Chimpomatic

Mudhoney

The Forum, Kentish Town, London

June 31st, 2008

With a 20 year anniversary under their belt, there's a new vigor in the Mudhoney camp and renewed interest in the seminal godfathers of Grunge. Sure, there's the fans who've grown up with the band (mostly geography teachers now by the look of things), but there's also a sweaty teenage contingent at the Forum tonight. There's not much in between, but fortunately these two groups have one thing in common.

Fang cover "The Money Will Roll Right In" opens the show, before we move on to "I'm Now" and "The Lucky Ones" from the recent album of the same name. While Mudhoney's recent releases have been far from disappointing, it seems clear that most of us are here for one thing. Mudhoney's recent re-release of "Superfuzz-Bigmuff" seems to have re-ignited the flame of nostalgia for the band, and while the crowd is rowdy from the start it explodes when the big hitters like "Touch Me I'm Sick" and "In 'n' Out Of Grace" come out. The mosh pit expands to fill most of the ground floor and - perhaps feeling a little nostalgic themselves - even the security guards relapse on their post-grunge clampdown, letting a free flowing barrage of crowd-surfing go relatively unpunished.

The 20 years haven't been bad to Mudhoney, with Mark Arm still throwing down Iggy Pop moves like a disgruntled teenager, while the band preside over the immense energy of the show like seasoned veterans. It's a set-list packed with early classics, and with the relentless pace making no attempt to hold back the 'hits,' it's left to Black Flag cover "Fix Me" to make up the encore and bring the show to an end. This dose of 80's punk serves as a potent reminder of where this band came from - let's hope their own legacy fuels the aspirations of a generation to come. Brilliant.

Lots more photos by chimp photographer Rachel Poulton over on our Flickr page.

#Music
#Gig
#NM

5th Aug 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Glastonbury Festival

Somerset

June 27th-29th, 2008

It's the scale that kills you. The cliches about it being a temporary city really are true - Glastonbury is huge. The stages are all great - loved the Park Stage especially, with Santogold, Franz Ferdinand and The Duke Spirit all on rocking form - but it's the sheer size that make this festival so special. As a GlastonB virgin, it's such a different experience than spending all weekend dipping into the BBC's comprehensive coverage.

After taking a strategic decision to bail on the afternoon and make it back in time for the Euro final (and a seat on the train) it's funny seeing it on TV again. You're so close up, and you can see what the bands are actually up to, but you lose that amazing sense of being with thousands and thousands of freaks who are all up for a good time, from the weirdos in costumes (loved the cow and hotdog combo, and the banana/gorilla couple - the pig gimp mask being lead around by  a prosthetic cock was a little step too far at four in the afternoon...) to the kids in cricket jumpers watching Band Of Horses, or the unannounced acts like Franz Ferdinand popping up (always thought they were a bit overhyped, but they're a v good live proposition), and the chance to see new faves like Santogold (possibly my festival highlight) as well as Chimp hits like Band Of Horses and Black Mountain (breakfast rock? you can't beat it) and then big pop acts like Amy Winehouse, Duffy and Jay-Z - who put on a full-on show - totally subtle fuck-you to Noel Gallagher and then a great set full-on of hands-in-the-air hits.

Missed Dizzee Rascal, The Ranconteurs, Hot Chip and Edwyn Collins, (and Vampire Weekend, who pulled the Jay-Z diamonds-in-the-air trick for their night time version of Oxford Comma). Heard they were all great - but did catch an impromptu jazz set from a random trio who'd somehow dragged a clarinet, sax and double bass all the way up to the stone circle for sunrise on sunday morning - had to summon the force myself to get up there, so maximum points for effort to them all lugging that all up there. The other surprise hit was wandering into Trash City (imagine a disco zone in Mad Max 3 are you're halfway there) and finding the full-on hands in the air party that Horsemeat Disco were putting on in the NYC Downlow club - brilliant trannied up mood, with a dark, sweaty murder on the dancefloor vibe. Totally entertaining, with fake taches given out as the get-you-back-in passes.

Bailed early on Sunday to get back up for the real world on Monday so caught The Verve and Neil Diamond on the BBC's catch up, but totally loved it. If you haven't been: do it. 

