LIVE: Airbourne & Stone Gods @ London Astoria - 28 November

December 1, 2008 · Filed Under Live · 2 Comments 

London’s Astoria is on it’s last legs. It’s almost time to switch off the lights and call in the wrecking ball. I was just passing the place and found myself thinking: “Airbourne are on tonight…might be the last chance to go there…” The venue is full of proper old skool characters, the smell of denim and leather and overpriced canned lager. I even saw ‘a’ girl!

First on is Sounds and Fury, looking like every axeman Guitar Hero ever shat out. They really throw their hearts into it, but sadly nobody in the audience can bring themselves to bang their head, or even sway a little bit. They just stand there, wondering when some good music might come over the PA.

Next up on support are Stone Gods, currently sitting astride the rung of their own personal ‘can we headline yet?’ ladder. Coming across one-part Def Leppard and one-part really-chugging-and-hard-dirty-riffage, guitarist Dan Hawkins is the only person all night that doesn’t seem to pretending. He stands, slender in the corner, delivering storming string twizzling while the singer, Richie Edwards, acts like he has ‘arrived’. Hawkins is the star of the evening by miles, and he never said a word, barely looking up from behind his hair.

It’s their second night on the trot here at the Astoria, and Airbourne have almost sold out both. Are we really that deprived of AC/DC here in the UK that these jokers can get away with this? Everybody seems quite excited by the whole thing, while I look on baffled. I swear their last london gig was the Borderline, and it was just an ‘okay‘ show, with their then-support act Skirtbox seeming a more exciting prospect. A more enthusiastic hack enthuses to me that “this everything that I’m about”, while I’m just confused. Has a little brain bug taken over these people’s minds?

Airbourne’s frontman, Joel O’Keefe, screams at us for bleeding hours. No smiles, no sense of Irony, no thanks that he has upscaled from the Borderline - nope, Joel O’Keefe and his headbanging buddies seem to act like they are actually are AC/DC.

The crowd is happy, outside in the smoking corner. People accept Airbourne are a ‘AC/DC but cheaper’ ticket. Fair point, but I just can’t get any sense of fun out of it. It’s just wholesale rip-off, fronted by a long-haired James Blunt lookalike. Some say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but to me this band feel like a leech, taking every stylistic nuance, and distilling it into a cynical money-making project, aimed squarely at AC/DC fans’ wallets. It’s no surprise that the best track of the night is a cover of ‘Whole Lot Of Rosie’, to which Hawkins returns to the stage to join in.

Go on - watch it if you don’t believe me:

Airbourne might have 8 Marshall stacks on stage, but you can see only 2 of them are mic’d up. The guy screeches a fake, ear-busting banshee noise all evening, even when he talks, not once dropping the horrid stolen veneer. Airbourne are the trade description of pretentious.

pre.ten.tious

/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [pri-ten-shuhs] Show IPA Pronunciation–adjective

1.     full of pretense or pretension.
2.     characterized by assumption of dignity or importance.
3.     making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious
4.     This ruddy Airbourne band that do my head in, I still have a headache.


Runnin Wild

Roadrunner 2008, Audio CD, £11.99

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Live: The Sea @ The Dublin Castle - 21 November

November 24, 2008 · Filed Under Live, Review · Comment 

www.rufflesphotography.co.ukIn the 20 years I have known him, my mate Tom has never once said:

“So-and-so are playing the Dublin Castle - want to come along?”

“Yep, I will meet you there,” I reply, somewhat stunned.

The band in question is The Sea, playing at the Dublin Castle in Camden -  and Tom loves them. Their search engine-proof moniker means I walk blind into the venue, and was pleased to see nothing but a guitar amp and drumkit on stage. The Sea are just one man bashing pigskins, and his brother twisting strings on a Rickenbacker plugged into a scuzzy vox.

We later discover that not five minutes before they are due on stage, a fellow cornered the guitarist, Peter Chisolm in the toilet. “Give me coke, skinny indie kid,” he ordered. Upon finding that this skinny indie kid had none he proceed to punch him a few times in the face.

