Gang Starr: One Of The Best Yet

[we love g.s: here's the proof]



"Poetry comes from within / and will always win" - Gang Starr, "Beyond Comprehension"

"I'm ready to lose my mind / But instead I use my mind / Put down the knife / And take the bullets out my 9" - Gang Starr, "Moment Of Truth"

Earlier this year saw the death of Guru, from cancer, aged 43: all the more saddening given that we'd been spending a fair bit of time with our Gang Starr records even in the few months before that. And that we'd slept on the opportunity of seeing the man play in London, an opportunity that of course has now slipped away forever.

When Keith Elam (aka Keithy E the Guru and then, much more sensibly, just the Guru) hooked up with one Christopher Martin (no, not that one, but the artist also known as DJ Premier) it really took the hitherto unknown Gang Starr up the league table. Strange, in so many ways, that we like GS so much: after all, many describe or dismiss them as "jazz rap", and we are not renowned as jazzateers. But, in the same way (a few of you might want to close your ears here) that the most vital hip-hop took templates created by Parliament and James Brown and frankly improved on them, Premier's careful picking of jazz instrumentals, a genre beloved by both men, was the platform for original and high quality new music. As for Guru, while sadly better known for the unhinged lyric to "DWYCK" rather than the acres of fine rhymes that he did come up with, his style was measured, laid back (surely Rakim-influenced) but normally authoritative, his only overplayed thematic trait a seeming obsession with his height (5'8 or '9, depending on the tune), a penchant which Royce Da 5'9" of course continues to this day.

The first album featuring Premier, "No More Mr Nice Guy", is a little dated, we'll admit, and it's p'raps surprising that "Jazz Thing", for example, was a very minor UK hit at the time (er, 66 with a bullet). Mind you, it's an elpee worth copping for "Words I Manifest", "Knowledge" and especially the single "Positivity". (Early B-side "Here's The Proof", a bonus track on the CD, also well merits yr aural attention, being the most obvious bridge between their first and second LPs). But it was that second album, "Step In The Arena", which saw Gang Starr take off almost vertically, suddenly delivering track after track of single quality including, but hardly limited to, the actual singles. "Just To Get A Rep" is a lyrical idea that's been stolen a thousand times, but Guru plays it just right as he recounts with ultra-realism (and, refreshingly, a touch of analysis, rather than the old "jus' holding a mirror up to society" get-out) the sheer pointlessness of gang violence in the projects: and "Who's Gonna Take The Weight ?", also on the "Rep" 12", was astonishing, musically a PE-style killer with their signature brass / kettle mash-up thing going full pelt. It starts with a sample saying "KNOWLEDGE IS POWER" and finishes with a "kettle" solo to fade: matchless. The cutesy "Lovesick" was sadly not an Orange Juice cover, but *was* a relatively unclumsy crossover tune, with Guru even coming over as straightforward and sensitive, in bleak contrast to the depressing, testosterone sexism that counts for "romantic" hip-hop in the current capitalist rap free-for-all. In reaching a paltry no. 50 over here, it was to be their biggest UK "hit".

While "Step" proved perhaps to be the peak, the albums that followed in the 1990s, "Daily Operation", "Hard to Earn" and "Moment of Truth" are all pretty solid, flecked with prime cuts. Even many of the guest spots stand up to scrutiny today, such as the Wu's Inspectah Deck on "Above The Clouds", M.O.P assisting with "B.I. vs Friendship" and, especially, Scarface's turn on the maudlin but menacing "Betrayal". Great tracks like "Daily Operation"'s "Now You're Mine" - taken from the soundtrack of "White Men Can't Jump" - and the legendary "Soliloquoy of Chaos" found themselves somehow relegated to B-sides, but you couldn't gainsay their class, nor that of pointed political commentaries like "Hardcore Composer" and "Conspiracy". "Daily Operation" (its title taken from a line in "Just To Get A Rep") also gave us the excellent "2 Deep" single, which included Guru shedding more light on the memorable opening lyric ("I was raised like a Muslim") of "Take The Weight".

For its part "Hard To Earn" spawned "Mass Appeal", another of our favourite 45s: a fruitful 1994 saw the duo roll out that, "2 Deep" and the "Code To The Street" EP as singles. And even the maligned "Moment Of Truth" long player boasted not just an uplifting, thoughtful, title track but also "You Know My Steez", a song to come back to time after time, another 12" we can hardly bear to leave out of our sight, when Guru stormed out of the blocks and dropped effortless flow over Premo's luxuriously underplayed, rolling beats. (Guru also references PE's "Welcome To The Terrodome" early on, making this a great track to follow "Terrordome" on a mixtape). Our copy of the 12" was nearly physically wrestled from us once by a burly geezah who was convincingly deadpan in only letting us keep it because "it shows you got taste". And only the other day we managed to get hold of the Lady of Rage-featuring remix, tucked away on the B-side of another top single from the LP, "The Militia" (you know, "one of us / equals any of us / disrespect any of us / and you'll see plenty of us"... ooh, and the "Part 2" remix of that, which featured Rakim, no less, alongside our fellow Westside Connection member WC, was even better than the orig).

The double-album "Full Clip: A Decade Of Gang Starr" compilation in 1999 joined most of the hits with a few new tracks, such as the club-friendlier but still born-from-golden-era "Discipline", which was released as a single at the same time and in which Guru, this time abetted by sleek R&Bsters Total, continued to rhyme about the importance of keeping your head while all about you are wilding. It was only really with 2003's final suite, "The Ownerz", that Gang Starr dented their own reputation a little, for while it was easy to put Eminem and co in the shade - as they most assuredly did - we were judging them by their own rather higher standards, and aside from the title track it was a comeback they didn't quite nail despite appearances from Jadakiss, Fat Joe and Snoop Dogg, and the ever-durable "The Militia" franchise getting a Part 3.

In a way, the fact that "The Ownerz" was merely a very good hip-hop album was a sign that Gang Starr's moment had passed, and the OK but not-all-that "Skills" 12", the first single off it, would be the last of theirs that we rushed out to buy within nanoseconds of release. After "The Ownerz", Premo and Guru began to get all that post-break up stuff out of their systems, Morrissey / Marr style, with DJ P. cementing a reputation as producer of choice, Guru launching his "Jazzmatazz" sets and shows that fully indulged his love of those records he'd grown up with at home. And we'd found, thanks to our fanzine, that we were dipping our toes back into indie-pop more often, and after a while we stopped paying the pair the attention we'd once lavished on them.

But, just like the Smiths, a truly worthwhile legacy had already been created, one which we will always cherish. So believe this. There won't be any time soon when Guru's flow isn't bursting out of our speakers.

Peace.

* * * * *

postscript #1: in love with these times, in spite of these times recommended Gang Starr listening (with impressive restraint, we've narrowed this down to a mere thirty-three tracks from their 100+, although tunes from the first and last albums are included really so you can listen to their musical progression, while the second to fourth albums in particular probably deserve wall-to-wall attention):

from No More Mr Nice Guy: Words I Manifest, Positivity (remix), DJ Premier In Deep Concentration (old-school DJ cut a la Eric B's solo turns on early EB&R albums: also on the B side of the "Manifest" 12"), Knowledge, Here's The Proof (bonus track on the CD, and again on that "Manifest" 12");

from Step In The Arena: Step In The Arena, Execution Of A Chump, Who's Gonna Take The Weight ?, Check The Technique (there's a remix of this on the 12" version of the title track), Beyond Comprehension, Just To Get A Rep, As I Read My S-A, Precisely The Right Rhymes. We're well aware that's half of the whole record;

from Daily Operation: Soliloquoy of Chaos, Take It Personal, 2 Deep, Conspiracy, Hardcore Composer;

from Hard To Earn: Code Of The Streets, Tonz O'Gunz, Mass Appeal, Now You're Mine, Blowin' Up The Spot;

from Moment Of Truth: You Know My Steez, Moment Of Truth, Betrayal;

from Full Clip: Full Clip, Discipline, Gotta Get Over (Taking Loot) (an excellent single, also on the soundtrack to "Trespass", fondly remembered by us for the mere fact of 2 of our all time heroes and "wish they were uncles" Ice-T and Ice Cube teaming up on celluloid and, in retrospect, probably only for that);

from The Ownerz: "Sabotage", "Rite Where U Stand", "PLAYTAWIN", "The Ownerz".

postscript #2: in love with these times, in spite of these times [essential] essential Gang Starr listening (i.e. as an alternative, if you've only got seven minutes to live):

"Who's Gonna Take The Weight ?", "You Know My Steez".

555, you helped us get more alive

If you were a City lawyer with underground indiepop leanings in the late 1990s and early 2000s (in our experience not a terrifically oversubscribed club) then Tower Records on Piccadilly Circus was your new best friend (replacing all your conventional human friends, who still had lives but who you never saw any more). Not only did the store open until midnight - meaning that you could wander in there even if you didn't get out of the office until 10 or 11 in the evening, which was hardly uncommon then (as those of you who often saw us wander into gigs in full whistle and flute, usually just as the last chord rang out, will testify), or allowing you to salvage a corporate night out in the West End (usually full of unbearable private school braying and showboating in extremely terrible bars) by ducking out at closing time and sneaking down Regent Street to said record mecca - but it also had a comprehensive and up-to-date selection of v. obscure indieness. In particular, Tower Records seemed to have everything released on 555 Recordings. Many an otherwise unsatisfactory evening for this downcast, downtrodden twentysomething was therefore leavened mightily by being able to pounce on a new 7" or CD on the way home, and play them within the hour. Remember, this was in the days before you could just pay for and download music at will: indeed, purchasing records outside of office hours still felt both a privilege and a novelty. (The privilege now denied us, of course, is buying great records on small indie labels from actual shops, let alone chainstore megastores like Tower).

This mattered even more because 555 Recordings (first of Leeds, then Philadelphia, and late of Arizona) is one of the best labels of the last twenty years: as they themselves have it, they've been "banging our heads against the wall with conviction and style since 1995". You would have struggled to find enough love for them in the inkies, but 555 had a terrific roster and doled out a generous acreage of compilations, one-offs and genuinely classic singles / albums that spanned indiepop, experimental, electronica and ambient (often all at once). The factor that united all of these things was the talentspotting nous of all-round hero of ours Stewart Anderson, a man who always had an uncanny gift of being friends with most of the people in the world who were making great music at any particular time.

It did no harm that 555 could therefore call on the services of Stewart himself, including post-Sarah incarnations of the peerless Boyracer (see the opening archive reviews below) and his massively underrated solo work as Steward (*so* much you should check of that, but how about Cex's remix of "This Land Is Nervous" or the brilliant "The Last Wasps Of Summer", a single not actually on 555 but on kindred spirit Orgasm Records of France, frequent collaborators with several of our favourite Leeds-connection artists). Mr Anderson's schooldays links with fellow Spofforth Hill galacticos Hood - later documented in the marvellous Wetherbeat Scene package on 555 - also meant that that band, and glorious Hood-related projects such as the wonderful Famous Boyfriend, featured prominently on the release schedule.

555 continued to furnish some wonderful records in more recent, post-Tower Records years - "Your Cassette Pet" was a typical compilation flourish, while "Flickering B&W" was one of many examples of Boyracer's unfading charms.

But this post is really about an earlier phase of 555's history, and of our own history. As we approach retirement from this game, we wish that we had time to say more about all the ways that 555 touched us in those often difficult years, beyond inspiring us to write about many of their records at the time. But all we can do now is say that this post - and some extracts below from what we did write, tired but happy and at home, after those forays to Piccadilly Circus - are here to pay tribute to a label, and a label boss, who inspired us and helped us and made us stay young and angry and aware when the world was trying to make us old and jaded and complacent.

* * * * *

boyracer "boyfuckingracer" (555)

well at last. in terms of wall to wall quality, a compilation that is up there with the field mice's "where'd you kiss that way", big flame's "rigour", "this is heavenly" or even the smiths' "singles": full of songs we have loved to and lost to and drunk to and sung along to.

kicking off with "he gets me so hard" is not really fair on any other records released this year as that song, in 2 1/2 minutes, uses the medium of pop (hard, fast and beautiful and noisy but pop all the same) to storm every possible barricade. it was the moment that sarah records finally completed the journey to the punk ethic that they had always not-so-secretly coveted... the whole song is like riding a massive wave, from the taut bass intro through the boy/girl vocal collision to the last 20 or seconds of pure chaos, in which the cumulative effect of the frantic drumming and the earsplitting guitars is to stab you through the heart, not unlike the wonderful feedback romance of "you trip me up". definitely one of the most compelling love songs of the 20th century.

we'll all play the game of tracks we would have included that they haven't... my choices are "jesus suzanne christ", "no fuel", "david byrne", "doorframe" (a particularly gaping omission), "your dark secrets", "michael", "boyracer" (gaping to the point of unforgivable), "two", "boxing day"... but the whole point of that game is to demonstrate how brilliant boyracer were, in that 33 great tracks merely scratches the surface of their prolific, unstable, erratic and above all magnificent back catalogue. to prove the point, consider a mere handful of the tracks featured: "i've got it and it's not worth having", the top tune from the splendid "B is for Boyracer" set on sarah; "your secret desires", best of the superb "Racer 100" five-tracker; "west riding house" and "meadowhall", breakneck joyrides through the streets of west yorkshire; "friend", the acoustic tearjerking dalliance ("situations that suck... everything is shit... but when you need a friend, i'll be there") with even as we speak (but really, what's with the banjo ?) and tucked away as track 28 and justifying even the length of this sentence, the behemoth of a cover version that takes even as we speak's classic pop-pourri "one step forward" and transforms it into a massive, massive lo-fi distortion festival without losing any of the original's playful charm. godlike.

being able to cram verses, choruses and instrumentals galore into songs that frequently only just make the one minute mark is a gift that we haven't witnessed since the more one dimensional days of the rosehips. as with most truly great bands, the thing that lifts boyracer into the top drawer, however, is lyrics that were both original and easy to identify with, combining the ache of distant romance with the immediacy of english angst.

and to close ? a short, romantic interlude, recorded on a dictaphone. it's called "in love with these times". and it, not any other work of the same name, is why we are called what we are.

