Journalistic Integrity

Press. Tickets.

Can there be two sweeter words in the English language? Apart from default, of course. Despite the moronic door man (is there any other kind?) I got to see Ash Grunwald playing a pretty damn fine gig at a pretty damn fine venue, and all I had to do was write it up.

Now on this particular occasion, that wasn't a problem: good music being played by performers clearly having a fun time, in a great bar... it was pretty easy to be positive about it. And I was more than happy to put more money across the bar since I got in free (to my regret on Sunday). But what if the next thing I get tickets for is... well, rubbish? Being completely conflict-averse, I'm terrible at criticising others. I mean, they might not like it. And what right would I have? I can't play that instrument/cook that meal/do that on stage... who am I to judge them?

Quite a dilemma.

I think, on balance, I'll take the tickets. I can always just hide behind the anonymity of the internet if I hate it.

Blur: Hyde Parklife

Apologies. This was meant to be a proper gig review, but my rambling got in the way. And other people do it better anyway.

I must admit I felt a bit of an impostor at Blur's big Hyde Park comeback gig. I had ticket number 11, but only thanks to Mad Mark who is actually a member of the fan club. Sure, I like Blur's music - correct that, I love it - but not in the same generation defining way that the rest of the crowd did. My 'discovery' of Albarn et al, like all the decent stuff in my catalogue, was a sisterly hand-me-down. It was Jules who got me into Pulp, The Pixies, Lou Reed, and the same for Blur. I used to get in trouble for constantly 'borrowing' her copy of Parklife.

Her musical nous was so refined that she was a fan of the Whitlams when they were struggling nobodies gigging around Sydney, and she tired of them long before the suicides and success, obviously foreseeing their popular acclaim and accompanying fall from musical grace. Without Jules' influence, my musical tastes run to cheese and pop (I didn't see Rick Rolling as a sudden flash-in-the-pan meme, but as long-deserved global acclaim - I never gave you up Rick)... and when I become a tragic fan of a band you've never heard of, it tends to stay that way (The Fantastic Leslie? Lazy Susan? The Real Tuesday Weld? ... maybe I just like bands with names in them). Anyway, the point is, Blur didn't happen to me like it did for everyone else. The battle of BritPop meant nothing to me. It didn't define my teenage years/twenties the way it did for the rest of the crowd. And I'm not qualified to comment on the musical mastery or otherwise displayed by Coxon etc... like the pair of Aussies in front of us who could air guitar/drum along with every song. I like the tunes, and they remind me of a bygone age, but not the same age that everyone else was remembering

Nevertheless, the gig was amazing. The lads have still got it, the crowd still loves 'em, and most importantly, they seemed to be really enjoying it up on stage. There was a whole lotta love in the park, (apart from typical gig-jerkery: shouted conversations during performance, needless shoving, bottle throwing...) If rumours of a proper reformation are true, I'll be sure not to come late to the party again.

Isle of Wight

I think this was the point I realised I had officially lost touch with the kids. Or the yoof. Or whatever you call the underformed human beings listening to repetitive, ear drum damaging music on tinny phone speakers. I also realised that I've grown beyond the 'totally up for it' marathon boozing that is usually associated with music festivals. I know a lot of you are now crying "soft!" I don't care, I like my music, and I like to be able to remember seeing great acts.

None of the above should be read to imply that I didn't enjoy the Isle of Wight festival. I did. Immensely. Unlike Glastonbury, at IoW the sun shone, and you're not locked in the musical concentration camp for the duration, but can escape into town or even the beach. When it came to the music, I started to feel old: while the yoof were splitting their ears listening to the Prodigy, I ducked away to watch Bananarama. And yes, after all these years, yeah baby, she's still got it. And I was extremely glad all the unwashed and uneducated kids left early on the final day because they'd never heard of the Pixies or Neil Young, leaving us old fogies to enjoy the legends in relative peace.

