And Also The Trees @ The Cross, Birmingham

Haunting, and the haunted

22/03/14

I traveled as far as Birmingham to see AATT...Well, not from that far, only London.
I had sadly missed their recent show there, last month. There was just no missing it again.


Maybe it was the evocative sounds, the passion, the absolute giving to the music - their commitment, as a whole, as I remembered it, that made this gig really unmissable. But the answer to all that was to come soon, and with great conviction.


The third time I saw them live, after a long absence from Birmingham (theirs and mine), was the most complete of them all. On the one hand the intimate space, upstairs at The Loft, letting the band's heat spread infectiously outwards, on the other an impeccable songbook spreading three odd decades, and captured to its core. One thing was certain: They left me--and a few others, it seemed--hooked.

The melancholy Hunter Not The Hunted transported the mind way out of those Moseley loft walls. Missing escorted it further with an air of obscure possibility. He Walked Through the Dew was an intimate cry. Slow Pulse Boy made your body quiver and Dialogue simply tore you apart: The whole, a power so therapeutic, it could deconstruct and reconstruct your soul in one fleeting night.

I could hardly steal a moment to turn my camera into video mode (hence a collection of really short videos), or turn my eyes away for long altogether - transfixed and, for the most part, devotedly fixed on Justin Jones' guitar.

There was just no equal... From a Spanish lament to other familiar, ever haunting mandolin territory, that guitar fiddled with unknown, up to that moment, sides of your psyche and a vision that enveloped and swallowed you whole.

Simon Huw Jones, typically,  was a true force behind the microphone: An underground, tortured duke in full possession of us all. The bass more than once jazzed the melody up, the drums, where needed, kept the momentum going and Emer Brizzolara's collection of instruments deftly and definitively gave body to the sound.

I lost myself in the music and I lost myself altogether. But I'll never lose sight again of what it means to come face-to-face with that band.

I'll jump back to Birmingham if I have to - on one freaking foot.
   

Text and photography by Danai Molocha.

Apocalyptic visions: From Classic Rock to vinyl-doc

Today will undoubtedly go down as a day of rock apocalypse in my book.

It started early this morning, with a private viewing of Last Shop Standing - The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of the Independent Record Shop, based on the eponymous book by Graham Jones (upcoming London screening 20/02 at the Strongroom, Shoreditch - more screenings here).
With help from the likes of Paul Weller, Johnny Marr, Billy Bragg and a couple of dozen UK record shop key characters (from London's Rough Trade East to Cardiff's Spillers Records and Bristol's Rise), Jones discusses sneaky deals behind the charts, the rise and fall of different formats and, most important of all, why the friendly, uber-knowledgeable person behind the counter will never be digitally simulated. A bit happy, a bit sad and utterly insightful, Last Shop Standing makes for a thought-provoking, music-loving 50 minutes. Forever vinyl!

http://wordlesstech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Vinyl-Pop-Art-1.jpg

One thing led to another and the day continued with my immersion in Classic Rock's article Rock in Crisis: Is Rock Dying?, published last January by Scott Rowley, a lengthy analysis covering, predictably, from the gradual fall of record sales to recycling metal festival headliners, and peppered with impending doom videos like The Doors The End. Among the most interesting points to which the article draws attention, the fact that "...these days we’re in The Age Of More Of The Same, with the websites you visit storing info on your tastes and encouraging you to have, well, some more of the same. ‘People who bought this product also bought…’ ‘If you like that, you’ll like this…’ ‘You’ve been listening to so-and-so lately, why not try this…?’ The result: consumer-driven stasis". Spot on.


 The verdict? No matter how you put it - in writing, sight or sound, it's a long and heated discussion that one, with dubious results on either end. Is vinyl, or rock itself as an entity dying, or is there still light at the end of the tunnel, as both of the above doc and feature article seem to point at? Take a look for yourself and have a careful think, with The Who and Dirty Beaches playing tunes in between...

Bluewave on the rocks

So, here we are, in the dead of winter in the North hemisphere, yearning for Mr. Jaar's sexy bluewave that will drop us back on that beach, with the ice drinks, lazy makeshift beds and "linen curtains flowing high over the white sand", as a friend eloquently put it.
With a truckload of darkwave shindigs to attend by the end of May - from Current 93 (8/2) to Sex Gang Children (24/5) via a solo Michael Gira (12/3), I wouldn't mind a few shy rays of sun, awash with Mr Jaar's mesmerising low beats.

But low beats takes him also to places of magnificent contemporary beauty - and they are introvert, far away from that sandy beach, in that rainy leafy park. But you have to let go..

..As for those trapped behind the urban walls, there's always some virtual hanging at Matthew Herbert's Cafe de Flore.

Blue is the warmest colour...

My new psychedelic Mockasin(s)

Kiwi psychedelo-pop gentleman Connan Mockasin will soon grace Londoners with smooth sounds from his latest release Caramel, hopefully along some quirky old ones - check out just a couple here.

 The rendez-vous is this Tuesday 28/1 at the    Shepherd's Bush Empire.  

The Batcave, 1983

I've just come across this "...short piece from Reporting London, by London Weekend Television", according to this video's Youtube host, about Soho's legendary Batcave club. Hardly new stuff, but surely thrilling, from a time when London was leading Goth avant garde, against High Street mass fashions and mainstream trends.