I've been meaning to write up this review for a while now, but a combination of my own laziness and working full time has curtailed it. Mostly the former, really. I heard about this lad through Rob St. John who was supposed to be supporting him at a recent Edinburgh gig, but as it turned out, Hathaway was deported on arrival in the UK - am I correct Rob? Described as being "six strings and the truth" by Rob, an immediately worrying proposition. But this is so much more than Dashboard Confessional style gash.
Firstly, I should say that the boy is a proper poet. Like, he has collections out and stuff. Naturally then, the lyrics are to the fore on this record and, crucially, they're backed with some thunderous instrumentation, as well as the obligatory softly spoken acoustic numbers. In particular the screaming opening track 'Covered In The Blood', and with a title like that you're pretty much setting out your stall with banners and sirens aren't you. The centrepiece however is the suitably epic 'Samual' which opens with a monologue about the song's namesake before breaking into a slow building monster. This stunning track reaches a zenith with the fantastic lyric "my love is a raisin, and god's is a pumpkin or a canteloupe or a watermelon or a really big something.. AND I WANNA EAT IT!!" before the band lays waste to the scene. It's Dylan at his most visceral and there's something of the wandering thoughts of messers Berman and Callaghan in the lyrics. I'm not normally into overtly religious sentiments but as with Sufan Stevens, if the music is good enough and the lyrics interesting enough then it really doesn't matter. Bland worship music this is not. In fact it's more akin to the god-bothering antics of Nick Cave.
The gentle 'Look Up' is another highlight, whilst the affecting 'Mary' is a complemented with some well scored strings. Not sickly, not soaring, but subtle enough to bring a melancholy edge to the track. There's an underlying sentiment of disillusionment on this record, and it's complented with some delightful musical touches, dashes of piano here and there, and pleasant little banjo plucking emerging in parts. But when the song demands a full on cathartic release to tie in with the lyrical sentiment then Hathaway isn't afraid to let loose the electric guitar and cymbals.
Greetings people. It's been over a week since I wrote anything which is pretty damned shocking considering I only just started this thing and haven't yet time to become disillusioned with the whole blogging affair. But I have quite a few things I want to write about and I'll start with a cracking gig I went to last night, and a great little EP I picked up as a result of attending.
The band were Broken Records (who have been written about far more extensively and thoroughly by many other bloggers and publications so that it is hardly worth me giving a lenghty discourse about the lads, but..) and the show was at the Oran Mor. Another one of The Mill gigs which I spoke about in my first proper post. I attended this gig with my good pal Chris who was black affronted by the lack of any other beverage on offer at the bar. No Guinness! This is shite. The band were soon up on stage though, and this was quickly forgotten as they launched into the first tune to a sizable crowd (easily the biggest I've seen at a Mill gig) who were disappointingly lucklustre I felt.
As I had expected, the set was absolutely great, with a particular stand out being a song played, I believe, 4th which I did not recognise. I expect it is a track from the upcoming album, seeing as the lads have been recording their debut for 4AD records down in Wales. As a quick aside, their signing to 4AD is quite simply wonderful news, and such a boost for Edinburgh music and even Scottish independent music in general. I wish them all the luck in the world and am genuinely excited about hearing said LP. Back to the gig; rollicking versions of 'If The News Makes You Sad, Don't Watch It' and 'If Eilert Lovborg Wrote A Song' - which to me will always be 'The Russian Song', after I first heard it on the T Break 2007 CD - were dispatched to head-nodding, toe-tapping joy. Broken Records are a joy to behold live and the tones eminating from Rory and Arne's string parts are glorious, just glorious. Such a perfect mesh of instruments and styles. Concluding with a typically soaring rendition of 'Slow Parade', it left me looking forward to the future gigs where there will be enough tunes for hour long sets. And encores.
I purchased after a 5 track EP which Rory charmingly described as being a "collection of sea shanties". Or perhaps it's "Shantys". But it is so much more than a casually thrown together collection. And I'm sure it was never intended as such. For one thing, the production is absolutely excellent, and the instrumentation is truly rich sounding. 'Out On The Water' is a track I've heard before on the Toad Sessions, and its lovestruck beauty comes across fantastically on this version. My instant favourite though is 'The Crumbling Wall', a really striking gem of a song with the drums really grabbing my attention alongside anxious guitar and strings parts. All praise, I hope it sounds like it!
If I could work out how the hell to post songs for download I would probably put up a couple. But I don't have a clue so I can't. Maybe I need a proper server. I should really ask a more experienced blogger. Roll on Sunday however - Eagleowl and Rob St. John at the Captain's Rest.
