Last night's gig
Jan. 18th, 2008 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shermaramaOkay, Thursday at the Crown & Treaty in Uxbridge. Uxbridge is a very long way away, isn't it? The pub seems like a place of respectable Sunday lunches and big-screen football but also seems proud of its band nights. We did a pretty reasonable job, actually, despite a crowd made up of sedately seated sober people, many of them our singer's parents and their friends. The soundman immediately nabbed us for a gig in early February at the other venue he does, anyway. We haven't had any more practice since the poor gig last Friday, so maybe it was just that that all the relevant bits of brain had been used recently at all. It seemed to give us enough of an excuse to start drinking quite a lot, anyway. I don't think I ever want another banana and chocolate flavoured vodka shot, especially not that's gone congealed.
I wouldn't have liked to have to sit through the second band on without some merriment to distract me, though. How many ways can a band in a pub in Uxbridge look like wankers? How about having all their own gear in pristine, fussy flight cases, and refusing to share amps? How about the frontman bassist's terribly expensive fretless five-string Musicman? How about the guitarist who spent every single minute of the hours before they went on with guitar in hands, apparently concentrating on some important new piece? How about a drummer with a click track in headphones? How about handing out demos to absolutely everyone, whether they want one or not, from which we learn that the band's name, SJW, is the frontman's initials? (He's called Simon. Rock on, Simon.) Well, none of these in themselves are crimes, and if a band that did all of those was good, I'd forgive them in a second. What we got, though, was a band that did a cover of Synchronicity by The Police and made it pompous and widdly, with yelpier vocals than Sting could ever have managed. The problem with playing to a click-track is it's hard not to make the beat sound wooden - speeding up through the song is generally a bad idea but not having the freedom to push it even for a few moments here and there is horrible, and everyone else effectively has to play to the track too; there can be no give and take. The guitarist wasn't always hitting the beat right on as guitarists sometimes don't and no-one could move to help him, though the drummer was doing a good job in a shit position, let me get that straight. The shit is basically down to the frontman. I think Simon thinks he's somewhere inbetween Biffy Clyro and Andrew WK in terms of being a righteous rock hero. I'm sure Simon was doing some very nice fast widdly bass, although the thing about bass in straight-ahead rock bands is that you just can't hear it in that much detail because of all the drum trash. I think Simon thinks he's a good singer because he can do bits that are loud and bits that warble, and goes for ambitious vocals as a result, but really he just kept showing up all the things he couldn't do, like keeping up the loud to the end of a line, or knowing when to tastefully use warble. In short, Simon's ego and finance far outrank his ability, and SJW are unlikely to ever be anything other than a prize wanker accompanied by a couple of lads who really should be doing something more rewarding. Oh well.
I wish the bands had been in a different order. The Plan were a splendid skate-punk four piece, tight as hell with three shouty vocals and intermittent trumpet. Lots of punk bands have NOFX shirts but very few of them have the talent to make you think they've absorbed it all and come up with their own better, bouncier, right here and now version. Me and Debz only got to stay for a handful of songs because of Uxbridge being a really long way away from east and south-east London. We'd packed up ready to go, and we were going to go, we were, and then they started this song with such a ridiculous beat that we couldn't not dance so we did that for one song, just one song, with overcoats on and instruments on backs, and then we had to escape before we stayed for the rest of it and got stranded in Uxbridge. Since the soundman obviously knows them well, I hope we get to share a bill with them again sometime because that was not an original type of music, admittedly, but it was being done better than I've seen it done in years. Ace.
I wouldn't have liked to have to sit through the second band on without some merriment to distract me, though. How many ways can a band in a pub in Uxbridge look like wankers? How about having all their own gear in pristine, fussy flight cases, and refusing to share amps? How about the frontman bassist's terribly expensive fretless five-string Musicman? How about the guitarist who spent every single minute of the hours before they went on with guitar in hands, apparently concentrating on some important new piece? How about a drummer with a click track in headphones? How about handing out demos to absolutely everyone, whether they want one or not, from which we learn that the band's name, SJW, is the frontman's initials? (He's called Simon. Rock on, Simon.) Well, none of these in themselves are crimes, and if a band that did all of those was good, I'd forgive them in a second. What we got, though, was a band that did a cover of Synchronicity by The Police and made it pompous and widdly, with yelpier vocals than Sting could ever have managed. The problem with playing to a click-track is it's hard not to make the beat sound wooden - speeding up through the song is generally a bad idea but not having the freedom to push it even for a few moments here and there is horrible, and everyone else effectively has to play to the track too; there can be no give and take. The guitarist wasn't always hitting the beat right on as guitarists sometimes don't and no-one could move to help him, though the drummer was doing a good job in a shit position, let me get that straight. The shit is basically down to the frontman. I think Simon thinks he's somewhere inbetween Biffy Clyro and Andrew WK in terms of being a righteous rock hero. I'm sure Simon was doing some very nice fast widdly bass, although the thing about bass in straight-ahead rock bands is that you just can't hear it in that much detail because of all the drum trash. I think Simon thinks he's a good singer because he can do bits that are loud and bits that warble, and goes for ambitious vocals as a result, but really he just kept showing up all the things he couldn't do, like keeping up the loud to the end of a line, or knowing when to tastefully use warble. In short, Simon's ego and finance far outrank his ability, and SJW are unlikely to ever be anything other than a prize wanker accompanied by a couple of lads who really should be doing something more rewarding. Oh well.
I wish the bands had been in a different order. The Plan were a splendid skate-punk four piece, tight as hell with three shouty vocals and intermittent trumpet. Lots of punk bands have NOFX shirts but very few of them have the talent to make you think they've absorbed it all and come up with their own better, bouncier, right here and now version. Me and Debz only got to stay for a handful of songs because of Uxbridge being a really long way away from east and south-east London. We'd packed up ready to go, and we were going to go, we were, and then they started this song with such a ridiculous beat that we couldn't not dance so we did that for one song, just one song, with overcoats on and instruments on backs, and then we had to escape before we stayed for the rest of it and got stranded in Uxbridge. Since the soundman obviously knows them well, I hope we get to share a bill with them again sometime because that was not an original type of music, admittedly, but it was being done better than I've seen it done in years. Ace.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 11:14 pm (UTC)We've kindof stopped doing london gigs because the promoters seem to expect you to bring all the equipment, bring 20-30 friends willing to pay 6-8 quid each, play for half an hour, and then go home with 20 quid and be grateful for it - I'd rather put on a gig myself and not charge anyone entry.. we've had fun experiences with similar bands when we did though (although we got to make frineds with the excellent shoot to kill (www.myspace.com/shoottokillhardcore) :)
I particularly like hating bands whose frontmen keep abusing the audience telling them to come closer to the stage and dance and look enthusiastic - if your music isn't doing that for you, making a wanker out of yourself isn't going to help!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-18 11:39 pm (UTC)I know just what you mean about frontmen like that - a bass-playing ex of mine was beginning to be unsure whether it was worth being in a particular band, when they played a gig where the frontman kept doing the 'come on, are you dancing' thing. My ex played the entire gig facing away from the audience in shame and left very shortly afterwards. You can't go round telling people to like you, they either do or don't.
Old Uxbridgian speaks
Date: 2008-01-19 10:57 am (UTC)Baint be nowt like that in my dayRe: Old Uxbridgian speaks
Date: 2008-01-19 11:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 02:45 pm (UTC)