Happening-Magazine

News – RIP Davey Jones.

2012-03-02T10:47:00.001Z

Terrible news about the death of the wee pre Fab Four pin up at the tender age of 66. He looked so healthy when we saw him too.

An obit will follow in #27 by Monkees' insider Rachel Lichtman. In the meantime, for those of you who missed Rachel's and Andrew Sandoval's Monkees' HEAD epic in Shindig! we still have some copies left that you can buy here.

Event – Regeneration

2012-03-01T11:20:00.003Z

The Pepper Pots album and tour

2012-02-28T14:14:00.004Z

Spanish soul sensations The Pepper Pots are in a party mood, and that's because they are celebrating their tenth anniversary. It promises to be one of the The Pepper Pots' best years ever, starting with the release of the 'Time & Place' EP, recorded with American singer Eli "Paperboy" Reed, and continuing with a series of gigs where they will showcase their new album Train To Your Lover.

The tour has started, and one highlight will be the Soul Train Festival. It's a series of shows with no fixed abode, similar to the Motown Revue or the Stax Revue, where the greatest groups from these two legendary record companies would travel together and play under the same roof in venues around the world. The first Soul Train Fest can count with three highly rated groups from the local Catalonia soul scene: The Pepper Pots, The Sweet Vandals and The Cherry Boppers. Soul Train dates are:

02/03 - SALA PENELOPE, MADRID

03/03 - LA CASA DEL LOCO, ZARAGOZA

09/03 - KAFE ANTZOKIA, BILBAO

23/03 - SALA APOLO, BARCELONA

In April, The Pepper Pots will start a tour which will hit a number of notable venues in UK. The tour starts on April 5th at Blackpool's Sans Venue and finishes on 12th at the same town. One of the standout shows will certainly be on April 8th, where they will play onstage for a third time with American singer Maxine Brown, considered by many as "the princess of Soul".

UK tour dates:

05/04 - SANDS VENUE, BLACKPOOL

06/04 - SCOOTER RALLY, WHITBY

07/04 - QUARTERHOUSE, FOLKSTONE

08/04 - LE BEAT BESPOKE LONDON, with Maxine Brown

09/04 - TBC

10/04 - TBC

11/04 - TBC

12/04 - SANDS VENUE, BLACKPOOL

For more on The Pepper Pots visit their website, Facebook page and Twitter account.

Event: Happening the clubnight, London, Saturday March 3rd

2012-02-24T15:24:00.006Z

HAPPENING CLUBNIGHT - Saturday March 3rd

LIVE ONSTAGE...

THE CUBICAL

https://www.facebook.com/the.cubical.liverpool

The Liverpudlians are in town for a rare show, promoting second album ‘It Ain’t Human’. On the blog we said “Excellence permeates all areas of this record. It’s a record dipped in The Magic Band but not to the point of parody. Other touchstones are surely Howlin’ Wolf, The Jim Jones Revue and Nick Cave’s early work with Boys Next Door/The Birthday Party.

THE HYPNOTIC EYE (above)

http://www.hypnoticeye.co.uk

New London five-piece. “Sultry organ-led garage” - Rhys Webb, The Horrors. Think Shocking Blue meets Wimple Winch.

THE KUMARI

https://www.facebook.com/pages/THE-KUMARI/315774621766647

The debut show of four young men who are known for The Vinyl Stitches, Speak & The Spells & Organ Morgan. Expect rock’n’roll that takes in the likes of garage, psychedelia, krautrock & shoegaze and spits out nuggets of pleasure. Hypnotic, melodic - but hopefully not shambolic!

Then resident DJ Phil Istine and guest DJ Fritz (Buzzsaw Joint) will spin your world via ’60s/’70s dancefloor psychedelia, garage, beat, and general rock’n’roll wondermints!

@ The Drop

below The Three Crowns, 175 Stoke Newington High Street London N16 0LH

8pm-4am, Free before 9pm, then £6 entry. Buses: many. Train: Stoke Newington (from Liverpool St)

Facebook event

Record Review - Hooded Fang

2012-02-24T12:03:00.003Z

HOODED FANG
Tosta Mista
Full Time Hobby CD

The excellent Full Time Hobby’s latest signings from Toronto trade a fine line in lo-fi reverb heavy garage indie-pop. It’s a pretty quirky 23 minutes. The album is essentially one rhythm track, but one mustn’t complain when that rhythm is so infectious. I don’t recall hearing one so affecting since the first Stroke album. High praise indeed. The singer sounds a little Stephen Malkmus-esque in places. Strong songs dot the album: detuned guitars on opener ‘Clap’ sits well with the biting lyrics to create a wonderfully woozy start. ‘ESP’ has wonderful squelchy guitars and is the most ‘60s thing on here (and not a million miles away from Horror Asparagus Stories), ‘Jubb’ is quite early Nirvana-esque with its grungey pop sensibility. If the word Weezer appears in this blog you won’t be scared I hope. Because it just did. ‘Vacationation’ thunders along in a mix of girl group/Phil Spector mannerisms, with a melody to recall The Ramones in their prime. And ‘Den Of Love’ starts off as an Elvis-style torch song, before a huge chorus of ‘whoahs’ send us into (fellow Canadians) Arcade Fire territory. It sounds like it was recorded in a cave, which I know infuriates certain record listeners, but on the big finale track we can forgive them, as it adds to the windswept vibe.

Its strange to think music this gloriously upbeat is actually mostly concerned about the break up of Daniel (guitar/vocals) and April (bass). Fans of Thee Oh Sees and Black Lips will heartily enjoy Tosta Mista. A band to keep an eye out for sure.

Phil Istine

News – Divisionists Celebrate Debut EP with Record Release Party

2012-02-21T14:55:00.000Z

February 25 - The Victoria in Dalston

Special appearances by Alex Monk and ex-Spaceman, Pete Bassman

Brendan Quinn, former guitarist with late-'90s US psych band Abunai! (three albums on Camera Obscura and appearances at several Terrastock Festivals, including ULU in 1999) has announced the February 25 release of the debut EP by his latest band, Divisionists, "We Play Rock Music...", available on his own Mount Watatic records. Featuring hand screen printed artwork, the hand numbered, edition of 500 140-gram vinyl 45rpm EPs contain approximately 9 minutes of psychedelic pop per side. Digital tracks should also be available soon, from the usual outlets.

You can help the band celebrate at their record release party on 25 February at the Victoria in Dalston (London), which will also feature performances by Smeraldina-Rima Records recording artist Alex Monk, and former Spaceman, Pete Bassman.

Facebook event

News – Shindig! All Back To Mine, Sean Rowley, BBC Radio Kent

2012-02-19T13:51:00.001Z

You can listen to Jon and Andy's one hour mix of Soft US psych for Sean Rowley's BBC All Back To Mine show here.

Our track selection:

Live Review – The Black Keys

2012-02-13T17:54:00.003Z

THE BLACK KEYS

Alexandra Palace, London, February 11 2012

The great, and I truly mean great, thing about live music is that you can watch a band and think "What’s all the fuss about?", then see said same band again a year or so later and think "Oh my, how good are these cats!" It’s happened this weekend – I’ve finally succumbed to The Black Keys...

Firstly some words for support act Band Of Skulls. No matter how rock you dress, you suck mightily with your bland, nondescript corporation-sanctioned beard rock. If I was being generous I could make a comparison to The Raconteurs, but that would only upset His Whiteness, for even his third best band are still head and shoulders above this sludge.

So the main attraction are now firmly in Kings Of Leon territory, playing mega gigs to thousands of fans all over the UK. On another freezing night in London the band had everyone going gaga for the whole show. The trappings of success are clear for all to see – roadies in suits and Coldstream Guards jackets, video projections, even Patrick Carney’s drumkit has had an Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat makeover. The duo on this tour to promote possibly their best album yet, El Camino, have been augmented by a bass player and keyboards, and it has meant the rock in their blues-rock sound has come to the foreground. The band overcome this difficult venue (beautiful and historic yes, but not suited for gigs in my opinion) to inject a thrilling dose of all-important soul into their performance. The new organ sounds have especially transformed them, so much so that if you closed your eyes you could imagine it was a late ’60s West Coast garage band onstage. Kicking off with Brothers' cuts rocker ‘Howlin’ For You’ and ‘Next Girl’, they ran through 20 songs taken from all periods of their career. ‘Lonely Boy’ was astonishingly fierce and possibly their ’Seven Nation Army’.

The melodies appear sharper on the new stuff, as befits a band at that unenviable/inevitable "must write anthems" career stage. But they pull it off with aplomb, and I suspect these seemingly grounded gentlemen know nothing else. They wrapped up this tour in style tonight.

They should definitely keep the four-piece line-up thing happening. Sometimes less is more, but sometimes more is more fun.

Phil Istine

News – Hush Arbors and Arbouretum

2012-02-10T11:55:00.003Z

Hush Arbors and Arbouretum have each been exploring for years now the intersection of progressive folk and psychedelic rock, albeit filtered through their own distinct sounds. It was only a matter of time before their paths would cross. Keith Wood and Dave Heumann met at a show in Baltimore and discovered their mutual appreciation for each other's music. The two bands planned a joint European tour, and recorded Aureola to further showcase and celebrate their complimentary sounds.

Keith Wood (the man behind Hush Arbors), "has a poet's soul and a drifter's mentality. Better than most, he understands the similarities between Ted Berrigan and The Byrds," says friend Matt Krefting. "He's put the hours in playing with Six Organs of Admittance, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Current 93, and Thurston Moore, and is equally at home in the wilds of improvisation as he is with the vast possibilities of song form. As adept as he is at playing with others, Hush Arbors is all his, and it's what he does best. His records for Ecstatic Peace, Hush Arbors and Yankee Reality, demonstrate Keith's extraordinary capacity to mold songs of haunting beauty and sweetness, songs that make sense around the fireplace or on the open road. These new songs continue that trajectory and intensify the emotional gravitas of his previous work. They are like a re-awaking, a groggy hello to a forgotten world, or a blissful hangover full of melancholy love and beautiful promise."

Dave Heumann's allegorical and metaphorical lyrics for Arbouretum ride gently atop his fuzzed-out guitar solos, pushing them ever higher into the stratosphere, and lending his songs an emotional weight uncommon in "heavy rock" music. The band also continues to push forward, experimenting with improvisation to capture a more immediate feel that reflects their ever-changing live performances. Arbouretum perfectly exemplify a band that exists in a dual state. They are both loose and rhythmic, channeling the Velvet Underground's repetitive grooves, but also technically precise and expansive. Folk ballads and acid-guitar psychedelia in perfect harmony. It's music that can be played on an acoustic guitar or pushed through a distortion pedal and a stack of amps. The new tracks on Aureola serve as both the next step in Arbouretum's evolution and a glimpse of what's to come on their next full-length due out in the Fall of 2012.

"Keith's music suggests some strange place where John Philips, Merle Haggard, Charalambides and Federico Garcia Lorca all occupy the same neighborhood tavern. His songs are fluid and lucid and frequently dazzling, displaying a mastery of craft only gleaned from countless pie-eyed hours strumming along to records late at night and absorbing their individual magic. Hush Arbors is Keith's near-perfect distillation of all that magic." - James Jackson Toth (of Wooden Wand).

"Arbouretum have forged a new alloy of psychedelic heavy rock that captures the narrative power and sonic fury of electric Neil Young, the floral qualities of 1960s British psychedelia and the textural use of distortion at the foundation of drone and stoner rock. More importantly though, Arbouretum manages to avoid the parochial trappings of any of those camps. In other words, Arbouretum sounds like all of those things without the cliches. Throw in Heumann's flair for putting a fresh twist on tried-and-true (read: tired) traditions, and Arbouretum arises out of the psychedelic swamp blazing with an almost shamanic power." - New York Press

Hush Arbors - The Sleeper from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.

Arbouretum // Hush Arbors // Luke Roberts

EU TOUR

15/04/12 : Trix - Antwerpen (B) + Luke Roberts

16/04/12 : Hafenklang - Hamburg (D) + Luke Roberts

17/04/12 : Loppen - Copenhagen (DK) + Luke Roberts

18/04/12 : Hensriksberg - Gothenburg (S) + Luke Roberts

19/04/12 : Atlas - Aarhus (DK) + Luke Roberts

20/04/12 : Steinbruch - Duisburg (D) Luke Roberts

21/04/12 : Swamp - Freiburg (D) + Luke Roberts

22/04/12 : Club Manufaktur - Schorndorf (D) + Luke Roberts

23/04/12 : Sud - Basel (CH) (300 euro

24/04/12 : Ziegel Oh Lac/Rotefabrik - Zurich (CH) + luke Roberts

25/04/12 : Sidro Club - Savignano Sul Rubicone - Forli (I) Luke Roberts

26/04/12 : Circolo degli Artisti - Rome (I) + Luke Roberts

27/04/12 : Studio 2 - Vigonovo/Venice (I) + Luke Roberts

30/04/12 : La Péniche - Lille (F) + Luke Roberts

01/05/12 : The Green Door Store - Brighton (UK) + Hush Arbors

02/05/12 : Cargo - London (UK) + Hush Arbors/Luke Roberts

03/05/12 : The Fleece - Bristol (UK) + Hush Arbors

04/05/12 : Kazimier - Liverpool (UK) + Hush Arbors

05/05/12 : Whelans - Dublin (EIR)+ Hush Arbors

06/05/12 : Crane Lane Theatre - Cork (EIR) + Hush Arbor

News – Are You Hopping Mad?

2012-02-10T11:19:00.002Z

To mark the DVD release of Ripping Yarns The Complete Series, and as an homage to the episode 'Tomkinson's School Days', Network are looking to recruit members of the public to set Guinness World Records ™ for the largest group 400 metre hop as well as a 400 metre relay hop. This free event will take place at the Grade 1-listed Hampstead Heath Athletics track on Saturday 3 March 2012. Both Michael Palin and Terry Jones will be attending and presenting prizes to the overall winners - £500 to the charities of their choice.*People can apply to participate by visiting facebook.com/NetworkDVD.

THE RIPPING YARNS HOPATHON is inspired by the 30-Mile Hop at Graybridge School, motto: "Only in true misery can you find true contentment" which featured in the first ever episode of the cult comedy series 'Tomkinson's School Days'. Thankfully Messieurs Palin and Jones have rejected the idea of pitting members of the public in the much -featured grizzly bear fight (still compulsory for some boys at Graybridge), or a St Tagder's Day ceremony (where students are nailed to the school walls). However, selected participants will be provided with Team Graybridge and Team St Anthony's t-shirts plus a commemorative certificate for their commendable sporting efforts.

To break The Guinness World Records™ as listed above, Network DVD requires at least 250 people to participate in the largest group hop and also needs to set a time of 7 minutes to achieve the fastest 400 metre hop on one leg. Participants must be over 18 years of age and in sound physical health. Full details about registration are available at facebook.com/NetworkDVD by 'LIKING' the hop or accessing the facebook tab for existing people who 'like' Network DVD.

TV– Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy | Lysergic Casserole | E4

2012-02-08T09:12:00.001Z

After the wonderful Mighty Boosh it seemed to many that the flamboyant Noel Fielding may be happy coasting on his coat tails – Never Mind The Buzzcocks, chat shows, hanging with rock stars.... and err... Horrid Henry: The Movie. So it came as a nice surprise to see the diminishing talent return to fine form with his own new "psychedelic sketch show" Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy.

Granted, not everything is hilarious – and nor should it be, this is as much about stimulating the senses as it is tickling the funny bone. The whole thing hangs together seamlessly as Noel (as himself and a cast of surreal characters), his brother Michael, Tony Meetan, Rich Fulcher and Dolly Wells keep the crazy creation on course. Its premise (if explainable) is that Noel, his cleaner (Andy Warhol, who speaks like Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation), Smooth (a kind of elephant/ant eater man) and the seductive femme fatale Dolly live in a tree house together... which is the easy bit... whilst Noel's bizarre and often frightening characters (Ghost Of A Flea and Jelly Fox) trippily appear throughout in a connected/non-connected hallucinogenic manner.

Fielding's acting is faultless with the ’80s cop with talking scars Sergeant Ray Boombox and the PE teacher chocolate finger Roy Circles offering the viewer some brilliantly realised and written dialogue and characterisation.

As one would hope, the surreal animation, art and music (co-written by Kasabian's Sergio Pizzorno) prevent the piece from becoming just another "sketch show". In fact, the loose and almost plausible narrative behind the key players almost hold it together, giving the episodes the semblance of an actual situation rather than a series of non-linear sketches.

Fielding's beloved Georges Méliès collide with Jan Švankmajer's dreamlike creations, art is constantly referenced and there are regular nods to all of the weird forefathers – the ones people have never been able to decide whether funny or just mentally disturbed (The Goons, Python, Marty Feldman, Spike Milligan, Kenny Everett and Chris Morris's more recent Blue Juice). Finally, a liberal dose of that all knowing nod to the East London brigade's love of ironic post-modern pop culture never lets go. Combined together it bubbles away in a mesmerising stew.

Psychedelia is alive and kicking thanks to Channel Four!

Shindig! fave bands Ulysses and The Method to play Le Beat Bespoke

2012-02-06T15:47:00.001Z

A belated RIP... Jackie Leven

2012-01-31T18:08:00.003Z

KRIS NEEDS remembers the visionary and neglected JACKIE LEVEN.

JACKIE LEVEN (1950-2011)

Whilepunk ruled in 1977, Jackie Leven appeared out of Maida Vale‘s squattingcommunity with the psychedelic onslaught and astounding beauty of Doll By Doll,a band out of time (and often their minds) who released four monumentally intensealbums before splitting in ’82. Born on the18th of June, 1950 in Kirkaldy,Fife, Jackie’s gypsy roots and highland upbringing continued to underpin thesweeping soul confessionals and emotive reflections he continued making untillosing his battle with cancer in November.

