Saturday, 07 June 2008
One technique Jackson didn't think of...
Operator Please - Leave it alone
Friday, 30 May 2008
The Joos
The Silver Jews: 'Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea'
Giddy-up! The Silver Jews are back with their sixth album – another countrified journey through the twisted, compelling lyrics of David Berman. Unfortunately this time, the music isn’t as strong as the storytelling deserves.
Berman is the only constant member of Nashville band ‘The Joos’. Formed alongside Pavement in the late 80s and sometimes featuring Stephen Malkmus’ fractured guitar (but not here), they’ve specialised in the kind of lo-fi alternative country that can all too easily sneak under the radar. Lyrically at least, this is undeserved. Berman’s way with words is on a par with The Mountain Goat’s John Darnielle – he weaves strange urban tales of the Midwest, aiming to leave you with a snippet of folk wisdom, “…a fable, a proverb or an epigram…”.
So, on ‘My Pillow Is The Threshold’, we get “I take decaf coffee, Two sugars and one cream, I don’t see the use in staying up just to watch TV… Because the pillow that I dream on, is the threshold of a kingdom, is the threshold of a world where I’m with you.”
On 'San Francisco B.C.', we get, in the style of an epic American poem, some great imagery set to a story of love, death, crap jobs and fighting. “Gene took off his hat and I noticed his hair, It was neatly trimmed but a patch was bare, I knew it wasn’t new wave, it was human error.” (NB: works better with a drawl).
Musically, the experience involves listening out for the next killer couplet whilst enduring dull and unmemorable strumming. Sure, there are some sparks of life that appear from time to time. ‘Open Field’ has a sweet organ motif and backing from Berman’s wife Cassie, who also wakes 'Party Barge' up with the hook “send us your co-ordinates, I’ll send a St Bernard”. ‘Strange Victory Strange Defeat’ sounds oddly like British Sea Power stepped into the recording studio half way through, but it isn’t enough to make a complete record.
Released on 9th June 2008 by Drag City.
Swinging koalas
Operator Please, Water Margin, 16 May 2008
Imagine travelling 10,000 miles from Australia to play one song for smug boogie-woogie man Jools Holland. Imagine that song is only 2.17 seconds long. That’s Operator Please – they may not be climate friendly, but they’re desperate to share the love.
So what does Brighton give them? A good honest bit of C-list venue atmospherics for annual city-based festival The Great Escape, that’s what. Escape? Pah! 250 people crammed into a basement the size of a small wardrobe, not enough room to swing a koala, stage on the floor, intimidating wall of people in your face, sweat dripping from the ceiling...
That’d be enough to send most bands scuttling for the door, but not this lot. Like said koala, Operator Please may look all sweet and innocent, but they can easily rip your face off, and The Water Margin fair gets blown apart. Here to promote ‘Yes Yes Vindictive’ - one of the most exciting indie records so far this year - we get a lesson in thrilling bastard punk pop, like the B-52s in a fight with Arcade Fire and The Gossip in a sardine can.
‘Get What You Want’ kicks things off, followed by ‘Terminal Disease’, and singer/guitarist Amandah Wilkinson immediately hits her stride - Cindy Wilson and Fred Schneider in one small package, a ball of furious energy with a frankly tremendous voice. The rest of the band are precociously talented too, and though sound problems threaten to spoil things for a while, the band refuse to be phased, ripping into Devo’s ‘Whip It’, complete with a co-ordinated dance routine from Amandah and violinist Taylor. ‘Communicate’ is followed by ‘Other Song’, slightly sappy on record but powerful live: “I'm smiling most the time, I smile so that you'll never see the fear”.
A ridiculously euphoric ‘Leave It Alone’ segues into Jools' fave ‘Song About Ping Pong’, and the ceiling just about lifts off. ‘Zero Zero’ completes the night, and the house of full of smiles. Offset your carbon next time, but fly back soon.
The Water Margin, Brighton, 16th May 2008.
Friday, 23 May 2008
John & Jehn
John & Jehn: 'John & Jehn'
Eddie Izzard once said that there’s a fine line between cool and uncool. One toothpick in your mouth - cool. Two - uncool. Well, French couple John and Jehn walk that line on their debut... and try so hard to be the former that they mostly end up as the latter.
These two upped and moved to London “…for the music… to put ourselves in danger. At some point we had to say, ‘Let’s go to fuckin’ war’.” Pretentious? Moi? Well, yes - these two are more-arch-than-thou, more-arch-than-me and for that matter just about everyone else.
That would be enough to put you off for good, but there’s more. They choose to make rather a big deal of being boyfriend/girlfriend (shock, horror), good looking (apparently Jehn is ‘mesmerising’, John is ‘chiselled’) and intellectual (they name drop David Shrigley into interviews). But so what if the music’s rubbish, right?
Well, partly right. Imagine The Sugarcubes and Velvet Underground fed through a Casio VL-Tone. J&J both lend vocals that epitomise the Gallic shrug - tuneless spoken word, drawling like a codeine addict, percussive yelps and self-consciously clever lyrics about, for example, how 20L07 stands for “age, love, heaven.” Sometimes all that posturing gets tiring. Sometimes it comes together = like on ‘You, Far Away’, which is particularly reminiscent of the Velvets. On ‘Survive’, you can almost mistake J&J for early Fall covering America’s ‘A Horse With No Name’… which is alright by me.
Elsewhere the monotony is all so cool, so what. Two toothpicks.
Released on 24th April 2008 by Universal.
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