VOTE VAN HOWLING

Just a very quick post encouraging everyone to vote for the mighty Van Howling on Uni Music League at the link below:

http://www.unimusicleague.com/index.php?rid=66&title=bresult

Van Howling truly is an awesome and unique band. Check out my previous review for a more comprehensive description:

http://trashofcamden.blogspot.com/2011/09/behold-van-howling-hear-him.html


Also, I'd thoroughly recommend catching this marvellous quartet live at The Hideaway on Thursday 15th December.

DECEMBER DELIGHTS

Here's a little round-up of some exciting events going on during December 2011:

1. If you haven't checked it out already, then the first part of The Palace of Justice's sophomore effort, Once and For All is available for your listening pleasure at the band's myspace page so give it a listen via the link below:

www.myspace.com/thepalaceofjustice

For anyone who's familiar with the band's debut, The Album of Justice, this second album is a very different listening experience altogether, and tracks have been tinkered with, remixed and, in some cases, entirely re-recorded with a level of devotion that's pretty damn impressive.

Part Two will be accessible and up for download via bandcamp (http://thepalaceofjustice.bandcamp.com/) on Friday 9th December (that's THIS friday) and will be launched at a gig on the same day at The Good Ship in Kilburn. Attendees will be given a code that entitles them to a free download of the album. Here's the facebook event for further details:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/258863960833181/

2. Following a mighty comeback tour included in which was a gig in the Bowery in New York, Special Needs have released their new single, 'I Agree With Nick' (B-Side: 'Stuck in Human Resources') and it's available for download via iTunes Store and Amazon MP3 store at the link below:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Agree-With-Nick/dp/B006AOUFXC

Everyone should download this exciting single with its storming "Your country hates you and so do I" refrain. It brings together all the vivacity and joie de vivre of classic Funfairs and Heartbreak-era Special Needs with a sense of musical and political urgency that's agitated but, at the same time, full of the indie-pop momentum we've come to expect from both the band's recorded material and incendiary live shows. Plus, the cover art is really excellent.

DOWNLOAD IT. I have.



3. Citing rock n roll stalwarts like Dylan, the Stones and the Beatles alongside literary influences from Edgar Allen Poe to Charles Bukowski, Paddy Griffith is a singer-songwriter of unquestionable quality and well worthy of your esteemed attention.

Check out Paddy's Facebook page for more info:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Paddy-Griffith/203511569666850

Trash was fortunate enough to sit in on the recording of a fantastic track called 'Dream in Sterling' when it was recorded during a twelve-hour stretch at the Turnpike Lane studio. What started as an idea for a song based on a series of chord progressions soon flourished into an incredible psychedelic Tarantino-esque stomp complete with moody guitar solos and group hollering, featuring the musical and recording talents of POJ members as well as 'vocal contributions' from other assorted layabouts.

Have a listen to the result at the following link:

http://soundcloud.com/paddygriffithdemos/dream-in-sterling

What's more, Paddy is playing a gig supporting The Louis Jordan Factory Band at The Enterprise in Chalk Farm this Friday. Yep, it's the venue with the cool sound guy and the shaky floor boards. Just don't head downstairs needlessly unless you need to buy a drink or go to the toilet. It's pretty rank down there on a Friday night.

Again, I hate to be a Facebook whore, but here's the event:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/190855751001448/

4. And for anyone who's been wondering whatever happened to Killer Blob live music nights and promotion, fear not. Killer Blob returns to its spiritual home, The Hideaway, on Junction Road, for a super-dooper Christmas party with a line-up that's practically salivating. Thursday 15th December will warmly welcome back...

...TH'SHERIDANS

...VAN HOWLING

...and THE PALACE OF JUSTICE  for a night of joyous frivolity, top-class music and festive merriment. All for £3. Plus, there are promises of mince pies and rumours of Christmas live-musical chairs.

Here's the Facebook event with more details:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/192765790798944/

Also, Killer Blob is teaming up with Trash and various wonderful friends and compatriots to create a compilation CD of Free New Fucking Exciting Music to be released early next year so keep your eyes and ears open for news about featured artists and celebratory gigs. It's all very exciting. Hurray for December!

HURRY UP, WE'RE DREAMING

“Yeah, I’ve got a question. Does John Hughes know you raid his soundtracks?”:

M83’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (2011)

This new M83 album is completely excessive in practically every way. Not content with being the most shameless 80s homage conceivable – the synths and cleanly click-drummed tracks sound like they may as well have crawled into 2011 off a John Hughes film soundtrack – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is a DOUBLE ALBUM of this kind of material.