Having been a latecomer to the ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ clamour, I feel I can still approach this record with some sense of objectivity. Of Justin Vernon’s debut LP I can honestly say that I have not completed a full listening of the record on a great number of occasions. Not because I dislike it, dear me no, much like everyone else I believe it to be one of the finest albums of 2008, and a beautiful addition to the catalogue of emotive, introspective, bleeding heart lo-fi albums that already exist. I’ve come to believe it is more because it is hard to be in the right mood to listen to it. It almost always leaves me with a sense of wistful melancholy, if not all out depression (though ‘depressing’ much rarely does that, in fact I find it to be quite the opposite), and due to the intense nature of the music, it feels a little odd and intrusive to play it in the living room whilst going about other things. In other words, it is an archetypical headphones record.
Blood Bank, the new EP, then. In short, the best way to think of this is as an add-on to For Emma. In a similar way, this is to For Emma, what the Sun Giant EP is to the Fleet Foxes LP. The title track and Beach Baby bear many of the hallmarks of a Vernon song, the hushed vocals and falsetto wails matching the softly strummed acoustic guitar. It has those gently cascading chords and lyrics that effortlessly evoke cold nights and warm fires and well, michty me, even if you lived in Hawaii I think you’d sense it. I think the latter is probably my favourite on the EP, utilising as it does the humming sound of a downtuned guitar. A resonator I think; a tone most clearly heard on Skinny Love from For Emma.
Babys and Woods, the final two tracks, are a mild departure. Woods, in particular, is rather unexpected. It builds up layers of a cappella vocals distorted through a vocoder, creating a sort of cacophonous choir of Vernons. It’s highly evocative, and probably the most challenging thing Bon Iver has produced to date. The production is also of such a quality that it is truly easy to place yourself at the moment of recording; as if you were sitting across the studio from Vernon (or in the case of Woods I see some sort of cave). A worthy stepping stone from For Emma, Forever Ago, Blood Bank suggests that Vernon hasn’t run out of ideas just yet, and that it’s time to look past the romanticized tale of the broken hearted man in the mountain cabin.
My good pal Harry of the mighty Futuristic Retro Champions (who should be the subject of an article here sometime soon) yesterday pointed me in the direction of a rather cracking Glasgow band called Boycotts. Having made their acquaintance at a music industry event he described as useless in many ways, it was at least beneficial for the mutual swapping of music between the 2 bands.
I'm already in love with Boycotts. The sparkling combination of punchy riffs and female vocals brings, rather lazily, Life Without Buildings to mind, who were bestowed with the glorious talents of Sue Tompkins on vocals. Boycotts Myspace informs me that Stina Twee is the voice providing these ideal notes, ably backed by the cracking sounding guitar of Josef K (more Scottish indie love!) and a like pure dead tight and mega rhythm section from the excellently named Hardcore Dave on bass and Dragon on drums.
Even more fantastically, if you e-mail the band, they'll send you the 3 tracks currently on Myspace for free! Spiffing. Plenty gigs upcoming too, so if you fancy the Captain's Rest gig, I'll be there.
And by the way, follow that link to the Retro Champs Myspace and listen to You Make My Heart. Seriously, what a tune. Good work people. Singalong diamond.
Recently I ticked off a box on my Glasgow to-do that was long overdue. To attend a gig at King Tut’s. I know. Probably should’ve been before now. To business though, and the bands taking the burden of my terrific expectation were Copy Haho, Pulled Apart By Horses and Sky Larkin and it duly turned into a night memorable for a number of reasons. It began with the Haho boys. Since moving westwards I like to think I’ve become reasonably good friends with these fine fellows, mostly because I provide Joe with caramel shortcake in Peckham’s. I’m also a huge fan of their wonderful pop music and after I was informed by Edinburgh flyering legend Jim of the top notch sound quality at Tut’s I was suitably excited about hearing such instant classics as You Are My Coal Mine, Cutting Out The Bad and new banger Pulling Push Ups (Apologies to Joe, this is all a bit glowing isn’t it?). I probably needn’t tell you it was brilliant, by the end of the set even the bar staff had left their station to peer round the corner toward the stage. Their debut EP is out shortly on the impeccable Big Scary Monsters and the first 50 preorders get a poster which is allegedly shit but I’m sure quite marvellous.
Pulled Apart By Horses, I was led to believe by HP, the other half of mighty Edinburgh night This Is Music along with the aforementioned legend Jim, would “bring the rock”. And they did. In fact it was a veritable feast of 'the rock'. A quite preposterous live experience, all the hallmarks of screaming vocals, thrashing limbs and stage dives, speaker scaling and thundering riffage were present and correct. Occupying the same ground so well trodden by Death From Above 1979 and fellow Leeds thrash types, them of the journalist’s punctuation bane, ¡Forward, Russia! (yes I copied and pasted that) doesn’t really help them, for outside of their live experience it all sounds a bit tired. But I suppose they would likely argue that live is really where their musical heart lies. They do have some mean RAGE style riffs though, and you can’t argue with that.
