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For those of us soaked in endless rain showers, here's a quick reminder of clearer days. "Clear Day" was filmed on a bicycle by Jon Whitney in May of 2003. The song can be found on Ulrich's second full-length album, A Strangely Isolated Place, due for release next week on City Centre Offices in Germany.
So you pack your little sandwiches and climb into your little car and put your little foot down hard on the pedal with Houses of the Holy blasting really fuckin' loud. You can't go south from Brighton on that beach with all the little pebbles because you'd drive into the sea so you head north and soon your little heart is pounding and your little sandwiches are all eaten up but at last you've driven "1000 Miles" and the last sound you hear is your little heart exploding with joy because you know at last you are exactly where you need to be. And where I needed to be was on the Dirty Three UK tour because a band that can alternate tears of sorrow and joy and exhilaration so rapidly is a rare thing indeed. Rumours that violinist Warren Ellis was a little fed up of touring meant that I wanted to make the most of this as they might not be back for a long time. In the end I made it to four shows in Brighton, Leicester, Leeds and the second smaller London gig, skipping the big London gig in favour of Calla who I'd never seen before and who were unfussily majestic and almost as intense. I also missed the Glasgow date as I headed into London that day to see the last gig on the Noxagt tour, another idiosyncratic trio who are rather more brutal.
Warren Ellis is a seasoned raconteur with hilarious tales to introduce each intense instrumental beauty. These are loose and shift shape every night around a similar theme. In Leicester heckles diverted some of them off track into even more oddly comedic angles. So Warren might tell a silly story of how their Ocean Songs album was inspired by the smell of urine in a landlocked Chicago heavy metal studio. Then the four of them kick into some deleriously gorgeous yet robust and hard edged rock, shaped in chemical moulds that only years of playing together can bring. Four? Does that make them the Dirty Three Plus One now? Relative newcomer Martin Casey who plays alongside Warren in the Bad Seeds seemed unsurprisingly a little more tentative in Brighton but fit right in with the others, and Warren and the utterly individual and ever more awe inspiring loose limbed drummer Jim White seem to have a particularly telepathic understanding of those ecstatic places they can open up and bleed. Some tunes got pushed into extended foraging forays that upped the intensity ante some, and in Brighton and London when they ran down "Sue's Last Ride" the levels and layers they built and built just seemed like they couldn't get any higher and just kept on reaching for the sun. Warren reckons guitarist Mick Turner regularly walks on water in hotel baths, but he certainly has developed a highly original and utterly distinctive style of playing that seems to reflect the wide open desert shores and burning sun of his former homeland Australia. If Warren's violin is a skyburst of emotive colour and Jim's drumming skitters like pebbles pulled by roaring waves on the beach, then Mick is probably painting in the desert lands and mountain ranges in the heady elemental dirty brew. What was really nice about seeing the band a few times was the way they just seemed to get better every night, although the Leeds show at Brudenell Social Club won out over the last sold out London show at the dark and dingy Barfly due to better atmosphere and sound in a nicer venue. The Brighton and Leeds shows were a contrast being all seated theatres, making Warren's habit of spitting high into the air as he bows his little violin and kicks his leg backwards seem slightly incongruous and transgressive. In Brighton Clogs played a pleasantly engaging set of what you might call chamber rock if you were feeling lazy after an alcohol fueled road trip holiday. But at least I didn't compare them to Rachel's like I did at the gig. In Leicester and Leeds Mr Cardboard Boxman were as much a revelation as two scruffy Australian guitar twangers with an array of looping gadgets and weird junk shop instruments could be, playing part improvised cutout sundown reflections. But it was Dirty Three who had the songs for the ladies with the darkness in their hearts.
