Kubla Khan – London Indigo2

Kubla Khan

February 19th 2010

Kubla Khan have transformed over the last few months.  Their last London gig, at 229 Great Portland in November, showcased a good band but lacked a decent frontman.  That’s not to say singer Matt Heanes was bad – far from it, in fact.  He just lacked that showmanship quality that a nine-piece band needs.

Fast forward to February, then, and how things have changed. Matt was visibly more relaxed, and interacted much better with the audience. Wandering about the stage and shouting “How you doing?… I said how you doing?!” it was evident his confidence has grown since the last time they were in London, and rightly so.

Heanes has a great voice, and Kubla Khan are a very tight band musically. Funk should be something you can move to, and the band as a whole seemed to be juxtaposed between chilled out and high on adrenalin. ‘Karma Comes Around’ is a catchy song which I still find myself humming to a week after the gig, and it was good to see the band having fun on stage whilst they played; the horn section were rocking out when they weren’t playing, laughing and joking with each other.

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Yeasayer – London Heaven

Yeasayer

February 23, 2010

In Heaven, not everything is fine. The beer tastes like ass, and the men’s toilets smell worse than ass. But ass isn’t important here, not tonight anyway, because the sound at least is near divine.

There’s a hell of a lot of people, a varied grouping at that. Not surprising given the fervent hysteria Yeasayer’s Odd Blood is currently stirring among the music press. If All Hour Cymbals was Dad’s little folk secret, Odd Blood is the electro-psychedelic party music for da yoof, and all have gathered this evening.

Yeasayer’s support comes from fellow Brooklyn twosome Javelin. Their set is accompanied by an ’80s movie montage of assorted promo videos featuring Casio keyboard demos, tennis lessons with a mulleted Andre Agassi and BMX biker clips. Javelin’s synth and drum pad shtick provides quite the novelty soundtrack, and while I’m sure this ironic gimmickry goes down a storm in Brooklyn, here the 80s was an achromatic time, and the two dimensional songs do little to stir an attentive audience now cramming into the vault of Heaven. It’s the curse of the support act. In their defence, Javelin play with genuine moxie that keeps the audience captivated. But that’s not why we’re here.

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The Chapman Family/Frankie & The Heartstrings/Little Comets – Stockton Georgian Theatre

The Chapman Family

February 15th 2010

The Georgian Theatre plays host to three strikingly separate bands this evening as part of the NME Awards show series. Rotating the order every night in the tour’s other shows in York and Leeds; it is the turn of Frankie & The Heartstrings to get proceedings underway tonight.

Striding on with assured confidence, the hotly-tipped act from Sunderland waste no time in pressing their case. In Frankie, they possess a front man who resembles Morrissey in the foppish-nature of his styling and Paul Smith in his bounding energy. Their songs are a potent combination of angular-pop guitar melody and regionalised dialect vocals. The Teesside crowd appears enthusiastic and provides the encouragement that it is apparent the band never really needed in all honesty. Former Kenickie member, Pete Gofton (AKA J Xaverre) provides some energetic guitar and keyboard work alongside the rest of the band who are all on fine form. An endearing performance which leaves us intrigued to hear more, a band to be keeping tabs on for sure.

Next up are Newcastle-based band Little Comets, who are also an act with their respective stars on the rise (pun very much intended). A stagecraft unlike no other, they have some old blue rope of the sort you used to make a ‘tarzee’ with as a child with various percussion hanging down, they are certainly engaging. Their singer appears to lose a few pounds in sweat due to the oversized fleece-jumper he sports but it doesn’t affect his energetic performance. Their highlight track is soon-to-be single Joanna, a pop-tune that is likely to win them even more plaudits.

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Stornoway – Gateshead Sage

Stornoway

February 14th 2010

Presented by Twisted Folk, this tour juxtaposes the two very different entities of Beth Jeans Houghton and Stornoway. Although billed as headliners, it is the fine young gentlemen from Oxford that take to the Sage stage first and on whom we shall focus. The whole aura around Stornoway is carried in a very understated fashion, a minimalist approach signified by the apparent meekness of lead singer Brian Briggs. He ambles closer to the microphone in instalments before mustering a barely registering “hello”.

