923 CASE HARDIN, THE SHUDDERS, Tamsin Quin, Swindon the Victoria, Thursday 4 September 2014

A redemption of sorts to start off a hectic Autumn gigging dance card, with a trip up the hill to catch Tim’s band The Shudders. They’d been off my schedule since January, when a sloppy, drink-fuelled performance in front of a minimal crowd slightly tarnished a burgeoning reputation. Still, I’m prepared to give them a lot of rope (Tim’s my best friend – of course I’m going to give them a lot of rope!), and Tim’s recent promises that after a bumpy 2014 to date, things are coming together as they focus on the final stages of recording their second album, reassured me somewhat. I’d actually tried to catch them on the last night of the Swindon Shuffle, but couldn’t get into the 18+ only Beehive with a visiting Evan. So this was the next opportunity!

 

A drive up the hill with Dean, recovering from his knee op, saw us park up at 8 then socialise with Tim, Tracey, the rest of the band and the usual Vic crew for a while before the late-running “Songs Of Praise”-promoted evening finally got under way at 9, and we decamped into the venue to catch opener Tamsin Quin. A strikingly attractive young girl with a tumbling mass of brown curls and a self-deprecating smile at the end of each number, she poured her heart into some dark and soulful Delta blues and occasionally Celtic-tinged numbers, embellishing her emotive balladry with a smoky dark, world-weary voice which sounded old and wise way beyond her years. Charming too; “I’m going to sing a song about alcohol – because I like alcohol a lot, and sometimes it doesn’t like you back!” Some playful banter with Jim from Case Hardin over final number “Been So Long” was an entertaining end to a fine set.

 

The Shudders were next up and were keen to crack on, all guitarred up and onstage before schedule! It was clear from the outset that they were “on it”, with the soaring, Posies-like opener “Sorry” a melodic powerpop delight and a great way to open the set. Indeed, this set showcased a growing maturity and wider variety and breadth of songwriting prowess, taking in powerpop, indie rock, Americana and rootsy, dusty folk, highlighting their new album material perfectly. In fact, Danny plugged their first album then announced most of the songs tonight weren’t on it, prompting Tim to sardonically retort, “we’re great at this [self-promotion], aren’t we?”

 

The Shudders were actually great tonight, certainly the best I’ve seen them; “Sunrise” featured ringing guitar interplay interwoven with delicate harmonies, recalling Buffalo Tom’s rare quieter moments, then contrasting with the subsequent brash 70’s “Grease”/ rock stomp of “Angels”, which featured a surprisingly strident vocal performance from a confident Danny. Some comical Ardal O’Hanlon moments from Liam whilst tuning up (“My van ran out of diesel on the M4 today! Brilliant!”) preceded a toughened up “Words Of A Fool”, the only first album number on display tonight, and sounding way better thanks to an excellent drum performance from their (I still think of him as…) new drummer Jim, possibly tonight’s MVP. The superbly swaggering Replacements-like bar-room bluesy romp of “Thought I Saw You” segued into the sprawling set closer “Mary’s Grace”, now deserving of the epithet of “epic”, and capping a superb performance. Well done boys!

 

After that, headliners Case Hardin had a hard job of it, and for me fell short. They delivered a set of countrified folk and rock, mainly falling more into pedal steel/ Nashville swing trad country territory for me, rather than parched alt-Americana, with an energetic Captain Beefheart lookalike vocalist. Very accomplished both from a musical and songwriting perspective, and vaguely reminiscent of Jimmy LaFave’s red dirt music, and occasionally ”Rattlesnakes”-era Lloyd Cole minus his gauche charm, they went down well with this respectful audience (apart from a couple of out-of-place noisy slappers!) but didn’t press too many buttons for me. I liked the fun acoustic interlude on the floor, the bassist producing a huge double-bass to pluck in the process, but overall I admired rather than enjoyed their set.

 

Nevertheless, The Shudders came through tonight, so congrats were in order afterwards before the lateness of the hour (now bumping up to midnight! On a school night!) saw me drag myself off after another splendid “Songs Of Praise” evening, As I said, a redemption tonight for The Shudders!

