Beach House: Interminable dullards

Owning the group's first three albums may suggest that I'm a Beach House fan, yet I've always been pretty sniffy about them. I thought seeing the group live would change my opinion but it didn't. I was actually anticipating some aggressive comments beneath my review on the Fly's site, but everyone seems to agree with me. Another failed shot at controversial glory!

Beach House

The Arches, Glasgow

29/10/12

If history teaches us anything about Beach House, it's that they're consistent. A haze of droning keyboards, programmed beats and warped slide guitar, the band's musical palette was clearly defined from the outset and needed only the involvement of producer Chris Coady to render it a marketable proposition. Employing a more assertive sound than before, 2010's Teen Dream album was a breakthrough hit and won a substantial international following. This year's Bloom served to consolidate their success but offered few signs of change or progress and the same can be said about tonight's show. Anyone watching Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally perform on stage could justifiably describe them as either at the top of their game or stuck in a rut.

Touring as a tight three piece with drummer Daniel Franz, the fullness of the group's music is initially astonishing. Legrand's organ playing is stately and glacial, while her blocked nose vocals alternate between ethereal murmurs and despondent wails. Scally contributes intricate guitar effects and angelic vocal harmonies as he bounces enthusiastically atop a stool, their sidekick pounding new life into each song.

Unfortunately, what seems striking at first feels repetitive over time. 'Lazuli' and 'Norway' are atmospheric gems when heard in isolation, but listen to them in close proximity and it's hard not to be struck by the similarity of their wordless choruses. Most of the new material aired carries the same weight of familiarity as the band exploits a winning formula to the hilt. The slow burning 'Irene' stands out with an extended instrumental passage, but it's a performance of 'Gila', from 2008's Devotion that best offers a reminder of how essential Beach House can be.

Lewis Porteous

Ray Davies: kink in the armour

Here's another recent review that I'm waiting for The Fly to post on its site. In 2007, Ray Davies put on one of the most enjoyable shows I've seen. He played loads of old Kinks hits and belted them out with genuine enthusiasm. His voice was spot on and all the new tracks, from his solo album 'Other People's Lives', sounded great. I saw him again years later and he was just going through the motions, tossing off the likes of Lola with all the enthusiasm of a man who's been obliged to play the songs for about 40 years. I decided not to pay to see him again and only covered this show out of curiosity. It was a fun night, but I should probably have passed on it and continued to think of him as he was in five years ago.

Ray Davies

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

12/10/12

After sheepishly asking our permission to play new material, a surprisingly self aware Ray Davies retracts his request on the grounds that tonight's audience has turned up purely in the hope of hearing decades old Kinks classics. Gone, it seems, is the misanthrope who penned 1981's sneering 'Give the People What they Want', not to mention the music industry survivor with two stellar solo albums under his belt. The Ray Davies of 2012 is an unrepentant crowd pleaser and wastes little time before dusting off the hits.

Stripped down renditions of 'Sunny Afternoon' and 'Dedicated Follower of Fashion' arrive early in the set and prompt mass sing-alongs, as do inevitable full band performances of 'Lola' and 'Till the End of the Day'. However, while the crowd's goodwill toward the performer is infectious, there's no mistaking the fact that he's sleepwalking through the material. The lyrics to 'Autumn Almanac' are repeatedly fluffed, while an a capella link between 'Where Have All the Good Times Gone?' and 'Tired of Waiting for You' seems careless and unfocussed, Davies absent mindedly veering from hit to hit with little sense of purpose.

The three most recent songs come from 1971's underrated Muswell Hillbillies album and are played with refreshing conviction, 'Oklahoma, USA' in particular. The ironic triumphalism of 'Victoria' feels especially pointed following the singer's turn at the Olympics' closing ceremony, while 'Waterloo Sunset' is presented before us with the love of a proud parent. Davies is clearly still capable of hitting the mark whenever the mood strikes him and, churlish as it may seem to complain about too nostalgic a set from one of the greatest singles acts of his time, sells himself short by bowing down to obligation. Not that tonight's audience notices, bellowing out each word with evangelical fervour. Whatever the evening's shortcomings, Ray Davies has earned himself a lifetime pass and, for most, just to be in the same room as him is an honour in itself.

Lewis Porteous

Grizzly Bear: the spirit of Prog

I've a backlog of live reviews that are yet to go up on The Fly's website. The advantage of posting content online is the immediacy with which it can reach people, but I supppose everything has to be vetted by busy editors. Anyway, since no-one reads this vanity site, it's OK for me to post the pieces here in the meantime.

This is the latest review, of last weekend's Grizzly Bear show.  My girlfriend had a ticket for this, so I covered it as a way of accompanying her. She describes the concert as the best thing she's ever seen, but I wouldn't go that far. It was good though, just lacking in any sense of spontaneity or real excitement. It was almost like prog rock in places, which surprised me coming from such a hip band. It's as if punk never happened. Ultimately, I enjoyed it but didn't have much of an opinion of the night, hence my stalling for time intro.

Finally, this was the third time I've seen Ireland's Villagers perform as a support act. Still the most utterly risible and pretentious lyricist I've ever encountered.

 

Grizzly Bear

The Barrowlands, Glasgow

20/10/12

The Fly is pulled aside to undergo a routine bag inspection immediately upon arrival at The Barrowlands. After some vigorous rummaging, a sealed pack of moth balls and bottle of Vicks Nasal Spray are uncovered. The security man holds them aloft with an inquisitive look on his face, before wearily concluding “At least you're not a fucking hipster.” What does he mean by this? We head upstairs to find out and are greeted by only a modest number of ironic moustaches and 90s Hip Hop t-shirts. People of all demographics have shown up and the atmosphere couldn't be more pleasant.

If the world is intent on proclaiming Grizzly Bear the quintessential hipster band, it's mainly because they're based in glamorous Brooklyn. It helps that their records sound slightly clinical and detached of course, but to suggest that the group make anything besides creative, accessible pop music is a bit of a stretch. Tonight's performance is that of a combo whose avant garde edges and wilful eclecticism are indications of increasing confidence and artistic maturity, rather than nods to prevailing trends.

Lifted from this year's Shields album, opener 'Speak in Rounds' is played with a forceful dub undertone and stuttering sense of momentum. The following 'Sleeping Ute', an already ragged slice of folk rock, is stripped of electronic embellishment to emphasise its rootsy core. When things are eventually slowed down as on 'Foreground', the band's hold on the audience becomes apparent. Their playing is hypnotic even when they shy away from overtly complex arrangements. The fact that fan favourite 'Two Weeks', requested many throughout the show, survives its own hype is testament to the substantial nature of their songs. In fact, it's a stunning acoustic take on 'All We Ask' that illustrates the full extent of the Grizzlies' versatility and proves that less is often more with these restless musos.

Lewis Porteous

Mark Little- THEbullsh*tARTIST

Of all the reviews I wrote during this year's Fringe Festival, this is my favourite. Normally it's a bit of a drag having to attend potentially rubbish shows alone on a Saturday night, but ticket prices were so expensive for Mark Little that I felt almost priviledged to have been allocated his. Besides which, he's a sort of minor celebrity and there's nothing more thrilling than seeing one of them in person. The show was baffling and watching it felt like participating in a psychological study.

I like the review mainly because I got to write the word 'cunt' next to the show's pathetically censored (probably not by Little himself, to be fair) title.

With all due respect to Mark Little, the man is a dinosaur. He's been performing comedy since the early 80s and retains some of the era's incendiary spirit, but his first Edinburgh show since 2005 is a relic from a bygone age. Ignorant of the industry's current climate, he damns contemporary acts for their perceived tendency to insult audiences and posits himself as some kind of approachable, right-thinking alternative. The former Neighbours star may shudder when uttering David Cameron's name and repeatedly brands Rupert Murdoch a cunt, but despite THEbullsh*tARTIST's often honourable intentions, he seems more confused by the present than he'd ever care to admit.