It is melodramatic and overblown, like a lot of teen drama I suppose, Hughesian or otherwise, and M83 mastermind Anthony Gonzalez certainly knows what he’s doing in creating such shiny, syrupy-sweet dream pop. However, sometimes glistens so much with the glow of nostalgia that it can only ever really sit on the surface of its own veneer shell. This is essentially where Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming differs from M83’s triumphant Saturdays = Youth of 2008, which remains one of the most perfect pop confections I’ve ever lapsed ears on. Tracks like ‘Kim & Jessie’ and ‘Graveyard Girl’ were certainly Hughesian, there’s no denying that, only I’d argue that theirs was a tribute that employed the tropes within films like The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink to create valid electronica for the C20 which, whilst nostalgic, felt both gorgeous and fresh.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the tracks on Hurry Up are listenable enough. Some, like ‘Reunion’, are fairly excellent examples of Gonzalez’s unmistakeable style. The “You make me feel myself” refrain, vaguely UB40ish in its delivery, is a joyous declaration against teenage angst set against Simple Minds-friendly channels of golden electro beats and feather-light guitar-play. Others however, just don’t do, well, anything. And that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing only on some of the songs on this double album, much of the euphoric, soaring synthesisers and interspersed spoken word fragments are so recycled that they almost suggest an homage of an eighties homage rather than the ode itself.

Compared to Saturdays = Youth, the vocals used on Hurry Up are less woozy and in general, considerably more shouty (‘Claudia Lewis’) which are not nearly as effective as the teenage utterances that formed the bedrock of Saturdays = Youth.

I hate to say it, but, on the whole, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming feels a little contrived. The unusual, childlike ‘Raconte-Moi Histoire’ is all well and good but, whilst I’m well aware that Gonzalez is French, the casual, sporadic use of French language smacks a bit of unnecessary pretension, especially when you consider that it’s a story about a frog. When songs do work however, like the aforementioned ‘Reunion’, it makes for enjoyable fare. Quel dommage. The female voice saying “You hit my face like a lightning rod, capsized me and doused me in your bay” sounds like a sample of Carry On film innuendo, but is nonetheless somehow sugary sweet given this most candi(e)d of treatments by M83. What’s more, listen to the song’s opening chords and then put something like ‘Thieves Like Us’ by New Order straight afterwards and I’ll guarantee you’ll marvel at the authenticity of the drums of the former when placed beside an actual example of 80s electronic pop.

It remains difficult however to view these occasional treats in isolation when the greater whole of which they are a part is so lacking in substance beyond the initial splendour of an opening synth-laden overture.

To give Gonzalez his due credit however, some of the short minute-and-a-half interludes like ‘This Bright Flash’ and ‘Where the Boats Go’ are nice enough and do unite the tracks and their romantic fairytale quality; an insatiable number of references to the sea making for an Owl and the Pussycat of shiny synth-pop fables. This, I would say, is the double album’s real saving grace, its naivety. Whilst bordering on superficial a lot of the time, this is, I think, largely a result of an unwillingness to stray from a winning set of sonic, aesthetic and atmospheric formulae.

I have to wonder if Gonzalez had gone out of his way to do something wildly different from what he usually does, whether the reviews of such efforts would be as unimpressed as some have been of Hurry Up (though, obviously for reasons based on unfamiliarity rather than the call of ‘same old same old M83’).

There’s a lot to be said for the age-old adage of ‘It it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. However, this becomes problematic if the thing in question maybe needs a crack or two on its surface for us to know that there is something underneath risking damage. There clearly is something under M83’s retro-print, gold lame façade, but it would easily be skirted over based on this latest effort and without any knowledge of Gonzalez’s earlier work.

On the whole however, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming isn’t a bad effort. Then again, it doesn’t really feel like an ‘effort’ as such at all. If it weren’t for the fact that Gonzalez demonstrates such acute and diligent sensitivity to his recreation of the tonal nuances of ‘typical’ 80s synthesisers, their often chiming quality and the cinematic connections of such, I’d say it was almost a lazy album. Gonzalez does at least replicate a Hughesian dream pop with an incredible sense of panache that’s, in my opinion, superior to any neighbouring contemporaries producing comparable music today.

Indeed, there is no doubt in my mind that I’ll find myself listening to this album as an antidote to the imminent change in temperature we’re facing now that winter is fast approaching. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is like that feeling you get at the start of summer when you’re a kid when it feels like the holidays could last forever. It’s misinformed, but at the time, it feels so real. At times, this album sounds so innocently virtuous and that’s always been the real beauty of M83, for me at least. In this double album, Gonzalez hands us an opportunity for pure dream pop escapism and there’s a lot to be said for that when the days start getting shorter and it’s the nights, rather than the summer, that seem to go on forever.

ONCE AND FOR ALL 11.11.11

The highly anticipated second album from The Palace of Justice is due for release in less than a month on 11th November with a sneaky preview coming soon in the form of incendiary single, 'Turnpike Lane'.

The Palace of Justice has several gigs coming up in November, the first being on 17th November at The Enterprise, 2 Haverstock Hill (opposite Chalk Farm tube). This'll be the band's first gig since the release of Once And For All so it promises to be a great show. Plus, the floor boards of The Enterprise in the upstairs room where gigs are held are always a bit shaky, so much so that at the Camden Crawl a few years ago everyone was asked to sit down in the middle of Johnny Foreigner's set, lest someone put their foot through the floor or fall through into the bar below and get impaled on a beer pump or something. Maybe if everyone dances hard enough on 17th November, we might finally break through the floor, though hopefully with no major casualties.