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boyracer "to get a better hold you've got to loosen yr grip" (555)

ok. now the reformation of any once-quality combo is beset with dangers. symptoms in reviewers include wary expectation, eager anticipation, and in the case of returns of original punk icons, something akin to primal fear (mixed with a soupçon of cringing embarrassment). however, boyracer's new album is their most coherent work: they had after all been getting pretty close to the modern epitome of punk/pop fusion in the non-experimental half of their "in full colour" set before they kind of fizzled out with the unobtrusive "perfect tense" 7" in 1997. now that's been exposed as a false ending, the boy racer (stewart anderson aka steward) has decided to resurrect the group, with wife jen turrell on bass, and ara hacopian (lately the 5th member of the saturday people, we seem to recall) providing the extra layer of guitar on more raucous numbers.

to those of you who never really bought into the boyracer thing - possibly you remember their early flexis, and recall wondering what the hell they were doing signing to sarah, before you kind of got distracted by britpop or something - well for us, boyracer cemented their reputation with the sarah a sides "i've got it and it's not worth having" and "he gets me so hard", but their main attraction to us has always been that they had something to say (largely on the personal / political level), and they were prepared to say it with feedback. we guess it was possibly wire who first realised, with "pink flag", that there wasn't much point in playing songs that lasted 3 minutes unless you had 3 minutes' worth to say - best just dive in, say what you gotta say and wind proceedings up pretty smartly, and if you do that in 70 or 80 seconds, as boyracer often do, so much the better. it's a market in which boyracer have traded admirably with past classix like "small consolation", "west riding house" and "your secret desires", and there are plenty of golden nods to that tradition here in standouts like "sarah and sarah", "temper" (the alternate take at #21 being even better), "tell me where my hands should go" (an exemplary lust song) and "nostalgic for a time i hardly remember", during which not only does the phone appear to ring, but i'm damn sure that this time the screech at the end isn't feedback, but the sound of a kettle boiling. there's also a new and improved version of "razor", originally previewed on "boyfuckingracer". all the songs gleefully run into each other, too, one scratchy thrash bumper-to-bumper pranging into the next - no respectful radio 3 silences here.

"i lost a day / but gained so much more..."

there are a few necessary deviations from the boyracer formula, although none of the famous boyfriend collaborative experiments that perhaps unsettled the flow of "in full colour". of these, track 10 is the best answer phone track since the beatnik filmstars' "phone kids": let's just say it has the desired effect. and former b.f. andrew jarrett is indeed in the area, responsible for recording some of these tiny gems onto 8-track. occasional guitarist and "classic line up" member matt green also plays on his own composition, "matty's untitled song" (shades of "billy's third" ?) which does enough in its 45 seconds to keep his forthcoming solo album (as "the tall boy", in which guise he's already impressed us) firmly in mind. and there are a trio of covers to provide (a little) tone and contrast - the primitives' "nothing left" is done in fine style, with jen turrell's vocal recalling the cuteness of early tracy tracy; the marine girls' "in love" (such a shame when you think of tracey thorn now that aberration "missing" always sees to lodge in mind) is charmingly rendered, the best part being in the chorus with stewart saying "i hear you're..." and then as the guitar really kickstarts he adds / yelps "IN LOVE!!" - it's faithful to the childlike allure of the original. "come out 2 nite" is more an affectionate interpretation, not really being a patch on the original but at least reminding us how kenickie's potential was never realised... these cover versions, tending as they do to (gasp!) exceed the two-minute mark, seem quite epic, surrounded as they are by boyracer's homegrown short sharp shocks.

it's always a factor that stewart's lovelife - or at least certain episodes from it - is now an open canvas thanks to previous recorded confessionals. while this doesn't put boyracer quite in the league of j-lo, cris judd and puff daddy - thank goodness - like so many of those field mice and trembling blue stars songs, it adds an extra edge in listening to the records as you try and guess who they're about. listening to "priorities" (another office recommendation), following some of the harrowing revelations of steward's "horselaugh on my ex", you're in no doubt as to who the song is about; equally one would assume that "every day is christmas with you" ("don't let me become immune to such beauty ...") is aimed at jen: like any decent romantic cadeau, stewart is responsible for putting the whole thing together. you can almost imagine him presenting her the master tape, gift wrapped, with boyish pride. my favourite lyrics on the album are actually "grand rapids", but whenever boyracer slow down these days, comparisons with steward's solo material are bound to surface, and they can't always be flattering. you wonder what such touching, homely phrases ("sat outside in the freezing snow / in the dead of night / my coat on / my hood up / all alone...") could do to you if they were part of the steward montage of samples and fluffy electronica.

still relevant, then.

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various artists "knowing we was right from da start" (555)

i know arrogance isn't becoming, but 555 records (now relocated from leeds, yorkshire, to philadelphia) have got much to be arrogant about and this summary of their roster is the usual tour of all that is innovative and meaningful in lo-fi pop and electronica, showing that they were indeed correct from da start - my own baptism was hood's fine "biochemistry revision can wait", which is included here and which i tracked down in my otherwise barren time in nottingham about '94/95. top tunes of many for me here are the other hood contribution, the single "(the) weight"; the aislers' set's "fire engine" - a fantastic, crackling homage to the shirelles as played by the mary chain; empress' "skills unknown", which I don't remember from their albums but which is the pick of their three cuts herein; hulaboy's kitchen sink drama "river of honey and mud"; beachbuggy's tempered fall tribute "ya just a little punk"; huon's utterly disarming and shambly "thunder"... as you'll have gathered, popular music pickers, 555 have what we premiership-haters enviously know as "strength in depth". more power to their cute electronica and lo-fi obsessed elbow.

* * * * *

Various Artists “These Are Testing Times” (555)
Various Artists “You Gotta Get More Alive” (555)

Two 20-track budget samplers packed with lo-fi; sometimes ideas and titles are more successful than the finished products; but the Empress and Steward compilation LPs which came out this year demonstrated that 4-track is still capable of evoking far from humdrum worlds. The CDs, too, showcase a fair breadth of talent. Famous Boyfriend have mutated from perfect post-Brighter indie (“We’re All Pretty Much Failures”) through basic skewed Steward-by-numbers (“The Last Drink Makes Me”) to their instrumental reincarnation as the Remote Viewer (witness the breakbeat-with-a-heart of “We Do What We Can”). Meanwhile, Kyoko continue to seep almost unnoticed out of speakers (the mysterious quiet-fi “t.a.m.s.”); Halkyn shine a flickery flame for bedroom acoustic angst, post-homework no doubt, with “Local Summit” and the superbly titled “I Tried So Hard, But I Was Already Mistaken”; Kid 606 transports his nervy mantras across the pond via the medium of beats n’ bleeps (“Nobody Wants To Be A Star Any More”); Clohydris Diepholz (track title unpronounceable) messes around with loops in a most satisfying manner (imagine the Third Eye Foundation’s remix of the Pastels' “On The Way” but on a very austere Weimar-style low-deutschmark budget). And then from around the world there are more traditional takes on indie from Amber#2 (a Belgian REM, except good), Ashland (stilted Amero-pop drawl) and Huon (scuzzy southern-hemispherettes who have a track on their album called “C86” which makes you want to buy it just for that, until you remember that the song “C86” by the BMX Bandits was one of their worst songs ever, not even counting the fiddle).

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that 555 are much closer to my own musical credo, “if you can’t be good, be different”; in fact, they are frequently good too, which is a bonus. Shinkansen, on the other hand, is producing sub-Sarah indie from the days of, well, before Sarah, which makes you think the Sea Urchins died in vain (let me reiterate: I do like Cody and Monograph – but not with “every fibre of my being”)… and it is no coincidence, I am sure, that there was some comment on the Shinkansen website earlier this year appearing to “celebrate” the carnage of 26 May 1999. Despite now claiming to be an Orient fan, Mr Haynes clearly has no conception of the things that are actually helping to drive the O’s into the Conference this season. Man Utd are killing football, as usual, and in the same way that the Beatles ruined music (i.e. with mass public backing). The great Preston side of 1889 won the Double without losing a game (didn’t concede a goal in the FA Cup) and it’s fair to say they would have won the League Cup, Auto Windscreens, European Cup, World Club Championship, Super Cup and Intercontinental Cup in the same year if only some marketing persona [non grata] had thought of them at that stage. Same with Huddersfield in the 1920s, Arsenal in the 1930s, etc, etc, etc.

While I’m on this topic, you will have noticed that the FA are killing football, too. They get paid for killing football. I’m all for people getting paid to kill rugby, or cricket – I’d do it myself for free – but the FA’s twisted minds get their kicks from frying the small fry and letting the paper idols I mentioned above get away with anything. Just imagine if Robbie Fowler or Patrick Vieira had kicked Neil Lennon in the head – it would have been a ban some way into the third millennium, at least (and, incidentally, un-English as it might be, I’d rather be spat at than suffer the sort of two-footed leg-breaking challenges that Michael Owen and his mates from the diving club are coming up with). The FA enjoy it most of course when they’re destroying the FA Cup – letting games be played at every time possible, except 3 p.m. on a Saturday; moving the 3rd round to December (Please never let this experiment be repeated) for their mates at MUFC and then allowing them to jack in defending the trophy anyway (instead of expelling them) so that for the rest of all time their fans can claim they “would have won it” (in fact, they’d have played a bunch of kids and got pasted fair and square, like they did in the League Cup). I suppose hopeless optimism would also suggest we could go back to calling the top division the “First division”, etc, even numbering the players on the field with 1 to 11, but I’ve fair given up on this. Perhaps there’s a kill the FA website we could link to…

Difficult to link this article back to 555 after such a fantastic digression (that’s fantastic in its true sense, rather than the received wisdom that it means “really good”, I hasten to add), but I think I’ve found a way. I remember Boyracer’s “I’ve Got It And It’s Not Worth Having” (as do all fans of, well, pop music, I would hope); and Matt Rowson's comment that, although not quite up his particular street, it was pretty enjoyable all the same – ramshackle, energetic and (I always remember this) “like a non-league side getting through to the third round of the FA Cup”. That might have been damning with faint praise – I think Alexander Pope predated Boyracer – but what chance analogies like that even existing if the FA had their way ? (I should also mention that subsequent single “He Gets Me So Hard”, if I can extrapolate further – can I ? Many thanks – was like a non-league side getting to the final of the FA Cup and hammering Liverpool 5-0). Anyway, a few years on, the leading lights of the former Boyracer are now driving 555 forward, and to me that’s enough to restore daylight to my darkened mind.

* * * * *

the famous boyfriend (555 / orgasm)

a compilation of the two albums before famous boyfriend hatched into the remote viewer, and one which confuses by reversing the chronological order so that tracks 1-13 (the "making love all night wrong" outing on 555) showcase the evolution to near-instrumental samples and beats, while 14-25 (the eponymous debut lp on orgasm records of france) are much more melodic, with a strong lyrical thread - more in the vein of the fantastic, scratchy earlier pop moment "we're all pretty much failures".

although i prefer the second half of this cd then, it would have been a crime not to reissue "making love", of which only a painfully austere 120 copies were ever released. the grave, warm tones of loops like "it's not the way you kiss" and "septembernovember" are worth a far wider audience, and on one occasion ("your hearts not in it") there is even a discernible and world-weary vocal, aided and abetted by pretty keyboards, harking back to the early stuff.

nevertheless, i commend this cd to you chiefly for "the famous boyfriend" album, which despite being remastered from one of the 400 vinyl copies ever issued stands up well as a morose pop anthology rooted, as you would expect, in the pop vs. experimentation ideologies of (earlier) hood and steward. the famous boyfriend wrote songs about being sorry for oneself, messing up relationships and opportunities, often through saying the wrong things and drinking too much of the right things (think hood's "dismissed army brought us knives", but channelled into an arrangement and even some kind of - albeit lo-fi - production values). these graceful indie tunes impart a fairly deep-etched melancholy without departing too strongly from the home-recording blueprint, and the demise of the famous boyfriend, as this cd now evidences, is a tragedy at least on a par with the commissioning of big brother. a record to look after.

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steward "bang! there goes my youth" (555)

and talking of steward, a chance to appraise "bang! goes my youth", originally released in the states on blackbean & placenta, not that we ever got hold of it, but which now appears to have found its way to these shores on reissue - rather charmingly, our copy in fact reuses the cardboard sleeve from kyoko's "co-incidental music" set, turning it inside out and handprinting the steward moniker on the reverse - perhaps stewart had a load of unsold copies left over ?

the 8 tracks of the cd proper are a mixture of new vignettes and alt. takes from the "horselaugh on my ex" set that so impressed us in 2000... they start with "bad" (no relation to the fab flatmates number) which apes the formula of "horselaugh" opener "you can't fuck with nature" (beatbox thud, angular guitar riffs interspersed with breakbeats, although this time sans any jam sample) and then there's a boy/girl vocal thrash through "he is a genius with his hands", more in the vein of steward's collaborations with amy linton, though this time the girl vocal is a lot more in the punky, english mould...

"surely you know i'm trying my best... when your voice breaks up i'm half-relieved"

with such words, "dial tone collective" heralds a switch of pace to light percussion and bass keyboard tones, half-whispered voice and slices of acoustic guitar: for once, the absence of feedback is apt, suddenly ushering stewart's usual lovelorn selfconsciousness into the harsh light of the listener's concentration: the transformation smoothed by the subsequent near -instrumental "8.30 yr looking great".

it's back to indie junglist sampledom excess after that, as "i am the magnificent" mixes a treasure trove of loops, sounds and piano before crescending on the back of more guitar feedback to another plateau of white noise - but the prize in this respect is taken by a cover of the buzzcocks' "you say you don't love me" - which was a little plain in its original form. here it is given the full anderson makeover namely morse code-like cut-up bleeps, white feedback like breaking glass, shambling guitar buzz and a vocal that illiberally dollops large doses of angst all over the shop.

but it is "happy new years", the original of which jerked tears worldwide in its "horselaugh" incarnation, which remains the most sincere, affecting, heart-on-sleeve exposition of hurt that even steward has committed to public consumption: in this brittle and less noise-ridden take, fear and sexual jealousy congeal into 2m 51s of hurt, bitterness, melancholy, betrayal and resentment. it's a tranche of real-life, conveying open wounds with all the familiarity of kitchen sink drama, and is in itself the perfect closer.

however as this is steward there are then a host of hidden / "extra" cuts and, steward being steward, several of them actually bear critical analysis in their own right... they include, after the "netball" remix album's parting shot "bonus beatz", more copyright-defying escapades including a kid 606 / v/vm-ish take on "i feel love", aswell as a sumptuously-weighted acoustic plus violin sixty-second rendition of "something to crave". finally, if you mentioned to us the phrase "world weary and wise", it would strike us as rather encapsulating the timbre of the emotions which steward's lyrics have been exhibiting for the last ten years. it would also of course bring to mind yet another completely underrated janglethon from the undisputed kings of el records (depending on who you ask, of course) the james dean driving experience who, as coincidence have it, we were mentioning earlier. so you can appreciate our happiness on hearing steward's rather cheap keyboard cover of that very song. and he even whistles the violin part. how cool is that ? oh - and claire - it was recorded in melbourne.

so while there may be nothing here quite on the level of our past eulogies to "hey! leopard" or "the last wasps of summer", and the untitled nigh-on faultless closing track on "goodbye to everything you love", there remains much to admire in the ex-sarah records hearthrob, now prolific globetrotter and record label mogul, stewart anderson. word 2 his mother.

