CAREER SUICIDE + GEOFFREY OI!COTT + BIG DIFFERENCE + COP OUT
The Casbah, Sheffield
Wednesday 6th August 2008, 8:00pm

The perils of musical polygamy: Jonah Falco splits his days between two of Toronto’s brightest bands - as the drummer from Fucked Up, but also as one quarter of Career Suicide, who because the former have seemingly decided to tour the UK every other month (not a condemnation by any rate; by all means see them this autumn and hopefully not get punched in the nose) they haven’t toured here in their own right. This tour is hotly anticipated, then, especially considering FU’s mission to make their Pro Tools buckle by using as many guitar tracks as possible - whatever happened to keeping it simple, fast and sodding angry?

Speaking of which, the opening band Cop Out never used to make growling noises when I saw them represent Scunthorpe’s scene. (By ’scene’, I mean them and The Hope Of Summer and both fled at the first chance. Good work, men!) The straight forward pop-punk of two years ago has given way to a rugged approach that mixes and messes with itself and comes out sounding like the SST roster being played all at once on a record because the pressing’s gone horribly wrong. Good thing! See them when they hit the south!

I wonder if Big Difference have ever hit the south, or indeed anywhere outside South Yorkshire. Every scene must have a Big Difference - they play all the local shows, slap the in-jokes on thick to the point where they become impenetrable to any outsider who consequently has to watch them pander to the same six audience members while repeating the exact same song structure every five minutes. Oh wait, except that song was a comedy cover of ‘No Limits’. And hang on, wasn’t that a song called ‘Richard and Judy’? Goodness gracious. The last band that instigated a similar ‘local mainstay’ feeling were The Morons when they supported Statues in May, but they didn’t outstay their welcome for seemingly forever. Plus, when I last saw them early last year the set was nigh on identical. A joke only lasts so long…

…unless you’re called Geoffrey Oi!cott in which case the joke is bloody marvelous. Songs about dart players’ wives, Monty Panesar, being a lethargic twat (so that’s why they struck a chord!) and my home town: “Who here’s from Scunthorpe?”, shouts frontman Freddy Skintoft whilst dressed in full batsman’s garb. Half the crowd cheer. “We’ve shagged all your birds before!” The song is called ‘Scunny Honey’. ‘Scunny Honey’. They don’t let off, either - between songs and technical difficulties the band get a crafty leg spin in. How many other bands integrate exercise into your night? Oi! cares for the community! The band finish off with everyone bellowing rural takes of Minor Threat songs (”Guilty of wearing white!”) and leave having bowled over the audience with Yorkshire pride, all the more reason to shove that Lincolnshire flag up somewhere unpleasant along with that pun I’ve just used.

Compared to those lads, C.S. couldn’t be more traditionalist in their HC ways, which is why when they bite they draw out the red (and yellow). Another minute, another track, another twenty crusty punks lapping up every frenzied syllable; their set was a masterclass of how to cause a tumult with only the essentials to hand, and then executing it very bloody fast - almost too fast when there’s a room full of massive smelly blokes bolting around the place. Plenty of new material is thrown out at will, giving you about fifty seconds to stew it over in your mind before they throw out another, and another - some of which are on the tour 7″ that I wish I had bought - and the tunes from recent LP ‘Attempted Suicide’ are just as indefatigable.

It all succeeds in reminding you that sometimes there’s no need for twatting around - if you’re pissed with the world then you’ve got to at least sound like you really bloody mean it. There’s a lot of raging in the world, but if it’s not focused then what’s the use of it all? Pack it up all in something as imperative as C.S. have done and you’re onto a winner. They’re crashing around the country for another week or so (as of August 7th) - Oi!cott in tow, so you’re in for quite an evening.

BTW, crusties mystify me. Anarchism can be done with non-greasy hair! (I can talk…)

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  Download: Career Suicide - ‘Play The Part’

roman david

SUPERSONIC FESTIVAL
Custard Factory, Birmingham
Friday 11th to Sunday 13th July 2008

Birmingham feels like Lincolnshire thrown into a blender with a few more buses, a less impressive cathedral and those silver balls you put on cakes. Digbeth in particular smacks of wandering down a Grimsby that’s been taken over slowly by the creeping terror of gentrification, complete with Barfly and overpriced vintage store, for better and for worse. Hooray for the Custard Factory, then, letting lots of blokes with beards better than my own with a penchant to make odd noises to take over their arty media-friendly hideaway for a couple of days. It’s a great redevelopment and the scale and atmosphere made the weekend one of the most relaxed I’ve had in a while, which considering the four hours of sleep and far too many cans of beer and sherbet-infused energy drinks and the fact that you could usually hear some band droning away for miles around, is either a surprise or a complete lie.

