Insight
Wildlife Documentary
On the 20th of March this year we shall reach the equinox; the sun has already blessed us and the season of the festival is at our door. When people say ‘festival’ nowadays, images of prissy skinny wannabe models struggling through the Glastonbury mud, or neon prepubescent scene children jumping up and down next to fluffy haired posh boys at Reading invariably come to mind. There seems to be a size to twat ratio existent in the English festival circuit: the bigger the festival, the twattier the people. Long gone are the days of Hawkwind playing atop standing stones backed by nude dancers whilst distributing free acid – the festival in the 21st Century is an extremely commercial, homogenised experience.
Which is why it’s nice that on our doorstep, beginning on the 26th March as we head towards the bright lights of summertime, the British Wildlife Festival is coming to the Brudenell Social Club, Nation of Shopkeepers and the Royal Park Cellars in Leeds. A taster on the way into the big festival season of May, June and beyond, this three dayer is perfect for dipping in and soaking up some true independent festival spirit before heading with a deep breath into the corporate horror of a certain other notable festival in Leeds. Its size to twat ratio is extremely comforting – the venues are tiny – and you can be sure that there are very few people there ‘to be seen’. That said, it’s not like Rage Against The Machine, Lady Gaga or Aerosmith are playing: the talent consists of lovingly homegrown bands from the local scene and beyond that sum up the sound of the underground in Britain better than Girls Aloud ever did. A subterranean mong-out with dedicated bands playing for peanuts in the most homely venues in Leeds – perfect for soothing our festival souls. But before you grab your railcard and ponce off in a none-more-indie manner lets have a bit of a look-see at exactly what wildlife the festival team have, in true Attenborough fashion, discovered for our delectation.
Max Tundra, Photo- Ryan Muir
Max Tundra
The ‘big name’ for the festival, Tundra isn’t exactly Radiohead but he’s pretty close. Having remixed Franz Ferdinand and the Pet Shop Boys, as well as hosting Resonance FM’s show ‘Max Tundra’s Rotogravure’, he’s the act you’ll most likely have heard of. An electronic mastermind who has toured in support of current darlings of the British music press (despite an iffy fourth album) Hot Chip, Tundra has released three extremely original and lovable albums, with assistance from his friends in ubiquitous psych-folk beardy festival band Tunng. He was also one of the last musicians to record a Peel Session, and recommendations don’t come much higher than from the Margrave of the Marshes himself.
Palehorse
The naturalist explorers of the British Wildlife Festival must have found Palehorse ‘neath a considerably large rock. Easily the most aggressively original sludge/noise outfit operating in the UK, Palehorse inject a sharp shot of Diazepam into the arm of a tired genre, and cause it to gloriously, numbly die onstage. Seemingly named after the band in cult graphic novel ‘Watchmen’, they sound similar to that book’s sense of apocalyptic Cold War doom. Debut LP ‘Gee, That ‘Aint Swell’ is one of the most torturous, out-there records I’ve heard, inhuman shrieks set to a twin bass artillery assault. They’ve existed as a band for most of the last decade, progressing as slowly as their sloth-like sound, but their live performance is not to be missed, exhilarating, exhausting, disturbing.
Wonderswan, Photo- Liam Henry
Wonderswan
Sounding like West-Yorkshire brethren The Cribs having snacked on some badass tranquilizers, Wonderswan play righteous slacker indie. The lead singer sounds like he’s dribbling out his words in the best sort of way, and the overall impression on listening is that you’ve accidentally toppled backwards down a wormhole and are back in 1994. Named after Bandai’s inferior competitor to the market of the Gameboy Color, the band are clearly living it up somewhere where Tony Blair is hip, Cobain just died, the Spice Girls are popular and people still think England have a World Cup chance. Get them to come up for Fibbers’ Hammertime.
Blacklisters
They sound like they’ve been sucking off Steve Albini a little too much than is healthy, but for bad attitude, low-end 80’s noise rock this does the trick nicely. Having distributed headlocks to audience members at a recent Fibbers gig, the live performance is confrontational and generally upsetting to minors. The band’s sound is less original than others on the bill, but with some great lyrics and a tight live performance this is easily made up for by the band’s passion. The frontman’s stage presence is genuinely reminiscent of a mentally unstable ape, and with a solid as fuck rhythm section, Blacklisters are not a band to miss. If you miss them, they’ll probably break into you house and steal your cat. And shag it.
