NME Awards Tour - Glasvegas, Friendly Fires, White Lies, Florence and the Machine

I haven’t been to any of these 80s revival package tours, where they have hen parties and David Van Day and possibly other cool 80s stuff like remote-control cars and Saint and Greavsie. But this NME gig provided a general sense of it, albeit with shitter tunes, less alcoholic sports presenters, and a toilet venue (RIP the C***ing Academy, long live the O2 Academy).

Florence and the Machine are like bands that journalists compare to Kate Bush, with a leavening dose of Kate Nash. Florence – for ‘tis her – does lots of toothy head-girl yelling, and really is quite enthusiastic. There’s lots of dressing up involved, but none of the intimacy that this kooky-lady template seems to be based upon. The effect is less Kate Bush and more T’Pau, except that T’Pau were completely awesome.

T’Pau – ‘China In Your Hand’


White Lies are preposterously serious, like an entry-level Interpol with occasionally operatic vocals copped from Bruce Dickinson by way of emo. The lyrics don’t bear scrutiny, but at least with keyboards you’re guaranteed a couple of tunes, and the Lies deliver, tolerably. The effect is less OMD and more Ultravox, except that Ultravox were completely awesome.

Ultravox – ‘Vienna’


Friendly Fires skew this 80s revival thing a bit by sounding like one of those grim dance-punk bands from the early 00s, like the Rapture or Radio 4 or what-have-you. At a push, they’re like the Happy Mondays, except with a plummy voice nonentity instead of a lardy Mancunian drug-hoover as a frontman, and with no knack for dub or funk or house. So, then, less like the Mondays and more like one of the bands Factory signed after the Mondays made it big, I guess. Incidentally, Happy Mondays were completely awesome.

Happy Mondays – ‘Kinky Afro’


Glasvegas are supposed to be the Jesus & Mary Chain crossed with the Proclaimers, but they have nothing to do with the economy and wit of either. Tonight it’s all chest-beating and yearning howls, which is to say, more like Simple Minds. I can’t vouch for whether Simple Minds were completely awesome: I suppose not, but given the logic of this review, maybe I’ll have to revise that opinion.

Glasvegas play throbbingly loud, which suggests they caught a My Bloody Valentine concert last summer. Occasionally this works, as on aggressive terrace shouters like ‘Go Square Go’ and Tonight-with-Trevor-MacDonald-style emotive sucker-punches like ‘Daddy’s Gone’ and ‘Flowers and Football Tops’. The rest of the time, it only unbalances their odd combination of yelling, girl-groups, Elvis, RAT-pedals, and late-90s Manics.

To be fair, all these NME package tours are a shower. As far as they go, this one wasn’t bad. I hope they all become big and famous, like the Coldplay or the Killers, and don’t disappear without trace, like the Llama Farmers or Alfie: that way, I’ll end up feeling pretty ‘with it’, as far as that goes.

my bloody valentine, ringtone rap and samuel beckett

plug one, plug two. plug one ...

for the un-initiate, my bloody valentine's reputation as the loudest, laziest and most lauded of all-time arty-album auteurs precedes them. hence their reunion, an expensive five-night residency at camden's mighty attractive roundhouse (which is hosting el hijo del santo and his fellow luchadores this week - great work).

mbv seized the crown of most-pretentiously-reviewed-2008-indie-comeback even before yours wordily went to see them. beaten to the 'punch', GMS will attempt to steer clear of pseud's corner in reviewing the final night at the roundhouse. i'll stick to facts, conjecture and nonsense.

• loud: mbv are louder than dinosaur jr and godspeed, but not as loud as atari teenage riot or machinehead. there.
  

• baggy dancing: fair play to the bez-style flailing-limbs pill-head dance-numpties, valiantly 'losing it' to walls of art-noise. they brought a note of levity and old-school 24-hour-party-people attitude to a crowd that was otherwise so intent on appreciating serious art as to stand still through a whole set by spectrum, a post-rock band so dull that even atp haven't booked them. i think.
  

• oo-wee-oo: for all their love of texture, counter-intuitive arrangements and a-rhythmic lurches, mbv gets the best response from the whale-song-guitar bits from loveless that go 'oo-wee-oo-wee-oo'. simple stuff. does this make mbv the ringtone rappers of the early-nineties shoegazing set?

• you made me realise: as everyone's sure to mention, mbv like to close their set with 'you made me realise', a disorienting, aggressive three-minute pop song with a twenty-minute interlude of unimpeded noise. it's hard to avoid pretension in attempting a serious description of something so pompous, wilful and silly. it's like watching an entire simpsons episode; except, instead of the simpsons, white noise. the nose rattles. breathing takes concentration. boredom and curiosity mingle, to no result. attention turns to the crowd, who are either uncomfortable, confused, angry or delirious. on reflection, it's a lot more like a beckett play than the simpsons. i'm not sure which tells you more about the human condition, though. i'll leave you with sam.

trub: what was that noise?
[pause of several years]
kevin shields out of my bloody valentine: um
[noise level increases]
trub: thenoisethenoiseidontknowwhyitsgoodtheguardiansaysitsgooditisprettydamngoodihavetoadmit
bilinda butcher out of my bloody valentine: la
[pause of several years]
[the noise level increases]
[mp3: my bloody valentine - 'feed me with your kiss' (peel session, 1988)]
trub: what was that noise?
[pause of several years]
kevin shields out of my bloody valentine: um
[noise level increases]
trub: thenoisethenoiseidontknowwhyitsgoodpitchforksaysitsgooditisprettydamngoodihavetoadmit
bilinda butcher out of my bloody valentine: la
[pause of several years]
[the noise level increases]
[mp3: my bloody valentine - 'you made me realise' (studio version, 1988)]
trub: what was that noise?
[pause of several years]
kevin shields out of my bloody valentine: um
[noise level increases]
trub: thenoisethenoiseidontknowwhyitsdrownedinsoundsaysitsgooditisprettydamngoodihavetoadmit
bilinda butcher out of my bloody valentine: la
[pause of several years]
[the noise level increases]
[mp3: my bloody valentine - 'you made me realise' (live in vancouver, 1992)]
[fin]

All Tomorrow's Parties - Exposions In The Sky - Day Two

following on from day one, it's day two.
more bullet points, it seems to work:

• flaming lips became amazing when steven drozd joined, and went duff when he got hooked on smack. they're not playing, but i did watch a 3 1/2 hour documentary that drove this point home, in gratuitous detail. but he's clean now, so maybe they'll start having ideas again. wayne coyne is nice.

