MPT Presented – The Wildhouse – 21st November 2008

Of the three bands who played on Friday, the Wildhouse were the only one that I hadn’t played before. And yet, because when I’d been listening to a lot of Myspaces looking for bands they were the one that jumped out as my sort of band, I had high expectations.

And they more than lived up to these expectations in the course of their ear shredding set. Drawing on the primal energy of the likes of the Velvet Underground they started deceptively quietly and even paused for a handful of seconds after the first song. Thereafter they finished their set without pausing, the songs  typically ending in squalls of feedback only for Sheila’s drums to kick the next song into life.

The spirit of the Mary Chain in 1985 is very much evoked and that means that underneath all the noise there are songs.

It’s a curios thing that a band like this could be going for years (on and off), yet I’d never caught up with them before.  But I’ll definitely be looking to see them again before too long because they were fantastic.

From Friday’s set:

The Wildhouse – St Judas (live)

The Wildhouse are playing the Balcony Bar in Dundee on Friday 5th December.

MPT presented – Esperi, 21st November 2008

Esperi were second on Friday’s bill in the unenviable position of being sandwiched between the noise pop of the Wildhouse and headliners De Rosa.

I was initially disappointed when I heard that it was to be a stripped down line-up featuring just Chris and Cat which was going to perform but in actual fact the pared down approach worked really well.

I used ‘lovely’ as the one word description of their set the other day and I’ll stick by that. Esperi are also calm, soothing and to a large degree hushed. Their music is carried by melody rather than rock dynamics – these are songs pure and simple.

There couldn’t be more of a contrast with the act that preceded them. Yet given that they take to the stage when the audience’s collective ears are still ringing from the Wildhouse, Esperi win generous applause even if Chris perhaps didn’t quite manage to generate the banter with the punters he was looking for!

From their set:

Esperi – Made for Life (live)

Esperi have a 5 song EP available just now, ask nicely here, and are playing with De Rosa again in Aberdeen on Friday 12^th December at Slanted & Enchanted.

MPT presented – De Rosa – Hustlers, Dundee – 21st November

When I started thinking about Friday night’s gig I was in the fortunate position that the bands I really wanted to put on either hadn’t played Dundee before or hadn’t done so for some considerable time.

De Rosa (apart from this) fell into the former category so I was therefore genuinely excited about getting the chance to put them on top of the bill not least because they are a fantastic live act. And on the night they lived up to that.

The set was structured around the new material on similar lines to the last Edinburgh gig but the big difference was that there were 4 songs played from ‘Mend’ compared to just two at the GRV. It was great to hear ‘New Lanark’ and ‘Father’s Eyes’ again but, best of all, was ‘Cathkin Braes’ which got an unscheduled outing to close the set. The higher than normal ‘Mend’ quota seemed a smart move since it gave more familiar material to an audience that, by and large, hadn’t seen the band before.

I must admit though that I look forward now most of all to the new material. That’s particularly true of the songs that I’d only heard 2 or 3 times before. The first hairs on the back of the neck moment came when Andy’s piano kicked in on ‘It Helps To See You Hurt’. It’s a song I’ll always associate with Dundee having heard it for the first time at Martin’s solo set last year but it’s grown from those acoustic beginnings. I think it’s probably my favourite De Rosa song today.

Tomorrow’s might well be ‘Nocturne for An Absentee’ which is a good example of the band stretching their range – it owes little to the folk tradition that Martin draws on regularly but illustrates his knack for producing intricate melodies.

What both these songs illustrate so well is how important the keyboards have become to the live De Rosa experience and that’s equally true of ‘Tinto’, another song which has gained so much live from its original solo incarnation.

‘Flight Recorder’ is another of the more recently debuted songs and again it’s something different from the other new material. Up until Friday I’d always focussed on its memorable chorus and guitar part but the verse melody is pretty neat too.

Which only really leaves ‘The Sea Cup’ as a highlight to rave about. Every time I mention ‘Appendices’ I say how good it is. And it’s free to download. ‘The Sea Cup’ is one of the highlights, maybe even the highlight, of that set but live it’s more powerful than  the studio version without sacrificing any of the subtlety that make it great.

Friday’s gig was the fourth time that I’ve seen De Rosa play as a five piece and yet it struck me for the first time, consciously at least, that they now seem complete as a live band. With the build up to the release of ‘Prevention’ in March hopefully there will be plenty of opportunities to test that theory.

Setlist

1. Evelyn  2. In Code  3. It Helps To See you Hurt  4. New Lanark  5. A Love Economy  6. Nocturne For An Absentee  7. Father’s Eyes  8. The Sea Cup  9. Flight Recorder  10. Tinto  11. Cathkin Braes

From Friday’s show, with the band’s permission:

De Rosa – The Sea Cup (live)

Download the studio version of ‘The Sea Cup’ here. Buy De Rosa records here and here.

