Gig Review: Godspeed You! Black Emperor @ The Troxy, Mon 13th Dec

2010 has been some year for re-unions; first Pavement, and now Godspeed You! Black Emperor, rising again from a 7-year hiatus. I've read a fair share of negative feedback on the choice of venue and the sound quality of the night's gig - even with their own sound engineer, arguably any venue's acoustics is going to struggle with the proposition of  GSY!BE - and whilst a couple of the early climaxes were perhaps a little muddied, I can't say I noticed too much from where I was standing. In truth, save for the annoying clinking of bottles from the bar staff, the lofty heights of the Troxy seemed an ideal place for the post-rock demi-gods to flex their muscles.

They did so tentatively at first (they had time on their side, after an all too fleeting set from the Dead Rat Orchestra), entering one by one and adding to the ominous drone which slowly engulfed the room (it was a mere matter of minutes before the first screwdriver-on-guitar action), until all eight members were on stage. The opening songs (okay, movements) also felt like GSY!BE were moving through the gears. Playing in almost pitch-black and with little or no acknowledgement of the audience, one's eyes were left to stray to the flickering (and expertly edited in real-time) backdrop images; the haunting shimmer of Sleep was appropriately set to ghostly images of Coney Island's amusement park, whilst I found myself hypnotised during Storm as it actually appeared as though a number of members were playing aboard the top of a moving train. The band bowed out of Sleep and worked themselves up into a cacaphony of industrial-orchestral-metal which, whilst scintillating at first, threatened ten minutes later to undermine the band's mastery of the crescendo.

Yet when Godspeed seeped their way into the quiet menace of Static, it was clear that the magic was still there, as the band accelerated inexorably towards the all-consuming denouement. From there on in, there was no let-up; Dead Metheny was followed by the apocalyptic waltz of Rockets Fall On Rocket Falls, shaking free the shackles originally placed upon it by Steve Albini's limiting production. With the night being brought to a close by Blaise Bailey Finnegan III, all of Godspeed's major releases had been represented, and represented well.

By the time they'd all put down their instruments to shred the speakers with feedback, GSY!BE had been on stage for a collosal 140 minutes. They'll be doing it all again on Tuesday, and once more on Wednesday, and as phenomenal as Godspeed were by the end of the night, you got the sense that they will only continue to get better as the nights go on.

Pulp return!

Who's better, Blur or Oasis? The smart-arse (and in fact, correct) answer is of course Pulp, and the fantastic news is that next year they're re-uniting next year for a string of shows. Better still, it's the classic line-up that put out mid-90's gems Different Class and His' N' Hers, playing all together for the first time since 1996. So far, the only confirmed shows are next summer's Primavera and Wireless Festivals, but the band have confirmed that more dates are on the cards, and you can sign up for updates on the band's website; judging from the promo messages, they've lost none of their legendary wit.

Do You Remember The First Time? The Dismemberment Plan - The City

In this semi-regular feature, I reminisce on the song which, if not introducing me to an artist for the first time, made some kind of indelible and irreversible impact on me.

For this first entry, I have decided to coincide it with the news of the reunion of The Dismemberment Plan. The Washington DC band have announced they will be playing together for the first time since their brief 2007 reunion for selected dates across the U.S., but have hinted that there may be more to come from them. Here's a full list:

(all in Jan 2011)

21/01 Washington, DC - Black Cat
22/01 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
27/01 Philadelphia, PA - Starlight Ballroom
28/01 Boston, MA - Paradise
29/01 New York, NY - Webster Hall

30/01 New York, NY - Webster Hall

I have to admit, my first experience with the D-Plan was not an entirely enjoyable one. Listening to 1999’s Emergency & I  (to be reissued next January) for the first time, there was no question that there was something a bit different about them, but their mixture of gurgling keyboards, perplexing time signatures, emo vocals and nagging guitars just didn’t gel with me initially. But The City, the album’s anthem and centrepiece, was a song I could instantly take to: it’s whirring synths, steady stabs of guitar, the pattering drums  all the while building up to that moment of release when Travis Morrision screams “since you’ve been goooooooone”.

It was enough to make me return to the album a year or two later, and sure enough everything made much more sense second time around. Sure, Morrison’s vocals may be “emo”, but they’re without that irritating nasal tone one associates with the genre, and he possesses a vocal range and versatility that left most of his contemporaries standing. Lyrically too, he was streets ahead; “I’ve lost my membership card to the human race/so don’t forget the face/’cus I know that I do belong here” he sings monotonically on What Do You Want Me To Say. This versatility can be applied to the record as a whole too; from the rollercoaster choruses of Gyroscope and 8 1/2 Minutes, to the deranged likes of Girl O' Clock and I Love A Magician, and the unnerving atmospherics of The Jitters, Emergency & I is a stellar collection of songs. Now with the D-Plan's re-union, I feel added impetus to add to that sole entry in my collection.