Walking into an East London pub and seeing Wire on stage soundchecking is a good sight for these eyes! Bassist Graham Lewis had informed me that there would be a secret warm up gig for their Flag Burning event at the Barbican two days later. There, the plan was to play the entire iconic Pink Flag album and then after an interval play some of their current material much of which found its way spitting and snarling onto the new album Send. Rhodes had been billed as support to Klang, but didn't show, although Wire in their stead was more than adequate recompense for just about every alien on board. They'd been billed on the venue's website as The Pink Flags so it might've been so obvious. The amusement factor of Wire playing "Three Girl Rhumba" whilst supporting a former Elastica guitarist's new band was not lost on any who could spot the connection. Besides the few who'd sauntered in early and heard them play "Reuters" and "Ex Lion Tamer" for soundcheck, I only knew around twenty people who were aware that they were about to hear the most interesting band of the punk-rock-77 era play the best version of their first album from points A to B (again avoiding C, D and E where you play the blues). However I'm sure there were a few more than that in the know and there was much excited dancing towards the low stagefront and a real party atmosphere in one of the hottest gigs I've been to in a long time. In fact it was so hot that my friend Aneeta and I left before Klang even played, but were later told by Wire fans that we hadn't missed much. Lets face it, when your favourite band play one of the most special gigs you've ever been invited to, not much is going to seem like a worthy follow up. Aside from Bruce Gilbert fluffing the second chord of "Mannequin," no doubt muttering too-many-chord curses, the band were in fine shape and played the album very faithfully. Some songs had more venom and precision, especially "Surgeon's Girl" with the hilarious Lewis nonsense back up shouting at the end. "First Fast" seemed to have bled back into that one. "Pink Flag" was pretty much returned to its original drum rolling shape but with less jovial vocals from Colin Newman than on the album it seemed harder and more compacted. "Reuters" on the other hand had an extended intro and some added updates on the mythical weapons of mass destruction from Lewis. "Champs" had lost the splanging guitar overthrubs. Colin Newman downed guitar on several numbers and seemed to be really getting into singing the odd old songs. They might've even lopped a few seconds off those songs that are short because they aren't long like "Field Day For the Sundays" and "Different To Me." What was very apparent when they played "Lowdown," "Strange" and "12XU" was how much they've improved as a live band since the first retrospective at the Royal Festival Hall back in 2000. I was double glad to have witnessed this unique event as the sound at the Barbican was just not loud enough and the experience was so much more of a rush and roar in an intimate sweaty pub. After by far the best live version of "12XU" I've ever heard them pull off, some monkeying heckler couldn't help but shout, "You Can't Leave Now!" but of course they were gone.
"I had so much to say."
First time I saw Low they were supporting Come at the London Garage and Kramer was doing their sound. They were enjoyable but I didn't feel motivated to rush out and buy their records. Since then they've just kept getting better and better, growing ever more assured, confident and orgasmic. Last week Low played the best gig I ever saw them do. The sound was perfect, immaculate, accentuating their pin drop precision, and the large crowd was held enraptured in awe. From the opener "Candy Girl" it was clearly the perfect fuck music, tragic make out make up for the last fling before she flies over the ocean. It had all the controlled intensity of their spartan Joy Division "Transmission" cover that had held the Star and Garter so enraptured on earlier trips to Manchester. The way Alan Sparhawk turns and strums at Mimi Parker and the way she taps calm heartbeat assurance is PURE SEX. It's so obvious Mimi is his his candy girl, and this is the sweet molten core of Low's slowburning genius. Alan and Mimi (ahem, and bassist Zack Sally) have fashioned a music that twists and turns with all the ups and downs of an intensely consummated relationship. "Candy Girl" also shows that maybe Steve Albini has had a little more influence on Low than just recording them. Alan throws out subtle jags of guitar skree at oblique angles to the heartbreak beat. The song cuts dead and they launch into the Peel-popular "That's How You Sing Amazing Grace" and the relatively stompin' "Canada" single. How can that Sparhawk dude sing "In the Drugs" without bursting into tears? It surely is one of the saddest songs I ever heard. Then there's the spaghetti western malevolance of "John Prine," a dark ode to revenge so quietly fiercesome it could ignite blue flames of paranoia in anyone who ever crossed a softspoken Duluth musician. Low can even make dear ol' drippy Roger Waters seem profound, with their majestic cover of "Fearless." On the way to the gig I was almost run over by a speeding car escaping gross corporate slavewage superstore. I had been moderately distracted by Come in my headphones, which would've been a fine thing to hear with my dying breath, but it was no time to leave the planet. A glimpse of mortality is always a lever for heightened sensuality. Don't waste your days with mediocre piffle. You might die tomorrow. Hurry up materialise, don't just threaten to. Flirt, take drugs, booze, shoot the shit with the people who are worth the effort. Soundtrack it with a band that fucking matters, and then some! Low are serious as your life.
"Now I'm gonna make them pay."
Months of wrestling with a DVD player which didn't initially read this disc has finally paid off and the results were well worth all the fuss. The first DVD to surface from Cabaret Voltaire takes two aural/visual snapshots of only slightly different periods in their evolution, recorded live in Manchester's infamous club.