• shitty pompey

• saul williams thinks he's the one, a rap-rock messiah from the planet, erm, 'space'. but his delivery is less bowie, more bono meets bogshed. question: why do imaginative rappers always make turgid rock? granted, i only have saul williams and mos def for evidence (no body count), but this combo of feather-headed industrial punk has little to recommend it, beyond an adrenaline-high stage entrance. plus, didn't alec empire already do this successfully with carl crack?

• saul williams could learn a thing or two about how shit goes down in the live hip-hop arena from the break-out star of the weekend, shawn wiggs. rap-idly cementing his position as the white version of tony yayo, wiggs holds things down, especially from the point of view of swinging his arms about and walking with a stoop. his bodyguard/weed-carrier ghostface killah (who moonlights in the 'wu-tang clan') carries most of the vocals, allowing wiggs to do what he does best. ghostface seems to appreciate his end of the deal, too. see more here.
  

• i didn't catch much of okkervil river, but they sounded punkier than i'd imagined, and well worth investigating. they were dressed like amish people.
  

• iron and wine's feverish folk jams would work perfectly at an outdoor festival, or in the more claustrophobic confines of an intimate club gig, but doesn't quite sustain momentum here. the fault is partly with the venue: playing next to burger king their hazy sound is apt to drift without momentum. but the fault is also sam beam's: expanding from his hushed one-man-show was musically ambitious, and paid dividends on record, but the live show lacks a central personality to give focus to the fiddle solos.

• de la soul don't have much trouble projecting personality in front of a large band, leading the 11-odd-piece rhythm roots allstars a merry dance. in a festival of sure things and unchallenging thrills, de la score an easy victory. almost all of the near twenty-year-old three feet high and rising, and almost nothing else, save a few nods to class-of-88 fellow-travellers like eric b & rakim, gratuitous instrumental solos, shameless crowd interaction, and goofy banter. maseo and trugoy grow fat(ter) gracefully, while posdnous remains the energetic focal point. likely to be back in 2028.

• de la's lengthy sound-check allowed for a brief poke in at animal collective. i still don't understand what's going on, but i'm sure something is. loud squelches and screaming, of course.

• i'm all for the national, who were like tindersticks but with moving parts. everyone else enjoyed them too, which is superb. i love it.

• adem was on the saturday, too. he was in fridge, alongside four tet, whom i missed on friday, but was apparently quite good. did fridge ever release any records that anyone bought? adem played most of his new covers album, takes, a lovely, warm collection of off-kilter indie tunes from the 90s. the project seems to be conceived as a 'personal history' type of thing, and this works well live, as long as you buy into the scheme. interestingly enough, the most successful covers - yo la tengo's 'tears are in your eyes', pj harvey's 'oh my lover', low's 'laser beam' - were all oringially written by or for women. it all makes adem come across like a sensitive new-dad type. perhaps someone'll give him a column in a sunday supplement, wherein he'll reminisce about this life and detail the pitfalls of ordering your groceries from ocado. more power to the guy.

• i can't be bothered to load this post with mp3 etc, as it'll kill my computer. but there's plenty of atp on youtube, in amongst the countless clips of rafael nadal press conferences from the other atp tour.
  

Live review: Lightspeed Champion, Semifinalists, Jonquil @ Oxford C***ing Academy

here's a story about a pop concert i went to, and whether it was any good.

jonquil are from oxford, which doesn't usually bode well, but they're actually rather nice, in a sufjan-stevens-does-cheery-beulah-type-beach-boys-folk-meandering way. seven-strong, or thereabouts, the 'quil are strangers to fashion, which is endearing. their ponytail-sporting frontman occasionally sounds like late-period morrissey, which is unsettling. closing song 'lions' is a standout, featuring an accordion-and-voice breakdown that wouldn't sound out of place on the latest beirut album. this chap says they sound like grizzly bear, but i wouldn't know about that.

album review
myspace

semifinalists come on like billy corgan fronting the happy mondays, but are less oppressive than that sounds. plaid-shirted axe-shredding frontman chris steele-nicholson trades shrill vocals with freaky-dancing foil ferry gouw, while lightspeed champion's dev hynes helps out on gangly bass duties. or is he a permanent member? it all seems like a lot of fun. they may as well play the same song ten times, or not play any real songs at all - it's all a dizzy blur of goofy noise, which is fun to watch, though it bears little relations to their gentler records.

myspace
band blog

lightspeed champion last visited oxford with his abysmal, influential comedy-thrash-disco-troupe test icicles. although he doesn't apologise for that indiscretion, his performance goes a long way towards redemption. his cheery, self-deprecating manner and unchallenging, inclusive brand of indie pop make for an easy performance. it's not hard to see why he's attracted so much goodwill amongst fans, critics and fellow lo-fi musicians. backed by a full band and leaning more heavily on electric compositions than he does on record, hynes' songs combine buddy holly-style directness with melodies and lyrics that are often so artless as to verge on musical theatre.

reviews of his debut album, falling off the lavender bridge, have emphasised his debt to bright eyes, and the presence of an often-superfluous violinist adds to that impression. but hynes borrows more from weezer (including an original 'W' guitar pick, which he stops to boast about). like rivers cuomo, hynes plants introspective, self-loathing lyrics behind a sheen of brazen populism (both singers also indulge their tendencies to litter songs with sardonic hip-hop references). does he have a pinkerton in him? perhaps not. but it's hard to demand a tortured masterpiece from such a pleasant-seeming chap, what?

whole album streaming at myspace
band blog

lightspeed champion - 'galaxy of the lost'

live review - martin carthy sings songs of the wellington wars @ southampton university

long before bob dylan realised the potential of playing around with identity, arthur wellesley, 1st duke of wellington, was shape-shifting his way through seven decades of british cultural history. he was a young officer rising through the ranks in india, a military hero who "liberated europe" on the fields of waterloo, a disastrous and short-lived prime minister, an unshakeable presence at the horse guards as commander-in-chief, an irascible elder statesman holding court at apsley house on hyde park corner (aka no.1, london), a pillar of the establishment who came out of retirement to defend london against chartist protesters in 1848, and a focus for patriotic sentiment on his death in 1852. he also got his picture painted by goya (see above) and pioneered lucrative product endorsement deals, putting his name on wellington boots, beef wellington and thousands of british pubs. as the 'iron duke' he had an excellent rap nom de plume. but he is not to be confused with duke ellington, who does jazz.

