Bush Hall is my new favourite venue and Stars in Battledress/The North Sea Radio Orchestra two of my new favourite bands. I wasn’t expecting either of those things when I woke up on Sunday morning feeling scared and sore and out of sorts and all that crap. I wasn’t going to leave the house; I just going to spend the rest of my life with the hood of my hoodie pulled up over my sorry head and my hands rearranging the vinyl is what it felt like. Then I got a call from a friend who wanted to hear music all the way over the other side of London.

So I went to Shepherd’s Bush, which is a place where you only go to see bands and buy your tent from the camping shop on the roundabout. It took a long, long time and I finally scampered into the warm, bright-lit foyer, late as usual, to catch the last few songs of the Larcombe brothers, Stars in Battledress, singing a sweet song that went “If you can’t sing everything, just sing anything” over a constantly shifting background of scales and studies. I could feel myself relaxing and smiling, almost tearful, and so glad I was there.

The North Sea Radio Orchestra had a choir and a conductor and hymn-book style scores; a bassoon and a nice line in pastoral minimalism. But it wasn’t like the schlocky gospel of the Polyphonic Spree or post-rock semi-classicism of Rachel’s or something. It was coming from this place where I’d like to live one of these days, when I finally say to London enough’s enough and move somewhere where all I can see are beech trees and hart’s tongue ferns. They sang settings of Yeats and Hardy and Tennyson, and when they finshed I realised I’d been holding my breath, still as a frightened frog under the Victorian chandeliers. If there was one thing I hadn’t expected when I woke up that day it was such beauty, and it was that beauty that held me warm all the way home. Maybe it was another maudlin reaction to another stupid night before; maybe it was a wake-up call. Either way, it unravelled me. I thanked my friend like it was all his doing, which it kind of was. It’s like that sometimes.

Somehow after that it got to be Wednesday. Last night I went a-mixing, getting together my psychdronenoise band’s first proper demo. On the way to my drone partner’s place we drove behind a van upon whose dirty back window someone had etched - with great care - not ‘Clean Me’, as you’d expect, but:

ACCIDENT OF PENIS

and above that, very neatly,

CUNTROCK GIANTS

We laughed so hard we almost went to Tesco’s by accident. After an early evening spent watching of Tsui Hark’s Zu Warriors From The Magic Mountain, with its climactic sequence involving the two leading male characters trying to ‘unite our swords! become as one!’ while being menaced by some dude in a red cloak who looked like Marilyn Manson and commanded a large red pulsating vaccuum of flame, it was almost too much. Mixing improvisations was never gonna be that easy, but after that message from the Van Of Wisdom, it sounded fine.

And Circle are playing on Friday, with Sunroof.

What more could a girl want, except maybe the Deathprod box set?

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Thursday, October 14th, 2004
(11 Comments)

http://www.puredata.info/

Posted by Andrew Clare on Wednesday, October 13th, 2004
(No Comments)

Concerts are rarely as you’d like them to be. Usually, long periods of tedium are followed by virulent blasts of noise, songs half-formulated by bands (musicians) who seem to take a pride in the fact they have no idea on either presentation or content (much like a Comet store). Cigarette smoke stings your eyes: boorish conversation assails your ears. You don’t feel like talking to anyone much, unless you’re so drunk that you have no memory of what you talked about the next day.

Last night at the Free Butt was near perfection for me. Three bands that played to their strengths, and retained enough individuality to hold attention.

Misty’s Big Adventure - such a delirious, devilish maelstrom of chunky ska rhythms and off-mic vocals, clever (but not annoying) and soulful words, a voice that fucking Franz Ferdinand could do better than lift wholesale, laughter and banter and a gimp dressed in a clown suit, 50 blue hands stitched to his body, trumpets and keyboards and egg whisks all competing for our unabashed admiration. The smiles on everyone watching! The “can you believe what we’re seeing” looks everyone was giving everyone else. Monster Bobby, the man behind The Pipettes (currently Brighton’s finest live act, lest we forget) turned to me in the loo, and said “This is exactly what I wanted to do with The Pipettes, only far better - those 50s girl harmonies, the brass, the songs!” Ah man, they were a sheer delight: afterwards, everyone wandered around as if stoned on the most exquisite weed, offering to record others for free, sharing future dates, buying singles for friends, discussing Jon Slade’s sleeping arrangements… My guitarist Kelly offered up Scissor Sisters as a comparison (minus the Elton John tag, of course) and I made a mental note to quit dismissing all chart stuff out of hand, and check them out.