 

922 THE SWINDON SHUFFLE, Various Swindon Venues, Friday 8th and Saturday 9th August 2014

This is, I’m ashamed to say, the first time I’ve partaken in the delights of the Swindon Shuffle, an annual event around the town to showcase the best of Swindon’s unsigned, up-and-coming and veteran acts. It’s now in its’ eighth year, after my friend Rich Craven was sat in the Vic one night and came up with the concept of a Swindon version of the Camden Crawl… Still, better late than never, and this year my recent interest in the excellent Nudy Bronque was the key factor in my attendance. They’re up the Vic, so so am I!

Rach and the kids were camping in our back garden Friday night – I hate camping, me, so this was also an excellent reason to get out of that! So I parked up around the corner from the Vic about 9, bumping into Swindon’s punk rock queen Debby for a chat before wandering into the back room, expecting to see The Racket, scheduled for 9. Instead, a well-attended room were bathing in the aural candyfloss of WILDEST DREAMS, the new musical brainchild of Zoe Mead, apparently a well-known name in local rock circles. First time I’d come across her or her music, and I was impressed; the 2-girl plus boy drummer trio played some wistful ethereal mood music midway between the lazy indie pop of The Sundays, and the more woozy shoegaze of Slowdive. I caught an unexpected half dozen of these dreamy soundscapes, their penultimate number, a more upbeat, haunting and pseudo-Goth one possibly called “Solitude” being my favourite of their set. Made me miss 2:54 a little, a very favourable start.

A quick chat with MC Ed Dyer revealed the Vic was running late, so my upsetting clash wouldn’t happen and I had time to go round to The Castle to catch the on-time set from FAYE ROGERS. Having chatted through most of her quietly impressive set at Riffs last time out, I was determined to pay attention this time! Faye had some technical issues during opener “Thunder”, but ploughed admirably through, getting her lovelorn little acoustic numbers back on track by 3^rd number, the heart-achingly beautiful “I Can’t Help But Love You”. This was a stark, raw little gem of a set, delivered by Faye in a pure, innocent sounding voice reminiscent of Harriet Sunday or Madder Rose’s Mary Lorsen, with sparse yet fitting musical embellishment from her backing band. “He’s Not Himself” was my highlight, a darkly dramatic but no less heart-tugging paean to her grandfather, who suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease, the chilling musical layers articulating the despair of the situation as succinctly as the lyric. I’m glad I paid attention this time, as this was a splendid set from a naturally talented, self-effacing young voice.

Quick chat with Faye and her mum, my old BT colleague Stella, before hot-footing back over to the by-now completely rammed Vic back room, for NUDY BRONQUE’s entrance at 10.30 after a fiddly set-up. Aiden, arms aloft, led the band (a 4-piece tonight, again augmented by their producer on keyboards!) into the Pulp-esque opener “Luggage” which segued straight into “Yoo Hoo”, the usual schizophrenic chord/ tempo/ mood changes immediately a feature, often a little frustratingly so, as you’re never entirely sure with Nudy Bronque, when one song actually finishes and another begins! But then that sense of unpredictability, that feeling of flying by the seat of your pants, is all part of the Nudy Bronque charm, right kids? Third (I think!) number “Allsorts” featured the stripped back base as the background to Aiden’s vocal gymnastics and pseudo-yodels, and eye-catching shape throwing and general frontman showing off! “No Wives, No Children” highlighted the fact that this band aren’t scared of often using almost complete silence as a feature of their songs, a sign of real confidence in my view, before switching suddenly to cacophonous noise in the same number! “No Wives”, for me also reminiscent of Boston’s Rocketscience’s excellent song “Killjoy”, segued effortlessly into the galloping Orange Juice “Blue Boy”-esque rodeo ride of “Peachy Keen”, their best number tonight, Aiden throwing in a “Hound Dog” reference before delivering the hook through a toy bull-horn. Barking mad!

