Panadola Diction

While Morrissey stole the show (can a headliner steal a show? Probably not…) at Wireless last Friday, there were plenty of other things to point my ears at too. Here’s a summary of what I saw/heard.

• The National. I had pretty much written off seeing The National at this festival, due to their partial clash with Beck & Morrissey, the fact that I’ve seen them twice in the last year and the fact that I’m tired of their album-milking, but I was nonetheless pleasantly surprised when a girl with wings grabbed myself and Lady R just as we had entered the festival at 3:00pm and told us that The National were doing a “secret” 15 minute show soon on the 02 stage. So we wandered over and saw a fine condensed National performance of four songs, including my old favourite, ’Mistaken For Strangers’ and ‘Fake Empire’. This satisfied any National-needs that we had for the day, and we were more than happy to ignore them later, in favour of getting a good spot for Moz. I don’t care how good anyone says they were (apparently they put on a good show), screw the (talented) milking bastards.
• Dirty Pretty Things. We sat on the grass with a plastic bottle of Tuborg and listened to these fellows. It was grand, samey, grand.
• Guillemots. The first song ‘Get Over It’ was grand, then he started dribbling on about the next song being about ‘loving’ and asked everyone to kiss their partners, or if you had no partner, to just watch the others kissing. Mulchy wet bastard. I haven’t been so appalled since The Great Athlete Incident*.  We got up and went for noodles.
• Siouxsie Sioux. I’d been looking forward to seeing this quite a bit, though more out of legend-curiosity than musical interest - I hadn’t been impressed with her last Jools H performance. But I was very pleasantly surprised. Her voice has changed over the years, due to a million cigarettes or whatever, but she clearly still enjoys herself on stage, and gave an energetic performance in her silver catsuit. The band sounded fantastic, opening the set (to my delight) with Banshees classic ‘Israel’, and including ‘Happy House’ later. Again the vocals did little for me, but the band sounded huge. Great stuff.
• Beck. This was strange. I love Beck, even though he’s a loop-the-loop Scientologist. He played what was, on paper, a fantastic set with most of the classics, but it was like he wasn’t there at all. Just some robot-Beck. Or a dull man dressed as Beck. There was no interaction, no energy, no show, nothing. It was just like a sound-check. It sounded fine. Strange. Presumably he wasn’t in the mood. But it’s his job to be in the mood. I hadn’t seen him for eight years, and I love almost everything he’s ever recorded, so this was disappointing. There was nothing from Midnight Vultures either, presumably because you couldn’t play any of that whilst acting like a scarecrow with a guitar.

And that was all. Follow all the above with Morrissey, and you get a happy Jusk.

*This deserves a blog-post of it’s own, sometime in the future.

(Photo courtesy of Lady R)

Morrissey is, or at least should be, the envy of every musician, would-be musician or ex-musician. While every other pre-90’s era band is either doing greatest-hits tours or playing greatest-hits material under the pretense of touring some new shit album, Morrissey continues to maintain a level of relevance that has eluded Bowie, Smith, Black, Corgan, and any other has-been who hasn’t killed himself yet. Add to that his borderline-crazy legion of loyal fans, of all ages, and Morrissey must be the benchmark for musical longevity.  

Friday’s show was, to both my dismay and glee, the first time I have seen Morrissey in the flesh. It didn’t rain, Beck had left the crowd unsatisfied and there was a fifteen minute montage of video clips to build expectation before Morrissey took to the stage just as it began to get dark. Front row space was at quite a premium. We settled for row two and reassuring tallness. A friend of mine once commented that Morrissey is actually a better singer now than he was pre-’You Are The Quarry’, and I can well believe it. He can really sing, and he was in fine form in Hyde Park. It was tremendous.