Which is why a dazed Peter Chisholm joins his brother, Alex, on stage. “This song goes out to the man who just gave me a black eye’” he syas, and lunges into a guitar frenzy. A hard-hitting bluesathon of riff rings out, and the room fills up. A lot of miserable old blokes shuffle around at the back, and optimistic teenage girls bounce around up front - always a sign of record company interest (or a paedophile ring).

It’s only 8:30pm, and The Sea are shamelessly riffing and drum filling away. If I’m being lazy, it is quite like early White Stripes, before Meg had that breakdown, and Jack turned into a humourless git that wrote wishy washy Bond themes.  They have calls of Dan Sartain, Robert Johnson, and Led Zeppelin’s ‘Moby Dick’. The set creates a warm feeling like sausage & mash might, but instead it is made up of guitar riff porn and killer drum fillers.

However, listening to their MySpace page the next day, I’m not feeling the same raw fuzzed-out feel I got from the live show. It feels all a bit indie-twee, and seems to be missing its critical edge. Someone put Albini to work on it, and the world shall see peace in our time.

For more noises from The Sea, go check out their MySpace page.

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Review: Guns N’ Roses - ‘Chinese Democracy’

November 10, 2008 · Filed Under Releases, Review · Comment 

The hundred years and 700 billion dollars it took to bring this single out, unfortunately means that unless The Axl Rose Project (I can’t bring myself to call them GnR) instigates a Bill & Teds Bogus Journey type epiphany for the human race, it’s going to fall flat. So I suppose I better attempt a pithy review?

Chinese Democracy has a one minute intro that sounds like Axl has taken some cues from Tool. Well, that is until a two chord wonder kicks in and the track becomes an X-Factor segway. A heavily fx’d Axl starts complaining about things, says the word ‘masturbation’, and then it’s over with an explosion at the end. Then my iTunes starts playing Guttermouth, and suddenly modern American punk sounds more fun then it did five minutes ago.

P.S: Rumour update has the Axl Rose Project touring in 2009 and Slash getting back on board and making up Guns N Roses in 2010. Yeah, right.


Chinese Democracy

Polydor 2008, Audio CD, £14.99

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Reviewed: Metallica and the Death Magnetic experience

November 4, 2008 · Filed Under Live, Releases, Review · Comment 

The last album that arrived in my hands with such expectation as Death Magnetic was months ago - Justice in fact. Metallica really jumped backed into our good books a few years back when they played the entire of Master of Puppets at Download Festival, after years of being out in the corporate cold with their Napster mission and the whole St Anger debacle. Monday night at the O2 Arena, Hetfield jokes ‘Frantic’ is off the “very popular” St Anger album, to a giant groan from the audience. Hetfield laughs: “It still rocks”.

Pleased that the album arrived before the show, nothing is under five minutes and only one under six. This isn’t the The Ramones, but it’s just as fast. A few details seem to indicate this album will be great.

1. Rick Ruben (the lost member of ZZ-top) at the helm of buttons. Whom I would’ve thought cut through their rock star indecision: “Just make it like this, Ulrich, and shut up. I am taller then you have a beard and produced Licensed to Ill, Reign in Blood, Blood Sugar Sex Magic and Johnny Cash’s last record - so listen up midget”.

2. Every magazine that has had the album already has said ‘return to form’, but then every album since Master of Puppets has said that, every magazine wants the interview don’t they?

3. It has the old logo on it.

The album opens with very distinct Metallica sound - it just couldn’t be anyone else - and if it was, everyone would accuse them of sounding like Metallica. This album is so big it won’t work on your crappy computer speakers. Throw it on the Tannoy Speakers, that’s better.

The single: ‘The Day That Never Comes’. Big and anthemic, six minutes into it I’m starting to wonder how these old guys can remember the arrangement. I mean, I can’t remember the password to my computer that I change a few weeks’ back. I want listen in on the internal monitors they all wear. I bet there are arrangement prompts on it. Has to be. Of course, there there is a heavy argument that they are seasoned professionals, and they are playing the O2 Arena while I’m just watching. But have you seen Some Kind of Monster? If they were that good, surely Lars Ulrich would be a better drummer.

