Dulce et decorum est pro pornographia mori

A return to the no-fi phone photography method of documentation for a no-fi gig at the Joinery on Arbour Hill in Stoneybatter on Sunday night.

What's that, you say. a gig in Stoneybatter?! Yes. In a large room in what seemed to be a stripped-out former shop. What you might call a "space", I think. Bring your own drink. I didn't bring any, but some did and I'm sure they were delighted. It seemed to be some sort of Deserted Village buzz, and I have only nice things to say about that label, even though I've only got Thinguma*jigsaw's (awakeinwhitechapel) by them.

Their logo was a fetching road sign on that CD and they included the translation: Sráidbhaile Iargúlta. In one swoop, Deserted Village instantly rooted themselves in Irishness - for who else has such bilingual signs? - and that somehow made them seem all the more cool to me, because they were putting out a mortality-obsessed Norwegian duo and not trying to be too detached and hipstery. I don't know why that seemed important to me, it just did. It also might not have been anything to do with them, but there was a merch desk with non-performing bands' stuff, so I surmised.

So I missed Cian Nugent, and Laura Sheeran was essentially just thirty minutes of equipment failure, one stunning song, one alright song and a semi-sean nós a capella song about love.

Next on, Peter Delaney. Peter Delaney's Duck Egg Blue EP from a couple of years ago helped open up my conception of what music produced in Ireland could sound like at a point when I was still pretty fuzzy about the fact that it didn't have to be gig-focused and Dublin-centred. He's from Limerick and he plays the ukelele. Not in a jaunty sort of way, but in a deeply sad way which can only be created by an instrument with no natural sustain. Two ukeleles he had with him in fact. He played only three songs, concluding with an unpolished, melancholy epic called 'The Guest' which is, at some point, going to be spoken of with reverence. Probably.

After Peter came LITTLE MYTH EPIPHANYMPH, icily scouring the room with her silent death-stare and THE SEVERED HEADMASTER, presenting the merry morbid show to the gathered patrons. So comfortable did he feel in fact that he later introduced himself and his companion by their real names: MARTHA REDIVIVUS and SETH HORATIO BUNCOMBE.

Banjo in hand, Seth sang sanguinary songs about death, mortality, fatality and downfall with the peace-disturbing bowed-saw playing of Martha creating a bizarre, unsettling atmosphere in the background.

But here's a secret.

YOU HAVE TO BUY THE MYTH

SUSPEND DISBELIEF! JESUS!

When the singer of Thinguma*jigsaw tells you that he is about to sing a song about a mortuary, you don't give off a relaxed chuckle.

When the singer of Thinguma*jigsaw tells you that he is about to sing a song called "Sweet and laudable it is to die for pornography or, in Latin, Dulce et decorum est pro pornographia mori"... that's not funny either! Internalise it.

Some woman hummed her way through 'Dulce et decorum est...' and in return had the last several lines of the song (which is about the production of snuff films) sung directly at her. She soon exited her front row seat, possibly to meet with early demise.

Highlights? All the new songs sound just as atmospheric and eerie as the first albums, and the show was mostly new songs. The Daniel Johnston cover 'Walking the Cow' and the (awakeinwhitechapel) opener 'Serpent's Apple', opening and closing the show respectively, were the equivalent of hits.

But in the end, the crowd in this bouncer-free, bar chat-free, cheap, communal space tainted the experience themselves. This is why we can't have nice things.

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Catch up

Port O'Brien were a tentative plus. More, in a slightly less familiar tone than is usually taken here, posted at Analogue. They seemed tired, and they didn't play Pigeonhold, but it was still pretty good. I went to Whelans with a guy I know but hadn't seen in ages, his Nordy girlfriend, Zebedee and Joshua. They plied me with free rider wine and we discussed how Thin Lizzy definitely aren't the best Irish band ever, despite what (assumably) Mighty Stef fans shouted during the set. Zeb thought Van Morrison was the best if he counts, and he didn't hate U2. I withheld my opinion so as not to be rude. They were mad for the Guinness.

The USB cable for my phone doesn't seem to be doing anything, so the era of the no-fi snap is dead and I'm back to stealing Flickr pictures from anyone whose Flickr I can find and Google Image searching "salmon of knowledge". Alas.

