

Steve Ignorant - heartfelt (like a moonlight shadow) all warrior folk and gesture and musical number - it wasn't getting me - but the guy's got pedigree - so you know - we'll see. Arch ranting over tinkling  - hand gestures and industrial language - because we matter - we are fucking human after all.

Before the wonder of Wynn - I had managed to have a brief chat with Andrew Fearn - all gentle and humble - not that I expected him to have gone all diva and not cared - after all we (the audience) were there for this bunch of cunts (Jason's observation). We talked of Nottingham - I asked why Beeston never gets a mention - mainly because I'd been a resident of Nottz (with a Z you...) and a part of that Beeston shuffle - apparently it's too posh - although I have witnessed the Sleaford Mods lyrics being played out on Beeston streets in real time - do you get me?  Anyway I left Andrew alone - he was with a couple who were telling him that the Mods music was right - for these times - right for right now.  I bet he gets that a lot these days.

And then at 9.30 - on came the Mods - straight up and no fuss - in your face and filling the space with fans and sweat - bile and gutteral soul searching about this nation's saving grace - it was ace. Jason and Andrew - prophetic proto punk poetry and rhythm delivered in bombast and bass - it was ace.  

It didn't seem as frenetic as last time - I think that might have been down to the fact I was ready for it - the first time was a fucking blast - this time I kind of knew what was coming. New songs peppered the set Bronx in a Six, Face to Faces, Giddy on the Ciggies, Arabia- Jason contorting and sweating - if he hadn't brought on his No.1 fan (an actually fan) then I think he may have lost all the fluid in his body. You get a workout from this band. A proper session - of self expression. As I said previously my friend - who was there (live) tonight -thinks they'll become all acceptable - used in adverts at some point. He may be right - this certainly felt like that step up - a big hall and playing to the balcony. I guess the bigger the venue the more likely you make sure it's a show. 

And it's always a good show. Let's be honest no else is doing this.

The bass is set to low - the crowd just wobble, wobble, wobble - united in the words of Williamson - crack headed garbage talk - inarticulate rage ranting - the mundane made magical in repetition and riotous commands. Whenever Williamson screams 'sack the manager' it sends the hairs on my neck soaring. There's something incredible in his ranting.

A modern day ranter - perhaps?

Now, if you look up the definition of a ranter from medieval times - you can see the straight up link to the Mods movement (if two people can be called a movement) Here it is: The Ranters were one of a number of nonconformist dissenting groups that emerged around the time of the English Commonwealth (1649–1660). They were largely common people, and there is plenty of evidence that the movement was widespread throughout England, though they were not organised and had no leader.

Do see what I mean?

What the Mods have done is wrap that discordant sound of modern living - that background fug - bass and (rowche) rumble - frustration and fuckery - into a set of songs that document both the past, present and the future. These repetitive bass thumpers - expertly handled from Fearn's fingers - allow laptops to connect with the oldest sound in the world - the voice.

This is modernism.

I'm getting older - and so are the mods - but the crowd is growing - young minds being opened by words from older guys. I can completely understand how Sleaford Mods came to exist - but every time I hear them - and in this case see them -I can't help marvel at the ingenuity of it all.  It's like they just came out of nowhere but perfectly capture - well - rupture the fabric of modern times. There's a wonderful line in 'Rupert Trousers' about Blur. They don't play it tonight. They don't need to get into those sort of fights - but they point a finger at the pomposity of pop life - they prick it and reveal it as the banal it actually is.

I hope this rise to super stardom doesn't diminish the wit and insight of Williamson or alter the relentless drive of Fearn's beats and bass and flickered melody.  I hope it doesn't come to an odd end.

I don't get in the mosh pit tonight - although I stand on the periphery.  I always did - and that's where the Mods are tonight - still on the outside looking in - or perhaps pissing in and causing a fuss.

And with that the show ends - tight - thumbs up and thank yous and I'm off to be a zombie and tweet ,tweet, tweet about it. It's what us London teds do.

So making my way home I arrive at Charing Cross. Sly fag outside the station. Suddenly approached. Blond hair and eyelashes. Off guard. A girl (well a woman) trying to find her way home - all lost and confused - taxi ready but just pissed up and unsure - she was working for Goldman Sachs- wedding in April - man in Munich - pissed up beer festivals and lost connections  - it gets like that - she drinks at Somerset house whilst we listened to rants and the diatribe of Williamson and Fearn - in the same city - different dreams and all that - all on the same train  - same place but thinking differently.

