Gigs – Page 3 – Where is Phil now?

The Telescopes with Flavor Crystals @ London Fields Brewhouse.

Thursday 22 September 2016 – London.

I really like the psychedelic, droney, shoegazey, not sure how you describe them, band, The Telescopes. They have existed in one form or the other since the late 1980s, though the singer Stepen Lawrie is now the only original member. I have seen them once before, about a year ago, and at the same venue. So I kind of knew what to expect. Low light, high volume.

Until this morning I had not heard of, nor heard support act, Flavor Crystals, they are from Minneapolis and are in the UK, I am guessing, for the big Liverpool Psych Fest festival on this coming weekend. One year I will make it up there as it looks to be a good show.

I really enjoyed Flavor Crystals, I noted bits of Yo La Tengo and Kinski in their sound, and those are nothing but good things in my book.

They have released a split 12” single with The Telescopes and I suspect that will end up in my record collection fairly soon.

The Telescopes mainly played tracks off the last LP, ‘Hidden Field’s, though things tended to blur a bit, some of the sounds blending into another. I really like the LP, but they were a little uninspiring tonight. Maybe it was the small audience ? I am not sure, but I was a bit disappointed by their set.

Photographically The Telescopes were a bit dull as well, Flavor Crystals were well lit, but The Telescopes had flat red lighting, I hate flat red lighting. So, all the photos have been converted to black and white.

Stow Festival Friday night.

Friday 16 September 2016 – London.

The annual Stow Festival has been running for four years and gets bigger and better each time. It is a weekend long celebration of music in Walthamstow, NE London. Where I live. I am a massive music fan, have been since I was a teen, so music is a key part of my life and I have been giving to gigs since the 1980.

I am a bit of a music snob, and am a bit fussy about what gigs I go to, rarely going to anything that is not to MY taste. I have not been to many of the Stow Festival shows in the past, even though it is local; and I do support local, there has not been much to my taste before. This year was different, there was a lot of interesting music in the festival so El and I were keen to get out.

This year is the 40^th anniversary of punk, and there have been a few exhibitions and gigs celebrating this/. Walthamstow had a part to play in punk rock history, with the Sex Pistols playing early gigs here and the long gone, but internationally famous, Small Wonder Records just down the road from home. Small Wonder was not just a shop and mail order business it was also a record label that released singles by artists such as The Cure, Bauhaus, Crass, Cockney Rejects, along with a host of others not quite that famous in far off New Zealand.

The first event El and I attended tonight was a talk at Walthamstow Library. Author Clinton Heylin led a panel discussion with journalist Jonh Ingram, Buzzcocks manager Richard Boon and Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock.

The talk was illuminating and a bit of fun, with some interesting anecdotes and stories from 1976. It was followed by a short but great set from Glen Matlock. He played ‘Pretty Vacant’, ‘Stepping Stone’ (which the Pistols used to play) and an excellent cover of the Richard Hell punk classic ‘Blank Generation’.

It was a great start to the evening.

After a quick bite we went to the Rose and Crown pub to catch three bands. We missed most of the set by the first act, The Left Outsides. A duo playing a kind of southern gothic folk with an English twist, I think that is best description I can come up with. It was not really my thing, but I kind of liked it, dark and murky.

I had listened to a couple of tracks from The Hanging Stars, the middle act of the night, we both really liked them. I could hear hints of REM, The Feelies and the psychedelic folk rock of The Dream Syndicate. With the slide guitar there was definitely a country tinge as well. Thought they were great and if they played locally again I would go and see them. Nice to see a band with three guys who could sing.

The main act was local psych rock outfit The Oscillation. I have been wanting to see them for a while, from what I have heard of them I like there droney, shoegazey psychedelic rock. Naturally the lights went down for them, so photography got a bit harder. It is always hard to get a decent photo of a drummer, especially from the side of the stage. Shot through the guitarist was the best I got. The rhythm section were absolutely brilliant, really tight, great musicianship and really worked the ‘motorik’ krautrock style well.

I thought the keyboard was way too high in the mix, I would have liked to have had the bass/drums higher, followed by the guitar, not that it was my choice 🙂

Lyrics were a bit naff, but you get that with psychedelic rock! But anyway; I was there for the music.

We enjoyed what we saw of their set, but did not make it to the end. We have both been sick for most of the week and the late night was getting too much so we left for home after a few songs.