Why? was excellent if exactly the same as last time in Crawdaddy, and very much different but very interesting in the stripped down gig at Twisted Pepper. A review of both will be forthcoming.

It's that time of year to start thinking about a top 25. If anyone has any recommendations of things that they think are better than Vampire Weekend, Deerhoof, Of Montreal or Why?, tell me now while there's still breathing room.

New Analogue goes to print tomorrow with a 2,500 word Vampire Weekend interview (uaimse) and a similarly-sized Built To Spill piece from Darragh leading the troops to battle. This one appears to have been copy-edited hard, too, so prepare for new levels of free, mistake-free indie music journalism.

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I see a salty message written in the eaves

Most of the time, I'm the kid. It's been like that for a long time, I don't know why. I was one of the oldest in my class all the way through school, but I ended up being the kid anyway. On my road, I made friends with people a year older than me, and I was always the kid. At school, when I was in Transition Year, I made friends with a couple of people in Sixth year and I was the kid in those relationships too. With Analogue and the people surrounding Analogue, I am a couple of years behind, so I can seem like the kid sometimes too, especially when I show up to interviews. The other night when I was playing a gig in Anseo, a woman was heard to say "he can't be older than fifteen" as I got behind the microphone. I'm the kid. It just ends up that way, I don't know why it is.

But last week, probably for the first time of my life, I felt old at a gig. At the age of twenty, I was suddenly the old curmudgeon, stuck in his ways with his headbanging and attempts at normal dancing. Around me were heaving swarms of underage girls being giddy about the band, and analogous swarms of underage boys trying to look cool in front of them. They pogoed. I tried to pogo too, but somehow, I was weighed down. I tried not to make a snide smile at their chants of "Ezra, Ezra" before the band started, but I couldn't help it. I tried to zone out everyone else, but extended arms with phones and cameras surrounded me and dragged me back to a world where fame is the thing and the fact of Vampire Weekend being on stage in the first place is two-thirds of the battle for enjoying your night.

Bah, humbug.

The band were a lot of fun though, I have to admit. They were feeding off the unselfconscious singing along (of the type I talked about before, with fists raised during lines about Peter Gabriel as if they were singing about world hunger), and putting the energy back into the show. The slightly more skeletal live approach worked really well, and songs that were skeletal to begin with, like Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, probably came off the best.

I can't pick out any weak moments in the set. They played everything off the album and one new song that sounded like Animal Collective ("I can see that, yeah" - bassist Chris Baio, upon being quizzed on this matter), and even included an ill-thought-out but nevertheless not-terrible Fleetwood Mac cover as an encore. They don't simply replicate the sound of one of the year's best albums, but they don't try to mess with the formula either, and anyone with half a funnybone couldn't have failed to enjoy this.

Oh, and a postscript to the bottle-blonde gentleman who felt it necessary to make a low-res digital video of most of the set over my head while simultaneously dancing... I can think of a website you might like.

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Wash away what we create

So I also went to that Drowned In Sound show at Whelans too, thanks to the beneficence of my lovely girlfriend, who pitched exactly right on what I would want for a birthday present. I won't bore you with the details of my Odyssean trek to the venue, because I probably already did between bands, but just remember never to get a 38 bus anywhere ever if you still have the use of your extremities and your critical faculty.

The mess that is post-rich Ireland's transport infrastructure meant that I missed all but the last couple of songs by Times New Viking. Close watchers will know that I also missed Times New Viking last time they played because I was at The Mae Shi and they went on early. Guess why I missed them this time? They went on early.

What sort of promoter puts on "motherfuckin' Times New Viking" (Dean Allen Spunt, No Age) at 8 o'clock? I mean I made it to the venue at about twenty minutes past eight and I only saw the last two songs. The ticket said doors at 8. I have never been to a gig where the band starts at the time the doors were supposed to open, because logically, there would be no-one there at that time. This is apparently what happened last night. I wouldn't know, because I wasn't there. Fuck everything.

Anyway, next tack.

No Age were incredible, thankfully. It was my second time seeing them, but my first time indoors, and my first time with a respectful amount of album-listening done. Last time was more fun in the sense that the Dutch punks at Lowlands were moshing enough to make my wobbly headbanging seem okay. Last night my wobbly headbanging seemed to be shared by only two or three acquaintances and the members of Los Campesinos! who were in the crowd.

