Top Night

Top night. Top, top night.

Kasabian havin’ it at the Enmore.  Massive tunes, pounding rhythms, shout-along vocals and so much swagger someone’s gonna put a hip out; everyone’s sticking out their chests, dusting off their best sneer and bouncing around… havin’ it basically. Every time I open my mouth to speak I sound like a prize chav, I swear I can’t help it, it’s the music making me do it…

That and all the British blokes around me.

It’s a great crew – Tim, who looks like he should be in the band (yeah, he IS Serge, although he’s toned down his impression since the last time we saw ‘em), creaming his pants and screaming every word, and his missus Celeste, who shares her beer with me after a half hour mission to get to the bar. There’s Sarah, who used to work with the band, made them everything they are today… she says Tom’s got ADHD and she ain’t wrong. Sunnies on. Sunnies off.  Bouncing around like a ritalin-starved bunny. Arms outstretched like the second coming of Christ. Who does he think he is, Ian Brown or something?  Where’s Jez? Ah yeah… apparently he’s dancing; not bad for a Kiwi who DOES NOT DANCE. Alright? Alright.  A few Kevin Keegan-era England shirts around, nice touch there.  Marz is side-of-stage – she’s the band’s publicist, and she LOVES it. Mind you, last time these boys were in town, I watched the show from side-of-stage, blagged it somehow, and it wasn’t too shabby, no sir.

Even more of the aforementioned swagger, so much posturing, not surprising from the self-proclaimed ‘band with the big hairy bollocks’ from Leicester.  Can’t remember when they said that, but I know I read it somewhere. I used to play in a band with a guy from Leicester; he was the singer, and gave these lads a run for their money in the charisma stakes. Had bags more charm too.  We had some quality tunes; if only we hadn’t split up… ‘musical differences’, you know?

A classic set that keeps everyone happy – Shoot The Runner, Processed Beats, Vlad The Impaler, Fire, Club Foot, and the immortal LSF to close proceedings, complete with obligatory singalong.  Everyone’s still yelling the part in question when the lights go up. ‘We’re on the terraces,’ hoots Tim, more grin than a Cheshire cat. It’s a beautiful moment… and perhaps a slightly self-conscious reference to the last time the band played here, and the crowd spilled out onto the street after the gig, not wanting to go home, or anywhere else for that matter, all hollering LSF instead. Clearly, a lot of people are back for part two.  It’s another sweaty night in Sydney, my ears are ringing and Tim’s bellowing in my ear, hugging me and kissing me on the cheek like an Italian godfather, you’re on cloud nine, son, you are.

Top night. Top, top night.

What’s In A Name?

As I was reading the umpteenth review of Little Boots this week (STILL the next big thing), I found myself immediately informed, in case I was wondering, that her real name is Victoria Hesketh.  As in “the latest single from Little Boots (real name Victoria Hesketh) is out now…”  And with that dutiful snippet of fact, a dose of rather mundane reality was instantly injected into proceedings with all the subtlety of a wet kipper.  For a split second there, she was the talented musician and performer Little Boots.  But now she’s just plain old Vicky.

Do I really need to know her real name?  Am I unable to draw anything of any worth from the review unless I know her real name?  Is it good reporting and good journalism that dictates this fact-fetish?  Or some compulsive journalistic tick?

Hands up if you knew that Bono’s real name is Paul Hewson, while The Edge’s family know him as Dave Evans.  If you didn’t know, do you really care?  Do these new pearls of wisdom make any difference to your love or loathing for U2 (or indeed your indifference)?  Will this information make all the difference as you read a review of the band’s new album?

Rarely are we told that Slash was christened Saul Hudson, or that Iggy Pop is the alter ego of James Osterberg.  Elton John (real name Reg Dwight) is immune, and not even Lady Gaga gets this much automatic scrutiny in the names department, though to be fair, Gaga’s identity is usually outed soon enough in protracted discussion (Stefani Germanotta if you hadn’t already heard).

