Live Review: Ladyhawke at the Academy

Ladyhawke at The Academy 5th February 2009

Wearing a man’s t-shirt with rolled up sleeves, men’s jeans, fuck-off biker boots and a bandana, Ladyhawke looks like Axl Rose. It’s a pity she hasn’t got his stage presence. Ladyhawke is literally the shiest pop star that ever was. Any time that she looks at the crowd, a glaze of terror and panic comes into her eyes. Deer in the headlights? Nah, more like being asked to do a quadratic equation in front of the class, when not only do you have no idea what’s going on, you’ve also wet your trousers. There’s no support band, and the set opens with ‘Professional Suicide’ which segues straight into ‘Manipulating Woman’. She does a fine line in pouting and power-chords (though, naturally, not at the audience, preferring to focus on the drummer instead), but when the backing track breaks mid-way through ‘Dusk Til Dawn’, she stalls, and her only banter with the crowd is a muttered ‘fucking technology’. The song is abandoned, for ‘Magic’ and ‘Another Runaway’. During the latter, it seems as if she wishes she was anywhere else but onstage at the Academy. The lines ‘it’s too late, it’s too late, I’m just another runaway’ take on an air of terror and desperation. A b-side- ‘Danny and Jenny’- is introduced, to a crowd who have no clue as to what a b-side is. She may as well have promoted her latest minidisc.
The set closes with ‘Paris is Burning’. The middle 8 is earnest, and Ladyhawke launches into another rock pout solo. But wait! What’s this? A smile? It’s the last song of her set and she manages to actually wink at a crowd member. Is she actually flirting? The last drum beat strikes, and she shuffles quickly and embarrassedly offstage, only to return 5 seconds later to play ‘Dusk Til Dawn’ once more, ‘because it didn’t work the first time’. Girl’s got the tunes, no doubt, but she needs some swagger, stat.

Amazing what a bit of scrubbing up can do…

The announcement that Times New Viking, No Age and Los! Campesinos will be playing in Whelans this October 17th for the ridonculously cheap price of €15.45, is causing no end of excitement over on On The Record. And rightly so. Let’s just look at price tag again…€15.45. The best bit about it is the 45 cent. I love that 45 cent.

Okay we all know that the aforementioned ‘Viking specialize in a very abrasive sound. But have you ever wondered what it sounds like all cleaned up? Here is a clip from their recent appearance at the Pitchfork Festival playing the stonking ‘Teen Drama’. The scrubbed off fuzz reveals a melody I barely knew existed when Beth sings “get in line you pretty people/ we are coming in for the kill.” It still rocks nicely but, hopefully, in Dublin it will be wearing a fresh coat of rust and limescale ‘cos that’s why we love ‘em.

Dead Flags Single Launch Tonight

Dublin band ‘The Dead Flags‘, are launching their perversely rocking debut single ‘Oh my love! Oh my God!!’ tonight in Whelans. The track (video below) features the bands trademark screwed up lyrics, and rag tag rockabilly style. Tickies are 10 euro, or 8 with this concession.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTxlLtfgnbI]

Gran Casino, Live in Concert

Analogue Presents - Gran Casino, Live in Concert from dbspin on Vimeo.

Without further ado, let me present the second in our two videos celebrating the launch of Analogue as a nationwide magazine. Gran Casino are a Dublin band that we haven’t written about before in the magazine, at least in part because their material is so difficult to describe. If Burt Bacharach wrote songs for Ian Brown they might sound a little like the melodic, unapologetically baroque, art rock made by Gran Casino. The band have recently released their first E.P, ‘Sun Music’, which is available for the very reasonable price of €7 at Tower Records, Road Records, The Secret Book and Record Store, and City Discs.

Gran Casino are…

Caimin Gilmore - Vocals, Guitar, Glockenspiel
Jimmer Reynolds - Drums, Percussion
Shane Sugrue - Keys, Vocals, Clarinet, Sitar
James O’ Connor - Bass, Synth
Kathy Looney - Violin
Julie Clarke - Violin
Sue Neary - Harp
Joe Mylo - French Horn
Kev Foran - Trumpet
Simon Wall - Tenor Sax/Flute
Chris Rooney - Trombone
Tim Harris - Flute

Recorded, Radio City Dublin, 06/06/08.
Camera: Dave Boyle
Editing: Gareth Stack & Dave Boyle.
All songs copyright Gran Casino, 2008.