* * * * *

halkyn "winterhill" ep (555)

finally, well, more of a public service announcement than a review. according to the 555 site, the excellent "winterhill" single by the honey-scented welsh minimalists halkyn has sold less than a 100 copies to date. if so that is a national disgrace, hence this cri de coeur. worst of all this very british apathy is prompting 555 to "review" its policy of releasing 7" vinyl at all... that would mean joining shinkansen and others in just giving up... and the thing that really cuts is that you can hardly blame the labels, it's our fault for not bothering to go out and support the format... always remember that when you don't exercise your choices, they just get taken away. um, yes... for the record, while there's nothing quite up to the brilliance of "norway" from the "behind the snow" ep, "winterhill" is a spindly, echoey, ssshhh-fi ten-track delight - albeit so subtle at times as to be almost invisible - and "through snow" in particular is a top example of the genre.

* * * * *

kyoko “co-incidental music” (555)

....shhhh. quiet-fi.

a fine band, probably the best from bristol at the moment, with their eventually-pressed outing for 555. if you listen attentively to later beatnik filmstars outings, I swear you can hear in the evocative, quieter passages strong echoes of the fine band they were about to become.

“boats” kicks off proceedings proper, a warm and soft soliloquoy leading into the more drawn out, feeling-sorry-for-itself “reality dawns on a second rate sit-com actor”: though the show is then enlivened by a faithful take on the steward standard “he dispenses with timid afterthoughts” my own favourite, on which “co-incidental music” pivots, is the gangly, late night “P.E.T.S” – the sugargliders lounging at 33 rpm. after that, things scale down, with the flow of dark but beautiful songs interrupted by a space-age and unconvincing remix of “yellow” (the pick of debut album “mini: one”). “better days! coming now!” is also far from the happyfest its unlikely title promises, but another near-fatal dose of mellow introspection before closer “ex-filmstar” nods knowingly back to the halcyon days of the beatniks, in the days when they ruled the off-kilter indie-punk ridiculous-song title world. Apparently there is another album ready for release on mobstar: we will bring you news, soon.

* * * * *

fog and ocean "fog and ocean" (555 / red square)

while some may say that every record on 555 appears to feature special guest appearances from most of the other artists on the diverse roster, fog and ocean are pretty much the epitome of this being billed as a combo including personnel recruited from the likes of the cat's miaow, huon, hydroplane and new waver (so a few more heavyweights there from the fecund musical breeding ground of melbourne!!) as well as the more traditionally ubiquitous 555 head honchos jen turrell and steward.

nevertheless, it's probably fair to say that when listening to it, you do not detect a cast of thousands at work. indeed, the opposite: the main component parts are clean keyboards and kellie's butter-wouldn't-melt voice, supplemented at times by other vocal chords both male and female but never venturing from the f&o style, which appears to be a guitar-free, and, er, new wavey trip through the clouds - the pattern is set by casiotone keyboards (you know, the sort of thing where the bass notes sound like they're being played on a stylophone), with brisk electronic percussion lifting f&o from the realms of mere empty dreamers. imagine the sound of leaves swaying in a gentle breeze, soft ocean currents lapping on the foreshore, you know the kind of thing, but kind of duffed up by shyly def beats (f&o's weapon of choice being the trusty 808, rather than their neighbours the berzerker's 909). as such it is terrific, rewarding listening - cleanly produced, simply arranged, free of padding and more accessible for 555 virgins than much on the imprint. oh, and in the style of the first remote viewer album, the songs - none of which outstay their welcome nor stray into over-experimentation - don't have anything as earthbound as names. and to round off the effect, the record itself is coolly packaged, in a very pretty sleeve that gives nothing away - as well as no song titles, there is, we presume, no album title, hence the attribution of an eponymous one which we've settled for. eponymous and anonymous, ha.

the f&o tune billed as "wave and a sigh" on the recent 555 australian pop sampler (and also included as the sixth track here), will give you an idea of the affectionate and careful homage to all past forms of sweet, winsome electronic pop that you are being pampered with. much of the lyrics touch on pastoral or geographic themes or features too, especially the opening song (which for the purposes of this review we have radically christened "song 1": to make things easier for ourselves and to achieve vague consistency, we will apply numerical order to the track listing throughout this prose, in the absence of anything more tangible to use). at its poppiest, the album is vaguely reminiscent of retro-futurist US labelmates kanda (e.g. song 2) or perhaps even the real deal of visage or ultravox (songs 3 and 4): but we are most taken with song 7 - very huon, with we assume bloke from huon on vocals; song 5 - simply divine and unspeakably cute, eespecially the stuff about pelicans nesting which is thoroughly in keeping with its delightful gorgeousness; and song 8, which should be in the charts. now.

* * * * *

STEWARD: I Was The Only Boy In The Netball Team (Blackbean & Placenta)
STEWARD: Horselaugh On My Ex (555)

“Netball” is a sweet remix album the highlights of which are Steward’s own take on Japanese experimentalists Stadium, Downpour’s incendiary rampaging of “The Last Wasps” and Figurine’s incredibly slick construct on “Bit Part Actor Made Good”, which like all the best creative remixes, creates beauty and tone that wasn’t so evident in the original.

But “Horselaugh On My Ex” is the real McCoy. Six months in the making, a 20 song concept album – the concept being a whole CD about the dramatic end of a five-year relationship, in the haze of New Year. In its own way, it is just as moving as the Trembling Blue Stars’ impossibly brittle and beautiful “Her Handwriting” album on that same horrible theme – the knowing that for once, these songs were written about real events. Steward, of course, goes further lyrically – naming names and much more – but it’s the essential vulnerability of the lines we can all relate to - “While I was sleeping, seemingly so much happened” - that really tug on our unsuspecting heart strings. Opener “You Can’t F*** With Nature” even manages to make an amateurish sample of “This Is The Modern World” fit smoothly into the sombre mood of the album – but elsewhere, in amongst the insanity, the bleeps, the bizarre guest appearances and covers - and the odd barrages of screaming feedback – the highlight is the stunning “Hey! Leopard” which sounds like prime-era Pacific (former Creation artistes and occasional purveyors of shimmering majestic beauty), courtesy of the guitars, trumpet and vocals of labelmates the Cannanes. Stunning.

* * * * *

printed circuit "acrobotics" (555)

to continue this sequence of bamboozling and arguably recent albums there's printed circuit, aka claire broadley. you'll be sufficiently au fait here if you heard her take of "sex dwarf" on 555's "a tribute to soft cell" compilation: in a sense, that gave the game away, because hearing printed circuit resembles listening to a young dave ball doing a solo jam session, full of synth pulls, twisted melody curves and occasional vocoder vocals: an unholy 1982 mishmash of soft cell vs. the sinclair zx spectrum. "sex dwarf" remains the epitome of this, although it's run close by the hidden track 6 here, a sweet bootleg in which a ragga narcissist faces the wrath of ms broadley's full armoury of circuitry. as for the five tracks actually listed, we take maximum solace in "hard drive soft drink" and "robophobic", both of which are sufficiently bright and melodic that one feels that soft cell would gladly have written them circa "memorabilia". not profound, but could still likely have you dancing like your day depended on it.

* * * * *

cex "starship galactica" (555)

while not achieving the joy of "balls out" with its hip hop beats on orange vinyl, "starship" (surely battlestar?) is a joyous bundle of electronica, energised with humour as most electronica sorely needs to be. although the obvious reference points would be fellow 555ers lesser and ver mighty kid 606, cex often roams in nightmares on wax territory, and spins some mellow vibes on "get in your squads" (most n.o.w.-ish) and "your handwriting when you were a child in the winter" - wow. what's my favourite ? probably "cal and brady style", which mops up all the relevant reference points with aplomb. close second is the mighty title track, which is - really - one of the greatest pop songs of 2001, because it's fun and soooo easy to dig. yep, this music may yet be the future, which means we're in pretty capable hands.

* * * * *

Some other highs / heights of 555 included Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers' "Lunchdate EP": "kitchen pop which mixes scuzzy indie lo-fi guitars and female “ba-bas” with common or garden breakbeats and lackadaisical male vocals"; Kanda's "Dormitory Heartbreaks": "on the truly maverick 555 label, kanda revisit c96 - the flickery electro pop revival and all - with the curt "dormitory heartbreaks" - the boy / girl interface is not a million miles from pipas, but just a few years too early. sugar sugar kanda pop, natch"; Kid 606 and the Remote Viewer's split picture disc: "a gorgeous platter aesthetically; between the grooves a little more mundane although the Kid’s “When I Want A Gun, Yeah” is up there with most of the techno dabbling on his 2000 long players. The Remote Viewer, so recently the near-perfect Famous Boyfriend, continue to refine their dark breakbeat vision with “A Fielder""; Cex's "Get Your Badass On": "“Balls Out” is the pick, a hip-hop style backbone shot through with skewed beats and breaks. On violent yellow vinyl, too"; and Downpour's "Don’t Go Breaking My Art": "A world away from the apocalyptic remix of Steward’s “The Last Wasps Of Summer”, here we have four slices of electronica that rotate little ripples of noise in (ever decreasing) concentric circles."

And don't worry, we still have them all.

That Sunderland Sound

Scrabbling around on our hands and knees in the basement dungeon we've retrieved a few more Matinée bits and pieces, following the fairly exhausting post not too long ago: they will all appear in this joint once we've fully scrubbed away the cobwebs. Anyway, while dusting off one such review - of Kosmonaut's undersung single - on said label supreme, we finally found a copy of the interview we did with yer man Stephen Maughan, which makes this post something of a Kosmonaut tribute. Rightly. (Since, of course, Stephen has set "This Almighty Pop!" on a revival tip: check it).

* * * * *

kosmonaut "desert song / bee song" (matinée)

the lucksmiths' labelmates kosmonaut are from the north east of england, as under represented in this fanzine as everywhere else, so we can but attempt to redress the balance by observing that following the anthemic firestation tower debut "days of ourlives", the spunky cd-r "in my head" and the welcome resurrection of "was it you ?" on the matinee summer sampler, "desert song" is a serene pop gem which laments how the years flow past with the same inevitability and indecent haste as the sandy landscape flies by the driver's near-side window. subtle and building carefully until the keyboards propel it into a particularly cracking fourth minute, it is probably their strongest outing yet. on the other side "bee song", again careful not to move too fast, sucks the listener in from its opening chords, again with keyboards that seem to slowly emerge, shimmering with longing, and an arrangement which recalls "life goes on"-era bmx bandits (not the first band to do so this month, we know) until it is slightly disfigured by an overbearing guitar line towards the end. like some of that bandits' stuff, the vocals on this two-track 7" occasionally give little hint of being british rather than american, but this is still road music at its finest, and the lingering sentiments of "desert song" in particular hang long in the mind.

* * * * *

Kosmonaut. Spring 2003.

"the less said about Sunderland at the moment the better, thank you..."

once upon a time there was a band called bulldozer crash. now there are two bands, called the liberty ship and kosmonaut. find out more about the former here and the latter below, because stephen kosmonaut generously answered our questionnaire about the band whose last release "desert song" was their clearest realisation yet of indie pop with a real "epic" sensibility. to explain our rather odd slant of questioning, we should mention that stephen in a previous incarnation was the author of a proper, readable paper zine called "this almighty pop!" in the days before charlatans like us came along... to check out their discography sensibly or fill in any gaps, it's probably worth checking out their website for the latest - and very excitingly you will read that there appear to be 2 or 3 projects in the pipeline (and an upcoming release of some bulldozer crash tunes...)

if you'll permit us to go deep into history, a few words on "this almighty pop!" - in terms of mixing enthusiasm with erudition (even now so many zines often seem more one or the other) it was certainly an inspiration to what we try and do... was starting the fanzine simply down to being inspired by the music of the time and wanting to evangelise ? and how do you look back on that venture now ?

I just wanted to do my own version of Are You Scared To Get Happy [best fanzine ever - ed.], it really inspired me the most, I used to love getting a new issue falling through the letter box with all those new songs to try and find and listen to. I look back on it with fondness, I made a lot of friends through the fanzine which was probably the best part, the worst part was all the bad records I got sent to review but I could never see the point in writing about songs I didn't like.

for our uninitiated readers, what is the kosmonaut line-up ?

Up until now in the studio it has just been me and Geoff Suggett, sharing all the recording duties, but since we've played live with Richard Patterson on drums, Karl Whitfield on lead guitar and Jonathan Whitfield on bass we would ideally like to exploit their skill and expertise in the studio aswell. So far though only Richard's dulcet tones have been utilised on our cover of the Liberty Ship's "Northern Angel" [slated hopefullly for a soon-ish matinée coverfest].

are you prepared to list your "previous convictions" i.e. former bands and / or other crimes ?

I was in Bulldozer Crash and Denver. My only other crime was stealing a 3 pack of Fox's Glacier Mints from the RedHouse when I was about 10 , I got caught and have lived with the shame of it until now, I feel like a weight has been lifted. Geoff was in the Lavender Faction and Montana Hood.

the 2 of you (stephen and geoff) known each other a long time ? when did you start properly recording / writing songs together ?

We've know each other for about 14- 15 years now, we met at work ... it went something like this... Geoff: What sort of music are you into ? Stephen: You probably won't have heard of them...the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Primitives ? That was it really. We first recorded a song together in about 1990 on an old Fostex X-15 4-track, it was called "She Walks Away", it was very Mary Chain-ish. I released it on a compilation tape I was putting together at the time called "Positively Teenage", we called ourselves Bulldozer Clarts, I'm going to stick it up on our website soon for anyone who might want to hear it. We then got together again in 2000 to have a go at writing and recording some new songs, everything went well and we are still at it.

is there any great significance to the name "kosmonaut" that we should be aware of ?

Not really no, we were going to call ourselves NovaScotia but then we were informed that there was already a band called that in the US, I was using the name Kosmonaut for my electronic side project so we just hi-jacked it. [nb stephen is too modest to mention his electronic side project is now northern_electrix - there is talk of an n_e release in the offing and the cd-r that we managed to get off a dealer in brixton last month isn't bad at all, you know...]

how did the first (fine) release ["was it you ?"] end up on a japanese label [Motorway] ?

We were quite out of touch with the "scene" at the time that we were ready to send out our first demos, so a friend gave us a list of possible labels and Motorway was at the top of the list, the same friend also told us not to bother with Matinée because we probably weren't polished enough for them! Charming. [Indeed, "Was it you ?" did eventually get a release on Matinée, on the "Summer splash!" cd which you probably need to buy]

next we think came "days of your lives", an anthem which we presume you still must be very proud of. this time the label was german... how did that end up coming out on firestation tower ?

