How to destroy rock n roll - an evening with The Telescopes

They make fucking noise.

The Telescopes make beautiful fucking noise.

It's been a while since I was actually in New Cross. I pass through it - but don't stop there so much (can't stop, won't stop) - not since those heady university Goldsmiths' daze. Which is pretty much where The Telescopes came in. Okay - I first found my love for their sonic shakes whilst living out life with a bowlhead and bag on the mean streets of Scunthorpe - a northern town to bring you right down.  The Cheree realeased Kick The Wall - summing up all that teenage frustration in guitars and screams.  On hearing Stephen and Co's cacophony I decided that I liked it and wanted to taste a little more - and I pursued it with abandon in my early university time.

So I set about going to a number of gigs of theirs - early days for them and late nights for me. It was clear then - as it was with tonight's concert - that The Telescopes take no prisoners. They just play hard motherfucking rock n squall - and that my friends is exactly as it should be. Early Telescopes had that Iggy/ Stooges/ Spaceman thing going - no down tempo numbers full on sonics and screams.

I sent letters - mainly to Jo - and Stephen as well - interviewed them for a fanzine - jumped myself silly at gigs - supported them in Hull - watched them play with The Mary Chain and then slowly I stopped listening for a while. It was those repetitive beats - pulling me somewhere else.

But now here I was again waiting for a set of something - and to be honest I wasn't expecting it to be that hard - that brutal - but I felt challenged and that's good - it makes you think - it makes you question music. And as that's my bag - tonight's Telescopes - so different to years gone past - but so bloody-minded and similar in repose and attitude - did just that. They destroyed rock n roll for all around and simply put it back together in layers of reverb and hate.

The day was billed as a Psych All Dayer  - but I was making an evening of it. I tend to end up at these things on my own - my 45 year old set don't go in for this type of abuse - so I arrived for a set from Black Seas - a five piece Jaguar guitars and tweed sort of thing - they had noise and jangle - a touch of early valentines and a singer prowling and sending deep reverberations around - I guess it was a Nick Cave type thing - but with none of the presence and he was wearing a Nike t-shirt - so I'm not having that. You've got to put some effort in.

This was followed by a transcendental trumpet and electronica pyschedelic workout by two blokes under the name Hirvikolari - they started with dub echoes and bleeps and pretty much kept it that way as a colossal twenty minute beast was unleashed with modular pulses and repetition. I liked it - I liked their style.

Next - Melt Dunes - young psych upstarts - with loud guitars and hair - I quite like d them to be honest - a bit Sabbath - a bit of this and that - but their was conviction and a sense of  show - some youth down the front showing that he dug it - I liked that - this band will have fans - they will show their appreciation. They finished with a cover -  and I can't remember it's name - but it was fantastic - all

repetitive and shouting - they will certainly make some memorable records.

And then to The Telescopes - this brooding thing - slowly lumbering to the stage from the caves - finally alive and hungry. Stephen has been ploughing this field for some time now - incarnations of The Telescopes - forever looking further and beyond the now - exploring new space with a set of like minded 'cavemen'.  This current line up found Dave Gryphon on three stringed bass - 'Why would I need a G?', Stuart Gardham ( I think - but I might be wrong) stretching the sonics through six strings and John or Jon hitting the skins - warrior like - in control and controlling. Stephen spends most of the night crouched down - kneeling on the stage - listening and adding - sending his vocals spinning out and out into space ringing around and around - merging and melding into one noise - one beautiful noise.

If truth be told - I didn't recognise a song - there was a fella and his wife  - had waited all day for this - he was wearing a Chapterhouse t-shirt - he didn't stick around - they weren't playing the hits. Not that that would be a bad thing - The Telescopes have an army of tunes - they just decided that this wasn't the place to play them - or if it was - present them in such a manner that meant they became something else. Feedback jazz - was my bag that night.

It's hard to describe the sheer force of this group - it is not noodling or sonic fuckery for the fun of it - it seems to me that they actually want to push the limits of sound. I was on such a buzz on it finishing - it felt like I'd been fought with - punched and dazed - half the crowd had made it through the door - pushed themselves away. It was confrontational pop music. I can only imagine it must have been like witnessing Suicide or Throbbing Gristle for the first time.  It was not for the faint hearted. It wanted to fucking eat us all up - but there was subtlety and simmering within - at one point with all members fallen to the floor pushing their instruments against speakers and stage - vibrating - shaking - as Stephen howled down the microphone there came about a point of sudden bliss coupled with an expectation that we had hit new heights - that rock n roll was dead and somehow it needed to be saved - it needed raizing from the dead. And all that we had learned came crashing down in that sound - it was offerring a new perspective on these South London streets.