As for the stuff the young kids were listening to: Goldie Looking Chain are, like Ali G, a parody too far (it's all well and good getting a chuckle out of the satire of "Guns don't kill people. Rappers do" or "Your mother's got a penis," but when people are idolising and imitating your chav persona, it's time to go); while Razorlight were a pleasant surprise, suggesting I shouldn't give up on music just yet.

And on second thoughts, perhaps I shouldn't be so harsh on the tradition of festival boozing, because it left us with a choice selection of anecdotes. Once we finally found a patch of ground big enough for our tents, we were abused and assaulted by our drunken 'neighbours' (including a royal marine fresh back from Afghanistan who insisted on showing us pictures of splattered bodies he'd taken with his iphone) who were unhappy to find that their 'private lawn' had been invaded by colonials (Sorry fellas, it's a music festival, and if it doesn't have a tent on it, it's terra nullius - see how you like it, you English gits).

We seemed to be in the military field, because we had a bunch of boozing sailors on the other side of our tents who furnished us with some choice quotes overheard in the wee hours of the morning: "... so, I was coming back from the loos, and there was this guying lying face down in the mud, completely naked. I gave him a bit of a shove and asked if he was alright... he came around a bit, looked at me, reached behind him and pulled a condom out of his arse, looked back at me and said 'don't say a fucking word' and walked off..." and the overall winner for quote of the festival: "I've seen more cocks this weekend than bands."

Big thanks to Mark and Fiona for letting me tag along as their third wheel, and also to Sam, Dave and Louise for letting me hitch said third wheel to their travelling road-show and crash at Dave's dad's place for daily sobering up sessions... truly, the only civilised way to festival.

The future of music is... silence?

... and if it is I don't like it.


Thanks to Londonist (my favourite source for all things London) I scored a pair of tickets to see the Fun Lovin' Criminals playing at Koko. But this was no ordinary gig - it was a gimmicky 'silent disco' sponsored by Smirnoff. Basically, instead of plugging the instruments and mics into amps, they're all fed directly to the mix desk and then broadcast to the headphones you're wearing. And the drummer is locked away in a soundproof box... so now you get the idea.


Given only a few hours notice that I had in fact received tickets, I called on Mad Mark - music punter and critic extraordinaire - to join me on for this surreal concept in live music. It didn't take long for us to make up our minds that the old ways are still the best. The headphones weren't exactly top notch and gave a tinny sound experience, the mixing was either poor or couldn't cope with the fact that the instruments and vocals weren't being sung properly (not that Huey was messing it up, but amping up someone singing under their breath doesn't produce the same sound as someone singing properly). So, the 'silent' part of the gig definitely hampered the sound. The one saving grace of the headphones was that we could take them off to ignore the utterly atrocious Dutch DJ (perhaps I missed the joke, as others thought he was great). What would have been a great gig was sadly ruined by the gimmick.

Sound quality aside, the headphone gig also destroys one of the quintessentially valuable aspects of seeing music live - the sense of community and collective experience. Instead of feeling like you've shared a musical moment and thereby connected with the masses around you, everyone is at the same place, listening to the same band, but isolated in their own little 'ipod bubble'. Instead of stumbling out the doors overjoyed after a collective aural orgy, you hand back the headphones and leave feeling slightly dirty after a session of mass musical masturbation.

I like the old stuff better than the new stuff

One thing I have to admit is good about London is the quality and range of live acts that come through town, and perhaps because there's so much going on, getting your hands on tickets is generally pretty easy. As an example, the past week saw me take in two very different gigs, and I think I'm showing my age when I admit that I loved one, and would have gladly missed the other.

Jack Johnson and friends (namely G-Love, Special Sauce, and Ben Harper) came to London to do their bit for (or should that be against?) global warming and injustice in the world by putting on a one day 'festival' in Hyde Park. I dunno about you, but in my mind, 2 support acts and a headline on one stage does not a festival make... normally that's called a gig. Outdoor gig, I'll grant you, but gig nonetheless. Despite the fact that the sun made an appearance, and the fact that I normally enjoy a bit of harmless surfer/slacker guitar based music, the gigteval left me cold. In fact, the longer it went, the less I enjoyed it: G-Love was pretty damn good as an opener, Harper started to drag on a bit, and by the time John Jackson got on stage I was ready to go. I have to admit I arrived in a foul mood, but normally the first blast from the speakers is enough to make me forget my cares... I guess paying to watch a bunch of guys who travel the world surfing and playing music to legions of adoring female fans just wasn't going to cheer me up that day.