A guy called Christian Steiner loved the Motorway 7" and recommended us to them, we sent them some demos which they liked and offered to stick out a single. Everyone at FST is incredibly patient, they asked us to record an L.P. over a year ago and we still haven't finished it, we will deliver it eventually, honest Uwe!

and you made the decision to put the latest tunes out on the rather esteemed (not least by us as you may have noticed) matinée label. how are people reacting to the new 7" ? is it helping you to reach a wider audience now ?

People seem to be enjoying the single, we've had some really nice reviews. People tell us they like to listen to it in the car. There does seem to be a lot of people signing up to our mailing list since the single came out on Matinée so maybe we are reaching a wider audience than before.

so as you have a full band together now for playing live, does that extend to any future studio projects ?

Yes, but we've only played two gigs so far, if all goes according to plan this will hopefully transfer over into the studio, although I don't know how I'm going to fit a full drum kit in my spare bedroom to record that.

can we assume from the name "porterfield 73" for your studio / cd-r label that you are sunderland fans (if so, here's to a significant upturn in their fortunes for 2003...)

Yes, me and Geoff are both Sunderland fans, the less said about them at the moment the better, thank you.

are there plans to release the likes of "superman", or to follow other more 'experimental' routes further, aswell as the classic pop lineage of the singles releases ?

I really like "Superman" but we are struggling to find anyone else who does! It is in fact just a slowed down loop from Was It You. I'd like to take a trip down that experimental avenue every now and again, but we might have to save that kind of thing for the one off projects that we do like the recent cover version of the Liberty Ship's Northern Angel, which sounds nothing at all like the original.

the ilwttisott take on kosmonaut is a kind of modern road music, full of longing... and with space to "let the music breathe", as they say. if you could had to choose one record to accompany you on a long drive, what would it be ?

At the moment it would be the new Go-Betweens l.p. "Bright Yellow, Bright Orange" or the Russian Futurists "Let's Get Ready To Crumble"...

and what do you think of that band called... the liberty ship ? is there any friendly rivalry in the grand pop tradition ? and who blew who offstage ?

;)Bunch of amateurs. They are not bad actually, some rather nice tunes that I often find breezing through my brain unexpectedly. It was our first gig when we played with them so I guess I have to say they blew us offstage, we really should have spent more time rehearsing.

resolutions and plans for the year ahead ?

Because we've taken so long to answer these questions it might seem a little late but the answer is still the same... to finish the L.P. for Firestation Tower Records.

and before you go, what is your FAVOURITE piece of pop trivia ?

My sister in law 's boyfriend's auntie's stepson used to go out with Zoe from Pop Idol!

thank you to stephen for taking time out to run through kosmonaut's recording career so far... one is hopeful that it is only the beginning. we s'pose that the first album will give us as good an idea as ever as to the directions in which kosmonaut choose to move... and guess what, we'll try and keep you "all" up to date. as for sunderland, let's just hope they can discover some self-respect next season. ILWTTISOTT

And if you want to read a more recent Stephen inter view from a more august source, may we commend this...

"More Please In 2001": the longtime G. to the E.N.I.U.S. of Milky Wimpshake

Milky Wimpshake are another of the best bands ever, of course, even if we're less convinced than some by their most recent material. Live, they've never done less than KILL us. It's a shame we weren't penning our odes to them when "The Deviation Amplification Spiral" came out, because that is one hell of an EP for sure, and when they followed it with "Bus Route To Your Heart" (in particular, the endless pop summer that is "I Wanna Be Seen In Public With You"), we were absolutely *SOLD*. And we'd later continue to big them up (we dealt with "Popshaped" here, for example).

But back to the crates. We may have missed the first couple of records, but in our rather staid early style, we did run the rule over a couple of their cusp-of-the-century singles. So "Home Is Where The Hate Is", on Libellous Vinyl, was:

"A fairly bitter and twisted take on life from Milky Wimpshake, who are clearly feeling the frustrations of their record label going under and the lack of finance to put records out. “Home” kicks off sounding like Sportique (wahay) before turning into a jolly enough mod song which castigates various categories of people that Pete Dale doesn’t like, with feeling but without any particular direction. The flip “Itchy Feet” is similarly inspired by the drudgery of daily life in a dead-end job, but has a tad more charm and humour, which leaves me more optimistic that Pete’s alright after all, though it’d be nice to be able to put my arm round him and make sure."

I think we rather undersold that: "Itchy Feet" was re-worked only this year, very effectively, for the latest Wimpshake LP, but I'm pretty sure I always liked "Home Is Where The Hate Is", ever since I picked the 7" up in Rough Trade one Saturday, rather more than that review implies. Oh well. I certainly still like it now.

As for "Dialling Tone", on Ferric Mordant, which we had to send off for, but which was and is on any level a completely classic single:

"“Your boyfriend is a jerk / Your relationship doesn’t work”: Rendered no less anthemic or lovable by the inevitability that Pete Dale probably wrote it in two minutes flat at a bus stop – it’s irresistible Buzzcocks-inspired flair, starring not many chords and a not-may-note lead guitar line. More please in 2001. The B side, a devout rendering of “True Love Will Find You in the End” seems to have garnered more praise to date – perhaps for the way it slips seamlessly into “Don’t Let Our Youth Go To Waste” and then back again – but it is more an affecting diversion and tribute to Pete’s impossibly impressive musical reference points rather than what they’re are best at. On this evidence I’m not terribly sure it’s necessary for the Undertones to reform."

This last line was then quoted in a few Fortuna Pop! press blurbs (which we were obviously more than happy about, FP! being an absolute mainstay in pushing the scene forward when nobody else used to, and hopefully now reaping some reward from that), with the closing Undertones reference being replaced by one to the band we'd mentioned in the previous sentence, Buzzcocks. We suspect that Sean was rightly recognising that was actually a rather better comparison.

When we saw them at some unspecified time around then at the Dublin Castle, third on the bill below Marine Research and Spraydog:

"Much like the Hope & Anchor, the main bar of the Dublin Castle is full of pretty things on a Friday night; a few Sarah diehards cluttering up the picture with our anoraks (“I Spy Harvey Williams – ten points”) but otherwise an androgynous sheen of barely twentysomething gleaming teeth and nails. A measure of the intimidation is that even the immaculate Dickon Edwards becomes, in this company, just another face in the crowd.

Much like the Hope & Anchor, the venue is dark and broody and resents its glamorous neighbour. At nine o’clock on a Friday night it probably doesn’t deserve the power-pop of Milky Wimpshake. There are three of them and they have harnessed the energy of punk and allied it to their underground manifesto of high-art and lo-fi. They make me feel young and they play “Nightclub Voyeur Cliché” and “I Wanna Be Seen In Public With You” which are my favourites: two minute half-love songs from their incomparably bushy and bright-eyed album. They even throw in a version of Electro Hippies’ veggiecore anthem “Sheep”, much as I doubt they would have been old enough to stay up and listen to John Peel when he used to play it."

By July 2002, Marine Research were dissolved and Amelia was fronting Tender Trap at the Bull and Gate, and this time the Wimpshake had moved up a slot to main support, their place as second support taken by some outfit called the Futureheads (wonder what happened to them) who we described with our usual originality bypass as "a feisty combo - if we had to pick a fistful of adjectives, "rhythmic", "intense", "fractured", "manic" and "staccato" would fit the bill". The underrated Reverend Pike were fourth on the bill. But anyway, let's focus on MW:

"a fortuna pop! double headliner / tender trap album launch party extravaganza thing, no less, inopportunely (sound)clashing with bristol rovers f.c.'s "annual fun night" (we particularly like the way that the fun is only annual - certainly, evening matches throughout the season itself never bring anything remotely approaching joy to the fan populace). so we sacrificed the bliss of the south-west funfair for the uncertainties of the north london night on tube strike day...

the slammin' milky wimpshake, of course, are a more familiar formula. lead shaker pete dale gave a shout for solidarity with the tube strikers (rightly), albeit to a muted reception from the tory apologists in our corner of the b&g. although some of the audience were paying equal attention to the way that shambling siren amelia fletcher was dancing with evident delight to their pop nuggets, m.w. were as usual divine, as if by playing songs like "i wanna be seen in public with you" or "dialling tone" (a great way to finish) they could be anything but. new song "don't get down, get even" sparkled the more it went on, its title, at least, putting us in mind of the great ice cube:

"i never tell you to get down / it's all about coming up"

for real. every tune was a blinder - "philosophical boxing gloves", "scrabble", "weirdo", "2nd gen mc dropout", however it was "clicking it" that took us to heaven - we could feel st peter closing the pearly gates firmly behind us as mr. dale sang "i'm carrying a torch for you / i'll carry your suitcase too, if you want..."

so fret not. all in all, it proved well worth the four nightbuses and the (very) early morning walk that it took to get home."

And actually, it says here that we'd seen Milky Wimpshake at the B&G in March 2002, too: headlining, no less, this time with Reverend Pike again and the intriguing Partition on the undercard. We used the opportunity to review their new "Lovers, Not Fighters" LP at the same time (by now, Sean was rather generously sending us fine records like this for review, as if we wouldn't have torn down walls to buy them if he hadn't), and we obviously felt the need to go on about the Buzzcocks again into the bargain:

"the trip home from kentish town, across the city and the thames (well, under the thames, anyway) seemed to go by in a flash. was this because london underground have finally developed the rattle-free, supersonic train ? no. it was because we passed the journey with buzzcocks, authors of so many songs both immortal and irresistible, on the walkman. now if there's one band going that could probably stake a claim to matching those hallowed tunez and halcyon days, it's m.w. - but before we consider the hypothesis further on the evidence of the album, let's detour into gig review mode.

tonight was a much younger crowd at the b&g than the last time we were here. always makes us feel kinda uncomfortable, especially at the handful of gigs we go to, like this one, where there's no sign of harvey williams...

and so to milky wimpshake. a name designed to invite the sneers of workmates when you carefully explain that you are going to a "gig" and they always insist on asking who you're going to see on the basis that they "might have heard of them". after you tell them, of course, just silence and smirking. the 'shake, of course, ambled into our particular adoring gaze with the no-fi standard "the deviancy amplification spiral", a pop! artefact deserving of the exclamation mark as no other, before announcing more considered intentions of world domination with the "bus route to your heart" album on the sadly-disparu slampt! label, chock-full of utterly unashamed and unselfconscious pop / punk songs which reacted against the leaden sludge that was bulldozing through the scene in 1997 (thanks nme).

live, it's difficult to imagine how the power-trio could ever truly disappoint, as they don't exactly rely on studio effects or multitrack trickery for their sound. instead, bassist christine and drummer grant provide the fuel, while pete, the original "fastest wide-eyed implement", sings and strums. in true showbiz style he always grins widest and raises his eyebrows highest when delivering his best lines and / or rhymes - so when he croons "your boyfriend seems so dull / he was probably born in Hull", said eyebrows almost hit the ceiling, as if a TOTP camera had just been thrust in his face. the cheeky chappie routine could only really have been enhanced by winking at the audience too - perhaps next time. they sign-off a thoroughly pleasurable trawl through new and old albums - oh, and the divine "clicking it" - with their stirring 'medley' version of "true love will find you in the end". it's a rousing, heartfelt way in which to bring the curtain down on an entertaining evening.

"lovers not fighters", apparently recorded in - gasp - the last century, builds on past office favourites like "home is where the hate is" and the recent standout 45, included here, the ferric mordant single "dialling tone". at its best, "LNF", even apart from that song, shatters any illusion that the relative age of the recordings might reveal any lack of freshness.

so, pop highlights flash before your ears from the off: they include "scrabble" (a peerless rendition of the live staple, to kickstart proceedings): "philosophical boxing gloves" (pete's j'accuse, "you use your cynicism as protection", whilst thrilled skinny frolic with the vapors behind him): "2nd generation middle class drop out" (a lithe and addictive younger brother to i ludicrous' equally disaffected "autobiography?"): "didn't we ?" (it's the morning after bubblegum splash!'s "if only", and pete has tipped last night's chord pattern onto the bed, along with a glorious sprinkling of keyboard and harmonica): "too much, too drunk" (the primitives' "thru the flowers" shambling through the haze of several percent ABV): "lemonade" (a thoroughly rewarding romp through the ace spraydog popchoon)... oh, you get the idea.

look. the infectiousness on display on such songs is on a plateau only previously reached by the likes of shelley (pete not percy bysshe), maher, devoto and diggle in their legendary one-take early recordings. it truly is right up there with the best of the er, old wave of new wave - every chord, every drum roll, every bass run seems designed to make you want to hop, skip and jump the way through your day. verily - especially with pete's "i was young in the 70s" memories - it is the soundtrack to kids with bowl haircuts racing their raleigh choppers: to parka-clad urchins scaling the municipal climbing frame with gay abandon: the thrill of hearing the ice cream van wending its way around the corner on a sunny day in the long summer holidays: even for us old people, the sound of two hearts beating wildly, on the reunion with the long distance lover or the long lost loved one.

the only times that i find myself pining for the more visceral days of pete's erstwhile indie guitar troupe razorblade smile (tunes like "it kills me inside" and the especial "special") are when the album is raided by folksy elements: a cover of phil ochs' "do what i have to" only suggests to me that ochs was a less talented songwriter than dale is, while as for "white liberal guilt", draped in cloying banjo, the nearest analogy i could make would be to recent-ish half man half biscuit (e.g. "new york skiffle"). the song is so HMHB - the resemblance positively leaps from the speakers, especially the backing vocals nr the end - that as such it becomes uncomfortably close to being a pastiche of a pastiche, which though ambitious is probably at least one step removed from the truly palatable. and christine and grant are missed on the proto-billy bragg "jack ass"(he thought that if he had an acoustic guitar, it meant that he was a protest singer...) these songs seem to have replaced the more pussycat trash-style punka toons like "bar code punk" and "electric shock" on the previous lp.

but but but. given the sort of trax that we've been a bit sniffy about, closing cut "lovers not fighters" shouldn't by rights succeed: yet in fact it gets the folk / indie crossover absolutely right (yes - "it can be done!"), coming over like the great american band x-tal but with bonus self-depreciation like only pete can do it: "wimpshake are not fighting men / the truth is we are lovers and not fighters". and with that they are gone. aaah.

so. pete is both an astute practitioner of studied social contempt and a whirlwind pop genius (his ear for a good tune and striving for a better world were never better summed up than when he sang "i love noam chomsky... and also the ramones" with such sweetness on the last album.) when the two forces combine - like good early jam, milky wimpshake are untouchable. for that, for the skillz which he has as a writer, and for the stop press news that one of our writers once stayed over at pete's place and has pronounced him a totally great bloke, you should never dismiss this band."