I didn't tell I'd just been in a room with the invective and froth from two top fellas. I didn't tell her that our worlds were probably quite different.  I didn't tell her that the man is a wanker - and that it don't get much better. She can find all that out for herself. 

She can find that all out when she stumbles across Sleaford Mods on the radio. 

It's going to happen soon.

Sounds from the overground - solitary rants from the listening man No.5

I've been flagging lately - illness rolling around these bones  - you know the chills mutiplying - losing control. 

So in order to keep some semblance of writing happening here - it's a short post - i'll be updating very soon - longer and possibly diving back into the recording process and dates and stuff. 

So here you are then - happy new year - (class) war is not over. 

I have been spending far too much time making compilations of Euros Childs, Jonny, Teenage Fanclub and The Well green

Stuart Kidd is a beautiful musician. Honest, creative with songs to sing along too. You should look up his band camp site. There’s a wealth of lovely things there – a genuine wealth.

I came across The Wellgreen.

Euros continues to produce the most consistently beautiful sounds you could ever wish for and I have decided that next year I’ll interview him for this blog. A new twist in 2013. He doesn’t know it and hopefully it will be as good as my J Mascis interview conducted when I was mere youth. It was five words long. Bloody grungers.

I have listened to EPMD Never Seen Before exiting from the workplace – because I’m street like that.

Students I once taught have provided soundtracks to my waking hours – you all should check out Clouded Judgement, Beatmasta Bill and Monkeysteak.

Inkrument have failed to follow up a seminal long player. Pull your fingers out fellas.

The Super Furries have emerged on the periphery of my being.

Richard Chester is the new Brian Wilson or Spector or Joe Meek – take your pick really. We love him in this house.  

I missed The Fall, Orbital, The Stone Roses, The Primitives, and The Beach Boys this year.

My brother continued to see Adam Ant and saw The Stone Roses.

I’ve played Denim a great deal.

Summer Special is my No.1 album of 2012

I have avidly listened to Duglas’ recommendations on Twitter.

I have tuned into FNOOB – and got down to the Orb Sound System. 

I am pondering whether to get a Primal Scream ticket for March. 

I've got two music books to read - one called Telling Stories the other all about the mavericks in the independent scene from 1975 til 2005. 

I bought five cds for one pound yesterday – I am currently playing Simian Mobile Disco’s mixed set for Bugged Out. It is very good – bass and bleeps. 

Me, John and the masses

Last week I ventured to Kentish Town with old punks and grey haired romancers to watch a taut and well voiced Lydon sing with gusto and energy. I pogoed at one point, wrapped up in a moment of realization that this would, most likely, be my one time with John and me in a room.

I wanted that memory.

I created it amidst the mosh and the mass. Bespectacled and beered – well singing with cider that anger is an energy as I pushed myself on the shoulders of older men to ‘rise’ in the air and be part of it….maaaaan.

It was an odd concert to be honest. As I get older I tend to obsess more about train times than set lists – about routes and changes. I had met a friend early – soaking up the [unpretty] vacant Hirst exhibition [and we ‘should’ care – there was nothing pretty about his empty money grabbing greed and lack of style and grace – what a fucking rotter – next question.] We had settled near London Bridge  where the Shard stands like an intruder in the city and talked about this and that – but my mind was half on the clock and working my way up the Northern line to be on time for show.

Arriving only to be greeted by bouncers and barcode scanners. Like a supermarket where the staff wear tuxedos. Check your ticket -  that you printed – further saving costs – I used to keep hold of my old tickets – they had been designed – thought about – already providing the first steps of anticipation for an impending night,  sometimes weeks in advance. Don’t get me wrong – I do anticipate a night out – in fact I had done since I was given the ticket in a card on the morning I turned 41. Slowly clutching at middle age and tales to tell round the meeting table – not the public houses. But ticket design is a thing of the past. Perhaps it will help the hoarder in me.

So I arrived early – I wasn’t the first  - the place was filling up as men surveyed t-shirt prices and looked at flyers or simple wandered around holding carrier bags and looking lost. I had my bag over my shoulder – I knew where I was. Then randomly snapping photographs of empty stages – to capture and collect our moments – our nights out on iphones and apps to announce our attendance through digital means to all our other ‘friends’ on pages and sites.

The rituals. The motions.  All of us going through them.

