Chimpomatic

Shearwater

Palo Santo

This is Shearwater's fourth full-length and sees Jonathan Meiburg take the reins entirely from once collaborator Will Sheff of Okkervile River and sees them take a slightly new turn away from maudling Americana towards a much grander sound. Red Sea, Black Sea is the first sign that there's a new sheriff in town, and he means business. It ticks over slowly to start with then bursts with grandeur both instrumentally and vocally with Meiburg really starting to explore his range. It's this grandeur that makes Palo Santo so different from other Shearwater releases.

We see it again in Seventy Four, Seventy Five - the albums best moment. The thumping piano counts us in then the now characteristic bass heavy drums thunder through with the ever-increasing intensity of Meiburg's vocals. The only complaint is that as on Red Sea, Black Sea it all ends too suddenly.

There have been many comparisons between Meiburg's voice and Jeff Buckley. This is very evident and adds a certain sensitivity to other more low key tracks like Failed Queen and the album closer Going Is Song, a heartbreaker of a song that eases the album to a melancholic resting place.

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14th Aug 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

TV On The Radio

Return To Cookie Mountain

Brooklyn based band pen multi layered, challenging yet highly original gem. The album that keeps on giving but never puts out.

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14th Aug 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Black Angels

Passover

However you arrange your record collection these days, you will have no trouble fitting this lot in. Whether it's by mood, genre or simply alphabetical you'll find this Austin based group sits nicely between Black Sabbath, Black Mountain and The Black Keys. The only other reference that I didn't mention as it kinda ruins my theory is The Velvet Underground. This band take their name from a Velvet classic, "The Black Angels Death Song" and at times the spirit of Nico is summoned to great effect.

These guys aren't trying to rewrite musical history but Passover is a damn good listen none the less. Album opener Young Men Dead rolls in with a dirty piece of plodding, monotone guitar accompanied by the lyric, "Head for the hills, pick up steel on your way" and the mood is set for a gloomy, psychedelic and often heavy rock delight.

The Sniper At The Gates Of Heaven follows a structure that is employed throughout most of this album, it marches into view like the advancing armies of Mordor and builds the sense of impending doom magnificently with the help of Alex Maas' anxious and highly strung vocals while Bloodhounds On My Trail evokes The Velvets' world of drugged out, paranoid psychedelic but soon leaves it behind as the volume is notched up and off we plod to far rockier shores.

It's not all this satisfying though, The First Vietnamese War sounds like John Goodman's funeral speech to Donny in The Big Lebowski with it's simplistic and relentless "War Is Hell" subject matter. This sentiment is continued on the albums closing hidden acoustic track where we get the lyrics "He's fighting in the Iraq war, what for?" and it's a shame that this highly fulfilling album ends with the repetition of "Somebody please stop that war." But these complaints are few and far between and don't come close to ruining an album that satisfyingly ticks all the rock boxes.

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7th Aug 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Thom Yorke

The Eraser

Earlier this year the Radiohead drought we had all been experiencing was finally over as they announced a massive tour and speculation about a new album was up and running. The shows were dazzling and many new songs were showcased, but talk of a new album was soon silenced when we were told not to expect anything until next year. Then, on their message board, Thom Yorke floated the certainty of a forthcoming collection of things he had been working on with past producer Nigel Goodrich and tongues were wagging furiously once more. He was quick to forbid any mention of the word 'solo' when talking about 'The Eraser' and stressed it was a collection of laptop ditties he had been working on for years and didn't spell the end for Radiohead.

And so here we have it, Thom Yorke's not-solo, solo record. And what a puzzling little thing it is too. I wasn't expecting to be treated to glorious, euphoric, acoustic gems from the master of guitar song writing, I knew it was a laptop affair and so I think I expected The Gloaming, the wonderful beat/click excursion on Hail To The Thief. As it turns out we get none of the above. Instead 'The Eraser' is a collection of 9 very minimal, stark and unforgiving experiments. I must admit to having a hard time with this album at first. I was so excited about it's release and had formed expectations. After the first few listens I thought it was shallow, thin, lazy and lacked not just the grandeur but the immediacy and urgency of Radiohead's recent stuff. None of Radiohead's albums are perfect and they always manage to include a song that goes nowhere and lets the side down (a Frank Lampard if you will.) 'The Eraser' seemed full of such songs and appeared to have been released far too soon and needed a lot more work. But then I started to think of it as more of an artist's sketch book, a place and opportunity where the artist can experiment with style and content and not be burdened with the need to finish or resolve any ideas, a place where he can touch on more personal themes and opinions as if these creations were private and never meant for exposure. I then started to see it differently and although it is far from perfect it has something that Radiohead can never produce.