Staying with the Buzzcocks comparison angle, we finished the review with the following list of our favourites (we never lost that love of lists, and it would kind of overwhelm us in time). But we'd stand by this today. And yes, it *was* a tape we actually made and listened to!!

in love with these times in spite of these times springtime power-pop c60, then: side one milky wimpshake "hey! brother mine" / "clicking it" / "roll a disco" / "yeah, it's true" / "i wanna be seen in public with you" / "i love you, you weirdo" / "nightclub voyeur cliché" / "dialling tone" / "scrabble" / "philosophical boxing gloves" / "didn't we ?" / "lemonade". side two buzzcocks "breakdown" / "boredom" / "drop in the ocean " / "love battery" / "o. addict" / "what do i get ?" / "oh shit!" / "i don't mind" / "love you more" / "ever fallen in love ?" / "promises" / "fast cars" / "get on our own" / "nostalgia".

And while this piece was - of course - written in 2010, we can exclusively predict that Milky Wimpshake will play a storming set at the Wilmington Arms in June 2011, which will show (a) that they are still writing excellent newies, one of which ("Worthless Person") will grab us by the lapels and veritably yell "SINGLE!" and (b) that everyone from about halfway back - students, hipsters, scenesters, losers - are far more interested in talking loudly than listening to the band they are near-drowning out. Grrrrrr.

If I Should Die Before I See The Wake...

[photo from ltmrecordings.com]



...then there is going to be upset. "If I Should Die Before I Wake", of course, being probably Biggie's best posthumous tune, and also one of Beanie Siegel's greatest moments. Can't remember if we got round to telling you that we finally established last year exactly who killed Biggie, but we did (it was the same night we found out in an impromptu, rather "axe"-related lock-in at the Sutton Arms - the one on Carthusian Street, not the nearby but rubbish one a little further north, possibly on Great Sutton Street - that the landlord christened his daughter Iommi after his guitar hero, and then his punter mate nominated Billy Gibbons as his, and then we were forced to volunteer the view that David Gedge bossed both of them, at which point things became a bit fractious: we should really have said Pete Salowka). Anyway, on the Biggie murder thing, we'll tell you face to face who it was, but not here. We're still working on solving Pac's.

Aie. The point of this post was to mark our moping, in that we found out waaaay too late, as "in the loop" as ever, that none other than the truly very mighty Wake were playing at the London Popfest. Missing them is the most galling thing that's happened to us in years, frankly - the last time we got so upset was probably when Ronnie Maugé got his leg broken in the Gold Cup - but as we tried to pick up the pieces we remembered this, our 2002 attempt to cobble together all our warmth of feelings for the many incarnations of the group in one fell swoop. It didn't quite get there, but it's brought us back to some of our favourite Wake numbers again and hopefully it at least shows that we're serious in our admiration for them. Buy everything they've ever done.

* * * * *

"the wake "harmony and singles", "here comes everybody and singles", "holy heads", "assembly" (ltm)

you wait for years for a wake reissue, and then four come along at once. not that we're complaining - we've always rated them, the terminal unfashionability of the wake never having bothered (i mean, we got laughed out at school for liking mccarthy instead of thousand yard stare) nor even remotely surprised us: being ignored is a constant corollary of bands being ahead of their time. in alternative pop's accepted wisdom, the wake only seem to merit a couple of trite epithets - "that gloomy 80s factory band" and "that sarky band on sarah" - in fact, in the capacity of their stint on the latter, they suffered the double whammy of (a) losing credibility with factory-types ("wot no peter saville associates sleeves ?") for being on the same label as the poppyheads, golden dawn etc and (b) being spurned by many sarah recs fans (hello colette) despite contributing, in our hackneyed view, some of that label's greatest tunes and certainly lyrical moments ("carbrain" being a glowing example on both counts).

but as strangely befits a band who were always out of time, a slew of compact disc thingies are, in this palindromic yr 2002, brought to you by the artful james nice's les temps modernes label.the "harmony" set from 1982, their first album, mixes "movement"-era new order tributes like "heartburn" with proto-goth ("judas"), proto-sarah ("testament") and sterling early-80s alt-pop ("an immaculate conception"). history watchers observe - it's the second best lp that bobby gillespie (iffy bass duties) has ever played on (see ? even in having gillespie as a member, the wake were ahead of their time - the only band who never managed to capitalise on their association with the press darling).

top music journalist (remember them, nme ?) dave mccullough infamously described one-riff opener "favour" as better than new order and potential top 40, which although not his most eccentric pronouncement, must rank close - "favour" is insistent and dripping with promise, but lest we forget, new order had just unleashed "procession", arguably their best ever single. bonus tracks on the cd include a contemporaneous john peel session in which they joined the new wave obsession with "the drill" as song title - theirs being an affectionate eulogy to new order's "everything gone green" as if played by josef k - and two other singles, including their rather cute pre-factory debut, "on our honeymoon", which fair prickles with the bashful ingenuousness of a fledgling pop band.

"have you heard the good news / everybody works so hard"

next set, "here comes everybody" received a poor reception when it came out in 1985. a reception which effectively stalled the wake at the time when their star had seemed to be in the ascendant. sadly, it's not too difficult to see why, as it is an album which is horribly cleanly produced, all eight songs being drowned in unsubtle new musik-style keyboards and spluttering in their sameness - despite some obviously affecting lyrics and attractive melodies struggling to get out, the effect is of eight rather lesser versions of the preceding singles ("talk about the past" - a treasured 12" here at in love with these times in spite of these times towers and a worthy companion piece in 1984 to new order's similarly melodic, electronic and sprawling "thieves like us": and "of the matter", a much more pint-sized pseudo-pop creation - both bonus tracks on this cd reissue) messily coagulating. so "here comes everybody" itself, "world of her own" and "sail through", for example, all sound lame compared to their incarnations in radio one session form.

oddly, however, the main historical import of the album - apart from it being the soundtrack to the denouement of the wake's critical acclaim - seems to be the fact that it is a record without which the field mice circa "for keeps" simply could not have existed. in their normal prescient way, the whole album, especially the basslines later purloined by michael hiscock, sounds like mid to late period - i.e. post-peak - 'mice, or early northern picture library. "melancholy man" in particular is a frighteningly accurate premonition of field mice '91.

this cd also features four other tracks - the "something that no-one else could bring" ep - later famously referred to on their sarah records cut "joke shop" ("when we released our 4 track EP / it could not be found in the Megastore"). one is tempted to say, especially after hearing "plastic flowers", that must be because all the copies had been bought up by a young and obviously hugely impressionable bobby wratten. nevertheless, the ep - their factory recs swansong - was a real step up, leading with the swoonsome "gruesome castle" (can it really be 15 years since we first heard it, courtesy of the usual source, one j. peel, esq, of peel acres ?) on the evidence of which you can see why sarah records would have had no obvious qualms about in saving the wake from their increasingly loveless relationship with tony wilson et al.

"and he's so proud of the club, but it's just a glorified pub"

the sarah days were great days because the wake appeared to have been freed from the shackles of caring any more. and the "holyheads" cd combines the wake's third and fourth albums, both issued to critical whimper. no. 3 was the "make it loud" mini-lp: 8 tracks of offhand sniping, including "joke shop" and the commuter portrait "henry's work" ("you're the kind of person who used to be a laugh / now you're the kind who reads the daily telegraph"). no. 4, their last recorded work, was "tidal wave of hype", built upon the orchids' rhythm section and belting out to a grotesquely uninterested world great songs like "i told you so", in which caesar rails about ex-labelmate mike pickering (of quando quango non-fame and later m people notoriety, though he may also require a ceremonial kicking for introducing the happy mondays to tony w's attention) and no-one should ever even think of doing a sarah compilation tape to try and impress a beau - come on, we all have - without putting on "provincial disco": "i know everyone has to have an interest / but i draw the line at white soul". even if you then find out (s)he's a level 42 fan and that's the last time you get to walk them home, at least you've done yourself a favour in the long run. oh, and "crasher", which is adorable as its subject, er, isn't.

"of all the crashing bores i've had the pleasure to know, he takes first prize"

finally, the body of the "assembly" cd is a live set from ayr in 1983 which flames into life with the unreleased tune "recovery" and the definitive version of "uniform" (from the peel session), which respectively ooze the anger and the sadness that new order were also trying to achieve at that time. the bills the two bands shared that year must have been towering indie face-offs. the cd also includes a surprisingly poppy 1984 kid jensen session (the first three tracks of which, including a truncated first go at "talk about the past" and 2 of those songs that later got smothered by the production of "here comes everybody" are excellent): best of all though, because they didn't quite fit on "holyheads", you get the two sarah 45s. first is the impeccable sarah debut, the bittersweet duet "crush the flowers" c/w "carbrain", an adorable pop rumble which apart from anything else knowingly incorporated the previous sarah fanzine titles "cold" / "lemonade" into its wonderful lyric. the second sarah single, released between the albums that make up "holyheads", saw two musical variations on "henry's work": "major john" for once was not ahead of its time, over-optimistically celebrating the imminent departure from office of a certain prime minister (as we know from 1992, that didn't actually happen and in fact, he actually outlasted them): on the flip, "lousy pop group", whilst musically indistinguishable from the a-side, continued the sequence of music industry hate songs which the wake are, frankly, as entitled as anyone to market.

2 conclude. we would have to say that if you've ever had a soft spot for new order or the field mice, it would be a crime not to reserve one for the wake. especially when you now have, at last, the perfect opportunity."

Stars Of Cinema

Indie-pop is MASSIVE now, isn't it ? With London Popfest and Indietracks, the UK scene even now has its own Aldeburgh and Glyndebourne. But it wasn't always like this.

Back in day, you had to hunt hard for labels that were true to the game. The amazing Matinée Recordings was one, and the extracts below are some (OK then, thirty) glimpses of our delight on uncovering various Matinée releases, bands and gigs in the early 2000s. Scarily this is by no means complete, but is all we've found so far whilst rummaging around...

Part one: singles



HARPER LEE: Dry Land

Single of the year, this or any other year. [It was 2000!]

Keris is still keeping a tight rein on the mournful picked-out guitar tones, trim 4/4 basslines and lyrics that lurch from sadness to anger and back again whilst the melodies rain down in traditional Brighter style. Musical support now comes from Laura Bridge of Kicker (and ex-Hood/Boyracer apparently) although for the avoidance of doubt "Dry Land" showcases none of Kicker's bushy-tailed bright-eyed joie de vivre nor the more shambolic beauty of Hood's erstwhile lo-fi ramblings.

Brighter are back, with swearing. Memo to all other bands: give up now.

SPORTIQUE: Don't Believe A Word I Say

Lighter and scrummier than most of their debut album last year, "Don't Believe" has Gregory yelping like a man possessed (by his younger self) while Amelia Fletcher lends backing vocals and guitars and keyboards gambol playfully in the fields of indiedom. The sort of record that 7" singles were designed for - one that seems over all too soon and you can just flick the stylus back for another go straightaway.

harper lee - bug

in case the superlative police are in town, i have to be very careful with this review. it's just knowing there are people out there who make such perfect music - for listening to on your headphones as you walk over the bridge at night and the mist descends and you look down the railway line and london seems near perfect - and so it's such a privilege to be able to listen to this unassumingly-packaged 7", which only makes its way to england on import, despite being recorded in brighton.

"bug" is a minimal meander, wreathed in warm, plucked guitar tones and pivoting on a single brighteresque chord change. the lyrics are desolate and wonderful as he ponders the trapped-relationship protagonist - "you've walked away so many times in your mind" - hence it is everything an "a" side shouldn't be according to the sort of people who run the record industry.

"you kill me" picks up the tempo ever-so-slightly by virtue of the trusty drum machine, but the lyrical mood is very similar: "don't bear me", keris pleads - and the handkerchiefs are out by the time he sings "this was never going to work out", the continuing autumnal swirl of faint keyboards and semi-acoustic guitars punctuated by a simple and brittle melody line.

two songs of impossible beauty.

the windmills - drug autumn ep

the latest offering from the unlikely jangle-pop breeding ground of yes, southend, this kicks off with "everything is new each day", a faithful stab at the 'perfect pop song' which falls down on that front by being a little too cloying and a little too clinical. they've selected all the usual items from the "perfect pop song" drop-down menu - "la la la's", lyrical wide eyed wonderment and a soft landing after two minutes; the end result is very palatable but strangely unsatisfying. a neat little tiramisu of a song, then.

"drug autumn" itself swells into four and a half minutes of reminiscence - even though singing about drugs is usually even more boring than talking about drugs, the tone is nicely unspecific and self-conscious. "are we still where we were ? " chimes sweetly to no particular effect, so it falls on closer "want" to provide my favourite slice of the ep: apparently from the last album, it jangles and oozes a warm, laconic charm, much more in the mould of singer roy thirlwall's melodie group project.

the would-be goods "emannuelle béart"

it is probably time to confess that for 12 yrs we have laboured under the perhaps understandable impression that the would-be's and the would-be-goods were the same band, compounded rather by having heard nothing from either group apart from (back in about '89) the former's "i'm hardly ever wrong", a promo 7" of which i remember knocking about in the 'offices' of the fanzine i was attempting to help my mate out with at the time. as great rock misapprehensions go, it is up there with the time i rather optimistically went to the camden monarch to see a band called "cub" in the vain hope that they were the pop-plus canadian power trio, only to find that they were an appalling bunch of more local chancers (indeed, the camden monarch has been an oft-unlucky venue for the in love with these times in spite of these times mafia - remember when we arrived for a monograph gig only to find a sign pinned up saying "gig cancelled... monograph can be found in the lock tavern" ?) it is also up to the sadness i felt in having to explain to our mate si that the band called "witness" who he had spotted in the gig listings were some way off - in every respect - being the near perfect a witness... and, come to think of it, the fact that the utterly ephemeral hal and blueboy who had chart hits with iffy dance records were not the hal and blueboy who ought to have had chart hits with totally precious, intelligent independent pop songs.

anyway. in fact the would-be-goods, aka jessica griffin and - we speculate - various like-minded cappuccino-bar haunting cohorts, had been on the el label most of the intervening time; a label that we have never really been able to get into because of its overweaning foppishness, despite our laboured mike alway appropriation on the "about" page. in fact, my favourite record ever on that label was james dean driving experience's indietastic "sean connery" 12", which i gather from this book (er, p. 296) was regarded by alway et al at the time as a fairly vulgar and downmarket affair compared to the swooning jazziness of el's own "pet" bands. anyway, on the assumption that you might even want some kind of comment on the record, "emmanuelle béart" and "words" are catchy, driven pop numbers, with griffin's cultured vocal lending proceedings a bourgeois, ski-chalet air. we weren't so taken with the other tracks, which shun the drums and bass for a tangle of acoustic whimsy, but that's often the way when the lead track on a single is so bloody addictive... it casts a shadow over the succeeding numbers. but with an album on the way soon, we'll be able to analyse the would-be-goods (especially now the penny has dropped!) more closely in future.

remember fun "train journeys"

continuing our tradition of reviewing things many years after they came out. this was always going to be (once we ambled upon it) an essential purchase, remembering as we did the slick strum of "hey hey hate", so long ago we hardly dare to remember. in the interregnum, they have lost the punctuation mark (i'm sure they used to be called remember fun?) but all else remains thankfully intact.