So why, every single time Little Boots is mentioned, in even the shortest review, do we have to endure her parenthetical reveal in the very first breath?  As sure as night after day, this compulsive divulging of information belies an obsession with removing any sense of mystery from our musical heroes.  In an entertainment world where Idol rules, we revel in lifting the curtain on the Wizard of Oz, and demand to be shown the trivial, and ultimately tedious, reality behind every theatrical facade. Gone is the willingness to suspend belief and take part in the escapism of entertainment; everything must be anchored in banal reality, stage names included.

Only when an artist reaches a certain level of fame and success do people stop reflexively broadcasting their real name, safe in the knowledge that music fans have heard it a million times already, and allow them the identity that their stage name presents.  P!nk (Alecia Moore) and Santigold (Santi White) can make it through a single review unmasked, while Little Boots still can not.

So, Little Boots (that’s Victoria Hesketh, everybody), apparently you can only reclaim the mystique of your stage name in all its stand alone glory once enough people have been informed of your real name. Can you hurry up already?

It’s All About The Ooooohs

So everyone’s getting in a tizzy about Melbourne band The Temper Trap.  Are they the next big thing or not?  Does debut album Conditions justify the hype in majestic fashion, or is it merely a collection of half-baked ideas and rock cliches with a couple of good tunes poking their noses out of the detritus?  Maybe, maybe not… does finding the definitive answer even matter?

What IS important right now is just how great a song ‘Fader’ is.  Appointed as the latest Temper Trap single, this 3 minute extravaganza ticks all the boxes required of an ‘infectious singalong anthem,’ as it should hereafter be tagged, with all the necessary clichés present and correct (yes please!).

Naturally, we start with The Quiet Bits – a restrained keyboard chord progression that builds tension little by little, as drums and bass rumble along, driving the song towards the inevitable orgasmic explosion of a chorus, it’s what we’re all waiting for, and oh my god here it comes….  The Loud Bits – a glorious cacophony of crunchy guitars, with a soaring, angelic bunch of oooooh oooooh ooh-oohs for a chorus that burrows deep into your head, like a malfunctioning iPod that’s trying to play Blur’s ‘Song 2’ and the New Radicals’ ‘You Give What You Get’ simultaneously on constant repeat.

That chord progression, it’s not too shabby at all, a well worn V-VI-IV affair, resolving now and then on the I, with a juicy inversion second up that gives the melodies a tinge of melancholy and nostalgia, to send all the girls weak at the knees and have the boys coming over all sensitive… hold on, why on earth am I analysing the chord progression, who cares what’s going on, when are those oooooh oooooh ooh-oohs coming back? Ah there they are, NICE ONE!

Excuse me, I need to go and lie down.

Emo Is Dead

The news – earth-shattering or otherwise – recently emerged that two of the four members of Panic At The Disco! have decided to leave the band to pursue other musical interests.  Just a mere mention of the band’s name and my cerebral cortex was suddenly emblazoned with the word ‘emo’ in flashing neon lights as a flurry of word-association kicked in.  Which made me wonder… whatever happened to emo?

Only a couple of years ago, pretty much any rock music that wasn’t death metal or the Rolling Stones was being called emo.  Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco!, My Chemical Romance, The Used, The Get Up Kids, Thrice, Coheed & Cambria, emo the lot of them.  Shit, someone, somewhere probably described The Fray as emo – the lyrics certainly fit the bill.

And now it’s all over.  When and if any of those bands record again, the resulting collection of songs won’t be labeled emo. Oh no.  Rock, yes. Alternative, certainly.  Maybe pop punk in some cases, perhaps alt.prog in others. But no longer emo.  Not that any of those bands liked being called emo anyway,  but when do artists ever embrace the labels thrust upon them? Grunge, nu-metal, jazz-funk, grindcore, post-punk, emo… we’re always trying to put music in neat categories, whilst the artists in question protest loudly and reject them instantly.