Divorce
Deerhoof-endorsed Glasgow agit-punks who sound a wee bit like Lydia Lunch being involved in an orgy with 80’s underground heroes Flipper. Scrappy, scratchy and angular punk rock with crazy little girl vocals. With a debut 10” EP out now on Optimo Music, they are one of the more prominent bands that has helped contribute to the sterling reputation of Glasgow’s burgeoning noise scene.
That Fucking Tank
Leeds scene champions who form a clan of sorts with fellow locals Pulled Apart By Horses and These Monsters. Describing themselves as a ‘minimal riff disco’ band, their sound is a high energy krautrock/mathrock cross-breed with elements of techno and prog. Basically, spliff tunes abound. Song titles such as ‘Stephen Hawkwind’ and ‘Bruce Springstonehenge’ coupled with wacky time signatures and general musical nerdiness, a heady mix of geek and reefer. With a live performance that features masks, few clothes and ‘novelty equipment’, don’t miss them.
Part Chimp - Photo janicks.blogspot.com
Part Chimp
Lastly, Camberwell’s Part Chimp are the unsung legends of the London underground. Another John Peel endorsed addition to the bill; they’re usually unhelpfully labelled as post-rock, despite that term being in itself nonsensical. The band combine several styles of the above bands and more to create a blistering musical hate-fondue. That’s not to say they’re cheesy, far from it – bands as diverse as Lightning Bolt, Kyuss and mclusky come to mind as you let the groove ridden, bludgeoning sound wash over you. Like Mogwai after a nine day cider drinking binge, unhealthy vocals yell over a sludgy rhythm section, as the guitarist peals of swathes of ultra-riff. This band is loud as fuck, and doesn’t give a shit. So anti-festival. I’m lovin’ it.
So, dear hearts, come on down to Leeds on March 26th and blow the cobwebs from your ears. The auld festival spirit might not be truly alive and kicking but at least British Wildlife have set up a way to cleanse yourself of the guilt of galloping round corporate music showcases all summer. Ok, save the tent burning for Reading and the mud for Glastonbury, but get the attitude here. There’s plenty of bands on the bill I haven’t mentioned who I’m sure will be hidden gems. The greatness of it is the fact that you’re paying at the most 15 quid for a weekend ticket, which means you can pop in and out whenever you please. There’s really no excuse for anyone living in Leeds interested in real ‘indie’ music to miss it. The horribly ironic corporate trap of the festival season can sometimes get me down when I’m lost in the middle of it, but little festivals like this keep me sane. I know I’ll need a baptism in fire before heading to the festivals I’ve booked with a clear conscience; I hope to see you there.
Visit http://britishwildlifefestival4.blogspot.com/ for more info.
Valentine’s Day Massacre
For many, the Valentine’s Day mixtape is a staple gift: personal, hand-crafted and filled with the potential for its recipient to read your own amorous feelings into lyrics that someone else wrote. However, when constructing your Val-Day mixtapes be cautious. While this particular gift can be the ultimate indie romanticism, it can also be a dangerous pitfall. Plenty of Valentine’s Day compact disc offerings are marred by iffy song choices, perhaps either having an unpleasant context or back story, or featuring a lyric which changes the song from a passionate gesture into an extremely harsh indictment. Of course, if you have the right partner, it could be funny to slam on a completely inappropriate tune on as a joke (I recommend Cannibal Corpse’s charming ‘Necropedophile’), but if your other half lacks a sense of humour or is obsessed by the sanctity of the 14th of February it might be a good idea to avoid the following songs:
Where The Wild Roses Grow / Nick Cave, feat. Kylie Minogue
Australian rock and pop royalty meet on a song that initially sounds like a swooning romance about two lovers meeting on the riverbank ‘where the wild roses grow.’ Never trust Nick Cave though – despite recently crooning dark love songs, in the Eighties he was lead screamer in a band art punk vagabonds called The Birthday Party, who mostly sang about getting drunk on the Pope’s blood and releasing bats. This song ends with Cave bludgeoning Kylie to death with a rock – an unpleasant notion on a Valentine’s Day mixtape for anyone who isn’t an über-goth.
