// WHITE DENIM // Bristol O2 Academy -8.10.2016 //

White Denim return to the city they love to play for the second time this year in their new guise. After the exit of drummer Josh Block and guitarist Austen Jenkins last year, White Denim show off a groove versatility and jam navigation control exclusive to them. Talking about the addition of new members Jordan Richardson (drums) and Mike St. Clair (keys and horns), Steve Terebecki tells Quiffed Owl “It’s been a blast!”

As they did at The Fleece in 2013 it was Canterbury psyche guitar band Syd Arthur who opened for White Denim tonight. Made up of three Magill brothers plus Raven Bush on keyboards – who is incidentally Kate Bush’s newphew – they wasted no time in immersing themselves in a swelling concoction of jazz and prog rock, surely making a lasting impression on those less familiar with them. Not unlike White Denim, Syd Arthur have a sixth sense of when to unleash into a seeming impromptu improvisation and when to keep it tight and functional. There is a clear mutual respect between bands here.

With all the vantage points taken on the staircases flanking the stage and on the shallow floor, Denim arrive and rip into Real Deal Momma and Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah), the same band but a slightly different image, the same seamlessly shifting sound but with a new conductor on board the White Denim soul steam train. It cannot be ignored that Josh Block’s magic tricks on the high hats have disappeared into thin air and a fuller figure thuds and whips the snares instead. By the time we pull into There’s A Brain In My Head we embrace the fact that a new engine behind the drums is transporting White Denim on the same route to a new landscape. Mike St.Clair, thoughtfully perched at his synths and keys, also adds a certain Booker T gallop to the new tunes.

“We are loving the new band”, Terebecki (bass guitar) tells me. “There obviously was a lot of rehearsals and getting comfortable with the new guys feels but now we feel like we are lookin’ as good as ever. Every musician has their own energy they bring. Once everyone knows the song, it’s been interesting to hear how Mike and Jordan have been stretching out in the music”.

One thing that is absolutely guaranteed with White Denim regardless of formation or line up is a master class in rhythm. With the brilliant Terebecki at the helm, armed with his trusty matt black Rickenbacker bass, he is the controller of all he surveys. His high top baseball cap, perched at an angle to shield the spot light from his fret-board, he is the computer to this machines full repertoire. And, after six studio albums, it is quite a repertoire. The main body of the nights material comes from their latest album Stiff and so presenting Denim’s broad spectrum of styles: psyche, garage, rock and roll, soul and rhythm and blues – each executed with genuine expertise and panache.

It is when two tracks from  the albums Corsicana Lemonade and D follow one another that we know we have been left in good hands. The time signature changes in River To Consider  and the blissful ballroom boogie of A Place To Start are a show room of the talents Denim’s new acquisitions possess. Next comes arguably their best live song. The instrumental track Back  At The Farm from 2011’s album D is an undulating horizon of rolling rock that rises and falls until its unpredictable crescendo. It is Denim at their best as each member anticipates the next guys move – the harmony in the band must be sound to make this sound.

If a crowd is a measure of a bands popularity then White Denims growth in popularity is remarkable. Their latest single Take It Easy (Ever After Lasting Love) has received a decent amount of radio airplay and its soulful touch is White Denim at their most accessible. Singer James Petralli’s voice goes from strength to strength and is as versatile as any around. Take It Easy is the song most fresh faces in the crowd recognise. Take it easy they do not, as a mob of youths break onto the stage and in getting there do not much else but clown around to Petralli’s amusement. It is a Saturday night in Bristol’s premier live venue and for some, the drink is talking.

Terebecki speaks of his fondness for Bristol when on tour in the U.K. “We most look forward to our shows in Bristol and London. Those two cities have always been really good to us and this tour was no exception”.

Both Steve and James have young children back home in Austin; James has recently become a father for the second time. I asked Steve how he coped with long tours away from his family.