It was a good night out, would have been a lot nicer without the head and chest colds!

The Wedding Present instore @ Rough Trade East

Monday 05 September 2016 – London.

A second ‘gig’ in four days, though this was not really a proper gig. The Wedding Present sans drummer performed an in-store at Rough Trade East to support the launch of their new album ‘Going, Going…’. I was never going to turn down the opportunity to see another favourite band, and one I have never seen before.

The Wedding Present were a large part of the sound of my mid to late 80’s, ever since I bought and fell in love with early single ‘This boy can wait’ in 1986, off the back of a track on the C86 cassette given away with the NME. In 1991 they recorded a noisy feedback laden version of what was for many, many years my favourite song of all time – Steve Harley’s ‘Make me smile’. Their songs of love lost, love unrequited, break ups and pain, backed by fast distorted pop guitars, bass and drums were the best since Buzzcocks first couple of LPs in the early punk years. I am such a sucker for a bit of heartache in my ears.

I kind of fell out of touch with their music for a while, coincidentally at the time of the demise of vinyl in the early nineties. A time when I fell out of touch with a lot of music I had followed when records were how it was consumed.

I have recently started listening to some of their newer music and when I read about a new album; on double vinyl, and with a free show, I wasn’t going to pass the opportunity up to go and buy it; and get a free show as well.

The photos are in black and white as dim purple lightening is not flattering at all.

David Gedge, the singer/guitarist is the only remaining member from the first band, and he still has the voice and vocal and delivery I loved 30 years ago.

In a show of very uncharacteristic organisation I wrote down all the song titles as they played them…

I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of older songs that were played as well, really old tracks like ‘My favourite dress’ and the final track ‘Everybody thinks he looks daft’, some Albini period tracks ‘Dalliance’, ‘Cordoroy’, ‘Brassneck’ and (I think) ‘Crawl. Four tracks from the new LP. ‘Bear’, ‘Birdsnest’, ‘Rachel’ and ‘Broken bow’ were mixed in and absolutely fitted in amongst the classics.

Reviews for the new album have been very complimentary, some saying it is as good as good as the classic LP, ‘Sea Monsters.

I have only just started to listen to it tonight, but so far so good. Instrumental tracks – a real break from previous Wedding Present records (There was a 10″ single of Ukrainian folk songs in 80s/90s that may have had some non-vocal tracks) – and I am a massive sucker for instrumentals. I cannot wait for some love lorn lyrics though.

Die! Die! Die! @ Birthdays, London.

Friday 02 September 2016 – London.

I have not been to many gigs lately, this will only be my fourth this year, excluding the solo set by Martin Phillips from The Chills last week. I have a few small shows lined up over the next few weeks, starting with one of my favourite New Zealand bands Die! Die! Die!. They have been around for about 12 years and I have seen them a few times and own almost, if not all, their recorded output. They tour a lot, and I have seen them three times since I have been in London, though it does not appear I have ever written about them before. I have definitely taken photos of them in the past. Their records are great, but live is where they make their mark. I have never been to a bad show.

Tonight they played at Birthdays in Dalston, a well established small venue, but one I have not been to before. After seeing a show there I will definitely go back, it is good venue There were three bands performing and, what I thought was fantastic, it all had to be over by 10:00pm. I do love an early gig!

I got there just as the first act The Sans Pareil were hitting the stage, I grabbed a drink and headed down to the basement band room. My DSLR is in the shop being cleaned so I can take it away with me on my coming travels so I had the little G16 tonight. I was kind of glad as the light was really low and I can push the ISO on the G16 way higher than I can on the old 5d. I really do not like to use flash at shows if it can be avoided. I was shooting at 2500 ISO so there is a bit of noise in all the shots.

I liked some of The Sans Pareil’s set, at times they sounded a little Wire like, which is no bad thing. Though they were really really loud, too much for my liking – stupidly I forgot to bring ear plugs.

Second up was M!r!M, a synth/bass duo. I had listened to a couple of tracks at work and they sounded OK, live they were a little repetitive, one of the major issues with a keyboard based duo is being visually as well as audibly interesting. I didn’t stay for their entire set. They were not bad, I was just saving my ears for the headliners!

