Gigs,gigs and uploads

Clap your hands….. I was right!!

After a couple of days pondering I realised I was right, the Clap Your Hands show was a big let down!!!! Don’t get me wrong, the record is still great but in terms of performance I’ve seen a lot lot better. If it was the first Uk show maybe you would have thought there was a touch of jet-lag going on, I even thought it was the collective cynicism of an oh so trendy London crowd that wasn’t up for it and that resonated with the band but no, it really was quite lame.
Alec Ounsworth did not in any way seem like a frontman, he looked thoroughly pissed off with having to perform and uttered one mumbled sentence between songs; he may have even cracked a smile at one point!!! His voice was a little grating as well, people turning to each other when his screechy faux Byrne whine got too ridiculous.
The most exciting point of the set was when a few lackeys came on to burst the balloons that littered the stage causing a flutter of beautiful tickertape. And then it was over.
Hopefully by the time they come over again (February I believe) they may be ready to entertain us; lord knows the hype on this side of the Atlantic will be big enough by then.



Wednesday……, a much much better gig!!!!!!

After the disappointment of CYHSY on Tuesday was a potentially much better gig on Wednesday night-Black Mountain, Dead Meadow and Wolf Parade at The Scala.
I was a little apprehensive with this one, another great band whose album will figure very highly in my end of year polls coming to London for their first big gig. If you don’t know Black Mountain are a Vancouver based band led by Stephen McBean, a man of many musical guises.
The basic sound is 70s rock put through similar filters that Queens Of The Stone Age use(Krautrock,The Blues etc), sounds really familiar yet oh so new. Their self-titled debut has been a staple for me since I overheard some Mojo journalists banging on about it early this summer and made me find McBeans 2003 work with The Pink Mountaintops (also highly recommended!!!)
Also on were Dead Meadow who are one of those bands that I have heard are great and have never really got round to delving into, and Wolf Parade-another Canadian band who I hope you all know about!!

Got to the venue at 8PM, thinking I’d have time to dump my bag in the cloakroom and get a pint before Wolf Parade start but oh no, they came on at 7:45(I had no idea Dead Meadow would play so long!!!!)
So I saw 15 minutes or so and Iiked what I saw, blew Clap Your Hands and their Pavementesque support band Hockey Night right out of the water, very Arcade Fire admittedly but hey, maybe that’s what I needed.
So when their set was cut short, I really was not looking forward to Dead Meadow-they could only be a disappointment. WRONG!!!!
They were awesome!!!!! Ok, so it is very much stoner-rock, but not many people were smoking Jazz Fags! I stood amazed and thirsty for that matter for the hour or so set not wanting to be anywhere else at that time. For a 3 piece (a recent development all told) they were so tight locked into songs that seemed to meld into one yet all seem so right, the singer standing almost side-on to the mic, the bass player grooving away almost personifying the locked in basslines and the drummer-Animal from The Muppets during his more laid back years banging out the perfect beats, I could have almost done with a spliff!!!!
They were awesome and unfortunately Black Mountain could not have quite lived up to that. However they were also very good, a lot looser sound than on record and almost prog-rock to these ears, I will definitely see them again when they surely come back to play bigger venues in 2006.

Check all three of these bands out at these various links……………………..

Wolf Parade Apologies to Queen Mary Part One Part Two Courtesy of The Indie Connection
Pw imsorry

Dead Meadow A Few Tracks

Black Mountain A Few Tracks, also check out Pink Mountaintops and Jerk With A Bomb



Radio Kickabout Part Two

Praise be and hallelujah, I’ve managed to get my uploads working again!!!!
For your information it was a dodgy anti-virus I had installed that was being a bitch, its gone now so you can look forward to some top posts in the coming weeks!!!
Here is the much promised Radio Kickabout Part Two. The theme is Radio and you can look forward to tracks by the likes of The Clash, R.E.M, Teenage Fanclub and many more, a full tracklisting will come soon but in the meantime I won’t spoil the surprise and please feel free to take and link to your hearts content.

Radio Kickabout Part Two Zip File 80.35 MB



Bye for now.