There were no ‘special guests’ as promised. Just the incessant chug and fug of bass of the dub variety welcoming our hot bodies to relax and sway. I have always found the irony of the dub workout  - the slow and [rock] steady rolls and rimshot – as a means to generate anger and edge in confined spaces as bass shakes walls and floors and minds become ever more frayed as the subsonic shifts moods and moves. And on and on it played. I could feel that filling room filling up with the feeling that they’d been cheated – if it says guests – then give us some – because we knew that this PILzone wouldn’t be in effect until 9pm. But somehow through the fleeting appearances of ‘guitar techs’ we knew that something would ‘appen. So we beared with. We waited.

And then – once his manager/ guard was in place – stage right, PIL towel down – ready for the masses and the bass –there was John – all Carharrt camouflage and caterwaul. Not pantomime villain – but well rehearsed singer. The sounds were shrill and dense – echoing and reverberating off walls. I had gone fearing that the chorus and shine of the guitar would distract from the heavy bass bottom end. It didn’t. With Lydon’s scowl and growl, his scream and shout sitting and swirling in the mix. This was not for the faint hearted. This is not a long song. This was no easy trawl through the greatest hits, so far – this was confined space and bass in your face. You could see the whites of his eyes but we knew he would do us no harm – it’s the politicians who do that – as he took us out to deeper water and we were happy to bathe in it. Right until the final electronic sounds of Open Up he meant it. For real – as it where. There wasn’t a shout for a Pistols tune – we were there for PIL. For this public image of John.

I guess I got lost in all of that – and found myself bouncing up and down. Wild abandon in North London. No one got hurt. We police ourselves.

On the tubetrain on the way home – Johnny Cash arrived to serenade the midnight marauders with his Folsom Prison Blues as two young punks drank bottled beers and shared their wonder with one another. And as the train stopped and the Olympic hoards jumped on board  - I was struck by the fact that John still scares people. Clocked by a Team GB aficionado all indignant and self righteous – he looked at me and cursed in his suburban sounds that ‘he hadn’t seen anyone like those two fucking wastes of space on the Olympic field’ – trying to draw me in with a nod and a wink. All Daily Mail headlines – and leader columns – ‘Punks not Patriotic’. It’s if he wanted them to swap anarchy for Team GB. So he bristled and postured and muttered and he moaned all the while thinking I agreed but was just less confident to say it. What did he want me to do – lynch the fuckers?

I simply nodded. See as that other John said – the one who was vicious (so vicious) 'I’ve met the man on the street – and the man on the street is a cunt'.

I am an anarchist. Simple as that really. So is Lydon. It was good to be in his company. It was good to be with like minded people.

This is me jumping up and down. And this is a link to a wonderful Mayor in Spain. I think these things go together.

When it became embarrassing to talk of Funk

I am a heavy admirer of the super heavyweight sounds of the US funk scene – but somewhere over the years it became a cliché. A north London DJ route that’s all open sandwiches and jazz bars. I blame ACID JAZZ – I shouldn’t I know - but the whole music got wrapped in a soul boy styling when we should have just been sharing the tunes not trying to dig so deep in the crates that every record played was a one-off – a unique slice of soul that no one had heard but made you hip because it was rare – man – really rare.

I‘ll tell you what’s rare – Polar bears they’re rare.

Anyway, I once was a deejay – for a night sometimes – not as a career choice – dropping 45s of funk as we warmed up a room ready to go wild for the drum and bass – right in tha face at the end of an evening. And those nights were fuelled with our chemical beats for all those speed freak – northern soul stompers making way for the hardcore partiers in tha house. I loved finding a funk 45 that had been sampled and dropping those tunes – the essence of the hip hop scene – distilled in a bass line and a drum break that would make you stop in your tracks [which of course is ironic given we were playing tunes to make you dance]

And clearly I spent many years safe in the notion that I had the funk. But somewhere amidst the James Brown hollers and the loose booty of the family stone a barrier was built. So I’m trying to figure this out. You see I was trying to make a compilation the other day/ night and I’m the selector – so it’s about my choices – I control the flow – ya’ know – but I take a walk in the park and right by the Johnny Pate selection, WAR don’t get a look in, I’ve got reasons for not selecting Mary Jane Hooper and I’m [Humpty] dumping the Vibrettes.

Why is this?

