A little bit of roogie boogie on a Sunday

This concert kind of rushed up on me - a sudden posted video and tour dates - Euros Childs was coming to town again. It had been a busy weekend - up to the Forum on Friday - birthday walks and meals (I was cooking not celebrating - I mean I was celebrating but it wasn't my birthday) on Saturday and then here - back in the heart of the city on a Sunday evening. Summer sun fading and a grin on my face - I was heading to The Lexington for another dose of that roogie boogie magic (and it is magic he weaves - with his merry men and woman - real magic)

I hadn't had a chance to listen to Sweetheart - released on the Friday - you can get it from The National Elf himself if you want - so some of this set was going to be like the first time I saw him (you) - unknown set lists and tunes - which added an edge of anticipation for me - not necessarily for Euros Childs and the band - they knew what was coming. 

But I didn't and it was a blast.

There's a certain sweeping charm to the whole affair - 8pm Oh Peas! plays - all chords and words - gentle and humourous - a girl and a guitar - cutting and tender - whilst various members of the Euros gang - mingle and pace - drink tea and get the errands out the way.  

I think I've seen Euros now about eight times - now that's a fair amount of times in my book - I once followed The Cure over most of England with my brother - I didn't backcomb my hair - I was getting into Spaceman 3 to be honest - but that was different - we were young. My brother has now taken to following PINS around - I'm sticking to Euros - he just has that pull about him - a merry prankster - a simple guy with simple songs - but oh my there's so much more than that.

So here he is - new recording in the bag - recorded in a week in his parent's place - and now Euros is on the road - with a full band again to play to people who appreciate that sort of thing - and there are a lot of us. We fill The Lexington up - we are a throng - a mixed bag - eclectic - like these roogie boogie warriors. Stage set up - conversations had with two fifths of the group (Stu Kidd and Marco Rea of The Wellgreen, Dr Cosmos's Tape Lab, Poundstore Riot, and BMX Bandits fame - you should be buying all their records too)

Euros arrives on stage all nervous legs and tics - green t-shirt and jeans (there used to be a feature in J17 - a teenage girl's mag - I used to read it in my cousin's house up in Scotland - it had piece about how much your fashion cost that you were wearing  - they took pictures in the street - I can't help costing out my outfit every time I go out - I had planned on asking Euros what his outfit would have cost - in my head I thought that would be a good opening interview question - you come up with these type of ideas when crossing the river - South to North)

Anyway he launches into Horse Riding - this band are on fire. He's not really easy to classify - to me it's straight forward rock n roll - yes we have that psychedelic thing, that folk thing, that krautrock repetition thing - but he keeps it wrapped up in rock n roll - not all leather jackets and spitting - but performance - integrity and show - like Elvis did - like Jerry Lee Lewis keeps doing - with a slight nod to Little Richard (it's all in the show)

The set continues with a healthy selection from Sweetheart - Fruit and Veg - Julia Sky - Sweetheart and Lady Caroline - and you can see the pleasure it brings - an album recorded in a week - with a band - and what a new long player it is. I don't know where he finds the melodies - perhaps it's being in his parent's place - where the album was recorded - but he just keeps churning out these pop beauties for us all - ones that keep us smiling through winter.

At one point Euros tells us that touring from city to city has resulted in the invention of a  game called 'who's on the plane?' A sort of reversal of the Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, Big Bopper disaster (you know when the music died) whereby you can chose the artists who are on it (the plane) in the likelihood it's going down (there should be an app for that - I'd download it) 

Euros tells us that Dave Stewart has firmly booked his place on that plane.

Harmonies and riffs - Euros states the simple feeling of feeling love - of feeling overwhelmed or underwhelmed - both rejected and welcomed - hugged and shunned in tales of happiness and woe (sometimes with a ghost check out Lady Caroline) And the set continues to build with ( despite contractual show business stops for Laura J Martin whose adding flute and mandolin sparingly but as always effectively tonight) further musical explorations of love and feelings.

