NWA: Noise with Attitude

Right – this piece is about noise – it’s about recapturing the past and it’s about not having the time to book a ticket at 9am to a concert that I would so like to go to  – because I am at work. Because  I have hinted at this in the past - the changing ways of capitalism and the industry’s way of making a tidy sum – quickly – it accrues interest see –all that money pooled in one day – from your interest…see.  

So McGee announces the JAMC will play Psychocandy – three times – in November – in the two of his favourite cities for music (the other being Liverpool ) – but fuck it – you know London sells – so there’s a show there – I guess you can argue McGee brought these leather clad miscreants to the Smoke in the first place – so why shouldn’t he book a set in London 30 years on? Then it gets announced that Creation Management are up and running again and before you know it were right back there at the start.

Rolling down the hill falling and laughing and all that.

Careful, we might see The Mighty Lemon Drops playing some sort of ‘first’ album anytime soon. It’s like 1985 in 2015 (I think The Legend!’s going to put some 10” flexi out for RSD2015 (that’s record store day  folks) probably a red flexi – or possibly blue – but it will be limited edition -  to kind of sum it up…maaaaaaaaaan)

Now do not get me wrong – the JAMC were an awakening for a fourteen year old lad who’d missed out on that big punk/ plastic explosion – the JAMC were the third coming – an amalgamation of the Pistols, Velvets, Ronnettes and Stooges cool.

Absolutely grand – in so many ways.

And if I’m reaching for some noise it’s those boys I’m going for – all Spector beats – sqwawks and shrieks – rising feedback matching our rising alienation and the feeling that we just wanted to have a party (we’re gonna have real good time together). I recall the Whistle Test – 6pm in the evening and the scowl of Jim – swaying and posturing with his microphone – semi acoustic guitar slipping and a sliding around him – adding to the feedback fizz and William’s hunched guitar play all furious and on fire as Bobby and Douglas gave it that steady backbeat (you can use it) . It was riotous – not North London Poly riot – I mean generally riotous – it was noise on the telly – real noise.

Noise with Attitude (NWA) 

Now I loved The Smiths – they spoke to the insecurities of my teenage years – a confidence  expressing my feeling beyond thuggery – but you know I was never going to articulate that like Johnny Marr on the guitar – and thirteen olds shouldn’t write words to songs – they haven’t done out yet. They haven’t lived. So it was just me and my guitar – and as I said I was certainly no Marr – I’m hardly a Reid – but that cacophony and bluster – that attempt to control the sound yet let it run for itself – I thought I could give that go.

I never said I was a shy retiring teenager.

Those three chords gave you power and the ferocity of the JAMC’s raw power gave you confidence to try it out – in local pubs and clubs – on small stages or spaces with tables pushed aside – tuned up and turned up – irritating locals but not through choice – because you believed these were the best tunes ever written.  The Mary Chain did not set out to annoy – the just picked up the pieces from where rock n roll had fallen and broken. They put it back together. They meant it maaaaaaaan.

So the JAMC were perfect for me ( and you) they just used those basics of rock n roll and turned it into something of their own. This was a band hated by that muso scene – heavy on the muso scene – in their eyes they had no finesse – no grace – but to my eyes they simply had it all. I mean it – they had it all and I could at least emulate those ways – because I love/ hate rock n roll.  I just wanted something that was immediate – and so they were – Paul (my brother) duly purchased the album - we taped sessions from Janice Long, Jenson and Peel and fell in love with the whole fucking thing.

I still have a Jesus and Mary Chain T-shirt – I mentioned in a postway back then – one of the first or so – I still have that t-shirt now – it’s as old as Psychocandy.  I can’t get into it – I’m no lithe teenager now – in canvas and Chelsea boots.

So I probably won’t get to see/hear the JAMC –at the Troxy – because it will sell out – in minutes – faster than the length of ‘Upside Down’. We’re all into noise nostalgia now.  The good people of Shoreditch will lap it up. Perhaps that’s the way it should be - New audiences for old people.

But you know the JAMC are not a postmodern thing. They are the real thing.  That was modernity.  They were a part of my youth on the small streets of Scunthorpe – an alternative from the grind. I could hold my guitar to the amp and hope. As blast furnaces blew smoke to the skies.

Here’s to a wonderful set of concerts. Driven by sound and fury. Signifying something?  Enjoy it – because if they get half as close to that rush of energy from 1985 – then you’ll be in for a treat. 

Here is what I want it to look like . i actually think I have posted this before - but no one read it then (most likely like now) 

The Jesus and Mary Chain on The Whistle Test. 