“It’s not easy leaving the babies behind with our wives, although it’s definitely easier than being a single mom. We are thankful for our strong ladies and support from family members who visit while we are away on the longer tours.”

The more White Denim tour and the more music they make the more the sets expand and adapt, so when favourites like Let’s Talk About It, Anvil Everything and the irrepressible Start To Run make a show, both the band and the long time fans are at one in a whirling mesh of euphoria. Start To Run in particular is a pounding assault but evolved into a time signature not seen on previous tours of Britain.

I asked Terebecki how they kept their sets so fresh sounding. “I think it sounds fresh because we all enjoy playing music so much. We strive to improve every show and having a really great crowd doesn’t hurt either”.

The worse thing about a White Denim gig is that when they walk off for the first time, the realisation that there are only a couple of songs left from the multitude of genius compositions. Tonight it was Pretty Green and the amazing Mirrored And Reverse. White Denim now go to continental Europe but they will, as they always have, return to this famous musical city.

Words by Jimmy Gallagher

Photographs by Ben Gallagher

 

//POETRY IN MOTION // MARK GWYNNE JONES & PSYCHICBREAD // WIRKSWORTH FESTIVAL// 21-9-2016//

Situated deep in the Derbyshire Dales, Wirksworth is as deeply imbedded in the arts as it is in lead and grit stone. Only truly accessible since the opening of the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway in 1867, in this small, tranquil town there is access to as much art as you like, and some of it is quite outstanding.

The Wirksworth Festival is curated carefully within and around its scenic surroundings and numerous resident artists, musicians and painters. Yet a man from Matlock Bath (not ‘Barth’) may well be the gem of not only the festival, but of the Peak District and poetry as a whole on this side of the Pennines.

Mark Gwynne Jones is a spoken word poet of much critical acclaim. He is an advocate of spoken word poetry and this summer performed at Latitude Festival. “I was amazed that the poetry stage, which is big at Latitude, was so close to the main stage. They could have put us in a quiet corner but I was on when New Order were on. One part of me thought ‘I wish we didn’t have all this noise coming through the walls’, but the other part of me was proud. I thought ‘we are the poetry tent and we are here’ – we were in the centre of it all and taking them on a bit”.

He is a poet with as much humility as he has rhythmical grace and although recently returning from an enlightening tour of India, he has somehow found time to reform Psychicbread, offering a musical backdrop to his poignant and observational rhyme after a five year absence.

“If you have nothing or no one to bounce off, then it is harder to be creative. But it isn’t just getting together with friends to make sounds and music, it is the conversations that inspire the material and content as well”.  Mark Gwynne Jones is of the same ilk as John Cooper Clarke in that he uncovers social and moral meanings from seemingly absurd aspects of life, and magnifies relevance in common place events to drive his multi-layered, laughing laments of life.

Mark Gwynne Jones performed his solo poetry in the first half of the show, weaving humorous anecdotes and jokes into his set before seamlessly orating his predominantly more recent material to the full Wirksworth Town Hall. Apart from Who’s Common Now?, the poems included were written in the last year or so. His theatrical vocalisations and expressions are as exuberant as they were years ago, when Plastikman cast the limelight over his otherwise slightly awkward and nervous demeanour. Gwynne Jones openly admits that he suffered terrible shyness and anxiety as a boy, and he confronts this anxiety head on with the magnificent Toad. “A lot of the poetry comes from the immediacy of experience and not being tied down to a linear line of time or place”. Mark Gwynne Jones has, to a great extent, overcome his anxieties by approaching experiences in his life from a new direction of thought. “When you can tap in to what is right here rather than in the room next to you, either behind you or in front of you, you are able to focus on the immediate experience and appreciate it. Then your anxiety dissolves”.