The title track starts the proceedings off on a rather low-key manner with a soft beat skittering around a repeated piano cord. Yorke's vocals are equally as soft and seem to float over the ever more layered backing arrangement. The lyrics take on the Morrissey like structure of 'The more you try to erase me, the more that I appear,' there is a slight pause then the song drifts back in with a beautiful subtlety that is often seen throughout this album. Analyse is one of the more successful, beat driven songs that follows with Yorke reflecting on the role we play in this life stating, "it gets you down/you're just playing a part."

The Clock has all the makings of the kind of material I had expected from this album, starting off with Yorke's now trademark beatboxing, for want of a better word, the sort of noises and grunts he makes over the beat as he is getting himself into the zone. A rolling bassline and a beat that threatens to build progressively caries us away with the doom-ridden vocals of 'Time is running out for us.' and yet takes us nowhere and builds to nothing. This is quite often the case for many of the songs and on the first few listens is very annoying. As soon as he has established the melody and promised you so much the tempo is sustained and then ends.

The closest this album comes to a single is Black Swan, which is to be used on the new Richard Linklater animation A Scanner Darkly. I am surprised at this choice as it is one of the weakest songs. A rather unimaginative beat accompanies the repeated vocal "this is fucked up." Unfortunately this heralds the low part of the album with the turkey 'Skip Divided' bumbling along with monotonous mumblings labouring over empty beats and terrible lyrics. "I'm a dog, I'm a dog, I'm your lap dog/ I just need my number and location."

The quality is resumed however with the beautiful Atoms For Peace. This song has a slightly different feel to it than the rest of the album. I would hesitate to be so shallow and say that it hints at a more positive outlook but the Boards Of Canada type woolly beats and fuzz that accompany the uncharacteristically sweet vocals create a strange kind of nostalgia and almost lullaby feel.

This airy feeling is literally washed away as we move on to And It Rained All Night. The now familiar curtain of doom once again descends and the sinister synth washes are slapped on thick. Yorke is clearly getting accustomed to his new instrument and as he layers samples, twitches, and booming bass to create the nervous apprehension that precedes an approaching wave. Here we see Yorke's environmental concerns and fears and are reminded of Stanley Donwood's woodcut cover image that depicts King Canute trying to hold back a giant wave. This is one thing that I was glad to see in these songs. Although they are much simpler in construction than any Radiohead song they can be interpreted in many different ways. The have very obvious political messages and yet can be seen on a much smaller scale to be about more personal fears and emotions to do with love and relationships, a theme we have not seen much of since The Bends.

Harrowdown Hill is probably the high point of this album and yet the lowest point in terms of mood. On this song Yorke has manages to create one of the saddest and heart wrenching songs of his career. It is sung from the point of view of someone who has clearly died in suspicious and tragic circumstances and with a deep sense of regret he speaks his parting words to those he is leaving behind. This feeling is overwhelming and only amplified when we find out that the song is in fact about the tragic suicide of government scientist Dr. David Kelly. Harrowdown Hill is the Oxfordshire woods where his body was found in 2003 and with the lyrics "You will be dispensed with when you become inconvenient," Yorke is, for the first time, not mincing his words. This all contributes to the general and important point to note, that this is not a Radiohead album and the sooner you understand this the sooner you start to get it and enjoy it. This took me some time and for a while was very disappointed with what I was hearing. Harrowdown Hill is a prime example of a far more direct approach to what Thom has to say. It's as if his band has become too big to really spell it out and he is using this opportunity to let us know what he thinks. It doesn't always work but when it does, as on Harrowdown Hill, it is electrifying. Thom Yorke's work has flaws but that is what makes it so compelling - and this is no exception.

