Odds, sods and dogs. Some new tuneage.

Haven't been to a gig for a wee while, so little to report on the live front. However, I'm seeing the mighty, frightening, ridiculous, horrid, amazing, nauseating, sublime, ridiculous and incomparable Dillinger Escape Plan on Friday (did I mention ridiculous?); so if I'm still alive after being dipped into their Dantéan cauldron, then I'll try and scribe something.


In the meantime, I thought I'd just put a wee collection of some varied stuff on board the good ship Bwoooar. Some brilliant, some middling, some, well, just interesting. 


Let's start with the brilliant I've seen the Butcher from Deftone's latest long player. Get a load of this:




Next up, the new one from The Shikari machine from St Albans City. Still not too sure after their stunning debut three or four years back, but this one seems to be getting them back closer to where they should be. I think. Well, maybe...see what you think...





Next up is a live performance from the terrific Aussie boys Karnivool. This was from their support set for Skindred last year and I like it. So there. Seeing them at Le Scala in December - should be great.



In the words of David Coverdale (without the swears), here's a song for you. The official promo for collapsing Cities off Sam's latest long player. Not the best track on the LP, but catchy, hummable and very good live..



Fresh from their support slot with Mr Duckworth, here are the brilliant Xcerts with the catchy, lively and infectious Young (Belane) of their fabulous recent album. 




And finally, here's something a bit different, the original, mixed up vibes of Tiger Please. A terrific UK band with a podgy Welsh singer and some big tuneage. Deserve to be big. Enjoy.



That's it for the mo. Still loving Proceed more than anything though.


Oh, and check out io at http://www.weareio.co.uk/ for some pretty stunning post rock ambience and nurdling. Their new album MATERIOPTIKON is well worth a listen.


Oh go on then, here's a vid:







More tunes soon. Bwoooar!

Geoff Capes, Wears Cakes and Pies

Sam Bam Thank you Ma'am.


Get Cape Wear Cape Fly *****
+Justin Sane*****
+The Xcerts *****
+Tellison *****


Electric Ballroom, Camden 13/10/10

Tidy venue. Tidyish crowd. All looked promising. The drinks started to flow. Atmosphere, well, never really got anywhere near warm. All a bit odd.


Odder still was the first act on. The oh so amusingly named Justin Sane of Anti-Flag 'fame'.


Now I'm sure Mr Sane is nice to his mum. We know he's nice to animals (a staunch animal rights radical veggie and all round good well meaning egg). But, to be honest he was, well, poo! Very poo.


The sort of stuttering, poorly crafted and terribly played, over-earnest bedroom bollocks that a drunken student called Nigel would hockle-up round your mates flat after a couple of litres of Gaymers and a jazz woodbine before he was told to 'give it a rest now Nige, we fancy listening to some Gotan Project'. Wanker.


Seriously, he was terrible. No tunes, no hooks, no ability on the guitar. Weak and characterless voice. Sheesh.

Things could only get better. And my God they did. Next up (and surprisingly low down the bill - due to them actually doing another gig later that night over 100 miles away in Canterbury) was the totally superb slackerpop trio The Xcerts. Tight, tuneful, loud, lovely, brash, beautiful, brilliant.

I've now seen these guys on about half a dozen occasions and they go from strength to strength. 


An understandably but sadly short set threw in new stuff from the bonkers and brilliantly bewildering Scatterbrain long player with older favourites. All performed with maximum effort and energy and no shortage of technical skill. Frontman Murray MacLeod totally rules the stage (and in the last number, the floor of the venue in a scene redolent of Fightclub but with a Fender Telecaster not fists). His boyish frame and floppy mop coupled with a good ol' boys lumberjack shirt evoke memories of a young Cobain. But with guitar playing ability thrown-in.


Can't wait to see them on a major headline tour. I urge everyone to see them. Spellbinding and special.

Not so much so of the next lot up. Tellison. Never heard them. Or even heard of them. But was mildly amused and entertained. All a bit poppy and frothy but pleasant enough. 


Imagine Fall out Boy, McFly, Funeral for a Friend and Youmeatsix all thrown into a Braun Multipraktik and whizzed into a moussey-like foam. You get the picture. 


Saying that, the gals in the crowd seem to enjoy them. And they seemed like nice enough lads.


So, what would our Sam dole up?



Well, a full band for starters. Mike G on the cornet (but no other horns), the bloke who looks uncannily like Nasser Hussain on bass, a real drummer, a keyboard player and, well, another guitarist. And no visible laptop. Real instruments. Real music. And really good.