Essentially delivering a 40 minute preamble followed by a meagre helping of solid material, Little rails against a world of lies and bureaucracy with no focus whatsoever. Though he acknowledges that his allocated hour is hardly long enough for him to make an impact on the audience (he says that it takes him at least 30 minutes to “get to know everyone”), he nevertheless wastes half this time engaging with tedious drunk latecomers and probing us for irrelevant information. Keen to appear as an intellectual and an everyman, the comic struggles to reconcile both sides of his character and subsequently fails to do justice to either.

Does Little support the Occupy movement referenced many times throughout the hour, or is he an armchair pundit who thinks all that's needed to solve our problems is old fashioned common sense? We're still unclear as we exit the venue, the comedian's closing line “Take it outside, let's get stuck into them!” ringing meekly in our ears.

Chris Martin- Spot the Difference: who edits the editors?

Since graduating, I've submitted copy to a variety of publications, often thanklessly and without payment, in the hope of creating a strong folio of work under my name. I'm now happy with the standard of my writing and look forward to seeing each piece in print or online, a far cry from how I felt when I started out. I'm getting better then, not that you'd necessarily be able to tell from reading the publications themselves. You see, occasionally an editor, who cares less about your name being tarnished than you do, will make changes that are objectively detrimental to your writing. They're often very busy and can't be expected to pay as much thought to all submissions as you do your own, but it's frustrating whenever this happens.

My recent review of the comedian Chris Martin is a case in point. Here's what I submitted:

The performer cuts a trim figure on stage, sports a fashionable t-shirt/cardigan combo and leers at us from behind neatly cultivated facial hair. He speaks of relatable, everyday phenomena. Backed by a major promoter, he is being bred for success and will go far so long as he continues to share his name with an existing mega-celebrity.

It's tempting to dismiss Chris Martin as a generic young standup, lacking in originality yet poised for national success. Outside of a significant poster campaign, there's little to distinguish him from countless other hopefuls, each desperately clambering for a slot on Live at the Apollo.

A tricky proposition to market, the superficially bland 26 year old shines in the quality of his frequently mundane material and takes time to reveal his considerable strengths.

An opening routine concerning a squirrel-triggered epiphany is too far fetched to impress, but Martin soon changes tack. Dwelling on culinary politics for much of Spot the Difference, his observations are so broad and universal that he seems to conjure solid material out of nothing. Emitting the verbal tic “but food is weird, I'm obsessed with food,” between each gag, he appears to act outside his own will, musing on vegetarianism, biscuits and cheese like a man possessed. Only when he reads from his father's food diary, an interesting idea in itself, does he slow down and relinquish his command of the audience. Frequently inane but always good natured, the hour flies by.

So there you have it. Eagle eyed readers will notice that I don't name Chris Martin until the second paragraph. Why? Because I'm emphasising his superficial blandness and generic qualities. The opening is deliberately inspecific because at first glance he could be any mid-20s comic on the circuit. Whether you think the way the review is structured is clever or not, you can't deny that it has a structure.

Now, imagine my disappointment when I see the fruits of my labour in print:

Chris Martin cuts a trim figure on stage, sports a fashionable t-shirt/cardigan combo and leers at us from behind neatly cultivated facial hair. He speaks of relatable, everyday phenomena. Backed by a major promoter, he is being bred for success and will go far so long as he continues to share his name with an existing mega-celebrity.

It's tempting to dismiss Chris Martin as a generic young standup...

It now seems that I am obsessed with Chris Martin, describing his appearance in too much detail and repeating his full name too frequently. Do dear in mind that the text pasted above appeared under a bold heading which stated the man's name.

Once more, a decent piece of work instantly becomes a source of shame. Getting paid for it was admittedly some consolation.

GUEST POST: 'Lewis Porteous' by CCL

It's been ages since my last update because I have been abroad for some time now. I was planning on taking my laptop with me and writing whenever possible, but decided to share my girlfriend's ailing Macbook instead. I rarely have access enough to do anything beyond essential email checks and am only posting this now while she sits applying bandages to her ravaged feet.

Since I wrote for Fest a couple of years ago, the magazine has begun to pay its contributors. I was too late to apply for a position last year, but am due to return to the fold in just over a week's time. I've never been paid to review anything before and it is very strange and exciting to be in this position.

Anyway, Fest recently asked me to produce a brief bio that could serve as part of an online reviewer's profile. Uncomfortable with writing about myself, I commissioned my friend and mentor CCL to come up with something. What I received was not only beautifully written, but really got to the heart of who Lewis Porteous is. It wasn't fit for submission and I had to tend to the task myself at the last minute, but I've come to regard CCL's work as the definitive record of my existence to date. What follows are the surly New Yorker's own words in We Have the Technology's first ever guest contribution!

Before abandoning amateur status to join the pro-leagues at ‘Fest’, Lewis Porteous was Edinburgh’s top unpaid reviewer. His fearless style – characterized by Gore Vidal as ‘undoubtedly what it is’ – has graced the pages of numerous publications, both in print and online.

Lewis’s favourite review of all time is Paul Morley’s cryptic, pseudo-modernist blow-job-in-print profile of electro-indie waif Patrick Wolf. Lewis carries a copy of Morley’s review with him everywhere he goes as a reminder of how not to write.

Lewis is the black one from ‘The Wire’

Lewis’ glossy lips pass over big red strawberries nearly every day. That gentle but firm fruity give on the teeth, it’ll slay you.

It dawned on him recently that his sexual awakening began not as he’d always maintained(and believed himself) with Katie Holmes’ portrayal of emoting virgin Joey Potter in ‘Dawson’s Creek’ but in fact with Holmes’s co-star Joshua Jackson’s performance as Charlie Conway in the Mighty Ducks trilogy. Lewis would have been about seven at the time, and uneasily conceptualized his confusing feelings as some sort of strong heterosexual admiration for the young Jackson, but those nuggety little seven-year-old erections can’t be denied, and anyway, it’s fine now, he gets that sexuality is an elastic, amorphous, what have you type-thing.

Lewis Porteous ate a big bun and now his belly is sore. Lewis intends you great harm.

Lewis is known for his unconventional negotiation techniques. In an opponent-disorientating tactic he calls ‘Needful disquiet’, he begins high-level board meetings by burying his face in the entrails of roadkill and slurping greedily. ‘I always get what I want’, he remarks, ‘& it has to be this way, that we might all prosper.’

Lewis is a proponent of Objectivism, and is perhaps best known for his affair with the senescent Ayn Rand.

Lewis wears lacey things. Lewis collects adorable little tchotchkes that he ships from home-to-home with him

Lewis has very itchy legs.

Lewis has enormous sweat-glistened thighs that shudder with every UH HUH sassily barked into the mic.

Lewis makes frequent reference to his own ‘ineluctable modality’. If Lewis were a woman or less conventionally gendered, he’sd wear cute/fun polka dot dresses.

Lewis wants you to blow him, because he earned it.

The Nightingales: wot, no blog review?

The issue of Sounds pictured above was apparently one of the worst selling in the paper's history and is as good a reason as any to love Robert Lloyd and The Nightingales. I think the photo was taken by a girlfriend in his mother's house and imagine that all involved knew they were creating a thing of true ugliness.