Die! Die! Die arrived on stage just after 9:00 – I love band times in London 🙂 I managed to secure a spot at the front and to one side of the speakers. The lead singer/guitarist, Andrew, always puts on a show and has always stood on the left of the stage when I have seen them so that was where I parked myself.

The audience was pretty tame for most of the set, I could see the band were trying to get them moving, I have found London crowds to be fairly quiet in the main, maybe it is just the indie folk don’t like to break the cool poses and get in amongst it. Andrew likes to get in the audience, get a bit of reaction going. I have been to some great and wild shows in New Zealand – maybe the crowds are just a bit younger there?

After a few forays into the audience, with guitar and mic stand, there started to be a bit of reaction and participation.

The bass player is fairly new, there have been a few bass players over the years, Rory seemed to be pulling a few Paul Simonon poses, I guess if you have to have a style influence the bassist from The Clash is a good example to follow.

The drummer, Michael Prain, has to be one of the hardest working drummers in the business. Die! Die! Die! are driven by a solid rhythm section and none of the drumming is a boring 3 / 4 beat. One of the things I love about the band is the bass and drums drive a lot of the songs, especially on the brilliant Promises, Promises LP.

They played material from most of the albums, I recognised pretty much all of the tracks, there was at least one newer song, but I am not yet fully familiar with the last EP. Hopefully there will be a new LP sometime in the next few months.

People Talk and Ashtray Ashtray were the last couple of songs played, I think; I had had a couple of gins by that stage, Ashtray was definitely the last one, I am now a bit vague on the second to last. Whatever it was it finally got the crowd going, so I dropped my bag in a corner and joined in for a bit of a jump up and down. It got very hot and sweaty.

I left very sweaty and deaf but very happy… As I have said on so many occasions when I finally drag my self out the door, I always have a good time. Tonight was no exception.

The face pointing must be a thing, I took this image at, what I think was my favourite DDD show, in Auckland in 2008.

Spectres @ The Waiting Room, Stoke Newington.

April 20 2016, London.

Bristol band Spectres’ debut LP ‘Dying’ made it through 2015 as my album of the year. There was some great music released last year, but Dying got played a lot and gets played a lot in 2016 as well. A follow-up LP is due sometime this year, and both times I have seen the band they have played new material that may or may not appear on this new LP. I will have to wait and see.

While I, and others, wait for this new album Spectres recently released a remix album of Dying called ‘Dead’. There are remixes by a couple of artists I really like, such as Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai fame, Richard Fearless and Andy Bell from Ride. The vinyl copy arrived on the day we went to New Zealand, but I did get the download code and listened to the LP a few times while I was away. It is OK, not fabulous, there are some great remixes and some that do nothing for me at all. I do like guitar noise far more than synths and computers.

When the band announced two shows at The Waiting Room in Stoke Newington I was definitely not going to miss out so grabbed a ticket before we went away.

I wasn’t overly keen on either support band, and being incredibly fussy I arrived at the venue at what should have been half way through the set of the second support. They hadn’t even started. I watched a bit of their set before retiring to the pub upstairs for a quiet drink and a seat. If I had arrived earlier and managed to have been closer to the stage with a better view I may have stayed as they looked like they could have been a bit of fun.

I went back down to the basement venue once the support audience had cleared and got my self a spot near the stage. I was hoping to get a few decent photos so took along the Canon 5d. I should have known from the last time I saw them that they would pretty much play in the dark. Sadly my old 5d does not do really low light – unlike the newer models, though I think even those would have struggled tonight.

I grabbed this one of the bass player during the sound check. The last time there was any light even closely usable for non-flash photography.

What did make some photography possible was the use of strobes from half way through the set, though they were poorly placed on the ceiling rather than down low, I managed to time a few shots right and got some images lit up by strobes.

Even though there is not much detail, and the guitarist is blurred, I like this photo the best.

The set was loud, I mean really loud, I have been to loads of shows over the years, but this was definitely one of the loudest I have been too. I am glad I took ear plugs. I usually take them but rarely use them, for tonight’s gig, they were essential.

The last time I saw them the set was just played on guitar, bass and drums. With the new remix LP they mixed it up a bit playing some tracks with a bit of electronica, it worked on some and not on others. It was still interesting. A fifth member came on stage for one of the tracks,

As they came on stage so late I did not get to see the end of the set. Disappointingly I had to leave to get the train home, so missed what was probably a good finale!