And yes, that is a challenge.

'BIBLE STORIES'

Bible Stories: Investigating a Personal Relationship with the Manic Street Preachers and The Holy Bible

When I saw that the Manic Street Preachers were on the cover of the 8^th October edition of NME celebrating twenty-five years of their music, I was reminded once again of that long period of time earlier this year when I was listening, almost exclusively, to the band’s magnum opus, The Holy Bible.

Every day on the bus into university would begin with Yes and, dependent on what the traffic was like, the album might get to This is Yesterday or Die in the Summertime by the time it reached Gower Street. I began to listen to it instinctively. It was like being fifteen again when I listened to only the Ramones for about six months, convinced that everything else was illegitimate, only this time, my behaviour was practically pathological. A friend advised me to ‘cut down’ on The Holy Bible. I told him I could stop any time I wanted. He said he thought I may have a problem.

But seriously, habit and addiction analogies aside, listening to incredibly dark songs about, amongst other things, self-harm, anorexia and the Holocaust soon became the essential lynchpin of my day. That’s not to say that I was unaware of this. I spent a lot of time trying to reason with myself as to why my listening was so compulsive. Obviously it’s a phenomenal piece of work - this goes without saying…even though I just did. Indeed, back in January, I wrote a piece with the snappy little title, ‘An attempt to work out why I have been listening to the Manic Street Preachers’ The Holy Bible every day for the past month’. However, aside from one perusal by a very obliging friend, I was quite embarrassed by how unsatisfactory such an ‘attempt’ had been so it never really saw the light of day beyond that. Perhaps it’s because I feel a relapse coming on now that I’ve decided to try again to search for a more adequate answer, though I can’t say I expect complete enlightenment on the subject.

However, there is evidently something about this seminal album from which I find difficult to distance myself. Though not an unnatural response to a musical suite so immersed in emotion, mythology and intellectual content, I’m still anxious to try and explore such a response further, since I’ve never experienced it before or since with another album in its entirety.

The stories of Richey Edwards’ life, work, disappearance and the way each informed his characteristic lyrics are now the stuff of legend. And yet, despite the fact that he was (or rather, became) the principal song-smith in the band, he never sang his own material. James Dean Bradfield took lead vocal duties, and, occasionally, Nicky Wire would also contribute. Edwards’ dark and, at times, deeply uncomfortable, material was always projected through another, literal, mouthpiece, and this attached it with a sense of inaccessibility and detachment. I’m not saying that the likes of Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain or Elliott Smith lacked such a ‘mystique’ on the grounds that they sang their own lyrics. That would be silly. I only mean to suggest that Bradfield’s delivery of Edwards (and Wire)’s words definitely lent the whole of The Holy Bible a tone that was fraught with difficult emotional content and sustained, unresolved tension. Richey Edwards becomes a semi-present ghost. The lyrics could be no one’s but his but it is never him that verbalises them. I’ve tried to think of another example of a band or album wherein this is the case to such an extent but I haven’t been able to do so.

Ultimately, this idea of distance through Richey’s vocal silence lends the lyrics a devastating truth. It’s not Ian Curtis (whom I also admire greatly) attempting to exorcise his psyche on-stage and spasmodically flailing his limbs in a heart-breaking parody of his own epileptic fits. It’s James singing Richey’s words whilst the latter attempts rhythm guitar, hardly plugged in most of the time either in live performances or in the studio.

Indeed, Bradfield’s vocals used to be a source of considerable annoyance to me, so much so that I would often get quite angry about them. I felt that his delivery barked out the lyrics in a manner comparable to a faulty machine gun mowing down foot-soldiers. Consequently, I thought that he was defiling their sentiments by up-chucking these beautiful words through indistinct annunciation and highly uneven and almost volatile phrasing. However, now I see that this delivery remains critical to the sense of distance I mentioned earlier that has so transfixed me about The Holy Bible. The fragmented phrasing takes the edge off of the sharp sting of the lyrics which are often startlingly direct.

Take Yes for example, and its chorus of darkly bitter cursing alongside brutal characterisations of prostitution:

‘And in these plagued streets of pity you can buy anything / for $200 anyone can conceive a God on video / he’s a boy, you want a girl so chop off his cock / tie his hair in bunches, fuck him, call him Rita if you want / I eat and I dress and I wash and I still can say thank you / puking – shaking – sinking I still stand for old ladies / can’t shout, can’t scream, hurt myself to get pain out.’

