I was in a pilot once, but not in the Frankie Howerd sense...
Monday, February 22, 2010
RIP Gena Dry
It's not often I hear about a death of someone in the music business from my mother, but yesterday she informed me of the unfortunate death of Gena Dry. The news story and a brief bio are here but Gena was originally in the band Colour Noise. Her brother Tim Dry, a well known personality on the 1980's new-romantic scene, was in the music/mime/dance/pop group Shock before becoming half of Tik & Tok and appearing in some Star Wars films!
Anyways, Mum and her sister had become aware of the death as their maiden name was Dry, quite an uncommon last name in the UK... Mum had cousins in Redhill, where apparently Gena and Tim grew up... So possibly they are distant cousins...
Anyways, Mum and her sister had become aware of the death as their maiden name was Dry, quite an uncommon last name in the UK... Mum had cousins in Redhill, where apparently Gena and Tim grew up... So possibly they are distant cousins...
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Robert James 'Voz Roja'
On 'Voz Roja', James' folky blues is somewhere between the blues of the OC's Parker Macy and the folkier side of David Shane Smith (who is on engineering and production duties on these recordings...)
The 5 solo acoustic songs are underpinned by some ambient background noise like birds in a forest, a typewriter and people drinking in a bar, and these give the songs a certain pathos when combined with James' pained delivery... The centerpiece of the EP is the excellent 'Ain't No One', with some effective backing vocals and panning which pushes the song into Bon Iver territory.
'Voz Roja' (red voice) is certainly an applicable title for this EP as James' firey delivery is never short of passionate. I've seen people play the blues because they want to, but Robert James plays them because he has to...
The 5 solo acoustic songs are underpinned by some ambient background noise like birds in a forest, a typewriter and people drinking in a bar, and these give the songs a certain pathos when combined with James' pained delivery... The centerpiece of the EP is the excellent 'Ain't No One', with some effective backing vocals and panning which pushes the song into Bon Iver territory.
'Voz Roja' (red voice) is certainly an applicable title for this EP as James' firey delivery is never short of passionate. I've seen people play the blues because they want to, but Robert James plays them because he has to...
Friday, February 19, 2010
DSS, Wartime Blues and LA Font at Mr. T's Bowl
DSS started off the evening in fine style with a varied set, welcoming a newly repaired acoustic (a cracked head repaired - insert your own punchline here...) and a freshly fixed volume knob, which was apparently repaired by having a blond sit on it (insert your own joke here...) The acoustic in particular sounded quite wonderful and was put to great use on the poignant 'The Beach', 'Liquor Store' and set closer 'Civilians'... Of the electronic songs, it was good to hear a return of the Christian Bale sampling 'Additives' and the staccato clicks, glitches and rapping of the August collaboration 'Friends & Family'...
The 8 piece Wartime Blues were on tour from Montana. They had a big tour bus which probably dated from the 70's, so hopefully they make it home in one piece (or eight piece...) The music was alt-country, and although not the sort of thing I would listen to on a regular basis, it was catchy enough - some nice cello touches giving some of the songs an Arcade Fire feel... On the whole, the vocals lacked a little variation and they could learn some storytelling techniques from a band like Richmond Fontaine, who have less people in the band and probably a smaller bus...
I went from hating LA Font to liking them within the space of a couple of songs. Their MySpace page describes them as antagonistic cowpunk, but this is only part of the story. Their best moments push into Pavement and even Television territory, coupled with an anglophilic punky delivery akin to bands like Los Campesinos... Well worth seeing again...
DSS
The 8 piece Wartime Blues were on tour from Montana. They had a big tour bus which probably dated from the 70's, so hopefully they make it home in one piece (or eight piece...) The music was alt-country, and although not the sort of thing I would listen to on a regular basis, it was catchy enough - some nice cello touches giving some of the songs an Arcade Fire feel... On the whole, the vocals lacked a little variation and they could learn some storytelling techniques from a band like Richmond Fontaine, who have less people in the band and probably a smaller bus...
I went from hating LA Font to liking them within the space of a couple of songs. Their MySpace page describes them as antagonistic cowpunk, but this is only part of the story. Their best moments push into Pavement and even Television territory, coupled with an anglophilic punky delivery akin to bands like Los Campesinos... Well worth seeing again...
DSS
Monday, February 15, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Editors at The Wiltern
I read that Princeton are from Eagle Rock, so I'm guessing they go (or went) to Occidental College - they're far too clean cut to be part of the hipster community south of Colorado (or SoCo as I like to call it...) They are clearly a distant cousin of Vampire Weekend but without the Paul Simon fixation, which is obviously a good thing. However, naming your band after a university encourages people like me to typecast them as students - not an easy image to shake off when the time comes... They were good though...
Or at least a lot better than the self-indulgent pile of festering crap that is The Antlers... I have to thank them though - I was under some misguided notion that everything coming out of Brooklyn was hip and interesting. The Antlers are neither... Proggy keys, some MBV-lite guitar, a drummer who looks (and plays) like he wants to be in Staind and a vocalist who wishes he was Billy Mackenzie. Every song is 8 minutes long, the final 4 of which is an extended playout of cymbal crashes and guitar fx... Bad...
Some of Editors new electronic material veers dangerously into Depeche Mode territory - Tom Smith's rich baritone a dead ringer for Dave Gahan. The Mode do that kind of thing better, although the Editors bass player probably surpasses Andy Fletcher in cheesy stage moves... The songs from the first LP still sound the best and this doesn't auger too well for the future, but for now Editors are still a great live proposition!
Editors
Or at least a lot better than the self-indulgent pile of festering crap that is The Antlers... I have to thank them though - I was under some misguided notion that everything coming out of Brooklyn was hip and interesting. The Antlers are neither... Proggy keys, some MBV-lite guitar, a drummer who looks (and plays) like he wants to be in Staind and a vocalist who wishes he was Billy Mackenzie. Every song is 8 minutes long, the final 4 of which is an extended playout of cymbal crashes and guitar fx... Bad...
Some of Editors new electronic material veers dangerously into Depeche Mode territory - Tom Smith's rich baritone a dead ringer for Dave Gahan. The Mode do that kind of thing better, although the Editors bass player probably surpasses Andy Fletcher in cheesy stage moves... The songs from the first LP still sound the best and this doesn't auger too well for the future, but for now Editors are still a great live proposition!
Editors
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