Monthly Archives: May 2016

GOD DAMN: live review

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GOD DAMN, SLATE HEARTS, WARDENS: OXFORD CELLAR, 22/05/2016

Bit weird. He was here a second ago – the God Damn singer, I mean – wandering around offstage, mic in hand, mixing it with the punters, and now he’s… not. Where go he? And why is everyone looking in my direction?

COZ HE’S STANDING ON THE BAR AND OVER MY HEAD, straddling the beer taps while screamo-ing a ‘nasty little song with a horrible title’ (his words, not ours. We Don’t Like You, mebbe?) over our heads. And it’s only the second track of the set.

Welcome God Damn, the Wolverhampton two – sometimes three, so let’s call ‘em a two-and-a-half for tonight – who knock nine shades of brown out of the guitar-drum format and pulverise the place, but we’ll get back to them soon enough coz tonight we’ve got a three-strong bill that’s two-parts local.

Up first are Wardens, a trio of quiet-looking Ox lads who look a bit like two brothers and a tall singer, probably because they are… two brothers and a tall singer. Tidy, punchy set mind, packed with small but perfectly-formed anthems in a Foos Manchu kinda way, catchy enough to make you feel like you know their stuff even if – like me – you don’t. The funkier Go Figure is a highlight, as is the Cobain-ish grit in the vocal. Nice work, Wardens. Good warm up.

Next on the Cellar stage are Slate Hearts, another local three-piece but now we have looseness and MOVEMENT up there, all limbs and shirts and flop-hair flying. The look might be early 90s indie – Steve Lamacq would cream hisself – but the sound is a harder blend of twisted Sub Pop-erama and Mudhoney frazzle-fry, with more going on than first meets the ear, I reckon. Definitely another one to check further.

Right then: God Damn, on the road touring their Vultures album, and if you wanna see a band put shit-eating smiles on strangers’ faces with a set that’s Holy Devoted to guitars, drums and the righteous power of unadulterated amplification, this is where you go. Vultures the album nabs some desert-scene groove and roughs it with Winnebago Deal attitude, but God Damn live are way bigger than a two-piece has any real right to be – when Thom Edwards stomps his pedal board, hits Kyuss oomph mode and ups the force of an already tidal riff, you KNOW you’re alive. Starting the set with Vultures itself, and ending with the nine-minute backporch intoxication sludgecrawl that is Skeletons, God Damn give us a good-time gig that’s loud, life affirming and just a bit fucking mental. Planet Rock Radio might well be the place ‘where rock lives’, but God Damn gigs like this are where rock comes ALIVE. 

RSD and a royal RIP

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REWIND APRIL: store bores, faith no mores and Prince

Record Store Day came and went, as it does at this time of year. Did you go?

Me too. Did you buy?

Me too. Did you buy any specials?

Nope. Had a half-hearted peep over the shoulders of the eager while quickly tuning out (you’ll see why) of a conversational pissing contest next to the RSD vinyl display (where else?) about the bassist in (wait for it) Hot Chip (told you). Do they have a bassist? Maybe it was someone else in Hot Chip. Or a different band that also has a bassist. Either way, big points were being scored in this rally of Geek Pingpong in Pseud’s Corner, but over in the Business As Motherfucking Usual section – used metal, since you ask – there were a brace of bargainous pickings from the scrap yard: Soilent Green and End of Level Boss. Top stuff, weighty. Nothing to do with the day itself but still, Truck Store had a buzz and a body count and that’s what matters.

Where do you stand on Mike Patton? Depends how annoying you think he is, I guess – windpipe? Testicular area? – but in last month’s Rewind we pointed to the Many Many Bands of Mike Patton on ye ole digital wireless. Drawling John Doran of Quietus fame was Maconie’s guide through some of Patton’s adventures and Mr Bungle, Fantomas, Dillinger Escape Plan and Faith No More themselves got their magnificent selves duly played, but the bestestweirdestexcitingest track of the show – and this is coz I’ve never heard it – was from Patton’s 1997 Pranzo Oltranzista album. With John Zorn and Marc Ribot on there, you know it’s gonna be avant, and with Patton free of band constraints, you know it’s gonna be based on Futurist Cookbook by Filippo Marinnetti. Don’t you? Er, no. Me neither.

Couldn’t help but pick up on a sniffy attitude towards Faith No More from Doran though, and it’s a sniffy that Maconie seems to share. ‘Bro-style rapping’? Records that were ‘overproduced for the day and sound terrible now’??? Surely that puts way too much weight on That Track and views the whole Patton era through an Epic filter, which is precisely how FNM fans don’t see it… well, not me anyway. Epic was always the anomaly. Get some Caffeine.

But at least Patton and co are still with us, which is more than we can now say about the sudden lonely passing of pop’s last great muso megastar, Prince. I’m not a fan, but I wish I was – and by that, I mean I never got round to cherry-picking the vast Prince vaults for the guitarfunkenrock end of his infinite jams, so I guess the discovery starts now. 3121 – the sole Prince album in the collection so far – has been a worthy replay of late; beyond the too-lightweight tracks you get multi-layered gems like 3121‘s slinky throb, Black Sweat‘s falsetto funk-industrial, and a heavy dancefloor strut n’ tease by way of Love.

While this space is not going to be an ongoing tribute to musicians who pass, we have to acknowledge that 2016 has been a shocker for rock departures. Lemmy left us last year, but only just last year, and so we sign off this month with three shades of greatness in one snap:

 lemmy bowie prince

’til next time!