The Winter Mountain Band @ The Birdcage – 28.04.2010

It’s against our fundamental British nature to go for a mixed bag. Look at the furore that Revels cause. It lacks guarantee. I’m not saying that we haven’t evolved slightly into the mosaic of cultures that we can enjoy today, but most of us will still have Turkey at Christmas.
Sometimes it takes hold of me, and tonight, I’m obviously feeling British as I approach the Birdcage for one of their regular Wednesday night Cabarets. My best friend is compere this evening. “Who’s on the bill”, I ask, already warming my facial muscles up for a committed frown. “Erm, comedy, poetry… and music – you like music”. Lou approaches the topic with the tentative fixed grin that people will address me with 70 years from now. “Shall we put you near the window, Emma? Next to Jennifer – you like Jennifer”. My aged frustration will make me want to punch Jennifer in the throat.
There’s three parts to tonight’s proceedings, with a total of 8 acts doing a turn. It takes all night until the Redeemer comes to save me in the form of the only musical act of the evening, The Winter Mountain Band. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some sour old affected critic, it’s just I like the coffee ones so much that I find it hard to satisfy myself with the raisin and peanut. I already start to thaw with the engaging comic poetry of Kansas export, Will Averill. He manages to rally the dwindling audience into shanty participation, with a canon of “He’s coming to stop the gays – The Pope – He’s coming to stop the gays – Gaaaaaays”. Even as we’re tiring, it whips us into a juvenile spin and I realise with Averill at the helm, I’d chant bloody anything. Nick Griffin ought to consider a ceilidh or something. And so like a comedy twister – we’ll call him Kansas Will – he whips through the room and then we’re left pulling ourselves together at the end.
To the moment I’m waiting for – and didn’t even know it. The Winter Mountain Band sit at their seats, a piano, guitar and microphone apiece and introduce themselves with calm assurance. It feels good to see confidence. There seems to be a trend at the moment – especially among the poetic cartel tonight – of socially awkward boys that sound like they need a separate classroom or they might wet themselves. They dive into first song ‘Sorrow’ and I’m enchanted. I let it wash over me and get filled with an unshakeable calm. It’s a sharp contradiction to the united crowd that we’d formed for Averill’s set as the room shrinks and becomes just me and the music. I’m instantly reminded of the Americana stylings of Fleet Foxes and Midlake with their tight vocal harmonies and luscious rural melodies, but something else that I can’t place yet. They turn to a bit of preamble before the next song and introduce themselves further; from Ireland and Cornwall respectively, they met on a train from Chicago – one headed east, one headed west and by the end of their journey had plotted their plan to form a band. It’s an enthralling concept. I want to know more about that train journey and how the inexact science of fate drove that particular carriage down the track.
The idea of these independent troubadours put me in mind of ‘Ventura Highway’ by America and Glen Campbell’s ‘Wichita Lineman’, and there I realised the missing influence being late 60s, early 70s folk rock. I hope they like Fleetwood Mac. There’s something also to Joe Francis’ (I later learn their names) style that identifies the Cornish folk tradition – although Seth Lakeman crosses the border in Devon, there’s the same contradictive modern / trad-folk element.
Treating us to three more of their own songs, I’m sold. Then to the last, and they embark upon what I intuitively knew would be a Fleetwood Mac cover – two chords in and I’m positive. A stirring rendition of ‘Dreams’ was the perfect ending. They managed to reclaim that song from the fucking Corrs. I scrabble around for pennies at the end of the gig to lay my mitts on an EP from the band, a sure testament as unsigned EPs get flung in my direction daily.
The good news – they’re sticking in Norwich for a couple of days and play Micawber’s Tavern tomorrow night (Fri 30^th April). Let them own you for a night.

Emma Roberts

Wednesday night's Redeemer

Bearsuit @ St Andrews Hall – 06.02.10

by Maxie Gedge

There are many reasons why Bearsuit continue to be a good meter above most other bands from Norwich on the ‘good-ness scale’, the main one being their prolific and consistent songwriting. In fact, I would go as far to say that with each new song they write, they inch closer and closer to genius territory.