Once the band strike up, the facade of simplicity dissolves into the many layers of their thoughtfully constructed tunes. Each song is well-received by a crowd that needed some encouragement, even for a Sunday night outing, yet thankfully Stornoway’s charm does enough to win them over. It is plain that many are here to see them on the back of TV appearances on Jools Holland’s Later… alongside Jay-Z; Foo Fighters and Norah Jones, and a BBC Radio 1 session for Huw Stephens.

We manage to spot one lady in particular who seems to be growing in delirium as their set progresses, rocking backwards and forwards whilst clapping in a strangely afflicted manner, and can frequently be heard calling for various requests. Such fandom is something that is surely only to increase where Stornoway are concerned, with their debut album expected sometime later in 2010.

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Daisy Dares You and The Plasticines – London Borderline

The Plasticines

February 8th 2009

Daisy Dares You walked on to the stage, more or less unnoticed.  All of a sudden she launched into the first track, her long blonde hair flailing around as she shook her head manically. 

The 16 year old doesn’t look particularly like a rock chick; indeed her debut single ‘Number One Enemy’ features Chipmunk – hardly known for his rock tendencies – but she was soon brandishing a guitar and rocking out like the best of them.  She looked slightly out of place amongst her band mates (who are all quite a bit older than her) but held her own throughout the show, struggling only to fully engage the audience, who were an older than average crowd lacking the teenybopper energy you’d expect at a gig like this.

Daisy reminded me of the UK’s answer to Ashley Simpson, or perhaps our very own Pixie Lott gone wrong.  Toward the end of the set, she broke into a punk-pop version of the Oliver! song ‘Who Will Buy?’  I couldn’t decide if it was sheer genius or completely awful, particularly as the middle section turned into a head banging competition between her and her guitarist.  Perhaps if I were 10 years younger, I might have appreciated her style a bit more, but, whilst I can’t fault her enthusiasm and energy on stage, felt she had a lot to learn about actual stage presence.   

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The Ex + Brass Unbound + Zun Zun Egui – Bristol Fleece

The Ex

January 29th 2010

There’s a keenly felt sense of anticipation in the Fleece this evening. As well as being the first of The Ex’s performances with the formidable Brass Unbound roster – Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark, Roy Paci and Walter Wierbos – the bill also features local firebrands Zun Zun Egui, a band that sorely deserve the increase in status this tour should hopefully bring. 

On paper, Zun Zun Egui are impossible to define. Try to explain their sound to a prospective listener and the sentence almost inevitably becomes tangled between brain and mouth. This evening their impact is dented a little by slightly muddy sound, at least from where I’m stood, but it does little to diminish their furious energy. Zun Zun’s frequent brilliance is hard to pin down, but partly lies in the tension between frontman Kushal’s glottal yelps and keyboardist Yoshino’s sweet, breathy vocals. Their interplay provides a consistency that allows the band space to snap seamlessly between spazzy blasts of guitar and four-to-the-floor tropical funk. Without that anchor – and indeed, without their drummer’s impressive chops – their music would run the risk of heading off in a hundred different directions all at once. Perhaps that’s a part of the appeal.

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She Keeps Bees – London Black Heart

She Keeps Bees

Wandering the dark backstreets of Camden is not something I’d normally recommend to anyone but it is the only way you’ll find tonight’s venue. The Black Heart has proved itself to be a hidden gem of Camden Town by simply walking around the corner to find a giant black heart swinging from the wall. It’s the black cherry on the cake that stripped down ranchy blues rock duo She Keeps Bees are joining us tonight courtesy of The Allotment.

The Allotment are treating us to a three-strong line-up of female fronted rock bands this evening. Both Lulu & The Lampshades and surprise guests Peggy Sue & The Pirates smash out sterling sets; filling the room with personality and showing off quirks such as playing a typewriter with drumsticks which is only emphasized by the excellent village fete atmosphere provided by the organizers.