I mention the man's solo output for Virgin Records in my review below because it seems to have fallen completely under the radar. The album's out of print and going for high prices on Amazon, while only a few videos of 12" single mixes have surfaced on Youtube. It's a good set of songs, though its production is mostly of its time and contrasts markedly with everything he's recorded before or since. With Elvis Costello having recently cut them loose, the Attractions' Steve Nieve and Pete Thomas lent their support in the studio and I suspect that Lloyd was being groomed as an airwave-conquering punk-poet-laureate in the mould of their former employer. Success eluded him and the last eight years have seen him pick up where he left off on seminal 'Gales classic 'In the Good Old Country Way'. The current band boasts a multi-generational line-up and exhibits more vitality and innovation than the majority of today's up-and-comers. File them alongside The Fall and Pere Ubu as old hands who continually put everyone else to shame. The following should end up on The Fly's website soon.

The Nightingales

Nice ‘n’ Sleazy, Glasgow

6/6/12

****

To fans following frontman Robert Lloyd’s slick late eighties solo work, a return to The Nightingales’ lo-fi pomp must have seemed like an impossibility for the belligerent wordsmith. Now chastened by over a decade of obscurity, he is fronting a modern incarnation of the group, ploughing a wilfully discordant furrow and enjoying something of a critical renaissance. ‘No Love Lost’, his finest album yet, was released in April to universal acclaim while the band's latest line-up has earned a reputation as a powerful live act. Old admirers have drifted back into the fold as a younger generation of listeners is beginning to take notice. Lloyd is on to a good thing and he knows it. “I was dry as a dead nun's cunt in the desert,” he barks by way of an introduction while a blast of fierce garage rock is struck up behind him. A tight eighty minute set ensues before he walks nonchalantly off stage, assured of another small victory. 

Though 2009's 'Little Lambs', 'Crap Lech' and 'Kirklees Ken' are welcomed by aficionados, tonight's set places emphasis on the new record above all else. No audience interaction is attempted and the musicians refuse to break for applause. It's thrilling to watch the songs' complex arrangements come to life and the surplus of ideas on display is nothing short of dizzying. 'Say it With Flowers', a hypnotic, pendulous groover rubs shoulders with the thunderous Beefheartian funk of 'Sentimental Dunce' while 'The Dishwater Kid’’s wind tunnel atmospherics call to mind a strain of obtuse, unfussy shoegaze. If mainstream acceptance is no longer an option for the paunchy, middle-aged Peel-favourite, then he'll have to content himself with further adulation and gushing praise.

Lewis Porteous

Trembling Bells with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy: live and sort of disappointing

Writing this was a real chore. Having been won over by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's Celtic Connections appearance earlier in the year, I was desperate to see him perform again when I discovered that he had already announced a UK tour with Trembling Bells. I'm a fan of the band and would even go so far as to describe their last record 'The Constant Pageant' as a 'keeper'. The news seemed too good to be true. I vowed to review their Edinburgh date and fired off a series of calls and emails to the venue, trying to clear a guestlist place with their unresponsive marketing man. This was such a tedious and disheartening process that by the time my request was granted, my buzz had been pretty much killed. It didn't help that the concert generally fell short of my lofty expectations. I barely felt moved to write anything about the night, yet produced 300 words as a point of honour! I have a terrific work ethic.

The original review can be found here.

Trembling Bells with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

The Queen's Hall, Edinburgh

25/4/12

***1/2

Will Oldham’s involvement in this show has been publicised with a degree of caution. A collaboration between him and Glaswegian psych-folk torch bearers Trembling Bells, he performs only a couple of tracks from his sprawling back catalogue and reins in his usual onstage theatrics in favour of a more subservient role. Drummer Alex Nielson is the main creative force at work tonight and if some Bonnie 'Prince' Billy fans are initially disappointed, it soon becomes clear to them that the young man's sensibilities are entirely analogous with those of their hero.

Working their way through the majority of this year’s ‘Duchess’ EP and the newly released ‘The Marble Downs’, the collective’s set hinges on the arresting interplay between vocalists Oldham and Lavinia Blackwell. ‘I Can Tell You’re Leaving’ is a jaunty duet undercut by the poignant harmonies of its chorus, while ‘Ain’t Nothing Wrong With a Little Longing’ demonstrates their range as they tackle an awkward folk-flavoured melody. Solo showcases are provided by ‘I Made a Date (With an Open Vein)’ and the traditional ‘My Husband’s Got No Courage in Him’, Oldham sounding timorous yet defiant while Blackwell is strident and otherworldly. Though unconventional, both performers are deeply expressive and prove as much by doing justice to ‘Duchess‘, one of the great Scott Walker‘s most beautiful compositions.

The band is tight and inventive, though at times struggle to recreate the symphonic grandeur of their recordings. In these moments when their playing is neither bombastic nor sparse enough to complement the singers and they abandon their archaic pomp for a fey jangle, we are reminded that the partnership is still a work in progress. Oldham has a reputation for his restless artistic spirit and myriad collaborations, but it would be shame for all concerned not to take this project further.

Lewis Porteous

Role Models: in which a student journalist pans a broad comedy and impresses everyone

I just found this on an old USB drive. I stuck some files on it when my computer became infected a couple of years ago, before I had the hard disc wiped. I should have probably preserved the A-grade dissertation that I'd spent months working on instead, but back then I was young and had time on my side. I mean, how was I to know I'd wind up like this? Having said that, kudos to 22 year old me for holding onto MP3 files of Richard & Linda Thompson's 'First Light' LP, still out of print to this day.

I rush-wrote the piece because I was film editor for the University paper and some jerk who was supposed to submit copy to me for an urgent deadline wasn't answering my calls. I attended every press screening I could back then, often for movies I had no intention of reviewing or even enjoying, so had plenty of 'material' to draw from. History will ultimately prove kinder to Paris Hilton's The Hottie & the Nottie, but Role Models was enjoying quite a big marketing push at the time.

Remember, this piece is from 2009. Keane had just put out their third album and an overpowering sense of optimism was sweeping across campus. Some of the views expressed may seem a little trite and naive to modern audiences, but the noughties dream was still burning in our hearts back then and my review is nothing if not sincere.

Role Models
Dir. David Wain
Universal, 2008 

Role Models opens with a comic set piece in which Stifler from American Pie forces Paul Rudd to smell his index and middle fingers, alluding to having recently inserted them into the subservient babe whose sports car he has just fled. With expert timing and feline agility, Rudd recoils, the word 'dude!' echoing throughout the multiplex. His intonation is wonderful and the scene is played out to utter perfection. From Stifler's bold, nihilistic gesture to the measured ambiguity of Rudd's response, audiences are swept up in a vital and inventive celebration of cinematic possibility and transported to modern day Los Angeles or wherever these sleazebags live.

The film revolves around the characters Danny (Rudd) and Wheeler (Stifler). When Danny's long term girlfriend breaks up with him for being too cynical, he develops grave emotional problems and commits a serious parking offence with his best friend in tow. The pair seek legal counsel from Danny's ex and are sentenced to community service with a 'Big Brother' agency. Forced to support wayward minors, Wheeler and Danny must learn to curb their selfish tendencies so that they may avoid jail and win back that the latter's love interest, who they will presumably then share.

With a plot so formulaic that it would cause even Adam Sandler to wretch in disgust, David Wain's latest offering is predictably crass, unimaginative and disposable. However amusing much of his output is, it remains a sad state of affairs that Judd Apatow is considered one of the decade's most credible comedic forces and that the likes of Wain are willing to ape his 'bromedies' quite so brazenly. Here even the inclusion of Superbad's Christopher Mintz-Plasse in a one-dimensional supporting role is treated as a great casting coup.

The frustrating thing about Role Models is the inconsistency with which it appals. There are flashes of well written material on display, the film even boasting a potentially classic character in Christopher Guest regular Jane Lynch's depiction of the strung-out Big Brother manager. Rudd and Wain are clearly capable of producing clever and inventive material, they're just too content to rely on a tried and tested framework of tiresome scatological humour, already outdated pop culture references and schmaltzy resolutions.