Afterspending the years after ’67 busking through Europe, Jackie landed in theclose-knit Maida Vale squatting community by the mid-70s, forming Doll By Dollin ’77 with guitarist Jo Shaw, bassist Robin Spreafico and drummer DaveMcIntosh. The group were a shattering experience live, combining early Velvetsapocalypse, West Coast guitar interplay and soul-wrenching ballads, often polarisingaudiences to the point of violence. My Zigzagmagazine were first to report on them as they signed to WarnerBrothers-backed Automatic, releasing Rememberin March, ’79, followed by their hallucinogenic life-cycle master-piece Gypsy Blood. Doll By Doll’s self-titledthird album, released in ’90, lightened the mood in a last bid for the greateracceptance which alluded them, its heart-breaking ‘Main Travelled Roads’ hailedas Leven’s most moving ballad.

Afterreleasing his first solo single, 'I Believe That Love is Shining Down On Me' in ’83, Jackie suffered a vicious street attack, sufferingappalling throat injuries and becoming addicted to heroin. After kicking hishabit, he set up the CORE Trust anti-addiction charity, restarting his solocareer in ’94 after signing to Cooking Vinyl, releasing Songs From The Argyll Cycle, the acclaimed The Mystery Of Love Is Greater Than The Mystery Of Death, followedby a string of others up to 2011’s WaysideShrines And The Code Of The Travelling Man. To accommodate hissavagely-prolific output, he also made albums available through his HauntedValley website. While still exploring the dark side of the human psyche, thewry humour of Jackie’s stage announcements also helped make him a much-lovedfigure touring Europe’s pubs and clubs, a captivating last troubadouralready being missed tremendously.

Record Reviews - V/A (Small Stone Records)

2012-01-31T16:30:00.006Z

Gideon Smith & The Dixie Damned 30 Weight

Backwoods Payback Momantha

Dixie Witch Let It Roll

Tia Carrera Cosmic Priestess

Freedom Hawk Holding On

All Small Stone CDs/LPs

Detroit’s Small Stone label has slowly but surely gained a reputation since its 1995 inception for quality heavy-rock across a wide variety of retro styles. After releases by such luminaries as Dozer and Acid Witch, the label’s roster has grown rapidly in the last few years to feature more quality new bands than ever – a small cross section of which are reviewed here.

Gideon Smith third full-length album (following the snappily titled South Side Of The Moon) is a strange brew of stoner, southern and dark gothic heavy-rock. Smith’s adherence to the outlaw code is writ large all over the vampiric desert sound of this album. The covers of Saint Vitus and GG Allin numbers show his clear outsider lineage while his evil croon is a pretty unique blend of Tom Waits and Jim Morrison. This whole album is a dark treat.

Backwoods Payback are from Pennsylvania and channel the dark stoner blues of Clutch and Alabama Thunderpussy. This album is mostly catchy riff-rock like the standout ‘Mr Snowflake’, though my favourite moments are the doom of ‘Velcro’ and the tortured vocal howls on ‘Timegrinder’. A real grower of an album, after several plays it had burrowed deep into my psyche.

Dixie Witch are a rough, tough Texan power trio playing super-heavy Southern rock. Perhaps a bit too metallic for the average Shindig! reader, their album is a hugely catchy quality classic rock album for all those who like that sort of thing.

Another Texan trio that will probably appeal more to Shindiggers are Tia Carrera (no relation to the Wayne’s World actress). Playing wild ’n’ heavy psychedelic space-rock that’s both instrumental and improvised the band really impress across four long tracks packed with wild wah-wah and memorable telepathic jamming. Highly recommended to all.

Last up are Freedom Hawk who have unleashed a great ’70s-influenced noisy stoner album, Holding On. What sets it apart from the pack is the really great songwriting and riffs that traverse areas of light and shade to provide a real diversity and power to every song. One of the very best super-amplified stoner albums of the last 12 months.

Austin Matthews

News: Wooden Shjips Euro tour and new 12"

2012-01-30T16:20:00.004Z

Wooden Shjips have announced a handful of live dates in Europe this summer...

June 29th - Berlin, Festsaal Kreuzberg

June 30th - Hamburg Indra

July 2nd - Leipzig Centraal Theater

July 3rd - Munich 59 to 1

July 10th - Bristol Fleece

July 11th Wrexham Central Station

July 12th - Manchester Sound Control

Wooden Shjips also release a brand new Remixes 12", that follows on the heels of 2011's much-heralded West LP. Featuring two remixes, one by Andrew Weatherall and one by Sonic Boom, and a collaboration with kandodo. Andrew Weatherall remixed 'Crossing', whilst Pete Kember (aka Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3/Spectrum fame) contributed 'Wiking Stew (aka Red Krayola-ing)'. When Pete was called in to help master the record he was inspired by the album and made this mash-up from West on his own. Last but not least is the track 'Ursus Maritimus (Last Bear's Lament)', a long distance collaboration with kandodo (otherwise known as Simon Price from The Heads). Ripley created the bed of the track in Colorado in between tours and sent if off to Simon, in London. Simon added all the additional instrumentation at his home studio.

Remixes will be released on February 20th, is only available digitally and on limited edition 12" on crystal clear vinyl with black streaks (for a light smokey effect) as well as classic black.

Event: Happening the clubnight, London, Saturday February 4th

2012-01-27T16:13:00.002Z

HAPPENING CLUBNIGHT - Saturday February 4th

LIVE ONSTAGE...

FLAMINGO DRIVE (right)
https://www.facebook.com/FlamingoDrive
Flamingo Drive are intelligent, timeless, guitar pop with a dynamic voice, inimitable razor-sharp psychedelic verse and the best twin guitar play-off since Verlaine met Lloyd or Kramer duelled with Sonic-Smith.

ELGAZELLE
http://www.myspace.com/elgazelle
Manchester's garage rock'n'roll sensations, banging out an irresistible sound between garage & soul. Think The 13th Floor Elevators, The Count Five, The Stairs, The Electric Prunes, Joe Meek, Captain Beefheart, & Small Faces...

THE J-PEGS
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-J-PEGS/111059885602935
London's sweet country rockers. IPO said "Think of all your favorite music from the 60s - be it the intricate harmonies of soft pop Left Banke style, Merseybeat, or the bubblegummy mod sounds of The Monkees, these have got it all!

Then DJs Phil Istine, Charlie Salvidge (Toy) and Imogen (Velvet Cave Vintage) will spin your world via ’60s/’70s dancefloor psychedelia, garage, beat, and general rock’n’roll wondermints!

@ The Drop
below The Three Crowns, 175 Stoke Newington High Street London N16 0LH
8pm-4am, £6 entry. Buses: many. Train: Stoke Newington (from Liverpool St)

Facebook event

Record Review – Goat

2012-01-26T09:48:00.001Z

GOAT
Goat Man
Rocket 45

Goat supposedly stem from the tiny Swedish village of Korpolombolo (a settlement that practiced voodoo before being burned out by the crusaders). Dressed in masks in a suitably satanic promo pic a similarity to acts like Gwar emerges, but rather than dealing in monstrous forms of metal Goat however trade in a cinematic rock gumbo parts Performance, Dr John, Ruth Copeland's sleazy ’70s voodoo grooves and the put together afro rock of the Demon Fuzz album. That said, the production is quite contemporary and elements of such ’80s noise droners as Loop can be picked out by a discerning ear, drawing closer comparisons to fellow Rocket acts.

This then is clearly the product of likeminded hipsters akin to the muse of Votel, Cherrystones and co. And no, it's not a bad vibe either. It's just that the real sense of both the horned one and the tunes of pioneering dark arts groovers like Graham Bond is evidently missing.

Jon 'Mojo' Mills

Trembling Bells with Bonnie Prince Billy Tour

2012-01-25T14:24:00.002Z

Qu Junktions and CNL Touring presents

Trembling Bells with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

UK tour April/May 2012

with support from Muldoon's Picnic

This UK tour presents the Trembling Bells playing, singing and duelling with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, performing a new collection of songs written by the Trembling Bells some of which appear on the forthcoming collaborative album 'The Marble Downs', out on Honest Jon's on April 9th with a taster EP slated for release before this. This will be the first time these songs are going to be performed live … list of tour dates below.

Trembling Bells lead vocalist Lavinia Blackwall will sing in duet with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. Alex Neilson, the chief songwriter for the Trembling Bells, plays drums, while Simon Shaw on bass and Mike Hastings on guitar make up the pack. Originals, covers and traditionals will be featured in the sets.

With a limited Christmas 7” single already under their belts, Trembling Bells and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy kick off 2012 with a collaborative album of male/female vocal duets.

Alex Neilson has synthesized his love of seat-of-your-pants improv and raw folk into his songwriting with the Bells. While Bonnie has long since shed the Appalachian dirt of his earlier records to enter a fertile period of grace. Now these paths converge on ´The Marble Downs´ - a triumphant exercise in major key ensemble playing concerned with minor key heartbreak, and a marriage of some of the most mercurial and imaginative musicians of our time.

The shows will encompass a special select route around the South West of England with support from Routes South West to take place around the 'Obby Oss' May Day celebrations.

Dates

Wed 25th April – Edinburgh / Queens Hall

Venue Address: Clerk Street, Edinburgh EH8 9JG
Doors: 7pm
Ticket Price: £18 adv + booking fee
Weblink: www.thequeenshall.net

Thurs 26th April - Holmfirth / The Picturedrome

Venue Address: Market Walk, Holmfirth. HD9 7DA
Doors: 7.30pm

Ticket Price: £15 adv
Weblink:www.thegigcartel.com

Fri 27th April - Leeds / Picture House

Venue: Hyde Park Picture House

Venue address: 73 Brudenell Road, Headingley, Leeds LS6 1JD – 0113 275 2045
Doors: 8.30pm
Ticket price: £15 adv
Link: www.hydeparkpicturehouse.co.uk

Sat 28th April – Cheltenham / Frog and Fiddle (part of Routes South West)

Venue: Frog & Fiddle
Venue Address: 313 High Street, Cheltenham,
Doors: 7pm
Ticket Price:£15/£12 adv
Weblink: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/151359

Mon 30th April – Exeter / Phoenix (part of RSW)

Venue: Exeter Phoenix
Venue Address: Bradninch Place, Gandy Street, Exeter EX4 3LS
Doors: 8pm
Ticket Price: £15 adv
Weblink: www.exeterphoenix.org.uk

Wed 2nd May - Penzance / Acorn (part of RSW)

Address: Parade st, Penzance, TR18 4BU
Doors: 7.30pm
Ticket Price:£15 adv
Weblink: www.theacornpenzance.com

Thurs 3rd May – Bristol / Trinity Centre (part of RSW)

Venue: The Trinity Centre
Venue Address: The Trinity Centre, Trinity Road, Bristol,BS2 0NW
Doors: 7:30pm
Ticket Price: £12 adv
Weblink: http://www.3ca.org.uk

Fri 4th May – Oxford / Bullingdon Arms

Venue: Bullingdon Arms
Venue Address: 162 Cowley Road, OX4 1UE
Doors: 7.30pm
Ticket Price: £15 adv
Weblink: www.pindroppublicity.com

Sun 6th May – London / Union Chapel

Venue: Union Chapel
Venue Address: Compton Terrace, Off Upper Street, Islington, London, N1 2UN
Doors: 7.30pm
Ticket Price: £17.50 adv

Weblink: http://www.seetickets.com/Tour/TREMBLING-BELLS-FEATURING-BONNIE-PRINCE-BILLY

Win – The Tyrant King DVD

2012-01-25T09:30:00.000Z

A Swinging London spectacular with theatre school kids in cool clobber and psychedelic music galore. A real forgotten period piece tailor made for the weird, wired and wonderful readers of Shindig! and Happening.
To win the entire series on DVD courtesy of Network answer the below question:

"Which British psychedelic/progressive group provide the theme tune for The Tyrant King?"

Please email answer to win@shindig-magazine.com with the title WIN – THE TYRANT KING in the subject line. Results will be drawn on March 1st.

Event: Robyn Hitchcock's The Floating Palace

2012-01-24T16:48:00.006Z

Curated by renowned English singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock, The Floating Palace is a series of five intimate evenings of musical collaboration and experimentation, featuring folk legends Martin and Eliza Carthy, Missouri-born singer-songwriter Krystle Warren, Scottish songstress KT Tunstall, and alt-country experimentalist Howe Gelb (Giant Sand).

The artists accompany each other on songs they know and songs they have only just met – something they would normally only get to do in the studio, or after hours. The Floating Palace was inspired by the Incredible String Band song, The Waltz Of The New Moon, by the pleasure ships built by Roman emperor Caligula on lake Nemi and by the Floating Palace in Jaipur, India.

Hitchcock says "Music is what you make it. This is a live experiment: a chance collection of musicians trapped in a lift, with only our voices, our instruments and a steady supply of oxygen, passing a couple of hours until the firemen rescue us - or till the cable is cut and we fall too far, too fast. What would we play together, the six of us? Transpose that lift to a stage, with a small PA and a live audience, and you have Howe Gelb, Krystle Warren, KT Tunstall, Eliza and Martin Carthy - five players I deeply admire - joining me in The Floating Palace."

The Floating Palace – UK tour dates 2012

Sun February 5 - Celtic Connections, Glasgow

Mon February 6 - The Sage, Gateshead

Wed February 8 - Barbican Hall, London

Sat February 11 - Brighton Dome Concert Hall

Sun February 12 - Warwick Arts Centre

Record Review - Boom Pam

2012-01-24T14:59:00.009Z

BOOM PAM
Alakazam
Audio Montage CD

Israeli-based trio Boom Pam add some spice to our musical lunch today, with their third studio record Alakazam. Served up is the lesser-spotted Mediterranean surf rock - the primary instruments here are the electric guitar, drums, and tuba. Yes, you read that right: tuba. It works, miraculously - the musicianship is first rate (I’m not surprised to hear they have performed with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra), the Fender licks a mixture of east and west (Hava Naglia meets Dick Dale you might say). The production is a bit processed for my tastes, but the energetic performances cut through that. ‘Surfing Tuba’ is the offspring of Dave Allen’s classic biker anthem ‘Blues Theme’, whilst things get a bit anarchic and well, a bit Benny Hill, on ‘Hamdulila’. Some tongues in cheeks may have been utilised whilst recording. The Farfisa-sounding organ on ‘The Fall’ give it some 60s authenticity, plus the song is simply great: flailing drums, a memorable riff, and enough changes to keep things interesting.

There is just three vocal tracks here, and they aren't as convincing as the instros: the singing just doesn’t fit the sonic mood well (and using a vocoder is simply WRONG). Having said that 'Light Up' is redeemed with some lovely harmonising and a sticky fuzz guitar line. This release shares much DNA with Denmark’s The Good The Bad, so something good must be in the sea air. If you like your surf rock non-conformist then perhaps you should check in at Alakazam.

Phil Istine

Record Review – The Cramps

2012-01-24T12:03:00.001Z

THE CRAMPS
File Under Sacred Music: Early Singles 1978-1981
Munster 10 x 7" Box Set / CD

As Lindsay Hutton, creator of the group's official International fan club 'The Legion Of The Cramped' points out in his sleevenote, The Cramps may not exist as a physical entity anymore, but the frightening legacy they've left behind will continue to be embraced by future generations. This handsome box set of their rare early singles, and more, goes some way to explaining just why that is.

There haven't been many groups who have managed to hurl excess rockabilly fever and sickly ’60s punk slime at the wall and get it to stick together with as much vigour and vengeance as The Cramps did. Their exultant noise exudes something so inviting the listener is beckoned in to a thrillingly strange, and hitherto unknown world. Evidence, if needed, is here in spades, whether original or remake: 'Garbageman' and 'Goo Goo Muck', 'TV Set' and 'Surfin' Bird', 'Human Fly' and 'Domino', all deranged, all pent-up, and all outta control, pushing unheard levels of tremulous cacophony in your eye, and causing heart-bumping palpitations upon hearing the late Lux Interior's impassioned vocal extrapolations. Ivy Rorschach and (the also late and great) Bryan Gregory's frenetic guitars unleashing a furious sound battle each screaming for mercy, or supremacy, or both, while clad-in-black Nick Knox keeps track with primitive jungle drums.

If you've never been sure of the missionary motivation of The Cramps, or have only ever heard (of) them from the 'A Date With Elvis' era on, then I suggest you start back-pedalling now, cos you'll be more than amazed at some of the findings.

Vinyl edition comes complete with envelope containing reproductions of vintage artefacts.
Lenny Helsing

Green Man 2012

2012-01-24T10:38:00.004Z

The long wintery wait is almost over…

Let Green Man banish those January blues as we prepare to unveil their first wave of brilliant bands for summer 2012!

Green Man is delighted to announce that tickets for his 10th anniversary festival go on sale next Monday, January 30, at 9am.

To celebrate, the first batch of amazing artists lined-up to play Green Man’s big birthday bash in Wales’ breathtaking Black Mountains from August 17-19 will be announced soon, including one of three unbelievably great headline acts!

All Earlybird tickets for Green Man 2012 were snapped up in record time, and the entire festival has sold out for the last three years in a row. We’re expecting demand to be high once again, so don’t miss out!

