The Glee Club has a policy of shutting the doors after 8.15 . Which means, you get to see the support band. And I’m glad I did. John and Jehn are a French boy girl duo who’ve bulked up for this tour with an additional boy and girl. They’ve got a Galaxie 500/New Order sound with a mixture of very clean, taut guitar lines, feedback and keyboards. They swap vocals and instruments. Jehn's vocals are a bit theatrical, John's are much more New York rock 'n' roller. Which is how we'd all sing if we were French and had relocated to London. The final song had some of that early White Stripes chemistry/tension with Jehn slowly moving towards John as if she was about to put her head on his shoulder. Like a Status Quo gig if Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi were actually a couple.
I know a bloke who can’t bring himself to listen to the Who because “Girls don’t like them”. On the other hand, Jon Bon Jovi (who is not my Who dodging mate) has said that he takes no notice of critics that say The Bonj are too lightweight. After all, girls come to his gigs and lift up their tops. So who likes BSP? Well there’s a lot of them and it's a very mixed audience. I like them a lot, but I didn’t think they’re a band you’re going to fall in love with. I was proved wrong at the Glee though. There was measurable love and anticipation in the air. Not just pollen from the plant covered amps tended by gardeners rather than roadies. It felt like people had travelled to be there.
What BSP bring is cleverness, a broad, sweeping approach to lyrics. There’s nothing straight forward about them. They've got a whiff of moleskin and they look as if they’d be happier going to the Antarctic in dufflecoats and cable knit sweaters rather than following traditional rock n roll leisure activities. There’s a bit of Bowie, or Psychedelic Furs in the vocals, a thick sound, a grandeur and songs that take in ornithology and Dostoevsky. After 3 albums of arty guitar Pop they released an evocative and oddly ambient, soundtrack to a 1934 documentary Man Of Aran. No Lucifer has a terrace style “easy easy” backing vocal and references to Carlton Corsair and Raleigh 20 bikes, roe deer, the anti aircraft crew and the boys from the Hitler Youth. The stiff upper lip has got a potty mouth though. One of the new songs they play at the gig though has a chorus of “Over here, over there, over every fucking where.”
It’s a barnstorming opening 3 tracks. Apologies To Insect Life with it’s clicking bass, yelping vocals and a guitar that sounds like a quarrying operation. Guitarist Noble is dropping it from a very great height. In fact at one point it looks like he's brought his own stool to stand on. Remember Me and Atom just sound immense. Singer and guitarist Yan is wearing a white top, part space suit, part strait jacket. Guitarist Noble is wearing a vintage cycling top that probably doesn't provide much in the way of breathability and sweat wicking. Bassist and vocalist Hamilton shuffles as if he is peeping coyly from beneath an standard issue indie fringe- which is actually a leafy crown. He looks like he’s skipping band practice at Mount Olympus. Aby Fry plays violin and Phil Sumner adds keyboards, cornet and guitar as required. So for the new song (over here over there and over sweary there etc) there were actually 3 guitars powering away. Biff, Bang and Pow! BSP also like to swap instruments and take turns on vocals.
True Adventures sung by Hamilton has got an excellent bit where the rest of the band seem to slow down but the drums speed up. It sounds a bit like tape rewinding and is the sort of studio trick that Lee Perry would stick on the start of a track.
Please Stand Up finishes with that rare beast – a section that sounds like a cross between Boxer Beat by Jo Boxers and New Order.
The Great Skua is an instrumental where Phil Sumner's cornet really comes into it’s own. It’s a great piece of music in it’s own right and much more than a bog and bar prompter.
The band seemed relaxed and confident. There was banter about it being the second comedy club they’d played on the tour and the perennial problem of careful and insightful lyrics getting in the way of the gags.
Final song Spirit Of St Louis soon departed from a recognisable song structure was either largely improvised or they were just making it up as they went along. There was guitar dive bombing, crowd surfing from Noble, guitars being beaten with bushes and I think there may have been monocle wearing too.
Despite the fact that new album is on the way they only played a handful of new songs, with most of the material coming from the last album Do You Like Rock Music. BSP are actually more accessible than their eccentric image suggests and are a terrific live band. Full marks to the merchandising. Who wouldn’t want a mug with a British Tea Power logo?