It’s not that I don’t like the songs – it’s as if something has crept in beside it and sullied it and part of me feels it was the sudden rush to funk up the 90s and the noughties that killed it for me. Throughout those youthful years – before wrinkles and weight would make me weary – I would happen across a gem – a diamond – a belter of a tune. In a car boot cardboard box [Slaughter’s Big Rip Off soundtrack by James Brown for 50p], or stall in Greenwich [Richard and I carving out the cash to purchase Me and Baby Brother by WAR for four pound] or in a handful of scuffed and scratched records in SCOPE on the high street [Memphis Soul Stew on an Atlantic 4 track ep] or PDSA near Sainsbury’s in Beeston [that’s Nottingham folks - where I would purchase funk delight after funk delight as animal lovers offloaded vinyl by the cartload]

Mixed in with these finds would be the scraps of information picked up in reviews, interviews, or conversations with older folks, hip hop headz and soul boys. Scouring the sample clearance information on Three Feet High and Rising to see where that Potholes beat came from – which of course is the mighty Eric Burdon & War’s Magic Mountain – listen for yourself at whosampled.com – it’s easier now to find this and that.

No one was taping their records for the internet generation. Not that I’m against it – it’s wonderful to tap right in – drill on down to the sounds that inspire the underground that go overground for us all.

But the funk scraps we were fed were tantalising. I remember a wonderful friend of mine’s brother – Carl he was called, a true funk and soul aficionado – crafting columns for Blues and Soul, starting up his own magazine and building up a collection that rivalled any North London wannabe – this was real NORTHERN soul – brother. And he gave me a box of records – stuff he wasn’t hip to – for a small fee – early Mo’Wax, compilations, Acid Jazz, Grant Green and Mick Talbot’s solo album. But there on side two of a nondescript funk album was Jimmy James’ Root Down – soon to be sampled by The Beastie Boys – this huge ever pulsating tune from the centre of the Funkiverse – building from bass through drum roll and organ swipes – setting the funk up for the day ahead. I lived with these tunes – the market find of Black Ceasar in the Loire Valley while we camped – the Quest sample album picked up in Selectadisc on the way home from work – or the random 7inch from The Five Stairsteps [ok – I know it’s soul – but it’s a little funky – their bassist used to hang with the family stone – you’re bound to let that rub off on the fretboard] thrust into my hand by the owner of a lovely yet incredible messy store on Lee High Road [that’s Lewisham folks]

Mixed with that came tales of legendary films with Dolemite and Coffey Brown – or watching The Mack on video through a find from Chris – Carl’s brother and all round wonderful bloke – lost touch with him but fondly remembered in these parts - discovered in a discounted bin in a shop in Ridings [that’s Scunthorpe folks].

So what changed?

As I said I think the ubiquitous use by advertisers to sell us the carnal and exotic became demeaning – divorced the fury from the funk and rendered it solid – commodified through hot pants, knee socks and bubble blowing girls – forgetting the struggles that funk had endured. Rendered in vibrant colours to represent that 70s swing – they were burning records back then – they were burning lots of things back then – including the cross. And now it’s a photoshopped urban image with a day-glo vibe shifting tunes that spoke volumes about circumstance and opportunity. Check the Chi-Lites For God's Sake Give More Power To The People for want of anthem about being oppressed and depressed. But those off the peg fancy dress – let’s ridicule a style – appropriate the hate and laugh at the threads of sub cultures fighting for a corner kind of made me wary of the whole thang. Whilst Tarantino told us how hip he was in his blatant ripping off of film making by directors who were never given a chance with mainstream audiences.

Somewhere in all of that – I stopped listening and starting skipping the tunes.

It is not funk’s fault that it got sold out. I should stop being embarrassed and remember to listen more because when the bass and guitar and breaks connect – it makes me want to dance. And I have always loved dancing – you can’t do that to Brian Eno’s Music for Airports – you can do it to The Meters.

I should paint the [blue] room

There was a time when I immersed myself in electronic sounds. Those synthetic beats and the squelch of the 303. Around then – back in the early nineties - the band I was in [which was mostly in my head] had mutated to a three piece – drum machines, analogue synths, sequencers, tape decks, guitars and dub bass. I would set up elaborate recording sessions – those bedroom beats – emanating from the record deck or sequenced on the Korg – with the Roland Juno 6 providing the arpeggiated pulse of the post summer of love.

I was no Aphex Twin.

But those moments exist – locked down on C60s and C90s – waiting to explode again when I eventually buy the Amstrad Studio 100 from ebay – to reanimate them and revel in more nostalgia. [but i said no more nostalgia rides]

These [acidic] experiments were fuelled by the electronica that was slowly filling my waking and walking hours and drifting ever more into my dreams. I was a postman at this point, in communications you see – after all that degree had to count for something. Being a postman had its pluses – its positives – you get to the sorting office – you sort your letters – pop them in the frame – bag up [I am carry bag man] and get out – the time is then yours – through those concrete streets, that when you wondered stopped you going under.