Lightships: Scottish supergroup debuts at the CCA

 

This was brilliant. I’d never been to a gig at the CCA before and it was one of the most claustrophobic venues I’ve ever visited, but it was a great place to be once Lightships took to the stage. I’ve seen Teenage Fanclub five times over the years and have found that audiences tend to talk over their more atmospheric material, so I appreciated the chance to watch Gerry Love perform before a respectful public. The show was so good that it cured me of a particularly unpleasant cold. To give you an idea of how bad my cold was, it had kept me off work for the day while rendering me too weary to compile an intimidating and comprehensive list of 'do's and don'ts' aimed at anyone due to hang out with me for the first time.

Note when reading the review that I don't have much to say about the event itself, it was just really, really good. Instead, I focus my attention on Love's apparent meekness and the new album. This makes me sort of a reviewing jerk, but I think it reads pretty well and puts all the necessary information across.

Lightships

CCA, Glasgow

4/5/12

****

Gerard Love is among the most reticent men in pop, to the extent that his appearances as one third of Teenage Fanclub's song-writing core frequently call to mind a self-help group for musicians with low self-esteem. If the project's press release is to be believed, he had to be cajoled into writing and recording Lightships' debut by an infatuated record label and various industry well-wishers. Tonight we find him queueing to gain admission to his own gig.

Electric Cables, a Love solo album in all but name, is the first full-length release devoted exclusively to the Fanny's own material. Not only does it sustain the high levels of quality for which his past work is renowned, but it proves him to be an astonishingly gifted all-rounder. His songwriting is more personal and distinctive than ever, while his dense arrangements are complimented by the lightness and ephemeral qualities of his production work. If ever there was an album to get lost in, this is it.

Backed by a Scottish supergroup comprising assorted Fanclub, Pastels and Belle & Sebastian members, Love treats the project's maiden live date as an opportunity to air his opus in its entirety. Adhering to its running order and tacking on only a pair of covers at the end (Moondog's 'Do Your Thing' and Neil Young's 'Lotta Love'), there are little in the way of surprises tonight. Instead, the warmth and immediacy of the performance ensures that the sell-out crowd remain in thrall to the singer as he grows increasingly comfortable with his role as frontman. An auspicious introduction by all accounts, we just hope that the applause doesn't go to his head.

Lewis Porteous

Mike Slott's live score for The Return: no returns

 

I bought some Edinburgh Fringe tickets last week and, in my excitement, have been looking back to last year's Festival. I reviewed this Mike Slott event for The Skinny and it was actually one of my highlights, if only because the film itself is so good. There was nothing wrong with the new score really, it was just completely unnecessary.

Mike Slott- The Return

Summerhall Main Hall

13/8/11

**

It's hardly rare for musicians to provide live accompaniment to feature films, but New York-based producer Mike Slott has taken a real risk in composing a soundtrack to 2003's Russian award winner The Return. Made 76 years after the death of silent cinema, it's fairly dialogue-heavy and already boasts a score courtesy of Andrei Dergachyov, a man whose work is so suited to director Andrei Zvyagintsev's vision that they would collaborate again on 2007's The Banishment.

The Return's original soundtrack is unobtrusive and chilling, its sense of gentle foreboding driving the picture toward its tragically inevitable climax. By contrast, Slott's composition seems painted by numbers. Underwater sequences elicit electronic new-age ambience from the Irish expatriate, while tensions between characters are highlighted by abrupt, thudding bass. When at his least heavy-handed, Slott simply calls Dergachyov's score to mind.

There are occasional moments when we witness a near perfect marriage between music and cinematography, particularly during scenes depicting childhood innocence. These instances, however, have no accumulative effect and amount to little more than an incoherent series of classy music videos. Though obviously a talented fellow, Slott has failed to see the bigger picture on this occasion.

Lewis Porteous

Doug Stanhope: Edinburgh Playhouse, 27/3/12

 

Halfway through an 'unreasonable expectations' tour of the UK's most cavernous theatres, Doug Stanhope reflects on his relationship with Edinburgh. It was his hit appearance at the city's 2002 Fringe Festival that first earned him recognition on these shores and, according to the comic, he's been desperate to commit career suicide ever since. Unsuccessful on this front, he now vows never to return unless he really needs the money, weary of travelling and meeting the constant demand for new material. These claims would be taken with a pinch of salt if made by any other comedian, but Stanhope's act is based upon an unflinching, almost confrontational honesty. Whether audiences like him or not, there’s no doubt that they believe him; this may be our last chance to watch the American iconoclast in action, at least for some time.

Bemused by the British notion that comedy shows should have narrative arcs and thematic through-lines, we are promised an uneven set tackling whatever the performer deems worthy of discussion. Thus, he begins by justifying his vendetta against Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson with whom he is currently embroiled in a Twitter feud. His tirade against Pearson, who opposes a severely disabled man’s wish to terminate his own life, is fierce and compassionate, Stanhope expertly articulating the sheer horror of paralysed Tony Nicklinson’s situation. A startlingly frank routine on the part that he played in euthanising his ailing mother goes too far for some pockets of the audience, but is wholly consistent with the comic’s rational and pragmatic world view. When on form, Stanhope is as electrifying as stand-up gets.

The problem with tonight’s show is that there are two sides to his audience and, though he’d never admit it, Stanhope panders to both. Some admire his willingness to explore uncharted comedic territory and to express contentious viewpoints with conviction. Others simply enjoy his heavy-drinking, irresponsible persona. When laughs peter out following the aforementioned routines, he turns the gig around with some tedious but well received musings on why he likes to get drunk. Similarly, a divisive attack on the Occupy movement segues into several minutes on how he has nothing against gays, but doesn’t like to have their sexuality rubbed in his face, a declaration familiar to many an armchair homophobe. “Just be a real guy!” he bellows. Is Stanhope a lazy genius who refuses to shy away from cheap laughs, or a bar-room philosopher, incapable of filtering his worthy thought processes from the bad? After a relentlessly poetic and surprisingly patriotic conclusion to the evening, all that's clear is his mastery of the form itself. Whether his powers are used for good or for evil, we surmise, rests entirely on the man's own whims.

Vic Godard and Subway Sect: the postman always sings nice

This show took place last weekend but I don't think The Fly's gone live with the review just yet. I really enjoyed it and hope that my tone doesn't come off as condescending. I've loads of respect for Godard and regard him as one of the country's most underrated artists, a bit like Elvis Costello but without the naked ambition. I was so into the gig that I actually felt a little self-conscious standing next to a sceptical acquaintance who would eventually walk out, put off by an inebriated and sexually aggressive crowd more than anything. Oh, and, for what it's worth, The Sexual Objects were pretty good. It's too bad that Davey Henderson's between song patter seemed to sour everyone's mood.

Vic Godard and Subway Sect

Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh

24/3/12

****

Whether they look up to him as an unsung punk innovator, genre-hopping pop craftsman, leading Hip Hop aficionado or one of the country's most celebrated postmen, the hoard of middle aged men packed into the Voodoo Rooms have a thing for Vic Godard. They love him unconditionally and tonight feels as much like a personal appearance and catch up as it does a gig, our hero cast genially adrift in a sea of loose fitting leather and denim. The night's insular vibe is compounded by the presence of former Fire Engines frontman and local hero Davey Henderson, whose current outfit The Sexual Objects play an unfathomably confrontational support set. He appears to be on first name terms with several audience members and, in the name of punk, The Fly hopes that they are not colleagues from his day job.

