Category Archives: Live Music

2M2Y – the last 5.30 show

The era of the half past five show has ended, but a new one is about to begin; namely that of the 6.30 show.

Next Week (3rd of March) we are launching with an exciting interview with Beach House (which we are sharing with Albert Freeman’s Eclectic Mainline). And the week after we have one all to ourselves with Chris Keating from Yeasayer.

But before all that, in the last show at our current time we had a typical selection of new tunes from the likes of Strange Boys and Hot Chip.

Singing the News was about The President of America (Barack Obama) meeting an exiled Tibetan spiritual leader (the Dalai Lama).

And KC reviewed precious unfavourably.

So Yeah, See you at half six next Wednesday!

Chew Lips

Everyone’s talking about them, and their album is about to make a significant dent in the charts. And on Thursday 2/3 of the tmty team went to see this sarf lahndan trio. And were they good? Abso-blooming-lutely. Compared to the venues they’ll be playing soon The Nation of Shopkeepers will seem like a bit of a shoebox. But the simple, pulsating beats and the individual vocals of Tigs (that is her name, honest) are at home here as much as they will be when they play the NME awards show in february.

Now is the time to get on to their bandwagon!

Spiritualized – Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

I look back on (or listen back to?) 1997 rather fondly.  In no particular order, the following artists released memorable albums in 1997: Elliott Smith, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Blur, Mogwai, Radiohead, Tindersticks, Super Furry Animals, Robert Wyatt, Cornershop, Teenage Fanclub, Primal Scream, The Verve and Spiritualized.  Top of my list though is Spiritualized‘s Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space.  Now, 12 years on, the album has been remastered and expanded.  This is the first occasion I can think of where an album has been given a makeover when I already thought it sounded as good as an album ever could.  So, unlike this year’s Big Star, The Stone  Roses, Neil Young and The Beatles remasters, the appeal here wasn’t for a better sound, but the inclusion of the rare original version of the title track, and a host of studio outtakes (on the two new expanded versions of the album)….and of course, an excuse to write about the album!

Ladies and Gentlemen pill pack re-issue

Ladies and Gentlemen... pill pack re-issue

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I have Battles in my life. And Flying Lotus. And Nice Nice

Flying Lotus - apologies for not having my proper camera with me

Flying Lotus - apologies for not having my proper camera with me

Monday was another of this years Warped days.  The albums I’d listened to during the day comprised of two by Aphex Twin (twice each) and one by Squarepusher.  Then I went over to Manchester to a sold out Warp Records triple-decker at the Academy 2 – Battles / Flying Lotus / Nice Nice.  I was right down at the front from the start, so got a perfect view of all the on-stage trickery employed to produce the amazing sounds of the night.  At first I regretted not having my camera, as I could have got some great close ups, but by the end of the night I was very glad I didn’t have it.

Nice Nice are a duo who create live loops using all manner of instruments and gadgets.  One of their songs broke down, but in a way that was one of the best points in their set, showing as it did that all they were doing was live.  One of the most interesting tricks they employed was shouting into the guitar pickups through a megaphone.

I wasn’t too sure what to make of Flying Lotus at first. He seemed a little too keen to make sure we all noticed he was swigging vodka straight from the bottle.  And seeing as how the tools of his trade were fewer than those of Nice Nice – a laptop and a couple of control surfaces – there wasn’t much more visually to focus on. However, the big grin on his face, as he clearly enjoys what he does, and the strength of his music, more than compensated for his drinking antics.  The horripilating bass and ethereal vocal samples gel brilliantly with sometimes frenetic, and sometimes lilting beats.  I was not the only person who had been won over, and the crowd were loving it.  I can’t remember the last time I saw a support act summoned back on stage for an encore, but Flying Lotus and his grin were brought back on for more.

I’d seen Battles before, at the ATP Festival in 2008, so I already knew I was in for a treat.  But being right at the front meant I got a better look at how they worked together.  The drummer would occasionally leave his stage-front position to adjust the controls on one of the guitar amps, or to even change the jack lead into it.  As with Nice Nice, much of their set was built upon live loops, and they’ve clearly worked very hard and are really in sync with one another.  Their set closer, Atlas, not surprisingly caused a bit of a mêlée down the front, and I’ve not been in a moshpit like that for nearly 20 years!  My camera might have suffered some damage had it been with me, so by this point I was glad I’d left it in Bradford.  The trailing leg of a stage diver caught my head though, relieving me of an earplug, so I retreated to a safer position at the back of the room for the encore.  This was a new song that will feature on the next album, and it bodes well.

Monday wasn’t my first Warp-dominated day this year – the Warp20 day I spent in Sheffield, or the day I bought the Warp20 Box Set being two others of note.  But it’s nicely nicely rounded off a year when being a fan of Warp almost became fanaticism!