None of this denies that this album is a feat of modern metal, currently sitting at Number 1 in the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic. I feel a sense of metal-pride I haven’t felt since I found out that ‘Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter’ got to number 1 on the walk to school, a vertible feast of riffs and metal headbanging heaven. ‘The Day That Never Comes’ alone must have about 20 sections at least to it and a bunch of words too. Lets count them.

  1. Pre-lude twiddly melody bit
  2. Intro melody,
  3. Intro melody with drums.
  4. Intro melody with first verse
  5. Same melody but rock with stabs - and vocals getting all gruff.
  6. Queen-y twiddly bit
  7. Same melody but solo featurette
  8. Intro melody with second first
  9. Melody has gone all rock - guess this is a chorus, these stabs are cool.
  10. Queen-y twiddly bit
  11. Queen-y twiddly bit 5 more times slightly differently
  12. Intro into Outro
  13. Ooh this bit sounds like Orion.
  14. Ohh this bit sounds like Orion with singing, ‘Love is a four letter word’
  15. Key Change ‘I suffer this no longer’
  16. Lots of sliding to get out of this bit and into
  17. Queeny twiddly bit x 2 into
  18. Fast like ‘Battery’ go apeshit bit
  19. Iron Maiden double guitar solo/riffing
  20. Slow slides
  21. Double guitar riffs, this time not iron maiden.
  22. More double guitar solo runs
  23. Some new riff quite low on the neck.
  24. Fast chugga chugga bit, with a more traditional solo quite shreddy quite long.
  25. Slow slides with some chugga interludes
  26. Slides faster.Go twiddle it is an outro.

26 sections, and I am pretty sure I missed out one or three. The whole album is like this. A masterpiece of arrangement, and we wouldn’t expect anything less from the lost the Great Beard Rubin. It is enough to gives previous incarnations of attention-deficit rock like System of a Down and Mr Bungle a valium and a nice sit down for a minute.

I get the impression from the instrumental ‘Suicide & Redemtion’ that Metallica have been listen to other bands other then themselves this time round. Not because it sounds like anybody, but it just sounds a bit different from them. Maybe they paid attention to The Sword and Mastodon on recent support slots. Actually scratch that… this track fucking rocks because it sounds like the heavy bit in The A-Team theme.

Unfortunately, this instrumental rock opus, that dispenses with trying to put meaningless lyrics sprinkled over the top, was skipped from the O2 show. We were told to expect something ‘different’ and in turn was expecting the whole album of Death Magnetic. Fortunately we escaped another rendition of ‘Sad But True’ or ‘Enter Sandman’. Instead slightly more off the well beaten track like ‘The Thing That Should Not Be’ and ‘Of Wolf and Man’.

The gig feels intimate, even though it has about 15,000 people here, as the band are playing in the middle of the room on a platform, surrounded by mic’s and the drumkit moves ninety degree’s every few songs. As Hetfield says - there is so much front row. The show has no pyro, and barely any lights. It is stripped down and rawer, like a proper race car. No hotdog stalls or support acts to distract us from the ‘tallica.

The O2 sort of has a feeling of going to a gig in Brent Cross, and in turn everyone behaved like they were shopping with their mum. Having a few enjoyable drinks, comparing tickets, we wasted the afternoon away getting the feel for some metal youth revival. Elsewhere in the east of London Metallica had a more enjoyable day and went down to watch the Lehman’s bank redudantees crying clutching boxes of staplers, wondering why they didn’t set up that smelly candle company.

Not that it matters: we headbang away blissfully, ignoring the fact we are not 16 and this is really going to hurt tomorrow morning.


The Box Magnetic Death In A Coffin

Mercury Records 2008, Audio CD, £96.99

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Interview: Rosie & The Goldbug - the dark side of pop music

July 27, 2008 · Filed Under Features, Interviews · Comment 

“Back then we were very piano-orientated. We’re now more bass-and-drum-orientated,” says Rosie Vanier, she of the band’s name. She’s talking about when Music Towers first encountered her band, when they were the only real shining star at a lamentable corporate battle of the bands-type affair, where Music Towers described their performance as “vaudeville brand of gothic ephemera as a more than welcome change from the indie-boys-with-haircuts-and-guitars”.

