Trash Tracks 16/08/2011

After a bit of an unintentional two-week hiatus following my travels to Poland for the mightly OFF Festival here are Trash's top tracks for early August:

1. Ringo Deathstarr - In Love 
Find it on: Sparkler, 2011, as a separate single release or via Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV6KLElvacU

I was lucky enough to hear Ringo Deathstarr's daytime set at Katowice's OFF Festival last week and this group was easily one of the best things I heard over the several days I was there. If you check out the band's profile on the SVC Records website(http://www.svcrecords.co.uk/artist_ringo_deathstarr.html), it says that Ringo Deathstarr like to play short sets but, luckily, this was not the case as we were treated to about 45 minutes or so of their euphoric shoegaze freakout. The other things the site says however, are completely true: Ringo Deathstarr ARE from Austin, Texas (as was demonstrated by the hilarious intro country song that preceded the set as some kind of joke homage to Austin's musical heritage); the band DOES play very loud and they certainly DO 'fucking rock'. 'In Love' is a single release from latest album, Sparkler, which came out late last month and is an almost perfect marriage of the sort of lyrics you might find in a Moldy Peaches song, set against woozy, My Bloody Valentine-esque shoegaze, driven by guitar riffs more reminiscent of early Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo: "I'm in love, I'm in love, she's siiiiccck." What's not to like? It might not be tapping into any remarkably new territory but it injects the joie de vivre of Beach House with greater vitality and power to create a hell of a lot of fireworks.

2. S.C.U.M. -Amber Hands
Find it on: Amber Hands EP, http://www.myspace.com/scum1968, or via Youtube (ill-advised due to the god-awful music video which looks like a BBC ident. If you dare, be warned: I advise closed eyes for Amber Hands: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOWANx94pbU )

S.C.U.M. is easily one of the most exciting live bands I've come across in recent years, the band's gigs bringing together ambient drone with synthesised, industrial electronica and an awful lot of hand-waving and interpretative dance from lead singer, Thomas Cohen, who performs in billowing fabrics and over-sized hats with a startling elegance to match his moody drawl. I once saw him skulking around the mists of Bristol dockside outside the Thekla at a Horrors gig looking like a Dickensian street urchin but that's another story... The truth is that after several years of very little output, bar a few interesting 'Signals' produced from various European cities on the band's travels (of which 'Berlin' and 'Paris' are still free to download-see the band's Myspace), 'Amber Hands' has been worth the wait since the last single 'Visions Arise' of 2009. The single is a lot loftier,euphoric and indeed more 'pop' than the band's early, grittier industrial noise which was almost like ambient-death metal with creepy manipulated vocals and heavy guitars poking through drone and fractured sound. 'Amber Hands' sounds more like Placebo (which is not a bad thing), only darker and more gothic.

S.C.U.M play Radfest in Peckham this sunday (21st August). Details here:
http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2011/08/stream-radfest-comp-featuring-s-c-u-m-the-wedding-present/

http://www.last.fm/festival/1990924+Radfest

3. Belle Phoenix - Old Crow Misery
Find it on 9 Lives (2011) or http://www.bellephoenix.com/
http://www.myspace.com/bellephoenixmusic

Sadly no longer playing in London (though hopefully just for the time being), Trash implores you to still check out Belle Phoenix, a unique and wonderfully theatrical singer-songwriter who fronts a band of the same name, producing cool, Cramps-like garage rock with more than a hint of rockabilly. Belle's vocals invoke the likes of Lydia Lunch and Patti Smith and 'Old Crow Misery' is a fantastic, swinging example of her work.

4. The Hyenas - Filthy Electricity
http://www.reverbnation.com/thehyenas

Self-defined 'Bluesy-arsed, punky-trashed, gutter-fucked rock', The Hyenas practice what they preach, their name a great indication of the snarling vocals, biting guitar and frenetic drumming that are key to the Hyenas' trademark sound. 'Filthy Electricity' is their latest single (B-Side: 'You Should Not Operate Machinery'), a sleazy and sordid ditty of frustration and lovelust that's as raw and primal as you'd expect from such a legitimate garage band. A highly recommended live act.

5. The Palace of Justice - Hourglass
Find it: B-Side of latest single 'Meredith'.
Download for free at http://thepalaceofjustice.bandcamp.com/

For months now loyal followers of the Palace of Justice have been waiting for a recording of Hourglass to be made and now our whims have finally been indulged! 'Meredith' featured on the last Trash Tracks but I had to mention this B-Side for its own merits and not just as counterpart to 'Meredith' since it serves to demonstrate the fact that even the B-Sides of singles by the Palace of Justice are absolute quality. Like many of PoJ's songs 'Hourglass' deals with raw and cruel love and its battles with absolute finesse and sincerity. 
The Palace of Justice play a number of gigs this month, first at Dusk Till Dawn, 1 Archway Close for the launch of clubnight 'Return to Archway' on Friday 19th August. Then PoJ play what might be considered to be the band's spritual home, The Hideaway, 114 Junction Rd, on Thursday 25th August. 