Of course, there's a thin line between a sad, under-promoted nostalgia show and a vital fringe event. If Henderson's sarky in-joking suggests the former, then Godard’s headline set goes a long way towards redressing this balance. Backed by a particularly tight Subway Sect, now comprising Felt and Sex Pistols alumni, the man born Vic Napper delivers a pounding set of snotty Northern Soul as vital as anything ever recorded by his feted late ‘70s peers.

A difficult character to pin down, Godard is riddled with contradictions. Still one of the sharpest lyricists around, his congested singing voice is suggestive of a dullard; though his music makes you want to dance, it is utterly sexless. It's these tensions between perception and reality that lend oldies 'The Devil's in League With You' and 'Holiday Hymn' their enduring appeal and ensure that their composer remains a subversive force to be reckoned with. Cuts from 2010's We Come As Aliens hold up against the classics and while this is hardly an amphetamine-fuelled all nighter, the energy in the room absolutely refuses to flag. To paraphrase an incoherent stage invader, this is really very good indeed.

Lewis Porteous

The Blood Arm: amputate these muthas

In my recent Mike Nisbet post, I mention being sent a few albums to review by The Skinny’s music editor back in June. This write-up made it to the paper, but in a slightly bastardised form.  I state in the original piece that an endorsement from Franz Ferdinand “decreases in value with each passing year”. As far as I’m concerned, this is an objective fact; the group aren’t as popular or influential as they were in 2005. That you can buy their three albums for a penny each on Amazon speaks volumes. They’re still an alright band and I’d rather they were viable chart contenders than the tedious Tory Folk practitioners that are so popular right now. But they’re not and must be aware of this themselves. So why change the line to “an endorsement which may or may not be decreasing in value with each passing year,” making me seem like even more of a spineless shilly-shallier than I already am? I can only presume that The Skinny, which seeks to promote Scottish ephemera, feels that it owes the band some kind of debt. God knows The Blood Arm do. Original review here.

The Blood Arm 'Turn and Face Me'
**
 As one would expect of Franz Ferdinand's favourite band, an endorsement which decreases in value with each passing year, LA’s The Blood Arm are pop-loving art rockers. Staunch Anglophiles, they draw inspiration from the mainstream British New Wave and are happy to wear their influences on their sleeves.

'She's a Guillotine' opens the album with a tribal beat clearly intended as a nod to Adam Ant, before exploding into the kind of aggressively melodic, keyboard coated power-pop that was once Elvis Costello's stock in trade. Somehow the song finds room for an impassioned call and response coda in the vein of Dexys before its two and a half minutes are up. At its best, as on this track, 'The Creditors' and the more thoughtful 'Forever is Strange', the group's music is invigorating and cleverly constructed. Generally though, it's too cluttered and self-conscious to make much of an impression on the listener.

Lewis Porteous

The Felice Brothers: a gushing review

Gig photos here.

I got to cover The Felice Brothers in Glasgow last Saturday. It was the fourth time I've seen them and they were typically excellent. I've nothing but good things to say about them. Still, the gig was marred by several factors outwith the band's control. These include my decision to engage James Felice in awkward chit-chat on the street 30 minutes before doors opened, the asshole who poured beer over my head as the set drew to a close and the painful cycling injury that made writing the review such a chore. The ache in the entire left side of my body has only just subsided and I like to think that my accident accounts for the fact that the piece doesn't read all that well. Additionally, there are few things more tedious than a wholly positive review.

The Felice Brothers
O2 ABC, Glasgow
17/3/12
*****



Their preoccupation with weird, old-timey Americana and tendency to indulge in beautiful, rough-hewn harmonies notwithstanding, The Felice Brothers' early career saw them dogged by unfair comparisons to Bob Dylan and The Band. In spite of superficial similarities to certain heritage acts, the siblings have always been distinctive songwriters and performers in their own right. This has never been more apparent than on last year's Celebration, Florida, a set characterised by wilful eclecticism and studio experimentation. While the album successfully defied preconceptions of the group, it posed significant questions relating to their future. Already at risk of alienating their more purist followers, there were fears that efforts to replicate complex new material would bring restraint to the shambolic live shows with which they made their name.


Easing the audience in with established set opener 'Murder by Mistletoe', it seems as though little has changed in the Felice camp. Their sound is as ragged as ever, Ian Felice's hoarse vocals and rudimentary guitar punctuating expressive bursts of accordion and fiddle, and it’s clear that the performers are happy playing toward their strengths. The following 'The Greatest Show on Earth', however, is a revelation. Its arrangement, now cluttered to the point of near collapse, hangs together so precariously that it can only be tackled by musicians who are acutely tuned in to each other. The musicians have been touring solidly for the last five years and it shows.


Though tonight's setlist is typical of the group, their particularly well-worn material is given a muscular sonic make-over. 'Ponzi' segues into a Krautrock-flavoured 'Take this Bread', 'Loves Me Tenderly' is rendered a deliberately discordant stomper and 'Hey Hey, Revolver' is glazed in icy ambience. Even signature tune 'Frankie's Gun' now boasts a propulsive, beat driven intro, Greg Farley having traded his washboard in for a sampler. 'Little Anne' and 'Her Eyes Dart Round' prove that the players still have a way with contemplative ballads, while the new songs sound fittingly organic in the live setting. Folk revivalists may sneer at the group’s recent innovations, but there can be no denying that the Felices have hit upon a sound and identity all of their own and are tapping into something very special indeed.

The Regretrospective: dance horsegirl, dance!

This piece was performed in the Roxy Arthouse which was my favourite Edinburgh spot for a whole year prior to its closure. I saw Nick Cave do a reading there on my 23rd birthday and eventually found myself stood right next to my hero and his entourage in the downstairs bar. The Scotsman recently reported that the Assembly Fringe organisation has bought the building for its own nefarious ends.

I can't remember much about the show, reviewed for Fest, except that I felt completely unqualified to critique it after the fact. I tried to compensate for my lack of knowledge with pithy irreverence, but I think it shows through that I have no real interest in anyone's dancing besides my own.

Fans of Greek mythology will likely leave The Regretrospective disappointed that the 'half-human half-horse' promised by the show is not a centaur, but rather a woman wearing a paper-mâché mask.
Those who are interested in both dance and multimedia art- an admittedly more lucrative market- are bound to find the show more satisfying.

Juliet Aster, the piece's creator, plays the equine protagonist. Surrounded by a mound of rubbish, she despondently peels a carrot in front of a TV when her gaze is caught by a tiger. Invigorated, she attempts to woo the static love interest through flamenco influenced dance, depicting attempts at bribery and physical threats along the way.

Combining audio, animated video and physical theatre, the piece is to be lauded for its ambition and execution. Unfortunately, its tone is too similar throughout and it drags toward the end as the novelty of the premise wears off.

Mike Nisbet: vague rant

When I contacted The Skinny's music editor last summer, he agreed to let me to cover some new releases with such haste that he couldn't possibly have read any samples of my work beforehand. He asked for a list of records that I'd recently bought and sent me some stylistically similar promos. Least exciting of them all was the debut album by Mike Nisbet which was already out by the time I received it. The review was never published to my knowledge, and sank without a trace just like Vagrant itself. Here it is. It's nothing too interesting, though I'd have been proud to have slipped a mention of Fred Neil into the paper.

Mike Nisbet 'Vagrant'
***

Recording his debut album under the auspices of Marcus Mackay, Mike Nisbet appears primed for a commercial breakthrough to rival those of the producer's previous clients Snow Patrol and Frightened Rabbit.