Tickets cost:	Adult Ticket	£145
	Student Ticket	£125
	Teen Ticket	£75
	Child Ticket	£5
	Live-In Vehicle Ticket	£60
	Holiday Ticket	£40
	Car Park Ticket	£5
	Resident Day Ticket	£50

Quite how the festival will head without Jo and Danny steering the good ship will only be seen once the line-up is finally announced. We at Shindig! pray that it won't move further into the mainstream.

www.facebook.com/greenmanfestival
www.twitter.com/greenmanfest
www.vimeo.com/greenmanfestival

Small Faces Reissues Due This Spring

2012-01-23T16:00:00.002Z

MAY 7^th 2012 - UNIVERSAL TO RELEASE DELUXE EDITIONS OF THE GROUP’S FOUR CLASSIC ALBUMS FOR DECCA AND IMMEDIATE RELEASED BETWEEN 1966 AND 1968.

On May 7^th 2012, Universal Music Catalogue is set to release deluxe editions of the four albums released by the Small Faces during their short but highly creative and eventful lifetime between 1965 and 1969.

The albums in question: SMALL FACES, Decca, April 1966; FROM THE BEGINNING, Decca, June 1967; SMALL FACES, Immediate, June 1967 and OGDEN’S NUT GONE FLAKE, Immediate, June 1968 are each released as deluxe two-disc editions with the notable exception of OGDEN’S which has now been expanded to three discs.

All newly re-mastered, these definitive editions carry both the mono and stereo versions of the albums, plus related non-album singles and alternate versions many of which are previously unreleased or released for the first time on CD. In the case of OGDEN’s, there are separate discs for the mono and stereo formats and a third disc of previously unreleased

material – early session versions, alternate USA mixes, instrumentals and the previously unreleased backing track “Kamikhazi”.

Complete with rare photos and memorabilia, each album package includes liner notes by Mark Paytress featuring entertaining and fascinating new interviews with the surviving members of the Small Faces, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones.

It was Andrew Oldham who coined the phrase ‘there are but four Small Faces’, the group establishing its familiar line up of Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenny Jones and Ian McLagan in November 1965, once McLagan replaced Jimmy Winston behind the keyboards. McLagan joined within three months of the group’s debut single “Watcha Gonna Do About It” (reaching No. 14 in the charts in September 1965) adding the final ingredient to their distinctive sound.

Over the next two years the Small Faces achieved truly iconic status with a series of hits that included “Sha La La La Lee”, “All Or Nothing”, “My Mind’s Eye”, “Itchycoo Park” and “Lazy Sunday”, their celebrity heightened by their flamboyant appearance and bigger than life personalities, their sound shifting from explosive, spirited ‘mod’ anthems to memorable psychedelic pop culminating in the artistic triumph that was OGDEN’S NUT GONE FLAKE.

Never short on controversy, following a contractual dispute, the Small Faces left Decca for Andrew Oldham’s Immediate label around May 1966, hitting the charts for Oldham’s label straight away with “Here Comes The Nice”. Decca retaliated by releasing the first in a series of spoiler singles and the album FROM THE BEGINNING. It was a collection of outtakes, singles and works in progress which, despite its untidy origins, more than holds up today. Immediate responded by rush-releasing its own debut album by the group just two weeks later, confusingly titled SMALL FACES. In the battle of the LP charts, Immediate won out, reaching the No. 12 position to Decca’s No. 17.

The most celebrated Small Faces LP, OGDEN’S NUT GONE FLAKE was easily their most successful, enjoying a six-week run at the top of the UK charts during June and July 1968. Originally packaged in an elaborately designed round sleeve like a tobacco tin, it signaled the arrival of the Small Faces as a bona fide ‘album band’, a brilliant achievement just months ahead of the group’s acrimonious collapse within a year of its release.

The Small Faces have since taken their place alongside the likes The Who or the Kinks as one of the most fondly remembered, original and wonderful British groups of the 60s. Their best loved songs are still on rotation to this day, “Itchicoo Park” and “Lazy Sunday” both re-charting in the 70s while the individual reputations of both Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane have grown considerably since their untimely deaths. Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan have enjoyed success in their own right and, of course, with Ronnie Lane, were founder members of members of The Faces.

This series of reissues, the most complete editions to date of the Small Faces four classic albums, is a testimony to a truly original group whose influence is as great today as it was during its lifetime

Record Review - Siena Root

2012-01-23T14:41:00.001Z

SIENA ROOT

Root Jam

Headspin 2-LP

Although Swedish band Siena Root have been knocking around for a while now, putting out albums in striking psychedelic sleeves, somehow I’ve never taken the time to listen to them. That was a mistake as this live album reveals them as a well-honed rock machine with a very cool early ’70s hard rock psychedelic vibe. Flashes of Deep Purple, various obscure US combos and Scandinavian hard rock are the references but the overall sound has an originality and presence of its own. Driving, jamming tracks, some nifty guitar, and electric sitar (whoa!) and a real confidence in the overall execution show this band as passionate and highly accomplished group. The combination of male and female vocals at times give the band the feel of some early ’70s German band. If their studio recordings are as good as this then they are definitely worth looking into.

Richard Allen

Live Review: Toy

2012-01-20T13:19:00.007Z

TOY

Shacklewell Arms, London, January 18 2012

Have you heard of the joy of Toy? The band consist of former members of Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong and a drummer Charlie from our very own Happening clubnights! They have been touring last year with The Horrors and are being talked up in many quarters as ones to watch. And you can immediately hear why at this over-capacity show. The air of anticipation is clear within the rundown boho environs of this new Dalston hipster hangout that should see many a good new band come through its doors.

But right I can barely breathe the room is so heaving. No matter, we're here for music and such discomforts are soon forgotten once the set begins. The band is flanked by two hair monsters who earnestly frug their hearts out, creating motorik rhythms and cascading sheets of sound, as does Korg twiddler Alejandra Diez. We are treated to an enticing mix of psychedelia, krautrock, shoegaze, and stoner rock. Think Red Krayola, think Broadcast, think The Psychedelic Furs. They are tailor made for Shindig! types to lap up. Don't let the less than perfect melodies stop them being embraced by musically progressive types, this band is the antidote to all the insipid indie you normally come across in the UK right now. They finish the set with a frenetic version of debut single 'Left Myself Behind' that threatens to take off at any moment with us onboard. Heavenly.

The band play a residency at the Shacklewell Arms for the next three Wednesday's - do all that is humanly possible to make sure you attend one of them.

Phil Istine

Covered: Classic Sleeves And Their Imitators (Book)

2012-01-19T12:31:00.005Z

Covered: Classic Sleeves And Their Imitators
Easyontheeyebooks
www.easyonetheye.net

Lovely. What with books making such a huge loss it's promising to see a small publisher doing in print what could be so boringly done on the web.

The premise for this 10" book is simple. It takes a record sleeve and then features a host of imitators, rip offs and homages to the cover design. Along with the more known Beatles/Beach Boys/AC/DC entries we also find The Psychedelic Sound Of... The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Buffalo Springfield's Again and Q65's Revolution. Shindig! friends that have taken their cue from the stars include The Cynics, Gorilla, The Perverts, The A Bones and The Chesterfield Kings. Compiling all of this must have been hard work.

A great project and hell of a lot of fun. This is definitely a fine book to flick through when friends are over for a music session. Long live print!
Jon 'Mojo' Mills

Wolfpeople, The Highbury Garage, London, Jan 17th

2012-01-19T12:15:00.005Z

Wolf People supported by Diagonal at The Garage, Highbury.

Tuesday 17th of January

The prog-rock spectrum is long and extreme. At one end sits the jazz-inflected strand, often harsh and atonal and as inviting as a concrete housing block in Soviet-era Poland. At the other rests the warm, psych-folk style, best suited for free festivals on The Isle Of Wight and doing mushrooms in Middle Earth.

Diagonal are squarely at the first end, coming on like Red-era King Crimson covering Derek Smalls’ 'Jazz Odyssey', fronted by a shaved-headed saxophonist who looks like he’s wandered in from an Oasis gig. Everything is played in complex time signatures, and the set moves between slow fast loud quiet passages with impressive technical finesse. It’s striking and cacophonous and perfect for stroking your wizard’s beard to, but very hard to love. They could also do with wearing more capes.

Wolf People meanwhile exist at that other fuzzy end of prog, and they are the GREATEST BAND IN ENGLAND TODAY*. Beneath their unassuming Open University looks, these four have the hearts of Dionysian behemoths and they let rip like the superstars they would be if we all took acid with our tea. ‘Silbury Sands’, the opening track from recent album Steeple, is dispatched only two songs into the gig, but it shows off everything that is immense about the band; this is a quintessentially English noise, half pastoral beauty and half rabble-rousing stomp, drawing a line from Fairport Convention through to Traffic and on up to Led Zeppelin and even Black Sabbath. Front man Jack Sharp’s vocals, sometimes fragile on disc, ring out live with unexpected clarity and strength, and if you removed the tight CS&N harmonies or took away the amps, you’d still be left with song writing that would make Martin Carthy or Roy Harper proud.

Which isn’t to say that this is simply bucolic pastiche. Wolf People are former hip-hop kids who have swapped their decks and linoleum for guitars and madrigals, and they still know how to bring the noise - especially when they introduce their mad afro-ed flautist for the encore. Under his freaky guidance, single ‘Tiny Circles’ comes off like Focus with the funk or Jethro Tull with B-Boy attitude.

This is not music for a miserable January night on the Holloway Road; Wolf People deserve to be seen in a clearing in The Forest Of Arden, or at the very least watched in split-screen Panavision with a quadraphonic soundtrack. It may be freezing outside, but when Wolf People play, it’s the summer of Pan in our souls. With added breakbeats for luck.
Thomas Patterson

* who sound like they should be headlining the second night of Glastonbury circa 1971.

RIP Sonics' sound shaper Kearney Barton

2012-01-19T11:49:00.001Z

RIP Kearney Barton – Legendary NW Recording Engineer & Studio/Label Owner « Light in the Attic Records

RIP Kearney Barton – From Light In The Attic's Blog

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Last night we got an email from Kearney Barton’s niece Patti, telling us the incredibly sad news that Kearney passed away peacefully at 8 PM. He was 81-years old. Over the last couple years, Kearney’s health had been deteriorating, but he was still sharp as a nail, hanging on and cracking jokes when we last saw him over the holidays. To say Kearney was a pioneer of the Northwest sound would be a massive understatement. Maybe he was the inventor? Whatever the tag, we miss the man. He taught us about the Frantics, the Sonics, Little Bill, Don & The Good Times, and so many more, but the one that really blew our minds was Black On White Affair’s “Bold Soul Sister, Bold Soul Brother,” recorded by Kearney in February ’70 and released on his Topaz label. It’s the tune that led me to Kearney’s doorstep in 2003, hoping to convince the wizard to let us license the single for inclusion on a comp of Seattle soul from back in the day. I quickly discovered the man had a heart of gold and a sense of humor that would make your grandfather proud. He was a genuine sweetheart who loved to work and record and record some more, making his famous cookies for guests, and watching a hydroplane race now and then. I remember him saying he’d had a bunch of calls from overseas reissue labels wanting to license the single, but he felt reluctant. Kearney liked the idea of working with a local label. Bless his soul.

The one thing that I could never wrap my head around was the wealth of material Kearney recorded since entering the business in the 1950s. It didn’t seem humanly possible. There were few, if any, bands who didn’t record at least one tune after walking through the doors of his Audio Recording Studios. And if it made a sound, he’d record it.
Digging through Kearney’s archive years later, this becomes all the more evident to our eyes and ears. We discover analog reels of operas, country western, big bands, psych, advertising jingles, downer songwriters, soul, high school jazz bands, crooners, funk, classical, folk, modern rock, radio shows… and whatever else I’m forgetting he probably recorded that too.
It’s a rare thing to master your craft at any point in your life. To do it in your thirties and stick with it for another 45 years, up until almost the day you die, is a beautiful thing. RIP Kearney. We’ll miss you.
- Matt Sullivan, the Light In The Attic crew
Tags: Kearney Barton, Northwest, R.I.P., seattle, Wheedle's Groove

Tags: Kearney Barton, Northwest, R.I.P., seattle, Wheedle's Groove
Posted in R.I.P., Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Record Review - Mondo Jet Set

2012-01-18T12:40:00.002Z

MONDO JET SET

Ha Ha Ha

Pink Hedgehog CD

Remember when all pop music was this compact, terse and literate? No, me neither, with a few cherished exceptions. Mondo Jet Set breathe much the same rarefied garret air as The Auteurs, Momus and Pete Astor: their compositions are littered with prickly (and often bleakly hilarious) self-referential detail, yet dispensed with a debonair insouciance. They’re the sort of songs you’d sing under your breath with a cigarette dangling rakishly on your lips and a blindfold over your eyes as you faced a firing squad.

Ha Ha Ha is really rather brilliant. Witness ‘Funny Ha Ha, Bed Sitting Room’ – twisted twist for irradiated atom-age school-leavers – and the rueful ‘I Danced In A Secular Fashion’, which contains a sweetly observant zinger about Lou Reed. Speaking of Reed, ‘Ancient Green Carpet’ and ‘Jin’ paint a suffocating picture of dysmorphic domesticity that wouldn’t be out of place on side two of Berlin – were it not for the Mondos’ Wildean wit.

Marco Rossi

New Fleet Foxes offshot

2012-01-18T12:14:00.000Z

Poor Moon is Christian Wargo (Fleet Foxes, Crystal Skulls), Casey Wescott (Fleet Foxes) and brothers Ian and Peter Murray (The Christmas Cards). The band, named for frontman and primary songwriter Christian Wargo’s favorite Canned Heat song, began four years ago as a long-distance project with demos being created and sent back and forth while Wargo and Wescott were touring in support of the Fleet Foxes 2008 self-titled debut and Ian and Peter were living in the Bay area. Their first shows were at intimate Seattle house parties where they used playful throwaway monikers like Rabbit Kingdom and Cookie Mask. It wasn’t until the band opened up for Daekon at Seattle’s Neumos that things began to really take form. Recording began and the four longtime friends became a band and Bella Union (and Sub Pop in the US) didn’t hesitate to pursue them with unabashed enthusiasm. And it worked!
Illusion was recorded in a variety of bedrooms, practice spaces, the Murray residence, as well as AVAST! and Fastback studios in Seattle, Washington with the help of engineer Jared Hankins with guest performances by many a musician friend.

You can download the EP track "People In Her Mind" on the soundcloud link below:

http://soundcloud.com/bella-union/poor-moon-people-in-her-mind

The Illusion EP will be released in early Spring (date tbc) followed by the band's debut album later this year.

Poor Moon will be touring the US throughout March and April… UK dates will follow nearer the summer.

Record Review - Kevin Tihista

2012-01-17T14:30:00.004Z

KEVIN TIHISTA

On This Dark Street

Broken Horse CD

If this doesn’t end up being on most savvy critics’ album-of-the-year shortlist, I’ll eat my spleen. It’s been a long wait for Kevin Tihista‘s fifth album, seven years to be precise, during which he‘s parted company with his US label Parasol and struggled through long periods of writers block. Not that it’s at all evident. Here San Francisco-born Kevin spews vitriol like a passive-aggressive nutter. If you enjoy gallows humour, you’ll find plenty here. Lovers tiffs, domestic violence even, the caustic put-downs flow with the same sweet ease his music, which has a melancholic Elliott Smith dreaminess about it.

In terms of mood, only the poppy 'Country Road' comes close to being chirpy, but this is truly insidious stuff. The song 'Jack K', which includes the line "sorry I ripped the cover off your Jack Karouac novel, but I had to blow my nose" shouldn’t make you want to dance…but it does.

Chris Twomey

Record Review - Mouse Deer

2012-01-06T10:34:00.003Z

MOUSE DEER

Mouse Deer EP

Mouse Deer download

If you’re familiar – as you bloody well ought to be – with the highly-evolved melodies and scything gallows wit of Schnauser, it will come as no surprise that any offshoot with shared DNA will fair glow with similarly innate class.

So it amply proves with Mouse Deer, pet project of Schnauser bassist Holly McIntosh. However, if we take the seamless musicianship and immaculate pop smarts as a given, Mouse Deer music nevertheless boasts a decidedly distinct identity. Holly, who plays every instrument bar the drums, writes songs that balance a vulnerable, pensive candour with a contrastingly clear-eyed delivery – like Dory Previn channelling the Nico of ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’.

Better still, Holly overlays her compositions with ambrosial Surf’s Up-era Beach Boys textures (‘The Warning’) and Rundgren-esque chord suspensions (‘Nothing’) to devastating effect. ‘Foreground’ above all is a left-field hit in anyone’s book, with a melody as keen and blissful as a dog’s face out a car window.

Marco Rossi

Wolf People UK tour / Tidings reissue

2012-01-05T12:55:00.004Z

Wolf People embark on a mini tour this month, including their biggest London headline set to date at the Garage on Tuesday January 17. The band's crate-digging tour DJ Rich Hero is also joining them on all four dates and has assembled a vintage UK 45s playlist to celebrate. Wolf People will return to the studio after this jaunt to work on the follow-up to 2010's album Steeple.

January 13 - Stereo, Glasgow (w/Hidden Masters)

January 14 - Brudenell Social Club, Leeds (w/Diagonal)

January 15 - The Haunt, Brighton (w/Diagonal)

January 17 - The Garage, London (w/Diagonal + Olivia Chaney)

In other Wolf People news, Jagjaguwar will give a CD release to the quartet's early material collection Tidings - previously only available on vinyl - on January 23. Collected from recordings made by Jack Sharp in Bedford between 2005 and 2007 (and mostly before the band as it exists now was formed).

