Mountain Man @ CMJ: Headphones on, please

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner: Mountain Man [Part 2 of 14] from Ray Concepcioñ on Vimeo.

Not only am I not sure that the world needs another blog, I am also not sure it needs two posts in the same day.

However, the first Dude of the Week has hit the jackpot again, and who am I to resist such bounty.

Mountain Man are a joy, and this film is a treat. Yes.

The Predictable Mr Tet

Some things you don't even need to hear to know it'll be good. Although it does help, to be fair.

Pitchfork call him a "laptop experimenter", which is true in itself, but that's not really where this is at. I think he's going for the office Xmas party market with this one, aimed for just before the fighting starts.

Love Cry

If I was a Richmond: Broadcast 2000's parlour game

Roundhouse Studio Theatre
27 October 2009

The BBC Emerging Prom organised by Platforms:live featured, in order of appearance, Mariner's Children (not bad, a bit nervy, need voice training quick, one good song), Stars of Sunday League (don't really do it for me so sat that one out), Broadcast 2000 (vibrant, really know what they are doing, best ever use of a stepladder for musical purposes in Chalk Farm on a Tuesday evening*) and Stornoway (sound problems unsettled them, basically fine although least convincing set I have seen from them).

So far, so.... fine, y'know. No surprises, generally.

Except that when B2K were on, during a pause for Joe to retune, Louise was eventually persuaded to share with us a game they play: replace a word or phrase in a song with the name of a tube station, and after giving a couple of examples she invited any contributions up on stage; one girl did jump up, curled her lip and did a fair impression of Billy Idol - "It's a nice day for a Whitechapel". Quick on the draw, well done to her, although she did decline her prize of a participating role in the next song which was a disappointment.

Oh yeah - and they used a stepladder as a strikingly effective percussion instrument; check the photo again.

* Probably, but how can I know for sure?

EDIT: well The Internet has been very kind today and thrown up a second film to add to one of my little post-ettes; here in all their glory are the B2K mob playing name games and singing a song. And I didn't quite recall it all word-for-word but managed a reasonable version, I'm sure you will agree. If you can wait until 5 mins in, you get a close-up of the ladder doing what ladders usually don't.

Go Away Birds

Go away and buy their beautiful EP's - Bells, and the more recent Sundays. Listen to some songs here too.

Proper songs, properly sung; Catherine Ireton has such a wonderful clear voice.

They even have a tour-ette coming up; I'll be there, although I won't be staying for the headliners in case you were wondering.

Hide behind the shriek: Soap&Skin

Purcell Room
20 October 2009

Photos: Anika
Coming, as she does, with so much diva-style baggage attached, it was with a degree of hesitancy that I dared take my seat after the interval, awaiting the arrival of Anja Plaschg. The Steinway grand had in the interim been adorned with white lilies, the smoke machine was blowing, the incense burning, the lights dimmed and a tiny shy girl with back-combed hair emerged from behind the curtain and glided over to the piano....

Whilst not wishing to delay anyone's gratification in any way, there is also the requirement of addressing Jon Hopkins' performance which came before the interval; it was confusing.

Anyone who had been at, say, the Ninja Tune-hosted Stealth nights at what was the Blue Note in Hoxton Square would have seen scratched-up broken beat mixing, sometimes house-y sometimes jungletastic beats being split there and then - but that was 1995 (or was it '96?). So it was hard to tell why this guy was doing essentially the same thing so many years later, only with the addition of all his dramatic posturing, which isn't, of course, actually needed when twisting or sliding a few dials or controls on a console. Confusing, in a WTF way. Although luckily JH appears to count Natalie Imbruglia  - wearing a short red dress to help her remain inconspicuous - amongst his friends, so that's alright then.

Now where were we....

It seemed that she was in fact in a good mood from the first, with a tiny quarter-smile as she took her seat suggesting all was well, and it was. The performance was compelling and she was in fine voice, her playing was dynamic, the venue and simple but dramatic staging suited her well, and any concerns about moody unpredictability were baseless.

