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shermarama) wrote2008-12-31 04:59 pm
shermarama) wrote2008-12-31 04:59 pm
Entry tags:
Getting them in in time
I said I'd make at least some sort of note of all the gigs I went to in 2008, so there are some more that I need to get in before the end of play. So, on the 5th / 6th / 7th of December, I went to Butlins in Minehead, to see the Nightmare Before Christmas ATP hosted by Mike Patton & The Melvins, and very civilised it was. Chalets, massive buffet breakfasts, your own kitchen, TV channels programmed by the organisers with weird stuff on, and general agreeableness, especially useful considering I still wasn't well yet, couldn't really drink and needed to sit down a lot. Also there were lots of bands, of which the ones I saw were:
Melvins 1983: The complete 1983 line-up playing songs from 1983. This proves that the Melvins have been good since 1983, and at the time were experimenting with where post-punk was going to go.
Big Business: Just two of them. The drummer was ace as always, but the singing suggested that the singer had no ear for it. This became perplexing in light of the day after; was he just having an off patch?
Dirtbombs: Yawn on a stick. Well, okay, not quite true; if they'd played for twenty minutes rather than an hour they could have stuck to stuff that showed off the charismatic frontman and the pair of very competent drummers and given minimum exposre to the annoying woman who played only one string of her guitar, but they played an hour so we got to see just how shit she was and how short of song ideas they were. Hmm.
Torche: I wanted to see them because I really liked Floor and I think I got more out of it than those who didn't know their stuff. They were enthuiastic and the doom aspects of it worked well but the singer again sounded like he couldn't hear himself. Assuming they're often better-organised than that live, I'd recommend seeing them live. They do something sufficiently original that people have to invent nonsensical terms like doom-pop for it, which is surely a good thing.
Zu: They were plainly good, but at the same time, I didn't feel sufficiently well-versed in their sound of skittering drums and atonal saxophone and general jazz abstractness to follow them. Hmm.
I didn't go and see Isis because I've seen them before and I don't really like them, and I don't think many other we were with did either. I don't think they're ever going to win me over. Instead we went and sat in the chalet and ate biscuits and watched Futurama. After that, though, we went back out to see
Meat Puppets: Which seemed worth seeing for the description and the promise of original members and the Nirvana connection and all that, and they were probably good if what they do works for you, but it didn't for me and I was very tired by then so I went to bed instead.
So the next day we got up and ate a lot of breakfast and went to Look At Things in Minehead including the sea, and then we saw
Mastodon: Yay! Only three quarters of them, but they were still very good. You know about Mastodon, I don't need to tell you how much Brann Dailor deserves every single one of his toms. Also they finished with a very well-done Thin Lizzy cover. Coo.
Melvins: Yay! They were ace! I was knackered already and the healing power of the Melvins made me feel much better! The set was basically all things from Nude With Boots, I discover on having got that for Christmas, but it was all top-notch stuff with the two drummers. And, at the end, a beefily harmonic rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. So if the geezer from Big Business can sing like that with the Melvins, what was he up to the day before? Never mind, anyway.
Butthole Surfers: I'm glad to have seen them, what with having several of their albums, but I suspect I don't need to do that often. It's very much about Gibby and his pronouncements and vocal effects, it certainly makes for a show rather than a band playing a bunch of songs, but I don't know if I need to see those songs done live particularly. There was a second drummer but I can't see how she added anything other than what I'd call art value.
Fantomas: Hmmmmm. Mike Patton doesn't push my buttons, I'm afraid, and a complete playthrough of the album Director's Cut did little for me. I went elsewhere halfway through. Dale Crover of the Melvins was doing the drums, and Buzzo was on guitar, but they were playing the songs, not their versions of them. Though I respect Dave Lombardo as a drummer I don't think his blastbeat style was well deployed in Fantomas and the fact that it was Dale Crover doing an impression of him added nothing to proceedings. I've got a somewhat specific set of likes in music and this ain't it; never mind.
Taraf De Haidouks: "Riotous Romanian outlaw folk from the world's greatest gypsy group," it says here. They were all right but insufficiently amplified for the venue, I'd say. We didn't stay for all of it, we went and had a sit down and watched televisual weirdness in the chalet again, and then having gathered strength, went out again later for
Rahzel: I'd heard many recommendations of Rahzel for his beatboxing abilities, and I rather like The Roots, so this seemed like a good idea. Really not my style of show, though. It was all about working up the crowd, spending ages introducing what tricky thing he was about to do and then doing it, which I'm sure is good for some crowds and may have been a very cunning approach with a large auditorium crowd of drunk people who are not into most of your sort of music, but it didn't sit right with me. It was about 15 minutes of material spun out to 45, and he was good but not as good as he thought he was. Worth seeing anyway, but not the right thing for me then, so we went to bed.