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6th Jul 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men's Chest

(dir. Gore Verbinski)

another enjoyable high seas romp for cap'n jack sparrow, keira knightley and orlando bloom. pirates of the caribbean: dead men's chest is basically one long action scene. it's relentlessly noisy, clocks in at what feels like a good 2 and a half hours, but still manages to be fun, in a proper all-round entertainment kind of way. it's not dark, or clever or twisty, just pretty unpretentious summer blockbuster fare.

the first one was a v pleasant surprise for me: as much as i love the whole aaaaaarrrr vibe of pirates, there haven't been too many great pirate films recently, so i wasn't holding out much hope for it being any good. even though it's probably my favourite disney ride. so here, i had quite high expectations, and they were mostly met. doesn't have that law of diminishing returns you get w most sequels as such, but it is more of the same, without adding too much new stuff to the mix.

in a way they're setting it up as a star wars style trilogy, yes, it's staaaaaaaarrrr wars:

first film that reinvents a genre and is surprisingly good? check

anti hero who loves his ship? han solo + millenium falcon = jack sparrow and the black pearl

second part that does more of the same, shows more cantina-style monsters and extends the mythology? check

unresolved father issues? check

love triangle featuring feisty princess, rogue don't give a shit buccanneer and a slightly wooden pretty boy who's quite handy w a sword? check

etc.

bill nighy's lots of fun as the squid-faced davy jones, there's some big monster action, sneaky pirating and general double-crossing, some fun triple-sword showdowns and more comedy sidekick moments from mackenzie "gareth in the office" crook. plus there's a bit right at the end. apparently. i left too soon… aaaarrrrrrggghhh

not a classic, but really good fun if you liked the first one. just a bit too long and noisy. part 2 is definitely happening, hope it's not too return of the jedi-like. and be great if they get keith richards to show up…

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28th Jun 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Brown Bunny

(dir. Vincent Gallo)

Motorbike racing loner Bud Clay (Vincent Gallo) travels across America for a race in Los Angeles, meeting several girls along the way - all the while looking a replacement for the love that he has lost, haunted by the memory of the last time he saw her.

Prior to seeing this film there were two forces governing my expectations:
1. The awesome trailer, laying Jackson C. Frank's song Milk And Honey over a split screen montage of an empty highway and an accident at a party.

2. The literal barrage of negative press following the screening at Cannes, and mostly regarding the edit of the film and the X-Rated sex scene with Gallo and Chloe Sevigny.

As Buffalo 66 had been so enjoyable I was at the very least intrigued to see what could have gone wrong with this alleged train crash of a movie. Things start of OK, with a slow sequence following Bud Clay as he competes in a race in New Hampshire. The shooting style seems like a mid 70's documentary, using grainy handheld footage. Clay then packs up his bike into his van, but before heading out on the open road he meets a young girl and convinces her to come to California with him. As she runs into her house to pick up a few things, Bud Clay changes his mind and drives away. Cue 20 minutes of Gallo driving. No dialogue. Repeat.

While Gallo is quite effective and watch-able, a lot of the interest is based upon some knowledge of his off screen personality - plus you are always waiting to see if nothing really does happen. The shooting shooting style is nice (and occasionally great), but you can't help but feel it's not quite how it should be. A long shot will focus on Gallo driving, while an out of focus landscape rolls past in the background. Except the foreground will be slightly out of focus too. The DVD was presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.66:1 (leaving black bars on the left and right), but then some shots of the film seemed like they had been spliced back into the film after some some time literally on the cutting room floor... to no apparent effect.

The hype around the movie is mainly due to it's explicit nature, but if Gallo really wanted to improve the film he could have started by chopping that entire scene out, as it really does provide no further exposition or depth to the characters. The scenes following the x-rated scene do make the film somewhat more worthwhile, making the viewer think back over what they have been watching and draw some kind of sense - but the trailer was just as effective as the movie, setting up the tragedy and creating the same emotional impact in a mere two minutes. The poster is great too.

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8th Jun 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

United Sounds of ATP

Camber Sands Holiday Centre, Sussex

Before going to the All Tomorrow's Parties music festival (at Pontin's Holiday Camp) I wasn't sure what to expect - and leaving a few days later I'm still not sure what I made of it all. Staying in a chalet as opposed to a tent had it's obvious benefits, especially as the rain was fairly relentless the entire weekend - making those swimming trunks I packed optimistic at best. But the constant grey skies and rundown look to the place gave it an Apocalypse Now feel - a surrealness not lightened by having to negotiate 'Funland' to get to the bar (my funland). The winner of ATP however, is that it truly is all about the music. Each headlining act allowed to choose their favourite bands to play bill - so the opportunities to discover something new were high.