A few days later, still feeling mighty pissed off at the world, I dragged myself out to see another band: The Hoodoo Gurus. (Other Aussie bands of yesteryear to tour through London recently include Weddings, Parties, Anything, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, although they never really went away). No self-aggrandising, save-the-world, outdoor festival for the gurus, just a simple ol' fashioned rocking out gig at The Forum. Faulkner and co still had the moves, if not the hair, and definitely still had the energy to blast out the crowd faves (which was, well, all of them) and blow away the cobwebs of a horror week stuck in the office.

Sure, I'm showing my age, but I think rock improves with the passing of the years. Or at least you can appreciate it more as you get older: you can afford to go to the gig for a start, you can enjoy it with fellow fans, not just band-wagon hopping chart followers, and you get to see the band in a much more intimate venue than you could have in their hey-day. Sure, I can hear a few of you saying: "I'm glad I spent a fortune to go see a stadium gig when I was a kid - it's an experience that can never be repeated because the band doesn't exist any more," but that just shows you had bad taste in music if your favourite band couldn't last a few measly decades.

The Good, The Bad, The Iggy

glastonbury 07
Originally uploaded by patfoz.

Okay, some time has passed, the bile has mellowed, and my memories have taken on a slightly rosier hue. So, for what it's worth, here's what I thought of the world's premiere and music festival, in reverse order...

The Iggy

Anyone who was at Glastonbury and missed Iggy and the Stooges on the Other stage on Saturday night would no doubt be kicking themselves when they read the music press on returning to civilisation. You can't blame them: you could understand not wanting to see a bunch of decrepit senior citizens trying to recreate their 15 minutes, the risk of disappointment was high. But, as I have been reminded, Iggy is actually a terminator-like robot sent back from the future to save rock. And on that Saturday night, in the middle of a field in Pilton, he may have done just that.

Clad in his usual uniform of skin-tight jeans and nothing else (at least he wasn't in his other uniform of just nothing else), the Ig-bot came onto stage and did his damnedest to save us from our future of tasteless pop-rock and manufactured groups of beautiful people with no talent (unfortunately, Ig's work may have been for nothing, as the Spice Girls are reforming. Booo!)

A ripping rendition of 'wanna be your dog' opened proceedings, then Ig began calling people to come up on stage, and yelling 'Let them up!' when security tried to stop people answering Ig's call. You may as well have tried to stop the tides...

With what looked like a couple hundred people jumping around on the stage, and Iggy wandering among the crowd, it looked like the set might be over after the first two songs. At this point Iggy changed his mind, and started calling on the 'muddy motherfuckers' (Ig's words) to get off the stage. As you can imagine, having gained the stage, these people weren't about to leave in a hurry. It took nearly 20 minutes, and Iggy singing 'The shadow of your smile' acapella to get the young ragamuffins off the stage. Iggy clearly wasn't happy with the way security were dealing with some of them, at one point yelling 'You can't do that to a man dressed as a clown!'

While other punters were muttering that Iggy must have been pretty stupid to invite the crowd on stage after only two songs... geez, doesn't he realise that he'll have to get them off the stage before the next song? all those drugs must have addled his brain... I on the other hand recognized Iggy's true genius: it was a sublime piece of showmanship to fill in the time that The Stooges probably couldn't fill with songs. My supposition was confirmed when the encore consisted of a repeat of 'your dog,' but it was that good it deserved to be played twice.

The Bad
Now, the great thing about Glastonbury is that there's so much on there's always something you want to watch. And the worst thing about Glastonbury is that there's so much on there's always something else you want to watch somewhere else AT EXACTLY THE SAME TIME! To make matters worse, the programmers also saw fit to keep some of the performances secret, so that you can't even make an informed choice as to what it is you want to see.