‘Prevention’ is (finally!) released in the first week of March 2009 on Chemikal Underground.

Some you win …

… some you lose. Musically last night was wonderful. The Wildhouse were spectacular, Esperi were lovely and De Rosa were magnificent. Thanks to the guys who made all the above bands sound great. I’ll write about the music in more detail tomorrow.

Unfortunately little else went right, in particular the low turn-out. There are probably loads of reasons why that was the case but I don’t think I’ve quite processed my disappointment for the bands at that yet,  they all deserved better. On the positive side the audience may have been small but it was very appreciative for all the performers and it was nice to meet both Andy who has posted on here a couple of times recently and fellow blogger Chris.

Thanks are due to the bands for playing great sets, particularly to De Rosa for coming up from Glasgow, to Dave at Hustlers for hosting the show, to everyone who took the trouble to come out on a cold Dundee night and to Y for not only putting up with the hours I’ve spent on this but for helping out on the evening. Although divorce is threatened if I contemplate doing anything remotely similar again.

Some photos from last night ( courtesy of Gordon and Mike).

Martin, Neil and Chris – De Rosa

Chris – Esperi

Paul, Sheila, Peter – The Wildhouse

I’m Anxiety Man …

It’s tomorrow. It seems like some people at lesat are going to turn up. I’m looking forward to it, but I’ll be glad when it’s over too.

Check out who’s playing by scrolling down …

Quiet/Loud

Friday night isn’t just about De Rosa – it’s about Esperi and The WIldhouse too. It doesn’t seem that long ago that a gig would normally comprise just headliner + support – multi band bills were something of a rarity. Yet, by and large, of late I’ve found that I’ve enjoyed bills with 3 or 4 bands on and discovered a lot of interesting stuff.

So if you’re coming to see De Rosa on Friday I’d urge you to come along early and catch two very different bands. Here, in their own words, are who they are:

Esperi

MPT _ What are you up to?

Chris “we are up to lots , musically :  writing new songs ,recording some ,playing all over Scotland especially in december and doing a few dates in Northern Ireland at the end of december /start of january . making an album .

“individually : Cat is working on her masters in art at duncan and jordanstone which involves a lot of sound art /experimental music ,her newest project is filming birds in flight and then using the footage to create a random piece of music from the patterns they make .

“Jon is performing with is side projects ‘bullet hell’ , ‘ violent jack off ‘and of course his solo work  ‘Jon’ , and he also bakes .

“spit is writing and recording a lot of really good music for his solo project ‘nomogram’ , and has jury duty  .
eilidh is, sadly for esperi, heading to the alps for snowboarding season but will be back in the spring .
chris is trying to make sure we’ve got somewhere to play and something to sing “

MPT – Any recordings?

C – “we have an e.p that seems to be selling quite well and we are recording at home just now , so far its sounding good , spit is the engineer , he’s doing a good job. Its a good atmosphere to have a home studio set up and its good not to have any time restrictions , and its a good thing to learn and understand ,and its good you can just play in you boxers .”

MPT _ What can people who don’t know you expect on Friday?

C – “if you ve not heard us you can probably expect to hear something quite well balanced , by that i mean we dont go too far in any one direction , we re song based but not in a singer songwriter way , we have some techy bits but we re not prog , some jazzy bits but not wank , folk but not tuchter ……. that kind of thing .”

MPT – What are you listenig to at the moment?

“im currently listening to my two dogs rolling around the living room with a ball he he , and dianogah’s ‘battle champions ‘ is on in the kitchen .”

Esperi – website - Myspace

The Wildhouse

what the band is up to is;

promoting our latest album – poet:saint, playing third on the bill everywhere we go, addressing adult literacy issues, coining new phrases (sample – “it’s melt, man!”), stripping indigenous peoples of their rights and property and looking forward to a frills free Christmas

plans for recording;

we have loose plans for recording and are currently in the process of recording our alter-ego band (the kafkas)’s album, which is essentially acoustic, the vibe is mellow but the mood is cruel

what can people expect from the wildhouse;

a brief history lesson in rock music posing as subversive art, the-wildhouse = sub-velvet-under-ground

what are we currently listening to;

peter wildhouse likes a great deal of wide and varied music, he is very cultured, sheila wildhouse can find merit in music played on the radio, she is very open-minded, recently i have been listening to buzzcocks, magazine, bad brains and the chocolate watch band, the only contemporary music i listen to is america’s wooden shjips and africa’s tinariwen