Day 1
So heading to stage 2 (downstairs) on the Friday and lifted by the news that Guinness was coming in at a reasonable £2.70 a pint, The Magik Markers were a good place to kick things off. I'd read a bit about this Hungarian/American three piece and was definitely loving the fact they only played two songs in their 40 minute set (I preferred track 1) allowing me to catch up with mates, whilst dipping in and out of their (at-times) fairly rocking jam sessions. I was told however, that Dead Meadow upstairs (stage 1 of 2) were awesome, with a particularly excellent drummer -a vital ingredient for any self-respecting rock band. So upstairs we went -happy with the fact you could walk to a fairly good spec in the crowd relatively hassle free. Broken Social Scene were excellent -the surprise package of the weekend. I'd heard the name, but didn't really know their sound - they reminded me a bit of Mercury Rev - how they would allow a euphoric brass section to creep up and get you grinning by the end of each song. Also, it's the sign of a great band when you are thinking 'There's no way they can top that tune' then halfway through the next you've already forgotten the previous one (if you know what I mean). We were also treated to an early glimpse of Friday's curator J. Mascis - with long grey hair, shades and adidas shell suit. The man is a hero. He came out for a bit of a guitar duel with Broken Social Scene. Odds were stacked heavily against BSS though, as J's guitar sounded like it was turned up to 14, drowning out allcomers. Still, that whetted the appetite for Dinosaur Jr. later. Next up, indie stalwarts Teenage Fanclub. Although they opened up with personal favourite 'Mudhoney' I thought I'd go and check out The Brian Jonestown Massacre instead. Shouldn't have bothered. I liked their music in Dig!, but they were a bit boring really. I guess I was as guilty as many others, down there for the 'Car Crash' effect - waiting to see if Anton Newcombe was going to crack and kick anyone in the head (he didn't). I was told that Teenage Fanclub were great though - fair play to those lads.

A drum kit flanked by 10 Marshall Stacks; Dinosaur Jr made their intentions clear from the off. They were extremely loud, but equally awesome. What happened to Lou Barlow? From nerdy Sebadoh boy, to some sort of pumped up uber-bassist - he easily promoted himself to Lead Bass in my fantasy super group. A fairly healthy split between Lou's and J's songs - with all the 'hits' in there, they are certainly a band I'd make every effort to see whenever they are in town. A blinding set to round off day one.

Day 2
The day started with a hair of the dog in the pub at twelve and ended 17 hours later being kicked out of the ATP disco. As a result, my memories of Saturday's bands are sketchy at best. The Fiery Furnaces were pretty good. Spoon reminded me of Wilco, but didn't really do enough to lift me out of my stuper. Main act Sleater Kinney were really good though (I think). They certainly rocked the house, with some powerful drumming being a prominent recollection. Worth checking out more of their stuff to plug those holes. Highlight of the day though has to be R Kelly's bizarre Hip-Hopera 'Trapped in the Closet' - showing on the ATP TV Channel (each headliner also gets to create a days schedule of TV). A 40 minute epic with R. Kelly lending his golden tones to the story of various dudes getting caught with each other's girlfriends and threatening to blow everyone away and shit. Was it for real? Who knows - but he did rhyme Bridget with Midget (the midget in question, was uncovered hiding in a cupboard by a policeman returning home early to his wife - bizarre indeed, but try and check it out).

Day 3
With the rain still coming down and the hangover a large one Sunday was always going to be about re-grouping. So, finding a spot on the back wall to nurse some beers was the order of the day (although this is obviously much more pleasant on a sunny last day of an outdoors festival, as opposed to an airtight bingo hall after a three day rock festival). To be fair to the bands, it was going to take something special to rouse me from that position. Aussie band The Drones had a good stab with their better than average pub-rock. The Decemberists were clearly a crowd favourite, reminding me a bit The Levellers, Placebo and the Polyphonic Spree - but not at all as bad as that sounds. They did manage to get the whole crowd to sit down for a quiet number (no problems for me) then getting them back up for a rousing finale. The lead singer of 70's style rock Dungen also played a flute. Then the highlight of the weekend, The Black Keys. Two songs in and I was up off my ass and into the crowd. The drum and guitar two piece played heavy blues and once again made me wonder what all the fuss is with the White Stripes. Following them was going to be extremely tough and so it proved for biggest disappointments The Shins. The band I was most looking forward to seeing, as I'm a great fan of both their albums, were let down by a number of circumstances. Following Black Keys, early sound troubles, being shy and too quiet. They almost lifted it a couple of times but not enough. Maybe I hit a wall, but I never thought I'd be walking out of The Shins early. That was that - some serious drinking and some damn fine bands. The music-first policy is clearly a winner, could do with a bit of sunshine though.

