ola, innit

31.5.12
barcelona is hot, slack as ever, beautiful, later than almost anywhere else i've been. as the days wind on, increasingly full of english shit-hipsters filled with too-cheap lager and bereft of indoor voices we are clearly drawing close to the festival proper. i believe these fakes' endless shouting and self celebration whilst sporting pink straw hats constitutes 'fun' in the world of cunt. but, i digress. there have been some bands eh?

at the apolo club there are two label nights occurring simultaneously, one a local label famelic (who have a fuck-wonderful logo which i';ll post ya know, later), the other the uk's memphis industries. though drained by the tremendous heat and too much delicious tapas i'm drawn to see the bands, hardly any of which i've heard of, simply because they're there and in that circumstance i can't really resist.

in the sparsely populated main room (a beautiful cabaret club/dancehall) elephants play a lazy, banal kinda minimalist pop delivered in as disinterested a fashion as it is received. you wonder why they bother.

downstairs to the small, metallic-walled apolo 2 where ohios are muddling through a brief, fun set of open-hearted grunge pop that wears it's influences on it's checkered sleeve. they are a more straightforwardly enjoyable prospect than dutch uncles that's for sure.

they deliver an interesting experience. at the front i'm scribbling away notes like 'electro pop that often threatens to take flight but is too often grounded by practiced cool' and later comes my favourite note from the evening (baffling): 'shouldn't allow a noose of twattery spoil their choke-wank of lovely, carefully arranged pop'. they win me over by having memorable melodies and coming off as genuine geeks instead of the plastic ones you get nowadays.

trotting downstairs i'm getting the last few tunes from locals mates mates. they're dropping hugely anthemic folk-ska music drenched in horns and slap bass. while i'm sure you can imagine my natural disinclination towards this type of behaviour they are endearing, no doubt, guileless and beloved by the vastly increased audience.

last up tonight are new york power-weirdos hooray for earth. powered by alt-rock as heavily as processed electronica and knowing cool as well as they know heart AND with every song they crash out sounding like a forgotten '80s classic they seem to be on to a very good thing indeed. even if they do sometimes sound like phil collins, more often they sound like tangerine dream or talk talk being retold via a filthy, low-slung geetar. i even bought the fuckin' record. great band - though i dont think owens and sureoffoot were overly impressed (they dont like foreigner).

i'll get to last night's weddoes show in a bit. for now? the zoo.

xm


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'now'

28.5.12
A lazy afternoon in the gleaming sun feeds slow and soft into the dragging journey back to the stupid fucking palace. Scotty and Lewie are locked in place for archers of loaf having been stunned into sweet submission by thee oh sees. Old buddy Charlie, on a a day off from his totally sweet day job, meets up and lets us know that tommy Stinson is here. My jaw dutifully and duly drops. In fact he's just over there. I look. Yep. I watch him watch archers of loaf for 40 minutes which is a strange slice of voyeurism partnered with a beautiful and ramshackle soundtrack. I think of what I'll say to him. I'm going to go and shake his hand and stick to the 30 second rule... I don't do it. I leave the room where we find Canadian will (he has a band called shirtlifter which is all you need to know) absolutely fuckhammered to high heaven. He proves tremendous company particularly when hugging bemused strangers and telling a dude in a Russian circles tee that the band are 'fucking shiiiiiiiiiieeet'. A moment of wonder.  I see tommy again, walk behind him into the hall and stand right next to him. We make eye contact and I know I won't be able to say anything. The replacements are too big of a deal to me to be able to cope with any potential disappointment... Sad sad sad. Yuck 'play' and it's their usual disgusting mix of grunge rock tribute act bullshit, third hand riffs poorly played and half hearted melodies stolen from the great and good of alt rock. They make me absolutely fucking sick to my stomach. 'you should be ashamed of yourselves' I scream at them in a quiet moment. We leave the hall, shaking our heads as they do a shit impression of a band that means something.  I've been wanting to see the make up for a long time. I've always been interested in the furious gospel fire of nation of Ulysses and their ilk and I'm expecting a fireball set from the Washington polito-poets. Sadly they trot out a cabaret act of posturing, impact-free slop-songs and fluffed poetry. It's embarrassing and we leave the room disappointed.  Afghan Whigs are one of the best live bands of the last thirty years. I feel I can vouch for that with a level of confidence. Their shows of the mid to late 90s were intense, sometimes horribly drunken, often wonderfully indulgent epic slabs of soulful, perverted fuck-grunge. Greg dulli crossing elvis with bukowski was always a joy to behold. And oh Jesus did they blow off the roofs with that hefty, jarring sound. 12 years on I've rarely been as excited to see a band play. Especially in a reunion situation- more potential for disappointment than usual.  The stage is decked in red velvet, the crowd bays, the afghan Whigs play. They play 'I'm her slave' they play '66' they play 'faded' they play 'summers kiss' they play the outro from purple rain. I have rarely lost my shit in such a prolonged and heartfelt manner. The room is loud as hell, throats crack with screamed lyrics, dulli's voice absolutely fucking soars. If anything, shorn of the drugs and booze and fucking around, they are better than they were first time around. Lean, lythe, absolutely explosive, as straight damn sexy as ever and that black hard heart in dulli's chest still beats like a fucking metronome. When they play 'miles iz dead' im done and gone once more - existing somewhere between the mid 90s and the present day, a beautiful if temporary limbo. I suddenly remember every time I saw them, every situation, every nuance, where I was and who I was with every time I heard a new record from them.  Bands sure can fill yr life.  Xm
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slayer, faster, codeine, slower, mogwai, more

