wandering architects
a last minute decision saw us squeezed up the front of hipster’s paradise nice’n’sleazy’s for a midweek Casiotone for the Painfully Alone gig. Although he had a head cold the gig was more entertaining than when we caught him in Brooklyn late last year, great chat and occasional accompaniment livening things up.
Support was an Edinburgh band called Meursault who’s albulm Pissing on Bonfires I picked up and have been listening to fairly regularly at work – well worth checking out their myspace.
Last weekend we tasted quite a wide range of musical genres – after a quiet patch through jan & feb it was quite a bit to take in at once.
Starting on Friday night after suffereing horrendous disco battling my way to fourth place in my office bowling night, we crammed into the basement of the Liquid Ship to catch a chaotic, late but ultimately entertaining set from Claire’s friend’s band the State Broacasters. Their fun filled songs of lust & love kept us entertained till close.
On Saturday we shifted to a more formal gear and took in the new production from Scottish Opera: 5:15. The premise of five fifteen minute pieces that were collaboration between Scottish composers and writers sounded interesting, however the results were uneven at best.
Craig Armstrong with Ian Rankin was easily the most polished performance, although quite traditional. The Queens of Govan by Suhayl Saadi, composed by Nigel Osborne & Wajahat Khan contained the most interesting ideas and conceptual approach however was let down by attempting to sing opera in Scots! The other three performances were perfectly competent but didn’t seem to push any boundaries – one suspects that opera is best left to the professionals. Alexander McCall Smith’s Dream Angus was the most surreal of these and quite entertaining in parts, although more like a musical than opera (although that is quiet a fuzzy line I guess)
To crank things up to another level following the opera we changed moods and outfits and headed to town for a set by Autechre at the legendary art school club.
Their set while interesting didn’t have the same level of intensity as at Dour, it was more scatty with the connections and feedback from track to track that made that gig so special. They weren’t heped by an indifferent sound system and a crowd that weren’t there just for them. Our lack of energy may have played a part too.
With several more of our favourite acts touring March is already looking like a busy month musically – lo-fi antics from Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, some Australian electro courtesy of the Presets, and perhaps the uber-hip math rock of Foals if we can face the hipster crowd.
Glasgow’s avante gard noise festival INSTAL, kicked off last night, although the main event isn’t until next weekend. We missed the early part of the evening, but caught a small part of it in the form of an urban sound performance. A couple of guys who call themselves usurper with a variety of sound producing equipment (of varying ranges of fidelity) performed inside a skip on a street corner in the West End. Although difficult to hear from a distance, up close it was an entertaining quirky mix of sounds. The highlight of the event however was the ride from the kickoff party to the site – a sound art performance by Nackt Insecten on the ‘clockwork orange’.
Sorry for the absence – Chhay has been hogging the ‘puter looking up real estate as our landlord is selling our fabulous flat 🙁
To recount, a brace of Chhay’s french relatives popped over across the new year to briefly take in the delights of Glasgow and the heady atmosphere of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay.
On a damp and gloomy day we did an extensive walking tour of Glasgow, including Chhay’s first visit to Glasgow uni (below) which dominates the view from our windows.
Hogmenay was as I expected, busy damp and and a little bit dull (especially as I was driving). We did catch a rather drunken set from King Creosote who we had been meaning to see for a while, but apart from that and the fireworks the evening mainly seemed to consist of queuing in the rain. Once we got back to Glasgow we had much more fun blethering over our friends kitchen table till the early hours of the morning.
While the weather is rarely accommodating Scots are definitely up for a party for Hogmanay – even as we were leaving at rather too close to 5 o’clock in the morning on New Year’s Day there were several parties still going strong in the neighbourhood.
While it might be possible to hold an outdoor festival in the middle of winter in benign Byron Bay, surely festival season has wrapped up months ago here in the UK. Not so fast however however – there is a solution – the ultimate in family holiday fun – Butlins Holiday Camps and the kind folks at All Tomorrow’s Parties & Portishead to the rescue.
It was time for a road trip, destination – deepest darkest Somerset, with a pile of CD’s, hire care and a map of Britain that filled the windscreen it was a seven hour trip from Glasvegas via the M6 & M5.
We broke our trip with morning tea in Birmingham in the basement of the funky Future Systems‘ Selfridges (above), and watched the sun set with a homage at Portishead harbour (below).
As the band named after the town were curating the festival it seemed that most of the acts were either – bands from Bristol or on Portishead member Geoff Barrow’s Invada Records label. Portishead themselves played both Friday & Saturday nights – we saw their second set – very laid back and polished with many of their new tracks thrown in.