It went a little something like this:

Last of the Famous International Playboys
Ask
First of the Gang to Die
I Just Want to See the Boy Happy
That’s How People Grow up
Irish Blood, English Heart
Sister, I’m a Poet
Vicar in a Tutu
All You Need is Me
The Loop
The World is Full of Crashing Bores
Why Don’t You Find out for Yourself
Mama Lay Softly on the Riverbed
Billy Budd
Death of a Disco Dancer
You Say You Don’t Love Me (Buzzcocks cover)
I’m Throwing my Arms Around Paris
Stretch Out and Wait
Life’s a Pigsty
How Soon is Now
encore:
What She Said

So as you can see - a good mix of brand-new Morrissey, recent Morrissey, old Morrissey, The Smiths and even a cover. I was particularly delighted to hear probably my favourite Morrissey song ever ‘Why Don’t You Find Out For Yourself’, the classic ‘Ask’, and the sublime ‘How Soon is Now’. All were delivered with that iron sincerity (and perhaps sincere irony) that I’ve seen few other artists produce, and underpinned by the excellent band (all in matching jeans and Playboy t-shirts). Even if you don’t agree with what he’s saying/singing, you’re left in no doubt that he really means it. The doe-eyed crowd were treated to a few rants between songs, with meat, George Bush and Kylie Minogue all getting lambasted. “Ah the smell of dead animals wafting across the park,” or something like that. We are all putting illness, sickness and death into our bodies, or so we were told. I’m all for animal-biting myself, but his unbending opinions make me smile.

For those interested in fashion, Morrissey wore a black Playboy t-shirt, a black American Idol t-shirt, and two other normal shirts, all of which were peeled off and thrown to the crowd at some stage. After the show, many fans just hung around for a few minutes, ankle-deep in plastic bottles, letting it all sink in, smoking and exchanging stories with complete strangers. It was all rather triumphant.

More on the O2 Wireless Festival later.

Licky Lee was in a sold-out Sugar Club last Thursday night, and so was I. I was in the audience. She was on the stage, with her band. Her third name is Timotej, a bit like the shampoo, and she has spent winters in India and Nepal, according to Wicklowpedia.

Anyway, it was good, she was good, and it sounded good, but she seemed intent on putting on a “rock concert”, as she put it. The Sugar Club is a terrible place for a rock concert. For anybody who has never been, it’s a small venue with graduated couch & table seating going from the stage to the bar at the back. So there we all were at the “rock concert”, lounging on couches, much to Licky’s dismay. “I’m not the Dalai Lama!” she said, appealing for us to be upstanding, but we just smiled and applauded politely.

For the very last song of the set, ‘Breaking It Up’, a second appeal finally got some people up to dance, and they were then treated to a second (speeded up) airing of ‘I’m Good I’m Gone’, and an encore of A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Can You Kick It’, which was as good as it was unexpected.

Overall, a good show from a likable lady, but hopefully next time she’ll be in a different venue.

Support was from her statuesque fellow Swede, El Perro Del Mar - The Dog of the Sea, in case you didn’t know. Woof.

I’d been looking forward to this gig for quite a while, as Real Emotional Trash has been a constant on my MP3 player since it came out. Pitchfork didn’t go crazy about it, and neither did I initially, but I found myself listening to it again and again.

Usually, high expectations are bad things to bring to a gig, but for some reason I found myself telling everyone that I thought the Jicks gig was going to be great (this was partly due to one of my friends pulling out, as the gig clashed with Holland vs Italy). Thankfully, I was right, and it was (great). A solid set of Malkmus material, new and old, was played with enthusiasm by the impressive four-piece. ‘Steve’ as he called himself looked like he was enjoying himself, especially during the instrumental detours common to many of their songs, and he also kept the crowd updated with the Euro 2008 scores. Ex-Sleater Kinney drummer Janet Weiss is probably the best female drummer I’ve seen live - very impressive, and both she and bassist Joanna Bolme chip in with backing vocals. Joanna Bolme’s main weakness seems to be her bladder - it’s not big enough to last a full gig. The ensemble is completed by Mike Clark, who fills the holes with guitar and keys.

Many of Malkmus’ tracks, especially those from the new album, could be described as indulgent - with their convoluted structure and proggy guitar detours, but these seem to translate superbly to the live show, with Malkmus and Weiss playing off each other and really giving it socks*, as they say. It seems that general guitar fun is vying for Steve’s creative affections, which were previously focused on lyrical fun, though anyone who has listened to Real Emotional Trash will know that the lyrics are as Malkmus as ever.