We get Billy and the sugar loaf Mountain - and the layering of voices is sublime - and an audience sing a long of Daddy's Girl ( we may have out sung Wales) before a stormer of  song called Bycycle of Bees - which may be an old one - it may be a new one - it's most definitely a good one. Building and building as Marco's guitar screeches and wails in walls of sound. It's that psychedelic thing again. A band connecting and taking you somewhere else.

Followed by Heywood Lane - which I'd been singing all week. And then a rip-roaring Roogie Boogie to round the night off. But we (the audience that is) we're not ready to go home - we clap - we chant - we want more. (We might not see him for a year). A cheeky call out for the whole of Miracle Inn - but instead we get Tete a Tete and a wonderful full band Spin that Girl Around. And then they are gone.  Well not gone - Euros is up and off to sell the sounds - from his stand at the back of the room.

He captures human emotions for me

He captures feeling alive

It is evident that he has not taken a Dave Stewart angle to any of this pop making process.

Thank fuck.  We can buy Dave Stewart - or DS as we call him round here (infact it's a little known fact the Nintendo DS actually refers to Dave Stewart - but that's another story) a ticket for the first seat on the 747 - that's a big plane - we can all think of other passengers. 

Euros Childs will not be on that plane.

You can be certain of that. 

Sweetheart is available at The National Elf website

And here is Machine (off the new album - and live at The Lexington) 

Thanks to seajohnster for posting this to YouTube

Panda Bear is listened to in this house

I find myself returning to the ‘new’ Panda Bear album again and again – it’s kind of rolled around my soul for the last month or two or three. There’s something euphoric and utterly bleak about it at the same time. It’s all that cracked beauty that’s getting me – you getting me? I’m not sure how I arrived at Panda Bear – it was through a chance encounter with Animal Collective possibly or a mention in Mojo (oh no) about Person Pitch that probably got me started.

It was either Bros or Comfy in Nautica that did it.

I love that cacophonous sound of digital and analogue breaking down and spinning round and round with reverb drenched falsetto like a future Wilson brother hooked up to Detroit and trance. I still have a whole heap of equipment lodged around the house and in various buildings – old synths, drum machines, 8 track recorders, echo units, drum machines, sequencers and laptops with part finished songs and unfinished beats. I sometimes think I might set it all up and record an opus – you know Wilson meets Detroit.

But Panda Bear got there first. Oh he was way out in front.

I don’t listen to as much electronica as I used to. There’s not much room in the day for beats and bleeps when you’ve the madness of young minds running rings round mine. As I said most of the time electronica is confined to solo car journeys – but I can sneak Panda Bear in on the pretext that the kids love The Beach Boys.

So what to say of Panda Bear meets the Grim Reaper – a title already intriguing –like a hallucinatory dub album with dark over(under) tones. Now hear this! Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Panda Bear, a.k.a. one-fourth of the founding members of Animal Collective, sees it like this,  ‘[as] more comic-booky, a little more lighthearted,” he says. “Like Alien Vs. Predator.”

It has that sci-fi/ lo-fi  - oh why appeal. Within the ‘soup’ there are ever morphing sounds and feels – cycles and loops – textures and tones coursing throughout the whole thing. It was made with the collaborative soul of aka Pete Kember (everyone’s got an aka these days) Sonic Boom. A sonic alchemist from way back when who blended psychotropic drugs with paeans to the almighty channelled through electrical velocity, hum and drone.

What’s strange is that this wholly unique and striking long player is ripped from the heart of those sample packs available for all to use. But it takes a sense of the unknown to transform them beyond the usual and make it unusual, “I got into the idea of taking something that felt kind of common — the opposite of unique — and trying to translate that into something that felt impossible,” he says. The textures for the album came together everywhere from El Paso, Texas, to a garage by the beach near his home in Lisbon, Portugal, where he has lived with his family since 2004. I‘ve put a couple of these stretched out electronic psyche numbers on a compilation for the kids (my kids – that’s who I’m doing it for) and it’s clearly Mr Noah that gets us all going – all nonsense shout outs and something like a ‘big chip on her leg’ – well that’s what we sing.

 It’s electronica sending out viruses to infect the brain.

