It’s that time o’ year again. People must be rewarded, apparently,
for passing the rigid entry requirements for becoming the NME marketing
department’s drool receptors through 2005. And the reward this year? Listening
to ever-so-anarchic Russell Brand, a man so very irritating that he must be but
a hair’s withered breadth away from having a skin condition named after him, administer
the gibbering verbal equivalent of sexual assault to comedy for a couple of hours
on end. Slipping up regularly on the discharge. And punctuated with performances
from various ex-Libertines. Which might be crass (yes, including the bit about
Libertines), but it’s also completely true. Do excuse our bitterness, but this
time of year is depressing enough as it is. Which is exactly why the annual
series of Brats gigs (to give them their more spirited title) are such a valuable
commodity – quite separate to the inanity of the awards. Mini stacks of inspiration,
class line-ups bundled together with loose stylistic or quality-controlled bindings,
complete value for money. This year’s may lack the teetering excitement of previous
runs and maybe more reflect the predictability of the magazine’s positioning and
perhaps popular music as a whole right now (guitars are back in, if you hadn’t
noticed). But we cherry picked 2 of the best Astoria shows (steering well clear
of The Bravery) and now pit their line-ups against each other, in a vague bid
to regain some of the competitive spirit that’s been sapped from the actual awards.
Let the scrapping commence. Forward Russia vs. Howling Bells
Well, good start. On the second night all we hear of the Howling Bells is a howling
bilge of sound from the sanctuary of the Keith Moon Bar following late entrance
to the venue. As muffled vibrations go, mind, it weren’t bad. But either way,
Forward Russia are currently taking on all comers and laughing them into a corner,
ripping out internal organs with something blunt and starting a trophy cabinet.
We presume with some degree of confidence that this would extend to Howling Bells’
raw Aussie rock too. Forward Russia are a mechanical heart-attack, a staggering
collision of epileptic guitars that sounds like those cool 360º visual swoops
in The Matrix look, machine gun beats, yelping and synthesizers, with a bow on
top, all packaged up for the dancefloor. Their drummer is a 16-cylinder cyborg
from the future, surely, and Guy Garvey’s claim later that night that they are
“the best band… ever” might not be right but we can’t see that it’s wrong either.
They are the disco At The Drive In, and they are quite mighty. The Duke
Spirit vs. Brakes
It hits us. It finally hits us. Brakes are just
a joke after all. End of. Or rather they’re not. Or if they are they’re broken,
because we’re not laughing tonight. This is the sort of thing that usually gets
stubbed out a couple of terms into sixth form. And to think some perfectly good
bands have been neglected or divorced so that this little adventure might exist.
‘What’s In It For Me?’ and ‘All Night Disco Party’ get us smirking, but it’s too
late. The Duke Spirit, on terrific returning form, have already romped home. Romped,
and grinded, writhed, gazed (not just at their shoes) and damn near overwhelmed.
Torrents of static, crackling guitar lap over, provoke and engage one another
endlessly and feverishly in a drowning pool of seductive psychedelic overdrive,
that reminds once more how their disappointing debut album did them little justice.
But then judging by the evidence unleashed tonight of what’s to come on album
number 2, perhaps we’re safe to brush ‘Cuts Across The Land’ under the carpet
without anyone noticing. Elbow vs. Editors
One band at the peak
of their game. And one jettisoning towards theirs like falling rocks simply obeying
gravity (only inverted – you know what we mean). The excitement in both instances
seems fairly unfeasible, and yet it’s bouncing off the walls and standing on tables
both nights. Neither band are really built for the exhilaration they inspire –
Elbow are gruff, maudlin and considered; Editors dense, tense and introverted
– but there is much life beyond the foundations of their recorded works. Elbow’s
rests in the trembling closeness their music, and its instinctively expert delivery,
builds with an audience. Big rough hands working them softly towards emotional
climax after emotional climax with the occasional forceful burst. And following
the episode of getting
lost in Brixton Academy late last year the Astoria feels like an embrace after
a long distance phone call. Editors’ simply lies in their now awesome, powerfully-coiled
live prowess. A different band to the one we witnessed 12 months ago. For
them it’s all light and jet darkness – visually as much as anything else, the
effective imprints of their lights show taking no chances with the overall impression
– while with Elbow it’s a reverse dimming, a gradual raising of brightness, till
we’re blinded by it during an encore of the embryonic ‘Puncture Repair’, progressively
twinkling ‘The Stops’ and triumphant, OTT ‘Forget Myself’. The two bands share
a clear common ground – means differ but they chase equivalent ends – making it
difficult to pull them apart. There’s even stark proof of camaraderie as Editors
play ‘Let Your Good Heart Lead You Home’, a b-side recorded in Manchester under
Elbow’s tutorage and one of the more interestingly textured moments of the evening.
Perhaps guiding hands have been heeded more generally too; new material aired
tonight sounds firmer, bendier, doubly anthemic. One mad funereal celtic thrashing
especially has dizzy stars orbiting our heads. Elbow challenge with skewed lost
track ‘McGregor’, Guy the Northern preacher-man with a skin-full on the precipice
of somewhere very dark indeed with only two drums as spiritual protection, but
in the end there’s really nothing to separate the two. Relevant sites:
http://www.nme.com
James Berry for Crud Magazine 2006©
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| 01/06 Morning After Girls Interview
01/06 The Roger Sisters Interview
01/06 The Spinto Band Interview
01/06 The Longcut Interview
01/06 Union of Knives Interview
01/06 7/7 July Bombings London
01/06 Adem / Tunng - Live - West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
01/06 Beach Boys - Pet Sounds - 40th Anniversary Deluxe CD / DVD
01/06 Broken Social Scene - London Astoria
01/06 Camden Crawl 2006
01/06 Editors - LIve - Brixton Academy
01/06 Elliott Kennedy - Song Meanings
01/06 Four Day Hombre Interview
01/06 Gram Parsons - Fallen Angel DVD
01/06 Hot Chip Live - LIve - Caberte Volatire - Edinburgh
01/06 Jackson Analogue, Digital, Newcastle
01/06 Latitude Festival, Henham Park, Beccles, Suffolk
01/06 Liam Frost - Live - Cockpit, Leeds
01/06 Little Man Tate, Cockpit, Leeds
01/06 Monty Python Remastered Collection
|  | 01/06 New Pornographers / Spoon - Live - London Koko
01/06 NME Shows 2006
01/06 Orange Lights - Carling Academy, Newcastle
01/06 Protokoll - Live - Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh
01/06 Shout Out Louds - Live - Leeds, Cockpit
01/06 Airlines, Flights, Terror Plot July 2006
01/06 The National - Brixton Academy, London
01/06 Wireless Festival 2006
January 2001
July - August 2001
September - October 2001
November - December 2001
January - March 2002
April - July 2002
August - December 2002
January - March 2003
May - August 2003
November 2003
January - March 2004
April - September 2004
October - December 2004
January - March 2005
April - December 2005
January - August 2006
September - December 2006
January - September 2007
October - December 2007
January - May 2008
June-December 2008 | | |
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