But unlike many musical movements that have blasted so forcefully into the mainstream, emo had been around for years in both name and style before it gained mass popularity, although naturally that style had evolved over time.  Studious musical historians have decreed that emo rose from (and as a reaction to) the US hardcore scene of the 1980s, and by 1985, bands like Rites of Spring and Embrace were being called ‘emo-core’ (a term they predictably hated).  Earning this tag were the deeply personal lyrics that brought an emotional honesty to the music, often detailing nostalgia, romantic yearnings and failings, and buoyed with a melancholy tinged sometimes with bitterness.

Over the course of the next 15 years, emo bubbled away in the musical ether, attracting devoted fans, but remaining hidden from the evil clutches of the mainstream and thus ensuring its continued survival.  Jawbreaker, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Promise Ring, Glassjaw, The Get Up Kids and Jimmy Eat World all kept the emo flag flying throughout the 1990s.

It wasn’t until the turn of the century that the secret finally got out, and emo hit the mainstream.  Driven by the breakthrough success of bands like Jimmy Eat World (with monster hit ‘The Middle’), Saves The Day, Dashboard Confessional and artists such as Midtown and New Found Glory on the Drive Thru and Vagrant labels, emo burst kicking and screaming into the mainstream, paving the way for the likes of My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy and Panic At The Disco!.

As the world at large discovered the music and the label, and jumped enthusiastically on the bandwagon, emo become inextricably linked to every other facet of youth culture that could be accounted for.  Emo’s original musical traits were immediately sidelined as ingredients such as clothing (the resurgence of skinny jeans in particular) and the amount of eye-liner applied became far more pertinent than any traces of emotional honesty. Just as ‘punk’ had long been used to describe certain music, clothing and lifestyle, regardless of whether anarchy was on the menu or very much off it, ‘emo’ became a mainstream, mass-perpetuated lifestyle choice that had very little to do with the factors that inspired its genesis.

Emo was no longer a subgenre that had endured for over 20 years as a particular form of musical and lyrical expression within the bigger pond of rock music; it was now a self-serving concept, a commoditised mass media buzz word to tag anything and everything.

It became the sign of the times.  And times change.

Emo is dead.

Dancing About Architecture

Last night I went to an event to celebrate the launch of Zounds, the new album by Dappled Cities.  Held in a warehouse storage facility, the event revolved around 12 art installations – one for each track – that represented the album in artistic form. There were some interesting ideas on display – performance art, interactive art, drawing, sculpture, video; often suitably abstract, and all reflecting the artists’ interpretations of the songs – literally, metaphorically, cosmically and the rest…

As I pondered these installations, brow firmly furrowed, it felt like being involved in an obtuse form of artistic chinese whispers.  The creator of each installation had listened to, considered and interpreted the music, and then used art to represent this interpretation.  The art installation was then presented to me, complete with musical accompaniment, for my own interpretation.  My experience of the music was immediately coloured by my understanding of the art – my interpretation of the artists’ interpretation of the music.  Interpretation was clearly the order of the day.

It was certainly an intriguing way to discover new music. But perhaps, I reflected as I stroked my chin, in some ways it wasn’t so different to reading a piece of writing about the music, albeit far more novel.

Although we habitually, and often skillfully, rely on written and spoken words as the medium to explain and discuss music, these words remain, nonetheless, a form of chinese whispers.  We use them to interpret and express the emotion conjured up by music, only for others to decipher these words themselves in an attempt to understand the emotion and therefore the music.  The essence of the music is continually reinterpreted, distorted and lost in translation.  Or something like that.

In the case of these art installations, there was also a brief written description, which only added another layer of interpretation/discussion/general confusion to the whole shebang.  Luckily I had a plastic pint-glass of red wine to help me out.  Perhaps that was the problem.

Someone once said, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”*  Now there’s an idea.

* The origins of this quote appear to be lost in the mists of time; it has been variously attributed to Elvis Costello, Frank Zappa, Steve Martin, Martin Mull and William S. Burroughs among others. Whoever it was, a bunch of French philosophers would have been proud.