"train journeys" is, i think, the killer track, attacking from the start. perhaps unsurprisingly, it reminds me of the awe i felt when i first uncovered new groups on demos and flexis back in the (c.1987) day - or when harvesting the wheat that was hidden away on every compilation tape amongst all the chaff. it's more conventionally jangly than "hey hey hate", recalling early hellfire sermons, and yes, the church grims (who were always the june brides doing the close lobsters) but without the brass. like second song "doze off them", which is musically slightly more pedestrian, it seeks to rail (sorry) against the monotony of daily commuterdom, but without sacrificing any of the de rigeur capricious wit ("time on my hands, i'll dig myself a moat") in describing the singer's attempts to escape "this routine life".

after "three chers" (sic), a morrissey-style paean of hate (i'm guessing to the ever-deserving target of mrs. t) the closing "car" also doesn't do badly - again, revelling in the jangle of the smiths but with a more sardonic vocal and (i trust) the tongue-in-cheek exhortation "convenience is my number one concern... it's better killing the earth than killing myself": again, the mix of black humour in the lyrics helps raise the song above many of the po-faced indie bands of yore.

sadly, it appears that remember fun(?) are indeed no more - this sparkling cd-s being a one-off exhumation of the kind of talent that once seemed two-a-penny, and in doing so serving to remind us of the state we're in now.

singles round-up: lovejoy "plays biff bang pow!": melodie group "summerness": slipslide "sleeptalk": pipas "troublesome"

Reporter: "but i don't FEEL what you guys are doing"
Ice-T: "ok dude. feel this"... [gunshot]

unflappable and perverse romantics that we are, we savour not just the crackle of the needle on plastic but also every warp, scratch or whimsical stylus - it's all part of the listening experience. good music is tactile and textured - and why shouldn't that apply to the medium as well as the message ?

lovejoy!'s "play biff bang pow!" does what it says on the tin and blueboys-up those hardy alan mcgee perennials "hug me honey" and "the beat hotel", oddly two of the lesser tracks from two of the better bbp! lps: it's a tender tribute, but hardly groundbreaking. better is the latest offering from windmills splinter, the melodie group, which proudly parades the songwriting skillz of roy thirlwall - "summerness" is a nervous petal of a tune, which wraps itself invitingly around a single drum machine pattern. completing this particular matinée triumvirate, slipslide chart vaguely darker waters with the studied cool of "sleeptalk"..

but the winners of this particular singles round-up are... pipas! "a short form about sleeping" is a... modern sound, which manages to be both subtle and bloody brilliant - a bit like michel platini circa 1982 - maybe it's how dubstar would play if they'd been forced to rough it with sarah-types before being rescued by matinée (which does, incidentally, rather appear to be where all the top tunes are coming from this year). and "troublesome", while not quite living up to its title, is certainly endearingly pesky.

the guild league "jet-set... go!": the liberty ship "i guess you didn't see her"

the guild league are a bold and beautiful aggregation of talents led by the lucksmiths' tali white. "jet-set... go!" just does enough to distinguish itself from the sunny strum of his other band, and is all the better for it; a kooky travelogue, or a polo-playing contemporary of beaumont's recent recorded endeavours, perhaps, that combines a slightly off-kilter bass with a great jangling guitar. if it's true there are only 1,000 copies, then it's worth hurrying back from yorkshire, andalucia, londres or any other of the jet-set locations mentioned within these super-suave grooves to secure your copy.

the liberty ship's much anticipated début on the same label, meanwhile, is a natural and endearing pop folk song - daring to travel at medium pace so as not to sacrifice the melody. we've now established that the liberty ship suit both the bleak chill of january and the heady flavour of summer - rich and laid-back, this is pop for all seasons. and armed with the knowledge that marc elston has been recently extolling the virtues of gems like the rain parade, east village and the railway children, it all seems tremendously natural. (postscript, for 'frozen tundra' lyric fans - we acknowledge that our original review of "i guess..." was factually inaccurate, as slumber's "wasteland" should of course have been joined by ice cube's "pushin' weight" in the list of top-qual songs featuring said metaphor. we apologise to ya for any inconvenience caused.)

the windmills "walking around the world" ep

imagine it - an early promenade in south east england, the mists seamlessly rising over the sludge of the shoeburyness shoreline, the first trace of a timid sun on the horizon. md player at the ready, you press "play" in search of the perfect soundtrack, and as your muddy trainers strike out on the pavement, roy thirlwall begins to croon into your ears - "i walk a line / of my own design"...

"walking around the world" is the title, and closing track on the new ep from the southenders, and it's ample demonstration, as if more were required, that progression need not be dramatic, or sudden, or seismic: instead, like the great evolvers hood, it's the refinement of the traits and talents that a band have already hinted at, a constant reassessment of musical goals. after those opening lines, a statement of independence, the song unfolds precisely, with taut guitars and drums at the culmination of each verse skilfully counterpointing the eloquent, minimalist lyrics - as songs from their second album "sunlight" showed, it's all in the delivery, and mr. thirlwall has craft and panache enough to get away with knowing lines like "all the roads seem to lead to me... what a funny place to be". by the end, the guitar sound is the sort of timeless, imperial spiral that ties you in little knots, and yes, there is something of the house of love's first album in the clarity and intensity wrung from such simple words and song structures while rob clarke's brisk drumming pilots the music through the wash. the proof that these manifold ingredients gel is that despite being five minutes long, it all seems over too quickly...

of course, the first song of the three, "what was it for ?" ain't half bad either - east village with a spring in their step - and it's already been scientifically proven that you can hardly go wrong with any lyric of "i tried a thousand times..." the ep is completed by "amelia", a rare composition of bassist dan pankhurst that treads its way via two recurring notes towards some of pop's more leafy glades, in the tradition of those percussively-weighted weather prophets ballads like "sleep" and "frankie lymon".

but as the sun finally peeps up beyond the breakwaters and we spin the cd again, just enough time to tell you that the package is also accompanied by a video cut of "what was it for ?", which along with the more fire crew and mark b and blade edits, is a favourite spot of office viewing on the PC right now. god bless technology.

harper lee "train not stopping"

the press release from matinee was disturbing: "introducing a new soulful influence" it said. no need to fear, though - that was a blatant lie and we are still talking brighter rather than berry gordy. keris howard's genius is a consistent, stable comfort and it is exhibited to usual stunning effect on the title track, which interpolates a winningly hummable chorus into another delicious vehicle of melancholy and regret. "this is the last song, because I'm bored of being ignored", sighs keris, as the failure of the world outside to recognise the class of this kind of tune moves into its second decade. underpinned by a brisk strumming pattern, then decorated with precise picked-out guitars, "train not stopping" moves harper lee further ahead of the chasing pack. and in such an effortless way.

"i could be there for you" is nearly as good: there are unconscious hints, i think, of the smiths in some of the phrasing, aswell as conscious ones, probably, of the sentiment of the field mice's "if you need someone", which keris did after all play bass on at the spitz last month. the final track, "the sea gently lifting", has a very hood-like title, but despite being the most atmospheric of the bunch, it lacks the irresistibility of the other songs. still, it seems so simple right now. i could happily do nothing but listen to these songs til christmas, and harper lee are still in charge.

Part two: albums (and minis)



MELODIE GROUP: Seven Songs

So, by comparison [to Napalm Death, one suspects], this is an epic album - a good twenty minutes long - but an unexpected and delicious treat as the bloke out of the Windmills decamps to a Clapham studio and regales us with six (sic) indie/pop nuggets delivered in dulcet, low and oh-so-wry tones. This is, I can't help thinking, the sort of quality that Shinkansen should be coming up with rather more regularly than "occasionally", but I'd better not put that in writing. Ook.

LOVEJOY: Songs In The Key Of Lovejoy

Once there was a band called Blueboy. They were destined, surely, to be stars. In the event they settled for having punctured the mediocrity of the 90s with some fantastic singles and albums - as they immodestly sang themselves, they were "positive, political and too good to be true" - before signing off with the unimpeachable "Bank Of England" album a couple of years back.

Blueboy's main men have come up this year with a concept album on the Spanish Siesta label: an acoustic indie/jazz aberration about the campus jet set mixing with viscounts and dilettantes at society fetes. This being (almost) Blueboy, there are amidst all this some tender and wonderful songs; my favourite is closer "Cross-Country", delicate and glistening until it slowly fades away. But really, it seems a little bit of a waste.

Hang on though - Keith and Paul are also involved with Lovejoy, labelmates to such supernovae as Sportique and Harper Lee. And Lovejoy's album is much more in the Blueboy template, although the vocals from Dick Preece - which recall the half-punky, half-wimpy mould of Dan Treacy - work best on "Thank Your Lucky Stars" and "Butter Wouldn't Melt", where the guitars are turned up and the immaculate pop sensibilities are allowed to subside briefly. Mind you, in the crystal sheen of "Live Alone Forever" and the majestic "Radio" Lovejoy have two soundscapes that would have graced any Blueboy album.

ego "la main devant la bouche"

this is rather wonderful. ego, so you know, are from montpellier, france (as opposed to montpelier, bristol). the history of french smiths-type pop is not littered with famous names, and i would only pick out chelsea (the mid-90s indiesters rather than the comedy blokes who gave us "right to work") before this. but ego have the craft.

throughout, the playing and production are polished without being merely a sheen - and where the volume goes up, or the rhythm changes, or the strings gently intrude, it is to enhance the song, rather than pointless illumination. "drew barrymore" is a cute number which epitomises europop indie-style with its pace, guitars and dark lyrics; and "under a tree" is one of those songs that you don't want to finish, finding the perfect formula where the wedding present meet sarah records. i could have done with a couple more songs sung in french to counter the nagging worry that when they sing in english they're somehow having to labour the words, or fear phrases lost in the translation. those songs in francais work really well, including jaunty opener "oriane", which is propelled by an accordionish two-note keyboard, and two excellent songs to finish, too.

harper lee "go back to bed"

"brighter are back, with swearing. Memo to all other bands - give up now" - tryhappiness, last year.

that still applies. after crawling around london for some weeks we have finally managed to get our hands on the holy grail - the debut album by keris and laura, in its graffiti sleeve headed with the words "urban guerrilla tactic". who do they think they are ? comet gain ?

no, becomes evident from the opening moments of the effortlessly perfect "seem so right", which after a few seconds of teasing breaks out into the trademark brighter guitar picking we so know and love, two and a half minutes on a single four-bar axis. fey pop in a sparkling new order-stlyee, and, like the violin-driven "doing nothing" which follows it, over far too quickly. while "deep dark ocean" (a happy marriage of two brighter songs' guitarlines, namely "christmas" and "around the world in 80 days"), is straight outta the old-skool keris howard textbook.

the singles "dry land" and "bug" are both here too: prime slices of self-sorrow and (of course) amongst the highlights. the studied pop of "only connect", which at one time i seem to remember was destined to be the title track, is the obvious (so far) missed single opportunity, with its repeated, optimistic-sounding guitar motif over a strumming pattern reminiscent of the likes of the post-"laurel" era cuts "poppy day" and "hope springs eternal". glorious.

the other tunes i would isolate are the fantastic, bitter "brooklyn bridge" - this time resplendent in a guitar line less than a million miles from the mary chain's "darklands" - and "your life", which consists of a single repeated four bar musical phrase, overlaid by prominent bass and tranches of guitar. in these moments "go back to bed" more closely echoes the final brighter EP and their subsequent Hal incarnation; elsewhere, the plucked chords and keyboard bells are closer in tone to some of the stuff on sarah. lyrically, there are (apart from the swearing) few progressions from days of yore... although the dual meanings in songs (political / emotional, sexual / political) continue the fantastic tradition of sweetly poisonous polemics "tinsel heart", "hope springs" and "election day".

the closing song is "low", which surrounds keris' voice with the drum rhythm off the mary chain's "just like honey" and, more disturbingly, a very cheap, overpowering synth line which recalls the cure, "pornography" era, or perhaps new order's fledgling "movement". enough guitars come in at the end to rescue affairs, but it's a close run thing. i'm also not too sure about "clifton street passage" which sounds a bit like it should be a cover of an american grunge-folk song, except for the fact it has brighter guitar on it.

really, there's not too much more i can say save that this record is everything you would expect, and in this context that is the atlantic away from being a criticism. keris is older and a little unhappier, but the songs are still a perfect escape from the blur of the city and a perfect tonic for those cosy romantic evenings, one on one with your sound system. there is an "eighties" subtext throughout - those of us who have seen brighter's live take on depeche mode's "i just can't get enough" will understand this - but this album is a long way from the kitsch post-80s stylings of left-field luminaries like figurine, laptop, barcelona or my favorite. this is one of the few remotely recent albums that might just find its way into my all time list, only challenged in the last decade by the more coherent wholes of "her handwriting" and perhaps east river pipe's "mel".

so. no hype, no remixes, no capital letters. but if you can find it, please buy it.

sportique "modern museums"

"it's been a long time" - eric b and rakim

it's been bloody ages, in fact. but the so-long trailed second sportique album has finally arrived.

after saturn v, authors of the sadly underrated "skycycle" album, had seemingly imploded, sportique emerged from the relative slumber of gregory webster's solo album with popsongs so endearing and beautiful that "early razorcuts" was really the only soubriquet you could throw at them. and so we loved and enjoyed epoch-defining, timeless songs like "the kids are solid gold" and the glistening "don't believe a word i say".

but now, gregory and his bands' choice of headgear having gone all the way from bowl haircuts in razorcuts days to bowler hats today (strangely via the early 90s baseball caps of saturn v), sportique have carried on developing. and we know - because we can hear them chattering away now in oh-so trendy north londinium - there will be murmurs of discontent from disaffected indie snobs as to the fact that on the evidence of "modern museums", sportique are rocking a bit, shouting a lot, they even sound like they're enjoying it, and how dare they do an album that's only 24 minutes long, and has no ballads on it ? it's not worth dignifying them with an answer.

the tate-tastic title track "modern museums" combines (warning: here comes the obligatory mention in a sportique review of the w-word) a very, yes, wire-like one-chord rumble with the driving guitars of magazine... and then the bass which kicks off and then propels second song "cerebral vortex" is so insistent it reminds me of the buzzcocks' sparkling peel session take of "fast cars", before the song prangs itself into a passing organ sound that could have been played by john rivers back at wsrs leamington spa in the late 80s... yes that good.