Funded by Creative Scotland, Vagrant is a largely low key affair, the artist striving to present his songs to the listener in as direct a fashion as possible. It can't be said that Nisbet is a singer/songwriter endowed with a particularly unique world view or approach to composition. Indeed, 'Free Man''s persistent, nagging chorus is particularly uninspired, while the monosyllabic rhymes of 'El Frida' suggest a lyricist working on autopilot. Nisbet's strength instead lies in his performances, his shimmering guitar work and robust vocals exuding an authority rare in someone of his relatively young age. When combined, these assets render the self-aggrandizing 'Indestructible' charming and elevate prime material such as 'Not Long' and 'Rolling Thunder' to levels of breezy intensity that call to mind the great Fred Neil.

Lewis Porteous

Joan Baez: Glasgow Royal Concert Hall 29/2/12

 

In The Other Side of the Mirror, Murray Lerner's brilliant record of Bob Dylan's three consecutive appearances at the Newport Folk Festival, Joan Baez is interviewed following an encounter with some young autograph hounds.

“I like kids, you know? It's just idolatry's a little weird, that's all, because it doesn't mean anything. I don't think it hurts anybody... I don't think it hurts those kids, what they're doing and the fact that they ask for 'We Shall Overcome' and they know what it's about, most of them. The ones who ask know what it's about. I think that's wonderful, you know, and I don't mind if they act like a bunch of monkeys like that. They're sweet!”

That was 1964 and if blind devotion made the gawky songbird a little uncomfortable then, she seems less concerned by it tonight. At one point, a man in the front row approaches to hand her a T-shirt. It features a picture of him standing alongside his hero and is emblazoned with the slogan “Lovin' Baez since '62 and always will,” words which prompt a thunderous round of applause when read aloud on stage. Many of the greyhairs gathered in the auditorium have clearly been lovin' Baez for over four decades and have all but abandoned their critical faculties at this point in the game. They've no intention of changing their minds and she can get away with anything, as is proven by a saccharine rendition of John Lennon's 'Imagine'. “Boy, you're making it easy!” she remarks, flattered.

Fortunately, the 71 year old still possesses talent in abundance. She remains capable of summoning the striking soprano heard on her early work and performs the protest numbers for which she is best known with rare conviction. Highlights 'Farewell Angelina' and 'Love Is Just a Four Letter Word' are played to perfection, their strident verses counterpointed by unexpected, fragile key-changes. Donovan's 'Catch the Wind' and 'Be Not Too Hard' sound impossibly wistful and elegiac, as they should, while her excursions into the songbooks of Elvis Costello and her erstwhile producer Steve Earle indicate a healthy willingness to expand her repertoire. The latter's 'God Is God', a slice of repentant junkie schmaltz in its writer's hands, attains profound global significance when Baez plays it, proving her still capable of bettering those whose work she interprets.

Like any elder statesman-or-woman, Baez's standards of quality control aren't as stringent as one would hope and she fires a few blanks throughout her set, 'Imagine' and 'I Need You Just the Way You Are' being the worst offenders. The main problem with the concert as a whole, however, is the extent to which she is preaching to the converted. The kids that followed her during the sixties, one suspects, have long forgotten the context in which they originally fell for her. In these less idealistic times, it's doubtful that anyone sat in the Concert Hall still believes in her music's ability to inspire change in the world. They're just happy for the opportunity to watch an icon from their youth run through a generous number of songs, most of which have some kind of nostalgic resonance for them, at £40 a ticket. This makes for a pleasant, even moving, atmosphere, but it's hard not to notice the cloud of complacency and resignation that looms over the evening.

Randy Newman: Glasgow Royal Concert Hall 24/2/12

If a relationship counsellor or therapist were ever to have me pen a letter to my girlfriend in which I list all my grievances against her, chief among them would be her refusal to bow down before Randy Newman's majesty. Upon viewing footage of him performing his best song 'A Wedding in Cherokee County' on mid '90s German TV, all she saw fit to comment on was his unusual taste in shirt wear. A less fashion conscious friend, meanwhile, once dismissed his entire body of work as “ridiculous”, an infamous Family Guy parody serving as perhaps his only frame of reference. In contrast to the barbarians with whom I associate, the audience of Van Dyke Parks lookalikes gathered in the Concert Hall tonight know where it's at. A bare-bones, solo exploration of his back catalogue leaves the veteran with nowhere to hide and ultimately affirms as an artist very much at the top of his field.

Newman may not be the best vocalist and his skills as a pianist are limited, but no-one writes songs quite like his, or would have the audacity to perform some of his more contentious material. Sail Away, one of the highlights of the set is a case in point. Written from the perspective of a slave trader attempting to entice an African native onto his boat, the track was covered by both Linda Ronstadt and Bobby Darin around the time of its release. The former belted out its lyrics in a distasteful spirit of triumphant patriotism, while Darin's rendition saw him replace the track's telling racial epithet with the more wholesome “child”, probably so as not to upset his Motown-weaned audience. Naturally, both approaches completely neutered the recordings.

If contemporary singers were reluctant to address 'Sail Away''s true concerns, there's no way they'd have touched 1974's 'Rednecks' which frequently deploys the n-word in order to highlight hypocrisy in the American North's attitude towards race. Though Newman is careful to explain the story behind the latter tonight, he's been nurturing these songs for so long now that there's really no need for him to do so. His performance is so nuanced that he is seen to effortlessly inhabit the mindsets of his frequently abhorrent characters, bringing their intentions to the fore with a minimum of fuss. Only on an especially vicious rendition of 'Short People' does he over-sell his lyrics, to great comic effect.

Newman reels out too many classics to mention, but further highlights include a chilling 'In Germany Before the War', the realistic Marxism of 'The World Isn't Fair' and a poignant 'Louisiana 1927' the track having acquired new resonance in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Though he's right to dismiss his musical technique as “just like Beethoven but shitty,” he's undoubtedly up there with the likes of Lehrer, Wainwright and Merritt as far as songwriting wit goes.

Bonnie Prince Billy: I see a starkness

Photo by the inimitable Michael Gallacher

I reviewed Bonnie 'Prince' Billy last month, having pitched the show to The Fly's live editor because I thought I'd get to take my American friend with me. He'd given me a copy of his 'The Letting Go' album for my birthday and I'd struggled to get into it after a few plays. We'd enjoyed a show by the preposterous roots rocker Steve Earle some months before, so I planned this as a good follow up. He left the country a few weeks before the gig and I was only given a single guestlist place anyway, so I went alone.

I was ill at the time and felt like I was going to pass out by the end of the gig but nothing could detract from its brilliance. Not even the Tom Green-lookalike Australian back-packer who stood next to me wearing a red velvet pimp hat and kept breaking out into bouts of ironic New Age dancing. Or his shrieking Australian back-packer girlfriend who talked all the way through the set, insisting that everyone should just fucking chill out whenever she was shushed. I appreciate Oldham's recordings a lot more now that I've seen him live and the aforementioned gift has become a firm favourite.

Note how I awkwardly skirt around the fact that I don't know the name of his multi-instrumentalist colleague. Also, since writing this I've discovered that Angel Olson is a really excellent solo artist in her own right.

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow

29/1/12

****

Will Oldham has recorded under various guises since the early nineties, his releases generally characterised by three different moods. There's the rough, lo-fi Americana favoured by his early work, the stark tones of his most acclaimed LPs and the camp-fire folksiness heard in recent years. Exceptional as his studio output has been, it has seldom sounded as vibrant as his performance tonight.