Record Review - A Tribute To The Runaways

2012-01-05T12:41:00.003Z

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Take It Or Leave It – A Tribute To The Queens of Noise: The Runaways

Main Man CD

The tribute album is alive and well and living in …New Jersey! Like Imaginary and Cleopatra before them, Main Man has set up a cottage industry with a series of well-received tributes (Queen, Devo, Kiss, AC/DC, Cars, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, the Stones, et.al) and this is one of their best. Nearly 35 years after their debut album shocked the music world by proving that girls CAN play rock ‘n’ roll, The Runaways are still revered by a legion of loyal fans around the world. The recent biopic (based on original vocalist Cherie Currie’s autobiography) introduced their music to a whole new generation and guitarist Joan Jett and her Blackhearts were recently nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Runaways music has inspired other female artists to pick up guitars and form bands, and can be partially credited with opening doors for acts like The Donnas, The Go-Go’s, The Bangles, L7, Bikini Kill, and countless other female rock ‘n’ rollers and Riot Grrrls to get their music released. Now Main Man Records has compiled a 2-disk, 36-track tribute with contributions from some of their biggest protégés, including The Donnas, Japanese legends Shonen Knife, Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna (whose duet with Peaches on the Runaways’ traditional live finale, the theatrical ‘Dead End Justice’ features her first-ever collaboration with husband/Beastie Boy/producer Ad-Rock), England’s cuddly punkettes, Kittie (a ferociously, fire-breathing ‘Fantasies’), and rock ‘n’ roll sweetheart Bebe Buell. There’s also a generous selection of The Runaways’ newest torch-bearers from the NWOFHMPR (New Wave Of Female Heavy Metal Punk Rockers): Care Bears On Fire, The Stay At Homes, and Clinical Trials.

The Runaways’ influence also inspired such renown artists as David Johansen (reliving his NY Dolls’ days with a blistering ‘Blackmail’, featuring guitarist Earl Slick), The Dandy Warhols (a psychedelically vampyric ‘Cherry Bomb’), The Bongos’ Richard Barone (a glammy bubblegum-styled ‘Hollywood’), The Adolescents, White Flag, and Derwood Andrews (Generation X) to donate their time to joining the party. And wait til you hear the throat-shredding punk antics of former child actor Robbie Rist (Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch) on the obscure ‘Yesterday’s Kids’! Best of all, Main Man is also going to donate a portion of the proceeds to the American Institute for Cancer Research in honour of Runaways drummer Sandy West, who lost her fight with cancer five years ago.

So not only is the release benefiting a terrific cause, but it features some of the most fun you’ll have all year enjoying some fantastic rock ‘n’ roll. What often got overlooked when critics lambasted The Runaways for being nothing more than producer/manager Kim Fowley’s latest play things (they’re jailbait AND they play rock ‘n’ roll!) was that they wrote their own incredibly infectious tunes and they understood rock ‘n’ roll history, drawing their own inspiration from the likes of Gary Glitter, The Stooges, Suzi Quatro, Mott The Hoople, The Sex Pistols, and The Ramones (whose Johnny confesses to his crush on Cherie.) Another stroke of genius from compilers Lauren Varga (who once worked for Joan Jett) and label head Keith Roth (Frankenstein 3000) was their decision to track down and insert vintage radio spots, gig promos, and interviews with band members (courtesy legendary DJs Rodney Bingenheimer, Meg Griffin, Carol Miller, and, uh, yours truly) in between most of the tracks. So you get to hear firsthand how the band formed, what it was like to join the group, how tough it was to break into the male-dominated world of rock ’n’ roll, how excited (and frightened) they were to be mobbed by their Japanese fans, and how they went “gaga” meeting Robert Plant and Jimmy Page at one of their gigs (wearing Runaways T-shirts, no less!)

And what about the music? Well, it’s obvious that every artist on here WANTED to be here – this is not a collection of half-assed cover versions rattled off for a quick buck. Everyone involved, from the recognisable national acts to the in-house Main Man artists turn in loving renditions of The Runaways’ most popular songs, as well as more obscure fan favourites. All of the original albums are sampled, and there are even a few versions of some of the girls’ best cover tunes (Shonen Knife prove they’re still one of the hottest female punk bands around on The Sex Pistols’ ‘B[r]ack [R]eather’ and Earl Slick adds a snarling guitar solo to teenage female power-punk trio Care Bears On Fire’s rendition of his ‘Saturday Night Special’). Some of the many highlights include The Donnas’ ter-riff-ic, anthemic fistpumper ‘Queens of Noise’, Frankenstein 3000’s testosterone-fueled stomp through ‘California Paradise’, Blue Fox’s powerful ‘Neon Angels On The Road To Ruin’, The Easy Outs’ hard-driving ‘Is It Day Or Night’ (featuring The Grip Weeds’ Kurt Reil), and The Toilet Boys’ tearful ‘Born To Be Bad’. Runaways fans will also be pleased to know that Sandy West’s final recording (as a member of Blue Fox) is also included, as well as a guest appearance by Cherie Currie on Frankenstein 3000’s ‘American Nights.’

Punk, Glam, or good old R’n’R – The Runaways mastered it all. The variety of the music on this set is amazing considering that the girls recorded the originals (one live album/four studios) before they turned 21! As tribute albums go, this is one of the best.

Jeff Penczak

Record Review - Black Pyramid

2012-01-03T12:44:00.003Z

Black Pyramid

Black Pyramid II

Meteorcity CD

Black Pyramid’s self-titled debut album came out of nowhere to be one of the exceptional releases of 2009. Combining extremely noisy stoner doom with extended guitar workouts and the odd psych/prog tinge, the main attraction of the band is the superb riffs and melodies from lead singer Andy Beresky which gives the material its edge. The band have since fallen out amid acrimony and numerous bizarre postings on internet message boards that will probably make sense with the benefit of a couple of year’s hindsight.

Starting off with a real blaster in ‘Endless Agony’ this album threatens to be just as good at its predecessor and indeed, the opening four tracks are belting stuff. The fourth, ‘Dreams of the Dead’ is the best of the whole LP; a more reflective number which spirals into a long psychy guitar workout that alternately thrills and bewitches. Thereafter the album goes downhill in quality somewhat. The riffs and melodies of the last four tracks just don’t match up to what’s gone before and are occasionally fairly forgettable. It’s certainly still worth a listen but nowhere near the dizzy heights of their first.

Austin Matthews

Event: Happening the clubnight, London, Saturday January 7th

2011-12-30T11:37:00.005Z

The fun never stops round here you know. The first Happening of the year is on Saturday January 7th and we have has three kick-ass garage bands ready to blow yer January blues away..

Live on stage...

THEE SAVAGE KICKS

THE MOBBS

BOW STREET REVOLT

Then resident DJ PHIL ISTINE and guest DJ STEVE COLEMAN will spin your world via ’60s/’70s dancefloor psychedelia, garage, beat, and general rock’n’roll wondermints!

@ The Drop, below The Three Crowns, 175 Stoke Newington High Street London N16 0LH

8.00pm-4am, £6 entry. Buses: many. Train: Stoke Newington (from Liverpool St)

‘Happening’ has now established itself in London as the grooviest place to sample the delights of the Shindig! universe. The leading magazine for ’60s and ’70s music, in conjunction with Sweet but Deadly Promotions, have made a corner of Stoke Newington, The Drop, their own little subcultural haven, inviting the best band’s and DJs to stoke the sonic fires. Come meet, greet and party with like-minded souls ’til your head explodes with delight!

FACEBOOK EVENT

Record Review - The Mobbs

2011-12-30T11:25:00.003Z

THE MOBBS
It’s...
BB Rex CD / download

Northampton might be considered by many to be a cultural wasteland but there’s always been a thriving underground music scene present, throwing up bands like threesome garage power-poppers The Mobbs. This their debut album is heavily indebted to the Medway sound, in fact they went down to noted Rochester analogue studio Ranscombe to record it. Leader Joe B. Humbled is a proper Billy Childish-style Renaissance Man, not only a songwriter but also a poet and painter. His vision is clearly a singular one, and you’ll either get his music and pull it close to your heart or it’ll leave you confused. Opener ‘Gad...It’s The Mobbs!!!’ contains their essence: a penchant for exclamation marks, pre-war English expressions, a put-on posh voice, explosive guitar lines and all of it over in a flash (there maybe 14 songs on this album but it lasts less than half an hour!). The whole thing reeks of energy - I can almost imagine the album has a life inside my computer, kicking a football around and other such larks whilst other band's mp3s sit deathly still.

This is garage-with-no-limits music, with the blues influences most obvious on ‘Better The Devil You Know’ (with it’s lovely harmonica parts), and surf and new wave on the mostly instrumental ‘Pull Yourself Together!!!’. There is a Who feel throughout, though that’s been filtered through a Buff Medways processor to get there. There’s so much great abrasive pop here: ‘I’m Yearning’, ‘Jolly Good’, ‘Muck n Bullets'. If catchy upbeat garage pop is your bag then jump in, you’ll feel like a pig in swill. If not (what exactly is wrong with you?) then I still want you to enjoy this fine effort, so at least try before you buy.

PHIL ISTINE

The Mobbs play our London club ‘Happening’ at The Drop on Saturday January 7th, with European dates to follow in the Spring.

Record Review - Thee Eviltones

2011-12-29T17:40:00.003Z

THEE EVILTONES
In The Shadow Of The Beast
Dead By Mono CD & LP

Nottingham’s four-piece horror garage-surfers don’t start their debut album the way I expect, i.e. with a lot of fuzz. No, they start it with rainswept flamenco guitar and a deadpan story involving a desert journey for enlightenment that ends with a deal with the devil. It’s funny, trashy and explains not just the album title but pretty much the band too. Once you’ve then listened to a so-so go-go surf instro you’re into the heart of the album, and blow me over if it isn’t some of the best garage-punk songs I’ve heard all year. Seriously, this and The Vinyl Stitches has meant my year in garage has very much finished on a high. ‘Thee Eviltones’ is their signature tune and it’s more infectious than syphilis at a Kings of Leon backstage party. Bouncy rhythms, killer guitar, sneered vocals that are melodic...it’s got all you want in three and a bit minutes. The rocket-fuelled ‘Feel The Fear’ is threatening and claustrophobic, as all good punk should be. ‘Smoke And Mirrors’ has a familiar feel but yet I can’t place it - and that’s usually what good music does: reminds you of a warm emotion without suggesting ideas were stolen. It chorus certainly had me singing along from the first listen.

‘Eyes’ kicks off with Madmanroll’s fuzz riff that draws you in, and the chorus has another riff, this time on organ...and wow, it if isn’t all just delivered with panache and passion to release a garage-surf-punk-psychobilly mash-up that calls you back for more. They were even generous enough to throw in a cover of one of the best dark Stones cuts, ‘Paint It Black’, for seemingly no other reason that it sounds a hoot to play. Jimi Struselis voice is central to the appeal of In The Shadow Of The Beast, as he alternatively speaks, sings, sneers, and screams. He never lets up, and nor do the shit-hot rhythm section. The band have clearly learnt their chops and delivered the rock goods. Go get this album, then go seem them live. Both will darkly brighten your world in 2012.

PHIL ISTINE

Live Review: Steeleye Span & Friends

2011-12-27T12:14:00.003Z

STEELEYE SPAN AND FRIENDS INCLUDING THE ACOUSTIC STRAWBS

Barbican Centre, London, December 19 2011

In my Slade review (see below) I pointed out that their 1975 hit ‘Far Far Away’ was the first single my parents ever bought me, at the tender age of two. Apparently it was one of only two songs capable of making me shut the fuck up and stop crying in my pushchair: the other was Steeleye Span’s 'All Around My Hat'. How coincidental, then, that I should be seeing both bands one night after the other this Christmas. It almost seems like some strange portentous foreboding harbinger of something, although I’m buggered if I know what.

It makes sense, though, because Steeleye have always been there, beckoning me to return to them again and again, and while they’re still wont to still take risks, push the envelope and do challenging things with electric folk music, there’s something reassuringly familiar about seeing them once a year on stage: a bit like visiting an old relative you know you’ll be welcomed by, but being taken aback each time by their new décor and the way they’ve had their garden done. They also radiate, and have always radiated, a warmth which has been sadly absent in the music of their contemporaries Fairport Convention (though I still admire them) for maybe two decades now- a warmth which glows consistently throughout tonight’s performance. Or maybe that’s just the lights.

Actually maybe it’s because attending a Steeleye gig is still, even in 2011, like being invited to a wassailing banquet in a mediaeval castle stocked with flagons of fine ale, freshly farmed food and nubile serving wenches whilst “antiente sayges“ unravel tayles of murdyrr, mysterrie and myrrth. Or at least in my head it is. In reality we’re in a postmodernist theatre in EC1, and it’s pissing down outside. But the minute violinist Peter Knight plucks the pizzicato intro to 'Seven Hundred Elves' and Liam Genockey thruds the backbeat into life, the fantasy takes over. These days there’s less pressure to play newer material, allowing them to play the entire Now We Are Six album in full: an interesting choice, especially as it features three tunes which still split the vote to this day (the title track, which consists of three riddles set to music, and covers of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' and 'To Know Him Is To Love Him'), but all three work in this setting, particularly the latter, where rhythm guitarist Pete Zorn replicates David Bowie’s legendary sax solo from the original (Steeleye’s that is, not the Teddy Bears) beautifully, and Maddy Prior’s vocals reach enough otherwise untapped heights of soulful rockiness to make you wish they’d explored the route further.

I’m not entirely sure if they’re playing the tracks in their original order or that of the recently re-recorded CD (a bit of both, methinks) but dark, brooding murder ballads like 'Edwin' and 'Thomas The Rhymer' sound perfect in any order, with Rick Kemp handling the long-absent Bob Johnson’s vocals as if he’d been doing it from the off, while 'Two Magicians', which will be known to any Current 93 fans reading this as “Oh Coal Black Smith” is an absolute delight, boasting possibly the most difficult yet simultaneously the most infectious chorus in folk and a breezy cheerfulness that masks yet again its subversive, shamanistic nature. He wrote some deep lyrics, that “Trad Arr” bloke. On the rockier numbers, new lead guitarist Julian Littman (yes, Britsploitation buffs, he of Hammer Horror Black Carrion infamy) manages to imprint his own personality on that by-now-standardised folk-rock fuzz riffage which Steeleye are probably more responsible for than anyone else.

Having a new lineup but no new material to plug also means the band are able to stretch out and dig more deeply during the second half, but first, there’s the curious interlude of the Acoustic Strawbs: one would have thought it might have made more sense to have them on at the start, but the “middling” effect proves successful. Messrs Cousins, Cronk and Lambert (the latter still one of the country’s most underrated guitarists) bestride their strange engagement like the seasoned professionals they are, and there’s a new resonance in their fingerpicking tonight, particularly on the solos to 'Autumn” “Ghosts' and 'Lay Down', but, despite remaining high on my personal list of fave bands, they lose major points for delivering practically the same set they’ve purveyed in their acoustic incarnation for about seven years now (even to the point of the inter-song banter that seems so meticulously rehearsed you’re searching the stage for the autocue) and for two of them being woefully out of time with each other during an otherwise beautifully strident 'New World'. Still, playing the same seven songs night after night must wear on the artist eventually: maybe time for a little variation, chaps? You’ve got 45 years’ worth of classics to choose from. The response to the rarely-aired single 'The King' from 1981, on which Maddy reappears to duet with Cousins, would seem to confirm this, as it’s by far and away the highlight of their 45 minutes.

While the Span’s second outing also features a few hardy perennials we’ve all come to expect ('The Lark In The Morning' and the inevitable '…..Hat' among them) they’re performed with such impassioned gusto they still feel new, especially with founder and folk titan Martin Carthy joining the ensemble for several numbers. I defy anyone, no matter how cool they may think themselves, to not sing rumbustiously along with the latter when presented with it at full volume. Ironically the one he doesn’t stick around for is 'Cold Haily Windy Night', which he first brought to the band on the superb Please To See The King album in 1972, possibly because the band have, in Kemp’s words, “nailed a riff to it”, but the reworked version’s near-metal gallop is, by all means, a bit of a belter - as is the ominous, rumbling prog-jazz of 'The Bonny Black Hare'. It features enough Mahavishnu-like fiddlage from Knight and shrieking of its ribald lyric from Prior to scare the crap out of the assembled pensioners. Now that, Mr Munford and your bloody Sons, is folk-rock. Watch and learn.

Steeleye Span have never been cool , either as a name to drop during the acid-folk revival of ’03-04, or at their commercial peak in ’74-76 (maybe because they had a commercial peak), and when they veer annoyingly toward the safe and staid end of their genre, as on 'Two Constant Lovers', which, even prefaced by Knight’s wry Sarf London humour, is too close to MOR for these ears. It can jar somewhat, all the more so when compared with the eerie brilliance they’re otherwise capable of. But what makes them still so enthralling after 40 years is that they clearly don’t give a shit. That and the fact that at their best they’re untouchable masters of a timeless craft. This music is older than the hills, and will still be around when we’re all gone, as the final closing harmonies of perhaps that most overlooked of Christmas singles, 'Gaudete' reiterate. One of rock’s more unique standalone moments, it never fails to chill the spine or moisten the eye. I’d love to hear the locals attempt that one whilst carol-singing. If the structure of tonight’s show leaves no room for similar favourites like 'Sheep Crook And Black Dog', 'Long Lankin', 'Royal Forester, the fuzz-fest that is 'Alison Gross' or the ever-pertinent 'Hard Times Of Old England', rest assured that they’ll all be back. And so will I.

DARIUS DREWE SHIMON

Live Review: Slade

2011-12-23T12:56:00.008Z

SLADE

Koko, London, December 18

Sometimes, in the course of this journalism lark, you take advantage of your position to attend shows that, as a fan, even if earning twice my current salary you probably wouldn’t shell out twenty squids’ worth of your hard-earned for. And tonight, I suppose, is one of them. Let’s be honest, there’s not that many people, outside the hardcore fanbase and a few casual Xmas nostalgia-seekers, who would push out the sovs on a cold, overcast Sunday to see Slade, minus Noddy Holder and Jimmy Lea, especially starting at 7.15 pm and finishing by 8.45. Even if it is all in aid of the Lords’ Taverners.