(won – won – won) Wonderful.

I’m not in the mood for a full review – I just need to get back to writing somehow – somewhere – but I want to put down a few thoughts about ‘Tropic of Cancer’.

 “Some of the songs address a big change, or a big transformation,” And here is the central song about death. That’s the one I keep returning to (it’s on the kids compilation – we sing it together – maaaaaan.)  It’s truly heart breaking – truly heart breaking – with its repetitive sample of harp from The Nutcracker Suite and utter openness about the devastation of losing someone ( you won’t come back – you can’t come back – you won’t come back to it) “It’s sort of marking change — not necessarily an absolute death, but the ending of something, and hopefully the beginning of something else.” All somewhere over the rainbow - but it's a place you don't want to go. Saying that I always felt that song had a sinister edge. A little too much 'survivor soul' in it.

I know Noah keeps on getting compared to Brian Wilson – but you can trace it right back through his Panda Bear work – introspective – open – real. Tropic of Cancer is ‘In my Room’ – an honesty so much missed in this calculating unforgiving modern austere times (perhaps I wasn’t made for these times and nor was Noah) There’s fragility in his words and harmonies that sink into the psyche – it gnaws away at you – like his subject matter.  And he couples this with genuine psychedelia – colouring sound and song in modern ‘far out’ ways.

Panda Bear meets The Grim Reaper and comes out on top. It’s a wonderful long player from a wonderful talent.

You know Wilson’s getting on – Noah’s still young. Let’s book some time for him at Ocean Way Recording, Hollywood.

Another response to (Sleaford) modernism Part 2

Arriving in Camden Town the rub and mix of London smashes against the senses - all nose, eyes and ears. I am making my way down the High Street to Koko - London's hip hangout for NME youth and groove (I've got a Brit Award) to see Sleaford Mods - Nottz (with a Z you cunt) upstarts  - emperor's new clothes or the real thing ?  (just so you are aware of this - the are the real thing - and i've never thought otherwise)

There's something about Sleaford Mods that brings out the bile in people - they either get it or fucking hate it - with a passion.  A real passion - trying to drown out one of the most authentic voices in rock n roll this decade. I don't know why the man (that's the 'man on the street) thinks like that - perhaps he's a wanker.

So down a hot high street of cheap plastic and chicken. With carrier bags, skateboards and mental health, crab eyes and rage I make my way to the Palais - a venue steeped in tradition and history - comedy ( the last Goon show was recorded there) and music hall - cheeky songs and bawdy crowds. 

How times have not changed.

The concert is an early one - doors at seven - Vic Goddard and his Subway Sect on at 7.30 - and Sleaford Mods at 8.30. We all have to get out by 10 so NME people can set up stuff and groove. Me I like the fact it finishes on time - clocking in and clocking off - I know my hours - work like. But this concert is far from work like - it feels like Sleaford Mods are on the verge of that bigger breakthrough - new songs from 'Key Markets' have creeping claustrophobic choruses - there is a difference in the air. And I'll return to this later.

So Vic gives a pleasant set of post punk scratchiness and hollers and shakes - you get the lineage (from here to where we'll be going with Sleaford Mods)  - the ranconteur - there's a story about this one and that one - the audience peppered with beards and loss of hair  - young ones and old ones - they are receptive. I am receptive to these sounds too - it reminds me of The Only Ones  and Orange Juice - The Jam and The Buzzcocks - it has its place because Goddard was a face then and he is now. Good stuff.

So myself and Andy B (a long time friend and with an open mind to music and the masses) snatch a cheeky pint or two and position ourselves in the crowd in readiness for the band. And they are a band comprising singer/ poet Jason Williamson and musician Andrew Robert Lindsay Fearn - oh but it's a lap top and he doesn't even play owt. Get awwt of it. Of course he fucking plays it - he plays it every night - without that stance and shake at the side to Williamson's frenetic peacock strutting - head shaking - hair brushing - tourette's ticking I think it wouldn't work. Fearn has this 'lad on a bike outside the off licence asking you to buy fags' feel about him - even though he could get his own.  It's a likely alliance of minds  - words and bass - beats and politics - it's a Pet Shop Boys borne out of Poundland and Bargain Booze - Kwik Save and Frozen Foods - of small market towns - concrete slabs and orange fluorescent haze as days became dazed as life present just fuck all to do - day in day aawwwwt.