And in Sunday we got up and ate peanut butter on toast, if memory serves, and then went to see
Vocal Sampling: Which was the band of the event with the highest aceness-to-expected-aceness ratio. Dude, this is six Cuban blokes who sing/beatbox/whatever you want to call it a full band's worth of instruments, usually with accompanying mimes which was kind of cute, mostly doing traditional Cuban music but with two notable departures which were Every Breath You Take and Hotel California. All the instruments were convincing, from the two blokes who did almost all the bass and percussion to the four frontmen who did whatever else was necessary, whether brass section, extra percussion, vocals, synths in Every Breath You Take or an astoundingly good guitar solo in Hotel California. I've never been in a room where so many people were so obviously astounded. They got everyone joining in with singing along in a language they don't speak, many people doing a sort of Sunday morning jazzercise along with them, and thunderous applause.
Leila: Was a bit of a letdown by comparison. Had lots of technical trouble but I doubt I would have liked her much anyway, which is not to say that others might not, but not for me.
Farmer's Market: Are supposed to be some amazing fusion of Russian folk with American bluegrass or thereabouts, but weren't worth the effort to me. We left again.
Monotonix: I'm not sure I can say that I've seen this band. We got there a bit late in the set and by then they were off the stage, being carried around by the crowd in trademark style, and then there was some confusion about whether we could get out because they were still playing but outside now. I should have made more of an effort to get to see them but the chalet was warm. Yet to establish if they're worth the hype, style of thing.
Dalek: may have been good, but the sound was too confused-sounding to tell, so I couldn't be bothered and went to see
Mastodon: again, who once again were ace, and probably better than the day before. And the whole of the Melvins came and joined them for the last song, which meant *three* drummers, and not just any three drummers but three you could stick on any shortlist of my favourite drummers, so you know, that was pretty good.
Melvins: again, and much of the same setlist, only not the Star-Spangled Banner at the end again, but they were ace again and I like the Melvins a lot. I only own about seven albums, which clearly isn't enough.
The Damned: were a letdown. Their drummer did not deserve *any* of his toms. Neat Neat Neat does not have a keyboard interlude in the middle. It's been so long that they can no longer see that they are travesties of their former selves and should stop it, in other words. We left.
Kool Keith: And Dennis Deft. Nice. But again all about the big show and not making the impression on me they could, in the circumstances. So we buggered off to
Boss Hog: who were a curious assemblage, being Jon Spencer's old band and therefore being people who haven't played for years but can remember being punk more clearly than the Damned can, and people who have continued playing all through and have managed to not lose it. They were a bit sketchy but in an entirely forgivable way. They weren't right up my musical street but I could see what they were doing and it was good.
And by then it was too late to stay up for Squarepusher again, really, what with being knackered, so that was probably where to leave it.
Melvins 1983: The complete 1983 line-up playing songs from 1983. This proves that the Melvins have been good since 1983, and at the time were experimenting with where post-punk was going to go.
Big Business: Just two of them. The drummer was ace as always, but the singing suggested that the singer had no ear for it. This became perplexing in light of the day after; was he just having an off patch?
Dirtbombs: Yawn on a stick. Well, okay, not quite true; if they'd played for twenty minutes rather than an hour they could have stuck to stuff that showed off the charismatic frontman and the pair of very competent drummers and given minimum exposre to the annoying woman who played only one string of her guitar, but they played an hour so we got to see just how shit she was and how short of song ideas they were. Hmm.
Torche: I wanted to see them because I really liked Floor and I think I got more out of it than those who didn't know their stuff. They were enthuiastic and the doom aspects of it worked well but the singer again sounded like he couldn't hear himself. Assuming they're often better-organised than that live, I'd recommend seeing them live. They do something sufficiently original that people have to invent nonsensical terms like doom-pop for it, which is surely a good thing.
Zu: They were plainly good, but at the same time, I didn't feel sufficiently well-versed in their sound of skittering drums and atonal saxophone and general jazz abstractness to follow them. Hmm.
I didn't go and see Isis because I've seen them before and I don't really like them, and I don't think many other we were with did either. I don't think they're ever going to win me over. Instead we went and sat in the chalet and ate biscuits and watched Futurama. After that, though, we went back out to see
Meat Puppets: Which seemed worth seeing for the description and the promise of original members and the Nirvana connection and all that, and they were probably good if what they do works for you, but it didn't for me and I was very tired by then so I went to bed instead.
So the next day we got up and ate a lot of breakfast and went to Look At Things in Minehead including the sea, and then we saw
Mastodon: Yay! Only three quarters of them, but they were still very good. You know about Mastodon, I don't need to tell you how much Brann Dailor deserves every single one of his toms. Also they finished with a very well-done Thin Lizzy cover. Coo.
