Confrontational

Friday night’s outing to see the Wildhouse was pretty much scuppered before I even got there, as I got some bad news just before reaching the venue. This news didn’t just put a damper on Friday but permeated the whole weekend, hence the lateness of this post. It was not a night therefore for making judgements on any of the bands performing.

I can say however that this was the Wildhouse at their most confrontational. The tone was set with Peter off playing before Paul and Sheila were properly set-up and Paul then briefly berating the audience in a short break in the feedback squall. A totally uncompromising 20 minutes or so of sonic belligerence followed. Any remote chance of melody intruding on the set was completely lost by the fact that Paul’s vocals were totally inaudible almost from the start. I was standing just 3 or 4 yards from him, could see he was singing but not hear a word over the very loud screaming guitars and drums.

Jousting with Dracula were on first but I caught only the last couple of numbers of their Mogwai influenced slow-core. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of young Dundonians Mason who veered from a scratchy instrumental, through more melodic songs to one which was very much in Arctic Monkeys territory.

Bronto Skylift meanwhile were a two piece mainlining on early Nirvana for the most part, although their last song had a funkier edge. Again very loud with plenty of screaming, they seemed reluctance to use the stage area given that the drummer sat with his back to the audience and the guitarist frequently joined him.

Like, I say, not a night for me to judge anyone, but check out the links if you’re interested in any of the above.

Normal service will be resumed soon.

The Wildhouse in action in Glasgow earlier this year:

Fence Homegame Pre-Season Friendly 2

De Rosa / Kid Creosote / Kid Canaveral / Gummi Bako – Hew Scott Hall, Anstruther – 22nd March 2009

Just in from a wonderful afternoon in Anstruther at the Fence Homegame Pre-season Friendly 2. Family circumstances meant that we were later in getting in than intended and as a consequence we missed King Creosote’s opening set and also Come In Tokyo.

But we were in time to see Gummi Bako. This was a solo rather than a band performance but it was wonderfully entertaining stuff with the between song banter matching up to the songs.

Next up were Kid Canaveral and from opener ‘Good Night’, they were terrific.  They blast through their set of melodic, punky numbers with great humour.

Fence head honcho Kenny Anderson then took the stage for a brief set of thoughtful acoustic numbers. Believe it or not, this is the first time that I’ve actually been exposed to King Creosote but I’d like to hear more.

Finally no in depth analysis is required for De Rosa’s performance.  From start to finish they were magnificent, and it’s definitely the best show I’ve seen them play. They played the new LP almost in its entirety in sequence then followed that up with ‘Evelyn’ and ‘Camera’. And the crowd was not letting them off at that, so we got that rarity -  a De Rosa encore – a superb ‘Cathkin Braes’. It was an awesome performance with personal highlights including hearing both ‘Stillness’ and ‘Swell’ live for the first time.

On a personal nature, I was also thrilled that my two boys throughly enjoyed their first indoor show. I was a little concerned that they might be bored waiting for De Rosa but such was the quality of the acts that they managed to keep a 9 and 12 year old engrossed in the whole event.In fact the whole thing was a roaring success and a great advert for Homegame itself in April. I can hardly wait.

I’ve got a pile of photos from the show and I’ll sort these out over the course of the next few days and post a link.

Here’s the video for De Rosa’s first single, which got its first outing in a while at Glasgow the other night:

De Rosa setlist

1 A Love Economy  2 Nocturne For An Absentee  3 It Helps To See You Hurt  4 Pest  5 Stillness  6 In Code  7 Swell  8 Flight Recorder  9 Tinto  10 Evelyn  11 Camera

Encore – 12 Cathkin Braes

Another review  from the family here

A Few Kind Words

I’ve been listening to a lot of good new-ish stuff recently, so I thought that I’d catch up with some of that over the next few posts.

Meursault came to my attention due to the fact that they are on Song, By Toad records. You will of course be familiar with Song, By Toad the blog from which Matthew appears to be developing a globe spanning music empire. If by some fluke you aren’t familiar then it’s a fantastic blog which you should add to your favourites as soon as possible.

Meursault are in some ways an odd electro-folk concoction but the whole thing hangs together beautifully. Their electronic influences seem more early 80s pop than anything but, whilst the catchy nature of the songs is undeniable, there’s something deeper on offer as well.