“It’s a lot more focused around Pixie and Plums being in the band, with the piano riffs floating on top,” Rosie explains. “I was very restricted with the piano and it was a little bit boring - we realised we had to make an adjustment with the instrumentation. It’s a lot more ballsy and feisty, before it was quite melodic, and we were going for that really epic sound, whereas now it’s all about vibe and having a good time.”

Completed by drummer Sarah ‘Plums’ Morgan and Lee ‘Pixie’ Matthews, Rosie & The Goldbug formed in Cornwall, and along with pasties and Straw Dogs, they’re set to be the next thing to come out of the toecap of Britain that will get people talking. “ Cornwall is a beautiful place and there’s a lot of music going on down here, but it’s very different to London. London you can hop on the bus all the time, whereas down here you’ve got a little bit more time to explore and create your own thing and anything can happen. There’s a lot to be inspired by.

“It’s hard to say it without sounding derogatory, but I guess its sometimes a little bit ‘behind the times’ here,” Vanier mulls. “You make up whatever you want instead going with what’s ‘hot’. There’s a lot more freedom and a lot less restrictions.”

The promo video for ‘War Of The Roses (Because You Said So)’:

That experience has led to a series of songs that range from the dark-disco stomp of ’Heartbreak’ through to fragile ‘Springtime Dreaming’. If Katie Jane Garside stopped chasing garden sprites to front Dragonette for a night, then it could’ve resulted in the ‘War Of The Roses EP. But this hasn’t meant they haven’t taken a cosmopolitan approach to songwriters.

“My instant reaction was to think ‘oh no, I don’t want to write with anyone’ because I was really precious about my song-writing,” Rosie sighs. “Then I thought \this is ridiculous – I’ve got the opportunity to work with some people I really admire’.” And it’s true – the list of people who’ve come on board to help pen songs is admirable indeed. “Before I knew it, I was writing with Marcella Detroit – I was an absolute Shakespeare’s Sister fan when I was younger, so that was a bit of a dream come true, writing with her. Jim [Eliot]from Kish Mauve [writer of ‘2 Hearts’ – Kylie Minogue’s top 5 hit] – he’s a bit of a wizard. I wrote with Pär Wiksten as well, from The Wannadies, which was a great experience.”

As well as playing a host of festivals over the summer (culminating with an appearance on the BBC Introducing stage at Bestival), the band have a London residency of sorts lined up. While glossy chart-botherers like Duffy might prefer the Piccadilly gloss of the Pigalle for such things, Rosie and The Goldbug have gone for the 12 Bar Club in Soho – it’s a “unique” venue, that’s for sure…

Rosie laughs at the description. Music Towers strongest memories of the 12 Bar involve cheering along a fight in the alleyway behind the venue after a misguided whiskey-drinking competition that ran into the wee hours. “The 12 Bar has really inspired us – because it is really smelly and rancid in there. We were changing in the toilets for a gig there once and we were thinking ‘for fuck’s sake; it can’t get any worse than this’ as it basically stank of shit.

The promo video for ‘Feeling’:

“We thought it was a perfect concept for our album – this is what we’ve experienced for the last year - an absolute weird experience of going from revolting venues to being in flash record company offices.

“As the 12 Bar is important to us, and we thought it would be a good place to do a residency and show what we’ve got. Not many people know us yet, and we’re willing to start wherever to get people to know who we are. The 12 Bar represents everything – it’s such a cranky little venue with such a tiny stage and I love performing in strange spaces. There’s lots of beams to climb over. It’s very unique.”

That sounds a lot like fightin’ talk. Rosie & The Goldbug don’t have anything to prove, but Vanier sure sounds like she’s got gusto. “I don’t like that Marmite thing. The whole ‘you either hate it or you don’t’ thing confuses me because maybe sometimes you like it a little bit, and then sometimes not. It’s not as simple as black and white.”

‘War Of The Roses (Because You Said So)’ by Rosie And The Goldbug is out now on Lover Records. The band is midway through their residency at the 12 Bar Club – click here for more details.

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