Having hiked through the most turbulent of musical existences, adding and subtracting members here and there, Bearsuit have always managed to keep a solid core who relentlessly ruin every audience that comes their way, effortlessly skipping through new styles, approaches and instruments. Tonight, their Haiti benefit gig at St. Andrews Hall is possibly the strangest time I have seen them, and probably the strangest time I have seen any band. In a massive church where the likes of The Who, Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles have played, Bearsuit are dwarfed by organs, stained glass and crucifixes, and are preceded by a Norfolkian mismatched and apparently bored reggae band. There are kids running around screaming, and a man stoned at the front with flight goggles on waving flags around his head like it’s some sort of art. The room is decked out with massive circular tables and old people, and I’m drinking Strongbow from the can. Something’s not right.

And even when Bearsuit come on and I stand up, it kind of feels like we have all been cut out of comfortableness and pasted into some jokers tea party. The sound echoes around the huge hall, but with minor bass adjustments (louder! louder!), they lock into place, really get going, and knock everyone for six. 

So then all the weirdness starts to make sense. Bearsuit push and push us all to the edge of our tastes, and leave us hanging there, in tantalising and exciting nihilism. One of their newest, ‘Train Wreck’ is a brilliant song that seduces you softly and then betrays you and butt-fucks you with dirty shouty catchy abrasiveness. And I love it. There seems to be a lot of sleazy 80s disco creeping out of their sound, and with the rhythm section tighter than a good fisting, it just makes everyone dance. Hard. And all the hooks! At any one time, Bearsuit are throwing so many interesting and brilliant hooks out there; your average band would cut off limbs for any one of them.

The new album, The Phantom Forest is out in October. It’s produced by Gareth Parton, and after tonight’s preview, I promise it will have you singing “we’ve got to get together, we’ve got to get together, we’ve got to get together, we’ve got to get it on” till the world ends.

Oh, and of course there’s this…

Read Outline – February 2010
Publishing Software from Yudu

YUDU Library – Item by www.yudu.com

Iglu & Hartly @ NAC – 01.02.10

by Michael Blunt

Riding High

The future must have looked a lot more promising for tonight’s headliners in September 2008. Single ‘In the City’ was riding high at number five in the UK charts and debut album ‘& Then Boom’ was about to be dropped into stores across the country. And then the backlash started and Iglu & Hartly fled.

Their mix of eighties new wave, Eminem style rap and bubblegum metal riffs might have looked good on paper in the same way that a donkey/dodo/puppy hybrid might. It is only when you see the finished product you realise that actually it was a huge mistake, and is actually kind of ugly looking. Still, somebody has to feel sorry for it, right? So this return to British shores may be the band’s last attempt at escaping the rap-rock dungeon that currently keeps such company as fellow also-rans Steriogram and OPM.

First up, however, is almost local boy Ed Sheeran who in a short but sweet set manages to switch through more genres than songs. Taking in soulful trip-hop, Jamie T style bad boy raps, indie pop melodies and even a bit of marijuana inspired reggae, Sheeran is a cool, confident one-man band. Crowd participation and a mad rush afterwards to buy his EP suggests he has every reason to be as self-assured as he seems to be.

New Politics are a Danish-come-American pop-punk band with the emphasis on the punk, and they’re as crazy as only Scandinavians know how. The glaring absence of a bass within the trio doesn’t seem to matter as the shouty rap vocals of David Boyd go hand in hand with Søren H’s more melodic tone. Bouncing all over the Arts Centre stage there is something refreshingly early Beastie Boys about it all and some utterly impressive breakdancing from Boyd during the penultimate song wins over those still teetering on the edge. The garage-y ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah’ may seem a bit obvious at first, but quickly becomes an anthem in the making.

This all leaves Iglu & Hartly with a fair bit to live up to. As soon as they trot out and break into ‘Violent and Young’ it is clear that in their heads they are headlining stadiums. Maybe if this was, say, 1995 than maybe they could be. Unfortunately it is 2010 and the world has moved on. To be fair they do try, but in a way that suggests in their research they have discovered every rock cliché available and taken each one straight to heart.