Other headliners Julian Cope and Aphex Twin were more of a mixed bag. Julian Cope was entertaining with his motley crew of bikers and ended his set with a garrulous five minute rant. Aphex also played twice and we saw parts of both sets – they were a little commercial and not eclectic enough for my taste.
Our highlights for what they’re worth were:
Chrome Hoof – the new genre of doom disco spearheaded by this ten piece multi-instrumental silver lame clad outfit is heading your way – either dance or duck!
Autolux – artful poppy noise from LA, with some beautiful drumming courtesy of the female drummers loose style (and perhaps her bionic elbow?) – great website too.
Fuck Buttons – danceable electro laptop beats from – you guessed it Bristol – these guys were so good early on that they were put on again to close the event.
Overall the concept for the festival works brilliantly – the crazy circus tent covered ‘street’ that spans between venues, bars and tacky amusement arcades (below) creates a very civilised festival atmosphere (complete with people picnicking on the ‘grass’ coloured carpet!). Achingly cool hipsters wandering around in such a searingly cheesy setting further enhances the surreal impression. And the cabin accommodation in endless barrack style rows is a very pleasant step up from the usual tented quagmire that accompanies summer festivals.
Our sleepy journey home was broken only by a quick visit to Bristol where we took in Clifton and its famous suspension bridge (below) before hightailing back along the motorway.
Interpol played Glasgow last night – giving us our first taste of the Carling Academy – which part from being named after an awful beer (think the West End Institute for any South Australians) is actually an impressive converted former cinema. We were up in the seated balcony area though – so although the sound was great and the trendy New Yorkers produced an extremely polished sound from a very fancy set including some really cool screens that appeared to be totally two-dimensional – it didn’t quite capture the atmosphere of the last time we saw them. Then we had waited for close to three hours at the front of a packed and sweaty Splendour in the Grass tent (including watching the Beautiful Girls – an endurance test for Chhay). However their set list included plenty of classic tunes which had us rocking ever so politely in the aisles.
Just back from a great set by Flying Lotus at Glasgow’s finest dirty electro evening, Numbers and killing time while Chhay whips up some late night noodles to satisfy her savoury cravings. Well worth checking him out if you like scratchy bleepy stuff with a hint of dubstep.
just finished 10 whirlwind days in the big apple, summary below more detail and photos once I get back to Glasgow;
our general routine, wake.. breakfast: mmm bagels & cream cheese, museum: whitney, met, moma, moving image, PS1, lunch: uighar, dim sum, greek, venuzuelan, neighbourhood: lower east side, brooklyn, east village, SoHO, chinatown, brooklyn, midtown – no!, queens, west village, brooklyn (again!?!) dinner: italian, japanese, vietnamese, mexican (in a grocery store), korean; band: band of horses, too dead catholics, casiitone for the painfully alone, dr dog (sold out oops) then out somewhere (often brooklyn), sleep, repeat…
some architecture too in there – new new museum by sanaa, store front for art and architecture which is looking tired, cocktails and diller + scorfidio’s brasserie.
now in Oakland for a few days before crossing the bay to San Francisco – a little more relaxed for the next week I think…
Expecting a gentle dose of jangly electro folk last Tuesday we rolled up for Voice of the Seven Woods. One of our favourite haunts Mono (whose vegan tentacles are spreading relentlessly through Glasgow as we speak – 1,2,and Stereo to come) was the scene further adding to the expectations of general hippiness and good cheer. However if ever there was an example of not judging a band by it’s myspace this was it.
The second support were quite interesting – a wavery vocal based noise like the soundtrack to a brutal chinese soap opera and they set the scene for what was to come.
The extent of chin stroking males in the audience may have been an early indication but once Voice of the Seven Woods cranked up their set we realized it was less jangly electro folk and more feedback tinged noise from a psychedelic mod band. It was actually excellent – gaining synchronized nods of appreciation and scratches of chins from bald headed men around the room. A kind of analogue, math rock it had strong parallels to Battles, however it was less angular, and with less evidence of performance enhancing drugs. We left the gig entertained if a little bemused.
We ventured deep into Sauchiehall St student territory to catch members of our favourite grocery store as eye contact leads too.. play a fun, tight shoutie set at Capitol. Having endured a support that took their influences straight out of last year’s indie rock charts and played them like a primary school collage, it was refreshing to hear something slightly edgier, even if it did keep us up past our bedtime on a school night…