The show, though. Very, very loud. Intense. No Age have some really great songs. Teen Creeps, for example, has got to be one of the songs of the year.

Strum, strum, strum. Dididi-deh-do-do - NOISE. Washes and washes of noise. Two guys just being honest about it, playing a great song at a volume that cannot be ignored. There aren't many better moments in modern life than the heavy bit kicking in. And that's what No Age are all about.

They had some new stuff (I think) which was more directly rocking and less obfuscated. I enjoyed this. I would like to see No Age at a house-party (maybe the Hideaway House as Adam said in a comment below) or somewhere less self-conscious and less full of LC! fans. Because they've got energy in spades and it's a pity not many were sharing in the loud, loud glory of it.

As for Los Campesinos, I didn't like them. I've never liked them anyway, but they were never going to beat No Age. It's their own fault for picking such good support acts. Their lyrics are so blatantly poserish that I'm surprised anyone except teenage girls can stomach it. "I was listening to music and reading fiction at the same time" or whatever. I mean, what the fuck is that? They play like a major label band on Letterman or something. There's no heart to it. They're just trying to be clever, and their songs aren't particularly good. They're the opposite of No Age's honesty, in my eyes. If they didn't have vaguely different instrumentation I don't think anyone would ever have thought of them as separate from the NME continuum in the first place. Because they're not. Death to Los Campesinos.

Long live No Age.

Times New Viking I am sorry please don't split up before I see you.

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Art-core, you know the score

I'm not all that sold on Lovvers as a band. Being knowingly obscurantist always irks me a bit. I gave out to anyone who would listen for about three weeks about how Times New Viking were just pretentiously messing with perfectly good Yo La Tengo-esque songs for the sake of being arty. I'm not that into Husker Du, not enough to Google their name to copy and paste it with umlauts into this article anyway. My pop-sense tingles when bands don't let you hear as much of their song as they hear in their head.

But after the gig, I can see why their album (or EP, if you don't consider seven songs in less than fifteen minutes to qualify for album status) sounds like it does. They're trying to reflect an attitude and an energy from the live show.

And the live show is good. It takes all the cues from the hardcore end of things. The guitarist, bassist and drummer play as loud and as hard as they can for the entire set. Everyone sweats. And the singer sings from the crowd. Hardcore singers, as much as anyone into hardcore that I know would probably punch me for saying this, are as much cheerleaders as they are musicians. Their job is to break down the arms-folded barrier between the crowd and the band. They go, they bump into people, if anyone knows the words they get equal access to the microphone.

Lovvers did it to a tee. Their arty, garage rock buzz is what saves them from being a crappy hardcore band, but their hardcore buzz is what makes them fun. The guy flopped into people. I pushed him a few times, he pulled up my t-shirt and put his sweaty face on my shoulder. It was horrible. They played a load of songs in a short space of time. 'No Romantics' and 'No Fun' were their best songs.

But they weren't really playing songs, the way I see it. They were just transferring energy. That's their milieu, I think. It definitely comes across better with a sweaty man in your face than it does with just an album the length of an Our Brother The Native song at your disposal. It was fun, and I think the crowd felt a little more involved than they normally would. All the hallmarks of a good hardcore show were present, and it was all the better for it.

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Who needs an eye?

Two open proposals to Grand Pocket Orchestra:

1. Make a limited run of GPO action figures. Of all bands that have ever lived in Ireland, none would make a better set than you. And it's not even like people would just want the singer or anything. Everyone in Grand Pocket Orchestra has a distinct, fruit-flavoured air. There could even be two Paddys, one with a guitar and one with a mic lead wrapped around himself, eyes bulging, face looking blue from lack of oxygen, doing the Wii skiing action that he does. I would buy them. If Of Montreal can sell their album as a paper lantern, GPO's album could easily be action figures with secret USB ports where you can get 1/4 of the album.

2. How deadly would a Monkees-style mini-series about life in a fictionalised Grand Pocket Orchestra house be? They could all get into half an hour of mischief, before introducing guest stars or something, and they could open and close with a song. There could be puppets in the kitchen who only talk to Bronwyn or something. Imagine it though... *ding dong* "I wonder who's there?" (Noel Edmonds style), then the door opens to canned applause and Fight Like Apes appear. The fun is doubled.