Anja was a curious creature to see; it took at least four songs before she even looked at the audience, and when she acknowledged applause it was generally with an all but inaudible murmur, in marked contrast to her singing, which rose to an abandoned all-out wail, an outpouring of the tortured emotions behind her songs. Poor old mum, one may suspect, but lucky us.

There was also a contrast between her apparent awkwardness and her surprising bolt away from the piano to head off for a lap around the front of the stalls, howling as she ran, arriving back at the piano in perfect time to coordinate with the laptop-based accompaniment; clearly some kind of pre-planned spontaneous moment, the realisation of which slightly spoilt the effect.

So, a glowing performance, but how much of the moodiness is for effect is hard to gauge - next time I want to see her in a bad mood.

Micachu & The Shapes/ The Invisible/ Connan Mockasin

The Scala
15 October 2009

Let us start at the end.

M&TS are so completely in control that they can even get away with a lengthy and noodley cover of McCartney curio Temporary Secretary as an encore, joined in the gleeful show of willfulness by all members of the support acts. Fuck it - on home turf and obviously pleased to be there, so why not? Throughout the set they took their already deconstructed songs and pulled them around to fine effect - Guts especially - making LOTS OF NOISE (sometimes) or being very quiet (sometimes).

They have been gigging constantly for quite a while now and the benefit of this experience is apparent, as each time I have seen them play there have been new variations of some kind, and what's more they look like they love it, with lots of smiles and winks across the stage as the games and tweaks are pulled off.

Partly for the maintenance of their own sanity, I'm sure, the ongoing variations are being followed into the armoury by new songs, which are not all as instant as the album tracks, although one - forgot the name, curses! - was a stormer and bodes well for the next round. In summary I would like to say something chunky and concise like 'Fuckin' A!', but I can't remember whether or not that is a compliment these days.

(There should be a better photo here, but my feeble iphone camera can't cope with the lights at the Scala. This picture is so bad that it is quite funny.)

The Invisible were better than I thought they would be, based on what little I had heard before; informed by a post-Factory minimal rhythmic thing that seems to be popular at the moment, there is more to them than that but it doesn't quite convince. I can't help wondering what we would hear if they didn't have a mixing-desk's worth of effects pedals; they were due to do the last Bandstand Busk but pulled out due to illness - unfortunate, as that would have shown the songs in plain view. M&TS comfortably showed what their songs can be distilled to when they did a BB set in August.

Connan Mockasin had some quirky off-stage presentation stylings, and an occasional throat tapping gimmick, but were most comfortable knocking out very slightly unconventional bluesy rock which was ok for the most part.

Dude of the: Week

A couple of fine Ray Concepcion films are now floating around these pages, so in appreciation of this he has been selected to be the very first Dude of the Week. *applause*

Well done sir! I hope that in return he will feel free to copy and paste anything interesting that he finds around here. Ahem. (EDIT: He did! Haha, brilliant! Mind you, the old internet is in danger of going round in circles if this keeps happening.)

But here, with quite literally perfect timing, is a trademark zoomed-in piece from last week, when the sublime Julianna Barwick was support to Micachu & The Shapes in NY.... I wish she was going to be support on Thursday too. Layered and dreamy, simple adjectives that they are, are usually also compliments in my personal lexicon, and nothing is more l & d than this, in the best possible way:


Sunlight, Heaven: Julianna Barwick from Ray Concepcioñ on Vimeo.

Dudes of the: Year

It is only October, but I can't see much chance of the Grizzlies being out-duded.

Here are two things via Pitchfork that demonstrate their resplendence. Firstly, from the Cemetary Gates (sorry, can't go with cemetery) series:



and secondly a candidate for alternative version of the year, of a candidate for song of the year, so it's all making with the happy as far as I am concerned:

Grizzly Bear - "All We Ask" @ The Pabst Theater: Blue Ribbon Vision #9 from Pabst Theater on Vimeo.