And at weekends I would fill my head with electronic sounds. In the clubs at volume – through purchases across northern record stores and Nick, Danny, Darryl or Chris’s recommendations

And over the last week I have attempted to listen to The Orb.

It had been a week of oddness, of vagueness and cravings and hallucinations as infections rolled around my face and seeped into my teeth. I’ve felt like this many times – all full of something and reeling. And wanting to paint the house - but not moving a muscle - feeling that draining feeling and not sleeping. 

And I always return to the ambient ways of the techno pioneers. Lying upstairs as Smokebelch slowly beats its 13 minutes into my skull and soothes the gums that swell and provide far too much heat in my face. And then mustering the energy to get down stairs and selecting The Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume Two – whilst putting on Football Focus as Papa Doc Crookes and Robbie Savage banter over Swindon’s form or whether Blackburn deserve it this season.

I think I first heard Aphex Twin on John Peel – Analogue Bubblebath or possibly Didgeridoo - all analogue production and rolling acid lines. That DIY approach – recorded on cassettes and cheap four tracks. I remember getting our first computer – a Spectrum 128+ - Daley Thompson loaded in bleeps and whirrs – and simple programming to make it hold a note. You could get a Cheetah keyboard to link up with it – I coveted that keyboard. Never bought it or received it – but imagined the possibilities of machines making music. Richard D James made the sounds in all our analogue heads – those echoes and arpeggios that soothed the soul and chimed with the industrial backgrounds of steel towns.

Washed out and slow – rhythmic but not precise.  Pure ambient work[s] for the sleepless youth.

But I was talking of The Orb and their ambient riffing. I have been trying to listen to them. Not lots of Orb songs – just Blue Room. The epic prog –ambient tune that made it on to TOTP. It’s 47 minutes long. Taking me back to those days and nights when sleep was not required.

It was the day of my twenty first birthday when Alex and Thrash played chess on Top of the Pops – this odd appearance on a pop show for the teens all awash with dub bass and swirls and squelches. I watched it with Paul and then ventured to The Beefeater on a roundabout on the way into town to buy my own and others drinks as I came of age. Listening to The Orb live was a wonder – a vibrant dubbed up sonic experience for the new age. I remember Kilburn Ballroom – bedecked in laser light and smoke – all dark corners and exchanges as their dub merriment carried us upwards and onwards. Music was opening up back then. We were listening to all sorts – everything and anything went.

Thrown in the mix by the good doctor.

And I guess that’s the same for all the young ones today – as they raid the vaults and collide the sounds into new spaces and experiences for their own long nights and emerging dawns. But these electronic sounds are just as important as Heatbreak Hotel – this chain reaction from machines to man through minds and switches and chains and patches – as musique concrete gave way to loops and moogs and the radiophonic workshop switched us on to the low LFO [the work of the good doctor again – except this was a different one – Alex has yet regenerate]

Thrown out at two o’clock onto Kilburn High Street all disorientated as lamp light beams stretched and radiated glows signalling the way home. We decided not to get the night bus – navigate our way through streets and across roads – back street suburbs and mansions as eyes widened to the dark and laughs and nonsense came readily from our mouths.

The Orb could have that effect – all soothing and safe in their ambient arms. And on this magical mystery tour of North London past Abbey Road and houses with one light on – I glanced a bin bag – a simple black bin liner. No reason to get it in my sights – but I fixed on it nonetheless – as we made our way to Trafalgar Square – when buses could drive all the way around it – and between us we opened this bin bag up – a random sack on the roadside and out tumbled ‘Turtle Crazy’ by The Toy Dolls – all glaring cover in a two colour print.

It was a sack full of them – unplayed and unplayable I suppose – but a sack full nonetheless - I would say it was a unique moment – but things like that happen when you’re young and fancy free. But finding them in that sack somehow chimes with the Orb’s sense of fun – that playfulness that keeps your feet dancing and your head expanding.

It was good to listen to The Orb – it was good to get back to my electronic roots – and in the midst of revisiting that room in my room – I stumbled on this – what The Orb do best.

Things are getting repetitive

In order to change the style [go wild]

I have decided to abandon the format that the previous entries were taking for a post that is just simply a piece of music.

Just waves of sonic experimentation building to bleeps and bass. There are no facts to uncover - there are stories - but I'm not going to write them.

A grower.

They have been known to call it.

A grower.