Quite a few peeps out tonight, no signs of any pre-Christmas lull here!
Monthly Archives: December 2003
Plans And Apologies at the Rescue Rooms, 12/12/2003
After a rather impromptu journey, I managed to get to Notingham in time to see Plans play one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen them do. They were relaxed (but not completely pissed out of their heads) and the sound, as always in the Rescue Rooms, was brilliant. I could actually hear lyrics! Yay! Which is something to be pleased about with P&A unlike most of the yowling, meaningless, hipper-than-thou cunts who constitute guitar rock.
This band is one of the best bands playing now. They piss all over such indie chancers as the Kings Of Leon, Thrills, etc. and have a sound and identity that’s just theirs. It’s not passed down fifteenth-hand from the NME or just some cringingly retro bollocks like Jet (how fucking bad is that band?) but original and now. The death of rock music is its escape into a past that never existed in the first place.
My fave song they played tonight was a new one called ‘Curry’ something or other (you can see it on the set-list photo). I have no doubt this one song alone will make their names live beyond the end of eternity. Or something.
Locally, P&A have just gone through the yawningly predictable backlash. This is inevitable: as a band becomes briefly fashionable, so they must in turn become unfashionable. Don’t worry about it lads – most of those twats weren’t even listening in the first place.
Anyone with ears can hear that this is a band with a brilliant songwriter but equally importantly a group of musicians who instinctively understand and love that songwriter. You can hear that history in every song, even though they’re still (relatively) foetuses.
And if you think my hyperbole is unwarranted, you couldn’t be more wrong. I know great pop music when I hear it.
Ele’s Cali Pics
The Razing Of The Dial
There’s some building work going on in Derby City Centre. When I say some, I should probably say shitloads. As in enough to continually disrupt the area around Bold Lane/Park Safe Car Park and cause varied outbursts of profanity from drivers and pedestrians.
At the corner of all the disruption, lies this:
It doesn’t look like much, does it? Just another building site.
But that’s where The Dial used to stand. The Dial was a venue which, in the late 80s and the early 90s, hosted gigs by many top bands, including My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream, The Field Mice, The Sea Urchins, The Orchids and loads of others. And that’s just the indie / rock side. It also had loads of prominent jazz gigs, world music, a real mix of stuff.
Artel, the owner, always took chances. He made The Dial the coolest place in Derby and managed to draw people in from much bigger neighbours like Nottingham, Leicester, Birmingham etc.
I remember having many great nights at the Dial, usually before going on to the Blue Note. I saw types of music and new bands I just wouldn’t have got to hear otherwise, even if I’d travelled 50 miles.
It was also where I played my debut gig with White Town. We started off as a pretty conventional guitar band and although I was rubbish on the guitar (and still am, through sheer dedication), Artel was very forgiving of our ramshackle schmindieness. And he paid us! Yay! And we weren’t the only band that Artel and The Dial supported. Many bands got the chance to support far bigger bands, play to audiences they’d never reach on their own. Hell, White Town got to support Primal Scream, a band we loved, and that was only our third or fourth gig ever.
This isn’t a falsely nostalgic rant: there were other good venues in Derby at the same time (like the Wherehouse) and Derby is still lucky to have somewhere like The Vic which draws bands the calibre of Red Animal War, Jet Plane Landing and Throwdown.
But The Dial was a special place, at a special time. When it was taken over by Derby Uni SU, it lurched from one failure to the next, never excelling, exciting or innovating as it had done under Artel’s stewardship. Finally they gave up, sold up and now it’s just another hole in the ground, waiting to become some flats or perhaps another dull fucking chamber of commerce.
RIP, The Dial !
First Published Photos
I’m very chuffed that I’ve had my first commissioned photos published in the January 2004 Sound On Sound. The photos are for the Readerzone feature, they’re of a home studio near Dudley.
The next step is to get more commercial photographic work…though how I go about that, I’m not too sure!
Flargle
Just some pics from town today, no big deal. Taken with my little Canon A60.
Screamadelica 9/12/2003
Tonight was quiet because of the same pre-Crimbo lull that affected last night. But it was still great. Even though Matt nearly became an amputee thanks to Dan Terrashima.
Dave Plans was moaning so I drove him, Mandy and Steve to Burton. I had to pick a night with freezing fog and icy roads, didn’t I?
Burton is as lovely as ever, it always makes me nostalgic going there at night, reminding me of when I used to catch the 103 to practice in my first band, 21 years ago.
I didn’t get any pics of the town but I did get some surprise pics of the actual ice crystals in the freezing fog. It was a beautiful night.
Bless Playlist 8/12/2003
It was a bit emptier than usual tonight – I think it’s the pre-Crimbo lull. But there was still a good amount of people and I had many, many lovely requests. People are asking for stuff that isn’t the standard fare, which is the entire point of the night. I think I’ll have to stop playing Fischerspooner’s ‘Emerge’ though, cos I’ve played it way too much.
Best songs tonight: the excellent new Hieroglyphics track ‘Classic’ and Poison The Well’s ‘To Mandate Heaven.’
Tonight, youse hoird:
The Sea Urchins – Pristine Christine
Felix Kubin – Phonobashing
Postal Service – Clark Gable
Zao – Ember
american football – i’ll see you when we’re both not so emotional
278,A Tribe Called Quest – Jam
164,Pixies – Gouge Away
257,Ladytron – black plastic
134,Good Clean Fun – Good Clean Fun
243,Huey Lewis And The News – Hip To Be Square
259,Cable – God gave me gravity
264,Dismemberment Plan – Time Bomb
265,Soft Pink Truth – Everybody’s Soft
277,Dilated Peoples – The Platform
158,Violent Femmes – Prove My Love
124,John Barry – Vendetta
159,Poison the Well – To Mandate Heaven
189,Wannadies – Skin
288,Fischerspooner – Emerge
199,At The Drive In – pattern against user
168,The BEAT – Rankin Full Stop
216,Venetian Snares – Einstein-Rosen Bridge
73,Brigitte Bardot – St. Tropez
233,Fugazi – Full Disclosure
45,Minor Threat – Straight edge
265,Smashing Pumpkins – 1979
162,Johnny Cash – Folsom Prison Blues
221,Belle and Sebastian – You’re Just a Baby
187,Hieroglyphics – Classic
308,Refused – New Noise
195,Peaches – Set It Off
169,The Shins – So Says I
298,Daft Punk – Digital Love
226,Death Cab for Cutie – Photobooth
393,Digital Underground – The Humpty Dance
277,Deadstring Brothers – Entitled
145,Zombies, The – She’s Not There
132,Jonathan Richman – Back In Your Life
Oakwood Winter
Popped out today and made the most of the winter sunshine. Some of the colours out there are wonderful (but very difficult to capture).
Screamadelica 2/12/2003
Well, another excellent night! Sian was stressing about it, as usual, but I told her it’s easily the best indie/alternative night out in Derby at the moment. It reminds me of how the Blue Note used to be before loads of meatheads started slamdancing to every fucking record, no matter what it is.
The vibe at Scream is completely friendly and laid-back. There seems to be a large contingent of people who just want to dance like freaks to stuff that doesn’t get played in other clubs in Derby, like Peaches, Fischerspooner and Ladytron. (Not that the night is all synthpop, it’s mostly guitar indie but it’s good to hear some electronic stuff in there.) Yep, people are pissed-up but they’re not starting fights or behaving like twats.
So, cool music, freaky people – perfect!