southampton university runs an annual wellington lecture. this year, in acknowledgement of wellington's pop-cultural presence, the lecture was given over to a musical performance by elder statesman of british folk, martin carthy. wittily self-deprecating and humble, carthy foreswore attempts at cultural or historical analysis, instead giving centre-stage to his selection of folk songs about the experience of war, with their fleeting glimpses of the duke. the performances are faltering, given that many of the traditionals have been unearthed from folksong collections specially for the lecture, but this makes the process all the more compelling, as carthy breathes life into songs that were collected at the turn of the last century from singers old enough to remember the hungry '40s, and to have known veterans of waterloo.


billed as a solo performance, carthy receives accompaniment from wife norma waterson, and from norma's bluff, flat-cap-wearing brother mike, one of the finest living exponents of traditional yorkshire finger-in-one-ear untutored folk-singing. norma handles a couple of solo tracks, giving a female perspective, with songs about the experience of the women who followed the military baggage train across europe, and those who waited at home. carthy mixes styles, genres and subjects, throwing in a thomas hardy poem, snatches of 'whiskey in the jar' (in english and irish cadences) , and songs featuring wellington's military and naval colleagues such as nelson. the officer class, from the perspective of the common soldiers singing the songs, is all-seeing but also ignorant of the soldiers' plight, sympathetic in their apportioning of rum, yet heartless in their cruel discipline, symbols of heroic valour and patriotism, but also of cowardice, self-interest and privilege.

carthy's populism, presenting the experience of war from the wide range of perspectives that the song-book offers, is also the lecture's greatest weakness: like dylan in the current biopic, wellington remains an elusive figure, sometimes entirely absent in the selections, sometimes glimpsed fleetingly. carthy admits frustration at being unable to find any songs about the duke's indian and peninsular campaigns, and wellington's second-life as a political hate-figure receives no reference, although there is no shortage of satirical song-sheet material on this period. perhaps a reliance on traditional collections (such as vaughan williams' work in hampshire and dorset in the 1900s) means that the songs dealing in universal themes have tended to survive in the sung folk tradition, while pointed satires have followed a different trajectory, aired only in more conventional academic settings. but this is an observation more than a criticism: carthy's skill as an interpreter and performer allows the audience to dwell on the easily-ignored connections between present and past. at a time of WAR, folks!

lal waterson - 'the welcome sailor' (from the definitive watersons collection)

bonus video: martin carthy & dave swarbrick - 'byker hill'

Live review – 65daysofstatic, Asobi Seksu @ Oxford C***ing Academy

Fittingly for Guy Fawkes’ Night, both of tonight’s bands – shoegaze revivalists Asobi Seksu and math-metal post-rockers 65daysofstatic – owe something to Explosions In The Sky.

Asobi Seksu draw their influences – as every other blogger has already pointed out – from late ‘80s British indie ‘gazers like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and Lush. On record, Yuki Chikudate’s feather-light vocals blend into the band’s hazy dreampop. Live, the two components work in opposition – the airy melodies floating on top of swelling blasts of guitar noise. Their straightforward, accessible take on shoegaze recalls EITS’ version of post-rock – all instant gratification, the free noise tethered by a tight, propulsive rhythm section that owes more to power pop than to Sun Ra. They give a solid, but not stellar set: the band only shifts the template for a closing run through Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions' ‘Suzanne’, which sounds awkward, if appropriately strung out.

Asobi Seksu – ‘Stay Awake’ (from Adult Swim’s Warm And Scratchy sampler)

65daysofstatic would be entirely comfortable knocking out tunes that replicate EITS’ trademark wash-of-delay-pedals. But the addition of laptops, drum-n-bass loops, and the occasional glam metal riff signals that they’re more interested in heading towards Battles’ territory. They lack the celebratory grooves and the sense of in-the-round musicianship and that Battles create live, opting instead for well-worn rock posturing and moody laptop manipulation. Initially, they’re thrilling – like Klaxons but with the pedestrian indie replaced by bursting post-hardcore and crushing doom-metal riffs, and with the soggy dance-pop replaced by malevolent breakbeats. But as the onslaught wears on, there’s an increasing sense of dislocation between the beats and riffs, as if the band are throwing everything at the wall, seeing what sticks. With a little ironing-out, 65daysofstatic could be one of the UK’s best live bands. At the moment, they’re closer to a humourless version of the Rock Of Travolta.

65daysofstatic - 'don't go down to sorrow'

Live review - Will Haven @ Southampton Brook

GMS' down-south connect Sean Smith took a break from spike-piledriving opponents onto a concrete floor to file a report on Will Haven's latest tour. His appraisal of the local crowd also slots into our '97 mentality series as Exhibit Q.

It is a cold, crisp Sunday night with a tinge of menace, and cheap gunpowder imported from China, in the air. Maybe it was the fear of being assaulted by fireworks-brandishing chavs, or the fact that only the night before, the venue had been rocked to its very foundations by the Bon Jovi Experience (with a frontman so believable apparently even Chad Kroeger is unable tell the difference) - but something was keeping the general public away from the Brook for Will Haven's first performance in Southampton, like, evar. Which is a damn shame, as a band of their pedigree deserve more than this meagre crowd, that seems to be mostly comprised of hangers-on and pasty faced metal WAGS to the brace of piss-poor local support acts that open proceedings.



Not everyone is as ignorant as the local public, mind. "Without bands like Will Haven, we wouldn't have been able to make music like this", notes the drummer for main support The Mirimar Disaster. And thank fuck for that, as the Sheffield quartet lurch into a bold, wildly experimental set that combines post-rock soundscapes with crunching riffage and a thunderous, Mastodon-esque rhythm section. The band are currently without a vocalist, yet on this evidence it is hard to imagine them having one.



Vocals have been an issue for the headline act too, after losing founding member Grady Avenell for the second time earlier this year. A ready made replacement was at hand though in the form of long-time WHVN alumnus Jeff Jaworski, who has stepped into the fold impressively. Tonight he leads his gnats-arse tight troops through a decade of Haven classics with barely a pause for breath. Older material such as "Ego's Game" and the always well-received "I've Seen My Fate" sit well with the newer material, whilst a brutally delivered "Saga" is an undoubted highlight.

Will Haven - 'Hierophant' (live at the Troubadour 2007)

All good then if you are standing to one side, enjoying the band and trying to work out how you are going to review the fucker. But what of the Kids? Ten years ago you would not have been able to move for alpha male sports metallers slam dancing up in your face, small children in Ash t-shirts flying around like luchadores and jailbait, cider'd up goth tweens behaving histrionically at any metal gig in the locality. When you consider that Der Haven are on top form at present, with an exuberant new frontman and a superb, Chino Moreno/Shaun Lopez produced banger on the shelves, it is sad to see that about 40 nodding heads is the best show of respect we can afford them.