A rocking “Juliet Ottewell” was the precursor to the denouement; a stretched, epic “Space Travel 2013 By Phone”, featuring another cacophonous, discordant outro which saw Aiden screaming the title through the bull horn again before seemingly thanking everyone in the packed room individually. Excellent stuff; this is not “wacky” or “funny” by design, it’s just pure entertainment, and tonight the Bronque took the showcase occasion of a packed Shuffle Vic and really upped their game, delivering probably the best performance I’ve seen from them. Well done boys!

I grabbed the list as MC Ed announced a 15 minute break, “to clear up [Nudy Bronque’s] bloody mess,” before headliners British Harlem. By now, this old boy was flagging a little so, with an early start for tomorrow, I said my farewells and left.

However, there was more Shuffling in prospect on Saturday! Having picked up Evan for his Summer stay with us, and having dropped Logan off for a playdate, we took a drive into town for a couple of Shuffle shows. Firstly, we headed into a sun-drenched lunchtime Central Library courtyard, bumping into Danny and Ellen (acting as MC for the afternoon), catching the last knockings of DAVE CORRIGAN’s strumalong kitchen sink drama and Americana tinged set, accompanied by Nudy Bronque’s producer on keyboards! Then we enjoyed another FAYE ROGERS set, a truncated 5-song version of last nights’, with “I Can’t Help But Love You” and “He’s Not Himself” again the highlights, Faye this time accompanied just by her guitarist and the set consequently having a more pastoral feel.

Then we grabbed pasty lunch and took a walk down to That’s Entertainment for SIMON HALL. I was expecting an outdoor full band set, but this would have been in direct competition with the big band noise from Wharf Green, so Si played a solo set in the shop window. Much more overt a delivery than other Shuffle performers so far, and generally falling between the blue collar anthems of The Gaslight Anthem and the heart-on-sleeve raw angst of Dashboard Confessional, this was again a fine set punctuated by no little wit (“I fell off my doorstep, so if my guitar playing sounds ham-fisted, it’s because my fist looks like a ham!”). I thoroughly enjoyed his own “Face For Radio”, a warts-and-all road movie for all bottom of the bill workaday acts, a well-observed “Fisherman’s Blues” which made up for a slightly incongruous “True Colours” (yup, the Cyndi Lauper song!), and some nice incisive lyricism elsewhere (“it’s been my mission to make bad decisions” and “I wrapped four chords around a girl who I thought meant the world to me” being 2 of my favourites). Shame no more than a dozen punters availed themselves of this nice little set.

So that was me all shuffled off for the day, as an overtired daughter necessitated a departure from town thereafter. Still, I’ve really enjoyed my first taste of The Swindon Shuffle; after all this time travelling around seeing bands, I’m finding that there’s good stuff right on my doorstep, especially Nudy Bronque, definitely my favourite Swindon band since Tim’s early You Are Here days, and who might be the first band to deservedly gain more national exposure since, ooh, XTC and Shriekback??? Either way, long may Swindon Shuffle, and in future I’ll be shuffling along with it!

921 TELEVISION, Louise Distras, London Shepherd's Bush Empire, Sunday 27 July 2014

I’m correcting an ancient error of omission with tonight’s Television gig, seeing these original punk rock pioneers for the first time! Television, who emerged from the New York CBGB’s/ Max’s Kansas City scene in the mid 70’s with contemporaries The Ramones, Patti Smith and Blondie, passed me by a little back in the day, I’m ashamed to say, and I only recently acknowledged their genius (actually, when I say recently, I kind of mean mid 90’s, so it’s not that recent really!) given their obvious influence on the likes of the jerky tinny Britpop brigade, and the new millennial crop of New York rockers like The Strokes, Stellastarr* and Interpol. Never saw them “live” until tonight, though, when an opportunity to break up a barren gigging July with a London trip presented itself, to see Tom Verlaine and crew do a set consisting of their seminal 1977 work “Marquee Moon”, a tense, fragile masterpiece, innovative, chilling and atmospheric, and still a great listen, 37 years on.