Written down, as bold as brass, the bitterness of the words sits on the surface, glaring back at us as though daring someone with a less than sympathetic ear to react unfavourably. However, spat out by Bradfield, I’d argue that it’s not nearly as hostile, regardless of whether or not you know what’s been said. Maybe it’s the fact that the lyrics go through different levels that separate them from us yet still manage to remain firmly attached to their meaning. Each track on The Holy Bible is so intense and saturated in Edwards’ fierce intellect, scholarship in political history and wide reading that I’ve come to look upon them as little essays, the musical counterparts to which are an equal partner in their compelling morphology. I cannot imagine the difficulty encountered by Bradfield and Moore in trying to formulate or adjust their musical compositions around Edwards’ erratic lyrical structures to create a means through which they could be suitably conveyed without detracting from the sonic sympathies adhered to by the group. Together, the songs on The Holy Bible form a suite totally incomparable to any of the Brit Pop genre artists contemporaneous to the Manics’ emergence.

So, curiously, it seems that the only viable way to understand my personal relationship with The Holy Bible is, ironically through a sense of irretrievable distance and absence. Of distance, through the articulation of highly personal lyrics by another person rendering the author only semi-present. Of detachment, through the exposure of someone no longer present though who the large majority of people never really knew in the first place.

The immediate comparison I’d like to make here is probably testament to my History of Art background. I’m reminded of Andy Warhol’s screen-prints of celebrity starlets like Marilyn Monroe or Jackie Kennedy. These works employed common-place, infinitely reproduced images of highly public personalities that everyone recognised but with whom few were really familiar in a direct sense. I’d argue that the accessibility of the raw Manics sound on The Holy Bible is not unlike such a saturated mythology, only through an aural rather than visual output. One might scorn the image of the traumatised artiste peddling tales of their own, very real and terrible, woe, but I think that such a mythology is important (as well as highly attractive). It might be argued that this detracts from the quality of the music itself but it all feeds into how we perceive something so emotive and, at times, visceral as a stirring piece of music. The ‘fantasy’ is important. And when it claims a life, I don’t think that it can be dismissed very easily as anything arbitrary or purely fictional. The 27 Club is surely case and point, especially with the recent addition of Amy Winehouse in July.

Popular myth and its simultaneous detachment are perhaps what make early Manics both so unnerving and yet so fascinating to me. Exposed trauma, uncapturable, but all-too evident. Raw human pain, spoken plainly, but somehow absent. This is what my fairly comprehensive contemplation has found to be a reason why The Holy Bible has continued to consume my music-time of late, and, I hope, always will, if not to the obsessive degree it has done. I’m happy for the fixation to peter out into a healthy interest and understanding of every song, but am also aware that the day that this comes to pass I will also feel as though I’ve lost something.

I’m still not entirely sure why I have felt the need to substantiate this all in more coherent speech than the scatty notes written on the back of Sainsbury’s receipts have previously permitted. I suppose the only real reason I’ve written this is to try and pay testament to my musical fixations, which, after all, are the things I care about most in life.

This essay is dedicated to Betty Woodruff for teaching me that the Manics were more than worthy of my time and consideration. I can’t thank you enough for such an invaluable education. X

MARTYN LEUNG: 'Occasional Inspiration, Mainly Perspiration'

Photo: Martyn Leung, 2011

I had to draw everyone's attention to the work of Martyn Leung, a photographer, journalist and hardcore gig attendee in his spare time when he's not working hard in the City.  Anyone who can manage to negotiate both these activities and be as thoroughly nice and interesting as Martyn gets my instant approval.

Martyn contributes examples of his awesome photography to a great little website called Wears The Trousers (www.wearsthetrousers.com) and I was fortunate enough to meet him at the ATP event, 'I'll Be Your Mirror', at Alexandra Palace in July. I was anxiously waiting for S.C.U.M. to grace the stage of the main hall, though seemingly was amongst a minority since most people were next door watching Godspeed you! Black Emperor. This was understandable since I could hear half their set sat against a very uncomfortable barrier in the main hall and they sounded pretty good even from there. However, S.C.U.M. has played only a scant number of UK gigs lately since the band has been swannying around Europe making these 'Signals' from the various cities that the band briefly inhabits, so there was no way I was going to miss the set.

Included within this series of Signals - and any echo of Throbbing Gristle or Genesis P-Orridge is in no way accidental since the band claim to be huge fans of the Industrial pioneers - are 'Warsaw', 'Berlin' and 'Paris'. Each has a distinctly different flavour to reflect the band's reflections on the respective location, though are all invariably drenched in the industrial drone, sprawling synths and woozy, yet somehow aristocratic, vocals from compelling frontman Thomas Cohen. 

All of them thus far have been available for free download, so be sure to check out the band's Myspace:

www.myspace.com/scum1968

S.C.U.M. also released debut album, 'Again into Eyes' in September.

Anyway, I digress, but not without good reason, as it was both Martyn and I's interest in S.C.U.M. that got us chatting at the front of the stage, and he took some great photographs from the gig (one example of which is included above).