All such considerations taken, though, I’m glad I got off my arse, got my boots on, got down, and got with it, as tonight Slade were far better than I or anyone else had a right to imagine, and exceeded several of (if not quite all) my expectations. True, they’re never out of work, and have been playing in this incarnation now for the best part of 17 years, mainly abroad where they’re warmly welcomed. Also, speaking as one who watches the Stranglers every year without fail, who promoted Sweet twice with only Andy Scott remaining from the original band, and continues to this day an association with the Holton-less Heavy Metal Kids, I’m not, obviously, averse to the idea of classic acts with new lineups. But for some reason, the thought of a Noddy-less Slade always seemed a little beyond the pale. That is, until they hit the stage…

The minute Don Powell begins thumping the intro to 'We’ll Bring The House Down', after which Dave Hill appears, hat and silver cape in place, holding his Firebird aloft and peeling out the riff, and Mal McNulty (their vocalist for some 8 years now) screams “WOH-O-O-OH-OH!!” , things begin to fall into place, and then it dawns on you: you’re watching Slade. Not a tribute band (which I’ve seen enough of in my time) but Slade, or at least as close as you’re likely to get barring some miracle capable of dragging Holder out of comfortable DJ semi-retirement. Koko isn’t exactly full tonight (fair enough, those stage times would have put most people off) but the 500-odd attendees go suitably nuts, and with due cause, as when they put their mind to it, as on the booming, cavernous 'Take Me Bak Ome' the fist-punching onslaught of 'Lock Up Your Daughters' or the ultimate arm-waver 'Far Far Away' (your humble scribe’s very first single, bought for him by his Mum at the tender age of 2!) , Slade are great.

Tue, when they don’t, they’re uncomfortably sloppy- 'Everyday', whilst still inducing similar singalong hysteria, is played a little too slow to keep the adrenalin up, and Hill unnecessarily fluffs an otherwise perfect, tub-thumping, fiddle-scraping rendition of 'Coz I Luv You' by pausing in the middle to make the audience sing accapella - something that doesn’t happen in the original and is therefore a little pointless, not to mention confusing. Luckily, they pull together and get it back again, and when they do, the effect is simply colossal. Plus, when fully on fire, even during lesser-known '90s material like 'Red Hot' and 'I Hear You Calling', it’s impossible to not recognise this man as the unheralded guitar hero of 70s rock he truly is- even if he does belong nowadays to some nutty religion that has as much to do with rock and roll as Abu Hamza does with a kosher Shabat.

Powell, a man who nearly perished in a hideous tree/car window/head interface many years ago but thankfully lived to tell the tale, is no slouch either, and while I may wish he’d shuffle like he used to on 'Gudbuy T Jane' and 'Mama Weer All Crazee Now', he still pounds the skins with the power of a mammoth, his hair flailing the way it did at a million sold-out theatres between 1970 and 1975 and several in the '80s too. With so many hits to choose from, it’s great to see the less obvious 'Bangin’ Man' in there: needless to say, there’s no room for psych-era obscurities like 'One Way Hotel', 'Pouk Hill', 'Knocking Nails Into My House' and 'Shape Of Things To Come', or, indeed, my all-time favourite from 1976, 'Nobody’s Fool'. But be honest, you wouldn’t expect there to be, and if they avoid that era entirely, then there’s no chance of the dreadful 'Dapple Rose' either, so be thankful for small mercies.

“AAAAALWRAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT EVERYBOOOODY!! LET YOOOOUUUUR HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIR DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWNNNNN” yells Mc Nulty, and suddenly we’re at the climax: a pounding 'Get Down….' (the song that singlehandedly turned a zillion suedehead soulboys into heavy rockers) followed by the arm-linking sway of 'My Oh My', which in turn gives way to a triumphant 'Cum On Feel The Noize' (prefaced by another ear-splitting vocal intro, of course) and inevitably leads to that song- you know, the one they always play on the radio this time of year. It may be cheesy now, but after all these years and God knows how many overplays, it never loses sight of its Beatles/Bee Gees influence (lest we forget, it began life as a Toytown popsiker entitled Buy Me A Rocking Horse') and there, in that hall, played by two of the people who originally recorded it, it regains every inch of its former resonance.

In reality, of course, Christmas is a bloody horrible time of year, a hideous commercial enterprise designed to drain the West of its money and propagate capitalism, and the future that’s “only just begun” will probably be worse than the past (the sight of tens of shopworn, tired housewives atop the balcony, who at one time were probably the lithe young platform-booted things grooving to the band on TOTP, only serving as a further reminder of our own mortalities) but for 90 minutes, in the confines of Koko’s ornate walls, if you were one of those singing along, or linking arms, stomping boots and yelling “WE WANT SLADE!” at the top of your voice like it was still ’74, you could almost genuinely believe there was a true festive season, and four blokes from Wolverhampton were going to bring it gift-wrapped to you. It wasn’t perfect by any means - it could have been tighter, it could have been later, and, considering we’re dealing with a band to whom ‘noize’ is paramount, it could have been a lot louder - but it was pure, unadulterated fun, of the kind not oft experienced in oh-so-cool Central London. After a whole year of digesting lost prog and psych nuggets, it was great to sing along with some songs I’ve known practically all my life. Just one thing, though - if, as they say, the best rock and roll is catchy and infectious by nature, do yow think that explynes woi soomthing funnoi has happund ter moi accsunt?

DARIUS DREWE SHIMON

Live Review: Michael Chapman

2011-12-23T12:56:00.004Z

MICHAEL CHAPMAN

Café Oto, London, December 17

70 years old, and some 45 years into his career, Michael Chapman finally appears to not only be undergoing some kind of career renaissance, but finally receiving the acclaim that should have been accorded him several decades ago as a true pioneer. And about bloody time too: with the deaths in the last three years of John Martyn, Davey Graham and Bert Jansch, people are starting to realise that this gruff-voiced Yorkshireman, alongside his contemporaries John Renbourn, Robin Williamson, Mike Heron, Martin Carthy and Wizz Jones, is one of the last few remaining treasures the acoustic guitar has got. Plus he writes brilliant lyrics. Let’s not mince words, the man is a genius….

Opening his set with a six-minute instrumental (“my Mum used to prefer those”, he quips in the first of many priceless witticisms) may have got the avant-garde cognoscenti of Oto prematurely excited, thinking they might be about to witness a show based around his recent, noise collage-based album, which, after all, did make no.6 in Wire’s albums of the year list) but no, this is Mike’s show, and if he decides you’re going to get songs, then that’s what you get. Quite frankly, I’m relieved- I’d rather hear the warm, pondering tones of 'Shuffleboat River Farewell' and the evergreen, Zep-inspiring 'Kodak Ghosts' than a whole set-full of new stuff anyway, and judging by the rapturous reception the Leeds troubadour gets, he has made the right decision.

Snapshots of his life both preface and permeate each song, giving rare insight into the work of an iconoclastic artist: a humorous vignette about meeting an apparent stranger in Waterstones turns into a quite poignant admission that he didn’t recognise his own ex-wife, and is suffixed by an equally moving (yet never sentimental) song detailing the same. And while he writes many of his songs in similar keys, this creates both an air of connection and a conceptual link, rather than tending towards repetition the way it would do in the hands of a lesser composer. Still, while Chapman’s words may be among the most unique, candid and well-chosen ever penned, and remain my personal favourite aspect of his sound, it’s his guitar playing, possibly even more deft now than in his heyday of '70-'76, that many have come to admire, and they are amply rewarded.

Twirling, swirling, intertwining flurries of notes, endless circular riffs and thrashes of occasional spite merge into one another, while ragtime and blues couple and rub shoulders with the gentlest, most pizzicato finger playing I’ve witnessed on the instrument. The fascination is so intense you could hear a pin drop. This truly is the power of Michael Chapman, and while, like Al Stewart, I’d like to see him play with a full electric band again one day, and revisit some of those tunes, I realise that not only does the budget not necessarily stretch to it, but at this stage in his career, he doesn’t have to: he can manage perfectly well enough on his own, and with more dignity.

Rather than the usual 'Soulful Lady', the encore is instead a mournful Latin-based instrumental dedicated to the recently departed Christopher Hitchens, but the patrons of Oto tonight have little to be melancholy about. At 70, Michael Chapman, the man who for years remained best-known for apprenticing Mick Ronson and thus inspiring half the material on The Man Who Sold The World, is finally becoming better known for his own work, but while he seems to show no sign of slowing down (this is his third London gig alone in two months) he won’t be around forever either, so go and see him while you still can. That’s an order- a fully qualified order.

DARIUS DREWE SHIMON

Album Review: The Dustaphonics

2011-12-22T13:07:00.004Z

The Dustaphonics
Party Girl

King-A-Ling Records

These days every girl considers herself potential burlesque material. These days every half-wit with an axe thinks they can recapture the retro vibe through Bryl-creem and a swank two-tone ensemble. We are left in dire times. It's this whole old-new-old categorisation walloping it's guilded hand down and diverting us from straight-cut rock'n'roll party time values. Yet herein lie the middle grey, the space where the talented few, committed and bright, stick to their guns in an otherwise flooded market. I'm talking about The Dustaphonics and their new album Party Girl.

Hailing from all corners of the globe (France, England, USA, South Africa and Jamaica) they recapture a timeless vibe which feels untouched from today's pigeonholing. With ties to the likes of The Headcoats, The Milkshakes, Ronnie Dawson, The White Stripes, and Billy Childish to name a few they are a well-oiled lo-fi beat machine, with the rev's high and engine running clean. Picture Link Wray driving a green 69' Dodge Charger with Clint Eastwood riding shotgun, hammering down the salt flats - shooters 'a blazing in hot pursuit of Hunter S Thompson with Dick Dale in the trunk. All the while Barbarella and Betty Page are sporting sombreros, swigging tequila and getting freaky in the back. This would be the soundtrack.

Rolling up to the starting line, chassis rumbling and pistons pumping, is the opening number 'Eat my Dustaphonic'. A flat out instrumental surf-stomp number that sets the tone for this vivacious and steamy album. The real standout tracks on this album includes 'Burlesque Queen', in which guitarist Yvan Serrano Fontova (aka DJ Healer Selecta) collaborated with iconic 60's cult actress Tura Satana (Russ Meyer's Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill!) to create this little ditty which speaks volumes for the band and it's mission to deliver prime tunes wrapped up in leather and lace. The title track 'Party Girl' transforms the tone into a scintillating, driving pop number with sizzling catchy choruses and an all-out chequered finish.

The Dustaphonics have really mastered a formula between themselves and the audience, a certain aura that follows the band and fans alike. If you aren't captivated by the substance and delivery of these guys, you will surely be pinned to the spot by the powerful chords and curves from front women Kay Elizabeth and Dana. A guaranteed six to midnight.

Nick Banner

Event: Lyres back in Europe and London

2011-12-15T13:10:00.003Z

Boston garage legends Lyres are back in Europe in February for a tour alongside The Sick Rose. Jeff Connolly's long-running outfit play 4 dates in Italy before their first UK show in six years in London on Monday February 13th at 93 Feet East on Brick Lane.

With a sound that takes in The Seeds, The Animals, and Them, the organ-driven sound of these originators adds in psychedelia and blue-eyed soul to give them a unique place in the garage pantheon. ‘What A Girl Can't Do’, ‘Help You Ann’, ‘How Do You Know’...if you go expect to hear all the classics plus more besides! The London show will see support from The Hypnotic Eye, London’s new flower punk sensations. “Sultry organ-led garage” is how Rhys Webb of The Horrors described them recently.

2011 early bird tickets for London are priced at just £8 and available HERE. The Facebook event is HERE. Do yourselves a favour by getting your tickets purchased now!

Live Review: Stoney Curtis Band

2011-12-14T16:54:00.004Z

STONEY CURTIS BAND

Beaverwood Club, Chislehurst, Kent, December 6 2011

Pedestrian blues revivalists. Don’t you just hate ‘em? Playing their substandard, sub-Jimi, sub-Clapton, sub-sonic smug widdly at you rather than to you, with the approval of a squillion chartered accountants who insist “oh, you reeeeelly must get the new CD, it’s absleyexlent. It was only £17.99, but worth it….”, lost in the delusion that they’re doing something new with an ancient music.

I’ve seen a lot of those in my time, even promoted a couple. Luckily, Stoney Curtis isn’t one of them in the slightest - even though, playing in Zone 5, the very heart of chartered accountant land, he so easily could have been . But no, he’s brilliant. Taking all the psychedelic and freaky elements of Cream, Hendrix, the Groundhogs, Robin Trower, Beck Bogert & Appice, Taste and most of all Blue Cheer, but adding to it a slightly more hard rock sound (later on, during the show, he admits to having grown up as a Kiss fan) and jettisoning any of the plodding elements which often so restrict that form of music, he made Chislehurst on a Tuesday evening come alive.

Having actually walked in some 20-odd minutes into the show at 9.55, I obviously missed most of the build-up, but on the other hand, it means I’m serenaded by the most mouth-wateringly throbbing, squalling, wah-wah guitar I’ve heard live in years, backed by a rhythm section that understand the free-form ebb and flow necessary to make this music interesting and free it from the confines of trad-dad rock plod hell. For all that the drummer Jesse Bradman, while technically flawless, has yet to fully embrace the jazz ethos of a Ginger Baker, Keef Hartley or Mitch Mitchell, and still leans a little too close to the precise thump and bludgeon of a metal drummer, but he’ll get there eventually, and that’s what matters: likewise bassist Barry Barnes, with his pre-torn jeans, white t-shirt and high-held pluckage, has the air of a session musician rather than a full-blown bandmember, but all that will change with time.

And as it changes, we’ll also of course be able to watch Curtis himself develop: his last album Cosmic Connection emphasised the trippier, spacier elements of his sound, and featured several expansive experiments in acid blues (some aired tonight) that rank among the most unusual things I’ve heard done with the format in decades, but as far as productions go, it still erred too much on the side of the Formula-One loving Classic Rock reader and seemed afraid to plunge headlong into the murky waters of full head music. Then again, with a talent like his, he could actually go in any direction, as the more pop-rock-sounding 'Mouthful Of Honey', bringing to mind long-forgotten 70s names like Starz, Piper and even Dwight Twilley, hinted. Either way it’s going to be interesting….

He loses marks for the final track, which does in the end degenerate into the kind of meandering blues-jammery he obviously seeks to provide an alternative to (even if its slight jazz phrasing does bring to mind the Dixie Dreggs) and for a pointless cover (do we really need another rendition of 'All Along The Watchtower', even if sped up to pounding-double time with full on fuzz fretwork?) but when he lets rip and allows himself to stretch out, he’s on the verge of greatness, to the point where you could almost be forgiven for thinking the new Tommy Bolin (with the voice of Dickie Peterson) had finally arrived. Well, someone has to assume the mantle. Will Stoney Curtis be the man? Will he stay in Shindig territory or slide across the water into cosy melodic blues rock infamy, boarding the last train to Clarksonville? Stay tuned.

DARIUS DREWE SHIMON

Live Review: Simon Finn

2011-12-14T16:19:00.003Z

SIMON FINN

Café Oto, Dalston, London

December 10 2011

If a week is a long time in politics, then 40 years is a sod of a long time in psychedelic folk music. Simon Finn, on the other hand, doesn’t look like he’s suffered too badly throughout that period, and in the seven or eight years since his ‘rediscovery’ at the hands of a certain David Tibet of Hastings, and the reissue of his 1971 classic Pass The Distance - which we’re assembled here tonight to see him perform all or most of - he’s been super-active, issuing at least four more studio albums of a comparable standard.

Like Lancashire’s very own Rundgren, John Howard, Finn is evidently making up for lost time, and both have a lot to say about the world we live in, but whereas Howard’s muse bears an often whimsical, sequin-tinted sepia tint, Finn (a man whose hunched, ever-ponytailed, rocking-back-and-forth posture is endemic of his almost bitter outlook) comes from a darker place. A permanently minor-key world of disquieting doomed dirt tracks, rendering him the sort of artist you wouldn’t necessarily want to see if you were already in a foul mood.

In the manner of many of his rediscovered cult contemporaries, Finn’s early songs, such as the wistful ‘What A Day’ and ‘Pass The Distance’ itself often finish suddenly just as they’re about to flower into something truly incredible, or stop short of their full journey: this you could have attributed at the time to working on a low budget without the guiding hand of a producer, but interestingly enough, his more recent material like 'Under Stones' and a sole stab at nostalgic humour, 'Rich Girl With No Trousers', takes a similar path, almost as if he feels such incompletion is a lo-fi ethic he should now cling to for artistic integrity. Or maybe it’s just how it naturally comes out, and he doesn’t even think about it. Perhaps I’m analysing too much. And, all such considerations aside, his is an extraordinarily compelling and beautiful sound, where minimalist structures rub shoulders with some of the most unexpected melodic twists: meaning that even at their most simplistic it’s still a refreshing aural tonic.

If there is one sonic complaint, it’s to be found in the woefully cheap-sounding synthesiser strings that the otherwise phenomenally talented keyboardist Maja Elliott seems hell-bent on decorating certain tracks with, providing an unnecessary coat of 90s MOR varnish to Finn’s hitherto timeless rural sunset of broken buildings and gnarled trees. Fair enough, you work with the budget you’re given, but with grand piano work and harmony vocals that exemplary, and violinist Joolie Wood to the left providing a similar mixture of demonic possession and tranquil refinement, we’re in no need of such embellishments. In any case, with both sidewomen, like Simon himself, also functioning as auxiliary members of apocalyptic psych-folk collective Current 93 (an outfit who drew a fair amount of inspiration from Pass The Distance and its counterparts), there’s enough allusion there to that band’s back catalogue, in particular Soft Black Stars and Thunder Perfect Mind, to provide an extra layer should you require it.