I think I've been waiting for Sleaford Mods for a long time - saying that they've been going for a long time - anyway - I like a rant - an incoherence - a 'I just can't fucking believe it' strop at life and here is Williamson and Fearn to articuate this in brutal inarticulation - with bellows and burps - raspberries and grunts - this peppered spastic magic - sums up the state of the nation aptly - white British rap music (perhaps?). Williamson arrives after Fearn has set up - a few thumbs to the full hall and they are in and on it for the next 80 minutes. Williamson's lyrics depict the frustration and pointlessness to modern living - puncture the ideology of musical acceptance from the masses - he attacks bosses (sack the manager) - sees the ugly overbelly of being a citizen in the streets.

Williamson struts and juts - there's a camp element and theatre to it all (apt in this music hall setting)  - seeing it in the flesh he reminded me of Iggy Pop - all command and freak - everyman and star rolled into one - all stage glory as this nation turned Tory. What's your story? Delivered with wit not banter, shouts and stutters of tales of real life gutters and nutters on trains and buses and in shopping centres (the Vicky Centa)  I lived in Nottingham for eight years - it gets under your skin - I can see this midlands mentality wrapped round these visions.

These are true modernists.

You get a sense the audience are shifting in their demographic - there's a fella holding a wine glass ( i mean him no harm) but you know what I mean - all middle class elbows and A roads. English Heritage visits and cheese - mixed with fixed stares and potential threats of violence.  I guess Sleaford Mods have mortgages to pay with their faces of rage. And that doesn't matter - your music moves with you - you can tell on these new tunes - there's a temperance in his temper. Andy B even suggested that Sleaford Mods music would appear in advertisements - he thought  Homebase - I'm not quite certain about that.

But I feel I am witnessing a band of the (no) future. They mean it man. We mean it maaaaaaan. The band continue with abuse - sonic shakes and bass (rowche) rumbles - the aural equivalent of a gang of hoodies showing cheap youtube clips of spits in playgrounds and accidents and precinct fights - all hot headed and lairy - not scary. Cunt this and that. Rage about those times- i fucking hate these times and here is the idiocy articulation of fear and loathing - we don't know what to think - shut it aawt mate - shut it awwwt.

I want a bounty - just a fucking bounty.

Sleaford Mods are the genuine article - not that they claim authenticity and all that shit - this is craft and graft. 

I am 44 next week and I have never been more excited in my life. Onwards and upwards - here's to the Sleaford modernists - you cunt.

Here they are. 

immediate response to Sleaford Mods Koko London

I will write a full review - these are just words for now- i have pictures - i have not put them up: 

this response will include swearing

chicken villa

hot streets

terrace banter

and mistaken identity

peacock shapes and stage glory

full houses and a nation turned tory

what's your story?

vitriol and rage and camp hand gesture and inarticulate mutterings

sex pistols and cusps of fame (but it's all so fucking boring)

command

iggy pop vemon

and songs turned up to eleven

wit not banter

shouts and stutters

of tales of real life gutters

and nutters

on trains

and buses

and in shopping centres

and streets

ram raided

and not faded denim

men

with faces past rage with mortgage

just simply stood and fed with invective

for minutes

or hours

because that's what we do

middle class elbows and

wine in hand

as we witness a band of the (no) future.

they mean it man

we mean it maaaaaaan

cusps of breakthrough

you discuss adverts and useage

the band continue with abuse

cunt this and that

i put the cunt in scunthorpe

i fucking rage about those times

i fucking hate these times

and here is the idiocy articulation of fear and loathing

we don't know what to think - shut it aawt mate - shut it awwwt.

I want a bounty.

just a fucking bounty

that's how we yell.

we demand

this is a band with politics and understanding

audience

shout cunt

they get it

smash it - big up the riots

with a z u cunt