Magoo had enflamed harmonies, songs that veered between full-on Jam thrust and pull, and sweeping Mercury Rev grandeur - tormented by break-up and helplessness, bolstered by isolation. One member told me the secret password beforehand, and was rewarded with smiles and a free magazine. The singer remarked afterwards that The Legend! reminded him of Robert Wyatt in a lower register and I remarked back that Neil Kulkarni has also made that comparison (which delights me), and he remarked back that Neil wrote a review of Magoo years back that made him walk round with a massive smile for weeks afterwards.

Also, a mum of one of the musicians seated next to me on the couch said she enjoyed The Legend!’s set (Gareth from Misty’s was delighted at our cover of one of his songs, despite its five-second brevity, as that was a first) - because it sounded like someone had just stumbled in from the street and got up on stage and started singing. She hoped I wasn’t offended. Offended???

I was totally made up.
And all this without alcohol.

Posted by Everett True on Saturday, October 9th, 2004
(3 Comments)

Drowning in a sea of CDs and getting in a stress over our cover feature, I did what all editors do in times of crisis and I did a tidy. It was fucked, the amount of stuff I had piled up. The AMOUNT of stuff. Music stuff. When I close my eyes I see eager press releases and when I close my ears I hear the sound of people trying to sound like no-one else, and usually failing. And there’s the no box, which is where things go that have NO written on them in pen only right-thinking people can see. I tell friends to look in the no box when they come for tea, but usually they’re my friends and therefore liable to say no also, because obviously I’m only friends with people who don’t want a Travis best of. Although I did shift a few Thrill Kill Kult CDs outta there (for the record, my ex, who took them, actually said they were worse than he remembered. The no box tells no lies). Anyway, I was going through it though, because sometimes I put stuff in there by accident, and I found Crack: We Are Rock, and I swear I never put it in there. The cover is so rad, and nothing on Tigerbeat6 goes in the no box. In fact, you know what I realised - my wife sometimes just drops stuff in there without looking, because she never wears her glasses or looks at CDs, which is why she’s always putting CDs back in the wrong cases, and she had just dropped this rather excellent dark, elastic, gloriously one-dimensional album in the no box, and now it is mine - MINE. Oh yes. For this reason it’s record of the day, although I doubt it’ll be record of the day tomorrow.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Friday, October 8th, 2004
(3 Comments)

Felt rotten tonight so didn’t go see Ultralyd at the Engine Rooms. Stayed in and watched Sonny And Cher’s Comedy Hour instead. It’s surreally funny in a Vic And Bob/Kingpin way. Do you think I might be sickening for something?

Posted by Everett True on Thursday, October 7th, 2004
(No Comments)

THE DRONES CLUB

A third night of jollity will convene on 7th October 2004, once more at
The Eye, 79-81 Stoke Newington High Street, London, N16, from 8pm until
late. £3 on the door.

The line up will be:

Stëllämärïsdröënörchëßträ
Disinformation vs Stella Maris Drone Orchestra
Mr. Fireman
Al The Megaphone Poet vs Seth Ayyaz

along with Kosmische/ResonanceFM DJs Mink Pelican, Tango-Mango and Barry
K (http://www.dacianos.com)

Details and flyer at www.freq.org.uk

I can think of no way better to relax and readjust than turning the dial on a vintage oscillator very very slowly…so that is what I’m doing…as part of Disinformation vs the Drone Orchestra. Seeing as the drone orchestra has guitars and we have only laboratory equipment, I think it’s fair to say we will win.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Thursday, October 7th, 2004
(2 Comments)

Few thoughts that occur to me while listening to this:

1) Aberfeldy? Fuck, man. They so don’t fit in. This is the Rough Trade ‘indiepop’ equivalent of a chart star chucking on their latest two recorded songs at the end of a ‘Greatest Hits’, and it stinks of cynicism. This new Rough Trade signing isn’t even vaguely worthy of keeping the same company as June Brides, Marine Girls, TVPs, Field Mice, et al… For a start, they’re alt.country - ie: Uncut territory, ‘grown up’ (listen to the slick production) - and thereby complete anathema to the spirited, shambolic aesthetic present here.