Probably worth a 4, but the rain and my own laziness in not checking out other bands knocks it down a half.

Top 5
1. The Black Keys
2. Dinosaur Jr.
3. Broken Social Scene
4. R. Kelley
5. The Chappelle Show

Bottom 5
1. Rain
2. Hangover
3. Eating too many crisps
4. The smell of the main room Sunday night
5. The disappointing Shins.

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26th May 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

The Electric Soft Parade

The Human Body EP

The Electric Soft Parade were filed in my mind alongside Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Cooper Temple Clause for some reason - which was not a good spot. I think a 2003 Q Compilation / Rant may be to blame.

I've since done some vague research, and the fact that Brakes is a side project from these guys and British Sea Power's ex-keyboardist is of mixed surprise. British Sea Power are dissapointing, Brakes are great. This EP goes some way to reposition Electric Soft Parade somewhere in between, with a great opening sound for the track A Beating Heart. Thumping drums build up nicely with mathematical sound, semi-mysterious lyrics and a nice keyboard. They can certainly play a nice bassy groove, and would probably have a good live sound... must remember to bother to see them sometime. Maybe they could support Brakes. The Captain and Kick In The Teeth also stand out, but no track quite hits the right finale... mainly as they tend to leave the rock behind and take a short cut to noodle town.

The songs all have a tendency to veer a bit to close to 70's Genesis or 10CC in places, but with a bit of self-control and a stripped down production they could certainly surprise me. In the current climate of major labels wanting 70's modish sounds from the likes of Arctic Monkeys, there's certainly some space for 70's prog sounds from the likes of these guys. Although as Jello Biafra says "I like short songs."

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15th May 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Buck 65

Secret House Against The World

Buck 65 could read a shopping list or even my last rights and I would love it, so I guess I am not the best person to write a review of his music. I think this is his eleventh album (I lost count ages ago) and it sees a real departure from the previous works. He is known for his hobo like musings about life, love, shoe-shine and just about anything -and all this over self-crafted beats and soundscapes. But here we see a new musical injection that at first jars, as it is not what we expect from Buck, but then we realise that the very thing we love about this guy is his freedom from any genre, collective or type and we are right back loving him again.

There are some sublime moments of real beauty here and most of them come with the new inclusion of a female voice that sits so pretty next to the Waits style growl of Buck. We first see this new combo on ‘The Suffering Machine, ‘ a gentle, acoustic led song full of heart wrenching sadness about a lost soul ambling aimlessly from place to place with no friends and waiting for the “Black angel,” to carry him down. On his web site, Buck reviews his own albums. He says that this album has what was missing all along and that is melody, female voice and lushness Well this song has all of that. I never thought a hip hop song could bring tears to my eyes but The Floor does just that. You listen with open mouth as he tells the story of his abusive father coming home and throwing "the goldfish to the cat on the kitchen floor" while his beaten and down trodden mother just smiled "the saddest smile I’ve ever seen in my life."

Buck has grown up with this album. It is about serious stuff and though it has all the profound musings that we have come to expect, the musical composition adds weight to the words and it’s truly moving. Buck gives it three out of five on his site but I will see that and raise it.

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12th May 2006 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

King Kong

(dir. Peter Jackson)

The biggest chimp of the all, revamped by the LOTR crew.

For some reason it's taken a while to get round to this super-ape outing here at chimp HQ, so it's nice to finally open up the DVD (although there's 2 bullshit ads included as part of the "extras" on my R3 copy).

Like what Peter Jackson's done over his career, and there's some nice touches to his monster/gore past which I wasn't expecting in the Skull Island bits (been so long since I saw the original that the plot was basically new to me).