There are some clear low moments. One is when a ‘lucky’ fan is invited onstage to be sang happy birthday to, which takes up an utterly pointless few minutes. And you know that annoying habit of girls sitting on their boyfriends shoulders during shows meaning that nobody behind can see? Well, Iglu & Hartly actually request that the audience do this. Wow.

Despite Jarvis Anderson and Sam Martin sharing vocal duties, it is the former who is the obvious centre of the band. Yet he comes across at best as Iggy Pop’s slightly embarrassing younger brother. Maybe it is all just one big joke building up to a massively disappointing punchline (exhibit A: The lyrics to encore ‘DayGlo’… “They call me day glo/On the day I glow”. Seriously?) but that might be too optimistic. There is a scene in ‘Dude, Where’s My Car’ that sums up the whole experience perfectly. It is the one where Ashton Kutcher and Sean William Scott are hanging by the pool, surrounded by sorority girls, miming to some dated rap tune. For anybody that loves that movie then Iglu & Hartly could probably be their favourite band. For anybody else it is more like digging up a time capsule to discover nothing but a corpse inside. If truth be told then they have a lot to learn from their support bands tonight.

// http://www.outlineonline.co.uk

tweeOFF! Present Vivian Girls @ NAC – 23.01.10

by Maxie Gedge

tweeOFF! is growing and growing with every gig, bringing the best noises from all over the world to the humble Norwich Arts Centre for a night of enjoyable ear devastation. Team twee seem to transform NAC into an exciting cavernous epicentre of the alternative. And tonight is no exception.

The only local band here, Follow Your Heart have been the subject of some scenester hype, not mainly due to their all-star Norwich line-up, but mainly due to their brilliant twangly, fractured art rock. They have often been compared to Talking Heads, but tonight they are on the more angsty and atonal side of Eno’s back, recalling NY no-wavers Mars with their repetitive drones and tribal rhythms. They stand still and shout hard, full of an awkward ‘I’m-a-geek-but-I’m-actually-really-cool’ edginess that sits well with their sound. Their performance tonight is great – a little less accessible than usual – but I think that’s purposeful and positive.

Ono Palindromes are a three-piece from Exeter. They seem a bit out of their comfort zone at the Arts Centre, which you would hope they would embrace, but instead they squirm and scream all over the shop like little kittens fighting for their mummy’s teat. Indeed, NAC is an awe inspiring venue, but all that macho ‘rock n roll’ bravado does not do wonders in winning over a Norwich audience. However, when these sweaty men get going, their music isn’t that bad, verging on the Nine Black Alps side of new-grunge, but wandering in heavier and more interesting suburbs. Their finest moments would remind us Norwich folk of Kunk, picking slight elements from Pixies, Future Of The Left, some old school Buzzcocks punk, and some new school Pulled Apart By Horses shout. But somehow it doesn’t quite mesh together to create an enjoyable finished product, more a pale imitation, sadly.

Then The Vivian Girls get on board. They blow the other two acts off stage immediately with their air of cool and inviting professional arrogance, swirling up the audience with a thick layer of noise. All three of them sing and lock together, and it’s as if this whole new dimension has been added to their sound. It’s girly and it’s dreamy and it’s fucking great. The guitarist has an entrancing Lux Lisbon vibe, which resonates through the band and through their music.

I had heard that they are supposed to be totally ramshackle live, and their recorded stuff does sound pretty loose, but that’s all a lie – they are REALLY tight. So whilst there’s jangly thin clean guitar, pretty minimalist drums, long plodding basslines, and three gorgeously delicate voices, it just blends perfectly, and produces an absolute onslaught of heavy surf sounds. And it’s not ‘scream-distortion-scream’ heavy, its ‘wow, my ears are FULL of noise’ heavy. A few songs go on longer than they should, and they loose momentum a bit mid-set, but with brilliant tracks like ‘I Have No Fun’ and ‘When I’m Gone’, they bring it all back, and the encore is just buzzing with jerky and sweet adolescent energy.