 

So I set off on a balmy early evening, initially encountering frustrating heavy traffic but nonetheless parking up in my usual spot around the corner from the venue, getting in at 7.45 and watching the place fill up, mainly with studious old rocker blokes with Ramones or “Marquee Moon” t-shirts. At 49, I actually felt quite young! Took a wander forward for support Louise Distras, a raven haired and tattooed punk/ folk songstress with an overt gravelly delivery for her strident political (both personal and party) Guthrie/ Bragg-esque manifestos. What kept her just the right side of screaming harpy sloganeering cliché for me was some dry wit and carefree enthusiasm, which grabbed my attention, if not the majority of the crowd. I enjoyed her set, although I couldn’t help but wonder whether a Hyde Park Corner soapbox might be a more appropriate venue…

 

Kept my spot stage right, four or five rows back and next to some bespectacled lairy bloke (more on him later…), as we were subjected to what seemed an eternity of patience-trying pealing bells as a “musical” backdrop, before the band finally emerged, looking like a group of lawyers on their way to the golf course, with the obvious exception of be-hatted and pointy bearded rocker guitarist Jimmy Rip. After some wall-of-noise Byrdsian psych-fretwork, mainly from Rip, they kicked into the herky-jerky rhythm and tumbling NYC street cool riffery of “See No Evil”. This immediately set the tone for tonight’s performance; laconic albeit submerged vocals from iconic mainman Tom Verlaine, pounding tom-tom dominated rhythm, and intricate and virtuoso fretwork from both Verlaine and Rip, who particularly (and ironically) can play guitar just like ringing a bell…!

 

As I’d suspected, this was a non-sequential run-through of the “Marquee Moon” material, as the Spanish guitar of “Prove It” was next up, featuring an impassioned, yearning vocal from Verlaine, followed by a squalling “1880 Or So”, notable for Rip’s white noise guitar work which was eerily reminiscent of Bob Mould! Prior to an eerie, elegiac “Torn Curtain”, Verlaine, in response to a heckler, replied, “there’s always some guy who shouts, “come on Tom,” and I never figure out what the… fuck he means!” The band then suffered some technical problems before the nevertheless excellently chugging “Friction”, and the subsequent “Elevation” was superb, dramatic and windswept, but was punctuated by lairy bloke (remember him?) pushing forward, pissing off a few folks in the process. It all seemed ready to kick off before the “come on Tom” bloke, a hefty chap to my left, deftly diffused that situation by removing lairy bloke’s glasses and luring him out of the vicinity, while the band, oblivious, played on… “Venus” was my personal set highlight, a plangent thing of beauty, wondrous and haunting with Rip’s tumbling, intricate guitar riff as much a work of art as the subject matter of Venus De Milo. However, towards the end of this number, lairy bloke returned, pushing and shoving, before one guy, whose girlfriend he’d insulted earlier, flew into him and gave him a good old fashioned chinning which sent him sprawling to the ground, before bouncers dived in to remove lairy bloke from the premises, to everyone’s relief!

 

Thus relaxed, it was time for set closer “Marquee Moon”, tonight’s version of this definitive New Wave classic rendered perfectly, the mood detached and urbane, with Verlaine and Rip weaving intricate guitar patterns which built over its’ sprawling length to a rocking crescendo. Marvellous stuff, and a total appropriate way to end the set.

 

We didn’t really need encores after that, but “Glory” (which I know largely due to Lloyd Cole’s cover!) was the best of the 2. However “Marquee Moon” was the real star on display tonight. So overall, an ancient error corrected by myself, and a splendid evening with these enduring New Wave pioneers Television!