It was an entertaining and charming set, with fine renditions of ‘Cold Son’, ‘Gardenia’ and the sprawling title-track of the new LP - ‘Real Emotional Trash’. The highlight for me was ‘Baltimore’, probably the most indulgent tune of all. It’s just a great guitar-rock song, one that convinces you (if only for an hour or two) that you should find an electric guitar, plug it in and play it until the electricity bill arrives.

A three-song encore wound things up and Steve said his goodbyes, though the rest of the band seemed reluctant to leave, but I suspect the Tripod time-keepers were turning the screw. Despite Holland vs Italy turning out to be the best game of Euro 2008 so far (apparently - trying to catch the highlights on TV is nigh-on impossible, it seems), I’m pretty sure it couldn’t have been as entertaining as this gig.

Support came from the highly amusing Jeffrey Lewis, who warmed the crowd up admirably, with, amongst other things, an illustrated history of communism in Russia (which he somehow tyre-levered into a song of sorts), and the story of the Creeping Brain. Very strange - it shouldn’t work, but it does.

*Anyone know where this phrase comes from? It makes little sense to me. Giving someone socks seems like a very mundane thing to do. Here, I got you some socks.. eh, they’re 100% cotton..

Saturday evening was my first time to see Radiohead in the flesh. I was on a Willy Foggesque ’round-the-world-in-a-hurry trip the last time they were in town, at Marlay Park with support from Beck, and before that, I don’t know, I have no good excuse. So I was eagerly looking forward to ticking one of the few currently active bands whom I have never seen, but want to see off my list (other notables still on the list include Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Morrissey, and Morrissey gets ticked next month).

It was also my first time at a gig at Malahide Castle, and it was, generally, a very agreeable experience. Easy access via the DART, nice open parkland with big old trees and a castle (unsurprisingly), plenty of space, chips, cream cake, beer, toilets, friendly staff at the gate, etc. Also, the great weather kept things (toilets, people in impractical shoes) civilized, and the crowd in good spirits. The stage setup was pretty impressive, with lights and video screens and a dangly curtain of dangly things framing the band.

And then these songs were played, in this order:

01 15 Step
02 Bodysnatchers
03 Airbag
04 Bangers + Mash
05 Nude
06 Pyramid Song
07 Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
08 The Gloaming
09 The National Anthem
10 Faust Arp
11 Videotape
12 Optimistic
13 Where I End And You Begin
14 Reckoner
15 Everything In Its Right Place
16 All I Need
17 There There

Encore 1
18 Exit Music (For A Film)
19 Jigsaw Falling Into Place
20 Climbing Up The Walls
21 Planet Telex
22 How To Disappear Completely

Encore 2
23 Super Collider
24 You And Whose Army?
25 Idioteque

So, as you can see, there was a lot of In Rainbows. For those who like numbers, here’s how that breaks down (though maths isn’t my strong point):

• In Rainbows: 9 +1
• Kid A: 5
• Hail To The Thief: 3
• OK Computer: 3
• Amnesiac: 2
• The Bends: 1
• New songs: 1

It was all very impressive, all two hours of it - they sounded huge when they needed to, and delicate they wanted to. Highlights for me included In Rainbows disc 2 tune ‘Bangers + Mash’, ‘Reckoner’, and the entire second encore, which included a brand new song, played solo by Thom on piano - ‘Super Collider’ (which got its debut the previous night apparently).

On balance, looking at the crowd I’d imagine a lot of people were hoping for a few more pre-Kid A tracks (especially when they closed the previous night with ‘Just’ and ‘Paranoid Android’), and of course I would have liked to hear a few of the classics, but maybe Radiohead were going on the assumption that the Saturday (being the quickly sold-out first show) crowd would have more… receptive fans, possibly, whereas the Friday show might attract more of a Best-Of crowd. I don’t know, I could be wrong, maybe they just play whatever they feel like playing, which is, and was, fine by me.