// http://www.outlineonline.co.uk

Haiti Fundraiser @ Norwich Playhouse – 24.01.10

by Dan Bleksley 

Four charged Neutrinos

Tonight at The Playhouse there is the raffle to end all raffles. Sure, there are Norwich City FC tickets, there are restaurant vouchers, there’s blah blah blah BLAH BLAH. No, there’s only one prize for the discerning altruistic gambler: a minute behind the Playhouse bar. The winner of this illustrious prize, however, squanders it by pouring a few drinks. I wanted that prize. I wanted to remove all those damned stuffed animals and other miscellaneous “quirky” articles from behind the bar and hurl them into the hungry crowd. Then I would have jammed a pint glass under an optic. Maybe also, if there was time, I’d have given some of the barmen a quick haircut. 

The raffle, of course though, was set up to raise money for the Haiti earthquake appeal, and it’s heart-warming to see how many local businesses donated prizes to this most worthy cause. The event was organised with considerable passion by local artist John Hirst with Bill Drummond, former KLF member. It’s odd, to say the least, to see this dance music pioneer, last seen by most of us spraying blanks from a machine gun into the 1992 BRIT Awards crowd, speaking with awkwardness and modesty on a makeshift stage, about how he’d bought an engraved iPod for his daughter’s Christmas present, only to find that her mother had bought her the same thing, and “uh… I think I said that it’s an iPod touch, but it’s not. It’s a… well this is the box. It’s this… a… an iPod… Nano? Well, it’s a prize in the raffle anyway.” Good one, Bill. 

Anyway. The music. 

The restrictions of performing acoustically would have diluted a lesser band. Not The Neutrinos. On stage, brazen in their unamplified nakedness, they are somehow more immediate, more theatrical. Singer Karen Reilly, with mesmerising moves and sinister grin, looks like some kind of evil cabaret singer from a Tim Burton animation. Musically they are more sophisticated too, with delicious vocal harmonies and melodic subtleties that are otherwise concealed in the fog of the art punk mayhem of their typical performances. ‘How do you love him?’ is especially fine. 

I’m sort of in love with Death of Death of Discotheque. I want to marry them and start a beautiful dysfunctional family. I love their dirty dirty sound, complete with distorted vocals, amelodic  guitar riffs and unspeakably gratifying deep synth tones, coupled with their spectacularly maladroit stage presence. Singer Jay Barsby, a rabid Jarvis Cocker, less commands the stage as obstructs it like a cartoon fight cloud, flailing around, dressed like a young child trying on costumes from the dressing up box. With defiantly unclassifiable shouty rock disco, they are a band that will simultaneously make you want to dance and throw up. 

Avante garde duo BK and Dad prove an odd choice of closing act. Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re incredible, but by halfway through the set, I find myself wondering if it’s only us musos at the front who are enjoying ourselves. Us and BK and Dad themselves that is. I can’t help but admire their less than formal approach to instrumentation; there is very little of the cymbals remaining, a plank of wood with bass guitar strings is used as a percussion instrument and an old shoelace is serving some mysterious function on the guitar headstock. Still, it’s definitely worth catching them when they’re playing a crowd that knows what to expect. 

The event raised an impressive amount of much needed cash for the Haiti earthquake appeal. If you consider yourself to be a responsible and compassionate member of the global community, and would like to assuage your middle-class guilt, you can still donate (as you well know) in a variety of ways. You’ll figure it out. 

// http://www.outlineonline.co.uk

New Year, New Blog.

Yes, yes, we know it’s February already. We were, erm, crimping our hair. We heard that Dancehall is gonna be big this year and want our barnet to match our freshly bought MC Hammer Pants. Whatever… we live in Norwich – we’re only just re-embracing the shoulder pad.

Upshot of it is, if you want to see some of our sporadic blog entries of yore, they’ll be here http://outlineblogoff.blogspot.com/, but this new one’s where it’s at. We’ll be much more regular - we’ve been eating our fibre, you see.

// http://www.outlineonline.co.uk