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Date -
12/08/04 |
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| Readers' score - None |
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| The Saddle Creek label has some great bands. Cursive, Bright Eyes, the Faint, Desaparacidos. The three billed tonight aren't so well known, which is really the point of this sampler tour from the Omaha label. Let us investigate. |
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This is the best selection of badges I've ever seen. There must be 5,000 in this box, from all over the place. Belle and Sebastian rub badgey shoulders At The Drive-In, Spongebob Squarepants rubs square pants with Kyuss. For the last hour and a half we've been sat in the corner listening to the metallic, listless ocean sound of skinny indie kids in skinny dotty tops running their hands through an enormous cardboard box of badges. What we should be listening to is one of the three bands on the bill, but they're taking their time in coming onstage. Perhaps this is because this venue only has about thirty people in it.
Ok. I've bought my badges. I'm ready for the entertainment now. Come on, it's half past nine.
The Broken Spindles. One of these two guys plays bass in the Faint. I'm guessing it's the tall spaniel-haired guy who's standing with his legs very close together. That other guy, the guy playing guitar, he looks a little too itchy and twitchy to be in the Faint. He looks a little sick. He's just standing there, shining in oily sweat, smiling an ill kind of a smile; every now and then bursting into a flurry of string bashing, excellent string bashing. A much better aural experience than what the skinny guy's achieving with that synthesiser. But we're not supposed to be looking at them, we're supposed to be looking at the "multimedia extravaganza" in the middle. Apparently the Faint guy is a video artist too.
I don't know much about art but I know what makes a bad song even worse: a black and white video of a man shaving. Now Spaniel-Hair is singing. No, he's not, he's talking. In rhythm. He's reminding me of Lou Reed, partly because of the denim overdose. I don't want to be reminded of Lou Reed right now, so I'm hoping he'll stop this beat poetry crap pretty soon and sing a real song. I'm also hoping that this programmed drum, bass, synth backing that seems to be running the show actually starts doing something interesting
I've been listening to that Beep Beep album quite a bit lately. It's good. This nauseous little guy on the left plays guitar like they do - maybe he's their guitarist too. It wouldn't be surprising, they're an inbred bunch, that Saddle Creek lot.
There was a good song there somewhere, I think. It got all nasty for a minute, and even made some of those sarcastic dancing girls at the front actually dance properly. But then that final treat of these two art-school musicians trading off horrible guitar sounds for five minutes obliterated any remnants of pleasure.
Beep Beep have just come on but we've missed their start; we're in the other bar talking about distant dissolved friendships. They're coming through the wall loud, so we don't miss much. Now we're back in there, and this is more like it. That sick guy from before is one of the guitarists after all. It seems he sings (yelps) too. The other guitarist, in the pink and white shirt, is the better singer - he's the one whose voice cuts into you on the record. They must play most of that new (first) album of theirs tonight, and it all sounds great. Really great.
Compulsive, repulsive art-punk that twists and turns and drops out and freaks out.
It doesn't feel like they were on for more than ten minutes. That was probably the evening's peak. The poster in the other bar describes Now It's Overhead as sounding like REM. I question their aspirations.
I'm an idiot. I'm in no position to question anything about Now It's Overhead. Within ten seconds of them coming onstage they're calling all the shots. They deftly destroy my stupidly arrogant presumption that if they were any use I'd have heard them by now. Maybe this Saddle Creek sampler tour is rotating headliners each night, I don't know, but this band really feel like the natural headliners. The tiny singer/guitarist in the cowboy hat (he looks like the Feral kid from Mad Max 2 would if he was a member of Hanson) is captivating. His voice is more than strong, and he's possessed by the beats, both the digital flickers that the guitarist/synth guy generates and the unrelenting technical excellence of their drummer. He's rubbing his guitar over his body like cats do with catnip.
They sound a bit country, in the same way that REM do. So that REM comparison wasn't to be questioned; and it maybe wasn't an aspiration, just a comparison. They also sound like they understand beautiful discordant rock music, and they sound like so many bands, some that I don't want them to sound like. I like them sounding a bit like Bright Eyes, and Radiohead. Apparently they sound like the Weakerthans, but I've not heard the Weakerthans so I don't know. I'm not sure if I'm happy about them sounding a little like U2 in places, but if I always got what I wanted I'd be very bored. Besides, their judgement is clearly better than mine.
They've finished. The last song was impressively chaotic. We buy both albums. The girl on the merchandise stall says the second one's better than the first one. We spend all weekend listening to them.
(The first one's better). |
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| Tom Pegg |
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