Thus it’s only natural that the songs which should resound the most tonight are the ones which influenced two whole generations to form ‘acid folk’ bands, knit their own muesli and indulge in strange occult practices, namely 'The Courtyard', 'Big White Car' and the inevitable 'Jerusalem' – all bearing the mark of Finn’s angrier, more passionate knife-edge. Whether Christian, atheist or just plain cynical, its shrieking, pained lyric never fails to terrify, its unhinged aura still able to make Skip Spence and Maitreya Kali seem akin to AM Gold radio playlist material by comparison. The song gains hate-filled momentum with every chorus until its sudden finish also brings the evening to a close.

My only worry is that it may become a millstone around his neck to the point where he’ll refuse to play it, but with other musicians of a similar age dropping like flies every year, it’s privilege enough to merely see Simon Finn on tour playing anywhere at all, and in seemingly fine (if morose) health. Of all the recent ‘comebacks’ this is one that looks like it could run and run.

DARIUS DREWE SHIMON

Ulysses Xmas single FREE DOWNLOAD

2011-12-12T21:51:00.000Z

Click here to download single from Dropbox.

Ulysses '(I Wish You A) Merry Christmas' video... it's our #1 seasonal smash

2011-12-12T15:19:00.002Z

Live review: Pentagram / Horisont / Purson

2011-12-12T12:03:00.003Z

Pentagram / Horisont / Purson

The Garage, London

9 December 2011

Walking into the gig and finding Pentagram lead singer Bobby Liebling meeting and greeting by the merch stall half scares me to death – the bug eyed devilish imp freaks me out more than a wardrobe full of toads. I decline to meet the man – scared that in return for his autograph he might want my signature for some occult pact.

Purson open proceedings tonight. They have some very promising material but little in the way of stage presence. Frontwoman Rosalie is in great voice and has a mean guitar style though she’s stuck out on the side of the stage while the other members look disinterestedly on. The songs sound heavier and have more depth than their rather polite demos, particularly ‘Spiderwood Farm’, though their performance is somewhat flat. Hopefully they’ll improve as time goes on.

Horisont are next and blow up the venue. The band look like they’ve crawled out of a Bolton heavy metal bar in 1972 and have a sound to match, recalling ’70s classic rock with hints of doom and psych. Vocalist Axel Söderberg should be a huge star with his easy charisma and blood-curdling scream. ‘Nightrider’ from their debut sounds immense and the tracks from their second album sound better than the first. What more can I say? To paraphrase Victor Kiam: I liked the band so much I bought the t-shirt.

This is Pentagram’s first UK gig in a 40 year career and the band is hugely thankful to the crowd for fulfilling their dream of playing this country. Another lesson in stagecraft is provided by the magnetic central performance of Bobby Liebling, who resembles a horny satyr engaging in some perverted head-banging ritual. They play a crowd-pleasing set full of old favourites like ‘Sign of the Wolf’ and ‘All Your Sins’ – songs that are the basic DNA of all traditional doom metal that has followed. The material from the new album Last Rites sounds as strong as the old stuff too. On record the band are sometimes a dour prospect but they come alive on stage and show their creepy majesty to full effect tonight. An encore of ‘When the Screams Come’ and ‘Wartime’ send the leather-attired crowd home happy – or at least as happy as a doom crowd ever gets.

Austin Matthews

Record Review - The Danvilles 'Women'

2011-12-12T11:39:00.005Z

The Danvilles

Women

Merryfield Records

Mike Hindert's (The Bravery) outfit release their second album: simple but layered, brooding and thoughtful, dirty yet elegant, timeless but bold.

The Danvilles new LP Women explores new reaches. It's a more sombre, a far cry from their previous LPs/compilations, but still emanates a particular recognisable sway. Setting the stride with 'Road', a soulful garage blues riff intertwined with a driving primitive beat gives you no chance to back out now. Although before you know it the tune blocks through to a toe tapping, shoe shuffle, and fifties-inspired pop number.

You can't necessarily put any one particular label on The Danvilles raucous movements, as it's constantly morphing throughout the 10 tracks. Sometimes the interchangeable sound can prove confusing, perhaps even distressing. It manages to redeem itself, and then becomes quite clear that this distress is apt - leaving the palette clear to be veneered once more. The real deal sealer would have to be the fantastic use of dark harmonies, and the background wails pulsating throughout. The substance is heavy, riddled with subtle acrimonious lyrics, and caustically acerbic emotions hidden amongst the jangle. Though in saying so, the overall feel is bright and intoxicating. The Danvilles manage to create a graceful ambience that pervades your skin, and up into your cerebral area.

Finishing up is 'Gamble', an epic number comprised of a fuzzy wall and constantly changing

tempo. It's a struggle to keep from going under, and trying to avoid the end of this beautifully tortured echo of an album that has definitely mastered a morose swagger you will continually revisit.

Nick Banner

Record Review - The Cubical 'It Ain't Human'

2011-12-09T13:33:00.003Z

THE CUBICAL
It Ain’t Human
Halfpenny Records LP / CD

Why doesn’t more rock’n’roll of today sound like this? Liverpudlian’s The Cubical return a couple of years after their debut with another splendorous collection of mutant blues. The brass-aided opener ‘Dirty Shame’ is a galloping beast that relies less on the Mersey and more on the Mississippi. It’s no slouch of an opening and displays just what is so special about this band. The album is a growler (and a grower): vocals, guitars, harmonica all grumble, snarl, roar, and grunt in equal measure. It makes for a pretty singular sound that may not be to everyones taste, but if you do find pleasure in it you’re going to love listening to It Ain’t Human over and over again. Excellence permeates all areas of this record.

It’s a record dipped in The Magic Band but not to the point of parody. Other touchstones are surely Howlin’ Wolf (Hubert Sumlin RIP), The Jim Jones Revue and Nick Cave’s early work with Boys Next Door/The Birthday Party. But don’t go thinking this is an album of bluster and noise: on the New Orleans piano-led ‘Falling Down’ and the acoustic murder ballad 'Paper Walls' their yearning, vulnerable side is forthright. Though this being The Cubical the music still sounds claustrophobic and haunted. Whatever you do don’t file under ‘garage’, for it would a major disservice to such a demented, swampy, and intoxicating piece of work.

Phil Istine

The Cubical play the Happening club at The Drop in Stoke Newington on Saturday March 3rd.

Live Review: Sunburned Hand Of The Man

2011-12-08T14:46:00.002Z

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN

Café Oto, Dalston, London

December 1 2011

I’ll come straight to the point: Sunburned Hand Of The Man were amazing tonight, a flawless demonstration of all that’s still fascinating about underground American music. The supporting acts, on the other hand, were not. Yet it’s going to be very hard to say this, because it’s difficult to be honest about how bad you found the two opening acts of any bill when you later find them to be members of the very headline act you’ve come to enjoy. However, such is the nature of the ever-shifting, amorphous and constantly regenerating collective that is Sunburned that such an anomaly is perfectly possible. And lo and behold, tonight, it happens.

First we’re treated to rhythm guitarist Hush Arbors’ sit-down solo meanderings, none of which manage to grab me melodically in any way whatsoever. Violinist Samara Lubelski, here swapping her usual four strings for those of a strummed variety and also sat in classic introspective pose, is more interesting, as the ethereal, haunting nature of her vocals and the loneliness of her chord structures call to mind Edith Frost or even Linda Perhacs. But both of them did it so much better, and again, nothing grabs you. Is the Sunburned set going to be like this? Have they slid down the road into Americana hell? Please Gawd tell me it isn’t so….

Seeing the aforementioned two people wander onstage as members of the band helps to further raise my concern, but luckily, I needn’t have worried. From the opening shafts of echoing, rattling guitar noise to each twist and turn of the drums, thrumbling along betwixt the propulsive, the doomy and the downright awkward, this was a practical masterclass in how to do space rock 2011-style, with occasional diversions into the ‘free folk’ with which the band first made their name. Taking the swirling, dense topographies and driving attack of Neu!, Les Rallizes Denudes, Miles Davis, early Terje Rypdal, the Magic Band, Hawkwind and the Velvets but adding a more jagged, rural edge, Sunburned often teeter on the edge of the unclassifiable, with special guests Jim O’ Rourke (guitar) and Thurston Moore (guitar and readings from various odd texts, playing the first of three gigs in London that week) lending further credence to this.

Moore, a man who once claimed punk origins and a desire to ‘kill’ prog rock, is in truth anything but, and tonight did not go ‘ning ning ning’ on his axe in the time-honoured fashions of US indie, but instead thrashed and belted a flurry of sonic tapestries from six strings that would have done Chris Karrer or Tony McPhee proud. Such things will no doubt fly straight over the heads of the audience’s hipster-beard contingent, but they probably won’t read this anyway. Enough, though, of the guest star: SHOM have always been, like the Spontaneous Music Ensemble before them, about collective and unilateral improvisation (not to mention pulsing psychedelic energy) and it’s that very cross-pollination of ideas within an hour-long set that I personally find entrancing. After a slow-burning, almost bluesy interlude, violins and pianos come further to the fore, scraping and jarring in a standoff of strings, until the ensemble regain their regularity of pulse and finally erupt again into an expectedly chaotic finale: a one off occasion to treasure, as the next time you see them they’ll be completely different.

I can’t even tell you any songtitles, as chances are they made up what I heard tonight there and then on the spot and it will never be repeated, regurgitated or appropriated by the hands of industry. That’s the beauty of singularity for you. If only I hadn’t been so worn out by the uninspiring earthbound supports (even though within the context of the group, both were exemplary) tonight could have been a perfect, albeit somewhat brief, sojourn into a mysterious universe.

DARIUS DREWE SHIMON

Live Review: Cressida

2011-12-08T14:25:00.003Z

CRESSIDA

Underworld, Camden, London, November 2 2011

Professional naysayers and cynics will tell you that no band should ever reform. To do so is to trample on a legend, to bring it back to earth from the magic universe in which it floats, to vainly deny the ageing process and a whole load of other bollocks espoused by people, still, 34 years on, espousing the ‘live fast die young’ bollocks. We should all die under 30, to prevent senility and sliding into middle-aged comfort, the very things ‘rock and roll’ is supposed to oppose. The other thing we should never do, of course, is listen to prog of any kind- except Krautrock, because it’s allowed on account of its ‘motorik minimalism’.

Oops, looks like Cressida have disobeyed all the sacred covenants then, by dint of (a) reforming some 40 years after their last gig, and (b) playing unashamedly progressive, psychedelic jazz-tinged rock. Oh, and by being unbelievably transcendentally brilliant. Of course there’s still room for doubt, as some things just can’t be the same all those years on, and I have seen both Dr Strangely Strange and Fleur De Lys be heartbreakingly pants within the last four years. But there are no such worries to be had about Cressida. After a short introduction-speech-thank you to “the new generation of progressive fans keeping the name alive” from drummer Iain Clark, they’re off, never looking back- almost as if those missing 40 years had never happened. And all this after merely two rehearsals. ‘That’ soft yet throbbing Peter Jennings organ sound, played as authentically close to the original arrangement as possible, the educated, professor-like vocals of Angus Cullen, the grinding, full-chord basslines of Kevin McCarthy- all sound exactly as they do on record, only even more alive.

It’s impossible to gauge without talking to them whether Cressida’s London of 1969 and 1970 was the refined yet unconventional, slightly hallucinogenic world of velvet trousers, draped rooms and girls both simultaneously beflowered and deflowered we dream of, or whether a grimmer existence forged out of cold-water flats, bombings, strikes and endless police harassment loomed, but all you have to do is close your eyes and you’re there, in the former, utopian ideal of progressive psychedelia. The simultaneously grey and pink streets of the London depicted in umpteen Britsploitation films floats across your eyes as the band also float across 'Winter Is Coming Again', 'The Only Earthman In Town' and 'Asylum', instruments intertwining and interlocking in ever-variable patterns yet never falling too far into the pit of self-indulgence or losing track of that most precious of commodities, the song.

In fact, Cressida’s two albums, arriving as they did just on the end of one era and the cusp of another, with the frilly-collared Mods giving way to the darker, hairier chapter to come could be seen, along with the better-known likes of the Moody Blues, BJH, Caravan, Procol Harum and Soft Machine, together with similarly ‘lost’ gems from Aardvark, Arazchel, Forever Amber and Gracious, to be a watershed in the development of the music loved by many Shindiggers. While outwardly progressive in its thinking and embracing of jazz, classical, baroque and even Latin elements, there is still a definite pop sensibility, as shown on 'To Play Your Little Game', and never, even during monumental epics like 'Let Them Come When They Will' and their defining moment 'Munich' do the band descend into widdly for the sake of widdly: no song seems too long, some even ending abruptly (disappointingly if you like your music on the very edge of experimental, but beautiful nonetheless) just at the point where they may have otherwise taken flight, and several (particularly one ironically entitled 'Depression') have the air, however accidentally, of many a psych club dancefloor hit .

This, of course, is a reflection of their era more than actual intent: had they stuck around in post-Yes 1971, there might have been a whole other story of far greater grandiosity to tell. As it is, part of the charm of Cressida is in the air of ‘unfinished masterpieces’ they convey by presenting their music in the unreconstructedly, unashamedly 1969/70 style in which it was created, relying simply on Hammond and electric guitar (with occasional forays into acoustic and piano) set against fleeting, dextrous beats that traverse the outer ‘cosmic dimensions’ but remain firmly rooted in the streets of London and its surrounding towns. At the start, sure, vocals waver and riffs are disjointed, but that’s only to be expected, and the more they persevere, they nail it- to an ecstatic, whooping, hollering response the likes of which, even if half their families are in tonight, they could never have expected years ago. Talk about a hero’s welcome. Even the normally unflappable Chris Welch is impressed, while fellow musicians who still look to them for inspiration today, such as Lee Dorian and Nick Saloman, stand either side of me in sheer awe.

The question is, where will they go from here? Outwardly healthy, fit, hale and hearty in their early 60s, with only one original member sadly departed and obviously still with a few tunes up their sleeves, you’d hope they were back for good. Their re-emergence also bodes well for other bands of a similar vintage blinking back into the spotlight. I can confirm, though, that Shindig! is a hundred percent behind them. To paraphrase a certain lyric, the pleasure is ours and always will be.

DARIUS DREWE SHIMON

Record Review – Guatafan

2011-12-07T11:07:00.001Z

GUATAFÁN

Chicas de Oro EP

Elefant

www.elefant.com

The second release from this Valencian female trio is assticky sweet as last year’s debut. The title track is an ’80s-inflected sliceof bubblegum synthpop, chock full of percolating casios, pounding drum machines,and huggable vocals courtesy María López. Her partners Laura and Cristina addbreathy backing support on ‘La Vida Me Sonríe’, which also sounds like you’vebeen chained to the wall at the local video game arcade – all bloops, bleeps,and fa-la-las!

Flip this puppy over and the charming dance pop continueswith ‘Examen Sorpresa’, within which I’d swear I can hear the musicalaccompaniment of chiming doorbells and clanging cowbells. They’re nothing ifnot inventive! ‘Un Día De Verano’ wraps up this perfect pop confection withmore bubbles than a soap bath. Recommended to J-pop lovers and fans of everyonefrom Nikki & The Corvettes and The Primitives to Canadian cult poppersTuuli and labelmates The School and Helen Love.

Jeff Penczak

Record Review – Pushy Parents

2011-12-07T11:03:00.001Z

PUSHY PARENTS

Secret Secret EP

Elefant

www.elefant.com

Judgingfrom their sound (twee pop at its finest) and promotional video, you’d thinkthe average age of the members of this Swedish quartet was about 12. But hidingbehind the cute kids are the talents of some of the finest purveyors of Swedishpop on the scene today. This studio-only project features the cuddly vocals ofAmanda Aldervall (Free Loan Investments, The Busy Band, The Andersen Tapes),her former Free Loan Investments partner Roger Gunnarsson (The Happy Birthdays,Nixon), along with Daniel Janssen (The Consequences), and a composer/producer identifiedin the press release as Le Prix (possibly Johan Emmoth). Together they’ve crafted one of the finestcollections of bubbly pop to burst from your speakers this year.

The title track bounces along on the back of an incessantbass throb and tinkling keyboard riff that won’t leave your head for days.‘Hold Me Tight or Let Me Go’ is a gorgeous slice of vintage ’60s girl group goodnessand ‘He’s My Saturday’ is Lulu-meets-Nancy Sinatra channelled through LesleyGore. Galloping backbeats, thumping, Northern Soul grooves, and Aldervall’sbreathy vocals are sure to make this a solid, dance floor fave. Aldervall dropsher voice a few octaves for the rousing finale, ‘Dear John’, which venturesinto giddy, synth pop – imagine Lush produced by Ian Broudie. A definitecandidate for single of the year!

Jeff Penczak

Record Review – Red Horses Of The Snow

2011-12-06T20:42:00.001Z

RED HORSES OF THE SNOW

Territories

FlashbackCD/LP

www.flashback.co.uk

The inaugural release by this London duo alsointroduces us to the new imprint from the Islington store of the same name.Mark Burgess and Chris Hawtin have crafted a melancholic, shoegazingmasterpiece, full of lush arrangements, endearing hooks, and swaying melodies,all buoyed by heartfelt vocals and intelligent lyrics that Hawtin describes as“geographical de-territorialisation – the contraction of real space in the ageof technological acceleration.” In other words, it deals a lot with alienationin the 21^st century!