2) Don’t Lush sound precisely like the halfway point between Heavenly and Pixies, 15 years on?

3) No McTells? What’s the matter? Not trendy enough?

4) Pop Will Eat Itself? I should fucking coco.

5) Any compilation of this sort - trying to recapture the sound and feel of a long-departed ’scene’ - is going to be partisan, compiled with a hidden agenda of setting right often imagined wrongs. Sean’s done a damn fine job mostly, and so what if I don’t agree with his sometimes surprising omissions (no Wolfhounds? For shame!) and inclusions (Dressy Bessy? Really?). I would’ve been far more fucking partisan than this. There again, I have exquisite taste. So, cheers Sean, cos no one else bothered, and the sleeve notes are great…except, except, except…you miss out my fine Heavenly (the band, duh) tribute to include a rather nauseating paragraph about how you used to lust after Amelia’s ankle socks. Ugh. You alone, mate. I was too busy dancing to worry about sexual desire.

So, here’s what wasn’t used from my contributions - the rest of you, go out and buy the damn thing cos it’s wonderful….

THE FIZZBOMBS: Sign On The Line (track not included)
Edinburgh was the Detroit, the Seattle, of its day. Everyone played in each other’s bands, everyone scoured the same second-hand record bins and everyone kipped on each other’s floors. On their debut single, The Fizzbombs boasted an ex-Shop Assistant, two Desperadoes and a sister of an Altered Image – the photocopied press release claimed them to be “the fuzziest band in Scotland”. Few should have been able to resist their rudimentary pop charm…but many did. Obviously. (The Legend!)

HEAVENLY: Shallow
Amelia Fletcher sung at my wedding. Her voice was low and sultry, like she was singing in some smoky nightclub dressed in a low-cut top. It was almost indecent the way she sounded so lascivious, drawing out the vowels during ‘Love Is A Song’, mouth wide and smiling. It was singularly appropriate, though – both my wife and I adored Amelia’s first two pop bands, Talulah Gosh and Heavenly (and also their brother band, Razorcuts), even though we didn’t even know each other then. My wife sang in a band inspired by this music, called The Snowbirds. They had a sad end, too. This is pure wonderment. (The Legend!)

TIGER TRAP: Words And Smiles (track not included)
My wife doesn’t understand my fascination with Olympia, WA. She thinks it’s an “ugly, half-finished dump of a town”. Ah, but she still hasn’t discovered the secret magic. (The Legend!)

Cheers, Sean. I only criticise because I care.

Posted by Everett True on Wednesday, October 6th, 2004
(3 Comments)

nice site.
a

Posted by Andrew Clare on Wednesday, October 6th, 2004
(No Comments)

Hello Frances,

Here are some answers to your questions.

First many people report that their sense of absolute pitch declines with age. We have found this to be true. After the age of 45 the answers to our acoustic test are often a semi-tone off and usually in the sharp direction. The reason for this is unclear but it probably has something to do with anatomical changes in the auditory system with age. There are important structures in the inner ear that are changed. You are one of a small group, with absolute pitch, that report they play in a rock band. Possibly the sound level could speed up this process. It is well known that loud sounds do contribute to hearing loss and possibly other auditory defects may occur.

I love rock ‘n’ roll. It has given me years of pleasure, and the ears of a 45 year old.

Although it’s been a while now since I played in a loud band, and while I feel sad sometimes not to be up there flinching happily next to the drum kit like I used to, there’s a clarity in my ear canals I probably haven’t had since the age of 13 or something (year zero: before I started going to gigs). The move to solo artist/ drone duo stuff wasn’t just the last gasp of a late-20s egomaniac desperate to have her own project, then. It was for the good of my auditory health.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Tuesday, October 5th, 2004
(5 Comments)

To understand why Grace loves the Destroyer album I must listen to it again. She wrote me a beautiful description of why she loved it, and yet I can’t listen to it now because I am mainlining Morton Feldman and this is a necessary act.

Last night someone was saying music was all about balance, as I sat there ever more sideways and off-point. Now this music is beyond balance. Every edge is blurred as soon as it comes into view, and every point of light drifting into darkness just as you got used to it. Comes from a place without gravity; no balance required.

Posted by Frances May Morgan on Sunday, October 3rd, 2004
(3 Comments)