"...it's biological..." The Low Anthem, Pocklington Arts Centre 27.8.10

Mountain Man, tonight’s support, are a female three piece from disparate corners of the States, all of which, we’re assured are (adopts barely audible voice) “really nice places, yeh”. From the moment they take the stage, approach the three mics and join hands, it is clear that I am not going to enjoy this. Technically, their a capella folk songs are very good, but they’re just a little too fey, a bit too folksy for my tastes, a fact which only becomes clearer by the fact that one of their songs features the line “two fair maidens”. Really?

The Low Anthem’s second album, last year’s magnificently titled ‘Oh My God. Charlie Darwin.’ is at times rather disjointed, moving from americana to blues to folk, live, that variety is still present but seems somehow more coherent. Part of what first attracted me to The Low Anthem was how atmospheric their recent work is, and seeing just how that was done, particularly the use of a singing saw, is fascinating. According to a press release, a total of 27 instruments were used on ‘OMGCD’, and many of them grace the rather small Pocklington Arts Centre stage, it becomes, at times, rather hard to keep track of what’s going on, instruments are swapped, and swapped again, the stage becomes a veritable log jam.

Before launching into ‘This Goddamn House’ from 2007’s ‘What the Crow Brings’, Ben Knox Miller makes a rather bizarre request, that someone phone their neighbours mobile, and put both on speaker phone, then give them to him (slightly convoluted way to steal someone’s phone?), he then whistled into the mic, moving the phones about, a strange, slightly ethereal cricket-like chirping/sound of the sea rings throughout the room, leaving my jaw firmly planted on the floor.

One thing I was not prepared for, considering who we were watching, was just how loud they were, ‘The Horizon is a Beltway’ and the Kerouac/Waits (two men whose works have clearly heavily influenced the band) penned ‘Home I’ll Never Be’ are amped up to buggery, pushing both Miller’s and multi instrumentalist Jocie Adams’ voices to their very limit. ‘To Ohio’ and ‘(Don’t) Tremble’ give them time to recover (and are even more beautiful than on record) before a barnstorming, and rather daft rendition of ‘There’s a Hole in My Bucket’. As we file out onto the mean streets of Pocklington, I had a realisation, The Low Anthem are one of the best live bands I have seen, and then I had another… They do this shit every night!

The only low point ; Everything Everthing playing York Stereo on the same day. Pfft

Eels - Tomorrow Morning

Eels have released four studio albums in the past five years, which is fairly prolific, by anybody’s standards. Take into account though, that there was a four year gap between the first and second of these (during which E wrote his autobiography ‘Things the Grandchildren Should Know’ and made a documentary about his physicist father – Hugh Everett III – ‘Parallel Worlds; Parallel Lives’, both worth investigating.) and that fact appears all the more impressive.

‘Tomorrow Morning’ though, suggests that Mark Oliver Everett has been spreading himself a little too thin.

The last in a trilogy of sorts (which also includes with ‘Hombre Lobo; 12 Songs of Desire’, released in June 2009, and January’s ‘End Times’) it is a distinctly more optimistic record than it’s predecessors, as the title suggests.

Eels have done this kind of thing very well before, particularly on their first three records. The samples, swirling strings and chuggy baselines that graced those records are all here, but it all feels a little inconsequential.  Both ‘Spectacular Girl’ and ‘What I Have to Offer’ fall somewhere between being quintessentially Eels, and Eels by numbers, the latter is particualary anodyne. As is 'Oh So Lovely’, with it’s cod tudor (??) keys and strings, has fast become my least favourite Eels song, it’s incredibly trite, and try as I might, I cannot fathom it’s inclusion on this record.

If ‘Hombre Lobo’ was the scuzzy rock record, ‘End Times’ the acoustic confessional, then ‘Tomorrow Morning’ is surely the electronica album. Mixing indie and electronica is nothing new, Eels have tinkered with it in the past, as has Beck, and Jimmy Tomborello of Dntel and The Postal Service (whose string arrangements appear to have heavily influenced E) has, to my mind, pretty much perfected the art. The little flourishes on ‘Tomorrow Morning’ are all rather pleasant, but the use of drum machines, especially on ‘The Man’ is so basic, so rudimentary, it’s dull. The simple beat of the hazy ‘That’s Not Her Way, however, works a treat, as does the ‘Little Bird’ – esque simplicity of the rather sweet ‘I Like the Way this is Going’.

My main issue with ‘Tomorrow Morning’ is it’s lack of direction, the songs don’t seem to go anywhere, or do anything.  It’s obvious that the past few years haven’t been easy for Mr Everett, what he needs to do now, or what I hope he does now, is to take some time out, recharge, and come back with something, and I can’t think of a simpler way to say this, something more.

"...tryin' to quit'll make you wish you didn't start..." Caitlin Rose - Own Side Now

Dear Reader,

I realise now that a comment I made in a previous review (namely, that of She & Him’s ‘Volume 2’) was somewhat flippant and misinformed. The comment in question came at the end of said review and read “I’ll be very surprised if I hear a pop album quite this perfect for some time.” *

Well, colour me surprised (kind of off white, with a hint of mauve perhaps. I like that word. Mauve). ‘Volume 2’, is indeed a cracking little pop record, but it has nothing on Caitlin Rose’s debut full length (her debut e.p. ‘Dead Flowers’ was released here earlier this year, the US have had it since 2008) ‘Own Side Now’,

If that title sounds vaguely familiar, it may well bring to mind the Joni Mitchell song ‘Both Sides Now’, which isn’t where the similarities between the two end. Rose’s songs, much like Mitchell’s are incredibly well crafted, their beauty often lying in their simplicity. Take the title track, which by Rose’s own admission is one the most simple and honest things she has written. The delivery of the line “who’s gonna want me when I’m just somewhere you’ve been” is so simple, so restrained, yet so full of emotion, that it never fails to bring a lump to my throat.