Live Review – Los Campesinos, You Say Party We Say Die @ Oxford C***ing Academy

Bands these days are younger than I ever was and own more records than I could have dreamed of at that age. Still, it’s what you do with them that counts. You Say Party We Say Die seem a little unsure. At their best, they’ve got a nice line in Atari Teenage Riot rar-ra pop, with a four-person vocal attack and fast, biting lines of riot grrrl noise. They do less well when trying to slow the assault down, and add a heavy groove, somewhere between Yeah Yeah Yeah’s cranky lurch-rock and CSS’ hipster aerobics. Still, they’re a likeable piece of indie cabaret, the frontwoman looking like Jennifer Beals, the bassist like Liam off of Coronation Street. And they keep the set down to 25 minutes, which is appealing.

Has it come to this?

Welsh seven-piece Los Campesinos make a breathless embrace of every indie pop sound ever into their calling card. From their fellow countrymen alone you get Helen Love-style saccharine speed-punk, Gorky’s blend of the wistful and the weird, and (as Drowned In Sound pointed out), even the ghost of Pavement-esque skronk-shouters Mo-Ho-Bi-Sho-Pi. The group’s democratic approach to vocal duties and to genre also encompasses some right-on ethics – songs about misogyny in the UK music press, organic free trade t-shirts, songs about All Tomorrow’s Parties (which they get to play, courtesy of Pitchfork), and about their touring buddies (‘You Throw Parties, We Throw Knives’). All very winning, though, like You Say Party, best delivered live, with giddy charm and brevity.

More fun:

Los Campesinos – ‘The International Tweecore Underground’, a ‘gimme schmindie rock’ for the myspacers.

These being the kids, stream their ‘ish here and here.

Live review – A Mystagogue Expounds @ Etcetera Theatre, Camden

GMS rarely deviates from its tried-and-tested formula of making flippant comments on indie antics and scribbling half-baked speculations about unpalatable rap platters. Only two things cause us to veer off course: ukulele fun and the solving of galactic mysteries. The promise of both of these has led us to the theatre (albeit a theatre above a slightly shabby pub in Camden, the indie heartland of London town). The title of William Tombs’ one-man show, What the Lobster Shouted As It Boiled: A Mystagogue Expounds, could belong equally to an arch Morrissey tune, an earnest emo concept album, a thoughtful Sufjan Stevens excursion, or a playful, elusive Devendra Banhart number. This unusual, wilfully odd play combines elements of all four.

Tombs, self-appointed mystagogue and native of rural Virginia, is given to seeing a universe in a grain of sand. It’s a strange, hostile universe, filled with sadness, absurdity and song. Faced with the challenges of adulthood, worrying but apparently unconnected considerations – the mysterious scream emitted by a boiling lobster, his younger brother’s impending marriage to a Mariah Carey fan, the indeterminate status of his vegetable patch – combine to provoke an existential crisis masquerading as a best man’s speech. Tombs’ illogical yet spirited response is to mount a philosophical quest, ukulele and crayons in hand, to discover the source of all the world’s sadness, and to speculate on the future of humanity (apparently there’s one of those techno-raptures on the horizon).

What follows is a strange, self-willed mixture – part stand-up comedy, part metaphysical lecture, interspersed with songs, and framed around the creation of a large artwork depicting the history of mankind, drawn from scratch each night. The delicate yet chaotic balancing act between the self-willed and the self-indulgent gives rise to much of the show’s humour. Tombs’ theatrical sense – combining energy, deft pacing and an arresting persona – convinces the crowd to buy into the quest; their indulgence is rewarded with inventive, daft, catchy songs about infinite bicycles, amoeba sex and the bombing of Nagasaki. Musical levity balances out the more serious implications of the explorations: Tombs bemoans the triumph of commerce and mediocrity, and the loss of respect for women, artists and mystics. Thankfully, the note of artistic self-interest is acknowledged, and the mystical-historical theorising is continually undercut by bemused excursions; at one point it is entirely abandoned in favour of an audience singalong.

It’s not an easy play to categorise or explain. Tombs avoids the conventional cynical, aloof, hostility of most contemporary stand-ups in favour of an air of naïve enthusiasm and childish wonder. He sets himself apart from the bulk of the Fringe theatre set, who tend to rely on sketches threaded together by smut, opting instead for big concepts and intimate revelations. His dark, ambivalent ending offers no easy answers, only admitting the essential silliness of the enterprise. But you’re left with a sneaking feeling that this might be what theatre is supposed to do.

Kyuss – ’50 Million Year Trip’ (live in San Francisco, 1994)

Go see the Mystagogue expound in London next week.

Even mystagogues hang out on myspace.

Live review – KRS One and (not) Marley Marl @ Oxford Coven II

KRS One: rapper, teacher, activist, mime artist

Say what you like about the guy, his commitment is ridiculous. KRS One has lost his other half, DJ Marley Marl, who is recuperating from a heart-attack. He’s just suffered a tragic personal bereavement. Rappers have a reputation for cancelling gigs if there’s a movie on Sky Movies that they could be watching instead. But here he is, after more than twenty years’ working with (and influencing) the biggest names in hip-hop, playing a tiny club in the middle of England, at half-past one on a Thursday night. And giving it his all for ninety minutes. That alone makes this one of the most exciting gigs I’ve seen in a while, and something I’d recommend to all fans and (like my accomplices tonight) folks who pretend to like hip-hop. Incidentally, your reviewer displays the same level of commitment: GMS has been flooded, is in the process of moving house, and could do without staying out ‘til 3am on a weeknight. On top of that, this being a British gig, UK hip-hop has to “represent” and “do its thing” for several hours first.

After just missing an act described by the host as “Abingdon’s finest” (y’all rewind this), we get a full set from Lowkey and his friend Logic. They keep shouting “New World Order”, so either they are the New World Order, or they dislike the New World Order intensely (or they dig Hollywood Hogan). Either way, there’s lots of political fury and syllables, and they bring a global perspective that's often lacking in American 'conscious' rap. They’re quite nifty when rhyming a-capella, but there’s not always much connection with the beats.

New World Order - 'Home Is Where The Heart Is'

Next up is Yungun, who gives a much more assured performance, sitting back on the beat with ease, authority and charisma, coming across like a younger, lippier Guru (who, incidentally, features on a track on Yungun's myspace). However, there’s a lack of content to enliven Yungun’s slow-flow approach: “hands up if you hate paying council tax”, he suggests at one point. Motherfucking taxman and shit. He’s backed by Scratch Perverts member Mr. Thing on the decks, which is nice to know.