So the in-store itself in Tower was fun. Grand Pocket Orchestra are getting better and better as time goes by and any initial reservations I had about a second guitarist drowning the tweeness are completely gone by now. The balance that seemed like it was slightly tipped when Flesh first joined is restored, and the songs are getting complex and nearly chin-strokingly thought-worthy while staying in the same Kinder Egg world. It was disappointing that there weren't more people there to get a copy of Make Happy War, which is the older, better brother to the young, fun first EP.

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Programmed To Destroy Us

So on to Sunday. The Judaeo-Christian God, who'd been letting the cistern fill up since mid-August, eventually opened the flood-gates and flushed his toilet once more onto the hapless Dublin. This had a fairly negative effect on Hard Working Class Heroes. Example 1: I got wet. Example 2: I had to wear an unfashionable anorak over my already unfashionable attire. Example 3: Fewer people showed up.

Robotnik though, was unmissable. If you were at Meeting House Square or Andrew's Lane at all during the festival, you've seen the video for Puddlestarter he did for Muzu, featuring an anthropomorphic horse with a rainbow umbrella getting super-soaked and making some of the greatest expressions ever recorded while battling Chris Morrin on the floor for supremacy during the instrumental section.

The horse was there again in the Academy 2. Robotnik is someone who does enough to be on the radar for a lot of people, but who doesn't necessarily fill them with childish joy and enthusiasm for his music. More than 50% of his appeal is in the drama and the visuals, in my opinion. Without the costumes, the supersoaker, the horse, he's just a guy. I'm sure people would still listen to a degree, but he wouldn't have the medium-sized status he has right now.

His set was good enough, for what it was. People Walk Away was a highlight. He has a tendency to sound a bit too influenced by the music of the 90s, and at other times he forgets melody. But with Robotnik, image is core. He sang a song about rain dressed in a raincoat. He did some other okay stuff. Then he played Puddlestarter and had an elaborate and slightly too violent fake fight with a horse, who tackled him after the fight was over and forced him to sing the last chorus from the floor. It was fun, not enough fun to make me want to run out and buy the album, but fun.

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The Last Of The Famous International Playboys

David Turpin splits the ranks, I think. You either like it or you don't. I had no idea which camp I was in until I actually showed up at 4 Dame Lane on Friday. Some were convinced I wouldn't like it at all. Others were simply convinced that THEY didn't like it. Still others gave his music the fantastic description of being "suggestively electronic". And the resident Analogue pop-savant (who I still haven't met, though Indie Bar tells me he's AMAZING) wrung a great interview out of him. All of this made me more and more curious.

I admit I only saw the second half of the set because I was picking up gear, but I walked straight to the 'yea' side of the house. Being whispery and suggestive is not something that would ever put me off music after four years of Xiu Xiu, so I have to say I was enthralled. My head started to fill with names of other bands, which tends to happen when I get excited about something: Patrick Wolf, Jim O'Rourke, Antony & The Johnsons... but most of all...

I was that stereotypical teenage Morrissey obsessive, if you didn't already know. Turpin drips Morrisseyism. Not in his style of singing or his music, particularly. But just his manner. Complete self-assurance, and an eyebrow raised at all times, whether in reality or just in his head. So long live David Turpin.

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AND WHEN IT'S TIME TO PARTY WE WILL ALWAYS PARTY HARD

I spent the winter (not on the verge of a total breakdown or in Norway) on the floor of my bedroom playing a second-hand copy of Madden 03 for PS2 to the strains of Mcluskyism, (awakeinwhitechapel) and a copy of the Super Extra Bonus Party LP I adopted from the Analogue post-bag.

Of the three, it was SEBP that I least expected to get into. But lo! through the magic of the extra effort an actual physical copy of an album elicits in me, I found myself throwing it on every other night. I jerked my head to Mushie Shake, imagined I knew the words to Spanik Sabotage and appreciated the excellent foray into traditionalism that was Everything Flows.

Friday in Meeting House Square was my first time seeing them live, apart from a few flashing lights behind a few hundred sweaty backs at the very end of their set last year. It was good, but I can't help but think that it could've been better in a few ways. Not that any of those ways are in any way Super Extra Bonus Party's fault.