There is always a certain pause between the poet’s last syllable and the moment you put your hands together to acknowledge the completion of a Mark Gwynne Jones poem. The reason being that beyond the evident hilarity in his commentary there is an ambiguous and thought provoking underbelly that arguably sets him apart from his contemporaries. A realisation that his ingenuity with words are designed with more than just entertainment in mind. He subliminally forces us to consider greater meaning in the simplistic. But entertain he certainly did. The Town Hall doubled over with laughter at tales of a tortoise’s lustful encounter with a plastic shoe, and his boyhood tricking of a one- eyed deaf colleague into sucking fudge made of clay.

It was the second part, however, when Gwynne Jones took to the stage with Psychicbread  that the show took on a more significant sense of occasion, as this was the first time the band had appeared in the five years since the death of drummer John ‘Beano’ Thorne in 2011. Gwynne Jones was visibly excited by the prospect of playing as a band again. From his position at the mic, he fidgeted and turned, wide grinned, to watch his friends play their psyche-ambient-prog-rock around his narrated words. Speaking after the show, Gwynne Jones spoke about Psychicbread and what the music added to his lyrics:

“When I am doing solo performances I have to rely on a lot of humour to sugar the pill the whole time, whereas when I perform with the band I have the music there as a vehicle and a soundscape so as I don’t have to be calling on the comedy. The words have a new vehicle to be transported”.

When speaking of presenting poetry with music, Gwynne Jones pinpoints rhythm as a common denominator. “One of the secrets that make Psychicbread work is that I sometimes speak across the rhythm, sometimes I deliberately try and hit the rhythm, but I will try and free the voice from the rhythm. When people sing in bands they are always within the rhythm but suddenly, when you do spoken word, you can be free of that and it can create a greater sense of theatre”.

Impressively, Psychicbread had written completely new compositions for this performance. In only two months the band have invented an eclectic variety of atmospheric and theatrical pieces, compromising of reggae, Spanish style guitars, afro-beats and experimental percussive psychadelia. “I think because Nick, Deb and I have been together so for so long that there is a chemistry and we can slip back into jamming and something will come out of it”. Gwynne Jones continues, “I think what makes it non-generic is that Deb and Nick will listen to the poem and then soundscape the poem rather than saying “Oh, lets do a reggae number or something”.

Psychicbread are Deb Rose, Nick ‘The Hat’ and new drummer and percussionist Alex Ivanov. Guitarist and long time friend of Gwynne Jones, Nick ‘The Hat’, adds “I wouldn’t say it comes easy but we are so comfortable with each other that it comes naturally and we don’t try and emulate anybody, we just do our own thing, and just try and empower the words and get the message of the poems through to people – and it can take poetry to a bigger audience. I think the strength of it is a result of being so at ease with each other. You see the words are everything, we just react to the words and get a feeling of what music will fit them.”

Mark Gwynne Jones acknowledged absent friends and in particular former Psychicbread drummer, the late John ‘Beano’ Thorne. “I think Beano is up there looking down on us and smiling” said Gwynne Jones after a rather rousing drum solo from the newest member of the band, Alex Ivanov. Psychicbread are back making music and delivering sublime poetry once more. Tonight they showed Wirksworth exactly what words are worth.

Words by James ‘Jimmy’ Gallagher

Photo by Susan Mulroy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

// THE FALL // Chain Of Flowers / The Globe – Cardiff / 31-05 //

The Fall on stage @ The Globe

Everybody should go and see The Fall as only afterwards can you accurately assess to what degree you will be hooked. The predictable unpredictability of Mark E. Smith requires you to turn up just to see if he does the same or not. If he does, then what is he going to do?  The world of rock and roll has eccentric characters, and then, there is Mark E. Smith.

The Fall’s fans are true, and once caught in the bands net there is no escape. These same loyal lot will have witnessed both the worst and the best of the band over the last 35 years and they will keep coming back, as long as there is breath in their lungs. Smith’s lungs may be inevitably failing but their unmistakable sound and prolific output is as exciting as it always has been. Just listen to The Fall’s recent releases such as Ersatz GB and Your Future Our Clutter to name but a few.