In real life, Yungun is a trainee solicitor. Fact!

KRS One runs to the stage through the crowd, flanked by heavies who make sure they give everybody within five metres of the MC a careful shove (5m being about the width of the venue). Perhaps they were members of the Zulu Nation. Perhaps I will add the tag “Galactic Mystery Solvers: possibly shoved a bit by the Zulu Nation” to my kick-ass blog. He’s absurdly energetic, marching around the tiny stage while his henchmen huddle in a corner to stay out of the way. This energy sometimes comes across as hyperactivity: I’m not asking for a hallowed, Don’t Look Back-style recreation of Criminal Minded, but packing that whole album into a five-minute megamix is a little frustrating, as there’s nothing in his catalogue (except maybe ‘Sound Of The Police’) that gets the crowd reaction of ‘9mm’ or ‘South Bronx’.

Boogie Down Productions: kids!

Of course, KRS is a born contrarian: he has a history of contradicting himself, and of doing and saying absurd, provocative, offensive or just plain dorky things in order to spark debate. When acting as a self-appointed spokesman for hip-hop in the media, this is a canny strategy: he stays in the spotlight because he always makes good copy; he uses his status as an agent provocateur to draw cynics, sceptics and opponents into debate, before revealing how articulate, knowledgeable and passionate he really is. Onstage, KRS is just as compelling, but his perplexing and frustrating side also comes to the fore.

Just as I’d expected more Criminal Minded, I also anticipated more from Hip Hop Lives. The album is hectoring and self-serving in its conception and lyrical content, but KRS also sounds re-energised making stentorian pronouncements and playing the cultural juggernaut over crisp, crackling golden-age New York beats. It’s a combination that should work perfectly live, but aside from the title track and ‘Kill A Rapper’, the material is overlooked.

I’d also anticipated more onstage chat from a guy who styles himself ‘the teacha’ and borrows riffs from motivational speakers (check this half-inspirational, half-icky video, taken a couple of weeks ago in Brooklyn). But KRS’ banter is limited to tedious repetition of the assertion that this is, and we are, real hip-hop. Nice to know: perhaps I will add the tag “Galactic Mystery Solvers: real hip-hop, because KRS said so” to my kick-ass blog. Equally oddly, when KRS signals the intention to go “off the dome”, he proceeds to deliver about the worst freestyle I’ve ever heard, rhyming “I’m an MC” with “this is the DJ standing behind me”, or something similar. Almost as clunky is his attempt in the encore to marry ‘You Must Learn’ to a piece of classical music (a “treat”, apparently).

It’s as if he’s determined to throw off all expectations, all context, all pretensions, and boil the live experience down to its essentials – rhyming over beats. Once the shock of his baffling set choices passes, this strategy pays off: he fills the set with stunning, unstinting displays of technical prowess, going back and forth with the DJ over a constantly shifting backdrop of rhythms and samples, combining incredible energy with complete control. It’s this mastery, rather than the cultural baggage tiresomely stated on songs like ‘I Was There’, that ensures KRS One remains one of the most thrilling, intriguing spectacles in rap.

More fun:

Unkut.com’s interviews are second to none. Here they are talking to KRS.

Boogie Down Productions member D-Nice has an excellent photoblog, from which I yoinked the BDP photo.

Buy Hip Hop Lives

Rakim, Kanye West, Nas, KRS One & DJ Premier – ‘Classic’

Live review – Dead Meadow, Youthmovies, SJ Esau @ Oxford Cellar

Every record label has a folktronica artist on its roster these days, and you know what? I like them all precisely the same amount. “Uber-cool” brainy hip hop label Anticon has SJ Esau, who (his biog claims) used to be part of the Bristol rap scene that spawned Tricky and Massive Attack, before deciding to drop rhyming in favour of noodling. A one-man band, occasionally hitting a cymbal with the neck of his guitar for ‘rhythm’, SJ mixes Daniel Johnston’s naïve melodies with your usual wash of glowering Mogwai-isms, Four Tet flutes and syncopated drum loops. It’s far too quiet to be heard above the crowd. Here's a rather good video of his:

SJ ESAU the wrong order

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People tend to call Youthmovies (formerly, or perhaps still, Youth Movie Soundtrack Strategies) a math rock band. For me, math rock implies cleaner, sparser guitar lines and a refusal to acknowledge a world outside of ‘Spiderland’. Youthmovies are much more expansive. This is not, however, a good thing. It is a thing that brings to mind the term emo-jazz. Each song lasts about seven minutes, and contains about fourteen hideously complicated riffs – a musical combination of autism and ADHD. Like so many contestants on UK’s Got Talent, they need to know that because it’s difficult, doesn’t mean it’s good.

Stoner? Isn't that a bit extreme?

I’d have enjoyed Dead Meadow more if the Cellar didn’t insist on putting its headline acts on at midnight, and didn’t fill the intervening hours with weak cider and a piss-poor support act. On stage, the Meadow lose the Dandy Warhols psych-pop side they have on record, instead locking into a hazy, fuzzed out stoner groove. It’s a niche they make their own, distinctly different from the monumental sludge of Fu Manchu, the vicious drive of Monster Magnet or the desert-rock of Kyuss. The drumming is reminiscent of Mountain, and Dead Meadow could prove an equally attractive source of sounds for canny hip-hop beat-makers. However, the sound is so blunted as to be almost identical inside and outside the venue, while the pace of songs never varies. After a while I either need to be high on some crazy California drugs, or go to bed.

Live review – Stornaway, Secondsmile & Wintermute @ Oxford Cellar

All will become clear

So here’s a conundrum for thinking about with your brain. What is better: a great impression of something rubbish, or a rubbish impression of something great?

Tonight’s two support bands pose that quandary. Wintermute (from Leeds!) sound like Bloc Party. The review could end there, really. Their counter-melodic guitar lines owe something to At The Drive-In, and their rhythmic punch brings to mind the Futureheads, but that’s at a stretch. In fact, Wintermute are considerably better than Bloc Party – the vocals less irritating, the tightly-wound, off-kilter dynamics better handled. So, if you like Bloc Party, you’ll love Wintermute; in a logical world (though not necessarily a just one), they’d be critics’ darlings and sell lots of records too. For the record, GMS can’t stand (or understand) Bloc Party, so we’ll leave it there.