Big energy, big sound, big smiles, big hair, big tunes and big ooh ooh singalong bits. Everything we've come to expect from Monsieur Duckworth. And some. 


A rollicking set packed with new takes on old faves (Oak Tree, i Spy, Get Cape, Glass Houses, Call Me Ishmael) and a couple from album no 2, spiced up with three or four from the new eponymous offering. 


Sam was his normal endearing, charming and at times gauche and unconfident self, mixing estuarine tinged banter and quips with a passionate chest-beating anti homophobia/racist/BNP/EDL diatribe intro to Glass Houses.


He also had technical gremlins trying to wedgie him throughout. The sound wasn't great all the way through (but thankfully didn't spoil the enjoyment too much); and to cap it all,  his trusty acoustic melted down and he had to play his 'chilled and melancholy' section on a Telecaster. Which, surprisingly sounded great, albeit dragging Sam inevitably and inexorably closer and closer to his metamorphosis into his hero Mr Bragg.


A Daft Punk cover then lit up the place and got more than a few tired feet a-tapping and challenged by some on the spot tuning difficulties, Sam remained upbeat, entertaining and enthralling.


The crowd, for their part was boisterous and appreciative throughout rather than adoring and passionate (and not particularly huge, bewilderingly),joining in where they needed to, OOOOhing diligently and throwing cheeky banter towards the wee man between tunes.


Despite whimpering out with no encore, no War of The Worlds or Chronicles it was a great performance leaving many fat smiles plastered over the crowd as they headed for the tube or kebab shop. Tasty.


Bwoooar!

I should Koko

Wow. Just wow. 

***** 

Oceansize came, we saw, they certainly conquered. 

A hungry and packed crowd tuck into a delicious and well received appetiser from the fabulous This Town Needs Guns (thanks to a monsoon in Londinium and ensuing traffic nightmares, I sadly missed the first support from the normally spellbinding yndi halda).

They are ridiculously good. Technically good. And some.The multi-tap,slide, air-tap sorcery of the guitar leaves ones jaw well and truly dropped. Ok, it could get a little repetitive, but in this cogent and economic set, it just leaves you wiping your eyes in disbelief like a cartoon drunk with a brown bag o' booze having just seen a giant mouse in boxing gloves.

The sound wasn't the best however, shy of top end on the vocal, sections of songs sounded a bit muddy; but, thankfully it really didn't affect the overall output. This lot should be going places. Thoroughly enjoyable, energetic but self-effacing and terribly polite. And loved by the enthusiastic and appreciative crowd who looked like the assembled creative departments of all of Shoreditch's web design or games developers on a mass evening out.

A worrying thought fizzed into my Jagermaester-addled noggin box though; weren't they a bit similar to Oceansize? Would we notice the difference (trade-mark guitar noodling style notwithstanding)?

There was no need to worry. None at all.

Mike and the boys kicked off with gut-grabbing and brain scrambling bombast. The monster opening riff of Part Cardiac rocked the Koko to the core. Beautifully played with enough deviation not to be a slavish, dot-for-dot rendition of the studio album version. This is real, raw and brilliant music. Heavy? At times. Intricate? You bet. Emotional? Infinitely. The set gathers pace, passion and involvement from the attendant Shoreditch battalions. Old favourites are liberally mixed with new tunes from the excellent Self Preserved As The Bodies Float Up (must be the best album of 2010).

The beautiful Music For A Nurse brings the house down. It's spine-tingling harmonic opening is met with tears and cheers. Sublime.

The set is beautifully constructed and cleverly contrived to muss with just about every internal organ, body part and section of the brain. By clever shifts of complex time signatures, technical brilliance, soul and raw energy, this lot push their crafty hands inside you, pull, push, squeeze and stir up all the gooey bits and occasionally  pull out their fists to deliver mighty blows. You're left feeling sick, hurt, soothed, seduced, bullied and generally fucked around with. And I absolutely love it.

After Ornament/The Last Wrongs fades ethereally into the moist humidity of this fey and beautiful venue Mike Vennart wanders back on. Noodles with his tuning a bit and the lads launch into a 10 minute version of the haunting and spectacularly beautiful Women Who Love Men Who Love Drugs from the excellent Effloresce long player. The crowd melt yet again and as we finally file out into the dank and shiny London air the final refreain is being whistled and hummed by all and sundry.

Genius. Just genius.

Talking of which, here's a bit of fun, Proceed's cover of a Kelly Clarkson tune great fun....

More tunes soon. Bwoooar.