Circle, 8th Oct

Friday 8th October 2004, and after a brief sojourn at the 3vil Tragic Box up the road where I was rudely acosted by a local nutter before sharing a drink with my work colleagues, I ran into the relative safety of the Croft to enjoy some more mind-bending tunes...

Droids Chorus

I missed most of this (great reviewer, huh?) but what I saw - Kaos pad... guitar... bass... quirky songs, was okay. I'm sure I heard him singing 'horsey horsey horse' at one point. What we have here is music on the stranger side of sanity, self consciously simple almost nursery rhyme melodies that betray a great melancholy. Maybe that was just my melancholy at the fact I was watching an under-rehearsed band who looked like they couldn't play, again. Then they played their last song, which was stunning. I think once the repertoire has increased, perhaps they will be able to focus on their strong points and produce some really powerful music. Droids Chorus Web Site

Fuzz Against Junk

I'm sure most people have heard of this band by now, improvisational jazz - rock pieces, harking back to what I imagine most people were doing in the seventies. For hours. On Drugs. Echoes of Ozric Tentacles and Gong and a really tight band made for a good gig. Can't find a web site though...

Circle

It starts with a single note, a tap on the cymbals, the keyboard player caressing the keys, building slowly in intensity and hypnotising the audience into a blissful trance. I really mean everybody. It was one of those gigs where you look around and everybody is grinning and swaying slightly. By the end of the evening, I don't think there was a head that wasn't nodding, and as Finnish 'drone rockers' Circle took us through epic soundscapes ranging from Plant / Gillan screaming over pure rock to hymnal incantations and the most delicate melodies. Although I haven't yet heard the CD that I bullied my friend into buying, there are a lot to collect, but unfortunately it doesn't look like much of their back catalogue is still in production. Anyone who gets the chance should go and experience this band in the flesh. Seeing Circle will probably turn out to be the highlight of my year. circlefinland.com

Decode's 23rd Birthday Party, 11th Oct

It was a bit strange of me, having never met the guy, but having talked to him on the internet to arrive at his birthday party as if I were a friend. However, this is no normal community. About three months ago I discovered and joined a forum on which local Bristolian musicians, promoters, engineers and other like-minded individuals gather to arrange meetings, gigs, discuss music and other random things in an uncensored, free-thinking, open kind of a way. The Choke Forum can be found at http://ttyc.co.uk and it seems to be demonstrating a powerful way for all these various groups in the industry to get together, advertise and find out what is going on. It isn't the only forum like this, there are others, but I already knew some of the people here. Anyway, I digress. I will write more about this phenomenon later.

It is however, the reason that I felt comfortable coming to someone's birthday bash, because really, it was just a free gig. At the Croft again, on the 11th October... on to the music, with apologies to Cajita who I missed...

Rose Kemp

Now I always thought the thing about singer songwriters is that you can hear the words, because their songs aren't about getting up and dancing, or being amazed at the incredible new sounds they are making, but about the purity of harmony, melody and the stories they tell. The emotions they make you feel. You know, people are supposed to sit down and be quiet, furrow their brows and contemplate the wondrousness of the human voice and the futility of existence without song. Or something. So having got over the embarrassment of everyone watching me enter the bar as Ms Kemp was performing right beside the door and armed with a drink I sat down to have my musical taste buds stimulated. Unfortunately, while still audible over the chatter of a busy bar, I couldn't make out a single word. The use of electric guitar rather than acoustic (although played as if 'twere an acoustic) was a good change, since it facilitated slightly distorted loudness, but something about the set up really muffled her voice. As such, I couldn't really form a decision on the music, while pleasing, it did still sound just like a girl playing guitar and singing like a million others. If I had been able to concentrate more, maybe in a different venue - but don't let me put you off, I just think the atmosphere was wrong, the songs were really good.

SJ Esau

A single deck for scratching, the usual array of boxes and instruments made for another interesting gig from the organic ever-changing SJ Esau. Here we have more layered samples of live instruments, distorted singing interspersed with violin, clarinet, melodica. I should be bored of these songs by now, I've heard them enough times, but the thing about the genius of Sam and his many, many guises is he always seems to be able to bring something fresh to the music. As I eagerly anticipated my favourite track (following the amazing solo performance at Brick's birthday bash) epiphany coming through my head, I had to be disappointed that they chose to do a stadium rock version - as stadium rock as it is possible to get with this kind of lo-fi sound - complete with chanted chorus towards the end and the feeling that we should all be swaying with lighters in the air. But what band doesn't want that?