Apologies To Insect Life
Remember Me
Atom
???? (Over here over there etc)
True Adventures
Down On The Ground
Please Stand Up
Waving Flags
Great Skua
No Lucifer
Canvey Island
Fear Of Drowning
??? (Into the night??)
Lights Out For Darker Skies
Trip Out
Spirit Of St Louis
Showing posts with label British Sea Power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label British Sea Power. Show all posts
Monday, May 31, 2010
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
British Sea Power
Being a Wash 'n' Go musician does have it's advantages. Angus Young only ever has to remember to bring his satchel and school uniform and Iggy Pop knows he's never going to have to remember to iron a shirt.
But there is always room for a band who've got a dressing up box in the dressing room. A band who have really thought through their image.
Brighton based four piece British Sea Power are 2 albums deep into their career of being one of Britain's, oddest, most intriguing and literate bands.
The band name sounds like it should be found in the darker recesses of the lower shelf, between Railway Modeller and Practical Caravanning. Admit it. When you are in the newsagents buying porn, don't you always have a sneaky look down to the bottom shelf and Trout Fisherman?
Their stage sets are festooned with foliage and stuffed animals, their haircuts look like they've been imposed on them and their lyrics are filled with references to military and wildlife themes.
Something Wicked from 2003's debut The Decline Of British Sea Power has the opening verse.....
"Where the ancient oak leaf clusters grew/The deaths head hawk moth flew/Something wicked this way comes/The swallow is depicted there along your fuselage/Something wicked this way comes."
Musically you can trace a line through Bowie, Psychedelic Furs and Granddaddy. The Psychedelic Furs link is really in the vocals which often have that Richard Butler atonal sneer. However on a song like Blackout there's a definite Morrissey feel. The Bowie link is more for the guitar lines. They're really good and thick enough to plaster a wall with.
Given the band's enthusiasm for uniforms and songs about Field Marshal Montgomery (Favours In The Beetroot Fields) I'm a bit disappointed to see only conventional instruments listed...I demand First World War Poetry.
The band line up reads like a Public School register. Last names only. Yan, Hamilton, Noble, Wood. Report for band practice after prep! They've also upped the mystery quotient by meeting journalists at grid references rather than pubs.
There's a great performance of Carrion on Jools Holland. Yes the keyboard player is wearing WW2 style helmet. And when was the last time you heard a lyric to equal "From Scapa Flow to Rotherhithe I felt the lapping of an ebbing tide"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JF5ivWRKBU
There's also a great moving statues video of Remember Me at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Peo0s75QDR0
Remember Me has a chorus of "Increment by increment." Again it's not the standard issue pop lyric but it does know it's pop history.
The downhill rush for the bus, of guitar bass and drums, sounds like the mighty riff from Victoria by The Kinks. And of course a band like British Sea Power who revel in the imagery of an imagined England will know all about The Kinks. And as the wilful awkward obscurists they are, they must surely also be Fall fans and so will know all about The Fall's faithful version of it.
Wilful and obscure...ok then. Lately is a brevity testing 14 minutes long while Apologies For Insect Life may well be about Dostoyevsky but it's hard to tell as the only intelligible lyrics are the repeated yelping of "Oh Fyodor, you are the most attractive man. Oh Fyodor, you are the most attractive man I know."
It's got a great step forward step back bass line and the drums and guitar alternately hold back then pile in. It's a thrilling ride.
The Lonely has the line "Just like Liberace I will return to haunt you with peculiar piano riffs." A line that actually scares me...it's camply threatening, like Liberace himself or the Sopranos Johnny Sack. The song itself could sit happily on Suede's second album and it's got some of the wooziness of Bowie's Aladdin Sane album.
The second album Open Season 2005 is a bit more straightforward, with less guitars and a bit more keyboards. But there again the band are never going to be too obvious. So long as they are releasing singles with titles like It Ended On An Oily Stage.
The word "ventricles" appears in Be Gone (and being British Sea Power it actually isn't the oddest choice of word in the song) and it may be the first time it's been used in a pop song since The Bozo Dog Doo Dah Band. Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On might have been improved if only she'd been a bit more medically accurate.