Martyn's blog, 'Occasional Inspiration, Mainly Perspiration' is a treasure trove of his photographic efforts, so I'd thoroughly encourage you to check out his work:

http://martynleung.tumblr.com/

It's true testament to his unwavering enthusiasm, commitment to music and photographic instinct to get 'the perfect shot'. I remember when Swans came on-stage later on in the day at ATP, he managed to withstand their incredibly, almost painfully noisy set whilst I had to retreat outside for fear of permanent damage to my hearing. My exact phrasing at the time as I recall was that Swans were so loud that 'I thought my face was going to fall off'. Thankfully, Martyn's face remains in tact and it's just as well, since a photographer can't be much use without a decent pair of eyes. 

THE DEAD ROADS INTERVIEW, JULY 2010

Photo: Sailing Sound

Here's a link to an interview I did last year in Soho Square with London-based indie quartet, The Dead Roads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NvipggBtVo

They were all thoroughly decent guys and are all involved in other projects now but you can still listen to The Dead Roads' music, including single, 'You're Not In Love' on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thedeadroads, via the band's fan page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/#!/thedeadroads) or on the Sailing Sound website's Music section: http://sailingsound.com/music.php

Photo: Sailing Sound

THE PALACE OF JUSTICE-THE ALBUM OF JUSTICE (2011)

I wrote this pretty extensive review of the Palace of Justice's debut album of earlier this year back in April but never got round to doing anything much with it. Here it is at last (better late than never?) and it's also posted here in heated anticipation for the imminent release of PoJ's sophomore effort, 'Once And For All' which is being mixed as we speak. It's all very exciting and I for one cannot wait to hear what the boys have come up with after what seems like months of hard work in a rehearsal studio up in Manor House and at the mixing 'deck' in Turnpike Lane.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the minute ‘Hormones’ chimes out its first few bars, The Palace of Justice’s debut album is instantly compelling. Frenetic drumming pedals a rhythmic march that doesn’t let up for the entire three minutes of joyous adolescent angst - and I use the lattermost phrase with absolute sincerity, since Palace (or PoJ) could never be accused of indulging in clichés, whether they be musical or lyrical. That’s the overwhelming feeling that this album delivers. Every syllable and every note is plated in 24-carat, solid gold integrity, supported by accomplished song-writing and unreserved spirit.

Though easily the most hyperactive, speedy number on the album, and, arguably, the most obvious ‘single choice’, Hormones is a stunningly good song, both in composition and when played live. The sharp and crisp drumming of Nick Harley propels the song forward, giving all the tracks a wonderful momentum that’s one of the real merits of PoJ’s musical style. Hearing Hormones live, it really is impossible to keep your feet still, testament to the fact that Palace really aren’t a ‘stand-still-fold-your-arms-and-stay-put’ kind of band. Although the band members have stated on numerous occasions that they are trying to phase it out of their current set, Hormones still manages to creep back in, and there’s a very good reason for that. It sounds like a hit, and by any ‘justice’, it should be.

Second track and another live favourite ‘Breathe a Word’, slows the pace down slightly, the calm following the record’s incendiary beginning. However (and importantly), this is in no way jarring, the vocals maintaining the exasperated tension that characterised Hormones only in a more deliberated way. Throughout the album, George Clark’s vocals are an absolute triumph, the ideal counterpart to his Spanish guitar, which forms the bedrock of the melodic structure of Palace’s songs. Gorgeously rich in tone and delivered with passion, vitality, and yet also humility, his vocals add to the band’s natural and understated charisma, a rare thing indeed in rock music today.

Additionally, in ‘Breathe a Word’, you can catch some female vocals in the chorus, which add depth to the song and its narrative, and it would certainly be interesting to hear more of them. The dual vocals reinforce the dialogue between male and female, of tempestuous, young love, a theme that characterises a large majority of the album’s content. Lyrics often speak of lost love in a dare I say it, almost Leonard Cohen-esque way. This is obviously dangerous territory for such a young band, but it’s negotiated pretty much flawlessly and with utter conviction, so much so that the songs could easily have been written by an older, world-weary gentleman and no one would bring their sincerity into question. The refrain of ‘I’ve not denied the past, I’ve held onto my goals’ in ‘Albatross’ rings true for this.

The lyrics truly are the work of genuine song-smiths, given due attention through small linguistic details and made all the better for it. Toying with double entendres and sketching out complex, extended metaphors, they are especially poetic, though always reigned in to create a memorable and highly listenable brand of ‘anti-folk’, gypsy indie rock. Songs like ‘Frogspawn’ and ‘Coffee Cups’ are case and point to this observation, and also allow bassist Ed Sibley the chance to stretch his (lead) vocal chords, which works beautifully. His sweet and unaffected delivery are the perfect accompaniment to the whimsical narratives in each track. Frogspawn slurs into the epic opening strumming of ‘Seal My Eyes’, in my opinion one of the record’s stand-out tracks. When Clarke asks, ‘What’s the worst thing I can do to you?’ in the opening line, it may well just be the most harrowing lyric on the album. Lacking any hint of inflated bravado however, the song progresses to tell a more complex tale of frustrated love and desire, a mini-epic of the ‘aching heart’.