3 days: 3 gigs; 1 session

DAY 1 – GRIZZLY BEAR & ST VINCENT @ LEEDS MET STUDENTS UNION

St Vincent at Leeds Met

St Vincent at Leeds Met Students Union

Drowned in Sound absolutely adore St Vincent, and having seen a clip of her in soundcheck on said website a few weeks ago I was intrigued to learn that her support slot on the Grizzly Bear tour was solo. Apart from supplementary guitar on one song by Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen, it was just Annie Clark, a looping pedal, and some sequenced backing. I must say I was surprised by how diverse she could be within those limitations. As Sam commented to me after The Strangers, she somehow managed to go seamlessly from 40s jazz guitar to an onslaught reminiscent of Joe Satriani in just 30 seconds. Songs such as Save Me From What I Want worked really well with her looping backing vocals along with herself, and during the more frenetic passages of Marrow she had the appearance of a manikin suffering a seizure. Her cover of The Beatles’ Dig A Pony was a pleasant surprise too. I was very impressed, and would like to know how these songs come across with a full band.

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Selection Box Show 110 – Kate Walsh interview special

As previewed in my last blog entry, this week’s show featured an interview with the frankly lovely Kate Walsh, recorded a few hours prior to her show at the Brudenell Social Club in That There Fancy Leeds.

The scarf isn't hiding lovebites, y'know.

The scarf isn't hiding lovebites, y'know.

Walsh’s current album Light & Dark – which I reviewed here – is the follow-up to the iTunes # 1 album Tim’s House (although a disgracefully low 75 in the proper charts), released in 2007.  Since that time she’s flirted with a major label who obviously sniffed a star in the making, only for her to decide that this was not the way she wanted to take her work forward, preferring to release on her own label Blueberry Pie.

It’s probably a wise move, as its tempting to think that the pressures from the suits in the corporate boardroom would try to push Kate Walsh into swooning songbird frippery which is not her idiom.  To steal a phrase from my own previous blog entry, the strength of Walsh’s alarmingly candid and beautifully stark songwriting is that she realises that true art lies in reigning in the excesses of the emotional.

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Live in session on Bradford Beat

Ben and Steve (formerly of The Turn) are live in the studio this week on Bradford Beat.

They are playing two session tracks and chatting about their new band project together – which still doesn’t even have a name!

This week’s show (Thurs 8pm – 9pm and repeated Sun 7pm – 8pm) also features tracks by the likes of Flowered Up, Falconetti, The Only Ones and Roger Davies.

Selection Box Playlists & Kate Walsh preview

Before this gets too involved, I’d best catch up on myself and give you the playlist from the last two editions of the show.  So here tis.  They are.  Them’s these.

Selection Box Show 108

Transmitted 12/10/09

1.  Billie Holiday – Them There Eyes
from: The Collection

2.  Nouvelle Vague featuring Ian McCullough – All My Colours
from: 3

3.  Dirty Projectors – Cannibal Resource
from: Temecula Sunrise EP

4.  The Big Bopper – Little Red Riding Hood
from: The Best of The Big Bopper

5.  Grandaddy – He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s The Pilot
from: The Sophtware Slump

6.  Zé Cafofinho e Suas Correntes – Meio de Transporte
from: The Rough Guide To Brazilian Street Party (various artists)

7.  Kenny Rogers & The First Edition – Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)
from: The Best of Kenny Rogers & The First Edition

Utterly splendid compilation of axe backed babes Girls With Guitars

Utterly splendid compilation of "axe backed babes" Girls With Guitars

8.  Bob Dylan – If You Ever Go To Houston
from: Together Through Life

9.  The Beat Club – Security (Midnight Club Mix)
from: The Hacienda Classics (various artists)

10.  Tomboys – I’d Rather Switch
from: Girls With Guitars (various artists)

11.  Richard Hawley – For Your Lover Give Some Time
from: Truelove’s Gutter

12.  Devendra Banhart – Baby
from: What Will We Be

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Half Man Half Biscuit – Leeds University – Stylus – 15th October 2009

If you bumped in to British radio stalwart Andy Kershaw and asked him about Half Man Half Biscuit, he’d tell you that they are “our greatest folk band”

While this is probably a reference to the way in which Nigel Blackwell’s lyrics concern themselves with the minutiae of everyday life, the thought of a 24th Century version of Cecil Sharp House staffed with legions of reverent, bearded men in tweed jackets, brows furrowed in concentration, trying to divine the historical significance of lines like “There’s a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets” (from “National Shite Day “) or “Neil Morrisey’s a nobhead” (from “Bottleneck at Capel Curig”) is a warming one.

Half Man Half Biscuit at Leeds Stylus

Half Man Half Biscuit at Leeds Stylus

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Selection Box 5/10/09: Speech Debelle interview special

I’ve found of late that I have reached the age where I am simultaneously envious and sneering of young people just entering adulthood.  I recognise that this is something of a tragic and predictable state of affairs for someone starting to leave the realms of “young” and hurtling with a winced resignation towards the slapheaded middle age that will be my lot by the time the next Olympics come around.  I swear I blinked when I was 19 and suddenly 13 years had passed me by.

Thankfully the what-the-hell-does-he-think-he-looks-like fuddy-duddisms and the you-know-nothing-you-fools grumpy grotty gripes were less in evidence when I took a trip up to Leeds University last week to meet Speech Debelle before she performed her headline gig at the Mine venue of the aforementioned learning establishment’s Student Union.  There was, I’ll confess, an overriding sense of jealousy, however.  Fresh-faced Freshers with their entire University life ahead of them – a life of late nights, debautched frivolity and loose sexual morals.  Even if I wasn’t happily married I just simply wouldn’t have the energy to keep up any more.  I guess I’ll have the last laugh when they’re all riddled with the clap.

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