Bucky

I'd heard good things about Bucky, but no-one told me exactly what to expect, so I'm not going to give away any secrets. Suffice to say, this was the most entertaining gig I've been to for a long time, a fast, furious punk duo whose inter-song banter is longer than the songs themselves. Songs about Bruce Springsteen and the American flag, a happy birthday Theo moment and a lot of jokes made for some very happy faces in the audience. And if you think being a drummer with only one hand is a handicap, then you really need to see this band because he plays like no other drummer I've seen! Bucky are excellent...

New Grand Smoking Palace

At first I thought NGSP were alright, tight band, catchy tunes but then it slowly dawned on me: The gurning, the poses, the foot-stamping... it's the Strokes/Jets/Hives/Ferdinand*/all that goddamn nu-punk nonsense all over again. (Correction from my friend Adz: "Franz Ferdinand aren't punk, they're new wave. Actually, they're pretty much definitively new wave, in that they listened to punky people whilst at art school and then tried to make a band that captured the energy whilst being middle-class, nicely dressed and nice enough to take home to meet your mum.")However different they are trying to be, my friend insists that it is the singer who ruins it, personally I think she saves the music from having to put up with a bloke with a silly voice (see all the above). Their sound is accomplished, raw, some decent hooks in there, but the whole ethos of this kind of music makes me furious. Like UK Garage. Sorry guys.

Blackbud

Unfortunately, being a school night, I had to go home so I couldn't form an opinion of the increasingly contentious Blackbud. The funny thing is that a lot of people's problem with them is that they're NOT contentious at all and that's where all the arguments start. So I'll link you to some varied responses to the gig instead: The Choke 'Discussion' and Blackbud's Forum.

Noisefest at SK8 and Ride, 15-16th Oct

A festival of Noise. And they weren't wrong either. The full listing comprised of Friday 15: Cephalic Inscription, A Lion, Big Joan, Tractor, Iron Hearse, Walrus and Saturday 16: Fruit of the Doom, Hunting Lodge, Lead to Wine, Mea Culpa, Thread, Geisha... The venue couldn't have been more appropriate, even though we approached in a spiral pattern having read some erroneous directions on the internet, Sk8 and Ride with it's corridors and small rooms (and obviously a big hall full of ramps and half pipes), provided a good little back room for encouraging deafness and tinnitus. As such, some of the more 'noisy' bands suffered greatly from sounding terrible. Or maybe they really were.

I had a brief discussion on the definition of noise with Geisha front man Tone, mainly because they are often described as such, in fact they insist that they are and laugh when I call them metal. So I asserted that I wouldn't call them a noise band because they have tunes, and music. When I think of 'noise' I think of indefinable sounds, sounds that cannot be given names like 'chord', 'note', 'harmony', 'melody'. When faced with sounds this heavy, the last two do seem a little out of place, but I hold that they are there, if you listen. So anyway, Tone says that it is more about the attitude of the band than the music. 'Most metal bands connect with the audience because they sing about things the audience hates so they have a camaraderie there', he said, 'Geisha don't do that we hate the audience as well, that's what being a noise band means to me'. I just think they're using the words wrong, but I told him he had to prove it to me when they play on Saturday. 'You love the audience', I said, 'No! we hate you all!' he insisted.

So anyway, on both nights we missed the first two bands… curse our casual lateness! This meant I missed Thread, Lead to Wine, Cephalic Inscription, A Lion and Walrus, some of whom I had wanted to see, others I have no regret about missing, since I had heard nothing about them anyway - sorry guys! Still there'll be other nights. Of the bands I actually saw, obviously some pleased me and some... well... didn't. It has taken me too long to actually go and see Big Joan, but fortunately they didn't disappoint me. The music is almost dance-like (that's 'dance' as a beats and breaks genre) but punk… like. The rest of Friday's bands were largely lost due to absinthe and being outside, but I caught the tail end of Iron Hearse, bluesy metal, as I recall, I also recall thinking they were really good. Sean, the drummer from Tractor told me I wouldn't like Tractor and he was right. Laboured, slow loud noise, probably everything the weekend was supposed to mean, I imagine, but not for me. Or anyone really.