First off - low volume? Come on sound man! Jesus! If they want the drums turned way up, turn them way up. If music is supposed to grab you and make you dance or jump or nod your head, play it at a volume that allows that to happen. Fuck city bye-laws.

Then, from second- and third-hand accounts, the lights and visuals are one of the best parts of the set. Outdoors, lights are ineffective unless you're putting Radiohead or Flaming Lips money into it. And the screen for the visuals required a full 90 degree turn to see. So it was a choice between the band or the visuals. Not a choice that should have to be made, especially for integrated visuals (as opposed to simply playing the Robotnik video in the background).

Still, they made the best of it. It was a party. Feet were tapped, heads nodded. The band jumped, I wished the music was loud enough and I was drunk enough to jump as well. It's actually ridiculous that I haven't seen them, now that I come to think of it. I was at Club NME when they played, but I was playing elsewhere and only made it there in time for Cadence Weapon. Friends have gone while I was saving money or going to something else. I even won a free guestlist off Nialler9 once, but I was either at another gig or I didn't check it in time.

I will see them again though. Indoors, preferably

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Lowlands Notebooks - Sunday etc

Lykke Li:

magnetic personality - eclectic music - tendency towards hit or miss -banging single

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MGMT:

songs all either "bleeeeep or faaar away" (thank you Katie) - limp - bad

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Sigur Rós:

quiet loud fairytale thing - not half as bowled over as my friends - most of the set ordinary - regular gig, not theatre set-up as Oxegen 2006 - highlights did hit the nordic sublime

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The Roots:

sore neck from jerking it and trying to dance to rap - unused to this - virtuouso instrumentalists - guitar/bass solos for twelve hours - rap as part of the music, not over the music - ultimate fun - genius festival closer

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Lowlands Notebooks - Saturday etc

50 Jaar Nederpop (Dutch pop retrospective, see here):

bim bam bom, House For Saaaaaaaaaaaale, Heideroosjes singer, fullest main stage ever, loads of fun


Los Campesinos:

Pete Dohertwee - nothing there - no gap between fun and good music

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British Sea Power:

dull, soft focus, 4/4 rubbish

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Breeders:

halfway between sloppy Sleater-Kinney and less self-absorbed Cat Power, even if they were there first. not very good.

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Iron and Wine:

Vote For Pedro t-shirt brigade vs. my Dublin jersey - unfolding and uncertain - jam sensibilities - virtuoso drummer - Woman King opener - a little too spacey

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No Age:

bedroom noise - attack! - youth abandon punk

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Diplo:

mix mix mix - combining rhythms - Soulja Boy and Lil Wayne and Paper planes - Baltimore to bhangra

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Modeselektor:

boring

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Lowlands Notebooks - Friday etc

Holy Fuck:

sweaty, communal, committed, Lovely Allen, Super Inuit. ultra buzzing vibrant violent headnod energy.

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Hot Chip:

ragged, loud, second record, Nothing Compares 2 U, bit classic rock, bit festival set

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Polskaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

I'm in Krakow at the moment, about a week into a month-long wander through Europe ending at Lowlands in Holland. I've been to Vienna, Bratislava and Auschwitz so far and I'll be in Warsaw by tomorrow night, but in keeping with my diligent efforts to conscientiously document my entire experience of live music, I am going to blog for a minute between checking e-mails and train timetables in a net cafe.

I saw Gipsy Kings accidently in a square in the middle of the Old City in Krakow last night. They were pretty funny. Latin rhythm, tourists shaking their bum-bags, gypsy dancers gypsy dancing. My girlfriend loved it. She was brought up on the Gipsy Kings. I, on the other hand, was discovering them for the first time apart from that Bombolayo song that I didn't know was by them.

It was funny. I laughed. The singer kept saying "Polskaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" even though everyone in the square at 10 on a Sunday was an American tourist or a stag night. An experience.

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Dot's Ugly Cadence

So last night's gig then, put on by new Analogue Magazine Promotions/etc guy Daniel Gray in conjunction with Hefty Horse. I resigned my part in the casual comedy at about nine o'clock (it went well I thought) and then went for a short walk to buy a quarter of fizzy cola bottles before returning for Disconnect The Dots.