Anyone Else But You / The Moldy Peaches
If you’re a twee, cardigan wearing be-fringed indie boy you’ll be very familiar with this song having repeatedly masturbated to surprise Oscar-winning flick ‘Juno’. It seems almost too perfect for cutesy mixtape use. It is – the song that so sweetly ends the film with a utopian scene of teenage indie love does not feature the crucial line ‘You shook a little turd out of the bottom of your pants’ that is so crudely present on the original version. The Peaches’ mischievous sense of humour and love of crack cocaine probably caused them to want to fuck up the charm of the track and thus forever ruin its hopes for mixtape employment. Turds, then – not in any way cute.
Girls, Girls, Girls / Mötley Crüe
Unless your object of affection is a boy or a girl who wears full leather and denim 24/7, has no idea what sexism is, rides a chopper, stinks of hairspray to the level where it’s impossible to survive their presence without a chemical suit and is on the committee of Pole Exercise Society it is inadvisable to slam this rifftastic stripper anthem on your mixtape. Forcing women to take off their clothes while you fill their orifices full of dollar has never been romantic.
Lemon Incest / Serge Gainsbourg
Serge Gainsbourg is a definite Valentine’s Day man – the French sex lizard penned some of the most erotic love songs the world has ever heard. His most famous song ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’ features some of the most authentic female orgasm noises this side of Guns ‘n Roses’ ‘Rocket Queen’ and is rightly hailed as a gem of sixties erotic soft funk – perfect for a mixtape. However, make sure you don’t accidentally pop on ‘Lemon Incest’ – an ode to sexual familial love Serge controversially performed with his daughter Charlotte. Incest is not very romantic at the best of times.
I Love You Love Me Love / Gary Glitter
We all love a bit of glammed up pop rock, and in this song Gaz professes his love in a rollicking party-time manner. Perfect for the start of a glam rock mixtape you might say. Well, it was, until in the early years of the milennium Mr. Glitter began to think that ‘teaching English’ to Vietnamese girls with his penis was a good idea. Basically, mixtapes should steer away from Gary at all costs, especially when your girlfriend has only just turned sixteen.
If you’re a cool, plaid shirt toting earnest indie kid with a girlfriend with a hip bob and a predilection for coats with a leopard print lining you might make your mixtape a bit more angular. Who better to explain intricacies of your love with choppy, ‘ironic’ indie stalwarts Art Brut? This features some lovely observations: ‘You’re lying there / And you’re beautiful’. She’ll love it. But wait a sec, this song’s not about joys of indie sex – it’s about not being able to sustain an erection. ‘It doesn’t mean I don’t love you / One more try with me above you’, Eddie Argos yells, along with ‘Don’t tell your friends!’ Unless you have a history of erectile dysfunction and you want to remind your partner, I think this song’s off the list.
So your girlfriend was born in the eighties and she’s called Roxanne. Hey, why not find a song with her name in! It’ll be so personal and romantic. She’s think it’s, like, your feelings about her and stuff! Well, unless you want to accuse your spouse of being a prostitute it’s probably best to avoid this famous ballad by the awful Sting. The only possible way you could incorporate it into Valentine’s Day would be to put it to its much-loved use in a drinking game, drinking every time the tantric goon wails ‘Rooooxanne! This could be a good way to get your partner pleasantly inebriated so you can whip out the ball-gag without complaint.
Insight
Hello web travellers, and welcome to the music team’s inaugural popping of the blog cherry. Here we’ll be giving ‘Insight’ into the events of the pop music sphere, both worldwide and closer to home, and hopefully fitting in a few interviews and reviews that we couldn’t get into the paper for your delectation. Enjoy!
#1: Keep The Faith
When questioned by my good friend (who happens to circulate the higher echelons of the Christian Union) about my religious beliefs, the best I could muster was, ‘I worship the cosmic force of rock.’ While this may sound like a stoner cliché, it pretty much sums up the fact that I choose to put my faith in screaming egomaniacs and wailing guitars rather than in cloud-dwelling universe architects. When he pressed me to explain, I muttered something about how rock ‘n roll stars generally sport the beard and hair style combo began by Jesus 2,000 years ago and how a gig is a bit like church – singing, worship, and what feels like the Holy Spirit. There’s a congregation – the sweaty, pulsating audience, there are idols – our iconic ‘Rock Gods’ – and there’s plenty of symbolism. There’s also scripture and sermons in the form of our favourite lyrics – music and religion often overlap. Oft have rock ‘n roll and Christianity been aligned – every sane person’s least favourite genre of music Christian Rock has helped sell tens of dozens of records in the good ol’ US of A, while genres like punk use the rejection of faith as crucial to their ethos.