Jack Black's money-making movie director works well in the first half, although you do get the impression that Jackson sympathises with his blagging skills and general enthusiasm for getting a film made, which does seem to jar a bit with the second half in New York, with Black then the evil maestro putting on Kong's Broadway debut.

Naomi Watts does the most with her scream and faint routine, and gets the compassion for Kong over without saying too much. It's much more of a human getting on with a wild animal relationship than some inter-species romance. She's like a friendly zoologist with juggling skills that he's stumbled across. You feel like Kong's pretty lonely on the island without any other giant apes around, and that Naomi's better company than the local savages who seem more interested in keeping in chucking him the occasional sacrifice from behind a wall. Adrien Brody's ok, but a bit sidelined towards the end.

The Kong animation/acting from Andy "Gollum" Serkis (who's also the ship's cook) is pretty cool, wasn't expecting so much dinosaur bashing which seemed like Jackson having fun with some Godzilla-style showdowns, and the crew of the Venture are at least pretty wowed when they first come across all these huge mythical beasts running around. All the whooping natives stuff is a bit odd, not quite sure where they're going with that.

Enjoyed it overall, but it did feel a touch overlong for what's essentially a pretty simple B movie plot - although holding off on Kong's entrance works, and all the on-board scenes build up to Skull Island's sighting.

Could have been a much more intense, wham-bam experience at 20 minutes shorter: just because it's a really big monkey doesn't mean it has to be a really big epic… but hey, it's a big monkey smashing up New York and punching out dinosaurs - that's always going to go down well here.

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30th Apr 2006 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Pearl Jam

London Astoria

As one of the last gigs on my list of all-time favourite bands, having not seen these guys had always nagged at me. I had been too poor as a student, out of the country for one tour and then after the death of some fans at the Roskilde festival in 2000, Europe had been off rotation for the last couple of Pearl Jam world tours. I was resigned to eventually seeing the band at the enormo-arena-dome some time past their peak - and convincing myself that I wasn't disappointed.

Recently, things started to look up. A well invested fan club membership led to a great 7 inch single, but the golden ticket was a heads-up on this one-off warm up show at London's Astoria. Chimp Jnr managed to snag the tickets, which sold out in 1 minute and ended up going for £450 on eBay. It crossed our minds to cash them in and fly out to Seattle, but even there a 20,000 seat Arena could not offer the same opportunity as a 1600 seat venue on home turf.

The gig had a quick turnaround and before we knew it we were queuing down the side of the Astoria, round Soho Square and back onto Oxford Street. Some of the eBay tickets had apparently been confiscated, so some persistent fans did get a chance to get last minute surprise re-sale tickets on the door. The touts dropped their tickets to £250, while security guards checked the ticket numbers as some fakes had been circulated.

The atmosphere in the queue and inside the venue was electric. It obviously wasn't just us that had been holding out to see them, and when the band came out the place went crazy. A quick acknowledgment that it had been a long time set the scene, and then we're off with new single World Wide Suicide. As noted, this is a bad title, but as a song it was a great start - thundering, off new album Pearl Jam, but still one that the fans could get into. That was followed by Life Wasted and Severed Hand from the new album, which subdued the crowd slightly as they are still relatively unknown.... Two more new songs followed, but these were current b-side Unemployable and Christmas b-side Gone, which is already one of my current favourites. So things were picking up, and then they really took off with Even Flow.

From then on things only got better and better. The band pulled highlights and rarities from their 15 year back catalogue, such as Sad, I Am Mine, Leavin' Here and Given To Fly mixed in with a couple of the new tracks. There was a healthy dose of revived songs from black-sheep album Ten (which out sold Nevermind for you haters out there) including an awesome ramped up version of Why Go? The Indie Goth Revival is over, long live Grunge.

The highlight had to be an impromptu sing along to Betterman, where Eddie Vedder literally hardly sang a word. The entire crowd took over in a spine tingling moment, reminiscent of Black on the Benaroya Hall album. Visibly moved by the crowd response, the band came back for two encores until finally the end had come, as Mike McCready plucked the opening notes of traditional set-closer Yellow Ledbetter. Everyone sang along and the band even dropped in a few notes of Nobody's Fault But Mine as a nod to Robert Plant, who was in the crowd with his son. After a bow the band started to leave the stage, before the overwhelming reaction from the audience genuinely changed their minds. Eddie Vedder called them back for one more... a storming rendition of Alive. As one of their only UK hits, this is often how they are perceived by those who know little of their later work. It was an unashamedly 90's moment, and I realised that after 15 years of progressing onwards they are now looking as much like the grunger's of the early 90's as ever.... and I love it.