"let's try some cultural respite" - art & shopping

and cultural references abound throughout. much has been said about gregory's ability to wring inspiration from every decade in which he has lived, but it's all true - "i want to be totally wired" he tells us (remember the fall-esque "sport for all" ?) on the utterly flawless live favourite "definition seventy-nine" in which he so-rightly laments "it's just like '74 again... were we wasting our time ?" (before a guitar break which so-cheekily recalls magazine's "shot by both sides"), while the spirit of '76 / '77 is further invoked by the first bars of "the dying fly" (more top wire-lite) that faithfully reconstruct the opening rumble to the sex pistols' greatest recorded moment. we've said before that the chrysalis of punk is part of the whole raison d'etre of this site, and you can't tell me that the razorcuts at their "sad kaleidoscope" best - the enthusiasm, the shamble, the infectiousness - weren't somehow rooted in punk... you can't, it would break my heart.... meanwhile, tuneless yelling hasn't really been in vogue since the days of the shrubs, but in the marvellous "how many times ?" it works perfectly over the staccato guitars, until the whole song lifts off into a blinding last 30. and on the title track, gregory screams "I AM A REAL ARTIST!" before the song really snowballs into an echo chamber of guitars while he hollers the cruel rejoinder "IN YOUR HEAD!"... and all in estuary english, although i could swear that last time i looked his native luton was not quite on the thames-side...

as you'll have guessed, despite the acquisition of amelia fletcher as fourth member - though it appears from the inner sleeve that she is at least excused from having to sport the aforesaid bowler hats - there are no real concessions to the patented marine research brand of hook-laden "pure" pop: indeed, not even any obvious evidence of her backing vocals that helped cement the fabulousness of "don't believe a word" (and, of course "anyone can make a mistake", but that's giving my age away)... although there is a faintly-discernible, disembodied voice on "icestorm" that may be her, or it may just be the voice of a passing angel... instead, amelia (we imagine at least from the last gig we saw) is supplying the keyboard lines. and there's a real a hint of the stranglers where the keyboard "gets a grip" (sorry) - on the brilliant "suture". on other tracks, the effect of the keyboards varies from jaunty ("obsessive") to spooky early-80s ("how many times...") through to earnest (that'll be "cerebral vortex"). fans of sportique's "early stuff" will have their cockles most cheered, we suspect, by the shamblier "art & shopping" and "icestorm", which both would have fitted snugly onto "black is a very popular colour". while it is the playfully acerbic lyrics, rather than the music, to the "the dying fly" (the fact that wire's "i am the fly" is irresistibly brought to mind can be no coincidence) that imbue it with "new" sportique's punky irreverence. the last track is the re-working of "obsessive", which i think last surfaced on the flip to the amazing "love & remains": its pace and power (think emile heskey) bringing the album to a suitably positive conclusion.

it's obvious from many of the lyrics that these 9 cuts continue to indulge gregory's own obsession - with art (in the tradition of the "appropriations" on their record sleeves). the songs pinprick the pomposity of the contemporary auteur ("if i was an artist, i'd collaborate in group shows / i'd eschew creating the object") or indeed the modern (riverbank) museum - "stick in the [B]ourgeois: fill that space"): in essence, "modern museums" is, ultimately, a concept album about art. but, believe us, it's much more challenging and enjoyable than that might sound. did u know that more people go to art galleries and museums every week than football matches ? god, you'd hardly guess it from the tabloids.

anyway. south londoners we may be. we don't know much about art, but we know what we like. record of the month.

the windmills "sunlight"

the windmills are from southend. that might not mean that much to you (as the groove farm once sang) but trust me (as the flatmates sang), as a kid i used to go and visit the relatives there all the time, freeze on the pier (when it was the world's longest and all that), paddle in the sludge, dodge jellyfish on the beach, and when i got a bit older we'd drive out there and fail to get into any pubs (in retrospect, probably just as well as we would have got pulped). and when i'm 60 i'm going to retire there, with my beer on the sideboard, knocking out chas n' dave classics on the old joanna. fact.

"you're secret, first of all, and secondly, you're beautiful" - unkiss

southend is therefore one of the last places - much as i love it - that you expect witty, wry, cultured indie-pop songs to be born. so three cheers for the windmills then. "sunlight" is an album of intelligent, breathy half-jangle which in any tolerable universe would be gleefully outstaying its welcome in the top 5 album charts. in our own, however, it just shrugs knowingly and gets on with the job, a bit like the ice cream vans that have to traipse up and down the front at southend for the 10 months of the year that it's winter in essex. it's a shame that half the songs are not new; versions of the respectful east village tribute "when it was winter", the previous single "drug autumn" (and its flip "pounds, shillings and pence") we have all heard before - while the decidedly great "unkiss" featured on "the wedding cd" compilation (and "untouch" is merely, grrr, a "reprise" of the same song - an abominable tactic, sirs). this does however enable us to turn our attention to some of the unheard numbers, as they are undoubtedly wonderful (nearly as much so as southend united and that legendary "roots hall roar". ahem).

"boxing glove" is a remarkable hymn, subverting the traditional pop twang a la the field mice's "coach station reunion" and pivoting on a lovely change of pace when old drummer rob clarke, assisted by some fieldmicey bass, just ups the tempo into each verse. its lyrics follow an ill-disguised theme on this album of submitting to a female protagonist's (i hope) metaphorical punches. "cloud five" on the other hand, is lighter and airier, an unprepossessing 2 1/2 minutes of trad-indie cirrocumulus. while the fabulous "taxi fare" kicks off with a perfect, tremulous guitar line before roy thirlwall's deep soothing tones are belatedly coaxed out to marshal things - in such mellifluous company, even the harmonica that seeps in towards the end is forgivable. "be groovy or leave" (how many times have we heard that sentiment....) is also a fine song, again relying on subtlety and understatement to just hit home that bit harder: it also acts as the perfect showcase for the guy's resigned, sardonic intonation as he repeats the title in amongst the closing bars. the other previously unheard number is "she's so hard", a mildly sugary concoction the chorus to which ("[her] bare fists punching") unfortunately grates rather. and for those of you (to be fair, the entire population of the world, minus a pressing of 1,000) who hadn't heard it before, "unkiss" is another song that envelops you in its warmth, with the drums and bass combining in the chorus in a way reminiscent of the brilliant corners' "anticipation". as such, it does make a great lead track.

peace out to the windmills, then: evidence that southend is more than just the place at the end of billy bragg's "A13". they'll succeed without our patronage, but at least we can say we were there.

the would-be goods "brief lives"

after the digression masquerading as a review that we supplied last month, it seems only fair to concentrate on the music this time round. we will allow ourselves merely the observation that all the analogies you will hear to parisian cafes when describing the would-be-goods' appealing european whimsy seem to us be flawed - in our happily not-unextensive experieence of parisienne cafe society, the key ingredients are omelettes, café americain, bière blanche and virtua striker machines - none of which truly exude the elegance of jessica griffin's writing.

despite what you have heard, the musical journey, if any, is often back in time, rather than across la manche - being transported to different epochs by the ageless delicacy of the near-acoustic. so while, admittedly, tunes like "butterfly kiss" would perfectly soundtrack a stroll across the seine to la rive gauche, songs like "esperanza" - musically, at least - or "whitsun bride", with its plucked mandolin, could equally have been b-sides to henry viii's alleged debut single "greensleeves". the arrangements and the chord progressions through this album are often so simple, strums softly beating like the wings of angels, that many a familiar song from history's more recent popular canon is also brought to mind. so "bad lord byron" (another period effortlessly recalled) disturbingly apes "magical mystery tour", while "a season in hell" reminds us, at least, of a regency-era "she's not there"...

though there's nothing maybe quite as instant as "emmanuelle béart" or even the delightful "sugar mummy", the guitars do get turned up on numbers like "vivre sa vie" and "dilettante", while the six strings deployed with more restraint on "fancy man" etch melodies tellement sympa in the honeyed style of those chilled shop assistants songs like "somewhere in china". (yes, the sleigh-bells help). "elegant rascal" is a brattishly decanted spoken word punk prayer set in the eternal ugliness of the elephant and castle - one of many songs set in and depicting our home city - with the coolly-pseudonymed "orson presence" on organ clearly particularly enjoying proceedings. the fine "1999" - a graceful nursery rhyme which sounds like the softies singing a thesaurus - ensures things end with a flourish (remember when that title was so moderne, even futuristic ?) in fact the only downside is that "flashman", seemingly, isn't actually about stan.

we caught the WBGs live in highbury last month and they shook off a nervous start to charm us all rather. coming from someone who, it seems, became a pop star almost by accident, "brief lives", being both romantic with a capital R, and tender to a T, is pretty impressive stuff. the sound of serendipity at work.

simpático "the difference between alone and lonely"

this lush artwork surrounds the first full-length release from now-melburnian former sweet william singer jason sweeney, refining his romantic half-pop vision following on from the strong début "postal museum". simpático conceive careful, studied, post-sarah pop: a mesh of 4/4, throughout which a house-trained drum machine acts as an anchor, the guitars able to sketch a cat's cradle around the lovelorn lyrics. this combination gives the music a strange kind of elasticity, echoing the understated yet immensely moving plainness of late lamented bands like romford's own catapult...

in constructs like "drove it down", "street talk" or "preciously inside" jason sweeney is, indeed, more lonely than merely alone. in the way he sings lines like "trying my best... and i'm trying too hard", or "no-one said you had to be happy", there is much of the longing of the sweetest ache, and the cool welsh mists which surrounded their sarah album "jaguar". jason keeps saying "and i feel fine because i see him", and the more he says it, the less you believe him - this is the hallmark of affecting music. in "school life", on the other hand, though we are aware mr. sweeney wouldn't relish the comparison, there is something of the smiths in there.... admittedly we see something of the smiths in every thing of beauty, from the clouds to the stars, but the recanting of playground cruelty in "school life" and its "drive me anywhere" outro - "don't stop the car" are so s.p.m. (the cascading chord cadences as jason sings "sometimes children can be so cruel" are even a bit johnny m.) indeed, there are many references to driving on this rich, sensuous album: like east river pipe, with their endless tales of lonely motoring, simpático have the luxury of coming from a nation of wide open spaces and endless vistas - not like our own "stinking little country"...

getting back to the music, another pinnacle for us is the quite brilliant "urgency", which joins a very strong field mice / wake influence with segments of spoken word that again bring to mind the narrations of early sweetest ache songs like "climbing". the song brutally depicts the sexual exigencies of a relationship and how love can hurt so much. perhaps because of this authenticity, when listened to on the inter-city the other week, the wiltshire fields flashing by, this and subsequent track "his goodbye echoes" (let's just say it resembles something trembling and blue, albeit decorated with lyrical go-betweenisms like "a letter only half-completed, i never signed my name") made for such formidable listening - maybe, as the train hurtled westwards and dissected the cotswold countryside, at last we were getting a flavour of the effect of distance, and those journeys long enough to give you time to think, to reflect... to worry.

over the twelve songs constituting "the difference between..." jason certainly does all of these things, and in virtually every song, his partner in crime is the dr. rhythm, faithfully chronicling every outpouring of his soul (when in "carrying photographs", the drum machine is removed, suddenly all is as quiet and static as a sleepy sunday afternoon in a sunny surrey suburb). indeed, even aside from the percussion, simpático trademarks start to emerge across the album: the echoey guitars throw aberdeen and blueboy into the "influences" mix, whilst jason has a distinctive way of drawing out his vowel sounds - usually upping the angst and adding to the er, urgency (it helps songs like the more triffids-inspired opener "let him go" carry that little more punch): though on "spin", helped by the boy/boy spiral of words like "he'd still sit around, and i'd still spin around", his vocals evince a real brighter vibe.

by the time last track "cold season" has dissipated into the evening sky with its slow fade, you are in no doubt. we believe the phrase is "all killer, no filler". and if you're still not sure whether to invest in this album, please buy the excellent ep. because we guarantee that if that shakes your tree, this will reverberate yr whole forest.

the lucksmiths "where were we ?"

"where were we ?" is a compilation of "non-album" lucksmiths moments from the past year or two - there have been a few. for the uninitiated (like us, we're ashamed to say) the 'smiths are a melbourne trio who adhere to the australian tradition of melding impeccable musicianship with arch lyricism, cramming songs full of one-liners yet still somehow maintaining an affecting outlook over the three minute heroics in which they specialise.

we can but dwell on our own favourites - "the cassingle revival", a killer a-side on the bristling fortuna pop!: "can't believe my eyes" - a spanking pop journey powered by the briskest of strums: and of course "even stevens", the ladybug transistor collaboration, from the superb east timor benefit cd put together by library and drive-in. but the top tunes don't end there: both sides of that super matinée 7" "t-shirt weather" are here, as well as the kooky "i prefer the twentieth century", the first tune to really encapsulate new-aeon ennui. and in the same way that we've never heard a bad song on which mark e. smith provides vocals, we've never heard a bad song on which vocals were provided down a phone line (admittedly, we've only heard two: daniel johnston and yo la tengo, and now "mars", a beautiful song to close in which tali white's voice just sounds perfect).

this summary is cursory merely because most of u will already be aware of the artistry of this band, and preaching to the converted has always seemed a relative waste of energy in these environmentally conscious times. for us, the lucksmiths could yet claim the sugargliders' crown: we know that some of you think they have already, but hey! let's not argue, especially as we were introduced so recently...

harper lee "everything's going to be ok"

the only time you ever doubt harper lee, even subconsciously, is when the disc starts to turn for the first time; the musty air heavy with expectation and the sudden panic - what if the drug doesn't work this time ? what if the effects have worn off and you are left clutching at past memories of their melancholy excellence ? "everything's going to be ok" starts with a drum machine-only intro. the suspense therefore lingers for all of... ooh, 20 seconds. "miserable town" then ushers us into an un-named municipality, painting a scene of darkness and precipitation, laced in the cold that edges through a town's streets and glazes the bus shelters, lets lamplight throw shadows over its roads, frames silhouettes in its windows and whispers sweet rainsoaked nothings through the elements. when the first sparkling chorus arrives, its sadness offset by absurdly joyful sounding keyboard layers which really rub the sentiments in, you know everything really is going to be ok.