920 THE VERY MOST, Yakuri Cable, the King In Mirrors, Swindon The Victoria, Tuesday 22 July 2014

Poking my head out above the parapet for this one, a local gig organised by old Level 3 face and recent facebook friend Rich May to showcase his band The King In Mirrors, and to also put on a couple of other indiepop bands, including Boise, Idaho’s The Very Most, over to play the Indietracks Festival this coming weekend and with a couple of evenings to fill in the meantime. TKIM’s presence would have been enough to drag me out on a sweltering Tuesday evening, but further incentive was provided by Rich Craven, donning his “DJ Mark E Moon” persona and promising to spin some suitably appropriate C86 tunes. Oh, go on then…

 

So, shorts and kneestrap bolted on, I drove up and hit the venue at 8.30, catching up with the 2 Richs and availing myself of some vintage tuneage (Close Lobsters! Pastels!) courtesy of Mr. Craven. Mr. May then gathered his troupe together and took the stage on this “Songs Of Praise” promoted evening at 9, easing into jangly opener “At The Rivers Edge”, before second number “Your Spell” was introduced as, “a song about being seduced by an other-worldly being in the local disco – true story!”. This one really impressed, despite being slightly at odds with TKIM’s usual material, being darker, edgier and with an early 80’s pseudo-Goth guitar feel redolent of Scars or Modern English. Good one!

 

“He’s good, isn’t he? He’s been practising!” remarked Mrs. May to The Very Most’s vocalist Jeremy, standing stage front next to me. Indeed, practice seemed to have made perfect with this impressive set from The King In Mirrors; “Your Spell” aside, this was a set of punchy, upbeat C86-esque jangle with nicely layered guitars and Rich’s slightly atonal vocals recalling the likes of The Razorcuts. “Catwoman” had a more kitsch 60’s B movie feel about it, and “Good Friends” saw Mr. Craven emerge from behind the decks to duet with his old friend, a nice touch. Overall, Rich relaxed into his performance as it progressed, ultimately delivering a set tougher than TKIM’s elegant but slightly wispier CD material, full of optimism and promise. Nice work!

 

A quick chat outside with Dave Franklin and an elated Rich May, before next band Yakuri Cable – their name and Glaswegian origins may have suggested a shambolic but harmonic noise, but instead they were a drummer-less 4-piece sonically in thrall to 80’s synthpop. They were occasionally interesting with some jagged edges a la China Crisis or Blancmange, but all too often veered more towards jazz café wallpaper pop. Nice, pretty and melodic, maybe, but also unobtrusive and forgettable to these ears. Sorry guys.

 

After another quickfire turnaround (seemingly the modus operandi for these Songs Of Praise nights!), The Very Most hit the stage at 10.30. This was apparently a “manufactured” version of The Very Most, featuring bearded singer and mainman Jeremy over from Idaho, a couple of members of Yakuri Cable pulling double shifts, a drummer from Spain (!) and Vinnie, a voluble and chatty female backing vocalist. Apparently this iteration of the band had only been together for 6 days, but you’d not have noticed, as from the outset they delivered an upbeat, summery and fun set of bouncy, melodic indiepop, with some splendid male/female call and response harmonies and interplay. Mining the middle ground I never knew existed between C86 faves The Hit Parade and the excellent New Pornographers, there was also a real craftsmanship about the songs on display, an evident intelligence in making them sound so immediate and infectiously catchy. Second number “Patricia” was an early highlight, “When Summer Dies” an odd juxtaposition between the lyrical content and the song’s optimistic, upbeat feel, and I loved the story about Vinnie apparently being licked on the face by a Fall fan in Nottingham (!), before she delivered lead vocals on the bouncier penultimate “Things Too Obvious”. A final “Congratulations For Ever”, was a chugalong exclamation point on a fun, inclusive little jewel of a set. Vinnie had remarked, “It’s just indie pop, Jeremy!” in response to the singer’s uncharacteristically high string breakage rate this evening, but this was impressive, intelligently crafted and fun indie pop.

 

Grabbed both an armful of TVM CDs and a lengthy chat with affable vocalist Jeremy before saying my farewells and hitting the road, nearly collecting an unloading Vinnie as I drove down the side of the Vic. Still, at least it wasn’t another face-lick…! A late one but another fine “Songs Of Praise” evening out!