Fuck Shoreditch/Hoxton is confusing. More venues in this wee area than the rest of London possibly England possibly the world put together - and they keep changing their name which doesn't help a jot either...
Anyway - Hoxton Bar & Grill - if you manage to get past the super-pouting bouncer and struggle through the braying drunken pub crowds you'll find behind a magicians secret blackout curtain a baby venue. Fight Like Apes are who we've come to see - Singer Kaymay with a voice that could easily be throwing power ballads at the higher echelons of the charts (though she would surely gob on the front row of Wembley Arena when she got therE) is instead fronting an angst-ridden punky synth-heavy and sod your manky guitars style band.Their set grows in front of you with building blocks of Vangelis style sweeping and soaring synths and bass and drums until it can't help but let loose the pure pop behind it all towards us - an unwitting audience tantalized and at the same time scared by the pots and pans throwing (yes really) band and lead singer Kaymay with her Grudge/Ring style presentation - crawling over monitors and amps towards you with her hair dangling menacingly - oh is she going to make that scary croaky strangly noise? no....it's alright. it's dulcet.
Saturday, 9 August 2008
And Did I Mention My Bloody Valentine?
I used to seem them in the olden days - they were one of my favourite bands...back when they did Mary Mary and Sunny Sunday Smile and Lovely Sweet Darlene....the best noisy fuzz pop ever. Photos of me in my teens have me doing my best to look like Kevin but sadly failing mainly due to being a girl and half the height...(mini-me perhaps? ).
I still liked them when they went noise-exploring but kinda lost sight of them when they went biggy and played more expensive venues that my pocket money wouldn't stretch too...
and then this year they came back! All the advertisments had 20 year old photos on....did this mean they would now look like the portrait in Dorian Gray's attic?
On seeing them at the Roundhouse....no this meant that actually they were the Dorian Gray of this clever-clever thinking and all looked so much exactly the same that really there was no point taking a new photo. And musically? It was the same. But 20 million times louder!
Being at the front was like having an aeroplane take off in your face (or maybe land on your face...) if you shut your eyes it was like the sun going up but music...it wasn't hearing music it was feeling it - if you think of seeing speakers rattle when the volume goes up and then imagine your body as the speaker vibrating with pure noise. beautiful but as we leave you can see peoples mouths move but no sound comes out....
if there is a band worth going deaf for i think it's probably this one.
I still liked them when they went noise-exploring but kinda lost sight of them when they went biggy and played more expensive venues that my pocket money wouldn't stretch too...
and then this year they came back! All the advertisments had 20 year old photos on....did this mean they would now look like the portrait in Dorian Gray's attic?
On seeing them at the Roundhouse....no this meant that actually they were the Dorian Gray of this clever-clever thinking and all looked so much exactly the same that really there was no point taking a new photo. And musically? It was the same. But 20 million times louder!
Being at the front was like having an aeroplane take off in your face (or maybe land on your face...) if you shut your eyes it was like the sun going up but music...it wasn't hearing music it was feeling it - if you think of seeing speakers rattle when the volume goes up and then imagine your body as the speaker vibrating with pure noise. beautiful but as we leave you can see peoples mouths move but no sound comes out....
if there is a band worth going deaf for i think it's probably this one.
poppy & the jezebels/icarus line/ hippy drumming
today was going to be mellow - but then i think hmmmm and leg it to Rough Trade East to see Poppy & The Jezebels...there are lots of young uns with I Have Been To A Festival And Proud Of It Wrist Bands that say 'under age festival' . My Little Pony & My First Festival joys.
Poppy & The Jezebels are tired but still play whimsical/wistful pop mini-melodramas while the rain drizzles down the all-glass windows....damply i squidge off to the middle of nowhere (canning Town) where I have my first practise with a maybe new band i might be in maybe....I end up playing 29 minute long songs that go burble electro-kraut and samba-bosso-disco boogie. i think i am 'jamming'. then i fight the public transport system to get back home to lovely Kings Cross....passing Water Rats i'm lured inside by Icarus Line who I've never actually seen live....the wind machine blows their lovely girly hair all over the place in a perfect rawk video style. The music is Very Loud Blues and I do like the singers shirt.
Do not take your lightbulbs to a gig. I would follow this advice but I'd not meant to go to the show and was stocking up on 100 watters....(yah boo to the environment. warm that global!
Poppy & The Jezebels are tired but still play whimsical/wistful pop mini-melodramas while the rain drizzles down the all-glass windows....damply i squidge off to the middle of nowhere (canning Town) where I have my first practise with a maybe new band i might be in maybe....I end up playing 29 minute long songs that go burble electro-kraut and samba-bosso-disco boogie. i think i am 'jamming'. then i fight the public transport system to get back home to lovely Kings Cross....passing Water Rats i'm lured inside by Icarus Line who I've never actually seen live....the wind machine blows their lovely girly hair all over the place in a perfect rawk video style. The music is Very Loud Blues and I do like the singers shirt.
Do not take your lightbulbs to a gig. I would follow this advice but I'd not meant to go to the show and was stocking up on 100 watters....(yah boo to the environment. warm that global!
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