LIVE REVIEW : THE AUTUMN DEFENSE AT THE LEXINGTON 24/11/2013

 
A Sunday night gig, probably the perfect evening to enjoy an Autumn Defense show. Wilco is resting after quite the long tour that followed the release of their The Whole Love LP which means that all its members have got time for their side projects. John Stiratt and Pat Sansone have just finished recording the fifth Autum Defense LP that will be coming out in January 2014 and they were doing a short run of european dates at the end of November to promote while promoting their forthcoming album. Most Autumn Defense gigs outside of the United States are just Stiratt and Sansone with Keyboard and Acoustic guitars which is the configuration we got at The Lexington.

The Lexington is probably one of the best venue for acoustic acts in London. The room is the perfect size which means that in the case the turnout is small it won't feel empty. The audience is great. In all 3 gigs I've seen there, you could hear a pin drop during the songs with thunderous applause just after the last chord faded out. I only caught the last few bars of opener Leah Mason (I had underestimated the walking distance between Kings Cross and the Venue) but her and her two man band sounded pretty good.

Stiratt and Sanson are reluctant frontmans (maybe a consequence of being in a band where the main guy is quite controlling). Sansone seemed to get more comfortable as the gig went by but Stiratt seemed a bit more reluctant when handling banter duties. From what I recall of the performance, there was quite a fair chunk of the tracks from the Circles LP that were played with tunes from their eponymous record and "Once Around" interspersed. Biggest response was for "Swallows Of London Town" which was introduced by a very funny speech by Pat Sansone durig which he apologized fpr including the word rain in the lyrics. They also included a nice version of "It's Just That Simple" from the first Wilco record and a over of the Fleetwood Mac song "Sentimental Lady". They are both very gifted musicians but Sansone is a notch above Stiratt, his piano playing was fantastic. They came back for a couple of songs but had to call it a night after that because they didn't know any other songs to play. Stiratt promised that they would come back with a full band next year.

LIVE REVIEW : THURSTON MOORE UK + LEE RANALDO AND THE DUST AT THE GARAGE 21/11/2013

I bought Lee Ranaldo's first LP "Between The Times And The Tides" on the faith of a youtube video of "the lead single" of the album "Off The Wall". None of the songs were as good as this breezy slice of pop bliss but the album was solid and full of well crafted songs. I'd never managed to get into Sonic Youth's experimental sound and was quite surprised to see Ranaldo had opted for a rather classic pop sound for his first LP after the bands break up. A second solo LP, billed this time as "Lee Ranaldo and the Dust"  has just been released and from the few songs I've listened to it seems to be hearkening back to his Sonic Youth days with lenghtier songs featuring multiple parts.

This gig at The Retentless Garage in Islington featured three members of Sonic Youth in its line-up. Lee Ranaldo's band features Steve Shelley on drums and Thurston Moore was the opening act . Billed as Thurston Moore UK, Moore was playing solo with the help of an extra guitar player. The set was made up of 4 or 5 instrumental tracks. I must admit that although there was some nice parts here and there, the whole thing seemed a bit monolithic to me. There was one number announced as "Germs Burns" that was a bit more concise. The gig finished with a really good version of "Psychic Hearts" (with vocals) from Moore's 1995 solo album with Steve Shelley on drums. 

Ranaldo came on stage at 9.30 P.M with his four piece band. The gig relied quite heavily on songs off from the new record. The band opened with "Ambulancer" from their new record during which Ranaldo broke a string and had to keep on singing for a couple bars without a guitar in his hands (to say he looked uncomfortable would be an understatement). Most of the songs were preceded by a short blurb from Ranaldo explaining their origin and meaning. The few songs played from "Between The Times And The Tides"were welcomed like classics by the audience. Apart from a short sequence of bow playing on his guitar, the set was pretty conventional with the songs pretty similar tothe recorded versions. Two coers were plqyed during the set. A really good version of "She Cracked" by The Modern Lovers and "Rock'n'Roll" by the Velvet Underground (that I missed as I had tol eave before the encore). The gig was fine but from where I was standing there was a huge buzz coming from the ceiling each time Steve Shelley hit his bass drum which became a bit grating after a while.