Ultimately, The Palace of Justice’s sound is full and yet propulsive, like a heart-beat; the often finger-light drumming a military call-to-arms, yet countered by melodies full of depth and intensity. The Spanish guitar lends the songs a carnivalesque quality that sounds completely unique alongside the thought-provoking lyrics and vocal arrangements.

I honestly cannot recommend this album highly enough. It is one of the most legitimate things I’ve heard in a very long while and has made early mornings on the 29 almost bearable of late, which is no easy feat.

Photo: John Higgins

Also, it’s absolutely free to download from http://thepalaceofjustice.bandcamp.com/

Better still, catch the band at one of their upcoming gigs. See www.myspace.com/thepalaceofjustice.

Kate Trash

01/04/2011

XX

RINGO DEATHSTARR

Photo: Marta Owczarek, 2011

Ringo Deathstarr Interview, OFF Festival, Katowice, Poland, August 2011

Ringo Deathstarr is (L-R): Daniel Coborn (drums), Elliot Frazier (guitar/vox) and Alex Gehring (basss/vox)

Supporting Smashing Pumpkins on their autumn tour of this year, Texan shoegaze freakout trio, Ringo Deathstarr, is making some heady waves this side of the pond with their dreamy and authentic brand of swirly guitar noise. 2009's album, ‘Sparkler’, was an utter triumph, and previous single ‘In Love’ sounded like the most glorious mash-up of the kind of lyrics the Moldy Peaches might use (“I’m in love, I’m in love, she’s sick”) set against a grinding and yet also somehow kaleidoscopic musical overture that was like a My Bloody Valentine track that didn’t quite make it onto Isn’t Anything.

Following some very enthusiastic and encouraging arrangements made with Ringo Deathstarr’s tour manager (who sent us emails from an account under the excellent name of ‘realcooltrash’), Marta Owczarek and I were asked to wait by the stage after the band’s set to be taken to have an interview with the group. However, nothing went to plan and the manager insisted on frogmarching us into the press area, despite the fact that we had already mentioned to him that we didn’t have press passes. He assured us that he’d sort everything so we tried to wander in past the security guards. Marta succeeded somehow. I was promptly collared (literally) and told to fuck offski. After about three or four attempts by the manager to persuade the security guards to let me in, it was starting to get embarrassing so I went and sat down on the grass outside and chain-smoked Camel cigarettes until it promptly decided to rain. As I was crawling into the kagool that my mother had suggested I bring, Marta rang me and said that the tour manager was trying to get everything sorted but for some time this sadly all came to no avail. Eventually however, I was motioned to by a stern looking lady with a clipboard to come inside, and then was ushered pass realcooltrash who was lounging in a deckchair and into the press tent where Marta was sat. Finally we were led out of the tent and into a spotless white trailer where the members of Ringo Deathstarr were waiting.

They were sat behind a large coffee table and had a giant OFF Festival banner as a backdrop pinned up behind them. There was a photographer taking pictures of the band and us throughout which was very weird and a little off-putting. The rest of the trailer-slash-padded cell was utterly pristine and, therefore, almost clinical. It felt like any second we’d all be subject to some kind of medical examination, but instead what followed was a very decent conversation. Ringo Deathstarr’s Elliot, Alex and Daniel were chilled out and friendly and more than willing to talk to two ‘freelance’ journalists who happened to be completely covered in spray-on glitter. What with Marta’s great accent and the wonderful Texan affectations of Ringo Deathstarr, I don’t think I’ve ever sounded as English as I did for those ten minutes.

During our allocated time we talked about thrift shop t-shirts, heatwaves in Austin, Texas, being on tour and that most obvious of questions, ‘What’s with the name?’ I particularly like the part where guitarist/vocalist Elliot starts hating on band names. And at the end when we had to confess that we weren’t actually meant to be there. That was funny.

What follows is a transcribed copy of the interview. Apologies if some bits seem a little pointless but I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible so some parts tend to trail off…

MO: Is it okay to record?

EF: Yeah.

AG: Yeah!

MO: Cool. Do you get to sit in rooms like this a lot? I mean, this is pretty depressing.

EF: They keep me a room like this at home…[laughter]

MO: Is it really like that in Austin in January?

[Note: referring to the heat, which, whilst on-stage, the band said was what they were used to in Texas]

AG: Maybe not in January but for most of the year it’s like that.

EF: Well, not in Austin, but where I grew up in south-east Texas, it feels like this most of the day, and then two days out of the year, it would freeze. It would rain and then in would be like ice. No snow. There’d be ice everywhere. And then it would get hot again.

KR: We like your little intro, the song you picked. Is that some kind of tribute to your Texas musical heritage?