GMS likes Cave In quite a lot, and where Wintermute excel in recreating a rubbish sound, Secondsmile do a pretty dreary imitation of a great band. Again, I could compare their sound to Oceansize, or countless other prog / emo / hardcore chancers, but basically what you get is Cave In circa Tides Of Tomorrow – urgent, constantly-building drum rushes, a wall of competing guitar lines, time changes, quiet / loud bits, lung-burstingly earnest vocals. It’s a sound that’s utterly fearsome when done right, but it’s also a difficult one to pull off: get it wrong and you sound like a preposterous sludgy mess. Like Secondsmile.

Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, here is Alan Partridge doing a Kate Bush medley. Depending on the angle of your dangle, this is either a brilliant version of something appalling, an awful version of something incredible, or a bit of both.

Stornoway wear their influences so lightly as to make quick comparisons pretty irrelevant. Not that this will stop GMS from making them: the band sound like what Bright Eyes was aiming at with Lifted, but without the histrionics, seriousness or ego, and with a broader palette of communal, open-minded indie-folk vibes. One quote on their website describes them as ‘hatpop’, which is spot-on, as well as being a brilliant concept. As a live band, Stornoway are made more compelling by being so unassuming: at one point they even get away with (urk) an indie-reggae moment, because that was where the song seemed to lead. The lead singer overcomes his shyness by having a set of facts ready before each gig. Tonight we learn that 19^th-century Oxford geologist William Buckland once, lost in fog, established that he was in Uxbridge by tasting the soil, and also that he ate the embalmed heart of Louis XIV. FACT! Extra points are awarded for the trumpeter, who wears a horse’s head and a hat. GMS is all about horses wearing hats. The gig ends with a storming number about the right and wrong kinds of fish, which I believe conceals a political message, while also throwing in big-band flourishes reminiscent of Lou Reed’s ‘Goodnight Ladies’ or Tom Waits’ ‘Anywhere I Lay My Hat’ (to continue a theme). Go and listen to them on myspace.

Live review – Summer Sundae festival – Saturday

The UK’s averaging about three festivals per weekend all summer at the moment, which is pretty ridiculous: competition for punters is intense, line-ups tend to be broadly similar, and even established events like Truckfest are struggling to keep their heads above water, financially and literally (d’oh…).

Leicester’s Summer Sundae has a canny set-up, selling itself as ethical and accessible, with a line-up that’s eclectic but unthreatening. It’s in a large, attractive city park. It has an indoor stage, which is mighty civilised. It’s aiming to be a carbon negative festival, handing out free low-energy lightbulbs. Props! It’s also got a tie-in with BBC’s 6music, which ensures endless online and radio plugs. All said, it probably doesn’t need a sniffy review from an obscure blog, but that’s just how GMS gets down.

First up are teenage siblings Kitty, Daisy and Lewis. According to the brochure, they mix rockabilly, swing, country and western, surf, Hawaiian, and rock ‘n’ roll. If all these musical genres essentially sound the same to you, then that’s a fair description. Aside from a few clunky signifiers (at one stage, Kitty puts on a lei and starts singing about ‘Honolulu’), this is pretty narrow and unimaginative 50’s revivalism (strangely, they’re dressed in 1940s pachuco costumes). Musically, they’re decent and versatile, though not exactly great – there’s a trio of middle-aged men who play rockabilly on the street in central Oxford every Saturday morning who do this thing with much more verve. It’s also a nice, light start to a summer’s afternoon, making children, hipsters and middle-aged weekenders dance around; there are much less entertaining genres one could thoughtlessly ape; mum and dad help out on bass and rhythm guitar, which is sweet; but there’s no sense of why they’re singing about a ‘mean old man’ or ‘Louisiana swamps’, or that they’ve thought about the artistic, racial or gendered implications. Maybe this is asking a bit much of the kids, but once you lose sympathy, it does grate.

swing that mean thing daddio-wa-diddy etc.

Next up are Jazz Jamaica. According to the brochure, they mix … yup, yup, alright. Something of a supergroup, if you’re up on UK jazz: Abram Wilson, Soweto Kinch and Denys Baptiste all raise a flicker of recognition, though I couldn’t tell you who’s who. Unlike the previous act, they’ve got the integrity and the instrumental chops to let fly with crowd-pleasing Skatalites covers and a wah-wah trumpet-enhanced version of the Bond theme. Overall, the set pitches a little unsatisfyingly between energetic and arresting soul-funk numbers and languid, tasteful reggae-jazz noodling, never quite settling for one or the other.

On the indoor stage, bizarrely, are reunited late-80s / early-90s baggy-ish Peel faves Cud. Except not quite, as their singer is missing. Good sports that they are, the band invites a succession of ageing devotees onstage to do Bez dancing and Cud karaoke (they get lyrics sheets – I can’t believe that many people know the words to Cud songs). I saw Cave In do this a couple of years back, when Steven Brodsky’s voice gave out mid-set. It turned an above-average gig into an unforgettable event – not least because half the crowd were in bands themselves, loved Cave In, and could sing. This, as you might imagine, isn’t quite in the same league, though the joke is funny for a while, and though you get the impression that Cud’s heavy, funked-out indie wouldn’t sound too bad alongside people like the Klaxons and !!!.

Back to the main stage for former Arab Strap instrumentalist Malcolm Middleton. Pretty much what you’d expect – depression, mordant whit, decent sparse mid-90s indie sounds. Like Arab Strap but with singing instead of talking. Like Smog but with a ginger Scottish chap instead of Bill Callahan. Lyrically, Middleton turns Arab Strap’s miserabilist tales of drunkenness, failed relationships and low expectations in a populist direction, telling us we’re all pissing our money up the wall and listening to shite. There are moments when he seems undecided whether to slap a Snow Patrol-sized chorus on one of these and go for a money-making cross-over hit, or to stoke his sense of integrity in the hope that Silver Jews fans have ten quid to spare. I hope he goes for the former – hearing Middleton soundtrack an ‘emotional’ scene in an ITV drama would be funny as fuck.

Malcolm mulls it over

Indigo Moss have managed to remember a genre not minced up in Kitty, Daisy and Lewis’ throwback blender – bluegrass (you see … the name … it’s a play on words …). They’re also, in some ways, the opposite sort of band – less confident, less polished, but more talented, imaginative and interesting. They marry a Sons and Daughters-style mixture of bluegrass, skiffle and twang to the sort of light, wistful English romanticism peddled by Ray Davies, Pete Doherty and (occasionally) Morrissey. There are usually (I think) five of them, but they’re stripped down to a three-piece, which means that the bassist does little to help the sound, but the lead male and female vocals are impressive. They’re not quite there yet – some of the songs feel a little underwritten, and a reflective ballad entitled ‘England’ is rarely a good idea – but well worth keeping an eye on. Unfortunately, GMS has to report another fancy-dress mishap – the lead singer is dressed as a cheeky ‘40s tradesman, while his two lady accomplices are in prim dresses and feathered hats as if attending a flower show at the local rotary club: in the 1940s, the two classes would never have teamed up to put on a pop concert.