It was a good, and too short a show and I liked the venue as well.

Thurston Moore and Steve Noble @ Wildcard Brewery

January 21 2016 – Walthamstow.

Yep, Walthamstow. The town/suburb/area where I live. Inside a 10 minute walk from home, legendary alt-rock/noise guitarist Thurston Moore played a gig. It never happened in Green Bay – my home suburb in Auckland. Living in London is very cool sometimes.

Thurston Moore was the one of the guitarist / singer / songwriters in US alt-rock act Sonic Youth. I was a big fan of Sonic Youth and they sit easily in my top ten bands of all time list. Sonic Youth were highly influential, mashing a range of ‘rock’ based genres with no-wave/noise and free jazz anarchy into complex guitar based compositions, there was no-one who sounded anything like them. Most, if not all, the bands I like in 2016 would site Sonic Youth as an influence.

They split in 2011 after a 30 year career and Thurston Moore moved over to London. He has released a couple of pretty good LPs since. Last year to my surprise he performed a show at Wild Card Brewery, a very small independent brewer, (who make great beer!) and are under 10 minutes walk from home. It sold out before we got tickets unfortunately, so when another show was announced El quickly grabbed us a couple of tickets.

El saw Thurston Moore with his band last summer in Hackney and really enjoyed it so we were both looking forward to this gig.

Tonight’s show was not a band performance, just Thurston and drummer Steve Noble. I know nothing about Steve Noble, just he is a drummer, a very very good drummer.

Due to me being a bit of an idiot about the timing we got there about half way through the set, the gig was a sell out and the small bar area was pretty full. I took my camera as I wanted to take a couple of photos but there was no way I could get close the front, so I snapped all I could of Thurston Moore – who is very tall and missed Steve Noble completely. I only got the occasional glimpse of his head!

The set was interesting, sort of half free noise/jazzy sort of thing and half Sonic Youth influenced rock. They are both fabulous musicians and I would loved to have been able to see them up close, watching them play would have made the whole experience much better, good as it was.

Like any good TV chef, I managed to prepare a couple of images of Thurston Moore earlier. Much, much earlier, from when I first saw Sonic Youth play the Powerstation in Auckland in 1989. These are just crude photos taken of the prints from that show.

UK Subs with The Ramonas @ Islington Academy.

Friday 11 December 2015 – London.

A few weeks ago my mate Steve bought us both tickets to go and see the UK Subs at the 02 Academy in Islington. I haven’t been to a punk gig in ages, the last band I saw that was even remotely punk was The Big Ups back in February last year, so I was quite looking forward to this one. I do not listen to much punk rock these days, my tastes have mellowed marginally, but I was a fan of the Subs a long time ago. I have never seen them – even though they have been around for nearly 40 years, and have released 25 albums. They are recording a 26th and final album at the moment. The first LP was called ‘Another kind of blues’ and the last will be called ‘Ziezo’. A smart person would be able to work out what the first letters of each of the 24 albums in between are.

This is likely to be the last gig I will go to this year, and it has been a busy gig-going end of the year as well. I don’t think I have been to this many shows in a row for years. Hopefully I will continue this in the new year, as it can be a lot of fun.

I was a little late meeting Steve at the pub and after a hurried beer we headed off to the venue, which is in the shopping mall near Angel Station.

I was not particularly excited to be shouted at by a security guard when I got too close to the area where customers were being ‘wanded’ with a metal detector. In fact I was not too happy bout being wanded either. The world is a pretty shitty place when you get searched and checked going into a punk rock show.

This was a really early gig, the support act The Ramonas were on soon after we walked in the door at 7:30, there was a reasonable sized crowd here to see the all female Ramones tribute act.

With all the classic Ramones moves and stances down pat and playing as fast and as hard as the originals they are a great act, and after a bit of warming up the front of the crowd were singing along to some of those great old Ramones songs. I loved those first four albums, and seeing the Ramones in Auckland back in 1980 was a gig highlight!

Sadly I had moved further back into the crowd when the pinhead came on stage with a Gabba Gabba Hey banner for Pinhead, probably my, and seemingly most of the others here favourite Ramones track.

I moved back up to a spot on the crowd control fence just before the Subs came on, so I could grab a couple of pictures of them as well.