Melvins: Yay! They were ace! I was knackered already and the healing power of the Melvins made me feel much better! The set was basically all things from Nude With Boots, I discover on having got that for Christmas, but it was all top-notch stuff with the two drummers. And, at the end, a beefily harmonic rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. So if the geezer from Big Business can sing like that with the Melvins, what was he up to the day before? Never mind, anyway.
Butthole Surfers: I'm glad to have seen them, what with having several of their albums, but I suspect I don't need to do that often. It's very much about Gibby and his pronouncements and vocal effects, it certainly makes for a show rather than a band playing a bunch of songs, but I don't know if I need to see those songs done live particularly. There was a second drummer but I can't see how she added anything other than what I'd call art value.
Fantomas: Hmmmmm. Mike Patton doesn't push my buttons, I'm afraid, and a complete playthrough of the album Director's Cut did little for me. I went elsewhere halfway through. Dale Crover of the Melvins was doing the drums, and Buzzo was on guitar, but they were playing the songs, not their versions of them. Though I respect Dave Lombardo as a drummer I don't think his blastbeat style was well deployed in Fantomas and the fact that it was Dale Crover doing an impression of him added nothing to proceedings. I've got a somewhat specific set of likes in music and this ain't it; never mind.
Taraf De Haidouks: "Riotous Romanian outlaw folk from the world's greatest gypsy group," it says here. They were all right but insufficiently amplified for the venue, I'd say. We didn't stay for all of it, we went and had a sit down and watched televisual weirdness in the chalet again, and then having gathered strength, went out again later for
Rahzel: I'd heard many recommendations of Rahzel for his beatboxing abilities, and I rather like The Roots, so this seemed like a good idea. Really not my style of show, though. It was all about working up the crowd, spending ages introducing what tricky thing he was about to do and then doing it, which I'm sure is good for some crowds and may have been a very cunning approach with a large auditorium crowd of drunk people who are not into most of your sort of music, but it didn't sit right with me. It was about 15 minutes of material spun out to 45, and he was good but not as good as he thought he was. Worth seeing anyway, but not the right thing for me then, so we went to bed.
And in Sunday we got up and ate peanut butter on toast, if memory serves, and then went to see
Vocal Sampling: Which was the band of the event with the highest aceness-to-expected-aceness ratio. Dude, this is six Cuban blokes who sing/beatbox/whatever you want to call it a full band's worth of instruments, usually with accompanying mimes which was kind of cute, mostly doing traditional Cuban music but with two notable departures which were Every Breath You Take and Hotel California. All the instruments were convincing, from the two blokes who did almost all the bass and percussion to the four frontmen who did whatever else was necessary, whether brass section, extra percussion, vocals, synths in Every Breath You Take or an astoundingly good guitar solo in Hotel California. I've never been in a room where so many people were so obviously astounded. They got everyone joining in with singing along in a language they don't speak, many people doing a sort of Sunday morning jazzercise along with them, and thunderous applause.
Leila: Was a bit of a letdown by comparison. Had lots of technical trouble but I doubt I would have liked her much anyway, which is not to say that others might not, but not for me.
Farmer's Market: Are supposed to be some amazing fusion of Russian folk with American bluegrass or thereabouts, but weren't worth the effort to me. We left again.
Monotonix: I'm not sure I can say that I've seen this band. We got there a bit late in the set and by then they were off the stage, being carried around by the crowd in trademark style, and then there was some confusion about whether we could get out because they were still playing but outside now. I should have made more of an effort to get to see them but the chalet was warm. Yet to establish if they're worth the hype, style of thing.
Dalek: may have been good, but the sound was too confused-sounding to tell, so I couldn't be bothered and went to see
Mastodon: again, who once again were ace, and probably better than the day before. And the whole of the Melvins came and joined them for the last song, which meant *three* drummers, and not just any three drummers but three you could stick on any shortlist of my favourite drummers, so you know, that was pretty good.
Melvins: again, and much of the same setlist, only not the Star-Spangled Banner at the end again, but they were ace again and I like the Melvins a lot. I only own about seven albums, which clearly isn't enough.
The Damned: were a letdown. Their drummer did not deserve *any* of his toms. Neat Neat Neat does not have a keyboard interlude in the middle. It's been so long that they can no longer see that they are travesties of their former selves and should stop it, in other words. We left.
Kool Keith: And Dennis Deft. Nice. But again all about the big show and not making the impression on me they could, in the circumstances. So we buggered off to
Boss Hog: who were a curious assemblage, being Jon Spencer's old band and therefore being people who haven't played for years but can remember being punk more clearly than the Damned can, and people who have continued playing all through and have managed to not lose it. They were a bit sketchy but in an entirely forgivable way. They weren't right up my musical street but I could see what they were doing and it was good.
And by then it was too late to stay up for Squarepusher again, really, what with being knackered, so that was probably where to leave it.