#Music
#Gig
#chimp71

30th Jun 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Hancock

(dir. Peter Berg)

Sony Pictures

Easy sell for this: Will Smith = alcoholic superhero. Throw in another great exercise in comic timing from Jason "Arrested Development" Bateman and a slow-burner from Charlize Theron and you've got a winner. 

Bateman's a PR exec who takes on Hancock's case after being saved from a train wreck (Hancock does the train-wrecking), and tries to rework his image so LA starts seeing him as a hero, and not a super-strong bum. Theron is Bateman's homely wife, who doesn't want to see him get burned by a loser like Hancock.

Director Peter Berg proved he could pull off a smart thriller with The Kingdom and he expands on that here, pushing the d-runk flying, whale-chucking, city-trashing jokes as far as they'll go - and then flipping the movie into a whole other zone after the first act. Worked as a nice surprise for me after seeing the trailer - which gives zero hints about where it's heading - so we'll leave it at that here. It's enough to say: this is darker than it looks, and more interesting. The action works, but it's the smaller moments that makes this film so enjoyable - Hancock using his super-strength to shave, popping out bulletproof glass with a flick etc - it's a like a kitchen sink drama (where they occasionally chuck the kitchen sink out of the kitchen).

A few more points in its favour: 

*First ever on-screen cameo from Berg's mentor Michael Mann.

*One of the few big-budget films in recent years to come in at the chimp-approved 92 minute-mark. Apparently there was a two-hour cut which may appear on the eventual dvd, and there are a few moments where you wonder if they've chopped out some backstory (mainly with the film's designated Brit baddie Eddie Marsan) - but I'd take that over a bloated two-hour blahthon anyday. 

* The DFA mix of MIA's Paper Planes is playing when they hit one of LA's cool restaurants

*It's a drunk superhero - what's not to love?

#Film
#chimp71

21st Jun 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Iron Man

(Dir Jon Favreau, 2008)

Very fun blockbuster antics, that matches cool tech FX w Robert Downey Jr's patented smartass delivery. Without either them working it would be a pretty generic exercise in the routine "superhero powers up; finds baddy; has a big fight" plot. It never quite hits those "America! Fuck Yeah!" moments you want from a film like this, but it comes pretty close, and the RDJ charm is in full effect throughout.

The various Iron Man prototypes are all accompanied with some highly satisfying sound effects as boozy billionaire genius playboy Tony Stark works his way up from the 1.0 version of the suit he builds to escape from some al-Qaida style bad dudes who kidnap him in the desert somewhere.

The supporting cast isn't bad either: chimp hero Jeff Bridges rocks a mean bald/beard combo and does a good growl throughout. Gwyneth Paltrow is a bit blank, and keeps changing her hairstyle a lot, but isn't too bad as Stark's long-suffering PA Pepper Pots (howcome all superheroes get potential girlfriends with alliterative names?). If you're a Marvel fan, you'll enjoy the "next time" nod from Terence Howard's military man when he gets to check out the suits.

On the down side, there are some awful product placement moments from various cars and burger chains who've forked over big $$$ to get in there - hasn't anyone in Hollywood seen Austin Powers?!

Not sure the politics are really that thought through either: he's an arms manufacturer who gets upset when he sees his weapons blowing things up for the wrong people, so he decides to blow them up, but still let his company sell weapons to the good guys (America)? eh? Er, here the RDJ charm offensive comes into full swing: never mind that, here's another smart line from Downey...

Bound to be a franchise. Could have done with the full Black Sabbath tune somewhere in there too. Just about fun enough.

#Film
#chimp71

1st May 2008 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Why?

Alopecia

Anticon

Returning from the recent staff snowboard trip I stopped off at San Francisco's Amoeba Records and picked up my copy of Why?'s Alopecia. It seemed a fitting place to purchase this Bay Area artist and so with that and a few other missing pieces to the Anticon puzzle I embarked on the 10 hour return journey to London. Maybe it was the severe lack of sleep, or the numerous injuries that plagued my aged body - but on returning home I was all set to hit the Chimp office with a rather disappointing review of this record. After the few disjointed play-throughs on the plane, this follow up to 2005's delightful Elephant Eyelash lacked it's predecessors energy and edge. It seemed to be a pale and overproduced shadow of the work achieved by Yoni Wolf in the past.