She Keeps Bees are nothing short of their reputation as thumping southern styled blues when they get going with their first song ‘Release’ from one of my album highlights of last year, Nests. There is something about She Keeps Bees which keeps at least one foot tapping . Jessica’s vocals tonight add to Andy’s thump and make them something slow enough to be sultry and gritty enough to be ranchy. The anthemic ‘Gimme’ engulfs this intimate venue with their raw garage groove and heads are nodding involuntarily. They show a slightly more country side to the pair with ‘Wear Red’ a loosely strung song with a belting vocal hook that still has it’s foot firming in the proverbial blues door.

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Vivian Girls, Male Bonding, Trash Kit – London, Dalston Trinity Centre

Vivian Girls

January 25th 2010

Dalston Trinity Centre isn’t your average gig venue. Attached to a church and more accustomed to holding scout groups and nurseries (according to their website), it’s pretty much just a church hall. Intimacy was going to be the order of the evening then, rather than sound quality for instance, which was fine, as the three bands on the bill specialise in lo-fi, noisy pop songs that sound at home in small venues like this. Once gig-goers had worked out how to get into the venue (you had to ring a bell) and come to terms with the fact that there was no bar (the local off license probably did a roaring trade), the venue filled up quickly. The stage was lit by just two lamps – a fitting precursor to the simple, effective music that was going to be on show.

Trash Kit are an East London trio that formed in early 2009. Faces painted and full of nervous energy, the band take a few songs to fall into their stride but once they do, with songs like ‘Cadets’ in particular, they become easy to love. They’re a curious mix of The Raincoats (a violin appears at one point), Sung Tongs-era Animal Collective and DNA, but their songs do more than revel in twee, primitive nosie-makingand address subjects like personal identity. They’re one of a number of bands emerging from the creative DIY scene in East London at the moment, and an album is imminent.

If Trash Kit are just starting to distinguish themselves from the DIY herd, then Male Bonding are on the verge of completely transcending it. Signed to Sub Pop, and also with an LP on the way, 2010 could be a big year for them. Fittingly, I first saw them this time last year, supporting Vivian Girls, and since then constant touring has honed their grunge-surf-rock songs into tight, powerful pop entities. Powered by Robin Silas Christian’s powerful drumming and the close interplay between John Arthur Webb and Kevin Hendrik on guitar and bass, the band seem to effortlessly throw out these unavoidable melodies amid the controlled chaos. ‘Pumpkin’ and ‘Year’s Not Long’ remain highlights, but new songs continue to creep into their sets, suggesting that the promise of their early singles could be about to be realised.

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Brett Anderson – London Shepherd’s Bush Empire

Brett Anderson

January 22nd 2009

The last time I saw Brett Anderson he was fronting Suede on the Coming Up tour.  He swaggered on stage joining his band (everyone dressed in black) and delivered a set of songs which rode the crest of the Britpop wave which he had helped to kickstart. He pranced, he clapped, he put his foot on the monitor and sang songs about sex and drugs and the urban, working class world he inhabited.

Since then a lot of water has passed under his bridge; drug addiction, the break up of his band, death and the release of three solo albums in as many years, generally to critical and commercial indifference.  His solo output has been a much more sombre affair than the majority of Suede’s, preoccupied by death and broken relationships and on his latest LP, Slow Attack, the terrible beauty of nature. With this in mind I’d expected a much downbeat Anderson.  Although not quite as lively as 15 years ago, after sauntering onstage dressed in his trademark funeral apparel to join his band (piano, cello, guitar, bass, drums) his fringe flops, his hip sway and his tambourine shakes once more.

Opener ‘Hymn’  is breathtaking, Brett croons over minimal piano. When the band join in for the bass heavy crashing swells of the chorus the sound is immense, like waves crashing on a lonely beach. Two of the more pop songs from Slow Attack follow, (’Wheatfields’ and ‘Hunted’) which are nice but don’t have the same impact as the opener, if anything they sound a little MOR.

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RAR!, Deptford The Albany

RAR!

On Friday 22nd January this fantastic under-18s event took place at the Albany in Deptford. There were two wicked DJs, Dean & Dex Lutha, keeping the vibe high and alive. This was our second time going. We thoroughly enjoyed it & thought it was even better than the first time we went.

First up at 7:30-8:15 was Artefacts Showcase. They kicked the night off and got the whole crowd going. They used modern songs as their base but rapped over the top of it using their own lyrics.

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