I've wanted to see Mea Culpa for a while now, having heard the muffled shouting noise on their web site, and they were much much more accomplished than I had expected. Most metal bands have one person shouting, they have two. And a member who crouches behind a small keyboard with an ebow. Moments of staggering beauty break up the wall of noise, as the audience undulated to accommodate the hyperactive front men. The moshing was bound to happen, and when it did no-one seemed to be surprised, but I was too wrapped up in the music to mind so much.

Geisha followed, the moment I had been waiting for - Tone glowered at the microphone, I waited for the bile and hatred he had promised me. 'Alright,' he said, 'how you doing?' Not quite the torrent of abuse he had been waiting for. 'He loves us really' I thought, as I settled down to enjoy another storming Geisha set. They were followed by Hunting Lodge, whom I am assured sound a lot better on CD, but who have also been lauded by a lot of the people who attended (bands, anyway) to be the highlight of the weekend. I really don't understand the enthusiasm for a band that can ruin some apparently good songs with some terrible guitar sounds. The bass had no bass! Yes, mock my traditionalism if you want, you crazy experimentalists, but when I am assaulted by a wall of treble in a tinny room I get a bit cross that the bassist thinks it's 'groundbreaking' to play through a Big Muff PI with the bass turned down while the guitarists are playing at the top of the fretboard... I didn't stay very long. Long enough to get a headache, but like I said, the songs might have been a lot better if there had been a greater range of frequencies.

Fruit of the Doom - Like noisy Nu-Metal with rapping. Sounds like some other similar bands - I don't want to insult them further by making comparisons. Well practised, but annoying I'm afraid! So having drunk all the absinthe and watched the ups and downs - on Saturday there were people injecting in the toilets - mm nice! But overall the Sk8 and Ride was actually a pretty cool venue for this kind of thing. It probably won't be open for longer than a year so we'll have to make sure it gets used as much as possible before then...

Decode Unplugged, 23rd Oct

A midweek evening of quietude and eclecticism, in which I managed to escape from the current trend of Real Life (if I was into bio-rhythms mine would be in a VERY deep slump at the moment). One of the things I was looking forward to with this gig was that it included some performers I have seen who rely heavily on electronic boxes for their sound. Are they actually any good? I was asking myself. At last I will find out once and for all whether the distortion of their music by digital means belies a great lack of talent.

'Real' musicians have been heard to complain about how computers help people who lack the skills / flair / deep seated 'raw talent that you can't buy in shops' to make acceptable music. Programs like Rebirth, Reason, Orion, Fruity Loops etcetera already come with acid housey trancey techno bollocks inbuilt. You can instantly create dance music without really trying. This isn't original, it's taking what other people have already done and put it through an LFO. I always used to take great pleasure in taking the Acid House sounds of Rebirth and turning it into rough Drum and Bass, or at least trying to. It is at once obvious to any discerning listener whether any real composition and creative thought has gone into any piece of music, although with a noise that you don't quite understand it is sometimes difficult. Personally, I have a problem with music that requires training before you can appreciate it.

Not to say that's what we are experiencing here, although sometimes I wonder, as the words 'challenging' and 'unusual' are thrown about. If you don't understand the concept of the art, how can you purport to understand the music, let alone appreciate it on its own merits.

So with the opportunity of seeing SJ Esau, Team Brick and Max Milton all exposed without their boxes (I was most suspicious about the last two as Sam manages to sing some actual songs rather than 'works' in his performances), I headed off to Bar Unlimited with an open eager mind. SJ Esau was excellent. Self conscious in parts, with just an acoustic guitar for accompaniment, and a couple of songs that I recognised from other, more 'plugged' gigs. Bizarre lyrics and light-hearted subjects made SJ Esau's set a pleasure to hear.