All in all it couldn't have been a much more satisfactory conclusion to my quest.... although thanks to a man on the inside we are off to see them taping Later with Jools Holland tonight.

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25th Apr 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Pink Mountaintops

Axis Of Evol

Jagjaguwar

More low down and dirty stoner rock from Steve McBean, the man who brought us 2005’s self titled Black Mountain. Axis Of Evol is a slightly more sedated affair than Black Mountain but the sentiment is the same. On both ventures McBean talks to us like a mysterious bible toting preacher man who rode into town to either save our souls from Satan or steal them as punishment for all our earthly sins. The music here is so slushy and sleazy you just know that whatever agenda this preacher has he has seen his fair share of smut. Lord Let Us Shine starts off with an electronic beat so grimy it could be used for an early 2 Live Crew backing track for some dirty stripper ass shaking but instead turns into a gospel like euphoric prayer to the Lord above.

This album with its themes of warfare, Armageddon and generally anything penned by the Devil himself is a damn good listen. It threatens to rock out at any moment but never does, McBean assures us of this on Comas when he states “No, I’m not headed down a highway to hell,” (loosely translated, “You listen to AC/DC you pay the price.”)

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10th Apr 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Black Crowes

Madison Square Garden, NYC

Despite the deeply traumatic MMJ no show, we decided to be brave and give it a go. Within about ten minutes we were questioning the wisdom of this decision. Walking in half way through the support act; someone callling himself Trey Anastasio. JESUS CHRIST. Freeform Fratboy jazz rock fusion at its finest. Ahem. Somehow we actually survived this to actually see The Black Crowes.

My expectations were moderate but I was actually taken with them. Sure they feel like they are doing a Faces / Stones impression, but it is a pretty good one all the same. They have good-ish tunes and front man Chris Robinson has genuinie charisma and a fine Jagger-esque shuffle.

Oh, And we got to see Kate Hudson. Grrrrrrrrr.

trey anastasio
the black crowes ***
kate hudson *****
the occasion ****

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#marmot

9th Jan 2006 - Add Comment - Tweet

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

(dir. Shane Black)

always been a sucker for films with good opening credits. the kind of opening where they've actually bothered to think about it, do some fun stuff with graphics, play around a bit before the film gets going - you know, saul bass, pink panther etc. add in a snappy plot, a film where they get away with smart-ass narration AND find something good for robert downey jr, and pack in as many raymond chandler references as they can, and you've got a small-scale winner.

plotwise, we follow low-level new york burglar RDJ as he bumbles his way into a screen test, gets packed off to LA, hooks up with gay PI/movie consultant val kilmer (probably the first time i've ever actually enjoyed one of his films) and then falls into a chandler-style murder thriller, that follows the general pomo big sleep noir conventions - double crossing, little sisters, sassy dames, mucho confusion and lots of great lines. it's written by shane black, who churned out much of the lethal weapon franchise, but it feels more like watching something like midnight run - 80s, but smart. and it also gets away with lots of "hey let's stop the movie to look at what just happened there" moments without being annoying. actually better than the trailer makes it out to be, for once.

#Film
#chimp71

26th Sep 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet

Wolfmother

Wolfmother E.P.

One of the hot tickets at this year's South By South-West music thing, Australia's Wolfmother are kicking out retro proto-metal - a la early Black Sabbath, with a tinge of Zeppelin and a psychadelic haze of Iron Butterfly. Like no-doubt every garage band of the late 70's was trying to do.

The first couple of tracks are properly proto-proto metal, with thumping riffs and not many lyrics. Apple Tree still has few lyrics, but is a bit more interesting and makes you realise how metal the White Stripes sometimes are. The White Unicorn is the stand-out track, which actually builds up a bit and changes pace - where the others are mainly one thundering wall of sound. Looking forward to more. Would like to see these guys live.

#Music
#CSF

21st Jul 2005 - Add Comment - Tweet