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The major labels have gone too far again. I realize this message has been repeated ad nauseam but this week, two major events serve as evidence to reinforce the hatred against the shitheads. On Tuesday, under influence from the strongest major record corporations, the RIAA successfully halted AudioGalaxy's current means of operating. What irritates me most is not their moronic self-imposed right to own the control of intellectual property after they "release" it (unlike the book publishing world), but because their battle-losing streak is hurting the people they are pretending to protect. Fact of the matter is that once AudioGalaxy is down, there will be another 10 to spring up. At the end of the day, the only people benefitting are the high-priced Beverly Hills lawyers since the music industry can only keep losing the battle against the file-sharing public. The majors have indeed LOST, but they can't admit they're the big losers, so they ass rape their own artists by not giving health benefits and employees who rarely make a living wage in the most expensive cities in the world.
Once again, I clearly state that not all indies are good but all majors can at least AFFORD to give benefits. The major labels have got so much fucking money that they will unhesitatingly step up to the plate every time and pay for the finest lawyers to stomp out whoever's violating them any week. AOL Time Warner, for example, owns most of the internet providers AND a large chunk of the most popular cable channels to boot (and also pays their cable tv employees benefits) while Vivendi/Universal is viciously trying to creep up to their size with recent acquisitions of more cable TV networks, themselves.
On Saturday, the United States Copyright Office decided to charge web broadcasters $0.70 per song, but I don't see any provisions made in terms of public, non-profit, or educational broadcasters, who are exempt from royalty fees on conventional radio. Kudos, motherfuckers. Next time the college radio rep from the Island Def Jam group calls up the college radio station I DJ for asking me to play their records I'll find it amazingly hard to refuse to tell him to go fuck himself and his major label brown nose.
Bottom line is this: supporting major labels only feeds the highest priced lawyers and NOT the artists they're pretending to protect nor the employees who can't make enough money to live in the parts of the world with the highest rents imaginable. The difference between them and the minors is that on the whole, they CAN afford to act responsibly but time and time again they choose not to.
The Brainwashed Brain will proudly ignore major labels until they finally give in and admit they're rapists, liars, hypocrites and thieves and happily take the time out to say FUCK YOU to them. We encourage everybody to spend their money and time more wisely. I also personally call upon any writer of any music publication who features major label artists to stop and think about what you're doing, possibly even remotely consider spending an issue making a concerned effort to focus solely on independent artists and labels.
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The biggest self-centered dirtbags always gain the most sympathy from
an aduience when the story is narrative from their point of view. Such
is the case of Hlynur, a young man around 30, living with mom in a tiny
apartment, looking like an adult version of Max Fischer from
'Rushmore,' who rarely ventures outside the postal code of 101
Reykjavik and has absolutely no ambition to get a job and make
something of himself. "We're dead after we die, we're dead before we're
born, life is just a break from death," he claims, as the film centers
around this young man's life who feels everybody dies every weekend
after the parties are over. We often find Hylnur alone, falling asleep
in the snow, almost longing for a death which never comes. Hylnur has a
number of issues including pent-up aggression towards his family
coupled with sexual/attachment issues that keeps him from sleeping next
to a girl he's just fucked. All this changes when he seems to fall in
love with his mom's new lover, a gorgeous Flamenco dance instructor
from Spain. Basically while mom's dealing with the issues of coming
out, Hlynur's dealing with issues of having sex with her new "lesbian"
girlfriend. Toss in a psycho fling who's completely obsessed with
Hlynar to the point of lying about a pregnancy and a bunch of drunken
party scenes and you've got a marvelously entertaining comedy with a
ton of really great, punchy lines from first time filmmaker Baltasar
Kormákur Baltasarsson. My favorite scene has got to be the kids
shooting fireworks at the Domino's delivery guy—easily one of the
funniest scenes I've seen in a long while! Two years after its release,
it's finally making some rounds in North America, best of luck trying
to see it.
Tovey could very well possibly be one of the most important pioneers in post-punk electronic synth music. While he may have not sold as many units as label mates Depeche Mode or contemporaries like Human League or OMD who had to change their sound to top charts, he was demonstrating that synth music didn't always have to be happy pop anthems and love songs. Unlike Gary Numan or Kraftwerk, he didn't paranoiacally or idealistically fanticize a future world ruled by robots and computers, which has completely worked to his advantage, giving his songs an amazing timeless feel. While his tunes were undoubtedly catchy, futuristic pop anthems with sinister lyrics, his live performances were raw and vicious, often ending with large amounts of blood loss and paramedic assistance.
In a time where Fischerspooner can sign a ?2M recording deal, Tovey was poised for a strong comeback—he had been recording new material and played a number of shows in the UK and Europe. Unfortunately, the exponentially growing scene of these modern groups may never truly understand how much they really owe to Tovey. There's a nice picture accompanying a short obituary at mute.com as well as some recent live pictures at the French web site, fadgadget.free.fr. He will be missed. -