Finally were Sky Larkin and for the life of me I just can’t quite grasp get the fuss about this band. And in saying that I feel almost disgraceful and sullied, because they’re clearly quite lovely folk and for a lot of people they are the proverbial bee’s knee’s. I remember seeing them supporting Los Campesinos! way back in 2007 at the Capitol in Glasgow and leaving with a badge and being happy about this, so there must be something I enjoyed. I’ll need to have another listen to the recorded material I reckon, and no doubt when the album emerges shortly on Wichita, it’ll be snapped up for absorption.
Afterwards, there was some discussion about a semi-mythical Bloc Party (the Wichita labelmates of Sky Larkin were over at the somewhat more cavernous Carling Academy) afterparty but this indie wet-dream never materialised and thus Nice & Sleazy’s was the foremost option. As it turned out however, this was a truly wise decision because who should we spot in said bar but Arab Strap themselves, Malcolm Middleton and Aiden John Moffat. Not that I spoke to them, god no. How terrifying a prospect that would be. Upon moving next door to the mighty Box we again encountered the Scottish indie legends, who were by now heartily pissed and having a riotous time. The finale to this was observing Middleton having a good dance and then falling flat on his back. I take this memory to the grave. Great stuff. Give me that over a trendy, strutting über-indie afterparty anytime.
The dubious honour of being the subject of my first proper article goes to Glaswegian lads Mitchell Museum. The story behind how I came to discover their music is a bit odd. A bass playing chap, who I met shortly after moving through to Glasgow, informed me he had a band, and from that moment on I received plenty texts about gigs and such like. It is to my shame that I never properly checked out who his band were (not even their name! Disgrace, oh disgrace) and what they did, until I followed a link from Song, By Toad on Mitchell Museum- about whom I had heard good things - and peering at the thumbnail I recognised one bass playing chap. Whoops. That would be them then.
Shortly after, another text is received, about another gig upcoming. Therefore, with a combination of guilt about not having seen a friend’s band and the knowledge that Mitchell Museum were somewhat promising, I trotted along to the Mill at the Oran Mor to make amends. First things first, why oh why did it have to be Miller. Bloody Miller. The shiteyist of the shiteyist of lagers. Out of a can it is vom-worthy, whilst out of a bottle it is only marginally better, at least being tolerable enough not to end up regurgitated on the floor. On the other hand, they are doing a decent thing by putting on all these fledgling, and mostly unsigned, Scottish bands for free. However cynically it can be viewed, in my opinion the benefit of the doubt is theirs. Basically, let’s just take it at face value. Good music for free and an excellent platform for unsigned bands to get their music ‘out there’.
So, to the music, and supporting the Mitchell Museum boys were an outfit called The ID Parade. A bit up and down to be honest with a few decent touches and a guitarist/backing vocalist who could “really wail” as a nice chap next to me put it. Band members were highly disparate from the trendy lead singer to the bear like guitarist who appeared to be my more musically able alter ego. The tunes didn’t seem to know quite what they wanted to be either, ranging from almost gospel rock to traditional psychedelic Stone Roses freak outs. Anyway, the point is, I’ve seen worse. Worth checking out live, certainly entertaining at least.
Mitchell Museum on the other hand, form a very tight unit and this is the first of many contradictions. All positive I should add. Sadly I’ll sound like a sad indie snob here but the music would come across to many ears wildly bizarre and without focus. The lyrics are unusual and unexpected, the music whirls between the instruments over the top of fantastic vocal melodies. But they’re direct too. One of those bands that land in the niche of pop gold that results from being experimental whilst holding fast to the roots of a good tune. Namely, it's catchy. There are hints of Wolf Parade and an obvious touchstone would be the Flaming Lips, but of course that’s just lazy journalism and very rarely to do such comparisons hit the spot. And they’re named after a building that was founded by money donated by my great-great-great-great-great-great (give or take a couple) Uncle. I’m practically their benefactor, and surely heir to a large amount of reference books?! I’ll need to look into this.
As if there weren’t enough blogs out there, and in particular musically orientated ones, I’ve gone and thrown my oar in with this little venture. Greetings then, and welcome to the shiny new blog of my good self, Fergus.
Now, as I’ve mentioned, this will be primarily a medium for me to ramble on about bands, tunes, guitars, that cracking drum rhythm on track 4, the chunky synth featured on track 9 and the emotive lyrics on the closing number. Therefore, if you’re not really into music, it might not really be your, how you say, ‘bag’. On the other hand, because I simply don’t buy enough new music or take the time to really immerse myself in fresh releases, there will be plenty of retrospective reviews andponderings. In other words, it’ll be music that is new to me, if not new to you. Nevertheless, and never fear, I’m not going to review Ok Computer, Sgt. Pepper or The Queen is Dead.
And there we have it, do join in with comments and the like. Perhaps, like me, once you’ve commented on blogs for long enough, you’ll start your own one…