A shame I missed Friday then, which meant that instead of watching DJ Scotch Egg Nanolooping my ears to shreds I was stuck up here with only repeats of Frasier and my own depressing façade. Still, I missed both Rolo Tomassi (whose success confuses me) and Cutting Pink With Knives, who played their swansong UK set. That’ll be two side-projects to avoid, then.

Saturday came, and I cheerfully endured a train journey westwards that in the nick of time propelled me in front of Oxbow. Underneath the clothes of Eugene Robinson lie pain, paranoia and possibly too much sweat, tackling (sadly we did not see any Coxbow) with material, that goes from eloquent to confused to full absolute fucking fury - whilst other bands take melancholy and produce either a wry smile or a pathetic plea for attention, Oxbow would rather smack your face in. Each song that comes across as anything remotely forward breaks down spectacularly in an almost schizophrenic manner that gives me chills, or in this case, earache - half an hour in my ears feel like they’re ready to give two days early. Not a good sign.

Powering through! Well… I give up during the last song, taking in some Efterklang (s’aight) to calm me down good and proper for Fuck Buttons, who spin the most formulaic set I’ve seen in a while - but who cares about that when the material they’ve snapped together to fill forty minutes is so playful? Music for Sonic CD’s spiritual sequal - there’s a limited palette, yeah, but the skies are too mentally cheerful for you to care. And lots of jumping and spikes. Could do with more rings. Whatever, write your own allegories, I’m too busy trying to work out who to see: Battles or Harvey Milk?

I last ten minutes with Battles, realising that I’ve seen all this before, there are too many people and for all their enjoyable diet-math-rock twaddle, there’s no capslock in sight. And with that I run to the outdoor stage and there we have it, the most masculine crowd I’ve ever seen, all listening to this lot from Georgia administer uppercase in spaces. Ridiculously good, but to those who know this band best - first British tour in their fifteen year existence - they’re in awe whilst I’m merely… yep, same as them. I’ve got 434.2MB of Milk on my hard drive, sitting there, waiting for me to give in… *click*.

Two hours of sleep and a Wetherspoons excursion that really shouldn’t have happened later and I hit Sunday and yet more excitable chaps in store: Parts and Labour I missed thanks to giving Battles the slip in the autumn and besides, we all know who’s the better at making you smile like a fool. Them and Errors seemed resolutely ordinary compared to what lurked over in Stage 2 (Asva going FFFRRRMMMM mainly), and as Earth beckoned the crowd emptied, leaving Errors to click and buzz away at a contingent of me and eighteen others. P&L were too chirpy for that time of day - yes, 4:30pm on a Sunday is early - but made you feel better for it; Errors were more subdued but within their set was a secret ploy to get you giddied up reet proper, with moderate success! I felt a bit lost after all that; do I see Dylan Carlson and company? Yes, for two minutes before I realise that this was not the time. The juxtaposition of drone and sugared up electronic noise stuff was a recurring theme throughout my weekend there, making you in the mood for one but only occasionally for both. I choose instead to stare at records and buy tapes of artists who I later find are completely unlistenable. Why I spent most of my money on Red Bull substitute and Subway instead of records and Legend of Zelda bubblegum I’ll never know…

Fucked Up’s new album, if you believe the tracks dropped on their blog recently, will be a not-quite-experimental-noodling and possibly a crushing bore. I could hopefully be catastrophically wrong, but we’re not in ‘Epics In Minutes’ territory anymore. With Matador providing the buck now it’ll be interesting to see where they end up in a year or two’s time - more sexy photoshoots in the meantime, please. Live, there are no such qualms as they tellingly stick to “Hidden World” and ROCK ULTIMATE + OW MY SODDING NOSE. Apparantly the lead guy from Shank was present and he’s fucking huge and not good to crash into. They don’t play anything from their illustrious past but at least they play ‘Jacob’s Ladder’. As I said, fingers crossed. I’ll get breasts like that someday. Oh, and my face felt a bit numb for the rest of the evening, although again that’ll be the alcolulz cheerfully making me pay.

The final band I paid attention to before succumbing to the night was ZX Spectrum Orchestra, a tribute to Clive Sinclair’s machine that through rubber keys and forty eight kilobytes ushered in Britain’s gaming industry. 48K being smaller than the size of ‘You Suffer’. Crikey crikey. (I’m talking eighties gubbins here; ask your dad or someone less reliable.) Each song is coded through said micros; each Clive is loaded with apparel that suggests they’ve sauntered in from an IT conference in Slough, except they’re here to knock you dead with ethereal equations and GEEK PRIDE, tackling at least seven different emotions, one for every colour the Speccy is capable of showing. Inexplicably captivating - though surely you’d expect me to say that; me with my Sonic music saved in my iTunes library and all. A smashing cover of ‘T.V.O.D.’, as well. Everybody’s a winner!

