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

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