So having started this relationship on the sunny Californian shores it took a prolonged 2 hour traffic jam on a rainy Thursday night on the A3 for the love affair to begin. Anticipating a half-hour journey, this was the only CD on my person and after about 4 back-to-back plays this record stared me square in the face with astonishing honesty and made me ashamed of the thoughts I had formed in my pitiful mind. Yoni Wolf's transformation from lo-fi, underground hip-hop to melodic indie-pop seemed to be near completion on the recent Hollows EP and I guess my initial disappointment was wrapped up in that fact. I have always been in favor of this transformation as throughout Wolf's work with either cLOUDDEAD or Reaching Quiet his gift for a melody was always there but under used and during the first half of Alopecia it is heavily exploited.

Alopecia is made up of two halves and most of the deal makers occur in the latter part of the record. From the outset it's obvious that the production has never been slicker. Wolf has always been the figurehead of a lo-fi, homemade sound but things have changed. The Vowels Pt. 2 kicks off proceedings with short, plodding steps and it's clear this hike in production quality is being put to good use. This shiny, crystal clear melody loosely glosses over the dark themes that run through this record. Sex and death is pretty much it, making Alopecia far more twisted than its predecessor. Lines like "faking suicide for applause in the food court of malls" are the norm here not to mention, "sucking dick for drink tickets and the free bar of my cousins Bar Mitzvah." Death usually relates to Yoni's own demise and is always delivered in rosy, tongue-in-cheek candy wrappers. Fatalist Palmistry begins "I sleep on my back cos it's good for the spine and coffin rehearsal.

Wolf's vocal range is what makes his work so listenable. He can go from the low, shuffling rap of Good Friday to the nasal melody of These New Presidents and his writing is so surreal, bustling with imagery and so meticulously pronounced that your ear is forced to attempt to decipher each verse but rarely succeeds . On the unnerving Simeon's Dilemma Wolf assumes the role of a stalker and describes his obsession with a certain female by way of high pitched singing tones which makes the content even more cringeworhty.

As heard on the recent EP, The Hollows carries the weight here with a rarely heard increase in volume by means of grinding guitars and crescendo vocals. The Fall Of Mr. Fifths marks the turning point of the record. It's way more in line with Wolf's earlier Anticon work with rapid delivered spoken verse and surrounded by textural atmosphere. A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under continues the spoken verse with rain-drop-like keyboards trickling down around it, it's a simple and all too short piece of work but emerges as one of the finest moments on the record. The other comes in the form of By Torpedo Or Crohn's. This was the other stand out track on the EP with a remix by Dntel, but this version is slower and allows much needed room to truly appreciate Wolf's art.

It's an art that is second to none and the distance this band have come is astonishing. Though darker in tone Alopecia is a definite progression from the airy Elephant Eyelash. Its another step to the honing of their direction and it's quite rare to see a band with direction these days. Wolf crams so many ideas into every breath of this record that it will take a lifetime to uncover it all. The shame I feel at my early judgement now serves as a reminder of the depth and complexity of this album, to not like it is to not get it i'm afraid.

#Music
#HHG

11th Apr 2008 - 1 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Vantage Point

(dir Pete Travis)

Presidential assassin thriller that rewinds the Spanish action several times until you get to see what’s really going on/get bored/realise it’s all totally ridiculous.

That said, it’s quite enjoyable. One of those dumb rides that thinks it’s a lot smarter than it it, but then finally gives in and rounds everything off with a big chase and one of the funniest mano y mano declarations of love you’ll see in a long time. And it’s only 90 minutes, which is a real plus in the chimp book of not wasting your life watching duff films.

Dennis Quaid is the Secret Service guy who took a bullet for President William Hurt a few years ago, and still Hasn’t Quite Got Over It.

Matthew Fox has got some time off the Lost island to play the Agent Who Vouches For Agent Quaid cos he’s an old buddy and still trusts him even though he’s a bit twitchy.

Forest Whitaker is a tourist filming stuff with his SONY handycam (coincidentally, it’s a Sony movie too, what are the odds?)

Sigourney Weaver plays a hard-nosed rolling news producer making some Tough Calls. But then they forget she’s in the film and she disappears.

Said Taghmaoui was much better in La Haine etc.