[Note: RD used a really twee country song as their entrance music]

EF: Well, we were driving on tour last month, and I didn’t even know where we were, maybe Montana or something. And we just had the radio on and we heard that song. And we were just like, ‘What the fuck is this song?!’ and we just mentioned it to our sound engineer and he was like-‘cause he does sound for a country guy when he’s not doing sound for us-and he was like, ‘I have that song… [laughter]…if you wanna use it…’

AG: It’s so ridiculous, the lyrics…

EF: But it’s true though, I mean, I think, those three things he says, a lot of people can relate to that…it’s just a very simple-minded way of thinking about the world.

DC: Very true.

MO: People must ask you this a lot, but what’s with the name?

DC: We just wanna make as many people mad as possible.

MO: Mad?! How could they be mad?

AG: Well, people in America hate it.

DC: [nodding in agreement] They hate it.

MO: Really?

DC: It’s weird but English people like it more

KR: Is it maybe, Star Wars fans that hate it? Or Beatles fans?

EF/DC: No, no…

EF: It’s just those people that think a band name matters. I mean, I can’t think of one band name that..

DC: Isn’t stupid

EF: That isn’t good or bad. What makes a good band name?

AG: I guess because it’s kind of goofy, people think we’re a stupid band or something.

EF: I mean even with The Beatles, they spelled it ‘beat’ with l-e-s because it’s a play on the bug? That’s fucking stupid if you ask me. [laughter]

AG: Now you’re going to piss all the people off! No, we love The Beatles and Star Wars, but it’s just an easy name to remember I guess.

EF: Yeah, earlier on when we were just idiots in our bedrooms we would Google Ringo Deathstarr and you could find us. I think it helped us having a band name like that ‘cause it’s easy. It’s easy to remember, easy to find. And you got some of these bands that are popular today, like, I don’t know if you guys have heard of a Japanese band called Guitar Wolf? If you Google ‘Guitar Wolf’, you find ‘Guitar World’. Guitar World Magazine.

MO: My favourite band to Google is Girls.

EF: Yeah, exactly!

MO: That’s a treat.

AG: Guitar. That’s a tough one.

EF: I don’t know…The Drums. Why don’t we just name the band, ‘Water’?

AG: [laughing] There probably is a band!

DC: Google. That would be a good name.

AG: Google?!

EF: Yeah, it’s like, ‘Get over the band name already’. The band name is the last thing we think about. The band name is like a chore to think of.

MO: How is it that you’re on a British label but you’re still looking for a US booking agent?

EF: Booking agents and labels don’t really have anything to do with each other.

MO: No, I mean, are you not very-I don’t know-do you not play the US a lot? Do you prefer UK?

AG: Well, we do better in the UK.

EF: Yeah.

MO: Really?

AG: Definitely. In the US, errr…maybe it’s because of our name.

EF: The US tour we just did was really good actually. And we booked it ourselves and, I mean, it’s fine, booking it ourselves, but a lot of promoters over there, they just kind of give you the shaft unless you have someone else with more clout. You can’t go on tour getting paid $150 every night. You just can’t, you know? Especially when you’ve got pets and wives and girlfriends and rent and bills. These booking agents are able to get you more money. We’re not out to be billionaires, but you’ve gotta exist and you’ve gotta have basic things. And booking ourselves, well just now we’re able to get by but before that it was just horrible. You’d show up and be lucky if you got fifty dollars to play after you drove, like, eight hours, which is how it is in the States because everything’s so far away from each other.

MO: Or I was thinking maybe it’s an extension of, I don’t know, you clear up after the gig yourselves, and set up everything yourselves…

EF: Oh yeah.

MO: And some bands will say, ‘We’ll just book ourselves, we don’t need a booking agent’, or whatever. It’s just an extension of doing things yourself.

EF: Our booking agent over here is really awesome and he works with us. He doesn’t just tell us what to do, we have conversations and say ‘We want to do this’, ‘No, we don’t want to do that’. So it’s like just having another guy on your team.

MO: Are you on a huge tour right now or something? How come you’re in Poland?

EF: Because we wanted to be.

MO: Yeah? Well, how do you like the festival?

AG: It’s awesome.

EF: It’s great.

AG: We just got here.

MO: Really? Oh, wow.

EF: Yeah. We want to play as many places as possible.

MO: Will you get to see any bands or will you just be…?

EF: Yeah, today we will.

MO: You had a very good audience for 3pm

DC: Yeah!

EF: Yeah, it was great. Well, that tent next to us just let out and I saw all these people coming out, and it was probably hot as hell in that tent. People just wanted to get out of there.

MO: So no impressions of Poland yet because you just got here.

DC: It was pretty driving in. Kind of like France. To me, from a car.

EF: I’ve watched travel shows about Poland and stuff.

MO: In preparation for this?

EF: No, just at home. Because I don’t have cable so the free channels I get are public television shows. There’s a show called ‘Rick Steve’s Europe’ and each episode is a different country. It’s pretty educational. Especially the Eastern-European shows. Those are the most interesting. It feels like people from Eastern Europe are kind of holding onto their culture, their historical cultures, a bit more than Western.

MO: Do you get a day off or something?

EF: We had one yesterday in Prague.