Local indie/punk outfit Chain Of Flowers proved more than a worthy opener as the old faithful, gradually gathered in The Globe. With a brand new set list, Cardiff’s talented band of brooding punks oozed confidence and power from the outset with new single Nail Me To Your Cross. Singer Josh Smith leaves little in the locker as he twists and turns around his microphone wire, and in Crisis his commitment to performance is equalled by his slicing romantic lyrics.

With usual drummer Rich Clarke state-side, stand in drummer Josh Day only had a fortnight to practice the parts but anchored the band brilliantly, with all things considered. Chain Of Flowers have supported Eagulls on a UK tour and it is clear to see that that experience is manifesting itself in the bands song writing.

Cardiff’s Chain Of Flowers

Guitarist’s – Sam Hunt and Ross Jones styles couldn’t be more contrasting. By ear and by eye, they are total opposites stood side by side. Another new track Glimmers Of Joy roars to cataclysmic crescendo but Jones is unmoved, staring blankly towards a ghost he sees at the back of the bar. Hunt is oblivious to his partners catatonic state as he is visibly consumed by the sounds attacking him from the wood he yields. Bury My Love brings an end to a set that should alert all present to the potential of this band.

The time had reached 22:20 and the tightly packed crowd clearly feared the worst, a slightly controlled raucousness steadily fizzed to a certain ‘unsteady’. After 15 minutes of the band’s intro and then re-intro and so on, the keyboard player and wife of the main man huffed and sighed and left the stage. Elena Poulou (Now Smith) strode up the stuffed stairwell towards the Globe’s upstairs bar. She returned a minute or so later with Mark in tow. She lead him back down and a round to the stage door and that was the starting gun. It may have been a false start however, the band sunk straight into My Door Is Never but still no Mark E. Smith. His grunts and slurs drifted over the Globe as a faceless taunt. And then, Mark E was there. He staggered on, stopping to acknowledge each of his players one by one. What mood would he be in tonight? He looked content enough, not well, but not ill, more like a drunk uncle at a wedding.

Smith wandered the boards with some kind of scrappy manual clutched under his arm only to brandish the tatty, scribbled on pages at random intervals like a threatening school master. It is amazing to think how a band with little or no continuity, at least until recently, can maintain a sound signature that completely different members made their own decades before. The relentless rhythm was born in punk and matured in new wave, throughout indie and then Madchester the beat was constant. Tonight the beat was felt in the bones, bass and drum sending shock waves through all physiologies present. Hittite Man (From Re-mit) and Junger Cloth (Sub Lingual Tablet) saw Smith’s blue suit going a darker shade as the heat built. Barely looking up from his laces, Smith exited and re-entered the stage via the door to the right as if carrying out an inventory of the venue.

Mark E. Smith with his harmonica

It was Theme From Sparta F.C that sparked a standing room only scrum of seasoned punksters, the hardened out of the 50,000 Fall fans (that can’t be wrong) seized upon the first tune in the set list not released in the last ten years to surge with venomous intent. It may be due to lack of shelf space that the longer serving supporters were not as familiar with the latest of The Fall’s prolific output which accounted for the overwhelming majority of the material tonight.

The Fall are forever influential but always inimitable and it shows when after 20 or so albums they still produce such marvels as Your Future Our Clutter from which Weather Report 2 comes; Wolf Kidult Man from the incredible Imperial Wax Solvent, but most tunes were brand new from this years Sub Lingual Tablet. The Globe cut the aura of a furnace by the time the stand out Sir William Wray from 2013’s Re-Mit formed a rotunda of vicious bass. Mark E. Smith ducked and dived through the final few never letting up on his over-emphasis of last syllable drawl like an MC from the centre of a boxing ring.

White Lightning was the last of a set that seemed to flow like a sulphuric river. If any other band of such a prolific back catalogue lasted less than this hour and twenty, many would feel aggrieved but based on the prior anxiety, all present went away feeling they cheated history and witnessed the best of The Fall.