There was not a huge break between the bands and the Subs were on mega early (the whole gig was over before 10:00, my sort of timing!) The original singer Charlie Harper and bass player Alvin Gibbs are in the band tonight, I think this line up has been steady for a while, but there has been many rotations through the years. Charlie always being a constant, and he is now 71 years old. The Stones look lightweights compared to the touring and recording schedule the Subs maintain. Charlie was on great form too.

The set was a mix of classic old material from the late 70s and early 80s, mixed in with more recent tracks that I did not recognise. The main thing was they played Emotional Blackmail nice and early, so I was pretty happy. After that I dropped back further into the crowd, moving forward a couple of times later on for a quick jump up and down for New York State Police, Stranglehold and Party in Paris.

There was a bit of a sing along for Warhead

Jet has been the guitarist since 2008

It was all over by 10:00, it was loud, it was sweaty and it was a heck of a lot of fun. I would definitely go and see them again. Thanks for a good night Steve, The Ramonas and The UK Subs.

For some weird reason WordPress wont let me centre the images, oh well !

Disappears @ 100 Club

Monday 23 November 2015 – Disappears gig @ 100 Club, London.

Another week and another concert, this is getting a bit habitual, and in a good way too. I have a ticket to one more gig this year, but suspect I won’t be taking photos at that one, I will have to see. A UK Subs gig may be more of an opportunity to jump up and down than take photos.

I have been looking forward to this gig. I have been a fan of Chicago band Disappears for a while and have a few of their albums, Era and Pre Language being particular favourites.

A year ago they were invited to perform at a David Bowie exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. They chose to play the entire Low album from start to finish. It is an interesting album to play for a band comprised of guitar, bass and drums as the second half of the album is pretty much entirely instrumental and most of that instrumentation is synthesiser based.

That concert was recorded and it has just been released on vinyl. Disappears were going to be playing the album live at the 100 Club in London, one of only a handful of release shows. Low is one of El and my favourite Bowie albums so I grabbed us both tickets as soon as they came out and here we are.

Low was recorded in France in 1977 and was the first of three albums loosely referred to as the Berlin Trilogy, recorded with Brian Eno and Tony Visconti. The second album Heroes, is one of my favourite Bowie releases and the third was Lodger. With its use of synthesisers and innovative recording techniques, Low is considered to be a highly influential album.

Monday night is not really gig night for me, fortunately the 100 Club is easy walking distance from work, so El and I met nearby, had dinner and a drink and then turned up not long after opening. I have never been to the 100 Club before, it is a true music institution and must be one of a very small number of venues that still exists in its original location. It has hosted so many famous bands and events from the Rolling Stones up to the most current. For me its claim to fame is the 100 Club Punk Festival in 1976 which hosted all the big names in punk rock and pretty much spawned an entire movement of copyist bands and wannabes after. It was one of those classic ‘everyone who was at the gig went off to form their own band’ moments.

The venue is as cool as I thought it would be, just a lot bigger, not being a sell out show it was not too crowded and unpleasant either. The walls are all covered in framed images of performances and performers who have played the club and it is a veritable feast of amazing artists from all musical genres. Oh to have been a house photographer !

Disappears were supported by Demian Castellanos, who played a set of ambient, droney post rock. Normally a genre I am a massive fan of, but I wasn’t in the mood for it tonight. I wanted to hear a band play!

I am trying to recall if Disappears played the album in the right order, I am pretty sure they did, but it was five days ago and it has been a busy week. The lighting was the friendliest of all the shows I have been to recently, but the G16 isn’t really up to it. I think I will be saving for a second hand Canon 5d Mk2 or mk3 now…

They definitely started in the right order, with great versions of Speed of Life and Breaking Glass. I need to go back and listen to Bowie’s original Breaking Glass as I have started to think that Disappears version is better. Sacrilege in some quarters I suspect!

I am guessing a number of the crowd were just there for Sound and Vision, the big track of the album, it was never one of my favourite Bowie tracks, but Disappears guitar led interpretation was very cool and the track that has been in my head ever since.

It was the side two instrumental tracks where it got really interesting, hearing the synth track Warszawa played by a band with no synths was amazing. All the technology that has gone in to effects pedals over the last few years has allowed the guitar to make sounds that would not have been even imagined as possible back in 77. I wander what Brian Eno thinks ?