"thought that maybe things will work out fine ... given time"

we are not going to lie and say that this album is spectacularly innovative. one of our ilwtt mottos, as we've said before, "is if you can't be good, be different"; but equally dear to us is its corollary, "if you can be good, don't ever change". so much of the record seems familiar - not just gentle reminders of past harper lee or even brighter guitar lines, but melodies lifted wholesale from "power corruption and lies" or unintended echoes of moments of greatness like "darklands" or "disintegration". this record is an organic development in terms of the shape of laura and keris' overall sound: although "go back to bed" shone with some wonderful and deserving, heartrending songs, not least its gorgeous singles, with the sophomore album it's harder to see any breach to the pattern.

elsewhere on side one (yeah, we know, but in our world, ok ?) "unreciprocated" skilfully updates brighter's "never ever" into the new century, detailing the sting of indifference through the hypnosis of keris' maudlin vocalising, aided and abetted by a beautiful keyboard trumpet part. hot on its heels, the next song that dutifully arrives (perhaps the early evening special from miserable town central, though that's speculation) is the taster single "train not stopping", one of the three best songs ever released on matinée recordings (that's not to rank it third, it's just that trying to play it off against "walking around the world" and "modern museums" is such a récipe for bloodletting.) and then there's the majestic centrepiece "the thought of you and him", in which all hell breaks loose - not musically, of course, but emotionally. the whole song is built on an undertow that sounds like xmal deutschland trading melodies with long weekend, but keris' "little boy lost" vocal, and the echo on his voice, perfectly frame the longing and uncertainty betrayed by the barbs of lyrics like "the thought of what is best for you / i think i was capable of it / of liking him". but as with so much of the cd, it's really made by those baby guitar lines that run over the top of everything, recalling great bands like ooh... early brighter, and late brighter, and hal, and mid-period brighter... it's like being a chocaholic locked in a cadbury's factory.

the fifth of the nine tracks, "a forest alone", with its quiet mood, is almost an interlude between two halves of the album - its title, prominent keyboards and sparse percussion reminding us tentatively, (not least given keris' own recent pronouncements about the greatness of joy division) of jd's "atmosphere" and its bleak, brilliant sleeve. and then, to our delight, it's back to the train references, with "city station"'s trim guitar motifs, which apart from troubling new order's lawyers, will be messing with your head in splendid ways all day, before "fine bones" picks up the theme of "unreciprocated" and "you and him", again hovering thematically around a passion unrequited, unambiguous in its depiction of human jealousy. after "i can bear this no longer" turns the feyness to max - taking off when keris' plaintive "i want things back / to when they weren't so complicated" dovetails into another of those snaking little guitar curves sweeping blissfully skyward, it all ends with "this better life", which effortlessly melds a vortex of keyboard swoons with guitars that sound close to brighter's sublime "disney" ep and as such rounds things off perfectly - ending the album, like trembling blue stars' "little gunshots", with unexpected abruptness, almost in mid-vocal: cut dead.

so though the title might suggest the optimism absent from harper lee's past outings, you'll have sussed that this is actually no happyfest. most truly rewarding things aren't, if you think about it. each song is like a slide show of pictures shot from a train window, reproduced in grainy black and white, the passing fields and branches beautifully pixellated. we hate ourselves for even saying that if you like the trembling blue stars and aberdeen albums, you'll love this - "yes it's true", but for us harper lee have something more. we would no more contemplate switching our ultimate allegiance from them to another band than keris would dream of switching his predilection away from brighton & hove albion... we guess harper lee are just our home team.

lovejoy "who wants to be a millionaire ?"

this is lovejoy's follow-up to their "songs in the key of lovejoy". richard preece fronts the south coast band, who also house (ex) members of blueboy / beaumont.

what we seem to have here is a soundtrack to lives that have become lost and confused, an elegy from outside and above. the more or less instrumental title track sets up the theme with its single flatlining refrain "who wants to be a millionaire...". this record seems to scan the yawning miles between birth and death, where all the distance travelled appears nothing compared to the distance yet to go. in "nothing happens here", "weeks roll into years". it is a slow-motion of life as shot from a cannon; its trajectory false, and now fired, doomed; not even brought down by events, but simply as the fulfilment of its given destiny.

"you fell from grace", probably the best song on the album, is the strongest expression of the mood. it watches a struggle, not to stay the course but to change tack, to change back, putting desperate faith in mere props; "a glass of wine", "a sunday magazine". the chorus is lovely, tracing a line of tears on the face of a fading friend. you can ask for little more.

"night on earth" seeks to pull pathos from the painful gulf between human potential and human reality, much as blueboy's "meet johnny rave" did before it, but this time with a soft sequencer undertow. when the night fades, the dawn reveals "broken glass, lipstick stains on shirts ... camouflage for years of pain and hurt" in the crepuscular half-light. "there must be more to life than this". as we've seen, their label kindred harper lee still express similar sentiments.

what else is there? what could save a body in motion from its destiny, if not another body? "the beat hotel" provides probably the warmest moment of the album; a fuller cover of the biff bang pow! song than premiered on their earlier bbp! tribute single. whilst still far from upbeat, with ally board's vocal high in the mix and in the chorus, it nonetheless contains the implicit subtext of all duets - the shy and slender hope that a problem shared is one that could be dealt with.

"who wants to be a millionaire?" hardly pretends to be a celebration, and the pace often drags. (and as a public service announcement we should clarify that "plastic flowers" is no more a wake cover than the new sugababes album "angels with dirty faces" is a tribute to sham 69...) it is however a coherent record, and not merely a compilation of colliding unreleased tracks. taken for its best, it achieves the grace of sympathy, not undermined but carried by the so-dan treacy vocals (though there appears to be a lawrence-from-felt impression in the spoken word break on "nothing happens here"), and this sympathy is perhaps the key to the album, and arguably differentiates it from the work of others such as the trembling blue stars. indeed, one wonders, who, if anyone, was the muse? perhaps you should listen for yourselves.

Part three: live



live review: sportique / airport girl @ notting hill arts centre, 31 march 2001

word to the dj on a saturday afternoon - he's spinning smudge, pencil tin, girls at our best, and james dean driving experience - if i'd paid any admission fee, it would have been worth it just to have heard j.d.d.e. hang on though, there's some bands on, too.

airport girl, then. several of them on the stage, as far as i can make out from behind one of the NHAC's conspicuous pillars, and they look beatifically young. mumbled acknowledgements between songs, which are pleasantly feral (the tunes, not the mumbled acknowledgements). early in the set, tunes like wiaiwya single "power yr trip" are almost spraydog, as the singer strains above the guitar amplifiers to shout the lyrics through. mid-set, though, they perform an incongruous number called "love runs clean" which sticks out as a beautifully crafted, go-betweensesque song, pitched somewhere in the clouds and certainly some way up from the hurly-burly of indie pop in 2001. its reflective lyrics and mournful delivery give it the ring of a soon-to-be-cherished pop standard. they also end with a pretty fine song, called "the foolishness that we create through love is the closest we come to greatness" (although the title comes pretty close itself) which trundles a long at a happy velocity on that chord sequence which is known as "romeo and juliet" or "next summer" depending on whether your chosen poison is respectively dire straits, or brighter. i've not been too enamoured with airport girl on record to now, but on this evidence i'll at least keep the door open for them.

"you found the on switch, then", remarks gregory webster laconically two songs into sportique's rockin' set, as former marine researchster amelia fletcher manages to spark the previously unemployed keyboard into life. to be fair, the keyboard has little role tonight as sportique are playing hard, fast and guitarry, like saturn 5 facing off against black sabbath, with rob pursey's upfront bass playing shepherding each dynamic newie along. there's little in this set - i presume mostly tasters from the forthcoming second full-length - which suggests a return to the power pop of songs like "if you ever change your mind": even the super syrupy pop whirl of last matinee single "don't believe a word i say", also insensitively unplayed tonight, seems half a world away. only "P58" and a fairly awful version of "anatomy of a fool" pop up from their "black is a popular colour" cd, although the latter is sweetly improved by gregory playing the middle eight guitar line in a razorcutsy type of way, an emotional contrast to the "riffs" and "licks" sprouting up everywhere else in the set. indeed, one song is introduced as "cerebral vortex". enough!

sportique, live at the betsey trotwood, 17 february 2002

it was a good day - didn't even have to use the AK

the indie glitterati help themselves to cookies and cakes as sportique kick off their set with "suture", "definition 79", "modern museums" and "cerebral vortex": four songs from the minimum opus "modern museums" (which this blitzkrieg "intimate" gig is celebrating the launch of) that would make an excellent hardcore ep if matinée ever wanted to go that way. in the surreal setting of london's square mile on a sunday lunchtime in winter, sportique rock the house in a room so small that there is no p.a. and the amps do all the work.

during the snappy, throbbing set, which also includes a high-tensile, gleeful bashing out of "how many times...?" and a sprightly prance through "the dying fly", amelia fletcher (smiles are infectious) has ample opportunity to display her keyboard technique, which consists seemingly of permanently crossed hands, while despite the handicap of no mics, both her and rob shout along to every chorus. the couple of new songs (one intriguingly titled "the edgware kickback" which suggests perhaps a low-rent gangster movie soundtrack ?) seem happily in step with sportique's patented new punk formula. the cosy set ends with both sides of the great "p58" / "tiny clues", both of which also turned up on the first sportique full-length.

we'll leave it there, partly because they did, but also because we didn't learn anything new about sportique today. sportique are not so much on the verge of greatness as having already ploughed a ten-ton truck across that verge; having left their tyremarks on greatness, "modern museums" is heading them full speed towards alt-pop sainthood.

the would-be-goods / the windmills / pipas / lovejoy, notting hill arts centre, 24 august 2002

you may think of this as a subterranean warm-up act to the notting hill carnival (but without the police presence). richard preece kicked off for us with a solo acoustic set to represent brighton's lovejoy (q.v), plucking sorrow from the dark, dark room with interpretations of songs from the new record. pipas followed, lupe and mark playing the cute couple and the cats that got the cream, with the occasional and able assistance of the backing track. no fear, lupe rattling shy and sly lines all the while. as delicacies like "cruel and unusual" amply demonstrate, we do not know enough.

the windmills gave us the sweeping early dawn vista of "walking around the world", a song which is frankly slumming it in the environment of a dark basement and yet not incongruous; sparse, economical drums peppering like the first spattering drops of long-needed rain. that, two of the highlights from "sunlight" ("when it was the winter" and "unkiss"), and above all the wonderful single "360ª", were part of a seamless performance. we could do with more of the windmills. and their double-encore demanding friends.

the would-be-goods followed with an expanded though makeshift four-piece line-up, the nucleus of jessica and pete supported (more than ably we might add) by lupe pipas on bass and debbie on drums. this was the would-be-goods playing their way back into the limelight, swift, smart and poised, and better than when we last saw them as a three piece. if we have just one motto at ilwtt.org (and we have several, as you'll have read already this month, not just "i'll do it tomorrow") it must surely be something along the lines of "hating the obvious" and it's as good to know that this band can play great pop ("vivre sa vie") in their own image and not ours. this is one of those bands that leave you wanting to know much more. WBGs gave us a tour of the "brief lives" album ("vivre", "dilettante"), recent singles ("sugar mummy", "emmanuelle béart"), and "dream lover" from 1993's "mondo" album. liked them before. love them now.

the fades / slipslide, the dublin castle, camden, 27 august 2002

ok. compare and contrast.

the fades are the new strokes, in the same way that iwan roberts is the new john charles. they've got most of the right moves and they shake it right down now for the girls up front. their bass player is one of those that holds his guitar somewhere between diagonal and vertical throughout. and they give themselves a most healthy cardiovascular workout, and us a mild but insistent headache.

slipslide, on the other hand, are the new eva luna / pure / love parade, the latest chapter in graeme elston's expanding volume of indie pop history. the four-piece - two guitars, no keyboards - cranked through not enough songs including tracks from their last coupla matinée singles "unlucky charm" and "sleeptalk", a decidely non-heretic version of bob forster's "rock n' roll friend" and culminating in a newer delicacy, an energetic "x supplies the answer". it will be interesting to see how their promised first album, when it comes, reflects their intended move away to a rawer, more guitar-based sound: at least on the evidence of tonight that seems like the natural progression.

the would-be-goods at the spitz, 29 august 2002

... as for the mighty would-be-goods, we draw a modest veil over their slot only because the equatorial temperature, lackadaisical soundman and me being very nervous about a meeting the next morning slightly overshadowed their set... jessica did not seem to be exuding happiness, and with "emmanuelle béart" also being absent, there was less chance to appreciate the artistry that lights up their "brief lives" lp.

there seem to be quite a few gigs now where there's more chatter than music - fosca upstairs at the garage, hood at the ocean, and the geezer whose banter largely drowned out pipas at RoTa (yep, we did identify him but have decided to hold fire from describing him because he's bound to be in a band or run a label or something or be best mates with someone who does)... we're not sure whether you can blame the venues for the fact that there are lots of people choosing to socialise loudly at trendy gigs. however what you can blame the spitz for is being hotter than a sauna in the sahara and having such a tiny bar - neither on their own would be fatal flaws, but it's the combination of them which is unbearable.

sportique, live at the spitz, east london, 7 september 2002

"don't believe a word i say / 'cos i'll say anything to make you stay"

and just like otis redding or jackie wilson or the lord high morrissey (above) it's the way he sings it...

oh yes oh yes. sportique are on fire tonight in the feebly air-cooled spitz. the rhythm section alone, sir mark flunder on drums and bass god rob pursey, are thrashing away with enough energy to power several generators, while stage left amelia fletcher is as energetic as ever behind the keyboards that power sportique's super-duper new wave melodies. and then there's gregory webster, in cool black shirt and tie, raining chords from his guitar whilst shouting out sportique's irony-laden art-fi manifesto to a more appreciative crowd than usual (apparently the "maidenhead" lot were in). the four of them choose to regale us with a shockingly good set list that encompasses each of those classic A sides from their early days, as well as barnstorming tracks from the current "modern museums" set. how could a set list including "if you ever change your mind", "cerebral vortex", "love & remains", "don't believe a word i say", "modern museums", "P58", "tiny clues" and all-time ilwtt anthem "the kids are solid gold" be anything other than, er, solid gold ?

this time, only a couple of newies trespassed on a rounded ten song set, but as our previous reviews suggest, there is no obvious evidence from the fresh crop of webster compositions that sportique's indie pre-eminence is likely to be threatened in the nearish future. one of the tunes, which inquiringly asked "why are all my best friends other people's girlfriends", was two minutes of prime bristling, bustling melody; the other, apparently to be the next single, at least ensured that the sportique hit parade show came to a tidily forward-looking conclusion.

sometimes sportique are just the colour of our dreams.