Bat For Lashes sounded interesting, but to be honest, I was more interested in the cream cake I was eating at the time. I couldn’t actually see the stage from my spot on the grass, but it sounded very Bjorkish. I’m usually not so lazy about support acts, but the sun and the grass seemed to demand lazing around and eating. There’s a review of it here (BFL, not the cake), which I largely agree with.

P.S. I took some photos, but haven’t had a chance to upload them yet - I’ll add one later. [done]

Joy Zipper, Long Island’s dreamy-melodic-indie-poppy couple (+ drummer) played to a sparse but enthusiastic crowd in Crawdaddy on Wednesday night. Tabitha Tindale and Vincent Cafiso seemed happy to be there, and were good humoured throughout, despite Vincent alluding to the place being a ‘rathole’.

Overall, they sounded pretty good, though Tabitha’s keyboard and vocals were sometimes a little too low in the mix. They played an interesting set, mixing up the old and the new, taking a few requests and playing their version of ‘Wave of Mutilation’, which appeared on Pixies tribute album ’Dig For Fire’ in 2007. An encore of ‘Christmas Song’ went down well, though there was no outing for ‘Baby You Should Know’ - probably their best-known song.

It was all fine and nice and unremarkable, and maybe a little harmless, which is not a word I’d like associated with me if I were a musician. The most remarkable thing, for me, was Ms Tindale. It hadn’t crossed my mind before the gig that I’d never seen Joy Zipper and had no idea what they looked like, so I wasn’t expecting her to be so aesthetically pleasing, with her head and her legs and the rest of her.  

Support was from Gavin Glass and the Holy Shakers, a crowd I’d not seen before, but apparently they’ve been rattling around for years. They were good - they have a few great tunes, and there were even peculiar spoken-word interludes from a verbose preacher. Entertaining stuff, but they weren’t as handsome as Tabitha.

I saw Tapes ‘n Tapes last year in The Village, and they were ok. Pretty good. They played the songs and left. But I liked the songs (I still really like their debut album ‘The Loon’). On Tuesday night in Tripod it was more of the same from the Minneapolitans.

I’m not entirely enamoured with their new album ‘Walk It Off’, it has it moments, but overall I think it is weaker than the first one. As a result, the set seemed somewhat diluted in terms of quality. Nevertheless, they played a decent set, with the highlight being a good rendition of ‘Insistor’, directly followed by latest single ‘Hang Them All’.

There was something missing though. It just didn’t seem big enough for me. The charm of many T’n'T songs for me is their ability to twist mellow verses into loud, epic choruses. This was exemplified by ‘10 Gallon Ascots’ on ‘The Loon’, and seems to be a recurring theme. For me, ‘10 Gallon Ascots’ was the most disappointing song of the night, as the supposed epic choruses sounded thin and lightweight. I don’t know, either a new sound engineer or new distortion pedals are needed.

I guess I’m nit-picking, but it’s always disappointing when a band doesn’t seem to do its recordings justice in a live setting. Other gripes included the lack of an encore (again) and the ridiculous Budweiser monopoly at the bar. The only beverages on draught at all these Bud-sponsored gigs are Bud, Guinness and Cashels - all served in cheap plastic glasses. (Or ‘plastics’, as they will be called when I’m in charge).

As for the support acts - Sons & Daughters were unconvincing. Poor sound again seemed to detract (the vocals were indecipherable (though that may just have been the Glasgow accents)). I saw them in around 2003, supporting Franz Ferdinand in The Ambassador, and I don’t remember exactly how that went, but they seemed like a completely different band on Tuesday - more like a band on a victory lap than a band trying to win my affection. The lead singer was wearing short shorts and a dress/top with her back hanging out. Maybe she was over for a hen night.

Port O’Brien were actually very good. They made lots of (good) noise, and mixed it up with some folkie ballads. They put in a lot of energy, and were quite amusing between songs, in a stoned, Californian kind of way - canvassing opinion on the Lisbon Treaty, and generally thinking out loud. Frontman Van Pierszalowski reminded me of a young Terry Bolea. We also bumped into some of them on Aungier St afterwards, and my exclamation of “Hey! It’s Port O’Brien!” seemed to make their evening.