New ep Krankenhaus is available as an (expensive) import but there is a free download through the bands website.
They gamely describe the lead track Atom as combining a pre school understanding of atomic theory with ancient wisdom in amplified rock music.
But they also do foliage and crowd surfing and those kind of post punk hard stares that are part Wilco Johnson part Paddington bear.
But there is always room for a band who've got a dressing up box in the dressing room. A band who have really thought through their image.
Brighton based four piece British Sea Power are 2 albums deep into their career of being one of Britain's, oddest, most intriguing and literate bands.
The band name sounds like it should be found in the darker recesses of the lower shelf, between Railway Modeller and Practical Caravanning. Admit it. When you are in the newsagents buying porn, don't you always have a sneaky look down to the bottom shelf and Trout Fisherman?
Their stage sets are festooned with foliage and stuffed animals, their haircuts look like they've been imposed on them and their lyrics are filled with references to military and wildlife themes.
Something Wicked from 2003's debut The Decline Of British Sea Power has the opening verse.....
"Where the ancient oak leaf clusters grew/The deaths head hawk moth flew/Something wicked this way comes/The swallow is depicted there along your fuselage/Something wicked this way comes."
Musically you can trace a line through Bowie, Psychedelic Furs and Granddaddy. The Psychedelic Furs link is really in the vocals which often have that Richard Butler atonal sneer. However on a song like Blackout there's a definite Morrissey feel. The Bowie link is more for the guitar lines. They're really good and thick enough to plaster a wall with.
Given the band's enthusiasm for uniforms and songs about Field Marshal Montgomery (Favours In The Beetroot Fields) I'm a bit disappointed to see only conventional instruments listed...I demand First World War Poetry.
The band line up reads like a Public School register. Last names only. Yan, Hamilton, Noble, Wood. Report for band practice after prep! They've also upped the mystery quotient by meeting journalists at grid references rather than pubs.
There's a great performance of Carrion on Jools Holland. Yes the keyboard player is wearing WW2 style helmet. And when was the last time you heard a lyric to equal "From Scapa Flow to Rotherhithe I felt the lapping of an ebbing tide"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JF5ivWRKBU
There's also a great moving statues video of Remember Me at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Peo0s75QDR0
Remember Me has a chorus of "Increment by increment." Again it's not the standard issue pop lyric but it does know it's pop history.
The downhill rush for the bus, of guitar bass and drums, sounds like the mighty riff from Victoria by The Kinks. And of course a band like British Sea Power who revel in the imagery of an imagined England will know all about The Kinks. And as the wilful awkward obscurists they are, they must surely also be Fall fans and so will know all about The Fall's faithful version of it.
Wilful and obscure...ok then. Lately is a brevity testing 14 minutes long while Apologies For Insect Life may well be about Dostoyevsky but it's hard to tell as the only intelligible lyrics are the repeated yelping of "Oh Fyodor, you are the most attractive man. Oh Fyodor, you are the most attractive man I know."
It's got a great step forward step back bass line and the drums and guitar alternately hold back then pile in. It's a thrilling ride.
The Lonely has the line "Just like Liberace I will return to haunt you with peculiar piano riffs." A line that actually scares me...it's camply threatening, like Liberace himself or the Sopranos Johnny Sack. The song itself could sit happily on Suede's second album and it's got some of the wooziness of Bowie's Aladdin Sane album.
The second album Open Season 2005 is a bit more straightforward, with less guitars and a bit more keyboards. But there again the band are never going to be too obvious. So long as they are releasing singles with titles like It Ended On An Oily Stage.
The word "ventricles" appears in Be Gone (and being British Sea Power it actually isn't the oddest choice of word in the song) and it may be the first time it's been used in a pop song since The Bozo Dog Doo Dah Band. Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On might have been improved if only she'd been a bit more medically accurate.
New ep Krankenhaus is available as an (expensive) import but there is a free download through the bands website.
They gamely describe the lead track Atom as combining a pre school understanding of atomic theory with ancient wisdom in amplified rock music.
But they also do foliage and crowd surfing and those kind of post punk hard stares that are part Wilco Johnson part Paddington bear.
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