LIVE REVIEW : TELEVISION AT THE ROUNDHOUSE 19/11/2013

The Roundhouse seems to be the venue of choice for bands of the first punk era. After seeing The Damned play here last December, Blondie in July, here I was back in the same venue for Television. Contrary to the other bands, this gig was not a first as I'd seen the band in 2004 at Le Bataclan in Paris (serious contender for warmest music venue in the world). At the time the band still had Richard Lloyd as a member and even though I wasn't really familiar with all their songs, I had enjoyed the gig a lot. I was particularly impressed with the way Verlaine and Lloyd seemed to be able to discuss sound issues while still carrying out their famous guitar interplay.

Fast forward almost a decade and Richard Lloyd has disappeared (tired of the lack of progress on recording a new Television album) and has been replaced by a long time collaborator of Tom Verlaine in his solo work called Jimmy Rip. This gig at the Roundhouse was part of a small English tour centered around an appearance at the last ATP Festival in Camber Sands where the band was scheduled to play its landmark album Marquee Moon in its entirety. Despite numerous announcements that all the other gigs of the tour weren't "Marquee Moon" shows, we still got the whole album at The Roundhouse (albeit in random order with other songs interspersed). 

Jimmy Rip is a more than able replacement guitarist but he definitely sounds better when he's given free reigns to play in his own style rather than replicating Richard Lloyd's original parts. Best example of that was his solo on 1880 or So, completely different from what Richard Lloyd used to play but it still suited the song. Bass player Fred Smith was absolutely spotless playing just the right amount of notes while still adding some nice flourishes here and there. Good performance of Billy Ficca on drums too. Tom Verlaine seemed to be in a good mood (not a guarantee) and regularly thanked the audience and even said that he hoped the sound was good. The performance was much more focused than the Paris show with less tune-athlons between numbers. Two unreleased numbers were aired, a quite lengthy song called Persia that the band has been playing since their 2001 comeback and an unreleased song from 1974 called I'm Gonna Leave You. Persia was the best of the two but could use some editing. Verlaine's vocals were much better than what I was expecting (there's videos on you tube of a Brazilian gig in 2005-6 that are quite painful to watch). All in all a really good performance that did the band's best album justice.

LIVE REVIEW : THE PRETTY THINGS AT THE HALF MOON PUTNEY 08/11/2013

This gig was my second visit to The Half Moon since I moved to London. I came last year to see The Kast Off Kinks, a Kinks tribute band that's made up of ex-members of the actual band. I was quite surprised to see that the gig was sold out in advance and even more by the rapturous reception the band got during their performance (they were really good but still a tribute band). I had seen The Pretty Things once previously at a small free festival in Andoain (small town just under San Sebastian in Spain). The setting was rather drab : a makeshift stage set up on a concrete square with 3 huge tower blocks encircling it. Adding to the misery, the weather was rotten with a thick mist gathering round the hills that surround the town. The band was headlining which in the UK would mean a a stage time of 9pm. As it was Spain, headline means the band went on stage at midnight. As I had quite a bit of travel to do to go back to France after the gig I had to leave before the band finished their set. I promised myself that I would catch them when they would play a club date in London. I missed them twice as they played a gig at the 100 Club during the Christmas period last year and at The Borderline last August for The Record Collector Psych Festival. When I noticed they were playing The Half Moon I booked tickets straight away.