Theromantic soundscapes of vintage Red House Painters are the most obviousinfluences on these dreamy post-psychedelic love songs. Opener ‘Airborne’floats into the room with all the warmth of a prodigal son returning from faroff lands, bearing gifts and stories of amorous adventures, while ‘Siam’ hintsat the proggy ruminations of Japan. Delicate synth swashes cascade over ‘FromThe Air’ and the production throughout is as crystal clear as that frosty mountainstream glistening in the winter sun on the Hawtin-designed cover. There’s alsoa nostalgic reminder of the bedsitter folk stylings of Nick Drake aficionadoScott Appel on the winsome tearjerker, ‘Screens’ and the lengthy closer ‘TheLove Song of Howard Hughes’ splashes some glitchy, Depeche Mode-styled synthacross an expansive lament of lost love and self-exploration anchored by thekey lyric, “I travelled the world around and found, in truth, I never left.”Ponder the existential implications of that one as you enjoy this fabulousrelease from a promising new label (and artist) to look forward to for years tocome.

Jeff Penczak

Event: Le Beat Bespoke 8, London

2011-12-06T10:43:00.005Z

The line-up for London's Le Beat Bespoke festival in 2012 has been announced, and it might just be the best one yet. Certainly it has that

immediate buzz about it, which the last couple had strangely lacked.

April 5th to 8th (in other words, Easter) will see (deep breath) The Jim Jones Revue, The Trashmen, The Pretty Things, Arthur Brown, July, Maxine Brown, The Pepperpots, The Poets, The Sorrows, and Wild Evel & The Trashbones all grace the stage, many of them playing exclusive '60s material only sets. Dirty Water Records will do their usual Saturday afternoon showcase, plus of course there will be the usual array of DJs spinning 60s sounds at the allnighter parties following the bands.

One day and weekend tickets are on sale now (various prices) from 229 The Venue. For more info visit the New Untouchables site.

Feature: an interview with The Peppermint Beat Band

2011-12-06T10:31:00.003Z

Brighton's harmony rockers The Peppermint Beat Band are winning fans left, right and centre right now. Phil Istine caught up with them.

Shindig!: How did you guys get together?
William Yates (singer): Well all of us, apart from Oliver (organ), are originally from Northamptonshire. Myself and Nicholas (guitarist) are brothers and had always wanted to play in a band together but never found the right moment. Nick, Martyn and Alec (bass) had all met at Northampton Music College. We all coincidentally moved to Brighton in the summer of 2009 and it just happened. Within a few weeks of starting a band Martyn and Alec saw Oliver, who had also just moved to Brighton from Switzerland, playing 'Outside Woman Blues' by Cream and then we had our organ player. It all came together fairly easily.

Shindig!: How would you describe your sound?
Martyn Lillyman (drummer): We started playing pretty straight up 60's music, heavy organ sounds and jams because that was a big common interest for us all. As time has past our sound has matured, we've found a balanced mix of modern & vintage: sixties, blues, folk and there’s possibly also some jazz in there.

Shindig!: What are your live shows like?
William Yates: Our live shows are the most important thing for us, we have songs people can dance to, sing to and also moments you could cry to.
Nicholas Yates: They're energetic with some really intense moments and they are never the same, which I guess is sticking to our sixties roots. We're still waiting for a gig where a piece our gear doesn't fail on us!

Shindig!: Who are you main influences ? Is any contemporary music inspiring?
Martyn Lillyman: The list of influences is endless for all of us, for me, its anything from Charles Mingus to The Doors, the 20's to the 70's. Sly and the family Stone and of course Bob Dylan & The Band!
William Yates: All music is inspiring to me, contemporary music just as much. We love The Bees, Devendra Banhart, Ian Dury and Tame Impala.

Shindig!: What have you put out so far?
We put out our first four track EP in the beginning of 2010 and we are currently doing an online release of our second EP which we recorded at Cold Room Studios Oxford with Mark Gardener (Ride). We also released a few home recorded singles online.

Shindig!: What was the last album you brought?
Martyn Lillyman: She's On The Rise/That's My Woman 7” by Jouis (local Brighton band)
William Yates: The 5000 spirits or the layers of the onion by The Incredible String Band
Nicholas Yates: Hot Tropics by The Growlers
Oliver Patrice: Cry Wilf! by Howlin' Wilf (James Hunter)
Alec Nash: Cliff Richard sings Ultimate Number 1 Xmas Hits!

Shindig!: What has been your favourite band moment so far?
Martyn Lillyman: Playing a gig in Madrid.
William Yates: Festival season.
Nicholas Yates: Having our own studio to record and rehearse in.
Oliver Weder: Our gig on a roof top in the Lanes, Brighton.

- What is your burning desire for the band to do in 2012? What are your plans?
In the beginning of 2012 we are going to release a set of self-produced singles and hopefully embark upon a European Tour. Keep going and reach as many people as we possibly can all over the world...

To hear their latest music visit Soundcloud

Record Review: The Good The Bad

2011-12-05T15:55:00.005Z

THE GOOD THE BAD

From 018 to 033

self released Vinyl + CD / Stray Cat Records download

Denmark’s The Good The Bad treat us to a whistle stop tour of swaggering, earthy rock and roll, soaring guitar solos, crazy staccato rhythm, galloping surf workouts, doomy drums and horns to wake the dead, all careering down a dirt road searching for the right spaghetti western to act as soundtrack to.

Cutting away all unnecessary packaging, eschewing lyrics and concentrating on the vital organs of the music that excites, chills and downright pollutes the blood, our Nordic cholos have delivered a no-frills but plenty-thrills evocation of the sort of 60’s instrumentals you would otherwise have to listen up for in your favourite rep cinema.

Often reduced to short, sharp shocks of guitar, sudden explosive drum breaks, our Northern cousins’ brutal, carry-no-passengers approach to creating their tribute to some of the most untameable music of the decade we all love, augmented by only a scattering of alternately breathy or angelic female vocal. Their refusal to give names to their compositions, only numbers, highlights the succinct nature of their writing.

I’ve probably sold this CD to the surf nuts and soundtrack fetishists among you, but the rest of you should check this out, too. The unholy marriage of Bach-like organ to fuzzy guitar, Mexican horns playing them in, will have you bolt upright in your chair, and the flamenco guitar later on will have you scouring your memory for the name of the Tex/Mex western you swear it appeared in.

Scenester

Record Review - Still Corners

2011-12-01T16:21:00.001Z

STILL CORNERS

Creatures Of An Hour

Sub Pop CD

Londoners Still Corners have been threatening to unleash one hell of a debut album for several years now – and here it is. Like their spiritual cousins The Soundcarriers, The Hall Of Mirrors and Colorama, the Still Corners sound is an exotic stew of late ’60s psych, driving Krautrock beats, kitsch film soundtracks and more, yet manages to sound very 2011.

This is very much a mood album in that there’s little in the way of hummable tunes here. Rather, gorgeous winsome female vocals flit over the top of dreamy soundscapes. The singles, the shoeygazeyesque ‘Endless Summer’ and powerful ‘Into The Trees’ are obvious highlights, but the band are at their best on more gentle offerings like ‘The White Season’ (which features a wonderful fairground keyboard) and ‘I Wrote in Blood’ (which reminds of me the David Axelrod-produced Electric Prunes albums). My favourite debut album of 2011 – no question.

Ashley Norris

Record Review - Souvaris

2011-12-01T11:29:00.001Z

SOUVARIS

Souvaris Souvaris

Gringo CD

So good they self-titled it twice, Souvaris Souvaris is the third album by this Nottingham post-rock troupe. While it’s clearly cut from the same cloth as the abstracted textures of their previous efforts, this is sequined and tasselled, too; Souvaris pull out all the stops here and (unlike many in the genre’s canyon) you can imagine this lot cracking a smile every so often, too.

There’s an energetic whirr right from the opener, ‘El Puto Amo’, a glissando suffused with a Neu! insolence and rhythmic energy, while the more measured ‘Mooky’ is slower and considered, emotionally virulent in its aching, potent pauses. But it’s the closer, the nine-minute ‘Irreversible’, which is the real pearl: it evokes the early electro majesty of pre-Dare Human League, also veering towards the artier end of proper disco music, whilst retaining a fierce guitar crunch.

Souvaris Souvaris is like modernist architecture: cyclic, clean-lined and unapologetic.

Jeanette Leech

Record Review - The Red Plastic Buddha

2011-11-30T13:04:00.002Z

THE RED PLASTIC BUDDHA

All Out Revolution

Space Cat CD

In spite of a number of personnel upheavals in the past 18 months, this is the long awaited follow up to The Sunflower Sessions from these self-proclaimed “leading lights of the Chicago psychedelic underground”.

It’s a more rounded and tighter affair than its predecessor. Drawing on influences such as Revolver/Pepper period Beatles, the jingle-jangle exuberance of ‘Daisy Love’ is a bewitching concoction of Barrett-era Floyd and The Byrds. They even do a flamenco tinged version of The Electric Prunes’ classic ‘I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)’!

But, if songs like ‘Starfish’ appear a little contrived, elsewhere ‘Army Of The New Tomorrow’ and ‘King Of The Underground’ are suffused with the spirit of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and ‘Soldier’ belies an even harder, punkier edge. Overall an accomplished collection of songs that straddles a spectrum of psychedelia and American alt-rock that stretches all the way from the mid-1960s to the present day.

Rich Deakin

Record Review - Paradise 9

2011-11-30T10:28:00.001Z

PARADISE 9

State Of The Nation EP

Paradise 9 Recordings CD

Dedicated to the memory of Inner City Unit founder member Judge Trev Thoms, who also contributed guitar on two of the tracks here, State Of The Nation is brimful of attitudinal acid-punk and ambient space-rock. The first two songs fall under the former category: the object of P9’s ire could easily be intended for the coalition government on the fast-paced title track. After maintaining the tempo on a jaunty ‘Is This The Time?’, P9 drop down a gear or two for the second half of the EP.

The atmospheric synth soundscape that is ‘Ocean Rise’ is given extra resonance by the timbre of Gregg McKella’s “psychedelic clarinet”. This gives way to ‘Distant Dreams’ – a spacey folkadelic number, reminiscent at times of mid-1970s Hawkwind. It’s also rendered particularly poignant thanks to Judge Trev’s haunting acoustic guitar – his swansong if you like. A worthy successor to their 2009 EP Nothing For Tomorrow.

Rich Deakin

Live Review: My Cat Is An Alien

2011-11-29T13:55:00.005Z

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN

Café Oto, London, November 24 2011

So, what exactly is “psychedelia”? Is it (a) any music which is designed to alter the mind, either with or without the assistance of hallucinogenic substances, and take the listener on a trip into stratospheres henceforth unknown? Or is it (b) wearing a flowery shirt, purple velvet flares and suede boots and having your hair cut like Brian Jones? If your answer is the former, then the chances are My Cat Is An Alien will hover in your orbit. If it’s the latter, you’ll hate them. To further clarify my point: what is “progressive music”? Is it (a) any music which attempts to experiment, do something original or creative, and take bold sonic steps beyond the ‘norm’, or is it (b) a bunch of blokes, sometimes accompanied by the obligatory hippychick vocalist, going widdly-widdly in an attempt to rehash the glory days of Yes, ELP and Gentle Giant? Again, if yours is the second choice, then you might as well stop reading now.

That’s not to say that the music they make is unbelievably original or brand new, but somewhere between the downtuned nebular voids of Saucerful-era Floyd and ‘In Search Of Space’ era Hawkwind’s sonic attacks, the Butthole Surfers or MBV’s pioneering ‘arsequakes’, the utter chaos of ID Company or John & Yoko, Nurse With Wound’s anarcho-surrealism, the minimalism of Sonic Youth (whose label they are signed to) and the whooshing sound continents of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, the brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio have found their own world, a playful tinkering bedroom of sound: hence the use of toy light sabres, instamatic cameras and all manner of primitive battery-powered ephemera as an integral part of their stagecraft.

Occasionally they also bring out acoustic guitars and trample on the free-folk territory of Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Voice Of The Seven Woods or Spires That In The Sunset Rise, with obvious tips to the atonal outsider strums of Skip Spence, Simon Finn and The Shaggs, but not tonight. Regardless of what mood they’re in, though, MCIA sound at all times like themselves - two brothers from downtown Torino who grew up collecting unusual music and in the end decided to start making it themselves, for no other reason than sheer enjoyment (which is evident on their faces tonight), on their own terms, releasing a quite amazingly varied, not to say prolific, series of limited edition albums in a variety of elaborate packages over the course of the last decade.

So why is this in Happening? Whilst they may be, with the possible exception of Psychic TV, Current 93 or Dharma Sun Collective, the most outré, extreme or uncompromising band ever to grace these pages, they play, quite clearly, with the attack of all great psychedelic rock n roll bands, guitars thrust and held aloft under strobe lighting and back projections, shapes thrown, hair and leather jackets flailing, and drums battered senseless. And besides, somebody has to not only remind people that the word “psych” is still occasionally suffixed by the word “edelic”, and write about avant-garde artists without stooping to the kind of po-faced erudition-flaunting so typical of other publications - and if that task falls to me, then so be it.

Vocally, we’re in the realm of wordless, swooping space whispers and wails - they could be in English, Italian, or an invented language, but to try and decipher it would be to solve the mystery, which would defeat the object. Guitars scrape, bass thumps and pounds in full, doom-laden chords, and cymbals are used as plectrums: if you’re wondering what separates such “art” from people merely arsing about, just trust me when I say that while there may be no immediately discernible melody (save for the manifold ones you can hear squalling in your own head), there’s definitely a structure, and it tells a story. The difference is no-one, not even the brothers themselves, knows quite where it will end.

The makers of licensing laws do, though, which means that sadly, just as it gets going, it’s all over. Never have 75 minutes passed quite so fleetingly, or been appreciated by so few: the warehouse-like environs of Oto are half-full tonight. I guess even within avant-garde progressive circles there are denominators….That, of course, is also true of our own scene, but some are still adventurous enough to entertain the idea of sheer unadulterated soundscapes for the sake of cosmic exploration alone, and while not all voyagers will be present for the duration of the journey, the terrain will be fascinating.

Darius Drewe Shimon

Record Review - Madam 'Gone Before Morning'

2011-11-29T13:32:00.002Z

MADAM

Gone Before Morning

Shilling Boy Records CD

Madam, the London-based band led by the vaporous voice of Sukie Smith, return with their second album. Gone Before Morning’s icy minimalism slashes the atmosphere of the room as soon as the sound leaves the speakers.

Musically, it follows a nocturnal, bassy-y blues trail; To Bring You My Love-era PJ Harvey is perhaps the most obvious comparison (particularly on ‘Marine Boy’). There’s much shade, and very little light here: while the break-up song ‘If You’re Looking For A Way Out’ is obviously a bitter pill, the mood is even more unsettling on the lyrical feather ‘Weekend Love’ (“I woke up dreaming about you/I turned round/and there you were”). Any optimism is completely, and brilliantly, undercut by stark drums and uneasy vocals: a deft streak of black humour.

Somehow this reminds me of the soundtrack to a short film. It would play over shots of scarred skin sown up after botched surgery.

Jeanette Leech

Record Review - Jasmine Kara

2011-11-28T17:12:00.002Z

JASMINE KARA

Blues Ain't Nothing But A Good Woman Gone Bad

Acid Jazz CD

There’s more to Jasmine Kara than the sexy publicity shots of her dressed in a gold-lamé bikini might suggest. This lady is no rapper’s video fantasy but a sassy, hard-hitting soul shouter.

Recorded at Cosmos studio in Stockholm, Kara’s debut album is a homage to Chess Records – well, her mentor is Marshall Chess after all. There are excellent covers of Willie Dixon’s ‘Fire’ with the singer sticking close to the blueprint laid down by Etta James at Muscle Shoals in 1968, a soul-blues workout of Jamo Thomas’ ‘Must I Holler’, The Kittens’ northern soul dancer ‘Ain’t No More Room’ and a wicked two-part version of ‘In The Basement’, initially cut as a duet by Etta James and Sugar Pie DeSanto. If it wasn’t for the three out-of-place slide-guitar instrumentals and the irritating tinny drums pushed to the fore on ‘Are You Doing Me Wrong’ and ‘Ordinary Joe’, this would have been the perfect calling card.

Alan Brown

Record Review - Henry's Funeral Shoe

2011-11-28T17:08:00.002Z

HENRY’S FUNERAL SHOE

Donkey Jacket

Alive Natural Sound CD

The intriguingly named Henry’s Funeral Shoe are brothers Aled and Brennig Clifford from the Welsh valleys, although the grainy blues-charged gumbo they serve up sounds more deep South or Detroit when they’re whipping up the heat on tracks like ‘Love Is A Fever’. The White Stripes and Seasick Steve have shown how a two-man group can work if the energy and attitude is there and the brothers make a rampant racket (although joined by Van Morrison slide guitar/harmonica man John Edwards on the searing blues-strum of ‘Bottom To Top’, while Broken Vinyl Club’s Justin Beynon guests on piano).

The brothers straddle several musical styles, from Southern rock on ‘Anvil And Chains’ to late-Beatles whimsy on ‘Across The Sky’. Meanwhile ‘Dog Scratched Ear’ and ‘Gimme Back My Morphine’ [title of the year!] are the kind of screaming punk-blues assaults that must raise the roof at gigs.

Kris Needs

Record Review - Mike Badger

2011-11-25T10:33:00.001Z

MIKE BADGER

Rogue State

Viper CD

Mike Badger is Liverpool’s answer to Billy Childish, albeit minus the flamboyant punk attitude and undying enthusiasm for three-chord thrash. Founding member of The La's and The Onset, visual artist, record label honcho and singer/songwriter, Badger, like the music he makes, is impossible to pigeonhole.