Download

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My Bloody Valentine live at the Roundhouse

On Friday, June 20th 2008 it lasts for 14 minutes. Significantly shorter than the reputed 40 minute epics that the band would subject their audiences to back in the early 90’s but even this truncated version elicits the most remarkable reactions from the crowd at Camden’s Roundhouse. Some simply can’t take it and within a couple of minutes bolt for the doors; others stare glassy eyed at the stage, utterly transfixed as the noise washes over them. Some, as I do, throw their arms into the air and fruitlessly scream with all the might in their lungs into the maelstrom though the only evidence of our efforts is strained faces, I can barely hear myself, forget about anyone else. Eventually it gets to be just too much to take and I cover my ears only to become aware of just how much the low end is battering my body and I figure that being aware of the ordeal that my ears are going though is preferable to feeling like I’m being beaten so I take my hands away from my head and I let it all back in again. It’s the most astonishing live music experience I’ve ever had. Then, after what is just under 15 minutes of jet engine shaming volume My Bloody Valentine kick back into the final section of “You Made Me Realise” before walking off the stage. They haven’t spoken a word to the crowd all night.

I’d read about My Bloody Valentine’s extended live noise section in the past but I’d never really understood it, it seemed like an utterly self indulgent idea. Much of what’s so special about their music, especially on the Loveless material is the barely tangible beauty that strains to be heard amidst the washed out noise and gently whispered vocals, the idea of continuously playing a single chord pitch shifted as low as it could go at terrifying volume (128.9 dB on the night at one point) seemed clumsy and blunt, like using a sledge hammer to finish off a sculpture but to be there for it; suddenly, like all the rest of the otherworldly noises that are bouncing round Kevin Shields’ brain, for some reason it makes sense.

But enough about the closing song, what about what came before it? “Better than I’d ever dared to hope they’d be,” was how I described it to a friend on the way out afterwards and that’s what I’m sticking with now. Some of what was on the recording of the first of a pair of “open rehearsals” the band played the previous week at the ICA in London that made it’s way online last week sounded wonderful, and to be frank some of it sounded dreadful. This tempered my expectations somewhat of what to expect from them but from the moment the near metronomic Colm O’Ciosoig counted in the intro to “Only Shallow” I couldn’t find fault with anything they did. Any and all kinks from the week before had been smoothed out.

At this point I realise that this thing is in danger of falling into the territory of the rantings of an over-enthusiastic and rambling fanboy. I’m on the verge of smashing a sheet of (imaginary) emergency glass behind which is the word transcendent so that I can get to it and use it to describe just how good the gig was so I’d better wrap things up; My Bloody Valentine were, are and, god-willing in the future will be, fucking amazing, the Electric Picnic can’t come soon enough.

Guest post by:

Ian, Thrill Pier

Future Days Festival: Vicar Street Saturday June 14th

Dan the Man: Pic by Loreana Rushe

As part of last weekend’s Future Days festival, Vicar Street turned into a hip musical playground by hosting a line-up of acts that was so ‘indie’ I’m surprised people weren’t being turned away at the door for not wearing cardigans or hair-slides. Here is a short digest of what went down in the big venue on Saturday night.

High Places
It’s 8.45pm and Vicar Street is worryingly empty. The lights are up before High Places (as they will be between all the acts tonight), and the increased illumination accentuates the cavernous emptiness of the place. We’re in tumbleweed territory before boy/girl Brooklyn duo High Places emerge. However, as soon as they start, the lights drop sharply and people start reverse-melting out of the shadows like vampires. Soon enough, there is a moderate and respectable crowd up front. I know nothing of High Places so I don’t feel all that equipped to comment in detail on their live show. All I can say is it sounds extremely influenced by Animal Collective, and on my first impression, in a derivative and flimsy way. There are sampled tribal-type beats, some live drumming, wigged out sound effects and the girl sings in an insipid, disengaged manner. Post Animal Collective bands are multiplying like bunnies at the moment. But while superficially adapting that band’s current sound might be achievable for groups like High Places, getting near the blistering creative genius behind it is the real challenge. Someone told me their EP is well wort a listen though. So I could be wrong.

White Williams
White Williams are another band I could write what I know about on a postage stamp. According to Wikipedia, this is how their record label describes their new album: “unapologetic pop that flirts with the vacuous nostalgia of the American dream; engaging ambiguous and schizophrenic instruments with impressionistic lyrics, driven by a casually heterosexual backbeat.” Ahem, a casually heterosexual backbeat? The vacuous nostalgia of the American dream? Who writes this shit? As punishment for that sentence I refuse to say anything more about their show apart from this…the lead singer does a freakishly studied Avey Tare (singer from Animal Collective) impression; same hat, same shirt, same dance, same strangled vocal yelps. Tonight Matthew I am going to be someone incredibly more talented than me.

Deerhunter
Just as I’m starting to worry that the world is insidiously being taken over by Animal Collective underlings, Deerhunter emerge to a respectably full venue. They look tired. Bassist Josh Fauver has huge bags under his eyes and singer Bradford is cranky, moaning more than once about the house lights. This could be a real disaster for a band renowned for their erratic live performances. If Deerhunter are in shitty form, they tend to play a shitty gig. It’s as simple as that. They are transparent that way. Somehow, things work out well enough. They don’t exactly bring the house down, but the clutch of new songs from Microcastle sound more alive, more muscular, and dare I say it, more Cryptograms-esque than they did at the last show in Whelans. It’s as if they recorded an album of poppy material because they were bored of drone rock, then took it on the road, realised they were bored of pop and started droning out again. The crowd are familiar with much of the new album (it was leaked a shocking five months ahead of its release date). What I hear tonight is, at the odd intense moment, like the new album being covered by Suicide, Spaceman 3 and Mogwai all at once. A short set is polished off with a ferocious reading of ‘Heatherwood’, which was sadly missed last time around. Man, they look tired though.