No nostalgia rides

I was on the telephone talking to Paul the other night. About the concretes, his journey around the nation in the grip of ice and snow and how Stephen Pastel had come to walk him back to his hotel. And we spoke of the days when going to a concert was the straightforward. Seeing things is harder these days – for so many reasons – tiredness, disinterest, a better television schedule, fucked transport systems and of course children. Sometimes things just stop. Although I watched the end of some tacked together BBC4 festival programme with abhorrent middle class fathers leading their children through fields of mud in an effort to tap into some sort of a vision of a utopian Britain where everyone – I mean white C2 families can listen to dirge like rock and non threatening ‘other world’ bands whilst their children eat ‘vegan’ foods and paint themselves as they embrace ‘free politics’. I will never parade my children as accessories for festival fun times. I for one am social responsible and secondly – hippies do festivals and you should never trust a hippy.

But sometimes I would like to watch a moment of live music. Now if that moment of live music was a multi-platinum act and tickets were timed to go on sale at 7.16 am on the first Tuesday in March when the moon was waxing and not waning, then I guess I would have to join some sort of internet/ phone ticket system feeding frenzy with the masses – but I mean I would like to watch a band who are not moderately famous – who have not released a record – who have only played a handful of dates. I wanted to watch Jonny.

This crossing over of the independent, because we’re all ‘indie’ now both saddens and utterly unfazes me – I mean I shouldn’t be shocked by the nature of the capitalist control of culture – see how we fetishize all areas of existence. Note the build up to the forthcoming Creation Records documentary – I know I will watch it – will comment on its authentic voice and rally against the Sony sell out saying McGee had no option etc - but really Creation was a record label – it wanted my money – McGee and Dick Green wanted our money. Eventually they got it with the safety of simple driving rock guitars for mindless souls who love to sing in packs and enjoy the mob mentality of the imbecilic sections of the football terraces. Doing it for the kids? Really? Remember this was a label with Momus on it.

However – there was a time when you could turn up at a venue and venture inside and see the acts - without having to have a specific printed out piece of paper with several reference numbers and a time to collect. Of course I have bought tickets in advance – but it was a case of in advance – not at the first point of sale – the very minute they are released. Everyone wants a piece of it nowadays – how can Jonny sell out?

I first saw Euros Childs supporting The Concretes at the ULU in London. I had seen a glimpse of the Scandinavian group on a Glastonbury afternoon programme – they were wearing wigs and singing ‘You can’t hurry love.’ [Not a Phil Collins tribute – more a Nordic Velvets] I told Paul - as ever he had seen it - was already on the concretes tip - as he is wont to do – I bought an album and I thought very little else about it.

I read The Concretes were playing – I gave Paul a ring – we decided to get some tickets - I actually think he had purchased tickets for the tour already - but I was in London so we could go together –there was no rush. We purchased tickets – and Euros was on the supporting bill. First on – early start. He was an absolute revelation – I had dabbled on the outer fringes of the Gorky’s Zygotic Monkey catalogue of sounds. Listened to some Peel sessions, bought an EP but to be honest I didn’t even know who Euros was and that the Gorky’s had split. But I was mesmorised by his performance and that of his band – two from Radio Luxembourg at the time [now Racehorses – and they are always worth a listen with their wonderful craft of Floyd, Furries and Cole Porter ] and Richard/ or James Tam – they were awesome. It was mainly Chops – possibly with Henry and Matilda and Billy the Seagull – and what prime cuts they were – finishing the set with ‘First Time I saw You’ – this brooding, beautiful bass filled grower full of pure sentiment and love. First time I saw you – skirt was white and blue – first time I saw you. And throughout enthused with good cheer. I was laughing, dancing and feeling thoroughly entertained.

I have since seen Euros on several other occasions. I have always got inside the venue. I buy my albums off the fella himself normally after a concert – yes I am nearly forty but I get some sad flash of ‘teenage excitement’ in meeting the artist, having the record signed. And I once stage dived at a Teenage Fanclub concert – it was being filmed for Snub TV. It was busy – the Manics were the first act – all clashed and fired up - but we [me and James – a super cool young continental] got in. Probably bought our tickets a week or so in advance.

Now Norman Blake from Teenage Fanclub and Euros Childs from Euros Childs are Jonny and everyone wants a piece of the indie action. How everyone has suddenly awoken to the subtle charm of ‘Do the Caveman’, or ‘Which Witch is which?’ is new to me but it seems I can’t get a ticket for this gig. But as I said -no nostalgia rides – the whole shape of the music scene has changed – has mutated and the mob has muscled in. I will read the review in the Guardian. I will put ‘WegotTickets’ web page in favourites and their telephone number in my mobile and next time be that little bit faster.

Or I might just decide to stay at home.

Sometimes that is just that bit easier.