Caitlin Rose - Own Side Now 

Some of these songs were written, staggeringly, when she was 16/17 years of age (she’s now 23, which makes me feel very old indeed), one such song, a particular highlight, is ‘For the Rabbits’, about two high school friends and their on again/off again relationship, it has been stuck firmly in my head since the moment I heard it, as has ‘Shanghai Cigarettes’, which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Conor Oberst’s solo, or …and the Mystic Valley Band L.P’s.

Caitlin Rose - For The Rabbits

This is not one of those records, I think, that will be listened to intensely for a month or so, only to be neglected there after, of course, only time will tell, but in the small amount of time since it popped through my letter box, it’s been there, in my noggin’ nagging at me “go on, put me on again, go on, you will” like a Nashville born Mrs Doyle (should I be worried about that, do you think? The voices, in my head?)

To pre-emptively answer your question, I’m not quite sure why I wrote this review in the form of a letter, perhaps so they don’t becoming incredibly samey. Either way, it’s a rather irritating affectation which I won’t be employing again.

Anyway, how are things with you?

Joe.

P.S. She’s supporting Megafaun at the Bandroom in Farndale at the end of the month, which will, I’d expect, own.

P.P.S  Thought I'd try using soundcloud in reviews, hopefully, it's worked!

*(I do understand there can be, by definition, no varying level of perfection, I don’t understand why I wrote that.)

"...you're going to get what you deserve..."

Due to the lack of me being on twitter of the facebook....
I'm made no secret of my love for 6music on this blog, and i had one of those moments earlier, which reminded me why.
6.45am, toasting a bagel, turn the radio, switch from Radio 2 to the aforementioned station.
"...god, money..."
eh....
"...bow down before the one you serve..."
nah...
"...HEAD LIKE A HOLE, BLACK AS YOUR SOUL..."
Nine Inch Nails at quater to seven in the morning is exactly why the staion is a national fucking treasure.
Oh yes.

This place feels like home...

like the song...get it?

The first week back at work always sucks doesn't it?
T'was quite an eventful holiday...

The day before we left for Seahouses, on the way home from watching my mother and sister perform in a show with their Bollywood group, smoke started pouring from the bonnet of my dad's car.  As neither myself or H drive, my mum's car holds 5 and 6 of us would be going on holiday, it looked like ol' pappy would be going on his Ducati (which, the last time we went on holiday, 3 years ago, packed in shortly before said holiday...spotting a trend yet?)  Lo, and indeed, behold, three days in, on the way to Alnwick, a warning light came on on his dashboard, he turned around and made it back to the house we were staying in, but the bike remained resolutley unridden for the rest of the week.

 

Less than an hour later, and just into Alnwick gardens, H's left knee and hand made very good friends with the gravel by the massive cascade fountain (I wanted to take a picture - of her hand and knee, not of the foutain, there's one of those just there ->;  but she wouldn't let me...it was pretty bad, all puss and goo and crap - well, not crap). Like the trooper she is though (this is the woman who walked from the pit lane at Donnington, all the way to the main stage at Download - despite fucking her ankle up...again - so i could see Tool), she was soon back on her feet and hobbling round the gardens (including the Mahoosive tree house above)

On Thursday, we took a somewhat scenic route to Heatherslaw in order to take the one and a half mile trip to Etal (essentially a street, with a castle at the end) and back, then on to Flodden Field.

Choo Choo!

The day, as you can see, had been fairly overcast, but by the time we had returned to Seahouses, the sun had come out, and it was decided that a second trip of the week to St. Aiden's beach was called for (happy now MOTHER? pedant....must be where I get it from.) Getting into the car that day, on a couple of occasions, I had felt a slight twinge in my leg, it soon wore off, and I put it down to cramp and thought nothing more of it. Foolish. When we got to the beach, I attempted to flick the ball, from a starting position behind me, over my head (something incidentally, that I've not been able to do since I was in my mid teens, and even then, only sporadically). And then I couldn't walk. The pain was such that, as when I had my tattoo, adrenaline was rushing to my head so quickly that I almost passed out. Like the wuss I clearly am. Luckily, despite initially thinking it was quite a severe injury, I was able to move fairly freely by Saturday, so you needn't worry.

An average photo of a wonderful view.

Despite all the trauma, this was far from a bad holiday, the first trip to the beach was much fun, as was the walk to Bamburgh via some rockpooling. Lindesfarne was as brilliant as ever, and occasional walks (when legs allowed) were rewarded with some lovely views. The running 'joke' that the bathroom (which sported a sign reading, shockingly, 'bathroom') was in fact a bedroom was still going by the end of the week, much to my suprise, as, well, it just wasn't funny after the first day, and even then funny's going a bit far...rambling... I had a pint of Auld Hemp ale -with me pa on his birthday - which tastes almost exactly how pot resin smells, the fish and chips were as good as they always are, as was the ice cream.  And the Kippers, sweet fishy baby jesus those Kippers!

The house, which backed onto the local Co-op, handy, but a pain in the arse at 7 o'clock every morning, was in equal measure ok and pretty shit.

We've already managed to book a holiday during May of next year, in 'Farne View', where we stayed three years ago, which was bloody marvelous. I can't flippin wait.