Their deal is mostly instrumental, with effects on the vocals so that they sort of become part of the music rather than on top of it. There is a core of really intelligent songwriting in what they do, and at various points they sounded to me like Sunny Day Real Estate, certain of the louder Smiths songs and High Places, but always with the sampler beeping time in the background. Between the mix, the guitar sound and certain moments of uncertainty, they may not have acquitted themselves quite perfectly, but I, knowing the pair of them but not knowing what their music would sound like, was quite impressed by some of their songs, particularly the Dan-on-guitar, Cáit-singing, no sampler one (which was the Sunny Day one) and the last one.

Ugly Megan headlined, and I'm still a big fan. They had toys and thumped acoustic guitar beats, and twee melodies to the hilt. I described all that stuff in the last entry I did about them so I won't do it again. What came across to me the most this time was how much they're into rap and rap culture. I don't know how I missed it before, I thought the Snoop cover was just one of those twee jokes. But no.

They did a cover of American Boy which was in fact better than the Snoop one by a fair bit, and one of the highlights of their set was a song that goes "I'd give you all the love that a pimp can give a ho, because you're my favourite ho, my favourite ho, fo sho". Over the twee-est Moldy Peaches strummy backing ever. Their "encore" was probably my favourite though. Intricate guitar-thumping beat that reminded me of The Caterpillar by the Cure.

After dumping my stuff in the apartment of someone I don't know (sorry!) I ended up at Cadence Weapon in Club NME, which was surprisingly empty. I hadn't heard much Cadence Weapon, but I was disappointed. The dancey beats and "jump!" parts do nothing for me. I was expecting a sort of MF Doom type thing for some reason (because people were calling him the saviour of rap occasionally + he's a nerd) but his actual lyrical skills are nowhere near as good. Nowhere near. I was also disappointed that he played mostly dancehall in his DJ set. So down with Cadence Weapon

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High White Deer

The ground's been covered by others already, and I've fallen into the bad habit of writing way too much about everything, so I'm going to do one sentence reviews of all the bands from the Future Days festival, which was a good night in general.

High Places - Their one good song was good, if just as muddy as everything else.
White Williams - Shite Williams
Deerhunter - I wanted to like them, but they did not grab me.
Dan Deacon - The best holiday entertainer ever, and my vote for world-wide funmaker.
Jape - Tried bit hard at the start, before busting out the perennially great Floating and sliding easily and brilliantly to the finishing line.

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I was a Flower of the mountain yes

I don't often leave the D2 comfort zone to go to gigs (and when I do I generally make a big deal of it), but Thinguma*jigsaw are special. I've never seen them before, and as their album is probably the best thing to come out of Ireland since... James Joyce? I was excited.

James Joyce, then. My understanding was that the event was in celebration of Bloomsday, and that this was why Thinguma*jigsaw were playing (they love him). Thinguma*jigsaw are an insane, hyper-literate, necro-obsessed Norwegian couple whose arrangements consist of banjo-and-musical saw, banjo-and-flute or banjo-and-melodica pretty much exclusively, if you didn't know.

It was a walk around Howth Head, followed by a repair to the Bailly for further music and merriment. James Joyce and Thinguma*jigsaw (with the potential for added Mumblin' Deaf Ro) in Howth is basically the ideal Saturday afternoon to me. There was something weird though. Aoife Mc flagged it, but I missed it. Psycho Kate Bush fan event. Not that there's anything wrong with being a Kate Bush psycho, but I'm not one, and I've only heard two Kate Bush songs ever. So that was a bit of a shock. Also, we couldn't find the actual walk so we just went to the pier until the pub bit started anyway.

I think the Severed Headmaster and Little Myth Epiphanymph, a.k.a. Seth and Martha (Seth may be a second level of fake name - possible real name Stein) were probably there for the Joyce rather than the Bush too though. They started with a reading of the climax to Ulysses that captured a lot of its fluidity and energy, and also showcased Severed-Seth-Stein's hybrid Norwego-Hiberno-Americo-Mockney accent.