“8 Strangers. 8 Points of View. 1 Truth (the end sucks)”
 

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#chimp71

26th Feb 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

The Mountain Goats

Heretic Pride

4AD

If you've ever come in contact with our hip hop reviewer HHG you'll know it's probably not something you want to happen on a daily basis. He knows his stuff but he's a snob and thinks hip hop's the only music, not to mention his uncontrollable temper and borderline chauvanism. He's a valid member of the Chimp team but most of us here try not to have much to do with him for reasons already mentioned. So you can imagine my disappointment when his hulking frame approached me in the Chimp canteen one day last year. Standing there stinking of weed he asks, " Yo, Bear dude, who the fuck is this John Darnielle?"

Turns out his narrow field of musical experience was momentarily widened when The Mountain Goats frontman guest starred at the end of the recent Aesop Rock album. Much as I resent Darnielle for inadvertently bringing me into contact with my skunk soaked colleague it's clear that last years collaboration has opened the flood gates on Darnielle's own sphere of musical experience and brought out a thrilling surge in volume, tempo and excitement to this bands work.

Darnielle has always expressed a masterful penchant for storytelling, in few words he can evoke oceans of emotion, the slightest turn of phrase and he can explain a feeling or situation that you've been trying to pin down your whole life. When we last saw him he was struggling with solitude in the aftermath of a breakup in 2006's desolate Get Lonely. It's clear from the first drum stick count ins that the volume has picked up here but don't think for a minute that Darnielle is using this volume to express a new found lust for life. He might have addressed his romantic troubles since Get Lonely exclaiming in the album opener "I am coming home to you" but he follows it "with my own blood in my mouth." This new surge in musical arrangements serves more to express his heightened sense of fear and impending doom. The sorrow from 2006 has grown into taut anguish. On Lovecraft In Brooklyn he admits, "I woke up afraid of my own shadow, like genuinely afraid."

At the heart of this record lurks paranoia, tension and violence seen most effectively in the two songs that form the records backbone both in form and theme. In The Craters On The Moon builds with tight, drumbeat like guitar strums and heightened strings to a thunderous crescendo while Lovecraft In Brooklyn is a switchblade-wielding powerhouse prediction of death and destruction. This is contrasted in songs like Autoclave and the delicate So Desperate, which both show this songwriters continuing vulnerability.

Whether he's gently plucking, violently thrashing or soaring on great orchestral waves this record shows a refreshing array of musical expertise. How To Embrace A Swamp Creature employs sparkling jewels of instrumentation that glisten around Darniell's lyrics like looming rocks in the dazzling sunlight. Another reason for this renewed rise in tempo could be that Darnielle has more company on this record. Get Lonely was a stark portrayal of a man alone while here we have complex string arrangements (San Bernardino) and airy female vocals (Marduk T-Shirt Men's Room Incident) all joining together to create a far richer landscape than the ones inhabited in the past. This is undoubtedly The Mountain Goats most accessible record to date but it sacrifices none of the qualities that made the other albums. Darnielle is a very human song writer, weather he's using himself as the subject or creating complex characters to play out his view of this experience we call life he casts a light over this experience and though this reveals things we don't want to see they serve to enlighten us and inform us that little bit more about the human condition.

#Music
#BC

26th Feb 2008 - Add Comment - Tweet

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend

XL

29 days into 2008 and it's here. Sound the horn to call in your spies, the search is over. We may be a week late, but the first second great record of this year is upon us and that's not just yet another NME prediction of greatness, this is the official Chimp opinion - and we're strict here. Cast your mind back to 2001 and your excitement at hearing The Strokes' debut Is This It. It wasn't an altogether new sound gracing your ears, it's musical reference points were unashamedly obvious but it represented a departure from the current music du jour that was gripping the scene. Well, Vampire Weekend is the self titled debut from this New York 4 piece and it sounds nothing like The Strokes but they are bedfellows for more profound reasons. It represents a similar departure and ironically enough this departure could be seen as the breakaway from the trend that Is This It started. The Strokes kick started a return to grimy indie bands belting out simple, well crafted guitar music and we've seen very little else ever since. Vampire Weekend do the opposite. Yes they're an indie 4 piece from New York but their sound reaches far wider and their references are refreshingly varied.