The worst case of this occurred on the Saturday night after Iggy had done his damage to the Other Stage. The official programme said that 'Special Guests' would be playing at Lost Vagueness (Las Vegas? geddit? it's a part of the festival grounds that I didn't even get to over the weekend, that's how big this thing is). An Irishman in the portaloo queue said he'd heard rumours that the Special Guests were none other than Madness. I weighed up trusting the words of a drunk Irishman trying to cut ahead of me in a toilet queue, and the reality of trekking to an unknown part of the farm at midnight across a mile or so of mud... I chose to go back to the tent and sleep. I later found out that it was Madness playing that night, and it was incredible, and it was the absolutely greatest moment of the whole fucking festival!

And that's the last I want to hear of it. Ever.

I could also complain about the mud, the loss of the original hippy ideals to consumerism and wellington-boot price gouging, and the fact that people are no better than selfish, thoughtless pigs when it comes to choosing between walking along the muddy path, or tramping their muddy boots all over your tent... but I won't. Much.

The Good
Where to begin? At the beginning is probably a good idea...

Friday

The View: proved Scots that the further North you get in the UK, the better you rock.

Modest Mouse: were overshadowed by all the Smiths fans simply there to see Johnny Marr. So I left to see...

Gogol Bordello: only saw half their set, but they crammed a whole weekend's worth of energy into that half. Mind-blowing gypsy punk. If you get a chance, see them. So good I've pre-ordered a CD on the interweb (they don't have Fish records stores over here). 3rd worst act to see if on a bad acid trip.

Amy Winehouse: Not sure if you'll have heard of her in Oz... think 'The Nanny' with self mutilation issues. Highlight was bringing out a few members of the Specials and performing a few covers with them.

The Hold Steady: Like Gogol Bordello, I only caught a fraction of the set, and like Gogol Bordello, I wish I could have seen it all. A lot of press called theirs the set of the festival. Big call, but they could be right. American suburban rock done right. Springsteen would be proud.

The Cat Empire: still kick arse live. They had every Aussie in Pilton crammed into the Avalon tent, and funnily enough, it was the only time where I was a victim of and acted out my crowd-rage - apparently we ARE complete pricks when overseas. If you're too drunk to stay on your feet don't push in front of people and try to dance, cock-head. You know who you are, and I don't regret pushing you over.

Bjork: 2nd worst act to see if on a bad trip. She's freaky. Don't know why, but the stage show reminded me of 'Where the wild things are.'

Saturday

Josh Pyke: love his songs, but his performance didn't really fill the small 'Park' stage.

Lilly Allen: made the sun come out with Smile. Cameraman went for the cheesy shot of a toddler singing along to '...and it makes me smiii-iiiile, yeah it makes me smiiii-iile.' I think he missed a trick in not filming the small girl singing along to '..girl on the guest list's dressed like a cunt'

Guillemots: the absolute worst act to see on a bad acid trip, from the freaky stilt dancers with reversed heads, to the song with the repeated chorus: "they're coming and they're trying to steal my face" (very catchy tune by the way).

John Fogerty: Rach's favourite performance of the weekend. Made me think of the Simpsons gag:
Marge- 'Quick Homer, perform CPR!'
Homer- 'uh okay... I see a bad moon risin'...'

The Stooges: see The Iggy

Sunday

The Marley Brothers: What's better than one Marley performing the songs from Exodus? Two Marleys performing the songs from Exodus! Sure, it ain't Bob, but they had the trustafarians in the crowd on cloud nine and puffing away so hard that you could hardly smell the portaloos anymore.

Shirley Bassey: Rach's second favourite performance.

Manic Street Preachers: much better than I expected - they've written a lot more anthems than I gave them credit for. Probably deserved a better spot than 6.30 on the Sunday, but apparently they bad-mouthed the festival last time they played it. Definitely made amends.

KT Tunstall: proved that Scottish lasses can give the lads a run for their money too. Another of Rach's favourites.

The Who: Did passable covers of the CSI theme and that song on you tube by the Zimmers.