“The public image belongs to him”: Public Image Ltd. live at OFF Festival, Katowice (7/08/11)

Set list:

This is Not a Love Song

Public Image

Home

Albatross

Flowers of Romance

Warrior

Religion II

Encore:

Death Disco

Rise

Open Up (Leftfield track)

Back in 2007, a friend and I managed to get tickets to see the Sex Pistols on one of the small number of gigs arranged to celebrate the thirty-year anniversary of Never Mind the Bollocks. We were both so fucking stoked that I think we ignored the fact that, deep down, we knew it was not going to be the same as it would (or might) have been thirty years ago. Older and fatter but still belligerent as hell, Lydon did not seem at all comfortable with his role as Johnny Re-Rotten as he paced the stage of Brixton Academy. ‘Rotten’ was of course the nickname he had famously denounced pretty much as soon as he’d left the stage of San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom on 14^th January 1978 on the final date of the Pistols’ tumultuous US tour, having uttered those immortal words, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” following a disastrous rendition of the Stooges’ ‘No Fun’ .

Come 2007, he was wearing this odd neon-tinted white smock over blue tracksuit bottoms and often resorted to embarrassing stereotypical punk gimmicks and Sid-type face-pulling. Backed by Matlock, Jones and Cook, the pub rock chug that was always at the heart of the Pistols was all-too evident. Alongside the Pistols classics, Lydon insisted on having us sing Oh I Do Love to Be Beside the Seaside, spitting, “This is your fucking heritage, England!” as he glared out a crowd of granddad punks in pristine leather jackets. I got the sense that he really didn’t want to be there. Ultimately, it was a less than convincing performance and one that, what with the Country Life butter fiasco, left me wondering why on earth I’d ever idolised the man.

I see now that, much like in ’78, Lydon was again trapped by the Sex Pistols’ notoriety and its cultural significance. Music writers of and on the Sex Pistols and punk have often stated that if Lydon had had his way with the musical direction of the band, the majority of it would have been practically unlistenable. No doubt this would have been a more adequate reflection of Lydon’s diverse musical tastes which ranged, at one point or another, from Hawkwind to Captain Beefheart, stacks of reggae vinyl and an awful lot of obscure Krautrock. However, although PiL is completely different to the Pistols, both musically and conceptually, it certainly is not unlistenable to anyone with any receptivity to contemporary post-punk and the fusion of punk, dub and funk that would transpire in music by bands like PiL, Gang of Four and the Pop Group. (Note: interestingly, PiL’s current drummer, Bruce Smith, is the former drummer of the Pop Group.) The truth is that PiL have never ever been recognised for what they are which is a totally separate thing from anything Rotten or Vicious, and a project responsible for music that was far more intricate than anything the Pistols did. PiL has never been given its due credit, and, in my opinion, nor has Lydon for raising himself from the ashes of Winterland and creating a body of work that is often difficult and sometimes not entirely convincing, but always remains compelling. The John Lydon I saw perform at OFF Festival was just stunning. These days, PiL includes only one of its original members…and that’s Lydon himself. However, ignoring the absence of founding stalwarts Keith Levene and Jah Wobble, PiL was primarily Lydon’s project and at OFF, he really owned it, and I mean, really took possession of his legacy. To quote Lydon in Public Image, “The public image belongs to me”. A phenomenal presence throughout, he was dressed in a smart black mackintosh and had his words sat on a music stand in front of him, squawking the lyrics like a deranged imam. The vocal delivery most resembled Flowers of Romance-era PiL and I was rapt.

The set was varied, opening with crowd-pleaser This is Not A Love Song and the aforementioned Public Image, the latter of which was an absolute joy to finally hear live since it is easily one of my favourite songs. Current PiL guitarist Lu Edmonds almost replicates the searing, slicing guitar of early Levene-era PiL and the bass-lines received extra prominence through execution on not only bass guitar but also some kind of electric double bass. The pace shifted from up-tempo numbers like Warrior to the slow, elegiac funk drag of Metal Box’s eleven-minute opener Albatross, an unexpected choice for a festival set but one to which I very much enjoyed sliding along in the mud.

I wish I could say that I gave all the current members of PiL their due attention but the truth is that I was suitably mesmerised by how different Lydon was to the one I had seen almost four years ago. Bar a few “Would you like to hear some more?” enquiries from Lydon, he was every inch the enigmatic frontman. Retreating only every now and then to swig beer from a bottle by the drum kit, there wasn’t a gratuitous snarl in sight. This was serious and sustained artistic rock (or even ‘post-rock’ if you prefer). In actuality, Lydon’s vocals are technically a lot better these days, though, of course, that was never really the issue with the Pistols. It’s interesting to note all the same though and confirms Lydon’s importance in musical history beyond his Sex Pistols persona. The painfully personal ‘Death Disco’, written by Lydon in response to the death of his mother, was especially powerful in its extended live version. Lydon howled the lament of “See it in your eyes” as sincerely as ever, but with the added dimension of three extra decades that lent this rendition an even more beautiful, brittle quality than the recorded version

However, the gig was obviously not flawless. The spitting rain and the ensuing mud hole that formed behind the barricades was a small price to pay for the performance and was easily bearable. The annoying cretin in the front row holding the Sid Vicious t-shirt up to the stage however was not. I wanted to punch him. My friend convinced me it was a bad idea which was probably sensible. Also, there were a few songs from a much later version of PiL (‘Warrior’ and Leftfield song ‘Open Up’) and not enough from either First Edition or Metal Box. I’d have loved to have heard ‘Poptones’ or, dare I say it ‘Fodderstompf’. However, that’s just a personal preference and I still found them all enjoyable. Overall, PiL was utterly convincing, though perhaps the current PiL should be labelled ‘John Lydon’s PiL’ since it’s him who carries the whole performance and lends it such self-assurance and credibility.