Dan Deacon
He does his usual thing, does our Dan, ‘cept on a much bigger scale. For those not familiar with a Dan Deacon show, it’s basically a completely interactive experience. It veers from ridiculously sweaty communal freak-outs in front of a strobey green skull as a crouching Dan messes with pedals and samplers, to his playful hi-jinks that involve, well, everyone. Tonight, these include a massive game of tag that turns the entire crowd into a vortex of sweaty bodies racing around Mr Deacon. He merrily conducts this madness in a pair of luminous pink shorts and a Jar Jar Binks t-shirt. It’s hard to describe these shows without making them sound lame and gimmicky. Rest assured, they are not. All the kerr-azy games hang together on the frame of Deacon’s music which is adventurous, forward-looking and complex. It’s also completely banging. By the end of an epic Wham City (his signature tune) thousands of mad hands are reaching toward a little light bulb that Deacon is holding up as the techno apocalypse crashes all around. Pink Floyd may have lasers and 20 foot high inflatable pigs, but that skull and that little light-bulb are the coolest fucking special effects I’ve seen at a gig. Small is beautiful. I heard this is the last we’ve seen of this incarnation of Deacon. I wonder what his next trick will be?

Richie Lynott? Pic by Loreana Rushe

Jape
Richie Egan must feel the pressure following up Deacon after the hardcore shagging he gave the crowd. It must feel like getting into bed with a spent lover after they’ve done ten rounds with Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt. He even humbly admits toward the end of the gig that he was shitting it. He needn’t have worried. After warming the post-coital crowd up with a few cuts from his solid new record Ritual, things really take off with ‘floating’ and from then on in its a beat-heavy ride to a barn-storming finish with that monster of a track, ‘I was a man’ which plays like ‘floating’’s big brother on ecstasy. The home crowd lap it up. Richie emerges one last time for an encore of newly minted anthem ‘Phil Lynott’ that morphs into a techno kiss-off as a very much alive-and-kicking bass player from Crumlin crowd-surfs through the throngs. Indeed, Jape were so good that midway though their set another Analogue journalist ended up punching himself in the face during a moment of mad self-harming excitement. Rock’n'Roll!

Jens Lekman: The Village May 25th

Pic By Loreana Rushe

The last time Foggy Notions had Jens play here, it was a stripped down affair in Whelans. Just him, backed up by his guitar, a bongo drum and a very special appearance by one Owen Pallett playing violin on a few songs. It was a remarkable gig. It was intimate, heartfelt and touched with more than a tiny bit of Christmas magic, no doubt helped by the fact that Whelans was newly redecorated and smelled of fresh pine-wood. He entertained, he charmed, and he pretty much had a capacity crowd hanging off his every utterance. Tonight, Jens returns to Dublin to what is perhaps an unfair weight of expectation.

Certainly, memories of the previous performance are fresh for many of the audience here, and I’m sure friends have been dragged along in tow with effusive tales of ‘that night’. However, as any seasoned gig-goer knows, the conditions that conspire for gigs that special are mercurial and lightning sadly rarely strikes twice. This, despite the presence of Jens’ full band (dressed up in varying monochrome colours like female versions of those disturbing Aussie TV children’s characters The Wiggles) and a sampler. Thats not to say its a bad gig. It isn’t. It just feels a little flat, rehearsed, and at times the band’s twee capers make me want to watch through my fingers in embarrassment. For example, at one point they all down their instruments, stretch out their arms and run circles around the stage pretending to be airplanes. Its like watching a community drama group getting in touch with their inner children. Its just a little too much for me, a cutesy contrivance too far, and I’m an avowed Belle and Sebastian fan.

However, there are plenty of highlights. ‘Maple Leaves’ and ‘You are the Light’ are delivered in a particularly rousing fashion by Jens, benefiting from the big band treatment. The full on version of ‘Black Cab’ makes an interesting counterpoint to the hushed version we were treated to last Christmas and thanks to the sampler ‘It was a Strange Time in my Life’ comes complete with the deeply peculiar duck-child warble that spooks the shit out of me. I guess tonight is ultimately about the type of music Jens trades in and how honest he can be to that. He trades in sincerity wrapped up in showmanship. His songs demand his and our full attention. Tonight he’s possibly tired, at the end of a long tour, and perhaps going through the motions. Because of this, what felt so real at Christmas now feels a little vaudeville. The original spirit is slightly lacking, making us more aware of the shiny, showy shell.