AG: And we get one in Berlin.

EF: Yeah, tomorrow.

KR: Are you playing London any time soon?

EF: We played there a week ago.

KR: Oh! Where did you play?

EF: Hoxton

KR: Oh, nice. What did you make of it? There’s a bit of an East London stereotype...

EF: No, it seemed like Williamsburg, Brooklyn. That’s what we thought. We’d never been there before and we thought, ‘Man, there’s a lot of really attractive people here.’

KR: ‘Hipsters’ they call them.

AG: Yeah, there were definitely some hipsters. But it was a really fun show, it was one of our best London shows.

EF: Yeah, I think every time we come back it just keeps getting better, which is all you can really hope for. And it’s really awesome when you go to a place for the first time and there’s people there to see you.

DC: Pretty weird feeling.

EF: Yeah, my mom told me when I was a kid that this would never happen [laughter]

[Clipboard lady frantically makes ‘cut’ gestures at us from the doorway]

MO: They’re telling us to stop, but can I take a photo?

EF: Yeah!

AG: Yeah, of course.

MO: Also, are you really anti-drugs [pointing at Elliot’s t-shirt which says ‘DRUGS SUCK’ on it] or is it just to piss people off?

EF: It’s about Tylenol.

[laughter]

MO: If you’re trying to piss people off with your aesthetic, then that’s just another thing to add to it.

DC: Do whatever you want, we don’t care.

EF: It’s just a kind of thing that you can tell your mom.

AG: It’s a New Kids on the Block shirt.

MO: Really? No way! Wow.

KR: Where did you find that?

MO: It’s hilarious.

EF: I just found it in a thrift store or vintage store in Austin. It was just sat there one day

MO: It’s pretty sick.

AG: He’s worn it, like, every show and its beginning to become sweaty.

EF: The salty stains. Whoever had it before had to sew it back together right here.

KR: It’s well-worn. That’s the sign of a good thrift shop t-shirt.

EF: I’ve seen some New Kids shirts cost like $100. This was, like, $20.

KR: [motioning to Keith Richards t-shirt] Two pounds, this one!

AG: Nice!

KR: I found it in North London in a charity shop.

AG: Really?

KR: Yeah, it was a good find.

DC: It’s awesome.

EF: In London, is there a chain of charity shops which is the best one to go to usually?

KR: I guess it depends, doesn’t it?

MO: Yeah, it’s not usually the particular charity, it’s more that in certain areas things will be all picked out, so being anywhere central is probably not gonna work that well.

[Clipboard lady gets more aggressive with her ‘cut’ gestures.]

MO: Well anyway, we would have loved to have chatted with you over a beer or something, but

AG: Yeah! We’ll be around.

DC: We’ll be here all day.

MO: Cool.

AG: What was the name of the blog? It was a blog, right?

MO: It’s a couple of things. We’re doing it for a bunch of stuff, but we’ll let you know.

AG: Yeah, please do.

EF: Well, are you guys gonna be hanging around back here for the next…

MO: Well, we’re not because we’re not really meant to be here. Your tour manager just let us in and we’re not supposed to be here. But we’ll be out in the festival.

AG: Well, we’ll see you.

EF: We’ll keep an eye out. Are you guys going to watch Sebadoh later?

MO: Yeah!

AG: Well, we’ll see you there!

MO: Cool, see you later.

What’s annoying is that we didn’t get to see Sebadoh in the end. After watching Public Image Ltd, the muddy conditions forced us to retreat to a tent for hot chocolate, at which point it was getting pretty late so we headed back to the hotel. But we did see Alex at one point wandering around the festival and she waved and said hello, which was nice.

Incidentally, here is a Youtube video of an alternative interview by CLASH magazine that directly followed our guerrilla efforts and press pit sabotage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqPkih0kKoU

It’s a funny story but we had actually met this guy, Mark, from CLASH in the vegan food tent the night before. He was eating a savoury pancake with some lentil goo in it. I don’t recall the circumstances in which we got talking but he seemed nice enough, though he did brag quite a bit about how he had an exclusive conversation with Primal Scream scheduled later that night. We had mentioned that we were hoping to conduct a few interviews ourselves and he had wished us well. I must say that seeing him enter the white trailer with a camera crew whilst we were saw there, bold as brass, recording the conversation on an iPhone with only bog-standard festival wristbands on was a real triumph. Plus his interview is only five minutes long and ours was, like, ten. Ha! I gave him a cheery wave on the way out of the trailer and he looked a little confused. At any rate, whoever’s idea it was to have the lame jazz-hand ‘We’re Ringo Deathstarr!’ introduction on his interview should be sacked.

FROM THE TRASH ARCHIVES...

Frances Taffinder modelling exclusively for Trash of Camden

Impromptu Turnpike Trash shoot

Ben Mills. Trashed.

Van Howling merchandise

 

Massive thanks to anyone who has ever been forceably/gently encouraged to wear Trash for photographs. You're all absolutely tops.