They commanded silence for their music. The Headmaster landed somewhere between an author reading his work and a circus ringmaster introducing acts when explaining songs. Martha did not talk, but her death-stare said enough. They sang a lot of songs about death, including a cover of I Love The Dead by Alice Cooper which has the implied Joyce association attached (cheat sheet: last book of Dubliners is called The Dead). His voice is a frail falsetto, over a musical backing which has to be skeletal by definition.

Skeletal is Thinguma*jigsaw all over. They trade in silence, gaunt banjo picking under genuinely shiver-inducing bowed-saw parts. They are kind of scary, especially at such close proximity. If you can't picture the music still, go to the Muxtape and listen to Serpent's Apple. I have no idea how a duo would develop into what Thinguma*jigsaw are. No microphones, no nothing. Just words, bones and shivers.

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I'd rather date Rwanda

According to some review I found while researching (putting "Stephen Malkmus" into Google and clicking everything for five pages) for the Analogue interview I did with him before his gig on Monday, Malkmus fans are divided into two camps. Those who like Face The Truth, and those who like Pig Lib. I want to preface this post by saying that I like both. I love Pavement, I like focused Malkmus a healthy amount, but I also genuinely enjoy the jam bits. So, unlike a lot of people I talked to after the gig, I wasn't disappointed or surprised that he went mostly with the strung out guitar jams. I was actually pretty happy.

Thing is, to my ears, Malkmus guitar-waffle never descends into pointlessness. He has said in interviews that you're not supposed to listen that closely to the instrumental breaks on Real Emotional Trash. But I think you can. Through all the solos in the live set (and there were solos in pretty much everything), my attention never wandered. It's not just fucking around! Seriously! It's what blues would be if shit, Record Collector magazine-reading, high school English teachers weren't choking it to death through reverence and simultaneous enjoyment of 70s classic rock. The Jicks sound fresh to me, and distinctive. The really great instrumental parts were the best part of the show.

Thing is, by playing a lot of really long songs, there's less time left to play some of the million excellent songs of average length in his catalogue. Pencil Rot? Jenny and the Ess-Dog? Also, by definition, Stephen Malkmus solo is hampered by the fact that half his audience at least is hoping every time he finishes a song that the next one is going to be Cut Your Hair. He even said "I need a hair cut" before one of his encore tunes (possibly Baby C'mon). Probably intentional, probably habitual.

He's not hung up on being a solo artist. He had no complaints about talking about Pavement as if it was still a real entity in the interview. He's just doing the jam-out thing right now, and it's probably just as fun to pretend he's going to play Cut Your Hair to him as it is to actually play Cut Your Hair. Still, he's a fucker for teasing. Really enjoyable show, nonetheless. I put one of my favourites off Real Emotional Trash, Gardenia, up in the muxtape you can find in the sidebar, if you're curious.

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In The Morning All I Could Do Was Sing

Duty called me to Tripod on Tuesday. Tapes 'n' Tapes, Sons and Daughters and Port O'Brien.

There was a time when I would have paid to see Tapes 'n' Tapes, but that time is not now. And I have no love for Sons and Daughters. So the only band I was interested in seeing was Port O'Brien. Which was convenient, because they were the ones I was interviewing.

It was only a short, first-of-three opening set in a Tripod that went from empty to half-full as it progressed. Not really the kind of thing that can give a true impression of a band, especially one like Port O'Brien who are quiet twice as often as they're loud and play a lot of soul-searching songs about the sea. It was good to see though.

The difference between Port O'Brien and every band that sails the ocean deep in their imagination is this: salmon fishing. Van Pierszalowski, who is the main singer and songwriter, is the son of a commercial salmon fisherman, and Van spends summers in Alaska with him. Being a skiff-man, whatever that is. Cambria Goodwin, who plays banjo (inaudible at Tripod but essential to the sound on record) and also sings, is a baker at a salmon cannery. When Port O'Brien write songs with nautical metaphors... they're not metaphors. Well, they are. But it's a level closer. It's like the difference between a Hollywood actor doing an Irish accent, and an actual Irish accent, sort of.

Relating to the gig specifically, I'll just say that even though the other three people in the band (Josh, Zebedee and Caleb) were straight out of Vetiver/a Californian medicinal marijuana supplier's in appearance (flares and beards, basically), there is a distinctive Arcade Fire vibe about their live show. Part of it's the chemistry between Van and Cambria. Part of it's the energy of certain songs of theirs, not as developed as Arcade Fire's by a long shot, but showing signs. I don't know what the rest of it is, it's just an instinctive thing on my part.