Gravetemple sound terrifying when stood underneath a railway bridge. Terrifying in a Hanna Barbara fashion, but there you go. As I said, I was all for music that was quadruple the beat, so finished the night chatting nonsense with Harmonia chugging along in the background, before going home, trapping myself into an insomnia session which has resulted in this review being written over a week after the event when people have past caring. Sorry about that.

What have we learnt? Not very much. West Midlands > East Midlands. For now.

roman david

HEALTH + BUTTONHEAD + GENTLE FRIENDLY
WHITE HEAT vs. NO PAIN IN POP
Madame JoJo’s, Brewer Street, W1
Tuesday 10th June, 8:00pm

Hey, I should talk about music while I’ve got the energy to type constructive things instead of googling lyrics that could be used in foreign court cases, soooo here’s some more visual proof that I have little disregard for my hearing and/or wallet. HEALTH are the kids from The The Smell scene that are possibly the most image-conscious, although I only made that assumption because of the deep-V neck shirts and the fatuation with chiptune-thieving hipsters Crystal Castles. Are these accusations founded? You decide! The self-titled album (available now) flits between pounding your head with electronics and hitting as many things as possible, and pounding your head with WOAH WOAH DURGING DURGE; in live performance the same applies but with pure kinetic vitesse and thrice the volume. Couple that with two atrocious supporting acts (Hello Buttonhead! Hello Gentle Friendly!) who were akin to sixth form drama students except with worse clothes and the sobering fact that White Heat requires at least eleven units of alcohol for me to operate with a smile on my face and you have a night out.

…What? If you were expecting something approaching journalism then read a magazine. Like Artrocker. They know the score.

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  Download: HEALTH - ‘Perfect Skin’

HEALTH return with No Age in August thanks to Upset! The Rhythm and I need to find employment so I can afford the train fare down because that could well be the gig of the summer. Or you could buy me a ticket?
roman david

Just some visual proof that I haven’t spent all of last month failing my studies, develop emotional attachments to people that don’t exist and generally drink myself stupid; last month was the month of seeing bands and then seeing them again a short while afterwards, preferably in a different city that doesn’t house tramps that offer your drunken buddies bananas. Pissed Jeans, No Age, The Mae Shi with bands such as Mob Rules, Statues and The Shitty Limits in tow - it’s been a good month for standing in darkened rooms watching men writhe.

Pissed Jeans and Mob Rules at the Fenton, Leeds on the 16th.

Only went to Nastyfest at the Faversham (17th) for the latter half of the evening, just in time to catch everyone going crazy to No Age, The Mae Shi and (unpictured) others such as Japanther and Cadence Weapon; a tip to London crowds… the north is making you look like miserable tossers. Dancing is better than judging, you know.

The PJs at the Old Blue Last. Had to include the last one for shits and/or giggles. My, does my friend (right) look sweaty.

And finally, No Age at The Dome. Stage invasions ahoy, including that Japanese guy who you can see being taken off after he tried to take a monitor amp with him. Goodness. Their performances cemented the quality of their new LP and and whatever horrible metaphors the NME used when reviewing the thing (’Teen Creeps’ is “a brash, off-key blast of eardrum-searing Superchunk-style fuzz-pop”, apparently).

There were countless other support bands but if they’re not up there then they’re not worth your time - thereby suggesting that Mob Rules are worth your time. MOB RULES, you could say. Soft Skeleton has some exclusive tracks on their latest podcast, so head there for some fine fury. Nearly typed ‘furry’ there, which would have sent a different message entirely. They’re playing a gig in Brighton and a gig in High Wycombe and then you’re stuck till October.

Here’s to June and here’s hoping I actually post things instead of hoarding them and forgetting any critical elements therein.

roman david

THE MAE SHI + JOHNNY FOREIGNER
Kings College WC2
Tuesday 13th May, 8pm

Yes, them again. But first! Johnny Foreigner tried to break the ice by asking if anyone had commited suicide. And that was the highlight! The world already has Help She Can’t Swim and Los Compesinos!, so it doesn’t need another person to sing in that bloody voice. The rest of the night panned out as follows:

• The Mae Shi - ‘Run To Your Grave’

Apologies, 56Kers, if there’s any of you left! This lot play Nastyfest at the Faversham in Leeds with No Age and Yeasayer and some other dates in the UK before running away screaming back to ELLAYY.

roman david