Word of the moment 3: Thee

A sorry tale of a sorely mistreated pronoun; this edition of WOTM is an unhappy muddlefudger. With a heavy heart it is time to record for posterity - as it is well documented that The Internet lives forever - some of the abuses that have been inflicted. Witness the following:

Thee Intolerable Kid (band)

Thee Single Spy (band, quite good actually, based on one viewing)

Thee Oh Sees (band)

TheeRamJams (song - Bootsy Collins)

Thee only one (song - Frankie Rose and the Outs [yes I know you don't know them, they're new])

I could go on, but it's getting me down. Pffffff......

Joan As Policewoman

Union Chapel
4 October 2009

After the first song Joan Wasser was obviously warming up nicely, as she removed her jacket to reveal, in its full glory, her pink leopardskin-print off the shoulder jumpsuit. The red and blue striped boots added a nicely judged vertical accent to the ankle area.

Partner-in-crime Timo Ellis sported an ankle-length jacket in a matching print - on a neutral backing, thankfully - and thus a kitsch theme was well established, and in danger of running away with things, given that Britney (well, Team Britney, presumably) was the origin of song 2. This was followed by an Iggy Pop tune and a rising fear that the whole evening was going to be unmemorable covers of songs I don't know, as - ta dah! - Joan explained her new covers album, called, er, Cover.

In fact she explained not only that, but also the splendidly post-modern cover version of her covers album which, if I understood correctly, is only on sale at the live shows. As I was there on the basis of her two previous albums, the gorgeous ones without any covered tunes, the next hour was threatened by rain clouds....

Happily the sun shone through instead, and there followed a mix of new and familiar JAPW tracks alongside some better-judged Hendrix and Bowie tunes, and a drums-and-vocals cover of recent Sonic Youth track Sacred Trickster which was reminiscent of the recent Wildbirds & Peacedrums set at the same venue.


Not all clear blue skies though; before playing a song based around She Watched Channel Zero, Joan was caught out trying to unearth anyone who had been to see Public Enemy 20 years ago, as she had - a slightly awkward moment as she was clearly anticipating a greater response, but a couple of stifled cheers suggested not many had been down with that particular shizz. I think she was mistaking a JAPW crowd for JAPW herself; in my experience musicians are often open to all flavours, but that doesn't mean their fans are.

Best cover of all was the third and final part of the encore, Nina Simone's Keeper Of The Flame, featuring a fine mariachi-style baritone ukelele solo. Joan has an amazing voice, ranging from almost falsetto down to contralto, as some of the simplest arrangements helped to demonstrate; the singer playing the keyboard was the surest bet of the various combinations the duo tried during the set. Ultimately it felt as if there had been some fine moments, but the performance didn't quite hit the heights one suspects it might be able to, and so the mood in the venue likewise didn't respond as I have seen it do on other occasions.

The careful reader may notice that a number of the features of the evening mentioned above do not, typically, occur at shows. There were also, to balance the books, a selection of gig tropes to be found:

- unsatisfactory support act who were pleased to be there
- terrible sound mix for the support act, much better for the headliner
- endless pauses for guitars to be retuned
- everyone thanking everyone else for everything (support act, sound engineer, the audience etc)
- everyone being expected to applaud any mention of London, the existence of the Union Chapel etc
- preordained understanding that there would be an encore
- unconvincing attempt at a standing ovation from a few hardcore Joansters, when the atmosphere just wasn't really there

Champion Lyricists: Tom Brosseau

Due to a dearth of impressive individual words this week, we revert to option B - it's not how big it is, it's how you use it; no attention-grabbing prize-winners here, but take some ornery critters and stick them together in the right way and away we go....

The track Favourite Colour Blue from Tom Brosseau's recent album Posthumous Success holds many lyrical delights, and although it's not exactly the most elegant use of language there is an endearing charm.

An early gambit runs as follows:
"I went to church last Sunday and let me tell you what -
when I got through it gave me back my strut"

but the honours go to this quatrain:
"I'm secretly in love with my best friend's older sis
I have been ever since I saw her doing the twist
I really believe she is the lock and I'm the key
Ah but holding it all in is really killing me"

Channel the groin-led hopeless romanticism of your inner teenager, Mr Brosseau; naïve charm is the best kind.