I’m a bit slow with the review I know, but I’ve been busy managing at the frontline. I bought tickets to BSS a yonk ago, and as I had not seen them before I was looking forward to it, despite the other blogs which suggested that Sunset Rubdown or No Age might have been a better allocation of Tuesday night funds. Meh.

And it was great. The publicised no-support-act, three hour set did not materialise. BSS member, Charles Spearin opened the show with the first public performance of his ‘Happiness Project’ - an interesting piece of linguisto-musical experimentation, whereby he recorded conversations with his neighbours and subsequently chopped them up to find interesting melodies in their speech, to later be played over live. It worked quite well, was short and amusing, and seemed to lighten the mood in the slowly filling Vicar St.

I think there were eight BSS members present in total last Tuesday, including Brendan Canning, Amy Millan, Justin Peroff, Evan Cranley, a couple more whose names I didn’t catch, and of course Kevin Drew. They played a great set with plenty of crowd-pleasers and lots of amusing anecdotes in between, including details of what they had for dinner, and musings on Men At Work. A more detailed review and the setlist can be found here on this nice blog I’ve not read before.

For the last hour of the gig I had the dubious pleasure of standing behind a flailing crazy lady. She seemed determined to injure, and her repeated combo attacks of elbow-arse-stamp left me leaning backwards holding my arm in front of my face for safety. She then called me a bastard and complained that my friends were mocking her (they were merely laughing at my predicament). I told her to fuck off in a light-hearted manner, she seemed harmless enough. A few minutes later, after a wrist-elbow combo to the face, she turned around and hugged and kissed me like I was a long-lost puppy. All very confusing. Her male friend/bag-holder tried to distance himself throughout, and looked relieved when she suddenly announced that she was going home.

Anyway, yes, good gig, impressed, disgustingly talented musicians, good crowd, free tickets in exchange for fake email addresses (a choice of Tapes ‘n Tapes, Joy Zipper, Stephen Malkmus, De La Soul, etc. (already had T’n'T and Malkmus, De La Soul disappeared pretty quickly, so took Joy Zipper), not a bad Tuesday night at all.

Three gigs you say? For €30 you say? Spanking new music you say? Hmmmmm. What’s the catch? You don’t know? Oh.

So I dressed up as a teenager and went early. Being early had its benefits, I got a wristband, which allowed me to access the balcony level (haven of the elderly), but it also had its downsides - the Heineken hadn’t quite run out yet, so I had to drink a pint of slops dredged from the bottom of several kegs and mixed together in a plastic glass. (Note - Heineken wouldn’t normally be my beverage of choice, but there didn’t seem to be much else.) This pint of backwash may or may not have been the reason I felt totally shit yesterday. My eyes and elbows were sore.

MGMT were pretty shit. They bounced on to the stage and did a karaoke version of ‘Kids’ or ‘Time to Pretend’ (I can’t remember the difference) without the rest of the band, to a backing track. It was awful, and then to cap it off, the guitarist came on towards the end of a song, seemingly unprepared, and played a ridiculous trucker-rock ’solo’ at the end. What were they thinking? After that things improved slightly, with the addition of musicians and instruments, and the crowd got very excited by the other song that everyone knows (’Kids’ or ‘Time to Pretend’). They only had time for a seven song set, so maybe they played badly on purpose or something, in some kind of “I hate these shit promotional gigs” protest, or maybe they just aren’t very good. Admittedly, being first on, the venue wasn’t full yet, and the crowd were still sober, but it would be hard for me to recommend them as anything more than a 2-hit wonder. I wasn’t terribly impressed, especially considering the amount of hype surrounding this lot, and the reviews of their recent headline gig in the same venue. 5.0 out of 10.