** MORRISSEY // The Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff // 18.3.2015 **

With a rush and a pull, droves of people descended upon Cardiff but on closer inspection, it would seem that a fair proportion of them knew little about, and had less affection for the man they came to see.

A well known car insurance company based in Cardiff had given out free tickets to their call centre staff, as is their way, and thus adding to the general apathetic confusion amongst the masses. The sentence “I don’t know his solo stuff, I am here for The Smiths songs”, became irritatingly familiar as the week and then the evening went along.

Morrissey is no longer in The Smiths for those of you who may need clarification just in case you planned on parting with your money for 3 songs.

Instead Morrissey has enjoyed a fine solo career spanning several classic albums, not least his latest World Peace Is None Of Your Business. It was, however a Smiths song that would signal the start of a fine performance.

The Queen Is Dead pounced upon us with energetic regality as the sawing guitar from Boorer’s and Tobias’ guitars scythed through Mozza’s equally sharp lyrics.

The head scratching in the soulless Cardiff vacuum began straight after The Smiths classic rolled into the early nineties anthem of Suedehead. Looks of ignorant suspicion stared upon those in the audience who sang along and beamed with excitement for the music. This would feature throughout the whole show.

The band behind Morrissey clearly put his mind at ease in comparison to those of years gone by. They are a visibly close unit which is mirrored in the music, especially when live.

Morrissey was quite jovial in Cardiff. You can make your own aspersions as to whether that is uncharacteristic or not, I guess we will never know and that even applies to the NME.

The set list was predictably similar to that of his European tour last Autumn bar a few chops and changes. As Morrissey fans will have grown accustomed to, his latest and current material takes priority for him. That is perfectly justified however it can tend to alienate the fence sitters into a state of quarantine as they restlessly look around hoping for the intro of There Is A Light That Never Goes Out that never came.

Staircase At The University is a sure-fire future favourite displaying Morrisseys trademark tongue in cheek, demure humour. Kiss Me A lot is as strong a single as he has ever penned and Istanbul floats the romantic questions of inclination beautifully.

After Throwing My Arms Around Paris, it was with some surprise that Stop Me If You Think That You Have Heard This One Before from 1987’s Strangeways Here We Come would help the temporary break up of the flow of his new album. The real fans were in raptures for it. This was magnified further when the blisteringly bleak Speedway reminded us of how good his solo career had been. 1994’s Vauxhall &I surely setting the mark to measure all else against.

Following his statement last autumn, it was noticeable how strong Morrissey’s voice was. One may have presumed that following treatment for throat cancer, his voice would have significantly weakened. It had not, if anything his range and resonance had improved.

Nobody in the ‘Convention Centre’; usually reserved for tattoo conventions and snooker tournaments, was listening to his voice when the sounds of the abattoir brought in the unapologetic Meat Is Murder. The horrific visions of the abattoir were projected above the stage for all to see as Morrissey forced his will in admirably shameless theatre.

Unfortunately the huge hollow shell was incapable of transcending the genius of Everyday Is Like Sunday and What She Said (Rubber Ring Medley) as one would have liked but the sing along was loud and full hearted. There was still time enough for First Of The Gang To Die to appear as an encore. The fans stayed to the last second to see their hero as the rest filtered out to beat the traffic and queues into the Welsh capitals melee of indifference.

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** HABITATS // FRI 20 MARCH – START THE BUS, Bristol **

Habitats are from Basingstoke via London

 

The vast space in Bristol’s Start The Bus is reserved mainly for the bar area so the bands audiences are forced to huddle together into the far dark corner of the building but that did not deter those who came to see Basingstoke’s Habitats.

A gaggle of smiley people surrounded the small stage, drinks in hand and hips nice and loose, already shaking to the jaunty funk-indie that met them. The band may well have been equally as ‘Cheshire’ as the crowd but one could not confirm this due to the masking of the mouths by the obligatory hipster beards adorning them.