My favourite track of the night was Weeping Wall, this seemed like a totally different beast played live and on guitars. The drums don’t feature that much on the Bowie track, but tonight the drums, and the drummer were simply amazing. An almost perfect end to the gig. There was one more song – Subterraneans, to be played. The last song on the album and a mellow come down to end the show.

We both thought the show was magnificent. A wonderful interpretation of a genuinely seminal, inventive and classic album. Bringing guitars to a synth party was a brave, interesting and fabulous move. I particularly liked the bass players faux London Bowie accent !

The album was released digitally a few days ago and I had listened to it a couple of times prior to the show. I had decided to not buy it, it is a live cover album, with no original, must own material. However after seeing the performance and having such a good time (on a Monday as well !) I have decided to buy it after all. Partly to support the band, partly to support the small indie label, Sonic Cathedral, who brought the band over, but mainly as a memento of a great night out!

Spectres gig @ Power Lunches.

Wednesday 18 November 2015 – Spectres Gig @ Power Lunches, Dalston, London.

Bristol four piece Spectres, are definitely the band I have listened to most in the last year, especially since their debut LP ‘Dying’ arrived on my doorstep in February. Their music is pretty uncompromising, it is dense, it is dark and it is noisy, but if you dig deep enough you will find some lightness and pop touches – you would need a long handled spade though! To me they sound like the bastard off spring of two great bands – A place to bury strangers and early Swervedriver – with a little bit of Sonic Youth thrown in.

Spectres – Rattle the cage

As well as liking their music I like their attitude to the music business as well. In protest of the corporate take-over of Record Store Day, along with a great article from their record label, Sonic Cathedral, instead of releasing a new single on the day they are releasing one copy of that single a day, every day, for a year. It took me a long time to land a copy of the split single with Lorelle Meets the Obsolete, with each band covering the other. Spectres played ‘Stealed Scene’.

In a very amusing piece of publicity they also released their last single ‘Spectre’ the same day as the abomination from Sam Smith that is the theme song to the new James Bond movie, Spectre. Somehow, ‘by accident’ a version of this ended up on YouTube under Sam Smith’s name and their version was reviewed by numerous leading newspapers, as well as by numerous, bemused and unhappy Sam Smith fans on Youtube. Coup !! It is not a typical Spectres song though…

Though they are currently touring the UK I was not expecting them to be playing London any time soon, however, I discovered yesterday that they are playing tonight as support to ‘The Naturals’ under the pseudonym of ‘Buckfast Crimewave’. Though I have a bit of head cold I could not miss the opportunity so decided to go along.

The gig was at Power Lunches, a small bar in Dalston, not too far from home fortunately, given I was not feeling 100%. I liked Power Lunches, it was small, a bit dingy and dark, but they were playing what sounded like some really old school US punk rock on the PA, and sitting in the bar waiting for the first band to come on was quite enjoyable.

The bands play in a small basement, it was very dark, photography was going to suck… I didn’t stay for the opening act, not really my thing. As the music was so good up in the bar I went back there and waited for Spectres to go on.

Earlier today Rough Trade Records announced their top 100 albums of the year, it did not have Spectres on it. The band announced via Twitter that as no-one liked their old songs, they would only play new material at the show. Which they mostly did. The light was complete rubbish, there was someone shooting with a flash which I should have done, but didn’t. Next time I see them I will take a flash with me.

From memory they played four new songs, with the last one definitely pushing a Sonic Youth vibe and was my favourite of the new tracks.

This was not a tune up… This was using tuning as a sound effect !

They played two old songs, I think Sink and Where Time Sleeps… It was a short but gloriously noisy set and I am looking forward to seeing them again, but as the headliner. I was very tempted to go and see them in Manchester on the following night as I have Fridays off of work, but it was too expensive to get there and working less days means getting paid less money!

A line from the song ‘In a box’ from their earlier Hunger EP seems an apt description about how I feel on occasion. “I want to catch a train to any where, I want to go on my own, come back on my own’.

I watched a couple of songs of the headliner “The Naturals’ but like the opening act, musically they were not my thing. If I was feeling better I would have stayed and watched their whole set, but I felt rubbish so I didn’t. Sorry The Naturals.

A noise fest – The Fuzz Club Festival

Friday 13 November 2015 – Fuzz Club Festival at the London Fields Brewery, Hackney.