The Bonnie Prince's current configuration finds him sharing three-part harmonies with Angel Olson and Emmet Kelly, both of whom appeared on last year's 'Wolfroy Goes to Town' album. In contrast to that record's prevailing airiness, their singing tonight is so full-blooded that morbid songs are rendered as perversely rousing anthems, a jaunty 'I See a Darkness' being a case in point. They may sugar-coat his material to an extent, but the pair prove a perfect foil for Oldham. While he can undoubtedly hold a note himself, and frequently does, many of the evening's most compelling moments occur when the duo's accompaniment drops out, exposing the untutored intensity of the frontman's vocals. Often the lines that he attacks solo are some of his most personal. On the opening 'Lion Lair', his colleagues even seem quietly uncomfortable as he delivers a passionate sermon on gripping shafts and cupping balls. Whether he's being profane or portentous, he exhibits a degree of poker-faced conviction rarely seen on stage and the audience responds with reverence.

Kelly shares guitar duties with Oldham for the duration of the show, providing a rootsy backdrop for most of the material. A multi-instrumentalist, meanwhile, sits stage-right underscoring each song with well-judged layers of piano, autoharp and harmonium. While most in attendance will leave in awe of Oldham's presence or Olson and Kelly's vigour, there's no way the performance would have proved quite so potent, were it not for the beautifully restrained embellishments buried in the mix.

Lewis Porteous

Hi, How Can I Help You?: openly gay Miss America contestant performs in cafe basement

I had to cover this Free Fringe show the year before last. In the end, it was published by Fest in massively abridged form as part of a sort of 'review round up section'. A shame since it was good and could have used the publicity. There's a sort of prejudice against free shows during the Fringe, I think. Everyone agrees with the concept but audiences can be quite sniffy about going along to see them. As a reviewer, it can be a bit frustrating having to cover them rather than the stuff that you want to see but can't afford. Often you end up enjoying stuff that you'd otherwise have missed out on which is great but there are some real stinkers out there. The worst was Laura Levites' How Did I Get Here? which was on in a Broughton Street venue that I used for shelter. It enraged me so much that for a while I was seriously considering staging my own 'one woman show' in which I just recalled her routine as best I could, reciting it in a sarcastic tone while dressed in grotesque drag. The idea fell through when I found myself in a legal wrangle with the team behind the Polish poster for the film Tootsie.

  

Anyway, here's the review:

True to her status as the first ever openly gay Miss America contestant, issues of sexual identity and national politics play a large part in Scout Durwood's Edinburgh debut. The show, which she describes as a one woman musical though is more akin to a multiple-personality monologue, is set entirely within a New York City house of domination on the night of the last presidential election.

The piece's title derives from its opening scene, as an employee deals with prospective clients over the phone, vetting and attempting to accommodate their sexual preferences. The workers find that business is slow on this particular night and are left to interact with each other in their predominantly female environment. Through their conversations, they reveal their conflicting political orientations, back stories, present circumstances and fears for the future. The title, it turns out, really pertains to the compromises that the girls have to make in order to get by in life, perhaps to the detriment of their emotional well being.

Hi, How Can I Help You? is truly engrossing theatre, Durwood's manic efforts to embody her various roles betraying her versatility and fearlessness as a performer. She sings beautifully over looped vocals and kazoo and unexpectedly segues into unaccompanied country music laments. At one point she hula-hoops while roller blading, refusing to acknowledge the limitations of her confined stage space.

Though the show is extremely well-written, and moving in its ability to convey the sense of optimism felt by many during Obama's presidential campaign, it is too incoherent as a whole, ultimately acting as a showcase for Durwood's enviable skills rather than a fully-formed finished product.

Mercury Rev: a 'classic album' show done right

If Mercury Rev announced a live date several years ago, I'd have bought a ticket without any hesitation whatsoever. I did in fact do this when they played the Barrowlands in support of their patchy The Secret Migration LP. I've since had to rethink my opinion of the band following the consecutive release of two dull studio offerings. When their Deserter's Songs 2.0 tour was announced, I swore that I'd only go if I could blag a guestlist place and ended up having a great time for free. The performance really changed my opinion of these 'classic albums played in their entirety' affairs. During the encore, I didn't immediately recognise the song they covered as 'Solsbury Hill' and thought they'd found a great new direction. In fact, there's been no news from the group in the months following the tour and I wouldn't be surprised if whatever they do next tanks with fans and critics alike. Still, I hope that's not the case and am glad they got to milk their solid back catalogue one last time. Review below!

Mercury Rev

Queens Hall, Edinburgh

19/5/11

****1/2

When The Flaming Lips released The Soft Bulletin in 1999, less than a year after Mercury Rev emerged from the commercial wilderness with Deserter's Songs, critics eagerly compared the two bands. Each had started out as faintly psychedelic, avant-garde noiseniks who progressed towards creating symphonic Americana under the auspices of producer Dave Fridmann. Latter-day Rev frontman Jonathan Donahue had even served a tenure with the Lips in the early nineties.

Over the following decade, the groups' careers would run in tandem, both consolidating their resurgence with a solid album before eventually succumbing to formula and familiarity. However, while the Lips regained acclaim with Embryonic, a successful return to their low-fi roots, their associates strived to break new ground on the electronic Snowflake Midnight, an experiment which seemed to alienate even their core audience. Thus in 2011 we find Mercury Rev reviving Deserter's Songs amidst circumstances similar to those in which it was originally recorded, in need of recognition and reassurance.

The difference is that 13 years on, the band has complete faith in the material. Opener 'Holes' is introduced by a swathe of stately guitar feedback, Donahue's vocals coming in atop almost ceremonial keyboards. The following 'Tonite It Shows' is even better, the singer standing flamingo-like on one leg as he conducts its swirling, balletic arrangement beyond the drama of the studio version.

If watching a band perform a classic album in its entirety sounds like a futile, predictable exercise, Mercury Rev certainly make every effort to confound us. Most interesting are the fleshed out renderings of the record's three musical interludes. 'The Happy End (Drunk Room)' is particularly notable, recast as a robotic guitar work out. Seguing into the evergreen 'Goddess on a Hiway', the band seamlessly walks the line between innovation and nostalgia. An encore that includes an electro-tinged cover of Peter Gabriel's 'Solsbury Hill' and majestic take on early single 'Carwash Hair' closes the night in a dignified fashion, interest in the group fully restored.

Lewis Porteous 

 The review as published by The Fly

Touch of Evil: but Universal has personal space issues

As part of a recent application process, I had to write a review of a film that I'd recently seen. I did mine on Touch of Evil, which has just been given a comprehensive Masters of Cinema re-release and is good. More on Orson Welles some other time.

Touch of Evil

Dir. Orson Welles

Universal, 1958

Having enjoyed unprecedented creative control at the onset of his Hollywood career, Orson Welles' fortunes waned in the years that followed, his unreliable genius doing little to endear him to profit-driven studio heads. Shot upon his return from a period of European exile, Touch of Evil, his 1958 adaptation of a pulpy Whit Masterson novel, was intended to re-establish the director as a bankable star. Heavily edited and buried as a B-picture, it's only recently in its restored form that the film has found the audience it deserves.

The story begins in Mexico as a bomb is planted inside a car. One rightly acclaimed tracking shot later and we see it detonate over the US border. Honeymooning Mexican drug enforcement officer Mike Vargus (Charlton Heston) meets local Police Captain Hank Quinlan (Welles) at the scene of the explosion and the pair clash from the outset. Quinlan, a corpulent embodiment of small town greed and corruption, ensures that all crimes are solved in accordance with his suspicions. When Vargus questions the legality of the Captain's methods, Quinlan concocts a plan to discredit his opponent. What follows is a warped depiction of beat culture as Vargus' wife (Janet Leigh) is terrorized in a desolate motel, leading to a masterful ending sequence, the rapid-fire editing of which predicts later Welles classic F for Fake.

A genre film steeped in the conventions of film noir, Touch of Evil was nevertheless ahead of its time. Its cynical tone, moral ambiguity and palpable sense of decay were too intense for contemporary audiences, Quinlan's eventual redemption of sorts paving the way for the anti-heroes of '70s cinema. Over the next three decades, Welles worked primarily as a jobbing actor, struggling to raise the funds for his own directorial offerings. Though he had further triumphs in this field, he would never make another film quite so potent.