All in all, a very muddy weekend. The nightmare trip home on the Monday is another story all together

Glasto-verrated

Because I'm exhausted from trudging around in mud for two weekends running, and because I know most of you don't want to know about it, I'll keep my notes on attending Glastonbury to a minimum.

So here it is, the 3 day festival summarized in 3 words... not worth it.

The sweet taste of free-dom

Whatever happenned to...
Originally uploaded by patfoz.

I've been a bit lax in writing of late (it's the fault of RTW - if you have to ask, you wouldn't understand). So no doubt, you're just gagging to find out the latest miraculous and fantabulous things that have been happening. Yes, I realise I am writing assuming that there's a reader, which I very much doubt, but Simo responded to something I posted a while back, so I live in hope...

Due to the universal and unconquerable force of poverty, my adventures have been reduced to things that come for free. So I've been missing lunch a lot. Surprisingly, London's not too bad when it comes to free stuff, provided you scour the street press for the tiny notices that point you to it. More surprisingly, the free stuff turns out to be pretty good! My taste of free-dom came in the form of a free gig to celebrate a trendy music magazine that managed to stay in print for a year...

It's been so long that Corey Haim should have released a single entitled "Whatever happened to the Thrills?"... in fact, he should sack his agent for not jumping on that opportunity as soon as it appeared. But it's too late for Corey now (no, he's not dead. I checked.), because the Thrills are back. Courtesy of the one year old magazine, and the trendiest indie-music venue that you could shake a skinny white man in even skinnier jeans at, I got to see them play a short but sweet set in Camden. Despite all the fashionable poseurs in the afore-mentioned skinny jeans, strange hats, or bracers, everyone was there to enjoy the music, and enjoy it we did. To the point of dancing on the chairs and bar (see the blurry photo above - that's pretty much what my vision was like). The Thrills belted out the faves that everyone wanted to hear, as well as a few others and promptly called it a night. The crowd loved it, sang along and danced and generally had a great time.

OK GO apparently did a DJ spot in the upstairs bar, but when I checked it out there weren't any treadmills set up, so I didn't bother sticking around for it.

It's a shame about rain... I mean, Ray

Koko disco ball
Originally uploaded by patfoz.

Months into my London sojourn, and I still hadn't really enjoyed any of the things it's famous for, such as Monopoly pub crawls (forced absence due to poverty), art galleries and other la-di-da cultural things (I ran through a few during the timeout scavenger hunt), and live music.

Well actually, I had been dragged along to see DJ Yoda at Koko a while back. I had high hopes that he would be mixing songs so as to put the verbs at the end each sentence in the lyrics, but was sadly disappointed. He wasn't even green. The only high point among the evening of deafeningly loud cheese-mixes was one involving the theme music to super mario bros. You know the tune I'm talking about. That had me excited for a while, but again I was let down. He missed the 1 up on the third screen and didn't even make it to level 2...

But I digress. The night out did leave me impressed with the venue - it's an old theatre now converted for gigs, with the biggest damn disco ball that was ever conceived in a Boy George nightmare (the pic above doesn't do it justice) . Ever since that night I kept noticing review of all the other fantastic evenings at Koko that I would have rather been at... Travis had their new tour/comeback gig there that was a sing-along love-in for all involved... Prince played a last minute quasi-secret gig there not long ago... now finally I've been to one.


You'll all remember Evan Dando as the long-haired slacker at the front of the Lemonheads, the band that had a hit with a cover of 'Mrs Robinson' - came out during our childhoods about the same time as Blind Melon had their hit with 'No Rain' with the fat girl in the bumblebee tutu and another long haired slacker as a front man - you know the one I'm talking about. For some reason I always had the two confused. I think it was the hair. Anyway, Blind Melon went nowhere, Kurt Cobain blew his brains out (possibly the greatest publicity stunt ever), and Evan Dando descended into a world of drugs and meaningless sex (I assume), only to come back stronger than ever. With slightly shorter hair. It's still long enough to cover his face so you can't see his features on stage, but it shows he's cleaned up his act. Just a little anyway.