The Telescopes were asking us to think - in this nostalgia fuelled era (of which I'm completely guilty - but I mean it maaaaaan - I truly do ) they didn't represent the past - and sell t shirts and CDs of glory days - they simply put that aside - they continued to breathe new breaths - new life and grew into this. I turned 45 this year - why should Stephen be stuck being 19 - we've all moved on. I'm glad I took th etrip back to past memories. I left New Cross just as the Venue crowd were lining up to get in. Times have changed - I first met Duglas from BMX bandits there - I got the feeling that the BMX Bandits would not be on the Venue's playlist tonight.

So why stick with the past?

I feel Stephen an Co are still trying to explore what can be done - they are still kicking against the wall. Even if it means that they don't necessarily play 'Kick the Wall'. Do you get me?

You should try it though actually having a night with The Telescopes. It's modern. It's vital. It's music pushed to its limits.

It's a fun night out.


One from the new long player 

This is the new record by

There was a chance twitter feed – a facebook post – and suddenly there was a new album – new sounds from the past. Existing out there in spite of the industry - maaaan. A rush and a push and the songs are ours – they just threw them up on the net. This is not how things used to be done. The times they are a changin’. Everyone has gone a little Bowie – a touch Radiohead.

You used to have to live with the anticipation of something emerging – hints that the band were recording – that they’d played a new song live in someplace in Norfolk. You might find a bootleg cassette at a record fair in Doncaster with the track listing saying ‘New One’ on it. Could this be on the new album – would it sound like it did on the tape – would the lyrics have changed?

I saw The Smiths in 1985 – in Scotland – a short tour of the isles – an intimate thing before the onset of superstardom – if you count getting to number 14 a blast of the big time (mind you  - you did have to sell more records then – to be in the charts) and they played Frankly Mr Shankly and Bigmouth Strikes Again – two new ones – real things played for our very ears. A glimpse of something fresh coming our way. It made the wait that much harder – us – that is my Scottish counterparts and I knew that The Queen is Dead would already have two wonderfully lyrical ditties that we could fail our arms and look effete to. What I’m getting at is that the wait and anticipation of the ‘next’ album was both exhilarating and frightening.

Or seeing Smile performed by Brian Wilson in the Royal Festival Hall. These familiar songs all fitting into place as Wilson let us all share in his vision – his sound and vision. It wasn’t released at that point – it was bootlegged and shared and discussed and whispered about  - this long lost long player – and now we we’re hearing it. And we knew it would be released. It built the anticipation. It filled the waking hours. Okay – not quite – I had a newly born beauty at that time and she was taking up most of my thoughts – they tend to take most of them these days too. I do remember buying SMiLe though – I was so worried that the local shops wouldn’t be stocking it (this is in London mind) that i left work – boarded a train to the centre of the city and purchased my copy in HMV on Oxford Street and then zoomed home – to the loft to listen and feel the psychedelia (do you get me?)

Our two bit rock n roll band once played some merry dates with Primal Scream and I remember Gillespie playing Automatic by the JAMC over the PA – it was just out and he was digging it. This new record (well cassette) in his hands. Was it living up to expectations? In Bobby’s eyes you could tell he was happy – you could tell that this third record by his friends was a beauty – full of scowl and growl – tight drums and loud guitars. There’s something beautiful and tangible in a new release – a new record by.

In some ways I’ve known this record was coming for years – we knew Kevin hadn’t given up on music – on sonic experimentation – on turning his amp on and making a racket. No he’d continued that trend since the inevitable collapse/ demise/ retirement of My Bloody Valentine in the early 1990s. There where snippets and gossip – map references that led us nowhere. So Sugar given away with a magazine was a song buried in layers of dirt with squirming guitars and rolling electronic drums – a continuation but a difference. Then suddenly nothing. Rumours on pages and casual conversations that heralded Shields as the new Lee Mavers – obsessed by ancient equipment and elusive sounds that couldn’t be drawn from his head to his strings – from his hands to his amps. It was as if we forgot that Belinda, Colm and Debbie also played a part – they have ideas too. So over the years Shields became this revered thing of sonic manipulation of playing with the very foundations of pop music. Ephemeral and concrete – loud and soft – right there with you but dancing in the distance. I have downloads and bits from ballets and outtakes but what I didn’t have until Saturday was the new record by My Bloody Valentine.  There was a fading hope that there would never be a new record by My Bloody Valentine – but here it is.