27.5.12
slayer night was, like slayer themselves, equal parts excellent, hilarious, silly and a bit of hard work. as it was the biggest band atp has ever booked they used the main hall - which means melvins and sleep got to play to thousands of dedicated metallers. despite the fact that almost the entire crowd was made up of rulebreaking slayer tee wearing hardcore thrash fans these bands were given a good deal of respect and melvins in particular shone...sleep? i honestly didnt love it - like lewie peckham (london hardcore legend) said - 'underwhelming'.

wolves in the throne room? now this is a band im excited about seeing more of in the next couple of weeks. they scared the shit out of me and got me in the locked-trance by the close of the set. genuinely excellent.

we watched slayer do their thing (the only band of the weekend so far to bring their own backdrop - but also the only band of the weekend to charge 25 for a tee, 55 for a hoodie. yes, that says '55') from half way back - like ian owen said (yeah he arrived eventually) 'they look exactly the same as they did when we loved them as kids....as long as you watch from the back'. couldn't have put it better.
it took hours to get back to SE (well, two of them) but arriving back to lucysureoffoot (italian art hound)'s place and watching cm punk vs daniel bryan from last week's ppv was a great capper to the night. bannon and amy and i sat out the back telling unspeakable 'jokes' and offending one another until the wee small hours. nicely.

saturday morning found me, happily, filled with unease and dread. despite the beautiful gleam of the day i'm all kinds of anxious and finding that two pieces of work i really wanted set before i left for spain will, for reasons entirely out of my hands, not be done in time, put me, quite frankly, in a cunt of a mood. missing harvey milk didnt help. neither did getting lost on the way to the show.

chavez settle my soul a little. better than i've ever seen them, more impactful, more soaring, sadder and more beautiful - a great set with a truly enthusiastic response. the heat and chatter of the outside pen gets to me and i'm hiding in the bathroom. classy.

codeine do something special on the west hall stage. they do something so achingly touching, so powerful and empowering, simultaneously heavy as fists, gentle as leaves they play their first show in 16 years to a crowd who repay them with an overwhelmingly loving response. you know when you've seen something genuinely important, actually special - and this was one of those times. while scotty (scottish cyclist and lager enthusiast) details how exactly he came to lose his phone and his jeans (jeans) in the slayer mosh pit i'm still kinds entranced by the slow burn of codeine. it buoys me for a while, thats for sure.