Mario Vendredi is something else entirely. I admit some scepticism during his first couple of songs, the man strains his voice to the point of breaking, jumping between bass, tenor and falsetto in tearful ballads about love, loss, and dog heaven. However, he really comes into his own when he puts down the guitar for a rendition of 'John the Revelator' accompanied by foot stamping and hand claps, the song sang as you imagined it would have been sung by negro slaves on the railroads. Well okay, they would have been beaten for stopping and clapping, but you know what I mean. Powerful stuff. Also tribal drum hitting with incoherent but strangely musical shouting in various voices make Mario a very entertaining performer.

A lot of these gigs always challenge me in a muso kind of way, because the music is often 'unexpected' leftfield, of undefineable genre. Following this pattern the quirky styles become the norm and the next act blew it all out of the water. Old American Country Folk tunes, very mellow, beautiful and looking around the room, I noticed that everyone was completely wrapt by it. 'So there IS a place for 'real' 'conventional' music still', I thought, and coming from a background of English Folk amongst other things, I have a lot of time for this. Helen Solomons and Andrew Short were excellent.

Team Brick's set was brief, he's been working on ostinato lately, the piece he and his gang played I have heard before, but then there was noise, and effects and delay. Lots of delay. Without all that, there is still a delicacy to the music and I must admit that I preferred it like this. Plus the drums sounded amazing. That's what you get when everyone plays without being miked up.

Max Milton didn't strike any chords with me at all. In fact I was so put off I was forced to go outside and buy some dinner and hang around until he'd finished. The stuff I wrote at University was crap. Student compositions, ripping off Nyman etc, but this sort of this should remain firmly in the classroom. I appreciate the effort to write art music, and the attempt to bring it to a popular forum in this way, I mean that's what chamber music used to be all about but I'm not sure about this at all. Maybe clever effects would work better... or just continuing to collaborate with others as he isn't lacking in talent.

Whale Bone Polly are a trio who sing English folky-type music, stunning songs and three-part harmonies rounded off a very good evening. Had I the money, I would have been buying CDs, them and the country folk get my vote for the best performers of the night (with Mario very close behind).

October Revolution, 30th Oct

Apparently this gig, which showcased 12 Bristol bands at the Student Union, was going to teach the new students the great diversity and talent in the City at the moment, ostensibly to say that we aren't about Massive Attack and Portishead and Kosheen (spit) anymore. I pity those who had to make the choice of who to invite to play, but the music on show was certainly diverse. As usual I missed the first half, due to an attack of GTA San Andreas in the afternoon, so apologies to: The Mighty Stars, Valley Forge, Sammo Hung, SJ Esau and Male.

I arrived just after War Against Sleep had started, they do relaxed, rolling, Ben Folds Five (I'm probably just making this comparison because they have a piano frontman) / Divine Comedy style 'proper' songs, but with that thing of building up the noise and intensity towards the end. I did like it, but I don't think I'd listen to it, if you get my meaning, more inoffensive than inspiring.

Because of WAS's mellow sound, I did wonder what was going to happen to the audience when Geisha took to the stage. As usual they put a huge smile on my face, and more pleasingly, the audience didn't thin out as much as I had expected. Bass player Steve was fantastically angry, and the set concluded with singer Tone running through the audience screaming. Great stuff.

Ivory Springer have a problem. Or I have a problem with them. I'm not sure what this problem is, and am willing to re-visit this band to try and work it out. At the risk of sounding too subjective, Termites or 'the' Termites are derivative, pretentious boring pop-punk of the most commercial kind. Melodies reminiscient of a little band from 1965 called 'the pink floyd' and gong as if it's new music. It isn't.

Big Joan played a storming set until the bass player's amp blew up.

Ever since being at University around them, I have had this thing for hating Chikinki. They have been through various guises in the years since then, I first encountered them being a student funk band - a fairly good one - and was always sceptical of their move into more progressive rock/dance music. I last saw them at the Ashton Court festival that happened in Hengrove Park, which was about three years ago. I was bitter about the adulation and the breaks they had, probably through hard bloody work, but I never thought their music really deserved it. So I thought it was about time I gave them another chance. By the time they played I was pretty drunk, so forming coherent opinions was difficult, but I was left with the impression that they were too damn fashionable. Following the same new wave trend that everyone else (Termites) seems to be following. I'm going to have to stay away. Other people like them so that I don't have to.