The Futureheads, a reliable band with catchy, fun singles, whose albums I’ve never paid much attention to. ‘Decent Days and Nights’, some decent new material including single ‘Beginning of the Twist’, and crowd favourite, K.Bush cover ‘Hounds of Love’ all played loudly and with energy - no complaints, most people seemed to like it, as did I. I might even listen to their new album whenever it comes out. Maybe. And they seem like likable gents. 6.5 out of 10.

CSS, the cascading style sheets, ahaha, sorry. Anyway, I’d only previously caught these chapettes at Oxegen last year, and I think I was more concerned with welly-chafing than actually paying attention to them at the time. Lovefoxxx was expectedly loopy on Wednesday night, with her floral cat suit and huge hats, and they too mixed up some decent-sounding new material (from forthcoming album ‘Donkey’) with all the favourites from their debut album. CSS also get extra kudos, in my book, for being one of the few recognisable acts to ever play a gig in Carlow. You can’t doubt their work-ethic. (Other notables include Doves and Babyshambles by the way. Not that I saw any of them there, but it inspires some county pride in some unspecified part of me.) Anyway, train of thought derailed…. ah yes, CSS - good - they even gave out balloons and vodka, and they sounded great. 7.5 out of 10.

I’m not usually one for ratings out of ten, but just thought it might help to put the three bands in perspective. Well that’s all, away with you, weekend etc. Oh, and the grainy pic above was taken on my medium-tech camera phone - note the hat with attached bunches of flowers.

Yerwan at Fictional Sheep acquired a hape of tickets to the Black Lips gig in Crawdaddy, and offered me one, or two actually, so, liking free stuff as I do, I attended.

First up were/was The Mighty Stef. They/he were/was grand. Grand is a grand word isn’t it. Where I’m from originally, everything was grand. The weather was grand, school was grand, I was grand. Anyway, they/he played some aggressive cowboy sea-shanty music, and did their/his best to liven up the reluctant, sober and scared crowd.

Next were The Things, with their F-grade burger-rock. They weren’t grand at all. They were hilariously bad. 80% of their problem was their singer. He’s a fuck-pillar (insult from FS). “Come on yizz cunts, dis is a rock an’ rowel show,” he declared, “come on, yizz…… c.. cunts,” he went on, somewhat unimaginatively. The other 20% of the problem can be divided thusly - 15% the bassist’s haircut, and 5% the forgettable music. I’ve actually forgotten all of it. Forgettable music can, I think, be entertaining on a given night, if it’s not purveyed by deluded morons. I’ve never come across anybody so unjustifiably assured of his own greatness. The highlight of their set was when the singer left the stage (to climb things and look for attention), and the remaining three, the musicians, played a decent outro. Hold some auditions gents, and lose the (brain)dead weight. (By the way, if I’m missing the point here, and The Things are some sort of Spinal Tapesque parody geniuses, do correct me.)

I don’t want to seem overly negative, or unsupportive of Irish acts. I’m all for local talent, but it seems perhaps that all it takes is for some shitty Irish music rag to get behind a band, and suddenly talent is no longer necessary. Granted, there are a lot of indie-rock acts around, many of which sound similar, but that doesn’t mean bands with a slightly different sound are more notable by default. I’ve seen a lot of Irish bands in the last year, some of them excellent, but The Things were really bad last Saturday night.

Black Lips, according to wikipedia (a reliable and flawless online resource), have a reputation for urinating in their own mouths, vomiting and flashing, and also for catchy flower punk. Thankfully they stuck to the latter. The white-blazered guitarist did spend a lot of his time spitting into the air and catching it in his mouth again, but they were generally an entertaining, talented and completely shit-faced bunch of chaps. Most of their songs seem to fit one of three templates (straight punk, flowerier melodic punk, or bluesy/country/beard punk (I’m not good with genres)), but that didn’t seem to be a bad thing, it sounded great, and the mumbled interludes were likable, amusing and short. “Eh.. this is a good one,” said the leather-capped guitarist before one song. It was.

That’s all for today. Tonight I am going to see the poppy trio of bands CSS, The Futureheads and MGMT in the Academy. It will probably be full of teenyboppers, but it seemed too cheap to turn my nose up at. Wish me luck.