I’m glad I saw the Rumble Strips at Summer Sundae for two reasons. Firstly, they’re the sort of band who get a bit of hype and who I’d probably have forked out money to see if they’d come to Oxford. If I had done, I’d probably have been a little disappointed – although they have a bit of energy and a horn section to set them apart from the crowd, the songs aren’t up to much. Secondly, they sounded like Dexys Midnight Runners, but without any tunes, which reminded me to go home and listen to some Dexys. Huzzah.

Martha Wainwright seems to be a bit of a poster-girl for 6music. I’d hoped she’d be the person to inject a bit of bile and humour into a pleasant but underwhelming line-up, and she does, but only a bit. Her voice is incredible – live, at least, it’s better than Rufus’ – but she’s let down by the songs (most of which are new). The first time I saw her, she was all Tori Amos / Sandy Dillon raspy bluesy angry mad woman, which was good, if also slightly oppressive. The second, she was doing languid, drunk country stuff, like Cat Power but more compelling and witty. This time she seems to have swallowed one too many Ys (groan) – adding Joanna Newsom cutesiness to the end of her syllables, and generally aiming for songs so complex as to be formless. If this is what her next album sounds like, she’ll be head-to-head with Nina Nastasia for the token female slot in lots of end-of-year roundups. Nina wins, though.

Lake District writer and walker Alf Wainwright. Best Wainwright ever.

For the Low review, I’ll direct you to my last review of them, as the set was practically identical, not that there’s anything wrong with that, when it’s so much better than everything I’ve seen today. While I can’t find much to like about ‘Drums and Guns’ on record, it works well live, especially when it’s fleshed out and translated into the sort of gut-wrenching slo-mo blues that people like Codeine and Come used to do. It’s a shame they got such a thin crowd, as their only competition was odd-faced sub-Danni Minogue posh-pop shouting-catastrophe Sophie Ellis Bextor.

Headliners are the Magic Numbers, who are ideal for the sort of all-ages, all-tastes ethos that Summer Sundae aims at, especially as their debut remains one of the best indie records of the past few years – gloriously unfashionable, brilliantly composed, and packing an emotional punch. As everybody except the Magic Numbers themselves has noticed, the second album sucks. This is understandable – it’s clear when listening to old and new songs back to back tonight, that they spent their whole lives writing the first album, and twelve busy months writing the second – there are simply two or three fewer ideas per song. Frontman Romeo attempts to cover over the cracks with world-beating enthusiasm, celebrating the festival, the crowd, his band and himself. When they played a triumphant headlining slot at the Glastonbury New Bands tent two years ago, this was endearing and inspiring, but tonight it’s a little bit much, especially when Kitty, Daisy and Lewis, and inflatable cartoon figures of the Magic Numbers are brought onstage for an overwrought finale. Much better is their surprise collaboration with Martha Wainwright, paying tribute to Lee Hazlewood with a cover of ‘Some Velvet Morning’ that brilliantly exploits the contrast between Wainwright’s piercing, jazzy voice and Romeo’s soft, wistful vocals. A memorable festival moment at the last gasp.

Live review – Foxes and Anna Log, The Wheatsheaf, Oxford

Taking a break from listening to underwhelming rap mixtapes while hunched over a laptop, GMS heads out into the “live arena” to find out what the kids are up to these days. What with their myspace and all.

Watch out - she'll twee you

First up is Anna Log, who probably wasn’t born when the posters on the wall of the Wheatsheaf were put up (anybody remember Straw?). She sports a spotty Lily Allen-style dress and angel wings, and delivers stage banter which is equal parts self-deprecation and in-jokery. Worrying signs, especially as her website encourages me to “think of banana milk and penny whistles”, which is something I refuse to do. But Ms. Log’s songs are, on the whole, much more confident and accomplished than the twee presentation would suggest. She’s at her best on her own, at the piano, straddling the line between torch songs and rolling vaudeville in a manner that recalls Rufus Wainwright’s first album. The lyrics tend to avoid the worst excesses of mopy teens and piano ladies, while the voice is an impressive mix of Linda Thompson’s folky melancholia, Sandy Denny’s inflections, and Carole King’s controlled melodies. The addition of a full band for half the set dulls the effect somewhat, smothering the complexities of the arrangements with relentlessly-spry Housemartins-style jangly indie-pop. But there are enough original ideas, interesting influences and indie-folk skillz to make her well worth seeking out. With that in mind, plenty of "audio" to be found here.

After that, it’s hard to say a lot more about the Foxes! than that they do a commendable job of sounding like the Breeders. This is unfair, as their noise is a very entertaining one: scuffling drums, fuzzed out guitar, driving bass grooves and off-kilter power-pop melodies. Plus they have a singing drummer, which means indie rock points. My gigging accomplice declares herself “not keen on the bassist’s behaviour”, which is worth pointing out, as he’s brandishing a headless bass and wearing Kanye West sunglasses while deliberately failing to play 'In-a-gadda-da-vida' on the keyboard. But as with Anna Log, the music is more than enough to compensate. On record, they’re more fey, but also more varied. Ch-ch-ch-eck em out, I’d say.

Foxes! - 'Art Girl' (warning: video may induce seizures)

Live tele-blogging the Glastonbury festival - day 2

photo courtesy nme.com

14.30 it's not real, it's just for fun!

sounds from the frenzied teenie reviews at NME.COM that glasto achieved some sort of redemption last night, with the festival-friendly likes of magic numbers, rufus wainwright, arcade fire, new pornographers, gogol bordello, super furry animals, hot chip and the hold steady. plenty of reasons to steer clear of disheartening choices such as bloc party, kasabian and the arctic monkeys. substantial lumps of live footage at those links, pop pickers.

GMS opted out and went to see Taking Liberties instead. it let us know that the Blair government has quashed civil liberties that are, like, a thousand years old and shit. nice to see a revival of the anglo-saxon / kind arthur / magna carta recourses popularised by our 19th century forebears. word to feargus o'connor.

plenty of tried and tested michael moore moves, with literal theme music in abundance. interesting seen in conjunction with sicko, anyway - michael moore's roseate view of england is rebutted, but both films use the same montage / humour / polemic approach, both interview tony benn, both end up invoking thomas jefferson on how governments fearing the people = liberty, people fearing the government = tyranny.

good to see mark thomas out and about, getting around prohibitions on mass protests by having hundreds simultaneously protesting different causes. the film could've spent a little less time building outrage at familiar incidents, and little more time contextualising and offering suggestions as to why libertarian opposition to terror laws (represented here on the left by tony benn, and on the right by boris johnson) has failed to cohere into a significant political movement. the aggressive media response? internal divisions? what would the tories have done in the same circumstances? how do these moves compare to government policy during the troubles? the positive rationale for the i.d. card scheme was also left a galactic mystery.