The gig didn't do them justice, because they were cut short and the circumstances weren't right. But if you follow up on one thing I say on this blog, make it this: click the Muxtape link on the sidebar, and listen to I Woke Up Today.

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God gave me very specific instructions. (Monday pt. 1)

The Mae Shi are a band I hadn't heard before last Monday. For most of the gigs I review on this blog, I have about six months of fanboy excitement brewing up inside me hyping it up. Not this time.

Technically I was there courtesy of Crayonsmith via their manager Dave via Bobby. But I don't think much of Crayonsmith. I might have mentioned that before, because they do support 70% of all bands. If not though, I'm putting it out there now, I don't like their music. Most of it is begging for melody, and the ones that have decent tunes at the core are generally pushing a bit towards 2005 NME territory. I wouldn't have bothered mentioning that I don't like them, except that they're physically impossible to avoid, either live or in Irish music writing. Even us Analogue boys having been covering them. But it's not for me.

Mae Shi were on second, behind Noah and the Whale, who I have no interest in whatsoever. I was asking stupid questions ("Are they post-rock or what?") and making stupid claims ("They look like I won't like them.") for the whole of their lengthy set-up. They opened with I Get Almost Everything, from the crowd. They spent lots and lots of their time in the crowd.

Most of their stuff was really good. "Twee hardcore" was the label State luminary and aforementioned guestlist fixer Bobby gave them. Not too far wrong. It was as if that sort of ultra-serious flavourless US punk-hardcore had been squirted with gunge or something. Run To Your Grave is one I remember as standing out, even though I didn't get the album until after (maybe "get" in inverted commas would be more appropriate).

For a record that seems to be some sort of concept album about biblical judgment, executed over glitchy keyboards, incredibly catchy singalong choruses and bursts of hardcore, it's surprisingly cohesive and excellent. HLLLYH, it's called. It's infused with a punk-like communalist vibe, except with all the accessibility of someone like Danielson.

They engulfed the whole crowd in a sheet at one point. Everyone was pushing it up, singing along even if they didn't know the words. The energy was thick enough to bottle and sell. And they were (technically) a support band. Basically, as their press stuff says, The Mae Shi want you to love life as much as they do. A nice thing to experience.

Photo from Fuchsia's Flickr, more there.

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Jiminy Jillikers!

On Thursday, I went to see Holy Fuck in Whelans. I've been an unlikely fan of theirs ever since Analogue dropped their LP into my bag for review purposes in October some time. Thing is, I'm a little non-plussed with the current trend for beeps, bleeps and beats. So I reckon if I wasn't made to listen to it, I never would have. It was lucky I did. It landed in the top 20 of my overblown three-month attempt at an end of year list for 2007, and I reckon in retrospect it could have been higher. There's something really frantic and tense about them that I really like. So I went along, as I said.

I don't know whether it was the impending economic recession weighing on people's minds, or the fact that forty-year-olds somehow infiltrated the front row, but the buzz was not as great as could have been hoped. Nonetheless, they came out with two wooden boards decked with toy keyboards, effects pedals, melodicas, mini-microphones, curious red buttons which may have been kill switches and an even more curious device along the lines of an enigma-machine which seemed to be a tape loop instrument of some description. They ran through most if not all of their LP, and some interesting new songs too.

Lovely Allen was the best song on the night, probably because it is their best song full stop. Everything else was good enough too. There was something a touch lacking though. If you go to see Holy Fuck, you want it loud and dirty. Not Holy F*ck, as the posters compromisingly rendered it, but the full-blown, psychotic, scuzzy, thumpy, breakneck, dirt-encrusted semi-electronica band. There was a sense that some of their noise-play was just washing over the audience rather than properly getting in under their nails. I can't think of a good metaphor, but there was something they forgot to bring.

No complaints here, for €13.50, but the energy their music carries never quite transferred to the room, to the chagrin of myself, my friend Kearnsey, Nialler9 and Aoife Mc and Ian. Could have been worse, but also could have been better.

Credit to Cáit for the photo, she has more too.

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