aidan moffat pulls me to the panorama room for the first time (panorama room be fucked - it's the cloak room normally) and he then pulls a blinder - unbearably sad, jazzy sinatra meets bukowski numbers with sucker punch payoff lines and a neat line in throwaway, pitch black humour. 'i'd rather be across the way watching mudhoney' he deadpans. well, we fucking wouldn't. when a tiny child toddles in just in tiome for moffat to deliver the line 'kiss my cock goodbye' the set is made, set in amber, drenched in moffat's endless little bottles o' stella. a proper legend.

i have a mini-breakdown of anxiety and stress and heat and general downbeat bullshit through dirty three so i appreciate them not. a chat with my old schoolfriend dafydd (journo-man) lightens me and later while he and i and ian watch mogwai together i remember us doing the same thing, maybe not for mogwai but ya know, similar, nearly twenty years ago. it's a little moment of reflection and i revel in it briefly.

mogwai, no matter how many times you see them, over how many years, never get old. they are alchemists dealing in turning sound into deep-delving sonic glory. as the strobes hit, the guitars cry and my arms reach out to the ornate ally pally ceiling we are transported, transformed, made wondrous. mogwaid.

as they soar into rano pano any doubts as to why we're here (and i mean that in the most pretentious sense imaginable) are crushed. life is about passing, beautiful moments that you can reach for as high as you like but o' course, ya can't grab time. this is perfection, however fleeting and it's heart-filling.

now, let's get some fuckin' whigs on the stereo, yo.

xm


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Slow build?

25.5.12
So of course the idea is to build slow from the front - take it easy in sheer volume of bands, maybe even on sheer volume by hugging the back wall. I wonder if mine and Ian Owen (welsh hero)'s plan will actually play out that way? As he's the only music athlete willing to do all 3 weekends I feel like he and I setting the tone is key - and this begins in about 20 minutes at the park inn, wood green... Man, trying to review this j mascis record on the train on the way was an error... Also I'm dressed completely in black for some reason... It is slayer tonight sure but oh jeez am I slightly warm... And there's my first spotted sonic youth goo t shirt... And it was on an adult. I already won the festival and haven't even gone through the door yet. A further question- why am I listening to Ben kweller and... Why is everyone late?!
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three weekends, three countries, three festivals, one idiot

25.5.12
on this fine and bright and inevitably sweaty early summer london afternoon our little adventure begins. it begins with atp's i'll be your mirror at alexandra palace - a truly rubbish venue that's miles away from what i deem to be civilisation (the fox) and really awkward to get to/escape from. on the plus side slayer, mogwai and the afghan whigs, one of the most knock-out stone cold cool, hot and burning bands of all time are playing. also there's the ongoing idea that atp never really drop the ball  tooooooo badly so they'll somehow shape what has the potential to be an endurance test into into a wild and trembling three day party of sound.

when that's done we fly straight out to barcelona to get stuck in to primavera, the spanish sun (same as the other country's sun but lovelier) and the musical delights of wilco, jeff mangum, the cure and My Favourite Band (sometimes) shellac - for perhaps the hundred thousandth time. they still excite me. the festival is my favourite in the world and im banking big hopes, yet again, on this being a life enhancing experience. no pressure, y'all.

from there we're across to porto for optimus primavera to catch suede, japandroids, asap rocky and what have ya... i feel like the rooftop pool we've been promised will come into play pretty strongly as we sweat out a couple of weeks of very very late nights. extremely loud bands and an endless stream of what i believe cunts call 'banter'.

i've decided to update here as much as possible over the next couple of weeks to tell you about some bands, let you know my opinion on the fests (not that it matters of course) and perhaps get a little insight, when it's all said and done into why exactly i do these things... and why i let atp do these things to me (they have a stage at both porto and barcelona too of course).

im not writing any of this for a magazine or a website (mainly cos i dont think any of them were that interested i  what i had to say about it - poor me, ha), it's just for me and you darling. this is legit - no guest list, no freebies, no networking, no coked up industry scum talking loud at the back over the acoustic set just words about music and being A Fan. it'll also be about my friends who are kind enough to come to these things with me - beauties that they are and apologies for invading their privacy. fuck it no-one reads this shit anyway.

also my facebook isnt working on my iphone so.... i figured this would do for keeping in touch?

speak soon

xm

ps listen to sun kil moon.


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