The crowd in attendance was an odd mix: 30 and 40 year olds who must have been fans of the original Lemonheads incarnation, muttering things about knowing them 'before they were big' while queueing at the bar, as well as pathetic bandwagon fans like myself who only got into them 15 years ago. Since then, Dando went solo, went a little acoustic and a little bit country, but when the band came out and ripped through 'confetti', it was clear the band version was back to being a little bit rock and roll. They stormed through the hits from their back catalogue, and I sang along like a complete tosser (my heartfelt apologies to those people who were in earshot). Dando kicked the band off to have his little acoustic/country moment, and I kept singing along like a complete tosser (apologies again). He left the stage, clearly too early for the show to be over, and although we all knew there would be an encore, everyone clapped and chanted for more like they meant it. The full band came back out, played some more great songs and eventually left. But, and this bit is important, without having played 'Mrs. Robinson'!!!

I was sure that there must be another encore planned, despite the fact the house lights were up and the 'get out of the venue now' music was playing on the PA. I was determined to stick it out to the bitter end, with absolute faith that eventually they'd come back out and play for the hardcore few that stayed. Sadly, it wasn't to be. My gig companions wanted to go home, so I left Koko, stumbled out into a rainy London night and onto a crowded tube home.

Ever since, I've been avoiding all street press, for fear that there'll be a review mentioning the amazing second encore played to only a dozen or so spectators, and although I loved every minute of the show I saw, if there was a minute that I didn't get to see, I'll be ever so pissed. The problem with having a great time is knowing that sooner or later, usually sooner, it all has to end.

But it's all ok now. I looked up the line-up for Glastonbury, and the Proclaimers are going to be there. I'm going to start apologising for my singing now (anyone who's seen me at karaoke will know why)... I'm sorry. Truly.

Pat

Viral music

Ok, I know I've spent a fair bit of time slagging off this country: the weather's rubbish, the people are useless, the food's... well, you get the idea. But, the one thing the Brits seem to do well - apart from lying on Bondi Beach turning red, smoking and chatting on mobile phones doing everything in their power to be struck down with cancer - is music.

Yes, the likes of the spice and 'suga' young females were spawned on this island, and like the British Empire, they had their moment of glory ruling large parts of the world, but with the constant scrag in-fighting and the real risk of starving themselves to death, it was only a matter of time before Darwinian principles came into effect and knocked them from the top of the pop evolutionary tree. I mean, the same thing's happening to Britney - mating with another pop wannabe is a bad idea, there's clearly something detrimental on the processed pop gene, and soon enough they should breed themselves out...

Which of course begs the question: in such a musical gene-pool vacuum, what will replace them? Well, I'd been predicting it and praying for it for a long time, but now finally the time has come. Like a mutated wild type virus thought long since dead (the plague is making a come back you know), 90's pop is back again! Of course, for the true believers, it never went away. But with the triumphant return of the Proclaimers to the UK #1 spot, it can no longer be denied.

Yes, that's right, 500 miles is back again thanks to a spot on comic relief (an annual charity event over here that is rarely comical, but we're all relieved when it ends) with the chaps from Little Britain. Dyalan claims that this is all thanks to his work:

Hmmm I don't believe that they are back at the top thanks to some shitty charity comedy gig, I prefer to believe that I brought them back. After all, I have been listening to my proclaimers tape in the car for the last week, and although one of the speakers isn't working I play it pretty loud. All it would take is one British tourist to have heard it, then he'd get a craving for more proclaimers. Upon returning home he'd pass it on to a couple of friends, who'd pass it on to a couple of friends and so on - then pow! back to number one.

and if so, that makes Dyalan the Ebola carrying rhesus monkey that has led to this outbreak. Well done, that man!

Unfortunately, not all 90's acts were as fortunate as the Proclaimers - Right Said Fred, undeniably the greatest ever aerobics-instructor turned musician act are now reduced to spruiking laundry detergent.

So, despite the plain food, the expensive cost of living, and the miserable weather... at least English music is here to cheer me up.

Hold on - aren't the Proclaimers lads Scottish???