Gentle Afro-rhythms combine with cheap organs, jaunty drum beats and a vocal style so relaxed and unassuming it all makes for easy listening in the best possible way. Although Talking Heads does vaguely come to mind the rest of the reference points are rarely seen in today's indie scene. Paul Simon, The Police and Ski Sunday spring to mind and like someone who has drawn a head on a piece of paper, folded it over and passed it on for the next person to draw the body all these odd parts unfold into an astonishingly complete whole. If you're the type that needs genres to aid your musical appreciation fear not as the boys have done the work for you describing their sound as 'Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,' and 'Upper West Side Soweto.' It's Paul Simon but with Chevy Chase at his side keeping things light.

The other reason The Strokes' debut has been twinned with this one is the ease by which it seems to have been born. Songs like Oxford Comma with it's lounge-act style keyboards or the pogoing funk guitars of A-Punk drip forth like melting wax, nothing seems forced and no one seems to give a shit if it works or not. With a varied choice of themes like English grammar, preferred bus routs or American preppie fashion this is not your average record about love and loss. M79 is where my Ski Sunday reference crops up. Starting off with courtly 18th century harpsichord then slipping into a chorus of chamber music, this really shouldn't work. M79 is named after a Manhattan bus route which only adds to the confusion as this song evokes more cultures than is healthy in just over 4 minutes. The hymnal-meets-tribal thunder of I Stand Corrected shows a slightly more serious string to the bow and it leads on brilliantly to Walcott, the figurehead of this record. It's a furious steel-drum carnival of a song. Crashing cymbals and soaring melodies carry the repeated 'don't you want to get out of Cape Cod' chorus to new heights. It's dazzling and a shame it doesn't finish the album.

Vampire Weekend is good because it isn't trying to be good and it's different for the same reason. Not once do you get the impression that these world-rhythms and mismatched instruments have been employed because no one else has done it recently. It's effortless and it's joyously unaware of itself. We'll have to wait and see how the ultimate judge of time treats this little gem. These are simple pop songs and it's hard to say whether some may fall by the wayside but right now their simplicity and charm is exactly what we need. Their creativity and wealth of ideas is such that one listen to Vampire Weekend will get your mouth watering for their next album. Bring it on. This world needs more Ski Sunday-Afro Pop.

#Music
#BC

4th Feb 2008 - 3 comments - Add Comment - Tweet

Phoo Action

Pilot

BBC Three

London, 2012. The city’s under siege from a gang of mutants, lead by an evil dude with a basketball for a head, who are plotting to convert Prince Harry and Wills to their cause after offing the Queen. Terry Phoo (Eddie Shin) zips in from Hong Kong to help out Police Chief Benjamin Benson (Carl “Apollo Creed” Weathers) with the case, and accidentally hooks up with Benson’s adopted daughter Whitey Action (played by Jaime “Ray’s daughter” Winstone). There's even room for a cameo from Hong Kong cult star Richard Ng as Phoo's TV-loving zen monk master.

It’s based on Jamie “Tank Girl/Gorillaz” Hewlett’s strip Get The Freebies which ran in The Face during the 1990s, with a script by Jess “Spaced” Hynes, Matthew Enriquez Wakeham and Peter Martin.

This is the goofiest thing that’s been on TV for years. It’s infused with the spirit of everything from Batman to Monkey, the Banana Splits (three of my favourite all-time shows), even a bit of Young Ones anarchy. Unlike so many grey British shows, it feels like it’s in total Technicolor, packed with little details like daft news blips running across the screen too fast for you to read and Freebies cereal packets. And even though it’s done with a lot of care and attention to detail, it doesn’t take itself too seriously at all, with car chases obviously filmed against a greenscreen, comedy kung-fu punch-ups, and the odd scene where everyone spontaneously springs into a choreographed dance.

Having caught up on some of the Batman repeats on BBC4 recently, I've been struck by how much fun they are - both to watch, and also to make. It's all so much freer than stuff is now, formulaic and not exactly demanding, sure, but also totally entertaining and good-natured.

It’s running as the first of six pilots from BBC3’s February relaunch – apparently only one is going to get picked up, which is a shame as they all look like they’ve got potential. This is getting the Chimp vote so far – great to see a BBC3 show that doesn’t involve potato products or beer-related humour.

#TV
#chimp71

29th Jan 2008 - 6 comments - Add Comment - Tweet