14.45 back to glasto. looks like a bit of a struggle today.

Pyramid Stage

The Killers
The Kooks
Paul Weller
Lily Allen
Dirty Pretty Things

Other Stage

Iggy And The Stooges
Editors
Maximo Park
Babyshambles
Klaxons
CSS
Biffy Clyro
The Long Blondes

John Peel Stage

The Twang
Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly
Patrick Wolf
Bat For Lashes
The Pigeon Detectives

good lord. if CSS and patrick wolf clashed, that would make for one hopeless-assed line-up, especially if folk got up too late for pigeon detectives.

14.55 St. Ebbe's Primary School summer fete, Oxford - live review

GMS got its own mini-Glasto on, checking out the local school fete. the live band pulled some serious hold steady-style moves, with 'long tall sally' 'the midnight hour' and a rendition of 'hard to handle' that prompted some serious under-4s head-nod approval. ass hat's lovely escort made it rain at the raffle. fingers crossed. the prize on the golf game? 15 golf balls!

15.10 seriously, watch the gogol bordello set.

15.15 the pyramid stage at night can make most bands look good. that's my story and i'm sticking to it. arctic monkeys - 'i bet that you look good on the dancefloor'

15.20 bjork's set may or may not be genius. impossible to say. or to read while listening.

15.30 bloc party look like a much more coherent live band than they were when GMS caught them several years back, which ain't rocket science. but more coherent, precise whiney nonsense isn't necessarily a good thing.

15.40 brakes and the long blondes cover 'jackson'. sigh. run out of digestive biscuits.

16.20 the super furries' set is gear, even if 'good festival band' is their meal-ticket these days. still, 1997>2007, as ten years back the furries' set was stage-invaded by pavement dressed as squirrels.

16.25 queens of noize are "interviewing" hot chip. brain bleeding out of ear.

18.25 a summer rain produces an abundance of tiny frogs in south oxford. frogs.

18.30 it's all kicking off: GMS heads to the local park to feed the ducks and coots. coots gotta eat.

19.00 nice swim in the local lido, followed by cooking: banana bread. unfortunately, we're missing holy fuck, but NME has it covered.

GMS live tele-blogs the Glastonbury Festival

Electric Six, a Welsh flag and the phrase "Ba Ya". The spirit of Avalon awakens.

in the wake of all this bonnaroo-related excitement across the pond, GMS has decided to get involved with the live-blogging revolution. we'll be providing in-depth, all-access gossip and coverage of the glastonbury festival. live and direct from the HQ here in oxford.

1.45 some nice lunch. a french cheese called chaumes. pleasantly nutty yet smooth.

2.00 WEATHERFLASH it's a bit showery, in intervals. the bbc has a nice visual aid: a muddy leg. so, like, students can understand the weather too.

2.10 completely incredible news, pop pickers! from nme.com:

The View's frontman Kyle Falconer told NME.COM that the band's Glastonbury debut was "really good", adding: Falconer and Reilly then went off to watch The Cribs on the Other Stage.

a man of few words.

2.15 we follow falconer and reilly over to underwhelming pavement-punk journeymen the cribs, where something even more incredible takes place. NME.COM again:

The Cribs spoke out against indie during their performance at Glastonbury 2007 festival. Before closer 'The Wrong Way To Be' Gary Jarman said sarcastically : "They want us to speak out about global warming but the biggest problem is the attitude of some indie bands. Isn't that a bigger problem?" He also screamed the words: "Fashionistas we don't need you!" during the end of 'Wrong Way To Be'. With the crowd chanting "The Cribs are on fire!", their frantic set ended with Gary Jarman jumping into the audience and losing his shirt.

time for a cup of tea.

2.35 NME mention "a month's rainfall in an hour". this scores heavily on the glasto drinking game, just behind 'rumours of a libs reunion' and 'keith allen arrested'.

2.40 the earlies are due on the pyramid stage, which makes one more decent band on that stage than glasto managed in 2005. GMS caught them at the New Bands tent two years ago. Very nice, in a Doves-go-americana spirit.
16.00 lay-z writes a good verse, on a new t.i. track (unclear whether t.i. or t.i.p. is responsible). not glasto, but news: get it at nahright.

16.10 steve lamacq on bbc radio 6, holding down the mid-paced indie rock steez like it was '97. dunno who he's playing, but it sounds like a worse version of number one cup.

16.15 the cribs are on the air! "yeah it were good." moaning about the rain. doesn't look nearly as bad as 2005, 1998, 1997....
16.20 the cribs reckon modest mouse were alright. in all likelihood, modest mouse were alright.

16.25 more goodness from nahright - new song from little brother, about mooching about in nice clobber. not bad, a little smug.

16.30 first live music from glasto comes from ... the automatic. incomprehensible. not even the monster song.

16.35 the automatic covered 'gold digger' with a guest flautist. somebody call status ain't hood.
top five worst covers of pop and rap songs by dreary indie bands:

1. the vines - 'ms. jackson'
2. electric soft parade - 'can't get you out of my head'
3. travis - 'baby one more time'
4. the automatic - 'gold digger'
5. ben folds five - 'bitches ain't shit' (quite like that one, though)

16.40 literal theme music alert - garbage - 'only happy when it rains'. shucks.
five better rain songs:

1. johnny ray - just walkin' in the rain'
2. mark lanegan - 'kingdoms of rain'
3. fairport convention - 'down in the flood'
4. johnny cash - '5ft high and rising'
5. bonnie 'prince' billy - 'raining in darling'

17.00 BBC news refers to Amy Winehouse's set as "rather subdued". Excellent. Is this a 21st-century version of 'tired and emotional' for blog-friendly hipster-pop alcoholic wrecks?

17.05 Steve Lamacq spins 'Made of Stone' by the Stone Roses. Drink one shot.

17.10 Good Shoes played a set. Last year at Truck, GMS saw two of:

Good Shoes
The Shoes
Good Books
The Books

Neither of them were much good. NME's review doesn't make it at all clear which bands I might have seen.

17.15 arctic monkeys surpass the cribs in articulacy. they saw amy winehouse. "she were good".

17.40 TBC, or possibly not...