But recently more non-believing rock fans like myself, who realise that their love of music is similar to people’s faith in omnipotent deities; have taken this idea to new extremes. As the result of a campaign started by the UK’s favourite generic metal rag Metal Hammer, thousands of rock fans have promised to convert to the UK’s latest faith, as they join a fast-growing internet campaign to see Heavy Metal recognised as a religion in the 2011 census. Hot on the heels of 2001’s campaign to have Jedi officially acknowledged, hordes of hairy and unwashed teenagers have banded together to attempt to shout out loud their love of metal on their census paper. Rock ‘n roll internet campaigns are enjoying an unwarranted level of popularity – as you all know, Rage Against The Machine followed up on their promise of guerrilla radio as ‘Killing In The Name Of’ blasted a member of the SCCA (Simon Cowell’s Clone Army) off the Christmas Number One spot at the end of last year. But can Heavy Metal really justify itself as a religion, and could this be the next Kabbalah or Scientology? Even better, could Heavy Metal be the way to end all religions, and unite all peoples of the world in a perfect harmony as predicted in the classic film Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey? Quite possibly.
Think about it. Iconic pantheon of Gods? Check – Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Motörhead. Ozzy, Lemmy and company are pretty much equal in power to the characters on Mount Olympus, except the myths are funnier. For example, the myth of Saint Ozzy Osbourne snorting a line of ants to impress Mötley Crüe. Or the other myth of Saint Ozzy urinating on the Alamo. Truly miraculous. And of course the scripture: read Metal Bible ‘The Dirt’ by the aforementioned Crüe for an insight into Heavy Metal Law. In a nutshell: snort, drink, smoke and fuck your way through life and somehow survive, all while banging your head. Of course, being a faith primarily based on music there’s plenty of hymns, ‘Denim and Leather’ by Saxon being one of the most acute. ‘Denim, and leather, brought us all together; it was you that set the spirit free’ Biff Byford sings. Biff Byford is a silly man who Spinal Tap based a good few of their jokes on. He was also the first big metal name was to show support for the campaign and will become Heavy Metal’s ‘World Metal Peace Ambassador’ if the campaign proves successful. Other hymns, such as Manowar’s ‘Kings Of Metal’, further outline the commandments and correct attire that one must adhere to in order to be accepted into the faith: ‘True metal people wanna rock, not pose: wearin’ jeans and leather, not cracker jack clothes,’ they laudably wail. Aside from these obvious religious constructs, the real testament to Metal’s success is its legion of fans. Practitioners of the Heavy Metal faith have infiltrated almost every walk of life – like the Freemasons, metalheads are as likely to exist in IT support as they are as Heads of State. They fill arenas that the Church of England could never pray to occupy. What’s even better, people are rarely baptised in metal as children – rather than an indoctrinating faith Metal is a religion you buy into yourself.
There’s one thing the UK can be proud of giving to the world, and its not Shakespeare or Americans. Heavy Metal was born in Birmingham, and has created an Empire far stronger than the Commonwealth. If ever there was a Church of England, it’s Heavy Metal, so it’s time to say a Hard Rock Hallelujah, and join that congregation. The imagery of Metal (crucifixes, old churches, and the arcane) is very similar to England’s old faith; it wouldn’t be much of a jump. The core beliefs that set Heavy Metal out from the pack – be true to yourself and compromise for no-one – are as noble, if not more noble than the fundamentals of any other religion. Metal, if taken as such, is in some ways the ultimate modern faith. A belief in the power of music and appreciation of human expression seems spot on to me. Considering the aptitude of Heavy Metal as a religion, one can only hope to be ticking the box on the census with a smile in 2011. As Alexander Milas, Editor of Metal Hammer says, “Like a lot of good ideas, this one came about in a pub and the response online has been overwhelming. It only reinforces the belief that Heavy Metal remains strong in its UK birthplace and across the globe. If the Jedi can do it, then we can too. Our only requirement to join our campaign is that you listen to heavy metal, our commandment: everything louder than everyone else.” Manowar once sang, ‘The Gods Made Heavy Metal and they saw that it was good.’ You’d better believe it.
To join the campaign, please visit – http://www.facebook.com/heavymetal2011census
To observe Manowar preaching the metal gospel witness – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srhGMxOWviw&feature=related