Habitats released their Diamond Days EP on February 9th via their record label Club Fandango and have taken to the road to promote it. As is the case nowadays, they have received airplay on the ever supportive BBC courtesy of Huw Stevens and Steve Lamacq and they have supported the likes of Tennis.

The four hairy young men masquerading as primitive beasts in their variety of facial whiskers, contently bounced into the ecosystem of twiddly, indie funk to which they had given birth. The songs are joyous and fundamentally fun, they visibly rejoice in the music they make and the music they make is gloriously uplifting, especially amidst a well oiled mid-Friday evening in the best city for music in the UK.

Habitats are from Basingstoke via London

 

If a band does not offer something new or push the odd boundary, that is no crime in music, unless the artist claims that they do. Habitats make no such claim. That is just as well because they are the musical image of Oxford indie outfit Foals. To achieve that however, it is essential that the musicianship and song writing is strong enough to draw those comparisons. Habitats seem to have talent enough in both fields. The first impression of the band when entering the venue was an expectancy to have fun.

The band started the set with Should Know Better followed by Turn Down The Sun before the EP title track – Diamond Days. The latter in particular is a smooth ascending song, inter weaving busy bass and reoccurring jangling guitar grooves. As well as the obvious Foals similarity, one can also recognise Two Door Cinema Club like guitars enhancing the party vibe. They saved the best to last as the moving bodies, scattering the floor welcomed Jungles.

And so, we were sent out into Bristol’s cloak of darkness humming Foals favourites. Perhaps that is something this perfectly capable group should be wary of if they are to give life to their own habitat of up tempo indie.

** THE UNTHANKS // Live at the Albert Hall Nottingham // 27/2/15 **

Photograph is copyright of The Unthanks

Words by Ben F Gallagher

The best kept secret in Nottingham is perhaps the ornate Albert Hall. This was the perfect venue for folk music’s worst kept secret to offer up the release of their fantastic new album Mount the Air.

Amidst the intimate but Victorian splendor of this concert hall, the collective from Northumberland headed by the refreshingly down to earth Unthank sisters, appeared from the rear of the audience to centre stage to modestly but sincerely introduce themselves.  The luscious strings and lone trumpet would feature heavily throughout the evening suggested immediately as the opener – Hawthorn heralded the first of the new Unthanks arsenal.

The evening was interspersed with monologues and dialogues by The Unthanks sisters as well as the musical director and multi instrumentalist: Adrian McNally. The laid back atmosphere accepted and absorbed the naïve and apologist humour in raptures of heartfelt esteem.

As Mount the Air, the eponymous title track, soothed and soared its ten minutes of gorgeous, loves lost elegance, the audience swooned and were rewarded with further manner from folk heaven in an unbeatable and equally unfathomable rendition of Anthony Heggarty’s Spiraling. In this track, Becky Unthank staked her claim as one of the most heavenly vocalists of her generation. “She writes her first song and gets play listed on Radio 6 Music,” bemoaned McNally of Becky Unthank’s Flutter.  This beautiful song became the latest arrow to pierce the onlooker’s hearts.

The two separate halves of the performance were almost undecipherable other than the presence of previous Unthanks favourites such as the stunning Last and the sumptuously and expertly tailored Starless. Originally by 70’s prog rockers King Crimson, The Unthanks have undoubtedly improved upon the original, admitting “We decided to emphasize the melody and vocal line”, which can be heard by the most untrained of listeners.  The jaunty Lucky Gilchrist allowed a welcome rest from luxurious melancholy as the band looked back to Here’s the Tender Coming album.

What though would stick in the mind from this most precious of evenings? Perhaps the voice recording from Violinist and vocalist, Niopha Keegan’s father on the instrumental For Dad. Could it have been the discussion about death being “Very Unthanks” swiftly followed by the beautiful Died For Love?

I believe that anybody lucky enough to witness The Unthanks in this ominous form will be delighted with everything other than the moment they realized that they have finished and will not be returning to the stage.

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