And already there’s disappointment floating and filling cyberspace – oh if only it had been more like this – or I think it should have pushed the boundaries more. You know as if the valentines were a contrived thing like Sigue Sigue Sputnik – out to unite the pointless and facile. They weren’t making music that they considered new and dangerous they just happened to forge out this sound – you could see it building from This is your Bloody Valentine – it’s already there – visceral, pounding and in your face. They are a band who make music. Some of it sounds similar. Christ, The Beach Boys put out an album last year – it kind of had harmonies and eulogies to God on – maaan that’s so 67 – soooooo Petttt Sounnnds. It was bound to be. And this is My Bloody Valentine – the guitars take off like aircraft and shimmer like the heat on the pavement – they are loud and the words are not clear. What did you want a fucking U2 meets Radiohead type of vibe?

It’s music – and it’s very good music too. M B V is a wonderful modern album – an extension of and looking back at the past. Why? Because it was always going to be like that. And I’m alright with that. I do think the sound has changed though – it sounds more live in its feel. Guitars are scratched and strummed – they feedback and jar at times. Nearly drag the song to a standstill. They sit on top of the mix – they are instruments in themselves – not the wash and blur of Loveless. It feels a little hurried – which is ironic – you know twenty years in the waiting all that. Perhaps it is the download copy I have - but the songs stop and start – they explode into sound whereas Loveless just felt like it floated along – these songs were there to breathed.

But it isn’t Loveless – and that’s fine.

I’ve already found myself singing along with the opening tune – making up sounds like a male Liz Frazer to fill my lack of real words. It takes off from where Loveless ended – it skips around the houses – pops to the shops and ends back where it started – with flanged double speed breaks and stuttering guitars.

There’s always been a beauty in the noise that the Valentines create, something aching at the heart of it. And it’s there tucked inside every tune – a fragility covered in bombast – as guitars breakdown and seek therapy. This post shoegaze psychedelic melee – this unique sound of a band as an army – taking down the enemy through sonic prowess. I fucking love ‘em. Once again I trawled the comments and barbed quotes about waiting 20 years to post a review because that’s how long it took to release the album and someone on The Guardian debating whether Throbbing Gristle were the real experimentalists – of course they were – but we’re not all listening to them on a regular basis. They hurt your ears. Someone even managed to get into a spat about whether Ned’s Atomic Dustbin really had pushed the boundaries in the 1990s rather than My Bloody Valentine. There was no irony – or a knowing wink – it was all genuine.

The thing is – Shields and co have released a beautiful noise ridden long player – it isn’t polished – it is neither contemporary nor rooted in the past  - bar those early 90s drum and bass riddim breaks. It sounds like the valentines – it has new songs on it. Brian had to follow Smile – Jonny Carson on Fifteen Big Ones was not a step forward – so why are we wanting and expecting more from this? In some ways I wish there was more of the ambient textures of Loveless – that unif(r)ied sound that captured waking in a dream. I used to listen to the Tremolo EP at New Cross Station – up for work and travelling to Euston - on a cassette player from Boots – kind of a walkman – but you could record with it – and those songs used to merge with the outside world – sounds swapped over – cars, birds, trains and announcements, conversations and shouts, bleeps from ticket machines and the very thoughts inside my head mixing in the spaces and shapes that they created. I used to drift to work.

So here drums are buried and sounds layered – except this time you can seem to tell when Belinda’s axe is riding over Kevin’s – this is a guitar band writ large. There’s the sound of computerized bass – but with added feeling – and tremolo guitars in a song like ‘new you’. Or synthesised organs, like a futuristic ‘Meant for You’ and heartfelt honesty in ‘if this and yes’. Then grinding repetitive posturing in ‘nothing is’. It’s like Panda Bear got angry. If you understand what I mean.

This is the new record by My Bloody Valentine. I like the new record by My Bloody Valentine.