Not sure what my favourite track is but the atypical lovely folk tune ‘A Small Stretch of Land’ has to be one. But the electro-bleepery of ‘A Few Kind Words’ is perhaps more representative of the record :

Meursault – A Few Kind Words (from ‘Pissing On Bonfires/Kissing With Tongues’) [Buy the CD] [Download the LP]

Meursault will be playing a national tour in May and are also on the bill for Fence’s Homegame, for which, to my surprise, there still seems to have tickets available here.

Finally, a sad note. Yesterday morning we had 2 MPT cats – now there is just one. Worf passed on aged 15 and a half years. We’ll miss you, wee one.

Your Lucky Day In Hell

I don’t as a rule buy Greatest Hits LPs. I tend to figure that, if I like something enough I’d be as well to investigate the full back catalogue whilst if it’s a band I like, the chances are I have everything I need already.

But a couple of things caught my eye over the Christmas period and at 62 tracks for under a tenner, I was persuaded to break the rule.

First up is Eels. I owned just one single by them until getting ‘Meet The Eels: Essential Eels Volume 1′ (which accounts for 24 of the 62 tracks.) That single was their debut ‘Novocaine For The Soul’ which I confess to liking but not loving. Over the years, I heard and quite liked a number of songs (particularly on MTV) including this one:

My overall impression was of a quirky pop band which eschews the obvious rock trappings. And by and large that’s what the Best Of delivers. What makes it stand out from the crowd is that the collection feels far more cohesive than a normal Best Of. Since up tempo numbers aren’t Eels’s stock in trade you end up with a record that represents the range of the band rather than one which focuses in on the rockers.

Interestingly enough it’s an exception to my rule in another sense. Whilst I do like the record, I don’t feel obligated to dive in and buy the back catalogue. So it feels like a fiver well spent.

Buy Eels records here or download them here.

Doghouse Closed?

I was shocked to read today that Dundee’s best live venue the Doghouse has been forced to shut its doors. Is this just the latest manifestation of the recession? (which is looking increasingly like a depression to this pessimist).

According to the operators, the debt that has resulted in the Council taking legal action was small, manageable and being reduced.

I certainly hope something is worked out. Whilst Dundee has a decent number of good, not dissimilarly sized, venues, the Doghouse was for me the best with good views and decent sound.

I confess that my attendance at the venue has been infrequent over the years, so I have perhaps in some small way contributed to the Doghouse’s troubles.

Here are a couple of songs I’ve heard played at the venue over the years:

The Delgados – Pull The Wires From The Wall (from ‘The Complete BBC Peel Sessions’) [Buy or download it]

The Twilight Sad – Cold Days From The Birdhouse (from ‘Here, It Never Snowed, Afterwards It Did’) [Buy it] [Download it]

Music In Public Places (1)

My past has reared itself in a couple of unexpected places in public in the last couple of days.

First of all, during a visit to the dentist  I heard on the radio what is in truth a very influential record in my development as a music fan.

Two things you should know – I was a late developer in terms of listening to music and I was NOT a cool kid. Prior to hearing this song I was very much a passive consumer of music, listening to the radio without hearing much to really inspire me to go out and buy. Then I heard this:

Dave Edmunds – Girls Talk (from ‘Repeat When Necessary’ [Buy it]

Now this maybe qualifies as something of a skeleton in the closet, at least in as much I could have been listening to any number of influential post punk acts in 1979 when I was in fact listening to a lot of the Edmunds/Nick Lowe/Rockpile. But, perhaps due to its origins in the formative years of my musical taste, this catalogue still holds a place in my heart, even if it must be 20+ years since I last gave the parent LP a spin.

Briefly, Edmunds’ roots were in 50s rock’n'roll and his recording career was unusual at this time because it was a throwback to the early years of rock in so much as it was largely based on recording other people’s songs (including those of long term partner in crime Nick Lowe.)

‘Girls Talk’ was written by Elvis Costello and it has to be said that Edmunds’ version knocks spots off Elvis’s. It was one of his biggest hits reaching number 4 in the UK charts.

And here’s another track from the LP

Dave Edmunds – Take Me For A Little While (from ‘Repeat When Necessary’) [Buy it]

These days, the best of Edmunds’s stuff still works for me, but it has to be said a lot of it is fairly average. ‘Repeat When Necessary’ however perhaps features a far higher percentage of good tunes than most of his other records.