After a fairly long spell of not going to gigs, this is my second in a month, and I have a further show to go to next week.

I have long been a fan of droney, shoegazey, psychedelic rock so when the record label Fuzz Club announced the Fuzz Club Festival weekend at London Fields Brewhouse; just a bus ride away, I was interested enough to check out who was playing. Discovering that The Telescopes were on the bill for the Friday session, I bought a ticket for the night straight away. I have liked The Telescopes since the early nineties and had recently bought their great new album ‘Hidden fields’. I have tried to see them in London once before but they were delayed coming back from Europe and I couldn’t be bothered hanging around the venue to wait. Maybe not a really really dedicated fan…

With five other bands on the bill, across two stages it promised to be a good night. I had a couple of albums by The KVB who were also playing and after checking out some of the other bands I was really keen to see Portuguese three piece 10000 Russos as well. I was very excited !

Naturally the traffic was a bit crap and the bus seemingly stopped at every bus stop between Walthamstow and Hackney so I ended up arriving at the venue too late to see the first act, Throw Down Bones. Reviews say they were good too. I have not been to London Fields Brewhouse before and found it to be a great little venue built in two railway arches, allowing two stages, two bars and two sets of loos – important for someone in their 50s, which, like me, a number of the very mixed audience appeared to be.

I had not heard much (if anything) of Italian four piece New Candys and got fairly close to the front as they were warming up. I brought the Canon G16 camera tonight, I had thought about bringing the big Canon 5d, but was really glad I didn’t as the light was too low and the old 5d would not have coped at all. I was not using flash so was shooting manually at a higher ISO than the 5d was capable of (maybe I should buy that new one ). I took a couple of photos of one side of the band before getting pushed out of the way and forced a bit further back. I really enjoyed New Candys, they reminded me a bit of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (when they were good), a bit poppier than some of the other bands tonight.

I did not stay to the end of their set as I really wanted to get a good spot for The Telescopes, I have seen a number of photos of them and they play close to the crowd with singer Stephen Lawrie spending a lot of time crouched down or kneeling on the floor. The Telescopes have been around since the late 1980s, though the only original member left is Lawrie. They generally seem to be made up of Lawrie and the members of other bands, in the case of the last LP, Glaswegian band St Deluxe. I am not sure if St Deluxe were among the band tonight, but there was a whole load of them. Six guitarists, plus bass and a drummer. That was a lot of band to set up – there was a long delay…

Their set was manic. With over half the band on the floor with the audience – I had a guitarist inches from me for most of the set, it was cramped and loud and apart from some technical difficulties with the bass, pretty awesome. The Telescopes are masters at the art of the droney, psychedelic tune and the first track they played was the first on the new LP – ‘You know the way’, a slow burning, dense track with a hint of menace in the vocals, with six guitars it was awesome !

I tried to take photos when I could, it was even darker here than at the stage the New Candy’s were playing on, so photography was difficult to start with and got harder as the crowd started to push once the set was fully under way.

They were really good, I thoroughly enjoyed their set, and would like to see them again, somewhere less full possibly.

As they were so late I left before the end of their set to go and see some of The KVB playing next door, they must have started reasonably on time as I pretty much missed the entire thing, just catching a couple of songs at the end. I was also way down the back so didn’t get any opportunities to take a photo.

I pretty much completely missed Camera as well, only hearing half a song of theirs. But I did get back up to the front at the other stage for the final band of the night 10000 Russos. I was really keen to see them, reminding me a little bit of Loop with vocals from The Fall’s Mark E. Smith. I really liked them and would definitely go to another gig, shame their last LP is sold out as it would fit nicely in my record collection!

Vocals were provided by the drummer, and I have never seen anyone stick a microphone between the cymbals of a high hat and sing into it before !

Unfortunately I had moved to the back so missed what was a mad end to the show with cymbals being passed around and band members in the crowd.

It was tough to choose, but I think they were my favourite band of the night; but a very close call indeed as New Candys and The Telescopes were brilliant as well.

I enjoyed the gig, it was good to get to a small show again after being to a couple of larger gigs in bigger venues. The sound was good, the venue was good, and the bands I saw were awesome. I wish I had bought a ticket to the Saturday session as well.

I highly recommend you check out all the bands on Bandcamp or something similar, you never know, you may like it !