Only Phil May (lead singer) and Dick Taylor (lead guitar) are left from the original line-up of the band. Frank Holland (lead and rhythm guitar) joined when Parachute era guitarist Pete Tolson defected while the band was rehearsing for their end of the 1990's comeback. The young rhythm section of George Perez and Jake Greenwood joined when drummer Skip Allan and bass player Wally Waller had to stop touring for health reasons. As soon as the gig started with a superb and loud version of “Honey I need” from their first album I knew that the Half Moon was the perfect setting to see a band such as The Pretty Things. The gig's setlist was a mixture of their early albums R'n'b albums and tracks from their SF Sorrow LP (fantastic version of "Balloon Burning"). Not much from the post SF Sorrow era, only "Cries From The Midgnight Circus" from the Parachute album and a rarity in from the late sixties track  "Alexander" originally released under "The Electric Bananas" moniker. Roughly midway through the gig, there was a short acoustic set where Taylor on acoustic and May (accompanied by Holland on harmonica) paid hommage to there blues roots while recalling the first times they jammed together at Sidcup high school. Further reference to their musical roots followed with 2 Bo Diddley covers ("Mona" and "You Can't Judge A Book by Its Cover"). The gig finished with an impromptu appearance by former drummer Skip Allan who duetted with Phil May during the final song of the evening.

LIVE REVIEW : JASON FALKNER AT THE ISLINGTON 24/10/2013

This was quite an event for all London Power-pop fans. Organised by the Lojinx label (UK label of Brendan Benson and Ken Stringfellow and plenty of other interesting bands), this show was Jason Falkner's
first appearance in London since 2002. Announced just one month ahead of the gig, it sold out in 2 days. The venue was a new bar near Angel station called The Islington that has a separate room with a a small
stage. The room is nicely arranged with red curtains covering the walls. It provides is a nice setting for solo shows. A special poster was offered to every person who attented the gig and you could even order a limited edition T-shirt by subscription before the gig !!!

The room was full of middle aged bearded guys that probably know every lyric of the "Bliss Descending EP" by heart. Falkner announced after a couple of songs that he had no particular setlist which resulted in several members of the audience trying to request every single song he had ever put out. The set-list covered the different periods of his career. He even included a couple of songs from The Grays ("Very Best Years" and "Both Belong"). The audience member that yelled for "Both Belong" had a similar voice to Marlon Brando in The Godfather which prompted Falkner to say that was the coolest voice he had ever heard and that we would only answer requests from that guy from now on. The songs from this first couple of albums got the best response but the hardcore audience knew all the songs anyway so... I wasn't expecting Falkner to be as entertaining, the moment he yelled "What A wanker !!!" after he had just started playing the solo in "She Goes to Bed"  was priceless. He also quipped that his songs were big hits then adding "for all the people in this room". The gig went by in a blast and finished with a four song encore containing an excellent cover of "Wichita Lineman". All we can hope for now is that this association with Lojinx will mean more UK gigs and maybe a UK release of his latest record in this country (only available as an expensive Japanese Import at the time being).

LIVE REVIEW : THE ELECTRIC SOFT PARADE AT BUSH HALL 23/10/2013

 That gig was a bit of a last minute affair. I'd been humming and hawing about it for a while. I wasn't very familiar with anything ESP had put out since their first album and I had the Jason Falkner the following night. I made my mind up on the day of the gig and decidedto skip the 2 opening acts (not very nice I know but I needed some rest before the gig). I arrived at the venue round 8.30pm halfway through set of second opening act "Cold Crows Dead", I won't say anything about their set as I wasn't receptive at all to the music they played. Apart that they seem also to come from Brighton, they didn't have anything in common with ESP.

ESP came on stage at 9.30pm with the White brothers accompanied by a four piece backing band with a female vocalist on a few numbers. The brothers seemed genuinely pleased by the turnout. I recognised quite a few numbers from the new record but the new numbers from recent LP "Idiots" sustained the comparison pretty well with older songs. The show was marred by quite a few sound issues, the sound in the venue was really cavernous and Alex White seemed to be really struggling with his monitors. Thomas tried to cheer him up during the gig but he seemed to be really pissed off about it (things took a turn for the worse when Thomas pinched his brother's backside halfway through the gig). The backing did a great job, they all seem to be long time collaborators of ESP. It would definitely have been a mistake not coming to that gig and I highly recommend the purchase of their latest LP which is their best record to date.