Lewis Porteous

Cornershop: a good band

Michael Gallacher took the above photo

I got to cover a Cornershop show last Friday. A lot of people wrongly assume that they have little to offer beyond their globe-smashing mega hit but in truth they're one of the most consistently brilliant bands around. My pathetic, fawning review is pasted below and hasn't gone live at the time of writing this. I didn't get a chance to mention how great their recent collaborative album Cornershop and the Double 'O' Groove of is because they didn't play anything from it, but it's essential listening as far as I'm concerned, is the case with all their LPs. Brilliant, brilliant band. It's quite hard to find out any real information about them, but I do know that while all the other bands spent the nineties hanging out with William Burroughs, they got Allen Ginsberg to appear on a their album. Therefore they are as good as '60s Dylan.

I think I was stood behind Frances McKee throughout the gig. Her young kids weren't into the show and were running back and forth down the front, holding their hands over their ears and complaining. Really threatened to ruin my evening, actually. The perpetually sexy Vaselines frontwoman must learn to be more considerate of others, as I'm sure Kurt Cobain never tired of telling her.

Cornershop

Platform, Glasgow

20/1/12

**** 1/2

14 years since the event, 'Brimful of Asha's chart-topping success now seems like a momentous occasion in British cultural history. The '60s had seen the likes of George Harrison and Brian Jones incorporate sitar-solos into their bands' increasingly ambitious beat group fare, while Donovan made even minimalist Eastern drones palatable to the young. However successful these experiments were, they were guilty of evoking a sense of exoticism very much at odds with the country's expanding Asian population. Cornershop's moment in the sun saw frontman Tjinder Singh reclaim Indian instrumentation from its position as a pillar of psychedelic credibility, adding hip hop production and C86 indie jangle to the mix. 1997's When I Was Born for the 7^th Time is a modern classic of cultural assimilation and progress, and pointed to a way forward during the death-throes of Britpop. Sadly, the record currently languishes on the racks of Poundland and only Gareth Gates' collaboration with the Kumars at No. 42 has come close to having the same impact. Subsequent Cornershop releases have been infrequent, Singh citing an unreceptive musical climate as the cause of his stalled output. Live appearances are rare.

The seven-piece take to the stage this evening ostensibly in belated promotion of 2009's Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast and are greeted by a modest yet partisan audience. The recent material's grooves are in a glam rock vein and demonstrate remarkable pop nous for a band that, by this point, has every right to feel jaded. 'The Roll Off Characteristics (Of History in the Making)' fuses thorny guitar riffs with playful Moog synth-lines, busy, percussive drumming and one of Singh's best vocals. 'Soul School' melds sitar with a dirty, fuzzy bassline, while 'Who Fingered Rock 'n' Roll?' is the sort of Stonesy rocker that Primal Scream frequently attempt to write but rarely pull off.

Every song played deserves to have been a huge hit and as such, there is a slight air of futility about tonight's set which sees the band hidden away in an arts centre. That 'Brim Full of Asha' receives the same rapturous response as less celebrated oldies 'Lessons Learned from Rocky I to Rocky III' and an extended, feedback-driven '6 A.M. Jullander Shere' suggests that they have at least outgrown their status as one hit wonders. Whether they can dominate the airwaves again remains to be seen, but this is essential music that deserves to be heard.

Lewis Porteous

Fanzine: director's cut

A crazed egomaniac, I have a real hard-on for seeing my name in print. Publications may refuse to present it in the same font as the Def Leppard logo or using ink which smells of 'Stunning Eau De Parfum', Katie Price's top fragrance, but it remains a great name and one that the public will never tire of reading. You do realise that dotting lower-case 'I's with little hearts was my idea, yeah? You're welcome, legions of imitators. An upper-case 'Q' that's seen to coyly suck on a lollipop while twirling its hair round its forefinger? I'm working on it, compelled to just... create, y'know?

The downside of seeing my name, which is 'Lewis Porteous', in print is that writing for physical publications imposes stricter word-limits on my 'craft'. It can be frustrating producing solid 300-400 word pieces for regularly updated websites, only to have 100 words or less at my disposal when trying to impress the kind of readership that a well distributed magazine guarantees. I'm rarely satisfied whenever I read back magazine copy, though acknowledge that these reviews have to be pretty shallow by their nature.

I agreed to cover shows by King Charles and Fanzine a couple of months ago, for The Fly's magazine and website, respectively. The former put on what was probably the most risible performance I have ever witnessed and yet seemed poised for enormous mainstream success in the coming year. His apparent need to bask in the adulation of teenage girls genuinely unsettled me, yet I also resented him for seemingly lacking the nerve to commit the sort of moral transgression that any number of legendary 1950s rock 'n' rollers wouldn't have thought twice about. It was a fun night- my friend and I especially enjoyed it when a young lady approached us to ask if we were “massive K.C. fans” like her- but I could say nothing good about it. I explained this to my editor and, happily, a review was off the cards. I covered Fanzine soon after, went on holiday and forgot about the show.

I leafed through a copy of The Fly this weekend and saw that my piece on Fanzine had been included in heavily edited form, possibly in place of the mooted King Charles piece. It reads OK, but when a review is substantially reduced in size, its structure and content will inevitably seem a little off, at least to the writer. In this case, I'd maybe rather my work had been attributed to Alan Smithee (a pseudonym used by directors who wish not to be associated with a film for which they would normally be credited, numb-nuts).

EDIT: Upon re-reading it just now, the magazine version is fine, it just seems a little short of context, perhaps even too specific. Sorry to have wasted your time.

Feel free to compare the original and the edit as produced below!

Original

Fanzine

Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh

19/11/11

****

Since the Libertines broke big with their brand of gritty mockney, most commercially viable UK guitar bands tend to impose a strong sense of national identity onto their music, having apparently learnt nothing from Britpop's mistakes. Currently touring in support of like-minded Londoners Yuck, Fanzine recognise that flag waving is for squares and are a mouth-watering proposition in the current climate. Though touted as students of the sort of noise pop associated with Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr., the group's sound is markedly more laid back and closer to that of early Teenage Fanclub and even nineties Glam Rock revisionists Denim.

Tonight is their first time playing in Scotland and though nerves do show, their material is strong enough that they quickly relax and allow it to speak for them. Opening track and new single 'Roman Holiday' is an infectious highlight, buoyed by a crunching guitar line and nonchalant harmonies. The following 'L.A.', meanwhile, sees the group set their frayed Shoegaze atop sprightly Phil Spector drums and sounds, like much of their set, wistfully nostalgic for a time in their lives that hasn't actually passed. Though they only play for 20 minutes, they display bags of promise and are a hit with the Yuck fans. While critics tend to regard Slacker Rock as an American art form, Fanzine peddle a distinctly British strain of it, both bands on tonight's bill hinting that a widespread resurrection of the sound could well be imminent.

http://www.the-fly.co.uk/reviews/live/1010882/fanzine/

Edit

Tonight is Fanzine's first time in playing in Scotland and though their nerves do show, their material is strong enough that they quickly relax and allow it to speak for them. Opening track 'Roman Holiday' is an infectious highlight, buoyed by a crunching guitar line and nonchalant harmonies. The following 'L.A.', meanwhile, sees the group set their frayed Shoegaze atop sprightly Phil Spector drums, like much of their set, wistfully nostalgic for a time in their lives that hasn't actually passed. Though they only play for 20 minutes, they display bags of promise. While critics tend to regard slacker rock as an American art form, Fanzine peddle a distinctly British and rather brilliant strain of it.