Listen to This City by The Dismemberment Plan on the "Hear The Secret" music player!

The Club Is (Re)Open(ed)

The news that Guided By Voices have reformed, however briefly, to carry out a mini U.S. tour was well received by me, and I have my fingers and toes crossed that the reunion will spill over onto our shores (along with copious amounts of booze, no doubt). It's a small miracle that they have any time to tour at all, given Robert Pollard's exhausting run of releases (in the time I've taken to put this together, he's actually put out another album). It's not just any old GBV line-up too, but the golden era early-to-mid nineties GBV that spawned Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes et al. Happy days.

I recently read Perfect From Now On by John Sellers (having been lured and ultimately misled by it's Built To Spill-related title). It's a light and fairly entertaining read which leads to the author, a self-confessed GBV fanboy, going on a quest to follow round his idols on their 2004 farewell tour. The overriding impression you get about Robert Pollard and his merry troupe is that they were just normal good-time guys, who got on stage and acted like rock stars - high-kicks, mike twirls, the lot - but the moment they stepped off stage, they became normal guys again, usually heading back to Pollard's place to knock back several cans and watch sport on TV.

That golden era of GBV was endearing for its sloppiness, both in the quality of recording and its delivery, and those albums are seemingly the key texts in the spate of lo-fi and so-called "shit-core" bands which have popped up within the last few years. What so many of these bands seem to neglect, however, is GBV's playful experimentation, not to mention their way with a great tune; it's true that you can't polish a turd, but it's equally true that by layering it in fuzz and pushing everything into the red, you can't un-polish one either. But then again, as Pollard sings on Echoes Myron, "some of us are quite pleased/with the same old song". I'm sure everyone who hears that song on one of their live dates will concur.

Gig Review: Pavement @ O2 Academy, Wed 12th May

When reviewing a gig of a band that you love dearly, reforming to play their first gigs in decades, it's very hard to remain objective. The occasion tends to overwhelm the performance itself, and just being in the presence of songs that you thought you might never hear live, regardless of how sloppily they may be tossed off, is enough, especially if you're singing loud enough to drown out the din.

So let's sidestep this dilemma by discussing support act Sic Alps. They were okay. They certainly weren't Broken Social Scene. Guitars chugged through countless identikit songs, and whilst there were odd flashes of inspiration, it was pretty forgettable stuff. For bands like Sic Alps, mere existence is sufficient.

And arguably the primary reason they exist is the five guys taking to the stage after them. Pavement are the blueprint of indie-coolness, if such a thing exists: the rangy Stephen Malkmus plays with legs stretched apart, casually tosses off witty and obscure combinations of words which you wish you'd come up with, and skilfully balances his guitar upside-down on one hand; Spiral Stairs dons a flat-cap; drummer Steve West dons spectacles and a beard; you just want to give the round, baby-faced figure of bassist Mark Ibold a big hug. Then there's percussionist/vocalist/weird noise specialist Bob Nastanovich, truly the band's secret weapon, whose boundless energy is infectious (perhaps being irradiated from his vibrant shirt).

So now I've had time to lay down the rose-tinted specs, I can review this gig in a balanced and considered manner. Pavement were fantastic. Utterly and undeniably fantastic. Over two hours, the band dug their way through a back catalogue laden with treasures, and the offerings were every bit as good as you 'd hope they would be. Unfair was a riot, with Nastanovich at the forefront, whipping the crowd into a frenzy. Fight This Generation was zonked out in that special Wowee Zowee kinda way. The band played call and response between themselves during In A Mouth A Desert. Main-set closer Here had the lighters aloft in a manner which was in no way ironic or embarassing. Two encores were rapturously received, the first closing with the swooning Fin from Brighten The Corners, the second bringing Nastanovich back to the frontline for one final assault with Conduit For Sale.

The crowd certainly played their part in proceedings, singing and screaming their way through every song, no matter how non-sensical the lyrics. Everybody was buzzing; it's impossible not to have fun with these songs, and one can hardly imagine the reunion performances of Godspeed! You Black Emperor later conjuring up such an atmosphere later this year. Crucially though, the band gave back to the crowd in spades (plus a gracious acknowledgement of the late-great John Peel always goes a long way). It was a performance befitting of the occasion.