With Paul Hemmings (The La’s), Martyn Campbell (The Lightning Seeds) and Tommy Scott (Space) returning once more to give an old friend a hand, Badger’s third solo album, Rogue State, is an excellent blend of stripped-down garage-beat (‘Big Boots’), rockabilly (‘The Tupelo Hardware Store’), dreamy pop (‘Don’t Leave Me Standing’) and touches of folk (‘They’re Animals’) – all with a reverberating country twang. Other highlights include Badger riding the country rails with Hell bent relish on ‘Platform 9’ and his duet with local songwriter Lizzie Nunnery on their self-penned, downbeat ballad ‘Rising Tide’. A perfect pick and mix for the ears.

Alan Brown

Record Review - The Amazing 'Gentle Stream'

2011-11-24T12:24:00.004Z

THE AMAZING

Gentle Stream

Subliminal Sounds CD

When a band take a name like The Amazing, they’d better have the chops to back it up. Happily, this Swedish outfit – a collective headed by Reine Fiske and Johan Holmegard of neo-psych juggernauts Dungen, singer-songwriter Christoffer Gunrup and highly rated jazz drummer Moussa Fadera – are masterful enough to take that mantle on.

The band’s second album proper, Gentle Stream is widescreen, panoramic, horizon-reaching stuff. An elegantly constructed record of moody psychedelic majesty, it comes with a greater dose of CSNY-style Laurel Canyon bliss than previous recordings. Album highlight ‘Flashlight’ sounds at times like Nick Drake being backed by Radiohead at their jazziest, whilst suffering from a bad case of The Fairports.

It’s eight songs clocking in at a luxurious 45 minutes long, during which astral guitars intertwine in serpentine solos, horns blast rainbow melodies and Gunrup’s flute-like voice floats soothingly over the sunset sounds.

Luke Smyth

Record Review - Trolley 'Things That Shine & Glow'

2011-11-23T10:53:00.003Z

TROLLEY
Things That Shine & Glow
CD / Download

Easter Records

Remember when Teenage Fanclub had the bit between their teeth and produced brilliant song after brilliant song? Listening to this album reminds me of those times. The Milwaukee quartet’s third full-lengther is a modern-day classic. Never repetitive, every song either gets you with melody, or guitar riff, or harmony, and always with great musicianship.

Where they sound most assured is on the Beatles-meet-Zombies numbers like ‘In The End’ and ‘Out Of Love’. The arrangements are so strong it's as if they are working parts of a fine Swiss watch. The vulnerable, halting singing of Paul J. Wall can really tug the heartstrings on ‘I Can’t Hide’ and the title track, the latter also demonstrating some breath-taking harmonies. And as for closer ‘Love The Way You Look’...it’s like Big Star and R.E.M. personally dropped by and gave you an early Christmas present. Yes, that good.

‘She’s The Kind Of Girl’ displays Kinksian fuzz guitar to make you feel right there in ‘65, and during it I imagined them sharing an IPO stage with The Len Price 3 and Muck & The Mires somewhere in America’s backwaters. Of course I’m contractually obliged at this point to mention the understated psychedelic tinges scattered throughout the LP, and the influence of their Paisley Underground forefathers. I love this album. Power-pop and Mop-Top fans will certainly cream themselves when they hear it. Why aren’t these guys megastars?

Phil Istine

Live Review – The Damned

2011-11-23T08:59:00.001Z

THE DAMNED

35th Anniversary Tour

The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London

12th November

Who’d have thought it, 34 years after they last stomped allover the stage of The Roundhouse that The Damned would be back there tocelebrate their 35^th anniversary by giving us not one but twoclassic albums back to back over the course of an evening.

It was a sell out and deservedly so, for The Damned are onsparkling form from the off. "Hello. I’m Captain Sensible, you may remember mefrom Top Of The Pops," announces the good Captain to plenty of playful abusefrom the audience. "Let me take you back to 1977,"as the band launch into ‘NeatNeat Neat’ the opening track from their debut Damned Damned Damned. This isthe best the band have sounded in years, so tight with Captain handling theguitar duties originally performed by Brian James perfectly. They were all there,‘New Rose’, Born To Kill’, ‘I Fall’, ‘So Messed Up’ and a stunning rendition of‘Feel The Pain’. Disappointingly though, no ‘Stab Yor Back’ and at only 58seconds long it seemed weird to omit this from the set, a minor quibble though.Finishing with a ferocious version of The Stooges' ‘1970 (I Feel Alright)’ theband retire for a few moments before returning for the second set.

Next up the reason why most people were there, to witnessThe Black Album in its entirety. For a band like The Damned it was a very braverecord to release way back in ’80, a far cry from the messed up Detroitdrenched sound of the debut album. Here the band delve deeper and darker thanever before mixing elements of psychedelia, punk and proto goth spread out overfour sides on the original double vinyl release.

Kicking off with ‘Wait For The Blackout’ we’re off for whatpromises to be a truly amazing performance. Songs rarely or never played beforein the live arena really are a joy to behold. Gems like ‘Therapy’ and ‘SillyKids Games’, the latter an attack on cheesy game shows, crackle with an energyand enthusiasm which was absent from Damned shows for such a long time back inthe ‘90s only to be replaced here tonight with a group of musicians clearlyenjoying every minute. The goth leanings of ‘Twisted Nerve’ and ‘13^thFloor Vendetta’ sit alongside ‘Lively Arts’ and the ’77 sounding ‘Sick Of ThisAnd That’ which could quite easily have nestled into the first set. We get thehit single that never was ‘The History Of The World Part 1’ and to close theshow we’re treated to Dave Vanian’s tour de force ‘Curtain Call’, all 18magnificent minutes of it.

With a four song encore of ‘Disco Man’, ‘Eloise’, ‘LoveSong’ and ‘Anti – Pope’ the band troop off clearly moved by the reception theyreceive. For tonight once again The Damned are our heroes.

God bless ‘em.

Tony Clarke

Record Review: The Bloody Hollies

2011-11-22T21:56:00.004Z

THE BLOODY HOLLIES

Yours Until The Bitter End

CD/ Digital Download / Colored Vinyl

Alive Records

Onto the fifth album of The Bloody Hollies career and they still mean it as they ever did. Here is a band whose rock doesn’t fit into any easy categorisation: not garage, not punk, not alternative, and yet somehow all these things still. The AC/DC-style bluster of opener ‘So Grey So Green’ sets out the stall of what to expect, and pretty soon you find you have rifled through the rails, looked in the boxes under the table and come away pleasantly exhausted from all the rock presented to you. Remember when Jack stopped Stripe-ing and became a Raconteur? If you went ‘great career choice!’ then you’re probably a classic rock lover and will love the songs and passion displayed within. Singer Wesley Doyle even resembles his Whiteness vocally, which always helps.

The moments of slide guitar and Hammond organ are welcome they hover into earshot, and frankly I would have preferred more of them for add some flavour to my meat. By the way, have I mentioned this album rocks? Hard rock is music for sweaty gig venues, and is hard to keep fresh across a whole album. Yet they give it a damn good stab anyway and succeed mostly, reminding me along the way of The Oblivians (RIP) and The Eviltones (stars of tomorrow). They also treat us all to a country blues ditty with closer 'John Wayne Brown', a brave yet assured move. More please chaps, you have the talents and the chops. Also worthy of mention is the real Shindig! moment that comes at the end of ‘Dead Letter’, when the guitar fireworks finish exploding and the low-key ending of Love’s ‘7 & 7 Is’ is recreated. Thanks for that moment guys, it shows your warmth within your seriously wild rocking.

Phil Istine

Event: Happening the clubnight, London, Saturday December 3rd

2011-11-22T12:46:00.004Z

Happening is a clubnight too! On December 3 it's the final edition of the year. It's been a great year, and we thank all those that came, and those that graced the stage. As always it is a busy night so get yourself there nice and early...

Playing live:

THE VALKARYS
London six-piece The Valkarys have only just come onto our radar after a few years of playing shows, and they are brilliant! Psychedelic beat music that takes from The Bunnymen as much as The Elevators.

THE HALL OF MIRRORS
Once of Portsmouth but recently relocated to The Smoke, The Hall Of Mirrrors are a classic Shindig!-style band. Mixing classic psychedelic-pop sounds with orchestral flourishes and layers of guitar, the magazine said “You could say they resemble a doped-up Saint Etienne on ‘Love Obscure’, Galaxie 500 on ‘Round and Round’ and Nico-period Velvets on ‘Silver Stream’”.

MILKY ONIONS
New weird band alert! Locals to this part of London but musically its coming partly from the mid-60s west coast - plenty of echo, great lyrics, strange rhythms...you need to see and hear to properly appreciate! So get down early doors so you don’t miss.

Then resident DJ PHIL ISTINE and guest ANDY EDWARDS (Harvest, Cardiff) will spin your world via ’60s/’70s dancefloor psychedelia, garage, beat, and general rock’n’roll wondermints!

@ The Drop, below The Three Crowns, 175 Stoke Newington High Street London N16 0LH
8pm-4am, £6 entry. Buses: many. Train: Stoke Newington (from Liverpool St)

FACEBOOK EVENT

Event: The Poets live in Glasgow

2011-11-21T15:59:00.005Z

Glasgow club Eyes Wide Open is happily celebrating it's seventh birthday on Friday December 2nd, and have quite a scoop on their hands, having bagged the reformed Poets.

The Poets were one of Scotland's top live attractions back in the day, had Andrew 'Loog' Oldham as their manager, and released a selection of brilliant singles between 1964-67,all of which are revered amongst freakbeat and psychedelic fans.

The band reconvened last year for rehearsals and a couple of small, tentative shows. The passing of bassist John Dawson, drummer Alan Weir, and lead guitarist Hume Paton is of course sad. However original singer George Gallacher and guitarist Fraser Watson have teamed up with Edinburgh beat-garage stalwarts The Thanes (featuring regular Shindig! scribe Lenny Helsing) to complete a great line-up of musical talent.

Support for The Poets at Eyes Wide Open will come from The Store Keys, featuring Stevie Jackson of Belle & Sebastian fame. Tickets for the show are £6 in advance from Tickets Scotland Glasgow.

Facebook event

Record Review: The Cult Of Dom Keller

2011-11-21T14:50:00.004Z

THE CULT OF DOM KELLER

EP3

self-released CD/ download

Bandcamp

It was three years ago that I discovered these Nottingham freaks, and they happily haven't imploded yet. In fact they've gone from strength to strength with their warped psychedelia, as their third EP now admirably displays. Without doubt these guys are the closest thing the UK has to a Black Angels, so it was no surprise to see them invited over for the bands' Austin Psych Fest earlier this year.

Some of you may know I used to run a club named 'The Acid Gallery', after the Pebbles compilation. That had a track on it by Dom Kellar Os Mods. You've Got Good Taste, as someone once sang. The band name suggests the occult, and so do the sounds on this EP. This isn't music which could ever be described as commercial, coming as it seemingly does from the bowels of a very dark place. Neil Marsden's deeply intoned vocals on the wonderfully-named 'This Is How It Feels To Live Your Life Dead' made me feel at first as if listening to an Ian Curtis-fronted Spacemen 3. The stoner fuzz of 'Dead Seas' is a droneful intonation to 'bring life' and...something more sinister no doubt, though I mostly cannot fathom was is being sung. 'Heavy and Dead' repeats the same trick, but with less effect. 'Ghost Bones' has some great tremelo vocals and impenetrable fuzz guitar squalls, whilst EP closer 'Black Pullet Blues' is a mysterious mutant blues recorded with too-much-even-for-Joe-Meek levels of reverb.

If the band were to write a chorus or two they may find more people joining the cult, but then again they would probably lose what is most magical about them. For now we have this: intense, fantastic sounding, occasionally transcendental lysergic noise.

Phil Istine

The Magic Band UK tour

2011-11-17T17:32:00.004Z

There's not been enough coverage of this for our liking, so we are taking it upon ourselves to let you know about the upcoming UK tour of The Magic Band.

Captain Beefheart passed away almost a year ago, but nothing it seems will stop The Magic Band - comprising of Mark Boston, John French, Craig Bunch, Eric Klerks and Denny Walley - playing their skewed blues show. Seven dates in total, so no excuses for not catching them.

Dates

November 30 - The Scala, London

December 2 -The Button Factory, Dublin

December 3 - Kazamir, Liverpool (with Shindig! favourites The Wicked Whispers)

December 4 - All Tomorrow's Parties Festival, Minehead

December 5 - The Pavillion, Falmouth

December 7 - The Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

December 8 - The Irish Centre, Leeds

Record Review: Bubblegum Screw

2011-11-16T16:38:00.005Z

BUBBLEGUM SCREW

Screwphoria!

self-released download

Amazon, Bandcamp, iTunes etc.

I must say I’ve had a very good year with punk gigs: New York Dolls (twice), Billy Rath, Walter Lure...and yet the band that I love watching the most is London’s own Bubblegum Screw. After tearing it up onstage these past few years the debut album has landed, and it’s a monstrous seventeen tracks wide. Let us not kid ourselves: if it wasn’t for the Dolls and The Dead Boys and The Stooges and The Heartbreakers this music would never have been made. Yet I can’t get enough of their glam garage punk roar: singer Mark Thorn sounds as rough as a badgers back passage, but this just adds an authenticity to the sheet metal guitars that onslaught every way you turn. He also has a simple-but-clever way with words: to make you laugh, to make you angry, to make you want to drink more cheap lager than is probably advisable.

The song ‘I Was A Teenage Fuck-Up’ pretty much sums up their appeal: searing riffs and a great chorus. ‘Rock’n’Roll Loser’ would make Joan Jett proud if she ever heard it. You can almost feel the spittle hit your face from within your computer on these songs. I’m a stickler and will say the five men called Screw work best when on stage, but as a souvenir of those great gigs you saw this does not disappoint. If you want fun you’ve come to the right place: all fans of classic rock and New York punk should check out with further delay.

Phil Istine

New Vintage Rock magazine hits shelves

2011-11-16T16:11:00.004Z

Shindig! covers psych, prog, garage, beat, soul, folk...but we rarely touch on 50s rock'n'roll and rockabilly. Clearly a gap in the market you may surmise, and it looks like one that's just been filled by new quarterly Vintage Rock.

It's brought to you from the same people who recently launched the Burlesque Bible quarterly. Issue one has all you would expect from a glossy magazine: news section, features on the early days of Elvis, an interesting piece on the beginnings of rock'n'roll in the UK, 50 Best Rockabilly Tracks, lovely pieces on Jet Harris, Duane Eddy and Alexis Korner, some indifferent 'guide to' pieces for the beginners, a review of the Hemsby weekender, and much much more within its 116 pages. The only thing we seem to be missing is a music reviews section.

The magazine hits the shelves of WHSmiths today, costing £5.99. You can subscribe here. Their website isn't up and running quite yet, but there is Facebook page here nonetheless.

Event: Rhythm & Blue Beat, London, Saturday November 19

2011-11-15T17:39:00.003Z

London and south-east mods rejoice, there's a new night in town! Rhythm & Blue Beat takes place this Saturday November 19 in Camden, and promises "dancing fare from the vintage vinyl, all in our own private abode above the steamy wild streets of Camden".

Expect to hear fine 45s of the R&B, rhythm’n’soul, mod jazz, popcorn, Hammond grooves, & latin boogaloo persuasion from the resident DJs Smart Phil & Southern Sam as well as from the guests Joel Maslin (Va Va Voom) & Marcus Hjoberg. Make sure you dress to impress and be ready to shout and shimmy for a whole 6 hours of top quality music bought to you by Sweet but Deadly.

Upstairs @ The Camden Head. 100 Camden High Street, Camden, London, NW1 0LU. Nearest tube: Mornington Crescent/Camden Town. 9pm-3am. £5 entry

Black Sabbath reunite for album and shows

2011-11-15T17:21:00.003Z

At a press conference in Los Angeles on Friday (at 11:11am on 11/11/11, time fans) Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward, & Ozzy Osbourne announce that 70s rock goliaths Black Sabbath (in other words, the first edition of the band, the 'proper' one!) have reformed and will be releasing their first new album of material since 1978's Never Say Die!. Yes we know they have reformed before, but it this line-up have not released an album in so long it really does feel like a special moment.

The "four hard men from Birmingham" pronounced two crucial facts: they will be releasing a full new studio album in the autumn of 2012, to be be produced by Rick Rubin and released on Vertigo, and they will hit the road next summer too. Though only one live date has so far been confirmed, that being the Download festival on June 10 next year. No doubt they will be immense shows, and in demand.

Watch the press conference from Friday on Youtube HERE.

Record Review - Cherry Choke

2011-11-15T11:02:00.002Z

CHERRY CHOKE

A Night in the Arms of Venus

Elektrohasch CD/LP

www.elektrohasch.de

According to the band this concept album concerns, “the journey of a hard living Victorian gent with an eye for the syphilitic ladies of the night through to his final Mercury-ridden twisted end.” Mercury was often used to treat syphilis in Victorian times though had the rather unfortunate effect of making patients more ill due to its massive toxicity.

History lessons asides, the band feature Mat Bethancourt, who may be familiar to some from his stoner-psych outings with The Kings of Frog Island and retro ’70s rock outfit Josiah. This band take a similar retro tack, playing late ’60s style powerful psychedelia with clear influences from Hendrix, Cream and particularly SF Sorrow-era Pretty Things.

The acid rock guitar and Who style powerplay all sound fairly derivative but still add up to an enjoyable listen, even though it’s hard to follow the rock opera story. The songwriting sags towards the middle but there are still plenty of memorable tracks and lots to enjoy. Recommended to acid rock fans.

Austin Matthews

Style – Art Gallery Clothing

2011-11-14T09:59:00.001Z

London Clothing Label Art Gallery's new online shop goes live

Stylish Modernism For The 21st Century